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.

[Linked Image from bg3.wiki] Minthara's Compendium Of Issues