Baldur's Gate 3 lead writer says that Minthara doesn't have 'a redemption arc', she's just 'a pragmatic, evil person' with a soft side
I'm just now getting to know Minthara in Baldur's Gate 3—both on my evil necromancer playthrough and my Honour Mode run, where I intend to pick her up from Moonrise Towers after risking my neck to knock her out.
Still, I've cast off the shackles of spoilers after completing my first playthrough—gleefully getting my mitts on whatever details I can about my future drow bestie—which makes this a good point to mention that there'll be spoilers for Minthara's full plot line below.
In a recent interview with IGN, Larian CEO Swen Vincke and co-lead writer Adam Smith discussed her character arc and the nature of evil, and they come to a conclusion I find genuinely fascinating: Minthara may grow to adore her compatriots, but she's still evil with a capital E.
"She has this very unexpected story where she does soften," says Smith, "and you see her learning how to deal with being part of a group." However, Smith's keen to point out that her story "is not a redemption arc." Minthara's tenderness, Smith implies, is a facet of her character from the get-go that you slowly discover—not something the player creates for her.
Another surprising revelation is that Minthara can actually question why you slew the tieflings at the grove if you went full murder with it—even if that was the only way to recruit her until recently. "[Minthara] says, 'Okay, so now I'm not hearing the voice of The Absolute anymore … I killed all those tieflings, it's because I was brainwashed. What is your excuse?'" He goes on to point out that if you just reply 'cause I'm evil', she actually really dislikes that...
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