Was fixing up the tengu wiki article just now and noticed a few things! Nothing solid enough to document on the wiki, but thought the lore forum might be interested in it nonetheless!
- The tengu took the awakening of Zhaitan to be a sign to return “home”, to Tyria. The tengu originally come from Tyria? Cool. The awakening of Zhaitan is some sort of positive sign? Strange, but whatever.
- Talon Silverwing, in the Far Shiverpeaks outposts, states
My people tell tales of the day when we will be free, when our lands will be revealed by a heavenly star and rise. When that day comes, human, only then will our races live in peace.
How does this tie together with what we already know? Well, it confirms that it wasn’t the Great Tsunami that told the tengu to go to Tyria for some reason (which makes sense because, well, that wouldn’t make any sense), but rather the new star in the sky, which we know from Arah P1 signals the awakening of an Elder Dragon.
This is interesting because it tells us that the tengu have some awareness of ancient jotun astrology, which fits in nicely with some other hints (courtesy of Genzhou Talonrend) that the tengu have some knowledge of the Elder Dragons’ last rise, and are in possession of forgotten lore from those times. Why, or how? Who knows. We don’t know a lot about ancient tengu history, but if the tengu were counted among the elder races, you’d have thought someone would’ve mentioned it by now.
But then I reread Talon’s dialogue. I get how a star that coincides with Zhaitan’s awakening could be interpreted as a signal to return home. But how do you know where home is? And wouldn’t Primordus, or Jormag’s, awakening, have created stars as well? Something’s fishy here, namely (and I might have spoiled that in the title a bit), Orr. The secret’s in the second half of his quote. The tengu didn’t know where home is, they were waiting for a sign. And not just a sign, they were waiting for their lands to “be revealed […] and rise”. That wasn’t just some shadily structured, ambiguous dialogue – when Zhaitan awoke, Orr literally rose. Zhaitan’s awakening is also known as drum roll the Rising of Orr! The pieces have been have been here the whole time, just waiting for someone to put them together!
…well, sort of. All of this stuff fits together pretty perfectly, but what does any of it mean? The first thing that springs to mind is that the tengu consider Orr their homeland, and the star of Zhaitan’s awakening is how they learned of it (and how do you forget where your homeland is in the first place, anyway? Although it would explain why the tengu are such staunch defenders of their history). But if not in a lore sense, this doesn’t make much sense from a developmental point of view. With Zhaitan gone, the tengu have few obstacles to moving to Orr, but that would require revamping the entire region and seriously affecting the structure of the personal story, which ANet clearly didn’t plan to do (and this theory was based on evidence that was all available at release, so any interpretations would have to fit those parameters and whatever design trajectories that ANet had planned at release). And from a lore point of view, the tengu have had over a year now, so why haven’t they upped and left the Dominion of Winds? Because this interpretation is probably wrong, that’s why.
But all that aside, this stuff fits together. And I have the feeling it means something. It doesn’t have anything directly contradicting it (which isn’t exactly strong evidence in its favour, but isn’t a bad sign either), and it makes existing ~mysterious~ lore make more sense, which definitely makes it look good. But what, exactly, does it mean?
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(edited by Tamias.7059)