Baldur's Gate 3: Do Mind Flayers Have Souls?
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
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A perennial question that has popped up more than once in the game of Baldur's Gate 3, which seems to be answered in the game, suggests that the soul of the host to an illithid is destroyed after becoming a mind flayer, but is this true in an absolute sense?
Always a treat watching Withers absolutely roast the hell out of the Dead Three.
TRUE!
He brought them to be. If anyone has that right, he does.
Yeah man screw the dead 3
as long as Bhaal's blood pumps through my veins, there will always be a GOD OF MURDER(HOBOS)
In the early editions of D&D, the morality of the monsters was pretty black-and-white. It was a simpler fantasy game that had more of a fairy-tale quality to its storytelling. If you ran into a pack of Orcs, there was no questioning whether or not they were evil.
I distinctly remember that the canon definition of ceremorphosis involved the consumption of the soul. Beyond making them alien and scary, this was the rationale for an important game mechanic: After turning into a mind flayer, none of the spells or other magics available to a mid-level party could help you.
This was a DM's tool to strike fear into the hearts of players who were reaching that middle level range where they had little to fear from mundane dangers, most other people, and when PC death was shown to be reliably impermanent. It's a PC developmental stage in which some players could get jaded, and some would start acting too recklessly and stop engaging in the RP.
You introduce Mind Flayers in this stage and suddenly you have a threat that could mean tearing up your 8th level Paladin's character sheet. (Mind you, it probably took the player more than a year IRL to get that character there. Actual gasping could be heard when this possibility was understood around the table.)
The appetite for going beyond fairy-tale storytelling by introducing moral ambiguity, more complex characters, and grittier realism, was gradually increased over time. I think this tracked with dramatic filmmaking, but an argument can be made for the emotional age of the average player trending upward.
With this trend, you start to see interesting characters and villains who are, in some way, antithetical to their race or class or background. Drizz't the (mostly) good hero Drow is an example. By 3rd edition, lots of us edgelords wanted to play a drow, but that was still subject to DM approval, and if they approved they'd make sure you suffered for it. Characters like Drizz't were the exception that proved the rule. His stories made it possible to more viscerally express the depths of evil and depravity in the Drow culture that he escaped from.
These days you can just play a drow. Good drow are so numerous that they had to retcon in an entire culture for them, with supporting deities and histories. I like that change, but it was the product of a lot of D&D community evolution over time.
So, the existence of exceptional mind flayers, even if they miraculously retained their souls, does not at all disprove the rule for the population in general. This is a rule I hope they preserve because leveraging the Mind Flayer's ability to threaten loss of a mid-tier character forever has been a great way to reinvigorate a campaign, and it can pull some jaded players back into the role playing.
Besides, characters like The Emperor won't be interesting anymore if that kind of humanizing becomes normal.
I like half elves who are half drow, opens up more origin possibilities of how they ended up living with other races, and motivations for being morally different.
The increase in "moral ambiguity" in DnD and similar seems to track more directly with political correctness. Certain people tend to view the idea of all orcs being evil as a mirror to the idea that all blacks are criminals. Those people have very little separation of fantasy and reality.
You are absolutely correct that there have always been people who want to play an evil race against type, but that's really no explanation for getting rid of the "always chaotic evil" trait in general. No sane DM is going to let their players play as "good" illithids, save maybe as the result of a long campaign like in BG3's own ending. Certain races have always been off limits anyway and if you really want to break the rules you can always come up with some fluff reason involving magic or something to allow for an exception anyway.
Further evidence that Mindflayers possess souls is the existence of Illithiliches, which are Illithid liches. Becoming a lich requires a soul, after all a wizard becomes a lich by storing his soul in philactery.
Exactly
Only mindflayers that can use arcane magic can do this though so it might be that having a soul is what let's these mindflayers cast magic
Which most mindflayers hate more than most things
@@ryan1000011 If I recall correctly, mind flayers despise arcane magic primarily because individuals who wield it are difficult to control. For instance, it's more challenging to enthrall a wizard than a barbarian. Additionally, mind flayers with the ability to use arcane magic can use it to elude the control of elder brains, as Omeluum did. I also believe that having a soul isn't a prerequisite for casting arcane magic; after all, intelligent fiends can learn spells without any apparent restriction. It is, however, absolutely necessary to become a lich.
@@deinemutter3112 most fiends are just corrupted souls given flesh, as most we're at some point mortals
And I don't think having a soul is needed for arcane magic generally but that may haps it's a side effect of mindflayers with souls, just a thought 🤷
@@ryan1000011Interesting thought. If mind flayers aren't born with souls but can forge artificial ones through arcane magic, this would address the inconsistency regarding their supposed lack of souls. Yet, this still poses the unanswered question: why does the Emperor retain his original soul?
My theory here is that it's actually not in the interest of the Dead Three to turn any of their tadpole victims into actual mindflayers. They want to use them as tools for worship and control, that's why the Chosen of Bane is so desperate to make a deal with you to regain control of the elder brain.
Agreed. That was my take as soon as I spoke to Gortash. It felt like it was being portrayed as hubris that they assumed they would not lose most of the souls.
Also should be noted that it doesn't really matter to the Dead Three if followers of other gods are converted to the Absolute and transform into mindflayers. The Dead Three don't lose anything but other gods get weaker.
Pretty sure The Dead Three's end goal was forcing worship via mind control without ceremorphosis of their victims; turning everyone into a "true soul", hence the name, since they kept their souls while being implanted with tadpoles.
Surely, that's it
Bhaal wanted everyone to die so it wouldn't matter to him if they even had souls.
I always thought when a tadpole takes a body the memories can remain and those memories can influence the future mindflayer, in BG3 I think in an early conversation with Gale or Volo they say that the host memories go to the elder brain.
I also want to point out that you have several gods through the adventure directly involved in your adventure because they see the threat of the elder brain along with a few devils.
Wither's voice acting is sooo good
That's HIS MAJESTY to you peasant
Nightsong is better but for different reasons.
More illithid videos, please. In fact, more DnD/BG3 lore videos in general would be awesome.
Mind Flayers may or may not have souls, but the soul is very likely a new construct rather than the original's soul.
Exactly what it is.
@@tobak952 the mind flayer you "become" is just the Illithid parasite having completely consumed your brain and assimilated your personality.
The Adversary sounds like a good idea for an Alternate Start Origin mod for BG3, you still start on the Nautaliod but you start receiving memories of your past life us fully evolved Mind Flayer. You get choice what memories you have like your favourite story, what city you're from, your class, your fighting style etc in addition to the character creation. Relations with other companions will be difficult to work around on however.
Depends what you see as a soul....Memories, personality? Or ability for empathy for every living being. Personally I see soul as empathy, ability to feel and understand the other living being and not do them harm unless in self defense, for survival, doing good for the sake of others not themselves(no wanting reward). Many say vampires do not have soul, but they do remember everything, they just do not have guilt or empathy (in some lore, like Buffyverse.)
We need definition of DnD world , that they see as soul.
as a guy that played a Bard that lost his soul to the Deck of Many things, I just played him as an Emo Bard
I wondered if, as mind flayers are beings from the far realm, the process of ceremorphosis transforms the soul in addition to the body into a form the conventional gods can no longer recognize or perhaps even perceive. It just struck me as odd that Withers used the word "vanish" when describing what happens to the soul. I realize it's unlikely to be actual canon, but still was a fun thought.
I'd imagine that Mental Energy is a kind of dissolved soul stuff that's merely structured differently.
I imagine any illithid can remember their past life, it's just not important to them. They're beings of intellect, and I don't even think that personality leaves with your soul. What leaves are your morals, a sense of right & wrong.
Illithids are intelligent enough however to make decisions based on logic, serve their self interest and whatever keeps them safe or furthers their goals. The Emperor did this, and I feel like so do Omeluum.
Omeluum is a very good example, because Omeluum isn't special- he is just an illithid who decided it would be more logical not to serve and elder brain and instead further his own goals in Baldur's Gate. He does nothing out of sympathy, only via the chemistry of communication- say what will make things go smoother, will get you what you want, and what will make people favor and trust you. That's how a "good" Illithid can exist, not because they're genuinely good but because it's smarter to be mostly law abiding, sociable & friendly.
2:00 this is why I cannot believe the Emporer's story. In my opion, Balduran was so famous, it would be easy for a very smart Illithid with a lot of time on their hands to craft that personality to trick false allies to manipulate them. If you choose Orpheus, he flees to fight with the Elder Brain. Why would Balduran do that? Extreme narcisism? He's working for the Grand Design, and tricked all of you.
I always preferred Jergal depicted as an undead locust-like thing, since he was a god older than Netheril itself. The idea of a human lich is cool and all, but imagine the skeleton of a spider... or an ant. Nothing would change, except for a giant emptiness within... The same emptiness that Jiergal felt when the dead three came knocking.
It is Larian's interpretation.
@@spellandshield it is. And all the respect to them.
@@bavettesAstartesi prefer jergal as humanoid because I have the option to call him ugly lol
I think they preferred to do it this way to keep Wither's true identity as a secret, both for the meta reason of keeping the twist for the end, and for the lore reason that Jergal does not want to reveal himself and avoids doing so at every opportunity, even shutting down conversations. Jergal is still a deity in that world and showing up with a form that resembles his own would be a bit too on the nose.
Except the Netheril box set from AD&D notes his bug form is specific only to Netheril (likely because of their contact with the spellweavers and their association of the weavers with Jergal, weavers themselves still being a relevant plot point now even if their design changed from the AD&D Annual Monster Compendium (page 105) where a undead version fits Jergals description 1:1 to the more smoothbrain smoothskin form now shown in the most recent Phandelver shattered obelisk adventure).
He is a death god and can take form of any undead, like the rest.
Damn, that is some cool lore, would like to have more of these types of videos.
And yet... You are not supposed to be able to use Speak with Dead on soulless creatures... and you can on at least one ilithid in the game...
Speak with dead doesn't return soul to the body. You talk to whatever remains from the mind of the body with this spell.
as far as i remember my readings, upon cousuming a brain the mindflayer collects memory and knowledge from the eaten creature.
as the illithid is born from the larva consuming the brain matter from the host they might as well inherit the memory and knowledge of the host as well. that might explain the emperor's rememberance of his/its ? past life.
But that's just theory and pretty much sums up the genius of the writing of the realms lore, we don't know everything for sure and theorize to give birth to new ideas and concepts
Excellent video that summed up my thoughts perfectly. The Emperor is another example of a strong psyche/superego being able to withstand ceremorphosis to a degree.
Withers/Jergal is being a little technical there. He is saying mindflayers lack apostolic souls specifically, the kind of soul that will eventually merge with whatever God plane aaand empower them.
Jergal is not the only god in BG3 that says illithid lose their souls. Mystra does as Well. She says it to u if u play with the gale origin and u (as Gale) become an illithid. She tells u that u have no soul and wouldnt be able to become her chosen, but That she can restore it to u if u decides to acend. So no illithid does not have souls, but the soul can be restored by higher powers. Which might have been what the dead three were counting on? But mystra is a bit of a High tier god, so it is debatable
Again, why can illithids become petitioners?
I'm almost 100% certain that Jergal was sent by Ao because of what he says when you open the tomb. "So He has spoken, and so thou standest before me. Right as always." Who if not Ao would Jergal refer to as "He" with a capital H in the subtitles? I imagine since it's Jergal's "fault" the Dead 3 were even in a position to try this Ao sent him to be the one to deal with it.
Could be Ao. My first assumption was Kelemvor, whom Jergal should be serving now, I think. He is an "arbiter" of the final destination of souls.
@@jtirri8842 Almost certainly Kekemvor; this is far too low tier for Ao to get involved.
Kelemvor was my favorite FR deity for the longest time
@@jtirri8842 Kelemvor is the only other option, I only lean towards Ao because I do not believe Jergal would refer to Kelemvor as He with a capital H. Again it's in the script written that way and shown that way in the subtitles otherwise I'd have defaulted to assuming Kelemvor. It'd kind of be like God referring to Jesus as He with a capital H.
Chubblot** (I spelled his name wrong, of course) made a comment recently on reddit that said in datamined content, Helm is referenced as the one who sent Jergal, cuz Helm figures Jergal fucked everything up by letting them become Gods, so he better clean up after them.
The laziest way to answer the question would be to assume that the illithid tadpole has a soul. Ergo, while the process of becoming a mind flayer may kill the host, it still technically has a soul.
It's worth noting that, when the Emperor's past is revealed, the process by which he became a mind flayer is described as if it happened gradually. That might mean that the tadpole was effectively along for the ride with Balduran, enough that, when he finally did take over and Balduran's soul was released, the tadpole now had a (for lack of a better word) identity crisis.
There was an episode of The Golden Girls once where Rose was almost the victim of a con, but the conman had a crisis of conscience and backed out. When Dorothy frets over the fact that they're now letting Rose live a lie, her mother says that, if no harm was done and it gives her comfort, let her have that.
That's more or less my take on mind flayers like the Emperor. Maybe Balduran's soul overrode that of the tadpole, or maybe Balduran's soul went into the beyond and it's now the tadpole's soul with Balduran's brain. But it also hardly matters since the result is the same.
I dont think Jergal (Withers) meant to insults Katheric, Orin and Gortash. He was mocking directly HIS ''chosens'' Bhaal Bane and Myrkul because they have been played by mere mortals in a pretty god damn impressive way. They would have became some kind of weird artificials deities that somehow imitate the power of the summ of the threes (and more) without ever directly feeding the dead threes if it wasent for Tav (and Indirectly Jergal) messing up the plan in a way or another.
The chosen still are benefiting their gods. The gods can get power in multiple ways besides when their followers die and souls pass on to realm they control. Bhaal gets power from slaughter its why he wants you to take control of illithids and slaughter the world. The gods in general though do like when people die and go to their planes which as stated in video the illithids do not want to be part of that cycle which why the gods hate them.
Just analyzing the diffrent kinds of undead you will notice that those with their soul/memories intakt are the more powerfull and inteligent.
For example a zomby or skeleton is just a mere animated corpse without a soul whatsoever. A Ghost or a Revenant have to some degree memories of a specific tragic event.
While the vampire and the lich have all their memories.
This makes me think about the raven queen who collects memories/souls to further her power.
I think memories are a part of a soul.
Further parts might be former believes and alignment.
Vampire spawn seem to have no memories either until they drink the blood of their vampire lord and become a lord themself while also regaining memories of former life. Is the soul/memories inside your blood?
Its safe to say the host soul disappears. The new being in its place might have a soul but prehaps it is bound to the Far Realm or too alien for a traditional god to claim.
I wanted to add to your comment on the Adversary, because he did appear in a 2e adventure, Dawn of the Overmind. Strom Wakeman was a sage specialist who studied the illithid extensively, and was considered an expert in this field. His research led him to discover a mixture of herbs he called Laethen, which gave subjects a 40% chance to mentally survive ceremorphosis. Basically if successfully, the resulting mind flayer would retain their original alignment and would regain their old memories within a few weeks. However, the resulting illithid wouldn't be able to eat brains without killing the original personality.
Soulless or not, turning into a brain eating squid is not a life worth living lol
The soul is the will. We meet 2 different illithid with apparent will.
Honestly, if you keep up with quality content like this, you might become Luetin09 for Dungeons and Dragons lore. Keep it up man, success will come if you keep grinding.
Thank you!
I always viewed it that illithids do have souls, but on a fundamentally differnet construction. As beings from distant planes, their souls could be utterly alien to the gods of our plane. And when one undergoes ceremorphosis, their own soul is "transmuted" into this new pattern alongside the body. Naturally, something as radical as changing the format of a soul would damage it, resulting in both memory loss and potentially the destruction of the soul itself.
Ironically, it would mean that the Emperor and other mind flayers who remember are actually ones who *successfully* became illithid, while the vast majority of the race are actually flawed.
Now that we got the extra content for the endings, is sorta confirmed that the player retaining their soul after transformation is cannon and an oddity. Withers confirms once more that Mindflayers shouldn't have souls and we are an exception, so likely the Emperor is also an exception.
the problem is mind/brain (source and target of psionics) is distinct from soul, and the separation is not clear in the lore.
I threat the mind flayers not having souls as a mistake of larian and justify it by them using there powers as dm to change it for this story.
In the forgotten realms mind flayers do have souls and even gods.
And having your brain eaten just means your dead.
But larian while good at making games.
Coudnt write a good story to save there life.
So any lore inconsistiance i see as ignorance or dm changing the lore to suit the story.
great video, i'll stay here for more =)
Thank you!
The emperor is an anomaly. A mutation that other Illithids, once aware of his existence, would immediately destroy them due to him having his own consciousness and will outside of their mother brain.
Well, a simple assumption which can be made is that:
1. Withers lied to prevent us from even a possibility to join the Absolute, in a sence of "ooo, you will lose your soul!"
2. Mindflayer souls, because they are extra-dimensional beings, is not something Withers percieves as a "usual" soul in his sense as a god of death.
But I admit, the theory that midflayers, even advanced as Emperor, are just a complex algorithm which is based off the host is quite interesting. They are an "NPC" in a sense.
I like that dead three plan was literally made by insane dude.
Maybe I heard/read/understood it wrong, but Withers to me just confirms a newly formed mind flayer destroys host's body and soul... I didn't catch where he says they are soulless themselves.
Dritz do Urdin encounters a mind player who is a Lich which requires a soul to become.....
The dead three are not gods in D&D 5E. They are demi-gods at best. Considering Larian claimed to be sticking to canon, I call BS. And for as long as D&D has existed, mind flayers haven't had souls, and were not to be trusted.
Quasi-deities to be precise.
@@spellandshield Yeah, which means they are below demi-god level. Again, impossible to take Larian seriously on the canon thing.
@@Lonewanderer30weren't there also mindflayers that worshipped mortal gods and did go to their respective planes as petitioners
@@gerardoalvarado8425 I've never heard of such a thing, but that doesn't mean in some obscure WOTC canon it didn't happen, only to be retconned again.
Mindflayer’s do canonically have souls, as they can become petitioners. They simply have a different view on the afterlife and deities as they can innately planeshift, where with most normal petitioners, they can’t just travel to what is an afterlife (the outer planes). This comes straight from the Mindflayer wiki page, not verbatim of course.
Short answer: No. You can have your 13 mins back
I can see withers dialogues having 3 parts. First part would be when he ask us id mindlayers have souls and he says no in 5e they do have gods. Second part is when we turn into one at the end he says appearances are decieving the one inside is still there. Taking this first 2 parts and illithids fear of individualism means that illithid souls are probably the rarest. Because the act of worship and worship in DnD is an individualistic thing.
Now for the third parts the ending monolog is correct nobody would get the souls of the mortals felled the people would worship the absolute not the dead 3 also the people that are simply killed would go to their perspective so the whole squeme for power of the dead 3 is plain stupid.
Jergal our favorite Skelebro for the win
Mind flayers with souls do exist, as there are mind flayer liches and partial liches; it's a rarity though, and process of becoming a lich for mind flayer is even more complex than that of a normal lich.
Suffice to say that the stronger the "ego" of a being that undergoes ceremorphosis the more likely it will end up with a soul; hence why it's quite reasonable to think that a hero like Balduran would keep his soul (personality/ego) even as Illithid.
What's interesting as well is how Illithid with arcane powers are often able to keep, or maybe even develop a new ego/personality/soul.
After all, Mystra is able to remake Gale's soul after he undergoes ceremorphosis...
Siema!
The lich bit I could have mentioned too; Mystra is the most powerful deity in the Realms; soul restoration would be pretty simple for her.
I just finished BG3, anyways I have a few points where I disagree with the video.
1. Memory =/= Soul. This is D&D canon because we already know from Speak with Dead that a soul is not required for memory to be present. I think it's more reasonable to interpret memory as a form of thought (a function of the brain), which makes it perfectly reasonable for a soulless illithid to retain memories of its previous life.
2. I think the Emperor is a red herring for the Adversary. It's clear that the Emperor has all the memories of his past life, but from several bits of dialogue we know that his personality has become illithid, and he has an illithid-level ambition and thirst for power. Depending on the dialogue tree, you can even find out that most (if not all) of his relatability and human-ness is an act for the sake of emotional manipulation. Furthermore, he wasn't even the one to free himself after his ceremorphosis. He was fully integrated and had to be rescued. The true Adversary should retain not only the memories of the host, but also the personality: not just the mind, but also the soul.
3. Building on 2, we know for sure that the Emperor did not have a soul because you can become illithid yourself, kill the Emperor, and then kill yourself to see a special cutscene where Withers tells you he's surprised to find out that you (an illithid) have a soul despite his belief that illithids do not have souls. Of course, any mention of the Emperor is notably absent from that scene even though he died before you did. I think the implication here is that in this timeline, YOU become the Adversary, and the Emperor is exposed for the soulless illithid imposter that he is.
4. I don't really know how to reconcile the ideas of illithid religions (or illithid liches that other people pointed out). However, I think there's a possibility you could smooth out the petitioner plot hole by saying that there's some planar shenanigans at work, since illithids do not originate from the material plane in the first place.
edit* I forgot Omeluum exists, doesn't really change anything about what I said, since we don't know anything about how his personality may or may not have changed before and after ceremorphosis. It's just interesting that there is an actually good-aligned mind flayer who is presumably not the Adversary.
A part of my own personal head canon is that the Emperor is an untrustworthy character. Everything he tells you could be a lie. You can't actually prove anything he tells you is real. Even when you get the reveal from the dragon that he is Baldurian. Could that still be a deception ? And it's possible he may be doop'ing you the entire game.
Though I will praise Larian for making him a somewhat charismatic person .but still something about him is slimy...(heh... get it... sl...slimy..? nvm)
He really is ambiguous. He is not a good guy but also not terrible? Kind of badish...
I'm unsure what to make of this because the narrator says a line that directly states that your Tav character still has a soul if you chose to have your character turn. Withers says they don't have souls, but I'm really unsure. Also in one of Gale's endings Mystra says she can restore Gale's soul and former body. I don't think it destroys the soul, something else unknown happens to it. I had Karlach turn and Karlach still seemed like Karlach although a little less exuberant in dialogue. A Mind Flayer shouldn't be exact copies of who they were before they turned. I also don't understand why the Dead 3 would go this route if the hosts have their souls vanish. Withers also says something I found odd that made me think it could be possible a new type of god could come into existence that would get power from Illithid souls, and that's why Withers is invested in stopping the Dead 3.
I dont think the tadpole can destroy souls but it does kill the person. I think what happens is that the soul goes to whatever afterlife they’re destined for.
Assuming the transformation destroys the soul, it doesn't matter to the Dead Three if the followers of other gods lose faithful. They remain at the same strength while other gods get weaker. I don't believe there are any known followers of any of these gods that got tadpoled apart from one in the game. And he is a special case.
Yes because otherwise it would not be possible to talk with them by using talk with dead magic
more reason i think Dark Urge & costomized character seems more canon then without them.
What is a soul, really. Does one need a soul to be a living, thinking being? Possibly not. Perhaps mind flayers don't have souls like mortals do, but they still can have personalities when freed from the direct influence of elder brains.
I always assumed that ceremorphosis kills the host thus the soul leaves the body. The tadpole then uses the material of the body to reconstruct it into a mind flayer and the tadpole/mind flayer has it's own soul or illithid equivalent bound to the elder brains, but with the memories of the host. Its why they remember the host's past, but the host is dead and the soul is in the afterlife . Since the body is unrecoverable / altered, the host can not be revived. So if my MC would have become a mind flayer, he would have died and gotten replaced by the tadpole with his stolen memories. Its why during my play-through even on tactician I never accepted the illithid powers and any entity trying to get the MC to accept these was to be treated as a mere means towards the MC's ends. The only reason to temporarily side with the Emperor is to stay alive long enough to find a cure.
As you said yourself personality is bound to the soul, but that does not necessarily mean memories, they can be bound to the mind. Where a soul copies the memories of the mind, an Illithid may as well just copy the memories stored in the mind (the same way they consume your psyche when they consume your brain).
Meaning the Illithid may have all the memories of Balduran, and thanks to the Dragon some semblance of his former self, but otherwise just be a new being, a sort of copy created from the body it inhabits. Nothing speaks against this, and is not just lore Acurate but also would confirm what was said in BG3
i think that it is not consistent.
I think STRONG souls can retain parts of themselves. The stronger the soul, the more they retain.
it's an interesting question. i don't know enough about the lore to really say, but I'd say Withers meant that their plan was flawed because none of the followers of the Absolute were following Bane, Bhaal or Merkyll
I can't say how it's supposed to work, but there's lots of precedents in Forgotten Realms for gods pretending to be other gods that they have captured or killed, granting their spells to mortals, and receiving the worship mojo under false pretenses.
According to Mordenkimen's tomb of foes the two Ilithid gods are not gods, but philosophies and states of minds that the Ilithids have a similar relationship to as gods, that they homage through meditation that looks like prayer to people who are more familiar with gold lead cultures than unknowable aberrations
This is contradicted by tons of other sources. WOTR retcons things all the time. I will stick with the longer history and more frequent statements concerning them.
They must have different souls. They turn to liches and the whole dead three situation.
Alhoons aren't really the same thing as normal liches they don't have phylacteries and can still eat things if they want to
Im new to DND(BG3 the start). I was curious in how souls work in the serting. i assumed mind flayers were separate soullessbeings that could absorb some of their former hosts memories. is the soul utterly destroyedin the process, or is the soul sent to the afterlife while the "body" remains? Also, can a deity steal or only seal away and have the key of a persons soul inscribed memories, which could be unlocked by other means(divine or somehting like noblestalk in game?
The other gods probably wouldn't care too much if the Dead Three played with the mortals like all the gods do. But exterminating mortal souls thus reducing the essence of all gods is like fighting the other gods, thus the gods feel the right to step in and stop them.
I’m down to watch a video about Illithid religion from you 😁
Did this man call Jergal a demi-god?
Yes. He has been since the the fall of Netheril; he ceded his power to the Dead Three as you probably know. Before that he was a greater god.
@@spellandshield power given is different than power taken
It's very possible he could just take back his divine domains
If they really ever stopped being his in the first place
Guess that'd be for AO to decide 🤷
So BG3 lore isnt canon? Or whats the situation 🤔
It's pretty obvious at this point that it isn't canon, despite claims to the contrary before release. The dead three aren't gods, and Jaheria is long dead in canon, taken out by Abazigal. Although I heard Sarevok resurrected her years later, only for Larian to throw him under the bus in BG3.
Mind flayers having memories from their hosts doesn’t in any way suggest having a soul. The Illithid tadpole literally feasts on their hosts’ brains, including their thoughts and memories. It’s like giving a small creature all the memories of someone else’s past life, but doing so DIRECTLY from the brain. I’m not saying the subject isn’t debatable, but the argument being presented does NOT in any way constitute evidence of Mind Flayers having souls. Nor does the argument of them having religion of worshipping Elder Brains, or godlike beings, or gods themselves.
It could just be like in the movie Avatar (James Cameron). Memories of a living being merging with another via connecting to nerve endings, other science fiction stuff, etc.
Again, they can literally become petitioners in the afterlife. Those are souls.
@@spellandshield While that is the fairest of points and without a doubt, does convince me that Mind Flayers DO have souls, it unfortunately opens up an entirely different/more serious issue... that being related to the purpose of your initial framing of the argument. In the beginning of the video, you stated that Withers said/implied that Mind Flayers DON'T have souls", which is factually incorrect, as he instead said "Souls vanish when their hosts become Mind Flayers" which opens up an entirely different argument about the context of his meaning.
Instead of mistakenly miscontexualizing (not a real word, I know...) the Baldur's Gate 3 lore as unequivocally stating that Mind Flayers don't have souls, you SHOULD have instead posed your audience the question "Is Withers ACTUALLY saying that mind flayers don't have souls?? If so, then here's why that wouldn't make any sense." After which, you could have presented your evidence (of which you obviously have plenty of), and would have put forth a perfectly framed thesis, the likes of which wouldn't generate any misunderstandings (I'm pointing the finger at myself for also having misunderstood).
However, you didn't do that this time. But fret not at my words (harsh and pretentious as they may be), for it happens to the even best from time to time. I've watched enough of your videos to know you're in the upper echelons of the IQ spectrum, so I know you meant no foul. You'll ace it next time, of that I have no doubts.
@@mistahanansi2264 He does say it. In Moon Rise if you ask him directly, he responds that they do in fact not have souls. One such reply is "They're souless monsters, so of course not." to which he replies "Correct." There is tons of dialogue in this game and thus everyone's experiences are going to be different, but there was definitely more than implication. There are direct lines of dialogue that has Withers claiming that Mindflayers don't in fact have souls.
@@LupineShadowOmega As with any introduction of new evidence, a new (or rather old) issue arises. Because this inclines me to RE-believe that Mind Flayers don’t have souls, since all the evidence suggesting they do (at least the stuff presented in this video) is ONLY found in D&D 3.5 books and as we all know, a lot of lore/rules CAN be (and HAS been) changed since then. But now I must ask, given all the changes that come with new additions, new writers, etc; Why should I consider certain rules from editions past to be unequivocal proof that current D&D editors have “gotten stuff wrong?” Is there any evidence from the current (5th Edition) D&D lore that state Mind Flayers undeniably have souls? Because now I’m less convinced they do if all evidence that was presented were rules from 2003, literally 20 years ago, and given how much was canonized and uncanonized, I just don’t see why I should outright REFUSE to accept what seems to be just one of many lore changes that have happened with the introduction of later editions.
Sorry to burst your bubble but illithids do not have souls. Cyberpunk has a similar dilemma with soulkiller and i believe there lies the answer. Spoiler alert if you haven't played the game, but soulkiller 1.0 kills the host organism and creates a neural engram(an AI) of the subject that retains MOST of its memories, behaviors, emotions etc. The author of the program who fell victim to it had her copy consumed by a Rogue AI who usurped its likeness, but the information regarding it remains the same. The protagonist can ask her about soulkiller and what it will do to them to which she will reply that she will kill the soul, make a neural engram of it, and then insert it back into your body. All the surrounding contextual information confirms that despite being so close to the original nobody would be able to tell the difference, it's not the original consciousness, it's a new and seperate being that has the previously mentioned traits that the former hosts peers associate with them.
The Illithid parasite in this case is the soulkiller, it KILLS the original mind and possibly retains your "isms" for lack of a better word to describe the many aspects that make a person unique. Even if the parasite behaved like you, looked, spoke, loved, lost, felt like and ultimately thought it was you? It wouldn't be, it's honestly kind of horrifying.
An interesting analogy. Thanks for the comment.
@@spellandshield darker still when you realize the "soul" in the case of BG3 Is "lost" when you become Illithid as stated by Withers(aka Jergal, scribe of the dead, quite literally the most qualified to speak on the subject as he carries every soul to the afterlife with it's worshipped deity.) so when you die to ceremorphosis its a fully confirmed GG game over, no afterlife for your original soul.
@@clarencewalters338 Mystra can restore the soul but she is a greater goddess.
What does he mean souls vanish when hosts become mindflayers? Does that mean they are destroyed or move on to the Fugue Plane? I seen a few DND lore videos that contradict withers's statement directly from some older DnD handbooks.
He also might be lying. You can't trust the gods to always be honest, especially when they have a vested interest in the choice they've giving the mortal at hand.
there are mind flayer petitioners, but these could be from Ilsensine worshippers from other races, for sure illithid souls are built differently (or altered by the Far Realm)
what about Omellum from BG3? Why wouldnt he have a soul? he is a fully independent intelligent being... :)
It would be fun if souls of all non worshipping illithids went in secrecy automatically to Ahriman to deepest part of Nessus :)
how tf dose speak with dead work on mind flayers if no soul? also lich mind flayers are a thing so ya know wtf is in that falactery?!?!?!?!?
Withers says no. All I need to hear.
Ever since Withers told me they had no souls, I never trusted a single word from the Emperor, it doesn't help that he keeps trying to get me to "eat ze bugs"
If an ex-god, currently demi-god, says so... I would not argue with him. But hmm...
What are the implications of them not having souls, from dnd perspective?
It makes no sense from dnd perspective because they're creatures that can be liches
I believe this used to be more about the threat to the player (which was timely at the levels you would start to encounter mind flayers.) Because his/her soul was destroyed, only very high level magic (not conveniently available to the party) could restore a character who went through ceremorphosis. It was a permadeath at a point in the game when some players would start taking their character's mortality for granted. ("Hold my beer, here's the gold for the Raise or Resurrection.")
Theoretically, if they have no souls then there is no afterlife for them. They are wholly annihilated after death.
@@lucasgeorno6705 Except an Alhoon isn't a normal lich.
The short answer is yes, but not the one they had before. The long answer is this video.
I think Mindflayers do have souls, but since they're not native to this realm the gods can't really interact with them, so to Withers Mindflayers are effectively soulless.
I believe that Mindflayers do have souls, just not the soul most think.
The host is killed/consumed and their memories are absorbed. The Mindflayer's soul is that of the tadpole. All lifeforms contain souls thus the fully grown tadpole aka the Mindflayer has a soul.
Like the video sates the personality and memories of the host can override the Mindflayer's own, but the soul of the mindflayer is not the original host's soul, that soul is gone.
if emperor has his previous soul, then why does he do what he does when we defy him?
Nope, they are the true gingers of the dnd multiverse, only less disgusting than the gingers in our reality
I lean more to the side that mindflayers doesn't have souls.
My reasoning goes like this:
Mortal beings in DnD usually have 3 basic parts: body, mind and soul. Body is a physical representation. Mind is logic, knowledge and memories. Soul is emotions.
The point is: there is a one specific spell which lets you communicate with mind of dead being. Speak with dead. Description states that you don't return a soul for temporary talk. You talk to the remains of the mind. These remains have their memories and knowledge, but they can't give you advice about whatever you gonna face in the future... Because the lack of soul.
So, Illithids. They are beings who sometimes also have partial memories of past selves. Just like the dead. It's mostly cuz the power of Illithids lies in their mind. What I'm saying is it's possible for them to have memories and lack a soul - it's not mutually exclusive.