Is having Karlach *Spoilers*

[snowyonetwo]

Turn into a mindflayer actually a good choice? I mean, on the surface, yea. You're sacrificing a person who would have died anyways (outside of a few very specific endings) in order to defeat the absolute while also freeing Orpheus. I won't act like the Gith getting actual freedom somehow isn't worth the soul of my favorite hug-bug; especially since it means she'll actually get to 'live'. But then I thought about it.

We know from the post-credit sequence that a mind flayer not only doesn't have a soul but the soul of the body that was their host is actively destroyed when a Mind Flayer is born. This comes from Jergal himself; probably the single greatest authority on the nature *of* souls and the afterlife in the setting. Especially when, at least canonically, no one is around. So effectively he's talking to himself and has no reason to lie unless he's fourth-wall aware (and even then there's no reason for him to lie that I can think of). Of the mind flayers we meet, while one is actually *free*, the other is a massive liar and manipulator who clearly is inclined towards both manipulation and the creation of more mindflayers and, while opposed to the Absolute, is not truly on our side either. As such his reflections on his life as Baldur is questionable as he may simply be accessing Baldur's memories in order to manipulate us into believing he is reminiscing about his prior life in the hopes of pushing us along ('you won't lose yourself and who you are. Look. I clearly still remember and loved Rascal and such. Just one more tadpole... You won't lose yourself. Look at all the power and good I could do... Maybe try that Astral Tadpole?').

In the ending where Karlach is turned into a flayer we see her following a similar-ish path to what the Emperor did. Feasting on people's brains and such... but framed in a 'humane' way. Let's give the mindflayer the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not lying, is actually free, and is at least deluding itself entirely into believing it *is* Karlach if not actually following her mind patterns entirely. This raises the question.

Is the mindflayer Karlach or, by having K make the sacrifice, are we stripping away any chance she had at her soul finding peace and, instead, destroying it entirely?

As grim as it sounds, the more and more I think about it, the more and more it feels like the latter is the case. Maybe the Mindflayer will become a new Omeluum; a legit free mindflayer and arguable force for at least sanity if not good. But this mindflayer is *not* Karlach even if it calls itself by that name. Big K is gone. Her soul got torn to shreds when she made the sacrifice. The Gith may be free because of it and Baldur's Gate saved from the Absolute, but it's a future without Build-a-bear's favorite customer in it.

I hope I'm wrong. Is there something I'm missing? What are your thoughts?

[Isengrym]

I've been wondering about this, too, since finishing my first playthrough not long ago. It's presented as a happy ending, and I definitely *want* to see it that way, but it leaves us with uneasy questions. Elsewhere it's stated multiple times that ceremorphosis destroys the host's soul. I tried telling Orpheus I needed to think about the decision, and as soon as my Tav stepped away from him, Gale (whom I was romancing) interjected that it would be better for him to detonate himself than for my Tav to sacrifice his soul. I reloaded and picked a different dialogue option, and let Karlach transform. In her case the soul destruction just isn't mentioned. I'd love to believe she somehow has a "special circumstance," and keeps her soul, but we're given no clear indication if that's the case. I saw someone hypothesize (I think on reddit) that her engine was somehow housing her soul in a way that prevented it from being consumed, but the game doesn't really tell us that.

Another thing I've wondered: Is the Wall of the Faithless still operational? I tried to google this and got ambiguous information. It used to be that the soul of anyone in the Forgotten Realms who hadn't committed to a patron deity would spend eternity in the Wall of the Faithless around the City of Judgment. Karlach seems to believe in the gods generally, but I never heard her mention an affinity for any one deity. (Not that I could blame her, after ten years in Avernus, during which no god did anything to help her.) *If* she's knowingly choosing a longer life, followed by oblivion, over a bleak eternity in the Wall of the Faithless, I would understand and respect that decision. But again, the game doesn't tell us that (unless I missed some dialogue). And maybe the Wall of the Faithless isn't meant to be a factor here.

Another speculation: Was it ceremorphosis itself that caused the Emperor to stop being the person who was Balduran? Maybe having spent a while under the Elder Brain's control warped his personality, rather than the simple state of being a Mindflayer? I've also wondered if diet could play a role in this. The Emperor says he ate the brains of criminals (though if he's talking about pickpockets I'd hardly call that justice). If they were really bad people, did inheriting their memories and personalities gradually reshape his own, making him less and less Balduran, and more and more evil and self-serving? Karlach seems different in the epilogue, but still benevolent. Has she stayed that way because she's assimilating the memories and personalities of regular, generally decent people? I think I could accept a narrative in which Karlach becomes a sort of kind gestalt with the original Karlach personality dominant. Is she the same person she was if this is the case? Well no, but she's not NOT Karlach either. And she chose this transformation freely, in a life where she had had appallingly few choices.

Omeluum kind of throws a wrench in the above hypothesis, though. They say they eat the brains of bad people or creatures, too (I forget the wording of their statement). By my own logic, that should push Omeluum toward evil, but they strike me as neutral and leaning towards good, if not actually good. By Omeluum's account, their natural arcane talent always gave them some resistance to the Elder Brain, so maybe, just maybe, this also shelters their personality from other influences? Or maybe I'm just clutching at straws.

Oh, and another thought re: the loss of the soul. I'm not entirely convinced that the loss of the soul has to automatically make a person in the Forgotten Realms not themself anymore. The protagonists of both Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer have their souls forcibly removed during the stories of those games. They suffer some nasty side effects, but they're still themselves (unless the player chooses to have their character embrace/succumb to said side effects). In both cases, the PC's soul still exists but is not near their body, which *could* be a relevant distinction if ceremorphosis truly annihilates the host's soul. I just don't know.

It's certainly something to mull over, but I do wish Larian would clarify whether Karlach somehow keeps her soul, or truly doesn't mind the loss of it.

Sorry for the wall of text!

[Draknalor]

I believe that when you become a mindflayer, ”You” die and the Mindflayer just absorbs your memories and start thinking it is you, So it continues to act like you.

But the actual person and their soul is gone.

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Draknalor:

I believe that when you become a mindflayer, ”You” die and the Mindflayer just absorbs your memories and start thinking it is you, So it continues to act like you.

But the actual person and their soul is gone.

Correct.

[EldritchBlast]

I realized that it's a bad ending when i heard her in the epilogue. She sounds like bloody dr manhattan. Karlach going back to avernus but with homies this time is the only good ending.

[SecretDragonSludge (Drugs)]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Originally posted by Draknalor:

I believe that when you become a mindflayer, ”You” die and the Mindflayer just absorbs your memories and start thinking it is you, So it continues to act like you.

But the actual person and their soul is gone.

Correct.

And yet the game does not end of Tav becomes a Mindflayer. So no, that is not what happens. The game is presented as the POV of Tav or your origin. The narrator continues to refer to you as you. Their soul is destroyed but their consciousness remains.

Gale also gets it reversed in one of his endings.

[snowyonetwo]

Originally posted by The Sludge is Life:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Correct.

And yet the game does not end of Tav becomes a Mindflayer. So no, that is not what happens. The game is presented as the POV of Tav or your origin. The narrator continues to refer to you as you. Their soul is destroyed but their consciousness remains.

IMO, that doesn't prove much. The PoV character has shifted, but the story continues on. At the end of it your character is still *dead* and their soul is destroyed, but the final battle still happens.

Of course, having Jergal at your side does change things. Since, as a deity, it may be within his power to exploit a loophole to keep your soul from being destroyed. That may be what's going on with big K as well...

Or it could be just a game mechanic because it would be right irritating for the player character to make the ultimate sacrifice and then have your run end the next time they die.

[DontMisunderstand]

Enslavement to a different master is not freedom. Orpheus and Vlaakith both must fall for the gith to be truly free.

[DontMisunderstand]

Originally posted by Draknalor:

I believe that when you become a mindflayer, ”You” die and the Mindflayer just absorbs your memories and start thinking it is you, So it continues to act like you.

But the actual person and their soul is gone.

What you're describing is effectively the opposite of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment; if we've replaced no parts, does it remain the same?

If it thinks like you, acts like you, has the same experiences as you, is it still you?

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by The Sludge is Life:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Correct.

And yet the game does not end of Tav becomes a Mindflayer. So no, that is not what happens. The game is presented as the POV of Tav or your origin. The narrator continues to refer to you as you. Their soul is destroyed but their consciousness remains.

Gale also gets it reversed in one of his endings.

No.

[GrandMajora]

Turning Karlach into a mindflayer is the only way to stop her from spontaneously combusting, without sending her back to Hell where she belongs.

If it's any consolation, mindflayers don't have souls. Which means you can take comfort in knowing that once she turns, Karlach will never have to worry about becoming a slave in the Blood War again.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

Enslavement to a different master is not freedom. Orpheus and Vlaakith both must fall for the gith to be truly free.

You don't know what you're talking about.

It was Gith's ability to disrupt Hivemind communication which allowed her people to even rebel against the Illithid empire to begin with.

Since Gith is nowhere to be found, Orpheus is now the only known Githyanki who has inherited this ability. Without him, the Githyanki will be powerless to stop the Illithid from enslaving them once again.

Vlaakith is desperate to reclaim the prism, because she's tricking her followers into thinking she wields Orpheus' power as her own. If they found out that she did not have the ability to protect them, and was actually willing to kill Orpheus just to keep that secret from getting out, they would rip her apart.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Isengrym:

snip

Balduran died the moment he became a mind flayer. The creature who took his place absorbed residual memories of his personality, but without the capacity to feel emotions or genuine empathy, these memories became diluted over time.

'The Emperor' remembered Balduran's life, but he has no sentimental attachments to it.

Orpheus knows that this same fate will eventually befall him if he continues to live on as a mind flayer, which is why he begs you to kill him at the end of the game, while his memories are still fresh enough for him to value the person he used to be.

-------------------

Karlach does not keep her soul. Withers explicitly states that Mind Flayers do not possess souls more than once throughout the game, and seeing as he was formerly the God of Death before The Dead Three took over, I think he would be the expert on the subject.

Just listen to her conversation at the end party. Karlach's voice is effectively void of any real emotion. Even referring to you as "soldier" seems like she's trying to force it into the dialogue, rather than using it as a genuine nickname.

[SecretDragonSludge (Drugs)]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Originally posted by The Sludge is Life:

And yet the game does not end of Tav becomes a Mindflayer. So no, that is not what happens. The game is presented as the POV of Tav or your origin. The narrator continues to refer to you as you. Their soul is destroyed but their consciousness remains.

Gale also gets it reversed in one of his endings.

No.

You don't have to like it but Gale will get ceramorphosis reversed if he's a minsflayer and returns the crown to Mystra.

[SlicerDicer]

so when a person is copied and both versions are viable does the "soul" copy too? does the copy have no soul? did the original soul split?

essentially an mind flayer personality is a copy of the individual it infected. Meaning the original is dead. Do mind flayer have souls? If so where did it come from?

I went and looked online and the games definition of a soul is loose at best. I could not find an official statement. conclusion: for story purposes you have souls and spirits be anything you want.

[seeker1]

Spoilers?

I don't think becoming a mindflayer is a desirable outcome for Tav. Tav can kill himself if he becomes one, but if not, already in the epilogue he's fighting the hunger for brains. As for Karlach, yeah, she's definitely changing too, and she's not sure if it's for the better. As for Orpheus, he knows what this means, which is why he asks to die.

But yeah, there is no super happy ending no matter what you do. Gale blowing himself up avoids all these other scenarios ... but of course kills himself. Siding with the Emperor, once you know what he really is and has been up to, IMHO avoids anybody else becoming a mindflayer ... but it's a really nasty choice, too. Because it's basically forcing Lae'Zel and Voss to step up to the plate in the battle against Vlaakith, without Orpheus' powers and leadership.....

Karlach really has no happy ending, though a prospect of hope is offered in the Epilogue is she goes to Avernus, as the game at least suggests she MIGHT be able to find a permanent fix for her Infernal Engine in one of Zariel's forges.