#mindflayer karlach

[shewolfofvilnius]

It's fascinating how even though you don't always hear about \ anyone other than Astarion, every origin companion in BG3 has an endgame/epilogue state that is either outright bad for them or at the very least "not as good as they deserve".

Obvious there have been books and 100,000 pages of fic and discourse written about Ascended Astarion. In the moments when he almost acts like his old self, even then it's merely humoring you with a whim.

Mother Superior DJ Shadowheart flat out admits to severe empathy for what Viconia went through, and has fully closed herself off from any sense of attachment or feeling other than Nocturne and Tav. Her continued need to find carve-outs and exceptions and loopholes parallels Viconia's own eventual disagreements with Shar. And as we know, Shar will eventually betray or abandon her if Shadowheart doesn't betray her first. It's the story of every devout Sharran we meet.

Gale, the God is a smug arrogant hubris-ridden asshole that's even mean to Tara in the epilogue. Nearly every single sentiment he expressed about why he wanted the Crown and to ascend is immediately inverted. Of course he's not going to interfere. He's a figure of aspiration. Once he received power himself he immediately forgot and forsook everyone and everything about why he wanted it in the first place. A romanced God Gale is SLIGHTLY more grounded but that's mostly just because you ground him. And if you ascend with him, that ends that.

Lae'zel's return to Vlaakith results in her ascension, which leads to her missing the party and being very dead. The things that Lae'zel claimed to value will never truly be as long as Vlaakith rules, and her not escaping and falling back into her people's death cult robs her of the ability to create a new Gith, a better Gith.

Karlach is dead, or almost as bad, a Mind Flayer. And while most of her initial personality remains, by six months in she's already grown emotionally distant and her personality is clearly and evidently being slowly overridden by the brains of the dying she consumes. She's forsaken the embrace of death for the guise of eternal continuation in her. And even surrounded by the ten people who should mean the most in the world to her, all she mostly thinks about is others' perceptions of her (ala the Emperor) and the fact that she's hungry. Mind Flayer Karlach even notes that she used to think becoming a Mind Flayer would be the worst thing ever, but now she likes it. Shades of the Emperor x1000 and a clear sign that the Karlach we know and love is rapidly becoming a memory.

and then there's Grand Duke Wyll. On the surface, it appears the happiest of the "bad" endings, but pay attention. Note how he discusses wheeling and dealing and making agreements with patriars. (How well has contracts and deals worked out for you in the past?) Oh, and in certain conditions including romance, Wyll will offer you the chance to become a Grand Duke as well - with the others being his father (Ravengard #3) and Florrick (Wyll/Ulder's longest lasting family friend). That's not a government of the people for the people. When the power is tied up by a husband, spouse, his father, and their most trusted advisor, that's the makings of a monarchy or oligarchy. Of the type of patriar power-claim to last for generations, something Wyll himself once mocked. Oh, and if you adopt a child, then you get into the worst part of it all: Wyll's been busy running a city, and oh hey, instead of y'all bringing YOUR FOUR MONTH OLD DAUGHTER with you, hey, she'll be cool being watched by the Ilmater temple for a night right? Sorry, Wyll, were you saying something a few months ago about distant parenting? Yikes.

[druizard]

"I've lived hundreds of childhoods, first loves, marriages, feuds and friendships. I remember them all. And in this way, we all live on. Together." -Illithid Karlach

[precious-little-bhaalbabe]

Mindflayer Karlach and Ascendant Astarion are the foils of Astarion and Karlach warped and dialed up to 11 send tweet

[bg3smash-or-pass]

love how mindflayer karlach and mindflayer orpheus have different results despite looking the exact same. means people are really looking past superficial apprearences and voting based on who the people are too. cowards the lot of them squidussy is squidussy no matter the person.

For sure! It’s so interesting to see how appearance affects smashing the same person too. Though it also may be taking into account the smashee’s hypothetical desires as well.

The other mindflayers are either ~40% (Karlach, the Emperor) or ~60% (Omeluum) so Orpheus having <20% smash rate I’d attribute to the fact that. Yknow. Orpheus does ask you to kill him if he’s a mindflayer once the Absolute is defeated. When your mother is the one who freed the Gith from generations of enslavement and genetic manipulation at the hands of the Illithid Empire. Getting turned into one isn’t exactly gonna go over well in the Self Image department.

[zookie-art]

Finally painted a tribute to BG3 ~

[pocket-dragon]

Baldur's Gate 3 Game of the Year

[sadmages]

Rogier's no good very bad day.

[vorestarr]

so i noticed when playing the epilogue that illithid Tav wants to eat brains, but the specific part of the brain they want to eat depends on the character, so i looked through the parsed dialogue and compiled all of them!

which part of each brain a mindflayer Tav would savor:

Astarion: "Astarion's sweet brain may be less wrinkled than the rest, but you hunger for its teasing cells. His parietal lobe - which controls his sense of touch - will be an aphrodisiac in your maw."

Gale*: "You would save his temporal lobe for last, if you were to eat Gale. Language. Learning. Memory. He must have quite the fine example."

Halsin: "Every time Halsin speaks of balance, your thoughts cannot behave. You only dream of what his cerebellum tastes like, when it sends the signals to his vestibular system to keep him from wobbling."

Jaheira: "Weary Jaheira. Over time, her stresses may have shrunk her hippocampus, making its taste more intense."

Karlach: "You consider Karlach's brain stem - the stalk meant to regulate her body's temperature. Will it come pre-cooked?"

Lae'zel*: "Lae'zel's motor cortex - that which controls her fine movements - will be harshly disciplined. That will make her especially chewy - just how you like a cortex to be."

Minsc: "There are cruel rumours spread, that Minsc may once have suffered injury to his brain. You could set the slander right at last - tell the world every bite was perfect."

Minthara: "With all Minthara's hate, you wonder if her cerebro-spinal fluid will be bitter to sip?"

Shadowheart: "Think of Shadowheart's cerebellum, which controls her dextrous hands. Any ritual caster must have a tightly commanded hindbrain."

Wyll: "Wyll's frontal lobe, which processes his judgement and measured words, would be a delicacy befitting his nobility." (Or "fit for a Grand Duke" if that was his outcome.)

(*You can't eat god-Gale's or astral-projection-Lae'zel's brains.)

[momoiro-hime]

Casual day at camp ✌️

 | Do NOT repost or use without permission.  

[ruushes]

Clive????? 😭😭😭

[copdog1234]

What I wouldn't give to be a silly little half-elf wizard running around Faerun with my sad malewife/mansplain wizard boyfriend, and my found family consisting of a broken vampire twink, a literally on fire buff cinnamon roll, the epitome of religious trauma goth girl, the meanest green bitch to ever exist, and purest folk hero who wants nothing but to do good in the world.

[xxautumnivyxx]

A team of absolute legends. Wrapping up Pax West 2024 and I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing group of folks to get to stand beside. Huge thanks to Larian Studios for allowing me the honor of being Karlach again and also to my Camp Crew for being so phenomenal. I cannot thank any of you enough for all of the things you’ve done and continue to do. Such a great found family of folks.

Emperor suit fx - @/keltonfx

Emperor - @/illusion_alchemy

Astarion - @/JusticeVanCho

Lae’zel - @/yuukingram

Shadowheart - @/manzirae

Amazing makeup and sfx by @/thewhitney_b

And to my Moon Ellis who puts up with me pulling my own hair out trying to put on 4 hours of costume and helping while also baby sitting me when I’m trying to put on my big girl pants and keep my head above water. I love you.

[nobigneil]

Dinosaur. Kasra Drama. Downed noises. Neil is "not against" sex with a Mindflayer.

[precious-little-bhaalbabe]

You called us to send asks about mindflayer karlach 🙇 I am here to learn. What are your Thoughts

I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED

Basically most of my points have been made before in the tags of other posts but she deserves her own post.

The jist of it is explained in this post and the accompanying image

Basically, Illithid transformation does destroy the host. Our Karlach isn’t Mindflayer Karlach, it’s her tadpole all grown up. Having absorbed all her memories. Because of this, lots of people say that the Mindflayer ending is Karlach’s bad ending. Personally, I don’t see it as her best ending (going back to Avernus and getting her heart repaired is her best ending for me) but I don’t see it as any worse than her ending where she chooses to burn up on the docks surrounded by her friends as a free woman. In both endings (burning up and Illithid transformation), Karlach dies.

But for her Illithid transformation, Karlach’s little tadpole stowaway takes over, consuming her body and her memories. With no Elder Brain influence (given she’s FIGHTING the Absolute) and only Karlach’s memories to build herself off of, the Tadpole decides to make herself a 1:1 copy of Karlach. She retains her name and maintains Karlach’s relationships and does what Karlach would have wanted (at least what she interprets as Karlach wanting, given she has access to all her memories).

I’ve seen people mad about this, how Mindflayer Karlach isn’t Karlach, Illithid transformation kills the host and this mindflayer is just pretending to be Karlach to manipulate us. And I don’t think that’s quite true. Cause without an Elder Brain to serve, what purpose would manipulating the party have? The tadpoles only memories are Karlach’s. Mindflayer Karlach isn’t a sort of devious trick and lie, it’s more of an “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” situation.

My belief is that as Squidlach continues to live her life, absorbing the memories of the terminally ill she helps leave the world on their own terms, and having her own experiences as a mindflayer and an individual, she will come to view herself less as BEING Karlach and more as FROM Karlach. Viewing Karlach as a predecessor or even a mother. Thus “Karlach III” (she can’t be “Karlach Jr.” because OUR Karlach is already Karlach Jr. if you visit her parents grave in Baldur’s Gate, you see her mother was also named Karlach.)

My hopes and dreams for Karlach III is she gets to meet Omeluum and he can help her figure out what it is to be A Mindflayer but also they can live healthily with their own kind without an Elder Brain, free to pursue their own goals and be good people. And also he can teach her how to wear normal clothes so she can get out of the awful Illithid fleshy horror outfit the transformation left her in. She deserves to wear normal clothes. It’ll help her be less scary.

Maybe the two of them together can start a little colony of peaceful mindflayers together! Not as like, a couple (Omeluum is already clearly married. To Blurg) but like. Idk. Maybe they find a way to grow new mindflayers without being parasitic. Or they take in other runaways from other Elder Brains like Omeluum and the Emperor. Or maybe idk some people are like Karlach and want to choose to give rise to an Illithid for whatever reason. I just think it would be neat.

And even if they don’t, I think it would still be good for the two of them to be friends. It’ll really help Karlach III come into herself as her own person, as a successor to Karlach rather than a copy. It’ll be good for her.

[bg3smash-or-pass]

[shiranui7]

So... I reached the epilogue party and I have STRONG opinions about what happened in the end. I sacrificed myself turning into a Mind Flyer and destroyed the Absolute. I gave my friends the best endings possible: Wyll, at peace with his father and freed from Mizora, went to Avernus with Karlach, who didn't die and found a way to fix the engine. Gale was freed from the orb, Lae'zel and Orpheus went on their journey to save their people, Astarion got rid of Cazador, Halsin got my help to remove the shadow curse and Shadowheart found out about her true self, rejecting Shar. Everyone I helped during the game wrote me letters to thank me and that was cute. But what did I actually got from all of them?

Astarion: said that he needed time to metabolize the transformation and friendzoned me. Well, ok, let's wait like I did with him. At the party, he asked me if I was still myself. Wtf!? He wasn't rude then and was sorry for what happened to me but..No hugs were offered, despite being my romanced character and he seemed to have decided that I was no longer "lover material". I was distraught as hell.

Lae'zel and Orpheus: weren't physically there but thanked me and swore to remember my deeds. Nice, I can forgive the no hug option.

Wyll: no hug option, just a dialogue about how he's faring in Avernus with Karlach. Meh.

Karlach: happy to see me but immediately commented on my appearance. I can let it slide. Hug option but only if you don't ask her other things. Meh.

Gale: kept making jokes about mind flayers and commented how he was happy to be still himself instead of a damn brain sucker.....pretty insensitive, even though he apologised.

Shadowheart and Halsin: They commented on how much they missed me and offered hugs with no limits. Halsin made me a wooden duck. I hugged them like 4 times each. Best reactions.

Owlbear and Scratch: they recognised me and showed no changes in their demeanour despite my appearance. As always, animals are better than people.

So during our adventure I accepted a blood sucker, two time bombs, a religious fanatic, a brainwashed warrior, a man linked to a Devil and a horny bear dude, but they can't accept ME with a Squid-face? If I were there as my real life self, I would have probably burst into tears and walked away from that farce of a party.

I ended up putting everyone's happiness before mine and what I got in return was getting ostracized. Even in a video game, I still make my real life mistakes. That hurts.😔