--regarding a comment above about the dreamer and how using the tadpole is essentially an inherently "dumb" thing to do... the dreamer has been changed to the guardian, and there is dialogue now that goes into what's going on. It's not the same scenario as it was. This is no longer a mysterious dream persona who may or may not be the tadpole and who can't seem to give a straight answer.
There are so many massive conclusions people are jumping to. It makes me wish I had bought stake in that "jump to conclusions mat" I heard about years ago. Sales for that thing must be skyrocketing.
Yeah right.... please forgive me for basing my conclusions on the actual evidence. Without using the tadpole, you won't have the dream, so if that dream is now somehow reassuring - which granted, I can't say for certain since I've only seen it in a video, though IIRC it wasn't that old - you won't see it if you did not already take the plunge. So yes, still seems stupid from a character's perspective.
Also, honestly, would you trust a figure that suddenly appeared in your dreams right after a tentacled monster put some worm-like thing into your head? You say it now explains a few things. I'll wait with my judgment until I've seen it, but it'll have some explaining to do.
And again, I don't mind not getting any of those powers. That's part of the story. Do I risk my mental integrity for them? Or perhaps rather not. It's more about the narrative elements since I think they're representative of the major theme of mental integrity and power this story has.
Paraphrasing: "You won't see the dream if you don't use the tadpole."
That's not actual evidence, despite the assertion. We'll see in a couple of days how the game handles it now, especially with the change to the guardian figure, but in the meantime, there's precious little we actually know.
'Little information, long speculation' is the password of the day.
--we don't know if the guardian comes to you whether or not you use the tadpole, and as the current understanding goes (source is Fextralife), the player character actually meets the guardian character in "real life" along the way. I'm not sure if Fextralife misunderstood something or if that's legitimately the case. Regardless, there's clearly a lot going on in this story, and assuming you get no interaction if you don't use the tadpole is a bit premature. In my opinion.
--it's made abundantly clear early on that we are not transforming as we should be. Something is clearly different.
--the guardian character claims to be protecting us from that transformation for a reason, and it seems that reason has something to do with a battle in what appears to be the astral plane. Further, it appears that battle may be taking place around a the deceased body of a forgotten god. If I recall correctly, the githyanki established their city within the giant body of a dead god in the astral plane.
--so our tadpoles aren't working as they typically do. We are told that we are being protected from that and shown a great battle in the astral realm, possibly where the githyanki reside. As all of these pieces start coming together, and as the guardian character encourages us to use the tadpole powers to help save the realms... suddenly the calculus of what's "smart" and what's "dumb" starts to shift a bit, at least in my estimation.
Perhaps mind flayers are attacking the githyanki. Perhaps the dead god the city was built on isn't actually dead and something's happening. Perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps, who knows?
