When will they return, you reckon? I think the gods will probably show themselves again once Elona is re-introduced to GW. However, I’d like to ask how you think they will affect the other races? Will humans try to recruit them into their ‘religion’?
well the problem is there’s these things out there called dragons, and they eat magic. Gods are made of magic, can you imagine Kralkatoric eating Balthazar or something?
Charr are the real heroes in this game unfortunately. Won’t even let us chat with the ghosts of our ancestors :(
well the problem is there’s these things out there called dragons, and they eat magic. Gods are made of magic, can you imagine Kralkatoric eating Balthazar or something?
I sure would like to see him try.
Can dragons really eat gods?! O_O I haven’t read anything like that yet.. But it sure would look cool if we were given a cinematic with the gods fighting against a dragon..
Can dragons really eat gods?! O_O I haven’t read anything like that yet.. But it sure would look cool if we were given a cinematic with the gods fighting against a dragon..
It’s just speculation.
It’s logical extrapolation. Gods made of magic, Dragons eat magic, ergo: dragons eat gods. Can you think of a better reason for the gods making themselves scarce?
Maybe they’re needed more someplace else? Maybe Elona or Cantha?
@Maximillian Greil.1965
This is simply wrong.
The gods did not leave because they are afraid of the dragons.
The human gods left Tyria because Abbadon distributed magic to the world. Which lead to a bloody war between all races.
A human king went to old Orr and pleaded to the other five gods to stop the wartime. So the gods created bloodstones to hinder the use of magic, which made Abbadon spiteful, and ultimately lead to a civil war between Abaddon and the other five gods.
Shortly after Abbadon’s imprisonment the gods decided to leave Tyria. With the belief that their direct association with humanity, either with good intentions or bad, would only have serious repercussions.
So they left in the time known as the “Exodus of the gods.” Believing that humanity was strong enough to flourish on its own.
Although they are keeping a watchful eye on the world
I think we’re talking about more recent times, not the physical exodus of the gods. Back after NF ended, and Kormir took Abaddon’s power, the gods fell silent. This isn’t an exact time frame, but around then, the gods have been mostly absent.
Anyway, the theory that gods are magical, thus staying away from the dragons is probably the best one, imo. They’re smart enough to know it’s better to let the humans be then to feed dragons.
On the topic of Kormir, nobody liked her when she was alive.
Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxmkAoLC6_4
It’s logical extrapolation. Gods made of magic, Dragons eat magic, ergo: dragons eat gods. Can you think of a better reason for the gods making themselves scarce?
The flaw there is thinking of gods as magic.
Ok let me reiterate. The Gods have power. Power that can be absorbed by the dragons. We’ve seen the mouth of zhaitan an eat plenty of “relics” in the past. It’s pretty logical to extrapolate that the Gods could be absorbed by a dragon and the dragon would be… well… as doctor mordun solus would say, it would be problematic.
Spoiler warning:
Wasn’t there an event where we had to assume the role of Balthazar’s avatar? I don’t quite remember what happened there (iirc, it was a residue of power). Based from that alone, I don’t think Gods would be as readily absorbed..
^Yes, that did happen
Could you explain what your point is?
It’s logical extrapolation. Gods made of magic, Dragons eat magic, ergo: dragons eat gods. Can you think of a better reason for the gods making themselves scarce?
The flaw there is thinking of gods as magic.
Kormir ascended because, to give it the very short form, Abaddon exploded into a cascade of magical energy and Kormir ate that energy. A dragon could likely do the same – they’d have to win the battle first, but if they did the result would be catastrophic.
We also have historical evidence that a dragon can consume a Spirit of the Wild, and there are indications that the gods are a similar class of being to the animal spirits, only more powerful. Certainly, that’s the attitude of most humans and norn.
Can dragons really eat gods?! O_O I haven’t read anything like that yet.. But it sure would look cool if we were given a cinematic with the gods fighting against a dragon..
In theory it is possible, the Spirits of the Wild are power god like beings, Jormag killed two of them and ate one.
So yup it is possible they could consume gods
Well, I dunno if the spirits of the wild are equal to the human gods in power.
As far as the avatar of balthazar, if even just his relic granted someone that much power, then maybe the god himself could prove a good match against an elder dragon?
God vs an Elder Dragon? Lets recap some history shall we?
The 5 gods couldn’t kill abadon, they stuffed him in another dimension to imprison him. We killed abadon in about 20 minutes with 8 dudes. It took an army of airships, the unity of all the nations in Kryta, the greatest heroes Tyria has ever seen AND Mr Sparkles to take down Zhaitan. I think a dragon would kick the kitten out of a human God.
Now let’s recap the parts of history you omitted, shall we?
You’re forgetting that our characters had the blessing of the gods (no mechanical benefit that we could see, but the mission assumed you had it – it’s possible Abaddon could have insta-killed us without it). Abaddon was still in a weakened state bound by chains forged by Balthazar, without which we would have had no chance to defeat him – after all, half of that mission is about putting the chains back on him so that he’s actually vulnerable to damage.
We didn’t take Abaddon alone any more than we took Zhaitan on alone (in fact, given how Arah story is set up, it’s really the Glory of Tyria that defeated Zhaitan – we just happened to be in the right time and place to be taken on board and serve as the security detachment). Comparing the two missions is not a good yardstick of their relative power.
Now let’s recap the parts of history you omitted, shall we?
You’re forgetting that our characters had the blessing of the gods (no mechanical benefit that we could see, but the mission assumed you had it – it’s possible Abaddon could have insta-killed us without it). Abaddon was still in a weakened state bound by chains forged by Balthazar, without which we would have had no chance to defeat him – after all, half of that mission is about putting the chains back on him so that he’s actually vulnerable to damage.
We didn’t take Abaddon alone any more than we took Zhaitan on alone (in fact, given how Arah story is set up, it’s really the Glory of Tyria that defeated Zhaitan – we just happened to be in the right time and place to be taken on board and serve as the security detachment). Comparing the two missions is not a good yardstick of their relative power.
Finally someone putting up lore rather then complete speculation.
On the subject of dragons vs the gods, I recall it being confirmed at some point by a dev I think that the Dragons were just as powerful as the Gods, if not more so.
Since I live under a bridge, I would say that the GW1 gods were unquestioningly without equal. The GW2 gods are just one of many various spiritual entities in Tyria(Spirits of the Wild, Eternal Alchemy, Pale Tree Dream, etc.), and relatively poor ones at that. Historically speaking, they aren’t really the same gods.
Eternal Alchemy and the Dream of Dreams are not entities…
The Six Gods are only on par to Spirits of the Wild, Melaggan (who may be Melandru), and Koda. And they’re put more or less above or equal to the Spirits of the Wild.
And Jormag ate one of the spirits, ergo Dragons eat Gods
I really doubt the spirits of the wild match the human gods in terms of power..
Anyway as for their magic being eaten by a dragon, I found an interesting line in the Guild Wars 2 wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Six_Human_Gods
“..their power cannot be destroyed, though they themselves can be supplanted.”
They got wiser and figured they were doing more harm then good to Tyria, and they left.
I admit though that the part on getting wiser seems to be the weak spot in my theory.
Please remind me, before kormir stole the spotlight absorbed abaddon’s power, what would’ve been the consequence exactly if it did run rampant? Maybe it can be a basis in terms of potential havoc a god can do in comparison to a dragon? Was it capable of decimating an entire continent etc.?
Eternal Alchemy and the Dream of Dreams are not entities…
The Six Gods are only on par to Spirits of the Wild, Melaggan (who may be Melandru), and Koda. And they’re put more or less above or equal to the Spirits of the Wild.
Entities is probably a poor choice of words. Religious constructs maybe? My point was that every race not only has their own belief system, but their own divine presence as well(aside from the Charr). The gods of GW1 were largely seen as the gods of the world, of Tyria. Now they are seen as merely the gods of the humans. It’s a subtle, but fundamental shift in the narrative that allows for the detailed expression of the other races’ cultures. But I still don’t think “the gods” are really the same as they were in the first game. They are poor reflections of what they used to be, and insignificant.
(edited by Obsidian.1328)
The dragons existed long before the human gods showed up, and I strongly feel that the dragons are much more powerful then them. Heck, look at Orr for example. With just the priests of the gods corrupted into zhaitan’s undead army, look how much power he was able to siphon and corrupt to his own will by just these priests and priestesses alone.
I also feel that the humans were not the first race to encounter these gods either, read up on the jotan. Also the norn had gods long before they turned to the spirits of the wild.
Turn that on its head, and it becomes “look how much power Zhaitan was able gain through corrupting the priests and temples alone” – the gods themselves would probably have significantly more power than whatever they’d invested into their priests and temples at the time of the Cataclysm.
The only evidence that the jotun and norn had gods came from Thruln the Lost, who’s testimony is suspect to say the least – it conflicts both with a story step where you can talk to the ghost of a Thruln who lived around the time of the fall of jotun civilisation (who says nothing about gods, and if anything implies that the jotun were already pretty much worshipping themselves), and it also conflicts with sources in Orr that state that humans were brought to Tyria by the gods, as opposted to Thruln the Lost’s claim that they were protected by jotun until they came to the attention of the gods.
The world of Tyria is one in which not everything you are told is necessarily the truth.
5 spirits of the wild battled Jormag, Ox, Owl, Wolverine, and Eagle fought Jormag and lost. One of them got absorbed. It’s fair to say a spirit of the wild is less powerful than a human God… but 4 spirits? I dunno, lets put a theory to fit the evidence. Why else would the human gods stop sending their avatars? Why have they gone silent? The only major event to change the face of Tyria since the silence of the Gods is the awakening of the Elder Dragons. I think playing the safety and hiding is probably the best theory to fit the evidence. The Gods have always been there when we needed them, and we definitely need them now but they are no where to be found.
Righty let’s stop thinking of them as beings and focus on them as an Asura would, the Gods like the Spirits of the Wild are masses of magical energy. Dragons eat magical energy, so going on the assumption that the Six are more powerful than the Spirits, then all what they are to the dragons are bigger meals. Theoretically you could “choke” the dragons with enough energy but we have no clue how much that would take, if the Gods could mass that much energy and even how many dragons there are.
So far I only keep on reading that the Elder Dragons’ powers “rival” that of the Six Gods, not extremely surpass them, and there hasn’t been any indication that the gods are made up of the same matter that makes up the Spirits of the Wild. They might be very different things altogether, since dragons themselves are likely ‘magical’ in composition too yet they seem to be.. quite different.
(edited by Leo Paul.1659)
Well, when you think about it, nearly all of the combined responsibilities of the Spirits of the Wild are contained within the portfolio of Melandru the Goddess of the Wild, so it might not be unreasonable to presume that Melandru alone is close to, or surpasses, the combined power of all of the Spirits. And those that went up against Jormag were the lesser spirits in the norn reckoning.
Given that the dragons eat magic, and the gods do seem to be basically creatures of magic, my suspicion is that they’re essentially playing it safe – as long as there’s even the possibility that a god could lose to a dragon in a direct confrontation, then a dragon with all the powers of a god added to its own would be too horrible to contemplate. Zhaitan got enough of a benefit from stealing the power that the gods had invested into Orr before they left, and the power behind the statues and Risen priests is probably a mere fraction of the full power of a god. At the very least, I suspect that if he’s managed to eat one of the gods, he’d be able to extend the effect of the statue associated with that god across the entirety of Orr, and wouldn’t need the cathedral to do it.
I’m in agreement with Draxynnic. The Gods are helping us by not being here. A dragon eating a God would be WAY to much for us to deal with.
i also had the thought that maybe whats happened is maybe the gods just got recarnated or awoke as the dragons (5 gods not including Kormir ,whos kinda new to the game, and 5 dragons that we know of so far). In gw1 we dont realy see any of them (other than Kormir) only statues and avatars of them, so them being the dragons doesnt seem like to much of a long stretch.
another thought i had was maybe the reason they locked abbadon away instead of killing him was that all of them where linked and with killing abbadon, we killed or weakened the other gods greatly and Kormir is off somewhere maybe holding another elder dragon at bay or something.
without answers straight from the dev’s theres not telling what they’ll do or say happened to them, if they ever tell us at all.
i also had the thought that maybe whats happened is maybe the gods just got recarnated or awoke as the dragons (5 gods not including Kormir ,whos kinda new to the game, and 5 dragons that we know of so far). In gw1 we dont realy see any of them (other than Kormir) only statues and avatars of them, so them being the dragons doesnt seem like to much of a long stretch.
another thought i had was maybe the reason they locked abbadon away instead of killing him was that all of them where linked and with killing abbadon, we killed or weakened the other gods greatly and Kormir is off somewhere maybe holding another elder dragon at bay or something.
without answers straight from the dev’s theres not telling what they’ll do or say happened to them, if they ever tell us at all.
That’s a interesting theory although i wouldn’t say the word “reincarnated.”
But it’d make for a compelling story,
Dragons were there before the Gods, that’s been confirmed already.
Nothing concrete but A-Net seems to be putting the spirits and the gods in the same catagory in this interview.
The whole question of gods is based upon culture. The humans have tangible, powerful beings that they can interact with – hence, gods. The spirits of the norn also fit that description, so humans would call these beings “gods” as well. Norn would disagree. And describe the human gods as being “Spirits of Action” of the humans – Balthazar is obviously War, and should be spoken of as such. Kormir is Knowledge, and calling her Kormir is a quaint human thing. http://www.guildmag.com/gmblitz-lore-interview-with-jeff-grubb
What I get from that is just about the term used in general and how it differs between the humans and norns.
Right. me too. but the entire paragraph only reveals an interchangeability that is dependant on wich race is looking. there is nothing at all that hints at any differentiation. especially the facvt that humans would call the spirits “gods” as well. So, as I said, nothing concrete but this only points to them being similar, not diffrent beyond what they are spirits of.
It has to be said that that’s just how humans and norn look at it, though. It’d possible that there is some fundamental difference that the humans and norn are missing when they view their similarities.
Eh. Might not be only a matter of opinion. They preface the explanation with “The whole question of gods is based upon culture”. So they seem to start off by validating those opinions.
It’s an interesting subject to discuss definitely. However, with the lack of sufficient data, I think we won’t be able to back up our speculations as more than mere preference. I’d like to think gods and dragons are roughly equal in power, and that the disappearance is likely related to the awakening but not because they are afraid.
(edited by Leo Paul.1659)
“and calling her Kormir is a quaint human thing.”
Lolz, I love how Jeff is so condescending to humans, especially when he didn’t even write the original lore. Kormir is/was a human and is a god at the same time. Calling her thus isn’t quaint, it’s logical. Introducing a bunch of new gods/spirits/powers/whatever to an established history shouldn’t change said history.
Like I said earlier, there’s nothing in the original game that even hints at the gods being 1) not the gods of all of Tyria(the world), 2) only an aspect of some greater power yet undefined, or 3) one of some motley pantheon of powers shared by all sorts of critters in Tyria.
I really wish GW2 writer’s would have just divorced themselves from GW1 lore altogether, instead of making up all of this stuff post-Nightfall and claiming, “…oh it was always there, ya’ll just didn’t know about it yet.” Please.
p.s. I only rant because I care
We can only have 100%. In GW1, human perspective was that 100%. In order to include other races, the human lore is going to have to take a smaller percentage of the lore pie. As you said, they was no indication but that didn’t eliminate it. Only the fans assumptions did. But, we were wrong. e.g.: if the human gods were gods of all of tyria and not one of multiple pantheons, then we would still have found out that they aren’t just human gods. Then the complaint would have been that only humans should have gods. honestlly, I don’t see the problem.
I disagree with the notion that it was because of our “human perspective.” It was simply the writers perspective…and therefore the perspective of the lore of the whole game. Fan assumptions simply followed suit. Not only were the new races not a part of the original history, they weren’t a part of it’s future until GW2 started to formulate. They wanted to add new races and thought, “how can we incorporate them into this history?” It’s retroactive editing at best, and identity theft at it’s worst.
As for your last point, I would say, yeah, they aren’t just human gods, but rather all of Tyria. At least that’s how they were portrayed back then. I don’t think only humans should have gods, I just think that the other creatures of the world had different names for them. Even the Charr used to have some fondness for Melandru, though they probably called her something else.
The writers were writing from a human perspective because our characters were human. it is definatlly retor active editing but that’s a good thing becasue without it, it is just humans fighting mostly the same dumb beast we had been seeing in the world. Wich is why the human lore has a smaller percentage of the over all pie without actually taking anyhting from humanity that was set in stone.
That’s exactlly what they did. Norn call them spirits of action. Asura call them large parts of eternal alchemy. which is just an all encompasing philosophy. They remained the same beings. So they became gods of other races. The only diffrence is whether or not they are worshipped. But that is also retro active editing becasue nothing indicated they were anyhting to any other race.
Even the Charr used to have some fondness for Melandru
You just embraced some retroactive editing. it is unavoidable if we want anything beyond human characters. Making GW1, they needed to decide what defined humanity. making any other playable race requires the same process. That process becomes retoactive editing and new lore is revealed that previously didn’t exist but always has in the fantasy world. Without it, there is no history at all beyond what we already knew. Adding to human lore is also retro active editing. Every expansion and big patch is retroactive editing. This is how worlds are born.
By your logic, someone could come out with some LotR sequel that has goblins, orcs, trolls, etc. all part of some post Ringwar world that live side by side with humans and hobbits in equal footing. And just claim, “well this didn’t exist in the previous books, but it’s always been there now because I wrote them into existence and they have to have come from somewhere.” Would that make sense to anyone?? No, because it flies in the face of the social dynamics Tolkien created in middle-earth.
As I stated in a previous post, writing is an artform. Adding/editing/deleting/etc massive content to a previously self-contained story is changing the essence of the artform itself. In this way, the world of GW1 has ceased to exist in its previous state. It is now just an historical footnote of one race’s view of the world, whereas before it was the world.
As a history major in college(which obviously contributes to my angst here), I am very attuned to the folly of modern writers when they try to portray the past in a light that doesn’t try to get as close to the truth as possible. Had this game simply been named something different and not tried to assume the GW1 lore mantle, I would have zero problems with it. But they went out of their way to say they were staying faithful to that history. I just don’t see that they’ve done that in any honorable way.
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