Guild Wars 2

There are times when theories like this keeps me up at night. Menzies currently rules the Underworld and Fissure of Woe.

Throughout the lore of Tyria there is one major entity that has never been fully flushed out before, Menzies has been a footnote on story elements with being sparsely mentioned and only ever seen in 3 places. The shadow army has only ever been seen in the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Fissure of Woe and Realm of Torment. The only known leaders of the shadow army are the Priest of Menzies(fought in the Fissure of Woe), Shakahm the Summoner(fought in the Domain of Secrets), The Darkness(fought in the Hall of Heroes) and the Greater Darkness(fought in Ravenheart Gloom) and the only information we have of the God himself as that is is/was at war with Balthazar in the Fissure of Woe and that he agreed to join his forces with Dhuum’s and Abaddon’s army(against the dragons but thats another lore theory).

but thats all from Guild Wars, what about Menzies in Guild Wars 2? The Fate of Menzies, a torch, that you get from the mystic forge… thats it.

Well, then lets see what we know about the shadow army and their activity. every member is “Shadow class” or “noun of Darkness”, in Guild Wars 2 the only major boss that is shadow army esque is the Shadow behemoth, as far as foot soldiers go we only see “Shadow Fiends”, and those 2 aren’t even labeled as Shadow Army.

The Shadow Army hasn’t operated on the Tyrian plane of existence(hystorically) so what actually happened? My theory is simple. Abaddon is dead, Mallyx is dead, the major military leaders in the Domain of Anguish are dead, Dhuum has been forced back into hibernation. Menzies in the chaos of events seized control of the Demon army and Underworld army. Shadow creatures appearing from Underworld portals, but the final nail in the coffin comes from Balthazar himself. if you’ve visited Auric Basin your aware of the Statue of Balthazar focus point, its less then pleasant to try and get as most of the time a difficult event is blocking it. an Avatar of Balthazar and 2 Hounds of Balthazar. This statue, was in Guild Wars 1, if you knelt at the statue you would summon a Champion of Balthazar who would offer to transport your party to the Fissure of Woe for a fee, even more compelling is that in Lornar’s Pass there is a Statue to Grenth guarded by Shadow Fiends(Shadow army) and Aatxe(Underworld army). in Guild Wars 1 you could do the same thing here, kneel, pay a fee, go to the Underworld.

Menzies is controlling 3 armies, operating them across at least 4 different dimensions(Tomb of Primeval Kings was a gateway to the Hall of Heroes, where you fought the Darkness as an end boss), seemingly guarding to prevent access to any of these dimensions to anyone. the Shadow Behemoth events are the fallout from the destruction of the Temple of Ages, which historically served as a hub where humans would cross dimensions with the help of avatars of the gods.

If you played Guild Wars 1 as long as some of us did, when Guild Wars 2 launched then you where disappointed that both the Fissure of Woe and Underworld are missing, ArenaNet says “because they aren’t ready yet, but will be added in the future”, but as far as lore reasons, Menzies isn’t letting us explore there anymore.

Menzies doesn’t control the Underworld that would be Grenth, and never attacked here as far as I remember. Also Menzies attacks Fissure of Woe but I don’t think he actually succeeds in taking it over from Balthazar.

As Mist has already pointed out, Menzies doesn’t control much of anything as far as we last saw, though his Shadow Army posed a serious threat to the Eternal warriors of Balthazar and even took the Temple of War from them for a short period of time.

However, I believe the aforementioned torch is an implication that Menzies has lost the war with his brother, since it is made of skull-like faces, and we can see a giant skull, which looks quite similar in fact, on a datamined FoW map that was never put into GW2.

Aside from that, the reason for why the avatar of Balthazar attacks us is simple in my opinion: It’s a defense mechanism. The avatar only spawns when the entrance to the inner temple is blocked by Mordrem vines, while there is no implication that the statue itself has been corrupted.
I firmly believe that the avatar and hounds only appear in aggressive defense against dragon corruption and do not really make a difference between anything that gets caught in between. We know from other examples that Balthazar’s magic is quite violent and dangerous to those that get in contact with it, so it makes sense.

It’s an interesting theory, but I think there’s a simpler explanation:

Not everything related to shadow or darkness is necessarily linked to Menzies. The Underworld in Guild Wars 1 was full of nightmares and spectres with names such as ‘Grasping Darkness’ and ‘Charged Blackness’. Shades share a model with Shadow Fiends summoned by necromancers, and it’s entirely possible that free-willed Shadow Fiends is pretty much exactly what they are – natural denizens of the underworld, possibly formed from the spirits of the dead, which necromancers can call from the Underworld and bind to their will.

The Shadow Behemoth could just be a particularly large underworld being, or an amalgamation of several spirits (similar to Gorseval and the titans).

When it comes to the Fate of Menzies… my interpretation from the existence of that item is that it indicates that Menzies met his end sometime between the games. Balthazar caught up to him, decapitated him, put his head on a stick, and set it on fire. The Fate is an echo of that event… or might actually be Menzies’ head. (Mind you, it’s also possible that Balthazar did that in the distant past, and the shadow lord Menzies is the vestige that remains.)

The Shadow Behemoth seems tied to Dhuum:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dhuum-Touched_Crystalline_Phial

Part of the H.O.P.E. collection is getting a Dhuum-Touched corrupted crystallien phial, and doing such requires the Shadow Behemoth fight. I’d say that’s a big indication that Dhuum is not only free, but trying to invade outside of the Underworld.

As to The Fate of Menzies being about something that happened between the games… I REALLY hope they don’t just kill off one of the three big bads of GW1 between the games, off screen, with no true plot to it. That’s just one massively awesome opportunity lost to players.

And a few notes about the OP:

• You couldn’t go to the Fissure of Woe from Balthazar’s Rest in GW1.
• Tomb of the Primeval Kings was actually led by Abaddon’s forces – while the Darkness served Menzies ultimately, they were working for Abaddon at the time, just as all the torment demons that was the bulk of the forces there were. The tendrils outside of the portal were Abaddon’s influence as well.
• Shadow Fiends/Shades actually seem more tied to the Underworld than the Shadow Army, given that they appear when Priestess Rhie attempts to open a portal to the Underworld to speak with Alastia Crow (aatxes follow too, but first its shades).

So thus far we’ve seen no evidence of Menzies’ actiosn – which makes sense, given that Menzies was never interested in Tyria – only Abaddon was. Dhuum might be too, and we’ve seen influence from him in the form of the Shadow Behemoth (or so it’s implied in the legendary collections).

As far as Lore and story goes we need to keep in mind a few things.

• There is no actual record in game of Menzies conversing or conspiering with Dhuum and Abaddon, only past tense information given by Dhuum’s or Abaddon’s minnions.
• It says on the GuildWars 1 wiki on Menzies page “To aid himself in his fight against Balthazar, Menzies has made an alliance with Abaddon and Dhuum’s servants. As part of this pact with the fallen gods, Menzies once sent three of his Darknesses to lead a force of Dhuum’s followers and demons in an attack on The Hall of Heroes through the portal from the Tomb of the Primeval Kings.” showing he has demonstrated clear authority over another God’s army.
• As Shadow arm can be found in several places in the Realm of Torment and Domain of Anguish, its clear that he has no reservations about establishing his forces in other domains or territories.

Lets also remember that Abaddon had ulterior motives for his attempt to escape the Realm of Torment and Dhuum tolerated neither resurrections nor the existence of the undead, and he hunted down all those who escaped death, having promised “death undeniable.”

As for the torch, “Fate” is not a negative word, it CAN mean a bad end, but it doesn’t always mean it. as of right now there is literally no lore, in game reference or dev speak about Menzies, not of his victory OR his defeat. but all the avalable signs and evidence says that Underworld army, Shadow army or Demons, Menzies the Mad is fully capable of controlling and dominating not just other god’s armies and domains.

there is NO evidence to even suggest Menzies lost. Grenth doesn’t control the Underworld, his 7 reapers just play steward and try to keep Dhuum asleep and i said Shadow Behemoth was shadow army “esque”, never made the claim he was a Menzies original.

When your ‘fate’ is a skull on a stick, I’d say that’s pretty negative.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

As far as Lore and story goes we need to keep in mind a few things.

• There is no actual record in game of Menzies conversing or conspiering with Dhuum and Abaddon, only past tense information given by Dhuum’s or Abaddon’s minnions.
• It says on the GuildWars 1 wiki on Menzies page “To aid himself in his fight against Balthazar, Menzies has made an alliance with Abaddon and Dhuum’s servants. As part of this pact with the fallen gods, Menzies once sent three of his Darknesses to lead a force of Dhuum’s followers and demons in an attack on The Hall of Heroes through the portal from the Tomb of the Primeval Kings.” showing he has demonstrated clear authority over another God’s army.
• As Shadow arm can be found in several places in the Realm of Torment and Domain of Anguish, its clear that he has no reservations about establishing his forces in other domains or territories.

Don’t you think the forces of Dhuum and Abaddon would, you know, do something about Menzies’ soldiers if they were there as invaders instead of allies?

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

As far as Lore and story goes we need to keep in mind a few things.

• There is no actual record in game of Menzies conversing or conspiering with Dhuum and Abaddon, only past tense information given by Dhuum’s or Abaddon’s minnions.

Uh…

“Abaddon has many dark friends, Sunspear. Recently, soldiers from Menzies’s shadow army have been seen roaming the land in support of the Margonites. Our purposes here are not so different, human. We both fight for the side of light. We must ally against Nightfall. Take the mark of light and destroy these soldiers.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Forgotten_Warden

Between the leaders themselves? No. But that’s not surprising because both Abaddon and Dhuum were imprisoned, literally. However, you do not need a face to face between leaders for forces to join alliances.

That’s what emissaries and ambassadors are for.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

As Shadow arm can be found in several places in the Realm of Torment and Domain of Anguish, its clear that he has no reservations about establishing his forces in other domains or territories.

But these Shadow Army soldiers outright fight alongside Dhuum and Abaddon’s forces. They were lead by The Greater Darkness which in turn followed Mallyx after Abaddon’s death (just as Dhuum’s general, The Fury, did).

The Shadow Army in the Realm of Torment wasn’t some sort of expansion of territory on Menzies’ part, but Menzies’ aid towards Abaddon.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

Lets also remember that Abaddon had ulterior motives for his attempt to escape the Realm of Torment

Did he? There’s no actual lore indicating that he did – just player hopes and dreams. He seemed to want revenge against the other gods, given his destruction of Arah, but there’s no real proof of this. All his actions, ultimately, led to a single goal: freedom.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

but all the avalable signs and evidence says that Underworld army, Shadow army or Demons, Menzies the Mad is fully capable of controlling and dominating not just other god’s armies and domains.

Menzies never shows any sign of controlling an army beyond the Shadow Army. There’s never any of his troops in the Underworld, and the only non-Shadow Army that seem to work with the Shadow Army are either under Abaddon or Dhuum (and those only working with the Shadow Army working under The Greater Darkness), or the Dragon Liches in Fissure of Woe.

There’s ZERO evidence or implication that Menzies is capable of controling or dominating another god’s (fallen or otherwise) armies and domains – with the sole exclusion of the traitorous Eternals of Balthazar’s army.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

i said Shadow Behemoth was shadow army “esque”, never made the claim he was a Menzies original.

You made the claim he was controlled by Menzies and that this implied Menzies took over the Underworld – which is unsupported and evidence points to Dhuum instead of Menzies.

You know, the Fate of Menzies could honestly just be an omen. Something Balthazar made to show what he would do if he caught Menzies. It doesn’t necessarily mean a date that has already happened, but could be a gate that’s yet to come.