Spoiler - Free Orpheus or not?

[General Malaise]

I've read about this, and everything I've read says freeing him means you turn into a Mindflayer.

I don't want that to happen. Can't say I'm too keen on The Emperor now I've had to kill Ansur, so I'd rather free Orpheus.

I've also watched a video on Youtube, and they had Orpheus, and also got freed of the tadpole, so now I don't know what to think.

Freeing him or not, is that last thing to do before final battle.

[haasi]

nothing really matters in the end, you have like 3 different short cutscenes for endings and then game over, so literally just do whatever you want

[General Malaise]

Well I've spent months doing it, I don't want to become a mindflayer after all that time. I want that horrible thing out!

:)

[Draknalor]

You can have orpheus become the mind flayer or just trust the emperor

[haasi]

you can free orpheus and not become a mindflayer the "choices" don't really matter at all. just like you can slaughter the entire druid grove and in the end still be the good guy.

I assume you also haven't consumed the tadpoles? also another thing one would assume has meaning, it doesn't, you can literally fill your brain with those maggots and it has no consequences, expect by not doing it you're just less powerful

[Kernest]

If you free Orpheus, you can become the mindflayer instead, or you can have Karlach become the mindflayer.

[Vukmir]

You can convince Orpheus to become a mindflayer.

[Quacksalber]

There are arguments pro and contra here - just do whatever you want to do.

The game imo tries to portray freeing Orpheus as the better choice, but I spent some time reading about the lore on reddit, and people were saying he's going to continue what his mother did, which is trying to dominate the realms. And the Gith clearly think they are the master race, which is off-putting. On another note, I hate how we can never confront Voss about how he tried to kill us before coming and begging for us to help him.

Personally, I like the emperor and although I feel bad about it, I won't free Orpheus unless I'm doing a Laezel centered run or playing Gith, but even then people say it's better for Gith to be free.

Arguments against the emperor tend to be both Ansur and that if you rule with him, he ends up turning on you. I find neither compelling since Ansur wanted to kill him, and what someone does if you pick a different option is pretty irrelevant in my opinion. OTOH it's also irrelevant what someone may or may not do after the events of the game, so the arguments against picking Orpheus are also moot.

Yeah so anyway, I think what you choose to do right at the end is more relevant on the good / evil scale, and there only seems to be one option that isn't ultimately bad for everyone.