Guild Wars 2

Are Norns the Lost Tribes of Kodan?

The Kodan think so

Possible, it’s unlikly though. Yes the Norn can turn into bears, but that’s just one of many forms for them, their default is a giant humanoid. This indicates that they were humanoids who learned to transfrom into animals.

I personally think the Norn are either related to the dwarves or the Jotun or maybe even both. The only thing we know for certain is that they are not related to the humans, since those came from a different world than Tyria.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Possible, it’s unlikly though. Yes the Norn can turn into bears, but that’s just one of many forms for them, their default is a giant humanoid. This indicates that they were humanoids who learned to transfrom into animals.

I personally think the Norn are either related to the dwarves or the Jotun or maybe even both. The only thing we know for certain is that they are not related to the humans, since those came from a different world than Tyria.

People thought once the earth was flat. Lore bout origin-story’s and religion shouldn’t be taken for truth. So it is very much possible that the true origin of the humans lies in the same ancestor of the norn and the dwarves. The fact that they claim they where brought to Tyria by the gods means I respects the humans religious and philosophical believes in there, but I wont take it for granted scientificly.

Plus, there are lots of other ways they could be related – a common ancestor that colonised Tyria (or, in reverse, the human homeworld) in the past, for instance. I think there is Word of Dev on there being no relation between humans and norn, though..

Regarding the kodan theory – it’s only said by some kodan, and to me, it seems just a little too convenient for the Voices for the origin of the norn to be such a fitting Aesop for the perils of going against the Voices. Such a pat explanation seems to me to likely be something they came up with to keep the others in line – “obey the Voices or you may be reduced to spending most of your time as a naked weakling, only briefly allowed to return to your old glory!”

And as Buddhakeks says, the theory also brushes over the norn having access to multiple forms.

Not all the evidence of their nonrelation is based in human origin story. We do know for a fact that human and norn can’t procreate. They still look similar enough that if they were a natural divergent species, they should still be able to atleast produce sterile children. Aside from nonrelation, that only leaves the possibility of an unnatural divergence. Maybe when the gods were pulled from the mists, they created humanity from norn or a common ancestor? This would explain why the gods predate humanity but “not by much”.

I’d find it more believeable if the kodan were a tribe of lost norn who made some drastic lifestyle changes and became stuck in bear form.

mercury ranique.2170:

People thought once the earth was flat. Lore bout origin-story’s and religion shouldn’t be taken for truth. So it is very much possible that the true origin of the humans lies in the same ancestor of the norn and the dwarves. The fact that they claim they where brought to Tyria by the gods means I respects the humans religious and philosophical believes in there, but I wont take it for granted scientificly.

True, but this is a fact we got outside of the game, in this interview with Ree Soesbee. She says: " I can say that they [the Seers] are one of the oldest races of Tyria, dating back long before the Gods brought the humans to the world".

So it’s not a theory or a religious believe the humans hold, it’s pretty much a fact. Now you could argue that the Norn evolved from the humans after they came to Tyria, but that’s just a few thousand years ago, you could only explain it with fastened magical evolution, which is a possibility, but I don’t think we have any indication for that. That humans look like rescaled versions of dwarves or Norn, could be either hint at them being a model for the Six Gods newest creation (if the gods even created the humans, we only know they brought them with them when they settled in Tyria) or that the gods arrived in Tyria way earlier when we thought and they abducted some dwarves to breed them into humans. Just random speculation though, maybe it’s even just a cosmic coincidence.

Oo, good find BuddhaKeks. That ones going in the archive.

Norn could be kodan that could shapeshift and embraced the great human spirit (like the bear spirit, but human) after humans came to Tyria and somehow they got stuck in human form as a base.

@OP: There’s pretty much three major theories/hypotheses for the norn’s origin: the in-game one by kodan Voices that proclaim norn are descended from that lost tribe; 2) that they hold shared origins with the jotun; 3) that they are a sub-species of humans that evolved enough (due to magic and extreme environment) to be called a different species (aside from their default form being called “human form” and having a lot of similarities to Luxon culture, there are statues to Grenth in the Far Shiverpeaks with no other known civilization ever having been there besides jotun – and they’re near the Raven Shrine up there).

Which one of these is the case – if any – is unknown and not hinted at.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Possible, it’s unlikly though. Yes the Norn can turn into bears, but that’s just one of many forms for them, their default is a giant humanoid. This indicates that they were humanoids who learned to transfrom into animals.

I personally think the Norn are either related to the dwarves or the Jotun or maybe even both. The only thing we know for certain is that they are not related to the humans, since those came from a different world than Tyria.

We don’t know how old norn as a race are so you cannot deny human ancestry outright – since we also don’t know when humanity arrived on the world.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Now you could argue that the Norn evolved from the humans after they came to Tyria, but that’s just a few thousand years ago, you could only explain it with fastened magical evolution, which is a possibility, but I don’t think we have any indication for that.

A few thousand years? Exactly how many thousands of years? When were the norn first called norn? When where they considered their own race.

We know NOTHING about the norn’s history. And little on the human’s history. Humanity could have came to the world as early as 10,000 BE – that’s 11,000 years. The earliest possible recording of norn known would be when charr took Ascalon – which we have next to no timeframe for other than “before 100 BE.” Add in extreme environemtns which can cause changes within a few generations for survival, and magic and you get a good amount of evolution. Hell, in even the latest possible date for the ED’s last rise (1,768 BE) there’d still be enough time for humans evolving into the norn. And we know magic’s involved – specifically the magic of the Spirits of the Wild – with the norn given their transformation abilities.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

A few thousand years? Exactly how many thousands of years? When were the norn first called norn? When where they considered their own race.

We know NOTHING about the norn’s history. And little on the human’s history. Humanity could have came to the world as early as 10,000 BE – that’s 11,000 years. The earliest possible recording of norn known would be when charr took Ascalon – which we have next to no timeframe for other than “before 100 BE.” Add in extreme environemtns which can cause changes within a few generations for survival, and magic and you get a good amount of evolution. Hell, in even the latest possible date for the ED’s last rise (1,768 BE) there’d still be enough time for humans evolving into the norn. And we know magic’s involved – specifically the magic of the Spirits of the Wild – with the norn given their transformation abilities.

Well the first records of humans are in Cantha in 786BE, but they arrive in Tyria (continent) only in 205BE and since the Norn are only shown to live in Tyria we probably have to asume they, if anything, evolved from Tyrian humans. But as you said, when can the Norn be called Norn? They are Norn in 1078 AE so that means they had at best 1283 years to evolve.

What are the facts? The Norn can’t breed with humans, not even sterile offspring (debatable, but developer comments seem to hint at this) can be produced. That means Norn are not even a subspecies of humans anymore. Even in harsh conditions that would be an insanely fast evolution!

Here’s the thing though, I believe it is written that the gods brought humanity to Orr first. The next thing we read is that the first recordings of humanity state they came from south of Cantha. They then settled in Cantha around 786. So what’s true? One could state that the gods brought humanity to Tyria and perhaps moved them to the southern part of the Canthan continent while they cleaned up the mess left by the dragons. If this were true it’s quite possible that humanity may have had a faction split off and move into the mountains, deciding not to leave with the rest. This faction leaves the gods behind and come to know the spirits, evolving to life in the Shiverpeaks. We do not know enough about pre-history to rule anything out. This is all speculation yes, but stating that there is no possibility that they are human descended is speculation as well.

You’ve made a huge blunder, BuddhaKeks.

Humanity first arrived on the world at Orr, at least according to current human history, brought by Dwayna. It seems that they all got kicked out by the gods or some such and only returned in 205 BE – it’s not very clear; what’s clear is that they were on Orr, for however short of a time, long before 205 BE (whenever it was that they were brought to the world). Unless human history is wrong yet again – however, to make such a presumption is foolhardy.

However, you also make the presumption that the norn – if descended from humans – didn’t reach there by traveling south and eventually reaching the arctic seas to the north. We’re told by Jeff Grubb that the human homelands may be south of Cantha and Elona – and even long before that we knew that 1) humans settled on the coastline of Cantha – implying arrival via ship and 2) Luxons hold legends of a homeland across the sea.

And given the globe we have, what’s south of Cantha? A small peninsula, a few Shing Jea-sized islands, and… the highest reaches (aka arctic area) of the Tyria/Elona super-continent. (Personal speculation – I think humans were taken from Orr, due to the Elder Dragons’ corruption/last influences that is why Balthazar burned the land of Orr completely (despite it supposedly happening after humans were brought to Orr) to the continent east of Cantha – which would be somewhat south of where they first appeared on Cantha and certainly south of Elona).

So we cannot be absolutely certain that the norn, if descended from humans, had to come from the Orrians who arrived in 205 BE. We’re still left with a huge gap in the timeline and human history with plenty of confusing aspects which make sense in very few ways.

And you are asuming things on unrecorded history. While the scrolls indicate that the humans arrived in Orr first with the gods, we have no records of them having a civilization there, except those vague things in the scrolls, which could mean anything (as they are more prose than historic recordings) and Thruln the Lost who says someting about how the age of giants came to an end with the arrival of the humans. But this could A: possibly refer to the second arrival in 205BE and B: be made up, as Thruln isn’t the most reliable narrator.

But let’s say the Norn come from those first humans brought to Orr in an unkown time. So you theorize the proto-norn traveled from the humans’ home continent to the south to reach Tyria’s antarctic zone, which they when left to go further north until they reached the artic zone of Tyria, which they again left to make their home in the frozen shiverpeaks? Really? Come on, who would go through a whole planet to settle in the perma-frost? It’s one thing to be pushed by migration into such a territory and then settle there because all the land behind you is already settled, but traveling over more than half of the planet to get there, why would the proto-norn have doen that? That makes 0% sense.

And don’t even bother to make an analogy of how the first humans settling america went throw frozen sibiria to alaska to the arctic zone. That’s not only still less of a journey, it’s also possibly not true, as modern excavation support the theory that america was popularized by boat through the pacific ocean. So it wasn’t people who went through one frozen wasteland after another, but people from the south who searched for unsettled land and found it in the frozen north.

And even if you don’t take this into account, how do you explain dwarves? They were clearly on Tyria long before the humans, yet they also share the same appearance, sand the size. And what about the various races of giants? The Jotun are also predate humans on Tyria. That theory of yours ignores them both completely.

The problem with Tyria is that there is no clear cut evolutionary path, heck it’s really a clusterkitten of just messes. Humanoid creatures to make up an alarming amount of the creatures of the world (for humans being alien), but does this mean anything? Or is it just a “magic did it” moment, at this point I’m leaning towards the latter.

@BuddhaKeks: You apparently greatly misunderstood my post to epic proportions.

I’m assuming nothing. I’m merely stating a possibility of how the norn can be descended from humanity, to counteract your claim of absolutely no possibility.

I never once said that there was a human civilization of Orr in Orr prior to 205 BE. I simply stated that current records tell us that the humans, as a race, were brought to the world at Orr. Thruln’s comments of humans arriving on boats is most definitely in reference to 205 BE’s arrival, given how the former wouldn’t be via boat but portal and by the gods and not potentially independently (though that was prior to the Age of Giants’ end according to him).

Also, by the map, Tyria only has one cold region – the arctic zone. There’d be no antarctic, as the bottom border of the map matches the northern border of it (and similarly, the left and right match – it’s an odd map, probably not meant to go directly onto a globe without alteration). In other words, south of Cantha=Tyria’s arctic region. And even if that map’s incomplete or just outright wrong – who said they only settled there? I mean, if you got three separate cultures (minimal) of humans who settled in the same area (Cantha), and then 5 more who settled in another area (Elona/Orr), why would one group go their own way without others? Another answer would be to just look at the map – 70% of it looks reddish. Probably barren wasteland and not settling worthy.

Dwarves I personally chock up to “because they were taken from standard fantasy” and I’d have to shrug it away. However, even ignore that part, you do have to admit that they look much less human than norn – about as inhuman as jotun do (and modern jotun are considered to have gotten uglier than their past selves). Tyrian humans are a beautified version of humans, but the dwarves and jotun are greatly disproportioned in comparison to not just humans but also to the norn – there’s a far greater physical similarity between norn and human than norn and dwarves or norn and jotun.

Besides, I fail to see how my theory of norn being of human descent because of their culture (especially religion – both faiths hold high reverence for the Underworld, as well as the Hall of Heroes; however no other race has yet to mention either aside from the Forgotten) and looks rather than just one ignores the dwarves and jotun. Just because some humanoids look… human-like doesn’t mean that all human-like humanoids have to hold similar or shared pasts despite one or two clearly not being related to humans.

Konig, could you post a link to the map? My own knowledge of geography is telling me you’re getting something horribly, horribly wrong with your assumptions, but it’ll help to see the map to doublecheck that I haven’t made a mental blunder… and to explain what would actually be happening.

In the case of the norn-human theory, I’d probably explain it in the following way:

There is possible historical evidence for humans being kicked out of Orr (or, alternatively, not being allowed to settle in Tyria beyond Orr until 215BE, with any excess population before then being sent south to the second point of ingress). There are also some lines in EOTN that suggest that, while the details have been forgotten and the hatchet long buried, the norn might have some grudge against the gods – Egil Fireteller tells of ‘spirits of fire, darkness, seasons and mountains’ as among the spirits hostile to the norn, for instance. Which could easily be Balthazar, Dhuum, the entire cattin’ pantheon (since each has a favoured season), and Melandru respectively.

So a possible history is that, sometime after the gods arrived, a group of humans broke from the gods and headed north. On arriving in the Shiverpeaks, they formed a friendship with the animal spirits… and possibly the jotun as well, if the jotun were still civilised at the time. As part of this friendship, they were transformed into norn, partially to help with surviving the climate, and partially in order to break away from the gods once and for all by making themselves a separate species, with part of the transformation being making them unable to breed with humans.

@Konig: And I’m not saying that Norn comming from humans is absolutely wrong, it’s just so unlikly that I’d say we don’t have to talk about it until we get facts that state otherwise.

Okay if we asume Cantha is the counterpart to earths antarctic region, when they still would have travelled accross more than half the globe. Such a journey takes a long time, especially if you settle here and there along the way. So according to this theory, those proto-norn took this long journey as humans, and then they were there in the shiverpeaks they evolved into Norn? Or did they evolve before? Does that mean the other half of Tyria (planet) is populated by Norn?
So this theory would look like this: Humans arrive in Orr, get moved to an unknown continent near Cantha. Humans settle in Cantha, some go around the planet, either through thousands of kilometres of wasteland or by settling, which takes a lot of time, may or may not evolve into Norn on the way and finally arrive in the artic zone, where they think “Too cold!” and settle in the minimal warmer Far Shiverpeaks.
Possible, but that theory asumes a lot. And it’s highly likely that the humans would first arrive in Cantha (786BE) and long after that in the Shiverpeaks. We should use Occam’s razor until we have enough evidence to support such a claim.
That means Norn evolving from the second arrival of the humans in Orr, is more likely, yet still unlikely because that would be a crazy fast evolution, but whatever we have magic.

And saying dwarves are typical fantasy, let’s just shrug them off, is a cop-out, imo. First off, Norn look more like super-sized dwarves than tall humans to me, since they for the most part have that stout body, while humans, atleast in GW2, tend to be rather slim. The only major difference could be female dwarves, who may look identical to male dwarves, but we don’t know enough here to be certain. However, dwarves are known to live very long, easily more than 200 years. Norn do also live very long, maybe even twice as long as humans. Jotun can also be asumed to be very long lived, since they are related to ogres wich in turn also live easily more than 200 years.
Humans with their life-span of 80-90 years seem to be the odd one out here. Species related with each other tned to have similar life-spans (humans and chimpanzees for example, who can reach up to 60 years).
The way I see it, Norn being related to dwarves seems way more likely, than them being related to humans. But, and this is the important part, I’m only saying that this is a possibility. Norn coming from humans, on the otherhand, while there is a slim chance, it’s so unlikely that it can be discarded until we have actual evidence.

And where did I say anything about them being related/not related because they have a (dis)similar culture?

I think what you aren’t getting Buddha is that many of us are saying, for there to have been a chance, humanity may have split off during the first arrival at Orr, not the second (well maybe not Konig, but me and Drax). But I will agree that there is just about as much of a chance of them being a genetic relative to the dwarves as well.

No, no I’m getting that. I’m not even arguing against you or Drax to be honest, since I see no reason to. I admit, that I said, that we can be certain that they aren’t related was an overstatement, but that’s just because it’s very unlikely, unless we count either magical high speed evolution (possible in fantasy) or we asume the humans are way longer on Tyria than we thought (possible, but we have no real evidence).
However Konigs theories don’t make much sense, why would a single human group cut themself off, pass through all that fertile land, just so they could settle in the isolation of the Far Shiverpeaks? If they found the spirits there okay, a reason to stay, but why did they even move there to beginn with?
And the whole analogy of the gods being the evil spirits, Egil Fireteller mentions, no that doesn’t fit since the Norn acknowledge the human gods as spirits of Action, not of physical things in nature. Those evil sprits can actually be seen in EotN, one of them is Nulfatsu the Earthbound

Well there is always the possibility that the land may not have been fertile. Remember that when the gods first came Balthazar had to cleanse Orr with a flame. I get the feeling that Melandru was doing something similar with the rest of the land, taking the poison of the dragon corruption out, and giving things new life (rather than destroy everything and start with a clean slate like Balthazar). I do not know why a human group would cut themselves off. Perhaps they got lost in the wilderness, or had a falling out with the gods. It’s quite possible that humanity began to settle the continent when the gods decided to uproot them and move them elsewhere and a few disagreed and were exiled for it. I personally don’t agree with the evil spirits being the gods either. I think it would be more of a sentiment of forgetfulness, leaving their past behind and moving forward. But yeah, this is Tyria, and from all of the vast repositories of ancient knowledge we have, it’s just about as good of a possibility that Norn are descended of Squirrels :P

@Drax: I linked it two posts of mine above this one – it’s the one we all know and love And when I said that the top and bottom match while the left and right match – it was actually studied on this very forum before and the map was edited to this just by copy/pasting the four quadrants to the opposite sides.

Interesting take on the hostile spirits, but I personally thought that line refers to those who act like Nulfastu

@BuddhaKeks: Sounds like you were to me, but I digress on that.

I’m not saying Cantha is Tyria’s antarctic region. You clearly didn’t understand a single thing I said about that. Go look at the links I just provided to drax in this post, maybe a visual will help you. I’m not assuming nearly as much as you think I am. If humans moved north to Cantha, then the proto-norn moved south to the first landmass they found – and my comment about the wasteland bit was that if that map is wrong, then based on elsewhere of the map it could be wasteland where nothing grows and thus cannot sustain life so settling in a cold but sustainable location doesn’t seem so improbable. But again, that’s making the huge assumption of presuming the information we have is wrong.

As to norn looking more like dwarves – aside from the love of beards and ale, I don’t see it. Dwarves have very disproportioned limbs even for their height, and their facial dimensions are different than both norn and human (being more on par to jotun but still not so much). However, except for female norn having back-breaking larger breasts and male norn being wider built on average (to be more gorilla like), they have the same proportions as humans.

We can’t say that the norn live twice as much as humans – who we see to live around 80-100 years – as the only have the age of “130 being old for norn.” I’d say there’s less similarity between norn and dwarf than human (especially Luxon) and norn.

And you never said anything about culture – which is my point exactly in bringing them up. Human culture (especially Luxon) is vastly more similar to the norn’s than dwarf. Jotun are closer, but still fairly different.

@Narcemus: Yes, I am saying that they split off prior to the second arrival – possibly at the first arrival but equally just simply before the second arrival. Given the lack of date for the first arrival at Orr, we can’t really give a timeframe beyond “from 10,000 BE to 700 BE” for when that happened.

But I still see so minimal relation to dwarves it’s just as foolhardy to suspect a relation between norn and dwarves as BuddhaKeks claims for between human and norn. If they’re related to any other race, and it’s not human, it’d be jotun long before dwarves. Norn are, after all, called half-giants – not half-midgets (honestly, dwarves and norn hold next to nothing physically similar, and so little cultural similarities).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

However Konigs theories don’t make much sense, why would a single human group cut themself off, pass through all that fertile land, just so they could settle in the isolation of the Far Shiverpeaks? If they found the spirits there okay, a reason to stay, but why did they even move there to beginn with?

It only doesn’t make sense because you’re constantly misunderstanding me. I hope this post clarifies some things.

Narcemus.1348:

Well there is always the possibility that the land may not have been fertile.

Which is EXACTLY what I was saying when I talked about wastelands. That most of the world, if the red on the only world map we have is to be taken as the world itself being red, is unable to sustain life (hence why life seems to congregate around continental Tyria, including the Elder Dragons).

Narcemus.1348:

I do not know why a human group would cut themselves off. Perhaps they got lost in the wilderness, or had a falling out with the gods.

Or that when the Exodus occurred, the proto-norn saw that as being abandoned by the gods and eventually turned to the Spirits of the Wild.

So a Jotun woman and a Dwarf walk into a bar… (no one has ever stated that dwarf and jotun cannot procreate so it must be true)

Seriously though I don’t have much anything to add to Konig since much of it was a reaffirmation of what I stated.

Then the unnamed homeland of the humans is the antartic region or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you said they traveled south until they ended up north, which is a crazy long journey. Certainly it would take them waaaaaay longer than it would the humans settle in Cantha, even if they rush straight to the point without settling anywhere else.

And yes I still think Norn look closer to dwarves than humans. Now this could of course be analogy, not relation, since they both live in the cold climate of the Shiverpeaks and cold climates lead to a more compact body, since a compact body has an easier time staying warm.

About the age, you yourself said that you suspect Eir to be 120 years old, despite her not looking old, just because Norn can get that old and still be ready for combat. Your argument was that she was said to be a child during the foundation of Hoelbrak. So such a relative young looking Norn can be 120, and Knut Whitebear is said to be older than her, I would asume atleast a few years, since he makes reference to her being younger, I would estimate atleast 10 years. Now we have a 130 year old Norn, who shows not much signs of suffering under his age. Either the Norn complain way less then human elders, or that isn’t even that old by Norn standarts. Fighting career ending old maybe, but not “I’m going to die soon” old.
And by the way, my original point was that Norn could be either related to dwarves or Jotun. Both of them are more likely than human, but Jotun is more likely than dwarf. That said, I could see the dwarves being a very distant relative of the giant races, simply for the fact that they have this large life span and are also humanoids. I can even see the Grawl being distantly related to all those.

And how is culture an indicator for evolutionary relation? Culture is based on your environment, not on your genetics. The Norn and the Luxon both live nomadic, so? They both live in areas with little place for crops, so it’s only natural they would wander around and follow herds of animals, either domestic or wild.

That’s like saying Iranian nomads are closer related to nomadic native american tribes than to the persians of the persian empire since they have a different life style.

You’re still not understanding me it seems. Continuing this is as is would be pointless. Look at the links I gave, maybe that’ll help you. If it hasn’t, then there’s nothing I could do. I’ll try one more thing, and if that fails to get you to understand my stance – I don’t care about convincing you but you’re not even understanding what I’m saying by all indications – then I give up completely in trying to portray my theory to you:

According to the map we have – which we shouldn’t assume is wrong until we have other information – the continent south of Cantha is Tyria/Elona’s supercontinent. There is no antarctic region. There was no “crazy long journey.” In fact, the trip I’m proposing is shorter than the one from Cantha to Orr.

You also misunderstand my stance on Eir’s age – because women in GW2 never look old except for one single female human model. There’s no wrinkly old norn women in the entire game (even though there are wrinkly old men of all playable races).

You’re presuming far too much on humanoid appearances, btw.

Culture is based on more than environment – it’s based on your civilization. And if a civilization schismed from another, larger, one, there will be cultural similarities. For a real life example, take the culture of the Abrahamic faiths – though not ethnicities, they share that same situation. If the norn descend from humans, their original culture would be human-like. In time, it would have changed, differing here and there, but still retain some similarities. There’s far far more ties to the Luxons than just being nomadic – the cultures are nearly identical if you remove the seafaring-ness and Six Gods reverence of the Luxons and replace it with the Spirits of the Wild and enjoyment of ale.

I understand what you mean more now Konig. I had always read that world map as top and bottom, not realizing that they match up directly. Thus the bottom of cantha almost moves directly to the top of Tyria. It is very confusing, but as you said it’s a texture not a map, so we have what we get. I’m interested if we will ever see an actual world map showing the actual North and South.

If Cantha was actually part of the Tyrian-Elonian-supercontinent than Tyria (planet) would be so small that it possibly couldn’t even support an atmosphere. In that case going From Lion’s Arch to Kaineng would be a vertical journy across half the globe, passing the south pole on the way.
Which is a very odd way to travel to begin with, since atleast real world human cultures are actually more likely to travel east and west than south and north, since it has less heavy climate changes that way. Also Tyria has no cold region on it’s south pole (would that be the battle islands then?) which is also odd, but okay, maybe Tyria is tilted towards it’s sun.
So on this abnormally small planet, which still has an atmosphere and earth-like gravity, where people like to travel vertically, there is a super continent that is connected by land but it’s people prefer to sail around the south pole wich is pretty warm to get to the other side of said continent?
Yeah… no, I’m pretty sure that map is wrong.

And no I didn’t understand you wrong, your theory is simply false. If they had intended Eir to be this old, they would have made her model look old. Why? Because they created a special model for her anyway, why would they make it look decades younger than she is supposed to be? That would be beyond making a character attractive for the purpose of fan-service and an outright counter to the lore. I know Anet prefers attractive characters, but that would be ridiculous even by their standarts.
So either Eir is way younger than you think or Norn grow way older than you think.

I’m presuming far too much on humanoid apearances and you don’t? Isn’t the whole base for your point that Norn look like large humans and have a somewhat similar culture to the Luxon (which still doesn’t mean anything)?

Of course if one culture splits from another they will still come from the same roots, but they will drift apart, especially if they are in an different environment. Put nomands into fertile lands, next to a bunch of farming civilizations and they will eventually become farmers too. Put farmers into a dry wasteland and they will become nomads. In the end the evironment (including neighboring cultures) is the deciding factor. Traditions may stay, but their meaning will be forgotten, until they are gone.
If you really want to know if to cultures are related you have to look either at their languages or their DNA. Both methods wont give you a 100% certain answer, but that’s your best guess. But since we can’t do that in GW2, for the lack of fully developed languages and DNA to test, we can only go physiological similarities and the actual time the races spent on the planet.

To break it down:
Humans look like slimmer, smaller Norn. They don’t live as long and aren’t resitant to the cold climate. They are the youngest of the possible ancestors/relatives.

Dwarves look like smaller, stouter Norn, atleast the males, females can’t be judged. They live longer and also show some resitance to the cold climate (not as much as Norn). They are an old race, giving enough time for an evolutionary off-shoot.

Jotun are taller, plumber, white/grey skinned Norn, atleast the males (as I can’t remember seeing female Jotun). They probably live longer than the Norn and also show an resistance to the cold climate. They are an old race, giving enough time for an evolutionary off-shoot.

I’m inclined to believe the Norn and Jotun are probably products of the same people. Thruln spoke of the time of the giants when both the Jotun and the Norn ruled. And we know that the Jotun have degenerated, at least socially, so may well have degenerated physically. So when the Jotun and the Norn ruled, they may have well ruled together as the same people.

If the Jotun degenerated physically, they would probably have looked more Norn-like (Based on similarity of dwarf and norn). In which case, the similarity of Dwarves and Norn may have just been a similarity of template by whichever “creator” A-Net chooses to go with.

OOO! Humanity may be “mist creatures!” We know the mists sometimes attempts to create copies of an existing species (In this case, the Norn/Jotun). So the gods may have found them in the mists and brought them to Planet Tyria. But then, we know the mists are proto-reality so all creatures may well be mist creatures rather than having evolved naturally on Planet-Tyria.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

If Cantha was actually part of the Tyrian-Elonian-supercontinent than Tyria (planet) would be so small that it possibly couldn’t even support an atmosphere.

Congratulations, you once more open with a COMPLETE misunderstanding of my point. Do you even bother reading my posts or are you just spouting nonsense because I don’t even see how you can get “Cantha is part of the Tyria/Elona supercontinent” out of “the first (major) landmass south of Cantha is the Tyria/Elona supercontinent.”

At this point, I’m not even going to bother with the rest of your post since it seems like you’re not even bothering to even try to understand me.

Oh, and fun fact: you’re presuming the world of Tyria functions the same way planets in reality do. Despite Tyria also being called a realm.

Well the whole argument lost it’s point when you decided to brush everything off with “eh magic”. What’s even the point of discussing anything, if you presume any possible weakpoints in your theory are fixed by inducing magic?
Yes magic does exist in Tyria, that’s no justification to be lazy though and say a wizard did it.

Except that I didn’t. Which weakpoint did I fix by magic? Because the only such possible weakpoint would be the rate of evolution, which is only weak when we take your presumption of the timeline that humans first arrived on continental Tyria in 205 BE – which itself isn’t right – or the presumption that the proto-norn came from that group of humans.

Nor have I ever once said “a wizard did it” or “it’s that was only because of magic” – besides, there’s a difference between “magic had influence” and “magic did it” let alone those two to explaining how magic had an influence.

“Dwarves I personally chock up to “because they were taken from standard fantasy” and I’d have to shrug it away.”

They are magical fantasy creatures, let’s ignore them!

“you’re presuming the world of Tyria functions the same way planets in reality do. Despite Tyria also being called a realm.”

Tyria is no planet it’s a magical place of wonder, like Disney Land! Wohooo!

And yes you must be presuming magical evolution since, even 10.000BE would be pretty fast to evolve so far away that they are almost twice as tall and can’t have any offspring. That means they belong at best to the same genus. And you have to keep in mind that they first have to get to the Far Shiverpeaks, which no matter how Tyria is shaped, will take some time, atleast a few houndred years, if they aren’t pressured away by an external force.
Which leads me back to my very first and most important point. Those are too many “ifs”, with every “if” making it more and more unlikely. Yes there is still a very slim possibility, but, again, without evidence, it’s just to little.

The way I see it, hominids in Tyria could have branched off into creatures like Grawl, giants, ogres, dwarves and Norn. They don’t even have to be evolved from one another. But if they did, Norn probably come from Jotun or have a common ancestor with them. By that they are still related to dwarves, but not to humans, because they came from another planet, with a complete different line. Why do they look like smaller Norn? Cosmic coincidence? Convergent evolution? Ancient aliens (the six) abducting Grawl to breed them into humans? Who knows. The important thing is that this is the easier explanation compared to, humans that come to Tyria, look already like dwarves, giants and other creatures and then some of them also evolve rapidly into a new genus the Hömö nornensis (the ö’s are for avoiding the censorship).

If there are already humanoids on the planet, why make up an unecessary complicated theory that one of those humanoids evolved from humans than they could have evolved from any other humanoid there? What sense does that make?

Dude, you may not like it, but Tyria is a magical place of wonder like Disney Land. It’s a fact not a shrug off. From everything we can tell it has no North or South Poles and absolutely no seasons except those created by magical means (winter from grenth or magical asuran devices). And yeah, evolution most likely didn’t happen in Tyria regularly. I’d verge to say that without a “magic sped things up” explanation that it would be impossible for anything like what we see to have all evolved on a single planet, especially in 10,000 or worse 2,000 years. I don’t know science perfectly, but that all seems rather impossible for so many groups to have evolved into sentience on a single planet with magical beings roaming everywhere, and there not being any magical influence on it.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

They are magical fantasy creatures, let’s ignore them!

That is in no way what I meant by what I said.

Rather, what I meant was that by a design standpoint, they are humanoid because they were taken from typical fantasy settings which in turn derive from norse mythology (which like how Greek mythology has a thing for half-man half-beast creatures, norse mythology has a thing for “they look very close to humans”). Furthermore, from a development standpoint, at the time of the dwarves’ introduction (Prophecies), humans had no indication of not being from another world but made by the gods while they were on the world, so modern lore may have changed since then.

Honestly, we can speculate all day and night long for why there are humanoid creatures in Tyria when humans weren’t of Tyria. And we’d get no answer. In the case of the norn, it could be anything from “they just happened to evolve to look human-like” to “they came from the Mists too” to even “the humans were creations of the Mists that copied, imperfectly, the norn” or hell even “the Six Gods made them after they arrived on the world” (honestly speaking, that last one is stronger than any other possibility when you consider everything).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Tyria is no planet it’s a magical place of wonder, like Disney Land! Wohooo!

Again, not what I was saying. Aside from the map I linked above, there’s at least one other indication that Tyria may not be a globe:

"_"In Abaddon’s name this realm will fall._

Why does a Margonite call the world a realm? Realms are only used to refer to places like The Underworld (aka Realm of the Dead), Mad Realm, Realm of Torment (aka Nightmare Realm), and Fissure of Woe (aka Realm of War) thus far – aka the very big places of existence within the Mists.

When you mix the two into each other, the world likely isn’t a globe but some other shape that would allow one to return to the original point if they head in one direction long enough. Alzager theorized (I’ll link again despite having done so already) that it’s a :torus":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus shape. And it very well be.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

And yes you must be presuming magical evolution since, even 10.000BE would be pretty fast to evolve so far away that they are almost twice as tall and can’t have any offspring.

I wonder how much of a biological background you have to make such a claim.

And here, how about this: if 10,000 BE isn’t enough time for norn to evolve from humans into a different species, then how the hell does life completely regrow in such a timeframe? Clearly it is possible in Tyria, whether it’d be possible in reality, simply because we know that the only survivors of the last Elder Dragon rise was five races, but there are well over 50 races in Tyria. Skritt, hylek, heket, harpy, tengu, ogre, giant, skale, skelk, raptors, wind riders, grawl, charr, centaur, asura, norn, krait, naga, leviathan (both Canthan and Tyrian versions which are clearly different), wurms, hydras, behemoths (both Tyrian and Elonian which lore wise are different), the various kinds of insects and plants, griffins, devourers, kodan, incubi, blood drinkers, gaki, krakens, etc. etc. etc.

So if 10,000 BE isn’t enough time to evolve, how did these creatures come to be from – if magic held no advancement in evolution – single-celled organisms or other minor creatures that managed to survive the same way mammals survived what killed the dinosaurs?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

snip

Which is what I’m saying. As long as magic is involved and the mists, anything could be true. Don’t try to have an argument with me about the scientific possibility of something evolving from something when we don’t know how this stuff even works in Tyria.
I said, Norn evolving from humans is only possible through magical evolution, otherwise it would simply be too fast. So if we take magic into account, then yes it is possible, if we don’t take it into account then no it’s is not possible.

Is Tyria a magical place? Yes it is. Can we apply physics to it? Yes we can, but some of it just wont make sense. The easy explanation is magic which we can do, but then the debate stops, because now we are talking about something we don’t fully understand. We don’t know it’s boundaries, it’s capabilities. Continuing to argue about something we can not understand, for the reason that it does not exist to be studied in the real world, is pointless.

To again summerize my theory, so it doesn’t get lost in those pointless ramblings about magic and science:
Human to Norn evolution is impossible in the given time frame, except for magic influence, which totally exsists in Tyria.
Jotun/Giant/Dwarf to Norn evolution is possible in the given time frame, with or without magic and even likely since life tends to explode after mass extinctions (like the ED cycles).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Which is what I’m saying. As long as magic is involved and the mists, anything could be true.

Funny, since you were saying the complete opposite earlier, and antagonizing me and exaggerating what I said for saying that before.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I said, Norn evolving from humans is only possible through magical evolution, otherwise it would simply be too fast.

Norn evolving from ANYTHING would require some degree of magic or extreme evolutionary rates. So bringing this up is pointless.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The easy explanation is magic which we can do, but then the debate stops, because now we are talking about something we don’t fully understand. We don’t know it’s boundaries, it’s capabilities. Continuing to argue about something we can not understand, for the reason that it does not exist to be studied in the real world, is pointless.

That’s rather simple minded. No, we don’t know its boundaries, but we know that it has boundaries. And we know many of its capabilities, even if not all. So with proper observation, the necessary capabilities – and whether said capabilities exceed the boundaries – can be descerned. Just saying “it’s magic” is not the end of the debate. Saying “a wizard did it” and ending discussion is for those who are either lazy, simple minded, or just don’t care. Once you get to that point, you then ask this: How did magic cause it? How did a wizard do it with magic?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Jotun/Giant/Dwarf to Norn evolution is possible in the given time frame, with or without magic and even likely since life tends to explode after mass extinctions (like the ED cycles).

No, it doesn’t, because we’d still have the same amount of time given for norn coming from jotun/giants/dwarves just as it would be for norn coming from humans. It doesn’t work one way here.

That seems to be your primary issue in comprehending – other than the geological situation of Tyria as we know it.

“Now you could argue that the Norn evolved from the humans after they came to Tyria, but that’s just a few thousand years ago, you could only explain it with fastened magical evolution, which is a possibility, but I don’t think we have any indication for that.”

From my second post in this thread. At what point did I talk about the complete opposite? If I look at my posts, almost all of them mention magical evolution as a possibility, but since atleast I don’t know how exactly magic could affects the transformation of life forms, I wont base my argument on it. I can only discuss with the facts I know.

Also you asume the humans could be on Tyria for more than 11,000 years. Well guess what we know (!) that dwarves and Jotun live on Tyria for longer than that. Besides that you can’t know if humans even are as old as you claim, and you can’t be sure if they even settled elsewhere first before they came to Cantha. Get that in your thick head, your whole argument is based on a ton of “ifs” and “maybes”. And every single one of them makes it more and more unlikely (not impossible, but unlikely).
I don’t know why I have to write that in every single post and you still refuse to understand that. But I am the one who can’t “comprehend” anything.
And how would it need magical evolution to develop from Jotun or dwarves? Because Norn can turn into bears? Because of dragons? Because shut up? Please tell me, I have no idea what you are getting at, since you continue to utterly fail to explain your random outbursts.

Please give me all your sources and research on magical evolution in Tyria, you seem to have them, since you claim to know exactly what effect it has on life forms. If you don’t have any, then stop pretending you know what exact effects it would have and accept that you can’t base your arguments on things you don’t know. How can you solve the equation, if you don’t know the variables?

draxynnic.3719:

Konig, could you post a link to the map? My own knowledge of geography is telling me you’re getting something horribly, horribly wrong with your assumptions, but it’ll help to see the map to doublecheck that I haven’t made a mental blunder… and to explain what would actually be happening.

I got the same vibe when reading it yesterday, and I think I know what’s bothering you, Drax.

@Konig: You are folding that map the wrong way into a globe. Imagine the spread map of Earth: the Antarctica appears as a thin strip of land.

You are so focused on trying to connect that southern strip of land with the arctic zones that you bend it incorrectly in your mind, along the horizontal axis (in other words: you are connecting south to north and vice versa). However, full atlas maps of Earth are always folded along the vertical axis (east to west and vice versa), which results in the laid-out form of the Antarctica becoming the “circular-like” shape it is in reality.

I believe it is no different in Tyria’s case either: by connecting the east and west side of the map, we get a circular island on the southern pole of the planet, and a similar rounded end to the Tyrian supercontinent at the North Pole. And at the same time, that cut off, lonely peninsula on the “eastern side” of the map perfectly matches with the cut off part of that western continent with that huge bay (Tyria’s America). In a real world analogy: that part which stretches over into the eastern side is Alaska (I’ve seen some maps where you could find Alaska on the eastern side, just “east” of the Kamchatka Peninsula, with the latter also appearing in the west, just “west” of Alaska.)

And personally, I’m a grand advocate of the Luxon – norn common ancestor theory – being one of its co-founders with Konig. This similarity even appears in the Canthan epic (fan-fiction) I’m writing, centered around the Dragon Empire’s birth and the decades that followed.

Both civilizations are nomadic, have grand tales of heroes, slayers, and battles, they would love to have themselves immortalized in legend, are never afraid of a good fight, are pretty short-tempered but otherwise honorable (the Serpent Clan, for instance, is known for hijacking Canthan vessels, but they always take excellent care of their captives until the ransom arrives), they are stalwart and tough. And most importantly: norn have Spirits of the Wild, Luxons have sea spirits (Zhu Hanuku the Kraken being the only known and named one, but I would be surprised if there weren’t spirits for Turtle, Crab, Serpent, Leviathan, etc. – funnily the Canthan version actually looks like an undersea wurm (you can see them frozen in jade in the Solid Ocean fractal), so it might be the same as the Wurm Spirit). And sexy Luxon ritualist Xandra is drawn to norn culture, as you can find her fighting in Magni’s Tournament in the far north (GW1). :P

I believe humanity first appeared on the “Antarctica” of Tyria, and the ethnicity from which the norn and the Luxons came to be broke up there, with the proto-Luxons going north on Tyria’s “Atlantic Ocean,” while the proto-norn went north on the other side, sailing through Tyria’s “Pacific Ocean.”

If you read the thread I linked, you’d see that your global analogy isn’t quite right.

Furthermore, the texture holds no warping due to it being a flattened square version of a sphere – because dimensions change when doing such, you either end up with distorted lengths (usually vertically longer near the poles – such as this map where Greenland is depicted to be nearly as large as South America (it’s not)), or you don’t have a quadrilateral map – be it having curves on the edges and the top and bottom looking warped (in a not-flat imagery sense), or a shape like this map. And in either case, a landmass that’d be at the pole itself should be stretched the full length of the map – just as Antarctica always is.

The thread I linked above explains it in much more detail, but it is fully accurate on that – the texture we’re given has the top and bottom matching just as it has the left and right sides; and furthermore, it doesn’t work for putting it onto a sphere without alterations, mainly due to both the shape and how the landmasses near the supposed “poles” don’t function as landmasses on globe maps at poles should.

Ok, so im a relative noob to this game, but I remember going to a Kodan village and I heard someone say that they used to be Norn but were turned into the bear form as punishment for something they did.

That’s the norn in-game theory (it’s kind of funny that the kodan and norn hold the same theory for the other race – kodan thinking norn got stuck in a lesser form and only able to temporarily take on the better bear form, while norn thinking kodan got stuck in bear form).

Thal pretty much has what I was thinking (and, for the record Konig, the post you indicated has a link doesn’t – it had plenty of other links, but not one to the map. Probably a case of you having planned to make a link and forgotten to do so, but thought you did – I have cases of ‘planned to do X’ turning into ‘thinking I’ve already done X’ a few times).

One thing that does support Konig’s interpretation, though, is that the east-west edges of the Tyrian Antarctica do actually seem to line up well with the top of the Tyrian continent. I haven’t rigorously lined them up, but I could see that wraparound happening. What we might have to do is look closely at the globe in the Chantry and see if that can reveal just what precisely is going on with Tyria’s continents. One possibility, for instance, could be that the map got cut off at the wrong point, and there actually shouldn’t be an ‘Antarctica’ at all.

BuddhaKeks: The reason why it would likely take magical evolution for norn to emerge from jotun or dwarves is time. While we have a number of different figures for the last awakening of the dragons, we’re pretty sure the last major extinction event happened no earlier than circa 10000BE. Nondirected evolution of sapient species with roughly human lifespan is something that takes hundreds of thousands of years – so there just hasn’t been enough time since the last extinction event.

Mind you, one possibility is that the norn developed elsewhere, and moved in to the vacuum left behind by the devastation of the civilisations that resisted the dragons. We have indications that the kodan, at least, were hiding out during the last awakening of the dragons – and, frankly, humans are unique in that they’re one race we know was elsewhere the last time the dragons were active (okay, harpies might be another, if the Elonian legend is true). Everything else, we don’t know, and their having been around – but not significant in the fight against the dragons – the last time the dragons were active is the simplest explanation.

One thing I would point out, though, is that we can probably scupper the idea that jotun look as they do now because of their fall. Not only has the same appearance been used for jotun that lived during or before the start of the fall, we’ve been told that ogres are related to jotun… and ogres certainly look a lot more like jotun than norn. Interestingly, female ogres also lack a certain expression of sexual dimorphism that is shared by humans and norn.

Drax, there’s a Priory Magister in Dredgehaunt Cliffs who speaks of jotun reliefs they found in the area. She says that if those reliefs are to be believed, then the jotun were better looking in their golden age.

The fact that we see the ugly jotun model used for the jotun stargazer and the ghostly Thuln is probably just a reuse of resources.

Thal, my point was that we have another race which we’ve been told is related to the jotun. The current jotun degenerated appearance is, yes, at least partially the result of generations of inbreeding, but the ogres provide another reference point that points away from the jotun having once appeared like the norn do now (especially where the women are concerned). They would have had a more noble countenance, yes, but I suspect it was in their own way, not in the sense of being like humans scaled up.

draxynnic.3719:

and, for the record Konig, the post you indicated has a link doesn’t – it had plenty of other links, but not one to the map. Probably a case of you having planned to make a link and forgotten to do so, but thought you did – I have cases of ‘planned to do X’ turning into ‘thinking I’ve already done X’ a few times

Ahem…

Myself

And given the globe we have, what’s south of Cantha? A small peninsula, a few Shing Jea-sized islands, and… the highest reaches (aka arctic area) of the Tyria/Elona super-continent. (Personal speculation – I think humans were taken from Orr, due to the Elder Dragons’ corruption/last influences that is why Balthazar burned the land of Orr completely (despite it supposedly happening after humans were brought to Orr) to the continent east of Cantha – which would be somewhat south of where they first appeared on Cantha and certainly south of Elona).

In this post – TYVM. I even linked it again in this post later.

I’m starting to get annoyed by folks not paying attention to what I say. Or type in this case.

draxynnic.3719:

I haven’t rigorously lined them up, but I could see that wraparound happening. What we might have to do is look closely at the globe in the Chantry and see if that can reveal just what precisely is going on with Tyria’s continents. One possibility, for instance, could be that the map got cut off at the wrong point, and there actually shouldn’t be an ‘Antarctica’ at all.

It was already done, in a thread I linked twice now – the first time being when I relinked the globe texture.

Myself

@Drax: I linked it two posts of mine above this one – it’s the one we all know and love And when I said that the top and bottom match while the left and right match – it was actually studied on this very forum before and the map was edited to this just by copy/pasting the four quadrants to the opposite sides.

Konig, you might notice that when I referred to it, I had seen it in the followup post (given that, y’know, I was agreeing that the ‘antarctic’ continent seemed to line up with the top of Tyria in the map). But in looking at the first post, I hadn’t seen it.

Looking at it again, I think it’s because the ‘link to a site you’ve been to before’ text colour in this forum is indigo and thus doesn’t stand out very well from black – and thus is missable when in a block of text.