10 Baldur's Gate 3 Characters That Feel the Most Tragic

Living in the Forgotten Realms is generally awful if you're unlucky enough to be a character in Baldur's Gate 3. I would argue that every character in BG3 has some amount of tragedy in their past or future, but some characters stand out more because their lives are just that bad.

The tragedies of BG3's characters fall largely into two categories. The first would be characters who played a key role in that tragedy, like Gale deciding to date his magic goddess and then putting a Netherese Orb in his chest that could level a city if he doesn't sustain it with regular magic consumption.

The second is the characters who are victims of circumstance, like Ketheric Thorm losing the people he loves through a series of unfortunate events before he becomes a villain. In reality, most characters fall in the middle of these categories, having some responsibility in their tragedies, but not control.

10 Mayrina

The Power of Grief

Mayrina is both a victim of circumstance and the cause of some parts of her tragedy. Pregnant and with a dead husband, Mayrina seeks out Ethel for the promise that her husband will be resurrected in exchange for her baby once it's born.

Mayrina's absence worries her brothers, leading to their deaths. On top of that, her husband either remains dead or is revived as a mindless undead creature. She couldn't cope with the grief, but she was able to learn from her encounter with the Hag, leaving her prepared to deal with another Hag if you find her in Act 3.

9 Vanra

The Hag's Almost-Daughter

Vanra is a child who's gone missing in Act 3, which you can learn about from her distraught mother, who's trying to find help searching for her daughter. Once you go to the bar to learn more at the mother's direction, you're told by the staff that Vanra doesn't exist, because the staff is working for the Hag who took her.

Depending on if you go through with finding Vanra, you change her fate, but even saving her doesn't make her any less traumatized by the situation. If you don't save her, she'll become a Hag. If you save her, you'll find her at home with her mom, not saying anything other than "mum."

8 Scratch

Who's A Good Boy?

Scratch can be recruited to your camp after you find him in Act 1, and you'll find him in a heartbreaking situation that's worth using Speak with Animals to discover. During a delivery, Scratch and his human were attacked. Scratch was told to flee, and then returned to wait by his human, whom he believed was just injured.

Adopting Scratch is the best fate for him, as he was part of the Sword Coast Couriers, and the employee who managed the kennels was cruel to the dogs, which you can learn in Act 3 if you speak with her. If you have Scratch with you, she'll try to get you to return him, which is the ultimate tragic fate for Scratch.

7 Lae'zel

Her World Is Shaken

Lae'zel gets a lot of unfair hate for her abrasive nature and opinions that often sound cruel, but she's the product of the environment she grew up in, which you start to see starting with the Githyanki Crèche, then again going into Act 3. She has full faith in Vlaakith and wants to prove herself to her queen.

This starts to fall apart when you try to remove the tadpoles at the Crèche, only to learn that it can't be done. From here, Lae'zel's beliefs are challenged throughout the game to the point that she has to give up what she held onto for her entire life to that point and go against the queen she once pledged to serve. It's not easy to handle that kind of mental and emotional shift.

6 Arabella

Her Best Fate Is Lonely

Arabella can appear in all three acts depending on your choices, but her circumstances in each act aren't great. In Act 1, you can save her from being killed for attempting to steal the Druid's Idol, but this rescue opens up her path to more sorrow.

If you saved her, then you find her in Act 2 and have the task of informing her that her parents are now dead, which could result in her running off on her own, or her going to your camp, where she bonds with Withers. While this lets Arabella start on her path of following the Weave and learning to use its magic, it leaves her alone in her journey for the most part.

5 Isobel

A Victim of Her Father's Choices

Isobel lost her mom early, leaving Ketheric to raise her alone while grieving. This was fine at first, but Dame Aylin's appearance at their home and subsequent relationship with Isobel caused tension between Isobel and Ketheric, who was unhappy with his daughter loving Aylin.

At some point, Isobel died from unrevealed causes, which drove Ketheric to seek help from Shar. In exchange for trapping Dame Aylin in Shadowfell and becoming the chosen of Myrkul, Isobel was brought back to life. She felt that something was wrong and ended up figuring out that she had been dead for a century and her dad had changed. At that point, all she could do was set up a sanctuary to spare as many people as possible.

4 Nightsong (Dame Aylin)

Trapped In a Cycle of Death

The Nightsong is the culmination of Shadowheart's companion quest, and it turns out that her real identity is Dame Aylin, daughter of Selûne. Aylin has been trapped for at least a century, waiting for Sharrans to kill her in order to become Dark Justiciars, as she wouldn't permanently die as an immortal being.

Aylin is effectively forced into a cycle of death, and you can free her or add to it by letting Shadowheart go through with her last trial from Shar. While freeing Aylin gives her a better future, it can't erase the tragedy of the last century.

3 Karlach

Every Ending Is Bad

Karlach has an infernal engine instead of a heart, and that's the core of her ending options. The tadpole freed her from Avernus, temporarily. The problem is that her engine runs too hot to survive outside of Avernus for long, and there's currently no available solution.

Your options at the end for Karlach are to let her become a Mindflayer, let her burn out and die, or send her back to Avernus to survive until you can find a solution in the future, which might not happen. You can go to Avernus with her, but even that's not a great fate. It's just less lonely.

2 Shadowheart

Her Fate Was Changed

The daughter of Selûnites, Shadowheart, was supposed to become a follower of Selûne as well. However, Sharrans ambushed her when she was going through a trial as a child, kidnapping her and her parents.

Shadowheart's parents were made into captives, and Shadowheart's memories were erased to turn her into a follower of Shar. She was even forced to torture her parents, who had to see their daughter show no recognition of them. Even the best outcome of reuniting the family can't change the damage done to all of them, and they'll always have pain from Shar's mark.

1 Astarion

Hundreds of Years Without Control

Astarion had to choose between dying or trusting Cazador while he was under duress. While choosing to live was the natural instinct, Astarion didn't realize that meant becoming a Vampire Spawn and making himself a slave to Cazador. Astarion is only freed because he was in the right place to be taken by the Nautiloid and given the tadpole that lets him defy normal Vampire rules.

From here, the best fate for Astarion is staying a spawn and defeating Cazador, as he remains true to himself, even if he can't experience normal life again. If you let him ascend, he has more power, but grows lonelier from it and can't trust those around him.

The characters of Baldur's Gate 3 have it rough, and you know things are bad when being abducted by Mindflayers and having a tadpole inserted into their brain is the best event to happen to some of them in years. When the standard is that high, picking out the most tragic characters is difficult when every story grows sadder as you learn more in Baldur's Gate 3.