Guild Wars 2

Having not played Guild Wars 1, I don’t know much about the lore, but why the hell are we helping the Lunatic court? isn’t their goal to bring the Mad King to Tyria? The guy who was killing people left and right for no good/sane reason.

Are the Rebel Lunatics the good guys? Why are the Rebels fighting side by side with the monsters?

I dont think either side are good guys. Its just that the rebels are trying to get into Tyria while the loyalists are trying to stop them. Its more a chase of the fact that the loyalists goals are currently to our favor.

I’m not entirely clear on the “who’s side is who” yet personally. The Baron who leads the Rebel Courtiers says during the Queensdale meta event that he wants to put the true “demented heir” on the throne, not the, what was the word now, something that started with a b… well, a term that doesn’t fit Thorn.

It sounds like he’s opposing Thorn, while his dialogue is more befitting for supporting Thorn. So I’m not really sure which side he’s on.

But I’d say that Lutinz is right in that both sides are bad guys to varying degrees.

(Can’t edit the above post oddly)

Just redid the Queensdale meta event, during the finale one Baron Wycker says: “The throne belongs to HIM, the true demented heir. Not that doddering old fool!”

His dialogue makes it sound like Wycker’s supporting Thorn, but he’s the leader of the rebel court which means he’s opposing Thorn. So who’s this “true demented heir” guy the Baron talks about? I haven’t yet done the Kessex Hills event chain, but didn’t see any such comments in Gendarran outside “the Baron” leading the rebel forces.

Perhaps Wycker’s referring to Ewan (as they’re both appearing in the same graveyard)? Or perhaps to Oswald’s son which was killed on the same night as the Mad King.

well, to put in the word of the actor playing thorn on the circus stands, " ’twas all in good fun".

I havent done the events in Kessex Hills but one of the Lunitic Court NPCs mentions a Countess as the one trying to counter the Baron.

Of course they could all be insane and delusional. They are all from the Mad realm after all.

Konig – I haven’t done that event, but I can’t help wondering, the rebel faction could be in favour of Palawa Joko, couldn’t it? A younger, fresher undead lord for a new era of the Lunatic Court? Well, it’s a stretch, but that would make for interesting developments.

sCor, Guild Wars festivals in the past have often let you pick a side (or put you on a side) with both sides being playable regardless of whether one seems evidently the ‘bad guys’. It makes PvP events easier if nothing else! But it is interesting that Mad King Thorn is coming off as much more of a real danger now, rather than in GW1 where he was more of an amusing oddity, never really seeming dangerous to us mortals.

Curuniel.4830:

Konig – I haven’t done that event, but I can’t help wondering, the rebel faction could be in favour of Palawa Joko, couldn’t it? A younger, fresher undead lord for a new era of the Lunatic Court? Well, it’s a stretch, but that would make for interesting developments.

The younger “undead lord” is Oswald Thorn. Palawa Joko’s Bone Palace was around a full 68 years before Thorn was killed and was almost certainly undead before the Mad King was even born. One does not simply build a palace in a poisonous landscape while alive.

Am I the only one expecting Thorn to be campaigning an rebellion against himself? That this unnamed “true heir to madness” is just Thorn having his court wail on each other for his personal amusement?

Ratphink.4751:

Am I the only one expecting Thorn to be campaigning an rebellion against himself? That this unnamed “true heir to madness” is just Thorn having his court wail on each other for his personal amusement?

You´re not alone, my thoughts exactly.

I… wouldn’t be surprised if Oswald did that Ratphink. Though I’m hoping for a father/son dispute (Oswald’s eighth wife and his son were killed on the same night as him, the villagers intending to end the Thorn line once and for all).

Having done a few events (but not the whole chain) in each zone, here’s my findings:

Baron Wycker is, as said, the leader of this rebellion. Those fighting him are under the orders of “the countess” (most likely the Countess of Hakewood from GW1, imo). How they’re stopping him – for now – is to simply reverse the flow of the Hunted Doors from being Mad Realm→Tyria to Tyria→Mad Realm. Though that seems to harm themselves as well, oddly enough.

What’s most interesting is the presence of norn, charr, and asura Lunatic Courtiers. And the lack of sylvari (once more, we lack any form of sylvari soul… – outside of the Lunatic Inquisition on sylvari players, I believe, but I can’t take that as lore). This indicates that the Mad Realm isn’t Thorn’s personal realm, but that he’s managed to take it over after his death. Which rather furthers the possibility of a real rebellion rather than Oswald merely trying to amuse himself – and that the Baron is trying to make a new king of the Mad Realm. The Mad Realm itself seems to be a form of afterlife asylum – a place for the crazy people and psychopaths to go after they die (as opposed to elsewhere).

Furthermore, it seems that the gods themselves had placed Oswalds victems into the Mad Realm. Zola is outright stated to have been sent there, but there’s implications of others. The reasoning behind this is said that it’s to “calm” him down. I suspect that they want in-fighting in the Mad Realm in order to keep Oswald’s power at bay – since he’s capable of returning to the human world after death, he obviously has powerful magic (and is said to have had such even when alive).

So I’m betting that this rebellion is more likely to be a puppetmaster plot by one (or more) of the Six Gods, with the intention of removing/dibilitating Thorn without direct intervention.

Ratphink…that’s genius. I will be highly amused if it proves to be the case! (But nonetheless I suspect ArenaNet have a longer story in mind).

I’m basing this purely on speculation and no lore basis, so fill me in if there’s stuff to disprove it, but I always thought of the Mad Realm as something of the Mists – a reflection of the phenomenon of madness. Like Delerium of the Endless. As in, it was always there, as long as madness has existed among sentient beings, but a particularly powerful soul with close ties to its nature (e.g., a psychopathic king) could rise to rule and represent it. That would support the idea that rebellion is certainly possible, if not likely, just like it is among the Six Gods (also sort of elemental representations of concepts, or rather, the current embodiments of those concepts’ power – we know others can take that power over).

The Mad Realm is located within the Mists – as a part of the Underworld, specifically. But it doesn’t seem to be a reflection of madness itself, but rather the place where the gods place insane people when they die.

The Six Gods are a fairly different case than Oswald Thorn – Os is merely a powerful human (spirit) that acts as leader of the souls in the Mad Realm – whereas the Six Gods are capable of terraforming and, supposedly, even controlling/channeling aspects of the Mists (per Abaddon being able to twist the Realm of Torment with his mere thoughts). Currently, nothing has shown Thorn to be able to alter the Mad Realm outside of having found a way to create portals in his liking (Haunted Doors).

Well keep in mind that he is also able to project his face on walls in the labyrinth (during the pvp game). So to a certain extend, he IS able to alter minor things. And the clocktower clearly seems to be something his own twisted mind conjured up (you can also see it flying in the distance when you fight Thorn).

I also wonder if the reason Thorn is able to break free, is due to Grenth’s weakened control of the Underworld. What does all this say about Grenth?

Is that Thorn projecting his face, or just an innate design of the area to detect living beings (as villagers are “alive” while courtiers are spirits)? I wouldn’t doubt that he’s able to alter things – I mean, standard magic can alter Tyria, after all. I was meaning more on a large-scale concept like how Abaddon, rather quickly, creates nightmarish copies of Tyria’s landscapes via his mind alone (whereas Thorn likely utilizes powerful magic he somehow got a hold of).

TBH, it sounds like Thorn’s on par to a demi-god, more or less.

The only other madman that comes to mind with the power to oppose Thorn would be Menzies. Given that he was thwarted at his attempts to usurp Balthazar as the keeper of the Fissuer of Woe, maybe he thinks the Mad Realm to be an easier target? So why, then would we be helping Menzies who was previously allied with Abaddon & Dhuum?

In GW1, whenever the player was only given options to help one evil or another, we chose the seemingly lesser of two evils, such as aiding Joko to stop Abaddon. But we’ve also been known to unknowingly support the bad(der) guy due to deception, such as with Vizier Khilbron. What if this time around the ‘rebels’ are not simply trying to dethrone Thorn, but help Menzies usurp the throne instead? So now we’re actually helping the worse of two evils, but unwittingly so.

The real question regarding Mad King Thorn’s nature, I feel, is: has he changed the Mad Realm in accordance with his own personality? Or has the Mad Realm changed him? Because they mirror each other in imagery.

Some things, like the pumpkin imagery, got some reference in Thorn’s biography, so they might have come to the Mad Realm through his influence. The candy corn doesn’t seem to have any reference to the living Oswald Thorn and can probably be assumed as part of the Mad Realm generally. Things like the clock tower – well, could be either. Thorn’s particular idea of a joke, or a Mad Realm feature that would be there whether Thorn was or not.

One thing to add, Curuniel, is that the candy corn imagery actually did come from Oswald Thorn; during a famine, when the peasants begged him to lower taxes or do something, he instead ordered that they should ‘eat candy corn’.

Edit: As to the question of ‘Mad Realm changing Thorn vs. Thorn changing Mad Realm’, I’d argue that Thorn defined the Mad Realm to his whims and personality. The fact that the candy corn, pumpkin, and other iconography is directly related to him personally indicates that he probably shaped it to his will.

One thing to remember about King Oswald Thorn is that, even in life, he was supposedly a wielder of powerful and unique magic; after all, if not for the rebels chopping his body up and spreading it around Tyria and binding ancient magical seals, he would’ve been back up and around by now. Not to mention he’s managed to go toe-to-toe with Palawa Joko, and has that dangerous sort of insanity that makes you never know -what- he’s going to do next.

In the end, since we know that the realms of the Mists (under which the Mad Realm, as an extension of the Underworld, fits) can be shaped by the thoughts or whims of the ‘dominant’ force inside them (see: Shift from Realm of Torment to Redeemed Realm), it seems most likely that Mad King Thorn altered it to suit his particular tastes upon his arrival.

Or, that the realm was already that way and the world that he saw around him became what defined him in the afterlife.

Well, no, that’s the thing; we see that the things in the Mad Realm (candy corn and pumpkins, specifically) have ties to Mad King Thorn’s life before he’d ever died. So they most likely were put into the Mad Realm from him after he died.

Yes, but pumpkins and candy corn are really just decor. I mean there’s nothing to say that he created the floating islands or anything. I mean with enough time and workers he could create a labyrinth and a clocktower without having any potent magics