'I've been disappointed so many times': Karlach from Baldur's Gate 3 talks scrapping the lady stereotypes of RPG romances, says Larian just 'let me do what I wanted to do'
Karlach from Baldur's Gate 3 is a few things—big, red, strong, and beloved (including by us), but she also bucks a lot of typical RPG trends for leading ladies. She's powerful, excitable, expressive, outspoken, and often angry without that anger being cast as a character flaw. She's also incredibly sweet, and has become a fan-favourite love interest for all kinds of players across the spectrum of sexuality.
Karlach is played by Samantha Béart, who is non-binary and uses she/they pronouns. As confirmed by an interview with Gayming Magazine, Béart approached the character's performance from a sapphic angle. They elaborated on their acting choices in an interview with Alexa Ray Corriea for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences earlier this week.
«When I've talked about the romance, and I said I imagined talking to a woman—that was to make sure that our sapphic players felt included. It's not to do about the exclusion, absolutely not. If I said I went in and I imagined some hot dude, would anyone blink an eye? No they wouldn't.»
It's a relatable frustration that I've personally felt to some extent myself—this idea that your mere existence as a queer person is innately political or a statement, rather than just a way of being. It's one of those uncomfy biases that's cropped up in the RPGs of yesteryear too— and sometimes in unexpected ways.
«I've been disappointed so many times,» they add. «And I'll name [them]—Dragon Age, Mass Effect. You're playing a female, you romance a female, and then it's weird. It goes all 'male gaze'.» Karlach, on the other hand, «is [a] soldier, and she's tall, and she's big. And of course she can be girly. But she's more sort of—puppy dog floppiness, rather than feminine and 'oh okay, now you've broken through the hard exterior'.»
She does mention that «of course, the player is an amorphous blob», adding that it's «a testament to the writing, directors, and engineers for creating that, because everyone thinks they're being spoken to» in
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