Brand (Playlist)

“I swear it’s nothing personal,
I swear that it is nothing personal”

This song has had an absolute vice grip on my brain since the first time I heard it.  I adore it.  It makes me deeply uncomfortable.  The artist wrote it in a feverish state at the start of lockdown, and describes it as taking its own life “like Frankenstein’s monster” and being “about bad people giving into their darkest desires”.

Brand struggles with the urge to murder due to reasons beyond their control—the only choice they are given at the start of BG3 is either to indulge, or fight what appears to be a doomed battle with their innermost self.  Being one of the most stubborn bastards in Faerûn, they decide to fight.  It’s messy.  They don’t always succeed—it’s nothing personal, they promise, it’s nothing personal, it’s…

(That bit where the singer sounds like they’re on the verge of tears?  Absolutely gets the mood across of how Brand feels in their worst moments.  A mix of desperation and grief, beneath a blood-thirst and joy they cannot yet control.)

Ultimately Brand is able to overcome their darkest desires, but it’s after a lot of grief, a lot of struggle, and a lot of harm done along the way.  Like this song, I both adore them and know that they things they’ve done can never be ‘redeemed’—you cannot ‘balance out’ those sort of things, not really.  They can only try to do better in the future.

“The difference twixt fate and free will is whether you’re singing
Ooh, could you take a look at me
Am I bad, am I bad, am I bad, am I really that bad?”

This song is not quite perfectly accurate to Brand’s story, but its general vibe suits them well.  It’s worth noting that, from the start of the game, they had little question over if they were ‘really that bad’—they came to view themself as a monster pretty early on in act I.  But there were several moments where they tried to get help, to reach out for someone to take a look at them and tell them what was wrong with them.  And those themes of free will?  Mmmm yes.

Also I mean, Laplace’s Angel is just a really fun song.

“And I scream, ‘What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?’
But you, you’re blind, you bleat, you bear your claws”

The Unwanted Animal lines up with act II most strongly for me (with that scene with your RO—if you’ve played the “redeemed” dark urge, you know the one), but it also works with the urge in general; it’s about something violent and unspeakable, trying to claw its way out of someone.   “Oh, can’t you hear that scratching?”

I originally typed up several extra paragraphs of description, but I didn’t feel like it told you anything the above doesn’t.  Less is more, sometimes!  No need for me to summarize the entirety of their act II experience here.

“I’ve had these thoughts that made no sense
Like, I somehow see there’s right from wrong”

Maria is a song with a lot of biblical references (that I don’t care to explain lmao) but it feels very relevant to their relationship with their father, the god Bhaal.  A moment of doubt in isolation.  Not wanting to “go” (as in, die).

“You’re like an Empress,
You’ve got fire running down your cheeks
You burn everything you see”

I initially picked Lion simply for its vibe—it gave me the image of someone willing to stand up for themself, even in the face of impossible odds—but the intended meaning by the artist aligned very well with Brand’s personal arc.

Lion is a song about "embracing and taking control of [your demons]". About turning a weakness into a strength.  Afflicted with a divine bloodlust due to being born directly from Bhaal, the god of murder, Brand has... quite the obstacle to overcome on their journey.  But while they don’t wish to hurt those close to them, the stubborn, indomitable side of their blood is something they’ve embraced wholly.  Even with that bloodlust ‘cured’ through their rebirth in late act three, those other traits are something they have made a part of themself.  They’ll be a stubborn bastard until the end!

“Love came and went
Faster than a penny spent
In a slot machine
Nowhere near the devil, just somewhere in between you and me”

Being the now-rejected child of a god, and having spent many of their formative years in a cult, it is probably not that much of a surprise to say that Brand has lasting religious trauma.  Blood Hands specifically makes me think of their relationship with Bhaal, Orin, and others of their family.

Brand was once the favoured child of Bhaal.  They were created directly from his blood, made as a weapon to end the world, to be the last living being before sacrificing themself for their father.  Blessed with an insatiable urge to commit the worst sort of violence.  They were not made to be a person in their own right—only an instrument of a cruel god’s will.  That does not erase their own responsibility for their actions, but for most of their life, they lived that.

And then, after being given a clean start, they rejected Bhaal.  They went against what had been planned for them and told their father no—and were struck down on the spot, discarded the moment they no longer fit into his plans.  Had it not been for the intervention of another god, they would have remained dead.

Orin’s story was similar.  For her entire life, she was loyal to Bhaal, wanting nothing more than to serve him.  But she never did it quite right in his eyes, and once again the god discarded her the moment she proved to be weaker than his prior favourite.

UHHH this is getting long but that’s basically all to say—Brand has a fraught relationship with divinity, to say the least, and that mess is also knotted up in their relationship with their biological family.

“Don't look back and live a happy ever after
With dirt caked in your nails”

Why Why Why was picked because it works pretty nicely with the circumstances of the second chance they got.  Namely; they were betrayed, stabbed in the brain, and infected with a mindflayer parasite after their moment of triumph.  “Scare him straight and tear apart his head below / His favorite moon” could be taken pretty literally in this case.

“Don't look back and live a happy ever after / With dirt caked in your nails” gets linked with their amnesia, in my mind.  If they don’t look back at who they once were, and what they were once a part of, their life could be simpler.  But if they don’t wash out the ‘dirt caked in [their] nails’, they’ll never know real peace—never be free of Bhaal’s hold on them.

“‘You're better than this’
He says as a hand slaps my face and I stand
And say, ‘No good man grace’
I can’t do this (you can)
I can’t do this, you don’t understand”

I call this the “Brand finds a support network” song, though it most strongly applies to their relationship with Astarion.  Except they can be either singer; they’re both the person telling their lover they can be better, they can be more than “that old witch sleep wishes”, and the person who is struggling.  They’ve GOT each other’s back and it drives me INSANE agh!!!!!

“These are not my eyes
What’s beneath my skin?
This is not my mind”

Love did not make Brand into a monster.  ...Or, did it?   The song talks about young love, romantic love, but if you change that into the love of a controlling parent for the child that serves them best… Bhaal loved them most of all his children because of their bloodthirst, the divinely-inspired craving for violence that he himself carved into their bones.  They were created, not born, from Bhaal’s own blood.  They’re as much an artificial man—or even moreso, since they were not made from mortal flesh—as frankenstein’s monster.  Their father’s love, their father’s blood, is the force behind the “Dark Urge” that haunts them, even after losing all memory of their prior life.

But you can also take the song a bit more literally, and connect this to the time just before the start of Baldur’s Gate III; the betrayal by their sister, the implantation of the mindflayer parasite (The probe that reached inside my nose and crawled up the walls / And ripped out my soul), the necromancer who found them after, on the verge of death, and saved them—only to perform horrific experiments on their body (On a slab down in the basement, in the laboratory / There's a new subject under the cover / I recall the mindless days before the transformation).

And then, after the mindflayer ship crashes and the game begins, “These are not my eyes / What's beneath my skin? / This is not my mind / Who let the monster in?” encapsulates their confusion and horror at some of their own thoughts and actions, seemingly beyond their control.

“I will restore honor to our name
I will rise above our family shame”

This song is pretty simple.  Brand comes from a bloodline that has, in every Baldur’s Gate game, either been the villain, the greatest threat, or the hero who undoes it (ofc depending on player choice).  Given a second change… can they rise above their family’s conflicted legacy?  The shame of their own past?  Do they even deserve to?  And at what cost?

Though.  Well.  There’s really no restoring honour to a family like theirs.  But maybe they can save themself from just being another sad part of it.

“Half a man and half apocalypse
The chase, the thrill that you cannot resist”

Yes, this is the third Des Rocs song on this playlist.  I may have a confession to make. Would it surprise you if I said I like Des Rocs’ music?  No?  Yeah, fair.

Natural Born Thriller is mostly here because I think it’s a fun song.  I do think it vibes pretty well with the Dark Urge (especially if you replace Thriller as Killer, lmao).  “Half a man and half apocalypse / The chase, the thrill that you cannot resist / Day and night, every time / That one there is a natural-born thriller” just lines up pretty well with the character.

“A band of cruel beasts are we
No remorse for devouring the weak”

Most relevant to Brand’s pre-game state, as described by canon material.  Born directly from the god of murder, Bhaal, with no mortal mother, they were created to be a remorseless killer.  To end all things in their father’s name.  They became the leader of his faithful, a band of cruel killers who faced no consequences… at least, until Brand was given a fresh start, and ended up turning on them.

“Bad thoughts give me bad dreams
And my bad dreams make me sleepwalk
It scares the hell out of anyone around
The sounds are near”

I think this song choice is fairly self-explanatory for anyone who has played/read up on the Dark Urge’s story.  For a pc that tries to resist their violent urges, the worst moments come at night—when the cruelty that haunts their blood and dreams threatens to possess their body and force them into doing things they never would while fully conscious.

Brand has two major brushes with this kind of nocturnal violence; the first coming out of nowhere, resulting in them killing an innocent near-stranger; and the second with enough forewarning to be thwarted (with some help) when the urge attempts to force them to kill their lover, as punishment for defying an earlier order to kill someone else.  They’re both deeply traumatizing, low moments for Brand.

“You came from this song
You will become this song”

Begravelsespolka (“funeral polka”) is about the devil revealing himself to a young girl, whose mother has been trying to subvert their destiny—and in doing so, his will.  He arrives in the story to threaten her; he has been there since the start of her life, and he might bring its end if he is not obeyed.

This immediately makes me think of the end of Brand’s story; of standing before Bhaal, an evil god, and refusing to become an instrument of his will once more.  Bhaal threatened them with death—to unmake them and create another, more worthy tool—and despite knowing it would mean the end of their life, they stood their ground.

The lines I picked specifically parallel what Bhaal told them; they were made, not born, designed to be his weapon to end the world.  In Brand’s case, they came from this song, but they did not become it.