Quote Originally Posted by EaraGrace View Post
Not a single word in the collab hasn’t already been stated by Emet in ShB. This is isn’t a retcon, this a characters perspective. Notice how the “malformed” souls are walking about in both images, they aren’t screaming for help or catatonic like you would see if they were stripped of their souls (we were shown what this looks like in the StB patch series). There’s little to suggest that’s what happened.
Now that you mention it... on the one hand yeah, the scions were left in a deep slumber while their souls were dragged away. On the other hand... we have creatures like creations that were able to function before being granted a soul. How is it that losing a soul would leave them in such a state if it's not needed for a creature to function? This makes me question more things about the story and the lore.

But back to Nier, having someone narrate those events gives me the impression this is how things transpired and not "his version" or "how he perceived it". Sure, some of it may be colored by what pertains to him, but it's not him doing the description. So it should be less biased.

I'm thinking now they may not have been completely soulless but rather, their souls/aether may have have been thin and unstable for a while so not even the echo worked on them. That's still something pretty brutal to have faced. There was certainly no mercy.