If you are playing a non lethal play through, you will notice that after you wake up from the royal physician mission that Emily has drawn a picture of you. In the picture it says "Daddy". Does this mean that Emily is the Empress and Corvo's child?

no it's just her symbolizing you as a father figure also before you're arrested she asks if you would marry her or was it her mom not sure

If you choose, you could see it as Emily looking upon Corvo as a father figure.

I think all signs point to Emily being his daughter. The body language/ words the empress uses towards him are pretty intimate, she never married which seems significant to me, and Emily even looks like him.


That's in the prologue, she says "Corvo, if you won't marry my mother will you marry me?" Little girls talk about marrying their fathers- there's nothing Elektra about it. Also the way I figure it, they didn't tell Emily that he was her father so she wouldn't blurt it out at an official function or something, and they've all gotten good at pretending he's just the Lord Protector. But kids are smart and deep down Emily knows the truth.

I heard a theory that Emily was conceived during the Fugue Feast, and so isn't officially recognized as his daughter.

Heard a story in the game?

I think the most likely reason here is that she is simply viewed as a father figure, since he spent so much time with both her and the Empress.

What? No, that is the Electra complex. And if the parents don't turn the kid down, it will affect their psyche.
Which btw, Emily should have outgrown that (I think she is 8?)

Emily thinks of Corvo as a father figure. I don't think he's really her father. It is possibe.

Freud and his ilk are hokerrs. There's nothing dysfunctional about it. I idolized my father and my first flame looked a lot like him, down to the same kind of crooked half-smile. He was a disaster in every other way so I did learn my lesson...

Anyway as I said, I don't think they ever told her outright that he was her father.

I could be remembering incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure the low chaos ending tells you straight that she is his daughter. And there's enough gossip about it from various characters (Havelock, Pendleton etc.) for me to believe so anyway.

And yes, Celan, I agree. Should never trust a cocaine advocate with your psychology. He did have some decent ideas for his time, but too many insane ones to go with them.

In his final log, Havelock wonders if Emily "is really [Corvo's] daughter", implying that indeed it's a very high suspicion in the Empire, or at least in the high spheres, that Emily could be Corvo's Daughter... I didn't do the High Chaos ending, but it seems that in his final moments, Pendleton tells Corvo "everyone knows he was the Empress's lover", or something like that. Also the very first time you meet Havelock and Pendleton, if you stay back and wait for them to finish their conversation, the first thing they say is something like "Is it true, for him and the Empress?" which is quickly dismissed as not being the matter at hand.

It's never, absolutely never confirmed, but the simple fact they ( the scenarists ) put a lot of clues to try and play with our minds inclines me to think that she IS corvo's daughter. I suspect that if they hadn't add logs and discussions and stuff, we probably never would have bother. A kind of Inception...

Yeah I'm sure they left it deliberately ambiguous so that players could decide for themselves. He's her father in every way that matters anyway. Right down to the Tyvian chokehold lessons. Coolest dad ever.

In my high chaos playthrough, when I encountered Pendleton in the last mission he also said something like "it's no secret you were f**king the Empress."

I think he's her biological father, especially after listening to the recording in the secret room of Dunwall Tower, and the way he interacts with Emily.

The act itself most children will perform. But if the parents play along, it will end terribly for that child.

Well, obviously.

If the game is understood as a story, then yes, Emily is Corvo's "secret" daughter.

I think you can decide for yourself, both what Korvo's relationship with Jasmine was and if he's Emily's father. Either way, he helped raise her, he watches out for her, and he will die protecting her. He is utterly devoted to her, and that's all we need to know.

It makes a certain amount of sense, though... a high-chaos playthrough indicates that Korvo has a brutal and ruthless nature, which Emily's apparently inherited a share of.