What affects Kana Rua's ending?

[Sleazebag]

Hey, just replayed the game to get ready for the sequel. I managed to get pretty much every ending I wanted, except for Kana. For some reason, I got the isolationist ending where he's all depressed, even though I did his quest and picked options to support him(you were right about the thing in Ixamitl, Gabrannos was only one man). The wiki says you only get the isolationist ending if you DON'T support him. Even my quest log says "I have tried to encourage him - whatever answers either of us are going to find, it seems they still lie ahead of us", yet I got this ending.

 

I also repeated the ending and took him with me to Sun in Shadow this time, yet the conversation there didn't change his ending at all. Is this a bug? I remember picking these options when the game was released, and I got a much happier ending for him and Rauatai.

[Yria]

In short? It's hella complicated, more so than for any other companion in the game. 

 

If I remember it correctly, there are actually a few (5?) variables like "Kana inspired", "Kana's faith in Engwytans lost/reaffirmed", "Kana something something", and you can gain or lose points for each during the game through your conversations with him. It's not just what you say during his quest in the Endless Paths. When he expresses his shock about the things you see in the Sanitarium, or asks for your opinion on the animancy, or other stuff like that, the replies you pick affect the count. The final result comes from the combination of these variables: "Kana inspired < 2, Kana depressed > 4" => ending number one, "Kana this > 3, Kana that < 5" => ending number two, etc. So it is quite possible that you picked a couple of answers that differed from your first playtrough and got a completely different ending. That said, it could just as easily be a bug. 

 

Unfortunately, I don't know the exact variables and what conversation choices affect them, but you should be able to dig them up in the game files if you know where to look (which I don't). I myself was only ever able to get that one ending where he is not recognised by the traditional scholar community but gains popularity among the less narrow minded crowd, and I finished the game three times picking different replies during his quest.