The Soul Star stopped working for a while after each switch, so it's not unlikely that previous cycles would have stuck as someone else for a bit, and that this would have been planned for by whoever set up the cycles. As for whether he's dead or not, it might not be common but that it might happen is an easy logical inference given the abilities of the Soul Star and the fact that we apparently start each cycle with no idea what we're doing. As such, it too should have been accounted for when setting up the cycles.
1. We spent a rather long time in Al's body; then, when it recharged, we switched to another non-Sibling person. That could easily be much longer than typical.
2. I fail to see how this is germane.
For the first, it doesn't really matter whether it's typical, the point is that it's an easily predictable possible effect of putting someone with our Soul Star through a number of cycles where they lose their acquired knowledge and apparently completely change personalities and sometimes gender, so whoever set up the cycles is fairly likely to have expected it. That then implies that it happening is not all that likely to cause "critical plot breach" or they would likely have put something in place to prevent it.
Predictable? Sure. You could also have predicted that Ciro would kill Riltia...but he didn't. Besides, I'm not sure how "predicting" the possibility is germane, but I've also mostly forgotten what the root argument was about.
I find this doubtful, but time will tell.
I certainly doubt its commonness.
I'm not trying to judge how common it is (that's hard to say without knowing how different previous iterations of us may have been, though the fact that it has been suggested Proxxy changes fairly often implies she would have problems learning from the experience if we do swipe her minions), just how important it actually is overall. Like I said before, anomalies are likely to happen every cycle, so simply that something might be an anomaly does not make it important. In this case, we should be able to gather more information soon.
Never become a cyclical villain who relies on each cycle being the same to ensure that each ends in your victory. A change is an unpredictable thing; it causes more changes. Worse, they have causes, which might easily cause more changes in even less predictable fashions. Oric should be concerned about them.
...Each cycle being the same? Even Cain, stuck in a prison somewhere in the dungeon, knows that things change significantly each cycle even just in the nature and experience of the characters involved, let alone how they interact. The point is that some changes are more important than others, and we don't know or even have much reason to suspect that this change is particularly important, though if it is we may well begin getting clues soon.
Oh, sure, some are more important than others. But none are unimportant, not to Oric, not if he's thinking...um...the way I would if I was an evil overlord in some kind of dungeon.
and what makes you think that's a quality of the whole Warrens?
I don't, though it does seem likely that a fair amount of it is given the haphazard nature of the first floor and the fact that the second floor is confirmed to switch. However, nothing makes me think the Underside is actually part of the Warrens either, as opposed to something that formed around it naturally (and by naturally I mean due to damage, people trying to dig out, access tunnels and such being made, etc).
The first level didn't change, the second might have been repaired, and then you admit that the Underside would probably not be part of it.
Nice.
The first level didn't change while we were inside it, no, but the largely varied rooms suggests it was at least partially randomly generated, given the fact that other locations appear to have themes.
Of course, it's possible that that was the first level's theme, but hey. The fact that the second completely changed itself around, and based on information given does so periodically, is really more to the point, since it suggests that either the people in charge of the Warrens are capable of mass structural changes, or the dungeon itself can do so. Either way, it suggests the thing is pretty damn sturdy.
As for admitting the Underside would not be part of it, I said that it might not even be an original part of the Warrens themselves, so I'm not sure how you got "the Warrens might be destroyed" out of it.
Randomly generated dungeons are a common enough occurrence in the kind of game TWoOtA (Twoota?) was simply parodying, and aside from the rooms with magma they were pretty much all the same as I recall. Besides, if they were random, I'd guess that that would have more to do with the amount of havoc wreaked* on the first level, or else odd design choices, before I used that to support a theory that the dungeons somehow autorepair.
Anyways, it just occurred to me that the biggest change--replacement of water with pits--could have been done by accident by the monster.
As to how it matters: Even if we assume that the Warrens are safely and firmly in the ground, even if we assume autorepair capability, even if we assume that the destruction of the bedrock on which the Warrens lie won't be affected enough to cause structural issues from a huge worm making Swiss cheese out of it...the Greens, which seem to be a life-support system, are in the Underside. That would evidently spell doom for the entire complex within hours.
You guys sound like your having that problem where you keep making theories without the information supply to keep them steady. This part is especially amusing:
It seems that being a Willborn has something to do with the Soul. We fight the Willborn inside its corrupted Soul because fighting the outside beast is impossible. If the Soul Stars are, in fact, Souls as it is implied then a Willborn does require the presence of a Soul Star.
Hm.
Illborn are bodies without a soul.
Are Willborn souls without a body?
...just to pick the worst example. Take a breather and a dream?
We found the only known Willborn in a Soul Duel, which doesn't seem to have taken place in the physical world. And it's worth considering--simple is always more likely than complex, caeteris paribus.
(P.S. This is at least better than what often happens when Bay12 is deprived of updates...)