Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Why BG3's ending reminds me of Mass Effect 3's (ending spoilers, naturally)

@KillerRabbit:
Thanks for reposting. I would, indeed, like to focus on how this scene with the Emperor and Orpheus breaks the story, rather than taking a side.

@all:
Meanwhile, this taking a side unfortunately presents another way this scene breaks the story, independently from "someone must become a mind flayer".

The problem is this: until this point, the "sides" of the Emperor and Orpheus remain ambiguous enough that you can rationalize taking either side. Arguably, risking that Orpheus may not be cooperative but siding with him nonetheless because he's not Cthulhu is more of a "good-ish" attitude, and sticking with the Emperor as a known quantity in spite of being Cthulhu shows more of a pragmatic/evil-ish attitude, but in the end these sides are ambiguous enough - until this point - that taking either side can be rationalized, taking either side is at least not obviously idiotic regardless of the player character's moral stance. Which means, until this point we could write our own story and take sides according to the theme of our personal story, which we set by how we deal with the tadpoles, with little constraint by the main narrative. It is very obvious that this freedom to use the game to write your story was of considerable importance in the design of the game.

However, this breaks down at this scene for any good-ish character. For simplicity's sake let's define such a character by an unwillingness to take lives without a very good reason, and an unwillingless to take the life of a bound or helpless entity without an even better reason. Such a character would never agree to the Emperor's consuming Orpheus brain, at least not without questioning the need severely and investigating how this could be avoided. We cannot question and we cannot investigate, so letting the Emperor just do this is an evil decision.

So this ruins the story of any good-ish character who would want to side with the Emperor. Which according to the game's narrative, has until this point been reasonably plausible, with no indication that we'd have to cross a moral event horizon if we want to continue with the Emperor to the end.

This could've been avoided by a simple alteration: letting us speak with Orpheus. If he did not trust us because we were too much mind flayer (ie having consumed the astral tadpole), that would've been a somewhat understandable reaction, even if strategically unsound, and then we could've told the Emperor to go along because after all, we do need to win, and sacrificing someone who refused to support us in this mission of extreme importance after giving him the chance, is rather more acceptable and also not out of character since if we do this, we're likely half illithid ourselves.

As it is, however, if you want to win with the Emperor, you are railroaded into evil. And if you want to win as a human being, you are rewarded by becoming Cthulhu. And this against the way you had been able to play the rest of the game, if you were good in the former case, and anti-Cthulhu in the latter case.

In essence, you can only be good if you're also anti-Cthulhu, but if you are, you will become Cthulhu. A kind of double-bind that's worthy of a devil's duplicity.