@KillerRabbit
I think any fleshing out of the story / including a romance path MUST come with a fully developed distrust path.
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Forum member @Jewel (also a fan of the emperor) has come up with a suggestion for two distinct paths - Trust and Distrust. And I would like to see it implemented.
I completely agree about fully developing these paths. I linked a thread by @Jewel in my original post, and while we disagree on a number of things, I really like their idea of developing a trust vs distrust path, and I think they did a great job of explaining that a trust path is not equivalent to agreeing with The Emperor on everything. Given that we are forced to contend with The Emperor until the very end when we make our final choice of who to side with, I think anything that further develops a real relationship, whether as an ally, a romance, or an enemy, with push and pull is essential.
In the IGN article the devs made it clear that Raphael is right about the emperor and if you review some of the things Raphael says it would lead you to question this statement:
What’s unique about The Emperor is how he subverts our expectations. Yes, he’s manipulative, but he never mind controls you.
On the first meeting Raphael says "charmed, I'm sure. In more ways that one . . .
In the second meeting Raphael wonders if you are entirely sure your decisions are your own. Could it be that the dream visitor is influencing your choices?
I mean why did we go from shutting the tadpole out and killing it if we are fast enough to storing them in jars? I mean that's a weird choice for someone for someone trying avoid becoming a mind flayer to make.
There's another post in this thread that brings up the idea of The Emperor influencing your thoughts and decisions without you knowing, and I don't believe there's any evidence in the game of this, either narrative of gameplay wise. There are times in the game where the pc's thoughts are being influenced and it's made explicitly clear. The dying mind flayer in the beginning of act 1 is "forcing you to love it," if you play Haarlep's "game" the dubious nature of the pc's consent is clear in the narration and the ability checks you need to make to resist, and even the astral tadpole influences you through it's ability to commune with the tadpole you already have. Raphael is also very much trying to manipulate the pc and get them to side with him, and he may very well believe that you're being charmed. He also tells you at one point that you'll be sucking on The Emperor's tentacles forever unless you side with him to free Orpheus. He may very well believe that even though it isn't true. He's also not the only one to call you a thrall. Astarion does at one point despite knowing that you're not and presumably knowing that neither is he. Ansur calls you a thrall despite taking over your body and it being pretty clear your not.
As far as storing the tadpoles in jars, this seems more like an element of gameplay to me. The writers were pretty adamant about the player undergoing some level of ceremorphosis. I think the fact that we can store them in jars and never once use them is a good indication for me that it's a gameplay element. I think it would be really interesting if we always had the choice to destroy the tadpoles or to keep them. That would certainly give more role play options for players.
One thing I found frustrating about the IGN article, was teasing out the intentions of the writers with what we actually find in the game. This could come down to disunity in the writer's room as talked about earlier in this thread, but we may never know for sure. They also say that The Emperor never lies, which isn't exactly true. I go more in depth about that in my original post, but for example, showing up as the Dream Guardian is a lie even though I believe that The Emperor's decision to do so is both understandable and sympathetic.
