about how cool it was that helping some needy people actually resulted in them being murderous criminals with the narration tsk tsking you for caring too much, because it's "cliche" and "political" for helping people to result in helped people.

I think that's from the first game? Where there are some elven guerilla fighters smuggling supplies into the city, and if you help them they later assassinate someone else you're on good terms with (because they're fighting a protracted people's war against the human authorities)? I'm fuzzy on the details because I didn't get that far in that one. But there were a lot of problems with that game.

I can't think of any case like that from the third game. I know there are some "somebody in this situation is getting screwed over no matter what" choices but in general it's narratively better to be merciful and generous than vengeful and self-serving.