everyone always talks about how much durge hated admitting he was in love — or at least respected and admired — enver gortash, but what about gortash?
enver gortash is a man who never once experienced true, unencumbered affection. affection, lust, love — these are all tools for the tyrants hand to use to create a perfect order, a single ruler who would dominate faerûn with an ironclad fist.
gortash, even from when he was young, would never admit to liking anyone. his parents, poor and unfortunate, called him an ungrateful, willing thing, selling him to the hells for a pittance just to never see his demanding face again. the hells, an unforgiving place with an even more unforgiving master, hardened his soul and taught him the most important lesson of all — power is all that matters.
not affection, not lust, and certainly not love.
yet, he grows close to the child of his master’s greatest rival. he knows in his soul that to rule — to truly have power — one must never lighten their grip on anything, and so he uses that closeness — that growing affection he denies — to tighten his tyrants hand around that bhaalspawn’s neck.
but enver gortash, like all his predecessors who wanted everything the world had to offer, was only mortal. a mortal man who was ever so lonely at the top of the world, looking down at the subjugation he brought. so he plays the long con, denying that what he is feeling is anymore than habitual fondness, that the murderous presents his leashed dog brings him don’t warm his heart and that he doesn’t relish in the soft expression of surprise that ravenous beast makes when he doesn’t run away. he is the master of manipulation here, he knows he has the bhaalspawn tightly woven around his finger, he knows he is ruining them.
but just as he had declawed, defanged, and destroyed the child of bhaal, so had that beautiful monster softened his tyrants black hand and made gortash want to rule together.
how humiliating for little enver gortash, to realize how little he had actually grown from that small starved child in the slums longing for a friend. and how utterly tragic that it is his undoing no matter what choices the player makes in this game.
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Also there're so many reasons why durge might want to deny Bhaal, aside from general "killing is bad, the god of murder is bad."
Orin betrayed them and it was somewhat from silent approval of Bhaal, so "god betrayed me first" kind of narrative. A desire to get revenge, on Orin AND on Bhaal.
A desire to live. Durge's fate, Durge's Destiny is to literally kill everyone and then themselves. What if they want to live? What if desire to live is stronger than desire to kill?
Alternatively, what if there's someone they don't want to kill? A single person for Durge to care about, a single person they would want to save instead of bloodying father's altar with their blood. A single connection like that is all what it would take.
A desire to break free. Durge can be completely okay with murders, loving murdering people even, reveling in violence. But they're their father's puppet and they could want to break free of it, to have their own will, to have only their voice in their head. To be a master of themselves with no one to kneel to.
The "I'm better than my father" kind of mindset. Durge is made of a flesh of a god, in a sense they ARE god. Bhaal was mortal once. Why would Durge listen to him when they can attempt to overthrow him, to become a new god?
Being compelled to other side. It's not unknown for gods to steal each other's followers/chosen ones. Look at Ketheric, look at Shadowheart. Myrkul is recently chosen-less after the Moonrise Towers. Bane would love to fuck with Bhaal like that. Shar is there. Good gods who would try to redeem Durge or use them against their own father are there. It would be a delightful power move from Selune to offer Durge assistance/ an alliance against Bhaal.
Idk, I just love how multidimensional the defiance of Bhaal can be. I have a lil army of Durges exactly because I can mold them into such different people
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The tide is turning for the TQ+. And they have no one to blame but themselves
Wes Streeting last night admitted he had been wrong to say that “trans women are women” amid a major Labour row over the Cass review into NHS gender care.
The shadow health secretary said the controversial LGBT rights group Stonewall – where he used to work – had got it wrong with its slogan.
In a major about-turn for the party, he told The Sun that he now admitted “there are lots of complexities” on the trans issue but that he was prepared to take criticism “on the chin”.
It came as Labour became embroiled in another trans row after Mr Streeting welcomed the review and pledged to implement it in full.
The shadow health secretary said the report raised “some serious concerns that are pretty scandalous”.
But Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP placed under investigation by the party last year for campaigning against gender ideology, pointed out that women who had exposed the scandal had been “blanked, sidelined and dismissed” by male leaders simply for speaking up.
Last night Mr Streeting was asked on The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots programme whether he stood by Stonewall’s claim that “trans women are women, get over it”, he admitted: “No.”
He added: “To the extent that – and I say this with some self-criticism and reflection – if you’d asked me a few years ago, on this topic, I would have said trans men are men, trans women are women. Some people are trans, get over it. Let’s move on. This is all blown out of proportion.
“And now I sort of sit and reflect and think actually, there are lots of complexities.”
He went on: “I take the criticism on the chin. And at the same time, I also think that there’s been some absolutely ugly rhetoric directed towards trans people who are at the wrong end of all of statistics on hate crime, on self harm, suicide, mental health.”
Labour has long been divided on trans issues and has been accused of flip-flopping on its stance in recent years.
The party no longer has plans to bring in self-ID for trans people, and Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has rowed back from saying “trans women are women”, and now states that a woman is an “adult female” and that 99.9 per cent of them do not have a penis.
Mr Streeting’s comments angered the Labour Left. The Corbynite group Momentum tweeted: “The Cass review ignored dozens of scientific studies, coming to a harmful conclusion of limiting access to gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“Anti-trans campaigners have celebrated it. So it’s highly disappointing that Labour’s leadership is welcoming it unreservedly.”
Yesterday, feminist Julie Bindel demanded an apology from Mr Streeting for failing to support her gender-critical views when he was president of the National Union of Students.
Earlier this year, the party dropped a year-long investigation into a complaint that Ms Duffield had been transphobic for liking a tweet by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, who is now a gender-critical campaigner.
However, despite the changes, critics of the Labour leadership say gender-critical women in the party continue to be sidelined or not selected.
Wes Streeting says the Cass report raised 'some serious concerns that are pretty scandalous' CREDIT: Jay Williams
The Cass review, published on Wednesday, said much of the evidence for gender medicine was flimsy and that drugs such as puberty blockers should be used with extreme caution as children who think they are trans may have mental health problems.
Dr Hilary Cass, the paediatrician behind the report, said some NHS gender clinics refused to comment on requests for information.
On Never Mind the Ballots, Mr Streeting said: “I think we’ve got to ask ourselves why is it that we’ve seen medical interventions that have been given on the basis of very weak evidence?
“How is it that clinicians have been silenced or afraid to come forward? Why is it that a group of young people who are extremely vulnerable are waiting years to access treatment?
“I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m pretty angry actually that despite this review having been commissioned there are some NHS trusts that refused to co-operate.
“And I want to send a clear message to them that under a Labour government there’ll be accountability for that, you’re not going to get away with it. And I want to work constructively with the Government to try to get this right.”
Earlier, he had tweeted: “Children’s healthcare should always be led by evidence and children’s welfare, free from culture wars…
“The Government must now immediately act, but if they do not, the next Labour government will work to implement the expert recommendations of the Cass review, to ensure that young people are receiving appropriate and high-quality care.”
This prompted Ms Duffield to retweet the statement, with the message: “To the many women blanked, sidelined, dismissed by male leaders when speaking up and exposing this for years.”
And Ms Bindel, a former Labour Party member, wrote: “Glad to see you are now openly critical of the gender ideology that led to the atrocities against children outlined in the Cass report.
“I am open to accepting an apology from you. In 2008, when you were NUS president, I was no-platformed alongside five fascist groups for ‘transphobia’.
“I contacted you and asked for your help. You gave none. I asked you to condemn those that had orchestrated the no-platforming, and you refused.
“Have you any idea of the reputational damage this caused me? How it gave others permission to no-platform, denounce and defame me?
“How it meant that I could be slandered by other organisations, and so many, many universities around the UK and elsewhere? If this sounds bitter then good, because I am.”
To this message, Ms Duffield said: “Thank you for leading us all here Julie. Without you, most of us wouldn’t have had a clue what had been happening to children who were far too young to have the critical faculties or agency to consent.”
Addressing Ms Bindel’s accusation, Mr Streeting replied: “From memory (16 years on, so correct me if I’m wrong!) I replied to confirm that you weren’t on NUS’ no platform policy and as this was in relation to a motion passed by the autonomous women’s campaign I was not empowered to overturn it (not least as a male president!).”
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