Quote Originally Posted by GreenLeafy View Post
My issue with Otis as a crux for why the Endless aren't real people is that there's so many other NPCs that contradict him too. Several of the side quests NPCs and even the wedding band guy from MSQ clearly say and are aware of the fact that they died and their continued existence in this form is different but it is a continued existence. They pursue things they were not capable of doing in real life , and honestly Cahciua falls into that category too. And they are aware that their existence in this form cannot last either and are okay with the day coming where they cannot have these forms anymore and move on. As soon as you step out of the MSQ the way the Endless are portrayed feels like a drastic shift of what the MSQ is trying to tell you and force you to feel about them and I genuinely can't tell if thats something that was miscommunicated between the writers for MSQ and the side content.

The existence of Otis himself as he is in the latter part of MSQ aswell is a bit of a puzzle because I genuinely can't remember if his memories(honestly conciousness to some extent) were uploaded and preserved in some way because I was left under the impression he was the first person to ever subject himself to that type of transfer of organic conciousness into the robot and even that process differs from what the Endless we meet are because they aren't robots they just get a form that also just dissipates into magic aether dust (not to mention that they also have NPCs LINGER even after shutting off the server which is also so???? how tf do they linger if they are supposedly part of a machine and that machine is OFF?) . So its like they put him there for the sake of trying to elicit some type of emotional response more than anything.

I agree that it is by far the worst part of the story because it was so terribly inconsistent and honestly its that inconsistency that really pits us into the argument of it. The explanation for the whole thing is so haphazardly put together and the MSQ tries its absolute best to force a view on it for nothing other than to try and mask the morally dubious act you're railroaded into doing. Its a shame we get a narrative over this question be so poorly executed considering we literally have a Nier collab in the game - the franchise that has been tackling these types of questions for years and done an excellent job exploring it.
It's not very well thought out but the reason the NPCs linger is cause of plot armor. The side quests and FATEs within the zone would cease to function as well, and canonically, they probably do. They linger for the sake of gameplay and the zone from being entirely barren.