For the love of Elune please leave this thread alone

Lore Story Forum
181

Granted, I’m not the whole way through the Bastion zone yet, but there were a few brief interactions that put everything there in perspective for me at the Temple of Purity. In the quest “The Enemy You Know” there was this interaction:

Lysonia says: And yet I cannot remember my past life. My family!

Eridia says: We must forget in order to ferry souls without judgment. You know this!

Lysonia says: The path is broken, yet you follow it blindly. I will force your eyes open!

Also, in the quest Dangerous Discourse, you get these “sermon” snippets issued by Lysonia:

  1. Lysonia says: My fellow Kyrian! Hear me now: Too long have we struggled under the tyranny of erasure.
  2. Lysonia says: Over and over again we are told that we must give all we are, to serve a greater purpose.
  3. Lysonia says: The Forsworn would have you keep your memories, your attachments!
  4. Lysonia says: We are here to liberate you. To offer another path.
  5. Lysonia says: Join us, and be embraced! Resist, and you will be swept aside.
  6. Lysonia says: A new order has come. We must all decide where we stand.

The real key is this: the Kyrian need to ferry souls without judgment. I think it’s overlooked just how much power comes in that time between retrieving the soul and bringing it to the Arbiter. Just look at the Bastion cinematic, where Uther and Devos were fully able to circumvent the system under their own free will. Imagine having that kind of power, and then being confronted by your family, friends, and enemies while having complete control over where their soul could go if you wanted to do it. Really, the only way you can ferry souls without judgment is to rid yourself of any connection to the mortal world.

On the other hand, look what maintaining attachments has done to the Forsworn: the logical hypocrisy of we will liberate you if you agree, or kill you if you don’t. An inability to purge the mortal threads, while being confronted with such an eternal sacrifice, leads to an ultimate form of bitterness.

Anyway, I think that the purging process really needs to be looked at more from a practical perspective: 1.) souls absolutely need ferried to the Shadowlands, 2.) those that do it have tremendous power, moving freely back and forth between the mortal world and the Shadowlands to deliver the souls, and 3.) the only way that can be done without the abuse of that power is for it to be done 100% without judgment. It really doesn’t have to do with attachments being bad, or being sadistic, or anything like that. It’s the ultimate sacrifice, and the fact that you were sent to Bastion in the first place is because the Arbiter saw a life of service of the highest degree that you might be capable of making and understanding that sacrifice.

Honestly, I really like the unique philosophical undertones that it has put out there. It’s really a true dilemma that can cause a lot of discussion, so kudos to the writers for developing that storyline (intended or not).

Also, on a side note, I got the impression that they save all of the memories of the Kyrian that are being purged. I actually kind of felt a lot of solace in that. They aren’t erasing anything, they are keeping archives of it all, it’s just a sacrifice to hand all of that over and know you personally won’t see it again. However, it isn’t erased.

EDIT: Also, another side note, but purging things from the mortal world doesn’t make it seem like they become emotionless automatons. They seem to form bonds with other Kyrian, so there isn’t an eternity of solitude there. It’s an eternity of service, but it is done with others.

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182

I don’t think the Arbiter sent the souls that would become Forsworn to Bastion. From what I recall during beta, it was revealed Devos had been bringing in souls that specifically would fail the trials to become Kyrians, and thus become Forsworn. It was intentional sabotage, an inside job.

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183

The real trouble comes from trying to apply real world morality to a fictional universe. That being said, I see some similarities from Christian theology when looking at angels and humans in terms of their substance. Although the similarities get confused because the Kyrian, while starting as mortal souls, look like angels in the end :wink:

There is also the debate between free will and free choice that could surround the creatures of Bastion that arose there. The thing is, since this is Blizzard’s game, they can write the universal rules however they see fit. So, it’s perfectly possible that things like the stewards come into existence with a specific will that isn’t necessarily free like a mortal would have. Who knows?

Along those same lines, it’s perfectly possible that creatures that come into existence in the Shadowlands don’t have the same capability to move freely between realms and are kind of limited to where they are without a lot of outside help. For all we know, mortal souls are unique in their ability to fit this role.

As human beings, we don’t have all of the answers in reality, so I’m ok with a little “mysticism” in WoW and kind of like that everything isn’t explained with 100% mechanical certainty (although Blizzard should never violate their own internal rules they have already established, because then it gets confusing).

EDIT: This does present an ultimate WoW theology conundrum: who ferried the first mortal soul to the Shadowlands when they died? :man_shrugging:t2:

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184

I feel like everyone forgets the whole reason why the Kyrians lose their memories in life is to become completely impartial in helping souls move to the afterlife. If they kept their memories, many souls would be left in permanent purgatory from grudges held from the real life. Ends justify the means in this case or else millions of souls would be restless and without peace in their designated afterlife.

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185

I always thought Bastion was meant to be a riff on the Buddhist idea of letting go of attachments to the world, even pleasant ones. It doesn’t seem to draw much from Christianity at all, apart from maybe the aesthetic.

ETA: Also, why on earth was the OP flagged?

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186

Kyrestia, the Firstborne of the Winged Kyrians, states she was once mortal during the dungeon (“WE shed our mortal shells”), Firstborne implies she was turned into what she was, says she was charged by the First Ones

So probably a First One ferried her and changed her to do it.

It is, and the aesthetic isn’t Christian at all, it’s aggressively Greek. Everyone is Thanatos (Greek toga wing wings) and Hermes (psychopomp) combined.

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187

Ah, good to know. Probably should wait to finish the zone before I ask such questions :wink:

Heck, even the idea of an angel isn’t an explicitly Christian one. It’s just the one we are most familiar with.

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188

but couldnt i develop a bias post memory wipe? like if i have to ferry someone’s soul who just got down slaughtering a village filled with men women and children? I would yeet their soul into the maw because even with my memory being wiped i would still recognize them as vile. wiping my memory wont prevent future biases from forming

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189

The flaw in this argument is that Devos had already ascended and should have reached this ultimate impartiality, but the memories of someone she was supposed to be guiding led her to not just participate in, but encourage circumventing the Arbiter in regards to Arthas. So “the Path” was clearly imperfect prior to the machinery of death breaking down.

They say wisdom grows from experience; perhaps if Devos or any of the Kyrian had been allowed experiences outside of the sterile path of “just follow orders, no questions”, someone would have been better equipped to deal with the unprecedented state of Uther’s torn soul.

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190

There are also supposedly infinite worlds and realms from which the dead all come from. Sure, somebody might have heavy biases from say, Azeroth over the Horde and Alliance, but surely the solution then is to just send them to … I don’t know… Funganar the planet of the Fungai. There’s easy solutions to the whole bias toward attachments held in life when there are supposedly countless other worlds to send them to besides.

That still doesn’t avoid the fact that Kyrians seem to only be tasked with ferrying souls from point A to B, where point B is supposed to be the same point for every soul. Kyrians are basically just afterlife Taxi / Bus drivers, and I don’t recall there being a big conversation on needing to give every one of those people the Death of Personality to do their job without bias.

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191

Kyrians re-visit the Temples once ascended to upkeep somewhat, eg Nikolon

Venthyr in fact regularly use their original lives as backdrop for what they do in Revendreth and how they approach reforming souls.

192

to deal with doubt and whatnot. but i doubt they are repeatedly wiping away their memories

193

The memories of Kyrians are collected in the Mnemonic Locus and kept in the Temple of Wisdom aka Eonian Archives

So apparently they do or at least backup copies

194

i find that hard to believe, otherwise they would forget their soulbinds and their training in bastion. and would have to start over. doesnt seem like a very efficient way to deal with the supposed problem of bias

the way i see it, the only way to deal with bias is to turn them into a robot with no will, instead of a blank slate, because a blank slate won’t remain blank. new biases will form to replace the old ones.

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195

We need to take a step back and recognize that this is a system that’s been in perfect order for eons. It’s not meant to be cutesy or feel-good or even humane. You get sent to Bastion if the Arbiter deems that your soul is selfless and service-oriented. Your job in Bastion is ultimately to become a Kyrian that ferries the souls of the dead to the Shadowlands where the Arbiter judges them. You need objectivity to do this, and to get that objectivity you need to cleanse yourself of all the nasty mortal garbage you’ve accrued during your life.

As much as I hate the idea of Arthas being potentially sent somewhere other than the Maw by the Arbiter, it wasn’t Uther or Devos’ place to make that decision. And that’s what would happen if the Kyrian didn’t go through this process of cleansing, they’d just deliver souls wherever they wanted to.

Also keep in mind that these Forsworn are in league with the Jailer and have no qualms with slaughtering aspirants in the hundreds. It would be one thing if they didn’t cosign to the process of cleansing and then just left to do their own thing but they want control over the system, not just free will.

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196

Devos is the only major failure of the path for the eternity that the shadowlands have existed for, and save the extremely rare cases of one not reaching enlightenment, the path is air-tight and has proven to work swimmingly.

Not to mention, Devos only rebelled once Uther’s half soul arrived to bastion after being broken by a weapon of the Maw: Frostmourne. The theme here is the Maw has been screwing everything up.

What experiences would of helped them work with Uther’s soul? The Maw, as far as we know, never did anything like bless weapons with its power in all of Azerothian history. How was Davos supposed to know that casting Arthas into the maw was brain dead since he was completely brain controlled by the powers of the Maw? What life experiences would of helped her then?

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197

They can pick and choose what to remove though, so probably they keep the Soulbind memories but remove the “I saw terrible things when I went to fetch souls”.

The in-game lore presents Watchers (the ones permanently stationed on worlds with mortals) as the most brutal job that very few Kyrians are capable of enduring for extended periods of time.

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198

but do they actually do that in the lore? as far as i know the temple of wisdom just contains the memories of mortal lives that got wiped away from aspirants. it just stores memories but doesnt wipe new memories. i believe the temple of purity deals with memory wiping

199

Lysonia pretty clearly knows full well that she can’t remember her friends and family, and that feeds into her bitterness. So, it’s much more than just purging the memories of your past life. It’s getting to a point where you accept that as well.

I think there was another brief interaction where that was kind of expounded upon, can’t remember which quest it was. Something along the lines of not remembering the pain itself, but merely that it happened.

200

Nope, quest text says Archives contains memories of aspirants, Kyrians, and general information and histories about all mortal worlds all aspirants came from.

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