the Emperor claiming he had stopped multiple orders for your transformation was the point where I decided to stop trusting him. It’s one of those unverifiable claims that are designed to gain the confidence of the gullible and naive. Why you’re taking what he says at face value I don’t understand
Because there is literally no reason to distrust him, especially in the context of
killing him at the start of Act3 making you an immediate thrall. Yes, he is awful at convincing just about anyone (and even has strange remnants of wearing Daisy's clothes during a dream sequence), but that's because of the poor craftsmanship by the writers, not because that is what the plot actually claims. In fact, Emperor is one of the few people to not lie in the entirety of the game. He does not reveal full portions of information, yes (which is my main frustration with his writing, that despite being highly experienced, highly knowledgeable and more than 500 years old, he is fucking AWFUL at crafting words of gold despite being an Illithid), but after his reveal, we discover that everything he has been doing and saying is true, and everything he does and says afterwards is true (excluding his awful and unreasonable miscalculation of Orpheus, but whatever).
How the prism works is unclear but we can ascertain from the bridge scene that the Absolute’s voice isn’t constant but comes in dramatic revelatory bursts, it is speculated that how we receive orders from the Absolute on the bridge is how others perceive our own commands when using the [illithid] . How Minthara reacts to our presence then could just be her realizing that her appeals for guidance have gone unanswered since being in our presence
If that were the case, then after
an order was completed, the infected would then regain some sense of sanity as now there is nothing holding them, not unlike how the players get to mess with NPCs they used their illithid powers on. However there is nothing that supports this.
Or maybe its the Emperor letting her in. There’s another interesting scene when mind delving into Minthara where Chosen are shown to become mindless thralls if their natural psychic defenses are stripped from them
But that would be quite literally impossible, or at the very least, insanely clumsy and stupid by
Emperor, as in Act2, it takes him SECONDS to pull Minthara under his protection when you recruit her in Moonrise, yet in Act1 it is played that Minthara was beginning to experience the initial effects of the protection (not hearing the Absolute but not yet regaining her complete sanity) which is what caused her to run off.
I’m questioning my memory now, but does Minsc have a tadpole?
Yep, he does.
Emperor even gets grumpy and says that there is no reason for him to extend his protection to Minsc, because as he puts it, Minsc would be a liability and a danger. Which is... not entirely wrong, given Minsc's character. And just like with Minthara in Act2, all it takes is seconds to fully protect Minsc.
