Guild Wars 2

I originally posted this on my guild’s website, reposting here for discussion.
http://www.binary-alliance.com/blog/item/on-villainy

On Villainy

I found the storyline campaign of Guild Wars 2 to be a severe letdown. With the lore that was established in the original Guild Wars, I was hoping for something much better. The Charr were amazing villians, mainly because they weren’t villains at all. Human expansions had forced them out of their homelands, and the Charr were fighting to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. If the focus of Guild Wars 1 had remained on the Human / Charr conflict, it would probably be remembered as one of the greatest stories in videogames. How would you play a game when you’re essentially the villain?

That aside, another piece of lore was also set down: Humans were not native to the world of Tyria. So, not only are Humans an alien species but there is potentially some Human homeworld out in the universe. It was a very sci-fi move for a high fantasy type game. It was also another piece of lore that could have laid the foundation for great political / social discussions. While the storyline to Guild Wars 1 was somewhat lackluster, the lore behind it showed great promise and that ArenaNet was willing to give the player something to think about.

Coming back to Guild Wars 2, we are given Dragons. Are they big, evil, mean Dragons that want to take over the world? Not really. They just wake up and destroy most life on the planet for no real reason what so ever. Then they go back to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat. In the game, we’re not fighting something that wants to destroy us, and for all we know, doesn’t even care about us. Maybe if we could sit down with Zhaitan, have some coffee and let him explain it to us, things would be more interesting. Do the Dragons feel that the civilizations of Tyria are destroying the planet and need to be stopped? Have the current civilizations gone through their turn in the spotlight and need to make way for someone else? Do the Dragons simply think we aren’t groovy enough to take up the mantle of world rule? Hopefully, the Living Story will give us some answers.

Originally, I was going to write on the first installment of the Living Story, but plugging fissures in the ground, repairing sign posts, lighting campfires and mending sprained ankles didn’t really seem all that interesting. To me, the first part of the Living Story was dead on arrival (and yeah, I know it was supposed to start slowly and progress, but still…). Hopefully, the second installment makes things more interesting. While there are a lot of different directions the Flame and Frost could go, an invasion of Destroyers seems fairly certain. Hopefully ArenaNet gives us more than that. Will we get to see some of the ancient underground Asura homelands? Will there be stone Dwarves that will fight beside us? Maybe ArenaNet will do something unexpected like throw some of those Steam Creatures into the mix.

They don’t seem to want to destroy the world as much as they want to change the world to fit their nature, i.e Orr being riddled with undeath and The Brand being riddled with Branded Crystals.

Personally, I find the Elder Dragons and their motives to be very Lovecraftian in nature. The sentient races are as insignificant to the Elder Dragon’s as mere ants are to us real-world Humans. Their motives are too alien for us to comprehend.

If the dragons are meant to be primordial forces of nature, then why do we get to kill one? Why should we get to “win?” I know there are still a good number of Dragons alive, but the ending to GW2 just didn’t sit right with me.

I never said that they were forces of nature. I was talking about their nature.

TBH, I think the charr were horrible enemies until Eye of the North. They were, for all we knew and for all that was presented, just some very primitive warmongering race that sought to ravage humanity. We didn’t learn about Ascalon being charr’s first (BTW, Ascalon is NOT the original charr homeland – the original charr homeland is east of the Blazeridge – charr conquered Ascalon from someone else, then got conquered by humans) until about a year after Eye of the North – when GW1’s story was said and done (at that time).

The charr story in GW1 was about as interesting as a story about man’s survival in the wilderness – the villain doesn’t matter for didly squat in the story itself, because it’s just a no-reasoning-with beast that wants nothing more than to kill you for xyz reason (food, territory, w/e).

In that regard, the Elder Dragons is much more interesting than the charr of GW1 – not the charr as presented in GW2 mind you, and arguably not as presented in Eye of the North (which only came about due to thoughts of GW2), but as of Prophecies certainly so!

“Coming back to Guild Wars 2, we are given Dragons. Are they big, evil, mean Dragons that want to take over the world? Not really. They just wake up and destroy most life on the planet for no real reason what so ever. Then they go back to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

That is a very narrow minded view on the Elder Dragons. Rather than explaining why, I’ll simply link to an old thread which I believe proves you wrong (side note: said thread was originated by a post of mine to avoid going off-topic in the thread of said original post). Side note: both cases are very old and very outdated as we’ve found other bits of lore since then… I’m actually thinking of giving a new view on the matter, but I’ve been waiting on Frost and Flames to reveal if its tied to destroyers and icebrood or not. But to highlight some key points:

1. They’re not out to destroy the world, as Oglaf says, but to corrupt it – and by effect consume magic in the world. They each seem to hold their own reasons for doing such just as much as they have their own methods.
2. Your view seems to be solely based off of the view of the races of Tyria. Take note that Guild Wars 2 presents lore in a subjective, rather than objective like much of GW1, manner. This means that the viewpoint presented in interviews before release and the view they represented – that of the races of Tyria like humans, charr, norn, quaggan, etc. – is just that they can’t find any reasoning behind it. As Oglaf says, they’re fairly lovecraftian in this regard. The ED are related to natural disasters which hold no reasoning or purpose and just “are” because that’s how the major races view the Elder Dragons. But later in the storyline, you find out this view is wrong – the Elder Dragons do have intelligence. They do have emotions (fear and anger are two prime examples presented in the storyline), and they do have unique methodology and actions differencing themselves from others more than just their element.
3. Contradictory to both you and Oglaf, I’d say the Elder Dragons view the races as more than mere ants. The races are resources to them – they are food, they are minion materials, and they are information sources. Zhaitan would have just about nothing without his army of undead, solely dependent on the existence of the races. Jormag focuses his expansion through the Sons of Svanir, an impossible feat without the races of Tyria. Primordus, who seems bent on killing all life rather than corrupting it, is really the only Elder Dragon who can view the living races as mere ants – but even that doesn’t seem the case since he seems to be proactively wiping them out (you don’t go about proactively wiping out all ants on the world, just those in your home).

Also, about the “having coffee with Zhaitan” joke (I presume it’s a joke), I just can’t see that happening. That’s like telling us to go and try to negotiate with the big bad villain sitting in his Tower of Doom in the middle of the Death Plains that does nothing but send his mindless Goblin Army to attack, maim, pillage, kill, and kidnap innocent villages. You’re not going to just sit and talk things over – they don’t do that. The only way those figures discuss something is after you beat the crap out of them and they beg for mercy from the goodie-two-shoes hero, they beat the crap out of you and start gloating, or they’re negotiating ransom for someone they kidnapped/something they’re threatening to do. Are these villains “poor story writing”? No, they’re just archetypal.

They may be forces of nature. That doesnt make what they are doing any better. If it helps think of it as us verse them rather than som overaching greater good.

Note that natural forces arent always what we as humans would classify as ‘Good’. There have been natural forces that play out on earth that in the past have lead to extreme mass extinction events. Natural forces can go out of balance.

If the ED are natural forces, then it raises a question on what caused them to manifest in the first place? What was so out of balance that it caused such extremely destructive creatures to come into existance?

Oglaf.1074:

They don’t seem to want to destroy the world as much as they want to change the world to fit their nature, i.e Orr being riddled with undeath and The Brand being riddled with Branded Crystals.

This actually has plausibility to it – during The Source of Orr story step, the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan talks about how we are trying to poison Orr.

Zhaitan’s minions – if not Zhaitan or even other ED/their minions – seem to view us as damaging the world when we try to undo Zhaitan’s work. This presents the view that the ED – who give the mentality to their minions – see themselves as fixing the world.

As a human-only player, I really want to know why my race left their home planet. It’s very Stargate: SG1. Did we destroy our own planet through war? Did our planet’s version of the Elder Dragons (if they existed on it) force use to relocate? Did an interplanetary race force us to relocate? Why did the Human Gods bring us to Tyria, specifically?

Does the lore team of ANet know the answers to these questions, or are they “winging it”?

There’s implications that there was some sort of calamity wherever the Six Gods and human race (possibly forgotten race too) came from. Beyond this, we don’t really know.

Said implications come from these lines:

“She chose Tyria and brought with her those who would make this world a paradise. As she had promised, Dwayna led her people to peace.” (if she wanted to make a paradise, the old world likely wasn’t one)

“The two who are one, Issa and Lys,[sic] brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity. While the other gods focused on building Arah and beginning a new future, Lyssa gave them joy and helped them forget the past.” (why need to forget the past? why would they be lacking joy without Lyssa? Who does they refer to – humans or the gods?)

“Among them was Abaddon—once secret-keeper, now betrayer. How you have fallen from the glorious days of old. What passed beyond in the Mists, only you remember.” (something was forgotten that happened in the Mists; first thought would be Abaddon’s fall, but that happened on Tyria, so what was it that occurred which we hold no knowledge of? Is it the past that Lyssa helped “them” forget?)

Comes from the Orrian History Scrolls in Shelter Docks, Malchor’s Leap. These three lines make me think it was some sort of cataclysmic calamity, that the Six Gods were forced to flee and that Dwayna chose Tyria as a refuge. I suspect, given this and other info, that the forgotten were sent out as scouts for a promising world, and they arrived on Tyria by orders of the Six Gods before said Six Gods. Dwayna then brought humanity to Orr, but because of the damage of the Elder Dragons, sent them down south – leading them to slowly head north on their own per the actual timeline which claims they were not on continental Tyria until 205 BE.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

TBH, I think the charr were horrible enemies until Eye of the North. They were, for all we knew and for all that was presented, just some very primitive warmongering race that sought to ravage humanity. We didn’t learn about Ascalon being charr’s first (BTW, Ascalon is NOT the original charr homeland – the original charr homeland is east of the Blazeridge – charr conquered Ascalon from someone else, then got conquered by humans).

The charr story in GW1 was about as interesting as a story about man’s survival in the wilderness – the villain doesn’t matter for didly squat in the story itself, because it’s just a no-reasoning-with beast that wants nothing more than to kill you for xyz reason (food, territory, w/e).

[All the Elder Dragon stuff]

Was about to write pretty much exactly this after reading the OP. You saved me some time pal.