SPOILERS About the end

[Nssheepster]

Eothas destroys the Wheel.

Eothas doesn't know what will happen without the Wheel.

Neither do the gods.

 

 

... That doesn't make sense with itself. The lore of POE 1 is that the Engwithans made the gods after finding that there were no gods. Okay... But the Engwithans EXISTED to do that. They existed to MAKE the Wheel and the gods. The whole purpose of the Wheel is to recycle souls to power the gods and strengthen souls.... But the world doesn't actually need the Wheel, as evidenced by the fact that it didn't exist before the Engwithans made the dang thing.

 

Why is everyone acting like breaking the Wheel might just kill the world or something? Souls and Life existed pre-Wheel, it will keep going afterwards, there's no actual reason to believe that there will be ANY negative consequences for breaking the Wheel.

 

I feel like I HAVE to be missing something, but... I'm not seeing it. Life existed before the Wheel, it should be under no threat of dissapearing if the Wheel is gone.

[Taevyr]

It's like when you build a dam to control the flow of water coming from a lake. Sure, water flowed fine before you put the dam there, but breaking the dam doesn't mean it'll automatically return to how it used to be. The remaining machinery/blockade might clog up the entire lake, or the lake could run empty due to the flow being too heavy, etc.

[Nssheepster]

It's like when you build a dam to control the flow of water coming from a lake. Sure, water flowed fine before you put the dam there, but breaking the dam doesn't mean it'll automatically return to how it used to be. The remaining machinery/blockade might clog up the entire lake, or the lake could run empty due to the flow being too heavy, etc.

I get the comparison, but... Where did the souls come from BEFORE the Wheel? Because wherever that is, the Wheel actually isn't affecting it. The Wheel ONLY affects the Souls that were already in the world. The 'new' Souls that were constantly coming into the world before the Wheel, those aren't affected by it and never were as far as we know.

[house2fly]

The souls in the world are the only souls there are.

[Nssheepster]

The souls in the world are the only souls there are.

... How did that come to pass, though? Souls came into the world before the Wheel... Were they already reincarnated then, and the Wheel just diverted that usual flow a bit to power the gods? Cuz if that's the case.... It's maybe a bit more reasonable everyone's freaking out about it.

 

To be clear, I get why KITH are freaking out... But the gods and the Watcher both know about the Engwithans and I really don't understand why they are acting like the consequences could be dire for the Kith.

[house2fly]

Well, the idea that the gods don't know what will happen without the Wheel isn't correct The gods even tell you- the flow of souls will dry up as the Beyond emtpies. Or the In-Between, whichever one the souls go to.

 

As for where souls came from, I dunno. They're an ambient energy in the world and part of the natural order. Everything on the world is a result of its formation as part of the birth of the star it orbits, and the star is formed from matter left behind by previous stars. Where did those stars come from, and the stars before them? Who knows

[Nssheepster]

Well, the idea that the gods don't know what will happen without the Wheel isn't correct The gods even tell you- the flow of souls will dry up as the Beyond emtpies. Or the In-Between, whichever one the souls go to.

That just doesn't make sense with POE 1 though. Souls existed and were doing their own thing before the Engwithans made the Wheel. So either Souls weren't being reincarnated, and thus the Wheel being removed is no threat... or Souls were being reincarnated, and the Wheel redirected that flow of reincarnation, so they're worried that maybe the old, pre-Wheel flow won't be restored properly.

 

Either way, since we know the Engwithans are responsible for the Wheel, we know that somehow Souls were either coming new into the world, or being reincarnated, before the Wheel ever existed, since the Engwithans had Souls themselves.

[house2fly]

Let's say a man eats a lot of sugar, and is diagnosed with diabetes at age 40. He has to take insulin. He lives in America, so he can't afford insulin. He falls into a coma and dies. Even though there was clearly a time before he needed insulin injections to survive, the fact remains that at the current time he needs insulin injections to survive.

[Nssheepster]

Let's say a man eats a lot of sugar, and is diagnosed with diabetes at age 40. He has to take insulin. He lives in America, so he can't afford insulin. He falls into a coma and dies. Even though there was clearly a time before he needed insulin injections to survive, the fact remains that at the current time he needs insulin injections to survive.

Your example doesn't fit though. He caused a new condition in his body. The Wheel isn't a new condition, it's an alteration of an existing thing.

 

To take the earlier River example... Either there was a River of Souls flowing in to the world, which the Engwithans then ignored, instead trapping some of the existing Water of Souls in a loop, outside the River's flow, and thus not actually affecting the River... Or, the River of Souls was already looping, and the Engwithans simply added a specific passage for the River to flow through.

 

In neither case is it shown/implied that the Kith will suddenly start having Hollowborn kids again. The Gods, of course, are screwed without the Wheel, it powers them... But the Kith should be just fine.

[DozingDragon]

In the river analogy, the Engwithans regulated the entire soul "flow" when they created their machine at Ukaizo, and that machine resulted in a retaining pool that would slowly release the slows back into the river's natural "flow."  With the machine at Ukaizo destroyed, the flow of the souls will entirely stop, and all of the "flow" will gather in the retaining pool.  

[Nssheepster]

In the river analogy, the Engwithans regulated the entire soul "flow" when they created their machine at Ukaizo, and that machine resulted in a retaining pool that would slowly release the slows back into the river's natural "flow."  With the machine at Ukaizo destroyed, the flow of the souls will entirely stop, and all of the "flow" will gather in the retaining pool.  

Why would the flow stop? Your anology isn't accounting for NEW souls. There had to have been a constant flow of new souls for the Engwithans to even exist, OR there already had to be reincarnation and they just moved it.

 

Either way, the idea that the flow will stop doesn't make sense... Nor, to be honest, would it make sense with Eothas' whole 'I'm helping the Kith' thing, because at that point destroying the Wheel would leave Kith one lifetime to fix the Wheel before the world suffers permanent unfixable consequences.

[DozingDragon]

 

In the river analogy, the Engwithans regulated the entire soul "flow" when they created their machine at Ukaizo, and that machine resulted in a retaining pool that would slowly release the slows back into the river's natural "flow."  With the machine at Ukaizo destroyed, the flow of the souls will entirely stop, and all of the "flow" will gather in the retaining pool.  

Why would the flow stop? Your anology isn't accounting for NEW souls. There had to have been a constant flow of new souls for the Engwithans to even exist, OR there already had to be reincarnation and they just moved it.

 

Either way, the idea that the flow will stop doesn't make sense... Nor, to be honest, would it make sense with Eothas' whole 'I'm helping the Kith' thing, because at that point destroying the Wheel would leave Kith one lifetime to fix the Wheel before the world suffers permanent unfixable consequences.

 

 

From the games, we know that souls sometimes fragment into new souls, and some decay and end up going in the White Void, which also appears to predate the creation of the gods.  While we do not know everything about how new souls are made, Eothas and the other gods all seem to concur that destroying the machinery at Ukaizo will be completely obstruct the flow of souls that allows life on Eora to exist.  Why second-guess that piece of the narrative? 

 

Regarding your second point, from Eothas's point of view, stopping the flow of souls to help the kith does make sense, because Eothas is by his very nature an optimist.  He believes that the kith will solve the problem he has created, and that the new solution will be better than continuing the status quo.  The high stakes of the problem are just a means to an end to ensure that the problem cannot be swept away by the Hand Occult, the Leaden Key, or other agents of the Engwithan pantheon.  

[Nssheepster]

The second guessing is because throughout the gods act like big children. They also were made by the Engwithans... They existed AFTER the Wheel. They have no idea what the world was like before the Wheel other than anything the Engwithans might have mentioned in passing. The gods have never actually seen the world without the influence of the Wheel, they have NO idea what they're talking about.

 

As for the second part....Yeah, Eothas does seem like he'd be that over-the-top optimistic. Fair point.

[house2fly]

There are no new souls. The Engwithans usurped the entire natural function of reincarnation in service of their gods. With the machine which now controls that function broken, either the natural order cannot reassert itself, or will take so long to reassert itself that the world will be starved of essence by the time it happens.

[DozingDragon]

We do not know the extent of the gods’ knowledge. Even if they were ignorant tabula rasas following their creation, then I am sure the gods’ uncle Thaos could have filled them in on the mechanics of the Ukaizo machine during the post-apotheosis kindergarten class.

[Nssheepster]

There are no new souls. The Engwithans usurped the entire natural function of reincarnation in service of their gods. With the machine which now controls that function broken, either the natural order cannot reassert itself, or will take so long to reassert itself that the world will be starved of essence by the time it happens.

How do we know this? That seems like a big assumption for Obsidian to ask us all to accept blindly.

 

We do not know the extent of the gods’ knowledge. Even if they were ignorant tabula rasas following their creation, then I am sure the gods’ uncle Thaos could have filled them in on the mechanics of the Ukaizo machine during the post-apotheosis kindergarten class.

 

Why would Thaos tell them? In his mind, it wouldn't matter. The system was made to last forever. If it was ever threatened, he and the Leaden Key would deal with it, or if they couldn't, the gods themselves would. Why bother giving them knowledge they have no use for? It's not like he would feel nostalgic about the old 'system' he replaced, and ramble on about it. Plus, Thaos seems to clearly sees himself as inferior to the gods, even though he had a hand in making them. You don't go telling your far-more-powerful bosses random stuff they don't want to know, you avoid speaking to them whenever you don't have to so you don't piss them off.

 

I'm not trying to be contradictory here guys, I'm just not seeing a canon explanation for this certainty of the gods that somehow the Wheel remaining broken will doom the world. It will doom THEM, certaintly, and I wouldn't put it past them to BS the Watcher to make them THINK the world is doomed, just so the Watcher saves them.... So relying on just them saying it's bad seems off, considering none of them are actually trustworthy except the one breaking the Wheel.

[Wormerine]

Before the wheel was created there was some kind of natural way the souls moved from in-between to beyond and then back to "here". The wheel created by Engwith redirected the souls so they feed Gods on their way through in-between. During the conversation with Berath she explains that it acts as an artifical damn and the "river" was redirected for too long to be able to return to its previous course. Braking the wheel doesn't mean that the world automatically comes back to the way it worked before the wheel - once the wheel is broken souls can't pass to beyond: can't get reincarnated, gods don't get fed.

 

There is something which I have been curious about, but it is something that hasn't been explained fully as far as I know - there seem to be soul degradation in process - they split into pieces and eventually wear out into nothingness (Rymgrand's entrophy). It doesn't seem like new souls are being born. Does life in Eora run on a finite resource? Rymgrand's belief would suggest that.  If yes the God's seem like a pretty big waste of souls, considering how many they require to live. 

[Nssheepster]

So, assuming we trust Berath, because the Engwithans fiddled with Reincarnation, she believes it won't go back to how it was before. That right?

 

I guess that that's the best we're getting. Without a canon explanation of exactly what happened to souls before... (And for that matter, exactly what was happening to souls after the Wheel, since we don't get full explanations there either,) we'll just never really know what happens when the Wheel is broken unless POE 3 is made.

[uuuhhii]

engwithan and than the gods assumed total control of reincarnation

it is only reasonable to assume it will not go back what it was when broken

more likely stay broken until someone fix it

[DozingDragon]

So, assuming we trust Berath, because the Engwithans fiddled with Reincarnation, she believes it won't go back to how it was before. That right?

 

I guess that that's the best we're getting. Without a canon explanation of exactly what happened to souls before... (And for that matter, exactly what was happening to souls after the Wheel, since we don't get full explanations there either,) we'll just never really know what happens when the Wheel is broken unless POE 3 is made.

Isn’t that just assuming the writers won’t abandon any notion of verisimilitude, and just have Eder declare in PoE 3 that the Wheel is really just the friends we made along the way?

[Verde]

I think it's mostly the Gods who are up in arms about the Wheel, bc they will no longer be fed.

 

Otherwise like you said...life will go on. Maybe the kith who are concerned are focused on the lack of reincarnation, which is something I guess they've gotten used to. Overall the main story is pretty weak tho, esp the lack of substance in convos with the Gods. If you think too much about it you might go mad

Edited January 3, 2019 by Verde

[OEI_Alex]

There is something which I have been curious about, but it is something that hasn't been explained fully as far as I know - there seem to be soul degradation in process - they split into pieces and eventually wear out into nothingness (Rymgrand's entrophy). It doesn't seem like new souls are being born. Does life in Eora run on a finite resource? Rymgrand's belief would suggest that.  If yes the God's seem like a pretty big waste of souls, considering how many they require to live. 

 

Soul degradation is a process, but so is soul growth. 

[uuuhhii]

I think it's mostly the Gods who are up in arms about the Wheel, bc they will no longer be fed.

 

Otherwise like you said...life will go on. Maybe the kith who are concerned are focused on the lack of reincarnation, which is something I guess they've gotten used to. Overall the main story is pretty weak tho, esp the lack of substance in convos with the Gods. If you think too much about it you might go mad

gods can get essence from anywhere

and give essence away easily

but without reincarnation then essence will stop growing

from what little know about soul essence it looks like a bio energy that can grow through lifespan

Edited January 3, 2019 by uuuhhii

[house2fly]

 

There are no new souls. The Engwithans usurped the entire natural function of reincarnation in service of their gods. With the machine which now controls that function broken, either the natural order cannot reassert itself, or will take so long to reassert itself that the world will be starved of essence by the time it happens.

How do we know this? That seems like a big assumption for Obsidian to ask us all to accept blindly.

it was discussed in the first game. The dwarf animancer you talk to as a ghost mentions that souls are always less than before when they're reborn, and Hiravias wonders if souls splitting apart and creating "soul twins" is because of the world's population going up

[Wormerine]

Without a canon explanation of exactly what happened to souls before... (And for that matter, exactly what was happening to souls after the Wheel, since we don't get full explanations there either,) we'll just never really know what happens when the Wheel is broken unless POE 3 is made.

Quite true:

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/173973262826/pillars-of-eternity-2-spoilers-as-i-understand

 

Josh claimed to have written a detailed design document which explains how everything works/worked, however it is not knowledge that is known by characters in game. I could really use a rewritten ending for Deadfire. It raises too many questions and regularly makes players question lore’s integrity.