Im sorry, but what is it that occured to you while reading this post? Your comment is structured as tho you have just realised something yet you say that you have always thought this way, im confused laugh

That being said, I just wanted to give my two cents if thats ok.

I get where you are coming from, Daisy is untrustworthy and eery, very inhuman in its affections and her emotions seem manufactured. Which in my opinion is exactly the point. Daisy, as far as we know and now will likely ever know, is a representation of our tadpole or Absolute, using what they see in our head as our ideal to attempt and manipulate us given that we are impossible to be commanded thanks to the Prism. Absolute isnt human, it cant think like a human it can only mimic our emotions and try to trap us with only the top layer of what we would want, it is lying to us and yes, 99% of the players will know this, however, that doesnt mean 99% wouldnt engage with it (or experiment on further playthrough) depending on their character.

Point is, your characters decision to engage with Daisy and the tadpole powers it offers is a roleplay one, not a gameplay one, and its up to your and your character to do so at your expense. The innitial world of BG3 also seems a lot more harsh and unforgiving, in so far as items go, Gales quest can eat up important objects, companions are a lot more harsh and opinionated etc, on top of that, you are potentially moments away from dying and nowhere near anything or anyone that can help you, the harsh realities of the waking world can easily cow people into engaging in the fantasies. The song down the river illustrates this inner fight, as we are being swayed to stay down by the river, and it can even be seen from our perspective as at the end we can ask to just be left there dreaming.

Another point to this is that the Ilithid power innitially came, and should be coming with huge caviats. However this is something that Larian seemingly wanted to avoid and likely the biggest contributor (at least in my mind now) behind why there was such a dramatic shift on the portrayal of the one offering it. If you depend and trust in Daisy, or if you merely wish to use everything in your arsenal when you are already seemingly doomed, you will be punished by companions disliking you, if you are further an evil and selfish character, you can easily lose companions along the way and lose a large amount of content along with them, having Daisy there not only offsets the loss of power with the Ilithid powers, but also the loss of companions with her presence.

Further, for as much as you personally as a human do not buy into Daisy (and I already outlined how that really doesnt have to apply to your character, I am the same way after all) you have to admit that just being able to use Illithird powers, or even half turn into one without any sort of reprisal on any level is simply moronic, for me that is a FAR greater missted than my personal distrust of Daisy (which again I believe is intentional). Not only is it stupid on a logical level but it completely removes a significant and very entertaining roleplay element, where, as I previously stated, you could be led to gain power only to lose your companions or even parts of yourself, or vice versa, reject the obvious manipulations and make the life harder for yourself without the powers but be true to the games slogan, in which it states that Alone, You May Resist. But Together, You Can Overcome. Whether you believe Daisy is someone nobody could realisticall fall in love is just your perception, in fact, if this is generally how people are mind controlled by the Illithid it would seem that most succumb and most never even wake up, who knows, but I can easily imagine people being manipulated by their hearts desire, which is literally what the character is supposed to be. And if we are going speak in anecdotes, personally I would never imagine anyone romancing emperror, like, at all, honestly I cant even conceive of a character of mine that would find that appealing or somehow useful or neccessary, even if you do believe that he has your best intentions at heart and ignore the fact he is constantly trying to turn you into Illithid and have you eat more tadpoles. Frankly, I do not find him much more trustworthy than Daisy in any case, especially given that this guardian isnt really the one who guards us at all, if anything its the other way around.

All in all I think this is just a surface sort of knee jerk reaction, judging the whole of it without having the full picture. I do like the Emperror as a character, but the role he is forced to serve in the story essentially neuters him and makes him into a non entity, good if you want him to be good and bad if you want him to be bad, with nearly no agency of his own. Yes, its easier to believe him, because it is meant to be easier, if you want to believe he actually cares (tho given that he is an Illithid and it is established they simply do not behave and think the way humans do, I do not believe him to be genuine in anything beyond the fact that our alliance is a neccessity for his survival) you can, if you want to see him as manipulative and evil, you can but either way, the illithid powers are yours to take and use without any reprecussions because Larian wanted us to have the shiny toys irregardless of our roleplay limitations, even if those are intentional and self imposed and even if stepping outside of them this way doesnt make sense.

On top of that Emperror, as others have outlined here, has several issues, given the role he has to play, but that is a different discussions. Anyway, to each their own obviously, and I wouldnt be at all opposed having both Emperror and Daisy in the story as they clearly had different roles, I do like him as a character I just think he was severely hampered by his new role, similarly I do not think Daisy was by any means bad or that she limited roleplay opportunities, if anything I think the Emperror forces the player down only really one path of interactions all the way untill the very end of the story unlike Daisy and on top of that, Daisy seemingly had special connection with the Durge character, which could have truly been something very special for that origin, as the choice between being a Bhaal puppet or trying to leverage Illithid power and potentially lose yourself to a different evil is an incredibly compelling concept to me. Sadly thats just all gone. Regarding her romance, given what I have read here and the existence of different types of Daisy character (Desire and Daisy beings) I wouldnt be surprised if there was more to even that. And yes, just from a surface level, it would still be far more pleasant to receive sweet nothings from a beautiful character designed by me, even if it was ultimately unconvincing than the alternative. But thats just my two cents, to each their own of course smile