I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the first meeting with Gortash during his inauguration looks very strange. He literally stands in front of all the nobility of Baldur's Gate and bragging about how he drove them into a trap, how he came up with the idea of ????creating the Absolute. And it would be nice if he at least stepped aside or talked to us mentally, but during the dialogue, you can literally hear the echoes spreading throughout the hall. And all the most important people of the city do not notice this, and after the inauguration they are like: "Yes! Gortash will restore order in the city, he is a man of action!"
To further this, if you accept his offer of alliance, and then return to the audience chamber sometime later, the entire place is covered in blood and all the Flaming Fists have been replaced with the Black Hands. There is absolutely no reactivity in this scene at all and its very strange.
I have also noticed that. I assumed most of them are bought / tadpoled, but... if they WERE tadpoled, we should feel it when trying to talk to them. Them being bought kind of makes sense, if one assumes only the corrupt decided to see that farce of a coronation.
This was my first thought too, but it would be nice to have confirmation. Just a line or two of dialogue about how it seems the city's elite are all tadpoled would be enough to banish doubt and create more intrigue.
