Guild Wars 2

This is mechanical only. The moon and sun set in the same direction they rise. They don’t revolve but go up and down. Again, mechanics. It isn’t lore.

In the very first lore of Guild Wars, titled History of Tyria, we were told they made the world and in Prophecies we hear that human legend says it was the first world made. In the lead up to GW2, we learned this isn’t true and that the world existed before the Six Gods, including the Elder Dragons, mursaat, and seers, and that humanity was brought from elsewhere. Go into GW2 and we now have the Forgotten predating the gods on Tyria, when we were originally told they were brought to the world by the Six. Furthermore, they did not make magic nor the Bloodstone, but “found” it and released magic.

Almost everything beyond the whole “they are divine” claims has been changed. Creation to terraforming, making magic to releasing it. Hell, they didn’t even know of the Elder Dragons which they tapped into for power.

Jeff Grubb once said that “dragons are power” and that the Elder Dragons are draconic because they are so powerful. Dunno how literal that is meant to be but I do not think that there is really any reason to believe their bodies are not their own original bodies. If your theory was right, then they should be capable of shifting bodies and thus wouldn’t hibernate and awake but just move from body to body.

As to the comment of dragon shaped minions and all non-dragon minions looking like their original just afflicted… False. Some of the more powerful minions take on a more draconic appearance because of such – per the Art of Guild Wars 2 and in-game depictions. Particularly you have Risen Knights whom were humans but now have a draconic appearance. There’s also how the Mouths and Eyes of Zhaitan look so inhumane and so forth. The larger Icebrood Norn and the Icebrood Colossus as well are not like their original selves.

Honestly, only Glint, the Claws of Jormag, and Zhaitan’s dragons have a chance of having been dragons pre-corruption, but the chances of such is rather slim truth be told – the only thing of the Claw of Jormag which is seen to be corrupted “living being” is the legs which doesn’t say much. It isn’t impossible, especially if you take into account Bone Dragons who’s origins are unknown from gw1. But so far it’s not very supported since we have no clue was Glint was before hand and we have seen all three corrupted living creatures minions that we can easily say “they could be something other than a dragon”. Abominations could be the same process that Tequatl etc. are made.

Jotun records make mention or multiple ED rises in their creation myths. This means an absolute minimum of being around for 30,000 years as their cycles seem to take 10,000 years per. But it’s most likely more than that. However, the developers don’t answer from an in-universe perspective so the only solutions are “they were born on Tyria” or “they arrived when Tyria formed” unless they want to retcon themselves.

As to Glint – keep in mind each dragon has dragon-shaped dragon champions. When I said risen dragons I did not mean mouths of zhaitan but Tequatl and co. Claw of Jormag is bones and ice so they’re questionable to have once been dragons and the Shatterers are rock and air. It should be noted.that Gkint’s body is made of crystal so we have no means of knowing that she was originally draconic. She could have been a drake or something such.

Edritch abomination would probably far more accurate because the way you worded it made it sound like you were theorizing that the Elder Dragons are creatures more akin to alien incorporeal parasites that made bodies of an ancient draconic race. At least that’s how I read it.

Either way, all evidence tells us that the Elder Dragons are fully Tyrian in nature. Jormag is the one and only Elder Dragon to have influence in the Mists, and only thanks to the Sons of Svanir.

Rednik.3809:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

As to who’d be a Khan-Ur… by tradition, only one of the first (and only true) Khan-Ur’s descendants can be Imperators and, by extension, the Primus Imperator (aka Khan-Ur). Unless Rytlock has a heritage we don’t know about, or he breaks from the old traditions (something Smodur wouldn’t disapprove of by all indications), he cannot be Khan-Ur.

We have zero information about Rytlock heritage, but given charr reproductive habits (litters and multiple pregnancies during lifetime) and social traditions (your heritage means almost nothing in terms of career) i don’t think that Khan-Ur blood is rare among charr.

Mind linking the litters bit because I’ve only seen mention of single child births, such as The Legions of the Charr blog post (on gw2w), not litters.

Two things: Zhaitan’s body has the appearance of being made of multiple dragons – never said to be dead either. Glint was just like any dragon minion, something supposedly once living that got turned into a dragon champion. Like the risen dragons.

Given that we were told many times that the Elder Dragons have “always been on Tyria” throughout dozens upon dozens of interviews with ANet before release, they didn’t come from another dimension or world or the like. So I doubt they are parasites. An interesting thought but would require more lore bending than the krait working for Scarlet.

While the wiki is the best source, it still has a good deal of false or missing information. GWW has articles that are full and up-to-date as of GW1’s perspective of lore (some articles also including GW2’s perspective, but those are rare and few). Keep in mind that some things from GW1 has been proven “false legends” by GW2. GW2W is as said, lacking in lore articles, both quality and quantity but it’s steadily improving, slowly, but the blog posts that were put up are worth reading.

A word of the wise: WoodenPotatoes videos (especially the discussion videos rather than the ones animated with unique art) are not the best source. In fact, I’d hardly call them a source at all. They’re a decent introduction and people (not me) seem to like his voice, but he mixes and melds theories and speculations with fact quite often (especially in his old videos at least), without any real differentiating of them in any way or form. And on top of that, I’ve seen something said completely wrong in almost every video of his I’ve watched – minor or major. They’re good, but not something to rely on solely.

Some links:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:History_of_Tyria
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Tales
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Timeline
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_Story_summary

There are other articles, but they’re probably best read at a personal interest search or the like.

CHIPS.6018:

Whoa whoa whoa hold on a second. So you do not care who made that big freaking tree and who made that hybrid? You think this is a part of your so-called “every little detail”? You think that this major plot hole should be up to audience to guess? (I mean let’s get real. Everyone here are just guessing, including me.)

That is not what I said at all. I’m talking about explaining why there are so few allied NPCs – Pact or otherwise – versus the numbers of enemy forces. That is among the “every little detail”. The Hybrid is something is expect to be among the “explained only if it won’t be touched in the future” category – if there’s no intention of going into it, then explain, otherwise leave open handed so that players have something major to speculate about. Like “what exactly are the titans?” Which got theorized about a lot before Nightfall. How interesting would the lore be if everything big and small is explained like you’re saying, intentionally or not, in each of your posts.

CHIPS.6018:

Konig I really respect you. You are probably the top lore guy around here. But think again of what you just said. You basically just said “I don’t care about missing important details. I am willing to guess the plot to make it work.” (And yes you are just guessing, just like I am. Let’s get real.)

No, that is not what I said. Try taking what you quoted from me in context to the selected quote I was responding to. Don’t you dare try to twist my words if you don’t care about the Scarlet plot like you claim (you make a very convincing case otherwise which just makes those who “actually” care about the plot and want it improved rather than just ended poorly a bad name). I do care about missing details, but I won’t kitten and moan over the obviously mechanical things like NPC numbers and I don’t want every important detail spelled out because I, like many in the lore community enjoy speculating. It’s probably the most fascinating part of the lore and the story – trying to figure out the missing pieces and where the story will go!

So in a way you’re right, but you’re also terribly wrong in what I said. Because I want eventual explanation of major details, not your immediate explanation of everything.

CHIPS.6018:

Don’t shoot the messenger. You and I both know major plot holes like this cannot be up to the audience to guess.

I’ll gladly shoot the messenger when it is the messenger who’s making the message. But you and I disagree. The major details are often the most fascinating to speculate about. For example: Scepter of Orr, Livia, pre-reveal Scarlet, Dhuum and Menzies, the nature of the sylvari, Elder Dragons, and Six Gods, where humanity came from. These and so many more are often THE most discussed topics on the lore forum, and they are all overall far more important than some krait-shaped sylvsrian plant.

CHIPS.6018:

And Scarlet isn’t the only problem. It includes Zhaitan, Trahearne and others. I see a lack of details, character development and plot (and other problems I am too lazy to list right now) over and over again.

Character development is far from the same thing as plot holes. I agree with character development. I disagree with your so-called plot holes so long as they are explained eventually.

I also agree on the schedule not working. But your complaint of things like the Pact or not being explicitly told who made the Hybrid? Not nearly as important of an issue. What exactly the hybrid is, is infinitely more important than “who among the Toxic Alliance made it” because we know it was the Toxic Alliance. It’s like complaining we don’t know who specifically grafted the Molten Berserker’s cybornetics on. Irrelevant. You only complain about it because it “makes Scarlet more of a Villain Sue” because you, without evidence, claimed she did it.

CHIPS.6018:

That’s my question: Who did it? You said all NC soldiers are biologists, and so by extension all Sylvari are biologists capable of creating that hybrid. I know for a fact that is false. I have a level 30 Sylvari warrior, and from her story so far there is a 0% chance that she can create that hybrid. She can barely grow an apple tree. She is that bad at biology.

I never said any sylvari can make the Hybrid. Know why? Not every sylvari has a tree like the Toxic Alliance does.

CHIPS.6018:

But those invasions did get them all killed. We players are more dangerous than Scarlet. So that “scared of Scarlet” argument is very weak as a reason to fight.

You. Aren’t. kittening. Listening. I’m saying that those numbers that you see is not accurate compared to the numbers in the lore. On both the sides of allies and that of enemies to the player.

CHIPS.6018:

You mean those Flame Legion Igniters? I am under the impression that their “flame throwers” are magical enhancements, based on how they look. It does not look technological at all.

If they were magic, there would be no need for a gun let alone a backpack. It is likely magitech. Nonetheless, the Flame Legion has never been a “no technology all magic” legion. Hell, they recruit from the other legions including Iron!

CHIPS.6018:

Konig of course I know Pact have an army somewhere. But we never see them do anything. The players are doing all the work. It is actually fine if the Pact is recovering from Zhaitan and so cannot mobilize anyone. But if that’s the case, maybe they should have, by lore, made Scarlet into a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP instead of an ARMY OF THOUSANDS. It is the writer’s job to put things into prospective.

See response to second quote, verbatim repeated and amplified times 100.

CHIPS.6018:

Once again, this is only for the lore, not the game play mechanics. They CAN still swarm the players with thousand of mobs for game play purposes. That DOESN’T matter. But it would have been so much better if they stated in the lore that this is just a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP of a hundred or less. And so of course the Pact will not be involved. They do not have time to chase down every single small terrorist group around.

The Pact only involves itself with Elder Dragons. Not psychotic terrorists. They wouldn’t involve themselves unless, like Citadel of Flames, their involvement results in more resources to fight the dragons.

CHIPS.6018:

Gameplay and lore should always be separated. But Anet must state this. If Anet do not say anything, the players will assume what they see is what is the truth. They are indeed facing an army of thousands.

I disagree and think you have absolutely no sense of disbelief. ArenaNet doesn’t have to spell things out in order for us to figure kitten out ourselves. They shouldn’t have to explain every little detail.

CHIPS.6018:

If Anet wants to reduce the amount of criticism they receive, then they should spend MORE time working out the “tiny” details of the story. That 2 week release schedule is NOT going to work. Look at how lacking are the details that could make or break a story! That’s the main message I want to give to Chris Whiteside.

Then you’re going about it the wrong way. ArenaNet won’t pay attention to the posts that can and are pointed out to be stupid or poor by others who agree with this final paragraph. As draxynnic said in another thread, you’re making yourself into a strawman for others to use against the argument of needing better quality in the game and lore.

Indeed. The theory that she is from the future has been disproven. Though to note, WP was not the first to theorize such. He just did so when there was the most support for it, thus making him most credible in the theory, riiiiight before it got debunked.

Kralkatorrik, Primordus, Zhaitan, and Jormag all have records from the previous rise. The first via Glint and the others via dwarves. They are the same Elder Dragons – at least thosefour of the six known, and the last rise had six known by the jotun.

The Elder Dragons are called forces of nature in the concept that they are (until now) undefeated and unkillable. Furthermore, they are tied to elements of nature – fire, ice, water, elements, vegetation, and death as we have seen – as well as in at least one being capable of turning into a storm itself – Kralkatorrik turning into a sandstorm (and another making one – Jormag making a blizzard).

As for reasoning of awakening… I do not think that their purpose in living is to keep magic in check, but rather that they just happen to do so. In Sea of Sorrows, Whiting’s lines about Elder Dragons’ intention is to control the world, more or less, not to eventually go back to sleep.

@Aaron: Keep in mind that the Elder Dragons see time differently than we or normal Tyrians. What is a century to a creature that sleeps for 10,000 years? Kind of like the explanation for the Thorian’s view of time from Mass Effect. “10,000 years of hibernation for just a few frantic centuries of activity.”

Besides, Zhaitan had actually been expanding his territory since 10 or so years after rising. Lion’s Arch had kept them from expanding territory and until lately there’s been no life to assault on the eastern Tarnished Coast hence why those risen are new.

But as for intention… All minions give unique views that tend to share tendencies amongst their kind (risen, icebrood, etc.). Whether this is a view of the Elder Dragons’ intent, goals, or just simply the side effects of their own corruption is not clear. But there is a clear difference between mentalities.

The whole giving weapons did make my eyebrow raise. But! On your three points specifically.

1. Family heirloom weapons is not uncommon, they were likely such with fitting appearance being coincidence as well as the whole visual effect claim you made – it’s not like such are limited to legendaries and ascended fear after all. There are many exotics with visual effects and even some rare and fines!
2. “I have weapons, kept away at such and such. I’d like you to have them and take revenge for me with them.” You don’t need to hand something over to give them away. This argument holds no water whatsoever.
3. Go reread the story, mainly part 1. She knows his name from her orders with the Ministry Guard to find him and bring him in for questioning.

After that, I would argue that she likely summoned his spirit from the Mists later, something necromancers are known since gw1 to be quite capable of. Though it does take concentration and is risky as it draws other creatures from the Underworld.

Technically, we don’t really know the physics behind magic. The wiki article likes to claim we do but all we can say is that it is (the manipulation of) energy. This energy seems to permiate most at locations of great death and can be conductive in certain metals, water, and runes. Souls also seem to hold this or very similar energy. But it isn’t clear in it’s full what magic is – just where one may find it and that it is very hard to be rid of as well as some means of utilizing it.

On top of this, there are multiple kinds of magic, as said by Narcemus. Divine magic which the gods have, “normal magic” for lack of a better word which is standard magic in Tyria that the Elder Dragons circulate, and the magic which the Forgotten – and possibly the sylvari- have which is somehow untouchable by the Elder Dragons. At least those three given all indications.

The Mists is a multitude of things. In this sense, it is protomatter which itself becomes physical things. Even souls. Magic as far as we know can animate and manipulate physical matter but it does not make such.

The Mists protomatter might be capable of making magic, but it isn’t the same as it.

Obsidian… From the perspective of the characters, that (my example earlier) is what happens more or less. To them their history is one thing and is recorded as such (with view being that of the writers’ as it always is), and a thousand years later their records become something else almost entirely.

I doubt it was in the thousands. More likely (low) hundreds though we only saw some dozen NPCs there. I mean if it were thousands, then Divinity’s Reach would have a huge population vacancy after the Jubilee and such didn’t happen.

The Jubilee is the closest thing to success she’s had. But again, that is because the good guys were holding the idiot ball, as Drax likes to put it. She struck in a sudden attack. As I said, she only succeeds when her acts are unknown. Once we had a visible target to strike, Scarlet was down faster than than you can say “Abaddon will feast on your eyes!”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But anyway, back on topic, CHIPS does have a point that it is the writer’s responsibility to make us believe what they’re telling us. Saying that Scarlet is a brilliant master mind who graduated from every Asura college, is one thing. But you have to actually show us that she IS intelligent, and so far we haven’t seen any clever behavior. Sure, she has her alliances build fancy tech, but none of that makes us believe that her character is intelligent. A lot of the plot in fact implies poor planning, and poor reasoning for her crimes, and that contradicts any lore given in a fancy website story. A writer has to actually demonstrate that the character is intelligent, in order to make us believe it.

I don’t disagree with this. But the specifics of CHIPS’ arguments are just getting ridiculous and is now just “bash anything of Scarlet that isn’t shoved in my face!” His last post is literally just saying “if I don’t see it, it cannot happen.” He is basically asking for no room for speculation, for everything to be revealed already and all questions answered as we get those questions. It isn’t the writer’s job to explain why we don’t see an accurate population of a city that is more than likely to be hundreds of thousands, nor is it the writer’s job to leave no loose ends. In fact, a good writer leaves loose ends. But CHIPS complains about any loose end Scarlet has.

CHIPS.6018:

Until I see another biologist in that tower, I will have to assume Scarlet did it. I cannot conclude that some phantom biologist made that hybrid.

Every single Nightmare Courtier can be counted as a biologist by the same false requirements you’re listing Scarlet as one – as I have said many times now, plant based magic is a natural part of sylvari – in fact every single plant in the Toxic Alliance’s domain is just a slightly modified version of plants found in Twilight Arbor and other NC areas. Even the Toxic Stalks are variants of PBAoE plant poisoners.

CHIPS.6018:

Volatile to each other, yet their loyalty to Scarlet is absolute. That’s what puppets are for. They do exactly what Scarlet told them to do, time and time again. Can’t they think for themselves?

I would hardly call “working so you don’t get killed and do get paid” to be absolute loyalty to Scarlet. And that’s just the Aetherblades. Excluding the presence in invasion events in which the canonicity is questionable due to mechanics, we have never seen the Molten Alliance interacting about Scarlet – sans a prisoner who spires Scarlet and his leaders since it just led to another defeat. I hardly call that absolute as well.

The Toxic Alliance were the most dedicated to Scarlet – and that’s likely because they hadn’t failed yet like the Molten Alliance.

CHIPS.6018:

I already talked about how I hate the idea of the Molten Alliance. How the “all magic, no technology” Flame Legion would team up with the “xenophobic, self-reliant” Dredge. I won’t repeat myself.

And I’ve already explained how they would. The Flame Legion, btw, is far from no technology. They use kittening FLAME THROWERS for Christ’s sake. That’s tech and before the Molten Alliance! You have some skewed version of canon which is making your arguments sound like a pouting child.

CHIPS.6018:

When you talk about game mechanics, it is still the writer’s responsibility to help the players keep things in prospective. The way I see it, the MA outnumber the Pact a hundred times over. The Pact is useless and never does anything, and they are lead by a useless leader called Trahearne.

Then the way you see it is not the canon lore. Plain and simple. Besides, we never see the full resources of the Pact. And they’re still recovering from the fight with Zhaitan which out a big toll on their resources – sadly, stated in an interview.

CHIPS.6018:

Obvious I am wrong. But it is the writer’s job to convince me. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom Pact army that we never saw in the game. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom intelligent that Trahearne is supposed to have but we never see in the game.

good luck showing all members of the pact in game. Same reason why you don’t see cities and outposts as full as real cities and outposts are. It just puts too much stress on computers. Enemies get larger numbers just for the sake of giving players enemies to kill. This is present in every game in the history of games that feature enemies to fight.

[/quote]

Necromancers are known to converse with spirits – more so than any other profession at least. Exception being within Cantha, as it is a cultural role of necromancers in Tyria and Elona to do the cultural role of ritualists (conversing, easing, and guiding the spirits of the dead to the Mists), while Canthan necromancers’ cultural role is to maintain balance between life and death – which tends to make Canthan necromancers darker than non-Canthan necromancers (whom incidentally also do a combined form of the assassin’s and Canthan necromancers’ cultural role – he former are to balance society – Tyrian and Elonian necromancers have mentions of keeping good and evil forces in balance, which in turn balances the living and the dead).

Beyond this there is no mention or indication of non-mesmers having any form of special communication abilities.

We know that they can communicate with one-way telepathy on a general scale. But as Aaron said, exceptionally powerful mesmers are known to have entered a willing particpant’s mind and witnessed their memories. It should be noted that Faolain did not relive Caithe’s memory – that was more of a flashback sequence to “shoehorn” (kinda sorta) Faolain into those past moments revealing that she’s been following Caithe the entire time. Jennah and Anise are exceptionally powerful mesmers, so just because they can do it doesn’t mean any mesmer can. And Snaff isn’t outright a mesmer, and utilized gemstones in order to enter Kralkatorrik’s mind forcefully (and with great mental effort too), so he isn’t a case to use as standard – or even exceptional, for that matter, since Jennah and Anise combined got pushed out immediately.

Based on Edge of Destiny, it seems likely that mesmers would need a willing participant to read minds – otherwise they’d be forced out or have to trick their way in. But again, this is with exceptional mesmers and the “forced out” is with a beyond exceptional subject.

Here’s the situation:

The Thorn Wolves are caused by the Nightmare Court – according to Caithe at least. It’s a reaction within the Dream of Dreams to their reaction. the Shadow of the Dragon being hostile is likely to be such as well. The dragon itself though is like the emblem you can see on the waterfall at the very beginning which marks your first chapter’s story (which is your first of two Wyld Hunts) – per the Pale Tree and Caithe.

@Stephen: It’s not clear as to what Faolain witnessed to fall to nightmare, just that it was in Orr (though this may have changed since I believe it was said in a pre-release interview but never mentioned in-game, iirc – in-game it’s only said that she fell to Nightmare before Cadeyrn plunged her fully into Nightmare and into the Nightmare Court). Caithe actually says that only she and Trahearne saw Zhaitan and lived to tell the tale. Faolain did not see Zhaitan.

Dondagora.9645:

First, has anyone thought that the Pale Tree is currently the vessel of the god Melandru? […] This could explain how the Pale Tree is connected to the Mists and how sylvari are connected to it. Also, the appearance of the Tree’s avatar is pretty spot-on with Melandru’s, and it might also explain why the Dragons’ corruptions don’t touch the sylvari.

Yes, it has been theorized but apparently the uncountered concept of the Pale Tree being related to a god is not as interesting as the highly-countered concept of the Pale Tree being a dragon minion. Though on a side, I suppose the existence of a second “pale tree” and of the Tower of Nightmares being a possible third unmatured one counters the notion.

Nothing says that the Pale Tree is connected to the Mists. This is a theory I had presented – and you’re not the first to claim it as a fact recently – specifically the theory is that the Dream of Dreams is a part of the Mists, due to all the similarities there are between the two. But it’s still just a theory.

The Avatar of the Pale Tree is actually very different from the various interpretations of Melandru, even that of Malchor’s statue. Hair style differs greatly, for example, and Melandru is depicted with wings. Not seeing how the dragon corruption immunity falls into place, given the high priests’, statues’, and bloodstones’ corruption.

Dondagora.9645:

I’m also skeptical of another Pale Tree, though I’m still open to it. Malyck’s “Tree” doesn’t have the dream, or he’s too far away to get a signal, or he’s disconnected altogether, however he apparently has some significance to our own tree and is somehow touching the Dream. He is called the “Harbinger” and the “Seed”, something Ronan knew but never told, and was mentioned next to some stuff with a cave/root.

My thoughts are that Malyck isn’t a new sylvari born of the Pale Tree, but the sylvari who gave birth to the Pale Tree. Either being an old friend of the Ronan who was met in a cave, or possibly accidentally killed by Ronan, Ronan then buried Malyck near his own family’s graves. The reason he’s something “Ronan… never told” is because Ronan was either deeply saddened by his death or ashamed that he caused it. Malyck became the seed of the Pale Tree and became what it is today, but through the Pale Tree Malyck may have revived through a pod. What Malyck is “missing”, that feeling of emptiness, may just be his memories from before reviving. As for the Dream, he had none because he was above it. Given the Melandru theory, he was born before the Dream was created, as the Dream touches sylvari before birth. Malyck, as a name, also means things like “Angel, Messenger, King”, meaning he could be the “King of Sylvari”, or at least until Melandru kicked him. Anyway, this would explain the cryptic message from that Amaranda the Lonesome gave when trying to touch into Malyck’s Dream[below]. He would also be the “Harbinger of Sylvari”, which could be why the Nightmare refer to him as such, instead of the misconception of him being the “Harbinger of a Nightmare Tree”.

“A distant shore… And darkness. A root. A cave. You. You are the seed. What Ronan knew but never told still lingers in the dream.”

Thoughts?

An interesting hypothesis, but you’re misinterpreting why he’s a Harbinger. And you’re forgetting something that utterly debunks your thought process. Before that though:

I think “what Ronan knew but never told” is in reference to the location of the cave. It has been lost after Ronan left it, as he never revealed its location just that it existed and he got a fist-sized seed from there. In turn, the whole phrase means that the location of the cave lingers in the Dream of Dreams.

Now to backtrack: Malyck is a Harbinger only to the Nightmare Court. That is a title given by the Knight of Embers who’s Dark Hynt was to find Malyck. He is a harbinger because his existence proves that the Nightmare Court doesn’t need the Pale Tree to become their so-called “true selves.” He is the harbinger of the true sylvari, that is to say. The coming and example of a sylvari uninfluenced by the Dream and by extension, Ventari’s tablets. The meaning of his name likely goes to this: he is a messenger of sorts, relaying the message that more sylvari exist out there and that he is what a “true sylvari” is like.

What you’re forgetting is his pod and the river. He awoke from a pod just like any other sylvari, and did so only weeks prior to meeting him in the personal story. His pod got to where it was via the river. And that river does not pass by the Pale Tree at all.

She (it was a she right? thought it was a female voice) probably went to help save prisoners from the Tower.

Scarlet is more like the “Abaddon of the Living Story” – but that’s a rather poor way to put things. You have to keep in mind t hat even if you combine all living story plots together, you hardly get a full game story out of them. Especially if you take out the non-Scarlet updates (Tequatl, SAB, Secret/Last Stand at Southsun, Halloweens, Wintersdays, Lost Shores, Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics – which is at least a good third of the updates). She would be more on par to Shiro – just simply a big bad who’s behind a lot of grunt forces (the alliances). Scarlet has yet to really be shown to be behind any of the personal story or non-LS open world events. Except for being the scapegoat that Teyo used to obtain at least the weather changing device – and that Scarlet knows about the Chapter 2 PS events (some of them – and this is assuming her lines weren’t the PC’s hallucinations).

This said, the chances of Scarlet’s involvement with the Thaumanova Fractal is, IMO, 50/50. The only thing that makes her likely to be involved is how she’s behind all of the LS stuff, which would provide incentive for Kiel to (resume) go(ing) after Scarlet. Secondly, she is former Inquest, though I think the reactor exploded after her time among them.

@FlamingFoxx: Sure there’s a chance, but there’s also a chance you’ll find a skritt made out of ice that’s on fire but not melting. Anything can happen in the Mists, literally. But the chances of such a specific thing happening are infinitely small when compared to infinite possibilities. Also, as far as we know Scarlet has not gone into the Mists at all – don’t know where you got such, but she is fully a Tyrian threat.

acedragonz.9387:

In the Skritt sympathy Story, after you round up a couple of Skritt, their speaking abilities actually seem to improve (Grammar, etc.). Wouldn’t that imply that they actually get smarter?

Beyond what Dustfinger said, I view it as the skritt’s discussing amongst each other the “proper way” to speak to other races. They speak to each other in chirp sounds, they don’t usually use the shared language of Tyria.

Think of it like people who are not native English speakers talking to others in their native tongue to discuss the proper English grammar – and just view this native language to be an extremely fast speaking language.

They don’t become smarter – no more than you and I would by conversing with people if we all talked really fast – but they seem like they become smarter, by knowing how to properly talk and being able to discuss amongst themselves more.

CHIPS.6018:

4) she’s arrogant as hell – When has her arrogance led DIRECTLY to her failure? So far all her failures are failures of her “useless” underlings and puppets. When her 100 minions cannot kill a party of 5 players, it isn’t really her fault.

Scarlet’s Funhouse. The one and only time we fought her directly, she treated it as a joke because she is that kitten ed arrogant.

CHIPS.6018:

You have to keep things in prospective. For example, Scarlet is MUCH BETTER prepared than the Pact. When is the last time we the players got direct support from the Pact throughout a mission? Never. That last minute airship raid when we the players already did ALL the work doesn’t count. I mean come on the Pact knew about Scarlet. They should have thousands of men on standby, ready to act. But nope they got no one. They just rely on the players because we are so powerful. Who is more arrogant? Scarlet or the Pact?

Funny words coming from you. You have to keep things in prospective too. If the Pact did as much as they are capable of in lore and story, then there’d be nothing for the players to truly do. It’d be a case of Tyrael in Diablo 3 – you can just go afk and let the Pact do all the work.

And nothing says the Pact knew about Scarlet. I’m guessing that you get this from the fact that the Aetherblades – whom weren’t known to be with Scarlet until the Jubilee – had stolen airships from the Pact? Like I said, nothing had linked the Aetherblades to Scarlet until months after they had already modified those stolen airships.

CHIPS.6018:

She cannot be arrogant […]

The entire idea behind Scarlet’s personality is that she’s egotistical and narcesistic. She’s always thought herself better than anyone else, and her belief that she saw the Eternal Alchemy has led her to believe that the only threat to her is the Elder Dragons, and that’s just a possible threat. She honestly believes she can go and take on an Elder Dragon and only have a chance of losing.

CHIPS.6018:

Durzlla.6295:

Please list everything scarlet is good at, I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.

So what else has she done? Because most of the stuff happening isn’t even scarlet but are her allies, which you CONSTANTLY confuse for being her.

Counter question: What isn’t Scarlet good at? Make me a list of her flaws.

She’s bad at having the alliances’ plans succeed.
She’s bad at pro wrestling.
She’s bad at acting.
She’s bad at fighting.
She’s bad with her aim (shoots at queen, hits the bottom of the ledge she’s on) despite training with rifles.
She’s bad at being cute, despite her attempts.
She’s probably got bad breath too.

The list goes on.

Chips, I seriously think you’re over-reacting. I’m no fan of Scarlet, but she’s far from this perfect Brainiac-level intelligent being you’re claiming her to be.

CHIPS.6018:

1) totally reliant on her technology – Nope. She just demonstrated her knowledge in biology and genetic modification though that Krait/Sylvari hybrid. She knows much more than just engineering and technology. Who knows what else she know.

You mean she demonstrated the Nightmare Court’s knowledge in plant magic.

As I said in the other thread, there’s nothing to actually say or even imply she had any direct control over the Hyrbid’s creation beyond overseeing. If you can prove me wrong with a factual source, feel free to.

CHIPS.6018:

2) her alliances are all extremely volatile – Now you are just making stuff up. Did you ever hear any of those mobs saying they hate Scarlet behind her back? Gets your facts straight. Some players WISHED that the alliances would hate Scarlet and betray her. It DIDN’T actually happen.

You’re joking right?

They’re volatile to each other. The entire investigation into the Molten Alliance was about how much they hate each other, yet despite this they work with each other. Did you even do the Whispers’ dead drops assignment during Flame and Frost: The Razing? If you did, you’d know that half of them talked about how they bickered with each other. GIve this a read through.

CHIPS.6018:

The players kill thousands of Aetherblade and MA members every day during those invasions. And yet they kept charging the player’s trenches to their certain death. If this doesn’t show absolute loyalty and discipline, I don’t know what else will.

That’s mechanics, buddy. Or do you honestly believe that there are millions upon millions of dredge, Flame Legion, krait, Nightmare Courtiers, etc. individually? Keep in mind that the whole of the Nightmare Court is about 10% of the sylvari population, and though they’re being born fast they’re only 24 years old now. And the Toxic Alliance’s courtiers are just a splinter factions of the Nightmare Court. You gotta keep in mind that ArenaNet needs a lot of mobs in even a single server so that players don’t wind up in empty foe-less areas.

CHIPS.6018:

3) her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed – You have to understanding that 5 minutes of game play is NOT 5 minute in the world. For example the Nightmare Within can be done in an hour. But in the story, that siege could have taken months.

He was more than likely exaggerating. But her plans only have effectiveness when we (the good guys) don’t know about them.

They’re so easily countered by the good guys that they cannot even be called proper villainous plans. Scarlet’s greatest weapon is secrecy. Something she doesn’t realize.

“They belonged to a hero who earned all these relics during their life. I’ve waited centuries for someone to come who embodies the same heroism. You are that person. I give it all to you.”

This is what was said. “someone who embodies the same heroism” – that’s far from the same soul or the like. It just means he was waiting for a great hero to show.

CHIPS.6018:

You have to keep in mind that the core problem here is the Mary Sue-ness of Scarlet. I mean yes Scarlet picked up a bunch of knowledge from many different people. However the problem is she excels in ALL of them. She can make high tech gadgets and BOWs at the same time. And her story isn’t over yet, so she can still do more.

Think about it this way. Let’s say there are 5 people with 5 different skills and abilities. They each spent years (e.g. 20+ years) to master their work.

Scarlet went to all 5 of them one by one. She master all their act in a year or less, and then left. A few years later, she returned and has exceeded all 5 of her masters in all their skills and abilities. Not only exceeded. She raised the bar to an outer space kind of level.

5 master X 20 years = 100 years of combined knowledge. Scarlet mastered all of that in 5 years, and then went beyond them. She is literally more than 20 times smarter than all of her 5 masters.

Is this kind of story possible? Yes. But it becomes a Mary Sue story, a character that’s good in absolute everything and has no weakness.

I would like to note:

• Scarlet did not master the crafts. She obtained an intermediate understanding of them.
• Some crafts she was with for “months” to learn, others took years. The charr sniper, for example, she was with for two years. Beigarth she was with for a winter. But none of them she actually mastered.
• She still hasn’t exceeded the masters. Unless you mean “exceed in terms of terrorism” because then yeah, she has. Let’s face it, none of Scarlet’s ploys work when we figure them out. Scarlet’s strongest weapon is secrecy, and that’s now out the window after the first 10 minutes usually. Her second strongest weapon is her alliance making, who does all these feats of magic and engineering we’re seeing. The only threat that we’ve seen which Scarlet did herself… was Queen’s Jubilee and the hijacking of the Watchknights into those Twisted Watchwork creatures.

So you can actually argue that Scarlet does, indeed, hold a weakness. That weakness is that none of her plans actually succeed. For all her knowledge and ability to learn and understand better than others, she cannot make things work all the way through. The issue with it reducing this as a potential weakness is the fact that she doesn’t care – and given this latest update, it seems to be due to the fact that Scarlet’s not after the alliance’s goals, she’s after something that they make to reach their own goals. Scarlet sets up her alliances in order to obtain their means, not their ends.

CHIPS.6018:

1) But this isn’t plant magic. Plant magic is summoning plants to fight for you. What we are seeing here is something on a totally different level on complexity. Have we seen any other Sylvari putting other races into plants and then changing them into something more powerful? Nope. So yes it does demonstrate that Scarlet is the best biologist in Kryta.

I would also tend to think that those “plant magic” are the Sylvari’s race ability. So they are closer to Sylvari’s natural biology than magic.

2) Yes Scarlet didn’t construct that huge tower by herself. The NC and the Kraits must have built it. Scarlet probably did have a lot of inputs in its design. But since scarlet is an engineer, this isn’t my beef right now. My beef is with her suddenly knowledge in biology.

Scarlet: “If you want your prophets back, I can help with that. I also have the shards.” (from devs) So the hybrid is, indeed, a creation of Scarlet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh97jGEGA7g#t=50m10s

3) Watch the way the hybrid fights. It is all physical attacks. It did summon plants, but that is just Sylvari’s natural biology (This further demonstrates that the hybrid is a Krait+Sylvari hybrid). There is no magic involved. The hybrid did evolve, but that’s part of the Krait’s biology. So the hybrid is much closer to a Bio-Organic-Weapon (BOW) than Bio-Magical-Weapon (BMW) (pun intended). Baelfire (the Flame Legion god) and Subject Alpha are much closer to a BMW.

4) Yes she was the one “pulling the strings on her flame legion and dredge puppets” (her exactly words).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbFVUI_aqbU

Once again, I really enjoyed the game play of this release. But in terms of lore it just doesn’t sit well with me. But all I care about right now is the future. Anet really have to be careful with the lore when they make future releases.

1. Plant magic is not “summoning plants to fight for you” – plant magic is utilizing magic to alter plants. Sylvari do this to create armor, weapons, even housing, forts, and mortars. In the Nightmare Court’s case they use it to convert other sylvari forcibly to the Nightmare, to build gates, etc. While we haven’t seen sylvari putting other races into plants, nothing says that the Toxic Alliance has done such (the Hybrid, despite its name, looks more like something born as a plant like a sylvari or a husk, rather than a krait turned into a plant-like being), and there was no reason for a sylvari to attempt such before now. So nothing says that they couldn’t imbue another race with plant-like qualities. Furthermore, given the FACT that it was the Nightmare Court’s doing, not just – at best – Scarlet’s, no it does not demonstrate that “Scarlet is the best biologist” given how magic is not part of the biologist’s description and we have no clue how easy this is to do nor do we have any clue how good of one Scarlet would be even if she were one.
2. But nothing shows that she has “suddenly knowledge in biology.” I know you hate Scarlet. Hell, I do too. But come on. Stop twisting the facts to fit your argument. That’s just idiotic to anyone who does their research and falsifying facts. If you so truly believe that then point it out to me where we see that Scarlet had anything to do with the making of the Toxic Hybrid because there is nothing that you’ve pointed out or during the story instance “The Nightmare Incarnate” which even implies this – only that she put the alliance together and most likely directed the alliance’s actions. And that line you pointed out? No, it doesn’t show at all that the Hybrid was made by Scarlet. It only showed how she got the krait’s aid – by promising the Prophet’s return. Given the Nightmare Court’s alliance with her and the Toxic Oratuss’ line “At last, our alliance gives us the power to scale the heavens themselves!” on top of the Baron’s line “As long as they believe we’re incarnating one of their true prophets, they’ll die to protect it. Toxic Baroness: It’s a pity that Scarlet didn’t stay to witness the realization of her vision.” this implies more that Scarlet only directed what they were doing. It was “her vision” not “her work” – there is a huge difference between the two.
3. You’re wrong. There is one phase where it fights like a Hypnoss. Except for the initial part of the fight where the thing is crawling around, it switches between fighting like the standard krait mobs with slight additions to his skillset – Damoss (two daggers), Hypnoss (a single staff), and Nimross (two spears). You should replay it and pay more attention.
4. Exactly, pulling the strings. She did not make their inventions. She put them to work with each other and told them what to do. She was a director. This is exactly what I stated myself. You only reiterated exactly what I said.

RedStar.4218:

Which adds ? I was talking about those the last boss keeps on summoning.

And this is what I was talking about :
Toxic Baroness: As long as they believe we’re incarnating one of their true prophets, they’ll die to protect it.

Maybe I’ve gotten that bad in english, but this sentence doesn’t mean “we created a fake prophet and it’s going to be born soon”.

For the line you picked out, in of itself it is not clear. But it certainly isn’t saying “the krait are hallucinating us to be their prophets” it’s saying “we’re making a prophet” (roughly) – whether that making is “us becoming one” Gaheron style or “we’re building one” is not unclear in just that line. But the other lines kind of point that it is the latter. You cannot take a single dialogue and pit it against the rest when all are in the same context and non-contradictory.

Regh.8649:

I read somewhere that it was because of the ghost threat that the 3 legions are united.
They united forces to keep Ascalon from falling from “Charr claws”.

So… if Rytlock ended the curse, the reason why char are getting along will cease to be, therefore the alliance will break and every charr will again mind their own affairs.

In my point of view, that same curse is the reason of charr current success and Rytlock knows it.

Rytlock might be the new Khan-ur or is planning to be… but thats a whole new debate.

The high legions never really united. After the Flame Legion were defeated in the Plains of Golghein (sp?) and the Flame Legion retreated into the Blazeridge Mountains, the three other legions turned on each other. This was a couple decades after the Foefire.

Even now, there’s tension between the Blood Legion and the other two legions. It’s just that they all have shared goals – mainly wiping out the Flame Legion, ghosts, ogres, hatred of humanity, and desire to eliminate the Elder Dragons. Lately though, because of all the threats, two of the three Imperators (Blood being the odd man out) decided to work for peace with humans to reduce the number of threats – especially those on Ascalon (since non-Iron Legion lands, aka non-Ascalon charr territory, doesn’t had the ghosts to deal with).

As to who’d be a Khan-Ur… by tradition, only one of the first (and only true) Khan-Ur’s descendants can be Imperators and, by extension, the Primus Imperator (aka Khan-Ur). Unless Rytlock has a heritage we don’t know about, or he breaks from the old traditions (something Smodur wouldn’t disapprove of by all indications), he cannot be Khan-Ur.

Considering how much effort they put into making the game more like Ghosts of Ascalon (going so far as to add in towers to Ascalon City), and Killeen making mention of the golden fruit bit (as well as an NPC in-game I believe), I’d be surprised if they changed it for blue for… no real reason, by all given information.

As Aaron said, it’s not a hive mind. They just talk really fast, which allows them to discuss amongst themselves fast enough to understand things quicker – and their talking is fast enough that it just seems to other races that they become smarter.

This said, I do not think that a corrupted skritt would be able to talk his way into making others corrupted. No more than a corrupted human would eventually talk another human into accepting corruption.

Tachenon.5270:

More likely, as I have proposed previously, Snaff is behind all this. He’s currently a steam cyborg (possibly with telepathic abilities) due to a little boo boo with his post-death contingency plans. Omadd was one of his agents and did something unnatural to Scarlet (rebellious teen persona, perfect candidate for recruitment) while she thought she was seeing the Eternal Alchemy.

Snaff was cremated. Like all asura are upon death.

And Zojja cremated Snaff on the spot – she didn’t even take his bloody, torn apart corpse out of the golem Snaff died in.

RedStar.4218:

But during the dungeon, you can hear 2 NC talking about how the kraits are under the toxins effect and think that the NC is their prophets. Even before the last fight, the krait seems to want to protect the two NC and they say something like “do you think your prophet cant’ take care of them (Us) ?”

He was talking about the Toxic Hybrid. The “moment of triumph” is the birth of the Toxic Hybrid. That is their prophet.

Scarlet Briar: The krait Oratussssss are expecting a visit from their god. I wore my best ribbonssss for the occasion.

This is after the NC barons are killed. And as Scarlet leaves. Why would they be their prophets if they’re dead or leaving and the krait are “expecting a visit” from said dead or leaving people? That makes no sense.

And the NC never say the krait are influence by the toxins.

RedStar.4218:

Now maybe I heard/read wrong. Because the last boss doesn’t make sense if I didn’t. He pops out like that, with no one else around to see him, not even Scarlet. Which makes me wonder : if she wanted that creature, why no hold us out a bit longer ? She didn’t even see its abilities or even its birth.

Except for, you know, all the mobs he summons and all the remaining krait in the tower. No one is around immediately because we kill them, but they’re still around in the tower. Those are the krait Oratuss that Scarlet refer to – those still alive.

Scarlet was clearly not bothering with seeing the Hybrid’s abilities first hand – implying to me that it wasn’t anything related to her true intentions.

Cataclysm.7491:

Scarlet could be Kudu’s boss and was responsible for the attempted combinating of different dragon magics and is therefore simply testing combining different magics with different species.

You do realize that Kudu was one of the – if not the – highest ranking members of the Inquest, right?

Scarlet never had the entire Inquest working for her, and she was never more than low level experimenter when she was in the Inquest.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Sadly, other than Malyck’s pod we don’t see what the sylvari wake from, though it’s described as fruit, not plants.

It’s one of those things that’s easy to miss, but there is one NPC- Mender Serimon, the first NPC your sylvari character talks to, who strangely enough still lacks a wiki page- that says that blue fruit hanging just above your head in the area where you awaken are the sylvari pods.

I’m inclined to agree with Drax about the hallucinations- not that Scarlet is one, but that you can’t always tell them by the shadowy form. Braham, Rox, and the PS related prisoner in the Nightmare Chamber don’t have that effect, but there certainly is not any reason that they’d actually be there.

While I’m inclined to disagree with that notion, because everything else we know about the fruit are that they’re golden not blue, I did look at them before posting and the thing is that they’re far from what the NC use to convert while more akin to what the Hybrid awoke from – mainly though in that it is hanging, and not on the ground.

Braham and Rox aren’t unlikely to be hallucinations. Anet had included things without properly explaining them and Braham and Rox’s presence may be among them. The PC certainly thinks they’re real and they’re certainly acting like they’re reacting to the hallucinations. Besides, when the whole continent is more or less affected by the toxins, and this is a Scarlet operation and they’ve dealt with two previous Scarlet operations, it seems likely that they’d show up.

We’re likely just missing something about them.

@Zaxares: I’d go with the latter; that we’re hallucinating as to who the prisoners are.

There were kidnappings around the Tower of Nightmares prior to its unveiling, so there likely are prisoners there that’re being rescued. Among them is likely to be the Mistress Kari and possibly even Maddox (and anyone else who’s gone missing from the camp since Blood and Madness – either as prisoners or as people rushing in to save prisoners).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself- this is still 100% speculation- but my thought was that the hybrid was an altered krait. It’s hard to get a good look during the fight, but looking at my screencaps most of its body doesn’t look planty, but rather the same basic texture as most krait.

I didn’t get a good constant look, but it was definitely not scalely from what I saw. All I am positive about, though, is that it uses the Oratuss’ frame for the model.

RedStar.4218:

I think that all references to the PS are due to the toxins. Scarlet doesn’t know any of them. Which discredits nearly everything we have seen or heard in this tower and even in any places since those toxins have been spread anywhere. It even hit ice brood minions (and if I’m not mistaken, dragon corruptions doesn’t overlap, so those toxins have nothing to do with the ED).

Firstly, dragon corruption can overlap – though we’ve only seen such in a controlled environment (Crucible of Eternity – Kudu’s Monster and, more noticeably, Subject Alpha). It may not overlap physically but otherwise it does.

As to the mentions by Scarlet, reasonable assumption. But I would not say it discredits everything.

1. We see Scarlet in the flesh. There is no black “mist” effect around her like hallucinations.
2. Similarly, we see Twisted Watchwork in the flesh – lacking the black effects around them.

RedStar.4218:

And also, from what I gathered in game, Scarlet had that toxins without the kraits. She used it to make the NC (and probably herself) appear as the krait’s prophets, which would explain why the kraits stop everything they are doing and try to rally the NC when they are downed.

I don’t know about the krait’s involvement with the toxins, but she certainly didn’t use them to appear as their prophets. Well, the Nightmare Court didn’t at least. And the Nightmare Court at least knew Scarlet was Scarlet. We never see krait make mention of Scarlet so it’s possible that she came to them under hallucinatory influence. However, their prophet in this was the Toxic Hybrid, not Scarlet.

RedStar.4218:

I didn’t see it like this. I saw it like “I don’t care if it failed. It caused ruckus and I’ll be remembered for ever !”

“I should tell you, by the way: I’m done here. This extravaganza couldn’t have turned out better if you’d tried. But don’t be sad. You’ll see me again. " I believe that’s the line he was referring to.

Which to me says “you may have gotten to the top of the tower, but I’ve gotten all I wanted from this place, so it doesn’t matter if you actually win, because I still did as well.”

draxynnic.3719:

Which is, incidentally, why when I sent money to Konig, Thal and therapite, I did so with a comment along the lines of "I don’t think it really classifies as “reasonable” any more, but I think there is still doubt". Namely, due to all the hallucinations, it is still vaguely possible that ArenaNet has basically been trolling us through the expectation of our characters and NPCs that Scarlet is involved. I think some of those indications are a little more in-depth than could be expected just from hallucinations (particularly the cutscene) but it is still possible that Scarlet isn’t actually involved and it was all in our character’s heads.

See above: Hallucinations – be it noticable by in-game characters (PC included) or not – have a very definitive appearance to players. And not only Scarlet (who interestingly wears her hood again outside the concept art cinematic) but the Twisted Watchwork are very much not in such an appearance – like all of the Toxic Alliance and the Toxic Hybrid.

draxynnic.3719:

On the mention of pods – I think it is worth reminding people here that pods are also used as a conversion mechanism by the Nightmare Court, and sylvari in general are good with breeding plants for specific purposes. The hybrid’s pod, then, doesn’t need to be any form of analogue to the Pale Tree’s sylvari birthing pods – it could just be that that’s the way the Nightmare Court incubates things.

And it should be noted that those “conversion pods” are more of buds. They’re literally giant flowers, placed on the ground. This is fundamentally different. Sadly, other than Malyck’s pod we don’t see what the sylvari wake from, though it’s described as fruit, not plants (It should be noted, as a slight counter-argument to this, that Malyck’s pod uses the same model as those conversion pods; however, I’m thinking this was a saving of resources rather than making something unique since, unlike any other usage of these pods, it had to be detatched).

Sadly, I cannot recall what plant that Hybrid’s pod reminds me of… never been much of a botanist. But I’m wanting to say it was some sort of seed pod from a flower-less plant…

RedStar.4218:

I have a question : played the new content yesterday and tried to really pay attention. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The Krait got their brains messed up by the toxins. They didn’t knew they were working with Scarlet or even the NC. Instead, they thought they were their prophets.

If I didn’t get that wrong, at first glance it doesn’t bother me too much. What however bothers me is what it really implies :
-Scarlet didn’t need to Krait to create those toxins, nor does she have any further plans for them since she let’s us kill her creation.
-She (maybe) only needed them to release massively the toxins.
-And the worse : what if all of this was a lie ? Maybe she didn’t have access to the toxins the times we met before, fine. But in the future, that thing touched everyone, everyone ice broods.

Does anyone else think that Kasmeer getting hurt by a torn is something that shouldn’t be considered trivial ?

And do we know who was the mesmer behind the cloaking spell ?

You got it wrong. Our very first introduction with the Oratuss was that the alliance would bring about their Prophets. The reason why they worked with Scarlet was the promise of bringing/creating a Prophet – which turned out to be the Toxic Hybrid.

And no, we don’t know who made the veil. That is just one of many loose ends.

1. She’s a sylvari. All sylvari have innate plant-related magic. So this is nothing new nor unique to her, to have plant magic related stuff.
2. Technically speaking, Scarlet did not make the Toxic Hybrid nor the tower (well, she likely had overseered it and had done the mechanical modifications done to the tower seen near the top). The Hybrid – and likely the tower in its majority – was created by the Nightmare Court and the krait’s combined magic.
3. This isn’t bioweaponry, per se, but more of biomagic used for weaponry. Which again, is a specialty common to all sylvari – least of all the Nightmare Court whom have an undoubtably large role to fill in the Toxic Alliance (at least as large as the krait’s role).
4. I’ll just want to re-iterate. This was the work of the Toxic Alliance; Scarlet just put the two groups together and this is what they mutually worked towards – be it guided by Scarlet or not. She did not make the tower nor the Hybrid. They are no more her creations than the Fused weapons are – those are the creation of dredge and Flame Legion. Only the Twisted Watchwork were made/altered directly by Scarlet. The rest is her directing things and gathering the resources known as “evil factions.”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t know what else you were expecting? Do we want the guy to come on the forums on his knees, begging for our forgiveness? I can appreciate that some members of the team find the time to respond at all. I’m sure they are busy enough as it is. Lets be reasonable.

You’re rather exaggerative about my post. I’m not expecting any of that. In fact, I explicitly stated what I’d prefer: just simple acknowledgement of the criticism.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There’s not much you can say about negative feedback as a writer. I believe any writer sets out to write a good story, and usually they are of the opinion that the story they’ve written is indeed good. But then when faced with overwhelming negativity, what do you say to that? They’ve already stated that they are working on improving the story, what more can they say?

As a writer who has faced a lot of negativity to my ideas, I responded with explaining the direction I took and why.

That isn’t really asking much, and I’m not even asking that much. But my post about Bobby (almost) never responding to negative feedback was prior to the open discussion thread. Meaning before they had openly admitted that there are issues with the story and they’re working on improving it. Beforehand, all it was were a bunch of comments thanking people who posted that they like Scarlet, ignoring those who gave critical criticism on the character of Scarlet, and responding to those who gave criticism on the showing of the story with “we’re working on ways to improve it.” The last was good, the first is okay, but the third is rather… silly to do when doing the other two as well.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m not sure if every negative bit of feedback deserves a response. Besides, acknowledgement can also create false expectations by the players. They’ve already progressed quite far with the Scarlet story now, and it would be impossible to do a 180 turn now, and suddenly make her a compelling villain. Besides, not every player is in agreement with us that she is a badly written character. And to be honest, when she was first introduced I also found her quite entertaining, so I can understand that some players might like the story as it is.

I’m not making excuses here for the bad writing. But please do realize that it is a rare thing for devs to communicate so openly and directly with their customers.

Every? No. That would end up taking too much time. But periodical? Sure. If you’re going to put in time thanking 10 posters who say little more than “I like Scarlet.” then you should at least acknowledge that you have read and will consider but give no guarantees of story direction to 5 of the much longer posts that give critical and non-offensive criticism about the same topic (Scarlet).

It’s the odd proportions that makes it feel like Bobby is giving favoritism to those who like his work. Even if he means nothing bad by it – and I’m sure that is the case – it does not help to see that the well written and well thought up posts get seemingly ignored but the post above and the post below get commented on (and yes, something like that did happen). It can feel like he’s flipping the bird at the poster. Should he be expected to answer even half of the posts? No. Hell, it shouldn’t be expected for him to even read any post. But if you’re going to put time and effort to thank the one-line “compliments” then you should put some time and effort to thank the much longer criticism.

If nothing else, say “thank you for the feedback.”

And I’m not saying he should respond to the posts that effectively say “you’re kittening stupid for thinking up Scarlet” which I have sadly seen. Those should be ignored outright in regards to responses. I’m talking about the ones that are actually constructive.

Speaking of the Toxic Hybrid, it’s an interesting thing. It evolves (and mentally develops) quickly, is born from a pod of sorts, and most importantly says “No, I cannot be the last of my kind!” (paraphrased but denoting that he’s the last of “his kind”).

What’s fascinating about the hybrid is:

• The evolution is similar in function and somewhat-so in design to the GW1 krait metamorphesis. GW1 observances have the metamorphosis occuring at one of two stages: upon aggro, or when near death. The thing to note is the later – as the Toxic Hybrid changes when his health gets lower, and he shows to be threatened in his dialogue (or rather, the tone of his “I will not be defeated by the likes of you!” line (again paraphrased).
• His birth is reminiscent to that of sylvari – born from a pod. And he’s plant-like. This furthers my suspicion that the giant plant is from the same kind of seed as the Pale Tree, but is twisted by Nightmare Court and krait magic (as well as being advanced by Scarlet’s technology as one can see in the upper level areas – even the Hybrid’s pod has tubes linking it directly to the heart of the plant which you inject with antitoxin).
• His development is what I would suspect of a sylvari that did not witness a Dream of Dreams experience – born with very basic rudimentary knowledge, but a fast learner. When the hybrid is born, it is crawling around and only makes animal-like noises. But once some time has passed, it begins to speak and burrows, popping back out in a more upright fashion like a proper krait.
• Lastly, the “last of my kind” line is beyond curious, but there’s too little to really guess on what it means.

My theory is that this thing isn’t so much a hybrid, as it is a creature born like sylvari and sylvan hounds – except that instead of taking the form of a human(oid) or hound, it takes that of a krait. It was born out of a mixture of Nightmare Court and krait magic, which likely influenced his form – particularly the latter, though the former may have had influence in the kind of plant it seems to take, as it is more rougher and thorny, like that of the Thorn Hounds the Nightmare Court utilize – though a slightly brighter color.

If this is so, then the reason why sylvari are born looking like humans is because there was human influence to their tree. In turn, this means that there had to have been human influence on Malyck’s tree.

Dott.5672:

Has anyone else noticed how Bobby Stein never seems to respond to negative feedback about Scarlet? He usually carefully steps around it in his responses – or he just ignores it altogether.

I’ve noticed it. He avoids negative criticism as much as he could it seems, while almost always responding to positive feedback.

He’s really only responded to the negative feedback when it comes to the storytelling – which was always responded to with “we’re working on improving it” – or in the recent LS discussion thread which he finally acknowledged things were not as good as they could have been with her.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t think that’s fair. What do we really expect him to say? As a writer you work hard to make the story as fun as you possibly can. And it’s harsh to receive a lot of negative feedback. I’ve had colleagues in a similar situation, and best thing you can do is not take it too personal, and try to learn from it.

The devs have already acknowledged that they are aware that many players find the story a bit lacking. What more can they say? I don’t think it’s being ignored.

Eh, it’s one thing to not respond to feedback. It’s another to often respond to positive feedback, but not negative feedback.

Doesn’t mean it’s ignored, but at least open acknowledgement before a thread dedicated for discussion between Anet and players when it’s been around months prior to said thread would be healthy.

ThiBash.5634:

Yet there was no reason WHY she is that smart. Only that she is. There’s no explanation why she is that much more smarter than other Sylvari, and there’s no perspective.

Why was Einstein so smart? Why is one person smarter than another? Same thing.

There doesn’t have to be some special reason behind someone having a high IQ. And that’s what Scarlet was.

Being able to go through all the colleges was a bit over the top – but they toned it down (or clarified the poorly written short story that feels like it did not go through an editing pass at all beyond Microsoft Word spellcheck) and stated that she only went through specialized courses to prove that she is capable of handling the coursework of the colleges.

ThiBash.5634:

Why aren’t the other Sylvari smarter than they are now?

Why would they be? There may be some that are smarter, but:

1. Scarlet is disconnected from the dream. She is a Soundless. (Mentioned in an interview with TowerTalk, though the term Soundless is not used).
2. Just because she is smart, or knows a lot, doesn’t mean that even if her experiences went into the Dream of Dreams, that new sylvari would have that knowledge let alone have her understanding of systems which in of itself is more akin to IQ (if not the same) and not experiences and knowledge. It’s the same reason why newborn sylvari are not smarter than the Firstborn.

ThiBash.5634:

Oh, and for the record: the Asura stating that Scarlet has advanced degrees in all colleges was retracted in a later dev post. She’s only got basic training now. Which makes a lot more sense, really.

Not basic training. Specialized. We don’t know what it entails but it “specialized” is different than “basic.”

And not a post but an interview.

I see both improvements and negatives in this update for Scarlet’s personality.

On a pro side, she’s mostly gone from crazy eccentric to creepy taunter… until that final cinematic (which btw, anyone else notice how the Baron mentioned Scarlet left before the Hybrid was complete and then… she shows up…?).

And she makes mention of the second chapter of the PS – at least 3 (Malyck, Infinity Ball – both possibly related to her story – and Dead Sister – which isn’t likely related to her story). Makes me worried she’ll become a more Villain Sue and had been watching the PC since the second chapter without us knowing. Just more “she was always there” kitten pulls like the short story…

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The first time you play through the Nightmare Chamber, and only the first time as far as I can tell, there is an unvoiced line that pops up in your chat that links back to your personal story; specifically the second arc of it, for the two characters I’ve taken through. For my sylvari, it was (slightly paraphrased) “I know Malyck’s secret too. You’re very naughty, keeping that to yourself.”

I screenshotted all the conversations in the four or five times I went through the Nightmare Chambers, did not once see Malyck mentioned.

Nor, however, have I seen any link back to my personal story.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Even if Scarlet does know about Malyck, though, I’m still skeptical that he is Caithe’s secret, for two reasons. First, I am certain she used the word “too”, as in “in addition to, and therefore necessarily distinct from.” There is no context, but the way it’s phrased seems deliberately reminiscent of what she said to Caithe, so I am inclined to believe this line is supposed to disprove that Malyck is Caithe’s secret.

I disagree there. “I know Malyck’s secret too” is more like “I know Malyck’s secret as well as you/Caithe” – at least that’s how I read it as is.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Furthermore, this release proves that they still remember which character plays through which storyline. They’ve previously shown that dungeon dialogue can also reflect personal story choices- in TA itself, Morrigu has an additional line for characters that played Shield of the Moon. Yet Caithe, who discovered Malyck alongside my ranger, still refused to discuss her secret with him, and said that she would tell him in her own time, and on her own terms. That rules out it being Malyck’s existence or the existence of his tree, although I suppose it could still possibly have to do with them- if she followed up with him, for instance, or if she discovered the tree’s location.

Sometimes the LS updates acknowledge the PS, sometimes they don’t. For example, Faren didn’t react special to human nobles in Secret of Southsun or Queen Jubilee content.

Edit: Malyck, Infinity Ball, and Dead Sister all get mentions from what I’ve heard thus far. She may mention any chapter 2 PS arc. Which is sad. But it’s weird that I got no mention of my PS…

I haven’t done the update yet so I’ll be highly interested in seeing this, and would prove that my theory from Twilight Assault is right (that the secret she mentioned Caithe and threatened to tell Faolain was Malyck).

Oddly, I’ve been predicting a lot about Scarlet’s plot… I figured it’d be a female sylvari interested in tech back when Scarlet was first mentioned by Mai Trin, and now there’s Scarlet knowing about Malyck… lol Shows how predictable she is.

Makes me wonder if the theory I presented above will turn out accurate.

Dustfinger.9510:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

As to the bit you mention at the beginning, the dragons have a cycle of awakening and I’m pretty sure that the dates were calculable, so it’s not like they awakened because magic was out of balance in the world.

Just addressing this bit, the dates may be calculable for the dragon awakening and magic can still be out of balance if the rate of magic entering the world is steady. Whether constant or exponential. As long as there is a specific point at which the world is considered “out of balance”.

In fact, that calculation may well be rooted in the rate of magic entering Tyria compared to the point that the amount of magic is enough to awaken the ED’s.

I don’t recall it ever being said the Elder Dragons’ rise is calculable. Unless you’re referring to the birthing of stars as mentioned by Varra Skylark.

The stars’ birth just symbolize a “passing of ages” and it is known that the last time a star was formed happened the same time the Elder Dragons rose previously. It should be noted that:

• The formation of stars hold no relation to events on Tyria, as she explains if you talk to her at the end of the dungeon path.
• Nothing says the Elder Dragon rise before last had happened alongside the forming of a star. Keep in mind that between this and the previous dragon rising, we have the Bloodstone messing up with the natural balance of magic entering the world. With its unsealing, it would have resulted in more magic in the world being available sooner. If the Elder Dragons rise based on the amount of magic in this world that means that they rose sooner than they otherwise would have. If not, then that means that magic has been at a chaotically high level for some time.

So really, the Elder Dragons’ rise cannot be truly predicted in the stars’ formation. At least, given current knowledge.

I would also like to point that nothing says magic “enters the world of Tyria” so to speak. For all we know, that finite source of magic is stable, and it just goes through cycling between being out in the world, and being within the Elder Dragons (and their minions). Cut out the Elder Dragons, and you can have the same amount of magic in the world but just isolated in the corpses of the Elder Dragons and their minions (which would act like powerful magical artifacts until the magic seeps out into the world as per Glint’s corpse).

sierras.6297:

The next thing is that it was previously said the dragons intent was not evil but their process is or seems like it.

This was not said, actually.

sierras.6297:

It is notable that each desires something, Zhaitan immortality, Jormag power, Primordus destruction, and kralkatoric perfection.

That is just a fan’s theory. One I was at least among those to first introduce. It is far from proven fact that they actually desire such. Even then, you way over-simplify it. The theory is:

Zhaitan desires immortality through undeath.
Primordus seeks to wipe out living beings.
Jormag wants a world based on survival of the fittest and offers power to those who desires it.
Kralkatorrik wants to gain/become everything – a form of greed and, to an extent, perfection.

sierras.6297:

You need some sort of destruction for immortality, or power, especially destruction, and to even for perfection to an extent.

Eh, you don’t really need any form of conflict for immortality, not even “immortality through undeath.”

sierras.6297:

There is even a theory that the 6th elder dragon is a forest dragon and the forest dragon’s general the pale tree. If this is so, is it possible that Bubbles minions could be helpful not hindering, as the sylvari would be servants of the forest dragon.

The theory about the Pale Tree is practically debunked. Not outright and the only arguments against what debunks it – Malyck and sylvari’s immunity to corruption – are extremely flimsy. What is most likely to be Mordremoth’s minions – if we have witnessed any of it in-game – is the Wychmire Swamp meta creatures, which are by far hostile. And the DSD’s minions are said to be hostile to, having pushed the quaggan, krait, karka, and largos out of their homelands.

sierras.6297:

Also, if Zhaitan is destroyed, and any other elder dragon is destroyed, would this not upset the balance of nature sense they are nature?

I would like to clarify something about this:

The Elder Dragons are as much a part of nature as the wildlife. They feed on magic and exude it, but even if they are mandatory for the ecosystem to survive they are no more a part of nature than bees who help pollinate flowers. For example, if bees die out then plants and even certain animals will become at risk (at least I believe that’s the case).

sierras.6297:

This seems to be very odd to me as the landscape seems to be shaped to the attributes of the dragon that slept there had.

Hardly. Primordus was underground, which was not really magma filled – his immediate chamber was, but not much past that. Kralkatorrik was no where near crystals in his hibernation in what is currently called the Blood Legion Homelands. And Orr was once a verdant fertile place, hardly the swamp-and-decay feel of his corruption.

sierras.6297:

the desolation of Cantha into a desert wasteland by kralkatoric.

Elona, you mean. However, Kralkatorrik slept to the north of Ascalon, not in the Desolation which is south of his current position – he’s never been to the Desolation since its forming by the Six Gods. A side note: last time Kralkatorrik was awake, the Crystal Desert was an in-land sea.

The Six Gods, and humanity, come from a world with little to no magic “(”Humans (including Canthan humans) were brought to Tyria (from…no spoilers!). They are not native to Tyria and did not come with much magic of their own.) . And the Six Gods – or at least three of them – came to the world as gods. So they cannot simply be “powerful wizards.”

Besides, they hold divine magic which cannot be destroyed and goes rampant upon their death (which is different than the just-as-powerful (roughly) Elder Dragons who are also full of magic).

I was thinking along the same lines of Erukk. Rather than some “passive stoner” I view him as more of a guy who just doesn’t want to deal with the triffles of the outside world. A shut in, if you will.

Though Erukk’s view is not unlikely either.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’m just gonna call; Aliens.

But in Tyria… the aliens are humanity!

That means… humans did it!