It is sort of hard to be against Devos and the Forsworn in the Kyrian zones when she was just spitting facts. No offense but the Archon’s static view of how they should do things would have doomed them all (and almost did a few times). If they listed to Devos early on, then they would have seen years in advance that the Jailer’s influence was leaking out.
Making them forget their whole identity seems a bit harsh, but then they are told to make new ones in their new ‘neutral’ forms…how does that make sense?
We even later see that the Paragon of Humility was questioning the ‘path’ (world quest of collecting scrolls in the library), which we hand in and are told “It will be handled”. Like sht sorry dude…
I have the same conundrum to be honest. Had the Archon listened to her (the scene in Uther’s memory), we wouldn’t have any of the issues SL is currently having.
I’ll say this: if it wasn’t for Devos and the forsworn, the Archon would’ve never considered reforming the path. So whether she was right or wrong, the outcome of her actions resulted for the better.
Devos is wrong because she’s listening to the Jailer.
The Jailer is basically using a concept that makes sense in principle (your memories make you who you are), but in service of helping obliterate all that those memories make you care about.
I mean, this is a thing that Blizzard does all the time. They present a villain with an interesting motive that is somewhat relatable, but then they make them go waaaay to far with it to remove any nuance from the situation whatsoever.
If Devos just wanted to have a part of Bastion to herself where she and her friends could live and keep their memories, but then the Archon was like “no,” and labeled them traitors, it would be more compelling, because you as a player would have to feel like you are doing something wrong by going in there and trying to either fight them or pull them back over to the side of the Archon.
The way it is presented in game though, is that Devos believes she is doing a good thing by opposing the Archon, but is also secretly KNOWINGLY helping the Jailer who wants to destroy the entirety of the Shadowlands, and basically all life in the universe it seems like.
It’s the same with Defias. Defias just wanted to get paid, but then Blizzard basically made them horrible villains who burn down farms and kill livestock and also take from the poor as well so they aren’t as compelling because you don’t really feel like there’s anything wrong with stopping them.
It’s situations like this that lead me to believe Blizzard’s writers can write nuanced characters with a grey-on-grey morality - y’know, the thing that got memed about for most of BFA - they just don’t want to.
It’s a shame, 'cause villains like the Defias are ultimately much more memorable than someone who was just corrupted by some evil force. Villains with actual, understandable motivations are always fun.
hmm… in fact Devos became another female character with bad dialogue and bad plot by the new writers and screenwriters of Blizzard.
a character who was right about the Arbiter’s ignorance, that there was a danger about the jailer and a weapon that would cause chaos in both realities, but …
instead of fighting the cause of all this conflict, join the jailer
give Uther absolute power knowing that he was a loser idiot.
try to control Bastion in the name of the jailer instead of being against this force.
I definitely think that this character apart from plot fail, is very, very confusing to understand it since it was just a mere stupid filler that did nothing to add one of the worst lores of this expansion to what was Bastion.
And not to forget the arbiter, it is just a piñata that everyone hits (thanks the warlock pet bug), and a possible Waifu (hah … as if it were that the Valkyrs of Arthas or Odyn, and the Shivarras and Succubus of the legion were nothing) that By swearing to protect her for being the last key the Jailer needs, she proves that she was just a damsel in distress.
Something like Saori Athena from the Saint Seiya Knight of the Zodiac or some kind of ridiculous princess only this time I would not want to rescue her as was the obligation to save Jaina in Thorgast knowing that she is fine.
Classic stupid plot of Marie sue whose force some defect or some danger to know that she is safe all the time. (in the case of Jaina)
She went and murdered anybody who didn’t agree with her version of The Path™. Sure she had a point, but she was basically a murderous version of the Archon. Thenios even admits it was her affiliation with Loyalty that drove her to go so far in the opposite direction. …plus she aligned with the guy trying to kill us all, so no thanks.
The Archon basically brainwashes anyone who doesn’t agree with her path.
The Kyrians are nothing more than cab drivers who pick up a soul from a world and drop it off at the airport. You don’t have to be a mindless drone devoid of memory and personality to do that.
If that is what they wanted, they would have been better served making a bunch of constructs that were never alive in the first place pick up the souls.
Devos working for Jailer is biggest plot hole in this expansion. No idea which member of writing team came up with that, but it feels like they were absent for half the story, just napping in a chair, and then when asked to pitch in, just threw in “oh yeah Devos works for Jailer.”
They set her up as anti Jailer, wanting to deal with Maw’s influence on Azeroth, but then somehow… by Archon not supporting her cause, she allies with the devil? Instead of trying to stop him on her own?
0 logic, poor writing.
I’ll put this into real life perspective (WW2):
Germany is being naughty.
Britain asks US for help.
US says no.
Britain joins Germany to spite US and declares war on US.
The fact they killed Devos off and replaced her with some random character, when she could have just survived and kept going with absolutely no difference in the story outside Uther feeling “betrayed” even more makes no sense to me.
It’s some of the worst writing I’ve seen in this game, and I can normally look the other way since this franchise usually doesn’t have amazing nuance but is at least fun and quicky. But this?
I don’t know. It pissed me off.
I’m really invested in the forsworn story as fallen angels are one of my favorite fantasy things, but this attempt feels so botched with so many “fixes” to the holes. There was so much potential, and I was hoping they’d expand on it in a patch or two - but it looks like Venthyr are the only covenant that get a whole patch dedicated to them since we’re already about to go to the maw?
Also tossing aside Devos in general that quickly.
Why are we hyping up characters that die in a patch like that? The faun from Ardenweald was another one too.
hey, in case your poor soul On the way to Shadowlands, you are dead, and for your good deeds, in that case for being a lapdog as a paladin you go to Bastion, obviously you will receive more responsibilities but to avoid being compromised with feelings that you left in life, you obviously need to forget your memories.
That is not bad, obviously it is what they always told us in a church that happens when you die, I am not saying if you go to heaven or hell, I mean that it is what you think when you leave everything behind.
your past life
your loved ones
your belongings
your money
your experience in life in what you have achieved, in what you have done
and what you did not do and regret not having done.
your account in BNet or an videogame online account
All that you will not take to the afterlife so it reflects mostly the destiny that is in Bastion unlike other covenants, the Arbiter did that because it had a very important experience and a strong responsibility to those who end up in that covenant so it was right in which we forget our memories.
But far from that, the arbiter did make a lot, but a lot of mistakes within this expansion, such as:
ignore Devos and the approaching danger
faithfully follow your responsibility ignoring anything
It will be the damsel in distress who is always beaten or that we must rescue her, the chosen one, the promised one, the one who is the key to the villain (literally).
be a copy + paste of Saori Athena from Saint Seiya: Knight of Zodiac or a Sorceress from He-Man 1982 animated series.
In the end there are other things to hate everything that exists in Bastion in its entire existence.
A friend of mine described the entire Bastion story arc as (paraphrased) “basically having gone in a circle, with nothing happening and nobody learning any lessons”.
They actually expand on that. Devos says that when she learned the truth about the Jailer and what they did to him (which we still till now are unclear of his backstory), she sided with him.
That being said, what choice did she have? The Archon wouldnt listen to her, and the Jailer offered her another option. They were both terrible choices. She said she wanted the Spires to get enough power to reshape the Kyrian concept and free them, i’m partly hoping she would have tried to turn against him after that.
It shouldn’t be, apart from the fact that in Oribos he was the true judge minos where he judged you for the actions you did in life, Bastion only does his job nothing else, he is not responsible for what you did in life if you were a bad child or not.
Unfortunately, many characters misunderstand the concept of free will in this expansion, a freedom with responsibility is a true freedom, not a free will seen according to state laws without judging who is correct or not, or an absurd debauchery in the case shown in the Simpsons episode Bart’s inner child, that when there is no responsibility, there is only chaos.
Also let’s not forget, the Paragon of Humility, Chyrus, is also having second thoughts about the path of Ascension, but we are then told “it will be handled” when the scrolls containing his thoughts are handed over
