#it is WILD how different it feels talking about gortash re karlach as opposed to re durge

[crossdressingdeath]

Lord Enver Gortash: Ah - a familiar face, and a fondly-remembered one indeed. How have you been, Karlach? Karlach: Very, very hot. Lord Enver Gortash: You're agitated. I'd keep an eye on that. My Steel Watch are sensitive to anything they perceive as a threat. Karlach: Very clever, fabricating people to do your fighting for you. But they won't be able to protect you forever, Gortash. Lord Enver Gortash: I never meant to harm you, dear, merely to help you realise your vast potential. Karlach: You sent me to the Hells. You let Zariel take my heart. As though any of it was yours to give away. Lord Enver Gortash: The greater good, Karlach. Something I wouldn't expect you to understand. Karlach: You feel no regret, do you. All right. How about fear then? Lord Enver Gortash: Oh, you do quite misunderstand. I've already made a deal with your companion. We need each other. Karlach: Do we now? Kyvir: Easy, Karlach; we won't make it far against the Steel Watch. Lord Enver Gortash: Listen to reason, for once in your life. I'm sorry you feel wronged about how things ended between us, but that was ten years ago. We must look to the future. Karlach: You have no future. Karlach: There will come a time, sooner than you think, when death comes knocking at your door. You'll swing that door open, and you'll cower before what you see, and you'll beg, 'Please, Karlach. Spare me.' Karlach: I can't wait.

The wild part of this is, I think Gortash actually means it when he says he never meant to harm Karlach. It was an immensely fucked up thing to do to her and I don't believe for a second he misses that as much as he's pretending to, but I fully agree with the post I've seen around suggesting that on at least some level Gortash was playing out his own trauma with Karlach in his place with the expectation that she'd come out the other side stronger like he did (also immensely fucked up like he did, but hey! Who's counting?) and actually did think he was doing her a favour. I mean, he definitely knew that it was a horrific thing to do to someone who trusted him for personal gain and he's an awful, awful person for it, but it is an interesting point of characterization to consider. Also I vaguely remember seeing someone talking about a dialogue path (maybe only if you're playing Karlach?) where Gortash says essentially "You knew what I was, why did you not see this coming?" and I didn't get that here but it's very fun. He's got a bit of a point, but also I can say without a second of doubt that if Karlach knew he was the type to sell her to a devil who'd replace her heart with an engine she would not have worked for him. He was absolutely hiding his worst attributes from her; she didn't see it coming because she didn't know what he was. God he's such a rat bastard of a man.

It also says so much about Karlach that even with the man she hates more than anyone else right here in front of her and even with him deliberately antagonizing her (you can't tell me that "Something I wouldn't expect you to understand" and "I've already made a deal with your companion, we need each other" and "Listen to reason, for once in your life" aren't Gortash deliberately antagonizing her like the rat bastard he is) she'll still stand down if you ask her to. She trusts the player character so much that she'll tolerate an alliance with her literal worst enemy out of faith that they have a plan! And with remarkably good grace under the circumstances. He absolutely deserves to die at her hands and deserves even more to beg for her to spare him and be left entirely at her mercy the same way she was left at his.