BG1-BG2 NPC Continuity **spoilers**

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No way, I just wanted to make a cleric... how am I supposed to give him 5 points in long shords

 

Great thread! Always love to read about this kind of history stuff! And Dynaheir's spirit is caught in a cage? Could this mean imprisonment by spell? Or in a glass jar? Hmm...time to import my level 31 mage and cast freedom every screen!

 

Maybe they turned her into a vampire, and the "cage" is her own, undead, body? Minsc does have the change of heart from Racial Enemy: Gnoll to Racial Enemy: Vampire between BG1 & BG2, after all...

[ February 16, 2005, 23:40: Message edited by: The Magpie ]

 

heh... interpretation begins to run amok...

Well, Minsc's racial enemy was probably changed because the bonus to gnoll fighting would be useless in BG2. But hey, Minsc does say that "they" killed Dynaheir (while Immy specifically refers to Irenicus killing Khalid), so maybe you could make an argument that Bohdi was involved? Sounds like enough of a plot device to drive, say, some kind of help Minsc to rescue Dynaheir from vampirism quest, if you're a modding kind of person.

More Athans info from a quick search of the planet baldur's gate forums:

On Athans relationship to Bioware:

A summary of the events in Athans' BG:

On a BG2 romance included in Athans you might not have considered before:

On how to play BG2:SoA as Athans wrote it:

And finally, on the events in the ToB novelization:

[ February 17, 2005, 21:11: Message edited by: Bion ]

 

I did search through the booktalk threads, but didn't find what I was looking for: a plot synopsis. Nearly all of the mentions of Athans on SP, in threads with titles like God, the Baldur's Gate books blow big time..., tend to be completely dismissive of Athans both as a writer and as a contributor to the world of BG and FR. From the weight of opinion on his work, this seems entirely justified. However, given that 1) Athans was (is?) as a managing editor of WotC, and so, someone with a great deal of power in determining FR canon; 2) his BG books are considered part of the FR canon; and 3) his work had at least a small effect on the BG series games ("Abdel" as an importable characters in TotSW, SoA, and ToB, and very possibly the idea of Jaheira as romance-able character in BG2), it seemed he would have to at least be mentioned in a discussion of BG continuity.

 

I completely agree with your first two points, and almost completely agree with your third. Of course Athans worked from early drafts, and as it seems everyone who as both read the books and played the game has noted, the game portrays the world of BG and its inhabitants in a far more rich and satisfying way than the book, and that the experience of the game was rich enough for players that it Athans' lame novels seemed like an affront. My guess is that WotC (and even Athans) realizes this, and so they'll most likely leave the events relayed in the BG series purposely vague in upcoming sourcebooks. However, while many BG fans might prefer reading BG fanfic over Athans, the sad fact is that his novelization was the only one to be published.

Also, it still seems likely to me that WotC was in the loop throughout the development process; I'm sure they demanded it, as they wanted to protect their brand. WotC would have wanted to make sure all the background info was canon: Council of Six, the characterization of the gods, the book histories and town crier speeches, etc. How much Athans was party to this I can't say. However, as the first novel came out before BG2 or even TotSC, and WotC of course continued to be involved perhaps just in a consulting role in game development, I would bet that the developers of BG2 had read Athans' BG novelization before they finalized the storyline.

Thankfully of course they ignored almost all of it; in fact, I wonder whether the inclusion of an "Abdel" in the TotSC mission pack reflected someone's opinion of Athans' cardboard cutout Conan in giving him a lower intelligence and wisdom than even Minsc. But it also could be that one of the developers thought, "hmmm, a Jaheira romance... it sucks in the book, but it could be very interesting in the game if done right."

Finally, I'm struck by the at least superficial similarities between Abdel and the character I argued, completely without thinking of Athans, would probably be the most commonly played CHARNAME in all the many runthroughs players have done in BG, in this thread, The BG series beaten path. Most likely this just means the developers had the sense that, on the whole, the most likely to be played CHARNAME would be a male human fighter, and suggested to Athans that he work with that.

 

A nit: Immy doesn't refer to Irenicus killing Khalid. What she says is that Khalid was already dead when Irenicus began "cutting" him.

 

@Tal- I'd still guess that the BG2 developers either read or knew about Athans' BG, as they probably were encouraged to read alot of WotC novels (if they hadn't already) to get into the spirit of things. I'd agree with you that the ones who read it must have thought it was crap, and I'd also agree that the game has 1000 times the content, style, and artistic merit of the book.

@Truper- could be; in any case, what counts as dying in the BG2 world, when resurrection is so easy? Irenicus' experimentation was certainly the cause that Khalid could not be raised from the dead...

 

Wasn't it Jaheira who didn't even want to make an effort? even though she would be able to cast call of the harper when she reaches a certain level? Maybe Khalid was used in the manufacturing of some fleshgolem and is still secretly in the game

 

OMG! That just made Jan's Flesh Golem pun on Keldron a lot more ...