How do you escape? - spoiler alert
ilduderino
Member Posts: 773
Spoilers for the first few chapters below
I have generally assumed that Irenicus let’s you go at the start of BG2 as he is vastly more powerful than you, as are his minions at the elf tree, and the shadow thieves and could crush and recapture you anytime he wants. He wants to study you and ultimately leads you to Spellhold where he intends to enact his plan for you.
I am less convinced by the idea that you are able to genuinely escape, as Yoshimo and Bodhi’s actions make little sense (and many other things).
I recall reading other opinions on here along the lines that you are genuinely able to escape and the acts of the cowled wizards and the shadow thieves lead to the big bad changing his plan.
What do you think? I will have to do a replay in case this is spelled out somewhere - I rarely get to Spellhold before restarting these days!
I have generally assumed that Irenicus let’s you go at the start of BG2 as he is vastly more powerful than you, as are his minions at the elf tree, and the shadow thieves and could crush and recapture you anytime he wants. He wants to study you and ultimately leads you to Spellhold where he intends to enact his plan for you.
I am less convinced by the idea that you are able to genuinely escape, as Yoshimo and Bodhi’s actions make little sense (and many other things).
I recall reading other opinions on here along the lines that you are genuinely able to escape and the acts of the cowled wizards and the shadow thieves lead to the big bad changing his plan.
What do you think? I will have to do a replay in case this is spelled out somewhere - I rarely get to Spellhold before restarting these days!
Post edited by ilduderino on
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Comments
BUT: how did Imoen escape - and where did he imprison her? Serious question, as I don't see a cell on that level where she might have been.
Initially he also fights off the Cowled Wizards and really doesn't seem to want to let Charname go:
He only relents when the Cowled Wizards threaten him with sheer numbers. It really sounds like he just can't be bothered to fight so many of them more than any kind of fear lol.
In my head, his plan works better by letting you out. He has assigned Yoshimo to watch you and he and Bodhi are instructed to get you to Spellhold. Yoshimo tries to get you to side with Bodhi when the shadow thieves’ offer throws a potential spanner in the works. Likewise the gate warden on Spellhold is instructed to let Yoshimo in, with the plan that you are poisoned at that time.
What I would say is that Irenicus sees himself as powerful/clever enough to pull off his plan from any location under any circumstances. As such any bumps in the road like the Cowled Wizards and the Shadow Thieves are simply minor annoyances that through skillful manipulation can be used to benefit the plan, such as the Shadow Thief invasion providing cover for placing a spy in CHARNAME's camp and the Cowled Wizard incident providing transportation to the difficult-to-access location of Spellhold.
A tougher question to answer is whether Irenicus actually orchestrated what the Shadow Thieves and Cowled Wizards did, rather than simply taking advantage of the opportunities they provided. If you take Irenicus at his word, then comments like "I won't let you leave" or "they act sooner than anticipated" suggest he was genuinely surprised by the way the first part of the game unfolded. However it might also be that he was simply saying what he needed to say to "sell" the narrative that he was losing control of events when in fact he was cementing it.
bodhi is finding for him the "fuel", people that have to be sacrificed to power the magic process, in town.
no need at all to move to spellhood to perform there the ritual, it adds only problems, the communications with bodhi and yoshimo slow and problematic, the task to overcome the asylum CW and set up there a new laboratory, as probably specific equipment is needed for that very special ritual, the risk to loose you, when he allready has you.
what is the point to go to spellhood adding so much complications when he has in his dungeon a room with almost the same setup of the ritual one of the asylum, he is based in town and his intention was clearly to perform the ritual there. and the base is his main one, his home, as the room past the diriads testify.
his plan was to leave it, but after the ritual as at that point he would have been able to contact the drows and attack the elf town, but the ST was fast enough to track down his connection with the rival thieves guild and attack him, and imoen managed to escape in the confusion of the attack, find the key of your cage and sneak to reach you.
then he set the yoshimo trap putting him under a geas (or maybe the geas already existed, as far as we know is even possible that was yoshimo to capture you before the beginning of soa) and tried to escape.
but imoen was so stupid that she attacked him with a MM, so the CW come and he took the opportunity to have imoen with himself as a bait to catch you again and a new base for free. and he had no control at all on her being so silly to attack a so powerful mage in that moment, her int stat seem set to 3 for the cutscene duration.
the imoen's abduction and the take of spellhood are surely needed for plot purposes, as it is the most important happening of the main plot, but is completely not needed for his own purposes, if not to reach the sealed underground trough the asylum portal. portal that he probably discovered only after being imprisoned in the asylum, and there are any way other ways to enter the underdark, we have more then 1 clue about it (the imprisoned mage, the adventurers in the flyers lair, illithium being mined and traded with the surface, the communication with other drow cities).
imo there are sides of the plot that have little rp sense, imoen casting that spell, him living in town and don't having a magic license, and that are there only to force the plot, but nothig really suggests that his going to spellhood was planned before.
Also, why would he bother catching you and letting you escape just to plant Yoshimo with you when he could have just watched you himself before you even knew who he was? I feel like Yoshimo was more a back up plan in case you got out and knew you were on the run.
Agreed with gorgonzola that it makes no sense why he didn't buy a magic license though. I'm gonna go ahead and put that one down to arrogance. Either way, I always just felt like he didn't particularly care if you escaped or not, or if he had to move his plans or not. Just a minor inconvenience.
Besides, what if Charname got killed after escaping, which is a concrete possibility? All the unnecessarily complex plan would fall apart.
Irenicus didn't set up the whole thing. He exploited the situation with a clever and risky plan B (maybe conceived partially or totally at the moment) after the cowled wizards teleported in because:
1) his home was not secret anymore and further assaults would have been a serious annoyance, better get a new secret base of operations, distant from the shadow thieves;
2) it is true that the cowled wizards were far superior in number, ultimately he would have been overrun on the promenade or even stalked inside his now exposed chateau while retreating for resting, better catch them off guard from the inside of their stronghold, where they are overconfident to be untouchable;
3) luckily for him, he got the occasion to bring Imoen with her as a captive, a good asset for the first half of his goal to work on, but also an assurance that Charname would pursue him, right into a trap.
It worked. He only overlooked for Bodhi having a mind of her own, perhaps because he himself became arrogant and overconfident too after getting what he wanted. He only cared for his final goal, without bothering to personally kill Charname, whom he considered to be powerless anyway.
For years I've wondered why they didn't just stick her in one of the other cages in the starting area (yes, multiplayer characters and all that, but still). And maybe show that she escapes because her cage gets wrecked by the magic that kills the shadow thief or something like that.
I think it's also for having the player suddenly see a door open... and who is that character coming? Oh, it's Imoen! Just to add a bit of suspance. Besides, maybe portraying a cage getting wrecked was too difficult with the Infinity Engine, even Minsc bending the bars is simply represented by the door opening which is very abstract.
Imoen's cell was perhaps in the west room, where there are deactivated golems. However, she doesn't make any reference at all when you enter there. But I don't see other rooms that could work.
Anyway, her path has some minor oversights:
- Imoen comes from the room with the minor clay golem, yet she acts surprised when you meet him;
- From there you can only pass through one hallway, the door on the other side is permalocked until you activate the golem (possibly a plothole, unless she was hiding in the room and Irenicus magically sealed everything after she escaped);
- In the hallway there is one mephit. When you unlock the door, you still meet the otyugh in its lair. Even if she managed to avoid both and survive while coming for the rescue, she makes no mention of the obvious danger.
As for Irenicus, I think he did not want the charname to escape yet, but he was not ready to take his soul either. The soul needed to be cultivated and strengthened, readied to be sucked away for his purpose, through pain and mass killings, ie:Irenicus's tortures and experiments. He does the same to Imoen in Spellhold to ready her for Bodhi. He tortures her and slays lots of shadow thieves to strengthen and coax her soul. He even says in the cutscene 'you are nearly ready for her, Imoen. She will be pleased.' This explains to me that it requires a time, and some painful things, and many deaths to make the soul ready to be harvested.
Charname goes on an epic quest to save Imoen, and during his adventures he suffers many injuries, does many battles, slays countless foes. All strenghtens his Bhaal essence and soul, making him a better candidate for Irenicus's purposes. The more powerful and focused ones soul, the better for Irenicus. He also procures a base of operations ideal for the real soul sucking thingie, Spellhold, so it is two birds with one stone. It all goes according to his plan at the end. Ofcourse there is a risk that charname can die in his quest before reaching Irenicus, but Irenicus does not believe in no reload play apparently.
Ofcourse this backfires a bit. Charname indeed becomes powerful, but the taint also grows powerful, a bit too powerful, and charname can turn into Slayer when his/her soul, his/her anchor to humanity is gone. I believe Irenicus did not foresee that, and Bodhi is shocked too when encountered in Asylum maze.
This also explains why there is no time limit to regain charname's soul after Irenicus takes it. Without a soul a normal person is supposed to get weak, crumble and die. Irenicus had his life extended with secret spells and experiments, Bodhi turned herself into a vampire to avoid that certain death without soul.
But Bhaal taint was there to fill in for the charname, and thus he/she does not get weaker and perish. If nothing the charname continues to become more and more powerful, his/her connection to Bhaal essence grows even stronger. The taint grows so strong that charname gains subconcious control of a small piece of Bhaal's plane, in the end of SoA Hell Trials, and if weak willed can turn evil completely, the feared corruption the taint can bring taking place finally. (Doing the Hell tests evil way turns charname permanently to evil)
So it's basically Alien: Isolation with Imoenda Ripley.
You said it, Irenicus tortures Imoen on his own. It's easier, safer, faster and more effective to do that with the captive in hands. Irenicus was doing the same to Charname too before the shadow thieves interrupted his experiments. It has no sense for Irenicus to voluntarily let Charname go free and set up in advance a complicated path in the hope that he will come back to him, ready for the harvest. It was all a detach from his original plans, which he managed to put back together. But nonetheless Irenicus would have simply continued his experiments and stolen Charname's soul in his Chateau, if the shadow thieves didn't discover his secret base.
So he went for the next best thing, feigning surrender and then taking on the relatively distant and safe from prying eyes Asylum Spellhold, which is also already a powerfully magical place with ample torture and experiment devices for his pleasure. Perfect place to continue his experiments. And by forcing charname try to reach him, the soul strengthening part will also be almost complete-charname will be strong and ripe enough for soul-plucking. After that, just a few ritual deaths (Rapture of the Father) and done. Win/win for Irenicus.