Guild Wars 2

Spoilers and speculations…

Gods were considered “good”. Dragons were considered "evil. Killing off the dragons brings an unbalance to “things”… So… Balthazar and Aurene are the start of flipping the good vs evil script.

New dragons are hatched. We become dragon “minions”, or gain the aspects of dragons, and the new antagonists (good catch Konig!) are the current set of gods… All of this leads to GW3 “Heart of God Slayers” or GW3 HoGS for short. GW3 HoGS may even be a Moba and GW2 goes into maintenance mode.

What do you think?

Gods were not universally good – even ignoring Abaddon and Dhuum (and the canonical unsure “gods of insectoid beings” that may or may not include the equally canonically unsure Arachnia), Balthazar and Grenth were always presented more as “neutral” on the good-evil scale (and even now, though his actions seem kitten ing, Balthazar is still on the neutral portion, though leaning far more towards evil).

Similarly, dragons were not always universally evil – until GW2 introduced the Elder Dragons (yes we saw Primordus and Kralkatorrik in GW1, presuming they’re not retconing the statue into being a dragon champion despite repeatedly telling us it’s the Elder Dragon itself, but we didn’t know their names, or that they were dragons, until promotions for GW2 began post-EotN release), we actually had more good named dragons than evil: Glint, Gleam (though name was unknown at the time, he was in GW1), Kuunavang, Albax and arguably Shiny, versus Kunvie and Rotscale.

And there’s been long theories that even the Elder Dragons might have “once been good” or that races of dragons existed where the Elder Dragons rose from, making dragons just as varying from black to white as humans or charr.

All that said, I doubt they’re setting a stage for GW3 – they’re very clearly wanting to milk GW2 as long as possible (and reasonably so), and are now trying to leave the too-long-standing-in dragon plot.

Besides, the Pact Commander has already been mentally and magically influenced by Aurene. It is an easy argument to say that the PC has long become a dragon champion of Aurene, but lacking any physical alterations like the “evil” Elder Dragons’ minions.

And I’m pretty sure you mean antagonists (primary villain) rather than protagonist (primary hero).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Similarly, dragons were not always universally evil – until GW2 introduced the Elder Dragons (yes we saw Primordus and Kralkatorrik in GW1, presuming they’re not retconing the statue into being a dragon champion despite repeatedly telling us it’s the Elder Dragon itself, but we didn’t know their names, or that they were dragons, until promotions for GW2 began post-EotN release), we actually had more good named dragons than evil: Glint, Gleam (though name was unknown at the time, he was in GW1), Kuunavang, Albax and arguably Shiny, versus Kunvie and Rotscale.

For completeness, there’s also Miella, Snapjaw, and Sourbeak. I think there might also be some bone dragon bosses apart from Rotscale.

However...

In Factions, we’re told that the Jade Sea dragons, the Saltsprays at least, are only violent as a result of having been driven insane by the Jade Wind. So they aren’t naturally evil – they’re under the effect of corrupted magic.

Similarly, Rotscale and his buddies are undead, and while in Guild Wars you can’t make the assumption that something is evil just because they’re undead, it is true that undead beings often act differently than how they would in life, either due to a corrupting effect from the magic that animated them, or because the magic that animates them does not allow them to retain their free will.

So, if we just work with Guild Wars 1, there are in fact no cases of an evil dragon where it could not be explained through being corrupted in one manner or another.

(Come to think on it, this does make me wonder about possible links between bloodstone madness and the madness of many of the magical creatures that survived the Jade Wind…)

draxynnic.3719:

(Come to think on it, this does make me wonder about possible links between bloodstone madness and the madness of many of the magical creatures that survived the Jade Wind…)

After seeing this I watched the Factions cinematic trailer which showed us how Shiro killed the emperor , absorbed his magic and then got wounded where he leaked magic like crazy. His death then was practically a magic nuke.

This nuke had a really big radius. It would have affected a big chunk of Maguuma if the positions of his death and the Bloodstone were switched. Not the raduis a bloodstone detonation would have ( The Maguuma Bloodstone would have destroyed a chunk of Tyria without Balthazar )

So Shiro had a crapton of magic in his body. More than what most of the people here would think would be possible and also more than Xera had. ( And she had enough mesmer magic to do some reality warping kitten but not enough to detonate in a nuke. )

I also think that there is a possible link between creatures surviving a blast of uncontrolled magic of this magnitude and then going crazy. Both, the creatures that survived the Jade Wind and the Pact Soldiers and White Mantle in Bloodstone Fen survived a magic detonation and their mind got affected by this. But the Bloodstone crazed people have one difference. They are craving for magic and want more and more. Something I don’t see with the creatures that survived the Jade Wind.

Well, the Bloodstone explosion has been said by multiple sources to have been set to be even bigger than the Jade Wind if it hadn’t been sucked back in. One character suggests that the explosion was looking to be big enough to take out Lion’s Arch – I’m pretty sure that would have made it bigger than the Jade Wind.

Agreed, we don’t see magic cravings in the creatures affected by the Jade Wind… but they’re also not communicating why they’re attacking (well, we know the history bhind naga and wardens, but I don’t think either of those were hit directly). We know that Elder Dragons can absorb magical energy from their victims (it’s a large part of why they’re a threat, in fact), and it’s possible that the reason the dragons, kirin, and so on that were affected by the Jade Wind are hostile is because they’re hungry for the magic bound in the life force of their victims.

PS On the question of Shiro holding more magic in his body than would normally be possible – it was supposed to be a gift from Dwayna, so it’s likely the magic is ‘packaged’, for want of a better word, in a way that makes it easier for a mortal to contain… at least temporarily (the ceremony is supposed to release the magic fairly quickly, just not so destructively).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

All that said, I doubt they’re setting a stage for GW3 – they’re very clearly wanting to milk GW2 as long as possible (and reasonably so), and are now trying to leave the too-long-standing-in dragon plot.

Good, the sooner they park the Us vs. the slightly intangible Elder Dragons as antoginists, the better. GW2 story was turning into Edge of Destiny novel with

a) Elder Dragon threat rising
b) Heroes move to that area and defeat the ED
c) New Elder Dragon threat arises
d) Heroes move to next area and defeat the ED

Re-introduction of Gods who can have various agendas with the remaining Elder Dragons, other factions warring for control, gives them the opportunity to create various story lines dealing with more concrete issues; and where the reaction of the counter parts is less predictable. The Elder Dragons as gargantuan forces of nature/magic hellbent on consumption of magic and our destruction become kind of simplistic in their approach – where the main objective was to uncover their weakness then rush in and defeat them before they destroy us and Tyria.

Now there’s room for more complex stories where the consequence of the antagonist winning doesn’t necessarily spell the end of everything; but shifts in power/control. Which at least I hope is the direction things are going, with Dragon’s Watch suddenly taking on the custodian role to safeguard the ED’s existence in addition to keeping them under control.

And please for the love of God, I would be happy to hear no more talks of a GW3… there’s still so much potential for GW2 to grow and I can’t even fathom that Anet would even consider a GW3 themselves at this point.