Guild Wars 2

SO, we know at this point that someone claiming to be Balthazaar (kind of looks/has powers like) was pretending to be Lazarus. It could be that it really is/was Balthazaar and he may or may not be dead after episode 5. So, one human god running around.

There is also a discussion going on here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/A-hypothesis-about-Jennah-Spoilers

This discussion is about whether or not another being the humans worship as a god could be Queen Jenna. Possibly, a second human god running around (even if it seems very unlikely).

Enter the next conspiracy theory.

All of this got me thinking and asking the question: which fake human deity (all my toons are Asura) is pretending to be Rytlock? Sure, it’s possible that Rytlock “learned” new magic in the Mists and managed to return to the living world, but with 0 details I am hesitant to think that it’s really him. I am starting to think that maybe another one of these beings the humans worship has taken on the form of Rytlock.

I have started to go back over the dialog (which means replaying HoT) to see if I missed anything obvious.

Thoughts?

He looks like Rytlock. He acts like Rytlock. He talks like Rytlock. He doesn’t have magic matching any god.

So he’s probably Rytlock.

Don’t think that because he learned new magic and won’t talk about it that he’s an impostor. Rytlock has been ArenaNet’s tool of “later, cub” since release. Ever tried to ask him about Sohothin? You can as a charr. His response: “Irrelevant.” Ever tried asking him about his time in DE, as a charr? His response: “Irrelevant.” Ever tried asking about his and Rox’s relation? His response: “Irrelevant.”

I don’t get why people like him so much. He’s the most bland character because he’s blocked behind a generic “mysterious everything” without even a minute budge towards learning anything that wasn’t presented in Edge of Destiny. And yes, we know more about Rytlock from a poorly written outsourced novel released before the game than we do from nearly five years of the game.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t get why people like him so much. He’s the most bland character because he’s blocked behind a generic “mysterious everything”

Perhaps exactly because of that. People can “invent” him, fill the gaps in the ways they would like best, creating a fiction of him which is extremely likable. In fact, most people will be inclined to do that. They do it all the time.

Rytlock. He clearly had experiences in the Mists that have changed some of his attitudes (and blinded him, which may be a hint that he ran into a god at full power), but I don’t think he’s been replaced.

If we are to go down that rabbit hole, though…

The entity we currently call Rytlock is a revenant, so if he is a god in disguise, this basically becomes a question of “which god would bring the revenant profession to Tyria?” This probably rules out Dwayna, Melandru, and Lyssa – revenant doesn’t seem likely to be linked to any of them.

This leaves Grenth and Kormir.

Grenth comes up first for a couple of reasons. First, the revenant is essentially a spiritual warrior-successor to the ritualist, which is within Grenth’s domain. Second, while there is a question mark on whether Jalis is actually dead or not, the revenant seems to be calling on the spirits of the dead, which is, again, Grenth’s domain.

Kormir, however, may also be a possibility. The link between revenants and blindfolds may be significant (although that’s easily explained away – ritualists blindfolded themselves as well, after all…) and it’s worth keeping in mind that the core ritualist legends were either adversaries of Kormir (and thus part of her own legend) or at least alive and influencing the world at the same time. There’s also the connection that making contact with a legend will involve learning about the legend, either in advance or by interacting with it – this produces a potential link between the revenant and Kormir’s primary sphere of knowledge. Thus, the revenant is a profession that combines Kormir’s scholarly and martial (as the former Spearmarshal) aspects.

I do think, though, that it’s more likely that Rytlock met a god than that there is one impersonating him.

If i go with your theory, i would argue that rytlock is still rytlock…but when he was in the mists, he might have let or absorbed some very powerful spirits there (hence the rev stances). I don’t think he is controlled by a god or something. If that were the case, every rev in the game would be controlled by a god…which would have been highlighted in voices and whatnot.

That being said, knowing what actually happened to Rytlock in there is for me still more fascinating then the whole HoT expansion and Tape Worm boss.

Revenant stances aren’t spirit related. They’re merely calling upon echoes of the Mists – like we did in Arcana Obscura in Season 2, when repeating the trials of ascension, we called upon echoes of the past rather than souls.

Define an echoe

Rytlock is probably a Khan-Ur pretending to be an Imperator, but is really the other half of Lyssa, using positions of leadership to bring peace to the Humans by forging a ceasefire/treaty between her charges and their long-hate enemies.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t get why people like him so much. He’s the most bland character because he’s blocked behind a generic “mysterious everything” without even a minute budge towards learning anything that wasn’t presented in Edge of Destiny. And yes, we know more about Rytlock from a poorly written outsourced novel released before the game than we do from nearly five years of the game.

His way of acting makes him a potential anti-hero, like Ridd..k of “The Chronicles of Ridd..k.” But I’m not kidding myself, with Anet’s latest trends in making everything childish, it’s far more likely that Rytolck becomes a “big dad” who pampers his kids.

ugrakarma.9416:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t get why people like him so much. He’s the most bland character because he’s blocked behind a generic “mysterious everything” without even a minute budge towards learning anything that wasn’t presented in Edge of Destiny. And yes, we know more about Rytlock from a poorly written outsourced novel released before the game than we do from nearly five years of the game.

His way of acting makes him a potential anti-hero, like Ridd..k of “The Chronicles of Ridd..k.” But I’m not kidding myself, with Anet’s latest trends in making everything childish, it’s far more likely that Rytolck becomes a “big dad” who pampers his kids.

Wait! I’ve got it!! The reason Rytlock wears the blindfold is cause he got his eyes shined in the Mists! OoO

Rebound.3409:

Define an echo

The Mists create reflections of people, places, and events, and the more significant the thing being echoed, the stronger the reflection is. The legends channeled by revenants are the echoes of particularly significant individuals. They have personalities that are at least similar to the being that they are a reflection of, but they do not contain (or, at least, do not have to contain) the spirit of the entity in question.

So when a revenant channels, say, Mallyx, they are not actually channeling Mallyx per se but a memory of Mallyx which is imprinted into the Mists.

Interesting explanation. Thank you for that

draxynnic.3719:

Rebound.3409:

Define an echo

The Mists create reflections of people, places, and events, and the more significant the thing being echoed, the stronger the reflection is. The legends channeled by revenants are the echoes of particularly significant individuals. They have personalities that are at least similar to the being that they are a reflection of, but they do not contain (or, at least, do not have to contain) the spirit of the entity in question.

So when a revenant channels, say, Mallyx, they are not actually channeling Mallyx per se but a memory of Mallyx which is imprinted into the Mists.

2000% more story about Revenants presented by random forumer than is present in game. ANet, I am disappoint.

Thanks for the detail!

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

ugrakarma.9416:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t get why people like him so much. He’s the most bland character because he’s blocked behind a generic “mysterious everything” without even a minute budge towards learning anything that wasn’t presented in Edge of Destiny. And yes, we know more about Rytlock from a poorly written outsourced novel released before the game than we do from nearly five years of the game.

His way of acting makes him a potential anti-hero, like Ridd..k of “The Chronicles of Ridd..k.” But I’m not kidding myself, with Anet’s latest trends in making everything childish, it’s far more likely that Rytolck becomes a “big dad” who pampers his kids.

Wait! I’ve got it!! The reason Rytlock wears the blindfold is cause he got his eyes shined in the Mists! OoO

Oh.. yeah, Now I remembered that protagonist made eye surgery to see in the dark in movie 2.

, although he implies in Pitch Black that they were “shined” by a back-alley surgical operation. This allows him to see in the dark with no difficulty at all, but also renders his eyes incredibly sensitive to concentrated light, therefore he wears tinted welding goggles for protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Ridkitten_(franchise)#The_Chronicles_of_Ridkitten_.282004.29

Rauderi.8706:

draxynnic.3719:

Rebound.3409:

Define an echo

The Mists create reflections of people, places, and events, and the more significant the thing being echoed, the stronger the reflection is. The legends channeled by revenants are the echoes of particularly significant individuals. They have personalities that are at least similar to the being that they are a reflection of, but they do not contain (or, at least, do not have to contain) the spirit of the entity in question.

So when a revenant channels, say, Mallyx, they are not actually channeling Mallyx per se but a memory of Mallyx which is imprinted into the Mists.

2000% more story about Revenants presented by random forumer than is present in game. ANet, I am disappoint.

Thanks for the detail!

No worries!

And yeah, it’s a problem. All that was in the prerelease discussions of the Revenant, but when its not in-game, it’s easily forgotten. Although at least I think the discussions were hosted by ArenaNet, so they can probably be found if you go looking, rather than simply disappearing like some of the prerelease Guardian lore has.

But yeah, they really need to get Zipper-Lips to unzip a little. Being secretive is one thing, but it’s a bit silly when stuff that’s been said out-of-game isn’t even being transferred in-game.

In Ep6 we will learn that Balthazar is an imposter and actually is Menzies. And Rytlock is an imposter and actually is Balthazar. And Menzies is an imposter and actually is Rytlock. And Pact Commander is an imposter and actually is a hero from GW1. And Taimi is an imposter and actually is a sentient cat.
#plottwists #shocking #wownooneexpected

First of all why would the god pretend to be a charr. Gods chose Humans as their friends and shared with their magic. So pretending to be a charr is a dishonor.

I can understand Balthazar that he disguised himself as Lazarus, because he really didn’t know that Lazarus doesn’t bring good memories. Anyway I am sure he pretended to be Lazarus because it make the way to rule over White Mantle easier and we found out in Flashpoint that he killed lots of WM. Anyway it’s why I believe in theory that Balthzar and Jennah are cooperating. And even if Jennah is not Lyssa she had to gain the mirror which Balthazar used to disguise himself. And it is good for queen obviously to kill WM. And pretending to be Lazarus- the greatest character to WM is really wise idea.

Somebody here said that it can be Grenth or Kormir.

As I said Kormir lived in times when Charr were enemies so it’s unlikely she pretends to be a charr, especially if that charr is Rytlock.

Grenth? Unlikely. As I said its unlikely that any of God would pretend to be a charr.

Rytlock is Rytlock imo and I doubt Anet is going to do the same thing again.

Just to correct one thing, Arden: it isn’t so much that the gods “chose humans as their friends” but rather that the gods “brought humanity with them to the world” – nothing would prevent them from favoring non-humans in addition to humans. And Kormir, though alive while charr were enemies of humanity, had no direct dealings with charr all her life.

Also, Balthazar would know that Lazarus was hated, given that the mursaat were active before the gods went silent and given that the gods knew much about the previous dragonrise, when the mursaat nearly committed genocide against the seers in betrayal and left the others to their own fate in the battle against the Elder Dragons while taking (some of?) the alliance’s strongest offensive and defensive known magic (spectral agony and phasing into the Mists) with them. After all, Balthazar as Lazarus talks about that ancient betrayal and seems to know full well how the White Mantle view mursaat in episode 2.

Jennah on the other hand doesn’t really seem interested in the death of the White Mantle or other human threats to Kryta, otherwise she would have been a bit more forceful in her confrontations with Caudecus and his (rather obvious) manipulations prior to Episode 5.

@Arden: If you look at the preface of my post, you’d note that I expressed that it was most likely that Rytlock was Rytlock, but “if we are going to go down that rabbit hole…” You could view it instead as speculation on which god might be influencing Rytlock, as that’s a more likely possibility.

@Konig: I don’t think Jennah’s lack of forcefulness against Caudecus was out of disinterest, but out of the need to have really good evidence if she’s going to arrest the Legate Minister for treason without it looking like an autocrat’s ploy. The Minister who gives that speech isn’t White Mantle, or at least wasn’t revealed to be.

Ider.1276:

In Ep6 we will learn that Balthazar is an imposter and actually is Menzies. And Rytlock is an imposter and actually is Balthazar. And Menzies is an imposter and actually is Rytlock. And Pact Commander is an imposter and actually is a hero from GW1. And Taimi is an imposter and actually is a sentient cat.
#plottwists #shocking #wownooneexpected

I’ve always suspected that one of the cats in my home instance is an imposter and is actually Trehearne, watching and waiting to get his sword back.

Rytlock has been possessed by the spirit of Master Togo, giving him new and strange Ritualistic powers.

In other news, Shadow the cat is really melandru.

Shadow is not Melandru! Shadowis McGonagall!!!