Originally Posted by beargor
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.
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.

Last edited by The Red Queen; 23/08/23 02:06 PM. Reason: Added spoiler tags