Guild Wars 2

This is slightly off topic. But I want to talk about political lore in GW2, while using Yugoslavia as an example.

Politic is a difficult subject to get into in story writing. And so its often overlooked. The stories are often around conflicts where the enemy is either an absolutely evil faction, or they had been fighting for the past few hundred years.

The story of Yugoslavia is an excellent example for lore writers who wish to write about the politics in their world. The following 2 documentaries are very long. But they go into great depth into events during the break up of Yugoslavia. I highly recommend anyone interest in political lores to watch these.

The most important thing: You DO NOT need an absolute evil faction to make an excellent story on politics. Different point of views, often equally correct, is more than enough to create political drama.

What often happens in politics: People with totally noble goals confront other people with opposing noble goals, but their conflict of interest leads to disagreements, conflict between the extremists, and then finally wide spread destructions for all involved. And this is aside from the personal pride and racial pride these politicians usually have. And also important is the history and background between the opposing sides.

The old saying is true: The path to hell was paved with good intentions. We see this happen again and again in politics. And all these comes to a crushing end in Yugoslavia.

Who is right and who is wrong? Who is good and who is evil? It all depends on who you talked to and who has the bigger guns.

Where I see political lore will come into play in GW2:

-Queen Jennah vs Minister Caudecus (Jennah is pro Charr. Caudecus is against Charr.)

-Queen Jennah & Anise vs Logan Thackeray (the two may have conflicting political views.)

-Palawa Joko (By lore, probably the best politician and manipulator the world has ever seen.)

-Kralkatorrik (After the near defeat by Destiny’s Edge he is currently the weakest of the elder dragons. He would most likely improve his chances by a major political gamble. He may ally with the humans against the Charrs. )

-The Pact (This union has yet to see a serious challenge to their friendship yet.)

-Evon Gnashblade (This hugely wealthy and calculating politician is far from done.)

-White Mantle (They have secret allies within the human kingdom.)

-Cantha (This xenophobic nation who overpowered multiple races and culture has many aspects of Yugoslovia written all over it.)

Hate to be this guy again – but you realise that lore and writing fan-fic are two separate things right? I don’t really understand what relevance advice on villains and political factions has in the lore forum?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Hate to be this guy again – but you realise that lore and writing fan-fic are two separate things right? I don’t really understand what relevance advice on villains and political factions has in the lore forum?

I wasn’t talking about fan fiction. I am suggesting to the GW2 story writers to focus on political lore in their future stories. This is how you build interesting villains and characters.

I have said this before, that elder dragons are very boring lore wise. “Oh I am mega powerful, and you can’t stop me. So now I will eat you!” Boring boring boring!

So what’s an interesting villain? A villain that have a genuine political point of view, which he is willing to fight and die for. And this political view is how this villain rally followers, not because he is mega powerful and his followers fear him. That would be, once again, boring.

That is how you build up anti-heroes and anti-villains, which are a thousand times more interesting than Elder Dragons mindlessly out to consume all.

Does that means the Elder Dragons have no place in lore? Nope. But they have to be used differently.

I will use Walking Dead as a simple example. Let’s assume the zombies in that series are forces of the Elder Dragon. The humans in the world cooperates and kills each other throughout the series.

The fight against the zombies provides a lot of action entertainment. But what does the story focus on? The interactions between the humans of course! When they decide to cooperate, it is interesting. When they decide to kill each other, it is interesting. This is politics. The zombies are just there as a constant threat. The zombies are not the story. The people and their politics are the story.

Similarly, the Elder Dragon and their minions are not the story (unless the Elder Dragons gets into politics too, of course). The people and their politics when they are facing these overwhelming foes are the story.

i agree,we need more gritty story arcs,full of choices and consequenses,and a change in the political scenario in the game,everyone is too good and the few that might be bad or offer an alternatuve arent acting or plotting,Caeducous might campaign after the queens jubilee,or Evon resorting to a smear campaign after he lost,or furthering the centaur agenda

The GW-universe is quite interesting when it comes to politics and diplomacy, and there is a good framework to actually work with. The ideological, political and cultural differences in Tyria are massive, and interesting political competition should be a consequence of this.

One example would be a focus of the separatists. Influenced by Lion’s Arch way of govern, the Separatists in Kryta are now fighting for a semi-democratic government, since they are of that opinion that most of the people in Kryta are against the alliance with the Charr. If people would have a say in how the state was govern, the human nation would be far more aggressive in their foreign policy. To get support for this movement, the Separatists are using nationalistic propaganda which is aiming at “trying to restore the greatness in the human race once again”.

This would be interesting. As a player, wouldn’t you agree with the Separatists that the people should have a say in the way they are govern? Or, do you see the dangers with suddenly open up for mass politics which could actually lead to a more dangerous and aggressive human nation? There could also be a split inside the Separatist movement. Two forces which are fighting for the same: democracy, but are different in their motivation: hate for Charr vs. believe in each person’s right for a vote. In other words: a classical example of a democratization which could lead to a very unstable nation in the immediately aftermath after overthrowing the old regime.

The other races are also very interested in the development in the nation in the centre of Tyria. A stable human nation is in everyone’s interest, and they are therefore aiming at supporting the Queen to try to calm down the masses. A revolution is the last thing they want, since it would damage the fight against the dragons, as well as a more direct threat since it would destabilize the whole regions trade and ideological thinking.

This is just an bad example. Meaning of this was just to try to show that they can do so much interesting things. Are they capable of doing this is something that I’m not so sure of.

fenre

I didn’t know there were Separatists in Kryta, is this a new thing? 0.o

No, I don’t think we can see anyone. However, with the integration in human society, the ideas are most likely present in Kryta.

CHIPS.6018:

-snip-

So this belongs in the suggestions forum then… You’re not discussing lore, you’re not theorising on lore, you’re offering a suggestion to Arenanet staff on the kind of villains and political systems that you’d like to see in game – therefore suggestion, rather than lore.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

CHIPS.6018:

-snip-

So this belongs in the suggestions forum then… You’re not discussing lore, you’re not theorising on lore, you’re offering a suggestion to Arenanet staff on the kind of villains and political systems that you’d like to see in game – therefore suggestion, rather than lore.

Very few people ever reads the suggestion forum. Not players nor the devs. There are fewer than 3 red posts there in the last 1.5 years. That place is like a black hole.

So you see how pointless it is to post anything there, suggestions included. And yes I have tried. It is not worth it to spent an hour typing out a post over there.

And we really should be discussing the topic on hand. No one understand GW2 lore better than us here. The story writers should listen directly to our suggestions, instead of throwing our suggestions into the black hole where no one reads.

Just because they don’t reply back, doesn’t mean they aren’t reading the posts. The same applies in this forum. How often have we gotten a dev post on different subjects here? Very rarely. The most red in a thread we got was probably the one about the Angel interview. We were causing such a ruckus in that thread, that they had to respond.

What’s that old saying? “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Also, there isn’t much of anything to discuss lore-wise on the original topic, since it was merely a suggestion for Anet to add some more shades of gray to their political plotlines.

The fact that they don’t post in the suggestions forum is irrelevant. This post is a suggestion, therefore that is where it belongs.
The forum categories exist for a reason, I mean no disrespect at all, it’s just kind of annoying having non-lore posts in the lore forum.

I was very dissapointed when the fact, that Dragons do not communicate with us in the story became true for now.
Why can’t they think? Why do they have to be that raw elemental force? That’s not interesting at all. Big, scary dragon might be a good fight and a side boss, but cannot be accepted as main villian.
Dragons should be main villians in the game, tbh, but give them some personality. ANet kittened up Zhaitan already, in both story and fight, I hope they won’t make another big mistake like this one. Looking foward to Jormag whispers, like C’Thun…
“You…are….already…..dead” , “You…have…betrayed….your…friends”