typo or retcon?
No Cantha is correct. It has always been said that humans came to Tyria from lands to the south.
yeah but it has always been said gods first appeared in Artesian Waters in Orr. and thats a recurring theme with gw2 lore, the writers confuse or forget their own previous statement and then things like this happen.
A bit of a typo, yes. It’s been stated that the Six first appeared in Orr bringing humanity with them. The bit of conjecture that the players figured out is how to get the timeline to work after that, and that’s the Six moving the humans to Cantha right after arrival since Orr was still a corrupted wasteland. Bal and Mel spent the time afterwards terraforming while humanity settled in Cantha, and probably gave the go ahead for the humans to start spreading only after they cleansed the land from most of the remaining corruption.
This bothered me as well. First thought was “What about the Artesian Waters!!!!”
It really is an odd series of events if you consider how far apart Orr is from Cantha (See Map). The only way I could wrap my head around it is if the gods leading humanity at the time met with some of the representatives from other elder races (mursaat, forgotten, dwarves, seers, jotun, etc.) and they told the gods that all of the lands to the north were occupied, then pointed at Cantha to the far south and said, “There’s some good land over there, go settle that.” Not wanting to risk open war immediately, the gods and their human followers complied, opening a portal straight to Cantha.
But since we’re on the topic of inconsistencies….
Year 0 BE: The New Age Begins With a Bang
[…]
Once Abaddon is imprisoned, the Forgotten—a mysterious race of advanced snakefolk who have allied with the gods—serve as Abaddon’s jailers to prevent him from doing any more damage.
Compare this to the timeline of the GW:N Manuscript, p.18
174 AE: Serpents (The Forgotten) leave the world of men, settling in the Crystal Desert.
I suppose we could work around this inconsistency by saying that in the year 0 BE, some of the Forgotten begin working as Abaddon’s jailers as part of their alliance with the gods but it isn’t until 174 AE that they “leave the world of men” en masse and settle in the Crystal Desert to join the ones who were already there guarding Abaddon’s prison.
Next point:
452 AE: There’s a Nasty Bug Going Around
[…]
Though the plague subsides in 456 AE, the suffering it causes ends the Primeval Dynasty, kicking off nearly 200 years of civil war, pretender kings, and lawlessness.
Again, compare this to the Nightfall manuscript:
452 AE: Scarab Plague sweeps through Elona, decimates the population, and wipes out the Royal House. Istan abandoned. End of the Primeval Kings.
456 AE: End of the Plague Years. Admun Kolos takes the throne, founding the Great Dynasty.
583 AE: Collapse of the Great Dynasty. Start of the Pretender Wars and the Shattered Dynasty Era.
640 AE: Last of the Shattered Dynasties collapse. Elona emerges as three allied provinces—Kourna, Istan, and Vabbi.
So really, it’s unfair to describe those 200 years of history as “nearly 200 years of civil war, pretender kings, and lawlessness.” There was Admun Kolos who started the Great Dynasty that ruled for 127 years. The Shattered Dynasties Era only lasted 57 years, so I think that it’s a gross oversimplication of Elonian history to lump them all together in that way. I’m sure Admun Kolos’s dynasty did a good job of holding the kingdom together for the most part if historians later referred to it as the “Great” dynasty.
Moving on, though.
640 AE: Regrouped, Restored, and Ready to Move Forward
After enduring two centuries of lesser kings and brutal warlords […]
Again, I don’t think it’s fair to reduce that 184 year period in history to “two centuries of lesser kings and brutal warlords.” Yes, you had the Shattered Dynasties Era that lasted 57 years, but you also had the Great Dynasty ruling for 127 years and many historians would probably consider Admun Kolos more than a “lesser king.”
That’s all the hair splitting that I need to do for now.
It really is an odd series of events if you consider how far apart Orr is from Cantha (See Map). The only way I could wrap my head around it is if the gods leading humanity at the time met with some of the representatives from other elder races (mursaat, forgotten, dwarves, seers, jotun, etc.) and they told the gods that all of the lands to the north were occupied, then pointed at Cantha to the far south and said, “There’s some good land over there, go settle that.” Not wanting to risk open war immediately, the gods and their human followers complied, opening a portal straight to Cantha.
It depends on how god-travel works. We believe they started the the Artesian Waters because they were drawn by the concentration of magic, but that could mean they had no idea what the area there was like. If it was still corrupted from Zhaitan, and possibly Kralkatorrik, instead of walking around Tyria the mortal way it might have made more sense to hop from magic hotspot to magic hotspot until they found one that wasn’t lethally corrupted.
I suppose we could work around this inconsistency by saying that in the year 0 BE, some of the Forgotten begin working as Abaddon’s jailers as part of their alliance with the gods but it isn’t until 174 AE that they “leave the world of men” en masse and settle in the Crystal Desert to join the ones who were already there guarding Abaddon’s prison.
I don’t think we need to jump through that many hoops. The ones that were guarding Abaddon’s prison were the ones we found in the Realm of Torment with him- of course it makes sense that they’d have left at 0 A.E. As for the ones in the desert, some of them may well have been guarding the Mouth of Torment, but there are at least two other reasons for them being there- to serve Glint, and because they already were living on the Crystal Sea before the whole god kerfuffle- so they wouldn’t be included by this entry.
so I think that it’s a gross oversimplication of Elonian history to lump them all together in that way.
To be fair, this entire article, almost every single entry, is oversimplification. It’s supposed to be readable by the casual player, and throwing a bunch of names at them that’ll have no bearing on the expansion isn’t the way to do that.
I’m still grumpy that they messed up the math on the Primeval Kings, though. 200 B.E. to 450s A.E. is 650-odd years, not 250. They subtracted instead of adding.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Was it not a land south of Cantha, or near it, that was first settled by humans? I remember this being a discussion back before GW2Guru stopped being relevant and the consensus was that it wasn’t Cantha itself but a land south of it. Has other info come out?
Hate is Fuel.
IIRC, it was left up in the air- An Empire Divided notes that the Canthans may have come from somewhere else or may have originated on Shing Jea, and the Luxons claim to have come from somewhere else across the sea. Technically, though, it was never stated as fact anywhere.
EDIT: There was also a statement by Grubb in an interview, but he made it clear that what he was telling us was what they wanted us to know at the time, not the whole story.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Typo or retcon? Neither.
As said, it’s always been established that humans arrived on Cantha in 786 BE. This is not new.
That said, the timeline article does not state that this was the first place humans or the gods ever landed on the world. It states that 786 BE is when they first arrived on Cantha. Big difference.
Basically, best we know the timeline is such:
Date Unknown: Six Gods arrived in Orr via portal, brought humans.
Date Unknown2: Gods took humans elsewhere, likely via portal.
786 BE: Humans arrived on northern shores of Cantha.
200 BE: Humans arrived on shores of Orr and Elona.
There was multiple dialogues and interviews that implies the humans of Cantha came from somewhere else in the world. Where that “somewhere” was, was always left unknown – an interview by Kill Ten Rats with Jeff Grubb had him saying that it was “maybe south of Cantha or Elona”. But the world map of Tyria found in the Durmand Priory shores does have odd trade routes made between the Battle Isles and the continent far west – dubbed “Sunrise Crest.” My theory is that the Sunrise Crest is where humans were taken to after Orr by the gods, and they sailed to the Battle Isles, then later to Cantha and Orr/Elona.
Of course this article puts a slight kink in that theory – apparently, the six gods brought humanity to Cantha, they didn’t sail there unlike how An Empire Divided and other lore implies it to be.
There are typos and retcons – Joko’s date for conquering Elona was previously 1135 (60 years after Nightfall) but is now 1175 (100 years after Nightfall), and there is al ine about the Primeval Kings lasting for 250 years when it was 650 years (well 653 years). And as mentioned, the Six Gods “bringing humanity with them” to Cantha is… not exactly a retcon, but counteracts implications created ages ago.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
But since we’re on the topic of inconsistencies….
Year 0 BE: The New Age Begins With a Bang
[…]
Once Abaddon is imprisoned, the Forgotten—a mysterious race of advanced snakefolk who have allied with the gods—serve as Abaddon’s jailers to prevent him from doing any more damage.Compare this to the timeline of the GW:N Manuscript, p.18
174 AE: Serpents (The Forgotten) leave the world of men, settling in the Crystal Desert.
I suppose we could work around this inconsistency by saying that in the year 0 BE, some of the Forgotten begin working as Abaddon’s jailers as part of their alliance with the gods but it isn’t until 174 AE that they “leave the world of men” en masse and settle in the Crystal Desert to join the ones who were already there guarding Abaddon’s prison.
That article doesn’t state all Forgotten left to be wardens. This is neither new nor a retcon. Similarly, the timeline quote you present is talking about the Forgotten leaving the human nation boundaries (Kryta, Orr, Tarnished Coast, etc.) and settling the desert.
There were three events for the Forgotten making mass exoduses: First, when they went to serve Glint. Second, when they went to act as Abaddon’s wardens. Third, when they fully withdrew from civilized Tyria. The first two were large populations, but never the whole Forgotten population.
Next point:
452 AE: There’s a Nasty Bug Going Around
[…]
Though the plague subsides in 456 AE, the suffering it causes ends the Primeval Dynasty, kicking off nearly 200 years of civil war, pretender kings, and lawlessness.Again, compare this to the Nightfall manuscript:
452 AE: Scarab Plague sweeps through Elona, decimates the population, and wipes out the Royal House. Istan abandoned. End of the Primeval Kings.
456 AE: End of the Plague Years. Admun Kolos takes the throne, founding the Great Dynasty.
583 AE: Collapse of the Great Dynasty. Start of the Pretender Wars and the Shattered Dynasty Era.
640 AE: Last of the Shattered Dynasties collapse. Elona emerges as three allied provinces—Kourna, Istan, and Vabbi.So really, it’s unfair to describe those 200 years of history as “nearly 200 years of civil war, pretender kings, and lawlessness.” There was Admun Kolos who started the Great Dynasty that ruled for 127 years. The Shattered Dynasties Era only lasted 57 years, so I think that it’s a gross oversimplication of Elonian history to lump them all together in that way. I’m sure Admun Kolos’s dynasty did a good job of holding the kingdom together for the most part if historians later referred to it as the “Great” dynasty.
Moving on, though.
Rather than a retcon, this seems more like “oversimplifying”. They couldn’t have had the article too long after all. And we don’t really know much about Admun Kolos’ reign and how lawful and civilized it was. Many Elonians could easily consider him to be “the first Pretender” depending on how they feel about his family’s reign.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
There are typos and retcons – Joko’s date for conquering Elona was previously 1135 (60 years after Nightfall) but is now 1175 (100 years after Nightfall)
Wasn’t this a retcon that had already been made, though? I haven’t been able to find the source on a quick check, but I’m pretty sure there was an in-game source putting the date at later than 1135AE, and ArenaNet acknowledged that they changed their mind on the exact date.
What I find more interesting is that they specified that Kralkatorrik killed Glint’s Forgotten attendants. Said attendants weren’t present in Edge of Destiny, and having Forgotten still around as late as 1320AE has implications for some of the ingame lore.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
What I find more interesting is that they specified that Kralkatorrik killed Glint’s Forgotten attendants. Said attendants weren’t present in Edge of Destiny, and having Forgotten still around as late as 1320AE has implications for some of the ingame lore.
The dialogue from A Study in Gold, you mean? That’s a rather good point and the dialogue does refer to the speaker as the “Last Forgotten” and the assumption up until now was that they left Tyria in one final exodus.
Wasn’t this a retcon that had already been made, though? I haven’t been able to find the source on a quick check, but I’m pretty sure there was an in-game source putting the date at later than 1135AE, and ArenaNet acknowledged that they changed their mind on the exact date.
The tour guide in the Ossan Quarter implied that the date got moved back to 1275, but there’s more than enough wiggle room in her phrasing to argue whether she actually meant the point Joko took over.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
The tour guide only says the latest refugees, not the first. Meaning that refugees stopped showing up in 1275 AE.
I never saw any dialogue to imply that Joko’s reign began any later than what the Movement claimed, being 1135 AE. It was always, as far as I saw, that there was ~140 years of periodic refugees showing up.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I’ve often wondered about the disparity between sources saying the gods first arrived in Orr and sources saying Cantha was the first human nation and it was explorers from there who founded the other nations.
I came to pretty much the same conclusion given here – that the gods first came to Orr (presumably drawn by the strong magic) but for whatever reason they/their followers decided it wasn’t the best location for the first human settlement and moved to Cantha instead.
I seem to remember references to humans only moving into Arah after the gods left, to become caretakers of the city. But I can’t remember where I saw that and can’t find it now.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
Nothing ever proclaimed Cantha as the first human nation. Rather, it’s just the oldest human nation that players have ever been aware of. An Empire Divided which came out with Factions’ release, says:
Even in Tyria, we humans have forgotten where we came from…literally. All that is known of the origin of the Tyrian human race is that our species appeared more than 1,200 years ago on the northern continent. Humans settled Cantha even earlier, however, and appear to have done so on multiple occasions during what Canthans call the Late Pre-Imperial Era. Even less is known about the origin of the Luxon and Kurzick peoples, who arrived on the continent after the tribes that would become modern Canthans settled the northwest coast and Shing Jea Island. The humans of Cantha may have actually originated on Shing Jea, though this has never been proven.
[…]
What is also clear, and requires no interpretation on my part, is that the Canthan people rapidly advanced and unified, while the Kurzicks and Luxons, whatever their origins, did not become true nations until much later. This left the Canthans in the dominant political and military position, which they would hold for the rest of the continent’s history.
Which while not outright saying, heavily implies that humans came from somewhere else first – but “if they came from Cantha, it would be form Shing Jea”. It should be noted that Shing Jea was tengu territory primarily, and humans spreading into Shing Jea is what sparked the Tengu Wars, so that conclusion is unlikely. This is furthered by a second 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. Some historians believe that new discoveries point to a Luxon presence in the Crystal Desert more than a thousand years ago, but just as many believe this to be a misinterpretation of the evidence.
This shows that Luxons – thus likely all humans given the short timespan for Luxons to show up in Cantha after those on the northern shoreline – came from another continent before Cantha.
The bit about the Crystal Desert is likely a mistaken (in lore) reference to Margonites, known to have sailed the Crystal Sea and both cultures being seafaring nations.
In addition to this: between Eye of the North’s release and GW2’s release, we had an interview by Kill Ten Rats with Jeff Grubb where he confirmed outright that humans came to Cantha from somewhere else, with him hinting that such a “homeland” may have been “south of Cantha or Elona” (though where humans arrived on Cantha would imply north of Cantha and our GW2 world map shows Cantha as the southernmost land so either they changed their mind mid-development or he gave us a red-herring by listing Cantha).
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Wasn’t this a retcon that had already been made, though? I haven’t been able to find the source on a quick check, but I’m pretty sure there was an in-game source putting the date at later than 1135AE, and ArenaNet acknowledged that they changed their mind on the exact date.
The tour guide in the Ossan Quarter implied that the date got moved back to 1275, but there’s more than enough wiggle room in her phrasing to argue whether she actually meant the point Joko took over.
Ah, yes, that might be what I was thinking of. Still, I do recall there being an acknowledgement somewhere by ArenaNet that the date of Joko’s conquest had been changed (ie, retconeed) since the Movement of the World was written.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
Waitwaitwait.. i grew up believing the gods guided mankind from a different world to tyria because something went horribly wrong there..
Thats all wrong???
My life is a lie
Waitwaitwait.. i grew up believing the gods guided mankind from a different world to tyria because something went horribly wrong there..
Thats all wrong???
My life is a lie
Nothing has yet to indicate that theory is wrong. We know humans are not native to the world. The article only talks about when they first arrived on continental Cantha, not world Tyria. We still don’t know when they or the Six arrived on the world.
Given our lore, it’s likely sometime between 1769 BE (when Forgotten arrived) and 786 BE (first known-to-players record of humans on the world).
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Waitwaitwait.. i grew up believing the gods guided mankind from a different world to tyria because something went horribly wrong there..
Thats all wrong???
My life is a lie
Nothing has yet to indicate that theory is wrong. We know humans are not native to the world. The article only talks about when they first arrived on continental Cantha, not world Tyria. We still don’t know when they or the Six arrived on the world.
Given our lore, it’s likely sometime between 1769 BE (when Forgotten arrived) and 786 BE (first known-to-players record of humans on the world).
I came across this little tidbit that said the gods came alone (humans didn’t exist yet) and they made the forgotten to raise all the elder races, until they eventually made humans whom then made the forgotten go “screw this, I’m going home”.. just a tidbit, though..
You’re likely referring to the History of Tyria document from the Prophecies manual (or something referencing off of that). That has been proven to have fallen to the unreliable narrator since, well, release really but even more so with Nightfall and GW2. It’s basically “what humans believed”, with the gods creating the world, rather than “what happened”, which is that they arrived from another world with humans (and likely Forgotten) in tow.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
In fact, there is some implication that Lyssa deliberately made them forget their original home (and what happened there).
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.