Summary
Meeting Auntie Ethel in
Baldur’s Gate 3
presents an interesting choice that leads to branching paths in the game’s story.
Helping Auntie Ethel has some benefits, but at least one major drawback that makes fighting her a better choice.
It is possible to still work with Auntie Ethel to some degree, but it’s also a potentially compromising moral decision.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is full of important decisions to make, and meeting Auntie Ethel offers a few interesting choices and branching paths. This trader can be found in the Emerald Grove in Act 1, hawking her wares to tieflings. She may seem like any other trader in the game, but Auntie Ethel is more than she appears. The party will need to use caution when striking a deal with Auntie Ethel, if they don’t want to avoid her offer entirely.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3.]If the party moves beyond the Emerald Grove, Auntie Ethel can first be encountered at the threshold of the Sunlit Wetlands, a swampy area found just outside the Blighted Village in Act 1. At first glance, she appears to be a helpless old woman being harangued by a couple of younger men. However, it’s immediately obvious that something seems just a little off about this elderly trader. Choosing to help Auntie Ethel takes the story down an interesting path, as does siding with the men instead.
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What Happens If You Help Auntie Ethel In Baldur’s Gate 3
Some Benefits Come With Significant Drawbacks
The dispute between Auntie Ethel and the men is over their sister Mayrina, who they insist is with the old woman. Ethel plays the victim and asserts that she doesn’t know where Mayrina is. Although it’s possible to toe the line for a couple of dialogue choices, both sides are quick to react negatively to the protagonist leaning in either direction. Choosing to help Auntie Ethel will result in aggression from the men, while supporting their argument opens up a long rabbit hole.
Helping Auntie Ethel in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t without its benefits, but it also incurs a major drawback that generally outweighs them. Supporting her and fighting the men will put the protagonist in Auntie Ethel’s good graces, securing an official invitation to the Riverside Teahouse in the swamp. Upon arriving at this location, Auntie Ethel acknowledges the mind flayer parasite specimen affecting the protagonist and offers to remove it. However, attempting this method comes with a major cost. Auntie Ethel asks for one eye in return for the favor, a significant price to pay even if the operation was successful.
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Accepting Auntie Ethel’s offer will mean she reveals herself as a hag and proceeds in an attempt to fulfill the bargain. The player character can offer either the left or right eye for the exchange, with the offered eye being exchanged for a Hag’s Eye. This offers a +1 bonus to intimidation checks, but disadvantage on perception checks, which weighs significantly heavier on dice rolls. It also makes attacks on hags have disadvantage, so deciding to go to battle with Auntie Ethel after this point will result in an even tougher fight than before.
Most importantly, Auntie Ethel aborts the removal of the parasite, rendering the main draw of helping her in Baldur’s Gate 3 moot. She becomes unwilling when she realizes that other parties have interfered with the parasite, knowledge that is interesting to learn but certainly inferior to removing the parasite outright. As a consolation prize, she does offer the protagonist Auntie Ethel’s Charm, which can be broken to activate benefits from the Enhance Ability Spell until a Long Rest. This is a powerful trinket, but as a one-time-use item, it doesn’t make up for the overall impediment enforced by the Hag’s Eye.
There Are Still Rewards For Pretending To Be On Auntie Ethel’s Side
It’s Possible To Play Both Sides
Although going all the way through with helping Auntie Ethel and accepting her “favor” in return isn’t the path to the best rewards in Baldur’s Gate 3, cooperating with her to some degree can still be an effective plan. Siding with her in her argument with Mayrina’s brothers and incurring their attack doesn’t theoretically force her brothers’ death, as turning on non-lethal attacks and hitting them only with melee weapons can leave them merely unconscious.
This might even save them from Auntie Ethel’s deadly plans for them otherwise, although they can still be killed in the swamp, so there’s no option that guarantees their safety. One of the general weak points of Baldur’s Gate 3 is how inconsistent the effects of non-lethal combat are, and even if they’re ultimately kept alive, Mayrina may not correctly acknowledge their survival.
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Auntie Ethel can still be attacked after going down this path in Baldur’s Gate 3, resulting in a similar situation to initially siding with Mayrina’s brothers. Near the end of a fight with Auntie Ethel, there’s another chance for some degree of reconciliation, as she will offer both power (one ability point) and Mayrina in exchange for abandoning the kill. A successful roll can persuade her to offer both, a bargain with only upsides. At this stage of the game, killing her will not significantly change the overall narrative, although some loot can be acquired from her corpse.
Since the fight with Auntie Ethel can be challenging, it’s better to complete a variety of other encounters in the area before tackling this doozy.
Helping Auntie Ethel In BG3 Is The Wrong Moral Choice
Mayrina Is A Victim In Need Of Assistance
For characters concerned with following good ideals, helping Auntie Ethel in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be an ethical concern. Her manipulation of Mayrina has horrifying implications when everything is finally revealed, and standing against the hag to save the woman should be the primary goal of a character with any form of good alignment. Although the game offers plenty of morally grey figures, a hag looking to make others suffer for her own self-interests doesn’t qualify.
Evil characters or those following the worst tendencies of the Dark Urge origin character could, of course, embrace these wicked designs. Although there’s ultimately more to be gained from turning against Auntie Ethel, it makes sense to accept the seemingly generous offer of an obviously powerful character. Making whichever roleplaying choice seems suitable is a reasonable way to approach the situation, and there’s no path that offers only downsides.
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Defying Auntie Ethel in Baldur’s Gate 3 still won’t set everything to rights straight away, as Mayrina’s story is innately tragic even when saved from the clutches of the hag. It does, however, open up interesting avenues for her narrative to progress, as well as giving characters a morally dubious opportunity to recruit a temporary undead follower. Choosing not to rescue Mayrina dooms her to an unhappy fate with less hope than any other outcome for the situation.
BG3 Act 3 Gets More Content After Fighting Auntie Ethel
Killing Ethel Opens Up An Act 3 Side Quest
There’s one other practical reason to take an aggressive approach toward Auntie Ethel, and it’s based around wanting to experience as much of Baldur’s Gate 3 as possible. Paradoxically, Auntie Ethel doesn’t step out of the story permanently if she’s killed, but does fail to reappear if the party leaves her alone. In the former scenario, she ultimately reveals yet another trick up her sleeve, while in the latter she simply never has a reason to leave her teahouse in Act 1.
Once a party that’s defeated Auntie Ethel reaches the Lower City of Baldur’s Gate in Act 3 of the game, it’s easy to come across stories of a hag on the loose, which open up an additional side quest to explore. From a standpoint of the moral dilemma, Auntie Ethel ending up in the Lower City might have even more repercussions than letting her live on in the swamp, but it makes for a compelling addition to the game. It also offers a way to rid the world of her once and for all, doing away with a significant evil.
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Helping Auntie Ethel has its upsides, but her favor comes with a high cost. That makes it hard to recommend to parties, even ones looking to embrace their evil sides. There are options to walk away from the situation with better stats and a cleaner conscience, so it’s best not ignore this villain completely either. Baldur’s Gate 3 is all about making choices, and some decisions are certainly worse than others. However, siding with Auntie Ethel is a decision that just doesn’t make sense because the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits.