WMG / Legacy of Kain

MAJOR SPOILERS ON PRETTY MUCH EVERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Kain joins the Soul Society

Mostly nonsense, not serious theory, but certainly possible in WMG spirit. So as Nosgoth degrades either from neglect or abuse at the hands of Kain or the Hylden, the pull on the wraith realm strengthens until it assimilates into Hueco Mundo. Kain, possessing the heart of darkness, hitches a ride on the Cleaner and into the Soul Society. Reaper Captain Yamamoto, wielding basically the sun in his Zapakuto, subjugates Kain, who bides his time as a reaper until he is powerful enough to reign supreme. I haven't worked out if Nosgoth gets pulled to Bleach dimension, or vice versa

Raziel, Kain and Janos ALL have free will

Raziel because he is a walking talking paradox. Janos and Kain because they have both lived past the point which they were supposed to die so destiny no longer has any kind of plans for either of them, making them wild cards.

The orginal Soul Reaver is the purified one.

Well it's the only way i can make sense out of it. After Kain defeats the Elder God and bring Balance to the world he goes to the past one last time to place the Reaver where it is needed to be, and while Raziel is sane in it a few millenia of bloodshed makes him go insane, this way ensuring a stable time loop

• Uh. Did you miss the thing about the whole series being about changing how time works out? It's not a Stable Time Loop by the end.
  • It is. The timestream has reshuffled itself into a new, better loop. If it hadn't been able to, it's highly likely that Kain and Raziel would have been expleed from the timestream. Supporting dialogue:
  Raziel: They don’t like us unwriting their carefully choreographed history, though, do they?
  Kain: You must understand, Raziel – we haven’t unwritten history, we’ve merely rewritten it. The future flows around our petty actions, finding the path of least resistance while admitting only the slightest alterations. This is the reshuffling you felt, when you refused to kill me. And remember, Raziel, we are irritants in this regard, as well – history will not allow the introduction of a paradox.
  Raziel: And if events cannot be reshuffled to accommodate the change?
  Kain: It is the irritant who’s expelled. Bear in mind that this may be exactly the outcome our enemies are trying to provoke. We must tread very carefully.
  • What I meant is that time is going through differently from how it went the "first" time. It doesn't necessarily have to match up with how things happened in the first game, and in fact it will likely change things; I imagine a subsequent game in the series would involve just how things changed in Kain's original adventure.
  • It's actually fairly likely that the original adventure goes as normal, all of the elements in the games leave Kain's path for the first title clear. It's what comes after that game that is being twisted.
    • Correct. When Kain saves Raziel at the end of Soul Reaver 2, Raziel says he can see Kain react to new memories being formed as his own past is altered (presumably Kain has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory). These memories are the events of Blood Omen 2, which were set into motion by Raziel surviving the Reaver's attempt to draw him in, and going on to resurrect Janos Audron. The events of the first Blood Omen remain unaffected. Presumably, the original timeline and its Stable Time Loop had Kain conquer Nosgoth without meeting Janos and fighting the Hylden Lord, whereas the new timeline with its new Stable Time Loop involves everything Kain does in Blood Omen 2. The end result of Kain conquering Nosgoth and setting up his vampire empire remain unaffected, presumably because changing that would involve too much of a reshuffle, or even a paradox.
    • Agreed, but the original point of this thread still stands; Kain must place his new purified Soul Reaver where his younger self finds it in order to complete the new Stable Time Loop. As a time-traveller, he can use it for an unknown amount of time, )and hopefully use it to kick the Elder God's ass along the way,) as long as the Soul Reaver eventually finds its way to his younger self. It is unlikely that this version of the Soul Reaver being purified will affect the timeline all that much: it remains an extremely powerful soul-eating sword, and if Raziel stays sane he will know what he must do to ensure the timeline survives, and act accordingly, and if he goes mad anyway then the personal timeline of the Soul Reaver and the Wraith Blade continues as it always has/will.
    • Kain has access to time travel, he could grab another different unpurified Soul Reaver, let his past self have the paradox fight, and still have his purified Reaver available.

Kain will recruit the new Guardians of the Pillars to take on the Hylden.

The games have established that when a current Guardian is killed, a new one is born. When Kain slaughtered the other eight guardians over the course of Blood Omen, replacements must have been born. With Kain choosing to rule the world instead of sacrificing himself, the other eight new guardians probably never found out who they were, if they survived very long at all.

Now, though, Kain is back in the past, with the purified Soul Reaver. It's likely he'll seek out his past self, and subtly guide the past version of himself to find the new Guardians, make them vampires, and take on the Hylden in one last battle.

• The Hylden aren't the enemy, though. The Elder God is.
  • The Elder God's dead.
  • Is he? He was damaged by the Soul Reaver, certainly, but the collapsing citadel wouldn't have done any damage to him, and he can manifest in many places.
  • The Elder God is most definitely not dead.

• To address the first part of this, I thought I read somewhere that replacement guardians couldn't be born while Kain lived because of Nupraptor's corruption still being within Kain, the new Guardian of Balance. The only way to get new (human) guardians was for Kain to sacrifice himself at the end of Blood Omen 1.
  • That is correct until the events of Defiance. Due to Raziel's actions Kain's soul has been purified which is what allows him to see the Elder God. now that he is freed from the corruption of the pillars it should now be possible for new Guardians to be chosen, tightening the lock on the prison of the Hylden once that happens.

Subtle Gnostic Overtones with a dash of HP Lovecraft.

The Reveal at the end of LOK: Defiance showed that the Cthulhu-inspired Elder God kept all souls as prisoners, eternally bound in a neverending cycle of life and death, always in ignorance... all to keep his "wheel of fate" turning. Basically, The Elder God is a cross between God Is Evil and Eldritch Abomination.

• So, um...what's the speculation? That much is clear from the game itself.
  • The Elder God is actually Cthulu.
    • Cthulhu is the demigod ruler of the Deep Ones who is "dead" and asleep at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When he awakens, he could potential destroy the world but beyond that, he has no interest or involvement in humanity. He can also be harmed by mortal weapons. In Lovecraft's pantheon, he's a very minor deity.
    • The Elder God is extremely active and interested in mortal affairs to the point of rewarding human servants. He also has some control over rebirth and destiny which already gives him greater power than Cthulhu or any of the other Old Ones. The only Lovecraft deity the Elder God resembles is Nyarlathotep (though the two have different personalities and motives) and Yog-Sothoth.

They scrapped the 6th game for PS2 because they wanted to wait and develop it for a next gen system.

Please?

• Pretty please?
• They're going to have a hell of a time finding a replacement for Tony Jay.
  • The Elder God's dead. They don't need Jay anymore, as much as it pains this troper to say it.
    • The Elder God is not dead.
    • True, the EG isn't dead. Having said that, most info relating to Dark Prophecy suggests that the hylden would have been the main focus of the game.
  • They could always handwave the EG's voice change by saying something happened to him after he buried himself under the citadel.
    • Honestly they don't even have to go that far. By reusing the ending of Defiance they could simply have Kain hunt down the wounded Elder God and handle him for good before moving on to deal with the Hylden and aiding the new Pillar Guardians.

By "You must unite what has been set asunder"...

Ariel didn't mean Kain's soul, or the Raziel and the reaver, but actually was referring to the Hylden and the Ancients. They were at one point either the same species, or were living togeter in harmony in a peaceful and lush Nosgoth, until the Elder God appeared from the demon dimension to suck the life out of their world. He sparked a war between the two races in order to feed off of their death, while also devouring the life of the land. When they vampires sealed the Hylden with the pillars, they also sealed the Elder God partially, and that is why the landed is wooded and fertile until after they fall.

• If you chose to have Kain sacrifice himself at the end of Blood Omen 1, the land is wooded and fertile in that ending. I don't think the Hylden had anything to do with that.
• There is one possible friendly link between the Vampires and the Hylden, and that's the Seer and Vorador. The Seer is, as far as we know, the only Hylden spared the Binding and uncorrupted (other than the Builder, who's time in the Eternal Prison seems to have degraded him similar to the rest of his race), and Vorador implied that the two were on good terms, enough for them to be trading favours - perhaps the favour she owed Vorador involved him saving her from banishment. Maybe this is a starting point for the two races to be re-united. Of course, Vorador isn't actually an Ancient Vampire, just a Vampire who is ancient. But unless Janos is making friends with the Hylden in the Demon Dimension, he's likely to be as close as can be gotten.

Raziel's Sanity in The Sword

Raziel will remain himself in the sword and not go "mad as the eons pass" because the blade has been purified. Raziel and his brethren were made with bits of Kain's soul. Kain was tainted when he was born, his very soul. The madness of the Reaver was Kain's madness. With him purified by Raziel, Raziel was never tainted in the first place. Ergo, he can remain sane.

• I think the idea was that Raziel's madness doesn't have a mystical cause, it's just brought on by never-ending solitary confinement over thousands of years. The Elder God specificially says that he intends to trap Kain in the Citadel so he can share this fate with Raziel, after all.
  • There is still the crucial difference in the sword that Raziel put himself into it willingly, rather than being eaten by it. Contrast the end of Defiance with the end of Soul Reaver 2.
  • Raziel went willingly because he knew he couldn't avoid this part of his fate, and though Kain had postponed it, Raziel knew it would happen regardless of whether he was willing or not. The reason why he was trying to avoid it was because he didn't want to become the deranged soul within the sword. The reason why he let the sword consume him was to show Kain who the real enemy was, and the only way to do that was to transfer the purified Reaver to Kain through healing him.
  • This supports that one of Kain's last "pure" time-line actions was executing Raziel in the first place. Unless, somehow, it is ACTUALLY the time-travelling Kain who returns and performs this in the a timeline in which Raziel's evolution is allowed to continue and he is still(originally) yet slain and absorbed by the Reaver. Kain would then see greater implications pursuing Moebius and so on. It seems like Kain moving to a timeline in which Raziel lives (one way or another) does not negate his soul's existence in the Reaver.
  • The important thing to consider is that his prison may not be eternal in this timeline. The reason the Reaver needed to be kept intact in Kain's timeline is that he was waiting for his chance to flip the coin. Now though he should be able to find a way to free Raziel from the blade after dealing with the Hylden.

The Elder God is imprisoned in the world

This is actually a somewhat serious theory. We know why the Hylden want to destroy the pillars, but what is in it for the Elder God, who feeds on souls to survive? The world is actually the prison that holds the Elder God; as long as he is imprisoned, he needs to feed on souls to sustian himself. We do not know for how long the world has existed, but he has been doing this for ages and has seen civilizations rise and fall, including the one that constructed the Eternal Prison and probably the Lost City as well.

When the Ancient Vampires and the Hylden come around, he realises that these races have the power to ruin the land enough for him to escape, so he sparks a war between them. The land is devastated, but then two things happen that he did not anticipate:1. The pillars that the Vampires use to lock away the Hylden also restore the land and,2. The Hylden inflict the blood curse upon the Vampires, including immortality and sterility, depriving the Elder God of souls.To get rid of the Vampires, the Elder God incites Moebius and Mortanius to rebekl and seize the pillars for their own. Moebius then has a hand in founding the Sarafan, furthering the Vampire persuction. In the meantime, the Elder God patiently waits for the pillars to decay.

When the binding has decayed far enough, the Hylden Lord possesses Mortanius and murders Ariel, thereby causing Nupraptor to corrupt the Circle. Mortanius realises what is happening, Vampirises Kain and instructs him to kill the corrupted guardians, intending to return the pillars to Vampire rule. The Elder God and Moebius decide to use this to their advantage and arrange for Kain to travel back in time, kill William the Just and so ignite a new Vampire genocide. The results are known: Kain either sacrifices himself, causing the Vampires to die out forever, or destroys the pillars by choosing to live.

Choosing to condemn Nosgoth, it is only a matter of time before the Elder God will break free of his prison. When the Soul Reaver era comes around, Nosgoth is on the brink of collapse, as he informs Raziel (However, this does not dismay him, as he claims it does). However, Kain has one more plan up his sleeve. To stop him, the Elder God releases Raziel because only he can kill Kain (And in the original timeline, he does). Unfortunately, as seen in Defiance when the purified Soul Reaver is created, this backfires spectularly. Kain's final task is to destroy the Elder God and restore balance to Nosgoth, probably in a manner that will make the pillars obsolete.

• The Hylden and the Elder God constitute a Big Bad Ensemble- they are not allies, and actually have rival ambitions. The Elder God is not a prisoner; he is a parasite, feasting on the souls of the dead to sate his gluttony. The Hydlen want to annihilate all life in Nosgoth and rule it forverer as immortals, wich would starve him. But the alternative are the vampires, who are themselves immortal and only a slight imporovement in that the need to keep humans and other creatures around as food, thus allowing the Wheel of Fate to turn, but still a trickle of what he could be feasting on if neither vampires nor the Hylden were a factor.

• Quite simply, the Elder God's masterplan is to annihilate all vampires whilst somehow keeping the Hylden at bay, the difficulty being that if all vampires in Nosgoth are destroyed then the pillars go with them and the Hydlen will return, kill everything that isn't them and prevent the Wheel from spinning. Thus, he arranges for the Hydlen to be set free for the events of Blood Omen 2, but only because he knows they will lose and that he has outplayed them. This is the price he must pay to ultimately kill Kain, even if its a time-hopping Kain, since it means in the distant future there will come a point where Kain vanishes into the past and never returns (because he is killed) and Raziel has slaughtered all of the Clan leaders and scores of their degenerate brood. This gives the humans survivors a chance they have never had- when Kain and Raziel go back in time at the end of Soul Reaver 1, they leave behind a veritable mountain of vampire corpses and the soldiers of the human citadel are about to discover their fight has gotten so much easier

• Basically, consider the end of Soul Reaver 1 a case of The Bad Guy Wins- the Elder God got exactly what he wanted, from his point of view- the vampire menace has been all but eradicated, the Hylden escaped at some point in the past but were defeated, and humans are going to take over the world and keep his belly full for the rest of time.
  • Yeah, the Elder God intended for Raziel to do away with Kain before the time where he gets familiar with the time-device. Alternatively though, this is a HUGE backfire. The Elder God wanted to stop whatever original timeline Kain did or does, but in forming Raziel probably gave Kain all kinds of new avenues when he could view timelines in which Raziel existed. This was probably further catalyzed be Raziel pursuing him within the device itself, allowing Kain greater dexterity being able to see which timelines would no longer be accessible with his doom so near . . . . Screw Destiny

• Except, of course, for the tiny problem that Kain is still alive, and presumably returns to his old timeline (since thats the only way he can continue to live without seriiously screwing everything up- he must go back to sometime after he and Raziel fled) to create some proper vampires, now that he has been cured of Nupraptors' madness. That is also why the Elder God is still alive after the events of Defiance- his plan was foiled, but he still needed to be there for the events of Soul Reaver to play out, since "History Abhors A Paradox" and only minor changes to the timeline have been made (at the end of Soul Reaver 2, the changes to the timeline only meant that Kain had to go through Blood Omen 2 before the events of SR 1 played out). The Elder God of SR 1 might have some plan to murder Kain if and when he returns, knowing now that the plan failed thanks to new memories, but that is a story for another day, for another game that will likely, sadly, never be made, but presumably Kain will win.

Why Kain wasn't killed at Avernus

The Destined Battle between the two heroes ended with Raziel's victory when he tore the Heart of Darkness from Kain's chest and sent him into the demon dimension. Kain didn't die though. Most sources seem to just say that he "inexplicably survived", but before the battle, Kain said that the only weapon that can kill him is the wraith blade wielded by Raziel. He didn't die when his heart was torn out because the reaver had only been used to wound him.

• This has been pretty much confirmed by Amy Hennig: "His nature as Scion of Balance allows him to survive."
  • That does make sense, but it's a bit vague.
  • Another way to look at it: Kain is a 1500 year old vampire made from magic instead of being sired; even if he wasn't the Scion of Balance, he doesn't need a heart to survive.
    • Actually that explain why EVERYONE wants The Soul Reaver (again). Not only you can place it in the way of Raziel to introduce a paradox to change history but ALSO The Soul Reaver is powerful enough to overkill anything, even if your body regenerates its wounds you soul will always be trapped forever in The Soul Reaver to slowly being devourer or become deranged by Time Abyss
• My argument for Kain's survival and Hennig's comment goes as follows:
  • 1. Ariel states that the Spirit Forge summons the souls of all Scions of Balance to itself for the purification ritual.
  • 2. Kain is the Scion of Balance, and after escaping the demon dimension he says he feels "compelled" to return to the Spirit Forge, confirming that he is drawn to it.
  • 3. Janos stated that the curse of vampirism "imprisons our souls in this flesh", meaning that the only way Kain's soul could reach the Forge was if his body brought it there, thus reanimating his body.
  • 4. By the time he completes the purification ritual at the Forge (thus meaning that the Forge has accomplished its purpose and might let him drop dead again), Raziel has purified him and healed the gaping hole in his chest, meaning that his body can continue to be "alive" even without the Forge forcing him to reanimate.
  • Actually it summons the souls of all Guardians of Balance. Scion of Balance is a different entity. Kain is both. Otherwise, it's a cool theory.

Rahab was the most important of Kain's lieutanents after Raziel's execution

Raziel’s encounter with Rahab in his mutated form was unique among Raziel’s battles with his brothers. While the others ranted on about how great they had become and/or how they were going to kill Raziel, Rahab remained calm and collected. He responded to Raziel’s taunts with rational answers. He even knew that he was gong to die, as Kain had told him so. Despite this, he remained faithful and understanding. I think that Rahab became Kain’s closest lieutenant after Raziel’s execution. It would make sense that Kain would trust him with his knowledge and thoughts gained from time spent in the Chronoplast if he could safely tell Rahab that he was going to die. Maybe Rahab even contributed to Kain’s plans and machinations with his own observations. It would explain his comment about Kain saving them “from (themselves)” if he knew the true place of humans and vampires in Nosgoth’s history. If he knew what Kain knew, he would willingly face his death, knowing his soul (and the powers bestowed) would help Raziel (and Kain) save Nosgoth.

• If that was true then he would not have put up a fight, nor would he have given Raziel attitude. He took Kain telling him that Raziel would kill him as "he will try to", not literally, and Kain was being a bit of a dick doing that, probably just telling him in order to pass the time. As for the "saved us" bit, all vampires considered humans to be inferior and the Sarafan to be bastards- even Raziel thought the same, until he found out he was one. Rahab is just less of a hypocrite in that regard; as far as he is considered, Kain "showed him the light" and made him a god- and that is how he "saved" him. The others did not rant about how great they were (Zephon and Dumah did, but Melchiah was revolted by what he had become), and Rahab did talk about how he was going to kill Raziel, and about how he was greater than humans with his "saved us" bit. He wasn't any more or less rational than the others- he was just a fanatic, same as he always was, now just vampiric rather than Sarafan.
  • Remember that Mortanius also put up a fight against Kain. It seems to be a theme of the series: "you get my power/help but you've got to earn it". Looking back at the cutscene, I don't see Rahab threatening to kill Raziel, and his only comment about himself is that he had overcome a serious limitation to vampires, something Raziel should respect. I could understand the view that he was simply a fanatic, but the rest of what I said seems to hold up. As for Melchiah, that is why I put "and/or".

Kain is Murdoc Niccals' grandfather.

• Green skin, Magnificent Bastard overtones? Good stuff.
  • Kain's skin is more yellow-ish than green.

Kain's Oh, Crap! moment in the Soul Reaver 2 ending wasn't about Blood Omen 2.

He got off easy that time. So, the Hylden actually invade Nosgoth instead of rogue demons seen in Soul Reaver 2. They end up just as dead, and Raziel and his kin are still raised. But Kain looked in the time windows to see the possible futures before raising Raziel. Now, with the timeline altered so radically, he saw that the Hylden would return in force after the events of Soul Reaver 1. What he couldn't see was that he himself would probably facilitate their return so that they would join him in the battle against the Elder God. "The Pillars are the lock, and the Reaver is the key." Now that the Reaver's true destiny is restored, it will be used.

How Raziel's soul was captured by a BLOOD drinking blade.

Think about it for a second. The Reaver was forged as a vampiric blade to sustain their champion, and it is a BLOOD drinking blade. The twinned soul of Raziel attached to his arm as a wraith blade has nothing to do with his entrapment despite being visibly entwined with the physical Reaver at the time Raziel is stabbed. The reason Raziel's soul was trapped? In Soul Reaver 2, his body is still a PHYSICAL manifestation of his spirit's undying will...his blood IS his soul. The Wraith Blade was actually trying to fight against the Reaver, but the hunger of the Wraith Blade only made the Reaver stronger in the end. The Wraith Blade was trying to SAVE Raziel by wrapping around the Reaver in an attempt to mimic the events of SR 1 when Kane shattered the Soul Reaver on Raziel's back. Throughout the game the Wraith Blade is parasitic rather than symbiotic, but even a parasite does not try to kill its host consciously. Furthermore, we can infer that the Wraith Blade has been slowly awakening further throughout the game, and as the event was transpiring, it suddenly remembered what was about to happen, which is why it TRIED to save Raziel by overlapping with the Reaver, hoping to create a paradox effect.

• The Wraith Blade is trying to free itself from Raziel by completing the loop.

The pillars are the REAL chess masters

After all, they choose the guardians. Maybe they are much more intelligent than they seem, and have outgrown their builders, thus identifying the Elder God as the worse threat to Nosgoth while the vampires still worshiped him in ignorance. Although they are limited in what they can do, the combination of all the successes and mistakes in each guardian's efforts will lead to the Elder God's defeat.

Moebius was possessed by Hylden at some point

If I remember correctly, we see four characters with Prophet Eyes: Mortanius, oldest Turel(who seems to have bad eyesight, if any), Janos(who has colored irises until he's possessed), and at least since Soul Reaver 2, Moebius...

Kain and lieutenants' souls

When Raziel accepts his destiny and gets absorbed into the Reaver, where do you think other six souls go? There are another Raziel's soul (wraith-blade) and 5 of another lieutenants. Do they go into Reaver? No. They, now purified, rejoin Kain's soul, completing and healing it (don't forget that Kain had to split his own soul to resurrect lieutenants).

In Lo K 6 Kain teams up with Hylden against Elder God

Enemy mine, huh?<<|Wild Mass Guessing|>>

After confrontation at Avernus Kain possesses free will

Neither The Elder God nor Moebius knew he will be back because he is now free from Wheel of Fate.

Moebius is responsible for William the Just becoming the Nemesis

Nobody seems to have any clue as to why the change occurred, but we saw that Moebius already used his powers to manipulate events to allow his genocide against the vampires by manipulating William, so it seems entirely likely that was his doing.- This was confirmed in BO 1.

Raziel wasn't a wraith,he was still a vampire

In the cancelled game "dead sun" there is a race of vampires known as "Saradin" that can shift to the spectral realm and devour souls as well as being blue of skin.

It would logically follow that these are actually a distant evolution of the Razielim, which has interesting implications about Raziel himself, like he would have actually evolved the soul reaving abilities that he has in his games over time anyway even if he hadn't been tossed into the lake of the dead.

Even more than that he may have actually continued evolving in his comatose state and the start of the game is just the elder got waking him up rather than resurrecting him.

Finally this would mean he was actually still a vampire throughout the series and simply couldn't drink blood(and thus physically restore himself) because his jaw and stomach were both dissolved during his fall/over the years as he recovered and he could only subsist on the souls of his enemies. How the elder god knew of his soul eating nature is unknown, maybe prophecy or just his being in the spectral realm clued him in.

Several encounters with Kain in Soul Reaver are(from his perspective) after Defiance.

At the end of Defiance,just before the final battle, Kain is trapped by the elder god with no obvious means of escape(according to the elder god when he talks to Raziel in the spectral realm). After Raziel sacrifices himself to purify the balance guardian, and after Kain whups the elder god, Kain just straight up teleports out of the chasm he is trapped in.

He never uses this trick in gameplay, only turning to a cloud of bats from high enough areas(presumably so only needs to maintain altitude during flight, rather than climbing himself).

He does however teleport around during his boss fights in Soul Reaver 1, Raziel doesn't bother to note this(assuming he had learned during the time he was in the abyss. He does still have a scar on his chest despite it healing after being purified, but this could simply be an illusion of his(he did have some glamor abilities in Blood Omen) or perhaps he recreated the wound to keep up the appearance just in case Raziel noticed. No longer having a heart this would not be fatal.

There are a few more hints to this when replaying or rewatching the series, lines of dialogue hinting at knowledge he doesn't seem to have in defiance and a slightly different demeanor spring to mind.

Moebius was always corrupted by madness.

His personality never changes in the years before and after the corruption of the circle because of his nature as the time guardian. As the guardian of Time he has a non linear nature where he can see his future as clearly as his past, because of this Nupraptor's madness affected him from his birth (much like Kain) even though the event happened centuries later.

• First, true, but I think that with all of Time at his disposal he had ways of coping with it better than any of the other Guardians, but as you say, there's no evidence his personality progressed anywhere, at anytime really. All his focus was on his duty. Second: Ha, a paradox that would pave the way for the Soul Reaver. With Moebius' madness dooming Nupraptor's to his in the first place, the time from Moebius' birth and being mad until Nupraptor's "realizing" it and "providing" it would be a time rife paradox energy. Maybe even enough for a soul to slip into the Reaver while all was chaos . . . . . This would actually further explain why Kain, as Balance Guardian, was so drawn to obtain the Reaver (incidentally/coincidentally) during that time. He couldn't change anything, but Moebius was able to help him "try", even before he fully knew.

If Silicon Knights continued the series, the canonical ending of Blood Omen would be the one where Kain died.

Consider that in the first game's title, Blood Omen comes before Legacy of Kain, suggesting that the latter is only the name of this individual game rather than the series. And a legacy is what you leave after you; The games seemed more concerned with Kain's heritage instead... This would make his planned death near the end of Soul Reaver the second time he was spared.

Arbitrary Soul Reaver (suggests bigger time loop)

What if, considering the Ancients probably used magic based on what the Elder God taught them, the magic used to create the Blood Reaver actually required a soul that was the life of it's blood sucking abilities. If the Elder God did not outright explain that there was a soul involved, OR if the Ancients were pushing the limits of their abilities to create the thing (cutting edge so to speak, pun intended) then I would guess it is possible that some random soul was spun from out of the wheel to be secured to the blade to provide it it's powers. I'm not sure if there is a time restriction on souls, so WHENEVER the Reaver gets destroyed or otherwise compromised, that soul would be spun back to Raziel. This kind of creates two plot possibilities 1: Kain randomly notices the Reaver's reaction and is confused and jealous and axes Raziel, only to learn the truth partially in the time device or 2: as Balance Guardian has a greater understanding of the situation, as do the Hylden (but not the Ancients)and is once again, a tragic hero doing all he possibly can to twist and bend everything to his will for no more than to prove the damn point.

Kain lies all the time

Original paradox when Kain wields the Reaver against William the Just, also wielding the Reaver. When Kain wields future Reaver against past Reaver there are multitudes of paradoxes that the blade must sustain. I'm saying sustain because whatever happens to William's Reaver will need to be evident in Kain's Reaver later, but simultaneously. Every strike will echo across the time and then back again to the Reaver in Kain's hands and each strike, limiting the paradoxical properties to not only to the time of the battle but to the entire time spanning the Reaver's existence after William's battle with Kain until the conclusion of the battle with it in Kain's hands. Alone the blade can NEVER strike itself because it can never BE anywhere else, other than where it is, let alone as another of itself to do so. Since Kain makes this possible through time travel, the Reaver must gain some perverted form of free will at Kain's hand. More specifically, the blade then represents the purest form of rebellion, in the form of perverted free will, against the properties of fate as set by the timeline, and I believe never loses this property of, this familiarity with, tampering with entire actions and events regarding 'fate', as it were. The Reaver would NEVER possess Raziel's soul until Raziel, with his soul draining ability and wraith blade, die in the presence of the Reaver. If Kain handed him the Reaver, and then killed him somehow, (or if Raziel died any other way wielding the Reaver himself during gameplay) the Reaver would absorb the wraith blade and Raziel as he died, even with it in his own hands. Kain would then, at some point, obtain the un-purified Reaver to continue with the plotwe are all familiar with, taunting and mocking the fool Raziel at every step, bloodrage over Moebius' petty, childlike meddling, burning over his every motive.

Reasonable excuse for Raziel's paradox

Raziel's own soul as his wraith blade is excusable with one redundant statement: It can't be Raziel's SAME soul because it's NOT Raziel's same soulHistory abhors a paradox, buuuuuut not in this case. If time and history act as Kain says, flowing around paradoxes, then what event could really lead to Raziel's paradox? And what does it have to do with the fact that individuals and their experiences are somehow immune ? How can time and history know how to adjust without already having fundamental understanding of paradoxes?

• SPOILERS AHEAD!——-> First, in general, two things can't exist at the same time in the same place, but, apparently, according to any laws of time travel, they CAN exist in the same time but not the same place, no matter how they get there, no matter for how long, and in some cases no matter for what reason. The souls can be respun into new lives but there's nothing in canon that says they are going to be spun within or outside of linear time. Raziel and Kain can postulate all and as they wish but it doesn't change the fact that greater forces can manipulate their very souls and use and place them in any way.
  • Agreeing with the general wording here, however the relationship of the the characteristics of paradoxes seems off canon. Kain more makes it seem like fate is non-negotiable, and anything outside of that CAUSES history to move around "whatever it is", taking souls and fate with it, basically leaving the paradox as-is to persist even WITHIN the altered currents. This doesn't change the WMG, but it was blurring the focus.

The Hylden didn't just curse the vampires out of spite, hatred or blind revenge. They didn't even do it to foil the Elder God. They specifically did it to foil the vampires' construction of the Hylden's own prison: the Pillars.

Think about it. Janos Audron said it: The Pillars choose their guardians from birth; but the crux of the vampires' predicament is that they are no longer born, only sired. The curse made sure of that. Furthermore, by giving the vampires an unquenchable blood lust, the Hylden also made sure that the humans would eventually start their own crusades against the vampire race, including the original vampire Guardians. The curse made sure the Guardians would be killed, and it also made sure the Pillars would have to choose human replacements for them, susceptible to the plan the Hylden used to eventually corrupt the Circle and finally the pillars. Right from the very moment of their imprisonment, they planned every detail of their own eventual liberation.

The Real Reason Raziel is immortal and unkillable

We learn in Defiance that Raziel is not the only one that immortal and unkillable. So is Kain. Earlier in the game Raziel comes to the conclusion that the Elder God did not revive him as he claims, but just happened to be there to use Raziel as his tool when Raziel came to. Raziel is immortal because Kain is immortal and Raziel was created with part of Kain's soul. This is also why Raziel has to be the one to kill his "brothers" because they are immortal as well. When they die Raziel absorbs their part of Kain's soul. Their immortality is shown with Dumah, who was impaled by the humans but he didn't die. He only moved to the spectral realm. And he gained the ability to move in both the Spectral Plane and the Material Plane exactly like Raziel when he was "killed". The only way to end Raziel and his brothers is for them to be absorbed back into one. Into Kain. When Raziel pushes the Purified Reaver into Kain he isn't just purifying his corruption with the Purified Balance Reaver, he is also restoring his entire soul. Repairing that which has been split asunder.

An RPG game set 30 years after Soul Reaver (and 1130 years after Blood Omen 2)

I have some (possibly) pretty good ideas for a new Legacy of Kain game. It will be an RPG game with characters that are mostly the new Guardians of the Pillars of Nosgoth, since Kain has been cured of the corruption by Raziel in Defiance. Like in Soul Reaver I and II, the main character will not be Kain, though, like in Defiance, Kain will still be one of the playable characters. The main character will actually be a female vampire-hunter who happens to be a Dhampyr, which is the VERY first time in the series since there are only fully vampires and fully humans and has an ambiguous disorder. And her allies will be the new Pillar Guardians, who will be consisted of: A werewolf from one of the surviving tribes, A morlock-like soothsayer, and a Romani girl who happens to be a Druid. I'm still working on that idea, but what do you guys think?

Turel's soul reaver form is still canon.

The art of Turel's devolved form is what he looked like during the events of the Soul Reaver game, he further devolved into his Defiance form.