this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Baldur's Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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It’s explicitly stated by the Netherbrain in act 3 that they allowed the Emperor to escape their thrall, anticipating all of the events leading to him discovering Orpheus and your adventuring party - as well as the the chosen of the Dead 3 discovering the Crown of Karsus and the Ilithid oubliette under Moonrise Towers. It is implied that the whole idea for the creation of the Cult of the Absolute and planned power grab by the Dead 3 was also anticipated/orchestrated by the brain from the beginning.
That is stated, but I'm not sure I'd consider the Netherbrain a reliable narrator. I feel like it was an attempt to intimidate the party. The sheer amount of secret knowledge and unlikely events that come together to begin freeing the brain at the end of A1 seems beyond the ability of an elder brain, which is all it would've been when it formed the plan.
The whole idea that it would use use an artifact that had only been seen once, very briefly, with no measurement or understanding of its true capabilities, to evolve itself into a being powerful enough to overcome the control it was submitting to as part of its plan... I know elder brains are scary smart, but this seems a ludicrous proposition.
Consider: what part of its plan could it not have achieved simply by tadpoling Gortash and anyone else to begin with?
Now it could be that what the brain says is canonically true and this is just weaker writing, but until I see confirmation I think the brain was trying to demoralize the party into thinking they'd always been dancing to the brain's tune the whole time and everything they had done had been in service to its plot the whole time, when the truth is it has been (very capably) trying to regain the upper hand since Ketheric's death.