#and ya'll give him endless amounts of sympathy and do not hold him morally accountable for it

[trappedinafantasy37]

I'm currently writing up a rather lengthy essay analyzing all of Minthara's endings now that Patch 7 has dropped. There was a particular point that I wanted to make about one of her endings, but I think I need to discuss it separately. A discussion I fear is going to make a lot of you 'good only' players hate me.

During her romance scene after the grove raid, Minthara will want to have a little heart to heart with you. She will explain to you that the Absolute owns her mind and her body. She will also say that she does not know herself, as for the entire time she was unable to determine where the Absolute's will ended and where hers began. She also says that everything she has experienced since leaving the Underdark seems like a dream of somebody else's life.

Now, that is a really hard thing to picture or even imagine. Most of us only ever dream about ourselves. So, what is it like to dream of somebody else's? In Minthara's instance, she was dreaming of herself. More, she was dreaming of a bastardized and broken version of herself, doing things that she would not do. A version that she fails to find any reason or rational behind what they were doing. A version that amplified all of her worst qualities to their extreme as those were the qualities that the Absolute needed. And one of the new evil endings gives us a little bit of insight into what this dream looked like.

Look at this. What a beautiful day! A marvelous day! A great day! Going out to the market. Picking up some fresh, sweet, and delicious apples. Meeting and greeting your fellow denizens. Talking, laughing, just enjoying life because life is marvelous. You feel so carefree and at peace, that you just might start whistling and singing. Everything you do is the right choice, the best choice. And you just can't resist. Why would you? What is there to fight? Life couldn't be more perfect!

But this is what is actually happening the entire time.

This person is not even aware of what they are being forced to do. They think they are living the best day imaginable. But in reality, their body and their mind has been stolen from them, forced to do things that they otherwise would not do. Seems horrible and awful right? A nightmare!

This was Minthara's reality for who knows how long. She was living a completely different life in her own mind, a life that did not align with the reality of what her body was doing. And because there was a lack of awareness of her own actions, she did not have the capability to refuse whatever order that the Absolute, or Ketheric, or Orin gave her. She was denied that choice, she was denied her autonomy. She could not fight back because she was not aware that anything was wrong.

And when you free her from the Absolute, memories slowly trickle in, each of them disturbing in their own right. But she also has a line where she says that she barely remembers the grove as she was not herself. So there is a good chance that she only has a vague understanding of the things that she did while under the Absolute, but does not fully remember them. Meaning that these disturbing memories that are returning to her that are clear and vivid, are the ones that happened to her before being enthralled. Of Orin slaughtering her men, of Ketheric holding her down, of Orin torturing her in the colony, of Orin enthralling her.

We also know that the Absolute gave her false memories, ones that paint a completely different picture of how she was recruited. False memories that seemed so good, that they made Minthara worship and adore Orin. And who knows what Minthara and Orin did together when they were alone. All that is important to know is that if they did anything intimate, Minthara was not capable of recognizing it, nor refusing. To make it even worse, she probably perceived all of Orin's actions as being pleasant, when the reality was much more grim. All I can do is hope that she doesn't remember them. But considering how terrified she is of Orin, some of those memories probably did trickle through.

Listen, I am not trying to tell you that Minthara is a good person or that you have to like her. What I am saying is that it is wrong of you to blame her for the grove raid when she quite literally was not in control of her actions. And it is wrong of you to cast judgment onto her for something she was not even aware that she was doing, something that she was denied the right to refuse. And it is wrong of you to hold her morally responsible for something that she never chose to do. All of these companions are victims in their own way and it is wrong of you to act like Minthara is the only one who isn't (she already blames herself enough for what happened to her).

I do not ever want to hear another person claim that Minthara is a "genocidal lunatic" again.