Jaheira?

[DontMisunderstand]

I don't understand why they created such an inherently unlikable character and present her as if she's not just an overtly evil ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that any morally upstanding character would kill at their earliest convenience... and then have Karlach fangirl over her as if Karlach didn't actively want to kill the exact kind of horrible evil creature she is. Am I missing something? The very first interaction you have with her is her seeing a group of innocent passersby and immediately threatening their lives while cutting off their escape, and upon being proven to be a piece of ♥♥♥♥ publicly when that information is revealed her next move is to try and have a ♥♥♥♥ measuring contest to save face? Like... the only difference between her and Kagha is that Kagha at least had reasonable and morally good motivations for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ things she did. Jaheira's just evil for the sake of stroking her own ego, and for some reason the game doesn't seem to treat it that way.

Why is this piece of garbage treated so strangely by the game's narrative?

[Rabbit]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Boon: Safeword:

I hope you don't fly anywhere, because you're definitely going to pick a fight with airport security after they get upset that you tried to break the metal detector.

I wouldn't fly with an airline that threatens to murder me for buying a ticket, so I fail to see the connection.

Okay, try walking into the airport with a bomb. And then when they ask to check you for bombs, you struggle and refuse. Then when they find you with a bomb, you say they should leave you alone and they're just trying to control you and are evil egomaniacs.

[Quillithe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Runic Tunic:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

And when it doesn't work, and she's proven to be too weak to control me,

Ah. That right there explains it. Sounds like this is definitely a you thing and took her justified behavior WAAAYY to personally.

Fact is, Jaheria is good. Neutral Good, if I remember correctly from past games. She's willing to do what she must to protect the good. That includes putting on a show to test someone she's not sure of their intentions.

That's not being evil. That's being deceitful, at worst. Which isn't inherently evil, as good people have manipulated and deceived bad people as well.

I think she's technically True Neutral in BG1/2 for class alignment reasons as she's a druid.

But yeah, she definitely behaves more Neutral Good in practice, and is pretty great here too.

[Lminith]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von shogunsmurf:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lminith:

Your problem is that you have no idea about BG, Forgotten Realms or D&D.
Lawful Good characters are known to sacrifice the few to save the many. This is the main dillema of Paladins.

That's not how lawful good works. Lawful good = following law regardless.

Sacrificing a few to save more ? that would be chaotic good, neutral good at best.

Unless the law ofc says "sacrifcing innocents to save more innocents", than it's lawful good.

But you ignoring any law regardless because you think the higher moral good is to save the many, would you acting on your own moral insight, that's neutral / chaotic behavoir.

EDIT : Also no moral dilema for a Paladin, part of your oath is to do no harm to innocents. So you can sacrificer the fewer, because your god would forsake you and you wouldn't be able ot safe the many anyhow.

Thank you for proving me right.
Law in D&D isnt strict about human's law. It means a code of conduct.

Chaotic good is saving the little guy no matter the consequences. Good above all else.
Lawful Good means the greater good above all else.
Lawful Evil means ploting and scheming for own profit
Chaotic Evil randomly killing people.

The opposite of LG isn't LE, the opposite is CE.

[Rappeldrache]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Boon: Safeword:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

I wouldn't fly with an airline that threatens to murder me for buying a ticket, so I fail to see the connection.

Okay, try walking into the airport with a bomb. And then when they ask to check you for bombs, you struggle and refuse. Then when they find you with a bomb, you say they should leave you alone and they're just trying to control you and are evil egomaniacs.

Very good! This is it ....

In BG1&2 I really hated Jaheira (but I always LOVED her Avatar picture in BG2) ... but now: I like her. She is mutch"softer" and nicer. And have a lot of humor. I really liked the discussion with Sarevok and her.
Of course she don't loves "us" ... we have a tadpole in our head ... we could transform every second.

(And I'm still very sorry for her cause of this thing with Khalid. I was really heardbroken about it )

[Runic Tunic]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quillithe:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Runic Tunic:

Ah. That right there explains it. Sounds like this is definitely a you thing and took her justified behavior WAAAYY to personally.

Fact is, Jaheria is good. Neutral Good, if I remember correctly from past games. She's willing to do what she must to protect the good. That includes putting on a show to test someone she's not sure of their intentions.

That's not being evil. That's being deceitful, at worst. Which isn't inherently evil, as good people have manipulated and deceived bad people as well.

I think she's technically True Neutral in BG1/2 for class alignment reasons as she's a druid.

But yeah, she definitely behaves more Neutral Good in practice, and is pretty great here too.

Yeah you're right. I misremembered. She does definitely come across as more good here, though without spoiling much, if you're the Dark Urge her "ends justify the means" M.O. definitely stands out more.

[shogunsmurf]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Lminith:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von shogunsmurf:

That's not how lawful good works. Lawful good = following law regardless.

Sacrificing a few to save more ? that would be chaotic good, neutral good at best.

Unless the law ofc says "sacrifcing innocents to save more innocents", than it's lawful good.

But you ignoring any law regardless because you think the higher moral good is to save the many, would you acting on your own moral insight, that's neutral / chaotic behavoir.

EDIT : Also no moral dilema for a Paladin, part of your oath is to do no harm to innocents. So you can sacrificer the fewer, because your god would forsake you and you wouldn't be able ot safe the many anyhow.

Thank you for proving me right.
Law in D&D isnt strict about human's law. It means a code of conduct.

Chaotic good is saving the little guy no matter the consequences. Good above all else.
Lawful Good means the greater good above all else.
Lawful Evil means ploting and scheming for own profit
Chaotic Evil randomly killing people.

The opposite of LG isn't LE, the opposite is CE.

Wrong.

LG = Following the laws of civilization regardless.
NG = Greater good above anything else.
CG = Following your own sense of good.

CE = Using acts of evil to serve your own purpose.
NE = Discriminatly killing for the sake of evil
LE = Killing accordance to evil doctrine.

[Lminith]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von shogunsmurf:

EDIT : Also no moral dilema for a Paladin, part of your oath is to do no harm to innocents. So you can't sacrificer the fewer, because your god would forsake you and you wouldn't be able ot safe the many anyhow. Geralt said it best "if I had to chose between a evil and a lesser evil, i'd rather not chose at all, evil is evil no matter it's size".

No, that was decades ago.
Depends on your Deity. If your Deity is LE you do LE acts.
In fact you can do any acts close to it. LE and LN, TN, NE.

This is not the Witcher. Gerralt isn't LG.

[DontMisunderstand]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Runic Tunic:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

She literally threatened to kill me and my friends for the crime of existing near her. There's no possible way you could interpret resisting her attacks as "excessively hostile" or unjustified.

Because you walked into a military operation, where you have NO authority there, and continued to act hostile, resisted arrest, and refused to cooperate while CARRYING A TADPOLE, all because you decided to RP as someone who has authority issues.

That doesn't make her evil. Might make you very reactionary and needlessly hostile towards justified caution, but definitely doe snot make Jaheira evil.

It's not a military operation, it's an inn. There are refugees there, even. And I was literally told to come there, by her people. I didn't act hostile until literally threatened with murder and an attempt on my life was made. Only an evil person would consider the refusal to accept unilateral violence as hostility. And it wasn't even hostile. It was a resistance to hostility.

Jaheira is not an authority figure. No matter how much she tries to pretend she is, she's not. She's the fantasy equivalent of a bodybuilder performing a citizen's arrest. My character doesn't have authority issues, they have issues with people threatening their friends. They bond with others quickly and see anybody they have positive interactions with as friends. A cackling jokester whose number one goal in life is to see as many smiling faces as possible. Reactionary might be a decent word, with the caveat that it only ever applies to direct threats of violence on people they like.

I still don't see how Jaheira is in the right to attempt to murder people for just being alive near her, yet those people are not in the right to not want to be murdered. You'll have to explain that one to me.

[Rabbit]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

Could you explain what about the plot I'm not understanding?

Here you go:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

It's not a military operation, it's an inn. There are refugees there, even. And I was literally told to come there, by her people. I didn't act hostile until literally threatened with murder and an attempt on my life was made. Only an evil person would consider the refusal to accept unilateral violence as hostility. And it wasn't even hostile. It was a resistance to hostility.

Jaheira is not an authority figure. No matter how much she tries to pretend she is, she's not. She's the fantasy equivalent of a bodybuilder performing a citizen's arrest. My character doesn't have authority issues, they have issues with people threatening their friends. They bond with others quickly and see anybody they have positive interactions with as friends. A cackling jokester whose number one goal in life is to see as many smiling faces as possible. Reactionary might be a decent word, with the caveat that it only ever applies to direct threats of violence on people they like.

I still don't see how Jaheira is in the right to attempt to murder people for just being alive near her, yet those people are not in the right to not want to be murdered. You'll have to explain that one to me.

[Quillithe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Runic Tunic:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quillithe:

I think she's technically True Neutral in BG1/2 for class alignment reasons as she's a druid.

But yeah, she definitely behaves more Neutral Good in practice, and is pretty great here too.

Yeah you're right. I misremembered. She does definitely come across as more good here, though without spoiling much, if you're the Dark Urge her "ends justify the means" M.O. definitely stands out more.

I suppose that's a good point - even without Dark Urge she's very pragmatic like when she's perfectly okay allying with the Chosen of Bane.

I think it was that, or maybe something else, but I remember a dialogue about how it's basically not her problem and she's just worried about the Absolute at the moment.

[Lminith]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von shogunsmurf:

Wrong.

LG = Following the laws of civilization regardless.
NG = Greater good above anything else.
CG = Following your own sense of good.

CE = Using acts of evil to serve your own purpose.
NE = Discriminatly killing for the sake of evil
LE = Killing accordance to evil doctrine.

Law is not about the laws of civilization. Many people understand it that way but it's not. It's about community not necessarily society. Thus the "end justify the means" mentioned above. If you ever play more alignement driven campaigns like The Temple of Elemental Evil you'll see.
You're right about NG but it's according to their needs. So a CG often goes further in pursuit of goodness as their conscience directs, not being restricted by anyone else's views.

[DontMisunderstand]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Boon: Safeword:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

I'm not? It's a place where things happened, much like all places. I'm sorry if you believe I was implying the things happening in a place aren't relevant to that place, though I'm completely stumped as to how you reached that conclusion. Or how it's actually relevant to the topic of a specific character's personality. Especially when her personality and the place you're currently in don't appear to be related.

And you still haven't said anything about what you think I'm misunderstanding of the plot. Nor have you even mentioned anything plot relevant that would change anything I said.

You're behaving as if that entire plot and setting doesn't exist. There's no other reason to not understand how common sense her actions were in her position. Sure, she seems unreasonable, if you were in a happy little village with a bandit camp nearby. That is not the scenario.

Her behavior would be a lot more reasonable if it WERE a happy little village with a bandit camp nearby. It's specifically the context here that makes it less reasonable. Because there are no threats that disguise themselves as normal people in the area. The shadow-possessed are explicitly shown to be visually obvious, and we're shown several times prior that the existence of the tadpole in itself is not something a reasonable person responds to with aggression, even if they are extremely knowledgable about ceremorphosis and the Absolute. The sheer number of people who comment on your tadpole without threatening to kill you is what makes Jaheira's reaction stand out.

[Empu]

With everything she's been through, Khalid being brutally murdered by a psycho elf, and what is it, 120 years later?

You can tell she's left her best days behind her, I actually like that, it's realistic.

Another thing that is realistic is not trusting some rando who walks into your camp with all the tell-tale signs of the enemy you are fighting.

Other games people just instantly trust you and believe you to be the Messiah without any proof to back it up, here we get to earn her trust and that makes more impact to me.

[Rabbit]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Boon: Safeword:

You're behaving as if that entire plot and setting doesn't exist. There's no other reason to not understand how common sense her actions were in her position. Sure, she seems unreasonable, if you were in a happy little village with a bandit camp nearby. That is not the scenario.

Her behavior would be a lot more reasonable if it WERE a happy little village with a bandit camp nearby. It's specifically the context here that makes it less reasonable. Because there are no threats that disguise themselves as normal people in the area. The shadow-possessed are explicitly shown to be visually obvious, and we're shown several times prior that the existence of the tadpole in itself is not something a reasonable person responds to with aggression, even if they are extremely knowledgable about ceremorphosis and the Absolute. The sheer number of people who comment on your tadpole without threatening to kill you is what makes Jaheira's reaction stand out.

Those people you're talking about are all in Act 1, where the absolute just showed up and most people barely understand it. Act 2 is their base of operations and Jaheira has been dealing with them for a while. I'm surprised you didn't also make a thread about Nettie trying to kill you, because that's another one people came to the forums to complain about because they weren't paying attention.

[Quillithe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DontMisunderstand:

Because there are no threats that disguise themselves as normal people in the area.

Guess you didn't finish talking to people in the inn yet lol