Guild Wars 2

I really hope someone can help clarify this.

Both wrong. Its the BESTEST race!

lies charr are the only race in tyria :<

…You mean there’s another race in this game?

Seriously, these guys have sniper rifles, artillery, and currently working on submarines. In about 15 years they’ll have ICBMs. They’re awesome.

Eh. I don’t know about the best, but they’re the race I have a preference for. For the following reasons:

• Atheism. They believe in each other, their warband, their legion, and their heroes. They believe in people, not gods.

• Industry. Progress, progress, progress! The charr are very efficient with creating new ways of doing things, and then ensuring that everyone has access to those. See – the combat engineer profession, which the charr invented.

• No crutches. The norn rely on spirits, the sylvari rely on the pale tree, the humans rely on the human gods, and the asura rely on magic. The charr? The charr rely on the charr.

• Pragmatism. The charr aren’t just mindless, warlike beasts. In fact, even before the treaty, unlike the humans the charr (under Smodur’s behest) were willing to let anyone of any race (including humans) into their city if they could prove their worth to the charr. That person could then earn the plebian rank, and own a home on charr land. The charr will accept an ally when they can, and they’re not racists.

• Shenanigans. The charr have, straight up, some of the funniest writing in the game. Whether it’s Dinky or Maverick, or the NPCs, it’s just sublime. And they have a cattlepult. A cattlepult. Have a goosey at this and you’ll see what I mean.

• Writing. The charr have a great sense of purpose in their storylines. You really feel as though you have a place and a purpose, whereas I find the other storylines tend to meander. The charr storyline makes me feel like an important part of an organised, intelligent society. And there are a couple of feels in there for good measure, too. Not to mention some memorable characters.

• Paradigm Shift. The charr represent one of these. Usually, in a fantasy setting, if you have a beast race then they’re almost invariably magical and/or an unorganised, tribal mess. They’re frequently superstitious at best, and (as far as I know) always god worshippers. They’re often behind the curve of other races when it comes to development, too. The charr are opposite to all of these things, and thus they redefine what a beast race can be.

• Originality. There’s nothing like the charr out there in any fantasy setting that I’ve encountered. In books, television, film, or games. Nothing is even remotely similar. You can pick at things that might have one, small facet of the charr, but there’s nothing that really is similar. Trying to compare them is like saying that elves are exactly the same as myconids because they can both be found near trees. It falls apart.

And that’s why I play them. I just like what they are and what they represent. :P

Personally not an atheist, I line up with the philosophy of God never directly taking a hand in anything, but I absolutely love playing as Charr, I’m going to buy 8 extra slots eventually so i can have one of each class

Both wrong. Its the BESTEST race!

That’s not really appropriate either.
We have to invent a new word for describing their level of bestness, really.

And Charr are not atheists. An atheist is someone who sais “I see no evidence for any gods, therefore I see no reason to belive in them.”. Charr clearly know that gods exist ( and they provably do so in the GW universe) so they are actually Gnostic Theists, they just don’t worship any of them.

Zanjarah.9731:

And Charr are not atheists. An atheist is someone who sais “I see no evidence for any gods, therefore I see no reason to belive in them.”. Charr clearly know that gods exist ( and they provably do so in the GW universe) so they are actually Gnostic Theists, they just don’t worship any of them.

But the charr don’t consider those creatures gods. They are just powerful creatures that other cultures happen to worship. I would say “atheist” is still appropriate — they do not believe in the existence of anything they would consider a god.

Exactly.

Why people have so much trouble understanding what atheism is is beyond me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

“Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.”

The charr believe that powerful creatures exist, but they do not recognise them as gods. They believe that ‘god’ is a fallacious concept, and that such a creature cannot exist. To them, any creature calling itself a god is merely a pretender, out to fool and manipulate. They might be powerful, but still a pretender.

The charr believe that deities simply do not exist. Omnipotent, and/or omniscient, and/or omnipresent creatures of worship? Nuh-uh. You won’t get a charr admitting to even the possibility of such a thing. They’d smack that down. They’d want proof of your so called god, and then they’d challenge that proof with every scientific method at their disposal. And every military method, if need be.

The charr are atheists. They recognise that the humans worship powerful creatures, but they do not see these creatures as ‘gods,’ merely as poweful beings, and beings that might one day even pose a threat.

There may be some cognitive dissonance here, but I’m sorry, the charr are as atheist as atheist gets.

I mean, haven’t you heard the line enough to have it ingrained already?

“Believe in iron/strength, not false gods.”

Not just ‘gods,’ but specifically ‘false gods.’ This is what flabbergasts me. Pretty much every charr you meet will declare gods as a fallacious concept to your face.

Not atheist? How can you even… It just boggles the mind.

Just to put the nail in the coffin…

Human: I believe in gods!
Charr: I don’t. Can you prove they exist?
Human: Not… really. I pray to them, but they don’t answer.
Charr: Uh… huh. So, you can’t perceive them or their actions?
Human: No, but we must have faith. Faith in our gods, they must save us!
Charr: You could just save yourselves.
Human: No, our gods will save us. They will.
Charr: Those gods that don’t answer your prayers.
Human: …yes.
Charr: Those gods that pretty much don’t exist.
Human: What? No! They totally do!
Charr: Uh… huh. So, show me an act of divine power right now.
Human: …
Charr: That’s what I thought. No evidence, just blind faith. What utter folly.
Human: They’ll save us one day. They will! You’ll see! They’ll change everything with their incredible, divine power!
Charr: Uh… huh. Right. I’m… going over there, now. Good luck with that, I guess. Me? I believe only in things I can see, feel, measure, and understand with my own tools.

And tell me it wouldn’t go like that. >_> Atheists.

Is that a dialogue from the game AuldWolf or is that something you made up just now? If that is in the game then ANet is much cooler then I have given them credit for.

No, I whipped it up just now. Hence ‘tell me that’s not how it would go.’ But that’s pretty much their attitude. The charr are very physical creatures, they don’t believe in anything other than that which they can perceive and manipulate with their own two paws. They’re completely pragmatic.

If you asked a charr to believe in some ethereal force that they couldn’t perceive, that wasn’t malleable, or that couldn’t be detected, they wouldn’t do it. If you presented them with a powerful person calling themselves a god, the charr would call flim-flammery. If that so-called ‘god’ tried to force them to worship it, they’d fight it with all their worth, for their freedom and just to prove their point.

That’s the charr for you. They’re the closest fantasy analogue of an atheist I’ve ever seen. A charr believes in a rock because it’s there in front of them, it’s not superior or inferior, it simply is. A charr doesn’t believe in a god because a god is supposedly this ethereal, superior force worthy of worship. The charr response to such invariably tends to be “Uh, no.”

See: Charr attitude towards magic.

My view of the Charr is much darker that most.

Honor : Acting on honor signifies that you will do everything to regain that honor should you shame your tribe. A good example: Vigil leader has her son killed - Honor is supposed to be how one represents his community, tribe, w/e. So we get people asking you to do things for them, do they not have honor? Is pride not an essential quality of honor? Their use of the term honor is deceiving, its more of a term to glorify their weakness rather than actual honor. Honor for the Charr is a crutch just like Christianity is in the modern day Western world. (I’d expand on that but the zealots would whine and derail the thread as usual)

Personality I came across 3 characters with a different personality than the others. It was the same. They called me meat. (I play a gremlin) – Other than that, they’re cowards or lazy creatures. The Gremlins however always have an excuse to manipulate you into doing their quests. Even the humans do. But Charr… prove your worth… really? I have to prove my worth to some farmer feeding cows with wasps? Stupid world explorer….

Anti-theists The Charr are Anti-theists. That part is well done, clear. However, they attach themselves to customs. It is quite strange that a society which does not believe in the possibility of dieties believes so dearly in maintaining customs. Something is wrong there and this simply strikes me as illogical.

Run animation How can a race that can move at normal speed insist so much on running on 4 legs in slow motion? When in a war, you want to conserve energy, not spend it. That too is illogical AND it also gives bonus headaches.

I agree with everything here and also want to add that they by far have my favorite voice acting in the game. It helps that Rytlock is voiced by the same guy as Grunt in ME2.

Not going to get into the main essence of the argument (though I would love to; sadly, duty calls), there is one thing I would wish to correct in AuldWolf’s post.

The ‘No crutches’ point is rather… wrong, at least in regards to the Norn. Even more than the Charr, the Norn rely on nothing; not kings, not gods, and not even each other. The Spirits are not ‘gods’, to the Norn… they’re more like friends. They don’t get down on one knee and throw their fate in the hands of the Spirits.

The only thing a Norn follows… is himself. No warband, no legion, no god or king can give them commands. They are each sovereign of themselves, and will die to defend that fierce independence.

Just a quick clarification. Please, resume your regularly-scheduled Charr talk!

@ptitminou.6489

Honor: That’s utter tripe because you’re using one rare, extreme example (and Almorra is a bit crazy) and super-imposing it on the entirety of the charr, and then running off on a mad tirade from there. You’re basically saying, essentially, that all humans are like Hitler. That’s what you’re saying. Did you stop and read what you were typing? One example does not a race make. The charr see honour as important, but ‘victory at any cost’ is obviously the counter to that. So it’s not a crutch. You basically just invented that because of one extreme example, and that extreme example was a gladium, even.

Personality: Every hard-nosed society will expect you to ‘earn your way.’ What you’ve just said there is that modern day RL society should pay you to sit on your rear, doing nothing. It doesn’t work that way. The ‘prove your worth,’ thing is just the charr take on ‘if you’re going to stick around, make yourself useful.’ They’re basically just expecting you not to be a mooching basement-dweller. And that’s too much for you?

Atheists: You’ll note that most charr don’t believe in maintaining customs. I’ve mentioned many times that it’s mostly a Blood Legion thing, because they’re traditionalists. But even then, charr society is changing all the time. You even have one NPC in the Black Citadel who says that he thinks that the charr are evolving too rapidly. Yep… they’re so static and tradition-loving. And being a traditionalist doesn’t make you religious. That’s as ridiculous a fallacy as saying that if you’ve ever held money, you’ve automatically become a ruthless tycoon. At this point I wonder if you’re straight up trolling.

Run Animation: Someone’s never heard of a ‘leisurely pace.’ We humans do power-walking. Wolves learned to move at a certain stride which allows them to cover large amounts of land without stopping to consume food in-between. They’re just conserving energy. It’s simply a charr take on power-walking.

Let me sum up your arguments…

1. Hitler exists. Therefore, because Hitler exists and is human, every human alive must be exactly the same as Hitler, in every possible way.

2. The charr should offer everyone a free lunch, money, and luxury accommodations without ever having to work. Because you’re lazy and you feel you deserve it.

3. If one can connect something very tenuously to something else, then they must obviously be the same thing! Therefore a deadly nightshade is as worthy of a food as a salad because both of these things are comestible.

4. Power-walking was never invented.

Why am I talking to you again?

@Mechos.5640

The norn rely on the spirits for their power. I’ve played enough of the norn personal storyline to know this. It comes up in every storyline. A norn derives their power from either bear, snow leopard, raven, or wolf. A charr derives their power from him or herself.

You’ll note that I never said that the spirits are gods, that’s a straw-man of your own creation, so I won’t argue with it. What I said is that the norns rely on the spirits for their strength, which they do. It’s extolled at numerous points through the personal storyline. And if a spirit turns them out, they tend to ‘go dragon’ (Jormag) just to keep their power.

Charr bow to no adversary. With the clamor of anvils and the thunder of guns, we rip each day from life’s teeth. Our strength will shake the foundations of the world.

Nuff said

Yep. And I like that no one’s been able to come up with a crutch for them. Every other race has a Universal crutch. All that can be said about the charr is that one or two weak charr may use something as a crutch. So, ultimately, there’s no Universal crutch for the charr.

No gods, no spirits, no pale trees, no magic.

That’s pretty much where my love of them comes from, ultimately. They’re that one race without a Universal crutch.

AuldWolf.7598:

The charr believe that powerful creatures exist, but they do not recognise them as gods. They believe that ‘god’ is a fallacious concept, and that such a creature cannot exist. To them, any creature calling itself a god is merely a pretender, out to fool and manipulate. They might be powerful, but still a pretender.

The charr believe that deities simply do not exist. Omnipotent, and/or omniscient, and/or omnipresent creatures of worship? Nuh-uh. You won’t get a charr admitting to even the possibility of such a thing. They’d smack that down. They’d want proof of your so called god, and then they’d challenge that proof with every scientific method at their disposal. And every military method, if need be.

Here’s the thing though, those powerful creatures would be considered gods. In Guild Wars the term “god” only implies that the creature is powerful. Don’t confuse the terms “god” and “God.” Most cultures in the past had deities that were nowhere near omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. The norse gods were mortal, and could be killed in battle. Zeus wouldn’t have gotten away with cheating on Athena so many times if she had been omniscient. Various tales of Greek, Roman, and Norse gods playing tricks on each other, overcoming and challenging one another, and in some cases being killed all exist. It’s really only the god of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; God (or Allah as the case may be); that is said to be omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.

Knowing this, the charr have no reason to claim that the human gods don’t exist because being a god only implies having more power than a mere mortal should. The charr have had firsthand experiences with the human gods and should have no issue in recognizing them as gods. The charr just refuse to worship anything.

Why people have so much trouble understanding what atheism is is beyond me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

“Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.”

Except that’s bullshit. What you’re describing there is GNOSTIC atheism, not atheism in general.

Gnostic Atheist: I know there are no gods.
Agnostic Atheist: I don’t know for a fact that there are no gods, but I don’t belive in them.

Furthermore, if anything is being rejected, it’s the theist’s claims, not any actual gods.

And for the record, I am an atheist.

“Believe in iron/strength, not false gods.”

Not just ‘gods,’ but specifically ‘false gods.’ This is what flabbergasts me. Pretty much every charr you meet will declare gods as a fallacious concept to your face.

And “false gods” might simply refer to just that, “false gods” like the titans or whatever it was that enslaved them in the past. It’s a warning/reminder not to fall back into those days.
That was my enterpretation, anyway.

By the way, don’t the human gods actually answer prayers? Isn’t that what their racials are?

So they could just summon those hounds or whatever and go “See, proof!” and the Charr would go “So? You’re still sissies if you need your gods.”

And back! Now, to address your continuing misconception AuldWolf…

The Norn do not rely on spirits for power. You see them give -respect- to them, but how many Norn beg for power? How many grovel and whimper, like the humans do, licking their gods’ feet in return for some small boon?

The answer? Only the Sons of Svanir. Which is one of the many reasons why they are looked down upon by other Norn. Rather than standing on their own, and earning their strength, they barter and bargain with their ‘god’ for it.

To quote a Spirit of Legend:

“The norn believe in personal strength, individual victory, and an earthy spirituality that is both primal and complex.”

" Some spirits are not sentient, such as Mountain, Fire, or Darkness, and are depicted as challenges to strive against or legendary obstacles placed in a hero’s path, rather than friends or guides like the Spirits of the Wild."

I have more, but… I think the most potent definition of the Norn culture, of how they stand on their own, without god, kings, or even other Norn… is this.

“A norn lives and dies by her own legend.”

In the end, while the other races need others to forge their legends; the Asura with their krewes, the humans and their ‘government’, the Sylvari with their Firstborn, and the Charr with their Legions.

A Norn stands alone; a mountain, that bends to nothing.

And they are the staunchest friends the Charr can have.

On a personal note, and don’t take this the wrong way, but AuldWolf… are you known by DuskWolf on the GW2Guru forums? I’m just kind of curious, you remind me of him a bit.

Haters gonna hate, and said haters can go play some other sissy race :P

Gurt.9368:

Here’s the thing though, those powerful creatures would be considered gods.

By whom? Humans? The ancient Egyptians worshipped their pharaohs as gods. If I acknowledge that those pharaohs actually existed, does that make me theistic? No, because I don’t recognize them as gods. Same deal with the charr. They acknowledge that the human “gods” exist, but this does not make them theistic because they do not recognize those creatures as gods.

@Aseyhe.2948

Thank you for being so eloquent. It was driving me crazy trying to explain that to people. I can’t get over how many people think that ‘if one person believes powerful person is a god, then everyone in the world automatically becomes theistic’ is actually correct. It baffles me.

Even in our modern day world, if a powerful alien turned up claiming to be a ‘god,’ would all atheists stop being atheists if they didn’t acknowledge this creature as a ‘god?’ Of course they wouldn’t. Atheists would still be atheists. A powerful person claiming to be a god doesn’t stop atheists from being atheists.

Sometimes the things people believe makes my head spin. They really do. The lack of understanding and clear thinking, even just common sense… sometimes it’s like people don’t hear what they’re saying.

Essentially, for those that don’t understand: If one person believes that another person is a god, then that doesn’t stop someone else from functionally being an atheist. The charr, functionally, are atheists. To the letter of what an atheist is. They vocally decry the concept of ‘gods’ as falsehoods, this has been stated in the lore and the game about a billion times by this point, ad nauseum. If you look up atheism, that’s what the charr are, unless we’re being ridiculous.

@Mechos.5640

That doesn’t take away from my point, though. Every norn relies on a spirit and thus uses that as a crutch. How is that a misconception when the game itself says it? Show me a norn that doesn’t have ‘spiritual backup’ to sturdy their resolve and then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

The fact of the matter is is that it’s like I’ve said, no matter what’s written elsewhere, what you experience in the game is paramount. And what I’ve experienced in the game tells me that the norn use the spirits as a crutch, that they wouldn’t be able to do what they do if all the spirits died out.

Even if the spirits are just allowing the norn to feel confident, it’s still a crutch.

What you’re not understanding here is that my point is is that the charr have no Universal crutch. They’re reliant on each other rather than some outside source to provide them with something, which is all I’m trying to get across to you. We could argue this back and forth, but so long as the norn feel they need the spirits (and they needed them to lead the norn South away from Jormag, as the norn couldn’t do that themselves), even if just for confidence, they still have a Universal crutch.

Again, my point was (just to reiterate), four of the races have the following crutches: The humans have the human gods (which they use to give them resolve), the sylvari has the pale tree (which they feel gives them a centre as a race), the asura rely on magic (as all their pseudoscience uses magic), the norn rely on the spirits (to give them the confidence and will to fight), but the charr? The charr rely upon the charr, they don’t have a Universal crutch.

So they could just summon those hounds or whatever and go “See, proof!” and the Charr would go “So? You’re still sissies if you need your gods.”

and I’ll just say “nice elementals, check mine out” and then summon my elementals :P
don’t forget, there isn’t anything that the humans can do that other magic can’t replicate, for example, flame effigies are statues powered by fire elementals, what’s to stop you from making a dog shaped one, and summoning it flame legion style?

And, AuldWolf, you fail to see that the Charr do have a crutch; an individual Charr, to the society they are in, is pretty much worthless. A cog in the machine, a part of their social machinery. Take a Charr and throw him in to the wilderness, alone, and they would most likely die of starvation or revert back in to a beast-like state; they rely on farmers and ranchers to feed them, leatherworkers to make their clothes, smiths to make their weapons.

A Norn? The -majority- of Norn society spend their time as ‘solo hunters’, roaming the woods and mountains, perfectly happy to exist independent of everything. That is the key, and what you glossed over in my quotation of A Spirit of Legend. “A Norn lives and dies by her own legend.”

I am curious to why you say that the Norn -need- the spirits. Your citation, your… ‘source’, if you will? As someone who has played a Norn to 80, gone through the storylines multiple times with multiple variations in the betas, you seem to be grasping at straws. The Spirits are to the Norn what a friend might be to a Charr; they help give advice, but in the end, the Norn’s will and independence triumphs over everything. They don’t draw their confidence from the Spirits, nor their strength.

Also, your saying that the Norn ‘needed’ the Spirits to lead the Norn south from Jormag shows your lack of understanding. The reason the Spirits led them south, is because the Norn were merrily attacking Jormag; and some Norn -still- want to go back up north and hunt the dragon. Death is not something feared in Norn culture, not some great ending. What matters to a Norn is that they die well, that they are remembered for their legend.

What matters is not to live, to a Norn. What matters is to be remembered for the life you did live. So no, the Norn didn’t ‘need’ the Spirits; it was just the advice of a friend, and they were like “Eh, might as well.”

So, again. The Norn have no such ‘crutches’. The only ones that use a Spirit as a crutch are the Sons of Svanir… and if we’re factoring them in, then the Charr of the Flame Legion use a massive ‘crutch’.

In essence, AuldWolf, I kind of think you’re trying to misinterpret the other races (namely, Norn) in an attempt to try and make the Charr special. Which isn’t necessary. They’re a great race, but to say that they’re the most self-sufficient and independent, when the Norn have been specifically billed as that by multiple developers, in multiple posts.

The Charr are a great race; they have their unique flair, their military style, and a deep history… but they are not ‘perfect’, and they do have flaws, reliance on their Legions, and other charr being one of them. They work in numbers, not solo.

Are you people really arguing about in game atheism, what

Mechos.5640:

Take a Charr and throw him in to the wilderness, alone, and they would most likely die of starvation or revert back in to a beast-like state;

That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. Do you have a source?

There are plenty of charr in the game who are not members of the legions and they don’t seem to be so suffering.

Aseyhe.2948:

That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. Do you have a source?

There are plenty of charr in the game who are not members of the legions and they don’t seem to be so suffering.

It may be true that there are charr that are not members of legions, but most of them are frowned upon by other charr. The ones that aren’t are usually the ones that aren’t involved in military things, the farmers and oridinary citizens and such. There is a part of the charr home city that is considered the “slums” because of military charr that lost there warband and such are shamed because their warband is dead and they are alive.

Right. It’s culturally frowned upon, but that is quite different from the claim that they are psychologically incapable of it.

Yep and it’s only for military charr that it is frowned upon, aside from the ash legion spies, (spying in general you don’t want to be a group project lol). The only other ones that aren’t frowned upon for being solo are the ones that are part of the 3 orders ,vigil, priory, and whispers.

I never argued any sort of psychological basis; the thing would apply for say, a human, or an Asura, or a Sylvari. Once you isolate someone like that, they tend to pretty swiftly lose all sense of… well, identity. That, or they tend to die pretty readily.

My point from that small section is that the other four races rely upon others to survive; Norn, by their very nature, need nothing but their own two hands. Their culture, their society, their very way of living from the day they’re born until the day they die is one of independent work and solitude. Even Hoelbrak, the largest congregation of Norn in Tyria, is little more than a ‘rest stop’ for Norn in-between hunts or journeys.

Again, I am a fan of the Charr; they’re probably my second-favourite race, after the Norn. But saying they’re individualists that don’t use crutches, is rather… false, since we have an example of a race that -is- built around that concept.

I see — you’re just pointing out that as a culture they do not value personal self-sufficiency. That is fair.

They are without a doubt the most charrming.