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The original was posted on /r/characterrant by /u/Tharkun140 on 2023-10-06 22:56:00.

While all companions in BG3 are generally liked, some are less… universally liked than others. Case in point, not everyone’s favorite githyanki fighter Lae’zel. If you told me there’s one companion in that game you really dislike, Lae’zel would be my first guess as to who earned your ire. But there are people who really like that character (as evidenced by all the half-naked githyanki art in my discord server) so what gives? Surely one portion of the players must be missing something, right?

Well, one writer has an answer for us. People are unfairly harsh on this character simply because they can’t handle a woman being tough and would be much more forgiving towards a male character of this sort. However, since we live in a world where “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them” is a line someone wrote, I’m going to dispute that claim and offer an alternate hypothesis:

Lae’zel is an asshole.

She’s not ignorant, she’s not misunderstood, she’s not just stressed out. She’s an abrasive, violent, hot-headed, stubborn, denial-prone, racist, self-flattering jerk annoyed by everything nice and fluffy in this plane of existence. Those are not traditionally likeable traits in a character of any sex. A gender-bent Lae’zel would just go from being a mean bitch to being a mean dick, and I imagine he’d get even more flack; The whole “I’ll fight my mate for dominance” shtick would certainly feel less funny and more genuinely unnerving, if nothing else.

And those aren’t just surface-level traits you can ignore by skipping a dialogue line or two, they are present in everything Lae’zel does too. There are multiple possible outcomes where she straight-up gets herself killed because she just knows better than anyone and fuck you. And that includes a scene where Shadowheart kills that gith in her sleep and nobody in the party cares. Karlach is the only one sorta sad about it, but even she’s not mad or concerned, because why would she be? You could kill Lae’zel in broad daylight for no reason and any court in Faerûn would still rule self-defense, because she’s just that kind of person.

And you know what? That’s the point. This is who Lae’zel is meant to be, and who she should be given her background. She’s exactly what you would expect of someone raised in a space nazi cult to worship an evil lich queen and then dropped on Faerûn in a violent manner. And it’s not just the writing; Everything about that character from visual design to voice-acting paints a coherent picture of a devoted, otherworldy warrior with no regard for the local notions of civility or morality. I genuinely consider her an A-grade character and can appreciate the artistic merit that went into her design.

But you know what else I appreciate? Not having to contend for the approval of someone who insults me every time I approach and considers saying “thank you” heretical. And I know Lae’zel gets moderately better if you stick with her through her arc, but it takes time. Not everyone has the right amount of patience and not everyone cares in the first place. People experience media differently, and that goes double for a video game that’s objectively different every time you play it.

And that’s good. That’s the beauty of it. You can interact with Lae’zel pretty much as little or as much as you want during your playthrough and things will work out. If you enjoy her personality or find it easy enough to swallow, have her in the core of your party. Hell, if you want to romance a space nazi whose idea of foreplay is breaking your racially-inferior nose with her +5 fist, you’ve bought a game that lets you do that! You don’t need to justify yourself, and you certainly don’t need to go on Twitter (or X, whatever) to complain that a tough-to-like companion is indeed tough to like. Because that makes sense.

I’m obviously not telling anyone that you shouldn’t discuss how well some RPG companion is written or how you feel about that character, but just recognize that these are ultimately two different things. The best written character of all time will still be disliked by someone somewhere. And if that character is designed to be a jerk… wouldn’t it be kinda weird if they weren’t disliked occasionaly? It just comes with the territory. Trying to change people’s feelings by explaining the depth of said character is pointless, and pretending that your alien conqueror girlfriend is actually an amazing and tender sweetheart whom the evil haters need to leave alone… well that’s just doing the game disservice, because it wasn’t the damn point.

That concludes the extent of my anti-githyanki hate speech. Stay tuned for my next rant where I’ll explain why you have a moral duty to make fun of Shadowheart and how exactly you should go about that. Assuming I’ll find the constitution for it, that is.