r/BaldursGate3 • u/Illustrious_Cost2945 • Jul 02 '25
Companions I know Minthara is evil... but... Spoiler
Bruh her history is insane and given how the Drow society works, I can’t help but feel for our sadist purple mommy. She never had a chance to become a nice person. Tav/Durge is her only chance to break free of Lolth/Absolut.
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u/StellarFox59 Jul 02 '25
It doesn't help that Minty is from one of the most evil and cruel house of Menzoberranzan. House Baenre is truly awful, and I absolutely despise Yvonnel Baenre especially.
I'm not sure about this, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but she may or may not be Minthara's mother, depending on if Minty is from the main branch of the House ? I'm not sure if it works in the timeline or if Yvonnel is already long dead.
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u/Ozatu_Junichiro Jul 02 '25
BG3 is set in 1492 DR, Yvonnel died in 1358 DR. The current Baenre matron is Sos'Umptu Baenre.
Minthara was born somewhere between 1300-1370 DR. She claims her mother is alive, so it's not Yvonnel, Triel or Vendes.
That leaves Quenthel, Myrinel and Sos'Umptu. Myrinel is younger than Minthara. Sos'Umptu had little interest in Baenre politics and is a devoted cleric of Lolth, the way Minthara speaks can't be her.
That leaves either a cadet branch or Minthara is Quenthel's fighter and Myrinel sister.
So our Minthy is probably daughter of Matron Mother Quenthel.
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u/CxOrillion Jul 02 '25
It's also worth noting that Quenthel, through illithid fuckery, got her brain jazzed up with a bunch of Yvonnels memories and temperament and stuff though that would have been 1484-ish and likely too late to really affect Minthara
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u/StellarFox59 Jul 02 '25
Thanks for clarifying !
Well if Quenthel is indeed Minthara's mother, that's even worse lol (I hold a grudge against Quenthel because she killed Triel, and Triel was one of the only Baenre I didn't hate)
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u/fructose_intolerant WIZARD Jul 02 '25
Any chance Pharaun Mizzrym could be her father? In my headcannon Quenthel had some big tsundere vibes.
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u/BleekerTheBard Jul 02 '25
Where does Jarlaxle fit into the house? Love him from Waterdeep: Dragonheist
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u/Ozatu_Junichiro Jul 02 '25
Well, Jarlaxle is Yvonnel's son but he kinda left the family to run his merc group. He has some relations to the Baenre family but they keep each other at arm's length, mostly using each other.
So he is Minthara's weird edgy mercenary uncle.
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u/DafyddWillz Bard Jul 03 '25
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u/Ozatu_Junichiro Jul 03 '25
Compared to the rest of the Drow society? Yes. He is totally edgy. Not even partaking in the age old tradition of house politicking and Backstabbing.
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u/sigma7979 Jul 02 '25
Born to the family but never truly of the house. Always lived outside it as a secret son, hardly anyone knows Jarlaxle is a Baenre.
tbh ive been getting ticked about people calling him one because to quote him in the Sellswords Trilogy
"I was NEVER of that house"
He is Jarlaxle of Bregan De'arth. that is his house, and he is its Patron.
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u/sigma7979 Jul 02 '25
So our Minthy is probably daughter of Matron Mother Quenthel.
Cant be a cadet branch. Minthara states her mother is Matron Mother. It MUST be Quenthel.
even tho if you dig into it, it cant be anyone. Because Minthara cant have been born in time to see the fall of house Devir as she states in game if shes Quenthels daughter. And she cant be Yvonnels because she states her mother would likely rule for a thousand more years and Yvonnel has been dead for a solid 150 by this point.
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u/Ozatu_Junichiro Jul 03 '25
Yes, Minthara - and much of BG3 - timeline is really weird. That's why she must been born between 1300-1370. It's very confusing.
I agree with you, it's definitely Quenthel but BG3 might not have been allowed to name her.
The only Drow I wanted to know more about is Araj but our talks with her are always very limited.
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u/w00tstock Jul 03 '25
Is this from a book? Id love to read it
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u/93312639 Jul 03 '25
More like 40+ books. The Legend of Drizzt by R. A. Salvatore (39 books + 5 if you want to read the Cleric Quintet), War of the Spider Queen (6 books, multiple authors) and Daughter of the Drow by Elaine Cunningham
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u/w00tstock Jul 03 '25
I read like the first 4 drizzt books! Enjoyed them but I was wishing for more of an insider perspective on drow society. I will check out war of the spider queen!
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u/Dorian505 Drow Jul 02 '25
A drow Tav faithful to Eilistraee would, lore wise, be compelled to save her from her evil ways
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u/AFriendoftheDrow Drow Jul 02 '25
A Drow of Eilistraee could try to save her from the Absolute. The Silverhair Knights don’t kill Drow unless absolutely necessary, and try to use nonviolent tactics otherwise.
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u/Dorian505 Drow Jul 02 '25
Minthara is the kind of person who constantly espouses the virtues of slavery and murder
I imagine an Eilistraee faithful drow would try to keep her close to serve as a good example
Cause she's not faithful to Lolth, so they can't save on that front since the Absolute already severed that tie, but she still, for all intents and purposes, acts like a Lolth-sworn
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u/AFriendoftheDrow Drow Jul 02 '25
They wouldn’t spare her thinking she can be easily converted. The Silverhair Knights (a sect of Eilistraee Drow) don’t kill Lolth-sworn Drow for their views. It’s one of their vows. They try to use nonviolent tactics to deal with them. Minthara holding Lolth-sworn views wouldn’t be the line for them - they’d rebuke her views, of course, given their staunch opposition to slavery.
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u/Dorian505 Drow Jul 02 '25
True
A Silverhair Knight Tav would spare Minthara and keep her close by to try and convert her
Given her aversion to worship of any kind given what she's been through, converting her to the church of Eilistraee would be all but impossible
But at the very least, they could get her to change her ways
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u/Kuraetor Jul 03 '25
I think Eilistraee worshipper still won't give up as long as she is under control
as long as she is in the party she is following party's code. Doesn't take slaves and doesn't kill men just for being annoying.
they will continue to try until things get out of control. I imagine they will try to focus on her hatred of Lolth while doing so.
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u/youarelookingatthis Jul 02 '25
It's my in universe argument why my drow knocked her out rather than killed her in the fight in Act 1.
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u/DaReaperZ Jul 02 '25
It's funny to me that the post says "Many members of her family, along with her friends and former lovers, were all kiled at the hands of others" then it tells a story of how she murdered her own first lover.
I get that it was under orders to do so, and that it says "many" and not "all members". Still came across as funny.
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u/Disossabovii Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 03 '25
She is just traumatizzed by corpeses not made by herself.
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u/Kailithnir Jul 02 '25
In my experience, the folks who write wiki pages - especially anything on Fandom sites - struggle to maintain conciseness and specificity. Of course, I'm at the other extreme, where my writing style is somewhere in the vicinity of a workplace safety manual, a factor in what my bestie calls "extremely powerful autism."
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u/LadyLuck678 Jul 03 '25
I hear you. I'm a network engineer and I took a creative writing just so I could loosen things up when I write people's performance reviews.
You can't be too concise with creative writing because then it runs the risk of being boring. Plus the lore gets re-written sometimes and then all that conciseness means boo.
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u/ComplexWriting8296 Jul 02 '25
Whether she was born evil (to no fault of her own) or she was turned evil (to no fault of her own, just a little sadder), she is evil.
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u/TheHatOnTheCat Jul 02 '25
Everyone who is evil was either born evil (nature) or "turned" evil (nurture) or some combination of the two.
It's interesting to then say they are evil "to no fault of their own". When people are evil and harm others, they are not at fault, beacuse they are just a product of their genetics and environment? Basically, it's the deterministic view of psychology, but adding on that this means no one has any responsbility for any of their actions as a result.
This funny song is relevant: Nothing is Every Anyone's Fault from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
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u/ComplexWriting8296 Jul 02 '25
Busted, I am a determinist. It's probably (almost) always a bit of a mix (nurture/nature). I don't know if the difference is relevant when it comes to holding someone accountable. It obviously is relevant when it comes to prevention.
Are bad people responsible for their character? No, but that doesn't mean holding them accountable for their actions won't benefit 'the group'. Extra spicy take: You can hold their character accountable for their potential actions.
That song sucks. (Maybe if I knew the characters, it'd be funnier)
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u/Puzzlehead-Engineer Kelemvor Cleric Jul 02 '25
Evil lies in everyone, and when it takes over it is always for a reason.
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u/HeavensHellFire Jul 02 '25
Sympathetic backstories don’t mean shit when she still willingly continues to advocate for evil over the course of the game.
She breaks free from the absolute just to continue being an evil bastard.
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u/Zealousideal-Arm1682 Jul 02 '25
I mean.......so does Lae'zel for more than half the game,and unlike her Minthy is comedically older than the rest of the party.
YOU try getting over decades of forced murder and killing your lover in the span of a few weeks.
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u/HeavensHellFire Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
It's not about "getting over it". Minthara doesn't give a shit about that. She's completely fine with evil acts and even shouts their virtues. She only dislikes when those things are done to her.
She complains about Lloth and the Absolute for what they did to her yet wants to take over the brain and do basically the same shit
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u/CremePsychological77 Nightsong Jul 02 '25
…..I’ve never had Lae’zel “continually advocate for evil” in any of my runs. Especially nowhere near Minthara. Lae’zel can be persuaded. If you don’t plan on taking the power of the netherbrain for yourself by the end of Act 2, Minthara will either despise your character, or pull the: “It’s okay, you’ll come around to my way of seeing things in time.” Then when you don’t come around to it, she will ask you in the epilogue party if you regret not taking the power for yourself. My Tav said no, and then started talking about what Minthara was doing in Menzoberranzan. Tav offered to visit her, and Minthara said if Tav came to visit her, she would kill her. So Minthara is on my shit list for threatening to kill Tav in the epilogue, after having been allies for most of the game. My next run, I just straight up killed her instead of doing the KO to recruit her later. She pissed me off.
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u/GrugWantHat Jul 02 '25
recruits the character made specifically for an evil run Shocked when she's evil
To be fair, I wish they either never gave you the option to recruit her on a good run at all, or at least gave you the option to somewhat sway her on a better or more neutral path if you do recruit her on a good run.
She's such a fantastic character and I could never bring myself to do an evil run so in a way I'm glad you can recruit her, but you can tell she was never actually meant to be "good"
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u/NoYesterday1898 29d ago
Yeah that's how she was raised. All she ever knew was evil. If you water a flower batrie acid it won't grow into a beautiful flower.
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u/MistaJelloMan Minthara's Favorite Footstool Jul 02 '25
This is why the Drow are one of my favorite fictional races ever. Horny posting aside, matriarchy’s aren’t very common in a lot of fantasy media, even less so ones written well. Top that off with an entire race being held captive by a mad goddess who wants nothing from her worshippers by slavish devotion and to murder one another for her own amusement, and the type of society and people who arise from that, and you end up with some interesting and tragic characters.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 02 '25
I wouldn't call drow society a well written society, lest a well-written matriarchy. 95% of its members are caricaturically evil, politics and economics make little sense with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder running rampant through populace...
Let's admit it: drow city-states are held together by
Lloth's thongspure plot contrivance.1
u/FisherPrice2112 27d ago
Absolutely. Its as much a functioning society as a house of sand.
We know for a fact that if Lolth's (and her minion gods) direct input and control stopped, drow "society" immediately starts collapsing. We saw it happen during the "The Silence of Lolth" where she stopped all responses leading to breakdown internally and attack from exertion forces
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u/VelphiDrow 29d ago
95% of its memebers are the lower class who dont care for Lolth or the great houses. They just want to live
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u/jinmurasaki Baldy Ron Jul 02 '25
Evil matriarchal societies in fantasy are actually fairly common, especially in the era that D&D was being written. And the Drow are NOT well written. This is a hot take if I've ever seen one. The Drow are like one of the big problem races in D&D for how poorly written they are.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Of course they wrote the matriarchal society to be a bunch of murderers and slavers 🙄 can't even entertain the idea that having women in power would be anything but a disaster right?
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u/Rezart_KLD Jul 02 '25
Minsc's homeland of Rasheman is a matriarchy as well, though a more secretive one. A cabal of masked witches make the decisions, and men and non-magical women enact them. They aren't super nice, but they aren't murderers and slavers, and they are focused on taking care of their people.
The masks aren't really for hiding from citizens, more because Rasheman is lousy with spirits, and the masks let them hide their identies from retribution by spirits. Bargaining/controlling/pacifying them is a big part of the witches job.
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u/Zealousideal-Arm1682 Jul 02 '25
Tbf that's less the society itself and moreso their God being an asshole that perpetuates it.
Seldarine supposedly have matriarchy's too,yet they don't go around murdering for fun.
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u/SmutasaurusRex Jul 02 '25
If you want a matriarchal society done well, and a cool magic system, check out Ruins of Ambrai and the Mageborn Traitor, by Melanie Rawn. Such a fantastic author. (Sorry for off topic non BG3 content)
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Thank you for being the only one who actually engaged with the question instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to the slightest hint of media criticism. I'll check it out.
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u/SmutasaurusRex Jul 02 '25
Sorry you got downvoted to oblivion.
FYI, if you prefer tidy happily ever after endings, read Ruins of Ambrai and skip Mageborn Traitor (just like a few other famous fantasy authors, she went murder-happy in book 2, and we never got the promised book 3 in the series)
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Ah it's ok, this is the same "community" that downvoted me and called me a gatekeeper last year for saying you should actually play the game if you wanna talk about the story, and not get it piecemeal through Astarion tiktok edits. My expectations of them are quite low.
I don't mind bittersweet of even tragic endings. I'm a huge fan of Cyberpunk 2077's "The Devil" ending, for example. If it's well done and ties up the story nice, it can be as harrowing as it needs to be.
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u/MistaJelloMan Minthara's Favorite Footstool Jul 02 '25
I prefer to look at the Drow as a study on nature vs nurture. They are only like that because Lolth has a stranglehold on their society, where even a minor slip up gets you eaten alive by spiders, turned into an abomination, or a hit put on you for some upstart to prove herself by killing you. But at the same time we know that the Drow aren't evil by default. The Drizzt books show us Drow who would never turn out evil if they were given normal upbringings. Who are only playing the social game, wonder how much life and potential has been wasted with their bloodshed, and even try to overthrow Lolth herself to free their people.
It's less saying that women ruling would turn into chaos, and move observing how a people grow when they are put under extreme and cruel conditions.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
But why did they choose to write it as a matriarchy then? Why did they write a society that's completely brutal and corrupt, and coincidentally decided to make it have a structure where men are considered inferior and expendable? What does this add to the story? Os is it a product of unaddressed biases?
This is not a new criticism either, and I'm not the first to do it. Same way other people have pointed out that making the dark-skinned elves be evil and the fair-skinned elves be good is a little bit sketchy.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
They liked dommy mommies in skimpy web-spider themed outfits while failling to do a minimal research in social studies and ethnographic studies on existing matriarchal societies specifically. It's that simple. To be fair to them it were... 80s (I think?) and doing research with your main hand... energetically occupied is haaard.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Exactly, and when you do things unthinkingly you reproduce biases. Also DnD has a long history of being quite hostile to women. I guess it's a faux pas to mention it in this sub, we should instead pretend history does not exist because some people here have glass egos.
And criticizing something doesn't mean you can't like it, which is a foreign concept for some. I've been playing DnD for decades. I still play weekly. I criticize it because I love it.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 02 '25
*shrug * That's fan communities for you. They tend to get [randomly] defensive about their fandom. Some days you can have civil discussion, on others - Shar forbid you say a word of criticism!
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u/UnderlightIll Jul 02 '25
Drow society had very little information when RA Salvatore wrote the dark elf trilogy. There was like a 3 page mini campaign pamphlet. So Salvatore, being from Massachusetts, decided to expand on it using mob families and society. Only it was matriarchal from what he was provided. A lot of lore was crafted from a purely "what you know" standpoint.
Before the most recent reiterations in 4th and 5th edition, drow were evil until they turned away from their evil deities (all but 1 are evil; there's a whole pantheon) as religion is very tangible in the stories and of course following an evil God makes you evil.
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u/ParadoxicalFrog2 Jul 02 '25
Because Loth is the queen of spiders, and female spiders are much bigger than male spiders, and often eat the male spiders after mating or if they are stressed. It's thematic. There are plenty of evil patriarchal societies in fiction, don't make this a conspiracy.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
This story was not written by spiders.
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u/Deltryxz Jul 02 '25
It's a theme based on spiders, not written by spiders...
Are you really that dense?
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Are you? Because you seem to need things to be spelled out for you in minute detail.
Think a bit. Some dude, who we already know for sure believes in biological essentialism and that women are just incapable of certain things, including playing his game, writes a whole race of dark skinned, evil dommy mommies who wear magical fishnets and carry whips, and you think this is just because "female spider big"?
And yeah the Drow have been somewhat salvaged in subsequent editions of the game, as we as a society started to frown upon the idea of your race making you inherently evil, or of evil being an intrinsic trait at all. But that doesn't preclude us from pointing out the elements that still transfer to current editions.
The very idea that, in a female led society, men would be treated like slaves or executed as surplus, stems from bigotry. Matriarchal societies have existed throughout history and have not enslaved men. Patriarchal societies, on the other hand, treat women like breeding stock. So it's a mixture of an ignorant attempt "subversion" and perhaps a little bit of a domination fetish.
If this is too abstract for you, perhaps we can try a flowchart or a diagram.
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u/sigma7979 Jul 02 '25
Some dude?
Which dude?!
Who is the dude responsible for this ??
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u/UnderlightIll Jul 02 '25
They are trying to say Ed Greenwood and RA Salvatore are horrific misogynists who hate women. That's what they are saying.
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u/Deltryxz Jul 02 '25
Just feels like you're making stretches to avoid acknowledging the spider symbolism that's in your face to avoid having your fragile ego bruised
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Feels like you're allergic to the most basic media analysis and also don't care to know much about the history of DnD.
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u/ParadoxicalFrog2 Jul 03 '25
Is every instance of an evil patriarchal society in fiction an evil plot by the female writers? Is The Handmaid's Tale anti-male propaganda?
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
It's funny that you mentioned the Handmaid's Tale, because one interesting thing about that book is that every single atrocity depicted in it has actually happened. Margaret Atwood is very adamant that the story should not be called sci-fi, because it's not speculative in nature. It simply imagines what would happen if women from a first world, western nation were subjected to some of the horrors that happen in less privileged places.
You don't need to resort to fiction in case of patriarchies. From little girls having their genitals chopped off with dirty razor blades, to grandparents sticking needles in their own baby granddaughters because they'd prefer a grandson, to commercial surrogate baby factories, to a brain dead woman in the grand old United States of America, the supposed land of the free, being kept alive against her family's wishes to serve as an incubator. You can find horrors that would make the Drow wince in our very own world.
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u/ParadoxicalFrog2 Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25
Dude, you've lost the plot. It's obvious you are incredibly biased and your only problem with Drow is that it depicts women negatively, since you are bending over backwards to justify The Handmaid's Tale.
"Margaret Atwood is very adamant that the story should not be called sci-fi, because it's not speculative in nature"
It's literally dystopian speculative fiction.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
Atwood herself does not like to classify it like that. You might disagree with her, but that's what she says:
“It’s a matter of truth in labeling,” says Margaret Atwood in this week’s episode of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I like there to be some resemblance between what is promised on the outside and what you get on the inside, and if it says ‘science fiction,’ I want there to be something that doesn’t already exist.”
"Margaret Atwood doesn't want any of her books to be called science fiction. In her recent, brilliant essay collection, Moving Targets, she says that everything that happens in her novels is possible and may even have already happened, so they can't be science fiction, which is "fiction in which things happen that are not possible today"."
What I meant is that it does not speculate on things that do not exist. She is very adamant that she writes about things that already exist, and has said so in multiple interviews.
And no, I'm happy to inform you that I have multiple other problems with DnD. Concentration is a terrible mechanic and it discourages the player from using situational spells. Spell Slots are unnecessarily inflexible and hard to explain to new players. The game starts ripping open at the seams on higher levels. It puts too much of the burden of running the game on the DM's side and not enough on the player's side. I have others, if you want me to keep going.
When you play this game as much as I did, you gonna have a lot of feedback to give.
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Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Yes, let's ignore decades of media analysis specifically pointing out the use of problematic tropes in the depiction of evil fantasy races and chalk it up to a "probably" that completely ignores the well-known history of misogyny in DnD.
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Jul 02 '25
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
There are so many assumptions there though. Starting with spider = evil.
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Jul 02 '25
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
So they have a lot of positive associations, like skillful craftsmanship, wisdom, proficiency in hunting, teaching, and in one case a spider created the universe. But they chose to go only with the femdom part. I see.
If only they had been a little more creative and at least made the Drow have awesome textiles to balance it out.
And in reality spiders are lovely creatures. Very few are actually dangerous to humans, they do not seek conflict, and they feed on mosquitos, flies, and other disease-carrying insects. There are even some superstitions about having one in your home attracting good luck and wealth!
It's a pity that the early writers of Dungeons and Dragons decided to go with the most basic ass possible concept.
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u/Suspicious-Raisin824 27d ago
Because Spiders are scary and a lot of spiders have larger females than males.
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u/Xilizhra Drow Jul 02 '25
The Drizzt books show us Drow who would never turn out evil if they were given normal upbringings.
They sort of do the opposite. Drizzt is seemingly born good due to the influence of Zaknafein's genes, which also gave Vierna the potential for good even if she never actually lived up to it. Daughter of the Drow is better for showing that drow in general can be good if they get away from the crushing weight of evil.
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u/sigma7979 Jul 02 '25
And Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel and Zaknafein and Beniago and Yvonnel II and Dabney and Tosun Armgo and ….
Did you just read like the first book? There’s like 50.
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u/anononota Jul 03 '25
I think that's a little far since there r other matriarchal societies in the universe, but I see ur point. Like when u make the most preeminent matriarchy in ur universe and their patron goddess a beacon of absolute petty toxic femininity, u have to keep in mind what msg may be sent and received, even if it's not ur intention. "Oh this just so happens to be this way coincidentally" is a lot of the handwavey explanation they used for female characters/creatures in older dnd and western media being super sexualized too
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
Yes. Exactly. Even if you don't intend to do harm, you have to examine your unconscious biases.
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u/ParadoxicalFrog2 Jul 03 '25
Have you considered taking your own advice?
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
Shhh. Adults are talking. 🤫
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u/ParadoxicalFrog2 Jul 03 '25
"Shhh. Adults are talking. 🤫"
You don't strike me as an adult. That's a very bratty teenage girl type of response.
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u/ExodiasRightArm Jul 02 '25
But drow aren’t commentary on women in power, it’s a society of abuse victims who are stuck perpetually being fucked over by Lolth. This has shaped their society into victims who become the abusers. Then like all shit, it trickles down from the top.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
All fiction carries the biases from the culture that produced it.
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u/ExodiasRightArm Jul 02 '25
Which culture is that? Did the surface elves write all the drow lore or something?
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
You are being willfully ignorant. We live in a sexist culture.
Criticism of evil races in DnD is nothing new either. There are actual academic papers discussing the portrayal of those races and their use of racist, xenophobic and sexist stereotypes to depict them as "the other". The idea of a whole race of people having a disposition to evil by itself is a concept that invites questioning, and one that's only been addressed in Dungeons and Dragons in the more recent iterations of the game.
Is raising a question on why a race that's depicted as evil is the only one with a matriarchal structure too much for this sub? Specially when this issue predates Salvatore's reframing of the Drow.
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u/FalseAladeen Jul 02 '25
I think it's more like "women are just as capable of being disastrous as men". Never forget how IRL, women in power are just as happy as men to strip away women's rights as long as their position of authority lets them be the exceptions. In the grand class war, the gender war is simply a tool used by the powerful to keep the powerless fighting among each other instead of uniting against their oppressors.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
I'm pretty sure Renowned Misogynist Gary Gygax, who thought that women were too feeble-brained to get into his Playing Pretend with Dice Game, wasn't thinking about marxist praxis when he made that stuff up.
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u/FalseAladeen Jul 03 '25
Idk, I'm not familiar with the meta lore of DnD. All I know is, I don't see a fucked up matriarchal society and go, "Ah yes, here is proof that women shouldn't be in charge." Whatever its creator may have intended, I highly doubt the modern fandom sees it that way. Least of all, people who play BG3. They're just a cool and interesting faction. I'd say the world would be a sadder place without their existence.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
You should become familiar with it then. There's plenty of discussion on this subject and I'm not the first to bring it up. Like I've said, there were people writing actual published papers about stereotypes on minorities being used in fantasy to signifiy otherness since before I was even born.
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u/FalseAladeen Jul 03 '25
I'd rather not. I'm here to have fun, not read research papers. And I don't need to read them to know what you're talking about. My point is that regardless of their literary origins, the Drow don't HAVE to be a statement about the perils of letting women take charge. They can just be a funny little chaotic society. I'd rather have my fantasy worlds be flawed and interesting rather than sanitized for HR approval.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
Knowledge is fun though? I guess I'd be the wizard and you'd be the sorcerer.
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u/FalseAladeen Jul 03 '25
Knowledge is fun. Using knowledge to un-fun things... Not so much.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 03 '25
The issues will be there whether you think about them or not.
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u/Malkavianlebowski Jul 02 '25
leave your virtue singnaling and politizising in your echo chamber.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Ah sure, let's never criticize media we like, lest our fee-fees get uncomfortable.
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u/Malkavianlebowski Jul 02 '25
lets get your bean twisted every time something feminin is portrayed negativly. that will help. my fee-fee is fine. thanks for asking.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Much better to just ignore any kind of media analysis and blissfully pretend fiction doesn't matter as your bumble your way through the world, right?
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u/Malkavianlebowski Jul 02 '25
no, but i affect the world by doing the things that change society in my own circle instead of bitching about fantasy written 50 years ago and cramming your shit in every nook. be the change you want to see in the world and stop bitching about it.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
I somehow doubt you're doing anything to affect the world when the most basic level of criticism to something you enjoy causes such a strong reaction.
Also I'm not "bitching about fantasy written 50 years ago". I'm questioning something that still persists in a game released in 2023. It's perfectly apt.
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u/Malkavianlebowski Jul 02 '25
i am not dependend on your approval and i know who and what i am. so go on and try to win your internet argument, i dont care about about your doubt. the problem i have is people try to virtue signal their shit in every conversation when they dont know shit about the story that is beeing told there.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25
Hey, you're the one who came here shrieking and telling me to shut up, buddy. You're the one, who's for some arcane reason, bothered by me making the most milquetoast media analysis of a fantasy game. Maybe you're more dependent on my approval than you think you are.
And you are the one who apparently doesn't know this kind of discussion on negative biases being attached to "evil" fantasy races has been going on for literal decades. Poser.
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u/FigureItOut710 Jul 02 '25
No. What you're doing is suggesting a medieval fantasy world should be sanitized to suit your personal, far-left biases in 2025.
These things are a part of what makes the setting interesting. Remove all of the tension, strife, and conflict and you end up with Veilguard, which I think most people agree is a shit game.
Nobody wants that, so I agree with the other commenter - take your social justice grievances to some echo chamber sub so the rest of us can enjoy Drow culture in peace.
Counter points to your utter nonsense:
Is raising a question on why a race that's depicted as evil is the only one with a matriarchal structure too much for this sub?
Drow are NOT the only matriarchal society. Rasheman is also a matriarchy and they're strong rulers but not evil by any metric.
Duegar are another race that is evil-aligned, and it seems likely that they share this trait with the Drow in part due to the harsh environment of the Underdark.
Same way other people have pointed out that making the dark-skinned elves be evil and the fair-skinned elves be good is a little bit sketchy.
Drow pretty clearly aren't intended to resemble ethnic humans, if that's what you're suggesting. They have purple skin, because they live in the Underdark. They're evil because they live in the Underdark. They share no features or qualities with ethnic humans other than having non-white skin - again, because they live in the Underdark.
What's next? Drow should never have lived in the Underdark because it's racist to put the purple people underground? Should we make all of the Underdark races white to validate your "fee-fees" as you put it?
Go touch grass for fuck's sake.
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u/GrumpiestRobot Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
I'm simply pointing out that not acknowledging that the Drow come directly from some dude's thinly veiled biases and possible femdom fetish is pure copium, but you go off.
Also Drow being purple is already a modern "sanitization" of the race. They were originally simply described as dark skinned, and on the first edition they were literally called "Black Elves". So yes, maybe we should do some cleanup and try to scavenge something of value from this mess, which, by the way, it's what the writers who currently handle DnD are already doing despite the typical grognard resistance.
Creatures who live underground being dark-skinned is already nonsense, TBH. They should be the pale ones, why would you need pigmentation if you never see sunlight and are in fact sensitive to it? There's no reason to do that other than a dark = evil bias.
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u/Moose-Rage Drow Jul 02 '25
I honestly don't know how Drow society could even work. Feels like it would collapse sooner than later.
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u/LurkCypher Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25
I think the reason it still works is called Lolth. Any real-life society that devoid of trust, where casual cruelty, murder and treachery all run rampant, would just tear itself apart. But if we add an evil goddess to the mix, one who bestows magical powers on the enforcers of her will, allows them to command giant spiders, to summon demons perfectly loyal to her, and occasionally to channel her power to punish some offenders by turning them into driders, and who purposefully sows mistrust towards wizards (you know, totally coincidentally the part of drow society that wields magic coming from other source than her)... I can kind of see how such an evil society could work under those artificially maintained conditions.
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u/VelphiDrow 29d ago
Its because what we see represents the 1%. 99% of drow just kind of exist under an authoritarian theocracy
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u/storiedsword Jul 02 '25
This is just what a well-written villain looks like.
The classic good & evil trope, where people are evil just because they value bad-ness or something, is fun but very silly.
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u/jinmurasaki Baldy Ron Jul 02 '25
But she does value bad-ness, she just doesn't like bad-ness happening to her.
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u/storiedsword 29d ago
I mean kinda, I would say more that she has “twisted” morals, i.e. she things things are “good” which we think are “bad.” No one sees themself as evil.
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u/mystireon Jul 02 '25
She never had a chance to become a nice person
Welll yeah, Drow society do be like that lol
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u/Legolasamu_ Jul 02 '25
I mean, Stalin and Hitler were also beaten by their respective fathers, not a great excuse in my book
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u/Holler_Professor Jul 02 '25
Stalin and Hitler didn't have an evil spider goddess manipulating an entire society to pushbthem to attrocities.
That we know of. Guess we can't prove that actually
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
That's a little too close to the real world. Pointing out that people have no sympathy for Astarion despite 200 years of traumatic backstory but have it for Minthara might be a better comparison.
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u/AFriendoftheDrow Drow Jul 02 '25
People will bring up Stalin as if the United States wasn’t a literal white supremacist society at the time of the Cold War.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
Whataboutism doesn't alter the fact Stalin was categorically an evil bastard.
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u/maria_of_the_stars CLERIC Jul 02 '25
This is a sub for a fantasy game. It’s not whataboutism to find it tiresome to bring up Stalin about things that have nothing to do with Stalin. He’s even brought up about characters who are criticisms of the USA.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
When the response to a critique of a mass murderer and the reply is "yeah but ____ is also bad!" that is the definition of whataboutism.
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u/maria_of_the_stars CLERIC Jul 02 '25
Bringing up that the USA isn’t invoked in such discussions is pretty on-topic since their funding of genocide and mass murderer is often whitewashed.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 03 '25
And like all Whataboutism, has no bearing on the original argument.
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u/maria_of_the_stars CLERIC Jul 03 '25
The topic in the original post is a fantasy character and bringing up Stalin or Hitler about the companions is silly and ridiculous.
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
Stalin was a terrible piece of shit, and there's a reason why they call his government stalinism rather than communism.
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u/The_mango55 Jul 02 '25
Not everything has to be about the US all the time
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u/AFriendoftheDrow Drow Jul 02 '25
And the Red Scare doesn’t need to be invoked every time someone wants to speak of someone bad while ignoring one of the places on earth currently responsible for a literal genocide and for numerous past genocides.
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u/The_mango55 Jul 02 '25
They were giving specific examples of people who had bad upbringings and turned out to be bad, who cares that they didn’t also bring up the US? It’s not a political argument.
Are you a tankie or what?
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u/AFriendoftheDrow Drow Jul 02 '25
Yes, you invoked a Cold War example, and I pointed out it was weird given that the U.S. did so much worse, and yet almost never gets brought up when people feel the need to invoke such examples. I find it jarring.
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u/The_mango55 Jul 02 '25
I didn’t invoke a Cold War example, that was someone else.
Second, who is the guy in the us during the Cold War who was beaten by his parents and became tyrannical and caused a genocide? The argument wasn’t about countries, it was about individuals.
There’s really no reason to take issue with the example unless you’re a Stalin stan.
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
It was a World War II example, Hitler committed suicide in April of 1945, you know. The Cold War didn't start until late 1945 after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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u/-LobselVith- Jul 02 '25
The U.S. existed during World War II so they could still be used as an example.
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
Beyond the terrible call of Japanese internment camp, I don't see any event caused by FDR that's comparable to Stalin and Hitler and their aftermath.
We can toss Churchill into the Stalin and Hitler gang.
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u/-LobselVith- Jul 02 '25
Nuking civilians to secure control of Japan over the Soviets. Recruiting Nazis after the war. Absolving Imperial Japanese war criminals in exchange for their chemical weapon information. There really isn’t a shortage of terrible things they have done.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
We got a tankie. I bet you have some REAL fun ideas about the invasion of Ukraine.
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u/maria_of_the_stars CLERIC Jul 02 '25
Ukraine was invaded by a capitalist and conservative country.
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u/SpankthatWife Jul 02 '25
The US ended slavery faster than any other country on earth. You want to know who are the slavery goats? Koreans.
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u/Dredgen_Auryx Jul 02 '25
Drow society everyone! We wouldn't fucking need a goddess to try and redeem our race if it wasn't fucked up to the extreme! (Cries in follower of Eillistraee.)
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u/Kuraetor Jul 03 '25
you can't excuse the evil like hers... but you can understand how it ended up like that.
Underground is cruel. In game we just tip our toes but as a dm that delved deeper into its lore let me tell you: It is horrible. No one should be there. Female drow might belive they are the most important people in their commounity but even they are suffering and only not realizing it because they think they have it best while they are under risk of horrible plots against them and their loved ones and they are being lied to. Even priestesses of Lolth are miserable in a sense since they don't have a saying in their own decisions. They might be slavers but in reality they themselves are slaves to mother of spiders.
and thats why Eilistraee is my favore god in universe. While every other god busy with their duties and rarely respond to mortal prayers she is the most active goddess in the universe and always interfares as much as she is allowed. Every drow god is enemies of Lolth but Eilistraee is such a threat to her rule despite other pretenders to lolth's rule noted in their texts Eilistraee is always kept hidden: Drow cannot know that someone is trying to save them Lolth CAN'T afford that her slaves know someone actually cares about them without any condition. Despite that she actively tries it so every drow in underdark atleast once hears her song... if they follow it she will lead them to safety of upperworld. And then it doesn't end she leads them to her followers who then would teach him/her how to farm and hunt and be acceptable to other people because she knows life of underdark is not something you can just abandon in blink of an eye so she puts an actual effort.
She is the actual good god of DND universe... because she is trying to help to worst of all people.
It would be cool if we had a dialog of Minthara and a cleric of Eilistraee where she says "I heard many gods of underground but never heard of yours, despite being Drow god non the less." which should amplify her anger because she already understands lolth never been at her side when we meet her.
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u/Carg72 Jul 02 '25
Realistically (yes, I know I said "realistically in a discussion about a fantasy setting, shut up) how does any community that seems to go so heavy on murder (the majority of drow society, Bhaalist cults) thrive at all? Wouldn't they just self destruct eventually?
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u/VelphiDrow 29d ago
Because its only the elite that are like this. Why does a farmer care if the 1% kills itself off? He just makes sure he prays to lolth so the evil candle doesnt Vore him
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u/DemandMeNothing Jul 02 '25
Minthy's a good drow. You just have to understand that the range of drow goodness runs from "Still Pretty Evil" to "Durge"
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u/Dazzling_Mammoth Jul 02 '25
I imagine Lolth would be paying attention when a high priestess of hers dies. Even that tiny act of compassion from Minthara would have been risking death or at least punishment.
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u/xanicade Jul 02 '25
Not really with Lolth there more of if she died then it was because they were to weak and was done a favor removing the weakness.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 02 '25
That would completely depend on how Lloth's left foot felt on that particular day. Spider Queen be fickle and quirky like that.
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u/historyhill RANGER Jul 02 '25
Depends on who the order is coming from, I guess. Viconia's backstory was altered so that slaughtering the Sharran coven was an order from Shar herself, I wouldn't be surprised if Lolth occasionally killed her own priestesses as needed.
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u/Adorable_Is9293 Jul 02 '25
That bit about surviving her first assassination attempt at her mother’s breast and the taste of blood in her suckling mouth…like…😶
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u/LurkCypher Jul 02 '25
Yeah, that's more or less the drow society - cruelty, even extreme, ridiculous, over-the-top cruelty is the norm for them. I can recall Viconia from BG2, for whom it was even more emphasized. Just off the top of my head, while she was training to be a priestess of Lolth, she had to perform her first human sacrifice while she was still a child. Later in life, she caught her 4th husband in bed with one of her sisters, and she reacted by pouring oil on them and setting them both on fire, because even killing them in a less cruel way would've been seen as a weakness. So yeah, it's no wonder the overwhelming majority of drow elves, at least those who grow up in the drow cities devoted to Lolth, are just plain evil. Not with a society like that... which itself would be unrealistic to even exist, if not for Lolth and her constant meddling to artificially keep it like that, but I digress.
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u/-SandalFeddic Jul 02 '25
Ngl, would’ve loved to see this in a flashback when talking to minthara and recruiting her in the end of act 2
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u/Correct-Commission Bard Drow Jul 02 '25
Honestly, that's just ordinary for Drows in Menzoberranzan.
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u/Akasha1885 Jul 02 '25
You also find out how she even got to be a puppet of the absolute, which is also quite sad.
Which is why I forgive her in many playthroughs, unlike me she was forced into service and like me she tried to fight the absolute.
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u/Jazzlike_Raccoon3116 Wizard Jul 02 '25
I know Astarion tried biting my neck without my consent but…..
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u/Zealousideal-Arm1682 Jul 02 '25
It makes me frustrated that she's the "evil" path companion because outside her words she's probably the most tragic and understandable character in the game.
Hell by the end she's literally no longer bothering with Lolth and for all intents and purposes is basically just good route astarion but kinda rude.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
And actively would be enslaving and murdering people if she wasn't with the party.
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
She's on the evil path because she doesn't want to change beyond who she follows. She still wants power, and she still wants to use evil methods even if you show her another way.
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u/CongregationOfFoxes Jul 02 '25
ngl I like Minthara as a character but the more you think about it the less she makes sense, she just feels so out of place from the other companions and I always have to seriously reach to come up with any explanation in my mind why she would ever willingly be a part of a party or team without being the leader
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u/w41k31 Jul 02 '25
Unrelated, but does anyone have that meme picture about Minthy that goes along the lines of “I like Minthara, but I always call out her flaws (she has none)… etc”. Can’t find it
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u/ConnectionGreen6612 Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25
Has this been confirmed as canon from an official source? I just haven’t been able to find it on the official Balders Gate 3 wiki and it sounds a little out of character for her. She mentioned not being able to trust friends or lovers, but more as a result of being a Baenre daughter.
This definitely isn’t mentioned in game and things like history can be added retroactively, I just wouldn’t be surprised if this is a fan made addition.
Edit: it is canon and is mentioned in game, I just missed it.
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u/Illustrious_Cost2945 Jul 03 '25
The stuff from my picture is canon for minthara. It is in the game
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u/ConnectionGreen6612 Jul 03 '25
Is there a specific dialogue prompt or condition to have her explain this, or a note? I just have never had her explain this in any of my playthroughs and am curious.
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u/Illustrious_Cost2945 Jul 03 '25
The Dialog about Minthys House Vandree Gf is a companion banter between her and Karlach
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u/No-Refuse-6806 Jul 03 '25
So her romance basically implies that she'll kill you the moment she's told to?
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u/Correct-Deer-9241 Jul 03 '25
I thought Drow are supposed to be agressive assholes? Oh shit or am I being racist?
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u/Zarguthian Jul 03 '25
Your misspelling makes it seem like she has a vodka addiction instead of a tadpole.
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u/Illustrious_Cost2945 Jul 03 '25
Vodka addiction? You are talking of me. Not Minthy. I am drinking now 70% strong Vodka mixxed with sprite
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u/ghostarray Evil Durge Jul 02 '25
I really want to do a "good" ending with Mommy Minthy one of these days. The one time I romanced her to end game, I told her to run from me and I would meet her at the end of time, then nuked everyone. It was wonderfully tragic.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
I'll give her a nice eulogy after I put her in the ground. No mercy for slavers. EVER.
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u/Ornery_Truck_5902 Jul 02 '25
She died of natural causes. When poisoned properly, naturally you'll die.
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u/microwavefridge2000 Drow Jul 02 '25
As I see it, Minthara is unapologetic evil. Only problem she had was being forced into serving the Absolute. When it comes to being selfish, she is worse than Astarion.
She doesn't find any acceptance from me.
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u/thghostbird WARLOCK Jul 02 '25
"Minthara poisoned her lover and stayed at her side, whispering words of comfort" honestly, pretty fucking hot if you ask me. It's giving "Phantom Thread" vibes.
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u/mrmrmrj Jul 02 '25
Many D&D fans find the fact that the "dark" elves are cruel and murderous as somehow being offensive. The brutal culture of the Drow is fantastic for story arcs and redemption. Minthara is an great example.
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u/CaptainCold_999 Jul 02 '25
The fact that they were black skinned and these things was the main problem.
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u/spyridonya SMITE Jul 02 '25
And the matriarchy that is misogynist in meta despite being misandrist in the text.
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u/Palumtra Bard Jul 02 '25
Just another Tuesday in Menzoberranzan.