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Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

Lacrymas

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A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?
When I first played it: stopping an evil god from imposing a harsh rule and "political" games with animancy. When I played it a second time: getting revenge on the guy that made you kill your own lover/sibling/friend.

Honestly, it depends on how important you think the flashbacks are.

edit: I want to reiterate, I am not saying PoE has a masterfully executed story. In fact, I think it is the lack of cohesion that helps it, because it creates ambiguity. Without that ambiguity, it would be a pretentious failure at Planescape-ish writing (as opposed to an incoherent, execution failure of Planescape-ish writing).

That's my point though, the lack of cohesion fails to produce a main plot. When a single person finds a bunch of "main" plots (none of which are justified very well) what does that say? There are multiple threads going on at once and none of them matter to anyone even within the story.


However I think story works, because in Obsidian tradition, they left it open-ended, story is how you want it to play it to be. There is no "point", there is no grand closing act, in fact this is lampshaded by Thaos' own words.

I.e. the story is pointless? Being an open-ended story is an excuse for amateurs, not serious writers, at least this interpretation of "open-ended". Serious stories with open ends have ambiguous endings, not ambiguous everything else. Unless it's Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, but that's different. I also don't know what you mean by "other Obsidian games being open-ended", none of them are (maybe DS3? Haven't played it). I don't think it's even open-ended, it just isn't there at all. Not to mention that the person above found many points, so it does have a point, but it's also pointless? Does not compute.
 
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Thoughts on the "What does it matter that the gods are artificial? They're still powerful!" argument:

1) I think that's an argument that betrays a misunderstanding of religious faith. Don't really want to go deeper into this, though.

Well, I will.

The Kith think they live in the Forgotten Realms when really they live in Allbert Camus' the Myth of Sisyphus (aka, our world). The comforting embrace of cosmic purpose encapsulating their daily experience of existence is a convincing illusion.

Their distress would be pretty much identical to Neo's when he realized he was in the Matrix. Practically speaking, it makes no difference, but once you are aware of it, the more unruly, existentially inclined parts of your psyche begin to buck and rebel.

It a similar psychological process to the uncanny valley. They look like gods, they act like gods, they have the power of gods ... but they aren't gods and you know it, and it bothers you.
 

FreeKaner

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I.e. the story is pointless? Being an open-ended story is an excuse for amateurs, not serious writers. I also don't know what you mean by "other Obsidian games being open-ended", none of them are (maybe DS3? Haven't played it). I don't think it's even open-ended, it just isn't there at all. Not to mention that the person above found many points, so it does have a point, but it's also pointless? Does not compute.

Story has a meaning and context and I found it satisfying even though I think it could be executed way better and was far from perfect. What I mean is there is no "point" that story is giving you. You can end it by following through Thaos' work while basically "merging" your past-self and current, you can try to stop Thaos to help people of drywood, you can not give a fuck either way etc. The story doesn't tell you a "point", like in New Vegas for example, dam is important because it supplies electricity to new vegas and new vegas is an important, contested city in the location and whoever controls the dam controls the new vegas. So the "point" in that story is you win the battle and either take control of New Vegas with one of three factions or just kick everyone out and make it your own city. Now there is a point, it has choices but the point is same, control the city.

In PoE, there is no such thing, there is no conclusive point and I like that. I don't think every story in a game, especially in a RPG that's not linear should be a monomyth or written by the rules of narrative direction. There are a lot of movies that are loose and there is no "point" or conclusive ending to but are still acclaimed because of the experience itself. An interactive medium like games can benefit from this on a much greater level, allowing the player to not be told a story with a conclusion but to go through a chain of events, that doesn't really have a conclusion or a clear implication. The story is you chase the person who inflicted you with an affliction because you don't want to go insane and you end up learning they are an organisation that are basically changing public perception for their own ideals and you can do whatever you want with it.

I am not saying every game should be like this but I think we have enough games that have a conclusive point and story and not enough games that are just incidents. Neither is wrong, they are just different and appeal to a different sense and I think the incidental, no point type of narrative works well with RPGs due how loose people play them by just going through event to event as they come across them in a very disconnected pattern.
 

Maculo

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That's my point though, the lack of cohesion fails to produce a main plot. When a single person finds a bunch of "main" plots (none of which are justified very well) what does that say? There are multiple threads going on at once and none of them matter to anyone even within the story.


However I think story works, because in Obsidian tradition, they left it open-ended, story is how you want it to play it to be. There is no "point", there is no grand closing act, in fact this is lampshaded by Thaos' own words.

I.e. the story is pointless? Being an open-ended story is an excuse for amateurs, not serious writers. I also don't know what you mean by "other Obsidian games being open-ended", none of them are (maybe DS3? Haven't played it). I don't think it's even open-ended, it just isn't there at all. Not to mention that the person above found many points, so it does have a point, but it's also pointless? Does not compute.

But that is where I disagree. I do think the plots matter, whether it is a personal revenge plot or stopping a pissed off God from dicking over the continent. The issue is execution, especially the Twin Dryads, where some key information was never given voice acting or acknowledgment. Another example is Maerwald, which had terrible execution. The stronghold should have had a Thaos flashback to lead you to Defiance Bay.

I think what also screwed things up is the dialogue choices with Thaos. You could change to the tone of those flashbacks from personal to banal with a click.
 

FreeKaner

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Yeah I also think the flashbacks were way too short. Those could be way longer than just giving you a general idea of who you are and choosing how you came to be, the game lacked content in that regard. It's fine early on as you are just barely starting to learn what's going on but there is a huge hole between flashback in front of the Hadret and flashback when you are first going to twin elms, then again flashback between twin elms and flashback back in front of those dyrads. Especially if you play the game by doing ACT1, the main quests in defiance bay (Meeting, Heritage Hill and Asylum), then go to white march, when you finally come back it's like coming back to an entirely different game. Honestly it actually felt like gap between Witcher 2 and 3.
 

Lacrymas

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The story is you chase the person who inflicted you with an affliction because you don't want to go insane and you end up learning they are an organisation that are basically changing public perception for their own ideals and you can do whatever you want with it.

So this is the story? Chasing a guy who has afflicted you (although it wasn't him, it was that storm) and find an organization which changes public perception? What you do with it is your choice, yes, but you conflate the point of the story with its ending, which is a fallacy. What is the story about? Or is it just random coincidences?


But that is where I disagree. I do think the plots matter, whether it is a personal revenge plot or stopping a pissed off God from dicking over the continent. The issue is execution, especially the Twin Dryads, where some key information was never given voice acting or acknowledgment. Another example is Maerwald, which had terrible execution. The stronghold should have had a Thaos flashback to lead you to Defiance Bay.

I think what also screwed things up is the dialogue choices with Thaos. You could change to the tone of those flashbacks from personal to banal with a click.

The plots matter to who? Why? What comes out of it? How do you justify them as plots at all? What is keeping this narrative intact?
 

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For revenge? The MC personally. You get back at the person who betrayed you in your prior life (possibly even "lives" based on the Twin Dryad text). Thaos had you do terrible things in the name of a fake religion.

For the god plot, the MC, the party, and the rest of the continent are free of Woedica's scheme (or not, if you choose the Woedica ending). Moreover, the hollowborn epidemic ends.

Edit: We basically have two villains to take care of: Woedica and Thaos. The two plots intertwine.
 
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Lacrymas

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The story is about a person who got afflicted and is trying to fix it and ends up at odds with an organisation. What's a satisfying story includes for you? What is that description lacking?

I am asking the question: What the story is about? I'm not saying I know, because it actually isn't about anything. A bunch of things happen, none of which are important to each other and none of them force each other to happen. If what you say describes the story, what is Iovara doing there? What do the gods (and them not being real) have to do with an organization you find? The Hollowborn crisis? What about being a Watcher? "A person is afflicted and finds an organization" doesn't sound like a logical progression of events.


For revenge? The MC personally. You get back at the person who betrayed you in your prior life (possibly even "lives" based on the Twin Dryad text). Thaos had you do terrible things in the name of a fake religion.

For the god plot, the MC, the party, and the rest of the continent are free of Woedica's scheme (or not, if you choose the Woedica ending). Moreover, the hollowborn epidemic ends.

How do we know the PC wants revenge at all, or even cares about the whole thing? What we have is an affliction which s/he wants to cure. Everything else doesn't gel with that. Neither the gods, nor Thaos, nor children without souls, nor revenge, nor Iovara have anything to do with that. It's not about stopping Woedica, because I think you can ally with her? Which means you aren't actively working towards that goal, since that's not a goal, it's a choice at the end.
 
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FreeKaner

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So you don't want roleplay opportunities and just a set in stone story with clear definitions, goals, paths and conclusive ending? Witcher 3 is a good example of that, PoE doesn't take that sort of narrative decision and is way more sandbox in how it approaches PC's motivations, particular towards the ending where the goal of story is completely at your own choice. Your MC wants a revenge because you decide you are chasing Thaos for revenge and don't give a fuck about gods or drywood, the game provides you tools for the story to be that way (Dialogue options and quest routes with ending consequences). Roleplaying as it used to be called.
 

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How do we know the PC wants revenge at all, or even cares about the whole thing? What we have is an affliction which s/he wants to cure. Everything else doesn't gel with that. Neither the gods, nor Thaos, nor revenge, nor Iovara have anything to do with that.
In my mind, these are the key sequences:
  • Iovara states that you are driven by a need to confront Thaos, if I remember correctly.
  • The Twin Dryads tell you that you and Thaos have crossed paths multiple times.
  • The introduction and the finale before you fight Thaos reference a "question" posed to Thaos.
  • The flashbacks show that the MC trusted Thaos, and that the MC turned on his/her own friend/lover/sibling for Thaos, which led to a gruesome death and afterlife.
  • The final flashback before the Thaos fight shows that the MC began to see through Thaos' lie.
For that reason, I do think the MC cares and that Thaos/Iovara matter, because they contextualize the "drive." Personally, this comes off as a revenge plot with "amnesia" sprinkled in.
 

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I am at my most bored during PoE when I'm clicking through those Watcher Past Life(tm) dialogues, being told a story about how I did something in the past using placeholder expressions like "The Inquisition" or "The Woman." Because the game can't tell us even slight details about what's going on, it has to invent a new language to tell us the story, without actually telling us the story. And holy shit is it boring! I don't know why I'm supposed to care about any of it.

Perfectly said. Those parts of the story fail - both from a story, as well as from a gameplay side - because they're ultimately about a predetermined person who's not really you (no matter what the game tries to tell us), told in a dull, expository way, and you don't get any gameplay benefits (apart from those mostly crappy per-rest abilities you gain after major flashbacks) from it.

As such, you go through 95% of the game knowing even less about Thaos than you do about Sarevok, yet he is an infinitely more complex character, and the game is trying to be about the very logic that drives him.

I get the feeling that no one, not Fenstermaker, certainly not MCA, was all that thrilled about the choice of main story. In almost every other aspect of the game you can see the passion that went into it, but the main story itself is muddled and jarring when compared to the rest of it.

Some of the elements work (Woedica vs Eothas, Thaos (at the very end), the Hollowborn Crisis), but almost nothing about the Watcher's player agency and motivation come across as compelling.

Completely agree. First time I played, I had a hard time understanding at first that those dream/memory sequences were all my past life (as opposed to all the random backer soul shit), but even once I did, I had a hard time understanding why I would care. As a storytelling device, it was okay at best. As a motivational device, it was very ineffective. Might be that the underlying idea of souls didn't work quite like Obsidian wanted. For me, the fact that my soul did something in another life before I as the player started to play didn't matter to me at all because it wasn't MY action.

Also, re: the gods... it's fine to postulate why that should have been a big and impactful reveal but the fact that for many of us it wasn't should indicate that the attempt was not wholely successful. Maybe it's because I think religion is stupid, but having the magical fairy beings exposed as ultra powerful beings instead of deities didn't matter much to me.

How do we know the PC wants revenge at all, or even cares about the whole thing? What we have is an affliction which s/he wants to cure. Everything else doesn't gel with that. Neither the gods, nor Thaos, nor revenge, nor Iovara have anything to do with that.
In my mind, these are the key sequences:
  • Iovara states that you are driven by a need to confront Thaos, if I remember correctly.
  • The Twin Dryads tell you that you and Thaos have crossed paths multiple times.
  • The introduction and the finale before you fight Thaos reference a "question" posed to Thaos.
  • The flashbacks show that the MC trusted Thaos, and that the MC turned on his/her own friend/lover/sibling for Thaos, which led to a gruesome death and afterlife.
  • The final flashback before the Thaos fight shows that the MC began to see through Thaos' lie.
For that reason, I do think the MC cares and that Thaos/Iovara matter, because they contextualize the "drive." Personally, this comes off as a revenge plot with "amnesia" sprinkled in.

That's a whole lot of being TOLD why we're motivated, honestly, instead of us as the player character developing our motivations. Probably another reason it falls flat for me.

Also, it's fine to abandon the "rules of narrative direction" but you probably shouldn't do it in a game that was supposed to be a spiritual successor to BG/BG2.

And one further thought about the gods-are-artificial twist. Chris Avellone has said that he thinks the gods aren't an important enough part of the game's storyline, so players won't care about the twist.

I don't agree with MCA on everything, but I'd say he's dead-on here. I'd also say it's a twist that would have been better served in a sequel or later, once the world was established and we maybe cared, but that's just me.
 
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Sentinel

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A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?
I think the point of the story (or message?) is that sometimes there is no answer/solution to our questions/troubles. None of the companions see any positive resolution to their plights (aside from I think Aloth; p sure the other writers missed the memo)
- Edér doesn't find the info he was looking for on his brother, he actually is more troubled by the end of the game than when you first met him;
- Durance is forced to see that he was used and betrayed by his own Goddess. Suicide ending for him is probably gonna end up being cannon;
- Kana Rua never finds the records he's looking for IIRC;
- Sagani is disappointed by the results of her pursuit, didn't find what she expected;
The whole game is about going after Thaos for answers, and even in the end he dodges all questions with half-answers.
I also feel it contrasts well with BG2 (something I think Eric talked about in the past - how they tried to go after the things players take for granted in cRPGs: the gods, and, I think, the fact that quests always have a satisfactory ending that provides all answers).

This all got thrown out the window in WM though. I don't think the expansion had any central theme. The story was much lighter, there was no theme wrapping companions and story together, it was all just kinda loose. At least the main story of WM2 was pretty ok, even if the final boss was retarded as fuck and incredibly generic.
 

Lacrymas

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So you don't want roleplay opportunities and just a set in stone story with clear definitions, goals, paths and conclusive ending? Witcher 3 is a good example of that, PoE doesn't take that sort of narrative decision and is way more sandbox in how it approaches PC's motivations, particular towards the ending where the goal of story is completely at your own choice. Your MC wants a revenge because you decide you are chasing Thaos for revenge and don't give a fuck about gods or drywood, the game provides you tools for the story to be that way (Dialogue options and quest routes with ending consequences). Roleplaying as it used to be called.

It doesn't provide that, because ALL those things happen simultaneously and are written as if they matter to each other, when they don't. If different things happen depending on your choices, then sure, but not like this. I.e. there is no main plot and no story at all.


How do we know the PC wants revenge at all, or even cares about the whole thing? What we have is an affliction which s/he wants to cure. Everything else doesn't gel with that. Neither the gods, nor Thaos, nor revenge, nor Iovara have anything to do with that.
In my mind, these are the key sequences:
  • Iovara states that you are driven by a need to confront Thaos, if I remember correctly.
  • The Twin Dryads tell you that you and Thaos have crossed paths multiple times.
  • The introduction and the finale before you fight Thaos reference a "question" posed to Thaos.
  • The flashbacks show that the MC trusted Thaos, and that the MC turned on his/her own friend/lover/sibling for Thaos, which led to a gruesome death and afterlife.
  • The final flashback before the Thaos fight shows that the MC began to see through Thaos' lie.
For that reason, I do think the MC cares and that Thaos/Iovara matter, because they contextualize the "drive."

Another person tells you your motivations? First red flag right there. Twin Dryads exposition dump you more information about the past you have no reason to care about. The "question" is irrelevant and the answer is as well, you aren't searching for that information, if you want revenge on Thaos, then the revenge itself matters, Thaos might as well have peed in your soup or whatever. The problem is still the irrelevancy of this, because you were another person when this happened, you have no connection whatsoever with that. Let's apply this logic to real life - IF you reincarnate and find out that a tribesman in Jingistan killed your previous self 500 years ago, would you care?


A question to everyone: What do you think the point of the story is? And how do you justify your reasoning?
I think the point of the story (or message?) is that sometimes there is no answer/solution to our questions/troubles. None of the companions see any positive resolution to their plights (aside from I think Aloth; p sure the other writers missed the memo)
- Edér doesn't find the info he was looking for on his brother, he actually is more troubled by the end of the game than when you first met him;
- Durance is forced to see that he was used and betrayed by his own Goddess. Suicide ending for him is probably gonna end up being cannon;
- Kana Rua never finds the records he's looking for IIRC;
- Sagani is disappointed by the results of her pursuit, didn't find what she expected;
The whole game is about going after Thaos for answers, and even in the end he dodges all questions with half-answers.
I also feel it contrasts well with BG2 (something I think Eric talked about in the past - how they tried to go after the things players take for granted in cRPGs: the gods, and, I think, the fact that quests always have a satisfactory ending that provides all answers).

This all got thrown out the window in WM though. I don't think the expansion had any central theme. The story was much lighter, there was no theme wrapping companions and story together, it was all just kinda loose. At least the main story of WM2 was pretty ok, even if the final boss was retarded as fuck and incredibly generic.

I have heard this interpretation before, and the problem is always that there ARE answers, but they just can't find them, which are completely different things. Not to mention that Durance finds out that Magran lost connection to him, Kana Rua found the documents, they were just destroyed, Sagani being disappointed is different than not finding answers, etc. What about the central plot though? You find out that the gods aren't real, you find the cause of the Hollowborn and you stop it, what answer didn't you find?
 
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Maculo

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Another person tells you your motivations? First red flag right there. Twin Dryads exposition dump you more information about the past you have no reason to care about. The "question" is irrelevant and the answer is as well, you aren't searching for that information, if you want revenge on Thaos, then the revenge itself matters, Thaos might as well have peed in your soup or whatever. The problem is still the irrelevancy of this, because you were another person when this happened, you have no connection whatsoever with that. Let's apply this logic to real life - IF you reincarnate and find out that a tribesman in Jingistan killed your previous self 500 years ago, would you care?
That's different from having no motivation and the plots having no relevance though. Moreover, no one has argued that the execution was strong. I would totally understand if you said PoE's plot has bad execution, but 100% irrelevant with no connection? I just do not agree.
 

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And one further thought about the gods-are-artificial twist. Chris Avellone has said that he thinks the gods aren't an important enough part of the game's storyline, so players won't care about the twist. That's possibly true if you take the game in isolation and ignore the genre that it's part of. But I think that as an intentionally nostalgic product that's meant to be a commentary on an entire generation of fantasy RPGs, Pillars of Eternity should be given some allowance to assume that players already have certain expectations about the nature of gods in fantasy settings. Even if the twist isn't shocking to you as viewed from the in-world perspective of your player character, it's still a surprise on the meta-genre level. I wonder if MCA really doesn't realize this or if he just thinks it's not good enough (which is certainly a defensible position).

I have no problem with the question itself, just with how it was presented as a this changes everything-level of unwarranted seriousness.

Why should the PC automatically care that they aren't real? Was betraying your sister/friend/lover really the worst thing you have ever done in 3000+ years' worth of reincarnating?

For that Gods reveal to have the gravitas it was obviously intended to have - the gods should have been way more involved with the world and society than what was present in the game. Something like the Tribunal from Morrowind - you can feel their influence in every aspect of Dunmer culture. With PoE's gods, it was established that things would pretty much go on with or without them (probably just a bit less orderly), so much of that philosophical problem was squandered right there. Just take Eothas - was anything really different now that he's (maybe) dead? Apart from his followers being religiously persecuted?
 

Lacrymas

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That's different from having no motivation and the plots having no relevance though. Moreover, no one has argued that the execution was strong. I would totally understand if you said PoE's plot has bad execution, but 100% irrelevant with no connection? I just do not agree.

They have no relevancy to anything that happens within it. Iovara might be lying about the "drive", so your motivation is uncertain information coming from a ghost woman. She might be the one trying to drag you into her fight with the intent of killing Thaos. What does that have to do with being a Watcher, her being dead doesn't change the story, it would've been the same if she was alive? Hollowborn crisis? The revenge interpretation dangling on "maybes" or abstract concepts like a "drive"? Gods not being real? Woedica? All the motivations are flimsy at best, you are also TOLD that you feel bad about the Watcher thing and that can also substitute a motivation, but it's flimsy and not shown. Not to mention that we aren't talking about a motivation, we are talking about whether there is a main plot at all or even A plot.
 

Maculo

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I can totally agree that it is flimsy at points (PoE will never be Planescape), but I can still see relevancy to those plot points. Reasonable minds can differ, and I have enjoyed the discussion, but I think I would be assaulting your eyes with rehashed sentences at this point.
 

Lacrymas

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Why should the PC automatically care that they aren't real? Was betraying your sister/friend/lover really the worst thing you have ever done in 3000+ years' worth of reincarnating?

For that Gods reveal to have the gravitas it was obviously intended to have - the gods should have been way more involved with the world and society than what was present in the game. Something like the Tribunal from Morrowind - you can feel their influence in every aspect of Dunmer culture. With PoE's gods, it was established that things would pretty much go on with or without them (probably just a bit less orderly), so much of that philosophical problem was squandered right there. Just take Eothas - was anything really different now that he's (maybe) dead? Apart from his followers being religiously persecuted?

They are real though, and they have provable power over their domains, so it's even more useless. What would change if they were created 500 years ago as opposed to forever being there? Their domains are there and they themselves are there. There is no religious faith associated with this because they are PROVEN FACTS, so that goes out the window etc. If they are shown in-game to have a more active role in the lives of the people, what would change? They are still there, still doing their thing. Them being created is actually more logical than the perpetuity of some gods (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, though they are the same being in those religions) in real life. Not to mention that most mythologies have the gods being created somehow, like Apollo and Artemis being born out of Leto. Even Gaia was "created out" of Chaos.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, weren't the gods programmed to not be able to physically affect the world in any way? If that's the case it's "the blind leading the blind" plot with nobody actually having any real power apart from the Engwithans with their machines and they were the last people to propel the world forward.
 
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Quillon

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For me, the fact that my soul did something in another life before I as the player started to play didn't matter to me at all because it wasn't MY action.

IMO there should have been only one version of The Watcher's past lives cos I(and prolly most ppl) knew right from the first time it happened that the choices in those dreamy sequences won't have any effect on anything; no consequences whatsoever with so little context which consequently made rest of these sequences feel redundant and at least made me not care for what happened which was the whole thing's purpose; to give us some context to what happened way back when and to tell us we HAD past lives. Whether we care or not isn't important, we could establish that at a late point/in the end.
 

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Think of it this way: you believe in the Christian God not because you've seen him going around smiting people with a giant hammer and giving you free cookies, but because you have faith that he is the overarching figure of our universe that requires worship simply because he is what he is (rather than 'because he created the universe' or 'because he knows all', specifically). There are arguments that if God came down and started smacking people left and right, there would no longer be any question of faith or religion; you would simply relate to him like you do to an oncoming tsunami, or Donald Trump, or your dad. In such religions, the most important aspect of a divinity is not their ability to swing hammers the size of mountains or to send people to heaven and hell; those capabilities are simply adjuncts to the fundamental fact that there is nothing higher than a god, there is nothing before a god, god defines the basic boundaries of the world that cannot be violated, surpassed, undercut.

When you learn that those gods are (1) created a few hundred years ago, and therefore they are not even as old as the Engwithans whose ruins we live in shadow of, (2) they were created by mortals like ourselves, (3) they are not fully sentient beings with powers of intellect, wisdom, cognition that easily outstrip mortals, but more akin to animals or machines in that they are preprogrammed with certain biases, tendencies, instincts, responses, and run with them in a very sophisticated way, then it is very easy to see that (a) no, it is nowhere as earthshattering as learning the gods don't exist, and no, it is unlikely to make all mortals in the realms immediately abandon worship and go secular; (b) yes, it is going to have seismic changes in the role of religion and how people relate to the gods all over the place.

Why would that be the case, if the gods are still existing and powerful beings? (i) The fact that the gods are relatively recent creations undermines the special authority that being a god gives you; if the Hebrew Bible dictated that Yahweh did not create the world, but instead was created by wise proto-Ur-hebrew humans hundreds of years before Moses, that produces a very different attitude to worship. (ii) The fact that the gods were created by a people whose machines still litter the land gives rise to the very real possibility that gods can be newly created, modified, destroyed, as suits the mortals - a possibility which was only being raised as a "holy shit, could it really be?" speculation by mortals in the wake of St. Waidwen and the Godhammer. Before that, the only known case of a God being killed is the whatever-his-name-was Hephaestus knockoff in an altercation amongst the gods themselves, in the style of Greek myth. There is a massive difference between a world where people worship the gods as all-powerful beings who have always been there, and a world where powerful gods roam but can be created, modified, killed, by mortals. You can very well expect that, in a timeline where the POE protagonist reveals this secret to the world, you will see a different history over the next few centuries as massive splits occur between people who continue to worship the existing gods and wish to try and retain the integrity of the original pantheon, and those who seek to discover the power to create new gods, some of them perhaps successful, all of which becomes compounded by the fact that (iii) the gods are preprogrammed rather than omniscient and wise beyond human ken, meaning mortals now realise once they understand how a given god works and what makes them tick, you can easily manipulate them, even set them against each other, i.e. enrol them in your machinations - and in fact, Durance becomes an unwitting test case of this principle, where he has accidentally found a way to make himself invisible to Magran. All in all, what you find is a situation where a society that treated its pantheon as the limits of their world, things which could not be disobeyed, tricked, modified or defied, goes through a massive revelation - Waidwen saga + Watcher's expose - and then becomes a society split between those who seek to maintain that tradition, and those who now believe that the gods are things that mortals can control, defy, fight, create, etc.

It's actually a typical modern atheist's one-track thinking to just say "so what if the god is fake he's still super powerful and shit so nothing changes at all", because obviously, for the atheist who is unwilling to believe in divinity to begin with, there really seems to be no distinction between an incredibly powerful superhuman being and any kind of god, and the 'proven empirical fact' of seeing him swing his hammer around obviously supercedes any superstitious 'belief'. The comment that POE gods being created is 'more logical' than the perpetuity of the Christian god, for example, is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether the POE revelation makes a difference to the people in that setting and their existing mode of religious relation to their gods.

(P.S. A more relevant question is, we have cases like Greek mythology where the Olympian pantheon is basically a third generation pantheon, and they've got a lot of other pseudo-divine beings that they're birthed from or have fought and imprisoned, so what gives? We know that the Greek attitude to their own gods, from the beginning, was very different from the Christian and other monotheistic religions. The Greeks didn't rebel against their gods and seek to restore Titan rule or whatever. The answer here is that the Greek religion was from the beginning formulated in this way, crafting a set of dispositions that allowed for humans to sometimes partially escape from or cut deals with the judgments of the divine, and depicted the gods not as omniscient limits of the world but more like the very top of the food pyramid within our world. The thing is, it's not logical to say, "look at the Greeks so of course nobody gives a shit if their gods turn out to be made or whatever". The question is, "would Christians shrug and carry on if their God turned out one day to be more like Zeus?" Or "would the Greeks have shrugged and carried on if the Olympian Pantheon turned out to be constructs created by Mycenaeans a couple centuries before the Classical Age?" The point is that in the POE world a stable religion with a very clear set of relationships and attitudes developed, and then you have a Big Event that overturns large portions of that theology while leaving large portions intact also. That's the interesting part, because now you're going to see schisms and splits between people who draw new conclusions about the gods based on new info, and those who try to conserve old ones, and people inbetween, and heck people who opt out and go atheist/agnostic/whatever.)
 

Lacrymas

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The relationship of Christianity to its own god is far more complicated than that, unfortunately. Same with the Greek pantheon. None of which require the actual, literal existence of gods. You are right, however, that religion would be far different if they "came down" periodically to smite some bitches. It would be the same if proto-humans created the Abrahamic God (interesting parallels can be made with the Ubermensch). The question of FAITH would be irrelevant, it's irrelevant to Christianity right now, too, but for different reasons. VERY complicated topic, I wouldn't go into it.

In PoE's case nothing would change, because the gods are there, you can and do talk to them. What PoE's inhabitants will think of them when they find out they aren't "real" is also irrelevant, since the gods' power doesn't rely on worship or thoughts, kinda like real life actually, religion doesn't care what you think of it. Sure, some people would stop worshiping them, but whatevs, their life won't change at all because the gods don't. The interesting part is that they don't actually have any real power over their portfolios, at least that's what I remember. They were specifically programmed to not be able to physically affect the world. They do buff you with that slow-fall thing, so that's a contradiction. If I don't remember correctly and they do have power over their portfolios, their existence would be a never-ending loop of sameness, preventing anything from happening because not only would it threaten their domains, it would also be impossible to go outside their pre-programmed lines. They could also smite any opposition, so the question of rebelling is out. That's because they *literally exist*, real world religions have the luxury of an absent divinity, PoE's don't. There simply isn't a real world parallel, maybe cults of personality, but those are different. The difference between a very powerful human and a divinity is of mental constructs, the cognitive relationships we form concerning that divinity, it's not about faith, you can have faith in a person as well, since it just requires an absence of evidence.

Dionysus was killed by humans, that being their sin which they try to wash away through Bacchic mysteries in the ancient Greek world.

Your post requires a much deeper elaboration on my part, about everything really, but it's late and it would be long, so maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
 
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Tigranes

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Of course it's far more complicated, but we don't have to turn this into a humanities graduate seminar, the main subject (POE) doesn't need it. There's a pretty basic point here: if you develop your religion around eternal gods as fabric of universe never to be transgressed, then suddenly you discover they're machines made a while ago by some dudes that act on programmed tendencies and can be created, killed, manipulated by mortals, then that's going to be a pretty significant shock to that system without wiping out that religion (since the gods are still powerful and real). You're making a lot of other points some of which I agree with and others which I could further discuss, but they all seem rather peripheral to the question of "does POE's revelation matter to the setting or are the inhabitants going to shrug and say whatever nothing changes". If we were discussing at a more general level about whether it matters an empirically proven god with real powers is manmade or not, then I'd probably be on a lot similar ground, but it seems elementary to me that not everybody in Defiance Bay would learn about this and go "eh".

AFAIK, we never learn quite exactly what governs the gods' ability to intervene in the world to what degree, we know that there's a pact amongst gods not to just rain down fire on a village or something, but that pact seems to be a voluntary one that they do have the power to transgress (and was transgressed during POE's story). Which calls into question just how 'sentient' they are, to what degree they are constrained by their original programming, etc.
 
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Barnabas

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The "gods" of Poe are confusing as to what power they actually have or what realm they inhabit. They need to elaborate on it
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
There's a pretty basic point here: if you develop your religion around eternal gods as fabric ...

We don't know how they think of their gods and how their being eternal (or not) comes into it, or whether it's on the table at all, PoE's world doesn't have (serious) theology or any kind of philosophy, because it's hard to write those. All we've seen is how individuals relate to their gods on a personal level. Maybe White March gives more info? Or maybe I don't remember a huge theological sermon in-game?
 

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