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

I'm sure the script has undergone many changes since the game entered early access three years ago but I am glad they changed the emperor to what he is in the final game...pretty much everyone thought that Daisy would be villain...it would have been the most predictable and telegraphed twist ever. Having him encourage you to embrace tadpole powers out of necessity rather than malice and actually being an honest ally is far more interesting and makes the choice of what to do with the choice he presents far tougher than it would be otherwise.

This is fascinating. Definitely makes me wonder if The Emperor was supposed to be the guy who tadpoled you at the start. Perhaps he was on the side of the Elder Brain against the Chosen, only to try and grab the brain for himself?

Also here is the cutscene where the emperor reveals he was mind controlling Stellmane. He becomes extremely hostile at the end but it does not carry over into any dialogue. I checked the ending and Ansur and literally nothing changes.

Video Link

Thanks for this, I've been curious about it. That's also really odd if you're trying to consider it from the perspective of The Emperor and his goals. It's like he's openly acknowledging that there's a trust issue, asks you if you want to look into his thoughts -- and then actively shows you something that will only make you trust him less, and goes on a megalomaniacal rant to boot. What's also odd about is that this secret disdain of the protagonist and his consideration of them as basically an extension of his will never comes up at any other time.

I think maybe in theory the emperor as he has been rewritten might be better, but the execution is just terrible as I look at the narrative. Like he is very obviously set up to be a twist villain in the end (see the reveal cutscene I posted), but it never plays out. If you side with him, he never makes a play for power, he just destroys the elder brain (unless you convince him not to) and then fucks off in the epilogue. So what the hell was his goal? If it was to destroy the elder brain, then why did he not tell us about it early on. They make him act as if he does not know what the source of the absolute actually is, even though he was just under the elder brains control before getting into the prism (was he conveniently mind wiped??).

And then of course, if you side with Orpheus, he just decides to side with the elder brain for ~reasons~, which will lead him to becoming a thrall again.



Overall, I know this thread is about the dream person specifically, but the game's narrative, as I've come to realize this past week, is IMMENSELY flawed and I suspect mostly due to these rewrites. Some plot holes I've come to notice:


-Orpheus is somehow able to turn himself into a mind flayer in the ending even though he is not infected (Larian REALLY wanted someone to turn. This is SO forced. It's not even clear why they need to be a mind flayer. Orpheus is said to be an insanely powerful psionicist, capable of blocking out elder brain communication, but for some reason needs to turn into an illithid?)

-Everyone seems to be keeping their exact same personality when turning into a mind flayer (Tav, Karlach, Orpheus)

-Orpheus says we should have let his honor guard kill us and then they would have freed him and he would have dealt with the elder brain. He has been trapped in the prism with his honor guard, long before the emperor showed up. Why would they be able to free him now? Also, why is the emperor able to free him without the orphic hammer? My understanding is that the emperor put up the 2 force shields (the one around the giant skull and the smaller one around him), but he has infernal binds from when he was betrayed by Vlaakith I. His honor guard has been stuck in the prism with him and hasn't been able to free him from the infernal binds.

-The game also seems to interchange Vlaakith I and current Vlaakith, the lich queen (Vlaakith 157). They are not the same person, current lich queen Vlaakith did not imprison Orpheus.

-In act 3 Vlaakith projects herself into our camp and tries to get Laezel to do her bidding again. Why the hell does she not just wish us dead and take the prism. I get having demi god powered characters can be troublesome for narrative, but then why include them into the narrative? (this includes elminster. Gale explains decently why the gods can't interfere so directly, since Ao would not allow it. But Vlaakith is not a god, neither is elminster)

Orpheus at some stage and so on, I think it's fine to go a bit broader with it.

I didn't understand the relationship between The Emperor, Orpheus' honor guard, the Astral Prism, and I guess the wider Astral Plane? If they've been there since Orpheus has been (which I gather was way before The Emperor ended up in there) how come they didn't free him much earlier? Or just starve?

Also, wasn't there some worry that Orpheus could free himself once the force shield goes down? When The Emperor reveals himself to you, isn't he freaking out over that?

It's a "pocket" dimension. So it has all the properties of the astral plane but I think it's bounded (whereas the astral plane is infinite?). So they can't starve since you don't need any food in the astral and they don't age either as you don't age in the astral.

"Creatures on the Astral Plane don't age or suffer from hunger or thirst. For this reason, humanoids that live on the Astral Plane (such as the githyanki) establish outposts on other planes, often the Material Plane, so their children can grow to maturity."
-Dungeon Master's Guide 5th Edition

Also yeah, I don't know why Orpheus says his honor guard would have freed him. They didn't do it before and wouldn't be able to do it now.

The answer to all these apparent inconsistencies is that the Emperor simply isn't a character in the way most people think of when they use the term. He's a plot vehicle whose personality and actions shift based on whether you're nice to him or not. If you're trustful, he's a trustworthy good guy with only the best intentions who has absolute power in his hands and gives it up (or he doesn't if you don't want him to). He'll even be your lover if you swing that way. If you're wary of him or "bigoted" towards mindflayers he's an evil, scheming manipulator who mind controls people and eventually sides with the Absolute. There's no real intrinsic qualities (like motivations) to him that you could nail down so he just flip flops wildly based on a couple of dialogues. When I told a friend about how evil the character is after I finished the game he didn't even want to believe me because of how wildly different the character acted in his playthrough. If they do a Definitive Edition of this game (which I sincerely hope they will) they desperately need to rewrite this character from the ground up since the entire plot of the third act is framed through him and thus stands or falls with his characterisation.

Two things.

1) Most true souls don't know they have a tadpole in their head and the tadpole actively manipulates them into not believing it even when told.

2) A lot of true souls lie about orders from the Absolute to get their way. They still hear the Absolute, but she's not micromanaging them to that level. So Gut is lying about that specific thing to get what she wants, just like the Absolute probably doesn't actually care about the Gnomes as long as they don't stand in her way, and Nere is just a jerk.

I think it's pretty clear that they only tried to stop the Emperor from exploiting Orpheus' power but there's no indication they'd actually be able to free him.

Very nice thread. I think you are right about this:
[spoiler]
Could there have been a version of the climax where you faced down visions of Vlaakith, Cazador and Mystra and your own Daisy? Suddenly, the tagline 'Alone, you may resist. But together, you can overcome' takes on a little more relevance than it does now.

What I don't know and can't know is whether I would distrust The Guardian / Emperor as much as a I do if I hadn't played EA and thus see the Guardian as Daisy. Obviously that experience influences my enjoyment of this game.

I agree with you that Daisy was a more interesting character than the Guardian but I still find plenty of reasons to distrust the Guardian

At the same time I don't find the Guardian to be any more trustworthy than Daisy. The game still has "search for a cure" driving chapter 1 but each time I come near a tadpole the suspicious dream figure tells me to tadpole that tadpole. (brilliant use of the meme btw)

[spoiler]Wait, my dear knight in shining armor, you know I want to find a cure but your advice is "deepen your infection"? That's kinda sus. I meet Nettie - she can't cure me but the guardian tells me to grab the tadpole to increase the infection. I find Gut, she can't cure me so we battle and, again, the Guardian's advice is "make the infection even worse". Worse yet she tells me that Gut's tadpole is especially powerful. So the advice of my Guardian is - absorb the thing that made the goblin into a thrall. Oh sure, I'm going to do that right away - nice try elder brain!

As you refuse to absorb the tadpoles the relationship with the Guardian gets increasingly aggressive. I guess others refuse to stab her in the astral plane, but it was an easy choice for my chaotic good Tav. I don't care about pleasing the evil lich queen, I do want to force the great and mighty Oz to reveal themselves as a projection.

Wyll suspects that there is something off about the store of the Stellmane stroke and is disturbed by the revelations the the Knights of the Shield were controlling a duke. You find something in a letter that raises the same suspicions. When you go to the Emperor's stronghold you automatically put on the dog collar when you click on it - if you don't notice that right away the scene where the Emperor drops the act shows Tav wearing a rusty dog collar. So if you didn't avoid the Gith the typical adventure would go: find basement - difficult fight - loot the room- long rest - annoy the Emperor - the Emperor declares themselves your dom.

But, as you say, the elements that make you distrust the Guardian- mostly on Wyll's and Minsc's story lines - are probably remnants of the previous drafts.

I hope those elements get restored and the game I played: never use a tadpole power and let's find a way to kill this thing that has been manipulating us - will be better supported in an upcoming patch.

[spoiler]As it stands the Emperor's decision to let Tav to return to the astral plane after saying they would never allow it doesn't make any sense. If the Emperor had any sense it would take us into the astral plane, dominate us long enough to take the hammer away and then begin a discussion. Otherwise it's a strangely disconcerting "I see you brought the instrument of my destruction with you - I'll meet you right next to the place you can use it"

While I do mostly agree with you that the original plot would have better, I don't agree that the problems originates in Larian's lack of confidence in the original artistic vision. Clearly, some of the changes are for the better. The problems start with Larian's dislike of the 5e ruleset and its deeply entrenched belief that 5e was something that needed to be worked around instead of something to be worked with.

Larian created these god level illithid powers and wanted people to use them because 5e combat, in Larian's view, isn't much fun without these powers.

Instead of looking at the existing DnD combat rules and thinking "how do we work with this to make these more interesting" Larian decided to make an alternative set, got annoyed that people weren't using that, and changed the plot to push people into using it the powers.

Not I that I dislike power fantasy!

[spoiler]I would much preferred something like we had in BG2 with the rings of wizardry, super regeneration ring etc.

What if tadpole-avoiding wizards were to get a ring that doubles the amount spells you can cast in one day, fighters a sword that gives free haste during battle, clerics a mace that allows you to use your "call on your deity powers" more than once . . .

WotR did this well. Paladins and oracles (clerics) who become angels get superpowered oracle spells. Wizards who become Azatas enhance their wizard spells . . .

So, long story short, I think the problems start not in Larian having too little trust in its original vision but instead it's stubborn refusal to work with and see the potential of the DnD ruleset.

Isn't this true for the companions too, tho? I do agree that it feels a lot more rushed when it comes to the emperor because obviously he's not really someone you hang around with like you do with the party members (and obviously doesn't have a visible approval meter) but when you get down to it it's not that different from being nice to Shadowheart or any of the other more 'evil' companions like Astarion and Lae'zel to soften them up.

Thanks for this write-up. I was going mad thinking I was the only one (and at least I appear to be on reddit) that views the Emperor's last minute inclusion and story to be grossly inconsistent and a severe weakness to the story given how everything else seems to be written with a Daisy in mind or at least a Daisy-esque entity. I think they should have stayed with Daisy but perhaps re-written her with a bit more subtlety and subterfuge rather than an overtly corrupting influence, so basically Emperor-ize Daisy rather than introducing a character that, with his inclusion, has created way more inconsistencies rather than solved them.

Kinda, but it's not entirely similar. What's happening with the more morally grey companions is that there's two sides to their character and you can appeal to either of them which will result in a respective outcome (assuming they like you). Whether the execution is believable is up to you, I suppose. With the Emperor, everything is just based on your moment to moment dialogue choices in each of his isolated scenes. You don't get his approval in the way you do with your companions, there's no actual trust being built with him. The relationship is also completely one-sided and he's the one holding all the cards, only revealing information to you when it suits him so you're not exactly in a position to influence his character which makes his wild swings even less believable.

On my playthrough, I treated the guardian like shit and the only thing I didn't do to piss it off was trying to stab it and the Emperor still tried to rizz me up. Conversely, you can be nice to him at every step of the way but in the end decide to free Orpheus, he will still switch sides without hesitation. All that really matters is the choice you make at the present time.

While the betrayal if you pick orpheus is a bit extreme, it also makes sense? Not to us, but to the emperor
He is was up himself and believes his plan and ONLY his plan will work. It's a mind flayer thing too, he's smarter than you how can YOU be right?
orpheus can forgive us sure, but the emperor has been keeping him prisoner and has the plan of, I'll eat him and absorb his power,

so if you free Orpheus, not only in his mind, is the absolute going to win so defecting now means he'll lose autonomy but get to live, but orpheus will definitely kill him
Like it's a wrong decision but it is the one the emperor would take because he's like that?

That makes some sense but how do you explain him leaving immediately to join the Elder Brain, don't you think there might be a third option here, even if it's just to attack the players. I don't recall, has the Elder Brain revealed that it let the Emperor escape by this point?

Yes, you're right that it is a mind flayer thing to believe it is the most intelligent and others should just obey their commands.

But is that really the Emperor's only option? If he can planeshift with a thought why can't transport himself to Calimsham or somewhere far away from the brain's influence?

Not that I mind because I wanted to be able to kill him but, narratively, the idea that the brain was the only option isn't well supported. It was just game logic - you can choose to fight the Gith or the Emperor.

I don't really mind that he felt betrayed and abandoned us...I'd even have understood if he attacked us...but to align himself with the absolute so quickly? That made no sense to me. No matter how much you may hate the Githyanki the absolute is a threat to all life across all planes of existence and they literally destroy souls. Orpheus can be talked around but not the emperor? Generally when a supposed "ally" pulls a move like that it's because he was always a traitor, either a spy aligned with the enemy or after something else altogether...but that doesn't seem to be the case because if you go along with him he really does destroy the absolute and there's no raphael-like twist to him so why is he aligning with the Absolute? That's really the only part of the game's script that bothers me...it's like they intended to do something else with the character of the emperor but somewhere in the rewrite they forgot to account for him siding with the absolute. It makes even less sense if you manage to learn his actual true identity before he became the emperor(no it's not the fake story he gives as having been an adventurer, no, he has an actual name).

To me, he 100% believes that his plan is the ONLY way to stop the Absolute, running, fighting back all pointless. So he might as well join her on *his terms* rather than be caught and killed by the now inevitable absolute?