So... Is Lahabrea REALLY dead-dead?

[Denishia]

Venat is, by both admission from in-game sources and the developers themselves, dead. And she's not just dead, but more dead than anything else we've ever seen die, as apparently she's not reincarnating, either.

Which you can write a sympathetic and understandable explanation for, and I've seen several, but to my generally western mindset and outlook that still immediately read as 'wow, she got a REALLY raw deal'.

It's why I'm torn on my Themis headcanons- having at least some of his soul survive to be reincarnated the second known Sahagin with the Echo amuses me and my sense of irony, but the elegant symmetry of his soul also being completely consumed by both primal aether consumption and then the Elpis time-teleport to the point that he shares the same more dead than dead completely free of the Wheel as his other elder primal counterpart pleases the part of me that likes balance. In that case, the light that he saw wasn't the light of rebirth but true oblivion (not the Endsinger's Egg) joining with Venat.

[GrizzlyTank]

On the topic of reincarnation... If a soul reincarnates into twins does it split?

[Iscah]

On the topic of reincarnation... If a soul reincarnates into twins does it split?

Only if you want to go with a "twins are two people with a single soul" take, rather than simply making them two people.

[Ayche]

Depends on when the soul installation happens during the fertilization I guess.

[SilversLyu]

Might be just me interpreting things but.. it seems Lahabrea is scarily aware of the type of person he will become later on, like he knows the Praetorium Lahabrea inside out. He almost talks like he seems to know the future in a sense, in that last cutscene we have with him in Elpis Pandaemonium. Then again he is wondering and specifically intrigued about himself and his future and even asks us out about this. Is he just coming to terms with the most likely outcome for him, which is duty above all even if things get dirty ? I think this was the aim of the developers here, but then again..

[Alleluia]

Might be just me interpreting things but.. it seems Lahabrea is scarily aware of the type of person he will become later on, like he knows the Praetorium Lahabrea inside out. He almost talks like he seems to know the future in a sense, in that last cutscene we have with him in Elpis Pandaemonium. Then again he is wondering and specifically intrigued about himself and his future and even asks us out about this. Is he just coming to terms with the most likely outcome for him, which is duty above all even if things get dirty ? I think this was the aim of the developers here, but then again..

His past self's whole "we do not owe debts to one another" speil was odd, too, given the context that he's past!Lahabrea who doesn't know about his future actions and our future fight, far as we know. He was strangely hostile to us in that last convo in the past, imo. I can't decide if its just a consequence of him reabsorbing Hephaestus, or if its the writers forgetting that that Lahabrea doesn't know how much of a thorn in his side we're gonna be. Might be both. He definitely was meant to feel more dangerous in the end, imo.

[Cleretic]

Yeah, he didn't inherit his Ascian memories, he's literally just very aware of the sorts of things he knows he would do, and doesn't try to deny it. We know what someone in that situation actually remembering their future-past actions would be like, that's Themis, and Lahabrea wasn't written like that.

[Alleluia]

Yeah, he didn't inherit his Ascian memories, he's literally just very aware of the sorts of things he knows he would do, and doesn't try to deny it. We know what someone in that situation actually remembering their future-past actions would be like, that's Themis, and Lahabrea wasn't written like that.

Reminded me of Emet finding out he ends up a megalomaniacal madman and his primary objection to it is our tone. Once he's given the circumstances, he can understand his actions and agrees with them. He just objects to our tone. its the fact that he may have "abandoned his duty" and wanted us to win in Amaurot that he ends up really bothered by. Lahabrea seems the same, but meaner.

[Cleretic]

Reminded me of Emet finding out he ends up a megalomaniacal madman and his primary objection to it is our tone. Once he's given the circumstances, he can understand his actions and agrees with them. He just objects to our tone. its the fact that he may have "abandoned his duty" and wanted us to win in Amaurot that he ends up really bothered by. Lahabrea seems the same, but meaner.

I feel like Emet did that thing there where he wanted to argue with us, but just couldn't come up with anything. He either knows we're right, or (since at that point I think he's still thinking we're Azem's familiar) knowing that if we're lying we probably wouldn't have been made to know that.

But yeah, we see different levels of acceptance with the three people we tell; Emet's in some level of denial (probably mostly to himself), Venat recognizes that she'd do that if she had to but is in disbelief that things would come to that, and Lahabrea has no doubt in his mind.

[shadowclasper]

I feel like Emet did that thing there where he wanted to argue with us, but just couldn't come up with anything. He either knows we're right, or (since at that point I think he's still thinking we're Azem's familiar) knowing that if we're lying we probably wouldn't have been made to know that.

But yeah, we see different levels of acceptance with the three people we tell; Emet's in some level of denial (probably mostly to himself), Venat recognizes that she'd do that if she had to but is in disbelief that things would come to that, and Lahabrea has no doubt in his mind.

There's absolutely a reason that when the watcher asks me to pass judgement on Venat and the Ascians my response is "they were all monsters"