I’m spoiling the end ofBaldur’s Gate 3here, so be warned. I finally finished the game over the weekend, and I’m still thinking about the repercussions of the choices I made at the eleventh hour. Primarily, that I turned my girlfriend Karlach, my fiery, sweet, optimistic tiefling girlfriend, into a mind flayer. I felt like it was the right thing to do at the time, but now I’m not so sure.
If you’ve finished the game, you know how this all plays out, but for those who haven’t, here’s the rundown – of my playthrough, at least. I’d refused to use any of the tadpoles I found throughout the game, which left my party and I distinctly tentacle-less. But in fighting the Elder Brain, nothing I did worked. My guardian, the Emperor, whisked me off into the Astral Prism where he told me that only a mind flayer can defeat the giant floating brain, and I would have to give him the Netherstones.
I did not trust him. He’d lied to me repeatedly over the course of the game, and I also knew he would kill Orpheus if I agreed. I’d already gone through the trouble of getting the Orphic Hammer, and I didn’t want to make Lae’zel mad at me, either. There had to be another way, I said, one where I could save Orpheus and not give the Emperor the Netherstones. He insisted there was not, but again, I didn’t trust him. One of you has to turn into a mind flayer, he said, and Karlach interjected.
Karlach is dying. That’s a big part of her story – Lord Gortash gave her to a devil, her heart was replaced with an engine, and now that she’s no longer in Avernus, the heat inside her will kill her. She’s been struggling with the knowledge that she will die soon, but she would rather die surrounded by loved ones than go back to Avernus where she’s safe. The Emperor saying that one of us has to turn into a mind flayer means she has a third option that requires neither death nor returning to her slaver. She can live, albeit as an entirely new being. She’s not just willing to turn into a monster, shewantsto do it.
I’d been determined to let my companions decide their own fates so far, and I wasn’t about to tell her she couldn’t do something if she felt it was right. She made a fair case: I’d be able to trust her, and she’d be able to keep living. But I asked her to wait till I’d freed Orpheus, so I could ensure there really was no other way. The rest is easily summarised: the Emperor got mad at me and left to join the Elder Brain, I freed Orpheus who told me that my girlfriend would indeed have to turn into a mind flayer, Orpheus helped her transform, we killed the Elder Brain, and we all lived happily ever after.
Unless…
Well, allegedly. I found the epilogue very unsettling. I wasn’t going to abandon my girlfriend for going through a transformation that would save her lifeandthe world, but she wasn’t the same person she was before. She still had to eat brains, but seemed to be trying to do this as ethically as possible, making consenting arrangements with the old and dying instead of hunting random people. Her fire seemed to have cooled, and she spoke in even, measured tones. When I told her I loved her, she said that I was a good companion to enjoy the rest of her life with.
I thought I’d made the right decision. If something had to be sacrificed, and Karlach was willing to make that sacrifice, then I’d done the best I could with the information I had. I wasn’t willing to destroy the githyanki liberation effort by killing Orpheus, I didn’t trust the Emperor not to turn on me, and my girlfriend wanted to live. But here’s the thing: right at the end of the epilogue, Withers speaks to a mural of the Dead Three, mentioning that those who have undergone ceremorphosis (i.e. becoming a mind flayer) have no souls. So… is that mind flayer still my girlfriend? Or is she an overgrown worm with my girlfriend’s memories?
Is She Still Karlach?
Baldur’s Gate 3 makes this a complicated question to answer because it muddies Dungeons & Dragons’ lore. Canonically, when you turn into a mind flayer, youdie. The parasite in your head inherits your memories, but that’s not you anymore. It’s likethat teleportation thought experiment. When Karlach transforms, she tells me that she still feels like her, but better. Is that true? Can she really be a different kind of mind flayer, or is she lying to me?
Most of the mind flayers we meet in the game are bad dudes controlled by hive minds, characterised by their sadism and instinct for self-preservation, but we know that rogue mind flayers like Omeluum can be at the very least morally neutral. I assume that she’s free of the influence of the Netherbrain even in mind flayer form because Orpheus is around, and afterwards she can live as an individual because the Elder Brain is dead. Does that mean that no mind flayer is inherently bad as long as they’re liberated from their hive mind?
It’s a loose interpretation of D&D lore, from what I can tell, and it doesn’t tell me what I really want to know: in letting my girlfriend try to save herself, did I inadvertently let her die? Is she the same, good person that I romanced, or something else entirely? Does she really no longer have a soul? When she says she’s happy, does she mean it, when mind flayers don’t typically experience emotion? Did I do the right thing?
I was convinced this was the best possible outcome for her and everyone else, a clear message from the game that sometimes things can’t work out for everyone. Then I found out that convincing her to go back to Avernus instead leads to an ending where you, Wyll, and Karlach may have found a way to fix her engine and allow her to return to Faerun. So… shedidn’thave to turn into a squidface to live the life she wanted, which makes my choice feel all the worse. That said, her not transforming would have meant either Orpheus dying and the githyanki remaining oppressed, Orpheus turning into a mind flayer himself, or my character becoming a mind flayer. Karlach was the only one who really wanted this. I still don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but that’s the point, I guess. At the very least, she – or the mind flayer that thinks it’s her – says she’s happy.
Baldur’s Gate 3
WHERE TO PLAY
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.
