I wonder if the emperor is daisy after all (an illusion created by your tadpole) or a thrall of the elder brain that just believes he is free. The ending where you trust the emperor could be a carefully crafted illusion created by the elder brain to make you believe that you won, but in reality you’ve made your way entirely “down by the river” and lost. The thing is, I find the emperor path a little too easy. Just give him everything and let him do, and all is fine and good.
Your MC has a tadpole in his brain and it had quite some time to get comfy and slowly take over. The stepover into illusion could be seamless and you wouldn’t even notice.
This could explain why the emperor is so unwilling to side with you when you want to free Orpheus (even though it would make perfect sense) and goes to join the elder brain without further explanation.
Would this theory even work? Could it explain the plotholes (emperor not making sense)?
Maybe all endings are an illusion of the elder brain. That’s why there are no epilogues. ;-)
I feel like they could have made an ending like this but there are zero hints that this is actually what happens. Interesting headcanon though. I feel like an
Absolute ending where the brain just creates a nice illusion where you are "down by the river" with your Guardian would have been interesting.
