Guild Wars 2

Kalavier.1097:

Why the hell did the commander suddenly develop such insane hatred? It’s out of place and unexplained.

They probably didn’t finish all the story quests they wanted to do which would have explained this. Why else would Duchess Chrysanthea be at the final battle in Dragon’s Stand, yet be nowhere else in the game? The Commander even talks to her like he has known her for a while even though we never met her before this. It’s painfully obvious we’re missing quests to fill in the gaps, and only shows how rushed out the door HoT was.

Kalavier.1097:

“Yes, let’s go to somebody who has had some fears about his leadership against the dragons, and tell him he’s a dragon minion.”

All you say is theory. Suddenly withdrawing all sylvari from the Pact units would rare a ton of suspiscion. There is no promise we would’ve seen Tarir or Rata Novus in a vision, or that we’d reach either location with the help the grounded pact forces did provide in a sense.

Lives may be saved because of the fleet not going into the jungle, but many would be lost by the Mordrem charge (which is partly what the fleet bombarded), and the conflict between sylvari and other races.

Think about it, we got this big summit of all the races to fight against Mordremoth, then suddenly all the Sylvari pull out and retreat to the grove/surrounding areas without saying why to the other races. Trahearne and/or sylvari PC refuse to comment. That’s going to do lovely things for the whole “UNITY!” aspect.

Caithe made mistakes, but the hate is overdone and frankly more annoying and sad then spawning interesting discussions.

I still think the Pact would have sent the fleet into the jungle even with Caithe’s knowledge about the sylvari. They just wouldn’t have sent sylvari. So…the fleet would still be destroyed either way.

They had to do something about Mordremoth and the fleet worked against Zhaitan so that was pretty much their only plan. The sylvari turning didn’t help but it was the vines that brought the fleet down.

Krinstin.6287:

If you are that annoyed with the hatred of Caithe, dont reply to players who want her dead in the first place and just avoid contact with them.
I will not back down from my opinion and neighter will you.

The rest is purely theory crafting with not really much evidence to go off of.

As for that line, sure, that would be great. If every time Caithe was brought up didn’t end up with somebody making some comment.

I’ve had to go to a friend and tell her to kittening drop it just because she sees Caithe in a story instance and starts grumbling, growling, and saying kitten.

I made my own topic on this before I found out this one existed and, to put it simply, I do not understand the blind distrust and hatred the player character (PC) has for Caithe. It makes me glad that I’ve never gotten to LWS2, HoT, and LWS3 with a Sylvari character because it would feel so OoC, after developing a bond with Caithe as a mentor and friend. When I first played LWS2, I never viewed Caithe taking the egg as an evil act. I knew, based on my experiences with her in the vanilla Personal Story, that she had good reasons to do what she does. The hatred the PC exhibits against her, that comes to a head in LWS3, just boggles my mind and has no good explanation.

Caithe, the Sylvari mentor, and a member of Destiny’s Edge who initially tries to bring them back together after Snaff’s death, is suddenly distrusted. She’s the last Sylvari I would assume to be so easily controlled by Mordremoth. We saw in LWS2 that she got into some unsavory situations thanks to Faolain, but none of it was done with deliberate malice in mind. She killed Centaurs over a misunderstanding. She didn’t want to kill them. She didn’t know that it was Faolain who started the attack. Heck, when I first played that instance, I felt my jaw drop in disbelief as the game MADE me fight them. it made me question the writers, not Caithe. But then when Caithe kills the Sylvari at the end of LWS2, I viewed it as a mercy – not only to protect the horrible truth about Sylvari, but also to spare her a horrible, painful death at the hands of Faolain.

I really have not liked the path that the writers have taken Caithe and the PC, especially making the PC have such a defined personality with none of the choices available that we had in the vanilla Personal Story. I feel very distanced from my PC, because they are too defined. The writers got to dictate what kind of person the PC was in the Living Story, not me, and that rubs me the wrong way after seeing my characters be more fluid in the Personal Story.

I will always trust Caithe and find the PC’s hatred of her unjustified. Who the hell doesn’t allow an ally to explain themselves, and just jumps to unnecessary conclusions?

The problem with Caithe is, as stated by Logan in Twilight Arbor, that she never thinks to tell anyone about her actions.

She invited each Destiny’s Edge member to meet in Lion’s Arch without revealing that every member would be there.
She told Rytlock to come in order to help her with Faolain without telling him Logan was there – and vice-versa.
She stole the egg and disappeared without an explanation.
Even if her intentions were good, the way she acted have risen many questions.

Regarding this particular episode, our PC seems to trust her.

Just got around to playing E2 yesterday. Amazing, we didn’t even get a choice. Butcher of Centaurs, Stabber of Sisters, Keeper of Secrets that Kill, Egg Thief, Betrayer of Friends…. Any of that a problem? Nope. Just forgive and forget and put her in charge of the very thing she stole.

I’ve had my problems with the story in the past, but this is absolutely wretched. The story that my character participates in is now in no way an extension of me. Its a projection of some Caithe fanfic writer.

See my post comments on this topic for more explanation if you need it. E.g.

Wreave.2138:

An entire tribe of peaceful centaurs, dedicated to Ventari’s teachings… lost everyone they loved. Because Caithe slaughtered them all.

She’s continued to moon over her murderous lover before and after Mordremoth returned.

And just ignoring the sheer moral crimes of the woman, there’s the pragmatic question of would I ever trust her again? Answer: No. I need someone who I can trust at my back.

Nah. Sneaky snake that she is sometimes, at the end of the day, she’s a good apple. She’s proven that time and again.

When fighting against Mordremoth she flat out says “Even if it kills the sylvari race, I’d rather see Mordremoth dead than an enslaved world”.

You can’t doubt her loyalty. She’s a good guy and apologized for her personal shortcomings. That’s good enough for me.

I’m more conflicted about Lazarus than I ever was about Caithe.

CETheLucid.3964:

She’s … apologized for her personal shortcomings.

except she hasn’t — she basically says, “I’m sorry that I annoy you.” Even while claiming to apologize, she engages in the very behaviors for which she claims to be apologizing.

CETheLucid.3964:

I’m more conflicted about Lazarus than I ever was about Caithe.

I’m not conflicted about Lazarus — I’m 100% sure he’s up to something. He teamed up with the Mantle 250 years ago and he only seems sorry about that because they failed.

I’m particularly unimpressed by the PC’s claim that Caithe can be trusted with the dragon, stating that she’s (Caithe) never exhibited ill-well toward the egg or dragon. Well, no, she just stole the egg and put it at risk until the PC could get it back. “No ill-will” isn’t something I’d look for when hiring a security guard.

The selfish fool in Destiny´s Edge is indeed not Caithe, that´s the job of Logan.

Caithe is the only firstborn that started out as a muppet as it seems. Everyone else has goals and personality.
Even Canach has much more of a personality than she does at this point, he early on reflects what has happened to him and he still does not become a nightmare court follower or sympathizes with them.
Caithe is just the left arm of Faolain. She only develops a personality after Faolain basically forces her to show her colors. I could understand if Caithe and Faolain hated Asura from that point on (I certainly did even more than I already did at this point^^), but the secret is totally unrelated to the events in the experimentation chambers and Caithe would probably understand at this point that Faolain gives no rats rektum about the wellbeing of the other Sylvari and just wants herself to be in command and right.
This either means for me that Caithe is the youngest of the firstborn or something is severely wrong with her.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

CETheLucid.3964:

She’s … apologized for her personal shortcomings.

except she hasn’t — she basically says, “I’m sorry that I annoy you.” Even while claiming to apologize, she engages in the very behaviors for which she claims to be apologizing.

I’m particularly unimpressed by the PC’s claim that Caithe can be trusted with the dragon, stating that she’s (Caithe) never exhibited ill-well toward the egg or dragon. Well, no, she just stole the egg and put it at risk until the PC could get it back. “No ill-will” isn’t something I’d look for when hiring a security guard.

Pretty sure she has apoligized. Profusely. Caithe was never an honest threat in this regard, just a poor friend and communicator. She’s gotten much better.

Even at her worst, Caithe has always been on our side despite her antics. There’s no reason to distrust her with Aurene.

But we’re not going to agree with each other on this and I don’t suppose the story is going to let you keep her away from Aurene.

Checking to see if/how she apologized…
GW2 Living Story Season 3 Episode 1 complete playthrough!
https://youtu.be/f2eJdcce-WU?t=2353

She apologizes (apparently for stealing the egg). Says that she knows what she did was wrong.

How about: Centaur slaughter, Killing Wynne, standing by Faolaine pretty much non-stop, not revealing the truth about the relationship between Mordremoth and the Sylvarri? Not a word. Basically Arenanet writing team is doing their best to pretend that never happened.

Back to the apology:
1) Is it credible? No. Other Sylvarri had Mordremoth shouting in their head at the same time. The claim was Sylvarri with strong wills were able to resist. Caithe has always been portrayed as someone with a strong will. This is the Arenanet writers trying fix the wreck that they created earlier — with an explanation/excuse that is fundamentally lame.
2) Even if I believed it, would it be enough (ignoring her earlier crimes)? No. Just from pragmatic command PoV alone, she’s no longer trustworthy. I simply wouldn’t trust her to do it again.
3) And again, my character would absolutely not be ignoring her earlier crimes. Justice is due.

Wreave.2138:

How about: Centaur slaughter, Killing Wynne, standing by Faolaine pretty much non-stop, not revealing the truth about the relationship between Mordremoth and the Sylvarri?

Where to begin…

Caithe hasn’t stood by Faolain for a very long time and that event is almost certainly a catalyst to that schism between them.

Which took place a good bit before our PC began the original campaign against Zhaitan.

Wynne asked for death rather than suffer under Faolain, certain that Faolain would break her and ultimately spread word of this relationship with Mordremoth.

People are stupid panicky creatures and everyone would completely dismiss the sylvari as monsters rather than complex creatures with their own wills.

This was the reason for the secret keeping. Word ultimately did get out about their origins. People proceeded to be stupid panicky creatures.

However the rapport they’ve already built with the world is established and many sylvari have proven themselves strong and unique individuals standing against Mordremoth.

You need to brush up on your lore. You have a number of fallacies going on there.

Wreave.2138:

And again, my character would absolutely not be ignoring her earlier crimes. Justice is due.

lol ok.

Have fun with that Judge Dredd. Your trust issues are noted and we disagree. I think Anet did it right.

@CETheLucid
You claimed that she had apologized. I point out that she has only apologized for taking the egg, not for the other things that she did. Her apology fails to address her greatest crimes.

Killing of Wynne: That’s been argued before in this thread before. The point is that Caithe had the choice to stand up to Faolaine and defend Wynne. She didn’t. She went with killing an innocent instead of standing up to a torturer/murderer.

Slaughter of Centaurs: So you just let that… go? And mock the idea of justice as cover ignoring it?

Wreave.2138:

@CETheLucid
You claimed that she had apologized. I point out that she has only apologized for taking the egg, not for the other things that she did. Her apology fails to address her greatest crimes.

Killing of Wynne: That’s been argued before in this thread before. The point is that Caithe had the choice to stand up to Faolaine and defend Wynne. She didn’t. She went with killing an innocent instead of standing up to a torturer/murderer.

Slaughter of Centaurs: So you just let that… go? And mock the idea of justice as cover ignoring it?

1.) Wynne expressly asked Caithe to kill her, both so that she wouldn’t suffer and so that the secret would not be known. I highly doubt that Faolain would let Caithe dissuade her from torturing Wynne.

2.) I seriously cannot believe that people blame Caithe for the deaths of the Centuars. Did we play two completely different versions of the game? Sure, the game makes us fight them, but look at the facts: Caithe accompanied Faolain to the camp, but she had no idea what was going to happen. Then, while she is preoccupied, she suddenly hears Faolain cry out, and sees that she’s being attacked. Caithe had absolutely no idea what happened. Whatever it was, we all know it was Faolain’s fault, given the type of person she was at that point. Caithe jumped into action thinking that she needed help. Then the Centaurs escalated the situation by increasing their attacks. Caithe was not there with the intent to murder! She was thrown into it and didn’t know what truly happened. Needless to say, I’m sure she was upset about what happened.

1) Dissuade Faolaine? No, I never expected that to work. Words alone would not be enough.

2) This has been addressed in several posts earlier in this topic.

Regarding the idea that Caithe should have fought Faolain in Wynne’s defence…

Even putting aside any emotional conflict Caithe was likely happening, how do we know that Caithe would have won that fight?

Faolain was a powerful mesmer, likely more powerful, in fact, then the mesmer PC. We never fight her one-on-one: the first time we see her we’re in a group and she still gets away, the second time we run, and the third time we take her down as a group. If Caithe had attacked Faolain, it’s possible that the result would have been Faolain winning and doing whatever she likes to Wynne.

Or, alternatively, being a mesmer, Faolain could have made it appear that she was fighting Caithe, but instead she steals Wynne from under Caithe’s nose and teleports away, leaving Caithe believing that she was successfully fending Faolain off from Wynne until it was too late.

She was put in a bad situation, and killing Wynne might not have been the most heroic choice, but it was the safest option under the circumstances.

That’s a fairly brutally pragmatic argument. You’re arguing that because the (presumed) hero is too weak to fight the bad guy, then hero should instead kill an innocent.

Interesting… But doesn’t apply here, because if that had been Caithe’s reasoning, then it would have had to be communicated in the scene. Something like Caithe saying “I should fight… But… I’m sure that I would lose.” (To clarify: I’m arguing that if anet writers intended that to be the case, then they would have had to communicate that in the scene. They didn’t, therefore that wasn’t the intent of the writers.)

Wreave.2138:

2) This has been addressed in several posts earlier in this topic.

Nothing to charge. There is no one left of that tribe to seek some kind of retribution. There is no more Faolain. Caithe isn’t guilty on the grounds of self-defense.

It was a screwed up situation. It is certain Faolain was the instigator there. Wynne makes that clear.

Caithe was left in the unenviable position to defend herself against a bunch of angered centaurs in an escalating situation of violence.

Faolain’s party won out.
_

Pretty good story, huh? The fact that you’re so deeply invested in the nuances of it proves that much at least. But yeah, your sense of justice regarding Caithe is really misguided.

I’m inclined to attribute that to an ignorance of the lore.

CETheLucid.3964:

… Faolain’s party won out.

Again, I won’t repeat arguments that have already been covered. I didn’t see anything new to add to this.

Pretty good story, huh? The fact that you’re so deeply invested in the nuances of it proves that much at least.

Well… no. It’s a horribly told story. One that breaks my connection to my character since she ends up doing things absolutely contrary to what I would do. And that’s aside from being poorly told in other ways.

There’s a huge difference between being emotionally aroused (happy, angry, etc.) because you feel involved in the story… And being emotionally aroused because the writers broke your involvement in the story. The latter results in players ceasing to care about the story, and maybe ceasing to play the game.

Moyayuki.3619:

Wreave.2138:

@CETheLucid
You claimed that she had apologized. I point out that she has only apologized for taking the egg, not for the other things that she did. Her apology fails to address her greatest crimes.

Killing of Wynne: That’s been argued before in this thread before. The point is that Caithe had the choice to stand up to Faolaine and defend Wynne. She didn’t. She went with killing an innocent instead of standing up to a torturer/murderer.

Slaughter of Centaurs: So you just let that… go? And mock the idea of justice as cover ignoring it?

1.) Wynne expressly asked Caithe to kill her, both so that she wouldn’t suffer and so that the secret would not be known. I highly doubt that Faolain would let Caithe dissuade her from torturing Wynne.

2.) I seriously cannot believe that people blame Caithe for the deaths of the Centuars. Did we play two completely different versions of the game? Sure, the game makes us fight them, but look at the facts: Caithe accompanied Faolain to the camp, but she had no idea what was going to happen. Then, while she is preoccupied, she suddenly hears Faolain cry out, and sees that she’s being attacked. Caithe had absolutely no idea what happened. Whatever it was, we all know it was Faolain’s fault, given the type of person she was at that point. Caithe jumped into action thinking that she needed help. Then the Centaurs escalated the situation by increasing their attacks. Caithe was not there with the intent to murder! She was thrown into it and didn’t know what truly happened. Needless to say, I’m sure she was upset about what happened.

Ok, let´s review that:
*So is Caithe now strong minded or not? What is her aganda? The other firstborn have agandas, quite powerful ones to be honest. She obviously is just the pawn of Faolain in ls 2.
*Caithe and Faoalin act exactly the same way as the Asura that tortured the Sylvari. Faolain thinks she is superior to a tribe of stinking centaurs from the get go and Caithe does not protest that.
*Caithe, Faolain, and a crew of basically unknown to Caithe Sylvari which Faolain introduces as friends that helped her when she needed them are out to track another Sylvari that does not want to talk to them but fled from them. Some people would already have backed down here from the fact that Wynne obviously does not want to talk and how that should be respected.
*They invade foreign land. I am sure nor many tribes would react very kindly to that.
*Centaurs sepratate Faolain and Caithe because Caithe is not showing aggressive behaviour. Point for the Caithe fans, ok. Then she storms out and does not even ask what is going on but begins to slaughter the Centaurs who defend their land and their guest. It´s like the invasion of a country to kill a whistleblower after you were made an ambassador.
*You can speculate that if Caithe had not interfered, the Centaur Champion would have been able to drive Faolain off or hold out long enough to allow Wynne to escape. He was a quite accomplished spellcaster and had home ground.

Caithe was in the wrong and brought all of the misery she had to endure later with Faolain down upon herself. I hated every second of that episode to be honest.

Yeah, this isn’t a discussion anymore. We’re done here.

Wreave.2138:

That’s a fairly brutally pragmatic argument. You’re arguing that because the (presumed) hero is too weak to fight the bad guy, then hero should instead kill an innocent.

Interesting… But doesn’t apply here, because if that had been Caithe’s reasoning, then it would have had to be communicated in the scene. Something like Caithe saying “I should fight… But… I’m sure that I would lose.” (To clarify: I’m arguing that if anet writers intended that to be the case, then they would have had to communicate that in the scene. They didn’t, therefore that wasn’t the intent of the writers.)

It’s not that she thought she would lose, more that the outcome was in doubt.

Caithe isn’t the player who can go back and retry if they fail the instance. If she chooses wrong, then Faolain gets the secret and everything Wynne feared comes to pass.

This is on top of whatever mixed feelings Caithe had regarding Faolain. While she later comes to believe that falling to Nightmare is irreversible, she’d only just been confronted with what Faolain was really like and for all Caithe knew at the time, this was because Faolain had been influenced by Cadeyrne (from the Dream and Nightmare story, Caithe already knew Cadeyrne was bad news). If she attacked Faolain, then whether she wins or loses, whether she kills Faolain or drives her off, then she’s forfeited any chance of redeeming Faolain… which may have been futile anyway, since it’s likely that Faolain’s allies among the soon-to-be Nightmare Court also knew that Wynne had a secret, and killing Faolain might not have stopped the NC from chasing Wynne.

Remember, she didn’t have the luxury to stop and think about it or engage in internal debate. She had to make a decision there and then… and Wynne was begging for the mercy blow. She wasn’t asking to be defended, she was asking to be killed so that Faolain believed the secret had died with her, and Caithe had to make a split-second decision. The decision she made was, essentially, the one that maintained the status quo for the time being, allowing her to make her own decision in her own time on whether the secret should be kept and on whether Faolain was irredeemable or not. As shown in the scene, even the time taken for her to express her doubts as you ask for could have been a critical delay.

Yes, killing Wynne wasn’t the most heroic action… but it’s an understandable one under the circumstances.

(Incidentally, too, for people saying that Caithe should have apologised to the PC for that… Why? For the PC, it’s just a dirty secret from Caithe’s past – the PC never knew Wynne. The one to receive that apology would be the Pale Tree and, if they were cleared to know the circumstances, the other Firstborn.)

@draxynicc You didn’t counter my arguments there. You’re still making a brutally pragmatic argument. (Its actually worse, because the protagonist is committing murder (or assisted suicide) just because the protagonist isn’t sure she would win the fight.)

And you didn’t address my second point, that the theory isn’t relevant because its not consistent with the staging.

Since Wynne was asking for it, it was essentially euthanasia.

Sometimes, pragmatism is required to avoid a worse outcome. She had a choice between a gamble which in the best case scenario ended with her lover dead and Wynne possibly still being under threat by the Nightmare Court basically forever, and in the worst case scenario could lead to the extinction of her kind on the one hand, and mercy-killing her sister on the other. Sometimes, good people have to choose the lesser evil, where trying to take a third option and failing will result in the greater evil by default.

She had a split-second decision to make, and the decision she made was the one that ensured that Wynne didn’t become the first sylvari to be tortured until she was broken by the Nightmare Court, and in the process revealing information that could have been very, very bad if it was released at that time. (Granted, it possibly would have been better to have revealed it to Trahearne once the Pale Tree knew that Mordremoth was awake at the very latest, but that’s a separate issue.)

Yes, you could regard that as “brutal pragmatism” – but sometimes brutal pragmatism is needed to avoid putting thousands of lives at risk. If you had a choice between one person dying and flipping a coin, and if you called the flip wrong then thousands could die, and that one person is literally begging you not to flip that coin, can you really say it’s a no-brainer for a good person to toss that coin?

Regarding your second point, I did address it, although I didn’t specifically call it out. To do so now:

Part of the staging of the scene was that she had to make her decision quickly. She didn’t have time to agonise over her decision verbally as you’re asking for. If she’d waited a few moments, Faolain would have no longer had her back turned and Caithe wouldn’t have been able to pass it off as an unsuccessful attempt to get the information herself.

Plus, have you been paying attention to ArenaNet’s writing style? I don’t think we’ve ever been given the full details behind the thought processes that lead to a character making the decisions they did. Scarlet came closest, but that was because they were looking to hint at Mordremoth’s influence, and even now we don’t know whether she was really Mordremoth’s mind, body and soul or whether she was fighting tooth and nail and Mordremoth tricked her into doing what he wanted. They prefer to just show us the character’s actions and let people draw their own conclusions about the character. With ArenaNet’s writing, just because they don’t show a character having a particular thought is emphatically not evidence that the character never had that thought.

Killing those centaurs was the last drop that FINALLY made Caithe aware of the terrible psycho Faolain was. Killing Wynne was her way for acknowledge this: “I can’t let Faolain know the truth, but I can’t confront her either, I’m too weak. Wynne is right, and I have been a fool listening my girlfriend all this time.”

This is how I understand all that episode, and it is how I make sense of Caithe good hearted but hyper reserved behavior. She has been damaged from the start. She has good reasons to believe she has to keep things secret and to act always at the backs of their own allies and friends.

BUT. Believing you have good reasons to do something doesn’t free you from the responsabilities of your choices.
She believed killing those centaurs was necessary. She was wrong, but even is she were right, she became a murderer anyway. She can’t forgive herslef, the commander shouldn’t either.
She believed killing Wynne was inevitable. Maybe she was right, and Faolain would have known the truth and make thing worse. She still killed her own sister, and is fully responsible for that.
She believed stealing the egg was necesary. She make things a mess and contributed to the deaths of a lot of people by doing this. She was confused, but is still responsible for that.
She believed keeping the sylvari-mordem connection secret until the very end was wise. She didn’t warn any of her allies about the terrible danger of letting sylvari get closer to the Heart of Maguuma. She could have saved the pact fleet if she had talk in time. She was paralized with fear and conflicting priorities, so her mistake is totally understandable. Yet, again she IS responsible.

Being stressed, confused, depresed, drunk or in love often makes you do things you later regret. Sadly, you are still responsible for all things you do, and people SHOULDN’T trust you if you make those mistakes often.

My commander shouldn’t ever let Caithe close to the egg. My commander would have given her a caring and whole-hearted hug, and then would have put her under custody, with a good team of guards to prevent her from escaping, and a good team of medics and priest to help her cure her terrible wounds.

Ardid.7203:

My commander shouldn’t ever let Caithe close to the egg. My commander would have given her a caring and whole-hearted hug, and then would have put her under custody, with a good team of guards to prevent her from escaping, and a good team of medics and priest to help her cure her terrible wounds.

My commander would let her stay close to Aurene…because if Aurene is the new ‘master’ of the plant type magic, then technically Caithe would be under her control anyway.

With all the fan-based “Caithe hate” expressed here (and for good reason), do you think she might become a main villain in the future?

In other words, we’re already so sick of her broken moral compass and personal issues, why not let us fight her?

I don’t hate Caithe, and I like she isn’t an enemy we can combat. Not all the problems are so simple: the relationship between the commander and Caithe is a huge challenge we can’t just blast with our weaponry.

Caithe is not an armed enemy: she is the beloved but problematic relative we don’t know how to deal with. THIS IS GREAT!

Mi problem with the commander blindly trusting Caithe in the last episode is the minimization of this problem. It looks dumb, defuses the tension and remove drama.

I’m mostly okay with Caithe. I’ll identify it as a go-with-the-flow attitude. I actually thought my character was being too hard on her.

Our own PC’s beef against Caithe seem mostly egg related, so, let’s go with that.

The PC was trying to figure out where the Master of Peace was. Ogden revealed with the magical hourglass that the Master of Peace was given an egg. Glint’s egg. Dramatic dun dun dun.

Caithe hears from this, and from that point on, she starts following us. It sounds like its part of her Wyld Hunt, so, obviously she meant to be all on top of it.

Enter us tracking the Master of Peace into a mordrem labyrinthine stronghold, and we find the dying Master of Peace. Our -group- finds it and he asks us to take care of it.

Caithe goes “no time to explain” and she spirits off with the egg. When you meet up with her against in that golden cave where the Forgotten previously were, Caithe assures she is still on the PC’s side, and then goes off again.

Caithe actually goes a long way into bringing the egg to its intended destination. We didn’t know where she was. The Mordrem hadn’t caught up either. Ruka the Wanderer was already on her tail and might have arrived to help her sooner if we hadn’t held him up. Caithe – even opposed by Faolain – could have run the same gauntlet we did and reached her destination. The trials in Tarir, she might have been able to pull them off too.

To me, the Pact Commander’s problem steemed from his/her own entitlement. The egg -had- to be under his/her charge. He had to be in control, and he/she wasn’t.

History ended up showing that Caithe overreached and it’s only because we doggedly followed that we arrived in the nick of time to salvage the situation. Victors ends up writing history. Yay us.

But how would history have taken it if Caithe -had- actually succeeded in bringing the egg all the way to Tarir – while everyone else got their behind handed to them? She would have proven that her penchant for secrecy and holding her own counsel in a time when it was hard to trust would in fact have been wise.

Regarding the egg, Caithe was mistaken to go without support, but it doesn’t mean it had been a bad initiative to take. Her heart was in the right place. I wish she would’ve allowed me to carry the burden… and somewhere along the line, I think that’s really what I’d blame her over. She wasn’t a traitor so much as she didn’t dare trusting anyone. That’s relatable.

According to the Pale Tree’s vision, it’s supposed to be the PC that protects the egg, not Caithe. So it’s possible that the egg wouldn’t have granted its power to Caithe in order to escape Faolain. Maybe it would have, but if it did really want the PC as its champion, it might not have allowed Caithe to pass the test.

It is curious, though, why she has the egg as her Wyld Hunt with that being the case.

I suspect it’s a mix of two things:

1) Whatever is behind the Wyld Hunts wanted the egg to have more than one powerful protector.

2) And here’s where it gets interesting:

What would have happened if Caithe hadn’t run off with the egg?

It’s quite likely that we would have on an airship over the jungle when the fleet went down – possibly because we were with the fleet, possibly because the Zephyrites tell us about Tarir and we take our own ship there, or possibly the fleet goes to Tarir rather than Verdant Brink. Either way, it could have been an even bigger disaster if the PC got caught with the egg due to being on a downed airship.

Caithe running off with the egg meant that we were too late to go down with the fleet… which meant we could go into the jungle fresh and, ultimately, achieve Mordremoth’s destruction. That may have been part of the reason for her egg-related Wyld Hunt all along: to keep the PC and the egg away from the fleet when it went down.

That’s a very interesting theory, but is also extremely cruel and twisted: the Wyld Hunt for Caithe could have included “warn the pact fleet” instead of simply “take away the commander so the pact fleet can be destroyed without worries”.

Ardid.7203:

That’s a very interesting theory, but is also extremely cruel and twisted: the Wyld Hunt for Caithe could have included “warn the pact fleet” instead of simply “take away the commander so the pact fleet can be destroyed without worries”.

Wyld Hunts are rather vague and open to interpretation most of the time, especially the more important ones. For example, Trahearne’s was to “cleanse Orr”. But it never went about TELLING him how to do it. It’s up to the Sylvari themselves to determine how to do it, or to ignore it altogether.

In my mind I really think the Pale Tree is just as bad as Mordremoth. I’m almost convinced she is controlling all these people and their goals just to replace the old green dragon.

RyuDragnier.9476:

My commander would let her stay close to Aurene…because if Aurene is the new ‘master’ of the plant type magic, then technically Caithe would be under her control anyway.

That is acutally a very good argument I did not think about, although I would still feel better if I knew that the Luminate and the best exalted guards are also closely guarding the Dragon instead of floating around somewhere in Tarir, it´s their job to look out for Glint´s legacy after all. There should be much less attacks on Tarir at this point, the enemy is disorganized and lacks the motivation of it´s dragon leader.

Ardid.7203:

That’s a very interesting theory, but is also extremely cruel and twisted: the Wyld Hunt for Caithe could have included “warn the pact fleet” instead of simply “take away the commander so the pact fleet can be destroyed without worries”.

It’s also possible that… whatever it is that’s behind the Wyld Hunts foresaw that there would be a worse outcome if the destruction of the Pact Fleet didn’t occur.

For instance, the destruction of the Fleet lead to Trahearne’s capture, which proved to be the kitten in Mordremoth’s proverbial armour, allowing the Pact Commander and allies to get into Mordremoth’s mind and attack it where it was vulnerable. Without Trahearne’s capture, it’s possible that the Pact, including the Pact Commander, would have just kept trying to kill Mordremoth the way they killed Zhaitan, and the campaign drags out into a stalemate that causes more losses in the long run.

It’s a fairly common theme in stories that include prophecies, particularly towards the darker side of the grimdark scale, for those with the power of prophecy to be forced to allow some disasters to happen in order to prevent a greater catastrophe. Heck, it’s even happened in real-life intelligence operations: the British in World War 2 allowed quite a lot of loss of life because they didn’t want to reveal that they’d cracked the German codes.

Still cruel and twisted, like most prophecies tend to be…
But we are just swimming in speculation. The facts remain facts: of all the warmongers, bullies and assasins who dominate tyria in the “name of good”, Caithe is the less predictable and coherent in the eyes of the rest. No one in their sane senses would leave her in charge of a future great dragon in their most vulnerable and impressionable state.

No one in their sane senses… but the commander is not sane…

Like I said, it’s a common trope for a prophetic character to have to allow a disaster to happen because the alternative is a worse disaster. Aurene’s mother may be a prime example – if she foresaw the Searing she might have been able to prevent it, but she might also have foreseen that preventing it would have resulted in a worse outcome.

Personally, I don’t think she’s a threat to Aurene, at least not more than any sylvari, including a sylvari PC, if another dragon picks up Mordremoth’s ability to influence sylvari (noting that, while Caithe was confused, her priority was protecting the egg… she just didn’t know who her friends were, but she didn’t mistake any enemies as friends). Considering that the Exalted are already defending Aurene from overt threats and it’s been a plot point in the past that Caithe can’t hold a lane against multiple opponents, too, Caithe’s role is probably to be the proverbial thief set to catch a thief.

draxynnic.3719:

Like I said, it’s a common trope for a prophetic character to have to allow a disaster to happen because the alternative is a worse disaster. Aurene’s mother may be a prime example – if she foresaw the Searing she might have been able to prevent it, but she might also have foreseen that preventing it would have resulted in a worse outcome.

Personally, I don’t think she’s a threat to Aurene, at least not more than any sylvari, including a sylvari PC, if another dragon picks up Mordremoth’s ability to influence sylvari (noting that, while Caithe was confused, her priority was protecting the egg… she just didn’t know who her friends were, but she didn’t mistake any enemies as friends). Considering that the Exalted are already defending Aurene from overt threats and it’s been a plot point in the past that Caithe can’t hold a lane against multiple opponents, too, Caithe’s role is probably to be the proverbial thief set to catch a thief.

I don’t think Glint believed in intervention. She wrote the Flameseeker Prophecies, but it turnt out that the people responding to the prophecy actually caused it to fulfill. maybe if Glint didn’t write the Flameseeker and kept it to herself, the mursaat would’ve handled things way differently. meaning her telling, or interfering with a prophecy, is actually part of the prophecy

The Flameseeker Prophecies do have a self-fulfilling component to them – it’s likely that the mursaat wouldn’t have sacrificed the Chosen, and may not have intervened in Kryta at all, if not for the Prophecies. The Flameseeker Prophecies are also probably part of what gave Vizier Khilbron the idea to use the Chosen (including pushing them to Ascend).

So her telling did change the world. The question is… did she know that? She may have just had a vision and had not much more of an idea of how it will all fit together than anyone else until it happened (although it does appear that either she withheld the ending, or Khilbron believed he could ride the prophecy to the point he wanted and foil the ending at the last moment).

Or was she like an Eldar Farseer of Warhammer 40K, scrying out all the possible futures and choosing the one she wanted, or at least considered least bad? It’s possible that she scried out the one possibility that didn’t result in Abaddon taking control of Tyria – compared to which, the destruction of Ascalon and Orr is still the less bad outcome. Or she may have looked further forward, and decided that the events of the Flameseeker Prophecies were needed to set up a Tyria that could survive the Elder Dragons.

Either way… when prophecy is being used to fight against the destruction of the world, it’s often a theme that the prophet has to knowingly make sacrifices along the way… because not making those sacrifices means that everybody dies. The Pact fleet might have been another such sacrifice.

Neurion.4086:

I wished she had died in Eir’s stead. This sums up pretty much my feelings towards her and her actions.

I fixed that for you!

Cause I agree with this version!

Amaimon.7823:

I don’t think Glint believed in intervention. She wrote the Flameseeker Prophecies, but it turnt out that the people responding to the prophecy actually caused it to fulfill. maybe if Glint didn’t write the Flameseeker and kept it to herself, the mursaat would’ve handled things way differently. meaning her telling, or interfering with a prophecy, is actually part of the prophecy

The Mursaat settled the Fire Islands of their own accord, apparently. The Lich and the Titans were Abaddon’s plot, and that would have unfolded regardless of the prophecy too. If there was no prophecy, the Mursaat would have gotten rekt by the Titans, and the Khilbron would have used them to destroy Tyria as harbingers of Abaddon’s return. The prophecy changed the behavior of all parties so as to create the Chosen, and then set the Chosen on the path of stopping the Flameseeker.

The prophecy was a little bit circular in its solution, but it didn’t invent a problem to solve.