Guild Wars 2

Asurans (back in GW1) used to be pretty racist elitists, calling everying that was dumber than them (usually humans) bookahs!

I realize that racism is a pretty toxic thing in our IRL society — Is that why I don’t hear people getting called bookahs by random asuran NPCs anymore?

I used to get a pretty good laugh out of asurans (and they’re still hilarious), but I thought that the bookah thing was a nice part of their culture back in the day. It was something memorable that made them stand out.

The Asura of GW2 are definitely different to the Asura of GW1.
I imagine they had to stop calling people Bookah once the definition became well known and it became detrimental for them to outright insult everyone else. The other races are of course useful to Asura, we must stroke their ego’s so that they will let us experiment on them…

It was never a racial thing, even other asura can be bookahs. It just means a stupid person. A bookah was a big stupid monster, equivalent to a boogieman.

It’s a folktale asura tell their progeny.

Though it could be based on an actual monster the asura once dealt with in the past when they were exclusive to the depths of Tyria.

Asura in the past seemed much more arrogant and egomaniacal then they are today.

They’ve toned it down considerably. Some asura are better or worse than others in that regard.

Just depends on the individual. Some asura can’t stand their own society of one-upmanship, and others couldn’t live without it.

From a practical standpoint, yes, superiorism is toxic.

If you’re trying to maintain friendly neutral relations with everyone the last thing you want to do is be offensive and condescending to the other races.

It’s not good for business. But yeah the language is still there and it’s no secret most asura think very highly of themselves.

I suppose it HAS been a really long time since the Vekk was dropping searing flames on things.

It only makes sense that Asuran culture would evolve over that time — and it just happened to evolve in such a way that bookah is just being said less.

I used Blinding Surge on my Vekk. His brilliance blinds all!

Zaxares.5419:

I used Blinding Surge on my Vekk. His brilliance blinds all!

If you cannot blind them with your brilliance, baffle them with your … technobabble.

WyldKat.4712:

Zaxares.5419:

I used Blinding Surge on my Vekk. His brilliance blinds all!

If you cannot blind them with your brilliance, baffle them with your … technobabble.

Pfft, Technobabble. Pain Inverter was the way to go!

actually, if you pay attention to npc banter, bookah is pretty much in use even now

just the first example that pops to mind: a human npc in DR thought a female asura was flirting because she called him bookah

In queensdale, at the waypoint in the camp south of the swamp (near the behemoth spawn point), there is an asura who actually calls a human a bookah in spoken dialogue.