Its a rather interesting topic. Its been a huge mystery about the humans for a long time? Where did the human race come from? Are they native to tyria? or are they from another world entirely? This has been a question that’s been on my mind since the very first Guild wars game. The question didn’t exist until the contradictory lore that suggested that the human gods didn’t create the world in their creation myth. Now its no secret that some of the lore of the world of Tyria is convoluted and contradictory in some areas. The same is true for real life history. Historical figures we believed were real may not have been while others who we believed were myths turned out to be real. The same holds true for the history of Tyria.
“History never lies. Historians however…” Priory Historian
I have a Hypothesis About the humans and where they come from. And its a doozy of a story. Regardless of how you slice it though, Humans were extremely civil long before they stepped foot on the continent of Tyria. In spite of what that Jotun, Thrulnn the Lost might have you believe. If we want to find the truth, the closest we’re going to get is from Cantha. We know that Cantha is the earliest known settlement of the humans. Before they set foot into Elona and moved their way up to the continent of Tyria. But this wasn’t the origin place of the humans. They tell stories of sailing from the west to Cantha.
Gwen and Yeh seems like the most likely candidate for humans to come from. But they could have also come from Wetland, sailing south east toward Cantha. Its yet unknown though. My personal thought is that they come from Gwen and Yeh. Which would create a problem since that location is a hot bed for Ley energy. Reality seems to warp and shift when in the ley lines and in such a location where Ley energy is more of a large pool enveloping a majority of the twin continents the fabric of reality seems extremely unstable and extremely hostile to a species such as the humans. But this also leaves the possibility that a portal could have formed in this area since the fabric of their reality would be so thin and malleable. The perfect spot for the Humans and their Gods to slip through.
Where ever the humans come from its clear that the Gods have a very special and invested interest in the humans. The gods are believed to not be off Tyria and are a physical part of the mists. But what is also known is that humans can ascend to godhood and its even suggested that the humans and the gods can produce offspring. Such with the legend of Grenth. We have this idea already that the gods and humans are connected in some profound way. And its possible that that they actually need each other for survival.
So lets go ahead and just assume that the Gods did bring the humans to Tyria. Why? Why expend so much energy to bring them to an unknown world that could potentially kill them all or even harm the gods themselves in the process? My hypothesis is that it was desperation. Its possible that the Gods come from a dying world that was destroyed by something. Perhaps industrialization, maybe a run away ley line energy effect since they had no dragons to consume it or perhaps it was Arrogance from the gods themselves. Whatever the case may be they needed to leave. But where can they go? Searching through out the mists its very possible they came across a suitable plane. One without dragons and a stable mana source. The Gods could have seen this place as a haven. A new home to bring the humans to.
This new world didn’t come without complications though. Human spirits linger on the plane becoming malicious, their sudden invasion pushes out old species and drives others to extinction. Over all humans are extremely bad for Tyria. Everywhere they go they seem to cause problems for other races and their overwhelming magic from their old world proves to be dominant against an already sickly and weakened world after the rise of the dragons.
Adding to that, the humans and the norn seem to be the only two species that actively leave behind their spirits after death unintentionally. There are also the Animal spirits but I feel that those spirits aren’t quite the same thing since those spirits are avatars of their respective species. Human spirits and norn spirits are a bit different in this regard as they seem to have trouble passing to the next world without some aid. We’ve seen this in the Canthan story line with the Envoys. Humans seem to physically need something to bring them to the next world which no other race has mentions of needing an envoy other than the norn but I’ll get into that another time.
To sum up the norn since I don’t want to spend too much time derailing the topic at hand part of my hypothesis suggests that the norn are descended from humans and rather than going east from Gwen and Yeh they headed north. But I’ll elaborate that in the future when I decided to dedicate a post about the norn.
Going back to what I mentioned about Mana, it could be very possible that the mana from Tyria and whatever might be the humans home planet is could be very different and incompatible with each other. Think trying to give A blood to a B patient. Thus the world of tyria would want to react in trying to remove the foreign mana from its system. But with its weakened immune system, the humans can easily take over and spread like a virus. But once the flow of mana begins to return to the world the gods view this as a sign to leave since the planet itself would be toxic to them and is more than likely also toxic to humans.
This could suggest the sudden decline of the humans species after they’ve had such major dominance in the world up till this point. At the point in their history there isn’t a species or a nation that could have pushed them so far not even in 250 years. But since the world is basically awake its trying to get rid of the foreign bodies in its system and cleanse itself. Humans are harmful to the world but that also means that the world is harmful to humans.
Leading into the bloodstone and the exalted we see that humans are specifically selected as both sacrifices and as Defenders against the dragons. Why humans? And why Humans with high magical aptitude? Well considering how evolution works its possible that a majority of humans have lost much of their old magic to adapt to the new mana moving into their bodies of the world of tyria. Effectively becoming more like a native to tyria. So the humans chosen still have quite a bit of that old mana left in them. Now this isn’t to say that that old mana ever left their system entirely, because I don’t think it did, its just saying that newer generations of humans have less of it than older generations. Which is why Glint needed humans with this old magic. The Exalted would be poison to the dragons and thus be the perfect defense against the elder dragons. Combine this with the concept of the bloodstone being mana that can’t be accessed by the dragons it only makes sense to seal it with a magic source that causes the dragons physical harm.
More and more its looking like humans are required in the war against the dragons, but this might not be a good thing for Tyria. Although I don’t think the humans are capable of killing Tyria with how much in decline they are, its very possible if my hypothesis holds up they might accidentally be working against the best interests of the races of Tyria.
Conclusion, This is an extremely long and involved hypothesis and I think I’ve probably left out quite a bit in the process of explaining. If you have questions about it feel free to leave a question in the comments. If you don’t like it, I’d be happy to hear a different idea from you. Perhaps you like it and see some more connections to expand on it. I look forward to hearing from you guys.