Why does Bastion record memories they take?

Lore Story Forum
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In Bastion, progressing on the path involves several things, including giving up their memories so they don’t judge and are free of things including past grudges and prejudices.

But these memories are written down and kept within the Eonian Archives/Temple of Wisdom or collected in a Mnemonic Locus to be observed. I find this raises a few more related questions;

  1. What’s the point of erasing Kyrians’ memories if they’re going to be recorded elsewhere?
  2. Wouldn’t having records of those memories mean that any Kyrian could read records of the memories they gave up and decide to re-ignite any grudges or prejudices?
  3. How is access to the archives regulated? As far as I can tell, there’s plenty of Aspiring Souls going around that temple and no requirement of entry to the Archives.

I think these archives undermine the system of taking memories, though in my opinion it does dilute the negative stance towards Bastion, since those memories aren’t lost forever, but written down.

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I might be recalling something wrong, but I believe that like with Maldraxxus, a Kyrian’s service to the Shadowlands doesn’t need to be eternal, that they can, if they choose, decide to retire, at which point they’d be given their memories back and sent to the arbiter to find another appropriate afterlife.

I have no idea where I saw that before, might’ve been here rather than in-game, but that’s what I recall on one of the reasons they keep records of memories.

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It’s quite clear that the archon doesn’t really know what or why they’re doing the things they are doing, and it’s likely been that way forever. There might not be an answer, or it could be that whoever set up the processes of keeping memories knew that memories are powerful and kept them for personal/nefarious means.

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Nobody said they wanted to make the memories conpletely disappear. They just didn’t want the Kyrian to have their specific memories.

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The Kyrians are preservers not destroyers. Relinquishing your memories is a volountary act on the road to ascension.

You’re not a person who would be on the Kyrian path if you were the kind of person to act with malice. The Forsworn are that way because they’ve been corrupted directly or indirectly by the Jailor and his minions.

That detail hasn’t been gone into because it’s not relevant to the story.

Not nearly as much as the story itself did as even the Archon has decided that changes need to be made.

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Case in point: Records of Memories can’t be returned to the Host without killing them.

Records therefore aren’t the actual Memories and thus are foreign Memories that look like the original intended to kill anyone seeking to reclaim them.

Records are a trap installed into the Path. Now who would be the most likely person to set up such a trap? Most likely Zovaal since he was the Arbiter and the Path(which interferes with Free Will) does look like something he’d cook up before mastering Domination.

Basically Zovaal was all: Serve the Purpose or die!

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Because kyrians are a bunch of creeps and the existence of Shadowlands and the literal “Machine of death” makes absolutely no sense.

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The memories themselves aren’t a danger, and may well offer useful or important insight upon review by the Ascended.

The point of relinquishing one’s memories is to remove the attachments of them being your memories, and all the baggage that comes with being personally invested in them that might adversely influence one’s decisions when ferrying souls for judgment. An Ascended might well observe an archived memory that used to be theirs, but at that point it would just be another source of knowledge and they’d likely not recognize it as their own recorded experience.

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9

Actually no

The Mnemonic Locus was created by the First Forgelite (Mikanikos’s mentor, and would’ve been one of the Hands under Thenios).

The Eonian Archives keep memories from Reality, a sort of general photocopy of everyone’s Life and anthropologic notes of reality. These archives are the Temple of Wisdom.

The Mnemonic Locus keeps the memories that are extracted in the process of becoming Kyrians. Kyrians purge their memories in the Temple of Purity.

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Speaking of the Temple of Purity the Purged Emotions are all corrupted by the Maw-tainted Vesper in the Temple explaining why they have the Domination Death Magic-based Appearance.

The lesser Emotions pulled out by the Domination-tainted Vesper are Worry, Fear, Bitterness, Sorrow, Doubt, Anger, Grief, Loss, Loneliness and Pain. The more powerful Emotions are Agony, Hatred, Terror, Despair, Torment and Isolation.

Pride of course is pulled out at the Temple of Humility by the Forsworn using their Domination-tainted Kyrian Death Magic.

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These are all good points. I do think it undermines the complaints of those fans make a big fuss about the Kyrian taking memories and calling Bastion a horrible afterlife. It isn’t foolproof, but it’s not the totalitarian prison they claim.

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The Enoian Archives serve as WoW’s version of the Akashic Records.

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Guys, guys, it’s clearly for movie night, they sort the funny memories into rom-coms.

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14

In the story:
Yes, to make someone not judge, they make them give up their memories.

The suggestion is that there wasn’t control of access.

You couldn’t convince most to go through the process if the memories were destroyed.
However, the value of a memory is destroyed if it is removed from its setting, context, and history. Doesn’t matter if they go back and view them, they have no emotional value, nor do they convey any lessons. This was reinforced with:

Uther the Lightbringer says: No. They serve as a reminder of lessons learned. Given the choice, I would never let them go.

In function, the memory process on the Path was an anima harvest. Sure it had an excuse, but it was mostly about anima.
The story has now junked it by saying it was without compassion. (Great, awesome, how many generations of people, from how many places, got sent to Bastion when it didn’t have compassion? Way to think ahead.)

As the original Path required giving up memories to ascend, there was no choice; it was false-choice. (Hobson’s Choice.)

As far as choosing to leave the Kyrian: I think this ends up being a false-choice once memory removal has already happened. How does one decide not to be Kyrian when you no longer have the faculty provided by memory based experience? There is no foundation for it.
That’s leaving aside the mess the Forsworn plot left us in; they didn’t get to leave, now did they. It took compassion to see the Path had a problem, not just letting bygones be bygones.

There is a story hole: How did the Arbiter send someone to Bastion because it was right for them, but every single one wasn’t actually ready for Bastion when they arrived? When 100% of them had to go through a process and purge themselves, they, by definition, were not ready for Bastion!
The very claim that memory purging prevented bias means that people who came could be seen as being biased before being purged.
That is a concept trap: They were not the noblest and purest souls, they were just like other souls; subject to the lesser emotions that would need to be purged.

Outside the story:
The writers applied the concept of needing to purge the self entirely. (Bad concept TBH.)

They wanted a story arc to expound the Forsworn, and got it from the same thing. It was a simple vehicle for Lysonia and Devos’ plot to have their memories floating around.

Their view of this memory stuff is likely to also be what is floating around in their minds because of Sylvanas.

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15

They were deemed ready for the process that would eventually make them Kyrian. The souls are sent to each of the Covenants not with the expectation that they are fully mature for their roles but to undergo a process…The purging of sins to become Venthyr, the easing of soul wounds to be reborn in Ardenweald, The toughening up to become a Maldraxxus bad-a**, and the purity to conduct souls without judgement.

The Arbiter isn’t sending souls with the expectation that they be fully formed for their roles on the get-go. The Arbiter is sending them on new journeys of development.