[Spoilers] Act 3 (plot twist) rant

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UPD (25/12/2023): I just saw people come to this old post to discuss kind-of sort-of but not really betrayal. Guys, this post has been written during Beta, most of discussion that was held here is irrelevant at this point.

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I needed to vent somewhere, so I figured I'd do it here. Feel free to disagree, ofc.

Spoilers below for WH40k RT and Pathfinder Kingmaker (a little). English is not my native language, so apologies beforehand.

🏠 In this house we hate Yrliet Lanaevyss after Act 3. So beware.

I've started another run of Act 3 once again, and despite it being a buggy mess I love it dearly: MC and team are in a terrible place, everything's is hostile, and each thing that happens, happens up-close and personal.

But one thing darkens the experience greatly. I'm talking of course about the Yrliet betrayal. Oh boi, I don't think I've ever lost respect for a character in any recent media as fast as I did for Yrliet. She was an intruiguing character. Now she is just awful and dumb.

The idea of someone from the team leading you into the ambush is ok (after all, story can get points for good drama and all, although here it's not the case), but the execution is terrible no matter how you look at it:

1) First, Yrliet lures you into a trap using "save my people, elantach" card, which does not connect well with what is revealed later. It was already a trap at this point - and it was set up specifically because she saw part of her homeworld on MC's desk (btw, first time player/MC hears about it). Why would a person who butchered entire aeldari homeworld (in Yrliet's mind) postpone everything and go to some secluded place under premise of saving some xenos? Just why?

2) Yrliet, one of the most vocal party members in Act 2 (during DE assaults), Miss "I can think for myself" and "don't trust my dark cousins", goes and trusts DE. What is even worse - when the group meets Marazhai on Dargonus, it's her who goes out of her way to find him (not vise versa) and couldn't do it (lol). She was just in luck to catch Achilleas red-handed to take his place as a traitor. "C" for "consistency".

3) She deliberately, without any remorse, sold out MC, their crew (people they love and like) and potentially a whole city of people (our ship) to have fate worse than death (emphasized everywhere in Act 2). And I cannot think of any reason even the most loyal MC could let it slide.

There is no excuse, literally none: it wasn't in the heat of the moment, or under the immense pressure, she wasn't mislead to think that there will be actual aeldari survivors at the randevu point - she traded you and your closest ones and in the end sold you out for nothing.

4) But the biggest insult to me is how game treats Yrliet after the betrayal:

  • Even after Marazhai betrayed her she still believes in drukhari ... ehm... justice. At the court she is still trying to accuse you of destroying her craftworld (I mean, really?). I'm no WH40K expert, but if anything this game and some articles taught me, it's that DE just don't care as long as it's not them under fire
  • She gets a slap of the wrist from the DE: after you roll out from the pile of corpses and start wondering the streets of Commorragh being a little more than half dead you meet Yrliet as one of the first companions. And what happened to her? She gets to torture other people so she would feel bad about it, and go to the dark side. Boohoo. Let her tell Idira, or Pasqal, or Cassia, or Heinrix about her sad unfortunate fate. And yes, she just tortures people now because drukhari tell her too. You need to get her out of this mess! People will probably point out "something-something but her soulstone" and will be probably right, but it feels manufactured and cheap in comparison to other companions' struggle. And twice as cheap, considering what's happening to Achilleas on other route - he is mangled, broken beyond repair (punishment that matches the crime, and all that)
  • You can decide to join forces to get out of city and survive, but no matter which reasoning you choose both Yrliet and game decide that you explicitly forgave her - she states so to Argenta if you meet her later, which is so, so unfair to everyone involved.
  • Remember Tristian and how everyone hated him? Yeah, I do too. And it pains me to say that at least - at very, very least - Tristian tried to screw with the Nyrissa plans and in the end felt sorry and tried to help in fixing things. There is almost no remorse in Yrliet. I took her in the group, spoke to her after, walked with her around the Commorragh and all that I got in the end was that "I was kinda stupid, elantach, wish Marazhai kept his word though, sucks that the Trial was his undoing". In other words - if Marazhai actually was a little smarter or just hold his end of a bargain, MC and crew would be forgotten the same instant Yrliet got what she wanted. The whole crew was tortured and crippled, ffs, we don't know what happened to the ship, we left a whole Protectorate without, well, protection, there should be something here!
  • The sheer entitlement: for whatever reason Yrliet to which I was giving the cold shoulder starting Act 3 decided that I give a shit about her homeworld and absolutely need to save her farseers. It was comically bad: after talking with the Solitaire one last time she turned to MC and said, and I (almost) quote: "Do it if not for my people, then for me, elantach". 🤡

Summing up all of the above :

"Are you, elentach, a big enough person to forgive me? Do you have the strength to do so? Or are just like all the others?" C'mon, game, what kind of lazy simp bait is that?

Yrliet is the most disappointing character after Act 3, I wish Owlcat would remade/recontextualize her betrayal or made a whole deep and meaningful conversation about it, because right now there is no reason to even take her back, and when you do all this character does is wipe her feet on you. It's some cheap drama for nothing.

Since Yrliet's presence clears a lot of stuff in Act 3 (dare I say, 1/2 of the act feels like her personal quest), killing her is cutting yourself a chunk of very interesting content while taking her in - disrespecting your Rogue Trader and everyone on your team beyond belief.

Tl;dr

Yrliet's betrayal and everything surrounding it is too much: it's too unforgivable and there is no reason to keep her in retinue except for "my xeno waifu". What is worse, the game knows it and does not allow any other reasoning at this point, which is rather ironic.

P.S. To all those who will say that "don't trust xenos" is written in game screens and thus everyone should listen to it - the game literally rewards you with much interesting experience and more context & content (at least for Act 3) when you do trust the xenos and take her with you, so there is no grand metagame scheme in play.