Guild Wars 2

I started to wonder about this lately.

As a plant based organism, Sylvari breathe differently then normal species.

I assume they have lungs, but pretty much every plant takes in oxygen via their leaves.

And since the Sylvari’s skin is essentially composed of the same substance as leaves, it means they can also absorb oxygen through the skin.

And also, plants can absorb what they need from the environment more readily then mammals, especially water.

So, a Sylvari immersed in water could in theory, absorb oxygen from it in a way a mammal can not.

They would have a problem with salty water though, there are very few plants that can tolerate high salinity environments, so they’d get very sick if they went swimming in the ocean, for example!

So, really, it should be unnecessary for a Sylvari to use a breathing mask, because they don’t need it!

Just unequip it!

Plants actually need oxygen like people do, besides everything else. They’ve probably had a curious first born down the line test the water to see if they would survive once… and since they died, they learn from that situation and borrowed technology from the other land creatures.

Sylvari mimic the functionality of other humanoids. Although their organs dont work exactly the same, they need to eat as other humaniods do, sleep like other humaniods do and do the other business other humaniods do <.<

Sylvari are like an attempt to replicate a human with plant parts. Its likely their ‘skin’ works much like ours does too and as such protects them from things such as salt water.

My guess is that even though they dont breath oxygen they still need to breath Carbon diaoxide which would still require some kind of resperator. Hell for all we know maybe they do need to absorb oxygen. After all they only get a small part of their energy through photosynthasis.

Plants actually do the “inverse” of human breathing, in that they take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. If they didn’t, life on earth would have to be arranged in quite a different way.

Tom Gore.4035:

Plants actually do the “inverse” of human breathing, in that they take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. If they didn’t, life on earth would have to be arranged in quite a different way.

^ that is the reason why they need a breather. Because there isn’t enough carbon dioxide in water, especially in the present time when it is mostly dominated by the undead which doesn’t use any oxygen in the water.

;)

Plants can drown, stick your plants under water and see if they live for long.

Pretty easy to explain: To avoid contamination.

If they ever add naga as a playable race, I expect them to be able to equip the breather as well, just to breath properly in case the water is polluted or something.

Tom Gore.4035:

Plants actually do the “inverse” of human breathing, in that they take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. If they didn’t, life on earth would have to be arranged in quite a different way.

Plants also respire, taking in oxygen to burn glucose and releasing CO2 during the non-photosynthetic stage.

But yes, there are aquatic and terrestrial plants. Stick a house plant underwater and it will die like any land creature.

Well, the analogy isn’t perfect.

Yes, it’s not a good idea to put a plant completely underwater, it’ll drown, for lack of a better term.

But a plant’s roots, while immersed in water, can extract what they need to live somehow, provided the water has no salt.

I’m assuming Syvlari are “all plants” really, merging underwater and above water properties.

HERO.2057:

Plants can drown, stick your plants under water and see if they live for long.

Yes, but how does the breathing apparatus help?

I really like that people think about these things, even though I don’t think it’s a “plot hole” (lore hole?), considering how different Sylvari are from other races as well as other plants.

Nice thinking though! Reminds me of some person who noticed that square fields in the human areas had rotating sprinklers.

Eki.9841:

HERO.2057:

Plants can drown, stick your plants under water and see if they live for long.

Yes, but how does the breathing apparatus help?

I really like that people think about these things, even though I don’t think it’s a “plot hole” (lore hole?), considering how different Sylvari are from other races as well as other plants.

Nice thinking though! Reminds me of some person who noticed that square fields in the human areas had rotating sprinklers.

you are assuming that sylvari don’t have lungs(or a lung anolouge) considering that they have stomachs, I don’t think that’s a good assumption.

I believe it’s stated in lore that sylvari do need to eat, although they need to eat less in sunlight. this suggests that they need to eat for energy, not just for nutrients. this, in turn, means they need oxygen consumption like we do. and since they are modeled after humans( to the point of reproductive organs that may not be needed) it is a reasonable anylisis to assume that they have lungs/need rebreathers just as much as humans do.

Tilarta.9812:

Well, the analogy isn’t perfect.

Yes, it’s not a good idea to put a plant completely underwater, it’ll drown, for lack of a better term.

But a plant’s roots, while immersed in water, can extract what they need to live somehow, provided the water has no salt.

I’m assuming Syvlari are “all plants” really, merging underwater and above water properties.

But a Sylvari isn’t a “whole” plant. Just like an apple isn’t a plant.

Yes, I would imagine, in order to function independently (not rooted in the ground), a Sylvari had to develop certain internal analogues to mammalian physiology.

So yes, they would have organs like lungs and digestive tracts.

But even so, this does not mean the plant based aspects of their origins would be completely abandoned, it would function in unison with their internal organs.

So whatever oxygen the Sylvari absorb through their skin supplements the air they breathe in through their nose and mouth.

The “all plant” theory could also explain why they survive in salt water, they’re part seaweed!

Which, if it was true, would mean that a Sylvari is in fact amphibous, able to breathe underwater, since seaplants need to extract their oxygen from the water.

Take your house hold plant and shove it underwater for a couple of hours or even a day and tell what happens Not a pretty result.

that is the reason why they need a breather. Because there isn’t enough carbon dioxide in water, especially in the present time when it is mostly dominated by the undead which doesn’t use any oxygen in the water.

Its worse than that – if the sylvari are breathing CO2 then they have an anaerobic metabolism like regular plants. That sort of metabolism can’t supply the high level of energy needed for highly mobile organisms – its why anaerobic micro-organisms were outcompeted and largely wiped out when aerobic metabolisms showed sometime within the last 2.5 billion years.

In order for the sylvari to exist at all they would have to pretty much give up nearly all of their plant-like traits – beyond say using cellulose instead of collagen as a tissue binder and a vestgial photosynthetic metabolic paths they would have to be, in effect, animals.

Unless of course a wizard did it.

I believe it’s stated in lore that sylvari do need to eat, although they need to eat less in sunlight. this suggests that they need to eat for energy, not just for nutrients. this, in turn, means they need oxygen consumption like we do.

This doesn’t work well, photosynthesis doesn’t convert sunlight to mass – they still need the same input of C,H,O,N as an animal.

kitanas.3596:

Eki.9841:

HERO.2057:

Plants can drown, stick your plants under water and see if they live for long.

Yes, but how does the breathing apparatus help?

I really like that people think about these things, even though I don’t think it’s a “plot hole” (lore hole?), considering how different Sylvari are from other races as well as other plants.

Nice thinking though! Reminds me of some person who noticed that square fields in the human areas had rotating sprinklers.

you are assuming that sylvari don’t have lungs(or a lung anolouge) considering that they have stomachs, I don’t think that’s a good assumption.

I meant that as a response to “plants can drown”. If Sylvari were like regular plants, then a breathing apparatus wouldn’t make any difference, because plants “breathe” through their leaves (maybe other places as well?). That’s why I mentioned that they are different from plants. As I said, I don’t think this is an error, because Sylvari most likely have something akin to lungs (assumably picking up both carbon dioxide and oxygen). If nothing else, they need them to be able to talk (which, if they did nothing else, would mean the breathing apparatus was just there to keep their “lungs” free from water).

Incunabulum.3265:

I believe it’s stated in lore that sylvari do need to eat, although they need to eat less in sunlight. this suggests that they need to eat for energy, not just for nutrients. this, in turn, means they need oxygen consumption like we do.

This doesn’t work well, photosynthesis doesn’t convert sunlight to mass – they still need the same input of C,H,O,N as an animal.

Technically they would need less because they don’t move and don’t lose lots of energy to heat escaping from them.

Even MORE technically, the sunlight (or at least parts of it) IS turned into mass – the energy from it is used to bind together certain molecules. Because of our good friend E=mc², this means the final products weigh (slightly) more than the original components! VERY slightly, but there you go.

Obviously, the first point doesn’t apply to Sylvari, since they DO move, and their “muscles” and other body parts probably DO need heat to work.

Hi all, dude with a graduate degree in biology here :

For the record, plants take in CO2 by day when they photosynthesize to create sugars, but they take in O2 in darkness when they are breaking down those sugars for energy, just like us non-green things. Further, and closer related to this topic, unless adapted to absorb/disperse O2/CO2 into liquid, they do so across a moist membrane into a gaseous medium via tiny chambers in the leaves that the stomata open/close to regulate. There are aquatic plants, there are amphibious plants, and there are strictly terrestrial plants, being a plant in and of itself does not make you able to breathe underwater, sorry.

At any rate, any critter with their activity level is going to need to get most of their energy via breaking down consumed organic matter that, in turn, will require the sort of rapid, efficient respiration that us humans use, and since the Sylvari are terrestrial, that means whatever lung analog they have is going to only function efficiently via exchange into a gaseous medium (consider your own lungs, they can exchange O2 & CO2 into liquid, but you still drown in ordinary water because the physics driving the exchange across the membrane simply does’t work well enough to keep you alive).

Now, how they and all our other GW2 characters don their magical breathing apparatus so quickly and seamlessly is a mystery, but why they need such an apparatus is not.

Magic. You’re argument is invalid.

I mean if we’re going to get technical, Sylvari shouldn’t be Elementalists either, because they’d just ignite themselves in flames. But alas, this is a fantasy game!

Technically nobody really needs a breather. Check out all the non-aquatic NPCs (specifically prisoners/slaves of the Krait in a large number of places) or heck, do this:

Take you character.

Dive as deep as you can.

Take off breather.

Refuse to drown.

The people of Tyria wear specialized facemasks underwater because it is a land of many fancy hats, and it would be a shame to ruin them. Masks are just the fancy hats of the underwater realm, which is why soldiers are often seen wearing them, and prisoners never seem to have one.

And since there is no sun underwater they should wear solar hats?

lol i went with a norn underwater not waering a breathing apparatus i didnt die nor lose health