The Exalted lore!
Keep in mind that if they can use up their own life force, then they are not effectively immortal.
As the lore mentioned they are only Immortal by being unable to age, die of age, nor die from lack of food and water.
Exalted can still die by fatal wounds or losing all their magical energy that is used to maintain their body.
Their immortal stats is only given by maintaining their magical energy in their body to maintain their forms. Without that magical energy they will die so hibernation may be one way to maintain their magical energy.
If daily activity causes them to lose the magical energy that keeps them alive, then they are mortal. If they are required to be in stasis in order to live longer, then they are not effectively immortal.
Losing energy due to daily activity is the same as aging. Aging implies mortality.
Poor joe, he died from taking one to many trips to the store to buy beer. He should have remained in stasis.
A peaceful future might be the goal, but a truly peaceful future is also an unobtainable goal at the end of the day, because there is always going to be conflict in same way, shape, or form. I’m not sure if Balthazar would consider them humans still or not, but as long as they are winning all the wars, conflicts, or battles they are in, I doubt he would care what reasoning they are using to justice the violence.
Plus, they subscribe to Glint’s version of “securing” a peaceful future. While their end goal might be peace, love, harmony, friendship is magic, and all that jazz, Glint wasn’t above manipulation and killing/removing undesirables. She seemed, to me anyway, very much of the “For the Greater Good” mentality, and god forbid you or your whole race got in her way or kittened her off.
Balthazar cares a good deal about etiquette and is even willing to eradicate those who break with it. While of course he’d see that the supposedly peaceful outcome would eventually only lead to new conflict, that doesn’t mean he would agree with the goal. Rivalry between his warlike virtues and, for example, the peaceful ones of Melandru has been shown in lore since GW1 Wintersday. But I agree that he likely wouldn’t care enough to interfere directly.
Anyway, that’s not part of this discussion, so back to topic.
Then again, can we trust Glint? What if she just wants to safe her child and help it attain EDs power for her own selfish desires? Who says, that we don`t exchange one evil against another.
“Selfish desires” would be obtaining Elder Dragon powers for oneself….
It’s pretty obvious that ArenaNet has 100% full intention to make Glint be the good guy.
Yes, the Mursaat were evil. However if history as told us, people can change. A reduced group of people might not want to do the same mistakes then their predecessors.
11,000 (or 3,000) years ago the mursaat wiped out an entire species then fled the world in an act of betrayal.
250 years ago the mursaat committed genocide and ruled an oppressive government from the shadows.
Do you really think they’d change in 250 years if they didn’t in over eleven/three thousand?
How willing are the Exalted really? Glint was able to use some mesmer magic if I am not mistaken. She is also very powerful. We can easily bring brainwashing into her cause as well.
Now you’re stretching things. The article outright claims they’re volunteers. And Glint only gave the Forgotten the instructions; she didn’t go talking to the volunteers herself.
Her extent of mesmer like abilities were limited to telepathy – both for between herself and others, and between others. The latter was limited, by all indication, by the location of her sanctuary.
The Mursaat also had volunteers. They had people who believed and died for them willingly. Even if they were mislead, they still choose to do so, even for the wrong reasons.
The volunteers were those who killed the Chosen, not those who died.
It wouldn`t be the first time, we see something that was supposed to be completly evil, to be not so. I mean, just look at the Charr.
In Prophecies, the charr had no personality to them, unlike the White Mantle and mursaat. In Nightfall, they were given personality – and good guys. In Eye of the North, we got more good guys.
It was a steady stream of exposing them to a mix of good and evil. The mursaat has had a steady stream of exposing them to be nothing but evil.
Not exactly a good comparison.
So are Humans and the Charr, and the Asura have in the past tried to wipe out the Skritt too. But I guess it only matters if you kitten off an Elder dragon champion? Then you can say goodbye to your entire race.
Humans haven’t attempted genocide except in retaliation.
While the asura pre-release lore does say that some believe in genocide of skritt, not only was this toned down for the actual release but few ever acted upon it (beliefs of the few do not define the whole). Charr are by far a better comparison, but even they ally with their enemies when the world is threatened (see human-charr peace accord).
What do the mursaat do when the world is threatened?
They use the strongest weapon against said threat, betray their allies, commit genocide, and flee the world. When they come back, they manipulate other races into worshiping them and commit genocide again to save themselves and no other reason.
The mursaat did more than just “kitten off a dragon champion”.
The Mursaat didn’t take over Kryta because they got off on taking over and being worshipped as gods, they took over as a means of getting rid of the chosen ones – To save their own race.
You presume they knew of the Flameseeker Prophecies before they used Saul to gain a foothold.
Nothing actually said in the Flameseeker Prophecies that the Chosen come from Kryta.
Otherwise why not take Orr, Ascalon and Elona too?
Orr was destroyed and if you paid close attention in GW1, you’d note that they tried spreading influence to Ascalon.
As for the war in Kryta, most of the Mursaat were dead, the rest were being hunted down, again it seems like their main motivation was self preservation. I don’t recall Queen Salma ever trying to secure peace with the Mursaat, in fact wasn’t it she who declared war on the White Mantle? With the prophecy over it doesn’t seem like there would be any need for the Mursaat to keep sacrificing the chosen.
No, self preservation at that point would be to leave humanity alone. There was no reason for them to continue backing the White Mantle who were in an outright war if their only goal was self-preservation.
Sure, Salma didn’t try to secure peace with the mursaat…. but neither did the mursaat attempt such.
So when Glint/Humans/Charr kill people for the hell of it it’s fine, but when the Mursaat do it to save themselves it’s wrong? Sounds like jingoism and racism to me.
You’re twisting my words, and the situation of the mursaat, to fit your own desires of wanting to see the mursaat as good guys.
From this statement I take it you mean that magic in tyria is a closed system. But the only way to recycle it 100% is with dragons consuming it.
So in the event of no more dragons we could get to 0 from overspending and have no way to reduce and recycle the magic trapped in living/non living things.
No. That situation would mean that dragons produce magic.
If ‘dragons’ = magic can reach 100 from 0 while ‘no dragons’ = magic cannot reach 100 from 0, that means dragons produce magic.
They don’t.
They cycle it.
Magic is never destroyed. It merely changes form. Similar to energy for us, except that there’s no form of entropy in magic.
What the dragons do is wake up when magic reaches 90 and begin consuming until it reaches 10 where they go to sleep and seep out that 80 magic they consumed. If magic in the open world hits 91 or 9 then disaster begins.
Magic users utilizing magic does not affect the quantity of magic.
That is how magic is presented to us.
In other words, if a single dragon were to remain awake and active and consumed/exuded magic willingly and in a generous fashion to keep magic in 40-60 range, then there would be no cyclic nature of dragons.
The theory on the six gods I have is that they were the “elder dragons” of their world, and kept magic in a single quantity – since lore states that humans didn’t know (much of) magic prior to Abaddon’s gift of magic this would mean their homeworld’s magic state was kept at ~10 continuously with no cyclic system.
- How would Glint 2.0 solve any of this? The magic is still bound in living things. And the extraction process that we know of causes death.
- Why would they call exalted immortal when they run on magic and magic is finite?
- Revenants, ritualists, and rangers draw on energies outside the dragons reach. Do they constantly suck magic out of the world?
- Are mesmers and guardians more eco-friendly because they bind magic to temporary forms? Can one expect the magic of their creations to return instantly to the environment? This in contrast to the magically created water of elementalists.
More importantly for me at least:
- How did they not think that magic was a temporary resource when they acknowledged that water is, and elementalists can create water with magic?
To answer your questions (if above did not), based on current lore (or at least my interpretation of it):
- Glint 2.0 would keep magic balanced like the Elder Dragons do but without the whole “I will destroy civilizations when I wake and turn whole races into my minions!” situation.
- Magic may be finite, but it’s never reducing. Exalted are magic, they don’t run on magic. Their magic is static.
- Nothing says they do such. Ritualists and revenants summon spirits from the Mists – Zhaitan does this too, btw, and Jormag has influence in the Mists as well – but they do not summon magic from the Mists; by all indication, the spirit/revenant uses the world’s magic. Rangers hold no ties to the Mists by any indication except a single ambiguous line about the spirit realm – which I should note is also depicted as overlapping Tyria (see norn personal story Defend the Mists).
- All magic users would be effectively the same to the environment – their spells may harm or aid the environment, but the use of magic itself wouldn’t affect it.
- Magic is not a temporary resource. It wasn’t until the Elder Dragons rose – and for some time – that anyone began to notice a change in the amount of magic, despite the amount of magic uses. Because magic users do not affect the amount of magic, asura etc. thought magic was infinite.
Ah, I saw 2,000 BE and read it as 2,000 years ago, instead of a bit over 3,000. However, that poses a problem: The Forgotten appearing on Tyria would be within a very short timeframe of the dragonrise.
That’s not much of a problem given that the only interaction the Forgotten are known to have with the Elder Dragons or before is freeing Glint.
If daily activity causes them to lose the magical energy that keeps them alive, then they are mortal. If they are required to be in stasis in order to live longer, then they are not effectively immortal.
Losing energy due to daily activity is the same as aging. Aging implies mortality.
Poor joe, he died from taking one to many trips to the store to buy beer. He should have remained in stasis.
I think you misunderstand why they went into stasis.
It wasn’t to lengthen their lives. It was because they had nothing else to do.
Would you sleep for 300 years, or sit and stare at the sky for 300 years?
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.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
We’re going to enlist the aid of people that are essentially Scooby snacks for elder dragons to defeat elder dragons.
Riiiiight…
We’re going to enlist the aid of people that are essentially Scooby snacks for elder dragons to defeat elder dragons.
Riiiiight…
You apparently missed the part where Forgotten magic is immune to dragon corruption and consumption.
Or at least has been.
And we’re not talking sylvari-level immunity. We mean “cannot be touched or altered by” immunity.
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.
Orr was destroyed and if you paid close attention in GW1, you’d note that they tried spreading influence to Ascalon.
Orr Sank in 1071 AE, the White Mantle took control of Kryta a year before that, so Orr wouldn’t have been destroyed at that point. Also, a single, peaceful, white mantle ambassador who never even got to see the king is hardly much of an attempt to spread the “evil” rule of the Mursaat is it?
You’re twisting my words, and the situation of the mursaat, to fit your own desires of wanting to see the mursaat as good guys.
Not at all, you just can’t see that there are a lot of shades of gray here, I wouldn’t call the Mursaat good, but what they did wasn’t evil for the sake of evil, they had actual understandable motivations. Glint was after revenge and the Mursaat desired self preservation at the cost of others. Neither are good, but one seems to me to be worse than the other.
We actually do not have a date for when the White Mantle took over Kryta. All we know is that it was during the charr invasion, which began in 1070 AE but lasted for over a year, evident in the fact that the Cataclysm took place in 1071 AE.
Either way, Kryta (and in turn the White Mantle) was dealing with the charr until Orr had sank – or was just about to. Still, it prevents converting the most religious of kingdoms to the Unseen Ones’ faith.
And there was more than one person; his inability to see the king is not a case of the White Mantle not trying. And it should be noted that Zain went directly to the people, bypassing the king, and spread his teachings and artifacts.
Not at all, you just can’t see that there are a lot of shades of gray here, I wouldn’t call the Mursaat good, but what they did wasn’t evil for the sake of evil, they had actual understandable motivations. Glint was after revenge and the Mursaat desired self preservation at the cost of others. Neither are good, but one seems to me to be worse than the other.
ArenaNet’s made a pretty good reason in GW2 for the mursaat to be no shade of gray.
And “wasn’t evil for the sake of evil” – no kitten. No one does evil for the sake of being evil. That doesn’t mean that a person isn’t evil when they do evil things.
You cannot argue that the mursaat were anything but evil when they had the option to leave the world of Tyria – thus being unthreatened to the Titans on Tyria – but instead chose to kill thousands and subjugate hundreds of thousands.
And pray tell where is this “Glint’s revenge” you keep mentioning? There’s no such thing. Glint never showed any form of malice against the mursaat.
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.
If daily activity causes them to lose the magical energy that keeps them alive, then they are mortal. If they are required to be in stasis in order to live longer, then they are not effectively immortal.
Losing energy due to daily activity is the same as aging. Aging implies mortality.
Poor joe, he died from taking one to many trips to the store to buy beer. He should have remained in stasis.
You are confusing and twisting what I am saying.
I never said daily activities will drain them of magical energy. I only said they can die if they don’t maintain their magical energy in their bodies.
Most likely the only way the Exalted to lose magical energy is if they used too much Magic or something else drains them of their magical energy.
As long the Exalted don’t use too much Magic to spend Magical Energy they can remain Immortal.
Hibernation is most likely a means for them to pass the time so they do not have to find any reason to spend their magical energy on using magic since there was no need for the Exalted to use their Magic unless it is for the time when the Elder Dragon awaken.
Best example I can describe the Exalted body is that their body are Containers full of magical energy. As long nothing requires them to use their own Magical Energy they still remain a Container full of magical energy.
So as long the Exalted do not use their own Magic they do not drain their own Magical energy. Even if they use their own magic, like other life forms the magical energy will eventually return to them if they keep a steady amount spent. However, using too much at once would cause magical energy to be spent faster than before that magical energy they lost can be replaced.
(edited by EdwinLi.1284)
You cannot argue that the mursaat were anything but evil when they had the option to leave the world of Tyria – thus being unthreatened to the Titans on Tyria – but instead chose to kill thousands and subjugate hundreds of thousands.
Considering we never actually spoken to a Mursaat or anyone in the know on the matter, since all their followers were sheep in the dark, I don’t think we can definitively say whether or not the Mursaat could phase out of the world again if they wanted too. Because if they were truly unthreatened by the Titans after or when they left the world, what’s the point of them even coming back and putting themselves in harm’s way? Because Glint (an enemy) foretold a prophecy saying so? Let’s be evil towards the humans for the lolz?
Events from the last rise of the Elder Dragon shown us that the Mursaat would rather have everyone else die before putting themselves at risk. Yet they put themselves heavily at risk when they came back to deal with the Titans. What changed?
Plus, if they retained the ability to phase completely out of the world still, why didn’t they use it at all? It would have came in handy when the hero was killing them, or after the Titans were unleashed, or when the Titans were wiping out their race, or after the Titans done killed most of them. Yet it never happen. They just stayed on Tyria for whatever reason, heavily at risk, getting killed day by day.
Players: We want more references to GW1 lore!
Anet: Just kitten their lore up EDIT: *further.
Either way, Kryta (and in turn the White Mantle) was dealing with the charr until Orr had sank – or was just about to. Still, it prevents converting the most religious of kingdoms to the Unseen Ones’ faith.
Why would the Mursaat have needed the white mantle to take over Orr? If they had wanted to take over any kingdom just for the sake of it they had plenty of time to do so, that time isn’t limited to after the formation of the White Mantle.
And there was more than one person; his inability to see the king is not a case of the White Mantle not trying. And it should be noted that Zain went directly to the people, bypassing the king, and spread his teachings and artifacts.
Oh no, he’s telling the people about his beliefs! What a villain! There’s no indication this even had anything to do with the Mursaat, it’s just a Krytan ambassador. No nefarious plots, no evil deeds, he didn’t kidnap children or pillage the countryside. Just an ambassador. He may have been entirely sincere, from his point of view the Unseen ones just saved Kryta from the Charr.
“I do not understand the hostility that my presence generates from your King. I seek only to help the people of Ascalon. You could help me in this cause. I have a shipment of supplies that I was going to deliver to an Ascalon woman called Ellie Rigby. She runs an orphanage for those who have lost their parents in these evil times. King Adelbern however will not allow me in the city to deliver these supplies.” – Ambassador Zain
What a monster! I bet those supplies were laced with evil Mursaat poison!
You cannot argue that the mursaat were anything but evil when they had the option to leave the world of Tyria – thus being unthreatened to the Titans on Tyria – but instead chose to kill thousands and subjugate hundreds of thousands.
Where is the evidence that the Mursaat would have been safe even if they hadn’t been in Tyria? The Titans came from the mists how do you know they wouldn’t have been able to find the Mursaat wherever they went. And the Mursaat killed thousands? They rounded up the chosen annually, and we saw how many they rounded up at a time…. 5.
If 5 was the average then over the course of the Mursaat rule it’s pretty unlikely the number of sacrifices went far beyond a hundred, 5 a year would be about… 30 people in total, as the test of the chosen began in 1067 AE and most of the Mursaat were dead by 1072 AE.
And pray tell where is this “Glint’s revenge” you keep mentioning? There’s no such thing. Glint never showed any form of malice against the mursaat.
Literally the flame seeker prophecies, made up by glint, were the entire reason the Mursaat began to sacrifice people for soul batteries to keep the titans locked away. Whether real prophecy or not, Glint was the one who spoke it, and in doing so set those events into motion, it was the fear of the prophecy coming true that caused the Mursaat to take the measures they did.
And the original heinous crime of the Mursaat is this:
Scholar Yissa: The races gathered together to fight the dragons, each contributing something.
Scholar Yissa: Hmm. Yet the mursaat took their knowledge and fled into a half-world, out of phase with our own.
Wow, that’s it, they said they weren’t helping and they left. Are you seriously saying that’s an okay reason to then murder every last one of their race? Even with the Mursaat gone the other races managed to survive, so what’s the big deal?
(edited by Swizzle.7982)
Players: We want more references to GW1 lore!
Anet: Just kitten their lore up EDIT: *further.
So… what is this “kittened up lore” people keep talking about?
What in this blog post did even remotely, in any way or form, kitten up GW1 lore?
Krall Bloodsword – Mesmer
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Oh boy, that Glint looks more and more powerful from one blogpost to another. Scarlet 2.0.
[rude]Antagonistka – Revenant, EU.
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144
I never really get the Mursaat hate. I mean did they actually do something that justified the entire genocide of their race?{snip}
Remember that Glint was also capable of listening in on the thoughts of, well, just about everyone. She probably knew the true personality of the mursaat and acted accordingly.
The seer/mursaat war in particular is an interesting one because we don’t know who started it. Were the seers trying to punish the mursaat for fleeing? If the mursaat had already fled, how could the seers find them to persecute a war in the first place? Or did the mursaat start it because they needed or wanted to steal something from the Seers?
Was Glint, perhaps, worried that unless the mursaat were somehow drawn out and dealt with, that one day they would return and be a threat to Tyria? Or, given that Abaddon was plotting in the background, was she guiding Tyria down the one route that didn’t lead to total disaster?
All things considered, though, I think the mursaat have a bit of a Draco In Leather Trousers air about them. There are shades of grey, but they certainly were at the very least highly selfish… and while we don’t know Glint’s true motivations in the prophecy, we also don’t know if the sacrifices on the Bloodstones were actually necessary to keep the Door of Komalie closed or whether the mursaat did so because it was convenient.
Then you have resources like water. Processes like the water cycle exist. We have gone from high levels in the ice age and we can go to low levels if all the drinkable water in the world is used up. When an organism uses water it is almost permanently removed from the cycle.
Uhhh… That’s not how the water cycle works. Water used by an organism most definitely does go back into the system, either as waste or when the organism dies. It may take a few steps before it’s drinkable again, such as evaporating and falling again as rain or being absorbed by a plant and used to make fruit, but water is, if anything, more recyclable than metal.
btw. isn`t Glint doing something similiar to what the Mursaat did? Gathering loyal followers, sucking out/ converting their high magic potential into something to use later?
One important distinction is that from what we’ve been told, it appears that Glint used volunteers to create the Exalted – similar to the Kurzick Juggernauts, they had to give up their former lives, but they did so through their own choice. The Chosen that were sacrificed by the White Mantle were taken through deception and murdered.
You could claim that maybe they weren’t actually willing, but that’s tinfoiling, while we know that the Chosen were deceived and slaughtered without their consent. The White Mantle might have been willing to die for the mursaat, but as soldiers (where there is at least the potential to live to fight another day), not as sacrifices on the Bloodstone.
With the prophecy over it doesn’t seem like there would be any need for the Mursaat to keep sacrificing the chosen.
And yet they continued doing so, when by your own reasoning the justification for it was gone.
Salma’s declaration of war was against the White Mantle, to free Kryta from their rule – which, if you paid attention to what was happening in WiK, was if anything more oppressive than it was during Prophecies. At best, the mursaat were an ally of an enemy.
If daily activity causes them to lose the magical energy that keeps them alive, then they are mortal. If they are required to be in stasis in order to live longer, then they are not effectively immortal.
Losing energy due to daily activity is the same as aging. Aging implies mortality.
Likely, they have some means of replenishing their energy as well, so their stasis is for a purpose similar to a bear’s hibernation. As long as they can continue replenishing their energy, they don’t age.
Hibernating until they’re needed, however, minimises the amount of energy that they’d need to be taking out of the system, so that they only use enough energy to perform their role rather than becoming another set of thaumovores.
Where is the evidence that the Mursaat would have been safe even if they hadn’t been in Tyria? The Titans came from the mists how do you know they wouldn’t have been able to find the Mursaat wherever they went. And the Mursaat killed thousands? They rounded up the chosen annually, and we saw how many they rounded up at a time…. 5.
If 5 was the average then over the course of the Mursaat rule it’s pretty unlikely the number of sacrifices went far beyond a hundred, 5 a year would be about… 30 people in total, as the test of the chosen began in 1067 AE and most of the Mursaat were dead by 1072 AE.
The claim that the Chosen were only rounded up as an annual thing is falsified by the following mission. We rescue one group of Chosen in the Wilds, while in Bloodstone Fen, there’s another group of Chosen there on the bloodstone to be sacrificed. That shows that, far from being just five or so taken annually, there were two groups taken in the time it takes to do a handful of missions. There is also evidence that they took more afterwards, including from Ascalon Settlement.
What probably happened is that the Test of the Chosen was performed annually for any given settlement, but was rotating around Kryta.
Additionally, even if we take the assumption that the sacrifices absolutely were necessary to keep the Door closed (to which I consider there is reasonable doubt, given that the Door never swung open on its own in the thousand years between the Exodus and the rough period during which the mursaat returned to Tyria), we know that the mursaat took more than they needed to close the Door, using additional souls to power Jade constructs and Ether Seals. In fact, this seems to be what the sacrifices after Prophecies were likely used for, given how many Jades we saw in WiK.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
Really? There’s not enough mystery and unknown in the Guild Wars franchise? I heard some really weird comments on the lore, but that is just baffling.
Not as baffling as the nonsense they wrote for The Exalted lore, the writers kids making this stuff these days?
“I am Evon Gnashblade and this message is acceptable to me.”
Really? There’s not enough mystery and unknown in the Guild Wars franchise? I heard some really weird comments on the lore, but that is just baffling.
Not as baffling as the nonsense they wrote for The Exalted lore, the writers kids making this stuff these days?
Yes, I’m sure that’s what happening. /s
Really? There’s not enough mystery and unknown in the Guild Wars franchise? I heard some really weird comments on the lore, but that is just baffling.
Not as baffling as the nonsense they wrote for The Exalted lore, the writers kids making this stuff these days?
strips down to his underwear again in verdant brink events.
This is not the first time it has happened in this game. And yet now is when you complain…
“Kentigem”-chief. Born cycle of Dusk. Wyld Hunt:
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
Oh boy, that Glint looks more and more powerful from one blogpost to another. Scarlet 2.0.
Right. A prophetic 3,000 year old dragon is powerful. Who would’a thought?
Seriously, would people have preferred if Glint just went to sleep and did nothing for the last 250 years? She’s had an IMMENSE amount of time to plan her betrayal. Thousands of years of manipulating the lesser races and plotting out how she can get the upper hand. This is completely different from Scarlet doing what she did with only 20ish years of study and a couple years of planning under her belt.
Not to mention that in the end Glint still failed to defeat Kraalkatorrik and presumably consume him to become the new Elder Dragon. All because Logan got love sick.
This is not the first time it has happened in this game. And yet now is when you complain…
Topic is not about Faren, why would I complain about such an idiotic character here. Anyway another part of the game being more ridiculous does not forgive this, now get back on topic.
“I am Evon Gnashblade and this message is acceptable to me.”
Playing Devil’s Advocate, too, Faren is silly, but he’s basically designated comic relief as it is. An entire race that will probably play a major role in the expansion is probably a bit more significant than a loincloth.
Personally, though, I find the Exalted interesting. Actually having the Forgotten show up might have been more so, but I suspect ArenaNet has reasons not to want to show that card just yet. Sapient constructs left behind by the Forgotten, however, does make a lot of sense when you think about it. It also allows us to go a little deeper into the mystery of the Forgotten without having it completely blown open right away as it might if they were there in person.
Come to think on it, it also makes me consider the Forgotten in the Realm of Torment and the lack of Enchanted. If the Enchanted were also powered by human souls, this might explain why the Forgotten didn’t bring them into the Realm of Torment.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
This is not the first time it has happened in this game. And yet now is when you complain…
Topic is not about Faren, why would I complain about such an idiotic character here. Anyway another part of the game being more ridiculous does not forgive this, now get back on topic.
I’m saying your concept of nonsense is quite bizarre. And if most of the game has nonsense, and this development is the nonsense for you I am quite surprised. For me the lore is quite palatable, it is plausible and nothing is thematically odd.
“Kentigem”-chief. Born cycle of Dusk. Wyld Hunt:
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.
I don’t intend to get caught up in the moral debate regarding the Mursaat’s intentions because I haven’t studied the lore to the same degree as I expect most of you have. Although I do have my own opinions on the matter, and I’m sure they’ll color what I have to say below, the purpose of this post is not to become involved in that debate.
That said, these exalted seem to be more or less the most uninteresting option available for a “new race”, and I don’t fully understand why Anet decided to go forward with them. The most interesting parts of the original Prophecies story line were those where shades of gray existed, or where factions proved to have more depth than was initially clear. The Mursaat and White Mantle with their attempts to stop the Titans being the foremost example, but also consider that Vizier Khilbron originally stood out as a good (if shady) guy, and the Ascalonian-Charr war went from being a bloodthirsty invasion to a religiously and ancestrally motivated reconquista. Meanwhile the least interesting faction was probably the Stone Summit, who were evil because they were xenophobic, and they were xenophobic for no clear reason. Why would a mostly isolated race breed fanatical grassroots xenophobia leading to brutal civil war? No idea.
So now we’re presented with the Exalted who seem one-dimensional in the extreme, and I can only hope that Arenanet decides to do something more compelling with them, but my expectations aren’t too high. There’re a lot of opportunities to take the races, and minor races, in interesting directions.
Oh boy, that Glint looks more and more powerful from one blogpost to another. Scarlet 2.0.
Power has nothing to do with what made Scarlet such a poorly written character.
It was that she was capable of doing the impossible many times. Despite being female, she got a sexist faction to work with her (Flame Legion). She managed to trick a xenophobic faction to working with her (Krait). And with no consequence. And when the groups that would normally kill someone like Scarlet on sight for being what she is (female, not-krait, etc.) find out that Scarlet’s been tricking them, what did they do? They kept working for her.
Glint, however, is a prophetic dragon who knew an event was going to come to pass (dragons waking) and so spent 3,000 years working to hinder that event from being as cataclysmic as it should.
Glint isn’t a Scarlet 2.0. She’s an Abaddon 2.0. And just as there’s a huge difference between a god pulling the strings of his many agents and followers to a mortal genius getting people who would kill or enslave her on sight to work with her after knowing she tricked them, there is a huge difference between an ancient prophetic dragon directing her allies to making weapons to face a future foe to a mortal genius getting people who would kill or enslave her on sight to work with her after knowing she tricked them.
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 don’t intend to get caught up in the moral debate regarding the Mursaat’s intentions because I haven’t studied the lore to the same degree as I expect most of you have. Although I do have my own opinions on the matter, and I’m sure they’ll color what I have to say below, the purpose of this post is not to become involved in that debate.
That said, these exalted seem to be more or less the most uninteresting option available for a “new race”, and I don’t fully understand why Anet decided to go forward with them. The most interesting parts of the original Prophecies story line were those where shades of gray existed, or where factions proved to have more depth than was initially clear. The Mursaat and White Mantle with their attempts to stop the Titans being the foremost example, but also consider that Vizier Khilbron originally stood out as a good (if shady) guy, and the Ascalonian-Charr war went from being a bloodthirsty invasion to a religiously and ancestrally motivated reconquista. Meanwhile the least interesting faction was probably the Stone Summit, who were evil because they were xenophobic, and they were xenophobic for no clear reason. Why would a mostly isolated race breed fanatical grassroots xenophobia leading to brutal civil war? No idea.
So now we’re presented with the Exalted who seem one-dimensional in the extreme, and I can only hope that Arenanet decides to do something more compelling with them, but my expectations aren’t too high. There’re a lot of opportunities to take the races, and minor races, in interesting directions.
Lets be honest, one dimensional morality defines at least the bulk if not the entirety of GW2’s character writing. Kind of frustrating when shades of grey could make it so much more interesting.
Lets be honest, one dimensional morality defines at least the bulk if not the entirety of GW2’s character writing. Kind of frustrating when shades of grey could make it so much more interesting.
I completely agree, it’s very frustrating, especially when you look back at the previous game/expansions and wonder what happened. From what I understand some of the story for GW2 was rushed, but surely by now they should’ve gotten over that? That all said, this is probably not all that constructive or pertinent to the original purpose of the thread, and so I’ve done my best not to get carried away.
CureForLiving.5360:I don’t know, if someone were to predict that I’d be run over by a car one day I’d be very grateful and also look both ways before crossing the street.
In her dialog with us Glint calls the Mursaat a race of terrible and fearful spellcasters. Not really terms you would apply to your allies. Also Glint fully supported the players in their goal to defeat the Mursaat. While we see no active Mursaat vs Forgotten/Glint violence, I think it’s fair to say that those factions were atleast uneasy with another, if not outright enemies.
Edit: Also I think the Flameseeker prophecy is less like “hey watch out while crossing the street!” but more like you watch a strange video tape and suddenly you get a call that says “seven days.”
I like to think the Mursaat are the glass half full type XD
While reintroducing the Mursaat might have been lorebreaking, what we got was far worse: a race of glowing floating magical exalted goody-two-shoes Marty Stus.
Well we don’t know for certain yet. Since they retain their human personalities and since there seems to be a bit of a downer note at the end of the article (with the Exalted seemingly fearing that failure is inevitable), there is some room for good story telling.
A big hate against everything ED (btw. these guys are better dragonhunters, than the ones we got).
Last time I went hunting it didn’t involve running away and hiding from the thing we were hunting :P
I think the Mursaat should be kept mostly in the past. That doesn’t mean they would never appear, but they should, imo, appear in the same manner like Caithe’s Seeds: a flashback that brings new light.
My money (figuratively speaking) is on the Mursaat being the big reveal at the end of the first raid.
I never really get the Mursaat hate. I mean did they actually do something that justified the entire genocide of their race?
They’re a race of sociopaths. Oh sure everything they did they did to survive, but what they did was not very nice. They’d probably have sacrificed every single man, women and child in Kryta if it meant their survival. They are never presented as anything but a cold, calculating and selfish race.
The whole revenge plot of Glint is just insane, make up a prophecy stating that the titans will kill the Mursaat, forcing the Mursaat to do everything in their power to again survive – which meant killing humans. I mean, even if the prophecy was an actual prophecy Glint could have you know… kept her mouth shut and the Mursaat wouldn’t have been any the wiser, probably just chilled in their pocket dimension and wouldn’t have tried to kill the chosen ones.
If the Mursaat had not kept the door close until the Flameseeker appeared then the Titans would have run amok across Tyria, certainly killing them but also a lot of others. I think it’s a matter of grater good.
Then there’s the whole problem of the titans. Was it ever actually explained why the titans tried to kill the Mursaat? I mean Abaddon was evidently not a fan of the bloodstone concept (the same idea which the Mursaat had refused, choosing to keep their magic and flee). But regardless, should we really be allying with a Dragon who, just to get her genocidal jollies, creates a plan to set free the minions of an insane god? Surely that’s a worse crime? The titans didn’t just kill Mursaat, they killed humans and dwarves too. The Mursaat only killed, essentially, in their own self defence, Glint killed for revenge.
You’re presuming that Glint opened the Door of Komalie, my assumption was she got the Mursaat to keep it closed until we could power it up with the Lich (which is seemingly a lot more effective than chosen).
Perhaps it was an attempt by the mursaat to free the magic that the Seers had taken from the world and hidden in the bloodstones, but that makes little sense as by the time of GW1 the Mursaat had won the war and yet they had kept them intact and were the ones protecting/using the bloodstones in the Maguuma and Fire Islands.
The Mursaat didn’t seal their magic into the Bloodstones. Mind you that seems slightly to contradict how magic works in Tyria, but yeah their magic wasn’t really impacted by the Bloodstone business. So releasing the magic in the Bloodstones wouldn’t really do much for them.
People seem to be forgetting this very important fact: Forgotten magic is thus far immune to dragon consumption and corruption.
My theory of course is that the Forgotten magic isn’t inherently immune to ED consumption, simply that they found ways of protecting against EDs, in the same way that the Seers found a way of protecting against Mursaat Agony. Mind you practically it comes down to the same thing, just that it answers the question of ‘why would forgotten magic be immune’.
The last dragonrise is indicated to be 3,000 years ago not 2,000. Depending on if you subscribe to the Priory NPCs’ claims (which state 11,000 years ago) or the subliminal history of Glint, Forgotten, and dwarves (which point to 3,000 years ago).
This feels like another massive lore oversight. I do hope that ANet at least sits down one day and plots out a rough timeline of what happened where and when. Now I do like my lore to have some room for speculations and interpretations but eventually it does feel like more of a mess than well obfuscated.
3) The Exalted still live, the Chosen did not.
Well they didn’t die die. Their souls were stuck in the Bloodstone and driven mad by it. Kinda a bit of a kitten move on the part of the Mursaat, you know adding insult to injury and all.
Now I’m curious. How does the Golden City architecture compare to the ruins the Asura found when they arrived on the surface (e.g. in Rata Sum)? Could they be old Exalted structures?
Exalted structures would be fairly new by the time the Asura stumbled on them i.e. not ruins (unless magically disguised that way). Could still have been Forgotten architecture and ruins, would make sense that the Exalted would take a few construction tips from the Forgotten.
- How would Glint 2.0 solve any of this? The magic is still bound in living things. And the extraction process that we know of causes death.
We have no indication (as far as I know) of Elder Dragons eating people to get magic. They corrupt people to produce minions which they then use to collect magic (in the case of Zhaitan magical artefacts).
- Why would they call exalted immortal when they run on magic and magic is finite?
Highlander type immortality.
More importantly for me at least:
- How did they not think that magic was a temporary resource when they acknowledged that water is, and elementalists can create water with magic?
Could just be sucking the water out of the air, or just transmute the air itself into water.
Of course this completely ignores the Mist thing.
We’re going to enlist the aid of people that are essentially Scooby snacks for elder dragons to defeat elder dragons.
Riiiiight…
You apparently missed the part where Forgotten magic is immune to dragon corruption and consumption.
When a dragon with prophetic powers sets up a convoluted plan to fight eldritch abominations, I imagine the plan involves many parts. Possibly the Exalted might only be a part of a greater whole and only need to play a specific role after which they could be eaten or die or whatever while the rest of the plan continues.
If the Mursaat had not kept the door close until the Flameseeker appeared then the Titans would have run amok across Tyria, certainly killing them but also a lot of others. I think it’s a matter of grater good.
I don’t think this is actually the case. Consider that the mursaat didn’t arrive until shortly before Prophecies according to some information (don’t recall the exact citation off the top of my head) – the Door would have been unguarded before then.
Personally, I think what the mursaat did was not keeping it closed, but locked. Once we destroyed the lock, Khilbron was able to open the door with the Scepter, or possibly our destruction of the lock blew the door open in the process. However, it needed some action on Tyria’s side to be opened.
We have no indication (as far as I know) of Elder Dragons eating people to get magic. They corrupt people to produce minions which they then use to collect magic (in the case of Zhaitan magical artefacts).
There was an interview a while back where the distinction between regular minions and champions was discussed.
When a dragon takes a living being as a minion, the dragon also takes control of that being’s magic. It then chooses how much magic to give back to that minion. In the majority of cases, at least for the Risen, it gives back barely enough magic for the minion to continue functioning, resulting in an effectively mindless automaton. Minions that receive more magic back are stronger, more intelligent, and more powerful, up to champions. Either way, while dragons usually do not physically eat living beings, they can and do absorb magic from those they corrupt.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.