Not sure weather or not this would do better in the Lore forums or not, but it is Human centered.
So the Krytans are Mediterranean-like people who founded Lion’s Arch and lived on the edge of the Maguuma jungle. They were tan-skinned with probably very early Spanish influences.
And the Ascalonians were the pale-skinned Irish/European/French inspired people who fled from Ascalon into Kryta when the Charr invaded.
Where are all the Native Krytans? Half the people look Ascalonian and half of the people look Canthan; which isn’t unheard of because there were Canthan refugees too.
I would hope the natives would outnumber the Refugees.
I might be a bit too tight up about consistency and such but the biggest problem I have with that is that Ascalonians are so boooooring and generic. Pre-searing was the worst part of GW1 because it was so boooooooooooooooooring and generic.
Then we got to Kryta and everything is cool, and they have the political stuff surrounding the White Mantle which was interesting.
Then we got to go to Cantha which looked awesome, and meet the Luxons which were amazing, and the Kurzicks who had stupid clothes but the rest of their stuff looked so great.
Then we got to go to Elona which has the best NPCs, Culture, and landscape out of all of the Guild Wars countries.
Lore forums there’s a discussion about how there’s a lack of variety in NPC humans. The title is like ‘Lack of diversity in Divinity’s Reach’. I haven’t been keeping up with it, but for an immediate suggestion, perhaps the years have muddled the gene pool? Since Kryta is now the main human stronghold in pretty much any continent we’ve seen, it has Canthans, Elonians, and Tyrians, all mixed into each other. So the skin tones and whatnot will most likely have all flattened into similar ones.
I’m from Spain and… this is completly wrong. Spanish people is caucasian. Most of my friends and me, we’re actually very pale.
Maybe you’re thinking about latinos, but spanish people looks like most europeans do. We share some physical traits with italians, protuguese and french (countries around us), nothing to do with old GW1 Krytan NPCs.
Please tell me you’re not one of those who think Spain is actually located in South America instead of Europe U.U
PS: Of course this has nothing against latinos, just pointing how many times people tend to confuse Spain with South American countries speaking spanish too.
Spanish people are European, they are Caucasian. So many people seem to think latino like Lokheit said.
The main reason may be because many of the Spanish married the South American natives back when they were expanding and exploring South America under Queen Isabella during that entire era, but that’s the only connection that makes any sense as to why people get this confused lol, but that only affected those that stayed in South America. So in actuality it makes sense that Divinity’s Reach is the way it is in way of NPC’s and diversity. I think Queen Jennah may be in some way modeled after popular depictions of Isabella (which is why I mentioned her) because she is rather tan with dark hair, although in real life I think she actually was a redhead lol…
I do hope one day that they expand on Divinity’s Reach by possibly opening up more parts of the city that you can’t really get to even though you see it all around you and they could possibly go into further detail on the state of Kryta and it’s various cultures that way..
I know in NewYork it’s common to refer to any Hispanic/Latino as “Spanish” rather than being too specific about where anyone might actually be from. Ironically, when refering to an actual spaniard, I’ve used the term “Spainish” to differentiate. :P
I know in NewYork it’s common to refer to any Hispanic/Latino as “Spanish” rather than being too specific about where anyone might actually be from. Ironically, when refering to an actual spaniard, I’ve used the term “Spainish” to differentiate. :P
Haha, Spainish…
I think it will always bother me, because SO many people think they are the same, or similar people when the only true similarity is the language and a few traditions, but like I said that’s mostly residual from I guess the “unification” of Spaniards and the Native South American’s way back then. I think it would be safe to say the same thing has happened in GW2’s Kryta at this point too, 250 years later.
I know in NewYork it’s common to refer to any Hispanic/Latino as “Spanish” rather than being too specific about where anyone might actually be from. Ironically, when refering to an actual spaniard, I’ve used the term “Spainish” to differentiate. :P
I’m from NYC and offended a Mexican while in Indiana by calling them Spanish, lol. And WTF, I too say Spainish!!!
As for the topic, I think Anet forgot or don’t care. GW1 was focused on humans so they made each Human kingdom a stereotype of real Human cultures. Now that GW2 is focused on races, Humans as a whole are now one stereotype. Honestly, the writing in the GW series is pretty bad.
This bothered me as far back as War in Kryta. When I realized that the Salma that replaced the original default krytan NPC was all of a sudden anglo-cized. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Native krytans always seemed to have a very south american look to them in the first game. The skin tone, those cool ponchos, even the hairstyles always reminded me of a sort of aztec commoner society.
In addition to this, the entire visual aesthetic of krytan culture was never clearly defined. The original Shining blade, and later the WiK shining blade troops had a style of dress that was extremely different than that of the “common” krytan. I was always confused why the commoners always had all these cool paints/tattoos and neat semi-tribal garb and the “rebellion” seemed to have been kitted out in what appeared to be ascalonian clothing and gear, despite having been mostly isolated from ascalonian humans by virtue of the shiverpeaks until the searing happened.
I really would have liked to see Krytans stick closer to that aztec feel they sort of had in prophecies in stead of giving the aztec motif assets to the Asura (and inventing the asura and norn as an excuse to have more playable races) when Utopia was cancelled.
It is entirely possible that true Krytans had pale skin, like Ascalonians and presumably Orrians and that instead the darker “Krytans” that we saw in GW1 were actually descendants of the Crystal Desert pilgrims from Elona… Some who somehow didn’t die in the Crystal desert with the rest of Turai Ossa’s followers?
I’m from Spain and… this is completly wrong. Spanish people is caucasian. Most of my friends and me, we’re actually very pale.
Maybe you’re thinking about latinos, but spanish people looks like most europeans do. We share some physical traits with italians, protuguese and french (countries around us), nothing to do with old GW1 Krytan NPCs.
Please tell me you’re not one of those who think Spain is actually located in South America instead of Europe U.U
PS: Of course this has nothing against latinos, just pointing how many times people tend to confuse Spain with South American countries speaking spanish too.
Spain hasn’t been exclusively caucasian for a long time, much earlier than the explorations of the Conquistadores. Spain(and Portugal) were both territories of the Moors in history. They blended, hence you get people with dark hair, tanned skin and blue eyes. This has been pointed out by others as well.
In the lore Kryta was originally founded as a colony of Elona so it makes sense that a lot of the prophecies era Krytans had rather dark skin on account of heavy Elonian heritage. Still the change in things like Salma in the WiK is kind of stark in contrast with the rest of the npcs.
Yep, as some have said above, people of Iberian descent can range from quite pale to quite dark skinned.
Much of this has to do with the shifts that took place in the region, such as when the Moors ruled the area.
I am of Portuguese descenet, and it’s quite interesting because loosely at least families from the South are more likely to have darker skin than those from the North. Which makes sense since throughout history there has been more interaction between Southern Iberia and North Africa.
Another source of confusing on real life Spanish/Hispanic peoples might be that the concept of Hispanic as a distinct race doesn’t really exist in Europe.
At least in the UK you never see it as an option on forms and surveys, and no one ever seems to make the distinction. I’m pretty sure people from South America would just be considered white, black or mixed race (depending on the person obviously).
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
Seeing as the geography/climate of Kryta seems to have been entirely retconned from the first game (it was originally tropical and rainforest-ey, now it’s more temperate and Europeanish, if that makes any sense) so I wouldn’t rule it out that the original Krytans were as well.
