Last night, I spawned NPCs and forced their interactions so I could see some of the banters I had never gotten to see before. One of the ones I triggered was Kivan & Viconia.
While I used Viconia in my first BG2 run, I never used her in BG1. I was surprised at what I found: She's actually rather nice. I kind of expected her to be more... evil.
When you meet her, she's being chased by a Flaming Fist mercenary, who is trying to take her into custody to kill her. From the interaction, he says she is wanted for murder; it doesn't really sound like it's definite or that he even really has proof. Certainly not enough to commit her to death: Viconia denies it (and, given the meeting in BG2, I kind of believe her). This is cemented for me by the mercenary's response when you say you can't allow him to take her: He sentences all of you to death. When you save her, she is incredibly grateful and pledges not to disappoint you.
I was most shocked at her interactions with Kivan. She can actually initiate a conversation with Kivan where she says something like "I know we are supposed to hate each other, but maybe we should try to get along." His response is to basically call her a drow and insult her. She'll defend herself, but eventually she may try to reason with him again. At which point he'll insult her again. She'll never outright insult him, but he has no problem doing it to her. But he's supposed to be the good-aligned NPC?
This kind of thing pops up again in BG2, specifically with Anomen.
If you keep her through ToB, in her ending, she can actually team up with Drizzit and seemingly change her alignment (if memory serves, by romancing her, you actually CAN change her alignment). So how come so many of the NPCs hate her so much? Just because she's a drow? Even Viconia seems aware of the racism against her.
Just another example of the complex relationships in this game that could slip by unnoticed.
While I used Viconia in my first BG2 run, I never used her in BG1. I was surprised at what I found: She's actually rather nice. I kind of expected her to be more... evil.
When you meet her, she's being chased by a Flaming Fist mercenary, who is trying to take her into custody to kill her. From the interaction, he says she is wanted for murder; it doesn't really sound like it's definite or that he even really has proof. Certainly not enough to commit her to death: Viconia denies it (and, given the meeting in BG2, I kind of believe her). This is cemented for me by the mercenary's response when you say you can't allow him to take her: He sentences all of you to death. When you save her, she is incredibly grateful and pledges not to disappoint you.
I was most shocked at her interactions with Kivan. She can actually initiate a conversation with Kivan where she says something like "I know we are supposed to hate each other, but maybe we should try to get along." His response is to basically call her a drow and insult her. She'll defend herself, but eventually she may try to reason with him again. At which point he'll insult her again. She'll never outright insult him, but he has no problem doing it to her. But he's supposed to be the good-aligned NPC?
This kind of thing pops up again in BG2, specifically with Anomen.
If you keep her through ToB, in her ending, she can actually team up with Drizzit and seemingly change her alignment (if memory serves, by romancing her, you actually CAN change her alignment). So how come so many of the NPCs hate her so much? Just because she's a drow? Even Viconia seems aware of the racism against her.
Just another example of the complex relationships in this game that could slip by unnoticed.