Little Monday Presents: Baldur's Gate III and the Queer Politics of Monstrosity.

Laura Westengard writes of the "ongoing battle of purposes" in Gothic media between queer representation and neoliberal assimilation. Perhaps as much as any other conflict in the game, this battle of purposes plays out in the game's writing with its emphasis on post-queer visibility, while also policing the boundaries of an acceptable neoliberal status quo. In my conclusion, I examine this conflict as it struggles against the rich language of monstrosity and its subversive potential.   Citation Time Stamps  0:45 - 2:07 Westengard 179-180 5:32 - 5:35 Stryker, "My Words..." 248 7:36 - 7:53 Pocket Leaves, Feb 11, 2024 7:54 - 8:08 Figuring Out Fantasy, Feb 17, 2024 15:41 - 15:47 Westengard 104 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

We finally seek to resolve the central conflict of the game: Will you become a monster if it would save the world? But perhaps more importantly, what does it mean to transform into the very thing you sought to avoid becoming? And what does crossing the boundary into monstrosity reveal of the monster that's protected you since your fall from the Nautiloid? In part five, we take a close look at the game's sudden bifurcation, its controversial endings, and how its central theme is illuminated or darkened.    Citation Time Stamps  1:35 - 3:39 Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes 85-97 29:46 -30:27 Shelley Vol 3 Ch. 7 30:36 - 33:25 Shelley Vol 3 Ch. 7 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

"May you discover the enlivening power of darkness within yourself." – Susan Stryker. In her monologue "My Words to Victor Frankenstein," Stryker harnesses her rage as a transgender woman to redefine the monstrous and deprivilege the natural. In part four, we examine the subversive power of the Emperor's monstrosity through the lens of Stryker's monologue, and what it reveals of the efforts and institutions that seek to enforce strict, conservative boundaries on gender, sexuality, embodiment, and desire.   Citation Time Stamps  1:00 - 4:52 Stryker, "My Words..." 245-247 5:43 - 5:50 Stryker "My Words..." 248 6:24 - 6:32 Stone 3 6:50 - 7:12 Stone 8-9 7:12 - 7:26 Stone 13-14 7:26 - 8:02 Stone 12 8:15 - 8:54 Stryker "My Words..." 253 9:33 - 9:44 Stryker "My Words..." 254 9:45 - 9:58 Westengard 102 15:28 - 15:50 Little Monday, May 20, 2024 17:03 - 17:18 Rigby 42 19:22 - 20:20 Little Monday, "Patch 7..." Sept 15, 2024 25:54 - 26:50 Stone 11 26:51 - 27:19 Stryker 249 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

"The beauty of the dream vanished" – or rather, the Guardian that came to us in our dreams. In its place? The Emperor. In part three, we come face-to-face with Rigby's concept of "Queer Gothic Recognition" just as we come face-to-face with our true Guardian. As the dream vanishes, paranoia takes its place, and we examine the connection between the Emperor's monstrosity and the coded language of queerness.    Citation Time Stamps  0:51 - 4:33 Bailey Dec 15, 2023 4:34 - 8:14 Little Monday Feb 28, 2024 6:12 - 6:18 The Emperor, Astral Prism cutscene between Acts 2 & 3  6:23 - 6:28 The Emperor, Atop the Netherbrain Act 3. 12:32 - 13:35 Rigby 38 13:46 - 13:59 Rigby 38 14:00 - 14:19 Halberstam 32-34 19 52 - 19:14 Art Book 14 20:14 - 21:18 Stryker, "Transgender Studies..." 214 23:52 - 24:29 Little Monday Aug 14, 2024 26:12 - 26:42 Benshoff 128 26:43 - 27:02 Benshoff 117 31:20 - 31:24 Halberstam 28 38:17 - 38:36 Halberstam 28 30:08 - 40:11 The Emperor, Astral Prism cutscene between Acts 2 & 3 42:51 - 43:15 Halberstam 117 46:13 - 47:07 Little Monday Sept 28, 2024 51:17 - 51:22 Stryker, "Words..." 248 52:35 - 53:14 Little Monday Oct 13, 2024 54:22 - 55:19 Little Monday May 6, 2024 1:02:33 - 1:06:37 Shelley Vol 3, Ch. 3 1:06:40 - 1:08:37 Shelley Vol 3, Ch. 6 1:09:53 - 1:03:43 Brooks 9 1:11:31 - 1:12:00 Halberstam 26 1:12:45 - 1:13:52 Descent into Avernus Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

"Frightful must it be… for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world." – Mary Shelley Building on a philosophy that privileges the natural, part two examines the relationship of the natural to the moral and the unnatural to the profane. We explore how death, desire, and the destruction of the family unit meet in the Gothic tale of Ketheric Thorm, his daughter Isobel, and her lover, the aasimar, Dame Aylin. We also examine how this tale both reinforces the unnatural as monstrous, while also subverting the normative boundaries of desire with Isobel and Aylin's relationship.    Citation Time Stamps  0:47 - 0:58 Rigby 37 0:59 - 1:01 Palmer 180 1:20 - 1:23 Shelley Vol 1, Ch. 4 2:50 - 3:01 Shelley Vol 3, Ch. 3 12:17 - 12:30 Halberstam 1 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

In part one of this essay, I examine how the medium of a computer role playing game shapes our experience of the narrative's gothic elements from our perspective as a player, a player character, and the creator of our enigmatic Dream Guardian. I also introduce the role of scientific technology in framing our understanding of the natural versus the unnatural.    Citation Time Stamps  0:23 Halberstam 11 0:55 - 1:05 Shelley Vol 3, Ch. 7 1:37 - 2:11 Palmer 152-153 5:30 Brooks 14 9:55 Cordell 36-38 10:07 Cordell 16, 40-41 10:13 Cordell 46 10:41 Cordell 42 11:23 Cordell 11 12:12 Cordell 35 12:41 Volo 73 12:51 - 13:04 Art Book 152-153 13:19 Cordell 61-75 15:33 - 15:52 Volo 76 17:05 - 17:30 Halberstam 1 18:06 - 18:13 Doherty 209-215 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

In 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, a seminal work of science fiction and Gothic horror that is as relevant today as it was two-hundred years ago. To better understand the nature of the monstrous in Baldur's Gate 3, I want to begin by laying the groundwork of Shelley's "hideous progeny" – as she once called it – her most famous novel, and the monstrous creation within.  Citation Time Stamps  1:03 - 4:33 Shelley, Act 1, Ch. 4 16:10 - 16:28 Halberstam 18, 33 16:28 - 17:49 Halberstam 7-8 20:01 - Bailey, Dec 15, 2023 Full List of Sources https://littlemondaywrites.libsyn.com/sources Little Monday on Medium https://medium.com/@littlemonday Special Thanks To - Glen Eastman who voices both Frankenstein and the Monster. W. Reader who voices both Captain Robert Walton and Withers Luis Saniger as Swen Vinke, Kelly Green as Chrystal Ding, and Foxspitt as Adam Smith. And a special thanks to Moss/Magmethius (magmethius.tumblr.com) for providing necessary lore. And thanks to both Moss and Ben for providing their feedback on this project.  

Would you become a monster if it would save the world? That is the central conflict of Baldur's Gate 3, a three-act epic fantasy that continues the story of the critically acclaimed series, bringing a new threat to the city of Baldur's Gate in the form of an illithid invasion. We, the player character, find ourselves infected with an illithid parasite and must unravel the source of the parasite's uniqueness, and its connection to the rising Cult of the Absolute before we, too, are transformed. While an epic fantasy in scope, our parasitic infection brings us into intimate proximity with the monstrous in a relationship best described as Gothic. But what exactly is the monstrous in a setting full of fantastical creatures and horrors that reach out to us all the way from the Far Realm? And why is it so queer? To answer this, I think we need to frame our understanding of the monstrous through one of the most enduring monsters in literature and media: that of Frankenstein's Creation. Scientific experimentation, body horror, paranoia, and the Gothic all merge in Shelley's enigmatic monster. Unraveling the seams of this creation, both its horror and humanity, will serve as the foundation to help us piece together the nature of monstrosity in Baldur's Gate 3. So, what is a monster?