Guild Wars 2

Spoilers, if you haven’t been played the newest LW ch, please don’t read this!!

Why are the commander always like ’’ let’s kill everything in our way, even if it’s our own gods ’’ !?
It make sense if the commander was Charr, Norn, Sylvari or Asura, but Human?!

Humans and the Six gods are something special, something they’re praying and granted blessings from.
Just because the kitten commander and the little annoying Taimi kitten has a theory that Balthazar will take over the world bla bla bla....
It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

Just imagine if Jesus Christ or Buddha would come to our world and then we must kill them because we BELIEVE that they are evil?
No but for real....

I am a huge fan of the Six gods, as my favorite race is human and their lore. I just hate how lazy ANet turn something like ... oh I don’t know, a GOD to evil just like that and we have to kill them!?

I simply don’t get it. As the commander (in my case, my ’main’ character is a human) shouldn’t even consider to kill one of our god just like that!!

I was excepting the human characters would be more how Kasmeer reacted when we revealed Lazarus’ imposter’s identity.
Atleast that would make sense!
They are our gods, not a kitten dragon or something we simply need to kill just like that and then happy endings. >_<

If the 2nd Expansion will give us more lore and meeting the rest of the Six gods, I hope the human characters will have their special and unique way, being affected by the influence of the Gods’ return to Tyria, just like Sylvari characters had in the 1st Expansion.

Extra to the LW story:
Otherwise the story was really exciting, map was a well-done as always and the mastery is so much fun!
Cool that we actually got to see Primordus in a close shot but abit disappointment that we put Primordus back to sleep once again....

The Human Gods left the Human race to their own actions long ago and have not interacted with the Human race for years now.

The only reason they stayed was mostly to keep a eye on Abaddon and with him gone they just slowly saw no point influencing the Humans and believed it was time to leave them to their own self development as the Human race could not grow if they “baby” them for eternity.

To them Humans are just minor details to a grand design they created when they brought them to Tyria centuries ago from another world. Tyria already existed before the Human and the Six entered the Land and they only saw Humans as lesser beings that worshipped them.

He acts just like a God by his views of seeing a race that he help uplift from a dying world the Human race originally was from into a new world of Tyria as a less race that he only used.

Heck no one really knows what are the Six Gods anyways nor where they are from. Human race only pictured them as Gods for being all powerful magical beings and for bring them to Tyria but the Human Gods never created Tyria nor the Human race. They only found the Humans and guided them to Tyria from their already dying world.

Though most likely Balthazar is doing this on his own as it is stated he is well known to be the most violent of the Six and was hated by some Humans for being the “God of Mass Murder” and showed little care for the Human race in the beginning. He only pushed them to war to Claim the lands of Tyria because he thought the other races would be easily defeated and their lands claimed for his followers.

Only ones that showed actual care for Humans was Dwyna, Melandru, Grenth, and Kormir.

A interesting side note about Melandru is that the Charr believe she created Tyria but the humans believe she arrived in Tyria. She is probably the most conflicted origin story between the Charr and Human view of her but one thing is certain being she wanted all races to live in peace in Tyria.

Alga.6498:

It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

You mean, a god who has not been anything, let alone a blessing, for the past 250 years? The Six were gone, remember. Human characters on Tyria do not have a special reason to worship them. Yeah, they’ve been around some time ago. But they no longer are. Now all of a sudden one of them appears under very suspicious circumstances. He destroyed a bloodstone, lied to your face and seems intent to do something you have every reason to believe would end up as a planetary-scale disaster. And you want to just bow and follow in blind faith?

I question the choice of Balthazar for the role, but your line of attack simply doesn’t hold.

Taimi should say in the last chapter: “Smash away, commander!”

I imagine the situation: “ok, we went here to stop Balthazarus, but wait, Primordy is nearby, perhaps I… I think I am gonna smash away Primordy! Yeah! Balthazarus wasnt enough!”

And Taimi: “Yaaaas, Smash away Commy Tommy, lets destroy Tyria together! Yoopieeee !!!!Niiiiceeee!!!! Waaasss niiiiiceeee tooo meeeett youuuu Commy Toooooooommy!”

And Primordy: Ohhhh Tasty Meal! Okkk, I am gonna sleep another 1000 years. I am so tired…

Gasp, gasp gasp gasp!!

And then appears the black screen with: THE END THE END? Hmm I think Commy Tommy can use waypoint! Gasp! Eternal Facepalm!

Epic Xd

What do you expect? The Sylvari players don’t get special treatment for Caith who acted because she didn’t trust anyone because of Mordremoth influencing her to some degree. For all I care I would have my Sylvari trust her again from the start of the first Episode. I could also attack my friend who made the Quest with me because for a moment the Mordrem were my friend at this point. But no. We give Caith flag for the rest of her life but take all the kitten from the other characters. No difference for any races. Letting Kasmeer attack us at the start of epi 5 but then not reacting to her when she runs away like a Logan.

And @EdwinLi.1284 and Feanor.2358 when was the last time someone saw our god? Or any god if we at this? And how many people still follow this religions and still like the boots of the so called “servants of god”?? There are more then one “Pact” soldier who is Human and says he don’t know how to feel about this. I am just glad no one else but Humans character pull a Logan in this episode

The gods cut direct contact with Tyria around the time before the first Elder Dragon awakening. By then they have also cut direct links to contact their Avatars unless very old rituals were used such as in the Zhaitan Arc to summon a Grenth Avatar.

the reaction to Balthazar could have been better but he is actually the most hated of the Six Gods lore wise as some Humans call him the “God of Mass Murder” for being cruel and uncaring for the Human Race and the other Races of Tyria. He always seen the Humans as Tools of War and began motivating them to wage war against other races to claim land for his followers becauase he wanted to claim those lands for himself.

Humans follow him because he is the God that brought the concept of War to the Human race and is the Symbol of what they can gain through Strength and War.

Feanor.2358:

Alga.6498:

It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

You mean, a god who has not been anything, let alone a blessing, for the past 250 years? The Six were gone, remember. Human characters on Tyria do not have a special reason to worship them. Yeah, they’ve been around some time ago. But they no longer are. Now all of a sudden one of them appears under very suspicious circumstances. He destroyed a bloodstone, lied to your face and seems intent to do something you have every reason to believe would end up as a planetary-scale disaster. And you want to just bow and follow in blind faith?

I question the choice of Balthazar for the role, but your line of attack simply doesn’t hold.

The six distanced themselves from humanity. They didn’t abandon them. All of the human racial abilities are blessings from the six gods, and they provide every time. Hell, you don’t even need to be human to get their favour. Orrian dragon zombies could invoke the power of the Six and they would answer them every time. There is a desecrated shrine to Balthazar in Old Ascalon that Grawl worship, and Balthazar grants his blessing to them too. Going back as far as Guild Wars 1, there were non-human characters which received the blessing of the gods too. So yes, humans do have a special reason to worship the Six.

Balthazar’s behaviour also doesn’t make any sense. For hundreds of years, he dished out favours and blessings to literally anyone who worshipped him or called for his help, and now he acts like he doesn’t care about Tyrians at all, let alone humans? He’s also a God of War and Valour. This kind of sneaky rubbish is ill fitting for his character. What would have actually happened is he would have marched into Divinity’s Reach, rallied people to his cause and gone to exterminate some charr.

But hey, no one on the writing team has any respect for previously established lore, so Balthazar becoming a saturday morning cartoon villain is only the beginning.

Dakurus Sunfire.9157:

The six distanced themselves from humanity. They didn’t abandon them. All of the human racial abilities are blessings from the six gods, and they provide every time. Hell, you don’t even need to be human to get their favour. Orrian dragon zombies could invoke the power of the Six and they would answer them every time. There is a desecrated shrine to Balthazar in Old Ascalon that Grawl worship, and Balthazar grants his blessing to them too. Going back as far as Guild Wars 1, there were non-human characters which received the blessing of the gods too. So yes, humans do have a special reason to worship the Six.

Balthazar’s behaviour also doesn’t make any sense. For hundreds of years, he dished out favours and blessings to literally anyone who worshipped him or called for his help, and now he acts like he doesn’t care about Tyrians at all, let alone humans? He’s also a God of War and Valour. This kind of sneaky rubbish is ill fitting for his character. What would have actually happened is he would have marched into Divinity’s Reach, rallied people to his cause and gone to exterminate some charr.

But hey, no one on the writing team has any respect for previously established lore, so Balthazar becoming a saturday morning cartoon villain is only the beginning.

It is actually not out of character as Balthazar is well known to be the most Cruel of the six gods with some Humans calling him the “God of Mass Murder”

And this is the point. Maybe most human hated him. But soldiers and warriors will probably worship him the most. And don’t tell me that he will have no followers. Just listen to some of the human Pact Soldiers on the new map. Some of them say they worship him as their main god. But A-Net will probably forget about the conflict this would create and never mention it in a story Q ever again.

BlackDragon.2084:

And this is the point. Maybe most human hated him. But soldiers and warriors will probably worship him the most. And don’t tell me that he will have no followers. Just listen to some of the human Pact Soldiers on the new map. Some of them say they worship him as their main god. But A-Net will probably forget about the conflict this would create and never mention it in a story Q ever again.

As of right now only the Pact and the Commander knows about balthazar’s return.

heck we never wanted to fight him just stop him from causing any major harm and even tried to reason with him to stop but he refused and said screw the Human Race. Thus force us to stop him from destroying the world he help shape.

We have yet to see the full long term scale of his Return effect on the Human race as a whole yet since word has not reached far yet.

You can’t really expect news as big as this to suddenly reach all of tyria within a day when it only been a single day in Tyria that he just revealed himself to the world.

EdwinLi.1284:

It is actually not out of character as Balthazar is well known to be the most Cruel of the six gods with some Humans calling him the “God of Mass Murder”

I need a link or source.

Dakurus Sunfire.9157:

EdwinLi.1284:

It is actually not out of character as Balthazar is well known to be the most Cruel of the six gods with some Humans calling him the “God of Mass Murder”

I need a link or source.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar

Don’t mind the part where when he first appeared in tyria that he was carrying the decapitated head of his own father. :p

EdwinLi.1284:

BlackDragon.2084:

And this is the point. Maybe most human hated him. But soldiers and warriors will probably worship him the most. And don’t tell me that he will have no followers. Just listen to some of the human Pact Soldiers on the new map. Some of them say they worship him as their main god. But A-Net will probably forget about the conflict this would create and never mention it in a story Q ever again.

As of right now only the Pact and the Commander knows about balthazar’s return.

We have yet to see the full long term scale of his Return effect on the Human race as a whole yet since word has not reached far yet.

You can’t really expect news as big as this to suddenly reach all of tyria when it only been a single day in Tyria that he just revealed himself to the world.

As well as a kitten ton of Asura. But even then, will A-Net ever get back to this bit of story that the commander killed a god? I personally don’t think so.
And even then. We probably wont see different ways to handle this because the Races will react differently. At bet we get one generic story where it makes sense maybe for a Human to get this treatment or say this things and that is it. It doesn’t matter how unlikely this actions are for a Charr, Norn Asura or a Sylvari. They will make one story and it will be forced to fit all of the races.

EdwinLi.1284:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar

I’m still curious as to where the part about him only using humans as pawns came from. The article doesn’t mention where it gets its information from.

Balthazar is not dead as Taimi stated and may return.

He is still alive and will most likely return even more powerful than before in 2nd Expansion and at that point we may get actual explaination and meet the other Six Gods to learn why Balthazar is trying to gain back the power he lost without caring about it destroying the world.

They’re probably going for the “Sylvari” treatment for the Human Race in 2nd Expansion but more on the Human God blessing side of things instead of racism.

Alga.6498:

Spoilers, if you haven’t been played the newest LW ch, please don’t read this!!

Why are the commander always like ‘’ [i]let’s kill everything in our way, even if it’s our own gods[/i] ’’ !?
It make sense if the commander was Charr, Norn, Sylvari or Asura, but Human?!

Humans and the Six gods are something special, something they’re praying and granted blessings from.
Just because the kitten commander and the little annoying Taimi kitten has a theory that Balthazar will take over the world bla bla bla….
It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

Just imagine if Jesus Christ or Buddha would come to our world and then we must kill them because we BELIEVE that they are evil?
No but for real….

I am a huge fan of the Six gods, as my favorite race is human and their lore. I just hate how lazy ANet turn something like … oh I don’t know, a GOD to evil just like that and we have to kill them!?

I simply don’t get it. As the commander (in my case, my ‘main’ character is a human) shouldn’t even consider to kill one of our god just like that!!

I was excepting the human characters would be more how Kasmeer reacted when we revealed Lazarus’ imposter’s identity.
Atleast that would make sense!
They are our gods, not a kitten dragon or something we simply need to kill just like that and then happy endings. >_<

If the 2nd Expansion will give us more lore and meeting the rest of the Six gods, I hope the human characters will have their special and unique way, being affected by the influence of the Gods’ return to Tyria, just like Sylvari characters had in the 1st Expansion.

Extra to the LW story:
Otherwise the story was really exciting, map was a well-done as always and the mastery is so much fun!
Cool that we actually got to see Primordus in a close shot but abit disappointment that we put Primordus back to sleep once again….

Omg total agree with this well said.

I agree, I played the instance on both Human and Asura, and must say, I’m a little sad there’s no special dialogue for them. Taimi treats the Asura commander as a skritt in terms of intellect, and the Human commander wasn’t very surprised to see one of it’s gods.
At least in HoT the sylvari got some special treatment..

EdwinLi.1284:

BlackDragon.2084:

And this is the point. Maybe most human hated him. But soldiers and warriors will probably worship him the most. And don’t tell me that he will have no followers. Just listen to some of the human Pact Soldiers on the new map. Some of them say they worship him as their main god. But A-Net will probably forget about the conflict this would create and never mention it in a story Q ever again.

As of right now only the Pact and the Commander knows about balthazar’s return.

heck we never wanted to fight him just stop him from causing any major harm and even tried to reason with him to stop but he refused and said screw the Human Race. Thus force us to stop him from destroying the world he help shape.

We have yet to see the full long term scale of his Return effect on the Human race as a whole yet since word has not reached far yet.

You can’t really expect news as big as this to suddenly reach all of tyria within a day when it only been a single day in Tyria that he just revealed himself to the world.

Actually, quite a few people know he returned. Phlunt and other asura were there when Balthazar revealed himself. Also, if you listen to some of the side conversations in the area, you will here others talking about it.

Something just come up about Balthazar’s reason for wanting to gain the power of all Elder Dragon’s magic and why he would want to destroy Tyria killing a entire planet of balthazar followers but it goes back heavily into GW1 lore so I put it in the Lore section…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/SPOILER-The-Fissure-of-Woe/first#post6575900

Two things:

1: Balthazar doesn’t actually fight us. He attacks the mirrors, and sets his mercenaries and hounds on us, but doesn’t actually engage in combat against the player characters.

2: When you summon Hounds of Balthazar during the combat, why don’t they turn on the player or at least our allies? Why don’t human characters who selected to follow Balthazar at creation suffer confusion when trying to fight him, or at least hear his voice tempting them like the Sylvari heard Mordremoth?

3: Balthazar is trying to absorb more energy. Taimi’s plan to stop him is to overload the machine until it breaks. Balthazar disappears (presumably absorbing the overload energy because that has to go somewhere right?) – so are we trying to kill him or re-power him?

I’m confused!

..and this is the point where I stop playing. When game developers include their godless and god-hating ideology in the game and expect me to be a good lemming and play along I’m just gonna say no thanks. I understand most players would kill their own mother if the ingame quest awarded thirty pieces of silver, but to me role-playing is important in a role-playing game and no I’m not going to roleplay killing Balthazar and helping Asuras. For those who don’t know, Asura is a demon in Hindu mythology and their traits are “power” and “arrogance”, much like the Asuras in GW2.

And no you can’t have my stuff I’ll offer that to one of the gods.

I’m not a fan of fighting the ‘gods’ and you think that the human characters who choose a god might go crazy to?

However I will be sad if we have to fight the rest of the gods and I know people might want to fight them.

I think this is something that would have benefited from humans having special dialogue. The general plot could work out the same, but human characters might take the attitude that “we need to find out his motivations” rather than immediately jump to the “he’s a villain” conclusion, only deciding that he needs to be fought when he declares that he doesn’t care if he destroys Tyria (god or not, your world is your world).

(Personally, at this stage it feels like they just downgraded human lore once again by turning Balthazar into a villain for the sake of a cheap twist, even if Balthazar was probably the most morally questionable of the post-Abaddon pantheon. The followup for this had better be worth it.)

EdwinLi.1284:

Only ones that showed actual care for Humans was Dwyna, Melandru, Grenth, and Kormir.

Lyssa does as well, but she tended to do so on a smaller scale. That’s five of six, and I’d argue that there’s evidence that Balthazar cared for humanity as a whole, despite being pretty temperamental, even if that was only in the way that a general cares about his soldiers.

EdwinLi.1284:

Dakurus Sunfire.9157:

EdwinLi.1284:

It is actually not out of character as Balthazar is well known to be the most Cruel of the six gods with some Humans calling him the “God of Mass Murder”

I need a link or source.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar

Don’t mind the part where when he first appeared in tyria that he was carrying the decapitated head of his own father. :p

Check the original sources before relying on the wiki. It’s an asura who called him that, along with a number of other insults – Steward Gixx of the Priory, to be precise:

“Gixx: Sadly, no. The human god of mass murder is not a deity that likes to use the same tactic twice. The idol’s no longer enchanted.” https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ghost_Rite

draxynnic.3719:

I think this is something that would have benefited from humans having special dialogue.

Adding my support to this. I don’t play humans except for a third-rank thief alt who hasn’t done any story at all, but IMO the game is undeniably at its best when it 1) remembers that it has several very different playable races, 2) recognizes the player may have high personal stakes in a situation based on that, and 3) which it then allows us to express in race-specific dialogues.

Heart of Thorns, some parts of LS2 and the recent Caladbolg mini-plot absolutely needed their sylvari-specific dialog options and NPC lines. The situation with Balthazar absolutely needs to acknowledge that the Six Gods are not something that humans would be just fine going up against like any random miniboss. (And while we’re at it, why not give us charr-specific dialog as well because I am sure many charr would like nothing better than to kill this human god in particular. :p )

i dont remember my character be “lets kill everything even our own gods” I more like remember him like "he killed so many and my trusty friend marjory ill stop him. Idk that reaction sounds normal to me.

This makes me think about how, apparently one of the mercenaries can be overheard saying that it’s good Balthazar hired them instead of people who would be blinded by faith.

Isn’t that backwards?

Wouldn’t followers who don’t question your orders be more useful to someone like Balthazar than someone who might hesitate and demand more pay? I mean, what if Balthazar needed them to jump into the volcano? How much is he going to pay them for that? On the other hand, someone faithful enough would do it without question.

There seems to be an odd outlook on gods here outside of just the lack of different reactions for human characters.

I feel like his weakened state and perhaps some future reveal about his nature are accidentally being written as already common knowledge to the populace, even though there’s no reason anyone has to know anything that would make them doubt him.

If Jesus or Buddah were in my way and it was a situation that called for me killing to achieve the safety of the world I would obviously do it. I am an atheist but I have to imagine a religious person would come to the same conclusion. Or maybe not, religion is pretty irrational. The logical choice would be to save the world.

ianervan.7915:

..and this is the point where I stop playing. When game developers include their godless and god-hating ideology in the game and expect me to be a good lemming and play along I’m just gonna say no thanks. I understand most players would kill their own mother if the ingame quest awarded thirty pieces of silver, but to me role-playing is important in a role-playing game and no I’m not going to roleplay killing Balthazar and helping Asuras. For those who don’t know, Asura is a demon in Hindu mythology and their traits are “power” and “arrogance”, much like the Asuras in GW2.

And no you can’t have my stuff I’ll offer that to one of the gods.

1) I would say that this would be their ideology if we were going after all six Gods like that and/or if all of the Gods were acting in such a manner. I’m not convinced (yet) there’s even such an agenda.

2) It’s totally possible to role play your character without them being a part of the story. I just play through the story in order to stay caught up with what’s going on. I don’t play any of my (15) characters as being the Pact Commander. They have their own plot/story going on away from the main one.

3) My (13) Asura characters actually follow both the Eternal Alchemy (or some variation of it) and at least one of the Human gods. Sure, some of them are arrogant and that’s a constant character flaw they continue to address and some of them are power hungry but, again, they realize this as a flaw and work on it. Generalizing all Asura like that is just as bad as generalizing that Anet has some god-hating agenda afoot.

Not that anything I say on the matter will change minds. I don’t expect it to. However, what I am saying is that you’re not bound to play and operate within the sandbox Anet has laid out if it displeases you that much. I sure as heck don’t especially considering how they tell their stories. <_<

Fluffball.8307:

If Jesus or Buddah were in my way and it was a situation that called for me killing to achieve the safety of the world I would obviously do it. I am an atheist but I have to imagine a religious person would come to the same conclusion. Or maybe not, religion is pretty irrational. The logical choice would be to save the world.

You’re operating on a personal bias though. That’s not a fault, mind you. However, it doesn’t excuse a lack of empathy for the other side who do feel conflicted with this. I imagine a lot of religious folks would be conflicted if, in fact, Jesus or Buddah operated in the manner of which you speak, just like Kasmeer was when she saw Balthazar reveal himself and act the way he did. Crisis of faith is a real thing. The loss or losing of it and the grief that stems from such a feeling is as real a feeling as losing a loved one and the grief associated with that event.

The other problem with that is that in reality their (Jesus and Buddah) teachings don’t, in fact, operate like that. You can’t really compare Jesus’s and Buddah’s teachings of peace with someone like Balthazar who is anything but peaceful.

Additionally – and going post-modern here so I’m probably going to lose people here – rationality and irrationality are not just subjective but man-made concepts, just like religion and even atheism (it could even be argued that atheism itself is a religion but that’s an entire topic for another day). At the end of the day all we’re doing is making up crap as we go along and by sheer luck it manages to be somewhat comprehensible enough to get us through life.

Granted, this is all my own opinion and bias as well based on my experiences and education. I guess the short version of what I’m trying to say is that you can’t assume how a person will act based on your own beliefs. You gotta try to empathize, put yourself in their position.

EDIT: Also Buddah wasn’t/isn’t a god. I keep forgetting that. Thanks ArchonWing. :P

Buddah is not a god…. just saying. Let’s just say if he comes in and does the opposite of what he was known to preach, things would change. Or more likely, be regarded as a false prophet; stuff like that happens often.

ianervan.7915:

..and this is the point where I stop playing. When game developers include their godless and god-hating ideology in the game and expect me to be a good lemming and play along I’m just gonna say no thanks. I understand most players would kill their own mother if the ingame quest awarded thirty pieces of silver, but to me role-playing is important in a role-playing game and no I’m not going to roleplay killing Balthazar and helping Asuras. For those who don’t know, Asura is a demon in Hindu mythology and their traits are “power” and “arrogance”, much like the Asuras in GW2.

And no you can’t have my stuff I’ll offer that to one of the gods.

https://youtu.be/FopyRHHlt3M

I suppose it depends on your character. My character has never been especially religious, even in Neverwinter Nights when she was a cleric (took a lot of reading up on Faerun lore to find a god who wouldn’t mind). Her attitude is much closer to Marjory’s – if Balthazar wants to destroy the dragons for his own benefit and doesn’t care what it does to Tyria and the human race then he’s no longer deserving of worship.

Although saying that if it was Melandru, who she sees as the embodiment of Tyria – the thing she’s devoted her life to protecting…that would be difficult.

I am bothered by the instant jump to “let’s kill it” given that we’ve just been told that was a really bad plan with the dragons. But again that’s in character for her because she’s also known to be rather impulsive. I’ll just sit here and wait for another opportunity to say “I told you so” and get told if I was so sure it was a bad idea why did I make her do it…yes I talk to my characters, yes we argue, but it’s ok, the other voices have assured me neither of us is crazy.

And overall yes it would be nice to have more choice on how to react to different situations. But that’s still a relatively new concept in computer games and although people are constantly working on improving the tech that makes it possible and the writing that makes it works in the story it’s still got a long way to go before we can be given total freedom, especially in MMOs where the world is shared by lots of people and so needs to stay consistent. If you want that level of freedom you unfortunately need to stick to pen and paper RPGs, or writing your own stories.

The alternative is to tailor your character to the game. Make a character who would make the choices offered. It’s not always ideal of course because it can involve some compromises, but making that work can be fun in it’s own way.

I can see how this could be a difficult situation for some humans but I don’t think that’s the case for all of them. There are plenty of NPCs in the world who question why anyone would worship the Six when they haven’t done anything for centuries and others who doubt they ever existed.

Also I think even devout humans attitudes would be closer to ancient pagans than modern followers of the various Abrahamic religions. They don’t believe their gods are infallible, certainly not all-knowing or all-powerful so disagreeing with them wouldn’t be totally out of the question. Unusual and probably dangerous, especially in person, but not unthinkable.

So there’s a lot of ways I could see this playing out for a human character, and I actually think those options are more interesting than for the other races who probably just see Balthazar as yet another powerful being that’s a threat.

Fluffball.8307:

If Jesus or Buddah were in my way and it was a situation that called for me killing to achieve the safety of the world I would obviously do it. I am an atheist but I have to imagine a religious person would come to the same conclusion. Or maybe not, religion is pretty irrational. The logical choice would be to save the world.

That would be the logical choice for an atheist: to save the material world and destroy the spiritual. The logical choice for a religious person would be to side with Jesus or Buddha and destroy the world.

ArchonWing.9480:

Buddah is not a god…. just saying. Let’s just say if he comes in and does the opposite of what he was known to preach, things would change. Or more likely, be regarded as a false prophet; stuff like that happens often.

I was simply giving examples of Jesus and Buddha…. just pretend that we are the GW2 characters and we act like the Commander did in this episode if you’re a follower of Jesus or Buddha or any other faith, god, spirit etc. etc.

Most of the humans worship gods and prays to them.
I hope ANet wont make us kill one of our god, or even more of them.
Atleast give us a unique and special treatment to the Human characters just like Sylvari character did in HoT if we’re going against the Six.

I would’ve worshipped the gods in the GW2 universe since they’re a lot more real than in ours, (actual avatars and working prayers)
But if they were to stand in front of me, killing my friends, threatening the balance of the world, then they’re no longer gods, just demons

ianervan.7915:

Fluffball.8307:

If Jesus or Buddah were in my way and it was a situation that called for me killing to achieve the safety of the world I would obviously do it. I am an atheist but I have to imagine a religious person would come to the same conclusion. Or maybe not, religion is pretty irrational. The logical choice would be to save the world.

That would be the logical choice for an atheist: to save the material world and destroy the spiritual. The logical choice for a religious person would be to side with Jesus or Buddha and destroy the world.

So you are saying that a normal religious person would go full genocide just to side with Jesus? Thats a fanatic you are describing not a normal religious person who would go full nope on Jesus.

ianervan.7915:

Fluffball.8307:

If Jesus or Buddah were in my way and it was a situation that called for me killing to achieve the safety of the world I would obviously do it. I am an atheist but I have to imagine a religious person would come to the same conclusion. Or maybe not, religion is pretty irrational. The logical choice would be to save the world.

That would be the logical choice for an atheist: to save the material world and destroy the spiritual. The logical choice for a religious person would be to side with Jesus or Buddha and destroy the world.

This is some real fedora tier stuff.

Alga.6498:

ArchonWing.9480:

Buddah is not a god…. just saying. Let’s just say if he comes in and does the opposite of what he was known to preach, things would change. Or more likely, be regarded as a false prophet; stuff like that happens often.

I was simply giving examples of Jesus and Buddha…. just pretend that we are the GW2 characters and we act like the Commander did in this episode if you’re a follower of Jesus or Buddha or any other faith, god, spirit etc. etc.

Most of the humans worship gods and prays to them.
I hope ANet wont make us kill one of our god, or even more of them.
Atleast give us a unique and special treatment to the Human characters just like Sylvari character did in HoT if we’re going against the Six.

My point is that different religions fundamentally view god in different ways. The incarnation of divinity being a single form is inherent to a monotheistic religion. Buddhists would not view this a single being the same way Christians do. And there’s different levels of being devout. I would assume the more devout followers are going to assume the possibility of this being a trick or an illusion as this wouldn’t be the first or last time that would happen that an imposter claims to be something.

Here, I understand that they may worship their gods, but it may not be for the same reason we over on Earth do. For example, take the gods of Greek mythology. The gods were to be feared and respected, and thus worshiped as such. But it didn’t mean people didn’t go against them or the gods couldn’t be “wrong” even if they were subordinate to them. I use quotes because gods are not subject to human’s sense of morality. But there’s a conflict.

Furthermore, the relations between humans and gods in Tyria are also different. The relationship manifests actively, physically, in the human world as magic and power. It’s not really surprising that physical events are going to affect things more. For example, say the humans lost their powers suddenly. Would that faith be weakened?

Back on Earth, one doesn’t affirm their spirituality through throwing fireballs or calling down storms. We may congregate, but that is to share it with other people. There is no need to prove to anyone, or even yourself, something that essentially can never be taken away because it is part of something beyond the world itself.

There are other critical differences such as humans not being the only sentient species and the fact that the PC has fought against actual forces of nature that control the world, which isn’t really normal even for Tyrian standards.

Whether or not this a symbol of humanTyrian arrogance remains to be seen, of course. Consider a frequent narrative in religion is the relation to how special humans are in their relations to the divine, this concept is heavily challenged not only by the other races but by the world itself.

EDIT: Also, did anyone actually threaten to kill him? The PC says he must be stopped, and this was after minions were unleashed. This is a little more than having a disagreement with a god; said god may have tried to kill them. I mean, if this is just to have a cheap plot twist to sell more episodes and as a result kill off a character (not that it hasn’t happened before), then sure, I would not approve.

Danikat.8537:

Also I think even devout humans attitudes would be closer to ancient pagans than modern followers of the various Abrahamic religions. They don’t believe their gods are infallible, certainly not all-knowing or all-powerful so disagreeing with them wouldn’t be totally out of the question. Unusual and probably dangerous, especially in person, but not unthinkable.

This has generally been my attitude when people say that the Six aren’t gods because they don’t conform to the Abrahamic ideal of a god. They’re not supposed to. They’re modelled more on a “pagan” pantheon of gods.

That said, though, I would expect a human to at least have a moment of doubt, of thinking that perhaps the god is acting in such a way because the god knows something we don’t. Even at the point of allowing Tyria’s destruction – human legend has the gods caring about more than one world, so it’s possible that the ‘needs of the many’ principle is being applied on a grand scale. Would allowing Tyria to be destroyed – especially if it’s possible to evacuate it beforehand – be justified if the alternative is to allow many worlds to be destroyed, potentially including Tyria?

I’m so glad my commander is an Asura. I can dismiss all this mess as mere human (even divine-human) incompetence. It all makes much more sense this way.

draxynnic.3719:

Danikat.8537:

Also I think even devout humans attitudes would be closer to ancient pagans than modern followers of the various Abrahamic religions. They don’t believe their gods are infallible, certainly not all-knowing or all-powerful so disagreeing with them wouldn’t be totally out of the question. Unusual and probably dangerous, especially in person, but not unthinkable.

This has generally been my attitude when people say that the Six aren’t gods because they don’t conform to the Abrahamic ideal of a god. They’re not supposed to. They’re modelled more on a “pagan” pantheon of gods.

That said, though, I would expect a human to at least have a moment of doubt, of thinking that perhaps the god is acting in such a way because the god knows something we don’t. Even at the point of allowing Tyria’s destruction – human legend has the gods caring about more than one world, so it’s possible that the ‘needs of the many’ principle is being applied on a grand scale. Would allowing Tyria to be destroyed – especially if it’s possible to evacuate it beforehand – be justified if the alternative is to allow many worlds to be destroyed, potentially including Tyria?

That seems like a definite possibility at this point. Maybe that’s the next chapter’s plot twist.

(Although I think it’s safe to say whatever happens is not going to end with Tyria being destroyed and everyone being evacuated to a new world, unless they’ve got a real surprise for us and they’re announcing GW3. Otherwise it’d require an absurd amount of work – building a whole new world – for relatively little benefit.)

As for how characters would react to that again I think it depends on the character.

I know how my character would react. She’s one of the latest versions of basically the same character I play in all western RPGs and although each one is a new version some of the experience carries over. So she’s been in situations like this before. She’s fought and even killed gods before, both other peoples and her own. Some were even family, which made it awkward. One was her best friend (and the guy RP-ing him still is one of my good friends) but he was destroying an area she had sworn to protect. And it’s the same here. Tyria is absolutely, without exception, her highest priority. She would have to be given an extremely good reason and no alternative to give that up. She already regrets fighting Balthazar and she’s extremely worried about how it’s going to end up, but that’s not going to stop her. (Although that’s also partially because she’s impulsive and sometimes has poor judgement.)

Different characters would react differently. But at least in my case none of my characters deal in absolutes. Even the devout ones wouldn’t unquestioningly follow their god/s or believe everything they do is always right no matter how wrong it seems, especially because they tend to follow gods with at least some moral ambiguity. I was trying to imagine how it’d be different if it was my norn revenant and Raven was the one trying to kill the dragons. Then he’d be absolutely certain there was a lot more to it which we’ve not been told and that it probably wouldn’t destroy Tyria as a whole. But there would be no guarantee it’d be good for the norn because the Spirits don’t work like that.

While I do agree that they needed race specific dialogue in here, has anyone else considered the fact that this might be a rogue avatar and not THE Balthazar? It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

We’ve fought a losing battle against an elder dragon of death, utterly foiled scarlett’s plans and broke the will of an elder dragon. I think. even as a human character, we have more than earned the qualifications to stand up to our gods in the heat of the moment.

Others who can not claim such achievements, Like Kaz, would be more prone to falter.

If we froze like Kaz, the living story would have likely ended in the most anticlimatic of deaths for all human commanders.

Palador.2170:

While I do agree that they needed race specific dialogue in here, has anyone else considered the fact that this might be a rogue avatar and not THE Balthazar? It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

At this point I wouldn’t put it past Anet to do that, have a whole “Lazarus is Balthazar is Finkle is Einhorn” game of Clue. :x

When did this turn into a role play discussion?
Nobody ever said we are going to kill him. We are going to stop him.
In case you played gw1… Remember when we killed abbadon? The amount of magic released? We’d never let that happen again… And we needed the other gods to help us. Also this time we wouldn’t have a Kormir to “save” us.

Entenkommando.5208:

When did this turn into a role play discussion?
Nobody ever said we are going to kill him. We are going to stop him.
In case you played gw1… Remember when we killed abbadon? The amount of magic released? We’d never let that happen again… And we needed the other gods to help us. Also this time we wouldn’t have a Kormir to “save” us.

This time I’ll just take it all myself and smite kormir ten layers deeper

Ardid.7203:

I’m so glad my commander is an Asura. I can dismiss all this mess as mere human (even divine-human) incompetence. It all makes much more sense this way.

I am so so not looking forward to the moment that some asura meddling goes outside of reasonable, in the same way this god did for humans. I’m sure it’ll happen, eventually…