“Dragons were not always the main antagonists of Guild Wars 2. According to The Making of Guild Wars 2 book, original drafts for story included demons and angelic beings descending to the world to judge it.”
Demons were always a big hassle, we know that from GW1
Angels have never been shown or mentioned outside the war between abaddon and the rest.
I had always hoped to see more demons in one form of another, the GW1 writers had a really good idea of how demons should be.
And now we have real demon ingame, Deimos, the torment of d’Alessio, Revenant can channel Mallyx, and some will argue Mad King Thorn is getting pretty close (not me).
But now that the gods are back on the table (in pieces), the involvement of angels and demons isn’t unthinkable. Especially if the story will involve Menzies en Dhûm again.
I would be interested yes, but only if the current writers can pull of the absolute wickedness the GW1 writing staff could. I have no need for demons who serve no purpose beside cannonfodder
I’d be interested if it did the ANet hallmark of upending expectations. However, I don’t think it’s at all likely (certain Revenant Legends notwithstanding). When you scrap an early draft you don’t then turn your story back into it.
Per the extras on the Zootopia disk, the original Zootopia story was much darker, with shock collars given to predators as a coming of age gift — get too emotional, too predatory, ZAP. They had it practically in the can before they scrapped it, reworked it, revoiced it, molded it into what we saw on release. One doubts they would then do a sequel that uses all those dark themes they decided didn’t work in the first place.
Similarly, ANet chose among concepts. The ones they benched would no longer make sense in the lore as it has developed.
I don’t think that Elder Dragons as Big Bads really preclude evil gods and demons as Big Bads. It’s perfectly sensible as plot progression — the good gods pull out of Tyria to fight the evil gods/demons (or something worse?) elsewhere (the homeworld of humans or gods?), coincidentally during the Dragons’ rise. They lose, and Tyria becomes the new front in the war.
Typical D&D Dragons bore me to death. GW2 Dragons are closer to Lovecraftian ancient gods, which I like much more.
Classic demons are even more cliche and boring than normal dragons. And common Angels? GOD, please save me of that dull stereotype.
I would HATE for GW2 to go that overused, maniqueistic, excedingly unimaginative way. Really, please don’t do it. Balthazar gimmicks are already bad enough.
HOWEVER. Angels and Demons can also be done right. It requires a lot of creativity, raw talent and the willingness to not respond to the easier to use and sell stereotypes. There are some preciousfewexamplesoutthere …
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
I think we have enough confusion going on in the story as it is keeps weaving new threads into the arc without resolving old ones, without adding in such a major overarching concept in a well.
Typical D&D Dragons bore me to death. GW2 Dragons are closer to Lovecraftian ancient gods, which I like much more.
Classic demons are even more cliche and boring than normal dragons. And common Angels? GOD, please save me of that dull stereotype.
I would HATE for GW2 to go that overused, maniqueistic, excedingly unimaginative way. Really, please don’t do it. Balthazar gimmicks are already bad enough.
HOWEVER. Angels and Demons can also be done right. It requires a lot of creativity, raw talent and the willingness to not respond to the easier to use and sell stereotypes. There are some preciousfewexamplesoutthere …
Angels and demons in the Guild Wars setting are very, very different from your traditional Christianity depictions.
It should be noted that Imps seen throughout GW2 are technically demons.
Angels, conversely, are the followers of Dwayna best we know. We only have one potential example of their looks though Elonian legends claim that harpies are fallen servants of Dwayna (effectively making them fallen angels).
Going off of this, the original plot seemed to be followers of Dwayna/the gods waging war against malicious creatures of the Mists that made it into Tyria. Dunno how “judging Tyrians” come into play there though. But that was largely the plot of GW1 – us fighting demons and fallen gods as well.
With Balthazar’s return, we might see a plot akin to that but I am doubtful for now.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Typical D&D Dragons bore me to death. GW2 Dragons are closer to Lovecraftian ancient gods, which I like much more.
Classic demons are even more cliche and boring than normal dragons. And common Angels? GOD, please save me of that dull stereotype.
Agreed, the ED feel more like elemental manifestations, or primordial beings.
Angels and Demons, can still be cool with some tweaking and original twists, but the classical ones can be something dull yea. Luckily the GW1 demons were diverse and active enough to be considered good in my book.
I mean, look at Mordremoth, he doesn’t even have his own body, he IS the jungle, every plant, every vine, every tree, I can just move around in all those bodies (well, with some restrictions, he needs connection to move, which we see and break during Trahearne’s goodbye).
Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan were much more normal dragons, then there’s Primordus who’s pretty much just a living volcano. Jormag is made of ice and could at this stage still have any kind of shape. We don’t know what Steve looks like yet, but I’d guess he’s a tangent mass of horror considering he’s the deep sea dragon.
