Guild Wars 2

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.

Originally, humans came from another world entirely.

“The first of the gods to step forth from the mists was Dwayna, goddess of air and life. She placed her pale foot on the stones of Arah, opened the gates, and brought humanity to the world.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Hi, everyone. Just wanted to pass on some comments from Angel herself:

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

Humans (including Canthan humans) were brought to Tyria (from…no spoilers!). They are not native to Tyria and did not come with much magic of their own.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview/page/3#post2821776

But after being brought to Tyria (world), they were taken to another continent. Which is unknown. But we have two hints:

This map has trade routes to the Sunrise Crest.

Then there’s this old interview – to quote: The full story of the origin of the humans has yet to be revealed. They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world). It seems, from their previous appearances, that they have come up from the south, so the “human homeland” may be further south than Elona and Cantha.

We also know that the Luxons came from a place across the ocean – to quote: Luxon children still hear stories of their people’s original home, a nameless place far across the open ocean and lost now to the land-bound faction, seemingly forever.

There’s a lot more but basically as we can best tell the history of humanity and the gods is:

1. Six Gods need to leave their old world – which includes humans and Forgotten perhaps more – for still unclear reasons. Hints and implications indicate some tragedy.
2. Forgotten scout the world on the Six Gods’ orders. This happens during the last dragon rise in 1769 BE.
3. Six Gods arrive afterwards at Arah, its earliest constructions done by the Forgotten. They bring humanity from the other world at that point.
4. Humanity is taken to Sunrise Crest (where the trade route leads – The Wetlands is north of both) to develop. Their time there is when the Cliffside Fractal takes place.
5. Humanity sails to Cantha, Sunken Isles, and Battle Isles over the next century. In 205 BE, they sail to Orr and Istan/Kourna.

Rest is as we know.

Lily.1935:

Before they set foot into Elona and moved their way up to the continent of Tyria.

They landed on Tyria and Elona in the same year, possibly even the same month for all we know.

Lily.1935:

But this wasn’t the origin place of the humans. They tell stories of sailing from the west to Cantha.

Might I know where you get “west to Cantha”? Because the best we get is actually Jeff Grubb’s dated statement for “south from Elona or Cantha”. Which given the world map, cannot mean due south due to the fact Cantha is, well, the southern most continent known really (that wouldn’t be covered in ice due to the south pole at least).

Lily.1935:

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.

Where is there any indication of ley energy being denoted heavily anywhere outside of continental Tyria?

Lily.1935:

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.

Ley line energy doesn’t have any indication of warping reality… If you’re talking about Thaumanova – that was due to clashing chaos magic with dragon energy. Irrelevant to ley energy, despite sitting on a ley line.

And we know where the gods arrived on the world. We know what called the gods to the world. The Artesian Waters. Trahearne: Human myth says that when the Six Gods came to Tyria, they built the city of Arah. The “source” must be the place where they first set foot on Tyria. PC: A place so powerful that it drew the attention of Gods from deep in the Mists? It must be amazing.

Besides, the gods don’t need reality bent to make portals. Even their avatars are known to bring people into the Mists at will, as seen aplenty in GW1.

Lily.1935:

The gods are believed to not be off Tyria and are a physical part of the mists.

Source on that latter? News to me.

Lily.1935:

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.

No need to assume. The gods did bring humans to the world – been confirmed for quite some time.

Though the question of “why” is still a question. But as I said above, there are hints that they had to. That whatever world they came from was falling apart.

“The first of the gods to step forth from the mists was Dwayna, goddess of air and life. She placed her pale foot on the stones of Arah, opened the gates, and brought humanity to the world. She chose Tyria and brought with her those who would make this world a paradise. As she had promised, Dwayna led her people to peace.”

“Balthazar came in fire and wrath, carrying the head of his father and leading his fierce hounds, Temar and Tegon. He swept Orr with a cleansing flame. It was he who claimed Tyria for humanity; he who said the other races would be easy to defeat. It would not be the only time that the Master of War was wrong.”

“Next came the goddess of nature. Wise Melandru, oldest of them all, made of Orr a green and flowering expanse. She urged peace with the races already present on this world, but her advice was not heeded. When she saw destruction, she brought creation. Where she saw anger, she grew love. With this, Melandru prepared for a future she knew would be troubled.”

“The two who are one, Issa and Lyss, brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity. While the other gods focused on building Arah and beginning a new future, Lyssa gave them joy and helped them forget the past.”

“Among them was Abaddon—once secret-keeper, now betrayer. How you have fallen from the glorious days of old. *What passed beyond in the Mists, only you remember.”*

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six

What you need to know about the Forgotten is this: they once acted as wardens to ancient races in Tyria and shepherded their development from primitive to civilized. They served the beings known as the Five Gods, and they fought wars for them. They had a strong connection to Glint, and they left guardians with her for many centuries. During the last dragon cycle, it was the Forgotten who freed Glint from Kralkatorrik’s corruption and control. In gratitude, she hid them from the Elder Dragons until they returned to sleep.If they remain in Tyria, they are elusive at best, and many believe they have gone back to the Mists from which they came—perhaps never to return.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Forgotten_Not_Forgotten

These tell us a few things.

• The Forgotten served the gods, the original lore of them being brought to the world by them from the Mists still holding true.
• Dwayna chose Tyria, no doubt despite knowing what the Forgotten knew – the Elder Dragon threat. When Balthazar came, he swept Orr (no doubt covered in Zhaitan’s or Kralkatorrik’s corruption) in cleansing flame, and Melandru turned it into a verdant paradise. Despite knowing the threat of the Elder Dragons, Dwayna sought to turn Tyria into a paradise, and Melandru urged peace – begetted by Balthazar’s lust for war.
• A question: Why was Balthazar carrying his father’s head? Was it in triumph or despair? Was his ‘fire and wrath’ because of his father, the world they left, or his own deeds (or lack of)?
• Lyssa made humanity forget. Forget what? And at the same time, what did Abaddon remember from the Mists?

These, to me, indicate this:

Their homeworld was in such a state that Tyria was the better option. Despite there being six world ending, magic consuming beings. The gods saw the Elder Dragons and what they can do, and they decided to stay – to turn the place into a paradise for all races, or in some views just humanity’s.

Lily.1935:

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.

I don’t recall many – if any – norn spirits lingering.

But we see plenty of charr and jotun ghosts in GW2, and plenty of dwarven ghosts in GW1.

Lily.1935:

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.

Definitely not. Norn have more than several indications they predate humanity. They have stories of multiple dragonrises – like the jotun – which implies they’re older than even the Forgotten on the world. Similar to the charr, whom have stories of the Giganticus Lupicus when they were alive.

The accuracy of such stories is questionable, mind. But their existence indicates that they existed on the world at least as far as the previous dragonrise – which humanity do not in definite given all our lore (Forgotten existed then, but the freeing of Glint predates the Six Gods, who brought humanity shortly after arriving on the world).

Lily.1935:

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.

Nothing in lore ever talks about ‘mana’…

Lily.1935:

This could suggest the sudden decline of the humans species after they’ve had such major dominance in the world up till this point.

Their decline was caused by wars and magical disasters – most of which were orchestrated by Abaddon.

It has nothing to do with something never even mentioned nor hinted in lore.

Lily.1935:

Leading into the bloodstone and the exalted we see that humans are specifically selected as both sacrifices and as Defenders against the dragons.

Seers created the Bloodstone before humanity existed. The Six Gods just resealed the magic within with a blood sacrifice. Doric was chosen because he’s the one who requested it.

We also see dwarves used to be defenders against the dragons, as well as the Forgotten, whose magic is used to make the Exalted.

“Why humans?” Chances are just because they were dominant at the time.

Lily.1935:

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.

Per lore, they didn’t have much – if any – magic from their homeworld.

That’s the cause behind them believing the gods made magic.

Lily.1935:

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.

The Exalted aren’t poison – they’re immune to the dragon corruption. And that immunity comes from the Forgotten’s magic. The same source that freed Glint from Kralkatorrik’s enslavement.

Lily.1935:

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.

Nothing actually says that bloodstones’ magic is nonconsumable by the dragons.

And humans are corrupted aplenty. Hell, Zhaitan’s arc debunks this theory downright by the fact that he consumes centuries and millennia old magical artifacts across one of the oldest human nations.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

snip

We have to remember that many of those sources if any of them might not be credible. Both in what he said when talking about the human lore and working with it for a pan-species perspective that pieces of the puzzle were missing or very inaccurate. Something written down by the Orrians isn’t exactly very reliable especially considering that it doesn’t correspond with lore in other locations but seems to be its own thing entirely. Much like the Jotun I mentioned earlier his story doesn’t correspond either. The quote I put in the post should be very telling of how you should view the information. The post by the dev doesn’t say a whole lot and doesn’t disprove anything of my hypothesis at all. Doesn’t prove anything either. And the question of Tyria or Tyria really comes into play here. Are they from Tyria the world but not the continent? Or are they from another place in the mists? This is the primary question we’re asking but the dev doesn’t answer that. Which leaves it up in the air.

History never lies. Historians however. That quote right there should be really telling on how arena net tells their story. Also the west thing? I’ll probably find it eventually.. it’ll be 3 months from now and I’ll stumble across it again. But Jeff Grub wasn’t on the team at the beginning. He only joined around Factions(I believe this is right but I could be mistaken.) where this concept of lore was already established.

Lily.1935:

We have to remember that many of those sources if any of them might not be credible.

If you were to take everything with a grain of salt just because it ‘might not be credible’ then you have no foundation for lore – you have nothing that is credible – and you can start spouting things like “Darth Vadar brought humanity to the world of Tyria” and have it just as likely as anything else.

Lily.1935:

Something written down by the Orrians isn’t exactly very reliable especially considering that it doesn’t correspond with lore in other locations but seems to be its own thing entirely. Much like the Jotun I mentioned earlier his story doesn’t correspond either.

There are many sources about how humanity came to be. But they all agree on one thing: the gods made or brought humanity into the world.

As to the how and where on the world they first appeared, that’s never talked about. Except in the Orrian History Scrolls. It is the singular source of lore on it.

Old lore folks tend to hold themselves to at least this rule: if it isn’t contradicted, take it as truth. Because if you don’t, you get what I said above – everything becomes as likely as anything else, because you have no trustworthy basis to stand your theory upon. New lore folks don’t really adhere to that and while I like the new blood (since most old lore folks left with the Living World Seasons’ retcon-o-fests), it’s an important rule of thumb to follow otherwise all discussion on lore is meaningless from every viewpoint.

Thrulnn is contradicted by many sources – from developers to historians to individuals talking about first-hand experiences. But even some things that Thrulnn says holds credibility – such as how humanity arrived on Tyria (continent) in 205 BE.

Via ships.

Lily.1935:

The quote I put in the post should be very telling of how you should view the information.

No, it really shouldn’t.

Lily.1935:

The post by the dev doesn’t say a whole lot and doesn’t disprove anything of my hypothesis at all. Doesn’t prove anything either.

Individually? No. But you add them all together and you get plenty.

Lore in Guild Wars is a puzzle. You get hundreds of pieces from a hundred sources and you have to put them together. Some don’t fit, and might be false pieces of that puzzle, but you’ll never find a singular source on an entire subject.

Lily.1935:

And the question of Tyria or Tyria really comes into play here. Are they from Tyria the world but not the continent? Or are they from another place in the mists?

My sources outright state humanity comes from another world.

Lily.1935:

History never lies. Historians however. That quote right there should be really telling on how arena net tells their story.

You’re taking the quote well out of proportion, I think. Yeah, ArenaNet likes to seed in subjective truths, as well as sometimes outright lies. But you’ll always also have an alternative subjective truth or objective truth to compare those subjective truths and lies to.

ArenaNet gives us the answer – when they give us anything at all. But that answer is in bits and pieces, and you need to add them all up.

You cannot deny a singular source because an alternative source says something different – what if they’re both wrong? What if they’re both right but from different perspectives? What if one’s wrong and one’s right – but which is right and which is wrong?

It’s far more than “historians lie”. Because historians also tell the truth.

Lily.1935:

Also the west thing? I’ll probably find it eventually.. it’ll be 3 months from now and I’ll stumble across it again.

If you have a faint idea of where you got it, you should be able to find it within an hour via the wiki or in-game.

Lily.1935:

But Jeff Grub wasn’t on the team at the beginning. He only joined around Factions(I believe this is right but I could be mistaken.) where this concept of lore was already established.

The vast majority of ArenaNet developers were not on the team in the beginning. Does that mean all of GW2’s story ad lore is worth jack? No.

Jeff Grubb was one of the two continuity designers. His very job was to make lore consistent – same with Ree Soesbee at the time. The job has been taken over by Angel McCoy and Scott McGough while Jeff and Ree disappeared (we don’t know if they work for Anet anymore or not) – the quality of Angel and Scott’s job is questionable, but Jeff and Ree did a kitten good job.

Jeff was also one of the main writers behind Abaddon and Palawa Joko – before Jeff, there was but a single sentence on Joko’s lore and Abaddon didn’t even exist. So are we to just toss out all that because Jeff wasn’t around in the beginning? No.

We have been told by devs that the ONLY time that we ever denounce a dev’s statements in interviews and forums posts is when it is countered by in-game (or book) lore. And even then, such statement only came to be because Angel and Scott’s reign as narrative designers has resulted in retcon after retcon. With Jeff and Ree there was no retcon that wasn’t well disguised as false histories.

Your entire post dumbs down to “well you may have sources but it doesn’t matter because people lie!” Which is a very, very poor stance.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Lily.1935:

We have to remember that many of those sources if any of them might not be credible.

If you were to take everything with a grain of salt just because it ‘might not be credible’ then you have no foundation for lore – you have nothing that is credible – and you can start spouting things like “Darth Vadar brought humanity to the world of Tyria” and have it just as likely as anything else.

Lily.1935:

Both in what he said when talking about the human lore and working with it for a pan-species perspective that pieces of the puzzle were missing or very inaccurate.

Lily.1935:

Something written down by the Orrians isn’t exactly very reliable especially considering that it doesn’t correspond with lore in other locations but seems to be its own thing entirely. Much like the Jotun I mentioned earlier his story doesn’t correspond either.

There are many sources about how humanity came to be. But they all agree on one thing: the gods made or brought humanity into the world.

As to the how and where on the world they first appeared, that’s never talked about. Except in the Orrian History Scrolls. It is the singular source of lore on it.

Old lore folks tend to hold themselves to at least this rule: if it isn’t contradicted, take it as truth. Because if you don’t, you get what I said above – everything becomes as likely as anything else, because you have no trustworthy basis to stand your theory upon. New lore folks don’t really adhere to that and while I like the new blood (since most old lore folks left with the Living World Seasons’ retcon-o-fests), it’s an important rule of thumb to follow otherwise all discussion on lore is meaningless from every viewpoint.

Thrulnn is contradicted by many sources – from developers to historians to individuals talking about first-hand experiences. But even some things that Thrulnn says holds credibility – such as how humanity arrived on Tyria (continent) in 205 BE.

Via ships.

Lily.1935:

The quote I put in the post should be very telling of how you should view the information.

No, it really shouldn’t.

Lily.1935:

The post by the dev doesn’t say a whole lot and doesn’t disprove anything of my hypothesis at all. Doesn’t prove anything either.

Individually? No. But you add them all together and you get plenty.

Lore in Guild Wars is a puzzle. You get hundreds of pieces from a hundred sources and you have to put them together. Some don’t fit, and might be false pieces of that puzzle, but you’ll never find a singular source on an entire subject.

Lily.1935:

And the question of Tyria or Tyria really comes into play here. Are they from Tyria the world but not the continent? Or are they from another place in the mists?

My sources outright state humanity comes from another world.

Lily.1935:

History never lies. Historians however. That quote right there should be really telling on how arena net tells their story.

You’re taking the quote well out of proportion, I think. Yeah, ArenaNet likes to seed in subjective truths, as well as sometimes outright lies. But you’ll always also have an alternative subjective truth or objective truth to compare those subjective truths and lies to.

ArenaNet gives us the answer – when they give us anything at all. But that answer is in bits and pieces, and you need to add them all up.

You cannot deny a singular source because an alternative source says something different – what if they’re both wrong? What if they’re both right but from different perspectives? What if one’s wrong and one’s right – but which is right and which is wrong?

It’s far more than “historians lie”. Because historians also tell the truth.

Lily.1935:

Also the west thing? I’ll probably find it eventually.. it’ll be 3 months from now and I’ll stumble across it again.

If you have a faint idea of where you got it, you should be able to find it within an hour via the wiki or in-game.

Lily.1935:

But Jeff Grub wasn’t on the team at the beginning. He only joined around Factions(I believe this is right but I could be mistaken.) where this concept of lore was already established.

The vast majority of ArenaNet developers were not on the team in the beginning. Does that mean all of GW2’s story ad lore is worth jack? No.

Jeff Grubb was one of the two continuity designers. His very job was to make lore consistent – same with Ree Soesbee at the time. The job has been taken over by Angel McCoy and Scott McGough while Jeff and Ree disappeared (we don’t know if they work for Anet anymore or not) – the quality of Angel and Scott’s job is questionable, but Jeff and Ree did a kitten good job.

Jeff was also one of the main writers behind Abaddon and Palawa Joko – before Jeff, there was but a single sentence on Joko’s lore and Abaddon didn’t even exist. So are we to just toss out all that because Jeff wasn’t around in the beginning? No.

We have been told by devs that the ONLY time that we ever denounce a dev’s statements in interviews and forums posts is when it is countered by in-game (or book) lore. And even then, such statement only came to be because Angel and Scott’s reign as narrative designers has resulted in retcon after retcon. With Jeff and Ree there was no retcon that wasn’t well disguised as false histories.

Your entire post dumbs down to “well you may have sources but it doesn’t matter because people lie!” Which is a very, very poor stance.

You’re missing the entire point. You have to look at everything and take much of human beliefs into question because it isn’t certain. Every source I’ve read, including the ones you’ve linked, do not make a positive suggestion on where humans came from one way or another. I believe, yes, they came from another world. But the evidence for that isn’t good enough to say for certain. There is allot of contradictory lore in the game as it is and i’m just trying to piece it together.

And the dev post didn’t make a good suggestion one way or another. Like other people responded to it basically said “This didn’t answer any of our questions”. Although it did lend some credibility to the part where I said human magic could be toxic to tyria. Which they did say humans didn’t have allot of their own magic, but they did have magic. And that’s a very important key point to that statement. They don’t need a whole lot to cause problems.

Some of the Lore you posted too suggests that much of it was Oral. Which makes it even less credible than before. If you’ve ever played telephone you should know what I’m talking about. Its why in game historians don’t take that Jotun seriously.

We don’t have a lot of concrete evidence of anything. Can’t believe everything and I don’t. I’m looking at what’s cohesive with what we know. Which is surprisingly very little.

( ?° ?? ?°)

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Lily.1935:

You’re missing the entire point. You have to look at everything and take much of human beliefs into question because it isn’t certain. Every source I’ve read, including the ones you’ve linked, do not make a positive suggestion on where humans came from one way or another. I believe, yes, they came from another world. But the evidence for that isn’t good enough to say for certain. There is allot of contradictory lore in the game as it is and i’m just trying to piece it together.

There’s a lot of contradictory lore in the game – I cannot deny that. Half of it comes from Season 1 and later stuff.

But there is consistency in the statement that humanity came from another world – not Tyria (continent) nor Tyria (world).

Lily.1935:

And the dev post didn’t make a good suggestion one way or another. Like other people responded to it basically said “This didn’t answer any of our questions”.

He didn’t answer the question positioned, but there are answers.

And I don’t see howy ou can find doubt in the statement: They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world).

This outright states that they arrived on the world at some point. To arrive means to come from somewhere. E.g., humanity’s origins are not of the world of Tyria. He states it as an explicit fact.

And you called him into question because he wasn’t hired during Prophecies’ development.

What he ’didn’t answer’ in that statement was where they lived before Cantha, Tyria, and Elona. Their ‘homeland’ continent.

Lily.1935:

Although it did lend some credibility to the part where I said human magic could be toxic to tyria. Which they did say humans didn’t have allot of their own magic, but they did have magic. And that’s a very important key point to that statement. They don’t need a whole lot to cause problems.

That was an entirely different dev and statement from Jeff Grubb – the person who said that humans had little to not magic before Tyria was Angel McCoy, a she not a he, who in my opinion (and the opinion of others) is not a good writer.

Lily.1935:

Some of the Lore you posted too suggests that much of it was Oral. Which makes it even less credible than before.

The oral tradition was referring to the origin of magic.

And to be perfectly honest, a bunch of BS to cover Angel’s screw ups that the post was responding to.

It’s starting to feel like you just read the first paragraph of my post and then stopped reading entirely, since you continue your ‘toxic magic’ thing without responding to anything I said in regards to it.

You just spouted a bunch of ’it’s not reliable!’ and continued to do so by talking about a singular piece of my post that doesn’t even expand past the fifth sentence.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Lily.1935:

You’re missing the entire point. You have to look at everything and take much of human beliefs into question because it isn’t certain. Every source I’ve read, including the ones you’ve linked, do not make a positive suggestion on where humans came from one way or another. I believe, yes, they came from another world. But the evidence for that isn’t good enough to say for certain. There is allot of contradictory lore in the game as it is and i’m just trying to piece it together.

There’s a lot of contradictory lore in the game – I cannot deny that. Half of it comes from Season 1 and later stuff.

But there is consistency in the statement that humanity came from another world – not Tyria (continent) nor Tyria (world).

Lily.1935:

And the dev post didn’t make a good suggestion one way or another. Like other people responded to it basically said “This didn’t answer any of our questions”.

He didn’t answer the question positioned, but there are answers.

And I don’t see howy ou can find doubt in the statement: They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world).

This outright states that they arrived on the world at some point. To arrive means to come from somewhere. E.g., humanity’s origins are not of the world of Tyria. He states it as an explicit fact.

And you called him into question because he wasn’t hired during Prophecies’ development.

What he ’didn’t answer’ in that statement was where they lived before Cantha, Tyria, and Elona. Their ‘homeland’ continent.

Lily.1935:

Although it did lend some credibility to the part where I said human magic could be toxic to tyria. Which they did say humans didn’t have allot of their own magic, but they did have magic. And that’s a very important key point to that statement. They don’t need a whole lot to cause problems.

That was an entirely different dev and statement from Jeff Grubb – the person who said that humans had little to not magic before Tyria was Angel McCoy, a she not a he, who in my opinion (and the opinion of others) is not a good writer.

Lily.1935:

Some of the Lore you posted too suggests that much of it was Oral. Which makes it even less credible than before.

The oral tradition was referring to the origin of magic.

And to be perfectly honest, a bunch of BS to cover Angel’s screw ups that the post was responding to.

It’s starting to feel like you just read the first paragraph of my post and then stopped reading entirely, since you continue your ‘toxic magic’ thing without responding to anything I said in regards to it.

You just spouted a bunch of ’it’s not reliable!’ and continued to do so by talking about a singular piece of my post that doesn’t even expand past the fifth sentence.

sigh

Forget I said anything.

@Konig Des Todes

Lily is not talking about all writing of history of Tyria being false Konig but that the History we know about the origins of Humans may have been distorted by Historians.

Do not forget the words of the Priory “History never lies but Historians however do.”

We know the history of Humans may be from another world and the place they started is far south to a place we have not seen yet but those History are writing by Historians. How much of that History is true we will never know but we can’t really take anything with 100% certainty afterall, for example, during GW1 the White Mantle recorded the Mursaat as gods but they were actually a ancient race of Tyria.

This thread is amazing for all the wrong reasons.

Why would you ever throw out foundational, uncontested lore on the basis of glib flavour text? However, if we go down the route of discarding primary history sources from the games on the basis of NPC chatter it does open up so many interesting avenues of thought.

Consider the following: Is the secret to defeating the Elder Dragons and bringing peace to Tyria actually found in flowers? Does the ancient Sylvari axiom not state, “More violets, I say. Less violence!” From this we can infer that there is a strong negative correlation between quantity of violets and violence. Is the evidence presented here strong enough for us to conclude that there is a causal relationship between these two factors? No, of course not. However, I am going to say that there is, simply because you cannot ever disprove the contention because all contradictory evidence you could bring forth is able to be summarily dismissed by stating, “History never lies. Historians, however…”

In conclusion, violets should be renamed to dragonsbane as they are the superweapon of peace that Tyria desperately needs.

My theory is Humans didnt have alot of magic till they started to live in orr.
i believe it was the Gods who (found out later) that they was incompatible with Tyria’s magic (would explain why they guarded the Blood Stone and part of why they decided to leave)
honestly after all the GW1 stuff proved as false/lies i cant blame people for taking the “Historians may lie!” approach.
(although i dont count the white mantle thing because seem like many krytans didnt believe that.making it a known lie at its time)

EdwinLi.1284:

@Konig Des Todes

Lily is not talking about all writing of history of Tyria being false Konig but that the History we know about the origins of Humans may have been distorted by Historians.

Do not forget the words of the Priory “History never lies but Historians however do.”

And my point is that there is no reason to believe that the many ‘historians’ on the topic which include ooc developer statements are false. Because the only source of human history that’s contradicted is one that’s contradicted everywhere else in the source’s claim (prophecies manual’s History of Tyria document), and all sources that contradict it agree with each other.

Just like there’s no question about how the Jotun fell because all sources but one say the same thing, all sources but one says the same thing about the origin of humans on the world. And that “but one” that differs just says “the gods made humans on Tyria” rather than “the gods brought humans to Tyria” – which isn’t that big of a difference, really, and is more a one of subjective truth – interpreting a scene differently.

I mean, if you suddenly see powerfully magical beings open a tear in reality and a species you never heard of before steps out, would it be strange to think ‘those powerfully magical beings created this species’ rather than ‘those powerfully magical beings brought this species from another dimension’? Not really.

That’s what Lily got stuck upon, ignoring the rest of my post which was more about the crux of his/her theory.