[Spoilers] Buggy interaction between The Final Dark and Choice and Consequence

MSattrtand · November 24

I've sided against Prince Naemon in the "Choice and Consequence" quest, yet he still appears unpetrified in "The Final Dark". Also, Cariel is not there, whom I expect to see instead.

At the same scene, Nords from "The Stubbornness of Nords" use dialogues, which should appear right after completing the corresponding quest (according to UESP). According to other players who also encountered this bug, Prince Naemon also uses dialogue from right after finishing his quest, and after finishing the quest, he appears petrified (I can't confirm both of these things cause I haven't completed the quest siding with him and haven't completed the main quest).

MSattrtand · December 3

I went to check if this bug wasn't fixed with today's patch. It wasn't. Then I checked other NPCs, not just Naemon and Nords, to see if they are using proper dialogues.

Here you can see 13 NPCs in this scene, who should appear there after completion of their respective Side Quests:

Only 2 of them, Mani-Kai and Xica-llan, who both appear in one Side Quest, use proper dialogue. The rest 11 of them are using their dialogue that should appear right after completion of their quests. UESP also confirms this problem with "Dialogue is currently bugged, says post-quest dialogue instead" on pages of these NPCs

These NPCs were probably loaded with incorrect flags or states, so they use dialogues that should appear at another point in time.

Regarding my original issue with Naemon and Cariel: the game likely checks his state/flags, gets an incorrect one, and loads him with it; because Cariel can not exist with Naemon, she isn't loaded at all. They are probably loaded in different branches of an if/elif/else statement. And from the UESP on Naemon's page: "verification needed — note: he appears here even when you chose to side with Cariel"