Headcanon question. Do mindflayers really have souls or not?

[magickmynd]

If you have gotten far enough into the game you get information from Withers that mindflayers do not have souls, and so the plot of the dead three to become the cult of the absolute shouldn't have any purpose, since their powers are fueled by souls.

And yet throughout the game it feels like the interactions with the emperor and omeleum the friendly mind flayer would suggest that they do have their own minds and personalities outside of elder brain influence.

So the question becomes, is withers just telling you that they don't have souls in order to try and persuade you not to become one or not to trust them, or is he actually saying straight up as having knowledge of the afterlife that they really don't have souls?

And can a creature without a soul have the personality and make the moral decisions that the rogue mindflayers in the game seem to be making?

For example, at the ending the emperor straight up told me to use the stones to destroy the elder brain, not to control it. Whereas before I could have sworn that his intention was to dominate it and then control it and become the REAL mind flayer emperor.

But that's not what happened.

If he was really so soulless and only wanted power for himself, would he have made that decision at the end?

I had also thought that maybe he was asking the mc to give him the stones and let him go against the elder brain as his final bid for the crown and power, but he easily hands them over to you and makes you an illithid if you want to take that route, he doesn't try to convince you after you make the choice or try to force you.

And then at the end of the game if you are an illithid, even though the elder brain is gone, the game tries to tell you that your sense of self and persoanlity are starting to disappear due to your hunger, but yet there are known rogue illithids who have their own sense of self without any special tadpoles, so it seems like writers error to have definite proof that mind flayers can be individuals without a colony and yet somehow you have to struggle to maintain yourself?

I'm calling bs.

My headcanon is that my illithid mc has a soul and has full control of their own mind and made the decisions they did because they were necessary.

Elder brain, dead. Dead 3 chosen, all slain.

The crown being searched for by gale to return to mystra.

All characters alive except karlach, who I think gets the worst ending no matter what you choose, which kind of makes me mad because she is, imo, the best romanceable character and there is a happy ending for pretty much everyone except her.

So to me, best and easiest path through the game is lean into the illithid powers and become a rogue mindflayer. Sure, you've got to deal with the hunger for brains, but can always eat criminals and murderers like the emperor did.

[Starmanexe]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Black Magic:

No. They absolutely do not. If you're mislead by The Emperor, you can resist him and eventually he reveals he's using you - you're his puppet. He's the one responsible for placing the Tadpole in your head (quite literally his look is unique only to him and only one Mind Flayer wears his outfit throughout the game). If you find his journals in Baldur's Gate it reveals he literally cannot feel emotions, which is tied to the fact Illithids have no souls and is implicative of the function that the soul is tied to a person's "humanity" in D&D.

Mind Flayers can imitate who they were in a past life but as far as the "Soul" is concerned, which in D&D is a tangible resource that can be altered (see: Soul Coins), that person is dead. Gone. No coming back.

The Tadpole literally consumes the person's soul and body in order to evolve. The Emperor is merely imitating Balduran based on residual memories that the Tadpole consumed. He's pretty evil, as far as Mind Flayers go.

Numerous sources cite that it's very likely that all Mind Flayers - whether rebellious or not - all work toward the Grand Design. No matter how benign their pursuits may be; this includes Omeluum, operating toward the Grand Design in his very own way of seeming like a benign entity.

The Githyanki, despite how evil they are, are very much right when it comes to not trusting Mind Flayers.

Withers - who is actually Jergal - confirms that Mind Flayers do not have souls. Illithids simply don't, and I'd take the word of a retired God on it (and arguably the most ancient of entities besides Ao, the Over God).

The REASON that the Dead Three are using the Absolute Cult is to starve the other Gods of Souls—Souls happen to empower (along with worship) the pantheon of Gods in Faerun.

By eliminating souls, it ensures that the only Gods who benefit from the mass death, murder, and tyranny, are the Dead Three. Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal.

Yet it is Withers himself who, after the credits, points out the Dead Three actually had no idea Mind Flayers had no souls. He calls them out on their foolishness, saying they were creating an army that would grant them no power in the end.

This suggests the whole evil plan of BG3 was not concocted by the Dead Three, but by the Netherbrain itself, as it very loudly states in the final confrontation: its own capture and enslavement was part of its plan, and it just let the Dead Three believe it was their idea.

[Mike Garrison]

No one has souls. There is no "ghost in the machine".

[Moonbane]

I think Gortash and company had mainly plotted to abuse the perks of halted ceremorphosis to control a lot of creatures at once. But the plot only worked as long they had total control over the netherbrain. Making sure the illithid transformation did not complete.

As soon the player and party began to cut down the chosen, the netherbrain started to regain control and pushing for full ceremorphosis in the infected tadpolees.

It was doomed to failure. They were planning betrayals of each other.

[Mike Garrison]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Moonbane:

It was doomed to failure. They were planning betrayals of each other.

They are evil supervillains. Making plots that are doomed to failure is part of the job description.

[Kaisha]

The debates in reddit make it very clear... no one really has a clue and each writer is interpreting things differently.

Withers himself clearly states 'apostolic souls' so one would assume a distinction between apostolic and non-apostolic souls. Ed (whatever his name) made a tweet also stating that MFrs do have souls, just not ones that are of the planes or universe or whatever, insinuating they are outside the Forgotten Realms so they don't power Forgotten Realm gods, but instead belong and/or exist outside of it.

But... there are a LOT of contradictions in the lore on this account.

[Moonbane]

Perhaps one could see it as Mind Flayers having 'souls', but they are unusable by gods not of the Far Realm. Simply too different or vile a flavor of 'soulpower'.

The Far Realm is after all described as eldritch and horrifically alien.

[Clever Name]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από magickmynd:

All characters alive except karlach, who I think gets the worst ending no matter what you choose, which kind of makes me mad because she is, imo, the best romanceable character and there is a happy ending for pretty much everyone except her.

If anybody already said this, sorry for repeating it, but Karlach doesn't strictly have to die.

If you get Wyll to do a permanent pact and become the 'sword of Avernus' or whatever, you can send him to hell with Karlach. She'll agree to go if he's there too.

I realize this is still bad if you romanced her, but maybe there's an option to have all 3 of you (player character, Wyll, Karlach) go to hell together? I don't know myself.

Point is, there's at least one ending where she doesn't die. Not exactly a happy ending, but there should theoretically be some kind of cure for her condition.

Barring that, get somebody to cast a Clone or Reincarnation spell on her. Boom, problem solved. Of course they don't mention either spell in the game, but they exist in official DnD books.

[Toaster Maximus]

Given they are a hive joined together, the nature of the soul changes and becomes part of a huge whole is how I took it.

Like Gale said you would still be here just forgetful so a win his book

[Raelic]

At the end of Act 2, if you talk to Withers in Moonrise... he says they don't have Apostolic Souls.

IMO they have souls, but not ones useable by the typical pantheon of Gods that Withers interacts with.

[Toaster Maximus]

So are mind flyers the borg or something come to think o i, and yeah know they where around first I think

[Cthulhu]

some mind flyer can have their former souls depends how the ceremophosis was done, but basically they are like Borgs of Star Trek; plus Wither said they have no soul

[Xrystus]

Official canon is no, illithids do NOT have souls. The person's ethereal spirit that is considered a "soul" is destroyed during the process of changing into an illithid.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

If you think about it, the idea that an illithid parasite can destroy a soul completely removes any notion of agency in tje Forgotten Realms.

[Toaster Maximus]

Nothing from the far realms likely has an Apostolic Soul given how alien that place is

[lawjax]

Illithids are computational beings, performing their strange metaphysical calculus when factoring in all aspects corporeal and incorporeal (such as local denizen attitudes and objectives) when fabricating their own identities. The Emperor is the premier exemplar, its every word and presentation sculpted to make firstly a favorable impression upon you, and secondly to deceive or obfuscate its own objectives, goals, and true nature - initially, anyway. Upon reaching the climax of narrative events the jig is effectively rendered "up" and the previously allocated energies dedicated to surface-level deception are done away with, and it is at this juncture that the creature then makes its boldest and most forward suggestions towards you to become an illithid yourself, should you be skeptical or resistant towards its proposal.

The truth of the matter is that there are anomalies, usually of greater magical persuasion prior to ceremorphosis, that enabled a transformed and newly made illithid to retain some semblance or notion of identity - a fragmentation of its mortal self, such as Omeluum and its apparent recollection of its formerly wizardly self that has enabled him to be resistant towards the greater suggestive powers of elder brains, or the Emperor, who was able to break apart from the hive. These are aberrations and by far the least common denominator of what the average illithid may have in terms of its own autonomy. It is a plausible theory that mortal beings of great will or of great magical prowess will have greater retention over their former identities post-ceremorphosis, evidenced even further by Orpheus' change and the magnitude of his disgust with himself overshadowing any signs of illithid instinct to survive and adapt, as he will surely subject himself to the sword even if you deny him your blade. This is also evidenced by the player's own possible transformation, where you may attend yourself with the same severity and commit suicide if you should find your illithid existence to be an intolerable one.

I believe that the question is not a matter of whether or not illithids, as a class of being, have souls - it should be beyond a shadow of a doubt that they possess no such thing when it is told unto you by the deity who long presided over the domain of death, let alone affirmed by another godly being. The better question to ask is if illithids, soulless as they are, would ever be capable of peaceably coexisting with sentient soulful beings, barring extraordinary outliers. It seems contradictory, given how illithids are created, and their inherent nature is one that prioritizes self-preservation and colony expansion at nearly any and every turn; however, controlling an elder brain (or at least the notion of controlling one) does lend credibility to the idea that what would normally be a hive mind under such an entity could be repurposed. Rather than having a superb signal output from such an entity that will shape the collective vessels beneath itself perhaps a lack of output from an elder brain could create some measure of autonomy among the illithids, which could minimally yield the opportunity to see some coalescence with fringe-aspects of society (the whole of society will reliably reject illithids, and this is perhaps the wisest prejudice to employ). But the notion of society having some measure of illithid accessibility, for purposes of general input, chronicling (which the illithid have a great aptitude for), and experimentation could have some measure of value rather than writing the entire species off as being incorrigibly wicked and evil.

Such speculation also does beg the question of whether or not a soul could be fashioned for such an existence - if the soul is destroyed by virtue of existence then perhaps there exists the faintest possibility that, barring pure restoration of the soul, the genuine article may be conceived through alternative and even organic means. Perhaps erasure of pre-ceremorphosis identity is unavoidable, but the formation of a new soul and thus a new identity beyond instinctual reproduction and adherence to the greater signals of elder brains would be an interesting idea to explore, if somewhat blasphemous, as the act of soul creation would doubtlessly tread upon godly providence. Who knows? Perhaps there may be another god to add to the pantheon if there should be one who aspires to the domain of granting a soul to those who've yet lost theirs.