Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Finally able to articulate one of the biggest flaws with the main story/writing

Wanting to have their cake and eat it too is a good summary of how a lot of the illithid plot ends up feeling.

I was leery of Withers' comment about illithid souls but didn't have the lore background to really question it. And ultimately, it seems like a pointless departure from the established lore, since it didn't have much bearing on the plot.

As for the illithid keeping their personality... I feel there was room to explore this idea, but it just wasn't handled very well, especially for the protag. For one thing, "mindless thrall" vs "individual identity" is already established as having to do with whether you can block out the elder brain (Omeluum seems like the more traditional version; no association with his pre-illithid self, but also acting independently from any elder brain). As for how much a mind flayer keeps their old "self," I can accept that there are "outliers," like the Emperor, who may retain more of their old memories and personality than the typical illithid. But I would have preferred it if there were some concrete factors that contributed -- for example, if the Emperor was rescued from the mindflayers right after being infected, and thus was not exposed to the elder brain early on. If he transformed in the care of his friends and was essentially forced to cooperate with them / to interact with people who kept treating him like his old self, perhaps that would result in a mindflayer that still retains much of his old identity, even if his personality has undergone significant changes. The idea that he could be kept flying under the elder brain's radar for years on end, just waiting for the chance to break free, seems a little odd. But at the same time, I believe that's also how the ulitharids work -- they gain independence because they are meant to break off from the colony and become new elder brains themselves. I originally thought the Emperor might have been one of these, but the game didn't go that way, either.

For me, one of the biggest "have their cake and eat it too" bits was actually the sex scene with the Emperor. For so much of the game, it's made to seem like the mind flayers are relatively cold and passionless (the Emperor himself is no exception, as seen whenever he remarks on the protag being "sentimental"), and in-game texts allude to the fact that mind flayers may not even their sexual organs anymore (not to mention that not being how they reproduce). It was unbelievably jarring to then have the Emperor not merely flirt with the protag, not merely indulge or exploit any sexual fantasies the protag may have about them, but to be presented as actually having a sex drive of his own, aimed at the protag. I could see many slight alterations to this scene that would have felt more consistent with the rest of what we see -- either for it to have to be player-initiated and the Emperor humoring them, or for it to clearly be more of an act of manipulation (cut back on the part about his own emotions being telepathically communicated, and leaning more into there being some ulterior motives present). I acknowledge that the game doesn't remark on the, uh, mechanics of how this scene played out, but regardless of whether those technically make sense, the Emperor's attitude towards the encounter felt incredibly off.

I can understand that, by the time finding a mind flayer ally is necessary, it would probably be too hard to track down Omeluum in the chaos of the battle and get him over to the brain. Though, I do feel like it's weird how little the game acknowledges his existence when discussing the nature of mind flayers. Like, the fact that the Emperor expected my character to be hostile towards him purely on the basis of being a mind flayer, when she had met Omeluum in the Underdark and was perfectly friendly with him... I feel like he should have potentially been more of a source for some interesting discussions about the lore and implications of what was going on with the Absolute, even if he wasn't really the type to get involved when a major battle comes.