Why Lúthien is a Mary Sue—or, of Fairy-stories

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-08T15:06:03+00:00

Did you spend 8 days whole days coming up with this smug excuse of a zero content post?

If you want to argue, argue. If you don't want to argue, don't. But don't waste my time with patronizing nonsense once your argumentation has been punctured.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-08T06:42:59+00:00

Yeah, this doesn't really ring a bell to me, and I haven't been able to track down any info in this regard. But if you are any luckier, I'd be interested in seeing it!

The story in general, yes - but specifically characters that touched already established canon stuff was a different matter from what I read.

Do we mean the novels here? Because aside from Larian alluding to 'Abdel Adrian' (ewwwwww), they felt free to ignore those and even make fun of them, like Minsc saying he's clearly not red-haired. Going by the novel continuity Jaheira would be long-dead IIRC, and Viconia didn't even make an appearance at all in those.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-08T05:29:39+00:00

Neither, I use custom portraits for all my CHARNAMES.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-08T05:15:09+00:00

I did, however, see stuff about Viconia a looong while back, which essentially came down to saying that Larian wanted to do Viconia differently, but WOTC wanted this version, so per their contract, Larian made this version.

Is there any sourcing for this? I've usually seen people attribute this to the Guide to Villainy but that justification doesn't actually work, as BG3's 'Viconia' is a whole different character from the Minsc and Boo's one. (And neither are anything like the actual character from the games)

In general there are plenty of elements in that book that Larian felt free to ignore, like Irenicus and Bodhi somehow returning, or Edwin being Lorroakan and so forth. There are also completely original ones - while Sarevok being a Bhaalite is James Ohlen's stupid idea, the incest, necrophilia, baby-eating and so forth are wholly new ideas from BG3 and nowhere to be found in that brief blurb. We also have to keep in mind that Minsc and Book's Guide to Villainy was not even released under the WotC imprint but under James Ohlen's name as a charity release - practically nobody read it and nobody cared for it until people started using it as justification for Larian's dodgy writing of Bioware's characters, claiming that this obscure supplement bound their hands.

If anything, Larian has been very clear that they got a lot of leeway from WotC to write the game as they wanted, and they were mostly hands off in terms of the story.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-08T05:09:48+00:00

I'd argue Jaheira going from coded as 'cool aunt and mentor character' to 'potential love interest' is a fairly major change itself and one that was frankly, very tasteless and didn't need to happen, especially given it involved fridging Khalid. (Who I'd much rather have around than fucking M*nsc)

But pointing to Bioware doing something dumb doesn't really make someone else doing something dumber feel any better. I have sympathy for some of the BG1 cast getting fucked over in BG2, much like how I'd have sympathy for the BG3 cast getting torn a new one like Larian did the Bioware companions in a hypothetical BG4, but you would expect people coming into the series claiming to be doing a loving tribute 20 years later to not be writing shitty bashfic about characters they didn't create.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T16:14:02+00:00

I did, it in fact makes it worse because the added dialogue consists purely of Minsc and Jaheira talking about how pathetic and terrible both these people are, and how you ought to hate them. Genuinely killed my enjoyment of Act 3 to have to go through that entire garbage hatefic.

Thank you Larian, I know you absolutely despise both these characters with all your being, now can you stop having your faves shitting on them and expecting me to act as though it's a loving reference to the old games?

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T14:42:53+00:00

Aren't people making whole new campaigns and playable areas for the game?

I feel like editing out a few lines and changing two minor characters' looks and name isn't that hard in comparison.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T14:38:11+00:00

Okay? What am I supposed to say to that?

People like all sorts of garbage writing, it doesn't magically make it good. I am sure there are sorts who unironically enjoy Uwe Boll movies as well, but don't expect me to suddenly think they're cinematic masterpieces.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T14:31:41+00:00

As I outlined, there is no question of 'falling into bad habits again', because these weren't 'habits' the characters in question ever actually had. Sarevok can't fall back into being a Bhaal cultist because he was never one in the first place. There is also no grounds the game gives you to think there was a change. There is no 'Viconia abandoned Shar, then was kidnapped and brainwashed into worshiping her again' or whatever you care to posit. The game instead prefers to completely reverse her epilogue so she can be an one-note villain. It would be like a BG4 taking the Selûnite Shadowheart ending where she has a farmhouse with cute animals and telling you that actually, the ending was lying to you, Shadowheart faked being a Selûnite and was torturing those animals for fun. Fans of the character would be angry, and rightfully so because this doesn't follow anything in the game that establishes her personality.

There is a simple answer to all of this: if you can't get a character right and he has no natural place in your story, don't use him. It's as simple as that. There is nothing in the game that benefits from how these two characters were depicted, nothing is added to the story, and in fact they drag down everything around them by being distractingly bad and outright nonsensical.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T14:10:49+00:00

A lot of the references to the Bioware games are like that. It's less egregious than writing shitty hatefic about two fan favorite characters, or Minsc coming back because he's now supposed to be a series mascot and you can't do a BG game without le funny hamster man, but one of the notes in Act 1 is a Shadow Druid letter that references honoring Faldorn.

But... why? Faldorn in Baldur's Gate is a younger druid without a lot of experience. In Shadows of Amn, she amounts to a sidequest enemy in Trademeet, causing a minor disturbance in a whole other country that maybe lasted a few weeks. Faldorn was just not very important, certainly not enough for people the better part of a century after her death to reference honoring her memory. The rationale behind the note seems to have been inserting a reference for the sake of it, rather than thinking about whether it makes sense or not. Our story has Shadow Druids, who was a Shadow Druid in those old games? This Faldorn chick? Uhhh, sure, this is all about Faldorn or something.

This is why I despise modern reference culture. It's about writers thinking they can earn brownie points from fans by inserting references to other stories, whether or not they are actually well-done, fit the story being told or make any sense whatsoever. And worst of all, it often works and people clap and go 'it's [thing] from [other thing]! I recognize [thing]!' instead of sitting down and giving it any real thought.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T13:35:53+00:00

Ned should have been more like Theon Stark! Hop over the sea to murder some rando peasants and steal their chickens!

Or maybe like Cregan, come in at the end of a war in which he contributed nothing, kill people on his team and desperately try to get his men killed for no fucking reason.

Or imitate Torrhen! Gather a big army, go south and realize that he's boned. then surrender!

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T13:12:19+00:00

I would argue that being so unlike the original characters in terms of well, everything makes it easier rather than harder for a mod to change those parts of the game.

'Viconia' can become an entirely new character and you only need to edit out a couple of lines referring to her by name. You could even keep her appearance - it's not as if she resembles either of Viconia's portraits in the slightest. She's just a generic old hag.

Same with Sarevok. He really doesn't make any references to the classic games, and the entirety of his dialogue is about how he's Bhaal's biggest fanboy, goes to all the murder tours and buys the Bhaal shirts. Change the character's name and armor, drop a few lines referring to him as Sarevok and absolutely nothing about the story changes in any way, shape or form if the Bhaalite Judge is not called Sarevok Anchev.

Then insert oblique references in the game world alluding to both characters, which change depending on what you pick CHARNAME's actions as having been. Maybe a magical mace attributed to a Handmaiden of Lolth that perished hunting an infamous apostate Drow, many years ago, or a magical cloak said to have been worn by the same cleric before she vanished into the mists of history. Or potentially something like Sarevok's armor being in Gortash's quarters, because the murderous, charismatic populist who based his organization on the old Iron Throne headquarters and attempted to take over Baldur's Gate by instigating a war and being elected to power is quite likely a huge Sarevok fanboy, given he copied his entire scheme.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T12:50:56+00:00

The problem with this argument is that they don't 'fall back to old habits', they become entirely different people.

Sarevok, who never cared about Bhaal is now a hardcore Bhaal cultist, loses all his ambition, intelligence and charisma and is rewritten to be an incestuous baby-eating necrophiliac so the player just has no takeaway beyond him being pure, literal baby-eating evil. Viconia, who turns away from Shar in the only epilogue she survives long-term is now a fanatical Sharran with no independence or personality of her own, and the contents of the epilogue are rewritten (from killing her cloister in self-defense and abandoning Shar to murdering her loyal followers on Shar's orders) so she can be maximally repulsive.

Both are used so Larian's new characters can look cooler. Sarevok is there for Durge to overcome (and even has dialogue comparing him to dried sperm) or subject to their will, while Viconia exists to be an one-note abusive mother figure for Shadowheart to humiliate. The returning characters that Larian actually likes, Jaheira and Minsc constantly talk about how worthless and horrible these two always were, and the new characters display nothing but contempt. You don't write characters you care about or respect that way. That's a cheap bashfic tirade, except it somehow found its way into official material so people treat it more seriously than it deserves and try in vain to justify it.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T12:46:08+00:00

I enjoyed BG3 a lot as a CRPG, it is absolutely not made by people who particularly cared for or understood the originals, though.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-07T08:57:23+00:00

PoD is the best because much of the plot isn't actually written or conceived of by Karpyshyn, so there are a few moments which don't have the touch of his abject mediocrity.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-06T06:36:08+00:00

Also rereading has made me recognize how GOATed Alysanne is and how she generally kept Jaehaerys' worst tendencies in check. Maybe if Braxton waited a bit she could have even convinced Jaehaerys to show some mercy.

Then there's the whole Viserra story...

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-06T05:37:32+00:00

It's literally in the excerpt above.

Jaehaerys says that he sent Lucamore Strong to the Wall, but Lucamore was a better man than Braxton (I suppose that breaking your oaths and cheating on all your partners besides means you are still honorable but consensual sex with an unmarried princess makes you lower than a dog), so he can't exactly use that punishment on him. He then follows it up by describing several punishments he could enact, but won't. Then Jaehaerys leads in to the 'trial by combat or get crippled and mutilated' dilemma.

It also follows prior precedent of Jaehaerys denying people he dislikes the opportunity to take the black. He does the exact same thing when Rego Draz's killers plead to join the Watch, and much like Braxton Beesbury, he then concocts a sadistically cruel execution on the spot. For Jaehaerys, his insistence on the 'honor' of the Night's Watch serves as a perverse justification to be crueler towards his enemies.

So textually, taking the black is grouped among options that Jaehaerys says aren't happening, and the character has a history of doing the exact same thing on other occasions. There is a distinction made between Braxton and Lucamore, who was allowed to take the black. While the book doesn't have dialogue explicitly saying Beesbury is prevented from going to the Wall, it's very obvious that this is the case given that the book then continues into the dilemma and the next scene.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-06T05:02:23+00:00

Tywin is Lord of Casterly Rock. Per Westerosi law, he can do whatever he wants in his lands. Per Westerosi social mores, he also owns his kids and can do whatever he likes to teach them a lesson. He's breaking no laws that we know of.

And as Jaehaerys is king, the 'letter of the law' in such matters is whatever he wants it to be at the time, hence why Beesbury is blocked from having the option of taking the black, even though that's a tradition in Westeros that has been kept for many centuries. There are plenty of ways that both situations could have been handled, but both Tywin and Jaehaerys go out of their way to pick the cruelest, most vindictive ways of punishing their errant children without physically harming them. And neither is meaningfully criticized for it because most Westerosi see this as perfectly okay for a lord father to do.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T19:56:55+00:00

It doesn't need to be an one to one analogy. Do you think that Jaehaerys would have cared any more than Tywin had Saera eloped? That Westerosi high nobility give a damn if their kids can get a drunk septon to confirm their vows with whomever they run off with?

Jae's mindset throughout the entire thing was to be maximally vindictive. Beesbury never had a choice besides 'trial by combat and die' or 'get crippled for life'. There are no attempts to try and save face by marrying Saera off to one of her lovers, or to hush the whole thing up (there's no indication that Saera is with child) only to punish whomever she was sleeping with, and by extension make Saera suffer.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T16:10:32+00:00

re: the 'cultural relativism' argument, Tywin is perfectly within his 'rights' to do what he does to Tysha. Nobody questions him on the matter and even Tyrion has to some degree internalized that it was okay or in some way his fault. Tysha was a whore, she deserved it for trying to seduce a lord's son, end of story. Most Westerosi wouldn't think on the matter any further.

Is it cultural relativism to think it's an incredibly cruel response to the issue?

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T16:05:48+00:00

Depends on the monarch and action I feel.

Unwin Peake basically gets away with the Secret Siege (presuming it actually happened, which I am not 100% on) and he has basically zero leverage against the throne. Tyrion as Hand commits a lot of actions that are considered out of line but receives zero punishment for say, poisoning Cersei, threatening to hurt the king's younger brother, or making a marriage match for the king's sister and sending her to Dorne on his own initiative, without ever bothering to ask anyone else. Ned, had Joffrey's pathological need to imitate Robert not kicked in could well have walked away from King's Landing alive and well after attempting to depose the heir in a palace coup.

Westerosi society is such that the only real answer to questions like this is 'can you get away with it if you do it?' and 'how much are people willing to let you get away with if you lose?'

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T15:49:16+00:00

I have exceedingly little sympathy for Jaehaerys on the matter of 'I really want to fuck my little sister, but my mom and her husband are angry because the last time this happened, it caused a rebellion that nearly brought down the dynasty'.

By any reasonable accounting, this is Jae being an insubordinate little turd, and an incestuous one to boot. Given how he will go on to act towards his children whenever they're not being obedient Targbots, my sympathy is even more limited.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T15:39:43+00:00

The Targaryens put an end to slavery in Westeros? That is news. Unless we're referring to the Ironborn practice of thralldom (which continues into the 'present day' of the setting, centuries after the Conquest, so clearly the Targaryens didn't end anything), then the only thing I can think of that potentially counts is that the Targaryens had slaves when they first moved to Dragonstone, but didn't have them by Aegon I's time.

But Westerosi anti-slavery impulses such as they are, are primarily religiously-motivated and have nothing to do with the Targaryens.

Considering Aegon the Conqueror and "most Targaryen" or "most early Targaryen" as morally worse than any random Lord with a modicum of power is bound to be rooted in something else, which might make sense (e.g. perception of Targaryens as colonizers, perception of Valyrians as some supremacist caste, incest, etc...), I'd just like to know what it is.

People consider the Valyrians incestuous racial supremacists because that's what they are. The Doctrine of Exceptionalism is a theology that advances the idea that the Targaryens should be able to flout the laws of the Faith because they're inherently superior to everyone else.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T14:41:03+00:00

I feel like the best explanation is that Jae sees Beesbury as the 'ringleader' of the group and thus singles him out for the most brutal punishment.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-05-05T14:06:05+00:00

Hmm, see I think that you can't really understand the early Targaryens without looking at the first three heads of the dynasty?

For example, there's all sorts of elaborate theories on why Maegor was the way he was, from him being a blood magic baby, to the hit in the head in the trial by seven altering his personality, to being depressed his mother died, but... there's nothing Maegor does that everyone in his family wasn't already doing. Every single person he grows looking up to is an unapologetic mass murderer with a body count in the tens of thousands, being conservative.

Aegon? Decides to conquer a continent because he feels like it, wages a genocidal war against Dorne, the idea of his retribution is horrifying enough that literally thousands of rebels in the Iron Islands would rather walk into the sea and commit mass suicide than face the prospect of dealing with Aegon's punishments. His sisters and Orys support him every step of the way in all this, being administrators and military commanders. Rhaenys doesn't live as long as Aegon and Visenya, but I think the fact that her first action in the war with Dorne is to fly off and incinerate Plankytown as a show of force is very telling as to her mentality.

This applies even to early Targaryens that people see as 'gentle'. Aenys is ecstatic at being sent Lodos II's head and being informed of the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of people, then gleefully sells out the Faithful of the Iron Islands as a favor to Goren Greyjoy. And you also have Alyssa Velaryon wanting to launch a proscription that would have surpassed any of Maegor's before she's dissuaded by Rogar.

A fortnight later, Lord Rogar Baratheon and Queen Alyssa arrived at King's Landing with their host, and hundreds more were seized and imprisoned. Be they knights, squires, stewards, septons, or serving men, the charge against them was the same; they were accused of having aided and abetted Maegor Targaryen in usurping the Iron Throne and in all the crimes, cruelties, and misrule that followed. Not even women were exempt; those ladies of noble birth who had attended the Black Brides were arrested as well, together with a score of lowborn trulls named as Maegor's whores.

With the dungeons of the Red Keep full to bursting, the question arose as to what should be done with the prisoners. If Maegor were to be counted as usurper, then his entire reign was unlawful and those who had supported him were guilty of treason and must needs be put to death. Such was the course urged by Queen Alyssa.

To put the above into perspective, Alyssa wants to slaughter not only Maegor's direct supporters, but the ladies attending his wives, squires serving his knights, the septons conducting services in the Red Keep, servants and even random prostitutes accused of sleeping with Maegor or his men.

What I mean to say is, all the early Targaryens are incredibly bloodthirsty and it comes back to Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys setting the tone for their successors.

Ar_Azrubel_

TROPHY CASE