The Prisoner
I've been thinking about who the Prisoner from the Path of Exile 2 - Act 4's Solitary Confinement area might be and came up with a few interesting ideas.
The first thing to consider is the most direct information we have.
The Prisoner's Manacles
>Only once did Maligaro wonder if he'd gone too far.
His greatest success took three entire legions to capture.
I'd love your input on this, because I'm far from certain, but I personally think this places Maligaro's experimentation on the Prisoner after Chitus became the Emperor and Izaro was imprisoned.
My reasoning is that Maligaro was Malachai's apprentice.
Neither Malachai or Maligaro would have been the type of person Izaro would employ in his later years considering his return to Azmerian roots and their penchant for thaumaturgy.
Also, Maligaro's Chamber of Sins was made after Chitus became the Emperor.
Would Maligaro's greatest success really come before the Chamber of Sins?
That makes me wonder if the Prisoner was truly imprisoned by Izaro or if that was just one more lie from Chitus.
>By the order of Emperor Izaro, my honoured predecessor, None may enter this chamber. The prisoner within is beyond death, beyond force of arms. He must be left to rot for all time.
- Emperor Chitus Perandus
The way Chitus speaks of Izaro in this environmental lore is particularly suspicious considering his true feelings about Izaro and his legacy.
Though the Prisoner curses Izaro for betraying him, it's possible that it's not directly tied to his imprisonment and his current physical form.
I think the following points are very likely:
- Izaro and the Prisoner had some interaction that left the Prisoner feeling betrayed prior to Chitus becoming the Emperor
- The Prisoner was experimented on by Maligaro after Izaro was sealed in the Lord's Labyrinth and Chitus became the Emperor
- The Prisoner was imprisoned after being captured by Chitus' legions following Maligaro's experiment
- Chitus lied about Izaro requesting the imprisonment in order to hide the true story behind the Prisoner and make sure nobody enters his cell
- The Prisoner wasn't imprisoned by Izaro
This leads me to question the link between the Prisoner, Izaro and Chitus.
The only thing that I can personally think of when it comes to Izaro betraying someone is related to the Labyrinth and the title of Emperor.
Izaro in his later years was one track minded, all he cared about was finding the perfect heir.
What if the Prisoner cleared the Labyrinth before anyone else but wasn't given the promised title?
That would explain Izaro's betrayal.
It would also explain the following line:
>Not even Izaro's best could kill me...
Though it'd be easy to interpret "Izaro's best" as simply being his pawns/soldiers, one could also interpret Izaro's best as being the Lord's Labyrinth itself.
His penultimate achievement and the tool to his singular goal, finding the perfect heir for the throne through the revival of ancient Azmerian traditions.
When the Prisoner mentions that not even Izaro's best could kill him, he might be saying that the Labyrinth's traps, monsters and Izaro himself (as someone you must fight to ascend the Labyrinth) couldn't stop him.
This would explain why Chitus didn't want anyone to enter the Prisoner's cell, what he'd gain from imprisoning him and why he'd use Izaro's name (and lie about his "honoured predecessor") in order to dissuade anyone from interacting with the Prisoner.
After all, who gains the most by having the rightful Emperor imprisoned and isolated but Chitus himself.
Though it could be a character we haven't heard of yet, I'm thinking it could also be Weylin, the Son of Ezomyr.
The Labyrinth Poems put a lot of emphasis on Weylin being the rightful heir by calling him a Warrior and Chitus merely being a guide.
This is a dynamic we see in the Trial of Sekhemas where Balbala mentions how aspiring Sekhemas are led through the Trial by a Djinn. In fact, the Trial can't begin without a Djinn Barya (Djinn Coin) which contains the bound soul of a Djinn.
Obviously, there are issues with this:
- Weylin is supposedly dead or left for dead in the Labyrinth
- It is Chitus that betrayed Weylin, not Izaro
I don't think Weylin's death is a particularly major obstacle, since experimenting on the dead is far from a foreign concept in Path of Exile.
In fact, Static Electricity might imply Maligaro made such experiments.
And considering virtue gems are known to absorb souls, what stops them from giving them back?
The Baleful Gem and Maligaro's Spike combo could have been initially used for such purpose.
For example, it would be fitting that spiking the heart with a "virtue gem" could be used to revive someone, corrupting them in the process and potentially making them pseudo-immortal or just very hard to kill...
This means Weylin could have been brought back to life by Maligaro's experiment and his body changed in the process. Unable to terminate him, Chitus had to imprison him to make sure he couldn't speak of his betrayal and weaken his claim to the throne.
Chitus' wording is also very interesting.
>The prisoner within is beyond death
Those words would be particularly fitting for someone who was dead, brought back to life and then became seemingly unkillable.
Now when it comes to the Prisoner mentioning Izaro as a traitor.
It would likely make more sense to be mad at Chitus, but in the end, it is Izaro that gave Chitus the title, even though it was Weylin that beat the Labyrinth.
This is more than a good enough reason to consider Izaro a traitor, but also a good way for GGG to obfuscate the Prisoner's identity and keep things mysterious, because had he called Chitus a traitor, it would have likely made his identity way more obvious and the whole plotline less interesting overall.
Anyway, this is where I'm at.
I'm far from convinced about the Weylin bit since there's a lot of speculation involved but I think that the Prisoner being the rightful Emperor makes a lot of sense when it comes to Izaro's betrayal and Chitus incentive to keep him imprisoned and isolated (the area literally being called solitary confinement) and play along with Izaro's legacy and name.
I'm curious what other ideas y'all might have when it comes to his identity.
This was a bit of random thought that just crossed my mind this morning so I haven't researched it nearly as much as I usually do so if you have any supporting or contradicting lore/evidence I'd love if you could share it 👀