Is this a plothole? Question about the Endless

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Probably just him being somber and hopeful, I doubt Erenville is going to completely pick apart the machinations of Etheirys' afterlife moments after 'killing' his mother.

We don't fully know how death and rebirth works in the world, though, so maybe there's a chance that her soul and her memories find each other again, or perhaps her memories will be given form in the aetherial sea after we shut off the terminals. We see Moenbryda in the Aitiascope even though she supposedly gave all that was her toward the annihilation of what's-his-name Ascian, and she ended up down there just fine. Magic works in mysterious ways.

I refuse to believe a Sharlayan scholar simply forgot how the afterlife works in regards to his mother. Like you've pointed out the Sharalyans have dug multiple holes to the underworld and have studied it. Given the purpose of the aetherial sea is to wash away memories, sending memories to the aetherial sea with no soul should be like dropping them in a vat of acid. Not to mention, these memories are on an entirely different shard, if they did return to the aetherial sea, they should return to THAT aetherial sea and even if those memories could rejoin with Cahcuia's soul, her soul is likely in a soul cell back on the Source. Given Cahcuia states multiple times that they are just copies as the justification of why it's okay to erase them and we meet a copy of Otis, I'd be inclined to believe that the Endless are copies.

EXCEPT!

They show us the process and the memory aether is extracted and they state they are made of memory aether.

That's like telling me, a machine scanned you and I'm interacting with a virtual copy of you and then showing me them surgically removing your brain and sticking it in the machine. That's a massive distinction that needs to be clarified and there is evidence of both.

Also, Moenbryda gave up her lifeforce to help destroy the Ascian, same thing Papalymo did to imprison Shinryu. Using up all your lifeforce kills you, but it doesn't destroy your soul. There was nothing unexpected by their presence in the aetherial sea.

If a story doesn't have consistent rules, then there is no point to the story. If anything can happen at anytime, might as well skip to the combat with a 'kill, cause bad.'

As for Erenville and his mother, he's just being hopeful even though the whole process of making an Endless involves an accelerated version of the natural process of things where the Soul Aether is reborn while the Memory Aether is lost, outside of deeply traumatic events that end up "scarring" the Soul Aether like witnessing an apocalypse.

I find it interesting that multiple people have come to the conclusion a Sharlayan scholar is just delusional about how the afterlife works and we've deleted the one and only copy of thousands of people denying them the slow fade that happens in the afterlife that would allow them to reconnect with their loved ones. Yikes. I'd like to remind you all, we kinda twisted his arm and made him delete his mom...are we sure we're the good guys?