Chad omeluum vs virgin emperor

I knew something was up with the dream guardian the moment they encouraged me to consume more tadpoles. The moment they suggested that, my immediate thought was 'Ah, you're a mind flayer, aren't you?'  because why would someone who claims to want to help you free yourself of the tadpole lodged in your brain encourage you to infect yourself with more? Even the excuse of 'it'll make you stronger/more powerful' just didn't sit right with me.

After confirming the dream guardian was a mind flayer, all trust went right out the window (I treated that Mindflayer guide found as the Githyanki Creche like the gospel - because who knows how Mind Flayers work better than the githyanki?) It didn't take long after that for the mind flayer's mask to drop and revealing I should be grateful they didn't use me the same way they used Stelmane.

The fact people will still defend The Emperor and claim he's actually good/he only turns evil if you don't trust him is laughable. He was always looking out for his own best interest and the player/party were just the folks doing all the dirty work for him to obtain that. The moment you ask him to trust you - on anything - he shuts you down or bails entirely,

Omeluum option needed.

Ansur also represents a real break in the Emperor's story. Getting a third party's point of view who can say "This isn't my friend and the person I knew and loved. They aren't there anymore, and the thing that remains behind is no friend to me" made me sure I couldn't trust him.

I distrusted him the moments after the conversation with Raphael, he was so distressed about not being able to see me and even willing to barge in to force me to show what happened through the mind instead of trusting the words I spoke. Trust, that is the thing he was unwilling to give me so I distrusted him in turn. I'm not obliged to trust him if he's not willing to trust me. I didn't care about him being evil or good or the reason for his actions, someone that doesn't put any faith in anything he's not able to see or influence isn't someone I'm willing to ally with even if he was a saint.

The companions do speak of contact with the Dream Visitor and their versions appear in the final fight. Astarion asking to consume the tadpoles is proof of this as well.

"In your first playthrough, do you remember when you started to trust him?"
I don't
Cause in my first playthrough I used none of the tadpoles and freed orpheus
XD

The implications of the emperor being able to make you companions forget is actually that he probably made you forget something in the past too - you just don't remember.
There's also an interaction in act 3 after you talk to Raphael where you might want to conceal what you both talked about but the more you try to keep that information from the emperor the clearer it becomes that he's constantly reading your mind and is just giving you the illusion of choice, in the end he's the one in control, and you have no choice but to give the information up.

I sided with the emperor because I wanted to get freaky with the mind-flayer.

I played BG3 as Seldr Oroblanco, my White Dragonborn Gold Draconic sorcerer who was the first character I played in a regular game of 5e and who became my go-to for one-shots and short campaigns. I have character sheets for him going back to 2015 I keep as keepsakes, and my running theme with him is that EVERYTHING he’s ever done is canon to him. He knows what’s what. He’s been around the block. 2 full campaigns, a dozen one-shots, and a couple short stories I’ve written. He had never dealt with Mind Flayers before, but he knew of them from his studies abroad. He knows damn well how they are, and he knows damn well that while you’re dealing with Mind Flayers, NOTHING is as it seems.

The INSTANT Seldr got visited in his “dreams”, he was suspicious of the Visitor. The option of trust never existed. Seldr loosely followed some of her guidance, but he was much more with Lae’zel, that it might be ghaik influence.

The that fucker causally told Seldr to eat a tadpole moments after he survived the Githyanki trying to upload his memories and kill him. That’s when I as a player, and Seldr as a character, knew that whoever was in that Prism was not to be trusted, but Seldr knows how to play that game. He’s dealt with vampire lords and giant politicking. He’s well versed in playing his supposed allies for all they’re worth.

Seldr spent the rest of the game buttering it up. Agreeing with it. Treating it like it was a person, enough that the ghaik really thought it had him. It even tried to sleep with Seldr. He respectfully turned it down but “reaffirmed” their “alliance” on a strictly professional level.

And then the Ansur fight. A Silver Dragon to a White Dragonborn with Gold blood in his veins. Telling him that The Emperor is *ghaik*, that it can never be trusted again, that the reason Ansur is currently DEAD is because The Emperor, the tadpole in Balduran’s head, refused to die.

And then, being that Seldr was manipulating The Emperor right back, came the frank conversation it can have with your character about Duke Stelmane. Instead of outright threatening you, if you’re good enough friends with it, it can gloat and just outright say “I’m so glad you are agreeable because if you weren’t I’d have just made you into a thrall like Stelmane.” That’s when I knew it was evil. It was relishing in its own power. That it WAS threatening Seldr, just as much as it was gloating. It was narcissistic. It was sociopathic. It was such a complete lack of empathy and morality that Seldr almost blew up right there. But he bode his time. Planned more. Secured the Orphic hammer and  demolished the Chosen of the dead 3.

When it was time, Seldr pulled the wool from the Emperor’s eyes. And the writing and scripting and execution of BG3 is so good that that ghaik was GENUINELY SHOCKED that Seldr betrayed it. Seldr never lied, he never made a promise he didn’t keep. He went to the Hells against the Emperor’s “request”, but he ostensibly just wanted to be rid of Raphael.

I as a player was SHOCKED at actually hurt and betrayed the Emperor felt when Seldr told it that it was ghaik and he would destroy it along with the Netherbrain.

I ended up making it a 2v2, Seldr and Lae’zel vs the Emperor and the Dominated Dragon. Karlach, Orpheus, and Shadowheart stormed towards the crown. It was glorious. Seldr burned the ghaik to ashes, and they released that dragon from its suffering. Then destroyed the Brain.

As a victim of an emotionally abusive relationship myself, I think I picked up on the reason I’m so uneasy about the Emperor, ever since the first play through. He shows all the signs of subtle manipulation, signs of you being just a stepping stone to his own perceived destiny. But the game intentionally steers you into trusting him or tries to at least. Up until he call himself the Emperor, you know him as the Guardian. Guardian typically implies someone who will protect and defend you from harm… someone to be trusted. In my first play through whenever doubts arose about him, I kept thinking how the game called him a “guardian”, then all of the examples of why he should be against the Absolute.

In fact, whenever you see him, your left with even more questions, uncertainty, and feelings of potential betrayal on the horizon than ever. He’s a very complex character. He’s easy to trust but as much as he’s easy to doubt. He manipulates you subtly through the entire story but if you never been through that manipulation before, it can be hard to see it. It’s around the second dream you’re with him that he goes from a ‘guardian’ to a manipulator.

If The Emperor was date-able, he’d definitely be an abusive manipulator. He would do everything in his power to be the only one you can trust, even if it makes you uncomfortable. The whole time you think you’re getting closer to him but he isn’t taking any steps towards you, and maybe even backtrack before you get too close. That’s what I had to deal with for several months, and The Emperor fits it to a T.

I think people underestimate The Emperor and what he really is, or means.
1. He prioritizes his survival and freedom over everything else. He manipulates others to keep himself safe and away from harm.

2. He actually does care about his thralls to some degree. He showed some meaning of sorrow when Duke Stelmane was killed. But his sorrow is no more than that of a man and his loyal pet, not so much of true companionship.

3. Mindflayers are naturals at manipulation, The Emperor is no different as he used his powers for the Knights of the Shield. Brokering information for control over merchandising, politics, and other means where information is key.

4. Far as we know, The Emperor doesn't want to control the world, but does seek to continue working in Baldur's Gate on his own terms. His control of the Duchy clues us in that he rules Baldur's Gate's political scene from the shadows.

5. He speaks in half truths, which is also a partial lie. He gives us enough information to consider but never enough to make him trustworthy. And how we treat him as the game continues; if we trust him he more receptive and kind to us. The more resilient we are to him; the more troublesome he is to us.

He is not a good person, but nor is he wholly evil. Baldur's Gate still stands despite the years he's been influencing the city in the shadows. He has a love for his home but is not above using any means necessary to preserve himself. He can't manipulate us the same way he did others as he's sheltering in Orpheus's mental protections. So he extends those protections to use through the artifact to have us be his hands and eyes. The Emperor could've devoured Orpheus's brain at any moment but instead he only does so when the true confrontation against the Elder Brain is nigh.

The Emperor is also not as open minded as he lends himself to be. Orpheus also doesn't trust us; even chastises us for our actions up to this point. So his assumption that Orpheus was wrathful is not unfounded, but he simply saw the bigger picture beyond.  So in some capacity; even the Emperor for all his intelligence is still reckless and presumptive.

Mom help some rando showed up on my algorithm and read one of my real life relationships to filth with 100% accuracy

This vid genuinely made me realize how abusive my past partner was damn. Good vid. You should do one for the other villains.

“ do you remember when you started to trust him?” No, Maybe if he started out by calling me stupid to my face, I don’t trust the voice in my head promising nice things and to help me and every conversation was a mighty red flag waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I never trusted the Dream Guardian and much less when it turn out that it was a mindflayer calling himself “The Emperor”.

My first suspicion began in the character creation, when i finished to make my character and suddenly i had to make a Guardian. My first thoughts where “Who? Why?”, but when it appeard for the first time my suspcion skyrocketed “Why can i choose how you look?”, only to start telling you to instert more tadpoles into you to become more powerful… “Nope”
I was so suspicious that i threw away or inicinerated every tadpole that i found in my first playthrough (even before the reveal). The Dream Guardian was more a devil on your shoulder than Raphael (who was more obvious).

When it was revealed that the Dream Guardian was “The Emperor” i hated the fact that i couldn’t kill him immediately and that i NEEDED him to continue. From that point on i never saw “The Emperor” as a potencial ally, i was using him as much he was using me and with the final reveals about him in Act 3 it was my bloodlust what was skyrocketing. I killed him in the fist turn of the final fight with Laz’el.

AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, in my second playthrough when i though i coundn’t despise “The Emperor” more i noticed something in the INTRO CINEMATIC, it was there all along i was simply to blind to see it, when i looked closely to the ……. Mindflayer that put the tadpole in my head, who do i see? THE ……. EMPEROR.

I knew the type practically right away. before I even knew he was a mind flayer I was suspicious and thus chose every option of "I don't trust you, go die in a hole" and then when I finally got to the "You are my puppet" crashout, I had that moment of "I F**KING KNEW IT YE BASTARD!!!" and immediately went to find a way to kill or replace him.

when you start the game and find the dying illithid, the narrator says you feel love towards it, that was the moment in my second playthrough where I was like yeah no, fuck that.

What I also thinks works with Tav & the Emperor is, as said, your a blank slate. Save for any outside thinking of a backstory, you can't really be touched on. So what better a personal journey than dealing with a manipulative force? Will you trust blindly, listen to your gut, try to scheme in return? Even with Durge, your still in many ways a blank slate - with your amnesia - and a prime target. Who better to use than someone just starting anew?

As soon as I freed the prince he turn coat even though I killed everyone in my way, the squid is stupid