[quote]Instead he completely out of nowhere has the epiphany to simply convert the terrible "final god of pain" into a soothing and invigorating cup of darkness and chamomile tea?[/quote] Go back and rewatch that bit of the cutscene. “He said that they were connected by threads he alone could perceive, and that [i]they whispered to him[/i].” It has been mentioned multiple times throughout the season (and could be experienced first hand in the HELM) that feint whispers could be heard from the reliquaries themselves. This suggests that it was Nezarec whispering to Mithrax the information on how to reawaken Osiris. [quote]And then it just inexplicably cures him with no real explanation and apparently zero side effects... This is either just really inconsistent with the lore[/quote] Over the past couple of years the devs have been more and more explicit in stating that Darkness powers are intrinsically tied to Memory while the Light is tied to Forgetting. Osiris was stranded within his subconscious after Savathuun was driven out of his body at the end of Season of the Lost, unable to awaken. A strong infusion (tea humor?) of Darkness energy, being tied to memory, perhaps allowed him to find himself again (rewatching the cutscene you can clearly see eddies of dark energy swirling about Osiris’s head as he awakens). So in that sense it would be consistent with the [i]more recently established[/i] lore. [quote]or more likely we are going to find out there is some consequence later on but just makes it predictable and kind of hokey/corny, like ohhh who could have seen that coming?![/quote] Storytelling is rife with instances in which protagonists make decisions with potentially dangerous consequences either through being blinded by hubris or, as is often the case, with full knowledge that it will likely come back to hurt them later. Yes, it is predictable. But it is predictable because it is [b]relatable[/b]: we make mistakes based on poor judgement, we let pride distort our perceptions and we make admittedly poor decisions despite knowing the likely consequences in order to help others in our own lives. Heroic characters that never make mistakes aren’t particularly believable and are thus not particularly interesting, while those who avoid taking action because of likely future drawbacks [b]to the immediate detriment of their friends[/b] aren’t especially heroic. Yes, these are [i]tropes[/i] of storytelling, but not necessarily indications of [b]poor[/b] storytelling. - I didn’t feel the ending cutscene was strong by any means, and I am not suggesting that you should suddenly decide it was actually fine after all. However I think you should at least reconsider it with the above context as I don’t feel it was quite as dire and out of left field as you suggest. [i](edited for clarity)[/i] (΄◉◞౪◟◉｀)