One of the plot threads that really interests me is what happened between the Outsider and Daud and it's something I like to speculate about.

Apparenttly, many years ago, Daud was Corvo, he must have drawn the Outsider's attention somehow; he was a guy who felt good about being able to "change things" (and "being important"), it was probably something that made the Outsider gift him.

Forward 10 years or more, the Outsider doesn't talk to Daud anymore ("it's been a long time, but you've got my attention again") and when he finally does, he sounds somehow disappointed and... irritated (?). He grants his powers to the guy he knows will pursue Daud for what he did. He orchestrates this.

What happened? Did Daud just go bad, arrogant and drunk on his new powers? Or was the Whaler gang his idea of "changing things"? Did the Ousider just get bored and left, which caused Daud to become disillusioned about this "greater purpose" that he imagined he had?

Really interesting. I feel like we're only scratching the surface of Daud. Thoughts?

The Outsider is a kind of a...puppet master. He knows which string to pull and what to manipulate in order to get the best show possible.
I've mentioned it before, but the Outsider is NOT as simple as good or evil.... he's subtle, but most of all, he's interested in manipulating
certain things without directly exerting an effect, and then leaning back and observing what happens. The show itself is what his primary
motivation is.

Although I cannot say why he became disinterested in Daud as his "primary", it might be simply that he lost interest. or that Daud became too
predictable. When Daud kills the Empress, even he says that he knew, right then, that THIS particular act would have very different circumstances
than all the other political and otherwise assassinations he'd committed before. That this time, he would be dealing with major consequences. The
Outsider, sensing that, and sensing that this could have potential for new amusemant to be had, re-focuses again on Daud.

Yeah, agreed on the interpretation of the Outsider, I guess it's pretty clear that his agenda is just to stir things up and enjoy the show.

But... the way he talks to Daud doesn't seem to be consistent with this. When he talks of the consequences... You'd think that if his reasoning is to have fun, he'd be like "oooo, that was a nice one, Daud, pretty chaos everywhere". But he looks like he's unhappy about it, like it's something Daud wasn't supposed to do. Or am I reading too much into it? Then he gives him a chance to redeem himself - why would he care?


Yeah, one interpretation of Daud I had was a toy that lost its shine and fell out of favour.

I got the same feeling. We're not redeeming Daud by being good, but we are redeeming Daud in the eyes of the Outsider.

It seems the Outsider didn't want the Empress dead, and he is sending Daud the errand-boy after

Or perhaps he's giving Daud the last chance for redemption in the form of this errand.

Didn't The Outsider, Emily, and Jessamine all have some sort of connection? (I don't think he's Emily's father, if that's what some people are going to go for; especially considering the running theory is that the Outsider is a magic whale out in the ocean)
Didn't the Brigmore Witches plan to possess Emily or something and take over the Empire? So, perhaps, after Daud killed the Empress, which may or may not have upset the Outsider, he sets Daud out to handle the Brigmore Witches while his new little pet, Corvo, saves the Empire and little Emily?

In other words, the Outsider sets Daud out on a journey to save Emily, and helps Corvo on HIS journey to save Emily.

I could be seeing lines that don't exist, though.

The whole Outsider story is intriguing...

"Why Granny Rags?" was one of my earliest thoughts in the original game. She certainly has enough runes at her disposal, and of course the plot deepens to where she was (apparently) to be wed to the Outsider. An illusion of her madness, or was this real? She is more woven into the story than first becomes apparent - her connection to the Torturer at Dunwall Tower, her past home (and ex-husband?) near Lady Boyle's mansion, her long-running war with the Bottle-Street gang and her intermittent appearances in the lives of people in the Legal District with the exchange of runes. Her connection is actually never all that far away from most rune locations and I wonder WHY...

From the Outsider's mouth, we now know there are 8 bearing his mark: Daud, Corvo and Granny Rags are the obvious ones, but Sokolov hints at the 'special powers' of Jessamine and Emily too. Then there are the Brigmore Witches, one of which definitely used Outsider-like powers of possession and blinking. People don't choose the Outsider as far as we know (though many seek his powers). The Outsider singles out people who interest him and I'm very much of the impression that Daud has ceased to interest the Outsider at all.

Indeed, with Daud, it was very different to Corvo. The Outsider was intrigued by what Corvo might or might not do, but with Daud, he implies that Duad's life (or at least his 'story') is about to end very soon (that shortening rope). There was no real impression of Daud being given a chance to redeem himself, just which way would he ultimately meet his end. This creates an interesting problem in that Daud can survive the encounter with Corvo, or alternatively he can be killed. So all the DLC story can imply is that Daud WILL reach an ending in the near future, whether at Corvo's hands or some other fate that we will possibly never know about. I don't recall seeing Daud in the Dishonored end-story (any of them).