Guild Wars 2

With Eir’s most recent demise, it’s made me think of how major characters are going to be written out of the story in the future. Eir and Trahearne are the only big “Destiny’s Edge” characters to be written out and in both cases were killed off. But is it possible for someone of their stature to just fade into the background or retire to adventures that we the player aren’t a part of. That their legend continues on just our paths no longer cross.

Could Eir have simply returned to Hoelbrak after handing the torch down to her son? Would it have made sense if she realized that she was better served in the fight against Jormag rather than Mordremoth? So take her out of the story until Jormag becomes the big threat and then conclude her story where she is best served.

Zojja/Taimi could remain in Rata Novus and spend a good chunk of time researching Primordus until it is time for the Primordus arc. Logan could go back to Kryta and do his job. Rytlock could go and lead the assault against the Branded until the Kralkatorrik arc. And so on…

The major characters serve their purpose of conveying the danger of the Elder Dragons on a very intimate level. I question if we are better served if say Mordremoth’s effects and the Maguuma region would have been better communicated if more Sylvari or Maguuma residents were elevated into a starring role. Rather than say including Eir who served no purpose other than Mordrem fodder to strengthen Braham’s resolve, or Logan and Zojja who acted as damsels in distress. We are starved on the details of HoT lore but not on Destiny’s Edge interpersonal drama.

This leads me to wonder if a character once they have reached “Destiny’s Edge” stature will stay with the player until they are killed off. For example Marjory after finishing her investigation and avenging her sister by defeating Mordremoth will then jump into the fight for the next dragon, and then the next dragon, etc… until she either dies or makes it to the end of the game’s life. When would be the best time to say goodbye to someone like her?

If we want to learn more about the new regions… then one way would be to explore characters with real ties to specific regions. For example, if Faolain was elevated to a supporting role in the fight against Mordremoth, we would learn more about the Nightmare Court’s thinking in the fight against Mordremoth from seeing things through her unique perspective. Or even a new character from one of the new areas, that would act as a guide or a “translator” for all the new lore, rather than leaving things to be discovered via someone like Taimi. It would be easier to highlight those already fighting an Elder Dragon than weaving the story to include those who were once outsiders but find themselves caught up in it through happenstance.

I think Eir got killed off because she had nothing more to give to the story. She had all but faded from the story and Braham had taken over. Correct me if im wrong, but im pretty sure Eir hasn’t had a significant plot point associated with her since launch, and I don’t even think she would have been able to add much to the Jormag arc, unless they retconned something like she had Asgeir’s scroll under her bed all this time or something. Keeping that in mind, if she was still around when we go to kill Jormag, people would be saying “Oh, Eir added nothing to this Norn-themed expansion.”.

In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if Caithe dies in LS3 or the next expansion, because Heart of Thorns tied up all of her loose ends and plot devices. Faolain is dead, her Wyld Hunt is complete, her “secret” has been revealed, and the egg is safe. Provided ArenaNet doesn’t add anything else for her, which I doubt they will, because shes been in the spotlight for a long time now.

as for Belinda, lets be honest, she existed only to give that greatsword to Marjory. “Hi, im Belinda, im going to die in 2 story instances.” doesn’t exactly scream audience impact to me. She was nothing but a sheathe for the family sword.

Trehearne’s main “thing” was that he was an expert on Orr. Who needs an expert on Orr any more, when Zhaitan is dead, and Orr has been (nearly) cleansed. and from the looks of it, he isn’t very intelligent regarding much of anything else considering he felt that indiscriminately firing artillery into a forest would somehow progress their campaign against Mordremoth. He would have just become a faceless Pact Marshal who issues random orders without having any personality of his own. When he was in Orr, when ever he was talking he would be spewing out assorted facts on Orr, which is interesting for lore-buffs like us, but when all the stuff was going on in The Silverwastes, I couldn’t wait for him to shut up, because everything was “Oh yes, battle plan. MMM yes, I agree. Excellent.”.

Faolain shouldn’t have died, in my opinion. There was a lot she could have added to the story.

I also hope that Garm is still alive, since theres no concrete proof that he is dead yet. Theres still an unanswered lore point regarding him. Hes the only black wolf in Tyria, and in an interview, one of the writers said theres a reason why.

Im hoping we get some kind of a post-story instance, where we can see what happened to all the characters. For example. Where did Kas and Rox take Zojja and Logan, were they ok in the end? Did Laranthir and the Reavers survive? Did Skybreaker ever find her troop? What happened to Beigarth and Occam? Who were the 3 sylvari who became Mordremoth’s commanders? and most importantly, what happened to that Norn Savage?

I don’t know if you are aware of this but you can save Beigarth and Occam in Prisoners of the Dragon. As for what happens after they escape, that is indeed unexplained. Perhaps we will see them again considering they are important smiths.

I honestly think that they have left alot of questions unanswered to give them more room during LS3. They will have the ability to explain some of it and leave the rest up to interpretation. I think with each story instance they add they leave some hints, but in general they leave you with more questions. I wouldn’t be surprised if many things are just left as they are because they have to maintain a story that a player can follow. We haven’t heard anything about zephyrites in the HoT zones (perhaps there is a sign of them there somewhere, but I haven’t seen it). The whole deal with Rytlock seems to be a good candidate for an explanation once Ls3 starts as they have been teasing the player about it during the story. I think it’s likely we won’t be seeing anything of Garm for a long time. Perhaps he might show up as a corrupted boss in a raid, it would be one way to end his story.

In regards to Eir, given that she is norn and given how norn are, I don’t think that living retirement would have been a possibility. Norn live their legends until they die, regardless of what that legend is. To become incapable of continuing to live that legend is a fate worse than death to many norn, and to give up on the legend before death is to be disliked and looked at with disdain from many other norn (this is why Gullik spoke of Eir with disgust in Ghosts of Ascalon – she gave up on her legend when Snaff died, until the PC pulled Destiny’s Edge back together for killing Zhaitan).

Eir had the goal of slaying all Elder Dragons, as such she is a character that would either die or be in there for the entirety. So her death in of itself isn’t bad – it’s that she blatantly died for another characters’ development and had so many flags raised before hand that it was beyond obvious she would die.

Eir’s death was the steroetypical “bad character death”. And that’s what made it bad. Not that she died.

Other characters could retire off – if their goals were done. I was half expecting Trahearne to pass the torch to another character with Zhaitan’s death, or remain as the Marshal but assign “secondary Marshals” that took over specific operations for each dragon until the main campaign against them – and since they would then have so much experience fighting the dragon, they would lead the campaign alongside the PC instead of Trahearne, who would remain to do the logistics of running the Pact and continue to oversee Orr’s development. Instead his death was a blatant catering to the playerbase that QQ’d all the time (players QQ’d about Trahearne stealing glory – false as it is, NPCs now credit your actions all the kitten time; players QQ’d about not leading the Pact – throughout HoT you’re the lead even if you’re an untrustworthy sylvari; players QQ’d that they should get Caladbolg – grats, you got it, though broken; players QQ’d and wanted to kill Trahearne – Anet makes PC kill Trahearne).

Argon.1563:

I think Eir got killed off because she had nothing more to give to the story. She had all but faded from the story and Braham had taken over. Correct me if im wrong, but im pretty sure Eir hasn’t had a significant plot point associated with her since launch, and I don’t even think she would have been able to add much to the Jormag arc, unless they retconned something like she had Asgeir’s scroll under her bed all this time or something. Keeping that in mind, if she was still around when we go to kill Jormag, people would be saying “Oh, Eir added nothing to this Norn-themed expansion.”.

Eir has/had two storylines still open to her.

Sometime in the past, forget when exactly, the nature of Garm being one of the only black wolves seen in the game was brought up and the response was (paraphrasing): “the story of how Eir and Garm met is important and will be brought up in the future, so let’s not talk about it now”.

Then let’s not forget that Eir had a pretty big thing for the Kralkatorrik plot.

Of course, neither can happen now unless they pull a “wait, Eir didn’t die” twist which would ruin HoT (as well as any form of “wait, Mordremoth didn’t die” twist).

Argon.1563:

In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if Caithe dies in LS3 or the next expansion, because Heart of Thorns tied up all of her loose ends and plot devices. Faolain is dead, her Wyld Hunt is complete, her “secret” has been revealed, and the egg is safe. Provided ArenaNet doesn’t add anything else for her, which I doubt they will, because shes been in the spotlight for a long time now.

Her Wyld Hunt was complete with Zhaitan’s death.

Then she got a new one to deliver the egg to Tarir.

Wyld Hunts can come at any time. Completing one doesn’t mean another won’t come – the PC also had a second Wyld Hunt show up after the initial one (to kill Zhaitan) which was to kill Mordremoth.

I rather hope they don’t kill Caithe off just because most of the old doors are closed – and were closed poorly in almost every case. Besides, Caithe has a very important story to see to: the survival of the sylvari now that the secret is out and Mordremoth is dead.

Argon.1563:

Im hoping we get some kind of a post-story instance, where we can see what happened to all the characters. For example. Where did Kas and Rox take Zojja and Logan, were they ok in the end?

Yeah, I hope they add in such with the raid update in a couple weeks. I would imagine such taking place in Tarir. Would make sense to take injured Pact soldiers there until Mordremoth’s defeated due to how he can just knock out any airship or chopper.

I hope Caithe doesn’t die. Merely because killing off a character to retire them/get rid of an unpopular one is almost ALWAYS a bad choice.

However, minor spoilers for me, I’m glad at least Logan and Zojja survived the events. That was one question I had.

Lethalvriend.1723:

I don’t know if you are aware of this but you can save Beigarth and Occam in Prisoners of the Dragon. As for what happens after they escape, that is indeed unexplained. Perhaps we will see them again considering they are important smiths.

Might be referring to this, but they’re also in the open world Verdant Brink, along with Shashoo and the warrior quaggan at one of the pact camps. I’d posit they’re also in Dragon’s Stand, as from what I’ve heard all the random npcs we meet in HoT show up in that zone again.

I have no issue with characters being killed off if that fate best serves the story. A writer needs to be able to “slaughter their darlings” as necessary and should not hold back from making the hard decisions the plot requires.

That said, I don’t think death should be the default way of removing a character from the spotlight; death becomes cheap if it’s just used as a way to clear the stage. It’s fine for a character to just fade into the background, go off on a different mission, or retire if their death doesn’t advance the overall storyline.

Basically, I don’t think the writers should be afraid to kill off characters, but I also don’t think they should fall into the lazy trap of killing them just to avoid having to keep track of what they’re up to when they aren’t the focus.

Kalavier.1097:

I hope Caithe doesn’t die. Merely because killing off a character to retire them/get rid of an unpopular one is almost ALWAYS a bad choice.

However, minor spoilers for me, I’m glad at least Logan and Zojja survived the events. That was one question I had.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re killed after the fact(the second one rescued succumbing to their wounds, the first one rescued dying in battle somehow). Eir was possibly them beginning to “prune” Destiny’s Edge, since they want it to be all about the biconics and DE overshadows them.

Daralii.8940:

Kalavier.1097:

I hope Caithe doesn’t die. Merely because killing off a character to retire them/get rid of an unpopular one is almost ALWAYS a bad choice.

However, minor spoilers for me, I’m glad at least Logan and Zojja survived the events. That was one question I had.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re killed after the fact(the second one rescued succumbing to their wounds, the first one rescued dying in battle somehow). Eir was possibly them beginning to “prune” Destiny’s Edge, since they want it to be all about the biconics and DE overshadows them.

How? Honestly, it felt more like the two groups joining forces toward the end of the HoT story, not DE overshadowing them. Rytlock even states the new guys are pretty good. The “biconics” happen to be the heros group at the moment, where before we really didn’t have one.

The problem with not retiring character via death is that well death is final, retiring to a cabin in the woods isn’t exactly final. When Elder Dragons threaten the world it seems kinda selfish for able-bodied-experienced-heroes to just kick back and let someone else save the world.
I guess things like disability, coma, severe emotional trauma etc could also work for retirement but that’s more putting them on the shelve than retiring.

In regards to Eir’s Legend, I’m not sure if killing all the Elder Dragons was always a static goal. Her goal has changed throughout her life. Originally leaving to fight against Jormag, switching focus to Kralkatorrik, failing and then focusing on Zhaitan. It was then because of her son’s pleas that she ran off into battle against Mordremoth. So her Legend is definitely tied to the Elder Dragons but there are many paths for her to get there. The Elder Dragon she choose to fight has shifted at least once before and could have done so again.

Eir could have reacted to Mordremoth’s sudden rise to power and have come to the conclusion that Jormag could do the same with just as much notice. That would be strong motivation to stay within the Shiverpeaks and train other Norn for the coming battle. The act of mentoring Norn to refuse Jormag’s temptations would be a heroic thing in itself, especially if she trains them in dangerous situations. She could even be remembered as the “mother” of heroes. She could even have the plot of training or scouting out a hero strong enough to harm Jormag’s Tooth, like a Tyrian’s answer to Merlin. All of this would lead to Jormag of which she’ll be first to lead the charge. She might be Norn but she was incredibly pragmatic too.

I just wonder if we are better served “shelving” characters until they find their time to step into the spotlight, instead of killing them off when it seems like their story has paused. Eir may have had no story to tell at the moment but there are several potential future events where she would have come in use. Namely the Jormag arc, but also the fate of Magdaer. Those stories would have been all the richer with her, than without. Not to mention that with someone like Eir, you could dive right into the Jormag arc because of her history and knowledge. Than say someone like Kasmeer.

The appeal of having 6 Elder Dragons with various corruptions plaguing the world at once, is that there are simultaneous threats around Tyria and no short supply of things for heroes to do. The game goes about elevating certain Elder Dragons to the spotlight in a linear fashion because it makes logistical sense. But that doesn’t mean the game’s heroes should be following that linear pattern. They should be following their own personal motivations and utilizing their own talents where they are served best in the wider world. It would fit in with the “Living Story” concept by having heroes traveling in and out of the player’s perspective, as if they were autonomous.

I believe it would be better if we had more than one group of heroes out in the world but with separate Elder Dragons as their focus and not always crossing paths with the player. For example the Sentinels are fighting against Kralkatorrik but having a Hero helping them elevates them and gives us a link to them, so in turn we have a stake in the Sentinels. Different Hero teams existed for a time with Destiny’s Edge and the Biconics but they all got roped into the Mordremoth fight and I fear they are now going forward a mega group. The sad thing about losing the Pact is that it could have been an organizing force. Instead of everyone going into the Jungle, the Pact could have co-ordinated different Elder Dragon efforts, and thus allowing heroes to go elsewhere but still have contact with the player’s group. Mordremoth would have been the prime target for now, but there could have been auxiliary groups operating under the Pact. Like a Jormag/Kralkatorrik/Bubbles/Primordus centred version of the Pale Reavers, of which we eventually work with depending on the arc.

So back to “shelving”. I hope that we start seeing characters left behind at certain locations only to rejoin or be picked up when a specific Dragon arc starts or when they are needed. For example Rata Novus would be a great location to shelve Zojja, who as a Golemancer could deal with the Golems and access all of the site’s knowledge about Primordus. Then when the Primordus arc occurs, Zojja would act as an authority and a key player. Zojja could also in the meantime lead a group of Heroes researching Primordus, who would appear when Elder Dragon knowledge is needed.

Funnily enough the members of Destiny’s Edge were “shelved” after the personal story where they went back to their own lives, allowing for the Biconics to lead the adventure. And that worked fine for LS2. I hope that balance is used going forward but not down the clear line of Destiny’s Edge and Biconic but who has a story to tell and who doesn’t.

This might be a bit strange but heroes’ who are off stage and out of the player’s perspectives could have updates released through the game’s mail feature. Just like how lore blogposts often go into finer detail than the game does, they could release a short story update of their current location or status like how we used to get Person Story mail from our herald or mentor. So if we left Zojja at Rata Novus, she’d send us mail about whatever information she has discovered. Even if it is trivia. It could be a way of keeping a hero active but allowing them to travel their own adventures through “postcard” but also provide an outlet for lore without having to script and voice scenes. Once read, they could be sent to a glossary tab which compiles them. For example bringing up “Rata Novus” in the tab would link you to a mail or journey previously sent to you by Taimi/Zojja describing the place. So it would double up as a description of something specific but also a mail/journal entry from a Hero’s own adventure.