Guild Wars 2

“You can’t trust the sylvari, they belong to the dragon now” with those words epic words Rytlock stated his oppinion about one of the 5 major races, and as we have clearly seen in the story of the demo other Charr share this though(I am referring to the pactcharr that refuses to listen to Laranthirr of the Wyld anymore).
Of course, none of the non-sylvari fully trust sylvari anymore, but the charr seem to be the ones that really don’t want them around anymore, now that we know they are Mordrem.

How do you guys think this might develop? The war against mordremoth has merely started, and by taking controll over the slyvari once, he wiped out most of tyrias forces in an instant. If he did it again, he might finish off the survivors as well. Since the expansion is going to focus heavily around this theme storywise.

Under these circumstances, if you were given the choice, would you rather fight alongside the surviving sylvari, or lock them away, because they would be a liability in combat?

Personally, for the Pact sylvari like Laranthir who didn’t turn, I’d be inclined to trust- they got lucky once, and at this point we’ve no reason to believe they won’t get lucky again. For untried sylvari, back at the Grove and elsewhere in Tyria, I’d be cautious about deploying them, and take reinforcements from almost any other race over them, but I wouldn’t lock them up. Imagine what what happen if even a single sylvari went corrupted and kill-happy in the middle of a crowded internment camp, especially if the camp’s guards were too afraid to enter? Imagine what would happen if most of the camp turned, and suddenly there was a ready-made Mordrem army in the heart of allied territory? Imagine what would happen if a guard started imagining these things and decided to kill them all and be done with it? There’s too much potential for tragedy there, and we know too little about the corruption’s function- for all we know, we could be setting up an entire race for extinction when a little bit of patience might bring to light new facts that could head off the threat altogether.

But what if they don’t get lucky a second time?
Speaking story choice-esc, would you rather risk one race going extinct, or four other races going extinct because of this one!
(btw, I would loooove the game to take such dark turns, the morbider and grotesqer, the better xD Goes nicely along the Kasmeer, Marjory theory of Marjory dying to scarlett back in the retaking of lions arch and the one we see the whole time is just an illusion made by kasmeer that couldn’t handle her death xD)

I was a bit tongue in cheek there, but what I was driving at is that there’s probably a reason they didn’t turn. We don’t know what protected them, but we know that in their individual cases at least there was something that did.

Meh, call me an idealist, but I’ll take the later. If we’ve hit the point of dumbing the fate of entire cultures down to a math problem, we’ve already lost.

I would love to have more real tragedy and gray in the story (and wiping out the Pact fleet was certainly a good first step! Now let’s see some big names die because of it!), but going for racial collective punishment is too far, I think. I’m not opposed to the idea of it, but in the implementation discussed on the forums it’d be the racial leaders driving it, people who the game has thus far left us no choice but to work with. I don’t like feeling like I’m on the wrong side of the war. Got a taste of that once with Vorpp, and once was enough.

Rytlock needs a good bonk bonk on the head. When Big K did his infamous flyover of Ascalon, how many charr caught in his flight path resisted becoming branded? Only one that I know of: Almorra Soulkeeper.

How many sylvari exposed to Ol’ Mordy resisted his draconic influence? More than one!

So, what race is it we can’t trust around dragons?

/e bonk bonk on Rytlock’s head

Tachenon.5270:

Rytlock needs a good bonk bonk on the head. When Big K did his infamous flyover of Ascalon, how many charr caught in his flight path resisted becoming branded? Only one that I know of: Almorra Soulkeeper.

How many sylvari exposed to Ol’ Mordy resisted his draconic influence? More than one!

So, what race is it we can’t trust around dragons?

/e bonk bonk on Rytlock’s head

You do know that’s not really a fair comparison right? Branded charr were not dragon minions but became dragon minions. Corrupted sylvari on the other hand were dragon minions, then gained freedom and then became corrupted. In addition, branded show visual signs of corruption, while corrupted sylvari do not.

That said I will probably disagree with Rytlock’s stance towards Sylvari but I can see where it’s coming from.

Is the fact that Sylvari were literally made to be dragon minions known to everyone? As of the end of lw season 2, only the Tree, Caith, us and DE 2.0 know about it.

And before you say “Everyone saw them turn!”, it’s called dragon corruption, the same reason we still trust the Norn despite sons of Svanir.

I belive it became commonly known after the Pactfleet was destroyed, otherwise there would be no reason for the soldiers to suddenly misstrust their sylvari comrades, leaders and underlings

There’s no knowing at this point, but my personal feeling from the way the teasers have been phrased is that we’re actually going to see a widespread sylvari subversion (I’m going to use the word corrupt here, although I know several of you will be happy to dispute it) well beyond just the Pact fleet. Whether the actual knowledge that their origin is mixed up somehow with Mordremoth is widely disseminated will hinge entirely on which leaders we tell and what those leaders’ subsequent response turns out to be.

Well the leaders would most likely be:

Norn: “bah, let them stay, if they turn on us we can kill em and then go back to drinking ale and boasting about what we just did!”

Charr: “not trustworthy, we would rather fight alongside the humans of ebonfalk!”

Humans: “no, just because they are dragonspawn doesn’t mean they are the dragons!”

Asuran: “does that mean we get to cut them up again to see if their organs changed?”

I assume queen Jennah would be the mainprotector of the sylvari in this case, but if she turned around and went all charr(which she might if the charr went against the sylvari and she did a lot for the peacetreaty with those, now that I think about it) it might become really interesting. As it is right now though, I expect charr and asura to be con-syvlari and norn & humans to be pro-sylvari.

I agree on most of those points, and it’s certainly fortunate for them that few sylvari are in asura territory to begin with, but I think the human response is going to be more complicated, and based on the politics of the kingdom. We did see in the teaser a human mob, including at least a couple seraph, cornering Canach, a known Shining Blade agent, within the city. Jumping from that, I think no matter how Jennah goes the Ministry will seize the opportunity to discredit her. If she commits to the unity ideal, they can say she’s brazenly endangering her citizens. If she prioritizes the safety of her people and has the sylvari expelled (the option most in keeping with her character, I think), the Ministry could either play it as an admission that it was foolish to make friends with them at all, or accuse her of turning away from humanity’s allies in their time of need all the while making concessions and selling out to their oldest enemies. If she has them locked up the Ministry can declare she lacks the guts to go far enough and is instead wasting Kryta’s resources. If she does purge them, which I just don’t see happening, she can be painted as a bloody-handed tyrant. I don’t think there’s any way she can handle it without opening herself to risk, and this is the sort of problem that could be fanned into enough public hysteria to fuel and uprising. All of these complications, to my mind, makes it very difficult to guess how Kryta will handle things.

true, totally forgot about that, it might even re-open old charges for the potential colaboration between her and scarlett if she sided with the sylvari. Someone that might be of importance here might also be countess anise, since she apperantly is plotting something in the background anyway.

but the question about how to handle sylvari is not only political for the races and nations, it is also of importance for the 3 orders. they formed the pact together, following Trahearn, would they still do so? Is Trahearn even still alive? We don’t even know if Trahearn hasn’t been fullfilling Mordremoths will the whole time unknowingly(I am refering to the scene where he planted calebolg in the Heart of Orr and vines suddenly grew everywhere, back in the day this seemed to be a happy scene, but nowadays, vines and everything that is green is the enemy.)

It also doesn’t make the sylvari more trustworthy to me that caith ran off with the egg, and while we can’t blame her whole kind for her actions, it certainly does not help(thats one of the few things I could agree on with Brahm, Eir trusts her, I don’t)

But those things won’t matter to much on a political scale. On a political scale queen jennah is the one who will be in the most trouble, no matter what she does.

Aren’t the other races just as suspicious?

Jora a Norn lost her transformation ability because of Jormag yet resisted corruption….

Seems more like Jora was punished by Jormag for defying her creator.

Flame Legion seem to have Magma Hands and are able to gift said hands to Dredge.

What’s more the Charr as a whole worshiped the Titans because they were Fiery…..

Doesn’t that make the Charr seem just suspicious?

Asura seems to be the only native playable race that doesn’t seem to secretly be Elder Dragon Minions.

Instead the Asura have built their entire society on Elder Dragon Magic the moment they discovered it so they too are untrustworthy.

As for the Human faction which is the only faction not native to Tyria: They seem to have the Mursaat manipulating the government behind the scenes. Very untrustworthy….

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Aren’t the other races just as suspicious?

Jora a Norn lost her transformation ability because of Jormag yet resisted corruption….

Seems more like Jora was punished by Jormag for defying her creator.

Flame Legion seem to have Magma Hands and are able to gift said hands to Dredge.

What’s more the Charr as a whole worshiped the Titans because they were Fiery…..

Doesn’t that make the Charr seem just suspicious?

Asura seems to be the only native playable race that doesn’t seem to secretly be Elder Dragon Minions.

Instead the Asura have built their entire society on Elder Dragon Magic the moment they discovered it so they too are untrustworthy.

As for the Human faction which is the only faction not native to Tyria: They seem to have the Mursaat manipulating the government behind the scenes. Very untrustworthy….

While I can’t dissprove the things you said about the Jora the norn, the fiery magic of some Charr 1: is only used by the flame legion which is commonly known as the traitor legion that surpressed the others for many years 2: goes back to titans, which were servants of Abaddon, the human god of secrets, therefore this is more related to humans than to dragons.

And while it is true that Asura used the magic of the dragon, the magic itself is just magic, nothing more, according to the laws of the eternal alchemy, it is the same as with oil, you could either use it to produce plastictoys for children or fuel a jet that transports a nuclear warhead, the oil itself is neither good nor evil.

And about the humans: It might actually be a good thing if the Mursaat would still be in command, after all we are talking about one of the few races that actually was there when the dragons awakened last, and while the Jotun lost to much of their history to share this knowledge with us, the Mursaat might actually be usefull if they were in charge.

At the rate they were sacrificing humans, I don’t think Kryta would have survived to GW2 under the mursaat.

Seishiro.7468:

And about the humans: It might actually be a good thing if the Mursaat would still be in command, after all we are talking about one of the few races that actually was there when the dragons awakened last, and while the Jotun lost to much of their history to share this knowledge with us, the Mursaat might actually be usefull if they were in charge.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

At the rate they were sacrificing humans, I don’t think Kryta would have survived to GW2 under the mursaat.

Assuming for a second that Kryta did survive into GW2 under their rule. I’m inclined to believe they would have just abandoned humanity to the dragons and hid from the dragons, it worked so well for them the last time that there’s little reason for them not to do it again (unless they’d managed to develop some sort of attack plan in the time between rises).

Kaiden Valor.7163:

Assuming for a second that Kryta did survive into GW2 under their rule. I’m inclined to believe they would have just abandoned humanity to the dragons and hid from the dragons, it worked so well for them the last time that there’s little reason for them not to do it again (unless they’d managed to develop some sort of attack plan in the time between rises).

there might be reasons for that actually. I don’t think they controlled Kryta during those last years, but they might actually be forced to action, because as we know, dragons learn the secrets of all they corrupt, andy maybe mordremoth learned about the way into the mists once rytlock jumped in, and found a way there himself, forcing the Mursaat out of their hideout.

I don’t think that the Mursaat hid in the Mists. I can’t recall exactly what was said about it, but I’m sure it didn’t involve the Mists.

At any rate, even if they were forced out of hiding I don’t know that they’d show much loyalty to humanity as they cleared viewed humans as being beneath them. I just don’t think, from what we know of them in GW1 and GW2 lore, that they would care for the fate of humanity enough to stick by us and help. The only example we have of them helping humans is during the Charr invasions of Kryta, but I would assume that was to ensure that they got control of Kryta (which they needed so they could find the chosen and prevent their own demise).

Maybe I’m wrong, and I guess we’ll never know either way since history turned out differently for the Mursaat, but they didn’t seem like a caring bunch

well, it is true that they much rather enslaved humans back then, BUT:

1: So did the charr, we once wanted the humans dead, since they dared to take our land from us, and now we worktogether against a common foe, so maybe the mursaat will join in too, if only because their other option would be certain extinction.

2: You sure about that? Because I always thought the plane of existance they shifted into were the mists, but I might want to theck my facts there again, will clarify in a later post or an edit.

3: If the Mursaat are the ones that call themself the exalted, that might mean those aren’t the original mursaat anymore, maybe not their entire race wanted things to go the way they unfortunatly did back then. There are human bandits as well, but that doesn’t make all humans bandits. Those that didn’t want to rule over humans like gods, but just prefered to stay hidden in the mists might be the ones that survived and now try to contact us

And to maybe make them more relatable, the Mursaat are kind of like stronger tengu, if faced by a threat they much rather just run then fight, yet everybody seems to love the tengu and wants them on the team XD