Guild Wars 2

When doing some lore research, I noticed something very absurd when comparing GW1 villains to GW2 villains: Shiro Tagachi is equal to Zhaitan.

Think about it. Like Zhaitan, Shiro creates undead (mutant) minions who serve him by killing the opposing forces. These were called the Afflicted and Shiro’ken.

Similarly, Zhaitan corrupts the corpses of his defeated enemies to create Risen.

And whereas Zhaitan used his raw strength to raise a continent (Orr), Shiro was capable of petrifying both a forest and sea!

Are they equal in power with only a difference in strength? Perhaps.

What do you think? Is Shiro Tagachi any match for Zhaitan in a war? The Afflicted certainly seem like a equal match for the Risen!

Okay, you are talking about Shiro Tagachi in two different forms.

When Shiro petrified the Echovald Forest and the Jade Sea it wasn’t himself doing it, you see, the Emperor had received a gift from the Goddess Dwayna in order to give bounty to the years crops and merely to bless the realm in general. When Shiro killed the Emperor he took this blessing onto himself and used it to give him strength and power. When he was finally slain by the champions Visu, Archemorus, and Victor this blessing, which Shiro had corrupted was released throughout the area in a flood and it corrupted the landscape surrounding. So technically this power was not his own, but instead was the corrupted power of Dwayna a goddess.

At this point Shiro was not living in any fleshy form, but was instead an envoy. He had found a way to quit the duties that he was supposed to do, which was escorting the dead to the afterlife, and was instead able to take their souls and trap them within armor bound to his will. In this aspect he may have been able to hold his own against Zhaitan, having no visible form of his own, and armies of afflicted and Shiro’ken at his beck and call. I only say this because Joko has proven that it is possible for lesser creatures to hold the dragons at bay. But this being said, it was never his will to stay that way. The entirety of the story was him creating a spell that would allow him a mortal form once more. In this fleshy form there is no way he could ever have the power to overthrow an Elder Dragon in an all out war.

My analogy of Zhaitan, Shiro and Joko are that they are ‘hackers’ who could manipulate the source code of the world to create malware in the system. I don’t know how Shiro and Joko came to discover how to make malware(undead) in a massive scale. But one thing is for sure, they cannot create something out of nothing, they need specific materials to create their undead army.

I believe (though I can’t find any references for it right now) that it’s stated somewhere that the Jade Wind was part of Abaddon’s “gift” to Shiro.

Shiro never directly worked for Abaddon, unlike the Lich Lord. Instead Shiro was coerced into his actions by a fortune teller that you later learn was a demonic servant of Abaddon. So, I don’t know where you saw this reference, but it could be said that somehow the fortune teller gave him the power of the Jade Wind, but up to this point in time, everything I read has said it was the stolen bounty of Dwayna.

ok from my prespective of the stories when i went through it
shiro turned living people into afflicted and shiro’ken (something like in resident evil of using a virus to create a zombie and no he did not use a virus just used it for an example)
zhaitan raised actual corpses of the dead (a real zombie actually using magic to raise a dead body with out a soul)
so in this since zhaitan would be even more powerful than shiro in a since

But if Shiro can only corrupt the living, how did he corrupt the spirits of Cantha’s heroes and bound them into Shiroken? Example: Vizu. You know.. Those bosses you fought in Tahnakai temple.

Does Zhaitan corrupt corpses whereas Shiro can corrupt the living, dead, and spirits?

Kain Francois.4328:

Think about it. Like Zhaitan, Shiro creates undead (mutant) minions who serve him by killing the opposing forces. These were called the Afflicted and Shiro’ken.

[…]

And whereas Zhaitan used his raw strength to raise a continent (Orr), Shiro was capable of petrifying both a forest and sea!

Are they equal in power with only a difference in strength? Perhaps.

Khilbron creates undead minions who serve him by killing the opposing forces. These were called undead.

[…]

And whereas Zhaitan used his raw strength to raise a continent (false – kingdom), Khilbron was capable of burying it in the Cataclysm.

Abaddon creates demon minions who serve him by influencing individuals (foes and allies). These were called Margonites.

[…]

And whereas Zhaitan used his raw strength to raise a kingdom (Orr), Abaddon used his mind to turn Elona into a twisted nightmare, and was able to defeat two gods before he was struck down.

In seriousness though, Shiro was empowered by gods’ powers when he caused the Jade Wind (he used a dark ritual to absorb and alter magic granted by Dwayna to the emperor – intended to be spread among the people), and he was only able to create the Afflicted and Shiro’ken by being able to control souls – a power granted to him by Suun, Oracle of the Mists, when Shiro was made an Envoy. The entire time, Shiro was backed by Abaddon from the Realm of Torment.

If Zhaitan and Shiro went head to head, Zhaitan would crush Shiro like a bug – backed by a god or not.

Narcemus.1348:

Shiro never directly worked for Abaddon, unlike the Lich Lord. Instead Shiro was coerced into his actions by a fortune teller that you later learn was a demonic servant of Abaddon.

While living, Shiro never directly worked for Abaddon – however, after death he was.

Kain Francois.4328:

But if Shiro can only corrupt the living, how did he corrupt the spirits of Cantha’s heroes and bound them into Shiroken? Example: Vizu. You know.. Those bosses you fought in Tahnakai temple.

Does Zhaitan corrupt corpses whereas Shiro can corrupt the living, dead, and spirits?

He can’t influence the living directly – the living can fall to the plague that his presence brings, but that’s more of a side-affect. Furthermore, he doesn’t really control the dead, merely controls the souls inhabiting the corpses.

Shiro’s powers as an Envoy seem to match that of the Scepter of Orr, but on a lesser scale – control of the ethereal (in Shiro’s case, souls).

Yeah, I remember spoilering Shiro and the Lich within the Realm of Torment during the Gate of Madness mission. My post was talking mainly to the comment above about the jade wind being a gift from Abaddon.