So spot the odd one out:
Asuran racial antagonist: Inquest
Charr racial antagonist: Flame Legion
Human racial antagonist: Centaurs
Norn racial antagonist: Sons of Svanir
Sylvari racial antagonist: Nightmare Court
That’s right!
Humanity is the only race where the major antagonists are of a different race!
What’s the story ArenaNet?
Historically of course, Humanity and Centaurs have had prior conflicts; the same can be said for the Charr and Flame Legion.
I’m just quite surprised that the remaining 3 races don’t have more diverse antagonists or conversely that Humanity don’t have an antagonist of their own species to fight against. A White Mantle resurgence would be good in the latter case.
Care to elaborate and sate my curiosity?
Whats wrong with the bandits and separatists?
Neither are really a major antagonist though, are they? Not in the same way as those from other races.
Indeed, I’d say the Separatists are even more an Ebonhawk problem and relatively marginalised rather than an antagonist for the human race as a whole.
Humans do have an in-racial enemy—the bandits, who are actually a cohesive effort to sow disarray and create negativity towards the Queen in hopes of forcing her out of power (And Ministers hoping to usurp her have been using said bandits for such a gain). Every human character gets to fight them in the first part of their storyline, like every Sylvari with the NC, every Asura with the Inquest, etc.
And they are actually tied to the White Mantle, who is trying to put Queen Jennah out of power seeing as it’s her ancestry and guard that forced them out of power over Kryta in the first place.
Other races also do have multi-racial conflicts as well—Sylvari and Krait (humans have problems with the Krait too), Norn and Dredge/Jotun, Charr have a peace treaty with living humans but they’re still fighting the Ascalonian ghosts, Asura… mostly just pick on the Skritt, to be honest. They’re just less equalized since they aren’t a primary early antagonists like all these dark factions are. They’re more fluid to the open world.
Ah, thank you athuria, I didn’t realise that bit in your spoiler text. That narrative is nowhere near as obvious as the ones for other races.
It does seem to be a feature of the design that enemies within each race fit under one label. So the bad sylvari are nightmare court and a potion/sigil of nightmare court slaying is essentially doing damage to all sylvari enemies. Bandit slaying presumably covers all bad humans and supposedly covers separatists and ascalonians.
We know that the centaurs and bandits are allies, so humanity’s enemies aren’t all centaurs. They’re also branching out and allying with the Inquest and Nightmare Court, so things will likely end in a large Bandit/Centaur/Inquest/Nightmare Court vs Humans/Asura/Sylvari battle royale.
The Bandits are actually the White Mantle, who 250 years ago ruled Kryta before being overthrown by the Shining Blade.
They worship the “unseen ones” (Mursaat), and their operations typically revolved around picking out “chosen ones” in the population capable of becoming Ascended, and sacrificing them to their gods so that the Mursaat could stop the Titans from entering Tyria.
The White Mantle in present day Tyria exploits peoples’ frustrations with the Queen in order to overthrow the Shining Blade, and convert their followers to the worship of Mursaat.
Supposedly ANET is waiting for an expansion dealing with the Mursaat before they show the true colors of the so called “bandits”.
No, the bandits are bandits. Only the leaders and the puppet masters behind certain leaders are actually White Mantle. Many of the lower level minions have no idea who they are working for. You can even see some of them second guessing their decision to join the bandits in areas like Brisban Wildlands.
Well the bandits as an organiation are all tied to the White Mantle. You can find the WM symbol in multiple bandit outposts arund Kryta, so even if the lower ranks don’t know it (probably because the WM prefers to keep it a secret so the authorities don’t start investigating) they as an organization are working following their instructions and trying to damage Queen Jenahs rule because that’s what the WM wants to do.
The bandits are as good a racial antagonist as any other, I would even say more than some of the others. The inquest and sons are the “bad asuras and norns” but they’re even allowed around in their capitols.
About the centaurs, more than racial antagonists they’re the territory antagonist for Kryta, like the Dredge are the territory antagonist for the Shiverpeaks and the Krait for locations close to the Sea. The centaur lived in Kryta and the humans live in Kryta so that’s why they’re in a territorial war. The Ghosts of Ascalon could be consider the territorial antagonists for Ascalon too as the Charr have to fight them as much as the Humans are fighting the Centaurs or the Charr themselves fight the FL.
In fact while you deal a lot with Centaurs in multiple events, in personal story they’re featured in the tutorial and one mission depending on your bio, and that’s all. The real human threat are the bandits and I’m sure their connection to the White Mantle will be explored in future expansions, probably with the reveal of the Isles of Janthir as the Eye of Janthir was related to the WM and the Mursaats during GW1.
(edited by Lokheit.7943)
Neither are really a major antagonist though, are they? Not in the same way as those from other races.
Uhhhh…
Bandits are:
They’re definably fit as a racial enemy. They’re focused on differently. To be perfectly honest, if you ask me, I’d say the bandits – or rather, White Mantle – are the most threatening of all racial antagonists. Simply because of all the connections they’ve made. And they could even have Lazarus the Dire backing them still (which is, imo, how the Inquest got to know so kitten much about the Elder Dragons in Crucible of Eternity and the mursaat magic in Arah).
Ah, thank you athuria, I didn’t realise that bit in your spoiler text. That narrative is nowhere near as obvious as the ones for other races.
The White Mantle bit is only revealed to players in the Unknown Parents storyline. If you don’t play that, or read about it, you’d never know the White Mantle are even still around. The best you get to that otherwise is the Seraph mentioning investigating White Mantle possible survivings in Brisban Wildlands.
The Bandits are actually the White Mantle
Not fully. The grunts of the bandits are misled civilians made to believe that Jennah’s a no-good tyrant and that anarchy is the way things should be – without realizing, apparently, that their leaders aren’t looking for “freedom” that anarchy would be, but to rule themselves.
As another note from the human 11-20 storylines:
The Lost Sister storyline shows that Caudecus – who also has ties with the bandits – is not above sabotaging the Seraph in order to make Queen Jennah look bad. Where he’s done it once, he’s probably done it before. Added to the instances of bandits actively assisting the centaurs (most clear in Kessex Hills) and its reasonable to say that the centaurs have only really had the success they’ve had because of the actions of Caudecus’ faction and the White Mantle… assuming they’re not one and the same.
Basically, the bandits are humanity’s true racial enemy – the centaurs are basically the catspaws of Jennah’s political opponents. I suspect this is likely to become clearer as the story progresses – the open world storyline seems to indicate that the centaurs have been driven back (the highest level map with them has an event chain that ends with the death of the Ulgoth, the overall leader of the centaur invasion).
The centaurs really (imo) just seem to be a faction that evens out the power of all the races. By far the humans and the charr have the most manpower at their disposal, and it is because of this that both of these races seem to have the most obstacles in their way. The charr have the Flame Legion, ogres, and ascalonian ghosts while the humans have the bandits and the centaurs and both have to deal with the separatists and the renegades. You compare this to the norn who really only have the Sons of Svanir and the Dredge, and the asura and the sylvari who only really have their racial enemies.
Norn arguably have the jotun and grawl as well – they’re relatively minor threats, but realistically, so are the ogres to the charr.
It may also be a question of territory. Asura and sylvari both only have one zone, plus some presence in Brisban (and the occasional sylvari enclave on the other side of the Sea of Sorrows). Kryta is the main focus in three zones, half of a fourth, and the top strip of Brisban. Norn are dispersed across pretty the whole explorable Shiverpeaks, while charr get the entirety of Ascalon. Since they have such relatively small territories, it’s likely that the reason why the asura and sylvari have less racial enemies is that they can afford to without it becoming a case of fighting the same enemies all the time over several maps.
Neither are really a major antagonist though, are they? Not in the same way as those from other races.
Indeed, I’d say the Separatists are even more an Ebonhawk problem and relatively marginalised rather than an antagonist for the human race as a whole.
The Seps are trying very hard to restart the Charr-Human war. If they succeed, humanity dies and shortly afterwards the Charr are overwhelmed by the Branded after so many resources and lives are spent. It begins a domino effect that kills -everyone-.
Yeah, personally I think them a racial enemy for humans.
My issue with bandits are that they’ve been done to death in jRPGs.
Had they been renamed “rebel”, or “insurgent”, it would have made them a lot more interesting.
“Bandit” is a very simplistic and general term. It’s no different than saying “Soldier” truth be told.
The centaurs are humanity’s racial enemies only in the sense that Ascalonian ghosts are the charr racial enemies – they’re not an internal enemy faction, which is what the others are. The White Mantle connection (I’m going to avoid any more spoilers than that) is very interesting and what links humanity’s internal problems, to my mind. It is much more veiled – and I’m expecting a later storyline to highlight and reveal more about any such connections down the line. I certainly have my suspicions about a certain Minister Caudecus, haha…
Many of us players have a special place in our hearts for human history due to GW1, so it would make sense to make a story of it for a later date, as politics develop!
I certainly have my suspicions about a certain Minister Caudecus, haha…
The dead sister human storyline outright tells us Caudecus is working with bandits (ordering them around, in fact). Caudecus Manor explorable dungeon shows an all-to-established bandit camp very close to his home, which deals with centaurs in human slave trading. Furthermore, in the Order of Whispers storyline, if you go to help Benn Tenstrikes after Claw Island falls, you’ll see the Caudecus hires mercenaries as “guards” for Beetletun – said mercenaries using Bandit models.
I think it’s pretty well established that, at the very least, Caudecus is in cahoots with the bandits.
Not to mention that many of the bandits like to think of themselves not as criminals, but as freedom fighters fighting against the “tyrannical” Queen Jennah. And who’s the Queen’s main political rival? Bingo.
This is fascinating.
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