Guild Wars 2

We’ve looked at the face of a human god, and haven’t gone blind as the Commander. Isn’t that flying in the face of everything that the divine stands for? Especially, assuming that whatever Rytlock saw in the mists likely blinded him. And we have past evidence of sights of the gods have caused blindness. So it begs the question, why hasn’t the Commander gone blind? or Taimi, Kasmeer, Marjory for that matter? I suppose having a blind Commander doesn’t serve the story as adventuring would be limited, but perhaps a new form of sight, past mortal vision?

Samuel Cuttler the human NPC that spreads words of the gods to the norn in Hoelbrak as well, should have some dialogue to suggest that Balthazar is an awakened force in the world once more, as well. No?

Uhhm Balthazar even said himself ( last instance of Flashpoint ) that he isn’t a god anymore. He got cast down, replaced by a new God of War, his divinity taken away ( with this also the blinding aspect ) and now he is looking to gobble up enough magic to be something like a God again.

Walhalla.5473:

Uhhm Balthazar even said himself ( last instance of Flashpoint ) that he isn’t a god anymore. He got cast down, replaced by a new God of War, his divinity taken away ( with this also the blinding aspect ) and now he is looking to gobble up enough magic to be something like a God again.

He never said he “wasn’t” a god. He said his “light was dimmed.” Whatever, the hell we can assume that means. Which the choice-spectrum is pretty wide. We also don’t know that he was replaced either. He said, “There is no honor in war, but if you crave the glory of the fray, you shall have it.” Which means his distinction changed from his own perspective, not that he isn’t still considered the God of War.

But nice attempt at headcanon.

Well, we learn from the first (and only) story instance in the demo that Rytlock is not blind at all. The blindfold was so he could sort out the voices in his head from his new revenant powers.

As for the actual topic: it’s hinted (but not confirmed) that Balthazar lost his divinity, perhaps in the same way as Dhuum who survived being usurped (unlike Abaddon). We know he’s been weakened either way, and aside from imprisonment the only form of weakening a god we know of is an incomplete succession ala Dhuum.

That said, however, it’s well established in Malchor’s story (and that we fought full-fledged god Abaddon though this could be attributed to the blessing the five avatars gave us just before) that going blind from looking at a god is not instantaneous, but is comparable to staring at the sun or directly into a powerful flashlight for too long. Though some NPCs call it “eye ball melting”, as far as we know it’s just going blind from staring too long, not glimpsing a single glance. Or fighting for ~10 minutes.

First, Rytlock isn’t blind. The Blindfold was an aid to concentration.

Second, Malchor was blinded after staring for a long period of time at the gods as he sculpted them.

Third, if you know your mythology you know that the presence of a diety can come in degrees. The “Cheval” or human vessel of a god in Voodoo is one example. Statues are another. The Balth that appeared in LS was probably an avatar.

Sadly, your relation to mythology doesn’t fly in Tyrian lore. There’s no cases of human vessels or statue possessions in Tyrian lore. There are illusions, avatars (no possession in these), and the gods themselves.

Balthazar seen in Season 3 is 100% Balthazar himself. We tore down the illusion, and it was no avatar (we’ve seen what his avatars look like in the PS/HoT).

I don’t agree. It’s a rather petty god who can be defeated by essentially one human… If that is the case, what use is he anyway? and why should I fear him?

except we didnt fight him, at all. we fought his hounds, which lets be honest, any seasoned warrior( which our PC’s are) could probably kill the hounds.

Ithilwen.1529

… It’s a rather petty god who can be defeated by essentially one human… If that is the case, what use is he anyway? and why should I fear him?

This is my opinion too. Keeping the title of “god” for these …. alien beings is useless. As long they can be defeated by mortals and their powers absorbed, the “gods” are primary targets for all the tyrian adventurers.

The mortals interfering in the gods business (and being successful in defeating them?) …. hm, once it may be tolerated. With divine allies and with a great amount of luck / lore writers help /etc we can admit this. ONCE.

What is hard understandable is why the “gods” did not fight themselves with the rebel Abadon and instead relied on a mortal help to finish him?
No matter the reason but if another “god” will be defeated by us, then GW2 will became a god hunt festival.

In the beginning we had the gods as GODS – intangible entities with an existence and purposes over any human mind understanding and the Dragons – insanely strong beings, able to destroy the life on the planet but with understandable reasons and moreover, beings we can fight. And defeat.
Unfortunately ANet lore team left this path and mixed the Dragons and the gods in the same soup.

Not sure why everyone thinks that all the gods can now be easily killed by mortals. There has never been an instance where a mortal has taken down a god at full power. Ever. If people are so certain of it, please provide proof or a source.

As for why we aren’t blind? There is a good reason for it that just hasn’t been revealed yet. If you watch the expac announcement video, Mike O’Brien himself poses the very same question. It is obvious that we will find the answer to it once we’ve gone through the entire expac.

Walhalla.5473:

Uhhm Balthazar even said himself ( last instance of Flashpoint ) that he isn’t a god anymore. He got cast down, replaced by a new God of War, his divinity taken away ( with this also the blinding aspect ) and now he is looking to gobble up enough magic to be something like a God again.

He never said he wasnt a god anymore, he was never cast down or replaced aby another.
He lost his own shine and is refurbishing it

gereden.6983:

except we didnt fight him, at all. we fought his hounds, which lets be honest, any seasoned warrior( which our PC’s are) could probably kill the hounds.

Technically speaking, we didn’t even kill the hounds – not directly. We tricked them into absorbing dragon energy thus sending them into the machine which meant we might have “fed them” into Jormag, Primordus, and Balthazar.

Cristalyan.5728:

This is my opinion too. Keeping the title of “god” for these …. alien beings is useless. As long they can be defeated by mortals and their powers absorbed, the “gods” are primary targets for all the tyrian adventurers.

But we never fought a god at full power. Abaddon’s power was weakened, he was at best at 3/8th of his full strength. Dhuum was a fallen god, thus technically a god no more. Balthazar was similarly weakened, and we’ve yet to fight him directly – and even weakened, he was capable of instantly wiping out a dozen seasoned soldiers empowered by bloodstone magic.

Cristalyan.5728:

What is hard understandable is why the “gods” did not fight themselves with the rebel Abadon and instead relied on a mortal help to finish him?
No matter the reason but if another “god” will be defeated by us, then GW2 will became a god hunt festival.

Because the last time the five fought Abaddon, they turned a verdant coastline into a sulfurous wasteland, and a large sea into a desert.

They also needed a replacement for Abaddon, and probably wanted to make sure the replacement could do the job right so used fighting a weakened not-even-half-strength god while blessed by the other five gods as a test.

Cristalyan.5728:

In the beginning we had the gods as GODS – intangible entities with an existence and purposes over any human mind understanding and the Dragons – insanely strong beings, able to destroy the life on the planet but with understandable reasons and moreover, beings we can fight. And defeat.
Unfortunately ANet lore team left this path and mixed the Dragons and the gods in the same soup.

I’m going to disagree here. The Five/Six Gods have never been intangible, nor were their existence or purpose ever “over any human mind”. They were always the same as any polytheistic pantheon – unaging beings capable of creating life from nothing with human characteristics and human personalities.

In fact, the Elder Dragons were initially presented as intangible entities with an existence and purpose being any mortal understanding. They rather still are, though we’ve learned quite a bit about them. We still don’t know how or why they exist, what their origin is. We only know that they’re wanting to destroy or change the world in their own not-healthy-for-us way and that their existence is tied to The All and killing three will supposedly result in world devastation.

Thank you Konig for your useful insights, seeing as there clearly isn’t a direct answer here. Past someone coming out from the A-net Story team and answering it for us. But for the most part a major factor in this thread so far has been headcanon and assumptions. Thanks for sticking with what -WE- know for sure, going by official Guild Wars lore, Konig.

This seems to be a good time and place to bring this up. Since being “dimmed” Balthy has chugged one supersized bloodstone with all the sides worth of magic – remember, it was full up after we disposed of Zhaitan and Mordremoth. He then followed it up with an amount equal to or greater than what Jormag and Primordus put together have consumed since awakening. When you consider what they are and how consuming magic is about their only hobby it starts to look like a lot of magic.

Yet Balthazar isn’t that bright even after all that. So does this imply that a god at full power would literally have one Tyria worth of magic or thereabouts? Since we know Abaddon was the big kitten in the having of magic department (he was supposed to be able to take on 3 of the others, iirc?) just how much kitten magic is in these guys? Who’d they nick it from, because I doubt they found it on the side of the road and just forgot to hand it over to the proper authorities.

SpeedFiend.4521:

This seems to be a good time and place to bring this up. Since being “dimmed” Balthy has chugged one supersized bloodstone with all the sides worth of magic – remember, it was full up after we disposed of Zhaitan and Mordremoth. He then followed it up with an amount equal to or greater than what Jormag and Primordus put together have consumed since awakening. When you consider what they are and how consuming magic is about their only hobby it starts to look like a lot of magic.

Yet Balthazar isn’t that bright even after all that. So does this imply that a god at full power would literally have one Tyria worth of magic or thereabouts? Since we know Abaddon was the big kitten in the having of magic department (he was supposed to be able to take on 3 of the others, iirc?) just how much kitten magic is in these guys? Who’d they nick it from, because I doubt they found it on the side of the road and just forgot to hand it over to the proper authorities.

My thought for that would be the kind of power that he’s absorbed. What causes mortals to go blind all the time are gods filled with divine power, which has been shown to be a different form of magic than what is natural or dragon magic.

Balthazar was ‘dimmed’ by whatever means that happened but the magic he has regained from the bloodstone/Jormag/Primordus is not divine magic. So that may be a likely reason why we still wouldn’t be blinded as if we were looking too long at a god at full power and less that he hasn’t regained enough power yet.

Maethor.2810:

SpeedFiend.4521:

This seems to be a good time and place to bring this up. Since being “dimmed” Balthy has chugged one supersized bloodstone with all the sides worth of magic – remember, it was full up after we disposed of Zhaitan and Mordremoth. He then followed it up with an amount equal to or greater than what Jormag and Primordus put together have consumed since awakening. When you consider what they are and how consuming magic is about their only hobby it starts to look like a lot of magic.

Yet Balthazar isn’t that bright even after all that. So does this imply that a god at full power would literally have one Tyria worth of magic or thereabouts? Since we know Abaddon was the big kitten in the having of magic department (he was supposed to be able to take on 3 of the others, iirc?) just how much kitten magic is in these guys? Who’d they nick it from, because I doubt they found it on the side of the road and just forgot to hand it over to the proper authorities.

My thought for that would be the kind of power that he’s absorbed. What causes mortals to go blind all the time are gods filled with divine power, which has been shown to be a different form of magic than what is natural or dragon magic.

Balthazar was ‘dimmed’ by whatever means that happened but the magic he has regained from the bloodstone/Jormag/Primordus is not divine magic. So that may be a likely reason why we still wouldn’t be blinded as if we were looking too long at a god at full power and less that he hasn’t regained enough power yet.

I would also like to note that he didn’t soak up all of the Bloodstone magic or all of Jormag and Primordus’ magic. Bloodstone fen is still a magical hotspot and the shards that were scattered all over and hoarded by the white mantle are still quite potent. And in the instance with the machine we can still see some of Jormag and Primordus’s magic being shot out past Balthazar. Based on dialogue I think I remember from the instance, Balthazar was more skimming some of the magic rather than soaking it all up. This is not to say that he won’t be incredibly powerful, but it is still possible that he is still a little less powerful than a full god.

Or we’ve got a protection from another god.

Before the fight with Abaddon Muse of Lyssa spoke to us and gave the protection of the Gods.

If a theory that Lyssa is among us as Jennah/Anise so then it’d be right if Jennah gave us her divine protection.

Isn’t it weird that we met her just before Balthazar’s revelation? Perhaps she secretly gave her protection to us.

Also to Kasmeer because she was close to the Queen and Countness all the time. Marjory was looking at Kas, not Balthazar, same Taimi.

Anise didn’t look like she’d be upset that Lazarus came back as she’d know what is going on.

It looks a bit like cooperating between Balthazar and Lyssa but it doesn’t look like they’d cooperated.

This mirror is for me the most important thing about Balthazar- did he steal it or what?

Anyway I think we’ve got the protection of the god, so then Balthazar did not lose his divinity completely, but he could still make our eyes melt.

When would “Lyssa” have had time to give us such protection, though? When we saw Jennah, she was busy with the White Mantle. No time for subtle protection blessings.

Plus, there’s more than just us – Phlunt and his whole krewe saw him, Marjory and Taimi did both look at Balthazar (Taimi did so twice, even, the second time being in the volcano), and so did the mercenaries, without the illusion. And no doubt so do many Zaishen and Elonians (how else do they know Balthazar is around and it’s not just a case of demonic constructs praising Balthazar while slaughtering?).

Everyone was looking at Balthazar at some point post-illusion breaking.

And all that is ignoring the major holes in the concept that Jennah is Lyssa.

Especially Anise being “half of Lyssa”, given the events of Episode 6. The theory that Anise is Livia’s daughter is far more solid than her being “half of Lyssa”.

Balthazar maintained his disguise using a mirror. According to Kasmeer, the mirror was made by Lyssa. Lady Wi refers to Lyssa as “The Lady of the Mirror” in an early story episode.

It’s an open question whether he stole it or she gave it to him. It’s also an open question what Lyssa’s motivations are in the whole thing.

She is the Goddess of beauty AND deception. She could even have given the mirror to Balthazar for the ultimate purpose of sabotaging him.

At the end of Nightfall, we become the God’s proxies to resolve the issue of Abaddon. I predict that we will learn eventually that we are acting on behalf of Lyssa et al. This will answer Kasmeer’s statement about the Gods’ “giving up on us.”