okay you know what maybe i'll ramble here. as a treat. my silly cv2 rambles. spoilers ahead. but also i just got to corroded scar and i'm very much not finished with the game i just have thoughts so i'd really appreciate no spoilers for things that happen later in the game!! maybe this will just be a word salad that i end up deleting later but we'll see.
don't you think there's a kind of guilt that comes along with time traveling. like yes of course it's for a good reason (depending on how you play i guess--) but think about it. lavinia says that it's strictly forbidden to interfere with history so much that it alters the present, and when given the option to, you can do that... and the results are good for the most part! you can save noah, you can change the world for the better, right?
and then you get to the heroes and it's not so simple. you spend this time in the past, getting to know these people from several years ago and you help them, you're the miracle that shows up seemingly from nowhere and turn the tides all the while growing close with these people, and once again depending on how you play you're suddenly just. gone. you left such an impact on an era and the people you helped and then you're gone. there are things that still happen that you weren't there for and the outcome is about the same, these heroes locked away in their cocoons and transformed into these horrors, grasping onto the last shreds of their consciousness, of who they used to be.
you have to slay them. that's your whole mission, yeah? would it have been easier had you not known them? had you not bonded with them? it must be so painful, wishing that you could've stayed long enough to stand with them to the end, or maybe you shouldn't have changed the course of history at all.
there's the faded bonds, yes, but to learn of that and be told by lou that there's nothing you can do right now and all you can do is move forward in hopes of finding a solution is crushing. (that's how i felt after fighting josée at least. she's the reason i'm writing all of this really. all of her dialogue during her fight and the cutscenes afterward absolutely broke my heart.)
and you're going to have to do this again. and again. and again.