Guild Wars 2

(Also in regards to mind magic in general).

I keep seeing comments in multiple threads in regards to Glint’s prophetic ability, along the lines of:

- ‘Why didn’t she foresee the death of ‘x’
- Why didn’t she set up a plan to save her eggs
- Why didn’t she know that she’d be killed by Kralkatorrik (Edge of Destiny)

Just a reminder that we have no idea the mechanics in which Glint’s conception of ‘The Flameseeker Prophecies’ came to be; furthermore we don’t know the magical processes in which prophecy functions within the Guild Wars universe.

Also let it be noted that Glint foresaw that the Mursaat would meet their demise at the hands of the titans (nobody is arguing that there were not Mursaat fatalities upon their emergence from the Door of Komalie, the point here is that what Glint had foreseen was not set in stone so to speak).

This fact remains to be largely untrue. Such as it stands, mind-magic should not the be-all-end-all of the plot holes in Guild Wars 2; a symptom caused in a previous fashion by Asuran technology, and I am hoping that not just the player but A-net recognizes this as well (as I suspect they have).

I choose to believe that Glint’s predictive powers are actually just a combination of 1) mind reading, 2) old age (i.e. accumulated knowledge and wisdom) and 3) actively influencing events (for example by making people think the flameseeker prophecies were true prophecies she managed to influence the actions of people).

I also choose to believe that Glint forced the chain of events.

[speculation mode on]
perhaps glint:
A- doesn’t control her prophecies, she only gets random flashes of the future
B- cannot foresee her own personal timeline
C- can see POSSIBLE futures, but not THE future because it is in flux and hasn’t happened yet (This is my personal supported theory)
D- Had her prophetic ability messed with by kralkatorrik so she can’t spy on her master
E- was just lazily written
[speculation mode off]

sits back with some popcorn

It’d certainly be easier to know if the prophecies were available to us in full, but from what we do have of them, I think the evidence points to either legitimate precognition or Glint pulling the strings a la Abaddon. Getting a doomed prince, undead rising, and a climactic battle in the Shiverpeaks opening the way to the Ring of Fire, not to mention the interpretation which also includes the Searing, all 800 years in advance, takes more than educated guessing. Of the two, I’m inclined to believe she actually did see the future, at the very least in broad strokes and possibilities, because A.) it’s less tinfoil hat lore nihilism, B.) we now have independent verification that it is possible (thank you, Pale Tree) and C.) it’s hard to credit that a dragon in the Crystal Desert would be able to influence events across three nations to the extent of determining where and when their armies move. I think most likely, given our current, limited understanding of how seeing the future works (although it would be the option that requires Glint to have the most ability to delve said future), is that she was able to pick out the least damaging of several possible outcomes of the Prophecies campaign, and made small nudges through the centuries that butterflyed out to ensure that was the outcome that came to pass, more or less.

Back in GW1, I actually got the distinct impression that Glint wasn’t a real prophet at all; rather, the Flameseeker Prophecies were a self-fulfilling false prophecy designed to manipulate events into coming to pass. After all, the Mursaat only started meddling with humanity and formed the White Mantle after the Prophecies predicted their downfall at the hands of the Titans. If the Mursaat had stayed out completely of the war between Charr and humanity, the course of history would have been very different.

There are parts of the Prophecies, though, that the mursaat had nothing to do with.

But didn’t Abaddon also have a hand in the Flameseeker Prophecies? If that were the case, it could just make the whole prophecy seem less like “seeing the future” and more like seeing the most incredibly obvious outcomes of the obvious actions. Glint may just be a master at predicting cause and effect, and not so much seeing time as an extra dimension or something. She’s old, she’s seen the entirety of the God’s time on Tyria, she knows how they’d operate, its unlikely she wouldn’t be able to make accurate predictions of events that involve their actions. She also knew of the powers lying about Tyria (such as the scroll that exploded Orr and the Cauldron that rained crystalline death on Ascalon). She’s basically the only conscious creature alive in Tyria that knows all the pieces of the puzzle. Or she was.

All things considered, all the parts of the Prophecies are just the most obvious factors of past occurrences. But then hindsight is 20/20, so I could be wrong on that. Also, the prophecies were not perfect, which is further proof that she could not see EVERYTHING. Maybe she failed to predict the remaining Mursaat (although, at this point it’s just as likely that they’re not going to come back in any significant way. They could be so crippled to the point of irrelevance that she just didn’t bother to bring them up) because at the point you fulfilled the prophecy, they stopped being a part OF the prophecy, and thus subject to the billions of random occurrences that would be impossible to foresee.

Basically, maybe she didn’t see the future when making the Prophecies. Maybe to her, the Prophecies were just a glaringly obvious set of actions that SEEMED impossible to foresee to anyone who didn’t have Glint’s knowledge.

I fail to see how the destruction of two kingdoms after 200 years (which happened after compiling the Flameseeker Prophecies) was “the most obvious outcomes of the obvious actions.”

In fact, while the Prophecies are rather vague, I find it hard to believe that all of the following just happened to be “the most obvious outcome”:

• A nation would become uninhabitable, forcing an exodus.
• A prince will die on said exodus, but the exodus will save the people.
• The undead will attack the living.
• Trusting a “trecherous man” will bring doom.
• A “war against the divine” will occur and the “true seers” revealed.
• “An opening will be given to the disciples of the Unseen. The peaks and valleys of the Shiverpeaks will be painted in blood. At this time, the Ascendants will rise, and the way to the Door will be clear.”
• The “Flameseeker” will force open the Door of Komalie and take control of the titans.
• The Flameseeker would subsequently be killed, and the Door reclosed, and the Chosen would escape from the erupting volcano.

Individually, sure, these are pretty obvious. But together, in the year 272 AE, Glint effectively foretold/predicted:

• The mursaat returning to the world of Tyria from who knows where and gathering a followship, pretending to be divine beings.
• An undead assault led by the Flameseeker, who would open the Door of Komalie before being killed.
• Chosen who would escape the mursaat’s grasp and turn to the desert for Ascension, before being tricked by the Flameseeker to open the Door of Komalie, and subsequently kill and close the Door, surviving even the eruption afterwards.
• The death of Prince Rurik during an exodus from Ascalon, which would be destroyed by magic that was introduced 600 years after the foretelling by an influence that no longer existed in the world for said 600 years after the foretelling.

That’s a bit too much faith on an individual’s abilities (the Chosen) to be “the most incredibly obvious outcomes of the obvious actions.” It’s a bit too much faith on an individual’s precise death (Rurik in the middle of the exodus) to be “the most incredibly obvious outcomes of the obvious actions.”

There is just far too many details told in the Flameseeker Prophecies for me to ever believe that it was just some Isaac Asminov-styled Psychohistory.

I could agree with such if it were fewer specific things (Prince death, Chosen’s survival at the end, Flameseeker’s death), but still the entire prophecies hinged on the notion that the mursaat would return to the world after fleeing it from the Elder Dragons (even if this bit of lore didn’t exist during GW1) and that Abaddon would destroy not one, but two of the human kingdoms of Tyria.

Yes, the Flameseeker Prophecies are indeed uncannily accurate, but I guess the angle I’m going for is, “When exactly did humans become aware of the Prophecies?” According to the timeline, Glint compiles the Prophecies in 272 AE, but according to who? Glint? She might very well have been lying about that; all it would take is to plant the suggestion in the minds of some gullible sages and historians that these Prophecies have been around for hundreds of years, when in fact they were mostly written after the fact.

I’m perfectly happy to accept that Glint does indeed have prophetic abilities and foretold said events, but do we actually have proof that the Prophecies have been around for that long? Do we have written copies of the Prophecies that predate the fall of Ascalon, the Lich becoming the Flameseeker etc.? And was it a COMPLETE set of the Prophecies, or were bits and pieces of it missing and/or vague? As an example, Glint herself says “Long into the Season of the Scion, Tyria is revived again. Over the bones of the bird of prey, the fire is put out and the diabolic gathering is closed off once again.” But this is the first time in the game we even hear this line; did anybody apart from Glint know this part of the Prophecies? It could just as well have been something Glint made up on the spot to complete her prophecy.

The timelines in the manuals and books appear to be written from an omniscient viewpoint – or rather, the viewpoint of the developers. An OOC accounting, one can say.

But the question is: why would Glint lie about when she compiled them, if she did? They were all known before the events actually took place, even before the White Mantle’s founding. So what, the mursaat read the prophecies and went “we can make ourselves an empire, but we now know how to avoid our downfall if we do so”? Makes little sense to me.

When you look at isolated aspects of the Flameseeker Prophecies, yeah, “Glint made it up” works. But when you look at all facets… such a thing makes no sense. Because there are things that are outside Glint’s control, and are unlikely (Abaddon and the mursaat’s return to the world).

Is there definitive proof of the Prophecies existing before the events of the Cataclysm and Charr invasion? Like, an actual tome well-known to non-human races? (The Brotherhood of the Dragon might have such texts, although I think it was never stated when exactly they were formed.)

And it was more a “The Mursaat hear that Glint has foretold that the Mursaat race will be exterminated at the hands of the Titans, unleashed by a group of human Chosen. They decide to try and stop fate by sacrificing all Chosen on the Bloodstones, and thus become involved in the affairs of humanity as a result, setting the stage for the events of Prophecies to occur.”

Glint would certainly know about the Mursaat’s existence, and as a “friend to the humanoid races”, might bear them a grudge for abandoning the others. The entire Flameseeker Prophecies might have been a grand scheme for Glint to wipe them out so they couldn’t do something similar, or perhaps hamper the plans of the new generation of younger races, the next time the Elder Dragons awoke. She might also want to build a reputation as a seer and prophet so that powerful individuals would seek her out, and she could then subtly guide/manipulate these people into preparing for the Elder Dragons.

Again, I stress that I am very much open to the idea of Glint being a true prophet. I just feel like I need a couple more pieces of evidence before I’m convinced.

We know that Turai Ossa tried to fulfill them in 868. That points to them being available to humans at least 200 years beforehand.

Aha, great! That’s the kind of chronological grounding I was looking for. So yeah, knowledge of the Flameseeker Prophecies did indeed predate the Charr invasion and the fall of Ascalon, and it was fairly common knowledge among scholars.

Still, if the Flameseeker Prophecies were well-known, wouldn’t Lich Khilbron then also be aware that an attempt to command the Titans would end in failure (and possibly his destruction)? That’s why I had the impression at the end of Prophecies that there may have been parts of the prophecy Glint kept entirely to herself, only releasing bits and tidbits to nudge players into the acts she wanted them to do.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

We know that Turai Ossa tried to fulfill them in 868. That points to them being available to humans at least 200 years beforehand.

On top of this, the Test of the Chosen was first done – to our knowledge – in 1067 AE. 3 years before the Searing, 4 before the Cataclysm. The White Mantle have parts of the prophecies in their holy scriptures. This indicates that the mursaat did know of the prophecies – and knew of them prior to the cataclysmic events.

The only parts of the Prophecies that’s mentioned in hindsight is the Shiverpeaks being covered in war and the Flameseeker’s death. The rest are talked about before their occurrence – even in hindsight of another’s actions (Turai talks about the undead invasion and mistook Joko’s for the Prophecies’ mention, thus thinking himself a Chosen that would Ascend in the Crystal Desert by aid of the ghosts there – post death, he realized that he would be the ghost that aids the Chosen).

Zaxares.5419:

Still, if the Flameseeker Prophecies were well-known, wouldn’t Lich Khilbron then also be aware that an attempt to command the Titans would end in failure (and possibly his destruction)? That’s why I had the impression at the end of Prophecies that there may have been parts of the prophecy Glint kept entirely to herself, only releasing bits and tidbits to nudge players into the acts she wanted them to do.

It does seem that Glint intentionally let some aspects be unknown – but this is only seen to be the Flameseeker’s death and closing of the Door.

But the majority of the prophecies were known throughout.