Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Daisy, the Absolute, and the Emperor [SPOILERS]

I was mostly joking, but... he can be creepier than Daisy supposedly was.

So, by your own admission you don't know about it... but you're ready to make wild presumptions of conspiracy theories, negative presumptions and bad faith... Which is to say... you're making negative presumptions about it in ignorance, and condemning it in bad faith.

Pot, meet Kettle.

How about... reading first and assume and judge later? Novel thought, I know.
If you had read the discussions surrounding Halsin, you would have seen, that those were serious - it involves gaslighting, consens and SA. You don't have to care about any of it, but at least don't assume it is all smoke and mirrors.

So while reading other threads here, I had a realization, one I think could relate to why Daisy was replaced with the guardian as a character archetype. This is specifically about the change from Daisy to Guardian, not about the Emperor.

So in EA we heard that each companion saw a unique person tempting them. We all said how cool that was and what replay value it could offer for playing as the origins. But it's only now occured to me... how could that temptation actually work believably? Daisy was impersonating people who the various companions specifically knew they couldn't be. Typically impersonation only works if you could actually be the person you're impersonating. However in Wyll's case Daisy was supposedly posing as Mizora, but he's still ACTIVELY talking to her at that point and he knows she's been abducted. Daisy also took the form of Cazador for Astarion, probably the person Astarion hates the most. How's that supposed to tempt him? And for our character it took a generic form we created that offered us generic power and destruction. Not only that, but the party all knows they have a psionic parasite in their heads, one that easily has the ability to make them see images, so they would be even more on their guard. Presenting as the same person for everyone, as an unknown factor claiming to have a common enemy may not be inherently trustworthy, but it's at least got fewer red flags.

Maybe if you don't take temptation literally? Cazador seems great at goading Astarion - if you look the start of the fight - so calling Astarion, weak, pathetic, too scared to grasp for real power .... that might work. You usually know that people in your dreams aren't real, but their insults still sting because they are so often reminiscent of things that actually happened.

You can find the Daisy-Cazador seduction on youtube

It was a seduction of violent liberation (as befits a vampire story).

Astarian dreams of revenge, of pulling Cazador into the sun and watching him burn. Daisy offers him liberation from the rules imposed upon him by his master starting with the ability to eat his companions:

That's a cool scene, but what bugs me about is that it isn't really Daisy offering it to him, it's the narrator showing what he's thinking on his own. I suppose you could interpret that as her manipulating him by showing him things to get the desired reaction, but I found her interactions with us so clumsy and obvious that I've long been biased against thinking she could be that effective and subtle. If she was that subtle and thoughtful with Tav I'd probably think differently.


The reverse psychology angle works for Astarion, but that still leaves the others. They're all aware that the dream visions aren't real and are tempting them, and that they have a thing in their heads invested in making them take power. They're basically in the worst possible position to fall for that kind of manipulation. I think its telling if we only have Astarion's Daisy dream sequence as well, as he's the only one who voices an interest in keeping the parasite. I still think Larian realized their original plan simply would not have made sense for the others and they had written themselves into a corner and had to change course.

The others were susceptible to manipulation too. If you listen to auntie Ethel's mockery lines for the companions, the possible angles were there. She mocks Shadowheart that no one would love her, and Shadowheart dreamt about a past lover in the EA. I recall Laezel had a line about how she knew the Vlaakith in her dreams was poison, but that it tasted so sweet. Presumably it was about Laezels fear of failure and never proving herself to her queen.

The only character were Daisy didn't make much sense was Tav, but that was because, like with the rest of Tav's story, Larian made little effort. That angle from the guardian, that they are also infected and looking for a cure, could have worked better. But well, the guardian then immediately insist that you use the tadpole powers. So they end up as obvious as Daisy, but without the interactivity of the main plot that ws in the EA. Because using the taspole powers doesn't even matter anymore, they have no impact on how the main story plays out.

I think they replaced Daisy not because of the player feedback about them, but because they wanted everyone to use the new tadpole powers & mechanics, and in the EA the game gave the player good reason not to.

It's not that I don't think they're susceptible to manipulation, it's just the kind of manipulation that I'm skeptical of. Like, I don't see this angle ever believably working against Lae'zel because it's all stuff that's anathema to her specifically. she already assumes its the tadpole and that accepting it would be anathema to everything she believes.

Also, I assumed Shadowheart was dreaming about Shar and just not admitting it, not that she was dreaming about a friend or lover. Presumably her dream would be about becoming a Dark Justiciar and Shar telling her the power of the tadpole could help her reach that. Which could work if, again, she didn't already know the dream was a lie. She also can become a dark justiciar through her own quest with no extra help from the tadpole.

Presumably Gale dreamt of Mystra. Maybe he dreamed that the tadpole could help him ascend to reach her and win her back? That could maybe work, if it included dealing with the orb as part of the deal. Fair enough.

Again, Wyll seems to be dreaming of Mizora, who he is still talking to in real life. Maybe being offered a way out of his bargain with her could work, but just posing as Mizora wouldn't help with that.

Karlach meanwhile? She would probably dream of either Zariel or Gortash. She never wants to deal with Zariel again, and she specifically wants to kill Gortash, someone she thinks she's more than able to kill since she thinks he's just a corrupt politician, not the head of some dark cult.

I agree that Larian wanted us to use the tadpole powers because they think it would be cool, but the more I think about it, the more I think Daisy and the associated stuff just wouldn't have been able to hold up past the first act anyway.

I don't think the point of Daisy was to convince all of your companions, it was just to provide enough to work with whatever the player chose. Eg. Laezel might seem strong in her beliefs, but you can convince her easily enough not to kill you even when she thinks they are all turning. She is a gith, but also young and desperate to be able to return to her people. And well, players have left feedback in the EA on how to improve Daisy.

The guardian/ emperor has the same issues as Daisy (too obvious), but also no tadpole reactivity. If anything, he was even less convincing when playing Gale's origin, because Gale is so focused on Mystra and his own goals, that this generic approach works even less.

Whether Daisy would have worked better depends on the original concept, becauseI don't think she was supposed to be an illithid inhabiting the prism. But at least in the EA you could use Omeluums ring or avoid Daisy altogether. You cannot avoid the emperor completely, and frankly my impression in the end was that this reinvention of the original legend was just for the shock value of 'it was Baldur all along!'. Ironically, the rewrite resulted in a main plot that doesn't hold up anyway, if you look at it too close.

I see your point about providing enough to work with for the player, which is a fair goal for it to have, but from a story perspective it still ends up ringing false for me. I find the guardian to generally be better because while he's still obvious, he's in my opinion less obvious than Daisy who does everything short of coming right out and saying she's evil and wants bad things for you. From a roleplaying perspective, I think Daisy would have deterred characters from using the tadpole more than she tempted any of them. Certainly I think that's true for Tavs. And frankly the reactivity was cool but even in EA it seems obvious in hindsight that they wanted you to use the tadpoles. Since you got nothing if you never used them, no hint at anything at all. I would say that the Guardian appearing initially no matter what is better on that front since noow you can't potentially miss a significant aspect of the story entirely. I agree that the Balduran all along twist was dumb, but also I think at this point that the main plot was never going to hold up, the rewrite just took an already weak foundation and made it worse. I think just based on Larian's instincts and apparent interests, the mess we have now was inevitable. What we had before wasn't better, we just only saw the part before the reveal that it was bad. We jsut saw the setup, I'm sure iif during EA we started with the dream guardian, we would have been just as on board with it because we couldn't see the payoff for the setup.We'd have eagerly been speculating about the battle we saw, the identity of the guardien, etc. It was just a matter of which flavor of disappointing storyline we got.

Daisy deterring most players from using the tadpoles was the point, imo. It should be not an easy choice, it should be an evil choice that most would be against, considering the source of the powers. Power corrupts is not a new concept, but if you don't diverge between giving in and resisting the temptation, between the good and evil path, it becomes a moot point.

Whether or not Daisy would have been better, is not possible to say without knowing who they originally meant to be. But at least what was in the EA was more interesting, and not only because the story branched. There were hints that Tav could have been the dark urge, and the dream scenes ended in a conflict between the alien (parasite) and the divine (the taint), fighting for influence over the protagonist. Playing the DU, it seems that even this part of the story form the EA is no longer present.

I wanted to use the tadpole powers in EA just to see what happens.

Now I keep forgetting they even exist, because the game is easy, I don't need them, and there is no point in using them for the story because the only thing that's different is that maybe I won't be able to refuse the super special worm.

I only use them on Astarion, because it feels more like playing a vampire. Especially the second tier ones.

I use Favourable Beginnings and maybe Luck of the Far Realms on the two tadpole-curious idiots because I feel they would try them and both skills feel the least intrusive. The rest just doesn't interest me. It changes nothing in the story and I like my class skills better than the tadpole ones. I guess the final battle is supposed to show you how cool the mindflayer abilities are, should you have resisted them before, but it only convinced me that I really don't care for them at all but that I absolutely need Sorcery Points in my game. Thank you Mizora!

I've tried them all, Gale practically had a full head by the end of game. Considering how powerful some of them are (mind sanctuary, black hole), there should be more of a cost then just weird looks for using them. If you get the zaithisk power, they are better than class abilities in most cases.

See, my problem there is that DAISY shouldn't be the thing deterrinig players. Daisy should be the thing tempting them, that's her whole purpose. Daisy should have made using the tadpoole as inviting as possible, while the rest of the world discsouraged you. If she's discouraging you, and the world and wiider story is discouraging you, then what even is the poinot of her? In EA, right from the first dream, every companion besides Astarion was telling you what a bad idea the tadpoles were. I think part of why I'm so insistent Daisy wasn't meaningfully better than the Guardian is that she put me off using the tadpoles so firmly that I never saw the story branches and the stuff that people claim was more interesting. At best I used the powers once, got the first dream and never dealt with her again.

IMO, Daisy is very tempting.

From story perspective she tempts you with the dreams of conquest which is meh. From an RP perspective she gives you the ability to win people over (pass checks once per day) which is amazing. From a gameplay perspective she gives you some of the most overpowered abilities in the game by far which are an instant pick for most minmaxers.

So, basically the Daisy path is for megalomaniacs.

What confuses me - and I am sorry if this has already been dicussed - how old is Baldur's Gate? The Emperor says it got changed into a Mindflayer at Moonrise, presumably meaning the Tower and not the general location. We know the tower is a hundred years old, it was built for Ketheric when he was on the brink of god-flipping for the first time, the Mindflayer colony, the Emperor mentions, must have moved in afterwards, when the region was hidden by the curse .... so is Baldur's Gate really that young?

Its about 400 years old although even before that it was a village. The entire timeline with the Emperor and "Balduran" does not make any sense even after Larians retcons.