(edited by lordhelmos.7623)
Sylvari court, dream, mordrem not explained
The relationships between all the Sylvari sects just hit Neon genesis Evangelion level of wtf.
When you start as a Sylvari you face the shadow of the dragon in the dream which is clearly portrayed as related to the nightmare.
Then we find out that the court isn’t related to the dragon at all. The nightmare is never explained and the story never touched on the important mechanic that causes Sylvari that join the nightmare to “become someone else” and never be able to come back.
Then you have scarlet who went crazy after looking into the eternal alchemy and hearing the dragon call to its minions, which the Sylvari are. The relationship between the eternal alchemy and the dragon were also unexplained.
When this all wraps up the revelations are too slow, too cryptic, and too complex for people to put together.
I always looked at it as ‘light fae’ and ‘dark fae’, the seelie and unseelie courts respectively. And they do seem to embody all of those traits.
But yes. everything else needs to be explained! Too many plot holes for my liking.
Out of darkness, light.
Necro/Reaper, Rev
Necro/Reaper, Rev
HoT gave too little lore. The most lore came from explaining the Exalted. Everything else felt scrapped together, and the blog posts explain more about the hylek and mordrem guard than anything in game that I’ve found.
Topics that should have been brought in but didn’t or got so little screen time that it might as well not exist:
- Elite Specialization origins
- Druids
- Malyck
- Dream/Nightmare/Mordremoth and their relations
- Nightmare Court
- Sylvari can turn at any moment (there’s one or two events in Verdant Brink, that’s about it afaik)
- Mordrem Guard being smarter than other dragon minions (they felt the exact same as Orrian risen except that they had fancier skill sets)
- Revenant origins
- The egg and its purpose
The biggest disappointment is the lack of Malyck and his tree, and the lack of explaining the difference between Nightmare and Mordremoth since they seem so similar.
HoT was good but it was missing out on too many things.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I agree with you that there is way to less lore. It felt rushed, i remember in the trailer after the season 2 final, Canach who got attacked, Faolain and other things. But yeah Faolain was their, 2 minuts later she was a monster that was the deal. And the thing with Canach and the misstrust on other sylvari, you hear on one or two points some characters speaking that maybe you can turn to mordremoth but i with my sylvari character dont realy feel this misstrust and i think that is a missing oppertunity for lore and replayability to see what is the difference if you play sylvari or dont.
And to the tree, i explained it for myself like this. I saw in the dragons last stand area the “tree” where the last mission starts and kind of thought, mordremoth has taken this tree for himself, like it is the pale tree for the playable sylvaris. And maybe this was Malycks tree and mordremoth simply took over the tree, destroyed it and made all the sylvari that lived / were born there to the mordrem guard, so no sylvari survived, noone to find. But this is a big junk of interpretation.
- Sylvari can turn at any moment (there’s one or two events in Verdant Brink, that’s about it afaik)
I think those were more sleeper agents. In one event you ‘scan’ Sylvari to see if they have been corrupted or not, and when you reveal them they attack you.
I agree with you that there is way to less lore. It felt rushed, i remember in the trailer after the season 2 final, Canach who got attacked, Faolain and other things. But yeah Faolain was their, 2 minuts later she was a monster that was the deal. And the thing with Canach and the misstrust on other sylvari, you hear on one or two points some characters speaking that maybe you can turn to mordremoth but i with my sylvari character dont realy feel this misstrust and i think that is a missing oppertunity for lore and replayability to see what is the difference if you play sylvari or dont.
We get the mistrust of Slyvari in the pve maps. Because ANet purposefully wanted to give the personal story a sense of urgency (and thus a sense that we’re rushing to save our comrades) that there wasn’t too much time to stop and smell the racism.
Giving a sense of urgency seems to be where they went wrong, since it is that deliberate philosophy that caused it too feel so incredibly lore lite and took away much of the epic feel. They could have had the urgency and the rescues end the first half of the story, then the rest concentrate on gathering the remaining pact for a final push into Dragon Stand.
On the way we could have found out about other Trees, The Exalted could have given us info on the egg, we could have been receiving reports about sylvari turns back home to make the urgency greater. I wanted to know much more about the Sylvari, the Dream and the Nightmare. That time has now gone.
Options, options, options. All cut short for a headlong charge into the jungle. Kilroy Stonekin at least would be proud
We get the mistrust of Slyvari in the pve maps. Because ANet purposefully wanted to give the personal story a sense of urgency (and thus a sense that we’re rushing to save our comrades) that there wasn’t too much time to stop and smell the racism.
They could have had Logan and Zojja – and Trahearne if they deigned to keep him alive like they should have IMHO – being taken to the Blighting Tree in southern Auric Basin. Then we could have not rushed through Tangled Depths and Dragon’s Reach.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Story would have made more sense if they had stopped trying to link everything together like episodes of Lost:
- It would have made more sense if Scarlet was “just” a psychotic leader of sky pirates who accidentally unleashed an elder dragon. The whole external alchemy thing never went anywhere anyway.
- it would have made more sense to leave the Shadow as a premonition of Zhaitan. Another champion of Mordremoth could easily have been introduced to fill the same role in LS2. And the nightmare court have essentially gone unused in the story anyway.
- Having a player race as dragon minions was never going to work, in story or mechanics. Not unless you’re the sort of person that likes pretending that they hear voices. And it’s basically unneccessary to the plot anyway.
- it would have made more sense to leave the Shadow as a premonition of Zhaitan. Another champion of Mordremoth could easily have been introduced to fill the same role in LS2. And the nightmare court have essentially gone unused in the story anyway.
A Dragon made out of Plants to be a premonition of Zhaitan who has nothing to do with Plants? Makes Sense.
Sry but the Shadow was the first Hint of the Existence of a Jungle Dragon. It had nothing to do with Zhaitan.
The Shadow of the Dragon was originally established as a representation of the player character’s Wyld Hunt – which was indeed to kill Zhaitan at the time. The reason why it was made out of plants is because – so we were told – the Nightmare’s presence turned the representation into a physical manifestation using the world around it. You’re in a forest, what would something that’s becoming a physical manifestation using the world around it use? How about plants, which surround a forest?
Everything we were told about the Shadow of the Dragon was that it was a representation of Zhaitan. It even looks very similar to Zhaitan’s dragon champions in shape.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
The Shadow of the Dragon was originally established as a representation of the player character’s Wyld Hunt – which was indeed to kill Zhaitan at the time. The reason why it was made out of plants is because – so we were told – the Nightmare’s presence turned the representation into a physical manifestation using the world around it. You’re in a forest, what would something that’s becoming a physical manifestation using the world around it use? How about plants, which surround a forest?
Everything we were told about the Shadow of the Dragon was that it was a representation of Zhaitan. It even looks very similar to Zhaitan’s dragon champions in shape.
In hindsight, it becomes obvious this was really the Pale Tree convincing you it was Zhaitan so that you’re left in the dark about Mordremoth
Again people complaining about unaddressed lore points in an UNFINISHED story. Same thing with living world season 2, people expecting everything to all be explained NEXT EPISODE and when it isnt they complain as if story is alrdy over. Its pretty clear by a lot of the things that happen in hot including the last story cinematic that what we have so far is only the BEGINNING of this arc of the story.
People made their own assumptions about the lore through endless speculation which resulted in them having this whole outline of what they THINK will happen while trying to conveniently connect ALL the underlying plot devices together at the same time expecting it all to be resolved and fit their assumed narative without considering that this is an ongoing story. Hot wasnt the “end”
Its pretty obvious anet plans to continue the story and connect all the things that have been happening since season 1 with living world updates post Hot, i saw the hot story as more of a setup for more living world plot. Others seemed to assume hot was just going to be its own self contained story and would wrap itself up completely at the end and then move on to something entirly new and unrelated to the previous living story releases
Just look at the whole sylvary dragon minion thing, that was planned since befor launch and it took them 3 years to come full circle on focusing and flushing out that plot device. Anet is thinking big picture, not 1 episode at a time
In hindsight, it becomes obvious this was really the Pale Tree convincing you it was Zhaitan so that you’re left in the dark about Mordremoth
Only because ArenaNet made the Shadow of the Dragon be Mordremoth’s champion.
Remove that from the equation, the hindsight obviousness disappears.
@Kayberz: Heart of Thorns is a finished story.
Raids are based after HoT and have been confirmed to be about the next plot.
The overall story of GW2 will carry on, but the story of Heart of Thorns and Mordremoth is over.
There’s never going to be a reason to delve into the difference between Nightmare and Mordremoth’s call/corruption ever again. There will be too little reason if any to look for Malyk’s tree ever again. Unlike the sylvari are dragon minions thing, there is no reason to delve into these. That plotline is closed.
Unless they decide to bring back Mordremoth thus making the entirety of the HoT plot (and S2 plot) irrelevant and pointless.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
There’s never going to be a reason to delve into the difference between Nightmare and Mordremoth’s call/corruption ever again. There will be too little reason if any to look for Malyk’s tree ever again. Unlike the sylvari are dragon minions thing, there is no reason to delve into these. That plotline is closed.
Unless they decide to bring back Mordremoth thus making the entirety of the HoT plot (and S2 plot) irrelevant and pointless.
I doubt they’ll do it, but if they wanted too they could extend Mordremoth’s story a bit by having the players deal with the after effects. If his corruption is anything like Zhaitan’s, we know that it lives on even after their death. You add in the fact that only a portion of his power was captured by Glint’s eggs, and you could get a story arc of the player having to deal with his empowered (supposedly intelligent) champions trying to pick up the pieces Mordremoth’s death left behind.
(edited by Erukk.1408)
In hindsight, it becomes obvious this was really the Pale Tree convincing you it was Zhaitan so that you’re left in the dark about Mordremoth
Only because ArenaNet made the Shadow of the Dragon be Mordremoth’s champion.
Remove that from the equation, the hindsight obviousness disappears.
@Kayberz: Heart of Thorns is a finished story.
Raids are based after HoT and have been confirmed to be about the next plot.
The overall story of GW2 will carry on, but the story of Heart of Thorns and Mordremoth is over.
There’s never going to be a reason to delve into the difference between Nightmare and Mordremoth’s call/corruption ever again. There will be too little reason if any to look for Malyk’s tree ever again. Unlike the sylvari are dragon minions thing, there is no reason to delve into these. That plotline is closed.
Unless they decide to bring back Mordremoth thus making the entirety of the HoT plot (and S2 plot) irrelevant and pointless.
Except your wrong. Heart of thorns is NOT over. Obviously if you completed tge last story mission you would see it ends on a major cliffhanger and it NEVER officialy said mordremoth is done for and over with entirely, again thats more people ASSUMING things and jumping to conclusions based on extremely vague cinematics.
Any living story release from here until the next expansion including raids is still heart of thorns, whuch obviously will soon start to be released over the next few months/years. What we have now is essentially the beginning of heart of thorns, even if mordremoth is dead these other plot points are still relevant and can still be explored in the future living story updates which ARE still part of heart of thorns
In hindsight, it becomes obvious this was really the Pale Tree convincing you it was Zhaitan so that you’re left in the dark about Mordremoth
Only because ArenaNet made the Shadow of the Dragon be Mordremoth’s champion.
Remove that from the equation, the hindsight obviousness disappears.
@Kayberz: Heart of Thorns is a finished story.
Raids are based after HoT and have been confirmed to be about the next plot.
The overall story of GW2 will carry on, but the story of Heart of Thorns and Mordremoth is over.
There’s never going to be a reason to delve into the difference between Nightmare and Mordremoth’s call/corruption ever again. There will be too little reason if any to look for Malyk’s tree ever again. Unlike the sylvari are dragon minions thing, there is no reason to delve into these. That plotline is closed.
Unless they decide to bring back Mordremoth thus making the entirety of the HoT plot (and S2 plot) irrelevant and pointless.
Except your wrong. Heart of thorns is NOT over. Obviously if you completed tge last story mission you would see it ends on a major cliffhanger and it NEVER officialy said mordremoth is done for and over with entirely, again thats more people ASSUMING things and jumping to conclusions based on extremely vague cinematics.
Any living story release from here until the next expansion including raids is still heart of thorns, whuch obviously will soon start to be released over the next few months/years. What we have now is essentially the beginning of heart of thorns, even if mordremoth is dead these other plot points are still relevant and can still be explored in the future living story updates which ARE still part of heart of thorns
As a note, notice the “Living World” part : http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma/
Guild Wars 2 Wiki FR contributor
+1 to this topic. If Mordremoth is really completely dead then I can’t see how they’re ever gonna delve into any of the remaining Sylvari lore stuff (Nightmare, Malyck, etc). It’s just not relevant anymore.
Alas.
Unless of course the Nightmare is allied with the Nightmare race seen in the first Guild Wars which are creatures of pure darkness(fun fact: darkness is the form the Nightmare took when it consumed Faolain).
Whatever being of darkness is behind the Nightmare is likely going to make his or her move now that Mordremoth is dead along with the Nightmare’s own cheif agent Faolain(who got hijacked by Mordremoth before being killed). The Nightmare’s master is likely a Raid Boss(most likely as a giant Guild Wars 1 style Nightmare or Shadow Army style soldier).
Malyck is the only mystery left that we don’t know will ever be solved.
Except your wrong. Heart of thorns is NOT over. Obviously if you completed tge last story mission you would see it ends on a major cliffhanger and it NEVER officialy said mordremoth is done for and over with entirely, again thats more people ASSUMING things and jumping to conclusions based on extremely vague cinematics.
And it’s more of you assuming that Mordremoth isn’t done over.
The story of Heart of Thorns is over. All that’s left is the raid which was already stated to be based after Heart of Thorns.
The story of Guild Wars 2 is not over. The story of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is over.
The next story plot line will be Season 3 or an interlude.
Each Season and Storyline is like an act in a play. You have Act 1, then an interlude, then Act 2. Sometimes you’d then get an interlude, followed by Act 3.
Heart of Thorns is Act 4 for GW2 (with the PS being act 1, Season 1 being act 2, and Season 2 being act 3).
Act 4 is over. The curtains have fallen. But they will rise again for Act 5 – aka Season 3.
Any living story release from here until the next expansion including raids is still heart of thorns
No. Any living story release from here will be Season 3, until the Season 3 finale in which it becomes Season 4.
Heart of Thorns was the expansion. And we have played it.
Unless of course the Nightmare is allied with the Nightmare race seen in the first Guild Wars which are creatures of pure darkness(fun fact: darkness is the form the Nightmare took when it consumed Faolain).
Whatever being of darkness is behind the Nightmare is likely going to make his or her move now that Mordremoth is dead along with the Nightmare’s own cheif agent Faolain(who got hijacked by Mordremoth before being killed). The Nightmare’s master is likely a Raid Boss(most likely as a giant Guild Wars 1 style Nightmare or Shadow Army style soldier).
Malyck is the only mystery left that we don’t know will ever be solved.
Nothing says anything is behind the Nightmare. It’s just the opposite of the Dream, which again doesn’t have anything behind it.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I hope they don’t completely drop the Nightmare Court lore but it doesn’t look good after they killed off the face of the group (Faolain). Going into HoT, I couldn’t even name another surviving member of the group and now she’s dead. I felt this happened with the Inquest when they killed of Kudu which reduced the group to a bunch of nameless mooks you kill in the open world. There was a Nightmare Court Duchess helping out in the Dragon’s Stand meta event (don’t remember her name) so maybe something will happen with her…
As for Malyck, I don’t think there’s much mystery there anymore. When he shows up in the personal story, he’s there to challenge the idea that the Pale Tree sylvari were just special snowflakes and no other life like them existed. The fact that there were other trees hinted at something larger going on with the race (which we now know all about). The only outstanding mystery there is why the Pale Tree sylvari were different from all those others (most of them probably ended up as mordrem).
The relationships between all the Sylvari sects just hit Neon genesis Evangelion level of wtf.
When you start as a Sylvari you face the shadow of the dragon in the dream which is clearly portrayed as related to the nightmare.
Then we find out that the court isn’t related to the dragon at all. The nightmare is never explained and the story never touches on the important mechanic that causes Sylvari that join the nightmare to “become evil” and never be able to come back.
What is the Nightmare? Another tree? I had assumed the Nightmare was an extension of Mordremoth’s will. I mean it corrupts and there is no coming back.
Then you have scarlet who went crazy after looking into the eternal alchemy and hearing the dragon call to its minions (which the Sylvari are). The relationship between the eternal alchemy and the dragon were also unexplained.
When this all wraps up the revelations are too slow, too cryptic, and too complex for me put together.
What about Malyck and the other tree?
Righty let’s start off with the Shadow of the Dragon. This can be viewed in three ways:
1 This Dragon is Zhaitan.
2 This Dragon is the Mordrem Champion for season 2.
3. This dragon represent all Elder Dragons.
The Dream and the Wild Hunt are often open to interpretation by many Sylvari. So not having a definitive answer, but rather a few interpretations is adequate and acceptable from a narrative perspective.
The Nightmare is considered to be the true form of the dream by the Nightmare Court. They use the suffering of Sylvari to corrupt the Dream. We now know they are not a part of the Mordrem but may have accidentally tapped into some of the Dragons power/influence. There is no mechanic to joining the Nightmare Court, at least not really. Joining the Nightmare is when a Sylvari turns it’s back on the Pale tree and focus on negative emotions (hate, anger, greed, etc). Most of this can be found in the early Sylvari story and in their starting area.
The Eternal Alchemy, according to the Asura, is related to all things. Everything is a part of the Alchemy. It is like the Force in Star Wars or the concept of Chi in some Eastern Philosophies.
As for Malyck, I have no clue what happened to him. I don’t think we where ever told we would find out more about him.
I hope they don’t completely drop the Nightmare Court lore but it doesn’t look good after they killed off the face of the group (Faolain). Going into HoT, I couldn’t even name another surviving member of the group and now she’s dead. I felt this happened with the Inquest when they killed of Kudu which reduced the group to a bunch of nameless mooks you kill in the open world. There was a Nightmare Court Duchess helping out in the Dragon’s Stand meta event (don’t remember her name) so maybe something will happen with her…
As for Malyck, I don’t think there’s much mystery there anymore. When he shows up in the personal story, he’s there to challenge the idea that the Pale Tree sylvari were just special snowflakes and no other life like them existed. The fact that there were other trees hinted at something larger going on with the race (which we now know all about). The only outstanding mystery there is why the Pale Tree sylvari were different from all those others (most of them probably ended up as mordrem).
Faolain’s end was boring, she could have been a very interesting dark ally, instead we got a minion of Mordremoth.
I hope they don’t completely drop the Nightmare Court lore but it doesn’t look good after they killed off the face of the group (Faolain).
She doesn’t have to be dead, we could have killed a clone, or there might still be a clone somewhere. After all Faolain wasn’t exactly looking like herself all that much.
I hope they don’t completely drop the Nightmare Court lore but it doesn’t look good after they killed off the face of the group (Faolain). Going into HoT, I couldn’t even name another surviving member of the group and now she’s dead. I felt this happened with the Inquest when they killed of Kudu which reduced the group to a bunch of nameless mooks you kill in the open world. There was a Nightmare Court Duchess helping out in the Dragon’s Stand meta event (don’t remember her name) so maybe something will happen with her…
As for Malyck, I don’t think there’s much mystery there anymore. When he shows up in the personal story, he’s there to challenge the idea that the Pale Tree sylvari were just special snowflakes and no other life like them existed. The fact that there were other trees hinted at something larger going on with the race (which we now know all about). The only outstanding mystery there is why the Pale Tree sylvari were different from all those others (most of them probably ended up as mordrem).
Faolain’s end was boring, she could have been a very interesting dark ally, instead we got a minion of Mordremoth.
Why would you want an obvious backstabbing character ? It was already boring with Khilbron, back in the days.
Guild Wars 2 Wiki FR contributor
She doesn’t have to be dead, we could have killed a clone, or there might still be a clone somewhere. After all Faolain wasn’t exactly looking like herself all that much.
She wasn’t yet taken to the ‘clone factory’ so I doubt that.
Why would you want an obvious backstabbing character ? It was already boring with Khilbron, back in the days.
I think some were looking for ‘obvoius backstabbing character who doesn’t backstab you since they’re forced to work with you out of necessity’. We do see a Nightmare Court member allied with the pact in Dragon Stand event but we don’t know much about her.