Welcome to Part 3 of a critical look at Beamdog’s creative contributions to
Baldur’s Gate. We’re going to analyze and discuss the Enhanced Edition characters and their storylines, and try to highlight problem spots that - much like gameplay bugs - could potentially be smoothed over and patched.
This is not the place for statements of blind support or blind hatred of Beamdog. If that’s all you have to contribute to the conversation, please take your comments elsewhere.Having covered
the half-orc blackguard Dorn il-Khan and
the vampire thief Hexxat, today we’ll be talking about:
Rasaad yn BashirLet me start by saying this: he’s bald! For the first time a character with a bald portrait actually has a bald paper doll to match. It’s a small detail, but definitely something worth pointing out (let’s hope they get around to doing the same for Minsc and Sarevok someday).
Last time, I came to the conclusion that Hexxat is the most problematic and inconsistent of the Enhanced NPCs – but also that her design and storyline were determined, at least in part, by the role she was required to play within Team Evil. Rasaad is under no such constraints: while he
does fill an existing gap in the roster (he’s the first monk party member), the game already had seven Good NPCs (nine if you count the converted Anomen and Sarevok). This may explain why there’s a case to be made for Rasaad being the best-written of the four new characters.
We first encounter Rasaad in BG:EE, after arriving in Nashkel. Unlike Dorn and Hexxat, there are no tricks, no need to jump through hoops: he's a Sun Soul Monk, he worships Selune, he's Lawful Good to the core. Rasaad starts off by offering to explain his faith to you; this
could have come off as tedious, but it works for two rather clever reasons. First, any discussion of Sun Soul beliefs tends to tie back into Rasaad’s own backstory: his childhood in Calimshan, his training with the Order, the tragic death of his older brother Gamaz. Instead of burying you with lore you could’ve just as easily read in a book, the exposition works in such a way that you come out of each exchange knowing more about Rasaad than you did before.
The other reason this works is because, even as he lays out the tenets of his faith in later dialogues, he openly admits that he doesn’t always act in accordance with those tenets. This conflict is, in fact, the heart of Rasaad’s storyline, and while he isn’t quite at a breaking point yet (that will come later) it serves to add another layer to his personality. You get to see the contrast between what he
believes and what he
wants.
I should note here that after his wooden performance in the
Mass Effect games, Mark Meer really threw me for a loop as Rasaad. It’s not his
best performance in the game – we’ll get to that later – but he manages to sell the character’s anger, guilt and turmoil very convincingly.
The BG:EE portion of Rasaad's questline is fairly straightforward: after a series of ambushes by Dark Moon Monks (sworn enemies of the Sun Soul), Rasaad leads the player to the Cloud Peaks, where – somewhat predictably – the cult leader turns out to be his older brother Gamaz. This is telegraphed fairly early in the story, where Rasaad recalls his brother’s death and mentions that he
never found the body. But while Gamaz’s presence may not come as a shock, his
motivations certainly do: he believes that when they were training in the Order together, Rasaad held back, allowing Gamaz to appear the superior of the two. And Rasaad admits it. This actually works as a twist, because you expect Sharrans to lie through their teeth, but Gamaz has the facts right – he just misinterpreted Rasaad’s intentions. After a chase that allows a bit more dialogue between the brothers, you’re finally forced to put the elder Bashir brother down, with a loose end to pursue in the next game: Gamaz's master is revealed to be
Alorgoth.
We find Rasaad again in Athkatla, in the early part of BG2:EE. It’s immediately apparent that a lot has changed, as the introductory cutscene has him being attacked by fellow members of the Sun Soul. Once you re-recruit him, he reveals that there’s a new cult in town, the Twofold Trust, which is threatening to destabilize both the Sun Soul and the Dark Moon. This cult believes that Selune and Shar are actually different aspects of the same goddess (which certainly isn't the craziest idea put forth in the D&D cosmology). Rasaad plans to infiltrate the cult, as he believes its leader, Collus Darathon, is in fact Alorgoth himself.
Now, there's a bit of a plothole here, and it's one the player can explicitly point out on more than one occasion: Rasaad has never seen Darathon, and high-ranking Dark Moon defectors insist he and Alorgoth are two completely different people. And yet his conviction that Darathon is Alorgoth
never wavers, despite the lack of any insight as to
why he's so sure. Obviously, the plot requires Rasaad to pursue Darathon (rather than, say, the actual Dark Moon itself) but can't quite come up with a convincing reason for us to believe him.
There's also a very strange aside that never seems to gel with the rest of the storyline: an encounter with the Tears of Selune reveals that Rasaad has been framed for murder, in a way that's very clearly and specifically targeting him. Alorgoth never takes direct responsibility for this, and it doesn't come up again until the very end of the SoA quest - and even then, it's incidental (we'll get to that in a bit). It feels more like an artifact from cut content than an aspect of the existing narrative, especially since you can talk your way out of that encounter.
Just as we saw in BG:EE, investigating the Twofold and meeting the many converts who’ve abandoned both Shar and Selune feeds back into Rasaad’s ongoing inner struggle, which finally hits its breaking point – the scene in which he has to recite the Twofold creed is a powerful moment, as he’s forcing himself to speak heresy for the sake of revenge.
This is also the point where I should mention the player's active hand in shaping Rasaad's path: you can push him towards abandoning the Sun Soul and embracing the Twofold, or staying true to his beliefs; you can go berserk in the Temple, or navigate its trials to successfully infiltrate the cult. These options have an impact that isn't immediately apparent, but you
will see Rasaad change in accordance with the course you're persuading him to take.
Naturally, Rasaad turns out to have been right all along. Darathon is Alorgoth, who leads a Dark Moon attack on the Twofold Temple. After a climactic battle, Alorgoth escapes, leaving Rasaad with a choice: to join the Trust and help them rebuild, or return to his Order and try to clear his name (this is where the frame job the Tears mentioned comes back into play, though the player will never have an opportunity to help). There's another awkward bit where, if he chooses to stay with the Trust, Rasaad will actually leave the party... only to join up again the next time you ask. It might have been better to keep him - or at least this version of him - away for the remainder of SoA, to create an immediate difference between Twofold-Rasaad and Sun Soul-Rasaad.
In fact, what we have here is the inverse of Dorn's scenario, where choosing between a patron or freedom is purely mechanical with no story consequences. Here, whatever decision you help Rasaad make ultimately determines his fate, but there are no gameplay reflections of that choice: no alignment change, no loss of Sun Soul powers. (Though I suppose one can argue that as Rasaad's powers aren't necessarily divine in nature, he should be able to keep them even if he no longer believes in the Sun Soul way.)
Let’s take a moment to discuss Rasaad’s romance. To understand why it works as well as it does, we should bear in mind that in the original game, the only love interest for a female PC was Anomen Delryn, a
deeply divisive and problematic character (one of his earliest banters has him expressing doubt that a
woman could have done the things attributed to the player). While Anomen's personality is largely determined by the outcome of his own quest, he starts off being rather abrasive; not so with Rasaad, whose dialogue is sweet without being saccharine. He gets easily flustered when you flirt with him, he’s extremely vulnerable to teasing, and it can be very entertaining to see him tripping over himself. The fact that he’s so much less confident than Anomen actually makes him
more appealing.
That said, there's one particular scene I want to draw attention to: the abduction in chapter 6. As I’m sure you all know, this is a scripted event in which your love interest – Anomen, Jaheira, Aerie or Viconia – is kidnapped by Bodhi and turned into a vampire. It’s an additional wrinkle in the romance storyline, and one that actually works quite well as a dramatic uptick.
For the EE characters, Beamdog went with a bit of a twist: they manage to elude Bodhi’s grasp. I love that – it’s an unexpected surprise even for veteran players - but some justifications work better than others. Neera instinctively wild-surges herself away: acceptable. Hexxat is already a vampire and can’t be swayed to Bodhi’s side: acceptable. Dorn’s patron is unwilling to give him up: acceptable (though a free Dorn is simply "stronger than [Bodhi] thought", which rings rather hollow – this could have been another opportunity to differentiate between blackguard and fallen blackguard).
Rasaad, however, uses his Sun Soul powers to scare Bodhi off. And that, in itself, doesn’t strike me as especially convincing. Three of the four original love interests were high-level clerics - Viconia in particular can probably make vampires explode at will by this point. The other EE characters can avoid being taken because of what they
are, not what they can
do; Rasaad probably should have been taken and turned.
ToB doesn’t immediately deal with the personal aftermath of the events at the Twofold Temple; instead, a Sharran ambush gives Rasaad one last chance to take down his nemesis, chasing him through a dwarven stronghold and into the Plane of Shadows. We learn the full extent of Alorgoth’s rather brilliant plan: by setting up this false cult, he has not only weakened the Sun Soul, but rooted out the weakest of the Dark Moon as well.
Unfortunately, this climactic showdown hits an immediate speedbump, and it's a problem that factors into Hexxat's and Neera's storylines as well: the party is facing a canonical D&D character. For Hexxat, any possibility of turning against L is rendered moot when his true identity is revealed; Neera’s "guest star" will be a point of discussion next time; and here, Rasaad is fighting a character who is simply too important to be killed off. There's no way he can fulfill his goal, no way he can actually avenge Gamaz.
Instead, the player is confronted with the same choice repeatedly: stick with Rasaad, or let him go. This actually comes up
three times in a very short span, which may be a bit much considering it's the same kind of false choice we saw with Hexxat's ToB scenario: if you leave Rasaad to his own devices, he's gone and his storyline ends. If you stick with him, and pull him back from the brink, he stays and his storyline ends. There's no real weight to the decision because hanging onto Rasaad doesn't cost you anything, while abandoning him costs you his place in your party. (Imagine if you lost another party member -
permanently - if you failed to get Rasaad back in time? If that was the price for indulging his vengeance? That would be a much tougher call for the player to make, because the choice would
matter.)
In any event, assuming Rasaad survives the final confrontation, he can end the game in one of three states: loyal to the Sun Soul, leading the Twofold Trust, or in a romance (his last plea for a romanced player to abandon ascension is truly excellent, aided in no small part by Meer's voice acting). And there's an epilogue for all three possibilities. Even taking into account the awkward pacing (ToB doesn't actually have any impact on Rasaad's fate unless he dies, since the variables that determine his epilogue are set in SoA), there's no question that this is the story/roleplaying reward the player has earned for guiding Rasaad through his crisis.
Overall, Rasaad’s storyline is neatly structured, with his BG:EE quest leading to SoA (through the death of Gamaz and the foreshadowing of Alorgoth), and from there to ToB (with that last escalating battle in the Plane of Shadows). It’s solid from start to finish, never failing in its attempts to make Rasaad sympathetic, and demonstrates Beamdog's writing at its best.
Next time, it’s Mages Gone Wild with Neera!