[Ending spoilers] How did everything work before?

[Yenkaz]

... If the wheel is a construct of the Engwithans, the cycle of rebirth a process engineered by them, and a process which will eventually result in the cache of souls running out with everyone "stuck" in the in-between/beyond, whichever it was...

 

How did things work *before* the Engwithans built the wheel? Why didn't they run out of souls shortly after intelligent life appeared on Eora?

Edited May 25, 2018 by Yenkaz

[morhilane]

The cycle of reincarnation existed before the gods came into being about 2000 years ago, it wasn't under anyone controls though. That was explained in POE1, if you do the Endless Path and listen to Od Nua's reason to build a huge statue for his dead son.

 

The Wheel just hijacked the natural order so the gods could nom, nom on soul skin flakes and play with souls (like letting Thaos come through with all his memories).

 

Now if the old system is back online with a broken Wheel...who knows. There was cut dialogues that explained a bit more about that according to Josh Sawyer and it might be re-added back. Also, the gods have very good reasons to make people believe the Wheel needs to be fixed, their survival depends on it.

[Yenkaz]

The cycle of reincarnation existed before the gods came into being about 2000 years ago, it wasn't under anyone controls though. That was explained in POE1, if you do the Endless Path and listen to Od Nua's reason to build a huge statue for his dead son.

 

The Wheel just hijacked the natural order so the gods could nom, nom on soul skin flakes and play with souls (like letting Thaos come through with all his memories).

 

Now if the old system is back online with a broken Wheel...who knows. There was cut dialogues that explained a bit more about that according to Josh Sawyer and it might be re-added back. Also, the gods have very good reasons to make people believe the Wheel needs to be fixed, their survival depends on it.

 

I suppose, but for instance Hylea seems... mainly bothered about rebuilding a new wheel and the consequences of there not being one more than the current one remaining in existence. If she only cared about saving her own skin, why would she mainly want the watcher to help kith build a new machine?

 

I suppose she could be trying to deceive the Watcher by seeming more benevolent than she really is, and she always seemed to be the closest to an ally Eothas had.... But even Eothas seemed to believe that Kith souls would be trapped without the wheel and that a replacement for the wheel was necessary.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Yenkaz

[morhilane]

The way I see is that breaking is not equal to removing. So the natural way is not "back on" after what Eothas have done.

 

If we think of the Wheel as a dam over the soulriver that connect the In-between and the Beyond, then Eothas have broken it in a way that that cause the flow to stop, instead of breaking it in a way that makes the flow totally uncontrolled.

[Katarack21]

1) The gods are not omniscient; they know no more than the Engwithans did, and in some cases it appears even less then that. Just because they say something doesn't make it true.

2) Hylea may in many ways be the most benevolent of the gods we talk to, but that doesn't actually make her benevolent. The gods are soul-constructs that are simply incapable of acting outside of their designated functions; Hylea is "motherly" because that's how she was programmed and she can't be otherwise. It's worth noting that at one point one of the god's points out that Eothas always "cared more for the Kith than any of us" and nobody corrects them--and Eothas is the one who murdered *THOUSANDS* of kith on his march across the Deadfire. And Hylea is just as willing to eat her childrens souls as any of the other gods, as you find out during the conversation with the gods after Ashen Maw.

[DozingDragon]

The way I see is that breaking is not equal to removing. So the natural way is not "back on" after what Eothas have done.

 

If we think of the Wheel as a dam over the soulriver that connect the In-between and the Beyond, then Eothas have broken it in a way that that cause the flow to stop, instead of breaking it in a way that makes the flow totally uncontrolled.

I think this is probably right. Eothas wanted to break the wheel in a way that requires mortals to fix it or get rid of it. He explained that this was really the only way to ensure that the actual nature of the gods was revealed.