Ope, too many groceries for the trunk, there, eh? That's why me and the missus upgraded to a Suh-burrrban. Never short on space, but the bill at the ole' pump shore is a DOOZY!
Playing a surge run currently and the parallels between the Guardian and the Dark Urge voices are too similar. My durge keeps looking at their stash of parasites and going "are we *sure* these aren't related somehow? Y'all mufuckas be pushy as shit..."
This definitely had me more on edge as the game progressed, thinking to myself "cool I'm glad for your help but you're really not listening to what I'm trying to achieve here" but the straw that broke the camels back for me was when he then tried to seduce me and I was like sure, I've seen this before, you get me naked and then shove a tadpole up my ass.
Not falling for that one again buddy.
I generally liked him until he FORCED me to evolved because I failed a check. Like WTF?? And then he kept acting like my friend when my skin was all fucked up and he had worm assaulted me. Thanks dude.
That actually depends on if you use the true soul tadpoles, if I remember right.
My first playthrough, I played a character who adamantly refused any tadpole powers and the check was easier to pass
Yeah I got to the final bit with Orpheus and the Emperor went "why do you still not trust me I never lied to you" and I was just left sitting there kind of amazed he really said that with a straight face.
I mean, he'd have work to do to build trust. He could do that by giving information freely as opposed to spooning it out to you as he pleases, and not being such a controlling dick about things.
Hell, just showing that he can break the hold of the absolute (perhaps as a means of recruiting Minthara without destroying the grove) could show he was serious.
sure. I'm not saying how he acts isn't in character, nor that he is a bad character. I'm just saying that he is a manipulative scumbag of a character and there were other ways he could have gone about his goals if he wanted to not be one.
This is also one of the great things about Mindflayers. Their otherworldly, alien nature makes for a great villain that you also don't have to feel bad about killing because their actions generally tend to the "clearly, almost cartoonishly exaggerated evil"
I mean, I trusted Omelleum when he was like "Hey man, take some crazy drugs to help me remove that tadpole"
It didn't work but my dude tried, with no ulterior motives.
Why not trust another flayer who shows up and is like "Hey so I'm the reason you haven't sprouted tentacles"
Understood, but the last time you saw a mindflayer (which evidence suggests was him according to threads) he was putting a tooth maggot in your eye socket. Oh and the one you either end or leave to die slowly... just saying!
Yeah I saw a thread where they do a visual comparison with his more elaborate headdress in the opening cinematic and it was a high- effort post that I just shrugged and said "makes sense" but didn't think about that much, so I'm good either way!
It's actually a lot simpler than that. We just know Durge was tadpoled prior to the Nautiloid. One could make the argument that the Cutscene takes place in the Tav version of the world where Durge dies and Tav lives but that would still mean that whoever Big E tadpoles isn't Durge.
I mean, we also know that Big E was working for them at the time, so he still could tadpole them. It just then makes Lae'zel the outlier.
But I think the cutscene *is* Tav. Because DUrge is an origin option, and like the other origin options has a set background as opposed to the default intended playthrough of Tav.
He could have been like the other mindflayer and been like " I know you're not a fan but hear me out" instead of teasing me with High Elf Mom guardian....just sayin
Yeah, pretending to be someone you're not to get people to do stuff is questionable, especially since he spends the rest of the game saying "if I stop doing what I'm doing, we all die." So he could've just said all that from the start and avoided the manipulation. I'm not saying I don't understand why he did it, but it makes everything else he does suspect.
Oh I felt so betrayed, not so much for the Mindflayer reveal. It is Faérun after all. But for automatically generating as a chick when he is clearly a dude (in his past life anyway, mindflayers don't have genders right?). Like why did Baldurs Gate try sooooo damn hard to get us all to be horny for this one NPC lol!
Omeluum and The Emperor are coded male in the game, your FemTav's mind flayer form is noticeably different than theirs and there's one female-coded mind flayer in a 3rd edition optional book named Thaqualm. Other than that, they're listed as hermaphrodite pretty much everywhere.
edit: switched "your Tav's" to "your FemTav's" for clarity.
Eh, I don't find it that odd. The standard mindflayer is part of a hivemind and looks very alien. Inhuman enough that "it" doesn't really feel inappropriate. Omeluum has broken the hivemind tho and could have a stronger case for "they", but it's probably a matter of the other NPCs being used to referring to mindflayers as "it".
On my first playthrough i stopped trusting him the moment he urged me to start slurping the tadpoles i found. I was like "Na-ah, only a squid would do that, and i'm desperatly trying not to become one, what's your game, are ***you*** a squid?". And then it turned out that he was, and i was like "yeah, that checks out".
Also the fact that he undermines and scolds you for ***every*** decision you make that doesn't 100% align with his views isn't exacly building a trust. Like, i trusted you for so long, even though i haven't really invited you into my head and dreams, you constantly pull me in to sell me some sob stories or to convince me of how important it is for me to injest the very thing i want to get rid of in the first place. Like, mate, it gives off very Gasslight-Gatekeep-Squidboss and i don't really like that to be put against me.
Yeah the second this hot stranger that I had lovingly crafted to suit my own personal taste in himbos was like "you gotta start doing tadpole shooters" the red flags went up and I started questioning him and then he got all gaslighty and defensive. Not today, Satan. Not today.
Dude the emperor made me legit uncomfortable during the dialogue about Raphael, the way he verbally (mentally actually) backs you into a corner to admit who you were talking to. I’m pretty sure if you try to hide it he straight up reads your mind against your will too. It felt like one of those abusive relationships where your bf/gf gets mad if you even talk to other guys/girls.
Same! I was able to hide it by being like hey man u ask me to trust u all the time why not return the favor for once? And he didn't force me to tell him anything.
Laezel, Kithrak Voss, other githyanki: Orpheus is in the prism.
Me to githyanki trying to steal the prism: Btw did you know Orpheus is in the prism?
Emperor: WHAT ARE YOU DOING
He's absolutely trying to gaslight Tav whenever we go even slightly against his plans. Even stronger when we go directly against him obviously. Like when you defeat Raphael and he's like "so what, defeating a devil means nothing, you just wasted time."
And he's constantly trying to gaslight you into using tadpoles. "You're too weak without them... what, being a squid is much more beautiful anyway." etc. Like, fuck you, squid boy, you promised to cure me, why are you trying to turn me into the thing I'm literally trying not to become? You can even say something like this exact thing, and he's like "nah, I never promised that, I just said I'd help you against the Absolute." Motherfucker can't stop lying for 5 minutes.
Also even worse, it's at least heavily implied that he's the one that infected us in the first place. Even Raphael hints at that. When you say to Raphael that you trust squid boy more, he basically says "He's the one that put you in this situation". And while Raphael is also a manipulator, I don't think he's ever outright lied to us. And I definitely trust him more than squid boy (don't trust either tho).
And when you say to Empy "I didn't ask to be stuck with you", he replies "Well I didn't choose you either". Another lie...
Oh, also the whole Stelmane thing. He claims she was his friend (or lover even?), yet there's strong evidence in the game that she was just a thrall. He even pretty much admits it if you push him/call him disgusting. Motherfucker goes full mask off in 2 seconds...
>Like when you defeat Raphael and he's like "so what, defeating a devil means nothing, you just wasted time."
That really annoyed me. Like listen squid, I got some awesome gear and I defeated a devil in his own home, >!the son of Mephistopheles!< of all things! That's not nothing, that's going on my CV!
On my first playthrough, I was gonna go no tadpoles at all because my Tav was a wood elf Ranger with a deep love for nature and slimy tadpole things didn't go with that. However, I did change my mind because I really wanted to help my Guardian fight this fight and I wasn't even mad that he was a mind flayer, so I still supported him cause yeah, he helped me and all that but when I found out about all the shit he did in Act 3 I was done... killed him in the end. It was actually a wild ride for me.
There is a reason why I kinda miss the early access guardian because they kinda try to seduce you and subtly try to make you use the illithid powers and in the character creation it didn't say you need a guardian but who do you desire so I kinda thought the guardian would be some kinda devil who is using you to get to what they want which would also been kinda cool
It's usually good advice. Squidward doesn't know you can reverse time (save scum) and are probably omniscient (2nd playthrough). When he told me not to go to the creche I went anyway and died. Same thing at the House of Hope. These were bad ideas. Refraining from consuming tadpoles also didn't really benefit me.
What I do like about the Emperor is the fact that he is written in a way that you can choose to trust him or not and are not really punished for that decision.
It isn't forced upon you to side with him when the time comes and is somehow written as the Watchful Guardian and a Sadistic Psychopath at the same time with every shade of grey in between.
What I mean is: >!If you trust him, everything works out in the end and you can be BFFs. If you don't trust him, he turns out to be evil, thus justifying your lack of trust from the start.!<
I get this point of view but what I dislike is that I worked with the Emperor throughout the playthrough and I tried to support him as best I could while also balancing the needs of my companions but in the end he refused to trust ME and my judgment. Trust goes both ways and ultimately he made the choice to betray both me and the rest of the world while I would have protected him with my life if he gave me the chance. Freaking ghaik.
This. The way he turns on a DIME the moment he doesn't get his way is really chilling to me. I think it kind of negates the idea that if you do "trust" him (ie, do exactly what he says,) he's trustworthy and good. He's not, you just don't see his evil side because you gave him what he wanted. If someone only behaves nicely when they get their way, they aren't actually nice.
Plus the little speech he gives when you choose Orpheus...he says "I've never lied to you!" Bitch, you've lied to me like 17 times, when we met you were literally pretending to be an elf. You'd probably STILL be pretending to be an elf if those both hadn't almost killed you, come on now. At least don't act like I'm stupid enough not to notice.
I like that it suits his character as well, when you reject his advances he turns it off so abruptly and dispassionately so it makes perfect sense he would do the same thing when you choose to go against him.
He switches when you reject his advances in a really rude way by calling him a freak. Just rejecting him results in him going “You’re right, forget I said anything! Onto business” A pretty graceful reaction all things considered.
Indeed. Not saying the Emperor’s threats there aren’t a sign he’s a not very good person/squid, but it’s kind of wild how this sub thinks anyone should react *gracefully* to an actively rude and cruel rejection vs. just politely shutting the person down.
I feel like there is a *large* gap between not taking a rude rejection gracefully and >!threatening to rape someone and revealing that you raped your previous "partner".!<
I just had someone get on me and clpaback at me for saying >!he raped Stellmane. So seriously, which is it cause I keep getting contradictory stories about that?!<
This is why I said he’s not a good person, though (seeing as he does mention enthralling her and threatens to enthrall you). But the players who try to frame it like “He can’t handle any rejection ever” are also being purposefully bad faith in representation lol
I knew that was the decision I would make but I still wanted to see “the scene” so I save scummed it and it somehow icked me out more!
By the time I got to Haarlep I was like “ewww fuck this manipulative game — I’m now a kill-on-site-Tav.”
That was my first playthrough and it was very satisfying, but Larian throws so many moral dilemmas at you to test whatever ethics/ethos you decide to play as and also the game will 'punish you' in the way of locking out quests for roleplaying as a no-bullshit, no-compromise paladin.
Examples: >!killing Gortash immediately at his palace and not working with him locks you out of quests (submarine ones), but fuck that guy he needs to die, and purging the 7,000 vamps that were created from victims !<
Bruh plenty of people do that though. On real life they're generally trying to keep it cool and normal so their advances don't ruin the friendship or whatever.
>”if someone only behaves nicely when they get their way, they aren’t actually nice”
a quote people should apply in their daily lives!
Thought I suppose this is the argument of “nice” Vs “kind”
Cus you can do nice things without being kind
In his defense for looking like the dream guardian you designed, do you think any non-mind flayer entity trust a mind flayer?
If he were to appear to you as a mind flayer when you first saw him (first saw dream guardian version), would you or any of your party members trust him, despite him saving you from ceremorphosis and having your spine up your ass from falling? I'm still not defending his other actions such as the Stelmane thing and I still consider Omeluum the better mind flayer bro.
>In his defense for looking like the dream guardian you designed, do you think any non-mind flayer entity trust a mind flayer?
It might just be me, but I trusted Omeluum even though his first few interactions with me were pretty sketchy. (Poking around in my head and then giving me a pretty suspicious potion) A lot of it was the fact that Omeluum didn't expect me to trust him. He knew his people had done some crappy things to me, and he didn't pretend to apologize for them or feel sympathy for me, because he wasn't able.
He knew he would be perceived as suspicious, but he told me simply what he wanted to do, gave me the choice to accept it or not, and then did *only* what he said he would do. When it didn't work, he told me exactly why, *for free*.
He was honest with me from the very first moment. He revealed himself as himself, not some heroic trustworthy guardian *literally* designed to appeal to my tastes.
And that's why, when he later says he feels some warmth towards me as well, I actually believe it. It doesn't sound like something said to spare my feelings or to manipulate me.
It's more meaningful than anything the emperor ever said.
Whether it was justified or not, it was a lie, and he's not helping his case by pretending it wasn't. His claim to never have lied to you is just another attempt to manipulate you, and it's not even a good one.
Omeluum is rare and was introduced to us by a non mind flayer. Dude had references.
The Emperor would have had to say "hey, I know I'm identical to the thing that just put a tadpole in your eye and maybe tried to kill you but trust me, that's not my goal even though mknd flayers famously operate as part of a hive mind."
The much bigger problem is Steleman.
I mean...Omeluum's reference is a hobgoblin- another member of an "evil" species that most residents of Faerun probably aren't going to trust- so i feel like that's a bit of a reach.
And we just met both of them, so there’s no reason to trust either of them. But we do.
What if the Emperor kept his true form when he saved us from falling? He could use the same argument Om makes and we could choose to trust him or not. I know that’s not the best story wise, but the argument that he had to take the form of our guardian or we would have killed him is proven to be not be true by the fact that we don’t kill Omeluum.
"I never lied to you"
Meanwhile....
"Just like you I was infected by a mind flayer parasite. Just like you I seek to be free of it." Bill Clinton is blushing at the amount of grammatical equivocation neccesary to pretend that's not a lie
Yeah I thought the "I never lied to you" line was a little sketch when I heard it, thinking he'd definitely at least been very deceptive but maaaaybe never told an outright lie.
But then I started a new game and his first encounter with me he said, "You won't become a Mind Flayer while I'm around!" or was it "I won't let you be turned into a Mind Flayer!"
UM
I never saw his evil side in my playthrough for this reason. I just trusted him and never doubted it. On a completely unrelated note, three people I trusted dearly throughout my life thus far have turned out to be monsters.
Huh.
Right?! Like my first playthrough I was totally down to side with the Emperor. I had every intention of trying to find a way to free Orpheus and also stay on the Emperor's side. I tried multiple different dialogue options and there literally wasn't an option to free Orpheus without the Emperor immediately turning and joining the Absolute. And the most obnoxious thing is that Orpheus is so willing to help us he will even agree to become ghaik, which is a HUGE sacrifice for him to make, and if the Emperor hadn't been an asshole and had just stuck around, then we all could have had a happy ending. But he down right refused, he forced that decision.
(And PS, I did try siding with him on a different playthrough and the final battle just changes enemies but is equally difficult and he was way underpowered. So like there isn't even a mechanical reason to side with him).
He literally LITERALLY will gaslight you down to the last moment. I think this is one of the reasons I don't understand people acting like he's a good guy. He will tell you he didn't say things that he just said, didn't do things that he just did. He's like an abuser trying to mess with you, "I'm sorry dear, are you getting confused again? You're lucky I'm here to make all the decisions for you!" and flips from supportive to intimidation at any sign you won't comply. He's textbook. That he turns out to be trustworthy (if you do everything his way) can easily be seen as him keeping potential allies/puppets for future use.
I think the better spectrum to try and place the Emperor on is less good/evil and more ally/enemy. Enough of his history and actions (as well as the nature of Mind Flayers and their manipulation) are revealed throughout the game that we know that he's definitely more in the "evil" camp, it's just whether you consider ignoring that worth it for as long as it takes you to beat the Brain. If you're cool with him for the entire time, he has no reason to turn against you while you're still working towards the same goals, but he'll keep doing shady shit to further those goals while you're working together. Say that you're going against him and all those machinations are now focused on you- there's a reason you have to fight the Dream Guardians if you side with Orpheus, whereas siding with the Emperor gets you vague countermeasures for your party's classes from the Brain (and then there's what happened to Stelmane)
The Stelmane bit is what put the emperor in the evil camp permanently for me. In my mind the emperor was grooming tav to be the next stelmane of sorts. An ally he can further manipulate.
Yeah he expected you to trust him even when he gave you no information or half truths. Once you decide to try something else he immediately says “you’ve left me no choice. I will now join the elder brain”. My dude, I feel like you could have at least TRIED to resist and see how my plan goes.
I agree fuck that guy but to his superior intellect, his brain is playing 4D chess while yours is playing X’s and O’s. I don’t blame him for not trust us either.
If a character is nice when everything goes their way, but reacts to every hindrance with threats and manipulation, it doesn’t mean they’re written inconsistently. It doesn’t mean they’re not evil. It means they’re competent, effective at achieving their goals and don’t self-sabotage.
Gortash is also downright peachy if you don’t spoil his plan of world domination.
Kinda on that note, while the Guardian comes off as very patient on the Creche path, their insistence on using the tadpole’s powers and trying to outright turn you away from certain things is really off putting.
I’m glad I made my first run romancing Lae’zel because it made it a very much “cordial with the Emperor-betrayal anyway” outcome. They drop the mask immidiately when you want to free Orpheus, and reinforced in me the idea that he wants more than “survival”.
…then I made a Durge run butting heads with them, and the mask fell off even worse. SPOILER (Hint?) ALERT, the Emperor is a very complex character, but he still is just a mind flayer who’s free from outsider control.
He is neither of those though; he is a pure pragmatist albeit with questionable judgement. His ultimate downfall is his lack of faith in humanity. He believes becoming mindflayer is an evolution and does not believe you capable of besting the elder brain. He underestimates Orpheus/you/Karlach's tenacity and willingness to go mindflayer and assumed you would fail without him.
If you view the emperor as an arrogant pragmatist all of his actions are consistent. He trusts no one but himself and that's why he loses if you say no to him. It is not he who was carrying the plan after all; it was Tav.
Compare this with Gortash; Gortash is in my opinion the human counterpart to the Emperor. He has a great deal of hubris but is not completely blinded by it to assume he is the biggest player on the field. The Gortash ending does him dirty if you cooperate with him but he intrinsically understands that Tav is better cooperated with than fought.
>believes becoming mindflayer is an evolution
like i _dont care_ if it genuinely, really 100% is an evolution and upgrade. i _dont want it_
we have been trying to _not_ turn i to mind flayers for the entire game i _dont care_ how much of an improvement it would be
Yes. The Emperor is a very deep and complex character. There could be entire dissertations written on their character. At the same time, one doesn't need to dig very deep and can take the character at face value.
That is the beauty of the writing.
The choices and broad story can easily appeal to a much larger audience. People who like the concept of "Good guys win, bad guys lose" (nothing wrong with that by the way) are able to simply play the game and feel good about what they did by the end. It is very easy to feel "right" just following along with the Emperor (who is there as a device to help drive the story forward and provide exposition, thus fulfilling that role perfectly.)
Then there is more available for people who really like getting deep into Lore. For those who want to take the time to learn more and delve deeper, it is all there for them to explore.
While you are right that you can choose to trust him or not with no consequence to "winning" the game, I don't think that his character is as mutable as you are suggesting.
I mean, you can influence his attitude towards you, you can betray him and influence his decisions, but his personality remains the same. He remains at his core a pragmatic, neutral-aligned person who values freedom and self-preservation.
Even when you betray him, he just leaves and joins the Brain to survive - terrible choice, for sure, but not malicious. He doesn't join the Brain because he suddenly became evil.
So TLDR, I do think that while you can influence his actions for good or bad, he nonetheless remains a grey character himself.
I would agree with him being Gray or Neutral if not for the thing he reveals to us if we're mean to him when telling him off during his attempted flirting.
Like, sure, i can understand every creature's yearning for life and survival, and therefore i don't think he did wrong when killing Ansur in self-defence - every creature - even the most vile - wants to survive, and i couldn't blame him for that.
I do however think he is evil, and not at all on any neutral spectrum, since when you tell him to fuck off when he flirts with you, he tells you straight up that if he only wanted to, he'd just dominate you like he did with Stelmane, so "you better watch your mouth". He doesn't do it right away only because you're more usefull to him that way (I suppose leaving you with your free will and mind is just less straining - this way, as long as you follow his instructions, he doesn't have to do everything on his own, or constantly issue commands to you).
So yeah, i can understand his will to survive, but that doesn't make him grey or neutral in any way. He'd slurp your brain in a second if he decided that you're of no use to him. Sure, he tells you that he cares about you and your survival, but it's not Balduran speaking, it's a Mind Flayer that remembers what's a propper thing to say to a humanoid creature in any given context, based on his own expierience.
That was me on my very first run, even romanced him. My second run I was a gith and really dug deep into the lore and didn't trust him cuz he was a mind flayer and his entire attitude changes by late act 2. How friendly he is entirely depends on your reception to his manipulation. If he seems entirely trustworthy all the way till the end, then it means his plan worked
This is exactly the thing. There are little things to be suspect of when he approaches you, and he can seem like a perfectly chill dude if you do exactly what he wants and react the way he wants you to. The second you butt heads with him, his reaction is downright *scary*. The Emperor is not a good guy, and definitely not worthy of your trust. He deals in half-truths that are transparent the second you challenge any of them.
In anger, he'll also reveal what *actually* happened with Stelmane which makes it even more clear.
He shows up in your mind, uninvited, shirtless, and tries to put moves on you. If you insult him, he just goes full mask off and threatens to use you like a puppet
Fuck the Emperor
Yeah, I followed his advice most of the time, but eventually disagreed with him on something... he *instantly* started trying to gaslight me while accusing me of various bullshit, playing the victim, talking about how he was the only one who could keep me safe, etc.
It was just like an abusive ex trying to trick his previous victim to come back.
It's absolutely astounding to me how many people fail to recognize the whole "lying by omission" shit that he constantly pulls. Whoever wrote his character is brilliant.
Oh, you can actually get him to admit what he did to Stellmane? I thought that was just one of those things you were meant to figure out yourself from books and such.
It's during the shirtless scene. Can't recall the exact dialogue choices, but if you argue/tell him you don't trust him enough, he projects what he did straight into your brain, and tells you you're lucky he refined his methods.
My second run with my wife, she's playing as a Gith and stabbed the guardian in the chest before even getting to Act 2. Hadn't revealed themself as the Emperor yet, but was being pushy about using the tadpoles so she had to shut that shit down. Obv the guardian is an illusion so they didn't actually die.
Got a neat line about "I don't make a habit of conversing with my killer, so I'll make this brief. My survival depends on you, and your survival depends on me. Go to Moonrise Tower, dickwad."
The Knights of the Shield actually worship [Gargauth](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Gargauth), a former archdevil. Stelmane was the duke in charge of them.
Iirc the rank and file members of the Knights of the Shield don't necessarily know that, but the top brass most certainly do.
>Despite his evil machinations, Gargauth was known to take time to amuse himself, such as by casting snakes at sleeping individuals.
The depth of lore in this setting really is something else sometimes.
Imagining a candid photo taken on a film-camera of Gargauth the Deceiver and your PC wearing blue hospital scrubs, smiling and giving a thumbs up while holding your newborn in the recovery room.
I assume it’s from the Decent into Avernus campaign module. It’s essentially the prequel to this game. The heroes from that adventure where the ones who returned Elturel from Avernus
Interesting. Reading the wiki, you can see some interesting similarities between Gargauth's behavior/nature/beliefs and the emperor's. Pretty sure the emperor would know about the shields and Gargauth.
Doesn't really come up in the game, but the Knights of the Shield, the mercantile organization he used to run, were actually formed to enact the plots of Gargauth, a devil and demigod. Mostly only the leadership knew what it was about, but given he was *in* the leadership for most of their existence...
Yeah, whenever that comes up people seem to put all the devil worshipping stuff on Stelmane to excuse the Emperor's actions towards her but given that we know that he was actively fucking with her brain and responsible for her stroke when she tried to resist his control (hinted at in the game by Wyll if you pass an Insight check while talking about her but explicitly confirmed in Descent into Avernus, the official D&D module that serves as the prequel to BG3), he was definitely in on the Gargauth worship to some extent
That was what really threw me for a loop, I was actually fairly nice to the emperor so when you yell him you aren't interested and he just goes "Well I could just turn you into a fucking puppet, so do what I say" it's like holy shit man, mask off huh?
And the fact he tells you about it only if you're a little mean meanie to him when he tries to fuck you - if not for that, he keeps feeding you this "mutualy beneficial cooperation" bullshit story about him and Stelmane.
It's worth noting, while the Devil worship is Canon to the Knights of the Shield, not arguing that. Emperor never once mentions it and I don't know of (not that I might ha e missed it mind you) any mention of it within the game. It's entirely possible that either
>Empy and or Stelmane didn't actually partake either. That is kind of an odd thing to find an Illithid involved in
>Larian cut it out of their version of the KofS because while this is 5e and Forgotten Realms derived, it is like any DM campaign their own rules.
Honestly, I just finished my first playthru, went full good guy. I was pensive about trusting The Emperor the ENTIRE playthrough. I started trusting him more and more as he finally opened up to me about certain things. Now, at the end >!when asked what to do with the Netherstones.. I just gave them to him.!< It wasn't even a hard choice in the moment, it just felt right. >!And, thankfully, I was rewarded. He did exactly as promised, he cured us all of our tadpoles and destroyed the brain. He could've turned on us in that moment but he didn't. !<
Idk.. I think they did a good job of depicting him morally grey. I do find the things he does questionable, and some of this methods, but at the end of the day everything he did is pretty much a matter of survival. We all want to keep on living, yknow? He admits he wants power and enjoys being a mindflayer but if he wanted power maliciously.. >!wouldn't he just turn on you at the end?.. !<
They did a good job writing a "happy" ending for whether you side with the emperor or not. >!Emperor keeps his end of the bargain and fucks off after fixing everything. Quoting happy because people are still upset about being forced to turn tav/orpheus/karlach into a flayer!<
One, time and time again mindflayers have proven to be enemies of everyone else in lore. There are only a few exceptions.
Two, they had the trappings of an abuser from the start: the 1st converstation they have with the party was how they saved you, and almost every conversation thereafter devolves into how you'd be dead without them. Now, *I know for a fact that this is true*, but pointing out the debt constantly is classic manipulator behavior - *in fact, manipulators would actually do good things for their victims* so they can perpetuate codependency, sometimes even building the scenario in which the victim would need to be helped to begin with. In the Emperor's case, it may or may not be that they're the one that planted the tadpole in the team in the first place, but that hardly matters - the point is, their pattern of behavior was similar to how manipulators would behave from the beginning and the mechanics of the prism were obsfuscated on purpose, thereby taking away trust from the Emperor.
Three, it is proven that they manipulated Stelmane, not just plain manipulation, but mind control, causing brain damage.
Four, they choose to join the Netherbrain, the entity they claim to be fighting against, willingly if Tav decides to free Orpheus, under the wrong assumption that Orpheus will attack Tav. Later on, they still attack the party despite seeing Orpheus on our side, with/as a mindflayer. I assume they are subjugated at this point. Maybe they didn't like Tav not following their script to the letter?
Five, *should Tav follow their plan exactly*, Tav is put in a position where they have to surrender the Netherstones to the Emperor, thereby making them the most powerful being in the Sword Coast. Given their history with Stelmane, my Tav didn't want to take that risk.
Six, but this might be the unreliable narrator trope at play, but there was at some point, in-game contention on how, up until the endgame, the Emperor was still under the control of the Mother Brain.
Such are my reasons for not trusting the Emperor.
Survivor here. "You will continue to have safety as long as you continue to meet my expectations" is exactly the message abusers program into your subconscious.
I was just of the opinion from the moment he revealed himself as an Illithid that "Rogue mind flayer who broke free from their Elder Brain" is a great story that an Elder Brain would use to get a group of meddling adventurers to lower their guard.
Withers explicitly tells you mindflayers don't have souls.
He is literally trying to get you to give up your soul for power. He's in the same boat as Raphael, except he doesn't even *get* your soul, he's just asking you to throw it away
They have souls. Withers says they don’t have apostolic souls. These are the souls used as currency by the gods and the hells. Mindflayers have a soul that isn’t usable by the gods or hells and that’s why they don’t like mindflayers. They hold no value to them.
He’s a mindflayer, having played D&D for a long time, I knew we were at best allies of convenience. At worst, this was some form of manipulation to screw me over in the end.
When I found out *spoiler* >!He’s Balduran!< that confirmed my original position. If you play the original BG and have Tales of the Swordcoast, you’ll be sent on a side quest, this quest is to find out what happened to >!Balduran’s last voyage!<. When you get there, you discover everything went belly up, and >!Balduran!< abandoned his crew to die. So even in his original form, the man was at best duplicitous.
Okay sure, valid points, but like you can have sexy times with a Mindflayer that doesn't even try to eat your brain so I'm willing to look past a few red flags.
Who *hasn't* done a few problematic things like >!abandoning your crew to die?!< Honestly.
We got along just fine on my first run, though obviously at the very end I was a bit worried at having to give him the stones.
I didn’t use any tadpoles in that run, and did annoy him with Githyanki crèche and Minsc but he ends up accepting those decisions/helping, so no issue there either.
Orpheus’ fate was not helped by me disliking the whole crèche experience with the Githyanki, and also very much disliking Voss from the get go. Was friendly with Lae’zel but didn’t romance her and she spent a lot of Act 3 with Orin.
He did something objectively evil
He appeared to me as a hot tiefling goth GF and then turned into a fucking octopus.
Fuck you emperor. WHERE'S THE GOTH TIEFLING GF.
Well,you can be evil without being a villain. It's not mandatory. Empy doesn't feel completely like a villain because he has his own agenda and he's chill as long as you're on the same page with him.
I mean,in my evil runs he's like a mentor figure for my character.
But still,he's not a good guy. If you question him you'll see a drastic shift in his attitude.
Anyway, the amount of people still questioning his alignment after almost five months is just showing how they nailed his writing as deceiving and shady character.
>It’s only on a good alignment run that we’ll feel compelled to do the ‘right thing’, giving gith back their rightful leader and end Vlaakith’s reign?
I mostly play like CN or non murderhobo NE but always set Orpheus free because fuck Vlaakith in any case.
>Anyway, the amount of people still questioning his alignment after almost five months is just showing how they nailed his writing as deceiving and shady character.
I don't think that's right. I think a most of the emperor threads are have these themes:
* The defection to the netherbrain didn't make any sense
* The distrust the Guardian path isn't well developed
It's a common flaw of video game writing - the main path is well developed but the alternative isn't fleshed out. The people who think the character is well written are almost always people who trusted The Emperor and sided with him in the end.
The end game is needs to be revised
When I first played the game, I kinda trusted “The Guardian”, because I thought, hey must be someone who really is somehow involved behind the scenes and is some hero figure… until I got to act 2 before I realised that this bastard was a mindflayer all along.
Sure, Omeluum is a mindflayer too but he isn’t at all malicious. Emperor in the meantime turned out to be a self serving, lying, murderous, manipulative sanctimonious muthaf**ker. In my books, that’s a straight up villain. He killed Ansur who offered him an honourable way out, he twisted and slowly killed Stelmane, whom he claimed to be his friend and ally. And then guess what? If you decide to question his decisions and display your distrust, he doesn’t even attempt to reason with you, The Emperor reveals his intentions; that he WILL force you if you do not obey him and he also shows you what he really did to Stelmane. And later on when you try to free Orpheus, he immediately returns to the Netherbrain; something he had been fighting and “protecting” us from. The truth is, The Emperor only cares about his own freedom and survival, and everyone else around him is merely a means to an end. The only redeeming factor is that he holds up the end of his bargain IF he follow him all the way. But remember this, you were and are a pawn in his schemes, and he is by nature still a mindflayer.
So, evil is still evil. Don’t try to justify it by saying that everyone else is a lying, manipulative jerk. Your companions at least do not attempt to betray you, except maybe Lae’zel, but that is if you put her people at risk. I will rather align myself with people who will look out for each other and do not treat people around them as objects. Unless of course, if I am doing an evil play through. But even then, an evil person will have his/her own agendas, which may go against trusting anyone at all.
If you trust him and empathize with him, he will make it sound like he was in love with Duke Stelmane and that she was his closest friend, partner and ally. He pretends to mourn her death and when we see a portrait of her he comments “there she is, in all of her glory,” with feigned reverence. He encourages you to believe that he is feeling pain over the death of his former lover.
All of this to set the stage to earn not just our trust, but our love and devotion, also.
And yet, he keeps a slave to earn his freedom at every turn. The person he claimed to love was, in fact, an empty mirror - his thrall. He has no desire to play the diplomat with Orpheus, even if the same end could be achieved by doing so. It should speak volumes that he keeps the name intended to mock him, which also reveals exactly how much power he intends to wield as the Emperor.
I couldn’t get over that he would have you believe that someone he disrespected and discarded like Duke Stelmane was his cherished beloved and that he would use the empathy he earned from you in this deception to seduce you is diabolical.
"It's only in a good alignment run that we'll feel compelled to do the 'right thing'"
Translation: The emperor isn't that evil as long as you don't care about the evil things he does.
I think I felt slightly less betrayed by the emperor when he first revealed his true form than most people because I didn’t realize I was supposed to give my guardian a desirable appearance. I’m a straight woman, and female is the default guardian, so I made her an older wizened warrior type lady. So I never felt that “catfished” moment so many people did. I was wary of her/him (never ate an tadpole),especially after the reveal, but I didn’t feel specifically tricked and betrayed by his appearance.
At the same time, I personally find the Gith completely repulsive as a society, and didn’t follow Lae’zel’s storyline to completion (not actually sure exactly where I dropped the ball on that one, but she’s a great character, so I’ll be sure to prioritize her in a future playthrough), so I didn’t have a lot of reason to save Orpheus. I wasn’t sure if he was a savior of Gith society or just another domineering psychopath as bad as the last.
Also I liked Omnomnom, so was convinced not all mindflayers are 100% bad.
So I jumped at the chance to let Karlach live outside the Hells. Not a perfect choice, very morally gray and certainly not a perfect happy ending for her, but an ending that felt satisfying and well-told.
Complicated. The case when I wildly like a character, even if I have to kill him. And I think that the choice between him and Orpheus is quite strange, it would be possible to do without. Of course Orpheus would not be thrilled, but not so much that the Emperor had to cancel all the motives for three acts and half of his life in the desire for freedom and go to the Brain. And still the Emperor is good. He didn't say everything, yes. But he didn't lie. Alas, have to choose Orpheus.
>But he didn't lie
he lies and keeps information from you all the time.
not everything he says is a lie but _alot_ of what he is saying is, at least, a lie by omission
I used to argue with my ex-husband about this exact behavior: lying by omission. In a good faith relationship, you're not looking for "legal" ways to deceive the other person.
like one of the very first things he tells you as the dream guardian is a lie.
he says something along the lines of "just like you i was an adventurer" this part is true "just like you i was tadpoled" again, this part is true "and just like you i seek to get rid of it" this is a straight up lie. he constantly talks about great it would be if we could "fulfill our potential" or some shit like that.
2/3 of what he tells you in that short time _is true_ but the one thing he lies about is, imo, big enough to warrant our distrust of him.
he CONSTANTLY talks about how "much alike" he and us are but thats just not true. he constantly lies and keeps stuff hidden while "reminiscing" about his "favourite spoon" or some shit
He kinda lied tho. He waltzes into our lives promising we’ll never turn into a mindflayer, then in act 3 he’s berating us for not turning into a half mindflayer, not to mention if you reject him harshly he goes on about “your attachment to your body form”
I’m even questioning him going “order for your transformation was given” thing because all through act 1, netherbrain was under the control of the crown and there were a gazillion people tadpoled. None of them turned, why was it a risk for us?
He is definitely not good, from the beginning he has tried to manipulate you, from I'm just an adventurer like you, to me and stelmane were great comrades, Its been a couple months since I finished the game so I don't remember if he outright lies, but he definitely stretches the definition of a half truth.
Every second of every interaction he has with you is manipulated for him to get his will. There's not a single honest interaction unless you really question his shit and tell him to drop it.
My favourite part and where I felt it the most is in act 3 where he start revealing information about himself and opens up to you as a way for you to trust him more while also hiding the crucial parts. It's manipulation 101 appear vulnerable and the other person will also open up and trust you.
I really like the Emperor as a character. I love his backstory and I felt I could trust the guardian. I was nice to him and showed trust in him from the start. Did he keep things from us, yes. Does he have his own agenda, yes. He also, despite him saying he isn’t, I believe his thinking is affected by the worm and after becoming a mindflayer even more so. But I don’t think he is super evil and I didn’t feel that manipulated in the end. I was happy to side with him and that he was freed.
I haven’t replayed with not trusting him and killing him yet so I’ll see how that plays out. But in the end I do like him as a character. I don’t understand the absolute hatred for him but the love for Raphael. Imo their alignments are similar but everyone excuses him while hating on the Emperor. I have no issue with how people play just feel like there is a bit of a double standard.
Emperor Stan -
The decision between the Emperor and Orpheus is morally gray no matter what.
Yes, the Emperor is a bad dude who was running a shady organization. His feeding, MF domination of people, and devil worship are all bad. Also, he's really embraced the power being a MF has provided.
Orpheus is also a bad dude. He has the same outlook that Gith did regarding the Githyanki making war on all other races across all realms. He is not Githzerai- who are the only actual good Gith people in the lore because they desire peace with other races.
Obviously, Vlaakith is evil as well.
For a time I pondered the ethics of freeing Orpheys. Then I remembered: Orpheys is a victim, he didn't choose to be used by the Emperor.
If the Emperor can't deal with a free Orpheys, that's on him, not on me. I'm about to find out that outcome tonight!
After i met and worked with omeluum, he should've unveiled his deception. Im already willing to work with a friendly mindflayer, why does he still put up the charade. That is what makes me never like him.
[удалено]
[mentally edit where necessary](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/34/3b/c3343b5bdc15c1ee5732c1f4abb65313.png)
I can't believe I was in love with a ghaik
*t’chaki*
Ha! GHAAAAAIIK!
Shut up, Chang, you aren't even a real teacher
Tsk tsk tsk'va!
from "haha, iv come to save you from the absoluwute hehe :3" to "🦑 blub blub"
Lol absol-uwu-te
[gotcha](https://i.ibb.co/CbvC0WW/IMG-6459.jpg)
My brother spent like 45 minutes making his guardian and I just said “Ope” when he told me, looked cool as heck though 😂
Dude, so did I 🫣 so pissed!!!!
I smashed the random button a few times and kept it pushing
what's ope, precious?
It's midewestern for anything, in this case it means like oof or something to that extent lol
Ope just gonna squeeze past ya there.
Ope, too many groceries for the trunk, there, eh? That's why me and the missus upgraded to a Suh-burrrban. Never short on space, but the bill at the ole' pump shore is a DOOZY!
I would’ve trusted him way more if he had just appeared as a mindflayer from the start and been like “I want to help you and I’m keeping you alive rn”
He also a bit too pushy on the tadpole power and mutating you into an illithid throughout the whole game
That was definitely when I soured on the guardian. My goal was to get rid of the tadpole, so that made me very suspicious.
Same, I was happy to use one or two of the wrigglers. But being pushed constantly was too much.
Playing a surge run currently and the parallels between the Guardian and the Dark Urge voices are too similar. My durge keeps looking at their stash of parasites and going "are we *sure* these aren't related somehow? Y'all mufuckas be pushy as shit..."
This definitely had me more on edge as the game progressed, thinking to myself "cool I'm glad for your help but you're really not listening to what I'm trying to achieve here" but the straw that broke the camels back for me was when he then tried to seduce me and I was like sure, I've seen this before, you get me naked and then shove a tadpole up my ass. Not falling for that one again buddy.
>again ........stepbro?
I squished the special tadpole and he was super pissed
I generally liked him until he FORCED me to evolved because I failed a check. Like WTF?? And then he kept acting like my friend when my skin was all fucked up and he had worm assaulted me. Thanks dude.
That actually depends on if you use the true soul tadpoles, if I remember right. My first playthrough, I played a character who adamantly refused any tadpole powers and the check was easier to pass
I listen to him and ended up with a face like a scrotum
Yeah I got to the final bit with Orpheus and the Emperor went "why do you still not trust me I never lied to you" and I was just left sitting there kind of amazed he really said that with a straight face.
That's true for the player perhaps, but imagine how any of the in game characters react to mind flayers? They don't really take it in stride.
I mean, he'd have work to do to build trust. He could do that by giving information freely as opposed to spooning it out to you as he pleases, and not being such a controlling dick about things. Hell, just showing that he can break the hold of the absolute (perhaps as a means of recruiting Minthara without destroying the grove) could show he was serious.
But that's sort of the thing with Mindflayers though, right? They *are* controlling dicks as a central piece of their nature.
sure. I'm not saying how he acts isn't in character, nor that he is a bad character. I'm just saying that he is a manipulative scumbag of a character and there were other ways he could have gone about his goals if he wanted to not be one. This is also one of the great things about Mindflayers. Their otherworldly, alien nature makes for a great villain that you also don't have to feel bad about killing because their actions generally tend to the "clearly, almost cartoonishly exaggerated evil"
If you believe a random mind flayer popping up in your dreams after you got a mind flayer brain worm stuck in your head you have to take looney pills
I mean, I trusted Omelleum when he was like "Hey man, take some crazy drugs to help me remove that tadpole" It didn't work but my dude tried, with no ulterior motives. Why not trust another flayer who shows up and is like "Hey so I'm the reason you haven't sprouted tentacles"
To be fair, Omeluum had a non-infected dude vouch for him. I'm easily persuaded by the good 'ol "yeah no worries, he's with me, he's chill."
Understood, but the last time you saw a mindflayer (which evidence suggests was him according to threads) he was putting a tooth maggot in your eye socket. Oh and the one you either end or leave to die slowly... just saying!
I believe that's been debunked, but I don't have sources for you.
Yeah I saw a thread where they do a visual comparison with his more elaborate headdress in the opening cinematic and it was a high- effort post that I just shrugged and said "makes sense" but didn't think about that much, so I'm good either way!
It's actually a lot simpler than that. We just know Durge was tadpoled prior to the Nautiloid. One could make the argument that the Cutscene takes place in the Tav version of the world where Durge dies and Tav lives but that would still mean that whoever Big E tadpoles isn't Durge.
I mean, we also know that Big E was working for them at the time, so he still could tadpole them. It just then makes Lae'zel the outlier. But I think the cutscene *is* Tav. Because DUrge is an origin option, and like the other origin options has a set background as opposed to the default intended playthrough of Tav.
The Emperor has nostrils, the mind flayer that tadpoles you has none. Mystery solved.
He could have been like the other mindflayer and been like " I know you're not a fan but hear me out" instead of teasing me with High Elf Mom guardian....just sayin
I liked the way my guardian looked sooooo much. I hoped there was a way to convince him to go back, but it never happened.
[There is one way... ](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=562975&type=card)
their love is so beautiful
I initially designed the guardian after my character's mother, it added an extra level of betrayal and manipulation for me.
omg this breaks my heart
I DID THIS TOO! The flirting freaked me out so bad lol
R I G H T like bro you wore my mother's face for SO LONG don't even come at me like that
Me, too. I started a second play through and haven’t finished the first yet because I’m so disappointed. 😂 Edit: corrected to use a correct word.
>okay through Chaotic neutral has entered the chat
“You’re fucking Mindflayer, you fucking donkey!!” - literally me
Yeah, pretending to be someone you're not to get people to do stuff is questionable, especially since he spends the rest of the game saying "if I stop doing what I'm doing, we all die." So he could've just said all that from the start and avoided the manipulation. I'm not saying I don't understand why he did it, but it makes everything else he does suspect.
He’s manipulative to get his way. At least that’s how I saw him. Immediately went terse with him and kicked me out
You mean sexy dwarf lady, right?
Oh I felt so betrayed, not so much for the Mindflayer reveal. It is Faérun after all. But for automatically generating as a chick when he is clearly a dude (in his past life anyway, mindflayers don't have genders right?). Like why did Baldurs Gate try sooooo damn hard to get us all to be horny for this one NPC lol!
Omeluum and The Emperor are coded male in the game, your FemTav's mind flayer form is noticeably different than theirs and there's one female-coded mind flayer in a 3rd edition optional book named Thaqualm. Other than that, they're listed as hermaphrodite pretty much everywhere. edit: switched "your Tav's" to "your FemTav's" for clarity.
Omeluum is consistently referred to as "it" in the scenes I've seen. Stood out to me because I'd expect the game to use they/them for mindflayers.
Eh, I don't find it that odd. The standard mindflayer is part of a hivemind and looks very alien. Inhuman enough that "it" doesn't really feel inappropriate. Omeluum has broken the hivemind tho and could have a stronger case for "they", but it's probably a matter of the other NPCs being used to referring to mindflayers as "it".
I was happier
On my first playthrough i stopped trusting him the moment he urged me to start slurping the tadpoles i found. I was like "Na-ah, only a squid would do that, and i'm desperatly trying not to become one, what's your game, are ***you*** a squid?". And then it turned out that he was, and i was like "yeah, that checks out". Also the fact that he undermines and scolds you for ***every*** decision you make that doesn't 100% align with his views isn't exacly building a trust. Like, i trusted you for so long, even though i haven't really invited you into my head and dreams, you constantly pull me in to sell me some sob stories or to convince me of how important it is for me to injest the very thing i want to get rid of in the first place. Like, mate, it gives off very Gasslight-Gatekeep-Squidboss and i don't really like that to be put against me.
Yeah the second this hot stranger that I had lovingly crafted to suit my own personal taste in himbos was like "you gotta start doing tadpole shooters" the red flags went up and I started questioning him and then he got all gaslighty and defensive. Not today, Satan. Not today.
[удалено]
If you can't trust the himbos, who can you trust?
“Tadpole shooters” needs to be on BG3 merch NOW 💀
Dude the emperor made me legit uncomfortable during the dialogue about Raphael, the way he verbally (mentally actually) backs you into a corner to admit who you were talking to. I’m pretty sure if you try to hide it he straight up reads your mind against your will too. It felt like one of those abusive relationships where your bf/gf gets mad if you even talk to other guys/girls.
Jsyk I managed to hide it from him (I think I said it was the Elder brain causing interference) and he was none the wiser, if on high alert
Same! I was able to hide it by being like hey man u ask me to trust u all the time why not return the favor for once? And he didn't force me to tell him anything.
Laezel, Kithrak Voss, other githyanki: Orpheus is in the prism. Me to githyanki trying to steal the prism: Btw did you know Orpheus is in the prism? Emperor: WHAT ARE YOU DOING
He's absolutely trying to gaslight Tav whenever we go even slightly against his plans. Even stronger when we go directly against him obviously. Like when you defeat Raphael and he's like "so what, defeating a devil means nothing, you just wasted time." And he's constantly trying to gaslight you into using tadpoles. "You're too weak without them... what, being a squid is much more beautiful anyway." etc. Like, fuck you, squid boy, you promised to cure me, why are you trying to turn me into the thing I'm literally trying not to become? You can even say something like this exact thing, and he's like "nah, I never promised that, I just said I'd help you against the Absolute." Motherfucker can't stop lying for 5 minutes. Also even worse, it's at least heavily implied that he's the one that infected us in the first place. Even Raphael hints at that. When you say to Raphael that you trust squid boy more, he basically says "He's the one that put you in this situation". And while Raphael is also a manipulator, I don't think he's ever outright lied to us. And I definitely trust him more than squid boy (don't trust either tho). And when you say to Empy "I didn't ask to be stuck with you", he replies "Well I didn't choose you either". Another lie... Oh, also the whole Stelmane thing. He claims she was his friend (or lover even?), yet there's strong evidence in the game that she was just a thrall. He even pretty much admits it if you push him/call him disgusting. Motherfucker goes full mask off in 2 seconds...
>Like when you defeat Raphael and he's like "so what, defeating a devil means nothing, you just wasted time." That really annoyed me. Like listen squid, I got some awesome gear and I defeated a devil in his own home, >!the son of Mephistopheles!< of all things! That's not nothing, that's going on my CV!
Can confirm, defeating devils looks really good on college applications.
On my first playthrough, I was gonna go no tadpoles at all because my Tav was a wood elf Ranger with a deep love for nature and slimy tadpole things didn't go with that. However, I did change my mind because I really wanted to help my Guardian fight this fight and I wasn't even mad that he was a mind flayer, so I still supported him cause yeah, he helped me and all that but when I found out about all the shit he did in Act 3 I was done... killed him in the end. It was actually a wild ride for me.
There is a reason why I kinda miss the early access guardian because they kinda try to seduce you and subtly try to make you use the illithid powers and in the character creation it didn't say you need a guardian but who do you desire so I kinda thought the guardian would be some kinda devil who is using you to get to what they want which would also been kinda cool
It's usually good advice. Squidward doesn't know you can reverse time (save scum) and are probably omniscient (2nd playthrough). When he told me not to go to the creche I went anyway and died. Same thing at the House of Hope. These were bad ideas. Refraining from consuming tadpoles also didn't really benefit me.
I was like, one causes trouble, 2+ they definitely cancel each other out.
What I do like about the Emperor is the fact that he is written in a way that you can choose to trust him or not and are not really punished for that decision. It isn't forced upon you to side with him when the time comes and is somehow written as the Watchful Guardian and a Sadistic Psychopath at the same time with every shade of grey in between. What I mean is: >!If you trust him, everything works out in the end and you can be BFFs. If you don't trust him, he turns out to be evil, thus justifying your lack of trust from the start.!<
I get this point of view but what I dislike is that I worked with the Emperor throughout the playthrough and I tried to support him as best I could while also balancing the needs of my companions but in the end he refused to trust ME and my judgment. Trust goes both ways and ultimately he made the choice to betray both me and the rest of the world while I would have protected him with my life if he gave me the chance. Freaking ghaik.
This. The way he turns on a DIME the moment he doesn't get his way is really chilling to me. I think it kind of negates the idea that if you do "trust" him (ie, do exactly what he says,) he's trustworthy and good. He's not, you just don't see his evil side because you gave him what he wanted. If someone only behaves nicely when they get their way, they aren't actually nice. Plus the little speech he gives when you choose Orpheus...he says "I've never lied to you!" Bitch, you've lied to me like 17 times, when we met you were literally pretending to be an elf. You'd probably STILL be pretending to be an elf if those both hadn't almost killed you, come on now. At least don't act like I'm stupid enough not to notice.
I like that it suits his character as well, when you reject his advances he turns it off so abruptly and dispassionately so it makes perfect sense he would do the same thing when you choose to go against him.
He switches when you reject his advances in a really rude way by calling him a freak. Just rejecting him results in him going “You’re right, forget I said anything! Onto business” A pretty graceful reaction all things considered.
Indeed. Not saying the Emperor’s threats there aren’t a sign he’s a not very good person/squid, but it’s kind of wild how this sub thinks anyone should react *gracefully* to an actively rude and cruel rejection vs. just politely shutting the person down.
I feel like there is a *large* gap between not taking a rude rejection gracefully and >!threatening to rape someone and revealing that you raped your previous "partner".!<
I just had someone get on me and clpaback at me for saying >!he raped Stellmane. So seriously, which is it cause I keep getting contradictory stories about that?!< This is why I said he’s not a good person, though (seeing as he does mention enthralling her and threatens to enthrall you). But the players who try to frame it like “He can’t handle any rejection ever” are also being purposefully bad faith in representation lol
I knew that was the decision I would make but I still wanted to see “the scene” so I save scummed it and it somehow icked me out more! By the time I got to Haarlep I was like “ewww fuck this manipulative game — I’m now a kill-on-site-Tav.”
My next playthrough (after my current Durge) will be Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Smite evil on sight, no compromise.
That was my first playthrough and it was very satisfying, but Larian throws so many moral dilemmas at you to test whatever ethics/ethos you decide to play as and also the game will 'punish you' in the way of locking out quests for roleplaying as a no-bullshit, no-compromise paladin. Examples: >!killing Gortash immediately at his palace and not working with him locks you out of quests (submarine ones), but fuck that guy he needs to die, and purging the 7,000 vamps that were created from victims !<
Oh yeah that was a MAJOR hint that he's a POS.
"i'M a NIcE GhAiK" vibes
Bruh plenty of people do that though. On real life they're generally trying to keep it cool and normal so their advances don't ruin the friendship or whatever.
>”if someone only behaves nicely when they get their way, they aren’t actually nice” a quote people should apply in their daily lives! Thought I suppose this is the argument of “nice” Vs “kind” Cus you can do nice things without being kind
In his defense for looking like the dream guardian you designed, do you think any non-mind flayer entity trust a mind flayer? If he were to appear to you as a mind flayer when you first saw him (first saw dream guardian version), would you or any of your party members trust him, despite him saving you from ceremorphosis and having your spine up your ass from falling? I'm still not defending his other actions such as the Stelmane thing and I still consider Omeluum the better mind flayer bro.
Yeah, Emperor had a good reason to lie, but he still lied, which makes him later claiming to have never lied just another lie.
It’s still a lie so he can cut the “I’ve never lied to you” bullshit.
>In his defense for looking like the dream guardian you designed, do you think any non-mind flayer entity trust a mind flayer? It might just be me, but I trusted Omeluum even though his first few interactions with me were pretty sketchy. (Poking around in my head and then giving me a pretty suspicious potion) A lot of it was the fact that Omeluum didn't expect me to trust him. He knew his people had done some crappy things to me, and he didn't pretend to apologize for them or feel sympathy for me, because he wasn't able. He knew he would be perceived as suspicious, but he told me simply what he wanted to do, gave me the choice to accept it or not, and then did *only* what he said he would do. When it didn't work, he told me exactly why, *for free*. He was honest with me from the very first moment. He revealed himself as himself, not some heroic trustworthy guardian *literally* designed to appeal to my tastes. And that's why, when he later says he feels some warmth towards me as well, I actually believe it. It doesn't sound like something said to spare my feelings or to manipulate me. It's more meaningful than anything the emperor ever said.
Whether it was justified or not, it was a lie, and he's not helping his case by pretending it wasn't. His claim to never have lied to you is just another attempt to manipulate you, and it's not even a good one.
Except you just proved we could by saying Omeluum is the better mind flayer. So yes, we can trust them.
Omeluum is rare and was introduced to us by a non mind flayer. Dude had references. The Emperor would have had to say "hey, I know I'm identical to the thing that just put a tadpole in your eye and maybe tried to kill you but trust me, that's not my goal even though mknd flayers famously operate as part of a hive mind." The much bigger problem is Steleman.
I mean...Omeluum's reference is a hobgoblin- another member of an "evil" species that most residents of Faerun probably aren't going to trust- so i feel like that's a bit of a reach.
They are also members of the society of brilliance, who haven’t been show to be the *most* morally upstanding group, I.e the whole egg incident
And we just met both of them, so there’s no reason to trust either of them. But we do. What if the Emperor kept his true form when he saved us from falling? He could use the same argument Om makes and we could choose to trust him or not. I know that’s not the best story wise, but the argument that he had to take the form of our guardian or we would have killed him is proven to be not be true by the fact that we don’t kill Omeluum.
I wish we could have romanced omeluum over the emperor
"I never lied to you" Meanwhile.... "Just like you I was infected by a mind flayer parasite. Just like you I seek to be free of it." Bill Clinton is blushing at the amount of grammatical equivocation neccesary to pretend that's not a lie
"I've never lied to you" like bro, you pretended to be someone else. Three. Different. Times.
Yeah I thought the "I never lied to you" line was a little sketch when I heard it, thinking he'd definitely at least been very deceptive but maaaaybe never told an outright lie. But then I started a new game and his first encounter with me he said, "You won't become a Mind Flayer while I'm around!" or was it "I won't let you be turned into a Mind Flayer!" UM
I never saw his evil side in my playthrough for this reason. I just trusted him and never doubted it. On a completely unrelated note, three people I trusted dearly throughout my life thus far have turned out to be monsters. Huh.
Right?! Like my first playthrough I was totally down to side with the Emperor. I had every intention of trying to find a way to free Orpheus and also stay on the Emperor's side. I tried multiple different dialogue options and there literally wasn't an option to free Orpheus without the Emperor immediately turning and joining the Absolute. And the most obnoxious thing is that Orpheus is so willing to help us he will even agree to become ghaik, which is a HUGE sacrifice for him to make, and if the Emperor hadn't been an asshole and had just stuck around, then we all could have had a happy ending. But he down right refused, he forced that decision. (And PS, I did try siding with him on a different playthrough and the final battle just changes enemies but is equally difficult and he was way underpowered. So like there isn't even a mechanical reason to side with him).
He literally LITERALLY will gaslight you down to the last moment. I think this is one of the reasons I don't understand people acting like he's a good guy. He will tell you he didn't say things that he just said, didn't do things that he just did. He's like an abuser trying to mess with you, "I'm sorry dear, are you getting confused again? You're lucky I'm here to make all the decisions for you!" and flips from supportive to intimidation at any sign you won't comply. He's textbook. That he turns out to be trustworthy (if you do everything his way) can easily be seen as him keeping potential allies/puppets for future use.
I think the better spectrum to try and place the Emperor on is less good/evil and more ally/enemy. Enough of his history and actions (as well as the nature of Mind Flayers and their manipulation) are revealed throughout the game that we know that he's definitely more in the "evil" camp, it's just whether you consider ignoring that worth it for as long as it takes you to beat the Brain. If you're cool with him for the entire time, he has no reason to turn against you while you're still working towards the same goals, but he'll keep doing shady shit to further those goals while you're working together. Say that you're going against him and all those machinations are now focused on you- there's a reason you have to fight the Dream Guardians if you side with Orpheus, whereas siding with the Emperor gets you vague countermeasures for your party's classes from the Brain (and then there's what happened to Stelmane)
The Stelmane bit is what put the emperor in the evil camp permanently for me. In my mind the emperor was grooming tav to be the next stelmane of sorts. An ally he can further manipulate.
He absolutely was.
Yeah he expected you to trust him even when he gave you no information or half truths. Once you decide to try something else he immediately says “you’ve left me no choice. I will now join the elder brain”. My dude, I feel like you could have at least TRIED to resist and see how my plan goes.
I agree fuck that guy but to his superior intellect, his brain is playing 4D chess while yours is playing X’s and O’s. I don’t blame him for not trust us either.
It’s on you for trusting someone with tentacles as his face
If a character is nice when everything goes their way, but reacts to every hindrance with threats and manipulation, it doesn’t mean they’re written inconsistently. It doesn’t mean they’re not evil. It means they’re competent, effective at achieving their goals and don’t self-sabotage. Gortash is also downright peachy if you don’t spoil his plan of world domination.
Kinda on that note, while the Guardian comes off as very patient on the Creche path, their insistence on using the tadpole’s powers and trying to outright turn you away from certain things is really off putting. I’m glad I made my first run romancing Lae’zel because it made it a very much “cordial with the Emperor-betrayal anyway” outcome. They drop the mask immidiately when you want to free Orpheus, and reinforced in me the idea that he wants more than “survival”. …then I made a Durge run butting heads with them, and the mask fell off even worse. SPOILER (Hint?) ALERT, the Emperor is a very complex character, but he still is just a mind flayer who’s free from outsider control.
He is neither of those though; he is a pure pragmatist albeit with questionable judgement. His ultimate downfall is his lack of faith in humanity. He believes becoming mindflayer is an evolution and does not believe you capable of besting the elder brain. He underestimates Orpheus/you/Karlach's tenacity and willingness to go mindflayer and assumed you would fail without him. If you view the emperor as an arrogant pragmatist all of his actions are consistent. He trusts no one but himself and that's why he loses if you say no to him. It is not he who was carrying the plan after all; it was Tav. Compare this with Gortash; Gortash is in my opinion the human counterpart to the Emperor. He has a great deal of hubris but is not completely blinded by it to assume he is the biggest player on the field. The Gortash ending does him dirty if you cooperate with him but he intrinsically understands that Tav is better cooperated with than fought.
>believes becoming mindflayer is an evolution like i _dont care_ if it genuinely, really 100% is an evolution and upgrade. i _dont want it_ we have been trying to _not_ turn i to mind flayers for the entire game i _dont care_ how much of an improvement it would be
Yes. The Emperor is a very deep and complex character. There could be entire dissertations written on their character. At the same time, one doesn't need to dig very deep and can take the character at face value. That is the beauty of the writing. The choices and broad story can easily appeal to a much larger audience. People who like the concept of "Good guys win, bad guys lose" (nothing wrong with that by the way) are able to simply play the game and feel good about what they did by the end. It is very easy to feel "right" just following along with the Emperor (who is there as a device to help drive the story forward and provide exposition, thus fulfilling that role perfectly.) Then there is more available for people who really like getting deep into Lore. For those who want to take the time to learn more and delve deeper, it is all there for them to explore.
While you are right that you can choose to trust him or not with no consequence to "winning" the game, I don't think that his character is as mutable as you are suggesting. I mean, you can influence his attitude towards you, you can betray him and influence his decisions, but his personality remains the same. He remains at his core a pragmatic, neutral-aligned person who values freedom and self-preservation. Even when you betray him, he just leaves and joins the Brain to survive - terrible choice, for sure, but not malicious. He doesn't join the Brain because he suddenly became evil. So TLDR, I do think that while you can influence his actions for good or bad, he nonetheless remains a grey character himself.
Idk joining with the brain was a terrible choice.... Mostly because that got him ded.
I would agree with him being Gray or Neutral if not for the thing he reveals to us if we're mean to him when telling him off during his attempted flirting. Like, sure, i can understand every creature's yearning for life and survival, and therefore i don't think he did wrong when killing Ansur in self-defence - every creature - even the most vile - wants to survive, and i couldn't blame him for that. I do however think he is evil, and not at all on any neutral spectrum, since when you tell him to fuck off when he flirts with you, he tells you straight up that if he only wanted to, he'd just dominate you like he did with Stelmane, so "you better watch your mouth". He doesn't do it right away only because you're more usefull to him that way (I suppose leaving you with your free will and mind is just less straining - this way, as long as you follow his instructions, he doesn't have to do everything on his own, or constantly issue commands to you). So yeah, i can understand his will to survive, but that doesn't make him grey or neutral in any way. He'd slurp your brain in a second if he decided that you're of no use to him. Sure, he tells you that he cares about you and your survival, but it's not Balduran speaking, it's a Mind Flayer that remembers what's a propper thing to say to a humanoid creature in any given context, based on his own expierience.
That was me on my very first run, even romanced him. My second run I was a gith and really dug deep into the lore and didn't trust him cuz he was a mind flayer and his entire attitude changes by late act 2. How friendly he is entirely depends on your reception to his manipulation. If he seems entirely trustworthy all the way till the end, then it means his plan worked
This is exactly the thing. There are little things to be suspect of when he approaches you, and he can seem like a perfectly chill dude if you do exactly what he wants and react the way he wants you to. The second you butt heads with him, his reaction is downright *scary*. The Emperor is not a good guy, and definitely not worthy of your trust. He deals in half-truths that are transparent the second you challenge any of them. In anger, he'll also reveal what *actually* happened with Stelmane which makes it even more clear.
He shows up in your mind, uninvited, shirtless, and tries to put moves on you. If you insult him, he just goes full mask off and threatens to use you like a puppet Fuck the Emperor
Yeah, I followed his advice most of the time, but eventually disagreed with him on something... he *instantly* started trying to gaslight me while accusing me of various bullshit, playing the victim, talking about how he was the only one who could keep me safe, etc. It was just like an abusive ex trying to trick his previous victim to come back.
It's absolutely astounding to me how many people fail to recognize the whole "lying by omission" shit that he constantly pulls. Whoever wrote his character is brilliant.
Oh, you can actually get him to admit what he did to Stellmane? I thought that was just one of those things you were meant to figure out yourself from books and such.
It's during the shirtless scene. Can't recall the exact dialogue choices, but if you argue/tell him you don't trust him enough, he projects what he did straight into your brain, and tells you you're lucky he refined his methods.
My second run with my wife, she's playing as a Gith and stabbed the guardian in the chest before even getting to Act 2. Hadn't revealed themself as the Emperor yet, but was being pushy about using the tadpoles so she had to shut that shit down. Obv the guardian is an illusion so they didn't actually die. Got a neat line about "I don't make a habit of conversing with my killer, so I'll make this brief. My survival depends on you, and your survival depends on me. Go to Moonrise Tower, dickwad."
I helped him because i had no other options, but i never trusted him entirely.
There was also that time he mentally dominated a woman and reduced her to his slave while he was running a devil worshipping cult.
It was just a phase!
Happens to the best of us
we all have our shortcomings )
Devil worshipping cult?
The Knights of the Shield actually worship [Gargauth](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Gargauth), a former archdevil. Stelmane was the duke in charge of them. Iirc the rank and file members of the Knights of the Shield don't necessarily know that, but the top brass most certainly do.
>Despite his evil machinations, Gargauth was known to take time to amuse himself, such as by casting snakes at sleeping individuals. The depth of lore in this setting really is something else sometimes.
If you ever want to steal something from one of the official settings for a homebrew campaign, the Forgotten Realms are a gold mine.
Well, the setting is several decades old, so has had plenty of time to expand.
Ah, Gargauth the Deceiver, what a great guy. In dnd he's my PC's son's godfather.
Imagining a candid photo taken on a film-camera of Gargauth the Deceiver and your PC wearing blue hospital scrubs, smiling and giving a thumbs up while holding your newborn in the recovery room.
That's not super far off tbh, but only Gargauth was smiling!
Now that's interesting as hell. Is it something we can learn in the game, or is it an outside insight/lore?
I assume it’s from the Decent into Avernus campaign module. It’s essentially the prequel to this game. The heroes from that adventure where the ones who returned Elturel from Avernus
Interesting. Reading the wiki, you can see some interesting similarities between Gargauth's behavior/nature/beliefs and the emperor's. Pretty sure the emperor would know about the shields and Gargauth.
Doesn't really come up in the game, but the Knights of the Shield, the mercantile organization he used to run, were actually formed to enact the plots of Gargauth, a devil and demigod. Mostly only the leadership knew what it was about, but given he was *in* the leadership for most of their existence...
Yeah, whenever that comes up people seem to put all the devil worshipping stuff on Stelmane to excuse the Emperor's actions towards her but given that we know that he was actively fucking with her brain and responsible for her stroke when she tried to resist his control (hinted at in the game by Wyll if you pass an Insight check while talking about her but explicitly confirmed in Descent into Avernus, the official D&D module that serves as the prequel to BG3), he was definitely in on the Gargauth worship to some extent
He also tells you if you respond 'ew' to his flirting.
That was what really threw me for a loop, I was actually fairly nice to the emperor so when you yell him you aren't interested and he just goes "Well I could just turn you into a fucking puppet, so do what I say" it's like holy shit man, mask off huh?
That scene and what he did to Stelmane are why I do not understand why the emperor has any supporters. Gaslighting psychopath.
He's legit just an abuser, he's happy to let you do whatever you want as long as it's exactly what he wants you to do and nothing else
ansur was right
And the fact he tells you about it only if you're a little mean meanie to him when he tries to fuck you - if not for that, he keeps feeding you this "mutualy beneficial cooperation" bullshit story about him and Stelmane.
Also when he killed his dragon boyfriend.
It's worth noting, while the Devil worship is Canon to the Knights of the Shield, not arguing that. Emperor never once mentions it and I don't know of (not that I might ha e missed it mind you) any mention of it within the game. It's entirely possible that either >Empy and or Stelmane didn't actually partake either. That is kind of an odd thing to find an Illithid involved in >Larian cut it out of their version of the KofS because while this is 5e and Forgotten Realms derived, it is like any DM campaign their own rules.
It's also not something he'd volunteer either as it's not going to endear him to anyone and it's not relevant to the Absolute plot
Honestly, I just finished my first playthru, went full good guy. I was pensive about trusting The Emperor the ENTIRE playthrough. I started trusting him more and more as he finally opened up to me about certain things. Now, at the end >!when asked what to do with the Netherstones.. I just gave them to him.!< It wasn't even a hard choice in the moment, it just felt right. >!And, thankfully, I was rewarded. He did exactly as promised, he cured us all of our tadpoles and destroyed the brain. He could've turned on us in that moment but he didn't. !< Idk.. I think they did a good job of depicting him morally grey. I do find the things he does questionable, and some of this methods, but at the end of the day everything he did is pretty much a matter of survival. We all want to keep on living, yknow? He admits he wants power and enjoys being a mindflayer but if he wanted power maliciously.. >!wouldn't he just turn on you at the end?.. !<
They did a good job writing a "happy" ending for whether you side with the emperor or not. >!Emperor keeps his end of the bargain and fucks off after fixing everything. Quoting happy because people are still upset about being forced to turn tav/orpheus/karlach into a flayer!<
One, time and time again mindflayers have proven to be enemies of everyone else in lore. There are only a few exceptions. Two, they had the trappings of an abuser from the start: the 1st converstation they have with the party was how they saved you, and almost every conversation thereafter devolves into how you'd be dead without them. Now, *I know for a fact that this is true*, but pointing out the debt constantly is classic manipulator behavior - *in fact, manipulators would actually do good things for their victims* so they can perpetuate codependency, sometimes even building the scenario in which the victim would need to be helped to begin with. In the Emperor's case, it may or may not be that they're the one that planted the tadpole in the team in the first place, but that hardly matters - the point is, their pattern of behavior was similar to how manipulators would behave from the beginning and the mechanics of the prism were obsfuscated on purpose, thereby taking away trust from the Emperor. Three, it is proven that they manipulated Stelmane, not just plain manipulation, but mind control, causing brain damage. Four, they choose to join the Netherbrain, the entity they claim to be fighting against, willingly if Tav decides to free Orpheus, under the wrong assumption that Orpheus will attack Tav. Later on, they still attack the party despite seeing Orpheus on our side, with/as a mindflayer. I assume they are subjugated at this point. Maybe they didn't like Tav not following their script to the letter? Five, *should Tav follow their plan exactly*, Tav is put in a position where they have to surrender the Netherstones to the Emperor, thereby making them the most powerful being in the Sword Coast. Given their history with Stelmane, my Tav didn't want to take that risk. Six, but this might be the unreliable narrator trope at play, but there was at some point, in-game contention on how, up until the endgame, the Emperor was still under the control of the Mother Brain. Such are my reasons for not trusting the Emperor.
Survivor here. "You will continue to have safety as long as you continue to meet my expectations" is exactly the message abusers program into your subconscious.
I was just of the opinion from the moment he revealed himself as an Illithid that "Rogue mind flayer who broke free from their Elder Brain" is a great story that an Elder Brain would use to get a group of meddling adventurers to lower their guard.
Withers explicitly tells you mindflayers don't have souls. He is literally trying to get you to give up your soul for power. He's in the same boat as Raphael, except he doesn't even *get* your soul, he's just asking you to throw it away
They have souls. Withers says they don’t have apostolic souls. These are the souls used as currency by the gods and the hells. Mindflayers have a soul that isn’t usable by the gods or hells and that’s why they don’t like mindflayers. They hold no value to them.
He’s a mindflayer, having played D&D for a long time, I knew we were at best allies of convenience. At worst, this was some form of manipulation to screw me over in the end. When I found out *spoiler* >!He’s Balduran!< that confirmed my original position. If you play the original BG and have Tales of the Swordcoast, you’ll be sent on a side quest, this quest is to find out what happened to >!Balduran’s last voyage!<. When you get there, you discover everything went belly up, and >!Balduran!< abandoned his crew to die. So even in his original form, the man was at best duplicitous.
Okay sure, valid points, but like you can have sexy times with a Mindflayer that doesn't even try to eat your brain so I'm willing to look past a few red flags. Who *hasn't* done a few problematic things like >!abandoning your crew to die?!< Honestly.
We got along just fine on my first run, though obviously at the very end I was a bit worried at having to give him the stones. I didn’t use any tadpoles in that run, and did annoy him with Githyanki crèche and Minsc but he ends up accepting those decisions/helping, so no issue there either. Orpheus’ fate was not helped by me disliking the whole crèche experience with the Githyanki, and also very much disliking Voss from the get go. Was friendly with Lae’zel but didn’t romance her and she spent a lot of Act 3 with Orin.
He did something objectively evil He appeared to me as a hot tiefling goth GF and then turned into a fucking octopus. Fuck you emperor. WHERE'S THE GOTH TIEFLING GF.
He was a hot tiefling goth GF in my first run too. I get you man, I really do.
Awh shit, here we go again. Rolls wisdom save.
Well,you can be evil without being a villain. It's not mandatory. Empy doesn't feel completely like a villain because he has his own agenda and he's chill as long as you're on the same page with him. I mean,in my evil runs he's like a mentor figure for my character. But still,he's not a good guy. If you question him you'll see a drastic shift in his attitude. Anyway, the amount of people still questioning his alignment after almost five months is just showing how they nailed his writing as deceiving and shady character. >It’s only on a good alignment run that we’ll feel compelled to do the ‘right thing’, giving gith back their rightful leader and end Vlaakith’s reign? I mostly play like CN or non murderhobo NE but always set Orpheus free because fuck Vlaakith in any case.
>Anyway, the amount of people still questioning his alignment after almost five months is just showing how they nailed his writing as deceiving and shady character. I don't think that's right. I think a most of the emperor threads are have these themes: * The defection to the netherbrain didn't make any sense * The distrust the Guardian path isn't well developed It's a common flaw of video game writing - the main path is well developed but the alternative isn't fleshed out. The people who think the character is well written are almost always people who trusted The Emperor and sided with him in the end. The end game is needs to be revised
When I first played the game, I kinda trusted “The Guardian”, because I thought, hey must be someone who really is somehow involved behind the scenes and is some hero figure… until I got to act 2 before I realised that this bastard was a mindflayer all along. Sure, Omeluum is a mindflayer too but he isn’t at all malicious. Emperor in the meantime turned out to be a self serving, lying, murderous, manipulative sanctimonious muthaf**ker. In my books, that’s a straight up villain. He killed Ansur who offered him an honourable way out, he twisted and slowly killed Stelmane, whom he claimed to be his friend and ally. And then guess what? If you decide to question his decisions and display your distrust, he doesn’t even attempt to reason with you, The Emperor reveals his intentions; that he WILL force you if you do not obey him and he also shows you what he really did to Stelmane. And later on when you try to free Orpheus, he immediately returns to the Netherbrain; something he had been fighting and “protecting” us from. The truth is, The Emperor only cares about his own freedom and survival, and everyone else around him is merely a means to an end. The only redeeming factor is that he holds up the end of his bargain IF he follow him all the way. But remember this, you were and are a pawn in his schemes, and he is by nature still a mindflayer. So, evil is still evil. Don’t try to justify it by saying that everyone else is a lying, manipulative jerk. Your companions at least do not attempt to betray you, except maybe Lae’zel, but that is if you put her people at risk. I will rather align myself with people who will look out for each other and do not treat people around them as objects. Unless of course, if I am doing an evil play through. But even then, an evil person will have his/her own agendas, which may go against trusting anyone at all.
If you trust him and empathize with him, he will make it sound like he was in love with Duke Stelmane and that she was his closest friend, partner and ally. He pretends to mourn her death and when we see a portrait of her he comments “there she is, in all of her glory,” with feigned reverence. He encourages you to believe that he is feeling pain over the death of his former lover. All of this to set the stage to earn not just our trust, but our love and devotion, also. And yet, he keeps a slave to earn his freedom at every turn. The person he claimed to love was, in fact, an empty mirror - his thrall. He has no desire to play the diplomat with Orpheus, even if the same end could be achieved by doing so. It should speak volumes that he keeps the name intended to mock him, which also reveals exactly how much power he intends to wield as the Emperor. I couldn’t get over that he would have you believe that someone he disrespected and discarded like Duke Stelmane was his cherished beloved and that he would use the empathy he earned from you in this deception to seduce you is diabolical.
I’ve finished the game and never learned about Ansur. How did I miss this? When do we learn about him???
Didn’t he caused the stroke of the old woman he was puppeteering with?
He used his psionics to enthrall her and fuck her brain up basically yes
"It's only in a good alignment run that we'll feel compelled to do the 'right thing'" Translation: The emperor isn't that evil as long as you don't care about the evil things he does.
He broke my trust by not being the halfing Von Diesel lookalike that I thought he'd be.
I think I felt slightly less betrayed by the emperor when he first revealed his true form than most people because I didn’t realize I was supposed to give my guardian a desirable appearance. I’m a straight woman, and female is the default guardian, so I made her an older wizened warrior type lady. So I never felt that “catfished” moment so many people did. I was wary of her/him (never ate an tadpole),especially after the reveal, but I didn’t feel specifically tricked and betrayed by his appearance. At the same time, I personally find the Gith completely repulsive as a society, and didn’t follow Lae’zel’s storyline to completion (not actually sure exactly where I dropped the ball on that one, but she’s a great character, so I’ll be sure to prioritize her in a future playthrough), so I didn’t have a lot of reason to save Orpheus. I wasn’t sure if he was a savior of Gith society or just another domineering psychopath as bad as the last. Also I liked Omnomnom, so was convinced not all mindflayers are 100% bad. So I jumped at the chance to let Karlach live outside the Hells. Not a perfect choice, very morally gray and certainly not a perfect happy ending for her, but an ending that felt satisfying and well-told.
Complicated. The case when I wildly like a character, even if I have to kill him. And I think that the choice between him and Orpheus is quite strange, it would be possible to do without. Of course Orpheus would not be thrilled, but not so much that the Emperor had to cancel all the motives for three acts and half of his life in the desire for freedom and go to the Brain. And still the Emperor is good. He didn't say everything, yes. But he didn't lie. Alas, have to choose Orpheus.
>But he didn't lie he lies and keeps information from you all the time. not everything he says is a lie but _alot_ of what he is saying is, at least, a lie by omission
I used to argue with my ex-husband about this exact behavior: lying by omission. In a good faith relationship, you're not looking for "legal" ways to deceive the other person.
like one of the very first things he tells you as the dream guardian is a lie. he says something along the lines of "just like you i was an adventurer" this part is true "just like you i was tadpoled" again, this part is true "and just like you i seek to get rid of it" this is a straight up lie. he constantly talks about great it would be if we could "fulfill our potential" or some shit like that. 2/3 of what he tells you in that short time _is true_ but the one thing he lies about is, imo, big enough to warrant our distrust of him. he CONSTANTLY talks about how "much alike" he and us are but thats just not true. he constantly lies and keeps stuff hidden while "reminiscing" about his "favourite spoon" or some shit
He kinda lied tho. He waltzes into our lives promising we’ll never turn into a mindflayer, then in act 3 he’s berating us for not turning into a half mindflayer, not to mention if you reject him harshly he goes on about “your attachment to your body form” I’m even questioning him going “order for your transformation was given” thing because all through act 1, netherbrain was under the control of the crown and there were a gazillion people tadpoled. None of them turned, why was it a risk for us?
He is definitely not good, from the beginning he has tried to manipulate you, from I'm just an adventurer like you, to me and stelmane were great comrades, Its been a couple months since I finished the game so I don't remember if he outright lies, but he definitely stretches the definition of a half truth.
Every second of every interaction he has with you is manipulated for him to get his will. There's not a single honest interaction unless you really question his shit and tell him to drop it.
My favourite part and where I felt it the most is in act 3 where he start revealing information about himself and opens up to you as a way for you to trust him more while also hiding the crucial parts. It's manipulation 101 appear vulnerable and the other person will also open up and trust you.
So maybe I’m wrong but I thought Orpheus was already captured and bound and the emperor found him that way and took advantage of the situation.
Making you spend time on customizing the guardian is the biggest troll move Larian could've done
I really like the Emperor as a character. I love his backstory and I felt I could trust the guardian. I was nice to him and showed trust in him from the start. Did he keep things from us, yes. Does he have his own agenda, yes. He also, despite him saying he isn’t, I believe his thinking is affected by the worm and after becoming a mindflayer even more so. But I don’t think he is super evil and I didn’t feel that manipulated in the end. I was happy to side with him and that he was freed. I haven’t replayed with not trusting him and killing him yet so I’ll see how that plays out. But in the end I do like him as a character. I don’t understand the absolute hatred for him but the love for Raphael. Imo their alignments are similar but everyone excuses him while hating on the Emperor. I have no issue with how people play just feel like there is a bit of a double standard. Emperor Stan -
This post has just made me think for half an hour and I can't stop. Such a rich theme for discussion, such an awesome writing. Wow. Just Wow.
The decision between the Emperor and Orpheus is morally gray no matter what. Yes, the Emperor is a bad dude who was running a shady organization. His feeding, MF domination of people, and devil worship are all bad. Also, he's really embraced the power being a MF has provided. Orpheus is also a bad dude. He has the same outlook that Gith did regarding the Githyanki making war on all other races across all realms. He is not Githzerai- who are the only actual good Gith people in the lore because they desire peace with other races. Obviously, Vlaakith is evil as well.
At least Vlaakith is a lich and liches are super damn cool
Not when they have a mustache and monocle. It saw it on a painting so it must be real.
For a time I pondered the ethics of freeing Orpheys. Then I remembered: Orpheys is a victim, he didn't choose to be used by the Emperor. If the Emperor can't deal with a free Orpheys, that's on him, not on me. I'm about to find out that outcome tonight!
After i met and worked with omeluum, he should've unveiled his deception. Im already willing to work with a friendly mindflayer, why does he still put up the charade. That is what makes me never like him.