Inquisitor at the Gate
An Honest Experiment #28
I can’t remember the last time I slipped so easily out of reality. But sometimes, you just need to take a step back.
I’ve recently (after a long battle with my internet connection) managed to download what’s shaping up to be the fantasy RPG of the year: Baldur’s Gate 3.
Larian Studios has taken this franchise to new heights, riding the waves of the Dungeons & Dragons craze that has been on a nerdy pasttime made popular by Vox Machina and Critical Role, and Stranger Things. I have been dabbling with some campaigns online, stretching my storytelling and problem solving muscles and meeting some amazing and creative people.
But I’m also back in a position I was almost exactly 10 years ago — sitting at home immersing myself in a fantasy game because I’m choosing not to face reality.
Healthy? Perhaps not. Definitely not.
It may have been necessary all the same.
Back then, I was the Inquisitor, leading a rag-tag team of sassy mages, scrappy rogues, and battle-hardened warriors through Thedas, trying to stop a power-hungry Darkspawn from achieving godhood. Andraste preserve me, I loved this game, so much I went back for more and played the other two instalments in the series. The world, the story, the characters gripped me in. But more than that. I felt powerful. My back straightens and my head raises high every time I hear the words “Your worship”
I played Dragon Age when I felt the most at a standstill. While I retreated further from reality I felt more myself than ever. In this world, my decisions meant something, got me closer to my goals, made me stronger, gave me a sense of control. Who lived, who died, whoever sat on the throne, depended on my choices.
With that empowerment, I studied harder, dreamed bigger, worked smarter. I had everything going right for me for about 5 years, thanks to some elven avatar stitching up rifts across the Hinterlands and leading an Inquisition to stop the Mage/Templar war.
Ironic, isn’t it? How the consensus for video games is that it’s a waste of time, and yet it sling-shot me further into my best and most productive years?
It’s hard to face a world where it feels like your choices have no weight, so we retreat into these realms, Skyrim, Thedas, Faerûn, just to have our imaginations play out. We make the connections we long for, get the recognition we crave, see ourselves as someone better. It’s the case with any video game.
But also, Baldur’s Gate 3 rubs it in. It poses an interesting question in its main quest. You have been kidnapped and Mind-flayer has planted a parasite into your brain. Eventually you will undergo a process that will turn you into a mind-flayer yourself. That’s how they grow their numbers.
You as the player have the agency to choose whether to search for a cure and remove the parasite or to embrace the powers it grants you.
In a way, isn’t that how our worlds of fiction — the good ones that stay with us — work? Something in your mind that alters your path and makes you feel powerful? Expands your potential? Gives you ‘authority’?
It’s nice.
I won’t put it lightly though, I’m a slut for side-quests and there is no shortage of them in real life. Accepting too many just takes over your gametime, I’ve learnt, but they’re still useful. In doing them, I might get a power-up that will come in handy later, strengthen my character, find that sweet new armour set or a new companion to join this party.
On the chance that there’s no New Game Plus I might as well squeeze everything I can out of this life. I know what my main quest is; but I don’t have to do it right now, do I?
Right now I just happen to be stagnant.
It doesn’t mean I won’t finish the real game. I just want to enjoy what it has to offer.
And yes, that includes an obsessive videogame retreat, for now.
Are you enjoying Baldur’s Gate 3? Let me know in the comments!
-M