MC might be able to fully remember this time as well as opposed to vague trance memories that everyone gets.
Do we know when that falling out was? Unless Cole was getting experimented on as an infant
the fallout would have had to been less than 10 or so years making Cole a child (but cognizant) during the experiments.The only way I can see both of them having done it is if Tanos was "working" at the lab and xanthe was "helping" at the lab despite having a (comparable or better) lab at hero (or maybe xanthe only got involved after MC joined but before cole)
Edit: Or tanos was working at some third as of now unknown place between the time of Ella picture and just a bit after her death when he joins SIN
Could be that the "falling out" is more academic than emotional, and the two of them are still willing to collaborate if a project is interesting enough.
- I find highly unlikely that Tanos did anything to MC. Xanthe and Tanos are not the only scientist factions. It's also the monsterfication researchers and the institute.
- The Lord of Dark doesn't care about MC. He goes out of his way to murder him during deadend3.
- Syla probably never intended for her son to become a pawn in the Apostle game. Her encounter with Stephen was supposedly due to luck.
- Syla was killed by Indra and MC was in close proximity. So if Indra was after MC, I don't see how anyone would stop him at this point.
So the way I see it, Syla wiping MC's memories has to do with her wanting to give him a normal life.
- Syla and her son are the last descendants of an extinct race. Surviving should be kinda.. important.
- Her conflict with the other chosen should be old and she kept herself out of it for "those she loved".
- She is afraid of her "mother" and thinks that if her son fails to be perfect, Memory will kill him.
- She thinks that MC being of low purity makes him an abomination in the eyes of some Apostles.
MC joining the supernatural is playing a losing game. There are away too many factors that work against him, at least from her point of view.
Perhaps she waited till MC was older to train him. Dropping all these on a child are hard, and Syla doesn't seem the greatest at making plans.
Explaining what she is, her heritage, MC's heritage, his place as a possible chosen, all while protecting herself and her family from Indra and the rest is hard.
I also think that she (and all the others), failed to account for the Arbiter. This will probably become more prominent down the line.
Well, the theory is that the monsterfication researchers might have employed Tanos. Which has spurious support, I admit, it's basically just "Ella was at a hospital with Tanos, Ella probably met the MC at the hospital, maybe Tanos worked at the hospital the MC was at". It's supposition, but the MC having encountered Tanos as a child would explain why Ella thinks the MC is the only other survivor of some group.
I'm not sure the Lord of Dark actually kills the MC in Dead End #3, or if it was just a really dumb accident. It restrains him so that he won't run away, but it doesn't make any moves to harm him like it did the 4th's avatar. Instead, it just shows him its weird magic orb, and then the MC trying to grab the orb somehow results in his death. I don't know what's going on in that scene, if it wanted him dead or was trying to do something else and things got out of hand.
And I do agree, Syla definitely wanted to keep the MC from having to get involved with supernatural stuff when he was young. I think that's the most plausible explanation for at least a majority of his blocked memories. Something happened to repeatedly expose him to monsters or superhumans or even the Apostles themselves. The real question is what supernatural thing was it. Her institute, or Valravn, or Aos, or the Lord of Dark, or the 4th Apostle, or...there are a lot of possibilities.
