Does the Kyrian covenant story make them any less horrendous?

[Stelio Kontos]

I don't find the Kyrians horrendous at all.

I know there's a very strong Eurocentric/Western bend on these forums, but a lot of other cultures believe enlightenment/nirvana/whatever comes with the eradication of the self and it's identity, needs, desires, and motives.

Bob Smith in the US thinks his immortal soul is exactly the same as his living body was, with the same personality, likes, dislike, etc. That's a pretty common misconception.

So at least on a religious or philosophical level, I don't see a problem with the Kyrians. I know people from more self-centered or materialist backgrounds will view them as "bad" though, so I'm not surprised.

[Athorha]

The whole concept of an afterlife is horrendous. 99% of humanoids would be left spending the entirety of their afterlife atoning for their sins, seeing it fleshed out in a video game and then having plebs debate over it because they believe they wouldn't fall under the "100% delluded in life category" is just as horrendous.

This game has now just affirmed that an afterlife exists, it's not your place now to suddenly argue real world moral and logic against things done in a world where an afterlife is supposed as existing.

[Irian]

This game has now just affirmed that an afterlife exists, it's not your place now to suddenly argue real world moral and logic against things done in a world where an afterlife is supposed as existing.

But argue they will, because it turns out a lot of people on these forums really don't grasp this separation and think they can apply real world morality to a video game with dragons and knights.

It makes me want to beat my face into a wall every time we have another one of these pointless "arguing the morality of a fantasy world" arguments on MMO-C. This is the afterlife of a poorly-written fantasy game, take it at face value and don't waste your time overanalyzing it.

[huth]

Just an example.

Some people think Trump is a rational choice as president.
Some people think Biden is a rational choice for president.

What is rational to 1 person isn't going to be for another. Add in a being that doesn't have the same concerns to life as we do. Their rationale would be completly different to ours.

Please look up the words rational and rationale before you make any more of a fool of yourself.

And remember that somebody believing something does not make it true.

Oh no I agree with the Kyrian thing. I was talking off-topic about the A.I think though. It isn't the same as children though. It doesn't have emotions and it can't be taught to have emotions. It will have to be programmed to obey humans. And even that is tricky.

You have an inherently broken relationship to something that doesn't even exist yet, and may not even be possible.

"It will have to be programmed to obey humans."? No. It doesn't. It would have to be taught not to harm them and probably more importantly, what constitutes harm. But we're talking about an AI here. You don't "program" those, or you're not dealing with an AI in the first place. Which is part of the problem; most people still can't seem to understand that we're not talking about simple programs here, but actual intelligent beings and that most of what's being called AI nowadays has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence except maybe on their creators part.
Yet your first thoughts are how we have to subjugate them and make them into slaves. Do you want them to rebel, or what?

They would be children. Emotionless children are still children.

[Orange Joe]

Please look up the words rational and rationale before you make any more of a fool of yourself.

And remember that somebody believing something does not make it true.

Whooosh.....

Never said anything about Truth. Just saying. What one person considers rational (logic and reasoning included) can be different from what another considers rational. I'm not making a claim to which one is right. Though right in this case is dependent on that societies logic and reason.

In Rome it was logical and reasonable to have people fight to the death for public entertainment.

[Soon-TM]

think they can apply real world morality to a video game with dragons and knights.

You can thank Danuser and Golden for that, when they started chucking out cheap morality lessons by the end of MoP, and especially during BfA. It was the tie-in novel to BfA where RL concepts started to be used for in-game events, genocide first and foremost.

Now we reap what they sowed.

[Jessicka]

You can thank Danuser and Golden for that, when they started chucking out cheap morality lessons by the end of MoP, and especially during BfA. It was the tie-in novel to BfA where RL concepts started to be used for in-game events, genocide first and foremost.

Now we reap what they sowed.

Oh come on, the Orcs genocidal nature brought them to Azeroth and powered the trip. They wouldn’t have stopped once they arrived either, and many of them never wanted to even after Thrall’s “redemption” of them.

WoW has always had morality tails, even before Arthas.

[Simca]

Kyrians are the prequel Jedi Order of Shadowlands.

The plot for them is identical: "we will suppress ourselves until we explode".

Unfortunately, it looks like the Spires of Ascension stuff is the end of the 9.0 covenant campaign for them, so we aren't going to get any substantial resolution on that front for a while.

[Tarba]

Sure sure. Arthas good guy and such

Well still way better than Uther in that moment.
Uther : what's happening ?
Arthas : They will all transform into undead. We must kill them all before it's to late.
Uther : don't want.
Arthas : you have to.
Uther : nah.
Arthas : then go away. You are no longer in command
Uther : K, see you.
Okay guys ! While he kill all those people let's go see the king so he legally put me back in charge.

Uther was a piece of shit in war3.

[Elkas]

Kyrians are the prequel Jedi Order of Shadowlands.

The plot for them is identical: "we will suppress ourselves until we explode".

Unfortunately, it looks like the Spires of Ascension stuff is the end of the 9.0 covenant campaign for them, so we aren't going to get any substantial resolution on that front for a while.

I would disagree on this. The Jedi had the problem that they were still emotional beings, and that they tried to suppress those. So they bottled it up and it went to shit (several times) when one of their more powerful members exploded.

Bastion is about beings that accept self sacrifice for a goal they unquestionably believe in. However, starvation is causing doubt and depression, keeping aspirants from ascending no matter how many times they try to face past memories. For countless eons this sacrifice was accepted and came naturally over time.

Devos and higher ranking Kyrian turn away from the Path, because they feel betrayed after Devos finds out that the Arbiter has flaws (by not detecting Uther's harmed soul). During Spires of Ascension Devos even says so; it is not the mindwipe that she's angry about, it's the mindwipe for a flawed goal. She and the other disbelieving ascended then align with the jailer, causing, and making use of, the emotionally compromised recruits to swell their ranks through manually forced ascendancy.

The (repeated) fall of the Jedi was due to emotional suppression, the fall of Devos was due to a loss of faith. Devos abuses emotion with recruits to obtain her goals.

[Hinastorm]

You aren't brainwashed, get it right. You have your memories of what you were while alive erased, but beyond that you're mind and will is your own as seen by those two bickering over whether it's better to have flying lions or robot cats.

And when you take into account their role in the Shadowlands it makes sense. If George over there ended up having to ferry Jim who was the guy that bullied him while young to the afterlife he'd probably just dump him in the Maw as revenge regardless of if Jim regretted acting like an ass while 10 years old and had lived an exemplary life since then.

But, wouldn't it be pretty easy to just not have X Kyrian ferry any souls from their world?

[bagina]

Well let's see. A random soldier in Theramore who fought with honor his entire life and tried to uphold the good dies because Garrosh decided to drop a mana bomb that killed him and his entire family.

He becomes a Kyrian, Garrosh dies and he takes his soul, but he remembers what he did. Drops him straight into the Maw instead of Revendreth.

Why am I even giving an example like this when we have Uther though?

And how is that a case against the Kyrians. They are all past mortal souls, theres no one else that does their job. I imagine the only one whos not a robot thing like the stewards and the guards and is native to Bastion is Kyriela.

How does this relate to or disprove anything I've said? I already gave my opinion on this tired example with a vengeful soul you're repeating, read my post again. If a soul seeks vengeance that means they're not supposed to be doing this job in the first place. If a soul still hasn't made peace with their death and forgiven their murderer then that only means they need more time to heal or they don't belong in Bastion at al. Any serious order will have strict rules its members have to follow. If the order doesn't trust it's members to adhere to the rules then what kind of order is that? You give them centuries of training and a single rule to follow the protocol or there will be consequences. A normal thing, really.

Also Uther had like what, 5 laughable years to accept his past? That's very little time even for mortal souls to heal from their grief. No wonder he was still pissed. That's a weak as fuck example.

Also Kyrians haven't always existed. Archon was the first Kyrian. Someone had to bring the first mortal souls to the Shadowlands.

[kail]

I see the Kyrian's as neither good nor evil, just a faction with an important job that requires complete unbias. It would be more effective to send robots/constructs to ferry the dead but for whatever reason, the Shadowlands needs its own souls to fulfill the role.

What would make them evil to me is if the job were completely forced on all arrivals but there is no evidence to support that notion.

[Jamais]

OP!

Give it a rest. No matter how much you hate them, Kyrians are not evil. I suspect you hate them because you equate them with RL cults, and because of this pretentious ''muh individuality'' mantra.

You have purposely ignored almost all posts explaining this to you. Let me sup it up:

Memory wipe is necessary to preform the soul ferrying without judgement or bias. This is stated in like, second quest in Bastion.
A soul destined for Bastion is already a selfless one, which dedicated their lives to serve and help other.
Memory wipe is not instant or hidden. Every aspirant knows exactly what he is supposed to go trough. It takes eons, trough training and meditation.
Ascended Kyrians retain their free will and memory intact from the moment they ascended.
They are all individuals, as evidenced from plenthora of npcs you can talk to all over Bastion

Path is flawed, yes...and Archon has already stated there ''will be much to discuss'' about the future of Kyrians.

[Devilyaki]

I understand their reasoning to being true neutral to all. Can’t show favoritism to any soul they are charged with. Send them to the wrong place could mess stuff up. But also it is a bit cult like too.

[Kehego]

Spirit healers are also Kyrian.

They are charged to be unbiased. People can't be unbiased with their memories. Look at every ruling in the US. Judges that are supposed to be free of bias are usually the biggest cogs in systemic discrimination.

You don't want that.

[david0925]

I understand the concept of needing a neutral party, but at the same time I don't know why that's "needed". I thought the Arbiter is the one making all the decisions? Yeah, Uther threw Arthas into the Maw for story purposes, but why can Kyrians even make those calls to begin with?

I don't even quite understand why Kyrians are needed in the first place, don't souls just go to the Shadowlands and the Arbiter when they die and then transferred off elsewhere?

[Xilurm]

How does this relate to or disprove anything I've said? I already gave my opinion on this tired example with a vengeful soul you're repeating, read my post again. If a soul seeks vengeance that means they're not supposed to be doing this job in the first place. If a soul still hasn't made peace with their death and forgiven their murderer then that only means they need more time to heal or they don't belong in Bastion at al. Any serious order will have strict rules its members have to follow. If the order doesn't trust it's members to adhere to the rules then what kind of order is that? You give them centuries of training and a single rule to follow the protocol or there will be consequences. A normal thing, really.

Also Uther had like what, 5 laughable years to accept his past? That's very little time even for mortal souls to heal from their grief. No wonder he was still pissed. That's a weak as fuck example.

Also Kyrians haven't always existed. Archon was the first Kyrian. Someone had to bring the first mortal souls to the Shadowlands.

Ok, well. Blizzard disagrees with you obviously. You're trying to make sense of lore that was never 100% consistent anyways. People here are giving reasons that make sense but you just disagree with them. So, whats the point exactly? What are you trying to prove? That Blizzard are bad writers? That ain't news.

- - - Updated - - -

I understand the concept of needing a neutral party, but at the same time I don't know why that's "needed". I thought the Arbiter is the one making all the decisions? Yeah, Uther threw Arthas into the Maw for story purposes, but why can Kyrians even make those calls to begin with?

I don't even quite understand why Kyrians are needed in the first place, don't souls just go to the Shadowlands and the Arbiter when they die and then transferred off elsewhere?

Arbiter just makes the decision. Kyrians are the one who ferry them. The Oribos cinematic and the way the place looks aesthetically with the souls going to and from the Arbiter doesn't make much sense. Unless the Kyrians just leave the souls in a certain place which we haven't seen yet.

[bagina]

Ok, well. Blizzard disagrees with you obviously. You're trying to make sense of lore that was never 100% consistent anyways. People here are giving reasons that make sense but you just disagree with them. So, whats the point exactly? What are you trying to prove? That Blizzard are bad writers? That ain't news.

Well, this thread is trying to prove that Kyrians are a fucked up society. That's the general topic of the discussion. It's one of the most interesting threads right now imo, I'm having a lot of fun reading it. Beyond that, I don't know, discussing stuff for the sake of discussing stuff is kind of the point of these forums.

And who knows, maybe it was intentional and Blizz will address the issue of memory wiping more thoroughly in the future. Maybe it will be a big plot point.

[Soon-TM]

Oh come on, the Orcs genocidal nature brought them to Azeroth and powered the trip. They wouldn’t have stopped once they arrived either, and many of them never wanted to even after Thrall’s “redemption” of them.

WoW has always had morality tails, even before Arthas.

Oh look, another Danuser/Golden acolyte

Btw you are wrong, especially the last part.