The problem with Bastion

[OwenBurton]

So I was doing the most recent part of the story campaign on my Maldraxxi main and the Alexandros' reflection on why he was chosen for Maldraxxus got me thinking.

So from what I gather from the quest, the reason why he didn't go to Bastion is because unlike a paladin motivated solely by the Holy Light (.i.e. by "higher ideals") he was motivated by a more down to earth love for his family. With that in mind stripping him of these memories would take away his motivation and everything that made him a hero.

While I can perhaps buy what this is saying about Alexandros (that he was only ever motivated by his family and that without that he would be nothing), what doesn't make sense is what this is saying about more devout paladin's like Uther. Surely the fact that these individuals were motivated primarily by their faith in the Light would be just as much of an impediment to their ascension as Alexandros' love for his family- from what we've seen from the Kyrians belief in the Light is not approved among them and it would be something cast away with your old life just like Alexandros' memories of his family. If they became Kyrians then they would lose their primary motivation just as much as Alexandros.

This gets I think to the crux of one of the weirdest things about Bastion- the treatment of ideals like service and faith entirely in abstract. People don't do selfless things because of entirely abstract notions of service, devotion, and faith- they do them because they serve, devote themselves, and faith in specific concrete ideals greater than themselves.

A follower of the Light, or indeed any religion, doesn't worship and devote their lives to their specific religion/philosophy because they have an overwhelming urge to serve anything- they choose to serve that thing specifically. Just look in the real world and you can see that it is in fact the most devoted among any ideology that find the idea of serving a rival ideology so abhorrent- no one (or ay least very few people) serves because they are dedicated to the idea of service itself- rather they serve because they believe the thing they are serving is worthy of their service.

Now I grant that if the ideals that motivate ones service are something vague like "helping others" or "keeping the natural order" or something like that then I can see such a soul fitting into Bastion. Losing ones memories might be hard but ultimately you would be willing to do so to serve the higher ideals which the Kyrians also serve. But if your motivation is anything that involves the specific worship of a force or being/s that you know as a Kyrian you will revile then I can't think of a worse kind of soul to be sent to Bastion. You would have no motivation to join the Kyrians because while you might be someone who practically embodies the principles of "devotion" and "selfless service" what you are devoted to is in fact entirely opposed to what the Kyrian's represent- which is an unthinking devotion to the Arbiter and the order of death over everything else, including the religion/philosophy you dedicated your life to serving.

tl;dr: Having an afterlife based around the character traits of "devotion", "service", and "faith" in the abstract is stupid. No one is motivated by these things apart from whatever specific principles they are devoted to and serve, and thus having paladins like Uther who served first and foremost the Light, a force that the Kyrians reject, go to Bastion makes no sense.

They should be the given the chance to return to their world. Maybe under a different incarnation. Just like Ardenweald.

[Nerovar]

The problem with what Nerovar said is that it's not a misunderstanding of religion by Blizzard, it's our inability to comprehend the changes associated with the specific forms of brainwashing that would occur in Bastion. Faith is, quite frankly, socially constructed and will typically be dictated by whatever group you are surrounded by, and is typically a decision made from circumstance rather than active choice; however, that does not mean that conversion cannot happen. In the real world, coercive conversion through missionary work and forced conversion through avenues like cultural genocide through indoctrination exist, and these are things which take the scale of months to years to be effective. Now imagine a form of indoctrination which takes place over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, in which positive feedback loops have been created to reward you for identifying parts of your mortal life as being unnecessary, and where not doing so can lead to social ostracization and more material punitive measures. These processes appear to be methods by which to do two things (1) consider your mortal life a burden that is to be overcome, allowing the pain associated with it to be washed away, (2) acceptance of the Path/Purpose. The great manipulation of the Kyrian is that they are are chipping away parts of who you are while providing you means by which to fill the hole in your being (i.e.: imagine being a Christian and one day forgetting the name of your faith; you would still have the belief in something, you just wouldn't know exactly what).

This doesn't properly address Tharivor's argument though. Even if we accept the fact that Bastion utilizes the best brainwashing techniques, people like Uther would still be the kinds of characters who are least susceptible to this type of indoctrination. If anything, they should be taking in people who hold no strong convictions or attachments whatsoever since those people are most likely easier to coerce into buying into the whole Kyrian thing.
It's relatively easy to forcefully convert someone who doesn't hold any strong views to your cause but to a (religious) zealot the threat of violence is ultimately immaterial since you'd only turn them into martyrs (we know martyrium to be part of the human culture when it comes to Light worship as it is mentioned in several items and spells).

The underlying problem is that whoever wrote this story probably thought something along the lines of:
"These dudes are all about selfless service. Who else is about selfless service? Paladins. Who's the most popular dead Paladin? Uther. Let's put Uther there. He'd fit right in."
Or if we're feeling overly pessimistic you could also add:
"Believing in a higher causes equals being susceptible to brainwashing therefor these people can easily be brainwashed again."

It's all based on a very superficial reading of incredibly complicated subjects and it therefor cheapens and degrades everything that comes into contact with it.

[TickTickTick]

When you go to Bastion, you're not stripped of your memories immidiately. It's a process that is a part of the Kyrian training. I'm sure there were cases in which a soul went to Bastion, but then decided it's not their way and was sent back to the Arbiter for another afterlife. The Kyrian are not forced to get rid of their memories, it's a choice that allows them to ascend.

During training, such soul, no matter what belief they had in life, is influenced by how Shadowlands work and what the Kyrian represent. Then they get a choice - leave Bastion with your memories, or get rid of the memories, shift your beliefs and ideals to those of the Kyrian, and ascend.

So it's not that they no longer have anything to follow - it's that there is a realization that, as mortal, we don't know everything, and so they change their beliefs and motivations, but they are still there.

[yamix]

I don’t think Bastion makes any real sense. You are your memories/experiences and some biology (well, prior to dying in this case). Saying “you were very devoted to service and were a good person, let’s remove everything that makes you who you are because we can’t trust you to do the right thing” makes no sense. It’s basically just a cult.

[Soon-TM]

“you were very devoted to service and were a good person, let’s remove everything that makes you who you are because we can’t trust you to do the right thing”.

Exactly. If dem blue angels cannot trust even the most devoted and selfless folks in the entire multiverse, handpicked by the Arbiter herself (itself?), I can't see why should require such a high entry bar. They would be much better off with those "go with the flow" types of people, since they'd be much easier to indoctrinate. And judging by the amount of shades and otherwise bodyless souls/ghosts wandering around all of Azeroth, it's clear that they are severely understaffed

[huth]

Exactly. If dem blue angels cannot trust even the most devoted and selfless folks in the entire multiverse, handpicked by the Arbiter herself (itself?), I can't see why should require such a high entry bar. They would be much better off with those "go with the flow" types of people, since they'd be much easier to indoctrinate. And judging by the amount of shades and otherwise bodyless souls/ghosts wandering around all of Azeroth, it's clear that they are severely understaffed

Memories might form your self, but they are not your self. A selfless person will still be selfless when they can't remember what caused them to become so.

[Soon-TM]

A selfless person will still be selfless when they can't remember what caused them to become so.

Lol no, there isn't a "selfless gene". The nature vs. nurture debates in psychology ended decades ago when it was concluded that both factors are fundamental to who you end up being. You take away one of the two, and you could very well end up with a very different personality.

[Magical Mudcrab]

This doesn't properly address Tharivor's argument though. Even if we accept the fact that Bastion utilizes the best brainwashing techniques, people like Uther would still be the kinds of characters who are least susceptible to this type of indoctrination. If anything, they should be taking in people who hold no strong convictions or attachments whatsoever since those people are most likely easier to coerce into buying into the whole Kyrian thing.

It's relatively easy to forcefully convert someone who doesn't hold any strong views to your cause but to a (religious) zealot the threat of violence is ultimately immaterial since you'd only turn them into martyrs (we know martyrium to be part of the human culture when it comes to Light worship as it is mentioned in several items and spells).

So, going to the first part of my post, it is likely that mortal traits and behaviour leaves some imprint on the soul, similarly to other fantasy genres. In this way, the souls are likely predisposed to actions taken in life (i.e.: if you were dutiful and responsible in life, your soul would share those characteristics). The confounding problem here, as has been pointed out, is that the souls have their ego intact, which is typically resolved through the death of the ego in those other fantasy genres.

Within the context of the Kyrian, it likely does not matter who you are so much as it does what you are. The Kyrian are essentially trying to create a blank slate, through the removal of memory, onto which they can ascribe the "virtues" of the Path. In this, they use coercive methods through positive feedback loops and threats of social ostracization to keep people in the process of conversion, with other, more punitive avenues available which some acolytes are seen to willingly seek out when they begin to doubt the Path, as if a form of self-flagellation. As well, their process of opening individuals to some minor, inconsequential change will help draw people in, and this slow chipping away of who you are will slowly disassociate you from your prior beliefs. Whether they're a zealot or not is likely immaterial, as in the face of an infinite amount of time, the speed of the conversion does not matter, and the methods they use would inherently strip them of their faith; however, the zealots who are dutiful and live for service are ideal because of traits now inherent to their soul, which is likely the key discriminator in who goes to Bastion.

The underlying problem is that whoever wrote this story probably thought something along the lines of:
"These dudes are all about selfless service. Who else is about selfless service? Paladins. Who's the most popular dead Paladin? Uther. Let's put Uther there. He'd fit right in."
Or if we're feeling overly pessimistic you could also add:
"Believing in a higher causes equals being susceptible to brainwashing therefor these people can easily be brainwashed again."

That's very possible, and would be a very "Blizzard" thing to do. They typically have a lot of difficulties doing more than surface-level concepts, as shown with their attempts at subtle hints to the future within the BfA storyline leading to massively contradictory depictions of characters between the various media (i.e.: Sylvanas supposed intentions being contradicted by internal monologues in books and her actions in-game).

[Super Dickmann]

But why then is Alexandros, who equally embodies all those virtues, declared to be incompatible with Bastion because the reason he has these traits is his specific love for his earthly family?

The narrative seems to be implying Uther's motivation = compatible with Bastion; Alexandros' motivation = incompatible, on the basis that the former was motivated by "service" (which the official website says is the vital character trait that Bastion souls possess), while the latter by "memories". The issue is this doesn't make sense since Uther is in fact motivated by faith in the Light, not abstract "service", which is just as rooted in the memories of his earthly life as Alexandros' love for his family. If the latter excludes Alexandros despite his possession of the 5 virtues then the former should exclude Uther- the only reason why it doesn't is because Blizzard is fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of devotion to a specific cause by treating it as simply a manifestation of an abstract desire to "serve a higher purpose", rather than something just as rooted in a specific context as the love of specific individuals.

According to the quest text the key reason why Alexandros is meant to Maldraxxus rather than Bastion is that it is Alexandros' "memory of his loved ones that truly fuels his strength". But by the same logic shouldn't the fact that it was Uther's religious faith in the light that fuelled him be similarly problematic?

Much of what I was going to say was already said by @Magical Mudcrab so I'll just go for the aspects that haven't been covered already.

Re: Alexandros as said, Shadowlands' take on the character is notably off as far as I'm concerned given he didn't become the Ashbringer out of familial love and we know what a piece of work Renault was. Sure, he loved his kids, while Uther was a bachelor, but it seems more of a retroactive addition to justify them being in different places. While Uther in Bastion you can work with Alexandros in Mograine exists almost entirely to subvert out of story assumptions. "Haha, paladin goes to undead afterlife, isn't that cool?"

That having been said, the logic applied irrespective of Alexandros himself does carry. There's a difference between interpersonal bonds and love for abstractions or your role in an obligation. Someone who's motivated by his love for his wife and children having that be replaced by his love for an abstraction or their job would not gel. Meanwhile, one can follow the strain of logic expressed in convincing someone especially over a period of hundred of years and with magic to switch religions and adopt a similar role in another one. Religious conversion happens constantly. Since they're both rooted in a specific context, it can and does still fuck up, as it does in story, but it makes for a more sensible transition than convincing someone who's motivated primarily by his family that sure he'll lose them but he'll be able to obey the cosmic government once he's forgot them.

More than that an overarching issue with the premise of the thread is that us, the audience seeing reasons for why it doesn't work out of story means that it fails as a premise for characters within the setting to act. Believing that what's basically a cosmic management machine judging people based on their utility to its way based on what positions need filling in the mechanisms of the afterlife would select people on abstract criteria rather than on the basis of the individual particulars of their faith is what needs to be believable, irrespective of whether you personally think that process is logical or beneficial for them or anyone else. That the Kyrian method and selection process alike are fundamentally fucked isn't just an element of the story that it directly tackles, even if it didn't tackle them that it doesn't follow the same reasoning as we the audience would doesn't make it worse as a narrative device.

[huth]

Lol no, there isn't a "selfless gene". The nature vs. nurture debates in psychology ended decades ago when it was concluded that both factors are fundamental to who you end up being. You take away one of the two, and you could very well end up with a very different personality.

And i didn't say there was. But your behaviour is a result of the events that created those memories, not the memories themselves.

[Nerovar]

Much of what I was going to say was already said by @Magical Mudcrab so I'll just go for the aspects that haven't been covered already.

Re: Alexandros as said, Shadowlands' take on the character is notably off as far as I'm concerned given he didn't become the Ashbringer out of familial love and we know what a piece of work Renault was. Sure, he loved his kids, while Uther was a bachelor, but it seems more of a retroactive addition to justify them being in different places. While Uther in Bastion you can work with Alexandros in Mograine exists almost entirely to subvert out of story assumptions. "Haha, paladin goes to undead afterlife, isn't that cool?"

Mograine's story in Maldraxxus is silly. You won't hear an argument from me there.

That having been said, the logic applied irrespective of Alexandros himself does carry. There's a difference between interpersonal bonds and love for abstractions or your role in an obligation. Someone who's motivated by his love for his wife and children having that be replaced by his love for an abstraction or their job would not gel. Meanwhile, one can follow the strain of logic expressed in convincing someone especially over a period of hundred of years and with magic to switch religions and adopt a similar role in another one. Religious conversion happens constantly. Since they're both rooted in a specific context, it can and does still fuck up, as it does in story, but it makes for a more sensible transition than convincing someone who's motivated primarily by his family that sure he'll lose them but he'll be able to obey the cosmic government once he's forgot them.

I think this is one of those things that is only true based on your presuppositions. What is the difference between your love for a particular person and a higher power (what you call an abstraction in this case) especially in a universe like Warcraft where your love to the Light might be even more intimate and real? The story pretty much states that only one of the two really matters. Alexandros' love for his family outlives his faith in the Light and is basically presented as a transcendental force that makes him more useful and is therefor worth preserving. Uther's faith/love for the Light on the other hand can easily be boiled down to an essentialist character trait which can then be exploited by the Kyrians. Why can't Alexandros' love for his family be boiled down and rededicated to a 'new family' in the same way?
By telling us that one is "corruptible" while the other is not, the story betrays its implicit assumptions about the concept of faith which seemingly stem from a failure or unwillingness to engage with the concept on a fundamental level.

Ultimately, it still work as a story (for some/most people) because they already agree with the assumptions that are being made here. I guess this issue naturally comes with exploring every crevice (like the afterlife) of the Warcraft universe. In the past these things were simply much more ambiguous.

[Super Dickmann]

I think this is one of those things that is only true based on your presuppositions. What is the difference between your love for a particular person and a higher power (what you call an abstraction in this case) especially in a universe like Warcraft where your love to the Light might be even more intimate and real? The story pretty much states that only one of the two really matters. Alexandros' love for his family outlives his faith in the Light and is basically presented as a transcendental force that makes him more useful and is therefor worth preserving. Uther's faith/love for the Light on the other hand can easily be boiled down to an essentialist character trait which can then be exploited by the Kyrians. Why can't Alexandros' love for his family be boiled down and rededicated to a 'new family' in the same way?
By telling us that one is "corruptible" while the other is not, the story betrays its implicit assumptions about the concept of faith which seemingly stem from a failure or unwillingness to engage with the concept on a fundamental level.

Ultimately, it still work as a story (for some/most people) because they already agree with the assumptions that are being made here. I guess this issue naturally comes with exploring every crevice (like the afterlife) of the Warcraft universe. In the past these things were simply much more ambiguous.

Differentiating between different types of love is as old as people are. You don't love your friends the same way you love your wife and you don't love your wife the same way you love God or your country. Your bond to the latter could be stronger, but it's obviously different. Ergo, so are the things tied up with them. In Shadowlands' version of Mograine we see what you describe - he pivots away from his love for his family as his main motivator to his love for his adopted family. I find it pretty weak and we both agree it isn't all that compelling or has much to do with his characterization, but it acknowledges that differences, but it isn't exclusive to Maldraxxus. More than that, Uther's faith isn't treated any differently than are say, the family or life experience of that tauren we lobotomize in the questline, so while I'd agree that much of the framing has to do with the writers' suppositions, the double standard you mention isn't actually there. If it's anything at all it's yet more reason why Mograine shouldn't be in Maldraxxus.

The story in general has this issue of the Light both being verifiably a real thing and now a cosmic actor of its own and serving as a Hollywood pastiche for Christianity. In its former role you can just say that were the Shadowlands to treat faith in the Light and familial love differently because one who holds onto the Light is an agent of another cosmic power and diminishing it or removing it from the minds of those who work for it is mandatory to ensure their loyalty. In its latter role though it comes into being of writers who generally can't handle religion very well since they don't actually have any connection or experience with it while they obviously have family or friends and so can write those things easier. But chalking it up to just the latter would be incomplete, since it's a lot less consistent. Hence other examples like the Night Elves' loss of faith in Elune or the whole business with Anduin being kept because of his faith in the Light allowing him to hold off the Big Bad and let the player escape.

[Thage]

I don't know if this demonstration of why talking about things like honor, service etc. in the abstract is bound to lead to complete societal collapse is intentional, especially given how BFA took this sort of piffle at face value. In fact I'd bet it isn't, but it still manages to tell that story by mistake.

I don't want to give Blizzard credit, but I do currently have $20 in a betting pool in my guild that the Kyrian storyline is going to evolve with the Kyrian abandoning the mandatory memory wipes and making them opt-in for people like Pelagos, who seem to prefer not remembering what came before and just want a fresh start. Strike a balance between the suicidally-abstract logic and morality of the Kyrian and the suicidally-selfish logic and amorality of the Forsworn so that duty is still an important aspect of what they do, but they have their memories and that moral grounding to remind them why they're doing it.

They're going about it in the dumbest way possible, but that doesn't really need to be said when we're discussing the lore team under the "watchful" eye and mental dialtone of Steve Danuser.

[Super Dickmann]

I don't want to give Blizzard credit, but I do currently have $20 in a betting pool in my guild that the Kyrian storyline is going to evolve with the Kyrian abandoning the mandatory memory wipes and making them opt-in for people like Pelagos, who seem to prefer not remembering what came before and just want a fresh start. Strike a balance between the suicidally-abstract logic and morality of the Kyrian and the suicidally-selfish logic and amorality of the Forsworn so that duty is still an important aspect of what they do, but they have their memories and that moral grounding to remind them why they're doing it.

They're going about it in the dumbest way possible, but that doesn't really need to be said when we're discussing the lore team under the "watchful" eye and mental dialtone of Steve Danuser.

It's legitimately a bizarre storyline no matter how you slice it. I kind of like both of the Forsworn and the Kyrian on an out of story level, even if the former would be massively better served if they were just run of the mill depressives instead of goons of the Jailer. It's obvious that this was added to make them 100% evil and ditto it's equally as inevitable that the Kyrian will inevitably ditch the mandatory mindwipes so they can achieve the requisite level of blandness.

What gets me about the storyline though is the way it's framed. The Forsworn follow the general scheme where if a baddie threatens to have a point they'll be revealed to secretly want to destroy the world just so you know where you stand. But at the same time their core point regarding the Kyrian is never addressed and some of those we bust out later on in the storyline stick to their ideology even after they've been freed from the Maw. At the same time, the Kyrians themselves aren't bad in the general sense of Blizzard unintentionally writing them to be worse than they're supposed to be, the quest where you find out they're still dunking souls in the Maw because nobody's explicitly told them not to right after that bit with the farmer and his family is framing them as complete morons and that's the intended takeaway. This in a matter that has nothing to do with memories. Yet there's no actual ideological clash at any point - the Forsworn never bring up this staggering retardation at play and the Kyrian never bring up that letting people lug their biases around is part of what caused the problem in the first place. Instead the Forsworn are mostly just evil and the Kyrian are mostly just stupid with major points of difference where both sides could make interesting argumentsleft to lie.

I kind of like that since I can't say it isn't true to the characters' circumstances and it's still fun to follow, but I also for the life of me can't tell what our takeaway is supposed to be besides dropping people into Hell being bad or what the writers were trying to say.