Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The Emperor tadpoled us!

Well, if you enjoyed these twists that is great for you. Personally, I think the emperor being Balduran was unnecessary, and I'd rather Wyll's quest was actually about him.

But the biggest "twist" was that all these warnings you get throughout the game - from the narrator and some of the companions about using the tadpole powers, from Raphael about the emperor manipulating you like cattle and about your party turning on you, even a warning from the emperor himself when he talks about forcing the transformation - amount to nothing. And I don't think it makes the story clever, I think it makes it badly written.

The only effect these twists had on me was just increasingly unpleasant eye rolling. By the time I got to the Balduran reveal I could only shrug my shoulders at the game.

I also disagree that the twist was intended from the start. There's numerous things pointing to that which other people have already explained in great detail (stuff like concept art book, soundtrack etc.). The original appearance of the Dream Visitor was prompted only by using the tadpole - which still gives you an unscrubbed voice line from the narrator implying that the tadpole eats at your brain - only to reward you with powers obviously granted by the parasite. If Daisy really was the Emperor from the start then what's all that talk about "letting her in" and the visions of destruction and world domination? Even if it's not the tadpole/Absolute but some mysterious third party it's most certainly not the Emperor we got to see in the final product.

Speaking of disappointments;

Personally my biggest disappointment about the Emperor is the Guardian turning out to be just a quick throwaway character (and feature) for a stupid catfishing story plot. And it hurts and bothers me so damn much because I really love Díana Bermudez's performance who makes my ears perk up with full attention any time she speaks. She did a fantastic job bringing her Guardian to life only to just get killed off for nothing after 5-6 scenes.

The Guardian was the one thing I was most excited about during Early Access because of the potential the character had, so seeing her reduced to this is so disappointing. Instead of making the Guardian an original character who ends up being the Emperor/Empress and then joins us in our struggle against the Absolute as a fully developed companion with a whole branching storyline and romance that maintains the Guardian disguise while out of the prism with us, they just made her a throwaway character with a throwaway customization feature for a damn catfish plot.

• Why can't I tell the him to at least turn back into the Guardian?
• Why can't he join us and be a fully developed companion with a branching storyline?
• Why make him Balduran if you know you will narratively be constrained by doing so?
• Why make him permanently locked inside a stupid tiny prism with minimum interactions. What... afraid letting the player talk to him too much will punch holes into established lore about him?
• Imagine having an actual Illithid as a companion with a unique class build and disguise which is customized by the player. SO MUCH POTENTIAL, WASTED.

With that said I really do love the Emperor as a character overall and especially his performance. I love interacting with him, but Larian building him up as an established character at the expense of the Guardian and their customizing features... urgh.

Ultimately what I'm trying to say is; the Emperor being Balduran was a colossal mistake. Great character for sure, but it should have been the Guardian as an original character. The Guardian could have been the Emperor/Empress in order to create a meaningful storyline with them.

I bet the Balduran thing was shoehorned later, because I do not see any damn point in having our Guardian customizable otherwise. Which would explain why interactions with him are minimal and lead nowhere, because he's an established character, so opening too many conversations would just lead to contradictions with established lore.

What do you find compelling about him? Do you think he's well written? Do you identify with him? Or do you just like dealing with a manipulator?

I ask because I've found that most of his fans identify with him in some way.

I don't think he's very well written and the execution was pretty poor across the board. The main plot is the major weakness of the game and the emperor's flaws are the flaws of BG3. Instead of having two distinct paths - as we have with Shadowheart, Gale and Astarian - we have two stories told simultaneously with both bleeding into each other. And not a in good way - he's not complex or nuanced, he's just muddled.

It's not about whether or not it's enjoyable. The point is that it's obvious what the writers were trying to do. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. Overall, I applaud their attempt, but I don't think it worked as well as they'd hoped.

One of the big problems, imo, is that the Absolute and the dream persona showcasing a fight for survival in the astral are all more interesting than the final reveal. Thus it's a let down. The reveal has to be equal to or greater than the tease.


1. Concept art book: the Emperor not being there is not proof of anything. The character is a huge part of the reveal of the story. Not having the Emperor in the art book isn't surprising. Having the character in the art book would have been surprising and would have generally been considered a poor choice all around.

2. The soundtrack: does not indicate the absence of the Emperor. Someone somewhere said the tadpole would convince Tav to stay down by the river and someone else suddenly thought that was canon? The entire story takes place along the Chionthar River. It's not a tadpole singing a song. Seriously, sometimes I feel like I can't even begin to communicate with a whole section of the world.

3. Using the tadpole: The Emperor used the tadpole to communicate with Tav. Just like Tav used the tadpole to communicate with Lae'zel and Shadowheart and so on. The Emperor keeps you from being turned into a mindflayer. The Emperor helps you unlock the power of the tadpole. But the power is still coming from the tadpole.

4. The tadpole changes you: Yes, it does. In the Emperor's opinion, it changes you for the better. The Emperor being the dream persona doesn't mean the tadpole doesn't exist or grow or change the character or give mental powers.

5. Letting her in: The Emperor does not want you to resist. The Emperor is asking you to let him in, to listen to him, and the Emperor is attempting to manipulate you with a persona drawn from your own imagination. "Let me in," the Emperor says. Why is that hard to understand, but it's easy for you to imagine the tadpole saying, "Let me in."?

6. Destruction of Baldur's Gate: that scene was not entirely clear in early access. You saw a ruined city on fire and the dream persona claimed you would have what you want. Perhaps some people wanted to ruin the city, to be a warlord. That was certainly Shadowheart's interpretation. But maybe it was a vision of the future and maybe what you wanted was the ability to stop it or save the city. The point is, the scene was basically showing the stakes of what was to come. With the power you would be able to defeat your enemies.

7. You say it's most certainly not the Emperor: I say you haven't presented a case at all. Nothing you said supports your conclusion.

--if I don't respond very often to this thread, it's because I'm going through a lengthy illness and I find the whole thing somewhat frustrating. It's so obvious that it's hardly worth debating. This isn't even hindsight. The clues were there in early access. Then people come in talking about eye color and art books. Eye color from a scene that's clearly out of date and clearly shows different details in more than one place. An art book that doesn't include the single biggest reveal of what's going on, the one thing that people jumped up and down trying to figure out in early access. I mean, my gosh, these are not arguments.

Why would it be a problem to put the Emperor in the art book? Do you think the story is spoiled if you see a named, independent Mindflayer in there? It's not like they have to give a detailed description even though they literally do that in the case of the Nightsong, spoiling that particular quest in the process. I also wouldn't say that the Emperor is the single biggest reveal either. That would probably be the Netherbrain (which gets spoiled if you read a book in Ketheric's bedroom btw.).

I have no idea what you're trying to say in regards to the soundtrack here. That's not the point people commonly bring up. It's not even a bad strawman version of it. The point many people have made is that it's weird that the Down by the River (one of the first OSTs they released iirc) soundtrack which previously featured in the dream sequences with Daisy got pretty much entirely axed from the game. People also drew a parallel between the bliss that characterised the dream sequences and the voice lines of many of act 1's enthralled NPCs who are in a state of deluded bliss while they serve the Mind Flayers/the Absolute. The song seemed to tie into the seductive promises from your dreams and its ominous last line "Don't wake me up just leave me there dreaming" was then interpreted as the potential outcome of giving in to the Absolute causing her to put you in the proverbial matrix and making you dream of whatever your heart desires while the world around you falls to her designs.

In regards to using the Tadpole, you're not really addressing what I said. Originally, you would only get dream visits if you actually used it which also gave you the prompt that "you lost something you’ll never get back". So Daisy could only reach out to you if you strengthened the parasite by using it (which again, gave you prompts implying that it's eating away at your brain). The Emperor will communicate with you no matter what you do and all he does is advise you to strengthen your powers by eating more parasites. The previous dream figure seemed in control of your parasite because it directly bestowed you with a gift (something the Emperor does not seem to be capable of until you physically meet him in the Astral Prism and he gives you the special tadpole).

Also why would you need to "let the Emperor in"? Unlike Daisy, the Emperor can appear to you and talk to you whenever he wants. Also why would he need to use the tadpole to talk to you? Mind Flayers are capable of telepathic communication either way. The line only makes sense with the old dream visitor who relied on you to use the parasite to invite them in so they could communicate with you through dreams. So, yeah. "Let me in" only makes sense if you, you know, can't actually get in because there's something holding you back... like a certain mind controlling "God" whose influence on you is kept at bay by a mysterious artefact... or a dormant tadpole that can't reach the next step of its life cycle because it's in a magical stasis.

"Your enemies will fall. The world will bow. You'll have everything you could ever desire. Just let me in", Daisy says to you after you stabbed someone and overlook a burning city. Come on, dude. This isn't exactly ambiguous. In what world is this in line with the characterisation of the Emperor? In what context would the character we see in the finished game ever say something like this? All these scenes are clearly meant as a seduction by an unambiguously evil being triggered only by using shortcuts provided by your parasite. It's a very classical story with a very simple framing.

You've also said two times that there were clues that the Emperor was already a thing in the EA but you haven't given a single example. Why bring it up if you're not going to support that claim?

That you can communicate with other infected using the tadpole is what Nettie tells you is unusual about the situation, and not what they expected. Mind flayers can communicate telepathically and as you can see in the example of Bluurg and Omeluum (and in the full game emperor's criminal enterprise) they don't need to use tadpoles for that. I think this is standard mind flayer lore, that they are a telepathic species. And if Daisy was the emperor, then it is not explained why in the EA he could not communicate with the protagonist at all until you progressed enough with the tadpole powers.

Because Daisy did not even 'see' you character, until you start using the tadpole powers. The very first usage resulted in just hearing their voice asking 'where are you?'. And only once you start on the possible transformation path, does Daisy show up your dreams. This is consistent with elder brain lore in the game and how they can sense and control illithids in a wide radius around them. Omeluum's ring in the EA used to prevent Daisy from reaching you, but it did not prevent you from further communication with him.

As for the vision of the city being destroyed, in that scene the protagonist is and Daisy are holding hands. Daisy tells you "the world will bow". This to me doesn't seem like a warning from someone who wants to prevent the city destruction, so that they can keep their criminal empire. In the full game the guardian instead talks about fighting the absolute and saving the sword coast, which is in my opinion is a change made to accomodate the emperor's own goals.

how wonderful debate!

also, as some people in the thread, i hope the screenwriter can rewrite act 3.

i dislike emperor and i do not think emperor is a trustable companion, because emperor kills ansur.

emperor has an very bad point, that is he puts his surviving in the highest point, nothing can stop this purpose despite he must betray or backstab his best friend.

we have to understand -- "a soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live".

@JandK I'm sorry you are sick! I hope things improve soon. Always remember that discussions about video games are meant to fun, this is a truly meaningless conversation. Don't strain yourself!

But your point isn't obvious and your confidence in your own cleverness is leading you to ignore evidence that contradicts your theory. I don't want to upset you and I have no problem with you saying "agree to disagree" at this point in the conversation but:

1. "it's obvious" isn't an argument it's just an assertion
2. I've found - the hard way - that it's good practice to assume that your conversation partner is as clever as you are. Just because I disagree doesn't mean I am less clever. I took charisma as a dump stat, not intelligence.


It's not difficult to understand. Clearly The Emperor took Daisy's place. But you are focusing on the first part of Daisy's seduction while I am focusing on the second. Unfortunately I don't have the original cinematic on hand but it only shows up if you do something stupid and tell Daisy "I'm not resisting" She says that some other force is resisting her.

So it's obvious that Daisy was a projection of the absolute and some other force - perhaps the emperor, or Orpheus or even Shar - wanted to keep you from earning the [ true soul ] tag.


@crimsomrider

Thanks! Fascinating. An nicely stated as always.

I never saw him as anti hero. For me the fantasy model of an anti hero is Elric - someone who uses evil ends towards good means. Elric destroys souls and summons demons but does so because he cares for fate of the world and would like to save it from the forces of chaos if he could. There's a soupcon of Elric in Wyll.

I never saw The Emperor as a figure interested in the greater good, his motivations seem entirely selfish. Raphael is right in this if nothing else. He wants to kill the elder brain to keep himself free and he would like to have his criminal empire back but - as his decision to join the brain indicates - he'd damn the world if it would save his life.

@stevelin7 Glad we agree! Yes, the emperor will do anything to survive. At first it seems that the center of his personality is a desire to be free but it turns out to just be survival instinct.

Betrayed his friend? His stuck-living-in-the-past friend tried to murder him!

First of the Emperor truly is right.

His past does not matter because this ain't a dating show and knowing his past does nothing to better our survival chances, so I don't understand why people judge him or even care about stupid Ansur, because the point of that whole encounter is not that he cannot be trusted nor that he's a survivor. The point is that he won't do anything malicious to you unless you try doing it first to him. And he will regret it, but he'll do what is necessary.

Ansur deserved his fate because he was blinded by what he used to have, instead of seeing what he truly had instead... a mindflayer friend who accepted his fate and is capable of so much more. So can we blame the Emperor for being so secretive, manipulating and leaving out unimportant details of his story when his best friend (and perhaps even lover) tried to murder him just because he is a mindflayer?

Is this not true for all players too who immediately upon learning his past start judging him and condemning him just because he is a mindflayer who prefers to keep his story out of the way? So yes, he is absolutely right to hide details of his past because as you see majority of players immediately convict him of crime, despite him being a victim in it.

Second of the Emperor is not a malicious whatsoever.

• This is proven numerous times because nothing he does towards us is malicious in any way, unless you become malicious towards him.
• This is further proven by a letter [Shield Steward Interrogation Log] showing what happened to a certain steward who happened to stumble across the Emperor's secret room.
  
  
  Transcript of key passage in the interrogation of Flovus Nuge, steward of the Knights of the Shield Hall
  
  Black Hand - When did you begin to suspect that Duke Stelmane was not herself?
  
  Nuge - I cleared her dinner dishes after a meal of mutton pie, but when I got the dish up to the kitchen the mutton was... brains.
  
  Black Hand - Brains?
  
  Nuge - And not sheep brains, neither. So I started poking around.
  
  Black Hand - In the Elfsong Cellar?
  
  Nuge - In the Knights' secret chambers, yes. And I found a cell with a body in it, a corpse in city prison stripes.
  
  Black Hand - A dead state prisoner?
  
  Nuge - If I tell you about this, you're going to let me go, right?
  
  Black Hand - Right.
  
  Nuge - It was a condemned criminal with the top oftheir head shattered and the brain mostly gone.
  
  Black Hand - In Stelmane's rooms?
  
  Nuge - The secret part, yes. That's where she found me.
  
  Black Hand - She WHAT?
  
  Nuge - Found me, it found me. At first I thought she was blue and floating, but then it was just Stelmane. She smiled. I don't remember anything after that.
  
  He found all of the Emperor's prisoners and they truly were convicted criminals, after which he stumbled upon him too. The Emperor did not kill him nor erase his mind entirely, he only erased the fact he saw him as a mindflayer.

So he does tell the truth a lot more than people think and he truly never lies to us after discovering he is a mindflayer. Him not telling the whole story is simply his defense mechanism to avoid what happened to dumb Ansur who only saw a mindflayer as a bad thing. But naturally players just see a mindflayer too and immediately start doubting every single word that comes out of his mouth.

He is far more honest than people give him credit and if you treat him respectfully he'll extremely admire you for your intelligence for accepting him for who he truly is, but unfortunately just like Ansur... players are unable to understand his character because all they see is a mindflayer.

He catfished us for our own good to save us, so he can save himself through us as well. And everything else falls into place. But after his reveal, he not once lies to us. He did what he had to do because there was no other way. I understand his actions despite not agreeing with them, but a liar he is not because as is evident he is right. His past does nothing good, it only throws a wrench into everything and starts destroying the alliance. Just like it destroyed Ansur, just like it destroyed Stelmane and just like it destroys the players if they only treat him as an untrustworthy mindflayer.

All he wants is to live.

Is that truly such a huge crime? Should he have just rolled over and died for Ansur, who's stuck in living the past? People keep using "SURVIVAL" against him like it's a crime, yet it's this same reason that also saves the world because when he has the Netherbrain in his clutches, he does not want to do dominate it precisely because he wants to live.

So truly players do not at all understand the layers behind his complex character;

• Astarion is far more evil
• Gale walks around with a nuclear bomb around without telling anyone
• Lae'zel killed her own cousins without a moment of hesitation at her varsh's command and even sabotages the group numerous times because of her damn idealistic views
• Shadowheart is far more untrustworthy...
• Even Omeluum who players praise as "the benevolent mindflayer" is equally as manipulative because he does want to help the player, but mostly because he gets to study the exquisitely unique tadpole in our heads... He even nonchalantly says if we die that he'll be happy to perform another examination... really?! REALLY?! What a nice mindflayer truly.

Yet the Emperor who does EVERYTHING for us and not a single malicious thing and doesn't even lie after his reveal, is considered an unforgivable untrustworthy menace despite being a victim and on top of it all a mindflayer, JUST because he wants to live no matter what.

The Emperor not being malicious is debatable and probably depends on one's personal definition of malice. I'd say that it simply does not have the player group's best interest in mind. It knows from the start that we are looking for a cure and want to prevent ceremorphosis, still it encourages us to use and devour tadpoles, despite knowing this will later make it harder for us to resist the special Astral tadpole which it is preparing for us.

Of course this is related to its believe that we need to become more powerful in order to defeat the Absolute, but still this manipulation directly contradicts our most important goal - or at least one of our most important goals, depending on your character. So, it's very simple, I don't distrust the Emperor because it is a mind flayer but because it tries to sabotage one of our main objectives. By contrast, I have no problem trusting Omeluum.

Even if you consider someone words malicious, which I think is debatable in this scenario, how a person reacts can tell you a lot about them. My character told the emperor the truth, that she would not trust him because he is an expert at mental manipulation, when he tried seduction. At which point he reacted by forcing the vision of enthralling Stelmane. And in my opinion that is a sociopath's response; a sociopath who for a moment got angry - because his manipulation failed - and let the mask slip. Because even if he considered my character's words malicious, I think any non-evil person would simply call them out on their behaviour. Ignoring consent and threatening enslavement is a giant waving red flag.

I also think there is a hinted possibility that when the emperor says he 'finessed his methods', he means his mind thralling powers. If you react to his "seduction" by telling him to stick to business, he'll simply reply "good instincts". But there is a weird narrator line afterwards, where she says your character feels disappointed that the mind flayer was quick to abandon its attention on you. But why would the narrator be able to tell how your character feels? Unless the situation is similar to that of the of dark urge, where it is outside influence. Of course, it could be simply Larian writers overstepping their boundaries.

A lot of these interactions are just reminiscent of a DM with low social skills trying really hard to get you to like his favourite original character. Some of the Emperor scenes were legit uncomfortable to sit through and made me skip some of the dialogue.

But this might as well just be another poorly formulated player answer (Larian seems to love these) where it implies that the player character is somehow interested in the Emperor but would rather focus on the task at hand even though this isn't at all communicated by the prompt you get.

:p Same advice I just gave to JandK. We understand, we just don't agree. We understand that you are R0ng R0NG!

This bit of ire is not directed at you but at the current state of this conversation among RPG fans:



I hate it, hate it, hate it when people use 'racist' in this manner. I honestly believe it does damage to anti racist efforts. There are some words that one can throw around casually and there are some words that should be treated with both care and rigor. When racism can mean anything it means nothing and we cannot allow that word to lose its meaning.

I saw the smiley and I know you were just playing around

His lover tried to save his soul before the worm completely ate it. He still loved Balduran when he had slimy skin and tentacles but when the worm killed Balduran and The Emperor was born. Tragically, Ansur was forced to kill the pod person who had replaced his friend and lover. The Emperor had mentally transfomed into an inherently evil being that needed to feed on humans, had an innate desire to create thralls, thought itself superior to all other beings and had a desire to dominate: to create an empire.

Ansur isn't talking about external appearance he's talking about a personality change, a withering of the soul. Ansur tried to kill the spawn symbiote, not spider man.



One of the lines I really hate in the emperor conversations is "your presence disgusts me" because it's just a set up for his next line about humans disgusted by his outer membrane. It constructs Tav as a "racist". But the slime is not what disgusts my Tav. The Emperor is admiring his domination and torture of helpless prisoner and Tav feels moral revulsion. I didn't sit next to torturer spike, admire his handiwork and get to know him better so why am I doing that with this evil monster?

Why am I rendered mute when talking to someone just described the subjugation of a living being as "beautiful" ?

I'd prefer to have that line deleted but if it says in I want Tav to have a good reply. "don't gaslight, ghaik! you know I'm revolted by your actions, not your appearance. This might be a necessarily evil but it is evil and so are you"

The Emperor, unlike Omelleum, has taken on the core mind flayer personality. The retention of his memories only give flavor to his fundamental illithid desires: dominate, deceive, enthrall, propagate. Yes he erased the memory of that one steward but his domination of Stelmane reduced her to a husk that needed to walk with a cane and wasn't able to disobey her master.

Somehow Omelleum avoided all those traits despite losing his memories.

Yes, Astarian is evil. I rarely travel with him and end up killing him more often than not. I appreciate that the game gave me that choice and I wish I had a similar choices with the emperor.


Yes I use that to make the case that he's evil but I more importantly I use it to make the case that he's not anti hero. Shar isn't an anti hero but she will aid us the fight against the brain if we turn Shadowheart over to her. He's a bit like Melisandre from Game of Thrones. She doesn't want to save the world, she wants to see it burn, but that puts her at odds with the others who want to make the world flame retardant.

So while it is an enemy of my enemy situation it's not a true anti hero story IMO.

If he was malicious he could have easily forced us to swallow the tadpoles, as numerous times he without any issues lifts our hand to put the tadpole in it... but he does not ever even force it, he merely suggests it and pushes for it because he is ultimately right.

He does not operate on trivial emotions. While we're banging our companions, he is 10 steps ahead of us making 300 calculations per minute to ensure survival because everyone's survival and the world is hanging by a thread, and becoming an evolved illithid drastically does improve our chances of survival. This is further proven by the fact that if the player truly does become an illithid, their mind opens to limitless potential and they get to basically tell him "he was right, it feels great".

So you ARE correct that it does not align with the group's interests, but it's not out of malicious intents because what good are your feelings when you become dominated to the brain. In his eyes he is trying to ensure 100% guarantee that everyone will prevail, most of all him. Because even fully unified he is still extremely afraid of the brain, worrying that unity won't be enough to prevail against it. So he isn't doing it for malicious reasons, but because our best interests mean shit if we all get dominated.

He is afraid and wants everyone to be at their very best when the final showdown begins, yet despite everything he not once forces it upon us despite knowing we're putting everyone at risk. Which is why if the player refuses to become an illithid, he'll take it upon himself to consume Orpheus and proceed to the final showdown because that's who he is. Unlike us he'll do what needs to be done to survive.


Of course he will because as I mentioned if you mistreat him by acting towards him like he's just a mindflayer who cannot be trusted, he'll lash out because he is NOT an emotionless mindflayer. He does truly have feelings because numerous times he gets annoyed when he's being mistreated after everything he's been doing for us. And in that particular moment he truly does like you (Insight check).

Same way players can discover he is truly bothered by losing Stelmane, because he gets extremely lonely and misses not having anyone to interact with. Afterwards the player can hug him.



And the "finessed methods" are not about his enthralling powers, but about his way of interacting with people because as you can see he kept Stelmane dominated even during private hours, meaning he was craving for her company since she was his only friend still alive. Which is why he admires you greatly if you treat him like a person, because for the first time EVER he is being genuinely treated respectfully and is accepted without having to keep up any facade.

Also yes, Larian/Narrator does sometimes imply stuff that ain't true to the character at all, unfortunately nothing we can do about it. That's why I find it extremely hard to roleplay an evil character because I can do the most hideous acts imaginable, but in the next scene my character is suddenly empathetic and caring about someone dying. Like madam... you just murdered 100 people in the last 24 hours. YOU DO NOT GET TO HAVE EMOTIONS

Yeah I was being playful with the statement, but I'll change it so it's not taken the wrong way

And he will lash out like a sociopath would. When someone ignores consent ("I'll take that as a yes", the emperor replies, if you tell him no), when they threaten you to force compliance, that goes beyond being angry with someone.

The protagonist's words and the emperor's response are not on the same level. If someone tells you they don't trust you because of who you are, by all means, call them out on being hurtful. But forcing someone to listen how you enslaved someone, to try to intimidate them into obedience, is frankly disturbing. And it is not something I'd ever find any understading towards.

I didn't read this whole thread, I read the first page and most of page 4... So I I missed some finer points in between, please forgive me...

I don't understand all this great defense of the Emperor. I can't be the only player here who has done the 'Free Orpehus' ending, can I? My first 4 play throughs I did the Emperor's version of things, but eventually decided to do it completely differently... And when I did I reached a far more satisfying conclusion (IMHO, anyhow).

As soon as you push back on the Emperor he basically turns to the dark side, joins the absolute and then (in my case at least) comically dies by standing under a Nautiloid artillery shot while monaloging about how you're gonna fail..

Anyhow, my point here is; no 'hero' just swaps sides at the drop of a hat. If he believed so much in his cause, he'd try to kill you for betraying his cause, he would not just abandon his cause and go join the other team. That was all I needed to see. He's a mindflayer just like the others, he's just one that has his own idea of how he wants the world to be. He is different only in that he is not apparently a thrall of the Absolute (however it could be that he is a thrall, and his mission is to appear not to be... This is also possible) He's not any better than any of the other ones, he's just better at manipulating Tav.

Meanwhile the Gith are clearly the better people in that end game, you come away feeling like you really DID win the the game in that ending, because you overcame that annoying self-important shell of what used to be Balduran (apparently).

So anyhow, I don't think it was the emperor in the opening scene (as others pointed out, different eyes). But none of that matters because he's just there to further his own plan, and his plan may not be the right one.