I really liked the Emperor’s character. He kept me on my toes and kept me guessing, wondering if I should trust him. He was the only reason the main character even got off the ship, and could do the game story, but his constant talk about how being an illithid was a big red flag. a little bit more screen time would have been great, but too much more would have ruined this effect. I do wish we had more scenes with the Guardian, simply because I felt the reveal about the Emperor was a little bit too soon, after only 3 scenes, and that made me trust him less.
My biggest issue with him though is the ending. He keeps acting as this generally reasonable, guy until you have to make a choice between him and Orpheus and then he has a 180 turn and decides to join the Elder Brain because… Why? Wasn’t that his greatest fear? Didn’t he do everything to avoid exactly that? Why didn’t we have an option to convince him about not doing that. If we romance him, he really should at least have a persuasion check available. The game very strongly suggested that illithids don’t have feelings the same way humans do, and the Emperor also makes it clear that he is very much an illithid and proud of it. (“… you can have this devastating beauty…” uuuuh…) Yet, there is clearly some connection between him and Tav, if nothing else based on mutual need and trust. He tries to convince us to trust him throughout the game and yet in the endd he is the one who doesn’t trust us?
The endings I think simply reflect that the game doesn’t really expect us to choose The Emperor’s side. He needs a bit
For a game keeping the choices open it sure does have some preferences and rewards you better for one path than the other.
