Guild Wars 2

Well I’m under the impression that Scarlet had brainwash them all (maybe from Hylek potions?) seeing how Krait tend to enslave the other races, Dredge hate Norn which some Aetherblade member are and etc.
It was made clear that some Aetherblade members fear Scarlet (Mai and Spur) so why stick around when they can flee (is she really that scary?) and since Scarlet current plan (target Lion Arch) is no longer related to the Alliences goals (unless Scarlet promise to reward them greatly for their service) I don’t get why they are still serving her unless her influence is great as in mind control level (since she doesn’t inspire loyality among her troops).

Astralporing.1957:

And scaring those two groups is not really believable. Flame legion would have long disbanded if they were the types to get intimidated, and Dredge are perfectly willing to die to protect themselves from slavery. Threatening them into obedience would be the easiest way to set them off and turn into enemies. And you really, really don’t want Dredge as enemies (remember, 250 years after they got freed, and they still try to hunt down any dwarf they hear about, and destroy anything connected with them)
Additionally, the dredge (after the events from Sorrow’s Embrace) are in really bad relations with Inquest, so they would not agree to be on the same side as Aetherblades.

All this, right here. These are groups that had good writing and characterization put into them with various understandable nasty motives, that were all stripped away by tossing them into the Living Story compost heap.

Delvoire.8930:

This isn’t a novel with every detail written out for you to see. It’s a video game storyline. Just sit back and enjoy it. It’s what I do.

I think we’d be doing ourselves a disservice to lower our standards just because “it’s a video game storyline.” The entire Scarlet arc has been filled to the brim with irrational, implausible, and ill-conceived plot threads. It’s important to point these out, because it can hopefully help the writing team improve future story content. If you’ve been enjoying it, great; if you think this is good, then I imagine you would enjoy future storylines with improved writing even more.

The problem, it seems, is that ArenaNet had a story they wanted to tell for this arc that would lead to the emergence of the next elder dragon. They wanted to have this character, Scarlet, be this great villain that orchestrates her own bad guy version of the Pact to take it on. Unfortunately, they didn’t spend as much time as they should have in actually making sure everything fit together in a believable and logical way.

Barring any major, shocking reveals that fit all the puzzle pieces together in these last two updates, I’m not seeing my opinion changing that overall this was a very poorly conceived storyline with regards to believability. The amount of “what ifs” being thrown around in this thread alone as an attempt to make sense of Scarlet’s allies should be a big red flag considering we’re already at the end of the story.

There’s two possibilities as to why the alliances are still following Scarlet, both of which lead to the same end result: Poor Storytelling.

The first is simply because they are. No other reason given. Anet treats them like two-dimensional villains of the day with no personality, and they follow Scarlet because they’re the bad guys. No other motives, no other reasoning, nothing. They’re simply bad guys, and thus they follow their lead bad guy: Scarlet.

The second is that Scarlet is secretly some super powerful being of almighty, god-like proportions and the Aetherblades comment of “She’ll slaughter us all” is a literal one, in that if they refuse her service, she’ll transform into said god-like being and obliterate them all. Of course, if that’s the case, than we have to question why she’s even building an army in the first place.

As I said, both result in the same outcome: Poor Storytelling. If it’s the first, it shows Anet sees everything in a two-dimensional fashion, and that they didn’t bother to actually come up with a reason as to why these alliances would still be following her after the Heroes face slapped them back to the stone age.

If it’s the second reason, that it just cements the fact that Scarlet is a poorly written Mary-Sue that bends the story to her liking so she can be made all powerful. We’ve had no hints, no lead up, no nothing to even give a inkling to this concept that she’s an almighty super god, so if she essentially goes super powered in the last episode, than well..yeah, it’ll forever place her as the worst villain ever.

It’s obvious that Anet was going with a Joker route with Scarlet now that we’ve reached the end of the arc, except they completely missed all the nuances of what makes the Joker such a terrifying, and powerful, villain. The Joker uses his own twisted version of subterfuge and deception, along with his absolute disregard for human life (killing his own subordinates just to prove a point or for a laugh in front of others) to instill fear in his men. He’s able to get rival gangs of other Gotham Crime Bosses to join him through shows of power and insanity, such as extortion, kidnapping, and on the occasion murder of some of Gotham’s seediest crime bosses without even showing a hint of concern or hesitation for his own well being, that makes even people like Black Mask and Two-Face step back and say “Okay…perhaps we should listen to him”.

Most importantly though, all these scenes and shows of the Joker’s abilities are shown to the audience. Anyone whose read, watched, or played anything Batman related knows how the Joker works, because he’s an exhibitionist, and the characters within the universe know this as well.

Meanwhile, Scarlet just says crazy things, and says she kills people for laughs, but we never see this, we’re never shown proof of this, and we’re simply told to believe it when Scarlet recruits the Dredge, Chaar, Krait, and Aetherblades into her fold. Essentially, Scarlet is the Joker, without any of the traits that make the Joker an interest, believable, and feared character.

“Hey, listen my forces, if you disobey me im going to kill you all with my forces, which i threaten to kill with my all my forces, which i threaten to kill with all my forces, which i threaten to kill with all my forces, which i[…] if they disobey me.”

Blade Syphon.4325:

Meanwhile, Scarlet just says crazy things, and says she kills people for laughs, but we never see this, we’re never shown proof of this

Scarlet Briar: Oops, did I say four bombs? I meant five.
Scarlet Briar: Where did I put it… Oh, I remember: right where the Seraph are gathering up the civilians. How careless of me.

Logan Thackeray: Gods… She’s bombed our evacuation point. My men… All of those civilians…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Closing_Ceremony

DarcShriek.5829:

I can’t understand why the Krait remain. The rest of the groups I can understand as they still can get what they came for. However, the Krait are different to me.

The Krait came with the understanding that Scarlet would bring them a prophet, a task at which she failed. It seems to me, they would turn on her at this point.

She brought them a prophet. Said thing was murdered by adventurers.

JerekLo.5893:

Scarlet made their prophet, in her own way. The Krait there were willing to fight for the monstrosity thinking it was what they had been promised. Probably given more time, they would have realized the depth of her trickery.

But we killed it. Fanatics don’t tend to forget those types of transgressions.

Exactly, those Krait with her could be in it PURELY and utterly for revenge on them for killing the prophet.

Delvoire.8930:

Also as a side note, anyone who thinks we’ve killed thousands upon thousands of her minions is wrong. This is a video game. The Developers can’t say that Scarlet has 10,000 soldiers in her army and once those are gone the whole Living Story comes to an end.

If anyone is looking at it like we are just destroying her army and she should be depleted of troops.. well then you have to say the same thing to every monster/enemy/creature in the game. How many Tequatl’s are there? How many Fire Elementals? How many Centaurs can their be? Surely we’ve killed them all by now.

You can’t look at one area of the game and give it a certain standard and ignore all other parts of the game that are similar.

Tequatl techincaly just retreats and isn’t killed, nit-picking. But yes, somebody else has said that. I forget exactly where, but it was basically a "If you REALLY view her invasions in gameplay form as lore/possibly hundreds of her minions getting killed (when there is a complete run, doesn’t happen at all these days really), then view the centaurs like that. They must have a breeding speed of millions to make up for how many the players kill. I’m sure if we took all the player kills combined it’d equal greater then the population of Earth. At least, somebody else said that and I think it’s fitting. It’s a problem with the game design, not Scarlet or her armies.

I don’t think we can accurately say her force’s true manpower, just like he can’t exactly say for sure how big the Seraph forces are, or the true size of the Nightmare court.

Cliff.8679:

Delvoire.8930:

This isn’t a novel with every detail written out for you to see. It’s a video game storyline. Just sit back and enjoy it. It’s what I do.

I think we’d be doing ourselves a disservice to lower our standards just because “it’s a video game storyline.” The entire Scarlet arc has been filled to the brim with irrational, implausible, and ill-conceived plot threads. It’s important to point these out, because it can hopefully help the writing team improve future story content. If you’ve been enjoying it, great; if you think this is good, then I imagine you would enjoy future storylines with improved writing even more.

The problem, it seems, is that ArenaNet had a story they wanted to tell for this arc that would lead to the emergence of the next elder dragon. They wanted to have this character, Scarlet, be this great villain that orchestrates her own bad guy version of the Pact to take it on. Unfortunately, they didn’t spend as much time as they should have in actually making sure everything fit together in a believable and logical way.

Barring any major, shocking reveals that fit all the puzzle pieces together in these last two updates, I’m not seeing my opinion changing that overall this was a very poorly conceived storyline with regards to believability. The amount of “what ifs” being thrown around in this thread alone as an attempt to make sense of Scarlet’s allies should be a big red flag considering we’re already at the end of the story.

I will say that ANET did miss the mark in understanding the communities love and high standards for the lore and their unforgiving nature for mistakes.

I’ve seen what the pay off is. Spoilers and all………

I can PM you what that is if you’d like, or if you know already we can discuss it. I’d love to hear your take on it and how that factors into the Scarlet plot holes and what not.

Delvoire.8930:

Cliff.8679:

Delvoire.8930:

This isn’t a novel with every detail written out for you to see. It’s a video game storyline. Just sit back and enjoy it. It’s what I do.

I think we’d be doing ourselves a disservice to lower our standards just because “it’s a video game storyline.” The entire Scarlet arc has been filled to the brim with irrational, implausible, and ill-conceived plot threads. It’s important to point these out, because it can hopefully help the writing team improve future story content. If you’ve been enjoying it, great; if you think this is good, then I imagine you would enjoy future storylines with improved writing even more.

The problem, it seems, is that ArenaNet had a story they wanted to tell for this arc that would lead to the emergence of the next elder dragon. They wanted to have this character, Scarlet, be this great villain that orchestrates her own bad guy version of the Pact to take it on. Unfortunately, they didn’t spend as much time as they should have in actually making sure everything fit together in a believable and logical way.

Barring any major, shocking reveals that fit all the puzzle pieces together in these last two updates, I’m not seeing my opinion changing that overall this was a very poorly conceived storyline with regards to believability. The amount of “what ifs” being thrown around in this thread alone as an attempt to make sense of Scarlet’s allies should be a big red flag considering we’re already at the end of the story.

I will say that ANET did miss the mark in understanding the communities love and high standards for the lore and their unforgiving nature for mistakes.

I’ve seen what the pay off is. Spoilers and all………

I can PM you what that is if you’d like, or if you know already we can discuss it. I’d love to hear your take on it and how that factors into the Scarlet plot holes and what not.

I have heard some of the general spoilers, but I haven’t specifically looked into them. I don’t know all the details surrounding it, but ultimately I know that Mordremoth is the one messing with her, and somehow she gets killed in the end, although I don't know what the circumstances are. Presumably by our characters.. I’d be happy to take the conversation to PMs to talk about that bit of info, but I do still want to allow myself the fun of witnessing all the specifics firsthand during the actual updates.