#also does anyone wanna take bets on whether the rat diet banter will get removed next patch and not replaced with anything?

[sunflowerwizard]

I've had more time to stew on these thoughts and I hope y'all are ready for an essay.

You Can Still Love Someone and be Angry About What They Did to You:

"Sometimes your dad is a stoic, traumatized dude who hasn't gone to therapy. And he loves his kids, but isn't Very Good At It. That doesn't excuse the way he's hurt them or make him a horrible irredeemable person. It just makes him A Person. You can love someone and still be angry and hurt at them for what they did to you."

To start, these are the questions I'm going to answer

Did Ulder really love Wyll?

Does Wyll need to be saved from himself?

Is Ulder kicking Wyll out an allegory for homophobic parents?

Does racism factor into the ways BG3 fandom views Ulder? (spoiler: yes. yes it does.)

Part One: Did Ulder Really Love Wyll?

Yes. There is literal, canon evidence pointing towards Ulder having a good relationship with his son. Unfortunately, it's locked behind the Ravengard family vault in the Counting House and very missable, but this journal entry (link) points to their relationship being very loving. It very specifically describes Wyll as a beloved son. The location itself also offers some character insights.

It's locked away in a high-security vault. Not buried in a closet at the family estate, or destroyed. I don't think it's a stretch to say this is emblematic of Ulder's feelings about his son, and by extension exiling him. The love is there, but locked away. The phrase "treasured memories" taken incredibly literally.

Part Two: Does Wyll Need to be Saved From Himself?

Guys. I know we talk about how black kids and teens both in the real world and in fiction are adultified. This extends to the way that Wyll is treated regarding the warlock pact he made as a teenager. But swinging the other way and treating an adult man as incapable of managing his own interpersonal relationships is also Not Good. Wyll is an extremely giving person. The devil transformation outcome to his conflict with Karlach is proof of that. We talk about wishing Wyll had the option to make his own decisions, but hem and haw when he makes the decision to forgive his father.

I say all this with the caveat that yes, Wyll shouldn't have to set himself on fire to keep others warm. I wish the game cared enough about his character to explore how constantly putting yourself last is unsustainable.

But total absolution and telling someone to fuck off aren't the binary outcomes of reconciliation. Ultimately, we catch Wyll and Ulder at the start of repairing their relationship. Speaking from experience, this is not a linear process. I think the player absolutely should be able to stick up for him more, or even tell Wyll he has the right to feel hurt. There's a difference between "you have every right to be angry" and "you should be angry"

Part Three: Is Ulder Kicking Wyll Out an Allegory for Homophobic Parents?

I'm gonna be honest. I hate this take on principle. Especially considering I've seen it echoed by fellow queer people. Can we not equate the morally ambiguous process of entering a contract with a powerful being beyond human comprehension with being queer. Like, one of the main political strategies of powerful homophobes is presenting queerness as something dangerous, when in reality it's not. Warlocks, by their very nature are a wild card. They can be sympathetic, sure. Good-aligned, even. Whether their patron is outright evil or not, they're still doing the bidding of something who doesn't possess human morality. That's what makes people wary or even fearful of Warlocks. Its why if we set aside Mizora magically forcing Wyll to keep her a secret, he'd probably hold off on revealing that part of himself.

(Also as a quick side tangent: "Why does Wyll eldritch blast if he doesn't want people finding out he's a Warlock?" We know what an eldritch blast is because we're the player and thus have access to menus and tooltips. In-universe I'm not sure the average townies the Blade of Frontiers is saving from direwolf attacks would know the difference between Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile.)

And if we take this line of thinking to its conclusion, what does that say of Wyll breaking his pact? What does it say about his relationship with Mizora?

Part Four: Does Racism Factor Into the Way the Fandom Views Ulder?

Yes.

Like, come on. We can acknowledge Kethric Thorm, a father who does considerably more tangible harm than Ulder as a tragic, even sympathetic figure. People fawn over Corrupt Politician Enver Gortash and even question whether or not he's really a villain.

But yeah, sure, Ulder is the worse. Talk about how much you hate and want to kill him in the notes on my joke text post. Just like how people talk about want to kill/sideline Wyll because he poked fun at Astarion once.

Are we sensing that there may be a common denominator? That perhaps people aren't willing to extend benefit of the doubt to black characters the same way they would white characters? Nevermind that aside from Wyll and Ulder, most other black characters we seen in BG3 are pretty inconsequential.

Conclusion

Questioning your own internalized antiblackness doesn't just apply to characters and people you want to fuck.

Obviously I can't address every single reason a person would dislike Ulder Ravengard as a character. I'm not sure I'm the right person to unpack the whole Flaming Fist can of worms/the concept of Fantasy Cops. I'm not here to police whether you can or can't like a character. Just consider this an invitation to consider why.

I wish there were more meaningful insights into Wyll's relationship with his father that didn't turn into "lol daddy kink amirite" or "this is why we should kill Ulder"