Guild Wars 2

So i was wondering. Aside from the obvious real-life controversy of showing risen or icebrood or branded children, stricktly lore-wise, do you guys think there could be a reason why we never encounter a corrupted child/cub/progeny/little norn?

For the branded it could be explained that no children or cubs were in the path of Kralkatorrik, so there were no children to corrupt. Jormag and the icebrood seem mostly interested in power and strength, could be that they would be utterly uninterested about the meager power that turning a child would yield them.

However, Orr certainly had a number of young humans on the peninsula when Khilbron sank it, which in turn should have turned into risen. But we dont see any, and to my knowledge, it has never been brought up lore-wise why that could be. Power could no be a factor, since even freaking chicken and grubs were turned. And tiny spider hatchlings. So why not human children?

Because of “Oh my, you can kill children in this game! How embarrassing!”. And yes, those people WILL fail to see difference between children and undead children.

Most probably the diapers those children were wearing protect them from any form of corruption, a secret even Inquest seems to be unaware of.

There, your services are no longer required Pact! Now you just need to buy a pair of those for every Tyrian citizen and be done with it.

Risen children get “slurried” up and molded into the Risen Abominations. Hence their name.

Zaxares.5419:

Risen children get “slurried” up and molded into the Risen Abominations. Hence their name.

:( that’s terrible.

I’d go the explanation of “ArenaNet wanted a teen rated game” – undead babies to kill would probably made it mature rated.

In lore, I’m sure there’s corrupted children out there. Just as I’d say there are icebrood grawl/jotun/wurms or branded grawl/wurms/harpies.

Zaxares.5419:

Risen children get “slurried” up and molded into the Risen Abominations. Hence their name.

Well now, that was a buzzkill.

Yea, it’s all probably for the image.

Though it’d be funny if GW had a “Bad Nanny” title >.>

Yes its in the game. Here is a Risen Baby.

Here is a Risen Baby.

Like Konig said, it’d screw up the rating. The original Silent Hill had to cut out some of their monster children models for that specific reason.

Partially because the monstrousness of the children themselves, and because you would have to kill them. It would have pushed an already high rating much further than they wanted, and it most certainly would have done the same for GW2. I’d love to see it because this game can really use some more mature themes, but it just won’t happen.

I’ll be like the guy above and pretend that corrupted children on their own are so weak and useless that they basically get cannibalized to make more powerful monsters.

Here is a Risen Baby.

Zaxares.5419:

Risen children get “slurried” up and molded into the Risen Abominations. Hence their name.

That is horrible but creative.
Extra points if the Abominations start asking “Are you my mommy?” like the creatures in Doctor Who.

Rednik.3809:

Because of “Oh my, you can kill children in this game! How embarrassing!”. And yes, those people WILL fail to see difference between children and undead children.

For some reason people always fail to see the difference between real children and computer programs that look like children (npc’s). I never understood what the problem is with having killable children in a game, yet killing/slaughtering every other living thing is acceptable.

While I can see some argument for it, and I’m not generally opposed to violence in video games, killing virtual kids is still, to me, a lot more unsettling than killing virtual adults, even if they were zombies. While in game terms, there might not be a practical difference, in symbolic terms, it’s a lot nastier, and I don’t think GW2 wants to get that dark.

The fun fact, Redekittens that their background is fully dark – has been since Prophecies (Seared Ascalon, anyone?). Everything about the plot and the background is, even Scarlet’s stuff. But they go and make it comedic to keep that teen rating.

Children dragon minions would likely be in the game if ArenaNet wasn’t so concerned about that teen rating. And I bet there’d be a lot less cheesy comedy and rl references being made. Trying to stick to a specific rating really destroys one’s creating capabilites.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Rednik.3809:

Because of “Oh my, you can kill children in this game! How embarrassing!”. And yes, those people WILL fail to see difference between children and undead children.

For some reason people always fail to see the difference between real children and computer programs that look like children (npc’s). I never understood what the problem is with having killable children in a game, yet killing/slaughtering every other living thing is acceptable.

I blame Scarlet. She was too soft to put bombs next to kids. If we saw kids dead in Queen’s Jubilee, we might actually take her more seriously.

They don’t need to actually show kids dead on the ground. Just have a bomb go off next to them, and the kids disappears (e.g. blow up to pieces). So they can keep the teen rating and dark theme from GW1 preserved.

Keep in mind that many kids died in The Searing. Many kids died to Afflicted. The White Mantle would have killed everyone (including kids) in Beetletun if we didn’t stop them.

The transformation is too much for the tiny child bodies so they perish instead?

It has been ages since i last played through it, but dont some children get killed in the oprhanage arson human PS mission if you choose to go to the Vanguard hospital?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’d go the explanation of “ArenaNet wanted a teen rated game” – undead babies to kill would probably made it mature rated.

Not only that, but the game would not have been permitted to be sold in certain countries/regions.

This is completely made up and has absolutely no evidence backing it.

Dragon corruption cannot affect the innocent. The corruption, like a vine, needs something to grow on within the person (such as guilt or sin). People that are free of guilt have nothing in them that the corruption could grow its roots in. This also neatly explains why the Pale Tree Sylvari are immune to dragon corruption – and may also make it plausible that the nightmare court and SB are not entirely immune.

Right. The undead chicken were originally nasty sinners. Sorry for sounding sarcastic or even mean, but this not only have no evidence backing it, it has a number of evidence directly making it nonsense.

Dragon corruption is not the same as moral corruption. Not even close to it.

@lakdav It is said that they were, but it all happens offscreen, and iirc it has no effect on the little tykes running around there in the home instance.

On a related note, I honestly laughed at the absurdity of it all when Scarlet bombed all the citizens gathered for the Queen’s speech- and the only survivor just happened to be the only kid present.

Obviously Zhaitan has a soft spot for children, so far so that not only will its corruption never reach them, but it also personally expends a vast amount of its power so that no child in the entirety of Tyria can ever be harmed.

Sounds plausible to me.

^ Unfortunately, it expended too much, and wasn’t even able to defend itself when the big bad hero came along with a pet asuran deus ex machina. But not to fear! Scarlet has generously taken over, using the one power capable of resisting the depredations of the player character- sylvari ex machina!

CHIPS.6018:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Rednik.3809:

Because of “Oh my, you can kill children in this game! How embarrassing!”. And yes, those people WILL fail to see difference between children and undead children.

For some reason people always fail to see the difference between real children and computer programs that look like children (npc’s). I never understood what the problem is with having killable children in a game, yet killing/slaughtering every other living thing is acceptable.

I blame Scarlet. She was too soft to put bombs next to kids. If we saw kids dead in Queen’s Jubilee, we might actually take her more seriously.

They don’t need to actually show kids dead on the ground. Just have a bomb go off next to them, and the kids disappears (e.g. blow up to pieces). So they can keep the teen rating and dark theme from GW1 preserved.

Keep in mind that many kids died in The Searing. Many kids died to Afflicted. The White Mantle would have killed everyone (including kids) in Beetletun if we didn’t stop them.

Yet another thing that baffles me, killing kids in video games is fine as long as you don’t actually see it for some reason.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

^ Unfortunately, it expended too much, and wasn’t even able to defend itself when the big bad hero came along with a pet asuran deus ex machina. But not to fear! Scarlet has generously taken over, using the one power capable of resisting the depredations of the player character- sylvari ex machina!

Quite!

At the end of the game, the twist is that the players were the bad guys all along, trying to destroy the benevolent Zhaitan / Scarlet / Canach / Mai Trin in order to indiscriminately murder all the children of Tyria at will.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Yet another thing that baffles me, killing kids in video games is fine as long as you don’t actually see it for some reason.

We humans have a whole lot of silly taboos. Watching a slasher horror where people are mutilated with great creativity is allright, while watching porn that is indirectly reproduction and creation is still something you do mostly in secret. Thank god for the torture porn genre bridging across these two.

But on point, the dilemma of showing/telling things is an interesting one here. Telling doesnt have the same impact as showing, yet the world would still be the same. Nobody sees ingame when your friend is carved up by Two-Blade Pete, but an NPC mentioning that the seraph found half of him in one corner of the city while the other was in a fountain, that turned the tone of that story arch incredibly dark without even showing anything.

I can understand Anet not putting time and effort (modelling, animating and voicing risen children in the game) into something that could potentially blow a controversy into their faces, but it would be nice to have a taste of just how dark things can get. I could imagine some kind of recouperation camp for Orr veterans, just talking about the disturbing horrors they saw, without ANet having to inject killable risen infants into the game.

my speculation might just be that dragon corruption is just way too much for children’s bodies to handle and they just sort of rot completely to dust and good if attempts are made to turn them into risen, whereas icebrood and branded children would just, well, turn into a crystallized heap.

Sort of basing it off of how L4D’s green flue works.

Elric.6971:

my speculation might just be that dragon corruption is just way too much for children’s bodies to handle and they just sort of rot completely to dust and good if attempts are made to turn them into risen, whereas icebrood and branded children would just, well, turn into a crystallized heap.

Sort of basing it off of how L4D’s green flue works.

But hutchlings still can be corrupt. Is animal childs so different from human/norn/asura/charr?

Maybe its the mammal reproduction aspect of livebirth that makes the difference. Drake, spider and bird eggs seem to produce risen offsprings, while there are no risen bull, bear or gorilla cubs (or whatever they are called). Why, i have no idea. Maybe the life force is more stable and safer in eggs than it would be in mostly vulnerable and weak undeveloped creatures.

Now I really want to see branded moa chicks…