I'm Also Just Mentally Ill - Tumblr Posts
One thing I find interesting about Pelagos is that all the memories we see yelling at him about being worthless are:
1: Negative. We see several positive memories shortly after.
2: FROM HIS TIME AS A KYRIAN. All of them yell that he'll never ascend, that he's worth nothing if he can't serve the Archon, and just generally bad things about him relating to the Kyrian.
#1 means that it's quite possible he has no positive memories. That's sad because he is my baby and I want to give him nice things.
#2 comes with a theory. We know that he is actively questioning the Path. He doesn't want his afterlife to go the way it's going. This is the exact ideal of the Forsworn. This means that he was likely approached by the Forsworn at some point.
As the Forsworn are not a cult or a man, they take "NO! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" as a valid answer, so instead of bringing him in to join their ranks, they leave him with a few pointers.
Number One: Conjure memories of Bastion, not your mortal life.
Number Two: Fake it. Pretend you don't know anything. Even to your closest friends. Turn off the connection to your soulbond. This will only hurt them.
And Number Three: Thenios is your friend (Another theory that I will explain later but basically I'll summarize it with this: Thenios is the Paragon of Wisdom. He gets everyone's memories. He'd notice if a bunch of people stopped sending memories. He's not an idiot. This means that he knows, and if he knows and doesn't tell Kyrestia, he's probably at least allied with the Forsworn, although likely not Zovaal, he's smarter than that.)
So Pelagos goes on his merry way (Not so merry anymore, he's scared out of his goddamn mind) over to the Temple of Wisdom and as he's going he really starts to think about it. Maybe the Forsworn are right. Maybe we don't need to lose our memories. Maybe sin is not inherently bad (now I'm just projecting how I left Christianity but that's ok)
He doesn't want to forget who he was. He doesn't want to forget how he died. He doesn't want to forget his family, or Banagos. He doesn't want to forget. But he can't lose Kleia.
IDK people I just like the idea of Pelagos being half out the door when we arrive and that's why he becomes Arbiter. If ya can't beat the system be the system.
(I HC that when he shows up with the Focusing Iris and is killed this is the second time he dies. He got rezzed by Arthas for sad times)