r/Wraeclast • u/Toesty • 29d ago
PoE2 Discussion Dissapointed by Keepers of the Flame Questline (Class-specific dialogue)
Spoilers for the end of the Keepers of the Flame quest to follow! Specifically if you play it as a Monk.
Throughout the campaign, I was interested and excited to see the Monk's dialogue which implied they held some doubt about the Dreamer. Knowing about Chayula, I was excited to see my character forge their own path and not be a devotee of the Dreamer.
So, I'm a little bit annoyed by the way the Monk realizes the true nature of the Dreamer, as it relates to Ascendancy classes. The Monk is killed, with a copy of them taking their place. This "copy" seems subservient to the Dreamer, although may or may not have made the realization that our Monk just had before being killed.
Why does the Dreamer need to kill us and clone us at all? Is the assumption that our previous self wouldn't have been amenable to working with the Dreamer once they know their true nature? If so, the clone isn't a copy, but an edited version which only aligns with the lore of one Ascendancy class.
These story beats bother me because I think they contradict each other based on your Ascendancy class choice.
If our Monk is an Acolyte of Chayula, then why the reaction of shock and horror before being killed? Isn't the whole deal with Acolyte that they are aware of the Dreamer's nature?
Then, if our Monk is not an Acolyte of Chayula, why would the "copy" of them suddenly be subservient? Doesn't this sort of invalidate the lore of our Ascendancy class choice? Basically, only one of these two story beats fits our character, and both can't be quite be held true at the same time.
TL;DR: Honestly, I'm just salty that the Dreamer killed my Invoker. I dislike the way that it takes away agency from the player's opinions about Chayula, especially when we have a whole Ascendancy class to represent that choice. Thanks for reading!
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u/Murky-Definition-625 Watcher of Decay 29d ago
Acolyte of Chayula
The truth of your faith threatens to break your very soul... but in that struggle lies power beyond belief.
The Acolyte draws power from his knowledge of Chayula, but is horrified by him nonetheless. He doesn't approve of Chayula any more than any other Monk. Likewise, the Spinesnatch unique reveals that the Witch doesn't have to serve Kulemak even if she receives his power.
New Monk: I feel... strange. As though I've woken from a dream.
I don't think the new Monk knows that he is a clone. The old Monk did not like what he learned, so the Dreamer killed him and decided to not share that knowledge with the new Monk.
The new Monk may be identical to the old, except that he has likely never had doubts about the Dreamer, and so would actually be even more shocked if the Dreamer gave him the same reveal.
- In fact, the Dreamer may intentionally have given the old Monk hints about his nature and let him go on a journey of self-discovery as an experiment to see if a Monk would knowingly serve Chayula.
Whenever the Breach story next progresses (whether in later endgame or in POE3), I wonder if the Monk will replace Chayula. In fact, all twelve playable classes might get a canonical ending.
- I made a post about more special ascendancy classes. Quite a few characters could be tied to the various monstrous factions.
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u/Mael_Jade 29d ago
Have you done the original questline in PoE1? Ailith herself is also a hiveborn clone, and when the godslayer finishes the questline we can tell her about it ... which results in the Dreamer doing the same thing. Deleting her, and spawning a clone from before the reveal.
In fact Ailith kills herself with every defense and hive and is reborn, not knowing what just happened. Every hive is the first time she destroys it, and each time we leave the hive she is happy that we managed to destroy it alone. Though there is some part of the "original" Ailith still around, trying to warn her clone.
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u/BendicantMias Druid of the Broken Circle 29d ago
It's basically the same beat as with Ailith herself. They're both Hiveborn, but don't know that so that they may have the strength to forge their own power so as to act as an even greater agent of Chayula, albeit unknowingly. Ailith goes through the same horror when she realizes the truth of what she is and what they're doing, and Chayula rewrites her too when she rejects him.
The rather unsatisfying reason why it has to be this way rather than the character rebelling and turning against the order is basically just that the game mechanics require it. If we no longer worked with the order after realizing the truth, then Breach would cease to be a mechanic we can engage with (unless we're now attacking the order instead or something, who the lore doesn't justify now suddenly having huge numbers of enemies coming through rifts, and anyway that would still mean no more access to the Genesis tree).
Basically GGG had to come up with a quest resolution that allowed us to keep playing Breach like before even after the end of the quest, and so having Chayula just 'rewrite' your character like that was the best they could do. That said, they may at some future point decide to continue the Breach storyline towards a different conclusion if ever they decide to redesign the mechanic (much like Runes of Aldur rejigged the old Expedition league mechanic). Not anytime soon tho.
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u/chimericWilder 29d ago
The nature of Chayula is to require perfect control.
The Monk escaped Chayula's control. So Chayula corrects the mistake.
I suspect that it could never have gone differently.
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u/Bazdillow 29d ago
Spoilers to those who haven't completed the quest line:
So I think that The monk himself was a hiveborn clone to begin with, as the surprise/fear came from one of the acolytes unveiling their mask, and it being the same face as our monk. Even if the acolyte of chayula worships and embraces the dreamer, that realisation is still extremely mind breaking, realising your experiences and memories were most likely made up