I will never forgive Lou Wilson for the absolutely devastating gut punch that was Nydas Okiro's "Brother! It's important to dream!". Placed anywhere else in the story, it would've been just another line about the hubris of the Age of Arcanum, the ambition of the Ring of Brass. It's important to dream, because in the end we will achieve something great and unprecedented. It's important to dream, because no matter what we sacrifice, it will all pay off in the end and everyone will be grateful. It's important to dream, because we have enormous power, which means that we can be the force that changes the world. That's what the Age of Arcanum is about. New heights of genius, technological wonders, being the first to create greatness.
But that's not what that line means. Because to Nydas, bleeding out and dying on the floor, with a sword driven through his best friend's heart, there is no future. There is no great race to the top. No eventual public recognition or the end justifying the means. There is just a reflection on who he was, and who he has become. The life that he lived. When he was just a scrappy pirate, fighting on blood-soaked docks, trying desperately to survive with barely anything to his name... he was a dreamer. And he dreamed of reaching the sky. He dreamed of a beautiful flying city. And in his last moments, even after every bit of pain and destruction that the hubris of this Age has caused, after it killed both him and his closest friends... he is still a dreamer. He got his flying city. And maybe no one will be grateful. And it will never become more than what it was. And maybe it ended in destruction. But the dream was earnest. Even if its consequences were horrifying, the dream was earnest and beautiful. It kept him going. It made him grow. It's important to dream.
