Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Daisy, the Absolute, and the Emperor [SPOILERS]

I'm operating off the assumption as the comments on the Reddit thread speculated, that Daisy was supposed to be the Absolute using you as a pawn against the Chosen. For those of you who are unaware, Daisy was the seductive figure you created in Early Access, the person your character dreamed about. Daisy was not the character's name, as far as can be determined, but the internal name of the entity within the game files. Here's a brief selection of the evidence that I feel supports that position, but I do not consider it exhaustive.

• The songs Down by the River and The Power reflect the circumstances of meeting Daisy by the river and the power coming from them. Down by the River is a prominent theme and motif that has no direct relevance in BG3 as-is.
• The voice you hear in character generation is very similar to the Absolute, if not the same. It would also explain who is asking you these questions, and be a fun easter egg for repeat playthroughs.
• Daisy's behavior fits the idea of the Absolute seeking to free itself from the Chosen by offering you power while concealing that it is an evil Elder Brain, and why it attempts to convince you with visions of Baldur's Gate burning.
• The end of the game, with the Emperor's abrupt turn to join the Absolute and have the dream Guardians fighting you atop the Elder Brain, reflects the idea of the character you create having a link to the Absolute -- but more on that in a second.
• The evil ending (or an ending) would constitute joining with the Elder Brain and remaining down by the river with Daisy forever while the world burned. ("Don't wake me up, just leave me there dreaming..")
• Wyll's rewrite drastically changed his relationship to Mizora which had parallels with the protagonist and Daisy: he made a hasty deal not knowing what Mizora was, and while he wanted to break it, he found the power he had gained too useful to stop.
• The choice of being branded by the Mark of the Absolute takes on a wonderful irony if you're unknowingly communicating with the Absolute in your dreams.
• Both Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 involved extended dream sequences with the malevolent source of the protagonist's powers communicating through proxies or visions.

Exactly why Daisy was changed to the Guardian is unclear. A potential possibility is that it was due to players not engaging with them or finding them to be suspicious, which I believe is what Larian has stated as the reason. I hope this is not the case as I feel it reflects a surprising lack of confidence on Larian's part concerning their original artistic vision. It could be that Wizards of the Coast did not like the idea as a whole or some aspect of it. It could be that the idea was simply too complex and had to be scrapped and replaced. But whatever the change was, it appears to have happened so late and so abruptly that it isn't reflected in the art book, neither Emperor nor Guardian.

The Guardian is too nakedly helpful. They show up, offer you incredible powers, and insist you must use them to save the world. In the end, they inherit the supicious aspect of Daisy but without any genuine attempt to allow the player to engage with them in that sense (gone are the days of being able to throttle them, for example.) By the end of the story, you're in a 'but thou must' situation concerning turning into an illithid to defeat the Elder Brain.

While it appears that your relationship with Daisy is the catalyst for your powers, with the Guardian it involves what I can only describe as 'putting tadpoles in your tadpole so you can tadpole while you tadpole.' However, the text is unclear whether it actually involves putting additional tadpoles in your brain (as the UI indicates) or is more of a psychic absorption. Reactivity is also minimal, especially with the Astral Tadpole, hinting at the late/abrupt change. A subtle change is the removal of some of the negative responses to using the tadpole powers ("You feel some part of yourself slipping away...") beyond one early on.

However, the deeper problem is that the character inherits Daisy's baggage of being an antagonistic force while being positioned in the role of, well, a guardian. An example of this baggage is the 'dream waifu' creation, which raises questions as to why the Emperor chooses to appear in that guise when he was the famous adventurer Balduran. I'd say this is because Larian did not want to cut the whole concept of creating a second character. While it is understandable that the Emperor conceals his nature as a Mind Flayer, it makes less sense that he invents a wholly new persona to do it. It invites suspicion of his motives that never actually develops.

This note of needless supicion, there because it was an aspect of Daisy, is what bothered me most about The Emperor. He is entirely trustworthy, unless the player decides to view him with mistrust or not hold up their end of the bargain. The Emperor's goal aligns perfectly with your own: destruction of the Chosen and the Absolute. While he does have a dark side, it never actually is visited upon the player. Even when you turn on him, he is mostly begging for you to reconsider.

The Emperor is an odd collection of traits. He must be all of these things simultaniously: your trustworthy savior, your suspicious benefactor, your source of Illithid abilities, your temptor 'deal with the devil' with the Astral tadpole/further loss of humanity, your potential romantic interest, a spectre from the past, your ally against the Absolute and, oddly, a potential ally to the Absolute.

The last one is particularly odd. Despite wishing for nothing else but to destroy the Absolute, the prospect of freeing Orpheus drives him into the arms of the Absolute (only for Orpheus to turn out to be incredibly reasonable about the whole illithid thing.) This is difficult to comprehend, you'd assume The Emperor would perhaps act to stop you freeing Orpheus, to try and fight Orpheus once free, or simply flee for his life... But he actively goes and assists the Absolute. It's odd until you see the final fight involves your dream Guardians. It's a sign that Daisy was tied deeply with the Absolute, and it was such an element of the climax that Larian felt it still needed to happen. I think it's pretty easy to envision a big showdown atop the Elder Brain against your Daisy and the dream visitors of your party members. Notably, your party members no longer receive unique visitors, however, (eg. Vlaakith for Lae'zel) which lessens some of the draw of replaying as an origin character.

That said, I feel the Emperor existed in some form. The Balduran revelation feels too big for it to be a late addition. It would not surprise me if the Emperor/Balduran was one of the allies you were going to potentially encounter in Act 2 or 3, and recruit to fight against the Absolute, if you could believe that the legendary Balduran had truly become a Mind Flayer and truly wanted to fight against the Absolute. Only for The Emperor to inherit Daisy's role in the story when they were tossed out. The difference being that Daisy was never supposed to be particularly trustworthy.

I am still trying to work out the exact order of events that led to the start of the plot in Baldur's Gate 3, but The Emperor complicates things substantially. From what I've been able to determine, Gortash arranged a tadpoled strike team led by The Emperor to take a nautiloid and steal the Astral Prism as it was the only weapon that could disrupt their control of the Elder Brain. While The Emperor claims the Prism freed him, I believe the Absolute states it released him deliberately in order for him to bring the Prism into play somehow (another little tidbit for the Absolute as Daisy thought.) Somehow, the Prism ends up in Shadowheart's hands and she ends up in an Illithid tube. Somehow, many additional people are picked up from across Faerun despite it being a secret mission of utmost importance. And somehow the Emperor ends up in the Astral Prism, after possibly tadpoling Lae'zel and the protagonist.

That's right. To confuse matters further, The Emperor seemingly appears in the opening cutscene as the Mind Flayer who tadpoles the protagonist/s. This is because the Mind Flayer there matches his appearance with his unique armor and is the only Mind Flayer to do so. This is likely a result of needing to find a unique appearance for the Emperor late in the development process. It is unlikely it is supposed to be The Emperor himself as it is never mentioned (and creates more questions than it solves.) However, it is also possible that, perhaps before he inherited the Guardian role, the Balduran Mind Flayer was the one who implanted you -- wouldn't that make for an interesting decision if he was to be a possible ally?

Additionally, the relationship between The Emperor and the Astral Prism is confusing. His ability to hop in and out of the Astral Prism at will is odd and inconsistent. I feel like for much of the development, the Astral Prism was home only to Orpheus and it was merely proximity to the Prism that kept you safe, no need for The Emperor to be involved. How this works with the big scene at the creche isn't clear, but it could've been a late change (or just involved Vlaakith trying to get Orpheus.)

However, I think the opening cutscene makes a lot more sense if you think it was the Brain going rogue for a brief period (echoing the thoughts by the Chosen that it is getting harder to control) and creating a secret weapon against its captors. One that it needs to search for in the wake of the crash (the first Daisy dream), one that is carrying a weapon it desperately needs.