SpitefulOne

Same, started a new play through and Xoti’s companion quest is stuck at finding an Adra pillar after talking to the animancers and dumping the souls.

The final discussion is about faith and free will. Iovara isn't really an atheist. She is against manufactured religion because she does not see religion as merely a social construct to control people but as an exercise in Faith. The Engwithans could not prove that a God or Gods existed and lacked the faith to believe without proof so they decided to create Gods which didn't require faith and could be used to provide guidance and meaning to people. Iovara argued that the Gods were false and that they were robbing people of their chance to have faith and find their own purpose and meaning by tricking them. Thaos argues that false purpose and meaning is better than no clear purpose or meaning when the answer cannot be proven and must be taken on faith (different religions fighting, differing beliefs, lack of faith entirely). Iovara argument is that truth must be reached subjectively and by taking a leap of faith which is very similar to Kierkegaard's arguments.

She wasn't saying that gods didn't create the world. She was saying that if there were gods out there, the Engwithans didn't have the means to detect them nor were the Gods blatantly communicating with people. The Engwithans created Gods because they couldn't handle functioning on faith.

Actually, I didn't have Survival at all, the town crier mentioned the kid cutting off his fingers, but I still encountered the father, with no mention of finger removal. I just assumed it was a bait and switch type thing, with me feeling bad because of the crier, but it turning out it was actually another kid. May have been a bug, though. Interestingly, I was also attacked by assassins in Brackenbury, who killed Serel (I couldn't stop them fast enough/didn't realize they were going to attack her.) I don't think they're meant to attack her, I actually reloaded so that I could intercept the assassins before they killed Serel. I think she's just not in their 'faction' so the AI decides she's valid target. But I disagree with the main post. What you do does matter to all of the people you interacted with in the course of the game. You actually do shape the fate of the nation with many of your choices, it just isn't as blatant or didn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to.

Food works for conversations. You can use the dragon egg or dragon meat meals to raise your resolve before a conversation. It's expensive but it works.

Yeah, I mentioned vaguely that KotOR2 is Kreia's story somewhere in this thread. You are right about KotOR's characters, although the plot wouldn't happen without Bao-Dur since only he had the codes needed to operate the device on Malachor, but otherwise yes. Most of them still have some ties to the narrative though. I think if Obsidian were given more time with KotOR 2 they would've been developed even more, the restoration mod by itself gives a lot of insight about what could've been. I never mentioned that every single companion had to be important or involved in the main plot, but they at least have to have a reason to come with you. BG 1 and 2 really aren't bastions of writing and I haven't mentioned them anywhere. I agree about them though. I don't want a KotOR sequel, I just want coherent companions ;p The companions being well developed is not true. They have so little screen time and that screen time is used to give exposition and play therapist. And they are "used to tell the story of the watcher"? What does that mean? What "story" would that even be? Thaos and co.? The companions have *nothing* to do with *anything* related to the PC or the main plot, so I don't know what you mean. See, you're not capable of getting it. How the main character interacts with the companions and responds to their struggles defines the main character, Its not about the result but the process which can be said for most of the game and how many people are complaining about how their choices don't matter. It all depends on if you think the ends justify the means or vice versa. If you're all about the end result then you will not like this game since it is mostly about how you interact with the game. It's a major theme in this game.

I think we both can agree that the companions in general aren't very well developed and used. Kind of meaningless to have companions when that is the case since exposition can be delivered by other NPCs that aren't your companions. You can just use the adventurer's hall. It is a waste and I do hope Obsidian would do it better in the sequel and I KNOW they can, because of all their other titles being amazing in this regard. We already talked about this and came to the conclusion (or maybe I just did) that even if that was true it doesn't go anywhere and it isn't supported by anything within the game. There is no "pattern of unanswered questions" and the game doesn't really bring up any kind of meaningful questions. It even gives answers to questions that weren't even asked and/or were made up in the last half of act 3. ;p This is exactly where we're disagreeing. We are all telling you that the companions are well developed and used to tell the story of the watcher. They're just not integral to moving along the plot. I'm guessing this is just a concept that's beyond you at this point.

Guess you'll just have to be disappointed that they designed the companions as a way to define the PC and not as plot vehicles. You always have the next Final Fantasy to look forward to.

I don't really know what you want or what you expected at this point and reading your posts. Forced party composition, unkillable companions and heavily integrated plot characters are all very JRPG traits. The companions in PoE exist to provide more flavor to the world and act as a sounding board to find out the character's stance on the big issues. They don't drive the plot because they can all be replaced by a mercenary or completely ignored. So you are right, they don't drive the plot that's not really a bad thing. Certain characters can interject at certain junctions in the plot if you've brought them along but it was all designed so the companions would be optional.

Hylia on one character because the whole quest had become about making sure to complete was Calisca could not by saving Aufra's child.

That's them, I was just surprised that there was nothing about it in the ending slides. I had expected the nice choice of helping them to have resulted in a new Vithraki kingdom starting up in Gilded Vale or something.

The stories of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

They only needed enough proof to convince themselves of this truth. They used the technology at their disposal to prove that there were no beings that they would define as a deity that they could detect effecting their world in anyway they could measure. This was enough to convince them to draw the conclusion that there were no deities. They had zero evidence of a being that they would classify as a deity which was enough for them to assume that they don't exist since they had nothing to give them hope that they did. You can prove a negative by the way, if you establish that there's no proof that it's positive.

Who says it was a random accident? It could have all been orchestrated by Eothas without you knowing.

The device woke you by causing the second biawac. The first was probably caused by the first guy (just an ashen statue by the time you arrive).

Anyone else help the Vithraki because you were benevolent but were also worried it was going to come back to bite you when you're welcoming your new spidery overlords in the ending slides?

"You cannot prove a negative" is an unfortunate piece of pseudologic that refers to the appeal to ignorance, but condenses the fallacy too much (so much its not true anymore). It would be better to condense it like this: "Sth. is true because there is no proof that sth. is false." -> fallacy. This would make it short without distortion of the meaning (i think) Edit: Here is a link for a more in-depth description http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof I usually see it used in regards to god/s so maybe that is why it's used here? Because in the game we don't really know the definition or rules laid out for the old gods to say they couldn't have been disproved with animancy. It seems with advancement of science in our world, god has been placed outside of our universe to try to make it work. Which makes proving it's existence, or lack thereof rather tricky... But we don't know much about the old gods in PoE, so in whatever way "You cannot prove a negative" is interpreted it's possible they could have been proven false. At least, that's how it seems to me. The point was that the burden of proof was on proving that the Gods did exist, not proving that they didn't. The Engwithans saw no master moving pieces around and order once they had mastered animancy. They then determined that if there was no higher power or fate and that bad things happen just because of luck then they would create a purpose and share it with the world. They would get rid of all of the religions of the other civilizations and replace it with their own which would have order and beings which could communicate and offer a purpose in life. It's true that there could have been god or gods outside of their realm of knowledge but they lacked faith to continue to believe without proof. They felt that in the absence of purpose and meaning they would create one because it was better than nothing. "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."[3] Translation: If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. - Voltaire 1770

light blue ending.

How could that be? The reason that Engwithans made the gods was because there were no gods. None. I'm not certain this is true based on how the Leaden Key worked. They liked hiding the truth and people didn't know everything or each other. It's very possible that the people searching for the gods were lead astray purposefully in order to justify creating new ones. If you look at the pantheon, a big chunk of them liked to obscure the truth in their own ways and for their own reasons. The "there aren't other gods" thing could just be a carefully fabricated lie. You're just making things up from whole cloth at this point. Maybe the world is about to get overrun by stealthed Vithraki that are using their mind powers to not be seen and you're literally walking amongst 1000000's of them the entire game but your mechanics score just isn't high enough to see them.

The Gods could be continuously splintering and consuming souls which would explain the Godlike. They could be seeing a bunch of Eothas godlikes born as his splinters merge back into the cycle.

He didn't do it to stop wars, he did it to consolidate belief in one pantheon that shared Engwithan views and morals. He says they did it to stop each culture from having their own particular religion with its own mores and taboos. He makes a statement about atrocities committed in the name of Gods that they had found didn't exist so to curb that they created Gods that could actually respond and justify worship. They thought the fabricated pantheon with its ability to take some action was better than nothing. It's not really an atheism versus religion argument since she doesn't say don't believe in anything, she just doesn't want people worshipping artificial entities. She thought it was holding people back from finding out the Truth (whether that's another actual creator(s) or nothing, whatever it may be).

That's where you misunderstood. Woedica was pulling Thaos out of the wheel before his soul lost its memory and reincarnating him every time he died. There is an explanation from Webb, I think, that points out that Woedica was bending the rules by doing this since no other gods followed 1 soul that closely. It was technology, kind of, but only technology that was looking out for him.

Well there's no clarification in the game as to what exactly the gods are, although I do recall that someone refers to them as "pure ideals". If he is just a great big soul then he could theoretically be held in Breith Eaman for as long as the other gods desired.

He is just a gigantic soul... so some splintering may occur but he could be back in a few years reincarnated.

They believe in reincarnation but they also value self and personal identity which is stripped from you as soon as you die which is what makes death so frightening. The souls can be fractured and merged with other souls during the cycle so there is no 'you' to speak of once you die since your soul isn't one immutable entity in their belief system. There religion also has souls that do not reenter the cycle, essentially ceasing to exist. Rymrgand represents the inevitability of endings even for souls. Rymrgand is still just a giant soul AI though doing his thing. The bigger question that loomed was who built the wheel and why and what are souls? That's what terrified the Engwithans, they couldn't come up with a reason for it all. So they created gods to give purpose and promote the values that they believed in. They didn't think the average person could handle going through life knowing that there was no greater purpose and that there was no greater meaning for all of the suffering.