Ayla's Story: Chasing Approval

Okay, I have a confession. Although I didn’t actively look up tutorials or playthroughs at first, my agenda got the better of me and I looked up a few game mechanics to ensure I could achieve my aim. Remember now, my indignation at Astarion’s rebuff of Zhi meant that I initially went into Ayla’s playthrough with a singular purpose—sexy time with the prickly pale elf. I knew that getting my vindication would require a certain amount of reputation with Astarion—a certain amount of approval. But how to get it? Enter angsty anxiety stage left. That’s the sinister side. Right? Right??

Right. Continuing…

I know, I know! What happened to that curmudgeon? Well, she really wanted her vindication! And I have been known to be a bit, erm, single-minded and Machiavellian in the pursuit of my aims. Just a little, though! And to be fair, I spend a lot of time tying myself into knots trying to justify it because otherwise I’d feel bad. Justification, rationalization, I mean, those can be valuable skills.

But the challenge was that Ayla was basically neutral good. The most vanilla of alignments. At least at first. (Odd, too, in that I'm fairly certain I'm actually chaotic good with a healthy dollop of sass and if I was playing Ayla as myself? So odd.) I wasn’t mercenary and I just wanted to be helpful to everyone, even when their tadpole predicaments clearly brought out the worst in them (and they did!). Sarcasm, hubris, mean girl angst, rude dismissiveness--the only one of the group there at the beginning who had any kind of decency and kindness was Wyll and even he seemed a little, well, fanatical about that demon he was hunting. But you know, we'd all just gone through a fairly traumatic experience, so of course we're all going to be a little bit sensitive. I wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Except for Astarion. The only one I wanted getting benefits in that relationship was me.

So I did my best to be understanding. Ayla didn’t even ask Lae’zel to say please when she demanded to be released from the hunter's trap. Seriously, I don't know what I was thinking because the deadpan sarcasm would normally ooze right out of me hearing that kind of tone. But whoops! Missed opportunity for prickly man approval right there and it wasn't the only missed opportunity. And since I'm an over-achiever and everything, I also seized plenty of opportunities for disapproval.

Ayla offered to help Zevlor and the tieflings in the Druids' Grove. Disapproval. (I mean, she’s a tiefling herself, so…).

She stood in front of the crossbow and wouldn’t let the bitter tiefling kill the goblin in a vengeful fury over the death of a relative by a different goblin because how could that girl live with herself once her big feelings subsided? Disapproval.

She intervened when Lae’zel would have made the tiefling grovel before demanding information from him. "Let's treat people with respect, Lae'zel," Ayla thought. Disapproval. (Who delights in others' humiliation?! Really, Astarion…).

She clapped for terrified, captive Volo, earnestly performing to a jeering crowd of goblins. He clearly needed some support and encouragement, poor desperate fool. Disapproval.

And so many other examples with options and outcomes I can’t quite recall.

The further immersed I became, the more I began to realize the tension between not wanting to spoil the story and needing to know exactly how to ensure I achieved my goal. All knowledge is useful, after all,[1] and I’m nothing if not insatiably, dangerously curious. I always have questions. I always want to know more. And by the way, did you know that you can get game spoilers just by watching interviews with the game’s actors?! I know! Crazy, right?! Yeah…I had to stop doing that, too. I will not engineer the situation. I will not engineer the situation. Sigh.

Truthfully, it’s difficult to remember much of Act I beyond that tension. I wasn’t writing anything down because I was just expecting to play a game, not have an entire experience. I was impressed with how detailed the game is, though. I thought, coming from the CRPG[2] world, this game must seem amazing. It's expansive and there are so many branching options, so many variables that can affect the outcome of any encounter. Coming from the TTRPG[3] world though, I was impressed, but I kept chafing at the constraints, wishing there were more nuanced dialogue options. There were many times that I thought, "Well, that one is too harsh and that one is too saccharine. Where's the pithy, kind option?"[4]

I wondered, too, why my companions sometimes had nothing to say. We just went through this huge, crazy battle and all you come back with is, “Yes?”?! Gale, you can talk for ten minutes about the font in this scroll we just found and that’s all you’ve got for me?! As Lae'zel says, the tadpole may be scrambling our brains, but really? And interestingly enough, while I suspect the game was designed to make the player the hero of the story, the final decisionmaker when the choices stretch out before the characters, I often wanted to know what they thought before I made my decision and they were far too reticent. Differing leadership philosophies, perhaps? (I owe you an apology, Gale. I could talk for more than ten minutes about why I think this might be...)

Alright, alright. Thank you for your indulgence. I'll climb down from the soapbox now.

Anyway, goblin camp decimated and party time with the tieflings finally came. Ayla was walking around the camp, making her way over to Astarion all Martin Solveig and Dragonette Hello style.

I could stick around and get along with you
Hello, oh-oh-oh
It doesn't really mean that I'm into you
Hello, oh-oh-oh-oh

Ah, you're alright, but I'm here, darling, to enjoy the party
Don't get too excited 'cause that's all you'll get from me, hey
Yeah, I think you're cute, but really you should know
I just came to say hello.

Ayla listened patiently as he went on about how he never thought he'd be saving lives and celebrated for it, about how awful it was and how much he hated it. I can't quite remember her response to him (though my current favorite retort is, "It's not that bad. Think of all the goblins you killed."). But I do remember that Ayla took his bottle of wine and swigged it when he complained about how terrible the quality was. Trust but verify and all that.

Astarion: See what I mean? Awful. All I want is a little fun. Is that so much to ask?

Ayla: We could have fun? We could spend some 'quality time' together.

Astarion: Well, that'd certainly spice up this evening. Let's wait until things quieten down. Once the others are asleep, we'll find each other.[5]

Ayla: All right, let's do it. I'll see you later.

Ayla fluttered around the camp, checking in on everyone else (even Lae'zel, who decided that since Ayla wasn't going to make the correct choice, she'd share her bunk with Wyll) and reveling in her soon-to-be-had conquest.

I'm not the kinda girl to get messed up with you
Hello, oh-oh-oh-oh
I'ma let you try to convince me to
Hello, oh-oh-oh-oh

Oh, it's alright, I'm getting dizzy, just enjoy the party
It's okay with me if you don't have that much to say, hey
Kinda like this game, but there's something you should know
I just came to say hello

So, yeah, sexy time with Astarion! Yes! Agenda achieved. I indeed felt vindicated.

[1] I encountered this quote in the Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. Quite spicy (and often controversially so) before spicy was a thing, the series combines romantasy, BDSM, and intricate political intrigue with honestly quite obvious parallels to European, African, and Middle Eastern history and culture. Obvious, but that’s part of the joy of it—the game of recognition. (Here's a review of the first book in the trilogy. It's pretty fair, I think.)

[2] Computer role-playing game.

[3] Table-top role-playing game.

[4] Hmm…I see now that I’m going to have to write at least a little something about some of my other characters. I have a little bit of a beef with Lae’zel’s writers about a certain scene, which just gutted and infuriated me all at the same time. But as the lead writer of BG3, Adam Smith, mentioned in an interview with Game Rant, “by the time you reach the ending [of the game], you’ve told your own story” and that particular beef belongs to Satu and Oona.

[5] I should say that the acting in the game makes all the difference. Listen to Neil Newbon breathe life into the words and suddenly things make a little bit more sense. But if you haven't, I suppose you'll just have to trust me. (Totally worth it, though.)