sarevok anchev!

surprise attack okay

1. i like how his story so closely parallels imoen and the protagonist's - that even as he does so many despicable things to you in particular all while cackling evilly with his evil suit of armour the game makes it clear that the only reason the roles weren't reversed was because of pure luck. there's a moment during rhe throne of bhaal trials where

an illusion of sarevok as a freshly abandoned ten year old is being asked about why he did the things he did. and he answers in plain terms essentially that this was all he had ever known and all he had left. it plays onto this vastly different nurture vs nature argument. he's also an anti capitalist king (son of a corrupt oligarch that he kills)

2. what i don't like

anything about how his story was done in baldur's gate 3. like, good god that was fucking awful. barely even had a personality he was just a hollowed out husk of devotion to bhaal - which isn't really true of his personality at all, even when he was fully evil - he still had friends and loved ones and personal attachments.

there's some degree of like, nuance in the sense that there's ambiguity over how much of it is his choice and how much of it is the ontologically evil blood - but if you wanted to do that you needed to make him at least fun.

3. quote
"I orchestrated a war to slaughter thousands. I have felt the cold embrace of death. I have witnessed the horrors of the Abyss. But you, Viconia... you scare me."

also this one pointed at Edwin is a banger
"You remind me of a younger me, mage, before I was slaughtered and sent to the pits of Hell. Think on that before you burn your bridges."

4. brotp
It's cheap - but Bhaalspawn trio is my favorite platonic dynamic for him. The weirdest found family that technically isn't found ever.

5. OTP
I don't really ship him with anyone. Tamako is the closest but she's a pretty underdeveloped character (it is Baldur's Gate) and she gets done dirty. I also think him and Viconia are super funny but I wouldn't describe it as a ship