#she's the dad that stepped up fr fr (ignore the children she abandoned)

[moghedien]

I hadn't really considered it until now, but Jaheira's reaction if you confront her about Isobel being Ketheric's daughter is such good foreshadowing to her relationship with a redeemed durge

like the second you try to bring up the speculation to her parentage, she shuts down any possibility of it by telling you outright that she is in fact Ketheric's daughter and she hasn't told you before because 1) it isn't her story and 2) it doesn't matter. she doesn't let you speculate on whether Isobel can be trusted or not and makes it clear that she is not holding Isobel's parentage against her. Isobel showed up offering help when she didn't have to do, so Jaheria trusts her. Nothing else matters.

And compare this to her reactions to a good durge in Act 3 when she’s a companion. Durge or not, if you offer aid to her in her quest without really hesitating, she’ll comment in sort of stunned appreciation/admiration that you’d help just because she asked you to and for no reason at all. In my previous durge playthrough this happened actually right before I long rested and got the Bhaalspawn reveal and then Jaheira confronting me about it so it was like thematically great

But at the point where you’ve discovered youre bhaalspawn and Jaheira confronts you in the middle of the night about it, you’ve already helped her and all of the people trapped in the shadow cursed lands. You’ve saved the shadow cursed lands. If you've done all the typical good person thing, you've done more than that. You’ve saved Aylin. You’ve saved the tieflings and the gnomes captive in Moonrise. Jaheira has seen you do all of this, and sure some of it you would have had to do out of necessity, but not all of it. You didn’t need to save everyone. You didn’t need to go out of your way to help people. But you did, and Jaheira saw you do it and THEN she found out you were bhaalspawn

And when she confronts you about it, she is the first person that really offers you any kind of hope that you can be good person at the end of this. She can see that you’re already being a good person.

And she’s the first person that doesn’t just give you answers to what curse has been plaguing you since you woke up, but she’s the first person that gives you evidence that you can be free from it and an idea of what you need to do.

Depending on the timing of how these events trigger, she’s probably the first one who knows what you are and the horror of what that means, and she makes a point of showing that any fear of you isn't justified. And she will go out of her way to help you.

Ketheric attacked her people to get his daughter under his control. Bhaal is doing the same with durge. In both cases, sure, Jaheira needed Isobel to protect the Inn and she needs durge to end the Absolute. But she said with Isobel, she chooses to trust, not just because she has no other choice.

Isobel held out her hand and Jaheira chose to take it. The same applies to durge now, but its more obvious with durge that Jaheira is doing her best to help through whatever issues they have with being Bhaalspawn and what that means. You offered your hand and she took it, but holding hands goes both ways