Guild Wars 2

@Shiren: just to clarify what I meant with reconstruction of old LA’s fountain. I didn’t mean that I wanted to raise old LA. Its ruins are submerged under water, and there they should remain.
But I’d love to see a copy of the old fountain in one of the new LA’s city squares. Just as a simple homage/memorial to LA prior to Zhaitan’s rise. Perhaps with a New Krytan plaque on it: “In remembrance of Lion’s Arch prior to the flood in 1219AE”.

As for defensive structures. Yes, I know new LA was said to have been built with defense in mind, but – except for Claw Island – that’s just on paper. I hope the new version both looks and feels more realistic in that respect.

I really like the change to a more defensive city. One of the most important things to me (lore wise) is to feel that I’m part of a real universe when playing.
For that feeling to exist, it’s absolutely necessary that the world reacts to the world around them. The lack of such has been one of the biggest complaints raging around here on the forums.

As for maintaining historical and cultural heritage: old LA had a much more defensive feel than new LA, so if anything: this is respecting heritage. I’d love to see a reconstruction of the old LA’s fountain and the stairs/entrance to the old keep though.

Joel & Ellie. Logan & Zojja.

Re-used texture. Happens a lot.

P.S. I thought profession specializations would become open to all players, and that only certain Masteries (e.g. gliding) would be locked off to HoT players only.
If not, I’d see that becoming a big issue regardless of how they balance (or not balance) the new professions.

Not only does it sound a bit overpowered, but it does sound much more complex. That’s what made me think about this topic in the first place.

Don’t you agree that it certainly sounds much more complex in terms of timing, chaining skills together, etc.?
If so, wouldn’t there be very little incentive to play Chronomancer (other than the initial “cool factor”) if it’s been balanced equal to the base profession?
=> basically: equal strength, harder to play.

The more I’m thinkning about this, it looks to me that we’re getting at least some of the aspects I’m hinting towards in my OP. It’s not nesessarily a good idea though, I agree with all the potential issues you’ve pointed out – but still think it’s an interesting concept.

I’m sorry if it confused you. What I meant was that Chronomancer at this point seems like a much more fun and stronger ‘profession’ than the normal mesmer.

That has made many ask “why would I play normal mesmer anymore?”. I’ve simply tried to propose one possible answer to that. Make Chronomancer so hard to play, that it’s a lot easier to make decent damage with normal mesmer.

I hope that answers your doubts about “subject title vs content”.

This question, which many now may be asking, made me think:
GW has always aimed to be “skill based”, right?

TL;DR:
I would love it if playing specializations would punish you much harder for making mistakes (e.g. through long cooldowns on Chronomancer).
But, if you get it right; you’d be equally more rewarded.

That way; playing specializations could be something you’d NOT wanna do when playing more casual gameplay.
Whereas normal mesmer could give you a good steady base damage for less effort. Harder content could absolutely require specialization and the players’ constant focus.

This would be a very interesting way to “give us what we’ve wanted”: hard challenging gameplay. But not just through bosses with more health and more output dmg.
Future specializations could play into this in a great way; being even harder and literally exhausting to play; at the reward of a small advantage over the easier play styles.

I imagine it’d be hard to pull off though (finding the right balance for how hard vs how much you’re punished and rewarded), but I really like the idea in general.

Hey Gibson. This is one of the most recurring hot topics on the lore forums. And has been ever since the release of GW2.

The debate has even been referenced to in-game, during Season 2:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragons_and_Gods

That book does quite well at summarizing the whole debate into two short sentences:
Yeah, there are a lot of similarites there, but no clear proof to support the theory. If the link is there, we need a lot more information before it makes any proper sense.

Well, that depends. I’ve been using FontCreator, but only have the unregistered version.

• If Matthew is willing and able to work with me (give feedback on what’s correct and what’s not), I’ll absolutely buy the full version and finish the project.
• If not, it’s not even worth finishing tbh. Too many guesses will be have to be made. Because of poor texture quality on the in-game sample, and more importantly: we don’t know all the base characters (consonants).

MatthewMedina.5419:

I do want to do something more to mark this momentous feat, and I’m eager to wrangle up an appropriate response (…) I plan to talk more about this tremendous accomplishment with you, and I hope to be able to follow up on this with everyone in the coming weeks and/or months.

Thank you Matthew for this amazing puzzle. It was extremely fun to work with the translation, and throughout the process I learned a lot about all types of writing styles all around the world.

I also started working on a font, using ligatures for all the possible syllable combinations (see attachment no. 2). And by the way: that’d be the way to go if you wanted to avoid QA testing for typos. Write in your desired language; then just change font.

Now I do have one query: The tombs outside Azabe Qabar. Would it be possible for you to let us create new textures for you? It’s a pain to see inscriptions in New Krytan on these tombs, when your amazing language is out there just waiting to be used!

That info comes from the original Guild Wars manuscripts. Doesn’t get much more official than this (the manuscripts are still to be considered true, if nothing else has specifically mentioned by devs):

GW1 Manuscripts

The god of war and fire, Balthazar is often worshipped by Warriors and Elementalists, though there are Monks who have been known to follow his scriptures as well. Army commanders and guild lords will often say a few words to the Bastion of Martial Glory before leading their followers into battle. Balthazar is frequently shown holding a greatsword, its tip lodged in the ground, with a pair of battle hounds sitting at attention at his feet.

Eddie Royale.9605:

the Norn surnames *sson and *sdottir mean son and daughter right?

Old Norse / Norwegian. (still used in Iceland)

son/sen = son
dottir = daughter

Oddsson = Odd’s son
Oddsdottir = Odd’s daugther
Thoresen = Thore’s son (just another variation of the -son/-daughter addition)

Odd is a norse first name, so this is indeed a peculiar occurence. It may be a small slip-up. Or more interesting: both could have had a father named Odd, though it doesn’t have to be the same man! And this is where it gets interesting

It is very common in Norway for people to have 2-part first names. Take a look at my forefathers:

• Anders Mikkelsen Familyfarmname (my great*6 grandfather)
• Mikkel Andersen Familyfarmname (great*5)
• Anders Mikkelsen Familyfarmname (great*4)
• Thore Andersen Familyfarmname (great*3)
• Nils Thoresen Familyfarmname (great great)
• Tormod Hilmar Nilsen Familyfarmname – married to Audny (great grandfather, 3 of 4 names. From here on out, people were given two first names. And the name of the family farm completely replaced the -sen/-dottir addition. I’ve left it out for obvious reasons)
• Their children: Nils Sigmund (firstborn, and my grandfather – married to Solrun Irene), Kjell Asbjørn, Bjørn Oddvar, Tor Atle, Ola Egil, Knut Håvard.
• Stein-Are (my father), Aud Hilde (aunt1), Nina Irene (aunt2)
• Tormod (myself – first one to not have 2 first names).

Similarily, Odd may be one part of names like Odd Arild, Odd Arne, Odd Are, Odd Ove, Odd Olav, Odd Inge, Odd Ivar, and the list goes on for almost forever…

I’ve bolded out a few examples of where we’ve been named after other members of our family. A very interesting (and confusing/random system at times). Unfortunately, it’s fallen out of fashion.

P.S. Tormod Hilmar and Audny is both still alive, and they’ve fathered 37 great grandchildren so far.

Though I agree ANet should do their very best to get all lore info implemented into the game, I really really don’t think it was a good move to completely abandon all the short stories.
There are certain things and stories you just can’t present on a cinema screen or with gameplay mechanics. The simplest form would be to move short stories into the Priory’s libraries (with a new UI). This has been suggested so many times, and I really hope they can return to the short story format that way.

(other than that: I agree that ANet needs to implement stuff like Scarlet’s short story into the actual gameplay. Though there’s no reason we can’t have both.)

Did a google search for the “created” part (that whole first sentence), and found quite a few exact matches. I kinda presumed it would initially have been mentioned somewhere official or semi-official.
But I guess that the matches I got may have just been copy-pastes off the wiki, since it goes waaay back before gw2’s release. Just to confirm: http://www.guildwars2sa.co.za/index.php is not an official site, right?

The character is quite likeable in “the story” actually. Just not in game.

“In order to reinforce their minions, the Elder Dragons created Champions to act as their right hands in their armies.”

While the Elder Dragons do have the ability to corrupt the races of Tyria, “minions” however (including champions) would probably not be corruptions, but constructs of the dragons. Therefore, Tequila has probably never been “alive”.

Strange thing though, is the champion’s (at least Glint’s) ability to break free from their EDs. How can this be if they are mere constructions.
Though I guess it could easily be explained akin to “man creates robot with AI > robot kills man and takes loot”.

Tequatl is a champion of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan.
The Shatterer is a champion of the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik.

So yes, Zhaitan is Tequatl’s leader. As for the relationship between the different “dragon factions”, e.g. between Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik (or Tequatl and the Shatterer): we don’t fully know. They seem to be keeping to themselves, any direct alliances or conflicts is yet to be seen.

Further reading for you: GW2 Wiki: Dragon champions

So hyped about this. Really really excited. I have to think “finally” as everyone else, but it makes me very happy and positive to see that it isn’t simply a “first-person-view” patch, but it actually looks more like a complete overhaul.

• First person
• Vertical and horizontal adjustment
• Field of view
• Focus point option: feet vs head
• Collision Sensitivity “which will adjust how much ‘stuff’ (trees, rocks, walls..) needs to be between the character and the camera before the camera snaps in.” < that one is huge!

Really looking forward to this. A BIG thank you to ArenaNet!

It’s actually an interesting idea you present here. Should have been possible for ANet to repair the bridges (and possibly: stairs, pathways etc.) fairly easily without using a huge amount of time.

It would certainly be interesting if such smaller changes could be slowly implemented now, then the bigger ones later. I guess the reason may be though; that they don’t want to simply repair the city, but create a full makeover. The bridges may eventually be moved alltogether.

I just discovered that 1316 is most likely not a typo. o.O

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prosperity%27s_Mystery
Check out her written diary. Here she refers to both her “diary-transition” to Hologram technology and “I believe I’ve found one of these mythical ley lines”.

The date, 1316, fits in extremely well in accordance to when she first must have started using Hologram technology. As DarcShriek has already pointed out though, this would probably not have been in Prosperity.

As for Konig’s comment regarding Kiel: Even though Ceara may have found proof already in 1316, it’s possible that it weren’t shown off to the rest of the world (nor the Arcane Council) before later on. Claiming “I’ve found proof” is still only a claim.

I’d guess it wasn’t an official truth before we stumbled upon the ley line hub ourselves.

Check the norn tattoos on her right shoulder. My guess is that its an early/alternative version of the attached concept art of Jora.

Edit: Too much crazy rambling back and forth. Need to re-write the whole thing.

I chronologically listed everything from the hologram/journal entries + relevant parts of the short story here instead.

I’ve intertwined all sources into one big chronological list, while keeping the sequence order of each individual source consistent.

For me, seeing a “cleansed Orr”, only to have it cluttered with lots of new challenges and enemies; such as a new invading force or a conflict between the races – it would absolutely devastate me. Was all that fighting good for nothing?

I like new content as much as anyone, but I also want to believe that peace and harmony can be restored.

I wouldn’t want to see Orr revamped, but maybe – just maybe – we could see a minor story instance set place there in the future. Let’s say we return to Orr to find an old artifact, and we enter a small instance that shows us part of Arah, anno 1327AE.
That would, I think, satisfy a lot of those of us who wants to see what has happened to Orr – yet, not destroy any of the current gameplay.

Orr will continue to be a 1325AE time freeze, but yet: we could get to see a small glimpse of what we achieved by conquering Zhaitan.

+1 on the wiki suggestion. If you come accross anything interesting during your playthrough, just go to the wiki and read more about it. It is probably the best and most compact lore info you’ll find anywhere.

Koviko.3248:

I don’t see the cleansing of Orr as a priority. What would Orr even be if it were cleansed? Right now, Orr is an epic struggle between Zhaitan and the Pact. If it were to stop being that, what would be in the zone, instead?

Peace. Priory digsite. Flora slowly being restored to how it was before the Cataclysm. Perhaps some Priory teams trying to recreate old buildings (ref. Acropolis).

A very interesting prospect for someone (me), who is “mildly” obsessed with the Orrian kingdom and its former glory. However, from a gameplay viewpoint: there wouldn’t be anything there at all, and it’s better off as it currently is (1325AE version).

+1 (mostly)
I do not see there being a link between HoT and GoT, nor should it be. Tyria got its own story, and it’s a wonderful one!

That said: I think Rhaegar hit the nail here: “It’s the way the story is portrayed, not the concepts within, that are lightweight”. The game is cluttered with comic-relief, some of it well done, some of it not so much.
IMO: Instead of adding to the game, it shadows and come in conflicts with some of the greater and darker tales. It “dumbs down” the game, and contributes in hiding the truly interesting plots.

Regarding separate instanced PS maps for old versions of LA and Orr: yes please. Though I don’t know if making a total revamp of Orr will be worth it. First of all I’d like to see old LA back in Personal Story. That content is already there, and should be fairly easy to implement at the cost of some MBs.

GW1 do in fact have time based maps. Pre- and post-searing is the best (and only) example of a full change. But there are also minor changes made to maps while you progress through War in Kryta.

Mostly, only appearing NPCs change, but the Shining Blade Camp is an example of a more “drastic” change. Every map in GW1 is instanced, so it kinda makes you wonder why they didn’t do more such changes, but I think it lies mostly on the technical side (disk usage) (?).

Big Tower.5423:

But LA is broken when you play trough PS?

Well, it shouldn’t be. Personal Story takes place in 1325 AE. The attack didn’t occur before 1327. It just appears that way because of how ANet builds their instances.

They might have considered keeping a unique copy of the old map for Personal Story purpose, but it would drastically increase the file size of the game beyond what most players need.

That said, I really really really hope they change their policy on that. I’d rather spend an extra gig or two to show the proper version of maps while playing through PS. Right now it’s a big mess and “unimmersive”.

BrunoBRS.5178:

did you seriously just necro a 7 month old thread to discuss man-nipples?

Aaahh :P That made me laugh so hard. My apologies for making that post in the first place. It seems I didn’t fully consider the consequences.

Look, Eir’s bow, Braham’s armor, Kasmeer’s staff, etc.. None of those are really relevant in lore. I tried to explain this view in my first post, but just for clarification:

You can’t compare Magdaer, Sohothin, Caladbolg, Scepter of Orr to those. They play completely and utterly different parts in lore. That’s why I think it’s much more easy to forgive them being mass produced (for mechanics reasons) and sold through the gem store.

As for the thousands of Magdaer/Sohothin replicas: I am in fact surprised that it doesn’t bother me. I think it may be because of the quite compelling piece of lore that’s been written about the swords (and their surroundings). They have existed for over 1000 years, which both makes the “replica story” more believable, and less damaging.
The fact that the replicas were there from the very start also helps I think. We’re first learned to accept Fiery Greatswords as a very common sight. Then the veil is uncovered and we’re given this magical story of “the true source”.

I don’t think that the story will work the same way if you tell it the other way around. Caladbolg is way too fresh from the tree yet to have the lore dept required to balance out hundreds of replicas. I’m afraid it will feel like a total sell-out, and damage the story potential of Caladbolg.

Don’t know if any of that makes sense to you. Every story can be great if told correctly. I just think gem store Caladbolgs would be a very hard story to tell at all.

Don’t know if magic can be fully “destroyed” or not. Maybe “destroyed” simply means the magic leaving the living creatures of Tyria and into the earth itself. Anyways:

The Apostate

Should the energies become imbalanced, the world will tilt and all beings will fall off it into the void.

Ogden Stonehealer

There are varied theories on what it means, but I believe it refers to the natural balance of magic. Too much magic, and the world spins out of control. Too little, and it crumbles into darkness. The last time the Elder Dragons awoke, they wiped out almost every intelligent race on the planet. It is from this low-magic environment that the gods built the world as they wanted it. They are the ones who brought humans to Tyria. The gods shared the magic stored in the Bloodstone. That is a complex tale for another time.

Something akin to “The world of Ice and Fire” compendium? …which was a collaboration work between George R. R. Martin and two of his most prominent wiki geeks.

Yeah, I’d definately buy (work on) it!

BrunoBRS.5178:

i find the “weak willed sylvari are corruptible” thing to be rather, well, weak, as an explanation.

we do know (or at the very least, it’s very heavily implied) that mordremoth’s corrupting powers are stronger the closer you get to the source (aka him).

Well, maybe not. Proximity does seem like the most important factor for Zhaitan and Jormag. Zhaitan corrupted mainly Orrians in Orr. Jormag corrupts norns, mainly norns that actually heads out to attack him.
But, Primordus doesn’t corrupt existing mammals at all, instead he creates his own minions. Bubbles’ corruption may function similarily.

In other words: their ways of corruption isn’t necessarily the same.

If you take into consideration Mordremoth’s “spheres of influence” which is plants and mind: maybe his corruption relies more heavily on the strength of his subjects’ mind – instead of just proximity.
He seem to have a much broader presence in the world than the other dragons. While Zhaitan had to physically move his troops around, Mordy was able to incluence the flora and create minions far far away during season 2. I think that may support the theory of him relying less on proximity than the others (though I presume proximity still matter at least to some degree).

Koviko.3248:

On a side note, I added this dialogue to the wiki as it wasn’t there, but I’m not sure that I formatted it correctly… If anyone could fix the formatting or confirm that it’s fine as-is, I’d appreciate it.

Thanks for adding that dialogue Koviko! I did a formatting brush-up of the entire section. If you’re interested, you’ll find the guidelines here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/GW2W:DIALOGUE#Dialogue

BrunoBRS.5178:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

If Trahearne dies, I hope we can atleast loot his sword Saladbowl Caladbolg.

if caladbolg isn’t the new legendary GS, i’ll be disappointed.

Please keep some weapons unique. If it plays an important and unique overarching role in lore, I think it should be kept that way. If “everyone” starts running around with Caladbolg copies, it really undermines its presence in the storyline.

(P.S. I’m ok with having Belinda’s GS, Braham’s armor etc. available in the gem store. Those items doesn’t play a central role in the story, at least not in the same way. Caladbolg is more of a character of its own. When I think about it though – strangely enough – Magdaer and Sohotin feels really legendary to me in spite of all the copies in gw1. :S)

The map is quite possibly (as Konig did state in his first two posts) a combination of both past Foefire, the present and the future.

GW1 Manuscripts

The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future.

You shouldn’t think of The Mists (EoTM, WvW, etc.) like a real physical location. More like a complex memory of everything existing in the universe.

Guild Wars 1 Manuscripts

Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place.

Lore interview with Jeff Grubb

Jeff Grubb: The Mists are the building blocks of reality, the proto-reality that exists between the worlds*. It is where we find afterlifes and the homes of the various gods and other powerful entities. The Mists also resonate from the worlds around them, such that they form bits of their own reality – islands of existence that reflect the histories of their worlds.

Rahkylus.8097:

Anyway, if I end up buying I was thinking of the trilogy and later when i have done most things i want to, i buy the EotN (no complete collection available for me, and no money to buy all at once :C ).

Yeah, sadly there’s no complete collection available at gw.com. For those interested in gw1: you should buy the whole trilogy (definately worth it) http://store.guildwars.com/store/gw/en_IE/pd/productID.305600100

Obviously, if you’re able to try it out first (through a friend or something) that’d be the best, as it is quite a different game than gw2. EotN is, as has been mentioned in this thread, primarily a filler between gw1 and gw2. Though I think it is a great expansion, it’s probably the least interesting part of the game story-wise.

WoodenPotatoes has said that he want to do a story recap of both Season 1 and 2 before HoT comes out. That type of thing seem to be what you’re looking for Koviko. Might have to wait a bit though.

Don’t know if you’ve fully explored the Catacombs Koviko? Definately worth checking out before you proceed to post-Searing
Not much lore related info you can draw from it, but there sure are some beautiful sights down there.

Koviko.3248:

Its possible that Sharks in GW2 aren’t bloodthirsty, as they are in real-life. They may just be territorial like every other red-named mob.

Nah. Don’t think it has anything to do with them not being bloodthirsty.
What do you do after having had a big steak for dinner – you reach for the toothpicks, don’t you?

Koviko.3248:

As much as I’d love to see some leisurely travel methods, they don’t really make much sense in the lore. The entrepreneurs of the universe seem much more interested in the cheapest or fastest way to get things done.

Actually Koviko, some sort of public transport system would kinda make sense (at least some sense) lore-wise.
The asura gates doesn’t make much sense either to us “rich important players”, but it has a purpose in lore. The Waypoint system is not something a lot of persons have access to (or can afford), instead the asura gates would be the main means of travel. That’s also why we have escort events, since the “normal” population wouldn’t be able just to jump from one WP to another.

Didn’t mean to say you were wrong or anything Erukk, just backing up your statements with sources
As for the symbolism; yes, it could mean a lot of things. Btw @Fracking: You could check out WoodenPotatoes’ analysis of that cinematic for some interesting (and wild) theories.

The realms, the Gods, the Elder Dragons, the Eternal Alchemy, the small orbs we actually interact with in-game through the PS, corruption, magic balance (“Should the energies become imbalanced, the world will tilt and all beings will fall off it into the void.”). There’s a lot of intervening elements, and it’s impossible to make out all the possible combinations.

“The map of the All” strongly suggest that it’s showing quite much more to it than dragons flying around Tyria.

There’s a lot of tracks for mine carts actually. The Prosperity Mine has some too.
There were a lot more back in GW1; mainly in the Shiverpeaks where the Stone Summit held place. Iron Mines, and A LOT inside and outside Sorrow’s Furnace.

Still is a lot of mine tracks in that area in GW2 also if I remember correctly. And in the Grawl Fractals. Well, yeah, everywhere basically :P

Edit: remembered one more, close to the Skill Point with the waterfall and the spider queen (think it is in Gandarran Fields, might be the one you were referring to Diovid).

After giving it some second thought, neither do I.

A red post saying: “only years are synced through the in-game storyline, days are not” would be appreciated though. And having actual dates being mentioned in the Story Journal – to give players some time perspective – would be a big bonus.

Sarisa.4731:

It’ll probably take 40-70 hours of play to get through the three campaigns and the Eye of the North story. It’ll probably take 300-500 hours of play to get 30 Hall of Monument points without help (less if you have friends/guildmates who can give you stuff).

GWAMM!
“Do, or do not. There is no try!” ~ Prince Rurik

Tachenon.5270:

And another thing! I was playing one of my sylvari last night, and after several underwater encounters, began to wonder why sharks would bother with attacking sylvari at all. Perhaps a quick nip, due to the sylvari’s potentially enticing movements, but after that?

Hahaha! I’ll be sure to add that one to our wiki Lore discrepancies list! :’D

That’s not a “general consensus”. The six orbiting bodies were confirmed to be the Elder Dragons already at the end of S2E2 (see story journal after the cinematic).

Furthermore, in S2E5:

Historian during Hidden Arcana

Shh. What do you need? Are you lost?

No. I have a question about the ceiling. What is that image?
That’s a map of the All. I like to think of them as spirit realms. That’s Tyria in the middle. All those other circles are spheres of influence and powerful magic.

What about the letters? Are those…
Yeah. First letter of each dragon’s name.

Who’s S?
Don’t know any more than that. That was all they could get from the Tome of the Five True Gods. It’s too damaged. Some of these scholars in here would kill to know the full name of that dragon.

Is it the deep sea dragon?
They think so. Me, I think they probably got the letter wrong, but who knows. They’re still translating and trying to fill in lost pieces.

Interesting. Thanks.

So that’s pretty much as canon as it gets. The one crashing into the center is Zhaitan, but the middle is Tyria – not the Pale Tree.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

All they really needed to do was make mordrem more different than other dragon minions, and more similar to sylvari, in all honesty.

Wouldn’t that remove the whole mystery though. Part of the “great epic reveal” is that people like you Konig have been arguing against the theory. If no one had been arguing against the theory, the whole plot would just feel very uninterestiny.
It would no longer be a mystery.

It’s weird, I agree with you that they might have tried a little bit too hard making them not appear as ‘obvious’ dragon minions. At the same time, I feel they’ve also tried too hard making them look like minions (there are just soooo many references to the fight between dream and nightmare and who’s right about “the true nature of the Sylvari”. Littered all over the Sylvari PS.).

That might also be the reason there’s so many things not making sense. When you have such a very strong case on one side, instead of reducing that side’s arguments, I guess you start overcompensating the other side with differences and uniquenesses (e.g. they can’t look or act anything like normal minions – because the sum would then just make it very obvious).

So yeah, maybe they’ve just been trying a little bit too hard – on both sides?