Guild Wars 2

So ever since the first time I played this fractal, I thought it reminded me a lot of the story of Prometheus.

In greek mythology, Prometheus creates humans, making them from his own image out of some sort of clay. He is told by Zeus to not help them, yet Prometheus does anyway, giving them the gift of fire. Zeus finds out and chains Prometheus to a rock, having a crow peck out his eyes and liver, which then regenerate so it can do it again, for all eternity. Prometheus is eventually saved by Hercules. (Prometheus is often referred to by theologians as sort of the Greek mythology Jesus figure)

I’m wondering if this fractal was inspired by this story, and what the implications might be for Guild Wars lore if it was.

I think the similarities and allusions to the story are obvious.

The Colossus is chained up to a wall, he has a human figure. Why he was chained up we don’t know. But the enemies are called “Arch Diviners”. A diviner is someone who is working in the service of a deity. So it’s possible the diviners are keeping the Colossus chained up in the service of a deity.

So here’s some things I think this could imply, if the fractal is indeed an allusion to the story of Prometheus:

- The Colossus was ordered to be chained up by one of the gods in the Guild Wars 2 universe. Which one we don’t know, but I’m guessing it could have been Abbadon.

- The Colossus may have had some hand in helping humans.

- Remember, humans did not originate from Tyria. They somehow came from some other planet. If this is indeed related to the origin of humanity, it’s possible that this is either some other planet, or that the Colossus somehow came to Tyria from another planet.

- The surroundings of the fractal look a bit Canthan. This could mean two possible things (again assuming this is related to an origin story). What we’re seeing is indeed Cantha, OR, if this is the original planet humans originated from, it could mean that the first humans settled in Cantha and their archaeological designs stuck.

Anyway, I think it’s an interesting possibility. I could be way off here, but who knows. what do you think?

Well thinking logically, Canthan/Kurzick/Luxon territories were the original human settlements. Tyria (continent) wasn’t settled by humanity til much later. So the correlation between architectures could stand as a possibility of this being true. I mean we don’t really see anything about Kurzick or Luxon architecture that wasn’t entirely effected by the Jade Wind which took place thousands of years after humanity appeared in Cantha. Now people may point out that there is a distinct difference between that architecture and the architecture seen in mainland Tyria/Elona, but if you think about it honestly, much of this architecture was likely shaped very much by what humans could see of Arah, the city of the gods. And from there it evolved over the centuries to become something entirely different.

The form of the colossus, being the likeness of a human, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is linked to the origin of humanity. It would not be the first time that we know of a human like entity created within the mists (Razah), but if this were the case I find it interesting that the creatures holding back the Colossus are indeed humans. One theory that people may possess is that perhaps the original planet of humanity was not peaceful (the fact that they left it seems to point in this direction). Perhaps there was a war that split humanity between factions, perhaps even between gods, forcing the 6 that we know of to leave that world, with their followers, and find a new home. Somehow the Colossus was on their side, but he got left behind and sealed up to prevent him from assisting them, and those human diviners are followers of another pantheon of gods. Speculating is always fun I personally think it would be cool if we could somehow find our way to that human homeworld, but with the already overwhelming amount of human oriented sectors of the mists (Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Hall of Heroes, Realm of Torment) I get the feeling that they will spend more time expanding on the realms of more of the other races (Great Forge, Realms of the Spirits of the Wild).

@Narcemus: Canthans were not the original settlers. Luxons have really old tales of coming from another land across an ocean, and they and Kurzicks predate the northern Canthans on the continent. They came from somewhere else – Jeff Grubb implied somewhere to the south of Cantha in an interview.

Similarly, nothing implies that Tyrians/Elonians come from Cantha.

And I don’t think the Spirits of the Wild have realms. Raven himself is tied to the Underworld, after all (and similarly, the charr believe in the Realm of Torment). Also, norn call the Hall of Heroes the “Hall of Spirits.”

I don’t see any similarity other than the fact that both the fractal and the myth involve a being that is imprisoned, the titans weren’t actually of colossus size in Greek mythology and the use of the word to represent that is a modern construction

That being said the colossus fractal is my favorite because it feels literally epic and larger than life, and I would love to know more about the story behind the colossus

well if you read my post you’d see it involves more than just “being imprisoned”.

It involves diviners keeping him imprisoned. Diviners are people who do the bidding of a deity. So a deity is keeping this colossus imprisoned.

Also while it is true the titans weren’t necessarily gigantic, MOST modern representations of them in media DO PORTRAY THEM AS GIGANTIC. (See: God of War, the Titans movies, etc etc). I also think there is significance to the fact that this giant has a human form.

The other reason I believe this is an allusion to SOMETHING is just about every aspect of Guild Wars 2 has been borrowed from some piece of old literature.

I mean the entire elder dragons lore is borrowing off H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, with Zhaitan basically being a giant Cthulhu dragon. Also the various cult factions (sons of svanir etc) trying to bring back the ancient dragons (a common theme in many Lovecraft books).

I think Guild Wars 2 does a fantastic job of this by the way, but that being said their literary allusions are hardly subtle most of the time. They borrow many other things from greek mythology as well, such as serpents and animals being villains – first portrayed in Greek mythology, a concept the Greeks really drove home where earthly and snake-like things were “evil”, and celestial beings usually carried a human form. Minotaurs (also greek mythology), a woman who becomes a spider (minerva), the list goes on.

Diviners are not just those who do the bidding of deities (that’s actually a very narrow view of what diviners are, and is about as false as portraying the Greek Titans as titanic). Diviners are, first and foremost, those who divine – that is to say, they are seers, fortune tellers, prophets, and the like. The name comes from the verb divine, rather than the adjective divinity.

Anyways, Anet have portrayed that with GW2, they want to avoid archetypes. Centaurs, minotaurs, and most other things coming from common mythologies are all from GW1. You’ll note that those things which are GW2-exclusive seldom reference other things – and when they do, they’re much more accurate than your standard fantasy game (dwarves turning into stone, for example, is part of Norse mythology though done in a very different mean – Tolkien took this aspect of dwarves in Norse mythos and gave it to cave trolls, that is they turn to a statue (dying in the process) when touched by sunlight). Even the Elder Dragons, while sharing the same concept of the Cthulhu mythos as being beings that can’t be understood because they’re so ancient and different, are still vastly different from anything I’ve seen in Cthulhu mythos (and comparing the Sons of Svanir to the Cthulhu mythos tribe seems terribly off too, for that matter! The mentality is completely different unless you remember a story I didn’t read).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Diviners are not just those who do the bidding of deities (that’s actually a very narrow view of what diviners are, and is about as false as portraying the Greek Titans as titanic). Diviners are, first and foremost, those who divine – that is to say, they are seers, fortune tellers, prophets, and the like. The name comes from the verb divine, rather than the adjective divinity.

Anyways, Anet have portrayed that with GW2, they want to avoid archetypes. Centaurs, minotaurs, and most other things coming from common mythologies are all from GW1. You’ll note that those things which are GW2-exclusive seldom reference other things – and when they do, they’re much more accurate than your standard fantasy game (dwarves turning into stone, for example, is part of Norse mythology though done in a very different mean – Tolkien took this aspect of dwarves in Norse mythos and gave it to cave trolls, that is they turn to a statue (dying in the process) when touched by sunlight). Even the Elder Dragons, while sharing the same concept of the Cthulhu mythos as being beings that can’t be understood because they’re so ancient and different, are still vastly different from anything I’ve seen in Cthulhu mythos (and comparing the Sons of Svanir to the Cthulhu mythos tribe seems terribly off too, for that matter! The mentality is completely different unless you remember a story I didn’t read).

1 . Diviners definition from google dictionary:

Adjective
Of, from, or like God or a god.
Devoted to God; sacred: “divine liturgy”.

From thefreedictionary.com:

1.
a. Having the nature of or being a deity.
b. Of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a deity: sought divine guidance through meditation.
c. Being in the service or worship of a deity; sacred.
2. Superhuman; godlike.
3.
a. Supremely good or beautiful; magnificent: a divine performance of the concerto.
b. Extremely pleasant; delightful: had a divine time at the ball.
4. Heavenly; perfect.
n.
1. A cleric.
2. A theologian.

2. As I said (if you actually read the posts before posting), almost ALL modern media portray the titans as giants. In fact I can’t even THINK of a piece of modern media that doesn’t do this. Most people do associate the titans with large size and therefore it’s understandable that Anet would do the same thing.

3. “the elder dragons are so ancient and differen’t they can’t be understood” = EVERYTHING IN EVERY LOVECRAFT BOOK. EVER. They don’t share anything else? Well let’s see:

a. as mentioned before, Zhaitan LOOKS like Cthulhu in dragon form.
b. When the dragons come back everything will be destroyed. In Lovecraft’s books, when the outer gods return, all things will be destroyed.
c. the gods are not understood at all, because they’re so ancient (also many are amorphous). The dragons are not understood at all because they’re so ancient.
d. Various cults want to side with the dragons and bring them back. In lovecraft books various cults want to bring the outer gods back.

4. Cthulhu mythos “tribe”? Which H.P. Lovecraft books have you actually read??? I think you’ve read exactly 0. Also Zhaitan WAS Cthulhu in dragon form, if you can’t see that I don’t know what to tell you. Also here are a few cults in the Cthulhu mythos, how you haven’t heard of them if you’ve read Lovecraft I have no idea.

- Church of Starry Wisdom – worships Nyarlathotep
- Esoteric Order of Dagon – Worships the deep ones – evil beings from the ocean (risen…)
- Every single one of the cults who tried throughout history to use the Necronomicon to summon the old ones

5. Your comment about GW2 exclusive things being “more accurate” and less archtypal? WHAT!?

a. Woman turning into spider = minerva (greek mythology) = GW2 specific
b. Krait = Serpent monsters (greek mythology) = GW2 specific
c. Zhaitan = Cthulhu (Lovecraftian) = GW2 Specific
d. Wyld Hunt = Norse Mythology = GW2 Specific
e. Tar/Ooze monsters = Classic Lovecraft, he introduced the concept of amorphous ooze monsters = GW2 specific
f. Sylvari = all have gaelic names, bare resemblance to Celtic mythology = GW2 specific
g. Asura = characters in Hindu, Buddhist, and Indo-Iranian folklore (and are hardly “accurately” represented as these asura only defy gods by using science and technology, they are hardly evil) = GW2 specific (unless you count eye of the north)
h. Dredge = many references to the USSR (not mythology, more of a symbolic reference but definitely not going as far as to be a microcosm)
I. Caladbolg (got this one from the wiki) = is the name of Fergus mac Róich’s sword in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.
J. Karma = Hindu lore
K. Jormag = Jörmungandr (norse mythology)

I could keep going…but really I can’t think of too many things in guild wars 2 that AREN’T borrowed from some sort of mythology or other piece of literature…

1. From dictionary.com

di·vin·er
noun
1. a person who divines; soothsayer; prophet.
2. a person skilled in using a divining rod.

2. I did read your post. But what others do is irrelevant in the long run. Anet has mentioned many times that they don’t want to make just another copy of an MMO – and they prevent this not just in their mechanics but also in their lore. Yes, there are references – especially from GW1 – but if you take note, there are no Greek mythos Titans in Guild Wars. The Six Gods have predecessors (some of them), and the gods themselves are gigantic (at least some of the time/some of them), but those predecessors are just gods. There were also Titans in GW1, but they were not forefathers of the gods. There’s nothing to indicate that this thing is along the same lines.

3. a. Really? ZHaitan looks like a human with bat wings and an octopus for a head? He looks nothing like that. Not even if you put it in “dragon form.” The closest part is that he has “tendrils” coming from his mouth – but those aren’t tentacles but smaller dragon heads/necks.

b) The Outer Gods don’t live in cycles, iirc (it has been a while since I’ve delved into Cthulhu mythos mind you). The Elder Dragons in this regard are more akin to the hundreds upon hundreds – and many are far older than H.P.Lovecraft – world cycle concepts where some force or calamity “resets” the world where life begins anew. Plus, when the ED awaken, not everything gets destroyed – its all corrupted or devoured, until there’s nothing left to do such to, where they then hibernate to let it regrow. Very different.

c. You didn’t play the personal story did you? Some parts of the ED are being understood, actually. But as I said, this is the closest similarity.

d. 1 cult, which doesn’t really amount to a cult TBH, and holds next to no similarity with any cult of the “primitive” people that Lovecraft put said cults in (as opposed to the Sons of Svanir who are of one of the most advanced races).

4. When I said tribe, I was referring to the tribal people which Lovecraft tends to use for the cults basis. And nope, don’t see Cthulhu in Zhaitan. Because Zhaitan isn’t an octopus head. Nor is he related to the depths of the ocean. And I wasn’t saying there aren’t cults. Stop misinterpreting me. I said there are non like the Sons of Svanir – again, that I recall/read (as said, it’s been a while). Sons of Svanir are sexist, of among the most advanced races, hates everything that’s not them more or less, seeks power and glory through Jormag, and views Jormag to be on par but the best of all other deity figures.

5. What I meant was that stuff unique to GW2 (you listed many things that came from GW1, btw – I’ll get to that in a bit) tends to be more original than most, but those which carry from GW1 tend to be brought even more accurate to the mythological roots than most archtypal fantasy story views. For example:
a. Where is there a woman who turns into a spider in GW2? Because I’ve not seen such.
b. Play Eye of the North. Also – wiki is your friend “Bungarus, commonly referred to as kraits (pronounced “Kra-its”), is a genus of venomous elapid snakes found in South and South-East Asia." Snake people is far far FAR more common than Greek mythology (Chinese naga, for example), by the way.
c. Hardly. He was designed to be a dragon made out of dragons – though the final product hardly looks like such aside from the many heads, wings, and tails.
d. Celtic, actually. And the concepts are vastly different – sylvari hold a lot of influence form celtic and gaelic but that’s pretty much all – influence. Same with norn from norse. If you take note, Wild Hunts are when fae go on a hunt during which they may hunt down humans in their path. Norn in Norse mythos are three sisters of fate. etc.
e. Ehhh, no he didn’t. Amorphous oozes predate Lovecraft and are very generic. Also, Eye of the North.
f. Right, names and influences, but sylvari don’t come from anything.
g. True, the name comes from real religions, but 1) Eye of the North and 2) they’re not archtypal.
h. Dredge don’t come from anything, but as said, they do hold influences. Also: Prophecies.
i. This is the strongest aspect of taking mythology directly, and this point I concede, but I never did say Anet holds no influence.
j. A common concept spread throughout the world (even if highly misused) by now. Though originates from Hindu, it’s not a reference to Hinduism.
k. Ehhh, that’s debatable. Anet rarely makes direct references to the same mythological character/object. And Eye of the North had Jormungand.

You need to learn the difference between “influence” and “reference” from what an archtype is. Because you’re only listing the former, but I’m talking about the latter.

I always thought he was a giant Silver Surfer

He looks more like Dr.Manhatten, thankfully he has decided that he still needs some clothes though. :P

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Narcemus: Canthans were not the original settlers. Luxons have really old tales of coming from another land across an ocean, and they and Kurzicks predate the northern Canthans on the continent. They came from somewhere else – Jeff Grubb implied somewhere to the south of Cantha in an interview.

Similarly, nothing implies that Tyrians/Elonians come from Cantha.

And I don’t think the Spirits of the Wild have realms. Raven himself is tied to the Underworld, after all (and similarly, the charr believe in the Realm of Torment). Also, norn call the Hall of Heroes the “Hall of Spirits.”

Well, I had originally read that to mean that they came from the southern end of the continent, which, if the map we’ve seen of the world is correct, makes more sense being as south of the continent of Cantha is just above the Antarctic. But yes I was making a lot of assumptions. The biggest assumption was that humanity was only mentioned as being brought to Tyria once and being brought into the South of Cantha, so it would make sense to me that all of humanity came from once source (the original exodus).

I’m pretty sure all humans came to Tyria at one time,though the Orrian History Scrolls claims it was at Arah – which I doubt given human history’s known fallacies and how humans are said to have first arrived on continental Tyria via ships hundreds of years after they’ve been on Cantha. But there’s a few key points that really give us an origin denotation to humanity.

From An Empire Divided

• “Even in Tyria, we humans have forgotten where we came from…literally. All that is known of the origin of the Tyrian human race is that our species appeared more than 1,200 years ago on the northern continent. Humans settled Cantha even earlier, however, and appear to have done so on multiple occasions during what Canthans call the Late Pre-Imperial Era. Even less is known about the origin of the Luxon and Kurzick peoples, who arrived on the continent after the tribes that would become modern Canthans settled the northwest coast and Shing Jea Island. The humans of Cantha may have actually originated on Shing Jea, though this has never been proven.”
  • (seems I misremembered that Kurzicks/Luxons came after the northern Canthans, though I am pretty sure I read somewhere the reverse.)
• “Historians doubt the Kurzick nation originated on the Canthan continent, but to this day, even they do not remember whence they came to dwell in the Echovald Forest.”
• “Luxon children still hear stories of their people’s original home, a nameless place far across the open ocean and lost now to the land-bound faction, seemingly forever. Some historians believe that new discoveries point to a Luxon presence in the Crystal Desert more than a thousand years ago, but just as many believe this to be a misinterpretation of the evidence. "
  • (note: those “historians” likely confuse relics of Margonites with being of Luxon origin, given how we learn that historians treat Margonites as myths pre-Nightfall.)

From Orrian History Scrolls

• “The first of the gods to step forth from the mists was Dwayna, goddess of air and life. She placed her pale foot on the stones of Arah, opened the gates, and brought humanity to the world.”

From an interview

• They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world). It seems, from their previous appearances, that they have come up from the south, so the “human homeland” may be further south than Elona and Cantha.

From another interview

• 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; to the time of the writing of the Tome of Rubicon. In those ancient days, the Seers fought against the mursaat, but they were in turn defeated by their enemies, and their civilization lost to the ravages of time.

Then the timelines we’re given is that humanity arrived on Tyria and Elona in 205 BE, and on northern coasts of Cantha in 786 BE. The forgotten are said to have arrived on Tyria (never specified which Tyria mind you) in 1769 BE, and they were around during the last ED rise (the only relation between Six Gods and ED we currently have known is that they didn’t know Zhaitan was beneath Arah when they split the Bloodstone).

All indication really puts humanity as having been brought to the world around the 1700s, with forgotten brought up north and humans down south away from the ED conflict. Should the lore on forgotten being brought by the Six still be true, and the implication given by Seiran about the age of dwarven civilization (her saying the oldest ruins from the dawn of said civilization is “over 2,000 years old” which would be odd if it was more than 3,000 years old) be an accurate enough timeframe of 1,000 years for dwarven civilization’s birth, would pinpoint the Six Gods arriving during the last ED rise and using the forgotten to combat them.

Well, I guess that just because the gods brought humans into Tyria at one time, they didn’t have to put them in just one specific location. In fact with beasts like the Elder Dragons around they could have put the humans in multiple locations in order to make sure that they didn’t get fully wiped out in one fell swoop. If this is true then perhaps many of these “facts” are relatively true.

Well the only fact that’s contradictory is the one from the Orrian History Scrolls. Everything else points to humanity coming from a continent other than Cantha that’s “likely south of Cantha and Elona.” Other than that, regarding the gods’ appearance, would be whether or not the forgotten were brought to the world by the Six Gods.

Dr Aneurysm.7028:

well if you read my post you’d see it involves more than just “being imprisoned”.

It involves diviners keeping him imprisoned. Diviners are people who do the bidding of a deity. So a deity is keeping this colossus imprisoned.

Also while it is true the titans weren’t necessarily gigantic, MOST modern representations of them in media DO PORTRAY THEM AS GIGANTIC. (See: God of War, the Titans movies, etc etc). I also think there is significance to the fact that this giant has a human form.

The other reason I believe this is an allusion to SOMETHING is just about every aspect of Guild Wars 2 has been borrowed from some piece of old literature.

I mean the entire elder dragons lore is borrowing off H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, with Zhaitan basically being a giant Cthulhu dragon. Also the various cult factions (sons of svanir etc) trying to bring back the ancient dragons (a common theme in many Lovecraft books).

I think Guild Wars 2 does a fantastic job of this by the way, but that being said their literary allusions are hardly subtle most of the time. They borrow many other things from greek mythology as well, such as serpents and animals being villains – first portrayed in Greek mythology, a concept the Greeks really drove home where earthly and snake-like things were “evil”, and celestial beings usually carried a human form. Minotaurs (also greek mythology), a woman who becomes a spider (minerva), the list goes on.

The evil nature of serpents predates Greek mythos, stretching back to (most notably from ancient Aramaic sources) the dawn of written history, and probably long before it. Whether you argue from a religious standpoint or a naturalist standpoint (i.e., snakes automatically associated with evil and death since the rise of intelligence, owing to their obvious subtle dangers, and mankind’s subsequent fear and aversion), you cannot attach the “evil nature of serpents” idea to one particular culture, especially one so relatively modern.

I don’t know if it shares relation to this, but I found this in the wiki;

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Season_of_the_Colossus

Could those people guarding the seals be fanatics for the dragons and the colossus actually be a weapon to fight the dragons.

Some very interesting points! Just to recap – what do we know about the Colossus encountered during the fractal (lore-wise)..?

Samitan.6192:

Could those people guarding the seals be fanatics for the dragons and the colossus actually be a weapon to fight the dragons.

Considering that this takes place in the Mists, and there are no Elder Dragons in the Mists – except the rather recent icebrood and Sons of Svanir presence caused by them kidnapping a norn havroun – extremely unlikely.

DayLight.9603:

Some very interesting points! Just to recap – what do we know about the Colossus encountered during the fractal (lore-wise)..?

Just about nothing.