Guild Wars 2

This is probably a big stretch but…. you never know. Anise and Livia are possibly the same person. Why do I think this? Livia joined the Shining Blade and was tasked with finding the Scepter of Orr to stop the Krytan Civil War. The scepter has the ability to control others and obey the wielder’s wishes. This obviously seems to of stopped the Krytan Civil War at some point after EOTN. The scepter also has the ability to alter those who wields it’s energy. Meaning it may be able to prolong someones life profoundly. Since Livia was a Necromancer her influence in that type of magic could also possibly prolong her life. However she would eventually look very old. Therefore she took up Mesmery to hide her true image and renamed herself to Anise. Now as Anise she was able to protect Queen Jennah growing up and yet Anise doesn’t appear to age at all. Anise is also especially concerned with Caudecus, suspecting he may cause another civil war. Something she would not want again and why she wants Caudecus back in custody as soon as possible. It feels like Anise has been keeping secrets and protecting Kryta far longer than the current era of GW2. Although this could simply be a coincidence they both wear sexy clothing. Anyways, there’s a lot of similarities between Anise and Livia and both are very sly about things. And if they are the same person. The question of, where is the Scepter of Orr then? Was it a one time use thing or is it hidden somewhere in Anise’s home?

I think Evennia = Rytlock because Evennia once threatened the gods if she found Saidra had been mistreated and that strikes me as something Rytlock would do. It also explains why King Adelbern had a deep mistrust for her because he could sense her inner charr.

Nobody knows where she is right now, if she even has still the Scepter or if she even still lives (however, in theory I think of her as being basicalyl the only known GW1 character, who would have as Necromancer with the Scepter of Orr the might to live that long as some kind of new “Lich”)

Anise on the other hand is no necromancer, she is a Mesmer.
A strong sign for it, that Anise and Livia can’t be one and the same person.

That the has to look very old is here the real far fetched assumption. You don’t need Illusion magic just to make you look young, when you have the control over Death Magic as Necromancer with one of strongest known magical artefacts in tyrian history – the Scepter of Orr which can be used simply to STOP her aging, because death comes simply from the fact, that all living beings either age until they die, or due to accidents or illnesses.
Two factors, that Livia could completely ignore a Necromancer with the Scepter, namely aging and illnesses to that she would be completely immune.
The only thing that even Livia won’t be able to to do prevent her death would be accidents, or in fact actions which happen that lead to her dead, like somebody eventually having chopped off her head and burned her headless body in the last 250 years, the only thing where Necromancy and Scepters of Orr won’t help in preventing her death.

ANet makes whyever willingly a complete secret out of her whereabouts, i think they just wait for the right moment to bring her back and for me theoretically this moment iwll be, once we go against the Deep Sea Dragon, about which Anet makes as well until today a huge secret since game release without any reason.
But if there exist a person who can help us agaisnt that dragon, then I think its Livia with the Scepter of Orr, the only magical artefact in Tyria known for its power to move gigantic land masses or to sink them and the Deep Sea Dragon is essentially nothing else but a huge moving “mass” underwater, which surely won’t come out of it under free will, when it can fight agaisnt us with an upperhand in its own natural territory much better.
So if we ever want to defeat the deep sea dragon, I believe it is very important, that we need to force it somehow out of the water onto land.

To protect the Queen from Caudecus ect is the job of the Seraphs and us, the local heroes, so if Livia still exists, then she has no reason at all to interfere in that as a disguised “Anise” suddenly as Mesmer, when Livia is in fact a Necromancer.

Someone powerful like Livia, with the Scepter of Orr in her hands would do best to protect her queen as some kind of preventor, a guardian that protects her queen and her homelands from far away and makes sure, that any kind of outer forces far away of Kryta, never get the chance at all to get even near to Kryta and making research on those enemies in Tyria, about which we know yet the very least, so that in case of an invasion, Livia would be able to send out right in time some minionss to the Queen to inform her about the incoming danger, before it is too late for Kryta to be prepared.
You need your eyes not only at close range, you need them as well also far away from your local position, if you can’t be at that location, because you are needed somewhere else – your homeland. Thats why you have at war scouts for you not only in your homeland, but also far away at the borders of your land.

Personally I find it very suspicious that Anet makes around Livia and the Scepter of Orr same as much of a mystery since release of the game, like they do for the Deep Sea Dragon. I think there is some kind of connection between both, otherwise we would have heard already something about either her or the dragon by now.

All we know is that Livia was alive at the time of the founding of Lion’s Arch, and looking extremely young for her age. We also know that Anise is likely older than she looks based on a discussion between her and Canach at the World Summit. These two things could come together to mean that they are the same person, or it could mean something else entirely. I do want to note that I believe that while she was mentioned in the Sea of Sorrow’s book, the Scepter was not.

This is an old theory, but laying out the known facts:

The Scepter of Orr was credited with the ability to control beings from the Underworld. Whether that’s true or not is unknown. Regardless, it was never said to be able to control living minds. We also aren’t ever told that it alters its wielder.

At some point after EotN Livia came into possession of the Scepter of Orr. She also stated her intent to visit Arah. Whether she found the Scepter of Orr in Arah, or ever visited Arah at all, is unknown.

In WiK, we do not see her using the Scepter of Orr. We don’t know if she’d found it yet. We also don’t know if she’d traveled to Arah at that point. However, we do know that the events of WiK are what ended the civil war, with the last known mursaat slain and the White Mantle broken and chased into exile. No mind control came into it. At the end of WiK, Livia is made the leader of the Shining Blade.

We know from a dev comment that Livia held on to the Scepter of Orr for a time, but not indefinitely.

In Sea of Sorrows, 177 years after we’d last seen her in WiK, Livia makes another appearance. She did not appear to be old, except possibly for a streak of white in her hair. She was a figure of local legend in human Lion’s Arch, known as the ‘self-appointed protector of the ruler of Kryta’ for generations, and rumored to have become a lich, or to use blood sacrifice to maintain eternal youth. She acts as the leader of the Shining Blade contingent guarding Prince Edair, the uncrowned heir to the throne, but she bore the title Exemplar, which by the GW2 ranking would mean she no longer commanded the Shining Blade as a whole. The precise truth is unknown. She references the Scepter of Orr, and implies that she still has it, but the words she used are ambiguous and the truth is unknown. We don’t see her use the Scepter in the fight against the risen fleet.

In GW2, 69 years afterwards, there’s no mention of Livia. She doesn’t appear, and we don’t hear any local legends like there’d been in Lion’s Arch. We don’t know whether she’s alive or dead, and while the dev comment suggests that if she’s alive she would no longer have the Scepter, we don’t know for sure.

Anise, on the other hand, is Master Exemplar of the Shining Blade. There are rumors that she uses illusions to appear beautiful… rumors from the same group that believe that Jennah is training a secret army of quaggans and that there are poisonous butterflies on the loose in the countryside. She becomes very defensive when Canach mentions the rumor and wonders how old she is. At one point, Anise also demonstrates an obscure knowledge of ancient Krytan law, and at a couple points she casts illusions that make people look entirely different (as do several other mesmers in the game).

The trouble is, all the evidence that Anise is Livia is circumstantial. It might be that she’s using illusions to hide her age… or she really might be using them to look prettier, or to hide a deformity, or she might just be vain enough that she doesn’t like the rumors that she isn’t naturally beautiful. Any leader of the Shining Blade would have an interest in the quirks of Krytan law, however obscure, just as any member of the organization would have a special interest in stopping a traitor from beginning a civil war.

On the other hand, parts of the argument have holes: why would Livia openly protect the royals for generations only to begin to do so secretly? Why would she apparently step down as leader of the Shining Blade, only to take the position back under another identity? There are possible explanations, certainly, but at that point we’re guessing wildly. In the end, that’s what the theory is: possible, but we don’t currently have any evidence to convince us that’s the case, just some curious parallels between two similar characters.

One fact Aaron missed, which leads to why Anise knows that obscure ancient Krytan law, is that Anise is said to be ‘a history buff’ and that ‘Ancient Kryta is her subject of expertise’. Which explains how she knew said law without any odd need of her having lived in a time it was used.

As an aside, I got the indication from Sea of Sorrows that Livia did not have the Scepter of Orr anymore at that time – that the period in which she had it had already come and gone by that point.

I suspect that if Livia is still alive, we’ll hear from her next week. As a former head of the shining blade, there is no way she would not take part in the queens defense of a large scale white mantle attack.

don’t we use the scepter of orr in a personal story istance as human during risen attacking queen jenna in the throne room?

Nope. That was the Mortis Verge (spelling variable), a recent charr invention that confuses undead and draws life force. No relation to the Scepter, as far as we know.