IN DEFENCE OF THE EMPEROR
Or: why the Emperor is NOT a villain, because I’m sick and fucking tired of seeing posts about how “I can’t believe I feel for the Emperor’s lies in my first playthrough, ew!” and “he’s an evil villain who SA’d Duke Stelmane” when this is NOT FUCKING TRUE and everyone is just mad because he’s ‘ugly’ and refuses to capitulate to your manipulation/influence like every single other party member does.
This essay will use both Doylist and Watsonian arguments; Doylist being an exegetic meta-argument that considers BG3 and the Emperor’s storylines as a purposefully created object by Larian, and Watsonian being an in-universe, diegetic argument explaining function within the narrative’s logic. Additionally, I use he/it pronouns interchangeably for the Emperor.
1. The game’s writing primes you to second-guess your initial and instinctive distrust of a mind flayer, via the existence of Us and Omeluum
From what I’ve seen, most people are disinclined to trust the Emperor after his identity reveal because a) he is a mind flayer, and/or b) they’re weirdly mad that their dream guardian they spent so long designing is an ‘ugly’ mind flayer. Either way, once he is revealed to be an illithid, your immediate instinctive response is to distrust him, because he has been lying about who he is, and is ‘evil’ according to his species, so therefore he must also be lying about his intentions and plans.
And yet Larian have very purposefully been priming you to second guess this instinct through the introduction of Us and Omeluum.
Anyone familiar with D&D will have the immediate association of illithid = evil. If BG3 is your first time interacting with the Forgotten Realms lore, you make this association too simply by watching the opening scene of the game. Mind flayers as a whole are the enemy. Yet if you free Us, it is friendly and helps you, and becomes and attached follower from the end of Act 2 if you choose for it to join you. Nobody questions that you can have a “good” intellect devourer.
If you trust Omeluum during the underdark quest-line, it does exactly as it says — it makes a potion to help you, though this doesn’t actually work as intended, and furthermore it sacrifices a ring that protects its own mind in order to assist you (even though overall this doesn’t actually make any difference to you in game should you let Omeluum keep the ring). Most people from what I’ve seen will also rescue Omeluum from the Iron Throne, and it (and the Society of Brilliance) are grateful for the rescue. The fact that Omeluum has been accepted into the Society, despite its species, is another tick in the box for why you end up trusting it. Nobody questions that Omeluum is a “good” mind flayer.
Both Omeluum and Us show the player that just because something is illithid, doesn’t mean it is automatically evil — illithid are not a hegemony. This is purposefully done by the Larian writers so that when the Emperor’s identity as a mind flayer is revealed, you second guess whether you should actually continue trusting it or not. Because thus far, other than its own identity (which is hidden for THIS EXACT REASON), it has not lied to you. And more importantly, if you choose to trust the Emperor, it continues not to lie to you. The Emperor is straight up and honest with you about his intentions, plans, and what needs to happen in order to take down the Absolute and the Chosen. And if you trust it, and go along with its plans, this is exactly what happens.
Every character in the game has a good and bad route, and your decisions influence this. Shadowheart can remain Sharran or become a Selûnite. Astarion can become Ascended, or remain a spawn. Hell, even Karlach has a villainous route! If you want, you can turn every single character into the worst versions of themselves. But when you are doing a ‘good’ playthrough, where they are the best versions of themselves, you do not hold the actions they take in the ‘bad’ route against this version of them.
Similarly, the Emperor can either be an ally you trust and who successfully carries out your plan, or you can distrust him and he will become actively hostile towards you.
So how on earth can anyone argue that the Emperor is an evil villain and hold anything it does in a ‘bad’ route against any other version of him, by citing that this is somehow his “true” self that he is only “pretending” not to be, when that doesn’t happen for any other characters — nobody ever argues that Ascended Astarion is the “true” Astarion, or that Sharran Shadowheart is the “true” Shadowheart. So why is this only done for the Emperor?
Larian LITERALLY introduces Us and Omeluum so that you don’t intentionally become immediately hostile to the Emperor solely based on the fact that he hid his identity (again, for this exact fucking reason) and his species.
2. You cannot change the Emperor’s mind, unlike the other characters, no matter what you do – and this annoys you
But you might argue that at least with Sharran Shadowheart and Ascended Astarion, even if you don’t push them either way, in the end they will choose the ‘good’ route, with Shadowheart becoming a Selûnite and Astarion refusing to carry out the ascension ritual. And even if they didn’t falter at the last minute, you as the player character can always influence them in another direction.
But the Emperor cannot be persuaded otherwise. And this pisses you off.
Unlike every other character, you cannot change the Emperor’s mind. He cannot be influenced or swayed to another path. Just like how, ultimately, the party members can argue their points — but in the end you the player end up having the final decision over what happens. The Emperor essentially has equal authority over how events occur as the player, and yet this is written off as him being ‘manipulative’ — but it’s fine when you, the player, manipulate every single member of your party into doing what you want, what you think is best? The Emperor is the narrative mirror of the player.
The Emperor is, in every playthrough, a fixed point who cannot be persuaded, manipulated, or convinced to alter his plans in any meaningful manner. And in a game where you have full authority over what happens and what your party members do, this absolute refusal to bow to your whims grates at you, and forms resistance.
In dealing with the Emperor and being unable to change its mind, you fundamentally are forced into the role of an NPC. Doesn't feel so good from this side, does it?
But it’s kind of insane to me that this causes people to see him as an evil villain who is lying and manipulating you, when if you trust him and follow his plans, the game ends with you successfully defeating the Dead Three’s Chosen + the Absolute exactly as the Emperor said would happen, and most importantly — at no point does he try to betray you/turn on you, or take the netherstones for himself, which is what an actual villain would do.
3. If you trust the Emperor, he does exactly what he says he will do, and does not betray you nor attempt to take power for himself. You know, totally like a villain.
Let me put it this way: if you were writing a storyline where you, the player, were lied to and manipulated by a villain who got you to trust them and go along with their evil, dastardly plans, how would it end? Surely it would end with the villain turning on you once they got their hands on some substantial power, or perhaps the villain attempting world domination, or using their powers to enslave/enthrall an entire city, or just generally doing something villain-y.
You wouldn’t have the storyline end with the “villain” essentially go “hey thanks for helping out, I’m glad everything went well and turned out exactly as we’d both hoped it would, and now you and your friends are no longer in danger, also I don’t care about that insanely powerful artifact you literally handed to me and trusted me to use, you can go and fish it out of the harbour or something if you want, I don’t care, anyway see you around” before leaving to… do fuck all? Live a peaceful life, maybe with a little bit of a secret information network?
Because that’s exactly what happens if you trust the Emperor and do as he says. Now I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t scream ‘villain’ or ‘evil’ to me. That screams ‘character who set out to do something, completes their goal, and continues on with their life with no apparent desire for world domination or other evil schemes’.
Astarion kills seven thousand people if he becomes Ascended. Shadowheart murders Aylin and her parents for Shar. Lae’zel continues to trust and work for an evil lich queen who consumes her own loyal subjects for power. When you push the Emperor to the absolute brink, when you are hostile and refuse to trust him each and every single time despite the fact that he saved your life and is actively protecting you, the worst thing he does is turn his back on you, and return to the Absolute, because he has decided that he has a better chance at freedom breaking free from it after he’s successfully done so twice before, than he has trusting you to make good decisions. And I don’t think that makes him a villain.
4. But the Emperor ‘turns on you’ if you side with Orpheus!
So my main question is why the fuck everyone cares so much about Orpheus?
When you first properly encounter Orpheus, you can feel the hatred he has inside him, that’s been building for the millennia that Vlaakith has kept him trapped. As someone with a fucking illithid tadpole in their brain, there is a very, very low chance that were this not a game wherein you can just re-load the latest save if you pick the wrong option, that you would ever fucking risk freeing the guy on the off chance that he isn’t batshit insane and wants to immediately kill you for being infected.
On top of that, I also don’t understand why people consider the githyanki to be “good” but mind flayers to be “bad”, simply because githyanki were historically enslaved by the illithid. Githyanki and illithid treat people outside of their species exactly the same way — as lesser beings to immediately be killed or enthralled/eaten respectively. Lae’zel even states in the Emerald Grove that it’s lucky for the tiefling to have gotten away from Voss with his life, and that he wasn’t immediately cut from navel to neck, simply for having the audacity to… exist near githyanki?
Voss also just straight up murders a bunch of guards trying to do their jobs with his dragon. Githyanki are cruel and violent, raise their children with that same violence and abuse, and most of the time kill anyone they come across who isn’t one of them because they are deemed lesser beings… but for some reason githyanki get a pass because they used to be enslaved by illithid? Give me a fucking break, they are the exact same. So why the fuck is it morally good to free Orpheus and allow him to kill Vlaakith, when it doesn’t matter who is in charge of them, the result is the exact same? Yes, Vlaakith is evil, but Orpheus isn’t exactly a paragon of morality and kindness either.
So yeah, if you do decide to go against the Emperor (very bad decision from a logical in-universe perspective), Orpheus is not any better than the Emperor! So why is killing him to absorb his power such an evil, dastardly deed that clearly proves that the Emperor is an evil villain? Orpheus isn’t a good guy either! And from the Emperor’s perspective, you need Orpheus’ power to continue being protected against your tadpole turning you into an Absolutist mind flayer — as evidenced by the multiple instant game overs you can get upon a) killing the Emperor upon his identity reveal or b) fighting Orpheus after freeing him because you don’t want yourself or Karlach to turn into an illithid.
Either way, both Orpheus AND the Emperor prove two things: 1) Orpheus’ power is necessary for not turning into a dominated mind flayer, and 2) the netherstones have to be wielded by an illithid. The Emperor has never lied about this, because Orpheus says the same fucking thing!
So no, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to kill Orpheus/absorb his power, because his power is necessary, and someone has to be illithid — either the Emperor, Orpheus, Karlach, or Tav. And if Orpheus becomes a mind flayer, the thing he hates the most, he wants to kill himself in the end over it anyway. And if you do go against the Emperor and choose Orpheus (which without the meta-hindsight is a stupid fucking decision), again, it’s not like he’s some sort of moral paragon of virtue just because he wants to take down Vlaakith.
Orpheus is still a githyanki. Look them up on Forgotten Realms. They are lawful evil, “typically cruel, arrogant, and aggressive”, and their ultimate goal is to raid, plunder, and loot all worlds of the material plane. They are “generally proud and xenophobic […] viewed all other races with contempt […] viewed material plane-dwellers as ignorant or incompetent, or, in worse cases, as potential slaves”. There is no guarantee that once Orpheus has defeated Vlaakith that he will make any meaningful change to githyanki culture as a whole, in which case, I personally don’t see them as any more morally superior or ‘worthy’ than illithids.
Deadass I’m sick of Orpheus/githyanki defenders who keep using their historical enslavement/genocide at the hands of illithid as an excuse for the githyankis’ perceived right to do whatever wrongs they want to others.
5. But the Emperor enthralled/assaulted Duke Stelmane!
He didn’t, you’re just not immune to his nat 20 intimidation + deception roll.
Basically anyone you try to defend the Emperor with will inevitably bring up the apparent 100% factual proof that he enthralled and/or SA’d Duke Stelmane, citing the scene that plays where she is trapped on a bed while the Emperor hovers ominously nearby. This is kind of thrown around as an irrefutable ‘gotcha’ moment, completely ignoring the context of this scene — you only see this if you distrust the Emperor from the get-go, continue to defy and talk shit to him, and make it very clear you are going to work against his plans (which would get you both killed or dominated by the Absolute). The Emperor thus far has been trying to get you to work willingly with him, since you both need each other to stay un-enthralled and to kill the Absolute.
This is the point where he realises that this is futile, you will never work with him, and are actively putting both of your wellbeings at risk simply because you do not want to work alongside a mind flayer, even though he’s the one who has been protecting you up until now.
The Emperor then shifts from attempting to convince you to work with him to INTIMIDATING you into working for him. You no longer have the privilege of being treated like an equal, and so his only option is to threaten you into compliance.
THIS is the point where this scene plays, where the Emperor shows “proof” of what will happen to you if you continue defying him, and what he “did” to Duke Stelmane. He is rolling a nat 20 on deception and intimidation and you are FALLING for it. Other than Stelmane’s stroke, which has NEVER been confirmed to be because of the Emperor’s malicious and purposeful actions, there is NO supporting proof that Stelmane was ever dominated/enthralled by the Emperor*. And yes, while this “memory” that he shows is framed in a way that does indicate SA themes, it is very notably NOT that. Belynne is fully clothed, there is no genital contact, and the only indications that this could be SA is that she is on a bed and in distress. But there is no 100% way you can actually say that yes this is a scene outright depicting sexual assault.
And even if it were — which it isn’t — how can you say that this is a true, actual event that happened when the Emperor is actively showing it to you as a method of intimidation?
Again, think of what happens if you actively trust and work alongside the Emperor. He is pleasant, open, does exactly what he says he will do, shows no interest in gaining power or dominating you or others, leaves the netherstones behind, and wanders off into the sunset. If you trust the Emperor, he is also very open about the fact that he was friends with Stelmane, respected her, and that he is saddened by her death. He is open about the fact that as a mind flayer it is instinctive for him to enthrall/dominate others.
If you can hold the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ versions of other characters separately, not holding Ascended Astarion action’s against spawn Astarion in another playthrough (for example), then following that same logic you cannot hold the Emperor’s intimidation of you against every other version of him as the ‘true’ version of him, as everyone seems to do.
And given that up until this point, other than his identity, the Emperor has never lied to you — and in fact his claims that you need Orpheus’ power to continue protecting yourselves against the Netherbrain and that the netherstones must be wielded by an illithid are ADDITIONALLY confirmed by Orpheus should you free him — I am inclined to believe that once the Emperor truly believes there is no chance of you willingly working together and you actively start endangering your wellbeing and his plans, that this is when he begins to lie to you for the first time.
*(Some other Forgotten Realms sources state that Stelmane was enthralled and possessed by an unnamed mind flayer for over a decade. If we take this as definitive proof that she was enthralled — separate to the 'assault' that people accuse Emps of — then it is likely Stelmane knew this was a potential consequence when she specifically recruited the Emperor for her organisation knowing FULL WELL that he was an illithid. I'm not victim blaming, but if you recruit someone from a species that instinctively enthralls people as something that's alongside eating brains as no. 1 on their Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid.......)
6. But the Emperor killed Ansur!
Honestly I think the fact that the Emperor killed Ansur as a point to him being a villain is potentially the stupidest argument of all time, when it’s very fucking clear that Ansur tried to kill him first, and so the Emperor lashed out in self-defence, and is still broken up about that betrayal and what he was forced to do.
If you know anything about how ceremorphosis works, you know that whoever the tadpole is implanted into does not survive the transformation process other than being a form host — the tadpole essentially uses the brain and flesh as fuel to turn the body into an illithid. This is why some beings that are too small or too large are inappropriate for ceremorphosis and will result in a fucked-up failure should an attempt be made.
If, in the very rare chance, anything does remain from the form donor, this is known as partialism, is immediately gotten rid of by the illithid in question out of disgust and fear. Known instances of partialism are incredibly small subconscious carry-overs, like tapping out a certain pattern with your fingers or some such.
So the fact that the Emperor fully remembers his life as Balduran is… quite frankly insane. Entire memories and personalities do not port over during ceremorphosis*. This is such a wildly rare and terrifying concept that illithid have a whole concept of the Adversary, a conceived hypothetical figure of an illithid who maintains their former identity, and so unbeholden to the Grand Design, will actively work to take down the illithid empire. The Emperor definitely fits this mould, though he doesn’t show any signs of wanting to do so other than destroying the Absolute so he can be free from the threat of being dominated by it.
So essentially, the Emperor is still Balduran, just in a different form and now with illithid needs (i.e. eating brains for food etc.) — but Ansur refused to accept this, and tried to find ways of reversing the ceremorphosis, which is impossible.
Now maybe I’m just too trans for this not to hit insanely hard. But imagine going through actual hell and being turned into something completely different and fighting for YEARS to escape the mental and physical domination of a tyrannical being hundreds of years old and insanely powerful. Imagine retaining your sense of self against all the odds that say this isn’t possible, finally making it home to your best friend, a literal dragon (who, presumably can also change form because I very much doubt Ansur was walking around the streets of Baldur’s Gate as a whole ass dragon every day), only for your best friend to be so disgusted with who you are now that they reject you utterly. Mentally you are still the same person, but physically you are different — for sustenance you feed off criminals that otherwise would be killed for their actions instead of taking the lives of innocents — and your best friend rejects you. He is disgusted by you. He refuses to accept that this is who you are now, even though when it comes down to it, you aren’t actually that different, you’re still the same person!
And despite the proof that you’re the same person, he tries to kill you, because he thinks that now you do not deserve to live, that you being dead is preferable to this new way of living that you have, that you are perfectly content with, even though you have not done and do not want to do any of the terrible, awful things that other members of your new species do. And so your best friend tries to murder you in the middle of the night because he cannot accept the new you, and you kill him in self defence.
Like… that doesn’t seem villainous to me, at all. In fact, I think Ansur is WHOLLY in the wrong, and is giving eugenicist vibes by trying to kill off Emps like some kind of fucked-up euthanasia, because Ansur doesn’t believe that Balduran/the Emperor has any quality of life anymore.
*(if you’re questioning then about how Orpheus/Tav/Karlach retain their personality after ceremorphosis, this is clearly explained by the Emperor regarding why the astral-touched tadpole is different and will let the form donor retain their self)
7. But the shirtless scene is weird and manipulative!
Fuck you if the other party members can have chill camp pyjamas/underwear, so can the Emperor.
Also, illithid don’t actually wear clothing, their clothes are a mental projection, so the Emperor stripping down to just pants is a very strong metaphor for how much he is literally trusting you, by lowering not only his physical but mental defences as well. He is quite literally baring himself to you, shields down, now that you know his true identity.
If you pay that back by being so disgusted by his chest that you’ll fuck over his plans to keep you both alive and unenthralled, you’re a dick. You don’t have to fuck him! He’s not manipulating you into sex! He’s literally just fucking trusting you to be a friend, and to listen to his story!
And also if you do have sex with him, it’s canonically the best sex in the game, soooo…
8. But he’s a mind flayer, he has to kill people and eat their brains to survive!
I don’t hear you saying this about Omeluum as a reason to kill him. And also how many people do you kill during a BG3 run? I’m going to hazard a guess and say you actually lose count, you hypocrite. But go off I guess.
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