Baldur's Gate III came with such a smashing impact it was inevitably going to create a fair few memes in the process. As with all memes pages, spoilers are unmarked.
To add a meme, use this format:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ExplanationLike this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- "Just like XCOM."ExplanationDuring a gameplay demonstration, Swen Vincke saw his party get wiped due to his archer missing multiple 90% attacks.
- The average player
ExplanationThe character creator allows for the creation of tieflings, githyanki, dwarves, dragonborn, and various other exotic characters. Yet when Larian Studios used their analytics to combine the statistically most popular character creation options to see what would result... it turned out to be a white, clean-shaven human male with short brown hair. - Lae’zel disapproves ExplanationSimilar to the “Morrigan disapproves” meme from Dragon Age: Origins, Proud Warrior Race Girl Lae’zel would disapprove of anything that involves being nice to people and resolving matters peacefully.
- The Bear. ExplanationIn the final Panel from Hell for the game, a romance scene was shown with Halsin shifting into a bear and then proceeding to make love to the player character (while still in bear form).
- "Big is what I'm here for."
- The Squirrel. ExplanationThe scene with Halsin is witnessed by a red squirrel, who responds with an utterly horrified expression and drops its acorn in shock before fleeing.
- "I can fix her." ExplanationThe fan reaction to Orin the Red's pre-release reveal resulted in a chorus of fans unironically hoping she would be a romance option by saying "I can fix her," to the point where Larian Studios themselves responded to fans by saying "No, you can't fix her... but do try! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?". Fans have similarly applied this quote to Minthara, though for reasons one might expect. Upon release, Minthara's romance suffered a bug that cut out much of her dialogue options even after Hotfix #5 supposedly patched it. This has led to many players taking this quote literally thanks to mods that rectify the issue.
- Perception Failed Explanation This message pops up whenever a character fails a perception check, usually for a trap. This is often your only warning sign that someone is about to get blown up by said trap.
- Guys' night vs. girls' night/"How do three men in Baldur's Gate not have 25 Strength between them?" Explanation Every male Origin character starts out with Strength so low as to incur penalty on rolls, whereas even the weakest female one - Shadowheart - has 13. This generally translates into jokes about Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Karlach smashing everything in their way to pieces while Astarion, Gale and Wyll can barely manage to open a jar.
- OWLBEAR FROM THE TOP ROPE!!! Explanation Depending on how high up you fall from and how heavy you are, you can potentially deal hundreds of points of damage to an opponent by dropping on them. Owlbears are one of the heavier creatures you can shapeshift into, especially if you can get an Enlarge effect put on you, and they have an ability that lets you negate fall damage to yourself when you use it. So, climbing high up, shapeshifting into an owlbear, Enlarging yourself, and jumping on your enemies can be a highly effective way of dealing with them.
- Karlach or Shadowheart ExplanationCompared to the others, it seems most players prefer either of these two as their character's romantic option, likely due to the genuinely heartwarming moments between them and the player, their respective use in the game making them smart picks to keep around, and the fact they're the two most conventionally attractive female options. A lot of jokes are made about finding it difficult to pick which one.
- "I want you." "What?" ExplanationMany players have been taken aback by characters like Gale and Lae'zel coming onto their PC with little to no attempt to romance them, resulting in their propositions coming out of seemingly nowhere.
- "Desperate Gale"ExplanationGale at launch was so easy to romance that many did so on accident. Some players were unlucky enough to have to break up with him, or even be scolded by him for cheating, when they never intended to be with him in the first place. This has led to the joke that Gale is a desperate Nice Guy who takes any interaction to be romantic and gets wildly jealous when the PC shows interest in anyone else, before Larian eventually updated Gale's relationship thresholds to make it less easy to stumble into romancing him.
- "Gale is Kenough" ExplanationThe game had its full release shortly after the premiere of Barbie. In the film, Ken sings a power ballad about his one-sided love for Barbie and self-consciousness because of it, "I'm Just Ken." The lyrics "Where I see love she sees a friend" have been applied to Gale and the aforementioned perceived desperation to be with the PC.
- Gale eating shoes ExplanationGale’s need for magic items to sustain the Netherese Destruction Orb inside of him is almost universally turned into a joke about him needing to eat the magic items the player gives him, with magic shoes being the most common item for him to consume.
- The Grinch/Lady Grinch. Explanation Due to Lae'Zel and many Githyanki having a green skin tone and a small nose several people have compared them to Jim Carrey's portrayal of the Grinch. On the lesser end both the Grinch and Gith start with the same letter and Lae'Zel has a very sour attitude before mellowing out.
- Sex speedrunExplanationThe ease with which it's possible to seduce and have sex with your party members led to a hilarious trend of attempting to reach a companion's romance scene as fast as possible as soon as the game starts. Notable mentions include romancing Lae'zel in 2 minutes! Devora Wilde (Lae'zel's voice actor) responded to the trend in-character.
- STOP LICKING THE DAMN THING ExplanationGale's exasperated reaction to the player character if they continue to choose to lick a spider carcass.
- F##K WULBREN BONGLE ExplanationWulbren Bongle, a deep gnome and resistance leader, is regarded as one of the biggest Scrappys and Hate Sinks for his being an Ungrateful Bastard and Fantastic Racist who wants to kill the Gondian gnomes enslaved by Gortash for no reason than because he hates them (the fact that they are forced to build and maintain Gortash's Steel Watchers is only a secondary consideration). It got to the point that a full-fledged Diss Track was made disparaging him.
- Astarion Dating Sim. Explanation Astarion's fandom has been notably vocal during the early access period of the game; he is by far the most common ship listed on fanfic sites like Archive of Our Own. He even gained popularity in non-gamer circles as he would wind up on the social media feeds of people who enjoy fantasy and romance literature. This spawned a meme amongst his fans wherein people joke that they only play the game to romance him.
- Baldur's Gate is my favorite Dating Sim. ExplanationThe game also gained traction amongst people who don't usually play action games or video games in general due to the in-depth romance options. Romancing other characters is actually one of the most commonly cited reasons for people who play through the game multiple times.
- God's Favourite Princess (and the most interesting girl in the world)ExplanationAfter the release of this clip of Shadowheart's voice actress, Jennifer English, reciting a shitpost as Shadowheart where she declares herself as such, it's became the unofficial title for the character; English repeated it for the D&D session the cast did with High Rollers, and fans have taken to calling Shadowheart this in posts, with or without the "most interesting girl in the world" continuation. This became an Ascended Meme as of the epilogue party in Patch 5, where the player can persuade Shadowheart to quote a very similar line, apparently as the final ravings of a Githyanki heretic.
- The Tav Face. Explanation While the facial expressions across all characters are impressive, the go-to PC animation during dialogue is them crossing their arms and raising a brow, similar to the Dreamworks Face. The perceived overuse of the animation has led fans to joke about the PC reacting to every situation, even extremely upsetting ones, with the same smoldering look.
- "A handsome young man with an easy smile."ExplanationThe narrator describes Gortash this way in act 1; fans quickly took to mockingly quoting the line to make fun of his Informed Attractiveness.
- Gortash misses the Dark Urge/Gortash has never been the same since dealing with Orin.Explanation (spoilers)A popular fan theory is that Gortash really did look rather handsome and young...back when he was working with the Dark Urge, and then Orin replaced them and dealing with her insanity aged him up like crazy from the stress. In conjunction with this, Gortash and the pre-amnesia Dark Urge have also become a popular pairing, given the ample evidence in-game that they made a really good team and genuinely admired each other.
- "Thou walkest alone". Explanation Should you choose not to pursue any of the romances, Withers will comment on it by saying this line. The phrase has since become popular in a similar fashion to the "Maidenless" and "NO BITCHES?" memes before it. Some fans have even drawn versions of the latter meme with Withers in the place of Megamind.
- "My love life is none of your business, skeleton".ExplanationSome players who chose to romance nobody (Especially those on the ace-spectrum) feel like this is one of the most cathartic lines to say in the game - as it feels like the game is to "Fix" them (a common microaggression that asexual and aromantic people face) after not respecting that they said "No".
- "No". Explanation Asking Withers to explain himself further regarding certain topics will have him respond with a dramatic, yet deadpan "No". Simply replying to questions about Baldur's Gate 3 on platforms such as Reddit in this manner has become popular.
- Girl Dinner ExplanationGirl dinner was already a meme song on tiktok often used in videos of single women living alone cobbling odd meals together, or subverting expectations by using it with good cooking videos. The term gained traction again when streamers and fans started using it as a way to make fun of the ridiculous combinations of camp supplies you can use for a long rest. A popular one is using nothing but alcohol, which also gets you an achievement.
- Give Gale a break! ExplanationIt's canon that Gale is the best cook in the main cast and that he takes the lead on prepping dinner if he's in your party. In relation to above, many fans have made skits and memes about how much of a hard time he'd have making something edible given that it's possible to long rest with nothing but a bunch of alcohol and a head of garlic.
- IG-MISS! ExplanationIn the game, characters shout Latin words as the verbal component of spells. The word used for the Fire Bolt cantrip is "Ignis." Shadowheart has the Fire Bolt cantrip due to being a half-elf... but because she gets it from that species ability, her casting stat for it is Intelligence. Shadowheart's default Intelligence is 10. As such, attacking with Fire Bolt leads to a lot of missed shots—something a lot of players didn't realize until too late.
- Handsome X ExplanationA collection of mods for the game aimed at making every character look like Handsome Squidward.
- Karlach's Idle DanceExplanationMany players have taken note of one of Karlach's idle animations where she dances a little jig, seemingly out of boredom or a need to get some pent-up energy out. They proceeded to run to the hills with it, depicting her as a secret dance master or having her do her jig in extremely inappropriate places or at inappropriate times like during a tense conversation between other characters or after just finishing an exhausting boss fight (bonus points for interpretations where she's dancing on or over the boss' corpse)
- Halsin says fuck them kidsExplanationWhile held in the goblin prison in Act I, the ostensibly good-hearted servant of nature Halsin gets tormented by two goblin children, One and Three. In the fight to break him out, the children turn hostile as well, and Halsin will happily maul them both to death despite their age. This eventually mutated into Halsin being portrayed as a psychopathic child killer.
- My good friend Minthara is the funniest person I know. ExplanationA line the player character can say to encourage Minthara to take the stage during the clown show in the circus, which has become quite memorable and oft quoted by fans as, between her dry, deadpan sense of humor, her tendency to be Comically Serious, and the frequent invoking of comedic Values Dissonance with her as a result of her having grown up in Drow society, many players unironically do consider her to be the funniest character in the game.
- Batstarion. ExplanationIn the epilogue, Ascended Astarion shows off the ability to transform into a large bat, which some fans find adorable. There's also a bug where he's still carrying a wineglass in bat form, which leads to jokes that he's a drunk bat, or even that Astarion turns into a bat so he can get wasted faster.
- Not now, Astarion! ExplanationConversations with party members can trigger at odd or inappropriate moments. For example, in this video, due to a misclick, Astarion confesses that he is a vampire while an entire chamber loudly and continously explodes behind him.
- Barrelmancy/the strongest class in the game is the barrelmancerexplanationThe game's highly interactive environment means that players can use creative strategies to beat bosses — one example involves the use of explosive and flammable barrels, such as smokepowder and firewine, to quickly and heavily damage large numbers of enemies and often kill bosses without a serious fight at all. It's particularly popular for the battle at the Emerald Grove, where Minthara and her troops seem not to notice the massive numbers of smokepowder and oil barrels surrounding them as they attack, leading to epically destructive results. Videos of quickly defeating otherwise very difficult bosses with "barrelmancy" are a popular genre of fan videos.
- Piss yourselfexplanationA dialogue option from the Dark Urge epilogue for embracing Bhaal, but then trying to pull a Heel–Face Turn at the last moment by destroying the Absolute. Unless Durge kills themselves shortly thereafter, they become a mad, twitching, self-loathing maniac. The player can still choose dialogue options, but they're all utterly grotesque, with this particular choice becoming a fan favorite for emphasizing just how broken and disgusting the Durge becomes.
- "Did you know Baldur's Gate III is actually a turn-based RPG? I thought it was a porn game!" ExplanationBaldur's Gate 3 gained notoriety at release for its sex scenes and for having very very horny party members (due to a glitch). As a result? Many people heard of it via the sex cutscenes and jokingly suggested "Wait, it's actually an RPG?"
- Would you still love me if I was an illithid?ExplanationA mutation of "Would you still love me if I was a worm?", due to having the choice to become a Mind Flayer near the end of the game. The potential reactions to this from romance partners vary wildly, from Gale loving you just as much (if not moreso), to Wyll wanting to stay with you but feeling the need to hide you away, to Lae'zel basically dumping you on the spot.
- Sheepthazar ExplanationBalthazar in the Shadowfell is potentially a very tough fight — he has numerous undead minions and powerful Area of Effect magic. Unless you decide to use a creative strategy, of which a very popular and highly meme-able one is to transform him into a sheep and throw him into the abyss that surrounds the battle arena. The contrast between Balthazar's evil and arrogance, with the extremely Undignified Death, immortalized this tactic.
- The Eclipse. Explanation One of the previews for the expanded evil endings in Patch 7 show the Dark Urge standing among a field of corpses with a blood-colored sky and total eclipse. The comparisons to the infamous Eclipse in Berserk quickly followed, with the Dark Urge's actions being compared to what Griffith did to his own countrymen- sacrificing them all to a bloody fate to earn an evil God's favor.
- The Astarion-to-Gale pipeline ExplanationDescribes a phenomenon among many Gale romancers who went for Astarion first (or even bought the game for him), only for Gale to become their favorite/permanent choice of love interest
- "Challenge: Don't get solicited for sex/romance. Difficulty: Impossible"ExplanationWhile the horny companions and romance was the draw, others saw this as the game being incredibly creepy. The fact it's so easy to get every companion trying to hit on you has resulted in people saying it's literally impossible to not get solicited for romance or sex.
