Guild Wars 2

So with LS3.5 we finally learned who Lazarus really is. And as no one expected, it was Balthazar making an appearance out of nowhere. Now Anet might think they have outdone themselves with such a reveal, but they missed one major point when it comes to “plot twists”.
If you want to have a good plot twist in your story, you should leave crumbs beforehan, that hint to the twist, without making it obvious. After the twist the audience should be left with a feeling of “how did I not see that?”, because then they realize you basically gave away the answer before the twist even happened.
But instead Balthazar randomly appears without any hints to it in the previous chapters whatsoever. He as a villain, concealing himself as Lazarus, makes no sense at all. It feels like a cheap “shocker”.

To make it worse, he disappeared as quickly as he appeared. So if he’s really gone, that means his involvement really didn’t mean that much. As such, he wasn’t worth all the hype and build-up. Once again you have major build up to the climax of your story, but once you reach the climax you rush things incredibly. You, Anet, received this criticism before with HoT, and now you’re doing it again.

Late For Tea.1846:

So with LS3.5 we finally learned who Lazarus really is. And as no one expected, it was Balthazar making an appearance out of nowhere. Now Anet might think they have outdone themselves with such a reveal, but they missed one major point when it comes to “plot twists”.
If you want to have a good plot twist in your story, you should leave crumbs beforehan, that hint to the twist, without making it obvious. After the twist the audience should be left with a feeling of “how did I not see that?”, because then they realize you basically gave away the answer before the twist even happened.
But instead Balthazar randomly appears without any hints to it in the previous chapters whatsoever. He as a villain, concealing himself as Lazarus, makes no sense at all. It feels like a cheap “shocker”.

To make it worse, he disappeared as quickly as he appeared. So if he’s really gone, that means his involvement really didn’t mean that much. As such, he wasn’t worth all the hype and build-up.

Long story short, he’s propably not gone and there’s much bigger trouble which now involves the gods.
Why did a god of war feel the need to go through all this effort when their legends put them at the apex of the evolutionary chain. Apparantly there’s something bigger at play here..
Are the elder dragons and the gods connected?
Are the gods dying?
Is there corruption at work on a godlike level?

The Gods are magical beings that are powered by (you guessed it) magic!

Dragons consume magic. Gods don’t like this. Gods want their power back.

Honestly, I felt barely anything about the reveal. Maybe it would have had more impact if I had played GW1 or read more about its lore. Well, at least Kasmeer has her hickups back, which some people have missed ^^
But for some reason, something I cannot put my finger around also felt lackluster or lame about LS5, or it was because I’m tired <lol>. And I’m a gamer who’s rather easy to satisfy story-wise.

Amaimon.7823:

Long story short, he’s propably not gone and there’s much bigger trouble which now involves the gods.

To be fair, a lot of people thought we couldn’t beat Zhaitan so easily, and he’d come back. We never saw him again.
Most people thought we couldn’t beat Mordremoth so easily, and we weren’t done with him yet. We were wrong again.
I’m not saying that this means Balthazar is done for. But looking at GW2’s history, it is more likely to assume that he is.

Amaimon.7823:

Why did a god of war feel the need to go through all this effort when their legends put them at the apex of the evolutionary chain. Apparantly there’s something bigger at play here..
Are the elder dragons and the gods connected?

If I recall correctly, the Elder Dragons are supposed to be stronger than the Six Gods. Also there is, for as far as I know, no evidence to support that the Elder Dragons and Six Gods are connected. The Gods came to Tyria when the dragons where already there, and left before the dragons awoke. They didn’t even know of Zhaitan when they established themselves in Arah.

Even if the focus point of the story is now going to be on the Six Gods, which could be pretty cool I admit, that doesn’t mean that the reveal of Lazarus’ identity doesn’t make any sense and that it felt cheap. Anet also hasn’t done enough to give the appearance that the story will move forward. This is mostly due to the abrupt endings that all of their story chapters have, ending right after the climax.

Mahou.3924:

Honestly, I felt barely anything about the reveal. Maybe it would have had more impact if I had played GW1 or read more about its lore.

Even if you had played GW1, I doubt it would have been very different. I experienced the same feelings as I do now, back in LS3.1. Back then they introduced the bloodstones to GW2, which where a plot element in GW1. Until LS3.1, bloodstones had never been mentioned in any relevant way in GW2, so we can assume that no one really knew about them except for maybe some priory scholars. Yet as soon as LS3.1 arrived, everyone (NPCs and player characters) all of a sudden knew everything there was to know about bloodstones. It didn’t really make any sense, and it came out of nowhere.

Anet writers do this a lot, just dumping some lore into the game without the proper build-up. This leaves players such as you and me very disconnected from the game unfortunately.

Lahmia.2193:

The Gods are magical beings that are powered by (you guessed it) magic!

Dragons consume magic. Gods don’t like this. Gods want their power back.

Gods are made out of divine magic. Divine mgic is immune to dragon consumption and corruption

So the part where he was using a lot of magical fire and converting human fanatics to his cause wasn’t a hint? Sure it didn’t seem like it at the time, but that’s exactly what you asked for. In retrospect it seems kind of obvious.

Of course we still don’t know exactly why he’s doing it or what the outcome is going to be, but again that shouldn’t be surprising. You’re complaining that they’ve ended the storyline too quickly whilst also complaining that they didn’t explain everything in full detail in the same Episode where we first found out who he is.

At least wait until Episode 6 before you decide it’s all over and done with and there’s not going to be any more to the story.

Walhalla.5473:

Divine magic is immune to dragon consumption and corruption

Do we know this for sure? Got a source for that?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Walhalla.5473:

Divine magic is immune to dragon consumption and corruption

Do we know this for sure? Got a source for that?

I thought it was the opposite – the most common explanation I’ve heard for the gods withdrawal from everyday human life is that they knew the Elder Dragons were awakening and left Tyria to protect their magic (and by extension themselves). Much like the mursaat did the last time the dragons rose.

Danikat.8537:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Walhalla.5473:

Divine magic is immune to dragon consumption and corruption

Do we know this for sure? Got a source for that?

I thought it was the opposite – the most common explanation I’ve heard for the gods withdrawal from everyday human life is that they knew the Elder Dragons were awakening and left Tyria to protect their magic (and by extension themselves). Much like the mursaat did the last time the dragons rose.

Didn’t they leave because of Abaddon, who by meddling with the bloodstones caused the Great Guild Wars (after which the series is named), causing the gods to withdraw because they realized their presence did a lot more harm to the world than good

Well we know for sure that the Forgotten used divine magic and that sort of magic could shield locations against dragon minions or even hurt the champions extra hard. Also their artifacts can not be corrupted or consumed, as seen in Arah.

Exalted, who are also beings of magic also are immune to corruption and consumption due to forgotten weaving some divine magic into them.

But back to topic. The plot twist to Lazarus is not really that great, it felt like it was a plot twist just to have a plot twist. There were enough indications for LAzarus being the real one and not a god going rampage, even though I like the concept of Gods being our enemies. Could have been done better, like giving subtle stuff in the other episodes so after seeing this plot-twist we would see that everything makes sense.

I think the theory of the human gods being weakened by the rise of the dragons is as old as the reveal that they wouldn’t be around as much.

Kasmeer ran away after she saw him, mentioning that probably Lyssa herself has enchanted the mirror.
My guess for the next reveal: Queen Jennah and Countess Anise are Lyssa.
Kasmeer probably ran because she knew of that.

But yeah…I found this more irritating than it was surprising. I didn’t really settle in smoothly with the narration so far.

Amaimon.7823:

Danikat.8537:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Walhalla.5473:

Divine magic is immune to dragon consumption and corruption

Do we know this for sure? Got a source for that?

I thought it was the opposite – the most common explanation I’ve heard for the gods withdrawal from everyday human life is that they knew the Elder Dragons were awakening and left Tyria to protect their magic (and by extension themselves). Much like the mursaat did the last time the dragons rose.

Didn’t they leave because of Abaddon, who by meddling with the bloodstones caused the Great Guild Wars (after which the series is named), causing the gods to withdraw because they realized their presence did a lot more harm to the world than good

They physically left Tyria for that reason, yes, but they were still active and it was still possible to contact them – Favor of the Gods, the blessings from their statues in GW1. In the years since GW1, they have retreated further, with no contact with them at all for years.

Danikat.8537:

So the part where he was using a lot of magical fire and converting human fanatics to his cause wasn’t a hint? Sure it didn’t seem like it at the time, but that’s exactly what you asked for. In retrospect it seems kind of obvious.

Of course we still don’t know exactly why he’s doing it or what the outcome is going to be, but again that shouldn’t be surprising. You’re complaining that they’ve ended the storyline too quickly whilst also complaining that they didn’t explain everything in full detail in the same Episode where we first found out who he is.

At least wait until Episode 6 before you decide it’s all over and done with and there’s not going to be any more to the story.

Using fire and converting fanatics is hardly a hint towards one of the Six Gods. It seems more fitting with the Mursaat. And considering that the Six Gods have never been significantly brought up in GW2 (other than some random NPC chit-chat), that alone would never be enough of a hint.

Even now, I still find Balthazar a very illogical choice. Why would he even bother hiding as Lazarus. Just let Taimi do her thing, and when she wants to use her device, he will pop up. Lazarus was in no way involved with Taimi’s device. It was a plot twist just to have a plot twist.

Also, it is Anet’s choice to release the story in instalments. The problem you then face is that every chapter that’s being released should be a strong, sound and well rounded story, which is not the case at the moment. It feels like they stopped mid-sentence.
It doesn’t help that the “storyline” portion of this chapter was incredibly short. They could have added another story instance, and add some more dialogue between the player character and Balthazar, so we get more background information.
The druids that popped up out of nowhere in this episode didn’t do much either, they were just “kinda there”. The entire episode feels random and shaky. It feels like they just grabbed a few lore points from GW1 and taped them together.

All this grand reveal is just horrible, mostly because it makes no sence.
Why would Balthazar disguise as a mursaat? He could just pop in as a human god, and every human would react as Kasmeer initially did, kneeling in awe, and following his orders with little to no questions and great zeal.
What did he accomplish by imposting Lazarus? Human minority (part of white mantle, thats minority of a minority!) and suspition of every persone with half a brain. That exact suspition that lead us to breaking his disguise and stopping him from draining dry completely both elder dragons (which was his original plan, as we see now).
What the kitten, Anet? A week ago i wrote that after this reveal I will be either applauding or facepalming hard. Well, guess what, there is a red palm print on my face right now.

Ider.1276:

All this grand reveal is just horrible, mostly because it makes no sence.
Why would Balthazar disguise as a mursaat? He could just pop in as a human god, and every human would react as Kasmeer initially did, kneeling in awe, and following his orders with little to no questions and great zeal.
What did he accomplish by imposting Lazarus? Human minority (part of white mantle, thats minority of a minority!) and suspition of every persone with half a brain. That exact suspition that lead us to breaking his disguise and stopping him from draining dry completely both elder dragons (which was his original plan, as we see now).
What the kitten, Anet? A week ago i wrote that after this reveal I will be either applauding or facepalming hard. Well, guess what, there is a red palm print on my face right now.

Unless something else is hunting him. I doubt he’d be scared of humans. He also explicitly states that he doesn’t care about Tyria, so he’s only here for the free magic buffet courtesy of blowing up some dragons and a bloodstone. Note that he didn’t actively ‘reveal’ himself, he was forced out – and he made a beeline to Taimi’s device once he knew it could destroy two dragons.

Plus, he’s obviously extremely weak right now, since Majory isn’t splattered all over rata novus.

In short, I doubt he was masquerading as Lazarus for the benefit of hiding from us.

That truly was the silliest idea they could come up with.

• First they destroy classic Guild Wars by implementing gliding into basically everything (remember the days when characters used to walk?). Even story missions are now increasingly build around gliding.

• Then they turn Guild Wars more and more into a sci-fi high-tech world (if I ever hear the words “magic” and “machine” combined again, I am going to explode like Taimi’s device).

• And now, on top of all that, they also turn the Six, the Pantheon of Tyrian Gods, into magic-hungry jokes. For real? You could have done it the classy way, have them return to Tyria in the wake of upcoming events instead of this embarrassing interlude featuring the once proud God of War.

I am so miffed right now. What a huge disappointment, ArenaNet. (Of course, your ugly Legendary Armors and even uglier new Legendary Weapons are more important to you, as well as creating maps that have the sole purpose of farming instead of story-telling. Yes, this episode’s story didn’t do it for me at all. GG.)

Ashantara.8731:

• And now, on top of all that, they also turn the Six, the Pantheon of Tyrian Gods, into magic-hungry jokes. For real? You could have done it the classy way, have them return to Tyria in the wake of upcoming events instead of this embarrassing interlude featuring the once proud God of War.

I’m interested in what caused this, personally! If it turned out to be ‘for the lols!’, then yeah, that sucks (and, really, anet?). But if we get a ton of story (maybe not explicitly in instances, but in books/side collections ect.) about what caused the changes over 250 years (and what lead to them really disappearing from Tyria) that would be so cool!

The Comfy Chair.7265:

Unless something else is hunting him. I doubt he’d be scared of humans. He also explicitly states that he doesn’t care about Tyria, so he’s only here for the free magic buffet courtesy of blowing up some dragons and a bloodstone. Note that he didn’t actively ‘reveal’ himself, he was forced out – and he made a beeline to Taimi’s device once he knew it could destroy two dragons.

Plus, he’s obviously extremely weak right now, since Majory isn’t splattered all over rata novus.

In short, I doubt he was masquerading as Lazarus for the benefit of hiding from us.

It is still stupid. He could disguise humself as a seer, or forgotten, or Gleam or anything but not the most untrustworthy race in Tiria. He could reveal his true self to Jennah, and gain full Krita support. Billions of options that would work better than the one we have.

And he absorbed the bloodstone, he is not that weak, he killed people by just moving a finger in Ep1. The only reason why Majory is still alive is a) she has plot armor; b) because ritual with the mirrors weakened Balthazar.

And after lazy writing of that “grand reveal” I am completely positive that Balthazar is just an Abaddon 2.0. Made a mess up there, was stripped of most of the powers by other gods, came down to feed. Just because lazy writing is lazy. To hell, they trashed one of elder dragons in most anti-climactic way this episode, why shoud I expect real effort now?

Ider.1276:

It is still stupid. He could disguise humself as a seer, or forgotten, or Gleam or anything but not the most untrustworthy race in Tiria. He could reveal his true self to Jennah, and gain full Krita support. Billions of options that would work better than the one we have.

And he absorbed the bloodstone, he is not that weak, he killed people by just moving a finger in Ep1. The only reason why Majory is still alive is a) she has plot armor; b) because ritual with the mirrors weakened Balthazar.

And after lazy writing of that “grand reveal” I am completely positive that Balthazar is just an Abaddon 2.0. Made a mess up there, was stripped of most of the powers by other gods, came down to feed. Just because lazy writing is lazy. To hell, they trashed one of elder dragons in most anti-climactic way this episode, why shoud I expect real effort now?

Couldn’t agree more. What were they thinking? Were they thinking at all or did they have to come up with something in a hurry?

I am so sad to see GW2 become more and more a game targeting a young audience rather than adults. The stories (and often the dialogues as well) grow childisher and more platitudinous by the year! I’m sure kids who enjoy Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles find this sort of plot fabulous. I don’t. (Hey, even the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon had a much better, more epic story, which appealed to adults and teenagers alike, than LWS3 E5.)

Edit: See my next post below.

Well the elder dragons were draining magic from all Tyria. They might as well drained enough to weaken all the gods. Balhazar may be the one looking for the magic to restore himself to godly power.

Olveyn.2894:

Well the elder dragons were draining magic from all Tyria. They might as well drained enough to weaken all the gods. Balhazar may be the one looking for the magic to restore himself to godly power.

How would the ED’s weaken some entities that come from another world and are lurking somewhere in the mists?

Late For Tea.1846:

Amaimon.7823:

Long story short, he’s propably not gone and there’s much bigger trouble which now involves the gods.

To be fair, a lot of people thought we couldn’t beat Zhaitan so easily, and he’d come back. We never saw him again.

A dev confirmed on the subreddit AMA that Balthazar will be back. We aren’t done with him yet

the plot twist is lazy as hell, no foreshadowing, no plot development. just haphazardly drop in the middle of a story for fan service. they all know we want the gods to be involve somehow. but making primodues the FIRE DRAGON the biggest Threat since GW1 now back to sleeping in 1 episode. kitten narrative in this game sucks.

Too much text to read when sleepy but …
Having quickly rushed an alt account thru bloodstone fen and knowing bal is bk one thing struck me – when laz appears and has his little chat with caud – laz says about those who dont convert to him can burn .. which struck me as either a fluke on the story writers or a slight hint towards laz being bal . From what i recall of gw1 lore .. the gods ( cant say the 6 gods because grenth wasnt born ( dwayna and malchior hadnt met at the time ) and im really unsure if bal / mhenzies were born then neither , and ive no idea about dhuum . The “gods” came from the mists and brought humans ( xenomorphs – soz wanted to use that but its right in a way ) then at some point Abbadon gave us the ability to use magic and basically the whole guild wars started . With bal using a mirror from lyssa makes me wonder if she and/or any other gods are involved . Now about the dragons and the gods – if you are a gw1 vet you will know that usually the gods are lazy buggers who cant do anything so they get us hero`s to do their dirty work for them – gw1 prophs/factions ( tho unsure how much the godss were involved cept abbadon ) and nightfall which we actually took on a god and kicked his butt (Abbadon) . Does this mean the gods themselves are weak in the sense that we already killed 1 and thus they cant handle the elder dragons . It would explain how , they left tyria when you would think they would strike at the dragons themselves – im sure if they all tag teamed they could take 1 dragon down at a time rather than high tail it away . There probably is more info in the books which alot of us dont know . Now not only do we become the dragon slayers but possibly once more we become god slayers as well XD

Late For Tea.1846:

So with LS3.5 we finally learned who Lazarus really is. And as no one expected, it was Balthazar making an appearance out of nowhere. Now Anet might think they have outdone themselves with such a reveal, but they missed one major point when it comes to “plot twists”.
If you want to have a good plot twist in your story, you should leave crumbs beforehan, that hint to the twist, without making it obvious. After the twist the audience should be left with a feeling of “how did I not see that?”, because then they realize you basically gave away the answer before the twist even happened.
But instead Balthazar randomly appears without any hints to it in the previous chapters whatsoever. He as a villain, concealing himself as Lazarus, makes no sense at all. It feels like a cheap “shocker”.

To make it worse, he disappeared as quickly as he appeared. So if he’s really gone, that means his involvement really didn’t mean that much. As such, he wasn’t worth all the hype and build-up. Once again you have major build up to the climax of your story, but once you reach the climax you rush things incredibly. You, Anet, received this criticism before with HoT, and now you’re doing it again.

I agree this show just how utterly weak lw content is as a means to progress the story. Its only a shock if you give the people hits on to who it could be. The only hit we got was we know he wasnt lazarus. Great that didnt leave us much in the way of who he could be and if he really did die or get gone? what the kitten was the point then?

I think to many people expected the plot twist to turn around their entire GW2 world view as far as the established characters goes. It did not do so and I believe it was not ment to.

The actual plot twist is the new direction the story is taking. The reemergence of the old human gods allows for a wide range of new interesting material to write about.

We have been given some background of them disappearing and not actually being gods but very powerful beings (not during this living story) so seeing them return and sheding light on who or what they actually are makes for a great tiein with GW1.

Add to that the interaction between the old gods and the dragons and you have a multitude of possible story paths the writes can take.

Me personally, I loved the revelation and I’m sure most GW1 veterans did too (at least the ones heavily invested in the lore). THen again, I wasn’t rumoring or trying to figure out who the fake Lazarus might be but instead let the story playout and supprise me.

I do get that players new to the guild wars univers and ones who never played GW1 might have not been overwhelmed. Another reason I would love some sort of lore dictionary ingame which covers the basics and background to the game world.

Balthazar is by far the worst possible choice of a reveal. A proper build-up was definitely needed and not just a mention last episode that Lazarus wasn’t real. Last episode was appropriate epic, but this episode’s story was a downer.

Why now? Why is the God of War and Fire weakened? Why does a human commander have no other dialogue about a literal meeting their god face-to-face? This episode brings up far more questions than answers.

After the Glory of Tyria arriving to fight Zhaitan from nowhere, and the idea that fighting Mordremoth in his mind despite him being a dragon of the mind were basically Deus Ex Machina thrown into the game for no reason other than the writers wrote themselves into a corner, the devs pulled an actual god out of the machine and didn’t bother to explain anything about his elaborate deception.

Okey so here’s my oppinion on the story:

First, i know that LW doesn’t have great story.. personally i don’t like how each episode story is short, but i’m still hoping that this is just some introduction into something bigger and A LOT better in the next expansion (if you see the leaked info about elona )

Also i was thinking now that we don’t want to kill the EDs because of enviroment … it got me thinking what if we replace them with the human gods. It could make sense as 6 EDs and 6 GODs each with similar aspects:

Zhaitan – Grenth
Balthazar – Primordus
Lyssa – Kralkatorik
Melandru – Mordremoth
Dwayna – Jormag
Kormir – Baubless
(Last 2 im not so sure about but it fits the most)

Also i don’t judge the LW storywritting teams .. but i really hope they will learn from their mistakes and repair their broken reputation after EP5.

Zephic.3075:

Balthazar is by far the worst possible choice of a reveal. A proper build-up was definitely needed and not just a mention last episode that Lazarus wasn’t real. Last episode was appropriate epic, but this episode’s story was a downer.

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

Zephic.3075:

Why now? Why is the God of War and Fire weakened? Why does a human commander have no other dialogue about a literal meeting their god face-to-face? This episode brings up far more questions than answers.

Exactly! One question answered and a lot more raised. I absolutely look forward to getting thes questions answered now. Imagine how boring the story would have been with no new questions raised.

Zephic.3075:

After the Glory of Tyria arriving to fight Zhaitan from nowhere, and the idea that fighting Mordremoth in his mind despite him being a dragon of the mind were basically Deus Ex Machina thrown into the game for no reason other than the writers wrote themselves into a corner, the devs pulled an actual god out of the machine and didn’t bother to explain anything about his elaborate deception.

Yes, they did write themselves into a corner, but not at those points. The moment they had some being absorb a Bloodstone explosion and basically 1-man army destroy the attacking destroyers on the golden temple they had to turn to a character not present in the current story. It would be geniunely unbelievable that any character we had access to were so powerful and not step up to fight the dragon menace. Hence why I found all the speculation that Lazarus might have been Queen Jenna or some other known character hilarious.

Hayden.2091:

Okey so here’s my oppinion on the story:

First, i know that LW doesn’t have great story.. personally i don’t like how each episode story is short, but i’m still hoping that this is just some introduction into something bigger and A LOT better in the next expansion (if you see the leaked info about elona )

Also i was thinking now that we don’t want to kill the EDs because of enviroment … it got me thinking what if we replace them with the human gods. It could make sense as 6 EDs and 6 GODs each with similar aspects:

Zhaitan – Grenth
Balthazar – Primordus
Lyssa – Kralkatorik
Melandru – Mordremoth
Dwayna – Jormag
Kormir – Baubless
(Last 2 im not so sure about but it fits the most)

Also i don’t judge the LW storywritting teams .. but i really hope they will learn from their mistakes and repair their broken reputation after EP5.

The human gods are not the dragons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Six_Human_Gods

Their age is also unknown, but it is known that the current pantheon as a whole is not the first, and that they have not been on Tyria as long as the Elder Dragons.

It is much more likely that these outsiders each claimed a pantheon of power when arriving on Tyria. Since there is 6 types of magic, each picked one.

Cyninja.2954:

Zephic.3075:

Balthazar is by far the worst possible choice of a reveal. A proper build-up was definitely needed and not just a mention last episode that Lazarus wasn’t real. Last episode was appropriate epic, but this episode’s story was a downer.

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

Zephic.3075:

Why now? Why is the God of War and Fire weakened? Why does a human commander have no other dialogue about a literal meeting their god face-to-face? This episode brings up far more questions than answers.

Exactly! One question answered and a lot more raised. I absolutely look forward to getting thes questions answered now. Imagine how boring the story would have been with no new questions raised.

Zephic.3075:

After the Glory of Tyria arriving to fight Zhaitan from nowhere, and the idea that fighting Mordremoth in his mind despite him being a dragon of the mind were basically Deus Ex Machina thrown into the game for no reason other than the writers wrote themselves into a corner, the devs pulled an actual god out of the machine and didn’t bother to explain anything about his elaborate deception.

Yes, they did write themselves into a corner, but not at those points. The moment they had some being absorb a Bloodstone explosion and basically 1-man army destroy the attacking destroyers on the golden temple they had to turn to a character not present in the current story. It would be geniunely unbelievable that any character we had access to were so powerful and not step up to fight the dragon menace. Hence why I found all the speculation that Lazarus might have been Queen Jenna or some other known character hilarious.

Your mileage may vary, I suppose. I found this episode completely inappropriate for human characters and it definitely jumped the shark. I don’t look forward for the questions I raised to be answered, because any answers will not be fulfilling.

There was no build up to this storyline. Yes, the gods have been gone for a long time, that is world background and lore. The fact that Balthazar was Lazarus was a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist. Given the facts that we had from the previous LS episodes, could you accurately predict his identity no matter how farfetched it may have seemed beforehand? No, the only facts we had were that Lazarus was not the “real” Lazarus and perhaps gameplay mechanics from Episode 2 when fighting alongside Lazarus; and we know that gameplay doesn’t always figure into storytelling. A good plot twist lays down the clues to Lazarus’ identity so when he does reveal himself, we all slap ourselves for not seeing the clues that he was indeed Balthazar in disguise.

I’m not saying that no questions being raised is good for the story, but the way the story is told really needs to step up to the plate. This episode was nearly on the level of Scarlet revealing her latest and greatest improbable alliance of the month, whose members should really be hating and fighting each other.

The bloodstone absorption and “Lazarus” appearing to kill a bunch of destroyers single-handedly was explained pretty well. Of course someone who had absorbed a bloodstone’s worth of magic would be super-powerful.

What I was pointing out was the inexplicable usage of deus ex machina to solve the problem of fighting both Zhaitan and Mordremoth. In the case of Zhaitan, our airship was damaged beyond repair, and suddenly another airship shows up out of nowhere with the just the right armaments to kill the Elder Dragon. There was no lead up to this airship suddenly appearing to save our bacon. If we had seen it being prepared for takeoff or Trahearne mentioning that the Pride of Tyria was being built in Personal Story leading up to Victory or Death beforehand, it would have come off much better.

With Mordremoth, we went into Act 4 without knowing his weakness and just jumped into the Dream through Trahearne was completely pulled out from left field. Trahearne never had this ability to pull others into the Dream; in fact, during the Personal Story, we had to go to the Pale Tree with Trahearne in order to enter the Dream. In addition, we went into the Elder Dragon of Mind to fight him because the Commander just suddenly decides that it was the right thing to do was to fight the Mind Dragon in its mind, where it is presumably the strongest.

I could go on about the weak storytelling in this episode and GW2 in general, but this post has already stretched out too long.

Cyninja.2954:

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

The build-up was there, but it didn’t necessarily point toward Balthazar. Sure, there’s the fiery death of some White Mantles on his initial reveal. But
a) this could mean a whole lot of things, and
b) it doesn’t really make sense.

I mean, come on, why the masquerade? What does it gain him? Why not show up as a human god directly? It won’t hinder his agenda, whatever it is, because the humans wouldn’t question one of their own gods. It would get him more followers, in both numbers and power, than a part of an illegal paramilitary organization. The whole charade is pointless.

@Zephic.3075

Oh I absolutely agree there have been weak points in the story telling. The entire 2nd part of the vanilla story was just way to many undead, to little diversity and let’s not get into the Zhaitan fight…

HoT story was rushed, I think everyone agrees on that.

Feanor.2358:

Cyninja.2954:

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

The build-up was there, but it didn’t necessarily point toward Balthazar. Sure, there’s the fiery death of some White Mantles on his initial reveal. But
a) this could mean a whole lot of things, and
b) it doesn’t really make sense.

I mean, come on, why the masquerade? What does it gain him? Why not show up as a human god directly? It won’t hinder his agenda, whatever it is, because the humans wouldn’t question one of their own gods. It would get him more followers, in both numbers and power, than a part of an illegal paramilitary organization. The whole charade is pointless.

Well you do have to remember, Balthazar is/was severly weakened. We don’t know to which extent, but he did have to fool the White Mantle into letting him absorb part of that bloodstone blast. Not sure the Charr would have been all to happy seeing one of the humans gods just show up and be all chummy and we also do not know who actually weakened Balthazar in the first place.

I think the reason for the deception is there. Now I will agree, having some more hints and minor details spread out before the revelation might have been decent, but let’s be reasonable, any serious hints towards the 6 gods returning would have spoiled the suprise. A shift this big in magnitude is very hard to foreshadow.

Then again this entire Living World (and unfortunately part of this story is told during raids) focuses heavily on:
- the white mantle and shinning blade
- kryta and the fire islands
- primordius and jormag

Basically on themes and areas established in GW1. The entire shift towards lore of Guild Wars 1 is there. So there is that.

Why all the hints on the Fire Island Chain of the Mursaat feeling double crossed when you put Balthazaar in Lazarus’ place? I wanted to see Lazarus become a thing but be that kind of anti-villain who is doing horrible things just to save and protect his people that would inevitably usher in the Mursaat as a race again who butts heads but doesn’t necessarily go to war with the other races.

Cyninja.2954:

I think the reason for the deception is there. Now I will agree, having some more hints and minor details spread out before the revelation might have been decent, but let’s be reasonable, any serious hints towards the 6 gods returning would have spoiled the suprise. A shift this big in magnitude is very hard to foreshadow.

Sometimes big reveals can work without a good foreshadowing. But in this case, it just felt quite “what the actual kitten is going on here”. So are we now to assume Lyssa is also hiding behind a mask, as she got name-dropped and is obviously involved? Jennah and Anise seem the most probable candidates for that, given Jennah’s power (S3E4) and Anise’s unknown age (S2E5).

But what irks me is there wasn’t any explanation for this at all. Some generic villain-ish line from Balthazar is all we got. The story should have offered at least a glimpse of a good motivation for all this, motivation not just to go after the power of the elder dragons, but to hide among us in the first place.

Ronin.7381:

Why all the hints on the Fire Island Chain of the Mursaat feeling double crossed when you put Balthazaar in Lazarus’ place? I wanted to see Lazarus become a thing but be that kind of anti-villain who is doing horrible things just to save and protect his people that would inevitably usher in the Mursaat as a race again who butts heads but doesn’t necessarily go to war with the other races.

That would have been more interesting, yes. The game already suffers from too many story hooks that aren’t resolved properly, or don’t really go anywhere to begin with, so it’d be a shame if that tidbit about the mursaat doesn’t amount to anything instead of being part of a moral-dilemma arc about how far we can trust an actual mursaat for the sake of saving the world.

The plot twist lacked the impact it could have had more because much like this entire season it was rushed.

If we had been with Lazarus from episode 1, all the way to 5, then this plot twist “might” have been a genuinely interesting surprise. But I frankly feel that being too smart isnt always a good thing. There are many ways you can impliament an amazing plot twist without giving away the obvious spoiler. Episode 4 gave the game away and the problem was, by that point, we had speculated to death who Lazarus could really be.

If we had NEVER KNOWN Lazarus wa sa fake it would have been more impactful, we could have had a moment where we are working with him to defeat Primordus only for Taimi to say “commander somethings wrong” and Lazarus “Killing” Primordus would result in his reveal as Balthazar, with subtle hints left here and there about fire, honor, war, revenge.

Small snippets that weave together when you put it together.

Instead, we got a “Oh its not actually Lazarus” teaser in episode 4 that more or less spoiled the entire plot twist.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

The plot twist lacked the impact it could have had more because much like this entire season it was rushed.

If we had been with Lazarus from episode 1, all the way to 5, then this plot twist “might” have been a genuinely interesting surprise. But I frankly feel that being too smart isnt always a good thing. There are many ways you can impliament an amazing plot twist without giving away the obvious spoiler. Episode 4 gave the game away and the problem was, by that point, we had speculated to death who Lazarus could really be.

If we had NEVER KNOWN Lazarus wa sa fake it would have been more impactful, we could have had a moment where we are working with him to defeat Primordus only for Taimi to say “commander somethings wrong” and Lazarus “Killing” Primordus would result in his reveal as Balthazar, with subtle hints left here and there about fire, honor, war, revenge.

Small snippets that weave together when you put it together.

Instead, we got a “Oh its not actually Lazarus” teaser in episode 4 that more or less spoiled the entire plot twist.

I’m not sure less hints at a fake Lazarus would have been the way to go. If you read through this thread one of the main gripes people have was the lack of foreshadowing.
Completely removing all hints about Lazarus would have created way less suspense I think.

Again, I think people are focusing to much on Balthazar and less on what actually happened this LW episode as a whole. Story is subjective I guess.

Ashantara.8731:

Ider.1276:

It is still stupid. He could disguise humself as a seer, or forgotten, or Gleam or anything but not the most untrustworthy race in Tiria. He could reveal his true self to Jennah, and gain full Krita support. Billions of options that would work better than the one we have.

And he absorbed the bloodstone, he is not that weak, he killed people by just moving a finger in Ep1. The only reason why Majory is still alive is a) she has plot armor; b) because ritual with the mirrors weakened Balthazar.

And after lazy writing of that “grand reveal” I am completely positive that Balthazar is just an Abaddon 2.0. Made a mess up there, was stripped of most of the powers by other gods, came down to feed. Just because lazy writing is lazy. To hell, they trashed one of elder dragons in most anti-climactic way this episode, why shoud I expect real effort now?

Couldn’t agree more. What were they thinking? Were they thinking at all or did they have to come up with something in a hurry?

I am so sad to see GW2 become more and more a game targeting a young audience rather than adults. The stories (and often the dialogues as well) grow childisher and more platitudinous by the year! I’m sure kids who enjoy Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles find this sort of plot fabulous. I don’t. (Hey, even the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon had a much better, more epic story, which appealed to adults and teenagers alike, than LWS3 E5.)

Edit: See my next post below.

Not just in history, but in the designer as well. The companions of the commanders, they are teddy bears, taimi and aurene.

It will not surprise me if they remove Rytlock.

ugrakarma.9416:

Ashantara.8731:

Couldn’t agree more. What were they thinking? Were they thinking at all or did they have to come up with something in a hurry?

I am so sad to see GW2 become more and more a game targeting a young audience rather than adults. The stories (and often the dialogues as well) grow childisher and more platitudinous by the year! I’m sure kids who enjoy Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles find this sort of plot fabulous. I don’t. (Hey, even the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon had a much better, more epic story, which appealed to adults and teenagers alike, than LWS3 E5.)

Not just in history, but in the designer as well. The companions of the commanders, they are teddy bears, taimi and aurene.

It will not surprise me if they remove Rytlock.

And even those who aren’t have become quite immature in their actions; see Braham, who is behaving more like a 12-year old rather than a young man of, let’s say, 20 years of age. I did not find Rytlocks dialogue this season particularly well written, either. He was quite arrogant on occasion, more like an Asura, rather than acting like someone who has just returned from a long journey through the mists, which — one would assume — would somehow lead to deeper insight into life and higher wisdom/enlightenment.

I love the new map, its fascinating design and even its layout (which, admittedly, takes time to get used to, but we’ll come around eventually ). The Oakheart’s Reach mechanic is a lot of fun, too. The story-telling, on the other hand… well, I already said what I had to say and will leave it at that.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

If we had NEVER KNOWN Lazarus wa sa fake it would have been more impactful, we could have had a moment where we are working with him to defeat Primordus only for Taimi to say “commander somethings wrong” and Lazarus “Killing” Primordus would result in his reveal as Balthazar, with subtle hints left here and there about fire, honor, war, revenge.

That is a really good point. Had it been done like that, also removing any childish cliché lines coming from the God of War when he was revealing his identity and later on, that could have been a really great way to tell the story.

No kidding! /agree!!!

Cyninja.2954:

Zephic.3075:

Balthazar is by far the worst possible choice of a reveal. A proper build-up was definitely needed and not just a mention last episode that Lazarus wasn’t real. Last episode was appropriate epic, but this episode’s story was a downer.

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

How is this even a build-up? The Six Gods have never been brought up in GW2, so the simple fact that they are “missing” is hardly enough reason to call it build-up. You can say the same about plenty of other characters. It could just as well have been Palawa Joko, who wants to expand his reign to the west. And in the next chapter we will have his undead popping up all over the place.
It could have been a Titan, Dhuum, Vizier Khilbron, Koss&Melonni’s descendant, Livia, a random surviving dwarf, Kuunavang. All of them are missing, in an unknown location, or we don’t have direct sight of, therefore they could all take Balthazar’s place without any story adjustments needed. Heck, it could even be the real Lazarus disguising himself as a fake Lazarus to confuse everyone.
Yes, non of them have any reason to disguise themselves as Lazarus, but neither did Balthazar until now. There was no build-up.

I’m really sorry to say this, but I found the presentation of this LS episode abyssmal. There is a lot of important lore happening every few seconds but I feel like a big part of the GW universe was just butchered in less than an hour. The main reason I like to play the game these days is to explore the world and dig into the lore stuff – but now I feel like I can’t really take it serious any more.

The new map is pretty nice though, thanks for that – grappling hook is great!

Late For Tea.1846:

Cyninja.2954:

Zephic.3075:

Balthazar is by far the worst possible choice of a reveal. A proper build-up was definitely needed and not just a mention last episode that Lazarus wasn’t real. Last episode was appropriate epic, but this episode’s story was a downer.

The buildup was there, maybe more subtle than expected. The gods were gone, no one knows where they went and/or what they actually were. It not having been tied in to the story episodes so far does not mean it wasn’t there.

How is this even a build-up? The Six Gods have never been brought up in GW2, so the simple fact that they are “missing” is hardly enough reason to call it build-up. You can say the same about plenty of other characters. It could just as well have been Palawa Joko, who wants to expand his reign to the west. And in the next chapter we will have his undead popping up all over the place.
It could have been a Titan, Dhuum, Vizier Khilbron, Koss&Melonni’s descendant, Livia, a random surviving dwarf, Kuunavang. All of them are missing, in an unknown location, or we don’t have direct sight of, therefore they could all take Balthazar’s place without any story adjustments needed. Heck, it could even be the real Lazarus disguising himself as a fake Lazarus to confuse everyone.
Yes, non of them have any reason to disguise themselves as Lazarus, but neither did Balthazar until now. There was no build-up.

There was very weak specific build up, Balthazar is the god of war and fire. On his reveal as Lazzydazzy he purged everyone specifically with fire, helped defend Aurene with fire, fire, fire fire!

’cept the real Lazerus the dire was a necromancer that also used lightning/air

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lazarus_the_Dire

Did I know it would be Balthazar on the reveal? No, but once I figured it out it did sort of snap together for me, did I think it was well played? Not specifically, but it also wasn’t as much a reach as some people thought. More importantly it did leave me curious to why the god of war is stomping around.

I’m thinking there’s an internal god conflict going on, which would also explain their inactivity, can’t help the mortal ones much if you’re busy bashing divine face. For all we know Balthazar lost his eternal war with his brother and the mists are about to be over-run. Or maybe he won, wanted more war, and started picking fights leading to some sort of banishment or de-powering.

But I’m just trying to be optimistic.

Late For Tea.1846:

If you want to have a good plot twist in your story, you should leave crumbs beforehan, that hint to the twist, without making it obvious. After the twist the audience should be left with a feeling of “how did I not see that?”, because then they realize you basically gave away the answer before the twist even happened.

Definitely, and this is an oft-missed element of plot twists when people want them. It’s not a plot twist if you couldn’t possibly see it coming, it’s just a random event.

As I mentioned over on the lore forums, I think the problem is that Guild Wars 2’s writing seems to be largely focused toward an end goal. In other words, the story is planned to get to a certain point, and it’s arranged to get there as efficiently as possible.

Unfortunately, this means that the actions of the characters up to that point aren’t natural, because they don’t react or care about things that won’t end up being relevant. I’ve complained about the use of the White Mantle, and I think that was an example, too. Because Caudecus and the White Mantle were eventually just going to culminate in a climactic chapter where we defeat them, none of the heroic characters cared about the legitimate issues that they brought up, because those issues were never planned to be relevant, even though it makes the heroes look dismissive of the people hurting in their society.

I think it’s why so many plots have been black-and-white with no moral ambiguity. The confrontation is already planned, so the story focuses on getting to that confrontation, not on exploring the conflict and whether or not it’s really that simple. It’s a bit like reading a story backwards. You know how it will end, so everything before it that isn’t related to that ending can easily be ignored.

I’m willing to bet that Lazarus’ identity will eventually make a lot more sense in hindsight, because the reason he did what he did is probably related to things that we don’t know yet. Again, the problem with that is that the heroes should have treated this situation a lot differently because they don’t know those things yet either, whereas instead, the whole situation seems to be treated as this routine villain smackdown.

Just like, it’s really weird that Balthazar would use a Lazarus disguise, only to throw away the White Mantle and then hire mercenaries with their money. Why not just use the White Mantle if they worship you? And since you are a god, why disguise yourself to begin with? When someone’s god physically manifests in front of them and asks for them to do something, there would be a ton of people who would be itching to help no matter what the goal was.

I don’t know if that will be fully justified, but I’m expecting that a lot of it will make more sense in the future, but it’s something that more characters should have been questioning and looking into already.

Rabe.2456:

I’m really sorry to say this, but I found the presentation of this LS episode abyssmal. There is a lot of important lore happening every few seconds but I feel like a big part of the GW universe was just butchered in less than an hour. The main reason I like to play the game these days is to explore the world and dig into the lore stuff – but now I feel like I can’t really take it serious any more.

The new map is pretty nice though, thanks for that – grappling hook is great!

I feel exactly the same way! It feels like they wanted to cram every piece of GW1 Prophecies lore into this single season. First we have the Bloodstones, which don’t get a proper introduction, but everyone already knows about. Then the bloodstone is used as a stepping stone for the Mursaats. But the Mursaat isn’t actually a mursaat, it is a human God. The druids also make a random appearance out of nowhere, but don’t really do anything except for just being there.

At this point I really wouldn’t be surprised if Vizier Khilbron and the Titans will be brought in as well, in LS3.6

Aidal.4901:

There was very weak specific build up, Balthazar is the god of war and fire. On his reveal as Lazzydazzy he purged everyone specifically with fire, helped defend Aurene with fire, fire, fire fire!

’cept the real Lazerus the dire was a necromancer that also used lightning/air

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lazarus_the_Dire

So if we see a Air Elementalist Necromancer Mursaat then we’ll know we got the real Lazarus(who doesn’t need all of the Artifacts to resurrect).

Considering travelers in the Maguuma Jungle sense something Unseen I would assume players will eventually be hearing of dead rising and people getting electrocuted by mysterious Lightning out of nowhere during Living Story season 4 or 5. Most likely Lazarus will surface in Tangle Root(which hasn’t appeared yet in GW2).

My guess is hes not gone and this is only the beginning of a larger story to do with major conflict between the gods. Its not the first time god like creatures can blink from one to another place, right? He still accumulated large quantities of magic (bloodstone + dragons).