Guild Wars 2

first of all, i know interspecies breeding is impossible so lets try not to go there XD
Maybe there’s already a discussion about this before, idk but, im talking about the relationships. In a place like LA for example, huge melting pot and all, is it possible for an interspecies relationships to happen? Or any other place for that matter thats more culturally diverse in game?

In our world:
Do friendship between different people exist?
Do fetichism exists?
Do love that surpass physical atraction exist?
Do texting, ERP and costume play exist?
Do perversion, intelectual atraction and extreme curiosity exist?

In Tyria:
Do magic exist?
Do mesmers exist?
Do permanent sex change exist? (hint: yes)

Make your own conclussions.

Ardid.7203:

Do permanent sex change exist? (hint: yes)

I’m not certain about this one. I know there’s that one person in Lion’s Arch who was originally a man but is now a woman, but I believe she talks about how being a mesmer makes it easier, thus implying that at least some of it is illusionary. Maybe I need to speak with her again, but that’s what I’ve taken out of it.

As far as the interspecies relationships go, it seems like the breeding aspect is a huge barricade for most if not all relationships. We definitely never see any characters directly, though there are hints, like whatever relationship Rox and Braham have with each other, or the various skritt having a crush on the Exalted (although if that’s actually romantic or just a SHINY fixation is difficult to tell).

So, officially, no there are no interspecies relationships on a romantic level. Of course, I’m now trying to imagine a human enjoying the tender embrace of a charr, or an asura and norn kiss and see problems in both cases. Maybe it will happen, but the species might just to be too difficult to properly mesh.

On the other hand, we do see a few cases of individuals openly admiring members of another race… although it’s all kept inside the three that look like one another (human, norn, sylvari), unless you want to interpret Macha’s attachment to Cobiah as more than platonic.

Maybe norn and humans can mate since norn are just humans with gigantisism.. or humans are norn with dwarfism..
kinda like a donkey and horse breeding to have non-fertile children..
just a wild guess, though

… kitten, now I’m going to have to write a Charr/Asura romance story.

Sartharina.3542:

… kitten, now I’m going to have to write a Charr/Asura romance story.

I think their core values would differ too much for a romantic relationship

Amaimon.7823:

Maybe norn and humans can mate since norn are just humans with gigantisism.. or humans are norn with dwarfism..
kinda like a donkey and horse breeding to have non-fertile children..
just a wild guess, though

Humans aren’t from tyria, so they are explicitly NOT "mini norn ". In fact the topic of interbreeding between norn and humans was brought up in GW1. Its been mentioned that no child would result from that. In fact that’s true for any interbreeding between any two races. Its been explicitly mentioned.

castlemanic.3198:

Amaimon.7823:

Maybe norn and humans can mate since norn are just humans with gigantisism.. or humans are norn with dwarfism..
kinda like a donkey and horse breeding to have non-fertile children..
just a wild guess, though

Humans aren’t from tyria, so they are explicitly NOT "mini norn ". In fact the topic of interbreeding between norn and humans was brought up in GW1. Its been mentioned that no child would result from that. In fact that’s true for any interbreeding between any two races. Its been explicitly mentioned.

I never liked the norn anyway, in design, that is. I mean, they just took humans and made them a bit bigger and called them a complete new, unique and unrelated race. It kinda reeks of lack of imagination. I mean, they could’ve at least given them some traits or unique looks that made us think “okay, they’re not big humans”.
I mean, even if they can’t breed at all, I refuse to believe humans and norn are completely unrelated. It’s almost inconceivable for 2 species to look 99.9% identical and have zero association, even if you have to go back to the first days of the Mists..

Amaimon.7823:

Sartharina.3542:

… kitten, now I’m going to have to write a Charr/Asura romance story.

I think their core values would differ too much for a romantic relationship

Ah, but that just means there’s so many more obstacles to overcome! Lots of opportunities to puppy it up, but you also want to cheer them on so much more.

Asura and Charr can without any doubt solve any compatibility problem with technology…

Amaimon.7823:

It’s almost inconceivable for 2 species to look 99.9% identical and have zero association, even if you have to go back to the first days of the Mists..

That’s… actually almost always the case in fantasy. GW2 is better than most settings, true- it’s pretty much just humans, norn, and dwarves who look like different proportions of the same species, out of a pool of about thirty- but take your standard Tolkein races of humans, elves, dwarves, and hobbits/halflings, out of a pool of five. With the possible exception of humans and halflings, there weren’t any relation between those groups. It’s a vexing trope, but it’s well enough entrenched in the genre that speculating on a common biological origin is almost always a lost cause.

Apply that specifically to the Guild Wars setting, where everything was created from the Mists and one of the most frequent properties of the Mists is imperfect copying of what already exists… I don’t think a connection between norn and humans is likely, beyond possibly having one serve as the ‘template’ that was used when forming the other.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Amaimon.7823:

It’s almost inconceivable for 2 species to look 99.9% identical and have zero association, even if you have to go back to the first days of the Mists..

That’s… actually almost always the case in cheap fantasy. GW2 is better than most settings, true- it’s pretty much just humans, norn, and dwarves who look like different proportions of the same species, out of a pool of about thirty- but take your standard Tolkein races of humans, elves, dwarves, and hobbits/halflings, out of a pool of five. With the possible exception of humans and halflings, there weren’t any relation between those groups. It’s a vexing trope, but it’s well enough entrenched in the genre that speculating on a common biological origin is almost always a lost cause.

Yes, I know I’m calling Tolkien cheap. Yes, people have been physically violent against me for that before.

Ardid.7203:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Amaimon.7823:

It’s almost inconceivable for 2 species to look 99.9% identical and have zero association, even if you have to go back to the first days of the Mists..

That’s… actually almost always the case in cheap fantasy. GW2 is better than most settings, true- it’s pretty much just humans, norn, and dwarves who look like different proportions of the same species, out of a pool of about thirty- but take your standard Tolkein races of humans, elves, dwarves, and hobbits/halflings, out of a pool of five. With the possible exception of humans and halflings, there weren’t any relation between those groups. It’s a vexing trope, but it’s well enough entrenched in the genre that speculating on a common biological origin is almost always a lost cause.

Yes, I know I’m calling Tolkien cheap. Yes, people have been physically violent against me for that before.

but Tolkien never denied that the dwarves, elves and man share a common ancestor at some point. GW2 tries to do that. in case of LOTR is, we simply don’t know as it’s never mentioned or discussed, so there’s a chance they are. but in gw2, it’s heavily hinted at because “humans come from a different dimension”.

Amaimon.7823:

Ardid.7203:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Amaimon.7823:

It’s almost inconceivable for 2 species to look 99.9% identical and have zero association, even if you have to go back to the first days of the Mists..

That’s… actually almost always the case in cheap fantasy. GW2 is better than most settings, true- it’s pretty much just humans, norn, and dwarves who look like different proportions of the same species, out of a pool of about thirty- but take your standard Tolkein races of humans, elves, dwarves, and hobbits/halflings, out of a pool of five. With the possible exception of humans and halflings, there weren’t any relation between those groups. It’s a vexing trope, but it’s well enough entrenched in the genre that speculating on a common biological origin is almost always a lost cause.

Yes, I know I’m calling Tolkien cheap. Yes, people have been physically violent against me for that before.

but Tolkien never denied that the dwarves, elves and man share a common ancestor at some point. GW2 tries to do that. in case of LOTR is, we simply don’t know as it’s never mentioned or discussed, so there’s a chance they are. but in gw2, it’s heavily hinted at because “humans come from a different dimension”.

Yes, he did. The Silmarillion goes into the origin of all the races except hobbits, which I believe were stated somewhere to have diverged from men at some point.

Granted, “a god did it” is a cop-out, but the point I was getting at is that fantasy has a long history of not giving two hoots about evolutionary biology. Magic and the demands of the plot between them throw too much off, so the best you can usually hope for is the setting not looking too closely at it, which is what Guild Wars does.

Ancestor =/= Creator.
Both could work in a fantasy world. The first actually needs lore and logic to work. Second needs lore and logic not to be cheap.

That’s fair. If the writers take it into account when creating the races, a common ancestor is a viable explanation. It’s just not the only possible explanation.

There’s a human Vigil soldier in the central camp in Verdant Brink that, in casual banter, mentions that he used to date a sylvari. So, that answers your question, I guess.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame Tolkien for this. He was trying to create a new form of folklore and, like the people who created fantasy inspired by his work, he was building on what had come before.

Folklore all around the world, includes creatures who aren’t human but look exactly like humans except for certain features – being taller, shorter, different colours (grey, green, blue etc.) or which disguise themselves as humans (like selkies and kitsune). Probably because many of those stories were loosely based on real events where the mysterious creatures actually were humans who seemed strange and different in some way.

Since no one’s mentioned it yet, going all the way back to the original Guild Wars, Eye of the North had a quest where a Norn would claim you as their spouse (Olaf Olafson for female characters, Olrun Olafsdottir for male characters) because they were impressed with your unusual combat skill for a human. Of note, Olaf insists that you’ll produce many half-Norn children for him.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Prenuptial_Disagreement_

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Prenuptial_Disagreement_

Presumably, the quest was intended more as a joke, as they’ve since said that interspecies couplings can’t produce children. It’s not as though it’s the only quest in Guild Wars that serves as a joke of some type…

Yeah, that was raised in an interview a long time ago, and the response was basically that yeah, human-norn crossbreeding can’t happen. Olaf wasn’t exactly an expert on interspecies reproductive biology.

Amaimon.7823:

Sartharina.3542:

… kitten, now I’m going to have to write a Charr/Asura romance story.

I think their core values would differ too much for a romantic relationship

Pretty much this.

Rognik.2579:

Lots of opportunities to puppy it up, but you also want to cheer them on so much more.

Not me!

I’d rather see Human/Asura.

Freud said the only unnatural sexual behavior is none at all.

Fluffball.8307:

Freud said the only unnatural sexual behavior is none at all.

Yeah, things like that is why psychologists are rejecting Freud-ism more often these days.

In regards to Tolkien, the man created his stories for multiple reasons, few if any of them to really intentionally “create” a new genre of story telling. He was however intentionally creating a new “Lore” to replace many of the Old World stories and legends that have now become lost to time. His writing style reflects this. To often people read LotR and the Silmarillion through a modern lens, expecting them to read like a modern story when one should view Tolkien’s work as if it was something very ancient. To put concepts such as evolutionary biology (which probably wasn’t half as developed in Tolkien’s time as it is now) or similar ideas into origins and relations just wouldn’t belong in such a story.

Call it cheap all you want, that’s your right I suppose. But do you think you can create something a quarter as complicated and compelling? I know I can’t.

The work of worldbuilding Tolkien did was really amazing, specially when we took in account his time. I don’t think LOTR or the silmarillion are cheap as fiction works (I’ll always consider LOTR an example of a fine story horribly told, but that is another topic). Quenya alone is an incredibly, awe inspiring creation.

However, the choice to justify everything through an all knowing, all powerful, subjective yet unarguable being, allowing he world to not respond to any economic, biologic or simply “logic” rule, is, by definition, convenient, and therefore, cheap.

I do think I could create something at least close if I had the resources. I don’t know if I could do really better… but I’m sure I’ll work my back until breaking it just to make sure it is not “convenient”.

At the risk of going even further off topic, I still think your looking at it the wrong way. The ancient myths and legends of northern Europe, as well as many other old world cultures, didn’t have origins of worlds and races the way modern fantasy often does. These old world legends often didn’t follow “any economic, biologic or simply “logic” rule” in regards to whatever (often vague) creation myth, and Tolkien was specifically trying to emulate that style of storytelling.

As for your specific criticism of an “all knowing, all powerful, subjective yet unarguable being” (side note, what do you mean by subjective? I’m not quite following you there) there’s something else one has to remember about Tolkien: (and do realize that I bring this up here at some risk) the man was a devout Catholic Christian and he chose to have his writing reflect that at some level. He didn’t do it for “convenience”.

This isn’t going to be a perfectly accurate way of explaining this but his Legendarium was a kind of hybrid between the culture and romanticism of the Old World Europe and….the spirituality and ethics of Judaeo/Christianity (yeah I probably butchered that). But whatever exactly its supposed to be, to Tolkien this world of his was going to HAVE to have a central monotheistic deity, with the old world pantheon expressed via the Valar, who are a sort of hybrid between polytheistic deities and arch-angels, with the Maiar serving as the demi-gods/faerie and (regular) angels. And personally, I actually found his idea of “The Music of the Ainur” to be interesting and fairly unique in comparison to many real world mythologies and modern fantasy lore.

I get that this sort of thing isn’t popular nowadays, but he did this for a reason and it wasn’t mere convenience. With how much work he put into everything else (as the memes go, giving names and backstories to every leaf and rock) coming up with some other creation story for the different races wouldn’t have been difficult but it didn’t fit with what he was trying to express nor with what he himself believed.

To try to tie this back to GW lore, one could make the argument that one of the (if not the) defining elements of GW’s world and lore, The Mists, could also be seen as “convenient” and “cheap”. Everything comes from the Mists, in one way or anther. Gods? The Mists. Demons? The Mists. Alternate Realms? The Mists. Strange unexplainable phenomena? The Mists. Lore explanation for PvP and WvW? The Mists. Its not hard to view many lore concepts in many different works as convenient, cheap, or lacking in creativity if you look at it in too narrow of a fashion. And even if a concept at the end fails to interest someone doesn’t mean that the creator wasn’t putting in an actual effort or somehow lacks creativity. Some ideas just aren’t for everyone.

The Greyhawk.9107:

To try to tie this back to GW lore, one could make the argument that one of the (if not the) defining elements of GW’s world and lore, The Mists, could also be seen as “convenient” and “cheap”. Everything comes from the Mists, in one way or anther. Gods? The Mists. Demons? The Mists. Alternate Realms? The Mists. Strange unexplainable phenomena? The Mists. Lore explanation for PvP and WvW? The Mists. Its not hard to view many lore concepts in many different works as convenient, cheap, or lacking in creativity if you look at it in too narrow of a fashion. And even if a concept at the end fails to interest someone doesn’t mean that the creator wasn’t putting in an actual effort or somehow lacks creativity. Some ideas just aren’t for everyone.

This is getting at something important- any ultimate origin is going to be convenient. The Book of Genesis, the Big Bang, they’re both very convenient explanations. That’s just the nature of the beast- it’s convenient that something allowed your setting’s universe/life/whatever to exist, but what’s the alternative? A story where nothing exists is going to be very difficult to write.

Now, you can choose how many layers you want to put your convenience behind, and it might be enough that nobody in-universe knows about it, or enough that you out-of-universe never need to consider it… but how many layers, and how much complexity, is ‘enough’ is going to be a matter of personal taste.

The problem is not the origin itself, but the effect that origin had in the end, when applied over the “reality”.

An world that lets you put in it centaurs, humans with wings, talking bears and giant ants with tentacles without any reasoning behind except “god made them that way” is fundamentally different from a “big bang” that set a bunch of basic rules that must be fulfilled by every aspect of the universe. Note this big bang CAN be an almighty divinity, whose intervention create rules that then shape the world (See Sanderson’s Mistborn series for an amazing example) and the former loose universe CAN be “sciency” (All cheap scifi is like this: unable to make real sense because lack of basic rules. See most industry superhero stories).

And Greyhawk: yes, I know Tolkien was making an tribute/imitation of nordic and christian mythology. As such tribute and reference, his Silmarillion is amazing. However, mythology reason to be is to explain phenomena and recommend behavior. Strip it from that, and it falls too easily into a mere stylistic exercise. That’s what Tolkien work is for me: an amazing, utterly detailed, really well done stylistic excercise. As wordlbuilding, it lacks good, consistent and relevant rules. As story, it lacks structure and rhythm.
That he was christian explain his choices. It doesn’t make his world structuring any less “easy”.

Ardid.7203:

An world that lets you put in it centaurs, humans with wings, talking bears and giant ants with tentacles without any reasoning behind except “god made them that way” is fundamentally different from a “big bang” that set a bunch of basic rules that must be fulfilled by every aspect of the universe.

And that’s where we’re disagreeing. Providing basic rules that result in those same forms isn’t fundamentally different than letting a god make them, it just kicks the can back a couple steps to provide a somewhat different flavor. It is fundamentally different from a setting that just doesn’t have tentacle ants, but at that point you’re not talking science vs. mythology. You’ve moved up to realism vs. fantasy.

Well, I’ve said my piece on this, as works of fiction its all subjective anyway. We’ve all gone a bit too far down the rabbit hole as it is, too.

Actually, there’s something I did want to mention to you, Ardid. At the top of the thread you state that in-universe permanent sex changes exist, and the fact is that this isn’t quite true. The one NPC in LA, the aid worker, uses mesmer illusions to take on a female appearance. So Tyria doesn’t have actual sex changes (magical or surgical) to the best of our knowledge. Unless your referring to the Total Makeover Kit, but your going to have a very difficult time trying to argue that those are an actual in-universe lore item and not a mere convenience game-mechanics item.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Ardid.7203:

An world that lets you put in it centaurs, humans with wings, talking bears and giant ants with tentacles without any reasoning behind except “god made them that way” is fundamentally different from a “big bang” that set a bunch of basic rules that must be fulfilled by every aspect of the universe.

And that’s where we’re disagreeing. Providing basic rules that result in those same forms isn’t fundamentally different than letting a god make them, it just kicks the can back a couple steps to provide a somewhat different flavor. It is fundamentally different from a setting that just doesn’t have tentacle ants, but at that point you’re not talking science vs. mythology. You’ve moved up to realism vs. fantasy.

No, when you create a world IT IS fundamentally different if there are basic rules governing it or not. They do change everything (Just compare Harry Potter with The Last Air Bender). I have NEVER been talking about mythology vs science. These are stories: I’m talking about (meta)physical constants vs arbitrary authoral preferences, about internal verisimilitude vs “a wizard did it”.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Well, I’ve said my piece on this, as works of fiction its all subjective anyway. We’ve all gone a bit too far down the rabbit hole as it is, too.

Actually, there’s something I did want to mention to you, Ardid. At the top of the thread you state that in-universe permanent sex changes exist, and the fact is that this isn’t quite true. The one NPC in LA, the aid worker, uses mesmer illusions to take on a female appearance. So Tyria doesn’t have actual sex changes (magical or surgical) to the best of our knowledge. Unless your referring to the Total Makeover Kit, but your going to have a very difficult time trying to argue that those are an actual in-universe lore item and not a mere convenience game-mechanics item.

I excuse myself for my prior, too rushed comment. You are right, we have no certainity that the LA NPC has permanently changed. However, the discussion about the permanence of the mesmer magic’s effects is still ongoing.

Ardid.7203:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Ardid.7203:

An world that lets you put in it centaurs, humans with wings, talking bears and giant ants with tentacles without any reasoning behind except “god made them that way” is fundamentally different from a “big bang” that set a bunch of basic rules that must be fulfilled by every aspect of the universe.

And that’s where we’re disagreeing. Providing basic rules that result in those same forms isn’t fundamentally different than letting a god make them, it just kicks the can back a couple steps to provide a somewhat different flavor. It is fundamentally different from a setting that just doesn’t have tentacle ants, but at that point you’re not talking science vs. mythology. You’ve moved up to realism vs. fantasy.

No, when you create a world IT IS fundamentally different if there are basic rules governing it or not. They do change everything (Just compare Harry Potter with The Last Air Bender). I have NEVER been talking about mythology vs science. These are stories: I’m talking about (meta)physical constants vs arbitrary authoral preferences, about internal verisimilitude vs “a wizard did it”.

Ah, gotcha. Apologies. I’ve never seen “a god did it” as being incompatible with internal consistency, but I do agree that internal inconsistency is vexing.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Well, I’ve said my piece on this, as works of fiction its all subjective anyway. We’ve all gone a bit too far down the rabbit hole as it is, too.

Actually, there’s something I did want to mention to you, Ardid. At the top of the thread you state that in-universe permanent sex changes exist, and the fact is that this isn’t quite true. The one NPC in LA, the aid worker, uses mesmer illusions to take on a female appearance. So Tyria doesn’t have actual sex changes (magical or surgical) to the best of our knowledge. Unless your referring to the Total Makeover Kit, but your going to have a very difficult time trying to argue that those are an actual in-universe lore item and not a mere convenience game-mechanics item.

They aren’t? Doesn’t Evon Gnashblade control the Black Lion Trading Co which sells these kits? He’s even offered to lower prices for things as part of his election campagin which makes me want to believe the things they sell are linked to some sort of technological advancement or illusionary spell (thinking outfits/weapon skins/backbacks) inherent to that world.

But even if said changes aren’t permanant, they don’t have to be. They just need to last an hour or two XD

We had Anatomical Engineer Lyle, an asura at that, that could change your sex permanently in GW 1, granted he needed NCsoft/ANET bought currency. The kits might be just that— but cut out the middle man and needing a skilled doctor on hand.

Though the item artwork does have a odd potion in it, maybe that’s what permanently changes your sex?

I’m still rather inclined to view them as game mechanics as opposed to an in-universe item. Bringing up Lyle, Evon, and real world purchases only furthers this inclination. I also don’t think weapons and armor skins appearance changes are also in-universe “illusions” but just game mechanics.