@@noctoiAlso to be fair, he wasn't exactly himself. He was being controlled by the tadpole, and while yes, it wasn't the most logical thing to try to help Minsc, a good counterpoint imo is that you could sympathize with him. Being, y'know, tadpoled as well.
@@TheRoseWolf Yeah, not saying I'm (the player) not sympathetic, I have player knowledge. As a *character* , watching the last few grains of sand fall through the hourglass and knowing that if any of the party die by the hand of this fighting *legend* the realm might be taken over by a mind controling tentacle monster the size of the Chrysler building ... IF I was that character, I'd be thinking "well, it's tragic, but maybe for the greater good killing him would be safer for the *realm* " . 🤷
@@TheRoseWolfThe tadpole taking over isn't a valid excuse for any of the characters.. In fact, several say to instantly kill them if it looks like they have been taken over. Anyone who no longer has control is a liability.
@@nathanfivecoate5848 Read the flavor text on his Staff. Read Gortash's interview with him. Ceremorphosis doesn't necessarily erase the entirety of the hosts' original consciousness.
I spoiled myself that the "Guardian" was a romance option so I spent hours and made her as hot as possible. I was shook when I hit the end of act 2 and realized that my half elf baddie was a dude the whole time. I only know him as Emperor Catfish now 😭
Throughout my first playthrough I kept calling him Squidward. On my second playthrough (where I was being nice to him) I called him Zoidberg. Now I mostly call him the Emposter.
Technically squidward here is agender since all illithids don't have genitalia. They reproduce via the little worm thingies which the elder brain makes.
It's such a clever move from Larian. Emperor basically catfishes and gaslights not only Tav, but the player too. You create a baddie guardian, develop a positive bias towards them, and then BOOM - a lying squid right in ya face
Until one side wins and then focus their attention towards the Material Plane like the Blood War. Funny how the Material Plane’s safety from other Planes is their never ending infighting
@@FenDweller13 or mount Celestia would finally do something and start sending armies of angels. Though it would be pretty destructive on the material plane.
Its wild because people like to hold humans irl accountable to humans decisions hundreds of years ago. But the majority of people understand we are changed for the better largely. The Githyanki in the game vs the ones 1000+ years prior are likely way less violent on average. Whos to say some creches arent half decent people. Times change and people evolve. Githyanki evolved to be violent out of necessity to overcome the apex species.
The emperor's priorities are in descending order... 1. Survival. 2. Freedom. 3. Power. It will gladly sacrifice power for freedom, and freedom for survival.
Unfortunately for him, he highly underestimates us and our capabilities. We've come this far, fought through truly impossible odds and dispatched many of those who would stand in our way and so his 'logic' falls short in that (assuming you free Orpheus and up to this point also refuse to become a mind flayer yourself) he doesn't see any logical way past this point. We are defeated. But we should have been defeated many times over. We've surpassed the logical conclusion so many times, that the logical outcome of returning to the Netherbrain is that we will have no choice but to eliminate him as well. He signed his death certificate when he left the astral prism that last time. (And he went down pretty easily compared to some of the other mind flayers & dream guardians in my fight!!)
@@giacomocasartelli5503yeah I mean you can’t have anything if you’re not alive and you can’t do anything if you’re not free so I don’t see how anyone would think any different lol.
My problem with The Emperor is that all while he talks extensively about trust, he either fails to understand or wilfully ignores the very innermost core tenant of trust, and that is that it is a two way street. He’ll beg and command you to trust him over and over, insisting that he saved your life, that he has protected you from the brain, that you are allies, but the moment you beg the question “Hey, what if we free Orpheus? We’re stronger if we stick together, and after talking extensively to his Kith’rak, I strongly believe that his desire to destroy the brain is stronger than his loathing of Ghaik?” He’ll be like *”HUH? You want me to trust YOU? Nah man! I’d rather sacrifice my freedom, the thing I value above all else and be a slave to the Netherbrain than even dream of giving YOU the benefit of the doubt! BYE!”* Given this, The Emperor doesn’t want your TRUST, as trust can only ever work if it works both ways. No, what he wants from you is BLIND FAITH, which is an extremely twisted, one way version of trust that cult leaders and scammers alike expect of their victims. Orpheus on the other hand, despite his misgivings of you is reasonable, even if you’re literally the child of Bhaal, and is even willing to become a mind flayer himself, the very thing he hates above all else if it means saving the world. I have no doubt that he would have been reasonable with The Emperor too if only he had been willing to trust you for a moment!
Except the thing he values most is his own life not his freedom, its shown in his lines at the end where he becomes far more direct and logically callous in his approach, it shows how desperate he is, to the point that he is willing to give up his own freedom to do what is logically the most chance success, as it is very likely that Orpheus would be hostile to him immediately, orpheus' reaction is outwith his calculations, and even then just because he was somewhat "civil" with us it doesn't mean he would be with the emperor , Orpheus states himself that the "good" thing to do would be to die and that should have all died to his honour guard before as that would be the "honourable" thing to do, it is also very possible that Orpheus would be too focused on the civil war to even care about faerun, as Vlaakith would immediately know he has broke free, so as much as he claims otherwise its bs, its only when the threat is right Infront of him and impending that he actually makes extreme decisions, that's also why the githyanki only start coming through to assault the nether brain once it has shown itself as an extreme threat, the people at the top of the gith don't care about the "lesser" races and there "petty" realms, faerun could crumble for all they care its just one tiny insignificant world to them. If he wanted blind faith, he would just enthral you which he has had the power to do all along, but he didn't do that, he gave you choices and simply advised you on them, if you don't follow them that's fine he still keeps you alive to defeat the elder brain and stays true to his word to the very end.
@@tuskular The Emperor doesn't want equals. He pretends gives you a semblance of agency only because he's calculated that this is the more effective means of control. He says this himself.
@@tuskularThe more I see people talk about Orpheus and Emperor the more I realize that apparently not that many players willingly chose to become full illithid immediately when offered, then freed Orpheus anyway. So many people go on and on about how aggressive Orpheus must be toward the Emperor immediately when freed and how Emperor made the logical decision of not trusting the numbers on that bet and portaling into the netherbrain's embrace. But the thing is that I, a full on illithid who he'd never seen before in his life freed Orpheus and after a moment of hesitation and confusion he praised me as a savior of not only him but all Githyanki were we to make it out of this. And in the end when the elder brain was destroyed and realistically he no longer had any use for me and according to everything he's ever been taught it should be "the right thing" to kill my Tav then and there he instead kept praising me and didn't say a single word even eluding to me needing to die because I was illithid, in fact the very opposite, saying he'd do his best to tell my story everywhere he went to protect me from any Githyanki who'd think to kill me. All and all Orpheus is nothing like his mother, he is a much more open minded a Githyanki than most as all he needed was to see one act of selfless heroism (not the "sacrifice" of turning into one, I'd done that willingly mind you before there was any need for anyone to even think about sacrifices, but the act of willingly destroying the netherbrain despite everything it could give simply because it was the right thing to do) from a mindflayer to if not change his mind on then at the very least rethink pretty much every ideology and principle he was raised on. Sure, some of his praise may come from the fact that he didn't need to turn himself into a mindflayer to defeat the elder brain because you'd already taken that proverbial bullet but never the less he is way less a blood thirsty warlord than what this particular video is trying to show him to be. EDIT: And to add on that last bit, I imagine the reason why the Emperor didn't thrall the party was because he was busy fighting against the elderbrains commands and that his reach from within the artifact was very imperfect and he would risk much to any potential "lag" in communication if all the party were nothing but mindless thralls. I don't believe for a second he wouldn't have forced the party's hand and mind to get his way if that had been an easier option for him to take.
@@amoltov496 True, but Lae'zel and kitrakk'voss believe the outcome of freeing him will be good, however biased they are. The emperor has essentially been enslaving him for years. Its in his best interest not to release him, not because its the best for the world, but because he knows he did him dirty. So both parties are biased, but i choose to believe in Lae'zel and Kithrak'voss who have shown themselves to be honorable and not deceitful compared to the emperor.
@@SidheKnight When you become a mindflayer you then have to absorb Orpheus brain in order to gain his protective powers when you challange the netherbrain, having him trapped in the prism is no longer enough to stand against the evolved brain. Then there is an ending were after the Emperor invites your illithid self to join up with him. You can then respond by jumping him and sucking out his brain.
The most disappointing thing about the Emperor is how little wyll has to say about him being balduran. Guy literally worships him and the finds out his true fate and just shrugs and carries on.
Eating the brains of criminals might be more moral in a way, but is also just safer for the emperor since no one is going to miss a couple criminals disappearing every once in a while. I don’t think his admission of killing only criminals should be looked on favorably
It shouldn't be. But again, he HAS TO eat brains. This is arguably the LEAST evil way for him to survive. Omeluum survives by eating Druegar brains in the Underdark for reference.
Funny enough, Cazador had the same reasoning. Forbidding his servants from killing anyone but commoners and beggars, so they didn’t draw too much heat.
He could be lying about the criminals part. Even then he'll say that what he does is more important for the greater good than his victims contributions like any lawful evil character would. Hes no different than a vampire to me.
He didn't "admit" to killing only criminals -- he CLAIMED to kill only criminals. The Emperor systematically lies and distorts the truth at every opportunity, why would we choose to believe him when he claims to have only fed on evil people? Considering that he only tells you what he wants you to know in order to manipulate your behavior, how likely is it that this particular claim is actually true? Not very likely.
@@emmdubb Exactly. The Emperor operates off the mentality of "For the greater good". This is in essence an evil way to think because it excuses horrible acts because it's for the 'greater good'. No one should trust the Emperor. If his goal is survival first and foremost then what makes you think he wouldn't sell your character out in a heart beat if it meant saving his own skin and plans? It's terribly naive to try and think the Emperor is a good character.
Something I noticed after watching this video is that the Emperor seems to react differently if you pick dialogue options that follow a logical path of inquiry. In my run I asked him what he learned about me while disguised as the Dream Guardian and he said something like: "I learned that you are not swayed by emotion like the others and respond best to facts and logic. I admit I was surprised. I had not expected you and I to think so alike." I kept our relationship professional, embraced the tadpoles and became a Mind Flayer at the end what surprised me was that his attitude towards me didn't change after defeating the Netherbrain. When I told my companions that "I don't regret it. I like what I've become" the Emperor jumps in and says something like: "I knew you would. You are far greater as an Illithid than you ever could have been before". When I refused to stay with him to rebuild the Knights of the Shield, instead choosing to go into the Underdark, the Emperor supported me again. He said something like: "A logical choice. Your new form is powerful but you still have much to learn about what it means to be Illithid. The Underdark will be an effective nursery". Not sure if any of that dialogue is restricted to certain choices or if it's fairly common but I got the sense that the Emperor was glad to have another independent Mind Flayer to talk to. For a species that's so dependent on that hive mind connection I imagine being separated from other Illithids would have been lonely.
@@pineapplesmoovey7898 You were nice to the Guardian because you expected a hot Drow. I was nice to the Guardian because I expected a hot Mindflayer. We're not the same.
I just can't with the Emperor. Got to see a glimpse of how His prior "Love" went down, basically mind-r*ped her to be His, while being like "be glad I didn't use that approach on you". Ever since, I only ever side with the Emperor if I want to betray him at the end.
In any case, with how passionate people are about the Emperor, it's quite clear he's a fantastically written character! If he weren't, people wouldn't really care either way or think strongly about him and his actions 🤔
You have to admire the Larian writing team. They nailed the archetypes of each alignment in D&D. The Dead Three's are perfect; Gortach LE as he works within laws and structures to arrive at his selfish aims. Ketheric is NE as he’s solely motivated by his own personal reasons. Orin is CE and is a complete psycho relishing the harm she does. The Emperor is N as he’s by his own survival. He might do some questionable acts but never goes for the most destructive just for giggles. All the subtilities of each character makes them credible.
Such a bad take. Evil is not selfishness, neutral is. Evil is the opposite of good. Good is moral virtue and harmonious action, evil is for the sake of destruction and and violence. Don't you think it's strange that the best thing people could come up with to replace a missing "evil" in our society is that they aren't thinking of others?
@@LizardOnAMushroom2358 Wrong. Committing heinous acts for personal gain is considered Evil in DnD, just as doing heinous acts for the sake of Evil is also another form of Evil. Selfish = neutral only applies to a certain extent. If you're a mercenary who just fights battles for gold and doesn't think much about who you're fighting beyond that, I believe that is neutral. Ketheric is willing to bring death to all of Faerun for Myrkul, that qualifies as evil.
I theorize his alignment is malleable according to how you play. His alignment shifts with your choices in dealing with him so that he can either be your best friend or a true villain depending on what the player wants to perceive him. It's part of that "any individual can be good or evil" thing going on in the game. The ultimate choose your own adventure. I mean, if he were truly evil, he would eat Orpheus' brain before you have a chance to free him, not giving you a choice of who to work with. Instead he just...gives up... I don't know. I just feel like they made him kind of morally gray so that you as a player could shape him.
This is a great point. Everyone gives evil Shadowheart and Evil Astarion a pass, without remembering that the neutral characters in this game can be pushed to different moral extremes by the main character. The Emperor is no different.
@@PsyrenXYand the Emperor "was" a hero, having Balduran's memories. If anything, his willingness to hold out for the player may have to do with the nascent love he had for Baldur's Gate, which he once had as its founder. It should be noted that, in all instances, Withers recognizes the mindflayer who will defeat the Netherbrain. To me, it is a way of saying that whoever the player decides to be the mindflayer that saves everyone, its a valid choice.
@@timetochronicle yes exactly!! i see a lot of people use another withers quote (mind flayers have no souls) to mean "no soul = evil = mind flayers are all evil!", and then ignore that he gives the thumbs up to whatever mind flayer you choose to work with (even one who has been a mind flayer for centuries)
id stil not side with someone who wasnt being clean with me and just giving me more and more red flags as we go along, i rather support Omeluum then the "Emperor" who couldnt come clean until it was too late, i got my own morals and standards but keeping up this act is a no go for me and i cant see myself siding with the Emperor for longer then needed.
I found this to be an interesting take, but I'd say the Emperor is more true to his neutrality. I played a very good character, never used the tadpoles, was a confidant and lover to the Emperor, but not just keeping Orpheus imprisoned, but killing him, was not an option I could handle. I was sure we could keep him from killing us, even the Emperor. He wouldn't hear any of it though. I tried so many options too. Point being, I understood the Emperor and my character thought his actions were all reasonable and reasonably moral, but that was the line.
I think The Emperor well embodies the philosophy of Altruistic Egoism. One's own self, and their interests should always be considered first, but if one's own survival can be guaranteed, while also helping to prevent others from suffering in a way you yourself would not want to, that would be considered the favorable outcome. Because The Emperor does not abandon the path of the most good outcome until he sees no chance of his own survival and the survival of others sharing a common interest.
I view him as a lawful neutral pretty thoroughly. Lawful simply means they follow a code, whether it's "laws" or just their own ethics, which I'd say he fits in very well with his decision making being entirely logical and aimed towards personal survival above all. Neutral is just that, not making decisions based on perception of good or evil, but gor the most beneficial end. He doesn't eat the brains of criminals to be good, he does it to draw less attention. Likewise he doesn't enthrall Stelmane to be evil, he does it to stay alive and not draw attention to himself. He's simply a logical dude whose top priority is survival, with the close secondary goal of being an individual. With a third goal of wanting company a bit behind those two. The emperor plays the part of beloved companion or deceiving manipulator perfectly depending on the player's own opinions and I think he was written incredibly well if that was the goal.
He is quite the pussy tho, oen who easily gives up on their goals by the slightest posibility of his demise. I think he is a fucking hypocrite. Your morality doesn’t fucking matter at all if you can’t fucking stand by it. I’m talking about Orpheous. You can have a pretty decent insight into him before freeing him, but it doesn’t matters to the Emperor. He won’t listen to you. He just fucking gives up all he worked towards all this time becouse his skin might or might not be on the line. It’s like, dude, if I wanted you to be dead, you already would be. But no, he just scurries away, gives up his freedom and willingly joins the netherbrain. A truely awful being, regardless of morality.
@@azpont7275 in every ending you side with him he never turns on you, nor does he try to control the elder brain, yet you are given more chances to betray him than he does you, it has everything to do with how you view him. If you saw him as a monster, it reflects how you see people and how much your ignorance shapes your world view, actions speak louder than words and he uses the truth more than he lies
@@ichinesan Then I'm quite sure you haven't played all endings. You can literally do all things for him, but if you choose to free Orpheus non what you did matters. He is a hypocrite. Also claiming such big things about someone after a singular comment rather speaks volumes about you, ngl. Authoritarian Personality is suggested as a bedtime read...
@@azpont7275some people are married to their morality and justifications. I know both choices were evil. I picked the evil that made sense for me. Ending the grand design and Vlaakith. Then Zariel.
The problem with this is that the Githyanki lose their most powerful weapon against the Ilithid since it's implied that his ability is genetic and as far as we're aware he and Gith had no other offspring. Also without Orpheus as a figurehead for revolution I feel a civil war within the Githyanki is far less likely to succeed.
This is not a good outcome Lae'zel is just some gith in the big picture, how would she even get people on her side? There are very few gith with Voss and you in the final battle, and if you sacrifice Orpheus you basically have no figurehead to inspire revolution, unlike if Orpheus is free who is the original son of the original gith leader who the histories lie about as dead Additionally she does not have the psionic Illithid hivemind blocking power that Orpheus does, so she really can't replace him that way
Orpheus is not the single-minded blood-thirsty gith that your making him out to be. If you free him, and either turn into a mind-flayer yourself or have Karlach do it, he will make sure your sacrifice of turning into a mind-flayer goes into their histories and puts you in a place of honor among the gith. IMHO, this was the best ending of the game. The Gith are being led by their rightful ruler, and Balduran who lied to us unless we found out the truth ourselves and back him into a corner to admit it, dies.
It's the prince Orpheus's power make him powerful against the Ilithid. The most non-sense thing is why the heck Laezel doesn't sacrifice herself for prince Orpheus? It's a super important feature not just remained Karlach or you only. What happened to the chanting for Orpheus, the loyalty gone just by someone's ready to take the position for you
As someone who was Team Paarthurnax in Skyrim, I'm willing to give The Emperor a shot. I'd just try to convince him to maybe get a creative hobby like Stage Plays, playing music or painting.
I'm also pretty squarely Pro-Paarthurnax.... but also pretty squarely Anti-Emperor. But then there is a very key difference between the two: Mindflayers fuck with your mind and they're insanely good at it, so you can't believe ANYTHING they show you. Dragons are just fucking tough and don't need to play mind-games about it.
Omeluum is the parthernax of bg3, he is an illithid that overcame his evil nature through great effort (and a magic ring). The Emperor is one who didn't merely fail to overcome their evil nature but one who embraced it and saw no issue with it. Omeluum sacrificed an easy food source because the lich he made a deal with was utterly evil. Not because he had to or it wasn't beneficial but because it was wrong, it would have been easy to keep going with the lich but he didn't.
What he did to Ansur? What he did to every one of his "friends" like Stelmane? He's worse than Gortash. A greedy, dangerous thing that needed to be stopped.
He doesn't do the right thing. He is the villain of the game. He is an agent of the elder brain the whole time, enacting the grand plot to tranform it into the netherbrain. How is that supposed to be "the right thing"? Him manipulating the cast rather than killing them doesn't make it "the right thing" by a long stretch.
Its funny how alot of people got manipulated by the emperor even in real life, talk about breaking the fourth wall lol. Jokes aside, the emperor is not morally grey at all. He may be good at trying to justify his actions but hes amassive asshole that care for nothing else but himself and what he wants while pretending to do the "greater good". Theres even a point in act lll where he goes full mas off if you refuse to fall for his bullshit long enough. He flat out says to you that he will just force you to do what he wants if it comes to that. I wont even mention what he did to Ansur and Stelmane... like others have pointed out in the comments. The more you learn about him the more you see who he TRULY is. An egotistical monster who cares for nobody but himself. Id argue he might be worse than Gortash in some sense.. at least Gortash was fucked up by growing up with horrible parents that literally sold him to a devil and grew up in literal hell for years.
@@PlanetaryPluto yeah thats what baffles me, no wonder psychopaths are so succsessful in their schemes. All you need is sweet talk and smiles and people just roll over
I have just one counterpoint: Orpheus is the only one creature in the universe capable of disrupting an Elder Brain’s powers. If he’s killed, we all lose the only mean of survival against another Illithid attempt to enslave the cosmos lol
I think what they were getting at is that if he’s killed by either a mind flayer in your party or the emperor, consuming his brain, that mind flayer gains his abilities. So that person would become the “new orpheus”. Did I read into that wrong?
@@derekmandl nope you’re very right but then again illithids aren’t immortal, or are they? Because if Mind Flayer Tav or the Emperor dies, the entire universe is defenceless against another illithid attempt to invade the cosmos. If Orpheus lives he would live on and have a heir with his powers, so there would always be someone ready to defend everyone from the mind flayers!
@@lorisceleste1860 that is a good point. I agree with your original comment - though the Gith are themselves evil, they oppose the evil of the Illithid and keep it on check. And they need Orpheus to do that.
@@lorisceleste1860Orpheus isn't immortal either The only reason he's alive is because his prison is in the astro realm which is outside of time. So if anybody was trapped in there, they would not die of old age.
@@chaddavid2106 Orpheus can have babies and his descendants would inherit his power, just like he did from his mother. To guarantee the safety of the planes from Mind flayers we need to free Orpheus and take back the throne from Vlaakith. It's not that hard to undestand lol
lets not just pretend that a lot of people play their "hero PC's" close to where the Emperor's morality falls. Surviving, end justifies the means, if an outcome is overall good its because it was beneficial to them or at least the least bad option.
Liked your video, BUT… Orpheus is much more nuanced than you gave him credit for. I finished two playthroughs and released Orpheus on the second. He was reasonable, almost lawful good in some respects. I found him very compelling and in the end, he was grateful and left to free his people with no “apparent” evil desires.
He is pissed at us but is able to put his anger aside to fight for the greater good, and is even willing to make the biggest sacrifice a Gith could ever do to prevent the Grand Design. Wouldn't be surprised if he was Lawful Good tbh. I literally stole a Githyanki egg and gave it to the lady who wanted to raise it (though I destroyed the entire Créche so it didn't have anyone to take care of it) and Orpheus let that slide because the world was ending.
Yeah, I think it says a lot that, for all his hatred of everything illithid, Orpheus parts on peaceful and friendly terms with any character who turns themself into a mind flayer to save the world. Given his 'better to die nobly than become a ghaik' attitude when you first meet him, I was expecting him to insist that I let him mercy kill me once the Netherbrain was destroyed. Best case scenario, I would be able to talk him out of it with a persuasion check and not be forced to kill him. But no, he tells you he'll make sure you're remembered as a hero, then leaves you be. If he's reasonable about _that_ then it's a safe bet that he'd be reasonable about other things, like the conquest and enslavement of other races. Now to be fair to the Emperor, there was really no way to know that Orpheus would turn out to be so open minded, and the prince of the comet has a lot of reasons to hold a grudge against the guy who held his prison and exploited his powers for decades. Given the information he had, I can't blame the Emperor for assuming the worst. But judging Orpheus based solely on lore about Gith and the gith'yanki while ignoring his actual in-game characterization isn't fair either.
@@CatgirltheCrazy I mean, even if Orpheus is willing to work with Illithids to save the world, I wouldn't be surprised if he made an exception for the Emperor specifically, given the enslavement bit.
The only reason the Emperor broke free from the brain's control was because the brain allowed him to break free, which he acknowledges prior to the final confrontation when the brain reveals that fact, so there is a very tiny chance that he'll break free in the future after becoming a thrall again.
I never felt like I couldn’t trust the Emperor. I knew everything he was doing was to save himself, but he saved me and our interests aligned.
Рік тому+215
For me is Neutral Evil. He only does what suits him. In my first play, I was 100% manipulated and fell stupidly for his charms. Then I began to distrust, pay attention, investigate and I saw that he only shows you what you want to see, he never tells you the truth, he modifies it, which is very similar to lying. When you finally manage to see the Emperor's true colors, he begins to treat you as his puppet, pet, servant, etc. He literally shouts in your face "you need me, without me you are nothing", what hypocrisy if we take into account that he is nothing special, and only survives because he steals Orpheus' power and that he escaped only because the Elder brain allowed it. Regarding the fact that he "doesn't force" you to become an illithid, he doesn't do it in an obvious way, but whenever he can he brings it up and INSISTS that it is for the best. The worst thing is that even if you are his faithful ally, unless you become a squid like him, he ignores you, clearly demonstrating that you are no longer of use to him and that he is incapable of having feelings. What pisses me off most about the Emperor is that we are forced to accept him and work with him, but he is incapable of appreciating us as we are. The first time he can get rid of us, he does. The only mind flayer that can be considered good and pleasant is Omeluum. He doesn't force you to help him, he is honest from the beginning saying that he doesn't know if it will work, and he does show empathy when he asks you to save the Duke and forget about him. Furthermore, Omeluum does prove to be special, because thanks to being born with sorcery powers, he was able to break the control of the Elder Brain and escape in time.
Agreed, I thought he was kind of okay until I read that note on Ansur's body. Then I sat down and analyzed everything he told me, and from the very beginning he's been lying to me. Not just giving me what I needed to know, but he was straight up lying too. Like when you meet his dream visitor form for the second time (I think), he told me he too wants to get rid of the tadpole inside his head, which is obviously an utter bullshit. Next, about Stelmane, I honestly don't even care if he enthralled her and didn't say anything about it, but what pissed me off is that he told me they were "lovers", which is another bullshit. He had absolutely no reason to lie about them being a thing, he could've told me they were allies and leave it at that, but he probably wanted to humanize himself in my eyes so I would trust him more. Next we have Ansur, and the note on his corpse written by our squid. I can understand killing Ansur in self-defense, but there is another thing. Initially he told me not to perceive mind flayers as soulless and unemotional beings, but in that note he contradicts himself, saying exactly the opposite. It's not even the fact that he is unemotional and soulless that made me extremely suspicious, it's the fact that he lied. It has nothing to do with our mission to defeat the brain, sure, but a lie is a lie, naturally no one would trust some lying mf, be it a squid, a human or any other race.
And, despite what the author of the video said I didn't have to directly insult the squid. Like, I've never chose an outright hostile lines, I just kept saying I didn't trust him, otherwise choosing neutral lines. I absolutely didn't choose the lines like "you're a freak" and the like, only stayed cautious around him.
Ah, another thing, not really a lie but presumably a prepared manipulation. In the dia when squid "goes down on you", if you agree to this, he intentionally lets your party members in so they see you having a little tentacle fun. Another manipulation but this time aimed at your party members, seeing you with the squid might ease their suspicion so he's using you.
Another thing that wasn't mentioned is that you can find notes in act 3 which make the Emporer seem INCREDIBLY sus and like he is personally allied with Raphael and Gortash (eventhough the second could be because of the Elder Brain). In Raphaels Archive you can find a Note that says something along the lines of "great to see the mindflayer and its puppets, he's desperate. The hammer for the crown, now that seems like a good deal to me". This would imply that they have some kind of arrangement, at least Raphael knows about the mindflayer and is apparently using him to get the crown. But maybe I missed or misunderstood stuff, I didn't talk to Raphael in act 3 prior to breaking into his home. In Gortashs chamber you can find a book titled "the heist of the astral prism" which mentions the emporer being sent by the chosen to retrieve the prism. I'm not sure if the Emporer got free before that or if he became freed during the hunt, but it seems sus that Gortash calls this (in his eyes random) mindflayer emporer.
I dunno, I felt that the fact that when you free Oprheus (who doesn't immediately kill you as the Emporer claimed he would) the Emporer goes straight to the brain and fights to keep you from winning is very telling. He basically lies to you from the very beginning and only gives you information as it suits his needs (he's losing a fight so he reveals himself to you, doesn't let you know there is a colony under Moonrise even though that's exactly where he was infected)
Thats what tipped me fully into hating him. I never trusted him, but I free Orpheus and his reaction is "well fuck you, I'll go join the brain then!" Like bruh, I thought you wanted to be free of the brain.
Makes a lot of sense from his perspective because he was keeping you safe the whole time and you just betrayed him, he’s just looking out for his safety
@@bhume7535In the emperor's eyes, it is better to be a slave with the chance of being free again. Then to just die. He broke free twice from the elder brains control. So he's probably thinking he can do it a third time.
The ultimate true neutral character is my opinion. The fact you HAVE to convince him to conquer makes him not evil. His alignment follows you, if you're evil and a jerk, he will respond as so, stay friendly and it's a good neutral ending
Yeah then you learn what he did to Ansur and Stelmane and who he truly is behind his sweet talk. Hes not neutral in the slightest. Just because hes good at his speech doesnt amke him any less of an asshole. Hes a psychopath, his whole thing is manipulating people into feeling relatable
@brunohommerding3416 I hope you're joking. Otherwise, I'd enjoy watching how you respond to someone trying to give you a "merciful end" without your consent 😏😂 no one said its good with its speech Githyanki, Mind Flayers, Raphael? This isn't a choice of morals. There's no one good, but only one cares enough about your survival. "Cooperate towards a common goal, and don't get attached"
@@mega2009man Raphael is as much a theatre kid as he is a devil and thus I can't hate him. The Githyanki just grow up in a militaristic society under a cruel queen who basically farms them for her own power. The emperor, Mind flayer or not - is a Manipulative pos who lies non stop to you, he truly finessed his enthralling methods because you people fall for it Hook line and sinker. Even after being presented evidence you've been duped. Actually pathetic behaviour. No offence.
Talking about this subject we really need to apprchiate the way Baldurs Gate 3 was written and excecuted, because I think the 'make your own guardian' part was marvelous! Aside from some people making joke charackters, most people I have heared of either made their dream partner, best friend or parental figure, which they would WANT to trust. So with the idea that the guardian is individual to all of your companions, and not you creating one for everyone, it really makes sense that the emporer would have have used his powers to present himself in a form you would more or less immedeatly trust. And I think that why most player felt so emotinally betrayed by him when it comes out, that this person does not actually exsist. Because you WANT to trust him, you WANT for him to be the good guy, you WANT to follow his "orders", WANT to be protected by him. When I played the game for the second time, I really tried to listen to what he is saying, what kind of lies he uses and I really tried to feel less betrayed and look at it the way you said it: He mostly changes some information, but he really only lies in one aspect: That he is an adventurer CURRENTLY infected with a tadpole wanting to get rid of it like you want it too. And I just can't get over the fact that he says that because he is so content with being a mindflayer and he could have just said he is like some kind of entity, an agent of fate, Withers also does not tell us who he is and we still kinda trust him and accept him in our camp, why does the emporer need to lie about this particular thing? Because that's really the one thing I can't get over because it makes all of his other "white lies" or partial truths feel even less true and more evil somehow. While technically you could argue that what he means is that he seeks to get rid of the elder brain and it's control and that's kinda similiar to us wanting to get rid of the tadpole well, we see Orpheus hating himself as a mindflayer, Balduran could have been similiar, but he was not. Also the fact that if you get to the point where you can romance him but decide not to, the game outright tells you that it's kinda sus that the emperor does not even try to fight for you, and again it feels like something he would have done to further manipulate you, make sure you don't turn against him, but nothing he would have actually wanted. It's a whole other discussion if beings like the mindflayer can even experience love, but I think the emotional betrayal of the emporer is something that makes him very evil in most people eyes, you never really know if anything he says or does is an act or not. Typicall for our emotional species I guess :P
He seems to only really care about surviving. The fact that he would rather join the Elder Brain because he thinks it gives him a better chance of survival even if it means sacrificing his freedom shows that he doesn’t really care about stopping the Elder brain as much as he cares about himself and his own mortality. He only really keeps the main character alive because he needs them for his own survival. I wouldn’t say he was evil, more of a morally grey character out for himself.
Awesome analysis! Emp is easily my fav character in the game. Another point to make is how tolerant he is of the players when it doesn't 100% threaten his survival. In act 3, you can demand him to save Minsc. Although he refuses for the first few times, he will eventually be like ah fine whatever and go along with you. This is a counterpoint to many people who believe he will show his "true colors" the moment you disagree with him. (Also in act 2, there is actually a brain jar of githzerai in the oubliette fyi)
I think people instinctively want to simplify his motivations to better fit their preconceptions about what a mind flayer should be. I love that the emperor doesn’t fit the pure evil of the mind flayers, but he rarely ever does anything that you’d consider totally good. I think certain people are going to have trouble dealing with the subtleties within his character, especially when the player is forced to be lied to and saved by that same character multiple times. I think mind flayers are just as soulless as I had initially thought when withers brought it up, but I love the added depth that mind flayers have the memory of having a soul. It makes them significantly more human than some people would like to think about, which ultimately makes the emperor harder to fully hate. He’s still a bastard and you should probably side with Orpheus and use him to stop the brain, but the emperor is a fully realized and layered villain.
@@4dbagel945 100%, people love to make things black and white to that it fits narrative of good and evil, they just want to simple, but inreality its a VERY complex set of situations all entangled, with extremely difficult decisions having to be made.
I think the aspect of him that stands out the most for me is him not actually wanting to take control of the Brain himself. If you don't become a Mind Flayer he initially assumes he will be the one to do it because he doubts you the player would want to become a full fledge Mind Flayer, and is a bit surprised if you do, and offers little resistance to making you one and letting you devour Orpheus. It's such a strange thing to me because the most logical thing for him to do is deny us becoming a Mind Flayer and ensuring the destruction of the Brain himself by devouring Orpheus and assuming control of the Shards. He put's an incredible amount of trust in us, and I think it goes far beyond simple trust too. He truly and genuinely believes we will destroy the Brain. It makes him an incredibly tragic anti-hero character if we betray him and take control of the Brain, therefor enslaving The Emperor once more. All in all I don't believe he is good in any sense of the imagination, as self preservation is all he cares about and it doesn't bother him any which way how he does that. He'll enslave, manipulate, murder, etc all to further his own ends. The fact that destroying the Brain is inherently a good thing is irrelevant because that isn't what's concerning him, only his own survival and autonomy.
I am actually convinced that the ending only exists in a sort of gaiden narrative separate from the rest of the plot as it just straight up doesn't make any sense. Needing a mindflayer for the final confrontation is nonsensical. Orpheus alone as a Gith is more than capable of the task, but the game straight up forces a violation of D&D lore just to push us to have an illithid ally at the end. As such, the Emposter actually helping us destroy the brain at the end is probably just another part of the rushed nonsense ending. I'd imagine if more time had been given for the game to be completed properly, it would have ended with him turning on the party on behalf of the Netherbrain regardless.
You read the dialogue of the game wrong ,emperor dosent want to control the netherbrain because he dosent want to risk a war with vlrakith and her entire race ,he specifically states so if you ask him to do it. Given any other circumstances he wouldnt hesitate to take more power
"He truly and genuinely believes we will destroy the Brain. It makes him an incredibly tragic anti-hero character if we betray him and take control of the Brain, therefor enslaving The Emperor once more. " I think this is kinda fascinating if you have ever heard about the "Prisoner dilemma". The most rational position is to cooperate wheras the most "survival"/"Egoistic" based one is to betray. The Emperor displays a consequent logical way of acting by giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assueming you are on pair with his rationality. I really wished my MC could have romanced him after the end.
you really opened my mind on the emperor bc i hated him after figuring out he was just manipulating us and everyone around him for his own sake to live but honestly wouldn’t we all do the same thing? Which makes him more human than most actual ppl in BG3
The way I see it, no amount of good intentions will overright the amount of manipulation and abuse tactics the Emperor uses to get you on his side and do as he says, because his behaviors are textbook examples of how an abuser keeps his victims around. It just rubs me the wrong way on every level
When you consider how extreme his circumstances are it makes a lot of sense, if he really wanted to he could have enthralled you to do his bidding but he didn't, instead he is trying to convince you to be an ally as an individual and lets you make whatever choices you wish, he only ever advises you while keeping you alive the whole time, the only time he ever goes against you is when threaten his survival such as freeing Orpheus.
Sure, he could have enthralled Tav, but you should also consider the efficasy of a thrall vs someone who can make their own decisions, especially when someone is a skilled manipulator. I feel like if he thought Tav being a thrall would have been more effective, he would have defaulted to that instead. Besides, you get to see Mindflayer phylosophy first hand in the epilogue and manipulation and feeding is the first instinct
An in-game book states that you should only trust a mindflayer when your goals are aligned. Your played your part as a tadpole-infected strike team for the Emperor. You seek a cure, while the Emperor seek survival. As long as you walk through a path that he sets, he will be your ally. You can play the hero, be a murder hobo, and he'll even take control of the crown with you if you want. As long as he survives. When his survival is threatened, that's when he turned on you. I believe he's always been manipulative and selfish, even as Balduran. And this trait is carried forward when he transformed into a Mindflayer. Remember, the only reason Balduran got caught is because he left his own city in pursue of another adventure and treasure. A transformed Karlach and Omeluum are both kind in a way. Karlach only ate the brains of terminally ill patients, who had no chance of recovering to end their suffering (with their consent ofcourse). And Omeluum only seeks to study and improve the living conditions of the Underdark. Plus, he prioritized the rescue Wyll's father over himself.
@kaiagoda768 are they thralls? I thought it was just a glamour disguise since he's in our head and all. It would be easy for him to trick us into seeing him in a different form.😮
SAlightly disingenuous propaganda, with things mentioned that arent in the story we watched presented as facts. Like the fantasy Ansur tried to kill Baldur in his sleep, thats not said in the dialogue. Or Orpheus being blod crazed when he is reasonable, or the FACT it was the emperor who inserted the tadpole in the first place after he abducted us once he picked up shart on his mission to get the artefact.
The Emperor is an extremely well written character, he at the core of his character is a survivor and does indeed puts his own interests first and foremost, just like any of us would. I think what truly makes his character great though is that you are able to thrive with him if you choose to and he will enjoy your company. His morally grey attitude is surprisingly human, and the game has taught us before that mind flayers are just as sentient, self-valuing, & having morals as other mortals (Omeluum). If I was in his shoes I might’ve done the exact same as him, I think many people would, that’s what makes him very relatable in retrospect. it’s why I do cherish him, because I think he does long for friendships, for companions, for love. If he was truly evil he would’ve let you die on the nautiloid, he would’ve consumed Orpheus long ago, instead he’s similar to Minthara, he wants you to grow and become powerful, he really does want you as a companion, as a friend in the end. (Also there’s a giant misconception that mindflayers are somehow soulless or that the tadpole consumes the soul upon ceremorphosis from wither’s dialogue, but withers ends up correcting himself in the end, mindflayers outside of a netherbrains control can indeed have souls and have morality of their own free will)
The Emperor strikes me as what Niccolo Machiavelli would describe as the most effective ruler. He does not operate out of malice nor benevolence. Both are tools to be used for when they are needed as with any implement. Be it cruelty or leniency. Being SMART and fostering genuine loyalty through respect and admiration will always be more effective means of control than subjugation. And he used all tools at his disposal - wisely and with restraint. And for all his faults, I understand him. I only wished he would have trusted me as I trusted him when I decided to free Orpheus. But neither can I fault him for seeing my mortal naiveté and faith in the best in people as naught but madness in his logical calculations. He would have been a great leader and advisor, unclouded by religious or ideological dogma. Perhaps even a chance for the Illithid to seek out a future free from the Grand Design. But perhaps that was just a dream.
Yeah like a DC 30 persuasion check maybe you even become a mind flayer to prove your trust and have to roll a con check to fight your hunger, and you swear to protect him if Orpheus tries to attack him, and convince him that "more allies the better" since its clear he is very desperate at this point, so much so that he even gives up on his freedom to try and survive.
Yeah, it was sort of weird that I opted to free orpheus and the emperor just up and decided to join the Netherbrain. An enemy he's been plotting against for years.
like maybe if you gained his trust throughout the game by going along with his ideas and/or become half illithid to bring up his opinion of you you could have the chance to persuade him to give orpheus a chance then also persuade orpheus not to kill him; if you fail the first one he leaves as usual if you fail the 2nd one you have to choose sides between orpheus/laezel and the emperor and fight
One very important point that was overlooked in the video is that the Emperor is the commander of the mission to retrieve the Astral Prism for the Chosen and he likely chose to betray them to seek his freedom and that's how he ended up "stuck" in the Astral Prism. There are some documents on Act 3 that reveal the partnership between the Emperor and the Chosen and that the Emperor had been free from the Elder Brain for over 30 years looking for ways to be permanently free. When you look back to everything he told you and how he pretended to be surprised/not know about the Chosen or your condition at all, you can see that he never saw you as more than a pawn. So your first interaction with the Emperor isn't with him saving you, it's with him kidnapping you to be a puppet in his plan to be free of the Chosen and the Elder Brain. Finding those documents were the main reason to why I chose Orpheus over him and although it was a leap of faith in the unknown releasing Orpheus, it wasn't an ilogical choice as it was argued in the video. I mean, how could I trust the guy who kidnaped me, put a tadpole in my brain, lied, manipulated me and treated like a puppet and even told me I was a puppet after the Steelmane confrontation? I'm also very suspicious of his claims that he only ate the brains of criminals and evil guys in Baldur's Gate. The Emperor is selfish, power hungry and evil and he likes to control people by manipulating them into submiting to his will. I have very little reason to doubt that he hadn't used his powers to silence political enemies and eat some brains in the aftermath.
He probably only tell you what you want to ear and never really reveal the truth. Also along the story , you can see multiple book about mindflayer specificaly talking about manipulation , one is even in the underground where the emperor did live so when you think about it , you can probably never trust him. He also blame you for having let the netherbrain goes free and say that you are to slow even when you did everything he wanted.
@@sinjoh53then again after you defeat the netherbrain he tells it to destroy itself and did not try to control it to make himself more powerful, which you would not have been able to control. He did manipulate you but at least he did the right thing in the end.
When he showed up that first night as the Dream Visitor or whatever, my immediate thought process (since I'd already discovered the goblin camp) was "This is the voice of the Absolute, and if I listen to it, I become a slave like all the rest"... so I absolutely rejected the character and everything they had to say. And when I ran into Vlaakith, I didn't really care for her (I am a Githzerai fan, and do not like the bitchqueen), but she offered the opportunity to kill the dream visitor... so I tried to do it (the game forces the "Vlaakith made me do it" angle rather than letting me try the kill for my own reasons). It didn't work, but then I wasn't entirely surprised since I didn't figure they were physically there in the first place. So when I first encountered his Illithid form, I re-evaluated my perception and figured he was a representative of the Elder Brain trying to engineer its own release from the dead three... so I instantly killed his avatar and got a bad end. Clearly he just converted me because I was stubbornly uncooperative. The game forced me into a corner, which I was annoyed about, so I used non-lethal damage to incapacitate the Gith monks (except the one that Emposter consumed, which made me hate him even more) and went on with the story. When he claimed to remember being an adventurer, obviously I disbelieved that, as Illithids do not keep their old host's personality / memories. It just doesn't work like that. So he was obviously lying. It wasn't even in question... I hard rejected him and he admitted to being a manipulative bastard and claimed I had no choice. Well... I did have a choice. I released Orpheus. That course of action was never in question. Orpheus was the "good path" and Emposter the "bad path" from the very first moment I saw them. EXCEPT then I'm told that either Orpheus or myself has to become an Illithid.... Apparently Larian wrote the game so there always has to be an Illithid at the end. Nevermind that Orpheus as a Gith was quite enough to shield me from the elder brain. And as we know, it is not individual conversion but parasitic consumption of the host. Apparently the entire Orpheus route depends on violating D&D lore. That was the point where I lost any kind of investment in anything going on. It was complete bullshit. So... long story short I went Illithid, saved the Gith, then suicided at the end. And Karlach exploded. And everyone else had cake and tea. The end.
@@SotiCoto Violating D&D lore. The lore that is not consistent at all. Crown of Karsus is Larian's creation so if they say it empowers the Brain to that level then it does. Anyways, route 3: Gale fulfills his destiny. Everyone else has cake and tea (well, stilla gotta choose between Emperor and Orpheus).
@@SotiCoto You can actually have a third end but you need gale with you and this way , i think you don't need an illithid , you can also turn karlach into one of them. Also fun fact i just did discover but the emperor actually contact all member of your group with a tadpole , you can see it if you ask your companion each time you did get the dream visitor so he is clearly toying with you.
The goal of the grand design is not to convert everyone to mindflayers. There wouldn't be tasty brains left to eat. The goal is to unify into a single powerful mindflayer empire.
One of the new epilogue options as a mindflayer who dies has Withers be surprised you retained your soul and highlights it as a mystery to him - perhaps incredibly rare strong souls subjugate the tadpole instead.
Great video, totally wanted to talk about this with others. I feel like one thing I disagree with though is that The Emperor valuing his survival as a priority. I was under the impression that while self-preservation was extremely high, the only thing he valued more was FREEDOM. That's why the move at the end makes no sense, The Emperor was a character that would rather die than be enslaved again. Thus it doesn't make sense for him to abandon ship at the end of the game without attempting to resolve the situation with Orpheus, since the chance of failiure (becoming a thrall) to the netherbrain after returning is 100%. Statistically the chance of finding some kind of resolution with Orpheus might be ridiculously low (lets assume even 0.001%) but if The Emperor valules freedom above all else, a highly logical being would have taken the 0.001% chance. Honestly this part was so inconsistant that I think Larian will correct and polish up the Emperor's motives in the difinitive edition of the game going forward.
This part definitely needs some work on Larian's part but I think it makes complete sense if we assume the other way he wants to live more than he wants to be free. His survival would rely entirely on your party and you show that he cannot rely on your by freeing Orpheus in the first place. He can't stay in the city because Orpheus will know hes there. He has noone in the city who will defend him(not that they can vs Orpheus who is essentially only exceeded in power by your party). He cannot leave the city because of the githyanki around and also the issues I mentioned in the video. Orpheus will DEFINITELY kill him after the ending.
The Emperor and Orpheus both know that the Emperor willingly chooses to enslave "lesser beings". Our character might be duped by the Emperor, but the Emperor and Orpheus both know Orpheus will choose to slay the Emperor rather than allow the slaver to live. At best they might agree to a temporary peace, which would end right immediately after defeating the nether brain. That is a very fragile alliance since neither could deliver the defeating blow to the nether brain without surrendering initiative to the other. As a result, Orpheus has a greater chance of defeating the nether brain without allying with the Emperor. So the Emperor is stuck between the chance of escaping the netherbrain's thralldom in the future vs the chance of tricking Orpheus into giving the Emperor just enough slack. Being free requires being alive, and there is always the chance the Grand Design fails. (sidenote: We know the Grand Design fails at least twice. Once in the past with Gith. Once in the future before the past.)
Also the Emperor "somehow" escaped the elder brain. He then joins the Netherbrain which there is no way hes confident or feasibly has a way to outsmart and overpower without orpheus and the stones. Also he doesnt believe in the greater good or hed be willing to die trying to be diplomatic with Orpheus instead of joining the all powerful Netherbrain. The greater good doesn't include mindflayers running the show. Its a shocker i know.
The way I see it is this: Letting himself gettin enslaved again is the safest option for survival. Either the party with Orpheus will defeat the netherbrain and he will be free again and possibly in a location that can allow him to escape and survive. Or the netherbrain will win and there is a slight chance of breaking free once again. Staying with the party and Orpheus is the scenario that will most likely lead to his death as you say, either by Orpheus attacking him on sight or if a frail alliance being forged he will most likely be betrayed once he has outlived his use.
Yea I have to admit, the Emperor is not a bad dude in a strict sense. He has a very bad for people diet, but he even goes out of his way to make even that more morally acceptable to people by eating Criminals. I dont particularly like his manipulations, but I cant fault him for them either. His situation and unique predicament (and position with orpheuses powers) mean he kind of had no choice but to be extra cautious to push the player in the right direction with subterfuge.
The answer to the emperors alignment is simple. The fact that even after we told him that we plan to free Orphius he brings us into the prism and goes like "Hey...wanna bang?" marks him as either chaotic horny or lawfull "down bad"
Reasons and like of thought for siding with Orpheus: 1 Vlakith can kiss my ass 2 More trouble for the mindflayers 3 I don't really know the dude but it seems his imprisonment was wrong so he should at least be freed so we can talk and ask him. Try to reason why he should work with us. 4 The Emperor witholding information, pushing to transform, and trying to push like a pawn ruined my trust. He doesn't force you because of him being good or anything he just can't. The magic he uses to keep the elder brain out works to keep him from direct control too. 5 the emperor can kiss my ass I just made Orpheus turn into a mindflayer, killed him, and sent Laezel to rule. From my perspective it was entirely logical to free the ilithid slayer 9000
13:00 - I'm a bit confused of you ignoring the very important fact. Emperor said that he ate brains of criminals, but who is judge in that case? Himself? Very convenient, because HE IS literally the leader of the criminal gang. Knights of the Shield are nothing but a smugglers and elite robbers, which makes this question even more interesting. Did he ate people of his own gang? Or did he just ate his competitors? As always, he never tells the full truth and you can't accept those words as a fact. P.S. I watched a few more minutes and I see how much do you rely on this particular thesis. That's sad
“Guys! Not all mind flayers are bad! They’re people too!” Five minutes later… “Yeah so all githyanki are totally evil so that’s why trapping their prince is actually a good thing.”
@@TheWither129 I'm almost sure he was talking about mind flayers on an individual level, saying that not all are essentially bad, but he was talking about the gith on a systemic level, saying that their doctrine was to kill mind flayers than fight everyone else, so when he says the gith are evil, he means the doctrine and dogma that the higher ups believe, if he were to say that all gith are evil on an individual level he wouldn't mention that Lae'zel would be able to instill positive change in the githyanki doctrine, basically implying that gith in and of themselves arent evil but the ideas the higher ups like mother gith and Vlaakith instill onto them are
@@noodlxs well, then youre just broadly looking at one as individuals and another as a whole, which is hypocritical and uncharitable. Mind flayers as a group are even more awful than githyanki, who at least have a society of individuals, however indoctrinated. Individual illithid are an exception, not a norm. They escape from their society, and to participate in their society is to be a literal mindless slave. So making a whole point of the fascist space pirates being evil while defending a manipulative lying coward of a mind flayer who immediately turns to the slave brain the moment he gets pushback and happily enthralls everyone if convinced to become the absolute is deeply ironic
The emperor is not that justifiable imo, he's clearly manipulative as he never makes a sacrifice for anyone else's cause, and expects others to make sacrifices for him. He also changes sides the moment you suggest going against his plan, which would heavily suggest he had no attachment to the player whatsoever, likely only using them as a means to his ends. He only does things out of self-interest, his main goal being freedom from the netherbrain, but it doesn't mean you owe him your help at all. I'd sum it up as he can be an ally, but he's not really a friend. And just because he's the only reason you're alive doesn't mean you owe him, that would basically be extortion, and you didn't ask to be rescued by him, and he only does it out of necessity. Acting out of necessity for your own good is not the same as acting morally.
Thank you for this analysis. The Emperor is one of my fav characters in the game and I feel like the fact that this game was my “first contact” with DnD and I’ve never had a “mindflayer = 100% evil” prejudice played a big part in that.
People accuse him of being manipulative, then do they exact same thing throughout the game while also wanting Astarion and Minthara? Why does he have to share his life with you? Who is the reason you're alive? Who saved you? If it was Astarion with his behavior or Gale, or Shadowheart, they'd suck them off. People didn't mind as long as the dream visitor was hot. What did you all do when nettie tried to kill you guys?
he is the reaon we are enslaved, he literally put a tadpole in our brain, he is the only mindflayer with the super huge collar, he abducts us and tadpoles us and saves our lives when the ship he stol crashed. Thast why he was under the influence of Orpheus and free of the netherbrain, he picked up Shadowheart and jumped in the artifect.
my first run ended with me and the Emperor as friends, as I entrusted him with the netherstones and we saved the world together. Outside the part where I wanted to free Orpheus mainly because I felt bad for him given his situation, I didn't see reasons to mistrust the Emperor and let him use the stones without a second thought lol Still, my second run I have Lae'zel in my party and as a romantic interest, and I fully intend to free Orpheus this time for the sake of her people, so I'm curious to see these changes happening in my game.
Emperor was manipulated from the very start by the Netherbrain. I had no qualms killing him and freeing Orpheus. Emperor is the worm that consumed Balduran's mind and soul. It remembers being Balduran but is not strictly 'him'.
Your typical Mind Flayer is a willing thrall of the Elder Brain, and doesn't want to rebel, much less actually try to; they think that, when they die, they become part of it. Illithids from other elder brains might even have been willing to defect to join the Nether Brain, seeing it as an ascended, superior possible version of their future. Whatever else he might be, Balduran is still himself, his own will and personality in an Illithid body; for a true mind flayer, his actions would be considered the highest form of lunacy and stupidity at best, or, at worst, the subject manifesting the personality of the creature it was born from, making him potentially the Adversary, an Illithid with his old mind fated to bring about their destruction.
@@AimlessSavant its actually possible that it could have, if they teleport to Baldur's gate and abduct everyone before stealing the artifact while he is under the control of the elder brain.
@@tuskular It is established that he was sent from moonrise to obtain the artifact before the first scene of the game occurred. There is no spatial time-frame where he could be on that ship, give us the tadpole, then journey to search for the artifact in the span of the nautaloid falling out of the sky.
My character is Githyanki and I side with the Emperor against Laizel up until it is time to free Orpheus. The motive being that I consider that I am already lost, so I took upon the mantle to become a Ghaik to destroy the Elder Brain and save others from the same fate.
I feel like you contradicted yourself a few times here, but the most glaring contradiction I think was asking us to evaluate The Emperor as an individual and not as a mindflayer (ignoring our meta knowledge), then dropping that standard around the 23:00 mark and evaluating the githyanki as an evil race universally. If anything, the game goes more out of its way to show us that the githyanki are redeemable, and are merely evil due to their upbringing and society, as opposed to showing us that mindflayers aren't universally evil. If you throw out meta knowledge of githyanki, as you did with mindflayers, and evaluate Orpheus as a character as presented in the game, he seems to be pretty reasonable. He doesn't kill you as the Emperor claims, but works with you. And his followers are the exact opposite of genocidal power hungry evil githyanki. In particular, Varrl tries very hard to avoid killing, even when his own life is at stake, which he tells us is in-line with Orpheus' teachings. Orpheus also sacrifices himself to stop the netherbrain. All in all, Orpheus does not seem like an evil character. Edit: It seems like plenty of other comments have pointed out your logical fallacy already. It's unfortunately obvious that you're arguing from a biased perspective.
as a paladin I had to free orpheus, and I made him a mindflayer and then let him live to see the revolution led by Lazeel. saving the most lives...in theory. I couldn't trust the Emperor with the netherstones, if not only by his name...
The emperor is textbook manipulation. He DOES in fact outright lie, multiple times, and he asks not trust, because trust is both ways, and he demonstrates complete inability to trust you back. He DEMANDS your faith in him. The moment you question it he throws a tantrum. He is not purely logical, he is blinded by cowardice and ego. What is first and foremost is his own survival, and his own idea of how it HAS to go. Because if there’s one big lesson to learn about logic, its that pure logic can fail. Sometimes you HAVE to rely on something the purely logical cant: your gut. Everything you have might point to one logical solution, but if you consider for even a moment maybe there’s something you dont know, something unexpected, you might just find a better way forward. There’s not a logic to it, and sometimes youre wrong, but all you need, is a little trust. Real, genuine, trust. Not blind faith, but understanding, and trust, and lo and behold, the emperor is dead wrong about orpheus. I got that feeling in my first playthrough where i somehow missed lae zel and her whole thing, but i still felt he was wrong, that orpheus would be more agreeable. Now ive learned more, i feel validated. Cus sometimes you dont need logic to have that feeling. Orpheus is more willing to put his own needs aside than anyone, really. He sacrifices his own life willingly, if you let him. The emperor sees a possible threat and without even considering that it wont be, he gives up on you. No matter how much faith you put in him, he puts NONE in you. He has zero faith in you. He thinks HE is the reason there’s any chance at all and HE will win this. He doesnt care about you, he cares about surviving. The Emperor is a darkish gray at best and straight evil at worst. Hes a manipulative, scheming dipshit who helped start this whole ordeal to begin with. The Emperor is bad. Period.
The Emperor told us that Ansur tried to kill him in his sleep and he had to defend himself. Since Ansur's bones lie underneath Wyrm Rock, that either means that Balduran slept underneath Wyrm Rock, that he somehow smuggled the dragon's bones back to Wyrm Rock...or that he simply lied. Again. Now, I agree that the question isn't simple. The Emperor is a very complex character, which makes him great. However, immediately siding with the Netherbrain once you decide to free Orpheus isn't a logical choice, either. The lack of conversational options is a big issue in that scene. That said, you lost me completely when you simply dismissed Githyanki as evil freaks and that siding with them forces The Emperor to side with the Netherbrain. Lae'zel, Voss and even Orpheus himself show a non-evil, more human side. Dismissing them that easily as evil beings who will (!) kill The Emperor so he has (!) to break our alliance is just the same as saying "All Mindflayers are evil, so The Emperor is, too". Personally, I believe The Emperor is inhuman. He isn't bound by morale, ethics or "good and evil". He is a threat, though, in any case.
The confusing part of this video is that it goes into great detail about the nuances and complexities of the mind flayers, but completely flattens out the intricacies of the githyanki. How do you just sum up Orpheus as a genocidal maniac when HE BOWS TO YOU if you become a mind flayer to save the world? The son of Gith bowing to a willingly transformed mind flayer for the greater good might be one of most in-depth demonstrations of his character there is. Great video @Rhoku , but it seems at the end your biases against the githyanki show.
I don't know about in his sleep, but ansur agrees that he tried to stop the emperor from staying a mind flayer (presumably by killing him). It seems obvious to me from their conversation that they fought, the emperor to stay alive and a mind flayer, and Ansur to stop him being an illithid but also do so by him being dead. Interestingly, for such an ancient person Orpheus is also a pretty huge douchebag. If you tell him his guys attacked you, he tells you you should have just let them kill you so he could be free. Like..really bruh, is that REALLY what you'd have done, or are you about as aware of the perspectives and needs of others as a toddler is? I'm glad he wants to die if he transforms because he doesn't deserve to live if hes gonna be like that.
@@NeoIsrafilit’s very easy to overlook the crimes of gith in BG3. Mostly because we hear more about their perspective on their history of being enslaved, many people conveniently forget that no one likes githyankis (in lore) because of their violent tendencies and superiority complex. Orpheus isn’t as straightforward as many might think. He’s no Vlaakith, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get more content on how his presence effects the world if BG3
The place under Wyrm Rock was basically Ansur's home. Also, Ansur was right there. Had The Emperor killed him for no reason, had the story about Ansur trying to murder him been fake, why didn't Ansur say anything? Ansur isn't exactly a good guy, either
Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, aren't Orpheus' followers the Githzerai? It seems a bit heavy handed to write him off as some mindflayer murdering lunatic in an attempt to make the emperor look better, when Orpheus is pragmatic enough to become one for the sake of his people(something Lae'zel wasn't even willing to do). Plus the fact he's so chill with your character, should you choose to become a mindflayer.
Sorry """"emperor"""" but Omelette is the superior mindflayer also, the scene when he reveals to enslave Stalemane was not of him trusting me, but rather threating me, he showed me the vision and say something along the lines of "remember that i own you" or something like that
Factual. Omelette (I adore that you call him that, too) is living proof that a mind flayer doesn't have to act like the Emperor. He's the refutation of all the Emperor's gaslighting. Let's be honest, Omeluum is very cold and and emotionless and at times even quite sinister. He's full on a mind flayer. However, he's also a being of true honour.
22:50 - That's a bit wierd. I mean, you rely on a Wiki to prove the point of all Githyanki being evil, but this same wiki tells that all Mind Flayers are evil, manipulative maniacs. Which comes to Omelulu - he is amazing, chill and cool but as a lot of people think - he is the rare case of Larian making a-way-big own thing despite rules of DnD world.
You mentioned that The Emperor runs the Knights of the Shield but completely leave out the fact that they are an evil organization that worships and serves the Arch-Devil/god Gargauth who was banished by the Nine for being too evil by their standards (which is saying something). Also you handwave the fact that he enthralls duke Stelemane. Enthralling someone is slavery of the mind, the worst kind of slavery. In no world can you convince me that slavery for any reason is anything other than an absolute evil thing. Gameplay wise at the end of the game The Emperor is basically a Schrödinger's ally. Depending on player agency, he is either an ally or an enemy. I'm pretty sure they did this because they knew a lot of people would side with The Emperor and would be very upset if he entralled them at the end (wich he does do in one of the endings). Story over gameplay, there's just too much evidence that he is evil. Best case scenario he is neutral who does evil things to his benefit.
I agree, I think his agency and decisions while running the Knights of the Shield provides key context to the emperor's character, and contradicts some of the conclusions made here. Overall I wish the game lore provided better clarity around what having your soul consumed and destroyed by ceremorphosis means in terms of Faerun cosmology. Withers says in the epilogue that souls vanish when their hosts become mind flayers. If you push Orpheus to become a mind flayer, he implies it might be a more gradual process, saying at end that you should kill him and release his soul to the astral sea while he still has one to call his own. And Withers also says to whatever mind flayer (you, orpheus, or the emperor) that shows up to the final fight "Appearances may change, but they do not mask the one within. This one I know. This mind flayer will fight with thee. It will save thy city and thy lives." Omeluum seems to exist to at this point solely to counter the idea that being soulless doesn't necessarily mean lacking a moral compass, but given that you miss out on the afterlife entirely, it at minimum seems quite the sacrifice.
The video author clearly needs to read in game books and notes more. Also speak with dead everywhere is important. I got some interesting info out of dead mind flayers. He made the video to reaffirm his morality. I dont need to make a video to feel justified in who i sided with. Theyre both evil. I did it for Lae'zel.
@@emmdubb they are not both evil, one is selfless and one is selfish. He was trapped because he tried to Stop the first Vlaakith making the Gith into the Githyanki culture,
I'm happy to see a non hate video for the Emperor but I wanted to correct a few things: 1. Balduran was already a mind flayer when Ansur found him 2. Ansur and Balduran were lovers, as they stated to being more than just friends. 3. Gortash found the Emperor after escaping the Elder Brain a second time, most likely not long after being found out by Stelmane 4. There is possible evidence that suggests that the Emperor is an adversary, meaning he might have retained his previous soul
the issue with the adversary, theory is he could have retained his in tact soul or he might just have his memories like all mind flayers do but is more attached to them then most
Balduran was tadpoled, he was NOT a mindflayer when Ansur found him.. and Ansur tried relentlessly to find a cure for his condition. Then Balduran turned into a mindflayer while Ansur kept trying to revert his condition until he gave up and decided to give him a quick death. They became friends and lovers BEFORE Balduran turned into a mindflayer Its actually kind of funny how many people fell for the idea that emperor is not bad, its almost like he broke the fourth wall and manipulated the players. Id say congratulations to the writers on that. The emperor is a pure psychopath, manipulation is what they do, making you believe they care about anything but themselves is what they do. He even go full mask off in act lll if you refuse to fall for his bullshit long enough and says that he will force you to do what needs to be done if necessary, just like he used Stelmane as a meat puppet.
@@brunohommerding3416 you can literally see it in the flashback. He's laying down in the background while Ansur talks with a healer. But it's okay, you can feel however you want 🤷🏼♀️
I thought that they met before he turned, became lovers. Then he became a mind flayer and was influenced by the Elder Brain. Afterwards Ansur found him, rescued him and tried in vain to reverse the whole mind flayer thing.
@@brunohommerding3416 "and decided to give him a quick death" that's just it, it wasn't really Ansur's decision to make. Ansur couldn't accept that balduran liked the intelligence and powers that came with being a mindlfayer, and he didn't want to change.
I'm not sure if your characterization of Orpheus is fully correct from what I've seen but I haven't besten the game myself, only seen some of ghe cutscenes with him. Orpheus is who the Githzerai follow, they view him as the rightful heir to Gith and see Vlaakith as a usurper. The Githzerai as a culture are lawful neutral and I imagine Orpheus would continue in that direction seeing as one of fhe ideological splits between Vlaakith and Orpheus/ the Githyanki and the Githzerai was the whole "we shouls conquer all the other races" thing. D&D is also getting rid of "pure evil" races so in order to get the collective of the Githyanki to not be lawful evil you would just need to change their culture which is what Orpheus intends to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I felt like I went along with the emperor just fine and was nice to him, and at the end (before I have any dialogue choices) he’s all like “you’d be nothing without me, I’m the only reason you got this far, etc.” and I was like, woah bro, I was going to give you the stones, why you acting like a toxic narcissist all of a sudden? You’re sending a million red flags my way.
@@sekiro_the_one-armed_wolf I’m not sure it is true though, because there’s lots of people that aren’t under the emperors protection that also haven’t turned, and the elder brain says at the end that they let you get as far as you did so you could collect the stones and free them from the three stooges.
@@tuskular Logically speaking, the player/party wouldn't be in the situation they're in if he never kidnapped them/infected them with mindflayer tadpoles to begin with.
Orpheus btw is tadpoled himself btw. How else was he capable of changing HIMSELF into a mindflayer if you play that choice. He changed over his imprisonment, and learned to control ceremorphosis after making steps to ally with the Githzerei because he stops ceremorphosis vis a meditation. he learned new tricks of meditation via his zerei cousins but gets caught for it and imprisoned.
People dislike the emperor because they chose a hot guardian in character creation, and well....surprise. I never save Orpheus. Laezel can live my decision not to help the evil Gith unite. I'm aware of the aspersions that the emperor mind-enslaved Duke Elingard, but I just don't think it was a clear cut case in game.
The best part about all this is that arguably we as the players live the same way as the Emperor Doing all that is necessary to survive And the way we achieve that is completely the players choice Wheather it means we do an "evil" playthrough, a "good" playthrough, decide to embrace illithid power, maybe even become a mind flayer, embrace or reject the dark urge.. that's all left to us and what we perceive as the "right" choice. And while all the choices we make to reach that goal (to ensure our survival), can be justified in all sorts of ways, they are just as morally grey as the Emperors, since there is always some evil in what we do from the perspective of others
It does not matter that he is a mindflayer, or that he was baldur the point that decides if he is evil or good is that he joins the brain. So his goals are power from the start to the finish, and he trys to manipulate you from the first minute to get that power.
Just wanted to say, this was a great video! I just beat the game last night and definitely had some incredibly negative views on the Emperor and was very justified around my decisions with Orpheus, but many of the points you made really made the grey area a lot wider for me. Thank you for that!
The Emperor unleashes all passions and for that alone he is one of the best characters in the game. I would add that he is obviously explicitly ambiguous throughout the game. It is both a strength (freedom of interpretation) and a weakness because the character will never be clearly defined. His status as a renegade illithid makes him unique among his kind and plays a part of his mystery. Trust is a theme that comes up with this character, whether in one direction or the other. I saw what happens when the MC betrays his trust, by lying to him about the hammer. I didn’t expect that from him. It’s free to interpret, but I have the feeling that the Emperor’s opinion on the MC changes during the game. They become the exception, especially in solo run. So I have not yet understood the meaning of why sometimes there’s an echo in his voice. It is not a coincidence. As it is no coincidence that he has the spell "Chain Lightning".
I always saw the emperor as an adversary(I think that’s what they’re called) mutant mind flayers who eventually break off and become elder brains themselves. So rather than stopping the problem your at best kicking the can down the road, and at worst making a bigger threat later.
So about halfway through Act 1, I am starting to twig to the fact that I and my party are going to be allying with, at least temporarily, a LOT of groups that have a very evil reputation. I mean, Priestess of Shar. Githyanki. Rogue Vampire. Womanizing (deityizing?) mage, and then we get to Wyll. Mr. "I don't regret my pact for a minute", even if he was just about to kill an innocent Tiefling because of that pact. Then hey, ally with the Zentarim. Organized crime is a pretty minor issue when the destruction of the world is potentially at stake, right? We are talking to hags for help with getting rid of the tadpole, we are talking to Devils. I personally believe that Volo is actually a Hag in disguise, but that is just a theory. And a lot of the play through we have lots of options for infiltrating the enemy cult, and a lot of the most interesting information and quests only occur if we, the party, are lying through our teeth to Cultists of the Absolute. So after talking to the Gith in camp, I start twigging to the idea that we are going to be at least talking to a lot of baddies for help in dealing with the big bad. And I start thinking about how a bad guy could reasonably build trust. There are certain baddies that just took themselves out of the running real fast. Hags have too much fun warping deals. Same with Devils. And I don't appreciate the hard sell tactic. The first test is, do they do something nice for me with no apparent strings, showing their interest and good will. The second test is basically the Mizora test. Are they asking me to do something that when I get more information about it looks really really sketchy. The third big test is basically do they respect personal agency. Do they allow significantly flexibility in methods on my part and that of my party. Certain groups and quest givers in BG3 meet those tests. And a lot do NOT. One of the other lessons I learned from Wyll is that he can't speak about his pact. This gets me thinking of all the reasons, magical and non, why a potential benefactor might not be willing to be completely open about everything from their name to their Wi-Fi password on first meeting. I have lots of party members that take a while to open up about stuff, heck, I can play someone who has a deep dark secret that they take their own sweet time opening up about.
I don't know about the ins and outs of everything it ever did to anyone, I just know that the moment you entertain Orpheus as being a good ally, instead of trying to reason and make himself an ally to get rid of the elder brain (no matter if its for his own good, or the greater good), he just bounces back to the elder brain. That's just kia recalling their cars behaviour from the emperor and the elderbrain. Im not down with that.
7:08 "The Emperor hasn't wronged you at all" Not true, he's the one who captured all of the Origin characters and implants them with tadpoles. This is backed up by a letter in the room where you fight Gortash. Not to mention the entire "Control the brain with Karsus' crown" was The Emperor's idea, but Gortash, Orin, and Ketheric are the ones who actually did it.
@@rhoku If that were the case he would not have had the free will to enter the Astral Prism. He mentions that the elder brain's control is based on distance. And that he escaped the brains influence by going on the mission to get the astral prism. He already has aquired it by the time he captures and tadpoles the main character.
@@rhokuIn the opening cinematic we can see the Emperor floating towards the protagonists as they are trapped. There are dead Mindflayers in this room. This implies the Emperor killed those Mindflayers, this wouldn't make sense if he was still being controlled by the Brain. The Emperor in the opening cinematic is already a Rogue Mindflayer.
@@rhokuthere are other documents claiming that the Emperor has been free from the Elder Brain for over 30 years waiting for its chance to strike and the alliance with the Chosen was that chance. My guess is that he betrayed the Chosen and took the Astral Prism for himself. Kidnapping us and putting a tadpole in our head to keep was part of his plan to make things happen while he stayed in the Astral Prism.
I actually made it headcanon that the disguise he took he choose by going through Yentas (my Tav) memories and found her father's face which is still a positive memory but it's been too long for yenta to remember who it belonged to (her father). He seems like the type of person who would use a dead parent which is a faded memory to look like a kind stranger
If you play as Astarion, his dream it is Cazador and he uses it to scare him into going along with the tadpole powers so it isn't beneath him to use your past in a good way or bad way.
I’ve a similar headcanon for my character. I purposefully made the Dream Guardian look like how I imagined her father looked, who in her background, was murdered while investigating the Absolute/Three Plot; trying to pick up where he left off was the whole reason she got tadpoled. Finding out that the Dream Guardian was a Mindflayer using her for his own ends? And he used her father’s face to do it?Needless to say, she’s upset. Also, Withers warns you pre-Emperor reveal. He asks you whether Mindflayers have souls, but he says they don’t. It feels like he’s trying to prepare us not only for the Emperor’s true identity, but his attempt to turn us everso slightly
@@cardwitch91 Though if you become the mindflayer and sacrifice yourself, Withers finds you in the Fugue Plane and admits he's pleasantly surprised, so clearly, it's not impossible for a mind flayer to have a soul.
fun fact: that wisdom saving throw is a 20 even at only two tadpoles used. You have to nat crit or pray you have enough buffs in your party if you don't want to partial ceremorphosis.
I wonder what the actual coded trigger is. I've never even had to roll for this, and I've used a sparing sprinkle of tadpoles in every run. I've always denied the partial transformation though, so that could be it?
@@noctoi I used two tadpoles on Tav, and got the wisdom saving throw. I think it's because of the amount of times I reacted to attacks with the illithid powers. Said throw was FOR denying the partial transformation.
Orpheaus is literally githrerai.... It was implied by the lore and the disks you can bring to Lazel. Also the beard confirms it to me. But if thats not enough in the new epilogue Lazel talks about finding menyar ag gith which is literally the god the githzerai worship. Orpheaus is literally the best outcome. They are lawful neutral. He even will tell the other githzerai about how you destroyed the nether brain and hold you as a hero. Either rescue a pretty chill monk that wants to free the githyanki from a lich or help the soulless husk that used to be balduran.
It's crazy how the people completely hating on the Emperor is leaving responses in the comments and showing that they did not watch the video at all and just came here to pick fights.
I have no idea why people would go against the Emperor except they’re in a douchebag run. In my first play through, I don’t trust the Emperor, but our goal are aligned. It makes no logical reason to free a mind-flayer hating prince and kill the one person that keeping you from turning then blindly hoping the prince will see reasons.
I was really intrigued by the Emperor, and part of me wanted to side with him when it came time to choose between him and Orpheus. However, I knew Lae'zel would turn on me if I did this, and I had spent a lot of time developing her and really making her an absolute badass of a character. She was really the core of my offensive tactics. So... I wound up choosing to save Orpheus. I think it's a testament to how great the game is that they even thought to put me in that situation in the first place, and that I was left a little bitter that I had to go against the Emperor. Next play through, I'm siding with him. lol
He’s a very neutral character in terms of dnd alignment. He’s ENTIRELY selfish. That’s not TECHNICALLY evil in terms of dnd alignment, since he isn’t inherently out to hurt people, but he’s a purely selfish asshole who manipulates you at every turn and doesn’t actually value you AT ALL. He values nothing and no one but himself. He sees illithids as superior to all other beings and is still prejudicial against others. And he IS NOT BALUDURAN ANYMORE. Balduran died under moonrise. The Emperor as we know him is the tadpole that ate Balduran’s brain, took over his body, and gained his memories. That’s how ceremorphosis works. YOU don’t become a mindflayer. The mindflayer tadpole eats your brain and gains your memories, pretending to be you. Sometimes the memories and personality can overwhelm the tadpole and make it think that it itself is the person it ate. But factually it isn’t. Which is why the emperor has no real emotional attachment to Ansur. And it’s why mindflayer Karlach doesn’t even mind if you break up with her. Because she’s not Karlach anymore. The real Karlach would have been devastated. So while the Emperor doesn’t fit the classic dnd evil alignment, I still consider him to be evil.
Some very good points. I kinda disliked the emperor after he admited to mind controling Duke Stalemate, without even thinking about the possible reasons. In the end he always did what was necessary to survive, without being greedy. That's basically how most of my characters end up too, sometimes with beeing greedy, so how could I judge the emperor for that? That's totally the type of character I would play in a campaign
Dude, you're totally dragging Orpheus through the mud for the sake of your argument. Saying Orpheus is automatically evil because he's githyanki is just like saying the Emperor is evil because he's a mindflayer! And saying that he automatically shared his mother's views solely because he's her son is just blatantly ignoring all people who had parents believing in horrible things and grow up to reject those beliefs anyways. We have NO IDEA how Orpheus felt about other races before his imprisonment. He could have shared his mother's vision or could have completely disagreed with her but didn't want to go to war with his own mom or was just hoping to steer their people in another direction once he got the throne. We don't know what he would have done in the past, but there's ZERO evidence that he would have just turned around and conquered everyone after his rebellion in the present. Hell, odds are that he named a non-githyanki the LIBERATOR OF HIS PEOPLE and there is not a single time that he treats you any less for being a non-githyanki! Not to mention that he could have forced you to become a mindflayer at ANY TIME for his plan to work but doesn't even hesitate to become one himself for the sake of everyone, which at the time he considers a complete death sentence! These aren't the actions of some genocidal dictator in the making, these are the actions of a good and just leader. Finally, on top of ALL THAT we learn in the new epilogue that his act as leader was to attempt to make peace with the githzerai, the guys who left because they DIDN'T want to conquer and enslave everyone. His goal is to unify his people, NOT conquer the realms.
I betrayed this dude as soon as I had a chance to survive without him. He's manipulating you and if you read his history before the conflict you will discover that he enthralled the head of Baldur's gate and manipulated her until she had a seizure. He's good to you until you're not deviating from his line.
I betrayed him too. I never trusted him a single bit, even when he was the guardian (he foolish me with my tiflim guardian waifu lmao). I like how well done this character is. Is not fully evil but neutral and determined to survive.
Exactly. I don’t trust anyone who is trying to manipulate me and limit my choices so that he can accomplish his means. At least in my wizard playthrough I’m on right now.
I knew the emperor was a POS the moment I decided to go against in his decision about Orpheus. This was pretty much the only time I disagreed with him and without skipping a beat he says ‘well, I’m siding with the brain now, cya’. Like dude, after all we’ve been through? and even when I had your back when some of my companions didn’t? F you emp! My next playthrough I’m coming back with a vengeance! Excellent, concise, well thought out video too! Thank you!
The only reason I went against him was because he just kept on hiding things. It made it so frustrating to work with him that I was like "screw this,I cant trust you"
The act of enthralling alone is evil. Being always purely self serving even if it causes harm to others is in part the definition of evil. There is never a single selfless act that he engages in. That's the difference with Omeluum. His willingness to sacrifice himself for Duke Ravengard and for the good of baldurs gate shows he's capable of seeing beyond his own wants needs and survival. So he's not chaotic or lawful evil, and certainly doesn't delight in the hurting of others. So he's pretty solidly neutral evil, ie every act you can expect from him will be self serving, he will willingly allow others to be hurt killed etc to survive and is pathologically looks out for himself.
I think the Emperor is most likely a Lawful Neutral character, does good, but does technically evil stuff when required and has a strict moral code he follows.
The emperor is a selfish and manipulative squid who’d doom everyone to endlavement to save his own life, orpheus is a prick who only cares for his own race and no one else, i’m a coward who couldn’t drop my vanity to save the world refusing to transform because i’d lose my soul and appearance, the real heroes of my party are Gale who offered to orb the brain and Karlach who transformed to save us all
The Emperor told us to kill Misnc. Only the forces of evil would attempt to undermine Boo like this.
To be fair, at the time minsc was brainwashed, unreasonable and just coming down off a killing spree...
@@noctoiAlso to be fair, he wasn't exactly himself. He was being controlled by the tadpole, and while yes, it wasn't the most logical thing to try to help Minsc, a good counterpoint imo is that you could sympathize with him. Being, y'know, tadpoled as well.
@@TheRoseWolf Yeah, not saying I'm (the player) not sympathetic, I have player knowledge.
As a *character* , watching the last few grains of sand fall through the hourglass and knowing that if any of the party die by the hand of this fighting *legend* the realm might be taken over by a mind controling tentacle monster the size of the Chrysler building ... IF I was that character, I'd be thinking "well, it's tragic, but maybe for the greater good killing him would be safer for the *realm* " . 🤷
you can manipulate Minsc to kill Jaheira, his best friend. Minsc is dangerous and should be put to sleep, Emperor was right.
@@TheRoseWolfThe tadpole taking over isn't a valid excuse for any of the characters.. In fact, several say to instantly kill them if it looks like they have been taken over.
Anyone who no longer has control is a liability.
The Emperor being Balduran actually had me shook for a solid few minutes
And he just stands there with his arms behind him like "yeah im balduran so what lol" like its no big deal? Like wtf?
Except Emperor *isn't* Balduran. The Emperor is merely the tadpole that was put in Balduran's head
@@nathanfivecoate5848 Read the flavor text on his Staff. Read Gortash's interview with him. Ceremorphosis doesn't necessarily erase the entirety of the hosts' original consciousness.
@@nathanfivecoate5848 🤓
He isn't tho, remember that the tadpole consume it's host, he just says he is because it suits him
I spoiled myself that the "Guardian" was a romance option so I spent hours and made her as hot as possible. I was shook when I hit the end of act 2 and realized that my half elf baddie was a dude the whole time. I only know him as Emperor Catfish now 😭
Throughout my first playthrough I kept calling him Squidward. On my second playthrough (where I was being nice to him) I called him Zoidberg.
Now I mostly call him the Emposter.
Did you still get down and dirty with the evil space squidward though?
@@dracogatom7873 🤫
Technically squidward here is agender since all illithids don't have genitalia. They reproduce via the little worm thingies which the elder brain makes.
It's such a clever move from Larian. Emperor basically catfishes and gaslights not only Tav, but the player too. You create a baddie guardian, develop a positive bias towards them, and then BOOM - a lying squid right in ya face
Triggering a massive Civil War in the Githyanki is probably the best way to prevent them from attacking everyone else
Until one side wins and then focus their attention towards the Material Plane like the Blood War. Funny how the Material Plane’s safety from other Planes is their never ending infighting
@@FenDweller13 or mount Celestia would finally do something and start sending armies of angels. Though it would be pretty destructive on the material plane.
Its wild because people like to hold humans irl accountable to humans decisions hundreds of years ago. But the majority of people understand we are changed for the better largely. The Githyanki in the game vs the ones 1000+ years prior are likely way less violent on average. Whos to say some creches arent half decent people. Times change and people evolve. Githyanki evolved to be violent out of necessity to overcome the apex species.
Also Vlaakith required evil things throughout her reign. Maybe Orpheus wouldnt be like his mother and especially wouldn't be like Vlaakith.
@@ben5056last time they tried that a whole army of angels were killed or fallen and Avernus gained a new Archdevil, Zariel
The emperor's priorities are in descending order...
1. Survival.
2. Freedom.
3. Power.
It will gladly sacrifice power for freedom, and freedom for survival.
That is a pretty accurate description.
I think that goes for most sentient beings, just replace power with whatever makes them feel happy
Unfortunately for him, he highly underestimates us and our capabilities. We've come this far, fought through truly impossible odds and dispatched many of those who would stand in our way and so his 'logic' falls short in that (assuming you free Orpheus and up to this point also refuse to become a mind flayer yourself) he doesn't see any logical way past this point. We are defeated. But we should have been defeated many times over. We've surpassed the logical conclusion so many times, that the logical outcome of returning to the Netherbrain is that we will have no choice but to eliminate him as well. He signed his death certificate when he left the astral prism that last time. (And he went down pretty easily compared to some of the other mind flayers & dream guardians in my fight!!)
@@giacomocasartelli5503yeah I mean you can’t have anything if you’re not alive and you can’t do anything if you’re not free so I don’t see how anyone would think any different lol.
Perfect
My problem with The Emperor is that all while he talks extensively about trust, he either fails to understand or wilfully ignores the very innermost core tenant of trust, and that is that it is a two way street. He’ll beg and command you to trust him over and over, insisting that he saved your life, that he has protected you from the brain, that you are allies, but the moment you beg the question “Hey, what if we free Orpheus? We’re stronger if we stick together, and after talking extensively to his Kith’rak, I strongly believe that his desire to destroy the brain is stronger than his loathing of Ghaik?” He’ll be like *”HUH? You want me to trust YOU? Nah man! I’d rather sacrifice my freedom, the thing I value above all else and be a slave to the Netherbrain than even dream of giving YOU the benefit of the doubt! BYE!”*
Given this, The Emperor doesn’t want your TRUST, as trust can only ever work if it works both ways. No, what he wants from you is BLIND FAITH, which is an extremely twisted, one way version of trust that cult leaders and scammers alike expect of their victims. Orpheus on the other hand, despite his misgivings of you is reasonable, even if you’re literally the child of Bhaal, and is even willing to become a mind flayer himself, the very thing he hates above all else if it means saving the world. I have no doubt that he would have been reasonable with The Emperor too if only he had been willing to trust you for a moment!
Except the thing he values most is his own life not his freedom, its shown in his lines at the end where he becomes far more direct and logically callous in his approach, it shows how desperate he is, to the point that he is willing to give up his own freedom to do what is logically the most chance success, as it is very likely that Orpheus would be hostile to him immediately, orpheus' reaction is outwith his calculations, and even then just because he was somewhat "civil" with us it doesn't mean he would be with the emperor , Orpheus states himself that the "good" thing to do would be to die and that should have all died to his honour guard before as that would be the "honourable" thing to do, it is also very possible that Orpheus would be too focused on the civil war to even care about faerun, as Vlaakith would immediately know he has broke free, so as much as he claims otherwise its bs, its only when the threat is right Infront of him and impending that he actually makes extreme decisions, that's also why the githyanki only start coming through to assault the nether brain once it has shown itself as an extreme threat, the people at the top of the gith don't care about the "lesser" races and there "petty" realms, faerun could crumble for all they care its just one tiny insignificant world to them.
If he wanted blind faith, he would just enthral you which he has had the power to do all along, but he didn't do that, he gave you choices and simply advised you on them, if you don't follow them that's fine he still keeps you alive to defeat the elder brain and stays true to his word to the very end.
To be honest, freeing Orpheus is the same blind faith decision. We have no other argument except for Kith'rak promise.
@@tuskular The Emperor doesn't want equals. He pretends gives you a semblance of agency only because he's calculated that this is the more effective means of control. He says this himself.
@@tuskularThe more I see people talk about Orpheus and Emperor the more I realize that apparently not that many players willingly chose to become full illithid immediately when offered, then freed Orpheus anyway.
So many people go on and on about how aggressive Orpheus must be toward the Emperor immediately when freed and how Emperor made the logical decision of not trusting the numbers on that bet and portaling into the netherbrain's embrace.
But the thing is that I, a full on illithid who he'd never seen before in his life freed Orpheus and after a moment of hesitation and confusion he praised me as a savior of not only him but all Githyanki were we to make it out of this.
And in the end when the elder brain was destroyed and realistically he no longer had any use for me and according to everything he's ever been taught it should be "the right thing" to kill my Tav then and there he instead kept praising me and didn't say a single word even eluding to me needing to die because I was illithid, in fact the very opposite, saying he'd do his best to tell my story everywhere he went to protect me from any Githyanki who'd think to kill me.
All and all Orpheus is nothing like his mother, he is a much more open minded a Githyanki than most as all he needed was to see one act of selfless heroism (not the "sacrifice" of turning into one, I'd done that willingly mind you before there was any need for anyone to even think about sacrifices, but the act of willingly destroying the netherbrain despite everything it could give simply because it was the right thing to do) from a mindflayer to if not change his mind on then at the very least rethink pretty much every ideology and principle he was raised on.
Sure, some of his praise may come from the fact that he didn't need to turn himself into a mindflayer to defeat the elder brain because you'd already taken that proverbial bullet but never the less he is way less a blood thirsty warlord than what this particular video is trying to show him to be.
EDIT: And to add on that last bit, I imagine the reason why the Emperor didn't thrall the party was because he was busy fighting against the elderbrains commands and that his reach from within the artifact was very imperfect and he would risk much to any potential "lag" in communication if all the party were nothing but mindless thralls. I don't believe for a second he wouldn't have forced the party's hand and mind to get his way if that had been an easier option for him to take.
@@amoltov496 True, but Lae'zel and kitrakk'voss believe the outcome of freeing him will be good, however biased they are. The emperor has essentially been enslaving him for years. Its in his best interest not to release him, not because its the best for the world, but because he knows he did him dirty. So both parties are biased, but i choose to believe in Lae'zel and Kithrak'voss who have shown themselves to be honorable and not deceitful compared to the emperor.
The only real way to know if the emperor and orpheus are evil is to become a mindflayer and absorb their brains.
You know, just to be sure...
That is an option in game.
@@ashtonpeterson4618
Becoming a Mind Flayer? Yes.
Absobing their brains? Not that I'm aware of.
@@SidheKnight If you become a mind flayer and side with the Emperor, you can eat his brains at the end.
@@ashtonpeterson4618 cool xD
@@SidheKnight When you become a mindflayer you then have to absorb Orpheus brain in order to gain his protective powers when you challange the netherbrain, having him trapped in the prism is no longer enough to stand against the evolved brain.
Then there is an ending were after the Emperor invites your illithid self to join up with him. You can then respond by jumping him and sucking out his brain.
The most disappointing thing about the Emperor is how little wyll has to say about him being balduran. Guy literally worships him and the finds out his true fate and just shrugs and carries on.
Wyll could honestly use more content/lines
@@rhoku I used Wyll as my character, th story works out very well that way.
Never meet your heroes
Eating the brains of criminals might be more moral in a way, but is also just safer for the emperor since no one is going to miss a couple criminals disappearing every once in a while. I don’t think his admission of killing only criminals should be looked on favorably
It shouldn't be. But again, he HAS TO eat brains. This is arguably the LEAST evil way for him to survive. Omeluum survives by eating Druegar brains in the Underdark for reference.
Funny enough, Cazador had the same reasoning. Forbidding his servants from killing anyone but commoners and beggars, so they didn’t draw too much heat.
He could be lying about the criminals part. Even then he'll say that what he does is more important for the greater good than his victims contributions like any lawful evil character would. Hes no different than a vampire to me.
He didn't "admit" to killing only criminals -- he CLAIMED to kill only criminals. The Emperor systematically lies and distorts the truth at every opportunity, why would we choose to believe him when he claims to have only fed on evil people? Considering that he only tells you what he wants you to know in order to manipulate your behavior, how likely is it that this particular claim is actually true?
Not very likely.
@@emmdubb Exactly. The Emperor operates off the mentality of "For the greater good". This is in essence an evil way to think because it excuses horrible acts because it's for the 'greater good'. No one should trust the Emperor. If his goal is survival first and foremost then what makes you think he wouldn't sell your character out in a heart beat if it meant saving his own skin and plans? It's terribly naive to try and think the Emperor is a good character.
Something I noticed after watching this video is that the Emperor seems to react differently if you pick dialogue options that follow a logical path of inquiry.
In my run I asked him what he learned about me while disguised as the Dream Guardian and he said something like:
"I learned that you are not swayed by emotion like the others and respond best to facts and logic. I admit I was surprised. I had not expected you and I to think so alike."
I kept our relationship professional, embraced the tadpoles and became a Mind Flayer at the end what surprised me was that his attitude towards me didn't change after defeating the Netherbrain. When I told my companions that "I don't regret it. I like what I've become" the Emperor jumps in and says something like:
"I knew you would. You are far greater as an Illithid than you ever could have been before".
When I refused to stay with him to rebuild the Knights of the Shield, instead choosing to go into the Underdark, the Emperor supported me again. He said something like:
"A logical choice. Your new form is powerful but you still have much to learn about what it means to be Illithid. The Underdark will be an effective nursery".
Not sure if any of that dialogue is restricted to certain choices or if it's fairly common but I got the sense that the Emperor was glad to have another independent Mind Flayer to talk to. For a species that's so dependent on that hive mind connection I imagine being separated from other Illithids would have been lonely.
bro, you got catfished
@@pineapplesmoovey7898 You were nice to the Guardian because you expected a hot Drow. I was nice to the Guardian because I expected a hot Mindflayer. We're not the same.
He told me that too, did you guys also get the line to say that you suspected he was illithid?
@@hamsterpad3093 Maa! Maaaa! They're talking about fucking squids again
I just can't with the Emperor.
Got to see a glimpse of how His prior "Love" went down, basically mind-r*ped her to be His, while being like "be glad I didn't use that approach on you".
Ever since, I only ever side with the Emperor if I want to betray him at the end.
In any case, with how passionate people are about the Emperor, it's quite clear he's a fantastically written character! If he weren't, people wouldn't really care either way or think strongly about him and his actions 🤔
Agreed
You have to admire the Larian writing team. They nailed the archetypes of each alignment in D&D. The Dead Three's are perfect; Gortach LE as he works within laws and structures to arrive at his selfish aims. Ketheric is NE as he’s solely motivated by his own personal reasons. Orin is CE and is a complete psycho relishing the harm she does. The Emperor is N as he’s by his own survival. He might do some questionable acts but never goes for the most destructive just for giggles. All the subtilities of each character makes them credible.
Such a bad take. Evil is not selfishness, neutral is. Evil is the opposite of good. Good is moral virtue and harmonious action, evil is for the sake of destruction and and violence. Don't you think it's strange that the best thing people could come up with to replace a missing "evil" in our society is that they aren't thinking of others?
@@LizardOnAMushroom2358 Wrong. Committing heinous acts for personal gain is considered Evil in DnD, just as doing heinous acts for the sake of Evil is also another form of Evil. Selfish = neutral only applies to a certain extent. If you're a mercenary who just fights battles for gold and doesn't think much about who you're fighting beyond that, I believe that is neutral. Ketheric is willing to bring death to all of Faerun for Myrkul, that qualifies as evil.
The Chad Bromeluum vs The Virgin Squiduran.
I theorize his alignment is malleable according to how you play. His alignment shifts with your choices in dealing with him so that he can either be your best friend or a true villain depending on what the player wants to perceive him. It's part of that "any individual can be good or evil" thing going on in the game. The ultimate choose your own adventure. I mean, if he were truly evil, he would eat Orpheus' brain before you have a chance to free him, not giving you a choice of who to work with. Instead he just...gives up... I don't know. I just feel like they made him kind of morally gray so that you as a player could shape him.
This is a great point. Everyone gives evil Shadowheart and Evil Astarion a pass, without remembering that the neutral characters in this game can be pushed to different moral extremes by the main character. The Emperor is no different.
@@PsyrenXYand the Emperor "was" a hero, having Balduran's memories. If anything, his willingness to hold out for the player may have to do with the nascent love he had for Baldur's Gate, which he once had as its founder.
It should be noted that, in all instances, Withers recognizes the mindflayer who will defeat the Netherbrain. To me, it is a way of saying that whoever the player decides to be the mindflayer that saves everyone, its a valid choice.
@@timetochronicle yes exactly!! i see a lot of people use another withers quote (mind flayers have no souls) to mean "no soul = evil = mind flayers are all evil!", and then ignore that he gives the thumbs up to whatever mind flayer you choose to work with (even one who has been a mind flayer for centuries)
id stil not side with someone who wasnt being clean with me and just giving me more and more red flags as we go along, i rather support Omeluum then the "Emperor" who couldnt come clean until it was too late, i got my own morals and standards but keeping up this act is a no go for me and i cant see myself siding with the Emperor for longer then needed.
I found this to be an interesting take, but I'd say the Emperor is more true to his neutrality. I played a very good character, never used the tadpoles, was a confidant and lover to the Emperor, but not just keeping Orpheus imprisoned, but killing him, was not an option I could handle. I was sure we could keep him from killing us, even the Emperor. He wouldn't hear any of it though. I tried so many options too.
Point being, I understood the Emperor and my character thought his actions were all reasonable and reasonably moral, but that was the line.
I think The Emperor well embodies the philosophy of Altruistic Egoism. One's own self, and their interests should always be considered first, but if one's own survival can be guaranteed, while also helping to prevent others from suffering in a way you yourself would not want to, that would be considered the favorable outcome. Because The Emperor does not abandon the path of the most good outcome until he sees no chance of his own survival and the survival of others sharing a common interest.
That sounds like complete negation, isn't opportunism more fitting?
I view him as a lawful neutral pretty thoroughly.
Lawful simply means they follow a code, whether it's "laws" or just their own ethics, which I'd say he fits in very well with his decision making being entirely logical and aimed towards personal survival above all.
Neutral is just that, not making decisions based on perception of good or evil, but gor the most beneficial end. He doesn't eat the brains of criminals to be good, he does it to draw less attention. Likewise he doesn't enthrall Stelmane to be evil, he does it to stay alive and not draw attention to himself.
He's simply a logical dude whose top priority is survival, with the close secondary goal of being an individual. With a third goal of wanting company a bit behind those two.
The emperor plays the part of beloved companion or deceiving manipulator perfectly depending on the player's own opinions and I think he was written incredibly well if that was the goal.
absolutely agree, beatifully said
He is quite the pussy tho, oen who easily gives up on their goals by the slightest posibility of his demise.
I think he is a fucking hypocrite. Your morality doesn’t fucking matter at all if you can’t fucking stand by it.
I’m talking about Orpheous. You can have a pretty decent insight into him before freeing him, but it doesn’t matters to the Emperor. He won’t listen to you.
He just fucking gives up all he worked towards all this time becouse his skin might or might not be on the line. It’s like, dude, if I wanted you to be dead, you already would be.
But no, he just scurries away, gives up his freedom and willingly joins the netherbrain.
A truely awful being, regardless of morality.
@@azpont7275 in every ending you side with him he never turns on you, nor does he try to control the elder brain, yet you are given more chances to betray him than he does you, it has everything to do with how you view him.
If you saw him as a monster, it reflects how you see people and how much your ignorance shapes your world view, actions speak louder than words and he uses the truth more than he lies
@@ichinesan Then I'm quite sure you haven't played all endings. You can literally do all things for him, but if you choose to free Orpheus non what you did matters. He is a hypocrite.
Also claiming such big things about someone after a singular comment rather speaks volumes about you, ngl. Authoritarian Personality is suggested as a bedtime read...
@@azpont7275some people are married to their morality and justifications. I know both choices were evil. I picked the evil that made sense for me. Ending the grand design and Vlaakith. Then Zariel.
Yes, I think Lae'zel being a leader of revolution after Orpheus has sacrificed himself for the greater good is the best possible outcome.
The problem with this is that the Githyanki lose their most powerful weapon against the Ilithid since it's implied that his ability is genetic and as far as we're aware he and Gith had no other offspring. Also without Orpheus as a figurehead for revolution I feel a civil war within the Githyanki is far less likely to succeed.
This is not a good outcome
Lae'zel is just some gith in the big picture, how would she even get people on her side? There are very few gith with Voss and you in the final battle, and if you sacrifice Orpheus you basically have no figurehead to inspire revolution, unlike if Orpheus is free who is the original son of the original gith leader who the histories lie about as dead
Additionally she does not have the psionic Illithid hivemind blocking power that Orpheus does, so she really can't replace him that way
@@Shindia you can convince him to live a new life, and maybe when the time is right, he'll be there to assist Lae'zel.
Orpheus is not the single-minded blood-thirsty gith that your making him out to be. If you free him, and either turn into a mind-flayer yourself or have Karlach do it, he will make sure your sacrifice of turning into a mind-flayer goes into their histories and puts you in a place of honor among the gith. IMHO, this was the best ending of the game. The Gith are being led by their rightful ruler, and Balduran who lied to us unless we found out the truth ourselves and back him into a corner to admit it, dies.
It's the prince Orpheus's power make him powerful against the Ilithid. The most non-sense thing is why the heck Laezel doesn't sacrifice herself for prince Orpheus? It's a super important feature not just remained Karlach or you only. What happened to the chanting for Orpheus, the loyalty gone just by someone's ready to take the position for you
As someone who was Team Paarthurnax in Skyrim, I'm willing to give The Emperor a shot. I'd just try to convince him to maybe get a creative hobby like Stage Plays, playing music or painting.
He should join the Circus.
I'm also pretty squarely Pro-Paarthurnax.... but also pretty squarely Anti-Emperor. But then there is a very key difference between the two: Mindflayers fuck with your mind and they're insanely good at it, so you can't believe ANYTHING they show you. Dragons are just fucking tough and don't need to play mind-games about it.
Paarthurnax and the emperor both have completely different moral alignments though
@@thestarsmoker09 exactly ,and last i played, i believe Paarthurnax is truthful to you and helpful for your goal
Omeluum is the parthernax of bg3, he is an illithid that overcame his evil nature through great effort (and a magic ring). The Emperor is one who didn't merely fail to overcome their evil nature but one who embraced it and saw no issue with it. Omeluum sacrificed an easy food source because the lich he made a deal with was utterly evil. Not because he had to or it wasn't beneficial but because it was wrong, it would have been easy to keep going with the lich but he didn't.
I really love how morally grey the Emperor is as a character. Very much the anti-antihero, in that he does the right things for the wrong reasons.
What he did to Ansur? What he did to every one of his "friends" like Stelmane? He's worse than Gortash. A greedy, dangerous thing that needed to be stopped.
He doesn't do the right thing. He is the villain of the game. He is an agent of the elder brain the whole time, enacting the grand plot to tranform it into the netherbrain. How is that supposed to be "the right thing"? Him manipulating the cast rather than killing them doesn't make it "the right thing" by a long stretch.
Its funny how alot of people got manipulated by the emperor even in real life, talk about breaking the fourth wall lol.
Jokes aside, the emperor is not morally grey at all. He may be good at trying to justify his actions but hes amassive asshole that care for nothing else but himself and what he wants while pretending to do the "greater good".
Theres even a point in act lll where he goes full mas off if you refuse to fall for his bullshit long enough. He flat out says to you that he will just force you to do what he wants if it comes to that. I wont even mention what he did to Ansur and Stelmane... like others have pointed out in the comments. The more you learn about him the more you see who he TRULY is. An egotistical monster who cares for nobody but himself. Id argue he might be worse than Gortash in some sense.. at least Gortash was fucked up by growing up with horrible parents that literally sold him to a devil and grew up in literal hell for years.
@@brunohommerding3416 It's Fucking insane that people think Hes Morally grey just because he's nice to them while Manipulating them
@@PlanetaryPluto yeah thats what baffles me, no wonder psychopaths are so succsessful in their schemes. All you need is sweet talk and smiles and people just roll over
I have just one counterpoint: Orpheus is the only one creature in the universe capable of disrupting an Elder Brain’s powers. If he’s killed, we all lose the only mean of survival against another Illithid attempt to enslave the cosmos lol
I think what they were getting at is that if he’s killed by either a mind flayer in your party or the emperor, consuming his brain, that mind flayer gains his abilities. So that person would become the “new orpheus”. Did I read into that wrong?
@@derekmandl nope you’re very right but then again illithids aren’t immortal, or are they? Because if Mind Flayer Tav or the Emperor dies, the entire universe is defenceless against another illithid attempt to invade the cosmos.
If Orpheus lives he would live on and have a heir with his powers, so there would always be someone ready to defend everyone from the mind flayers!
@@lorisceleste1860 that is a good point. I agree with your original comment - though the Gith are themselves evil, they oppose the evil of the Illithid and keep it on check. And they need Orpheus to do that.
@@lorisceleste1860Orpheus isn't immortal either The only reason he's alive is because his prison is in the astro realm which is outside of time. So if anybody was trapped in there, they would not die of old age.
@@chaddavid2106 Orpheus can have babies and his descendants would inherit his power, just like he did from his mother.
To guarantee the safety of the planes from Mind flayers we need to free Orpheus and take back the throne from Vlaakith.
It's not that hard to undestand lol
lets not just pretend that a lot of people play their "hero PC's" close to where the Emperor's morality falls. Surviving, end justifies the means, if an outcome is overall good its because it was beneficial to them or at least the least bad option.
Liked your video, BUT… Orpheus is much more nuanced than you gave him credit for. I finished two playthroughs and released Orpheus on the second. He was reasonable, almost lawful good in some respects. I found him very compelling and in the end, he was grateful and left to free his people with no “apparent” evil desires.
He is pissed at us but is able to put his anger aside to fight for the greater good, and is even willing to make the biggest sacrifice a Gith could ever do to prevent the Grand Design. Wouldn't be surprised if he was Lawful Good tbh.
I literally stole a Githyanki egg and gave it to the lady who wanted to raise it (though I destroyed the entire Créche so it didn't have anyone to take care of it) and Orpheus let that slide because the world was ending.
Exactly. #FreeOrpheus #OrpheusDidNothingWrong
Yeah, I think it says a lot that, for all his hatred of everything illithid, Orpheus parts on peaceful and friendly terms with any character who turns themself into a mind flayer to save the world. Given his 'better to die nobly than become a ghaik' attitude when you first meet him, I was expecting him to insist that I let him mercy kill me once the Netherbrain was destroyed. Best case scenario, I would be able to talk him out of it with a persuasion check and not be forced to kill him. But no, he tells you he'll make sure you're remembered as a hero, then leaves you be. If he's reasonable about _that_ then it's a safe bet that he'd be reasonable about other things, like the conquest and enslavement of other races.
Now to be fair to the Emperor, there was really no way to know that Orpheus would turn out to be so open minded, and the prince of the comet has a lot of reasons to hold a grudge against the guy who held his prison and exploited his powers for decades. Given the information he had, I can't blame the Emperor for assuming the worst. But judging Orpheus based solely on lore about Gith and the gith'yanki while ignoring his actual in-game characterization isn't fair either.
@@CatgirltheCrazy I mean, even if Orpheus is willing to work with Illithids to save the world, I wouldn't be surprised if he made an exception for the Emperor specifically, given the enslavement bit.
The only reason the Emperor broke free from the brain's control was because the brain allowed him to break free, which he acknowledges prior to the final confrontation when the brain reveals that fact, so there is a very tiny chance that he'll break free in the future after becoming a thrall again.
I never felt like I couldn’t trust the Emperor. I knew everything he was doing was to save himself, but he saved me and our interests aligned.
For me is Neutral Evil. He only does what suits him. In my first play, I was 100% manipulated and fell stupidly for his charms. Then I began to distrust, pay attention, investigate and I saw that he only shows you what you want to see, he never tells you the truth, he modifies it, which is very similar to lying. When you finally manage to see the Emperor's true colors, he begins to treat you as his puppet, pet, servant, etc. He literally shouts in your face "you need me, without me you are nothing", what hypocrisy if we take into account that he is nothing special, and only survives because he steals Orpheus' power and that he escaped only because the Elder brain allowed it. Regarding the fact that he "doesn't force" you to become an illithid, he doesn't do it in an obvious way, but whenever he can he brings it up and INSISTS that it is for the best. The worst thing is that even if you are his faithful ally, unless you become a squid like him, he ignores you, clearly demonstrating that you are no longer of use to him and that he is incapable of having feelings. What pisses me off most about the Emperor is that we are forced to accept him and work with him, but he is incapable of appreciating us as we are. The first time he can get rid of us, he does. The only mind flayer that can be considered good and pleasant is Omeluum. He doesn't force you to help him, he is honest from the beginning saying that he doesn't know if it will work, and he does show empathy when he asks you to save the Duke and forget about him. Furthermore, Omeluum does prove to be special, because thanks to being born with sorcery powers, he was able to break the control of the Elder Brain and escape in time.
Agreed, I thought he was kind of okay until I read that note on Ansur's body. Then I sat down and analyzed everything he told me, and from the very beginning he's been lying to me. Not just giving me what I needed to know, but he was straight up lying too. Like when you meet his dream visitor form for the second time (I think), he told me he too wants to get rid of the tadpole inside his head, which is obviously an utter bullshit. Next, about Stelmane, I honestly don't even care if he enthralled her and didn't say anything about it, but what pissed me off is that he told me they were "lovers", which is another bullshit. He had absolutely no reason to lie about them being a thing, he could've told me they were allies and leave it at that, but he probably wanted to humanize himself in my eyes so I would trust him more. Next we have Ansur, and the note on his corpse written by our squid. I can understand killing Ansur in self-defense, but there is another thing. Initially he told me not to perceive mind flayers as soulless and unemotional beings, but in that note he contradicts himself, saying exactly the opposite. It's not even the fact that he is unemotional and soulless that made me extremely suspicious, it's the fact that he lied. It has nothing to do with our mission to defeat the brain, sure, but a lie is a lie, naturally no one would trust some lying mf, be it a squid, a human or any other race.
And, despite what the author of the video said I didn't have to directly insult the squid. Like, I've never chose an outright hostile lines, I just kept saying I didn't trust him, otherwise choosing neutral lines. I absolutely didn't choose the lines like "you're a freak" and the like, only stayed cautious around him.
Ah, another thing, not really a lie but presumably a prepared manipulation. In the dia when squid "goes down on you", if you agree to this, he intentionally lets your party members in so they see you having a little tentacle fun. Another manipulation but this time aimed at your party members, seeing you with the squid might ease their suspicion so he's using you.
The emperor said they weren’t lovers when you go his romance route he specifies this
Another thing that wasn't mentioned is that you can find notes in act 3 which make the Emporer seem INCREDIBLY sus and like he is personally allied with Raphael and Gortash (eventhough the second could be because of the Elder Brain).
In Raphaels Archive you can find a Note that says something along the lines of "great to see the mindflayer and its puppets, he's desperate. The hammer for the crown, now that seems like a good deal to me". This would imply that they have some kind of arrangement, at least Raphael knows about the mindflayer and is apparently using him to get the crown. But maybe I missed or misunderstood stuff, I didn't talk to Raphael in act 3 prior to breaking into his home.
In Gortashs chamber you can find a book titled "the heist of the astral prism" which mentions the emporer being sent by the chosen to retrieve the prism. I'm not sure if the Emporer got free before that or if he became freed during the hunt, but it seems sus that Gortash calls this (in his eyes random) mindflayer emporer.
I dunno, I felt that the fact that when you free Oprheus (who doesn't immediately kill you as the Emporer claimed he would) the Emporer goes straight to the brain and fights to keep you from winning is very telling.
He basically lies to you from the very beginning and only gives you information as it suits his needs (he's losing a fight so he reveals himself to you, doesn't let you know there is a colony under Moonrise even though that's exactly where he was infected)
Thats what tipped me fully into hating him. I never trusted him, but I free Orpheus and his reaction is "well fuck you, I'll go join the brain then!" Like bruh, I thought you wanted to be free of the brain.
to be fair, the brain might be the lesser evil from his perspective.@@bhume7535
Makes a lot of sense from his perspective because he was keeping you safe the whole time and you just betrayed him, he’s just looking out for his safety
@@Epig420 Looking out for his safety is joining the thing that makes him unsafe?
@@bhume7535In the emperor's eyes, it is better to be a slave with the chance of being free again. Then to just die. He broke free twice from the elder brains control. So he's probably thinking he can do it a third time.
The ultimate true neutral character is my opinion. The fact you HAVE to convince him to conquer makes him not evil. His alignment follows you, if you're evil and a jerk, he will respond as so, stay friendly and it's a good neutral ending
Yeah then you learn what he did to Ansur and Stelmane and who he truly is behind his sweet talk. Hes not neutral in the slightest. Just because hes good at his speech doesnt amke him any less of an asshole. Hes a psychopath, his whole thing is manipulating people into feeling relatable
@brunohommerding3416 I hope you're joking. Otherwise, I'd enjoy watching how you respond to someone trying to give you a "merciful end" without your consent 😏😂 no one said its good with its speech
Githyanki, Mind Flayers, Raphael? This isn't a choice of morals. There's no one good, but only one cares enough about your survival. "Cooperate towards a common goal, and don't get attached"
@@mega2009man Raphael is as much a theatre kid as he is a devil and thus I can't hate him. The Githyanki just grow up in a militaristic society under a cruel queen who basically farms them for her own power.
The emperor, Mind flayer or not - is a Manipulative pos who lies non stop to you, he truly finessed his enthralling methods because you people fall for it Hook line and sinker. Even after being presented evidence you've been duped. Actually pathetic behaviour. No offence.
@@mega2009man Don't mind this guy, he's been copy pasting a lot of his responses to everyone who says anything that isn't "Emperor Evil"
@@kerespup To be expected from such a one-dimensional "interpretation" 🤭 regardless, I'm not losing sleep over someone's opinion
"Good at speech" 🤣
Talking about this subject we really need to apprchiate the way Baldurs Gate 3 was written and excecuted, because I think the 'make your own guardian' part was marvelous! Aside from some people making joke charackters, most people I have heared of either made their dream partner, best friend or parental figure, which they would WANT to trust. So with the idea that the guardian is individual to all of your companions, and not you creating one for everyone, it really makes sense that the emporer would have have used his powers to present himself in a form you would more or less immedeatly trust. And I think that why most player felt so emotinally betrayed by him when it comes out, that this person does not actually exsist. Because you WANT to trust him, you WANT for him to be the good guy, you WANT to follow his "orders", WANT to be protected by him.
When I played the game for the second time, I really tried to listen to what he is saying, what kind of lies he uses and I really tried to feel less betrayed and look at it the way you said it: He mostly changes some information, but he really only lies in one aspect: That he is an adventurer CURRENTLY infected with a tadpole wanting to get rid of it like you want it too. And I just can't get over the fact that he says that because he is so content with being a mindflayer and he could have just said he is like some kind of entity, an agent of fate, Withers also does not tell us who he is and we still kinda trust him and accept him in our camp, why does the emporer need to lie about this particular thing? Because that's really the one thing I can't get over because it makes all of his other "white lies" or partial truths feel even less true and more evil somehow.
While technically you could argue that what he means is that he seeks to get rid of the elder brain and it's control and that's kinda similiar to us wanting to get rid of the tadpole well, we see Orpheus hating himself as a mindflayer, Balduran could have been similiar, but he was not. Also the fact that if you get to the point where you can romance him but decide not to, the game outright tells you that it's kinda sus that the emperor does not even try to fight for you, and again it feels like something he would have done to further manipulate you, make sure you don't turn against him, but nothing he would have actually wanted. It's a whole other discussion if beings like the mindflayer can even experience love, but I think the emotional betrayal of the emporer is something that makes him very evil in most people eyes, you never really know if anything he says or does is an act or not. Typicall for our emotional species I guess :P
He seems to only really care about surviving. The fact that he would rather join the Elder Brain because he thinks it gives him a better chance of survival even if it means sacrificing his freedom shows that he doesn’t really care about stopping the Elder brain as much as he cares about himself and his own mortality. He only really keeps the main character alive because he needs them for his own survival. I wouldn’t say he was evil, more of a morally grey character out for himself.
Awesome analysis! Emp is easily my fav character in the game. Another point to make is how tolerant he is of the players when it doesn't 100% threaten his survival. In act 3, you can demand him to save Minsc. Although he refuses for the first few times, he will eventually be like ah fine whatever and go along with you. This is a counterpoint to many people who believe he will show his "true colors" the moment you disagree with him. (Also in act 2, there is actually a brain jar of githzerai in the oubliette fyi)
I think people instinctively want to simplify his motivations to better fit their preconceptions about what a mind flayer should be. I love that the emperor doesn’t fit the pure evil of the mind flayers, but he rarely ever does anything that you’d consider totally good. I think certain people are going to have trouble dealing with the subtleties within his character, especially when the player is forced to be lied to and saved by that same character multiple times. I think mind flayers are just as soulless as I had initially thought when withers brought it up, but I love the added depth that mind flayers have the memory of having a soul. It makes them significantly more human than some people would like to think about, which ultimately makes the emperor harder to fully hate. He’s still a bastard and you should probably side with Orpheus and use him to stop the brain, but the emperor is a fully realized and layered villain.
@@4dbagel945 100%, people love to make things black and white to that it fits narrative of good and evil, they just want to simple, but inreality its a VERY complex set of situations all entangled, with extremely difficult decisions having to be made.
I think the aspect of him that stands out the most for me is him not actually wanting to take control of the Brain himself. If you don't become a Mind Flayer he initially assumes he will be the one to do it because he doubts you the player would want to become a full fledge Mind Flayer, and is a bit surprised if you do, and offers little resistance to making you one and letting you devour Orpheus. It's such a strange thing to me because the most logical thing for him to do is deny us becoming a Mind Flayer and ensuring the destruction of the Brain himself by devouring Orpheus and assuming control of the Shards. He put's an incredible amount of trust in us, and I think it goes far beyond simple trust too. He truly and genuinely believes we will destroy the Brain. It makes him an incredibly tragic anti-hero character if we betray him and take control of the Brain, therefor enslaving The Emperor once more. All in all I don't believe he is good in any sense of the imagination, as self preservation is all he cares about and it doesn't bother him any which way how he does that. He'll enslave, manipulate, murder, etc all to further his own ends. The fact that destroying the Brain is inherently a good thing is irrelevant because that isn't what's concerning him, only his own survival and autonomy.
I am actually convinced that the ending only exists in a sort of gaiden narrative separate from the rest of the plot as it just straight up doesn't make any sense.
Needing a mindflayer for the final confrontation is nonsensical. Orpheus alone as a Gith is more than capable of the task, but the game straight up forces a violation of D&D lore just to push us to have an illithid ally at the end.
As such, the Emposter actually helping us destroy the brain at the end is probably just another part of the rushed nonsense ending. I'd imagine if more time had been given for the game to be completed properly, it would have ended with him turning on the party on behalf of the Netherbrain regardless.
You read the dialogue of the game wrong ,emperor dosent want to control the netherbrain because he dosent want to risk a war with vlrakith and her entire race ,he specifically states so if you ask him to do it.
Given any other circumstances he wouldnt hesitate to take more power
"He truly and genuinely believes we will destroy the Brain. It makes him an incredibly tragic anti-hero character if we betray him and take control of the Brain, therefor enslaving The Emperor once more. " I think this is kinda fascinating if you have ever heard about the "Prisoner dilemma". The most rational position is to cooperate wheras the most "survival"/"Egoistic" based one is to betray. The Emperor displays a consequent logical way of acting by giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assueming you are on pair with his rationality.
I really wished my MC could have romanced him after the end.
you really opened my mind on the emperor bc i hated him after figuring out he was just manipulating us and everyone around him for his own sake to live but honestly wouldn’t we all do the same thing? Which makes him more human than most actual ppl in BG3
The way I see it, no amount of good intentions will overright the amount of manipulation and abuse tactics the Emperor uses to get you on his side and do as he says, because his behaviors are textbook examples of how an abuser keeps his victims around. It just rubs me the wrong way on every level
When you consider how extreme his circumstances are it makes a lot of sense, if he really wanted to he could have enthralled you to do his bidding but he didn't, instead he is trying to convince you to be an ally as an individual and lets you make whatever choices you wish, he only ever advises you while keeping you alive the whole time, the only time he ever goes against you is when threaten his survival such as freeing Orpheus.
Sure, he could have enthralled Tav, but you should also consider the efficasy of a thrall vs someone who can make their own decisions, especially when someone is a skilled manipulator. I feel like if he thought Tav being a thrall would have been more effective, he would have defaulted to that instead.
Besides, you get to see Mindflayer phylosophy first hand in the epilogue and manipulation and feeding is the first instinct
An in-game book states that you should only trust a mindflayer when your goals are aligned. Your played your part as a tadpole-infected strike team for the Emperor. You seek a cure, while the Emperor seek survival. As long as you walk through a path that he sets, he will be your ally. You can play the hero, be a murder hobo, and he'll even take control of the crown with you if you want. As long as he survives. When his survival is threatened, that's when he turned on you.
I believe he's always been manipulative and selfish, even as Balduran. And this trait is carried forward when he transformed into a Mindflayer. Remember, the only reason Balduran got caught is because he left his own city in pursue of another adventure and treasure.
A transformed Karlach and Omeluum are both kind in a way. Karlach only ate the brains of terminally ill patients, who had no chance of recovering to end their suffering (with their consent ofcourse). And Omeluum only seeks to study and improve the living conditions of the Underdark. Plus, he prioritized the rescue Wyll's father over himself.
@@tuskular well he accually enthraled a few just so he can manipulate you, no? The dream visitors are his thralls.
@kaiagoda768 are they thralls? I thought it was just a glamour disguise since he's in our head and all. It would be easy for him to trick us into seeing him in a different form.😮
Bro did I just watch mindflayer propaganda
SAlightly disingenuous propaganda, with things mentioned that arent in the story we watched presented as facts. Like the fantasy Ansur tried to kill Baldur in his sleep, thats not said in the dialogue. Or Orpheus being blod crazed when he is reasonable, or the FACT it was the emperor who inserted the tadpole in the first place after he abducted us once he picked up shart on his mission to get the artefact.
The Emperor is an extremely well written character, he at the core of his character is a survivor and does indeed puts his own interests first and foremost, just like any of us would. I think what truly makes his character great though is that you are able to thrive with him if you choose to and he will enjoy your company. His morally grey attitude is surprisingly human, and the game has taught us before that mind flayers are just as sentient, self-valuing, & having morals as other mortals (Omeluum). If I was in his shoes I might’ve done the exact same as him, I think many people would, that’s what makes him very relatable in retrospect. it’s why I do cherish him, because I think he does long for friendships, for companions, for love. If he was truly evil he would’ve let you die on the nautiloid, he would’ve consumed Orpheus long ago, instead he’s similar to Minthara, he wants you to grow and become powerful, he really does want you as a companion, as a friend in the end.
(Also there’s a giant misconception that mindflayers are somehow soulless or that the tadpole consumes the soul upon ceremorphosis from wither’s dialogue, but withers ends up correcting himself in the end, mindflayers outside of a netherbrains control can indeed have souls and have morality of their own free will)
The Emperor strikes me as what Niccolo Machiavelli would describe as the most effective ruler. He does not operate out of malice nor benevolence. Both are tools to be used for when they are needed as with any implement. Be it cruelty or leniency. Being SMART and fostering genuine loyalty through respect and admiration will always be more effective means of control than subjugation. And he used all tools at his disposal - wisely and with restraint.
And for all his faults, I understand him. I only wished he would have trusted me as I trusted him when I decided to free Orpheus. But neither can I fault him for seeing my mortal naiveté and faith in the best in people as naught but madness in his logical calculations. He would have been a great leader and advisor, unclouded by religious or ideological dogma. Perhaps even a chance for the Illithid to seek out a future free from the Grand Design.
But perhaps that was just a dream.
I FUCKING LOVE The Emperor!!! He's such a cool character, I love the whole dance of trust or distrust.
The game should have included a difficult skill check to have the Emperor and Orpheus work together
Yeah like a DC 30 persuasion check maybe you even become a mind flayer to prove your trust and have to roll a con check to fight your hunger, and you swear to protect him if Orpheus tries to attack him, and convince him that "more allies the better" since its clear he is very desperate at this point, so much so that he even gives up on his freedom to try and survive.
Yeah, it was sort of weird that I opted to free orpheus and the emperor just up and decided to join the Netherbrain. An enemy he's been plotting against for years.
@@tuskularThis would definitely be my ideal ending considering that I plan to side with the Emperor but also want to be a mind flayer.
Yeah DC 99 Impossible like that other roll
like maybe if you gained his trust throughout the game by going along with his ideas and/or become half illithid to bring up his opinion of you you could have the chance to persuade him to give orpheus a chance then also persuade orpheus not to kill him; if you fail the first one he leaves as usual if you fail the 2nd one you have to choose sides between orpheus/laezel and the emperor and fight
One very important point that was overlooked in the video is that the Emperor is the commander of the mission to retrieve the Astral Prism for the Chosen and he likely chose to betray them to seek his freedom and that's how he ended up "stuck" in the Astral Prism.
There are some documents on Act 3 that reveal the partnership between the Emperor and the Chosen and that the Emperor had been free from the Elder Brain for over 30 years looking for ways to be permanently free. When you look back to everything he told you and how he pretended to be surprised/not know about the Chosen or your condition at all, you can see that he never saw you as more than a pawn.
So your first interaction with the Emperor isn't with him saving you, it's with him kidnapping you to be a puppet in his plan to be free of the Chosen and the Elder Brain. Finding those documents were the main reason to why I chose Orpheus over him and although it was a leap of faith in the unknown releasing Orpheus, it wasn't an ilogical choice as it was argued in the video. I mean, how could I trust the guy who kidnaped me, put a tadpole in my brain, lied, manipulated me and treated like a puppet and even told me I was a puppet after the Steelmane confrontation?
I'm also very suspicious of his claims that he only ate the brains of criminals and evil guys in Baldur's Gate. The Emperor is selfish, power hungry and evil and he likes to control people by manipulating them into submiting to his will. I have very little reason to doubt that he hadn't used his powers to silence political enemies and eat some brains in the aftermath.
He probably only tell you what you want to ear and never really reveal the truth.
Also along the story , you can see multiple book about mindflayer specificaly talking about manipulation , one is even in the underground where the emperor did live so when you think about it , you can probably never trust him.
He also blame you for having let the netherbrain goes free and say that you are to slow even when you did everything he wanted.
@@sinjoh53then again after you defeat the netherbrain he tells it to destroy itself and did not try to control it to make himself more powerful, which you would not have been able to control. He did manipulate you but at least he did the right thing in the end.
When he showed up that first night as the Dream Visitor or whatever, my immediate thought process (since I'd already discovered the goblin camp) was "This is the voice of the Absolute, and if I listen to it, I become a slave like all the rest"... so I absolutely rejected the character and everything they had to say.
And when I ran into Vlaakith, I didn't really care for her (I am a Githzerai fan, and do not like the bitchqueen), but she offered the opportunity to kill the dream visitor... so I tried to do it (the game forces the "Vlaakith made me do it" angle rather than letting me try the kill for my own reasons). It didn't work, but then I wasn't entirely surprised since I didn't figure they were physically there in the first place.
So when I first encountered his Illithid form, I re-evaluated my perception and figured he was a representative of the Elder Brain trying to engineer its own release from the dead three... so I instantly killed his avatar and got a bad end. Clearly he just converted me because I was stubbornly uncooperative. The game forced me into a corner, which I was annoyed about, so I used non-lethal damage to incapacitate the Gith monks (except the one that Emposter consumed, which made me hate him even more) and went on with the story.
When he claimed to remember being an adventurer, obviously I disbelieved that, as Illithids do not keep their old host's personality / memories. It just doesn't work like that. So he was obviously lying. It wasn't even in question... I hard rejected him and he admitted to being a manipulative bastard and claimed I had no choice.
Well... I did have a choice. I released Orpheus. That course of action was never in question. Orpheus was the "good path" and Emposter the "bad path" from the very first moment I saw them.
EXCEPT then I'm told that either Orpheus or myself has to become an Illithid....
Apparently Larian wrote the game so there always has to be an Illithid at the end. Nevermind that Orpheus as a Gith was quite enough to shield me from the elder brain. And as we know, it is not individual conversion but parasitic consumption of the host. Apparently the entire Orpheus route depends on violating D&D lore. That was the point where I lost any kind of investment in anything going on. It was complete bullshit. So... long story short I went Illithid, saved the Gith, then suicided at the end. And Karlach exploded. And everyone else had cake and tea. The end.
@@SotiCoto Violating D&D lore. The lore that is not consistent at all. Crown of Karsus is Larian's creation so if they say it empowers the Brain to that level then it does. Anyways, route 3: Gale fulfills his destiny. Everyone else has cake and tea (well, stilla gotta choose between Emperor and Orpheus).
@@SotiCoto You can actually have a third end but you need gale with you and this way , i think you don't need an illithid , you can also turn karlach into one of them.
Also fun fact i just did discover but the emperor actually contact all member of your group with a tadpole , you can see it if you ask your companion each time you did get the dream visitor so he is clearly toying with you.
The goal of the grand design is not to convert everyone to mindflayers. There wouldn't be tasty brains left to eat. The goal is to unify into a single powerful mindflayer empire.
If we side with Balduran, we destroy the empire but let the emperor live to create another empire :V
@@Vincentpanh if he becomes an elder brain himself maybe.
@@ben5056 Impossible he would've needed to be Ulitharid tadpole for that.
@@Tespri correct
One of the new epilogue options as a mindflayer who dies has Withers be surprised you retained your soul and highlights it as a mystery to him - perhaps incredibly rare strong souls subjugate the tadpole instead.
This is an established possibility in D&D lore. They're called 'The Adversary' and normal mindflayers are scared out of their tentacles about them.
You’re struggling with the fact that lying through omission is still lying. He’s using us as tools for his own ends.
Great video, totally wanted to talk about this with others. I feel like one thing I disagree with though is that The Emperor valuing his survival as a priority. I was under the impression that while self-preservation was extremely high, the only thing he valued more was FREEDOM. That's why the move at the end makes no sense, The Emperor was a character that would rather die than be enslaved again.
Thus it doesn't make sense for him to abandon ship at the end of the game without attempting to resolve the situation with Orpheus, since the chance of failiure (becoming a thrall) to the netherbrain after returning is 100%. Statistically the chance of finding some kind of resolution with Orpheus might be ridiculously low (lets assume even 0.001%) but if The Emperor valules freedom above all else, a highly logical being would have taken the 0.001% chance.
Honestly this part was so inconsistant that I think Larian will correct and polish up the Emperor's motives in the difinitive edition of the game going forward.
He values his life first and freedom second. Third, he likes power but it is not his leading motivation compared to the other two.
This part definitely needs some work on Larian's part but I think it makes complete sense if we assume the other way he wants to live more than he wants to be free.
His survival would rely entirely on your party and you show that he cannot rely on your by freeing Orpheus in the first place. He can't stay in the city because Orpheus will know hes there. He has noone in the city who will defend him(not that they can vs Orpheus who is essentially only exceeded in power by your party). He cannot leave the city because of the githyanki around and also the issues I mentioned in the video. Orpheus will DEFINITELY kill him after the ending.
The Emperor and Orpheus both know that the Emperor willingly chooses to enslave "lesser beings". Our character might be duped by the Emperor, but the Emperor and Orpheus both know Orpheus will choose to slay the Emperor rather than allow the slaver to live.
At best they might agree to a temporary peace, which would end right immediately after defeating the nether brain. That is a very fragile alliance since neither could deliver the defeating blow to the nether brain without surrendering initiative to the other. As a result, Orpheus has a greater chance of defeating the nether brain without allying with the Emperor.
So the Emperor is stuck between the chance of escaping the netherbrain's thralldom in the future vs the chance of tricking Orpheus into giving the Emperor just enough slack. Being free requires being alive, and there is always the chance the Grand Design fails.
(sidenote: We know the Grand Design fails at least twice. Once in the past with Gith. Once in the future before the past.)
Also the Emperor "somehow" escaped the elder brain. He then joins the Netherbrain which there is no way hes confident or feasibly has a way to outsmart and overpower without orpheus and the stones. Also he doesnt believe in the greater good or hed be willing to die trying to be diplomatic with Orpheus instead of joining the all powerful Netherbrain. The greater good doesn't include mindflayers running the show. Its a shocker i know.
The way I see it is this:
Letting himself gettin enslaved again is the safest option for survival.
Either the party with Orpheus will defeat the netherbrain and he will be free again and possibly in a location that can allow him to escape and survive.
Or the netherbrain will win and there is a slight chance of breaking free once again.
Staying with the party and Orpheus is the scenario that will most likely lead to his death as you say, either by Orpheus attacking him on sight or if a frail alliance being forged he will most likely be betrayed once he has outlived his use.
Yea I have to admit, the Emperor is not a bad dude in a strict sense. He has a very bad for people diet, but he even goes out of his way to make even that more morally acceptable to people by eating Criminals.
I dont particularly like his manipulations, but I cant fault him for them either. His situation and unique predicament (and position with orpheuses powers) mean he kind of had no choice but to be extra cautious to push the player in the right direction with subterfuge.
The answer to the emperors alignment is simple. The fact that even after we told him that we plan to free Orphius he brings us into the prism and goes like "Hey...wanna bang?" marks him as either chaotic horny or lawfull "down bad"
I would argue that something done out of necessity or logic or for survival does not make it a non-evil decision automatically.
Reasons and like of thought for siding with Orpheus:
1 Vlakith can kiss my ass
2 More trouble for the mindflayers
3 I don't really know the dude but it seems his imprisonment was wrong so he should at least be freed so we can talk and ask him. Try to reason why he should work with us.
4 The Emperor witholding information, pushing to transform, and trying to push like a pawn ruined my trust. He doesn't force you because of him being good or anything he just can't. The magic he uses to keep the elder brain out works to keep him from direct control too.
5 the emperor can kiss my ass
I just made Orpheus turn into a mindflayer, killed him, and sent Laezel to rule. From my perspective it was entirely logical to free the ilithid slayer 9000
13:00 - I'm a bit confused of you ignoring the very important fact. Emperor said that he ate brains of criminals, but who is judge in that case? Himself? Very convenient, because HE IS literally the leader of the criminal gang. Knights of the Shield are nothing but a smugglers and elite robbers, which makes this question even more interesting. Did he ate people of his own gang? Or did he just ate his competitors? As always, he never tells the full truth and you can't accept those words as a fact.
P.S.
I watched a few more minutes and I see how much do you rely on this particular thesis. That's sad
He is neutral to me, which makes for a better story than being evil.
Moral ambiguity makes more interesting characters because no one is all one virtue
“Guys! Not all mind flayers are bad! They’re people too!”
Five minutes later…
“Yeah so all githyanki are totally evil so that’s why trapping their prince is actually a good thing.”
What? Did you watch the video lol?
@@noodlxsNo, he has a point. His strongest argument against Orpheus was Gith herself for the most part.
@@noodlxsvideo chapter: “THE GITHYANKI ARE EVIL”
@@TheWither129 I'm almost sure he was talking about mind flayers on an individual level, saying that not all are essentially bad, but he was talking about the gith on a systemic level, saying that their doctrine was to kill mind flayers than fight everyone else, so when he says the gith are evil, he means the doctrine and dogma that the higher ups believe, if he were to say that all gith are evil on an individual level he wouldn't mention that Lae'zel would be able to instill positive change in the githyanki doctrine, basically implying that gith in and of themselves arent evil but the ideas the higher ups like mother gith and Vlaakith instill onto them are
@@noodlxs well, then youre just broadly looking at one as individuals and another as a whole, which is hypocritical and uncharitable. Mind flayers as a group are even more awful than githyanki, who at least have a society of individuals, however indoctrinated. Individual illithid are an exception, not a norm. They escape from their society, and to participate in their society is to be a literal mindless slave. So making a whole point of the fascist space pirates being evil while defending a manipulative lying coward of a mind flayer who immediately turns to the slave brain the moment he gets pushback and happily enthralls everyone if convinced to become the absolute is deeply ironic
The emperor is not that justifiable imo, he's clearly manipulative as he never makes a sacrifice for anyone else's cause, and expects others to make sacrifices for him. He also changes sides the moment you suggest going against his plan, which would heavily suggest he had no attachment to the player whatsoever, likely only using them as a means to his ends. He only does things out of self-interest, his main goal being freedom from the netherbrain, but it doesn't mean you owe him your help at all. I'd sum it up as he can be an ally, but he's not really a friend. And just because he's the only reason you're alive doesn't mean you owe him, that would basically be extortion, and you didn't ask to be rescued by him, and he only does it out of necessity. Acting out of necessity for your own good is not the same as acting morally.
Thank you for this analysis. The Emperor is one of my fav characters in the game and I feel like the fact that this game was my “first contact” with DnD and I’ve never had a “mindflayer = 100% evil” prejudice played a big part in that.
People accuse him of being manipulative, then do they exact same thing throughout the game while also wanting Astarion and Minthara? Why does he have to share his life with you? Who is the reason you're alive? Who saved you? If it was Astarion with his behavior or Gale, or Shadowheart, they'd suck them off. People didn't mind as long as the dream visitor was hot. What did you all do when nettie tried to kill you guys?
he is the reaon we are enslaved, he literally put a tadpole in our brain, he is the only mindflayer with the super huge collar, he abducts us and tadpoles us and saves our lives when the ship he stol crashed. Thast why he was under the influence of Orpheus and free of the netherbrain, he picked up Shadowheart and jumped in the artifect.
my first run ended with me and the Emperor as friends, as I entrusted him with the netherstones and we saved the world together. Outside the part where I wanted to free Orpheus mainly because I felt bad for him given his situation, I didn't see reasons to mistrust the Emperor and let him use the stones without a second thought lol
Still, my second run I have Lae'zel in my party and as a romantic interest, and I fully intend to free Orpheus this time for the sake of her people, so I'm curious to see these changes happening in my game.
Who are you going to turn into a Mind Flayer to use the Netherstones then?
Tav? Karlach? Orpheus?
@@SidheKnight probably Tav, as I'm mostly being a good guy on this run. Don't have Karlach in the group either since I've made a Barbarian
@@SidheKnightwhos tav. Wasnt he the dark urge in Early Access?
Dont think i ever found a NPC with his name in game
@@thedoomslayer5863 It's not an NPC. It's the default name for the custom origin character.
Emperor was manipulated from the very start by the Netherbrain.
I had no qualms killing him and freeing Orpheus.
Emperor is the worm that consumed Balduran's mind and soul. It remembers being Balduran but is not strictly 'him'.
Your typical Mind Flayer is a willing thrall of the Elder Brain, and doesn't want to rebel, much less actually try to; they think that, when they die, they become part of it. Illithids from other elder brains might even have been willing to defect to join the Nether Brain, seeing it as an ascended, superior possible version of their future. Whatever else he might be, Balduran is still himself, his own will and personality in an Illithid body; for a true mind flayer, his actions would be considered the highest form of lunacy and stupidity at best, or, at worst, the subject manifesting the personality of the creature it was born from, making him potentially the Adversary, an Illithid with his old mind fated to bring about their destruction.
I mean he's also the one that tadpoled us. No other mindflayer has what he wears
@scrabblesmcjelly8615 That is a false assumption, and under the circumstances of the story, it couldn't have happened.
@@AimlessSavant its actually possible that it could have, if they teleport to Baldur's gate and abduct everyone before stealing the artifact while he is under the control of the elder brain.
@@tuskular It is established that he was sent from moonrise to obtain the artifact before the first scene of the game occurred.
There is no spatial time-frame where he could be on that ship, give us the tadpole, then journey to search for the artifact in the span of the nautaloid falling out of the sky.
The Emperor isn't Balduran, he the thing that ate Balduran.
My character is Githyanki and I side with the Emperor against Laizel up until it is time to free Orpheus. The motive being that I consider that I am already lost, so I took upon the mantle to become a Ghaik to destroy the Elder Brain and save others from the same fate.
I feel like you contradicted yourself a few times here, but the most glaring contradiction I think was asking us to evaluate The Emperor as an individual and not as a mindflayer (ignoring our meta knowledge), then dropping that standard around the 23:00 mark and evaluating the githyanki as an evil race universally.
If anything, the game goes more out of its way to show us that the githyanki are redeemable, and are merely evil due to their upbringing and society, as opposed to showing us that mindflayers aren't universally evil.
If you throw out meta knowledge of githyanki, as you did with mindflayers, and evaluate Orpheus as a character as presented in the game, he seems to be pretty reasonable. He doesn't kill you as the Emperor claims, but works with you. And his followers are the exact opposite of genocidal power hungry evil githyanki. In particular, Varrl tries very hard to avoid killing, even when his own life is at stake, which he tells us is in-line with Orpheus' teachings. Orpheus also sacrifices himself to stop the netherbrain. All in all, Orpheus does not seem like an evil character.
Edit: It seems like plenty of other comments have pointed out your logical fallacy already. It's unfortunately obvious that you're arguing from a biased perspective.
as a paladin I had to free orpheus, and I made him a mindflayer and then let him live to see the revolution led by Lazeel. saving the most lives...in theory. I couldn't trust the Emperor with the netherstones, if not only by his name...
The emperor is textbook manipulation. He DOES in fact outright lie, multiple times, and he asks not trust, because trust is both ways, and he demonstrates complete inability to trust you back. He DEMANDS your faith in him. The moment you question it he throws a tantrum. He is not purely logical, he is blinded by cowardice and ego. What is first and foremost is his own survival, and his own idea of how it HAS to go. Because if there’s one big lesson to learn about logic, its that pure logic can fail. Sometimes you HAVE to rely on something the purely logical cant: your gut. Everything you have might point to one logical solution, but if you consider for even a moment maybe there’s something you dont know, something unexpected, you might just find a better way forward. There’s not a logic to it, and sometimes youre wrong, but all you need, is a little trust. Real, genuine, trust. Not blind faith, but understanding, and trust, and lo and behold, the emperor is dead wrong about orpheus. I got that feeling in my first playthrough where i somehow missed lae zel and her whole thing, but i still felt he was wrong, that orpheus would be more agreeable. Now ive learned more, i feel validated. Cus sometimes you dont need logic to have that feeling.
Orpheus is more willing to put his own needs aside than anyone, really. He sacrifices his own life willingly, if you let him. The emperor sees a possible threat and without even considering that it wont be, he gives up on you. No matter how much faith you put in him, he puts NONE in you. He has zero faith in you. He thinks HE is the reason there’s any chance at all and HE will win this. He doesnt care about you, he cares about surviving.
The Emperor is a darkish gray at best and straight evil at worst. Hes a manipulative, scheming dipshit who helped start this whole ordeal to begin with.
The Emperor is bad. Period.
The Emperor told us that Ansur tried to kill him in his sleep and he had to defend himself. Since Ansur's bones lie underneath Wyrm Rock, that either means that Balduran slept underneath Wyrm Rock, that he somehow smuggled the dragon's bones back to Wyrm Rock...or that he simply lied. Again.
Now, I agree that the question isn't simple. The Emperor is a very complex character, which makes him great. However, immediately siding with the Netherbrain once you decide to free Orpheus isn't a logical choice, either. The lack of conversational options is a big issue in that scene.
That said, you lost me completely when you simply dismissed Githyanki as evil freaks and that siding with them forces The Emperor to side with the Netherbrain. Lae'zel, Voss and even Orpheus himself show a non-evil, more human side. Dismissing them that easily as evil beings who will (!) kill The Emperor so he has (!) to break our alliance is just the same as saying "All Mindflayers are evil, so The Emperor is, too".
Personally, I believe The Emperor is inhuman. He isn't bound by morale, ethics or "good and evil". He is a threat, though, in any case.
The confusing part of this video is that it goes into great detail about the nuances and complexities of the mind flayers, but completely flattens out the intricacies of the githyanki. How do you just sum up Orpheus as a genocidal maniac when HE BOWS TO YOU if you become a mind flayer to save the world? The son of Gith bowing to a willingly transformed mind flayer for the greater good might be one of most in-depth demonstrations of his character there is.
Great video @Rhoku , but it seems at the end your biases against the githyanki show.
I don't know about in his sleep, but ansur agrees that he tried to stop the emperor from staying a mind flayer (presumably by killing him). It seems obvious to me from their conversation that they fought, the emperor to stay alive and a mind flayer, and Ansur to stop him being an illithid but also do so by him being dead.
Interestingly, for such an ancient person Orpheus is also a pretty huge douchebag. If you tell him his guys attacked you, he tells you you should have just let them kill you so he could be free. Like..really bruh, is that REALLY what you'd have done, or are you about as aware of the perspectives and needs of others as a toddler is? I'm glad he wants to die if he transforms because he doesn't deserve to live if hes gonna be like that.
@@NeoIsrafilit’s very easy to overlook the crimes of gith in BG3. Mostly because we hear more about their perspective on their history of being enslaved, many people conveniently forget that no one likes githyankis (in lore) because of their violent tendencies and superiority complex. Orpheus isn’t as straightforward as many might think. He’s no Vlaakith, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get more content on how his presence effects the world if BG3
The place under Wyrm Rock was basically Ansur's home. Also, Ansur was right there. Had The Emperor killed him for no reason, had the story about Ansur trying to murder him been fake, why didn't Ansur say anything?
Ansur isn't exactly a good guy, either
Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, aren't Orpheus' followers the Githzerai? It seems a bit heavy handed to write him off as some mindflayer murdering lunatic in an attempt to make the emperor look better, when Orpheus is pragmatic enough to become one for the sake of his people(something Lae'zel wasn't even willing to do). Plus the fact he's so chill with your character, should you choose to become a mindflayer.
I played Baldur's gate 3 and what I am sure of is that the emperor is not a hero, he is just someone who follows his own interests
Sorry """"emperor"""" but Omelette is the superior mindflayer
also, the scene when he reveals to enslave Stalemane was not of him trusting me, but rather threating me, he showed me the vision and say something along the lines of "remember that i own you" or something like that
Ahahahah, 'Omelette'! 🤣🤣🤣
Factual.
Omelette (I adore that you call him that, too) is living proof that a mind flayer doesn't have to act like the Emperor. He's the refutation of all the Emperor's gaslighting. Let's be honest, Omeluum is very cold and and emotionless and at times even quite sinister. He's full on a mind flayer. However, he's also a being of true honour.
22:50 - That's a bit wierd. I mean, you rely on a Wiki to prove the point of all Githyanki being evil, but this same wiki tells that all Mind Flayers are evil, manipulative maniacs. Which comes to Omelulu - he is amazing, chill and cool but as a lot of people think - he is the rare case of Larian making a-way-big own thing despite rules of DnD world.
You mentioned that The Emperor runs the Knights of the Shield but completely leave out the fact that they are an evil organization that worships and serves the Arch-Devil/god Gargauth who was banished by the Nine for being too evil by their standards (which is saying something). Also you handwave the fact that he enthralls duke Stelemane. Enthralling someone is slavery of the mind, the worst kind of slavery. In no world can you convince me that slavery for any reason is anything other than an absolute evil thing. Gameplay wise at the end of the game The Emperor is basically a Schrödinger's ally. Depending on player agency, he is either an ally or an enemy. I'm pretty sure they did this because they knew a lot of people would side with The Emperor and would be very upset if he entralled them at the end (wich he does do in one of the endings). Story over gameplay, there's just too much evidence that he is evil. Best case scenario he is neutral who does evil things to his benefit.
I agree, I think his agency and decisions while running the Knights of the Shield provides key context to the emperor's character, and contradicts some of the conclusions made here. Overall I wish the game lore provided better clarity around what having your soul consumed and destroyed by ceremorphosis means in terms of Faerun cosmology. Withers says in the epilogue that souls vanish when their hosts become mind flayers. If you push Orpheus to become a mind flayer, he implies it might be a more gradual process, saying at end that you should kill him and release his soul to the astral sea while he still has one to call his own. And Withers also says to whatever mind flayer (you, orpheus, or the emperor) that shows up to the final fight "Appearances may change, but they do not mask the one within. This one I know. This mind flayer will fight with thee. It will save thy city and thy lives." Omeluum seems to exist to at this point solely to counter the idea that being soulless doesn't necessarily mean lacking a moral compass, but given that you miss out on the afterlife entirely, it at minimum seems quite the sacrifice.
schrodinger's ally is a great way to put this and the exact phrase I think I was looking for.
The video author clearly needs to read in game books and notes more. Also speak with dead everywhere is important. I got some interesting info out of dead mind flayers. He made the video to reaffirm his morality. I dont need to make a video to feel justified in who i sided with. Theyre both evil. I did it for Lae'zel.
@@emmdubb they are not both evil, one is selfless and one is selfish. He was trapped because he tried to Stop the first Vlaakith making the Gith into the Githyanki culture,
Caothic neutral for me (jack Sparrow, Catwoman, Deadpool, ...).
But on the top, an amazingly designed character.
I'm happy to see a non hate video for the Emperor but I wanted to correct a few things:
1. Balduran was already a mind flayer when Ansur found him
2. Ansur and Balduran were lovers, as they stated to being more than just friends.
3. Gortash found the Emperor after escaping the Elder Brain a second time, most likely not long after being found out by Stelmane
4. There is possible evidence that suggests that the Emperor is an adversary, meaning he might have retained his previous soul
the issue with the adversary, theory is he could have retained his in tact soul or he might just have his memories like all mind flayers do but is more attached to them then most
Balduran was tadpoled, he was NOT a mindflayer when Ansur found him.. and Ansur tried relentlessly to find a cure for his condition. Then Balduran turned into a mindflayer while Ansur kept trying to revert his condition until he gave up and decided to give him a quick death.
They became friends and lovers BEFORE Balduran turned into a mindflayer
Its actually kind of funny how many people fell for the idea that emperor is not bad, its almost like he broke the fourth wall and manipulated the players. Id say congratulations to the writers on that.
The emperor is a pure psychopath, manipulation is what they do, making you believe they care about anything but themselves is what they do. He even go full mask off in act lll if you refuse to fall for his bullshit long enough and says that he will force you to do what needs to be done if necessary, just like he used Stelmane as a meat puppet.
@@brunohommerding3416 you can literally see it in the flashback. He's laying down in the background while Ansur talks with a healer. But it's okay, you can feel however you want 🤷🏼♀️
I thought that they met before he turned, became lovers. Then he became a mind flayer and was influenced by the Elder Brain. Afterwards Ansur found him, rescued him and tried in vain to reverse the whole mind flayer thing.
@@brunohommerding3416 "and decided to give him a quick death" that's just it, it wasn't really Ansur's decision to make. Ansur couldn't accept that balduran liked the intelligence and powers that came with being a mindlfayer, and he didn't want to change.
I'm not sure if your characterization of Orpheus is fully correct from what I've seen but I haven't besten the game myself, only seen some of ghe cutscenes with him. Orpheus is who the Githzerai follow, they view him as the rightful heir to Gith and see Vlaakith as a usurper. The Githzerai as a culture are lawful neutral and I imagine Orpheus would continue in that direction seeing as one of fhe ideological splits between Vlaakith and Orpheus/ the Githyanki and the Githzerai was the whole "we shouls conquer all the other races" thing. D&D is also getting rid of "pure evil" races so in order to get the collective of the Githyanki to not be lawful evil you would just need to change their culture which is what Orpheus intends to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I felt like I went along with the emperor just fine and was nice to him, and at the end (before I have any dialogue choices) he’s all like “you’d be nothing without me, I’m the only reason you got this far, etc.” and I was like, woah bro, I was going to give you the stones, why you acting like a toxic narcissist all of a sudden? You’re sending a million red flags my way.
I mean he is right, logically speaking you'd be dead af, I actually like this line because it kind of shows how desperate he is at this point.
That’s… actually just true tbh
@@sekiro_the_one-armed_wolf I’m not sure it is true though, because there’s lots of people that aren’t under the emperors protection that also haven’t turned, and the elder brain says at the end that they let you get as far as you did so you could collect the stones and free them from the three stooges.
@@tuskular Logically speaking, the player/party wouldn't be in the situation they're in if he never kidnapped them/infected them with mindflayer tadpoles to begin with.
@@madamefluffy4788Technically, none of it would have happened if not for Durge.
Not making him an ultharid was a missed opportunity
Love this video. Finally a RATIONAL viewpoint on this guy.
Orpheus btw is tadpoled himself btw. How else was he capable of changing HIMSELF into a mindflayer if you play that choice. He changed over his imprisonment, and learned to control ceremorphosis after making steps to ally with the Githzerei because he stops ceremorphosis vis a meditation. he learned new tricks of meditation via his zerei cousins but gets caught for it and imprisoned.
Keep doing this kind of videos please! super cool analysis of Emperor !
People dislike the emperor because they chose a hot guardian in character creation, and well....surprise. I never save Orpheus. Laezel can live my decision not to help the evil Gith unite. I'm aware of the aspersions that the emperor mind-enslaved Duke Elingard, but I just don't think it was a clear cut case in game.
The best part about all this is that arguably we as the players live the same way as the Emperor
Doing all that is necessary to survive
And the way we achieve that is completely the players choice
Wheather it means we do an "evil" playthrough, a "good" playthrough, decide to embrace illithid power, maybe even become a mind flayer, embrace or reject the dark urge.. that's all left to us and what we perceive as the "right" choice.
And while all the choices we make to reach that goal (to ensure our survival), can be justified in all sorts of ways, they are just as morally grey as the Emperors, since there is always some evil in what we do from the perspective of others
It does not matter that he is a mindflayer, or that he was baldur the point that decides if he is evil or good is that he joins the brain.
So his goals are power from the start to the finish, and he trys to manipulate you from the first minute to get that power.
Just wanted to say, this was a great video! I just beat the game last night and definitely had some incredibly negative views on the Emperor and was very justified around my decisions with Orpheus, but many of the points you made really made the grey area a lot wider for me. Thank you for that!
The Emperor unleashes all passions and for that alone he is one of the best characters in the game.
I would add that he is obviously explicitly ambiguous throughout the game. It is both a strength (freedom of interpretation) and a weakness because the character will never be clearly defined.
His status as a renegade illithid makes him unique among his kind and plays a part of his mystery.
Trust is a theme that comes up with this character, whether in one direction or the other. I saw what happens when the MC betrays his trust, by lying to him about the hammer. I didn’t expect that from him.
It’s free to interpret, but I have the feeling that the Emperor’s opinion on the MC changes during the game. They become the exception, especially in solo run.
So I have not yet understood the meaning of why sometimes there’s an echo in his voice. It is not a coincidence. As it is no coincidence that he has the spell "Chain Lightning".
I always saw the emperor as an adversary(I think that’s what they’re called) mutant mind flayers who eventually break off and become elder brains themselves. So rather than stopping the problem your at best kicking the can down the road, and at worst making a bigger threat later.
So about halfway through Act 1, I am starting to twig to the fact that I and my party are going to be allying with, at least temporarily, a LOT of groups that have a very evil reputation. I mean, Priestess of Shar. Githyanki. Rogue Vampire. Womanizing (deityizing?) mage, and then we get to Wyll. Mr. "I don't regret my pact for a minute", even if he was just about to kill an innocent Tiefling because of that pact. Then hey, ally with the Zentarim. Organized crime is a pretty minor issue when the destruction of the world is potentially at stake, right? We are talking to hags for help with getting rid of the tadpole, we are talking to Devils. I personally believe that Volo is actually a Hag in disguise, but that is just a theory.
And a lot of the play through we have lots of options for infiltrating the enemy cult, and a lot of the most interesting information and quests only occur if we, the party, are lying through our teeth to Cultists of the Absolute.
So after talking to the Gith in camp, I start twigging to the idea that we are going to be at least talking to a lot of baddies for help in dealing with the big bad. And I start thinking about how a bad guy could reasonably build trust. There are certain baddies that just took themselves out of the running real fast. Hags have too much fun warping deals. Same with Devils. And I don't appreciate the hard sell tactic.
The first test is, do they do something nice for me with no apparent strings, showing their interest and good will.
The second test is basically the Mizora test. Are they asking me to do something that when I get more information about it looks really really sketchy.
The third big test is basically do they respect personal agency. Do they allow significantly flexibility in methods on my part and that of my party.
Certain groups and quest givers in BG3 meet those tests. And a lot do NOT.
One of the other lessons I learned from Wyll is that he can't speak about his pact. This gets me thinking of all the reasons, magical and non, why a potential benefactor might not be willing to be completely open about everything from their name to their Wi-Fi password on first meeting. I have lots of party members that take a while to open up about stuff, heck, I can play someone who has a deep dark secret that they take their own sweet time opening up about.
I don't know about the ins and outs of everything it ever did to anyone, I just know that the moment you entertain Orpheus as being a good ally, instead of trying to reason and make himself an ally to get rid of the elder brain (no matter if its for his own good, or the greater good), he just bounces back to the elder brain. That's just kia recalling their cars behaviour from the emperor and the elderbrain. Im not down with that.
7:08 "The Emperor hasn't wronged you at all" Not true, he's the one who captured all of the Origin characters and implants them with tadpoles. This is backed up by a letter in the room where you fight Gortash. Not to mention the entire "Control the brain with Karsus' crown" was The Emperor's idea, but Gortash, Orin, and Ketheric are the ones who actually did it.
He is under the control of the Elder Brain at this time.
@@rhoku If that were the case he would not have had the free will to enter the Astral Prism. He mentions that the elder brain's control is based on distance. And that he escaped the brains influence by going on the mission to get the astral prism. He already has aquired it by the time he captures and tadpoles the main character.
@@rhokuIn the opening cinematic we can see the Emperor floating towards the protagonists as they are trapped. There are dead Mindflayers in this room. This implies the Emperor killed those Mindflayers, this wouldn't make sense if he was still being controlled by the Brain. The Emperor in the opening cinematic is already a Rogue Mindflayer.
@@rhokuthere are other documents claiming that the Emperor has been free from the Elder Brain for over 30 years waiting for its chance to strike and the alliance with the Chosen was that chance. My guess is that he betrayed the Chosen and took the Astral Prism for himself. Kidnapping us and putting a tadpole in our head to keep was part of his plan to make things happen while he stayed in the Astral Prism.
@@sucrilhus the mindflayer in the cinematic that tadpoles you doesn't look like the emperor though.
I actually made it headcanon that the disguise he took he choose by going through Yentas (my Tav) memories and found her father's face which is still a positive memory but it's been too long for yenta to remember who it belonged to (her father).
He seems like the type of person who would use a dead parent which is a faded memory to look like a kind stranger
If you play as Astarion, his dream it is Cazador and he uses it to scare him into going along with the tadpole powers so it isn't beneath him to use your past in a good way or bad way.
I’ve a similar headcanon for my character. I purposefully made the Dream Guardian look like how I imagined her father looked, who in her background, was murdered while investigating the Absolute/Three Plot; trying to pick up where he left off was the whole reason she got tadpoled.
Finding out that the Dream Guardian was a Mindflayer using her for his own ends? And he used her father’s face to do it?Needless to say, she’s upset.
Also, Withers warns you pre-Emperor reveal. He asks you whether Mindflayers have souls, but he says they don’t. It feels like he’s trying to prepare us not only for the Emperor’s true identity, but his attempt to turn us everso slightly
@@cardwitch91 Though if you become the mindflayer and sacrifice yourself, Withers finds you in the Fugue Plane and admits he's pleasantly surprised, so clearly, it's not impossible for a mind flayer to have a soul.
fun fact: that wisdom saving throw is a 20 even at only two tadpoles used. You have to nat crit or pray you have enough buffs in your party if you don't want to partial ceremorphosis.
I wonder what the actual coded trigger is. I've never even had to roll for this, and I've used a sparing sprinkle of tadpoles in every run. I've always denied the partial transformation though, so that could be it?
@@noctoi I used two tadpoles on Tav, and got the wisdom saving throw. I think it's because of the amount of times I reacted to attacks with the illithid powers. Said throw was FOR denying the partial transformation.
Orpheaus is literally githrerai.... It was implied by the lore and the disks you can bring to Lazel. Also the beard confirms it to me. But if thats not enough in the new epilogue Lazel talks about finding menyar ag gith which is literally the god the githzerai worship. Orpheaus is literally the best outcome. They are lawful neutral. He even will tell the other githzerai about how you destroyed the nether brain and hold you as a hero. Either rescue a pretty chill monk that wants to free the githyanki from a lich or help the soulless husk that used to be balduran.
It's crazy how the people completely hating on the Emperor is leaving responses in the comments and showing that they did not watch the video at all and just came here to pick fights.
Do more of these. I need more solid BG3 videos. Especially, since I think most of the characters are complicated.
I have no idea why people would go against the Emperor except they’re in a douchebag run. In my first play through, I don’t trust the Emperor, but our goal are aligned. It makes no logical reason to free a mind-flayer hating prince and kill the one person that keeping you from turning then blindly hoping the prince will see reasons.
I was really intrigued by the Emperor, and part of me wanted to side with him when it came time to choose between him and Orpheus. However, I knew Lae'zel would turn on me if I did this, and I had spent a lot of time developing her and really making her an absolute badass of a character. She was really the core of my offensive tactics. So... I wound up choosing to save Orpheus.
I think it's a testament to how great the game is that they even thought to put me in that situation in the first place, and that I was left a little bitter that I had to go against the Emperor. Next play through, I'm siding with him. lol
He’s a very neutral character in terms of dnd alignment. He’s ENTIRELY selfish. That’s not TECHNICALLY evil in terms of dnd alignment, since he isn’t inherently out to hurt people, but he’s a purely selfish asshole who manipulates you at every turn and doesn’t actually value you AT ALL. He values nothing and no one but himself. He sees illithids as superior to all other beings and is still prejudicial against others.
And he IS NOT BALUDURAN ANYMORE. Balduran died under moonrise. The Emperor as we know him is the tadpole that ate Balduran’s brain, took over his body, and gained his memories. That’s how ceremorphosis works. YOU don’t become a mindflayer. The mindflayer tadpole eats your brain and gains your memories, pretending to be you. Sometimes the memories and personality can overwhelm the tadpole and make it think that it itself is the person it ate. But factually it isn’t. Which is why the emperor has no real emotional attachment to Ansur. And it’s why mindflayer Karlach doesn’t even mind if you break up with her. Because she’s not Karlach anymore. The real Karlach would have been devastated.
So while the Emperor doesn’t fit the classic dnd evil alignment, I still consider him to be evil.
Some very good points. I kinda disliked the emperor after he admited to mind controling Duke Stalemate, without even thinking about the possible reasons. In the end he always did what was necessary to survive, without being greedy. That's basically how most of my characters end up too, sometimes with beeing greedy, so how could I judge the emperor for that? That's totally the type of character I would play in a campaign
Dude, you're totally dragging Orpheus through the mud for the sake of your argument. Saying Orpheus is automatically evil because he's githyanki is just like saying the Emperor is evil because he's a mindflayer! And saying that he automatically shared his mother's views solely because he's her son is just blatantly ignoring all people who had parents believing in horrible things and grow up to reject those beliefs anyways. We have NO IDEA how Orpheus felt about other races before his imprisonment. He could have shared his mother's vision or could have completely disagreed with her but didn't want to go to war with his own mom or was just hoping to steer their people in another direction once he got the throne.
We don't know what he would have done in the past, but there's ZERO evidence that he would have just turned around and conquered everyone after his rebellion in the present. Hell, odds are that he named a non-githyanki the LIBERATOR OF HIS PEOPLE and there is not a single time that he treats you any less for being a non-githyanki! Not to mention that he could have forced you to become a mindflayer at ANY TIME for his plan to work but doesn't even hesitate to become one himself for the sake of everyone, which at the time he considers a complete death sentence! These aren't the actions of some genocidal dictator in the making, these are the actions of a good and just leader.
Finally, on top of ALL THAT we learn in the new epilogue that his act as leader was to attempt to make peace with the githzerai, the guys who left because they DIDN'T want to conquer and enslave everyone. His goal is to unify his people, NOT conquer the realms.
I betrayed this dude as soon as I had a chance to survive without him. He's manipulating you and if you read his history before the conflict you will discover that he enthralled the head of Baldur's gate and manipulated her until she had a seizure. He's good to you until you're not deviating from his line.
I betrayed him too. I never trusted him a single bit, even when he was the guardian (he foolish me with my tiflim guardian waifu lmao).
I like how well done this character is. Is not fully evil but neutral and determined to survive.
Exactly. I don’t trust anyone who is trying to manipulate me and limit my choices so that he can accomplish his means. At least in my wizard playthrough I’m on right now.
Surface level understanding of events and of his character.
I knew the emperor was a POS the moment I decided to go against in his decision about Orpheus. This was pretty much the only time I disagreed with him and without skipping a beat he says ‘well, I’m siding with the brain now, cya’. Like dude, after all we’ve been through? and even when I had your back when some of my companions didn’t? F you emp! My next playthrough I’m coming back with a vengeance! Excellent, concise, well thought out video too! Thank you!
The only reason I went against him was because he just kept on hiding things. It made it so frustrating to work with him that I was like "screw this,I cant trust you"
The act of enthralling alone is evil. Being always purely self serving even if it causes harm to others is in part the definition of evil. There is never a single selfless act that he engages in.
That's the difference with Omeluum. His willingness to sacrifice himself for Duke Ravengard and for the good of baldurs gate shows he's capable of seeing beyond his own wants needs and survival.
So he's not chaotic or lawful evil, and certainly doesn't delight in the hurting of others. So he's pretty solidly neutral evil, ie every act you can expect from him will be self serving, he will willingly allow others to be hurt killed etc to survive and is pathologically looks out for himself.
I think the Emperor is most likely a Lawful Neutral character, does good, but does technically evil stuff when required and has a strict moral code he follows.
The emperor is a selfish and manipulative squid who’d doom everyone to endlavement to save his own life, orpheus is a prick who only cares for his own race and no one else, i’m a coward who couldn’t drop my vanity to save the world refusing to transform because i’d lose my soul and appearance, the real heroes of my party are Gale who offered to orb the brain and Karlach who transformed to save us all
It is tricky, because a Mindflayer is generally playing 9D chess, while we are playing pong.
No, there logic is binary and simplistic,