Soooo… the Kyrians are straight up evil. They’ve known since the beginning of the anima drought that the Archon wasn’t directing souls where they were supposed to go, but they just kept on funneling them into the Maw. When Kleia comments about how messed up this is, she’s told that it’s the Kyrians’ duty to usher souls, not to concern themselves with their fate and Kleia’s all “Sounds good to me!”
But like… in what universe is “I’m only doing my duty” a legit excuse for damning millions of souls to the worst hell the multiverse has on offer? If you know where they’re going (they do) and you know they don’t all deserve it (they do), you’re evil if you don’t do something about it.
Like, imagine that through a clerical error, an entire town was given the death penalty and the cops in that town rounded everyone up and the executioner just kept on flipping the switch because it wasn’t their duty to question their orders…
There’s also hints of the Kyrians’ evil in their requirement that everyone lose their memory. Forcing you to “forget” your life before you signed up is how cults, fascists and multi-level marketing schemes work. But… if you don’t remember anything other than Kyrian “duty” how are you going to question something like sending literally everyone to hell (it’s like someone at Blizz watched ‘The Good Place’ and thought “Let’s do that, but without any of the philosophical subtleties”).
So like, good on the Forsworn for fighting for their memories but they actually get even less credit than the Kyrians because after their reunion they do not use their broader perspective to demand that the Kyrians stop sending everyone to hell!
And, as if sending everyone to hell wasn’t bad enough, the Kyrians are also directly responsible for the anima drought… and for funnelling all that power to the Jailor.
“But Kookle,” you say, “What could they have done? Without the Arbiter, who could determine who should be destined for what afterlife?”
So first off, “send everyone to the Maw” is the absolute worst solution to that problem. How about instead the Kyrians set up like a refugee village for unallocated souls in Bastion? Then they get in touch with the other afterlives (this would theoretically be before anima shortage became a problem) and (1) LET THEM KNOW THAT THE ARBITER IS DEAD and (2) set up a counsel of members from all the afterlives to sort souls while they (3) figured out a way to replace or revive the Arbiter.
Of course, Denathrius’ treachery would have still been a problem but like the anima from the souls going to one afterlife winding up in the Jailor’s hands is a lot better than all the anima from all the afterlives…
Anyway. The Kyrians are evil and responsible for empowering the Jailor (and this is why you should never trust the faction that represents itself as being the honorable/good/upright/duty-bound ones… because they are always hiding something sinister under that facade). Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.