#and it works but Gortash only agrees because he thinks it'll get her to be more docile

[cedarw00div]

Gortash making silver weapons because dozens of hunters are complaining about a werewolf haunting the streets of Baldur's Gate and later meeting Lythe to realize she's the werewolf and trying to kill her.

[feathers-and-dice]

So ! I'll admit I was tired when I replied to that post so I might have not presented my thoughts in the best way but I'll try my best here.

I was mostly refering to the very first pact that Wyll and Mizora made, since that was the point the OP was talking about. And I would argue that, under infernal law, Mizora wasn't coercing him. Essentially, Mizora was taking advantage of a situation that she did not create (which is lorewise why I dislike the "theory" that she made it all up) : Mizora isn't going to destroy Baldur's Gate if Wyll says no. Mind you, Baldur's Gate might be destroyed anyway, but it won't be on Mizora, it'll be on Tiamat. Mizora is definitely manipulating him, because that's what devils do, but it doesn't fall under the kind of coercion that would render their pact void imo. It's just the standard kind of manipulation devils do : "I will help you do/prevent something that is unrelated to me if you do X for me". The person might feel like they have to do it (it's the Impossible part of the theme), but they technically aren't forced to do it. Think that one quote Raphael says about Mol, the whole 'she has the absolute freedom to choose the only option she has left' (not a direct quote but that's the intent behind it). Afaik, the coercion that would render contracts void is mostly threats of direct harm by the devil in question, not everything that we would today consider to be coercion. (Though I will readily admit I never actually looked at the exact meaning of what is or isn't coercion in our world.)

No one is holding them at gunpoint, but if your only other options are inaction that would lead to deaths (yours or someone else's), the choice isn't really fair at all. But that's how devils deal : unfairly. They don't technically force you ala "do or die", they simply withhold their help if you say no.

So yes, under infernal law, Wyll wasn't coerced into his pact and Mizora was in her right to make him sign it. (Though I do have some issue with some details lorewise - pact insidious vs pact certain and the fact that Wyll's seems to be both comes to mind, but I really need to reread the Fiendish Codex and other lore bits before running my mouth too much about that one). That's obviously just my view of it, but I would argue that Wyll himself insisting that he chose this (which is very interesting character wise btw, one of my favorite things about him) shows that he himself doesn't think he was forced into it, ie he would not argue for that defense if he does end up in the Hells on death. And if Wyll doesn't argue that Mizora coerced him, then it won't matter, even if she had really coerced him.

Now I do agree the Ulder part of the story is a bit more sloppy, but it wasn't really a topic of conversation in the original post so I didn't care to develop that one. I would argue that Mizora still isn't coercing Wyll (under infernal law as always) when she proposes to renew/deepen the pact, at the very least not with the terms that she gives in that specific scene. She only says that Ulder will die by the hand of his ennemies if Wyll doesn't sign, which is probably what Gortash would eventually do, so she's not supposed to be lying on that part.

The issue here is that there are multiple ways that you can get to that point, and a few of them involve Mizora herself killing the duke and then being like "so do you want me to bring him back and keep working for me ?". Which would be... More complex to defend in infernal court I'll admit, though she could still argue Wyll wasn't forced to get his father back if he didn't want to sell his soul. But yeah, that part is definitely sloppy.

I would argue the "good ending" path could make sense if they played their cards right, but they didn't really. As far as I view it, Mizora really doesn't have a contractual obligation to kill Ulder. She might say she does, but she really doesn't : Wyll didn't sign jack shit, he just refused to sign something new. Unless killing his father was a punishment written into his pact if he were to get out of it, she has 0 legitimity to do it, I definitely agree with you on that.

However, she doesn't need to have legitimity to be petty. I always read the whole "I will kill your father when it will hurt the most" thing to be a vengeance, not a contractual obligation. She lashes out because you managed to get Wyll out of his pact for free, and Mizora never lets him have anything for free. She might dress it up in pretty words and say that she has to, but I really don't believe she does : she just wants to do it because she's petty and feels humiliated.

Now I do think that, as much as this interpretation of Mizora as pettily lashing out makes sense, it's not necessarily what the writers intented. What they intented might indeed be that Mizora would have to eventually ensure Ulder does die by his ennemis' hands (and well, Mizora certainly is an ennemy of his by the end of the game). I don't think it makes sense lorewise, but BG3 does play fast and loose with the lore at times (as we've already discussed before).

I definitely agree that the reaction of the others are something that feels like a first draft (Karlach doesn't even have one as far as I've seen in the datamined files !), and they don't really fit with the situation where Ulder is in the Iron Throne instead of dead already. A lot of the game feels like a first draft with no continuity check to be fair, so I'll admit it barely even registers anymore to me. It's very sloppy writing, just like the rest of act 3, but the bones can make sense in my opinion : the writers just didn't have or take the time to do it properly.

So yeah, this is the gist of what I meant I suppose, I'd need to fact check a bit more of the act 3 scenes to say much more. I was really thinking of Act 1 when I said what I said in the OP, and it was 1 am soooooo I might not have articulated that the best way. Hope I clarified well enough !

Hey @feathers-and-dice! Just wanted to say I'd be interested in a discussion of whether Mizora's actions are or aren't coercive, but I expect the OP of that other post will block me any moment. (Also I somehow suspect they're not actually interested in any point of view that doesn't wholly agree with theirs...)

I would argue that Mizora's actions ARE coercive, most notably when she decrees that Ulder will die (as in, she'll murder him) if Wyll doesn't renew his pact with her. Note how this is treated as a prophecy by Wyll and all the other characters - everyone's assumption seems to be that Ulder is now doomed, and that this is because of Wyll's choice.

Then again, I would ALSO argue that this is a huge, massive cock-up on Larian's part in terms of how the whole, entire setting works, and possibly the largest single sign of how they didn't pay enough attention to Wyll's storyline.

Which I think is what you were driving at with your comment about coercion not being okay under infernal law. Because it CAN'T be, because if devils were allowed to just hold people's loved ones hostage, then the Hells would control literally everything by now. Larian established something that, if true, would wreck the setting, because they didn't bother to continuity-check and canon-check Wyll's arc the way they should have.