Guild Wars 2

Hi Lore-gurus.

Playing through the story I found myself wondering about something after the last mission.
My interpretation of the Exalted was (and is) that they’re an incredibly powerful race even though we haven’t really seen any proof of this (correct me if I’m wrong).
During the last mission the Luminate reacts kind of hostile against Lazarus who should be an incredibly powerful creature and we have seen proof of this. I just wonder why they are more hostile towards him than afraid. Can the Luminate rival Lazarus’ power?

Please your thoughts.

The Exalted had not encountered a Mursaat before lazarus showed up. They specifically said all they knew about them was from what the Forgotten had mentioned. The Luminate would have had no idea Lazarus had absorbed so much power, so had no reason to be afraid of a single Mursaat.

I doubt they can rival his power. Defending Tarir and other battles would have been much more trivial if they were on par with him.

Considering that the Exalted are more than willing to lay down their lives for the cause, I doubt they are afraid of Lazarus possibly killing them as long as their sacrifice meant something. They would be more afraid of the possibly threat Lazarus would pose to their plans for the future, especially now that he’s shown interest in Aurene.

As for the hostility, the Exalted were alive during the time, or at least during the following aftermath, of the Mursaat’s last foray into Kryta. If anyone is more than allowed to be openly hostile to the Mursaat it’s them.

They’ve also been given the story of the Forgotten, and while the Forgotten joined the mursaat on the attack on Zhaitan, they seem to agree with the other races that the mursaat were the betrayers with what happened afterwards. So they have double reason to be suspicious of the mursaat.

However, without knowing that Lazarus ate a bloodstone, it’s probably reasonable for the Luminate to think that Lazarus could be taken down if the Luminate either forgets about or thinks it is resistant to Spectral Agony. The Exalted can release a lot of power through their willing sacrifice, so the Luminate probably felt that if push comes to shove, it could take off its mask and take Lazarus with it.

Ultimately, they’re probably roughly on par with the old mursaat (they’re based on the old Enchanted, but are more powerful: in GW1 terms, they’d probably be about level 24 in normal mode) – which means roughly on par with powerful heroes from the playable races.

Erukk.1408:

As for the hostility, the Exalted were alive during the time, or at least during the following aftermath, of the Mursaat’s last foray into Kryta. If anyone is more than allowed to be openly hostile to the Mursaat it’s them.

Yes, but not in the same place. We know they came from the same batch as the initial Zephyrites, and we’ve been told that the Zephyrites pulled almost exclusively from Elona and (for some reason) Cantha. The odds that any of the Exalted had come into contact with the mursaat, or even heard a first-hand account of them, are pretty low.

I’d forgotten that, but now you remind me…

I don’t remember now where the impression came from, but the impression I had was that they were deliberately recruited from outside of Tyria because their predecessors didn’t trust Tyrian humans not to have a conflict of interest. I don’t recall the details, but “not Tyrian” did seem to be important.

There was mention by devs in an interview that Tyria was under a lot of strife and that’s why they went out of Tyria – the strife in question was never mentioned, though, but the time period would have been ~50 years after EotN. Which is literally a dead space in lore for us beyond “forming of Zephyrites/Exalted, last of the dwarves undergo the Rite, Primordus wakes up for reals”.

The Exalted were created, not born, so I wouldn’t call them a race. They went through rites and challenges to become light energy encased in golden armor, capable of hibernating as long as it took until they were needed. With Mordremoth awakening and Glint’s egg being retrieved they were revived to fulfill their purpose of protecting her legacy. My guess is, as followers of Glint, they heard stories from her or her prophecies about the evils of Mursaat and therefore that’s why they’re hostile to Lazarus.