It was supposed to be Abaddon, wasn't it?

One of the lore devs (Bobby Stein I believe) expressed his regret in the past about killing off Abaddon. Playing through PoF I couldn't shake off the feeling that "yeah, this entire story would make more sense with Abaddon instead of Balthazar".

To sum it up:

• LS season 3 had several things themed around Abaddon and Balthazar himself visited his reliquary.
• Abaddon was always in favor of giving magic to the human race, dragons feasting on it and threatening Tyria would probably be something he'd try to fight.
• Abaddon was cast down by the other gods, this whole semi-revenge arc ("I'll be the only god!") fits like a glove for him.
• Expansion set in Elona, same as Nightfall. Also massive Forged presence in the Mouth of Torment.

So with Abaddon dead, I think Anet just took another male god because close enough and gave him a story written for a timeline where Abaddon was spared but probably stripped of his godhood entirely and chained up much like Balthazar.

Seeing how Abaddon was the god of secrets, it would make sense for him to masquerade as a mursaat to disguise his identity. Its possible the devs wanted to use Abaddon in the first place, but were afraid of the backlash they might get for "resurrecting" him. Though they could have justified it by saying that Kormir either didn't absorb his full energy, or he may have stowed a piece of himself in his reliquary using mursaat techniques (which he would have access to being the god of secrets). Now that I think about it, I would have liked Abaddon as the POF antagonist a lot more than the childish and petty Balthazar we got.

Maybe when he was cast down by the gods Abbadon was bound into a vessel even further than his previous 'godhood'. And being defeated simply released him of those shackles. I dig a villain that transcends form. The idea of the air we breathe, the space we move through, and even the energy of time being slowly replaced with a maleficent force is terrifying!Can't be struck, nor named, nor even seen. :astonished:

He regrets killing off one god, and decide that killing of another is just peachy?....Okay

To me, Balthazar made more sense after listening to Garden of the Gods, the lore book found in Crystal Oasis. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Garden_of_the_Gods

The last page tells us the Gods left to find a new place for humanity, but I assume Balthazar stayed behind to fight the Elder Dragons since he's the god of war and he'd never flee from a fight.

@NotASmurf.1725 said:One of the lore devs (Bobby Stein I believe) expressed his regret in the past about killing off Abaddon. Playing through PoF I couldn't shake off the feeling that "yeah, this entire story would make more sense with Abaddon instead of Balthazar".

To sum it up:

• LS season 3 had several things themed around Abaddon and Balthazar himself visited his reliquary.
• Abaddon was always in favor of giving magic to the human race, dragons feasting on it and threatening Tyria would probably be something he'd try to fight.
• Abaddon was cast down by the other gods, this whole semi-revenge arc ("I'll be the only god!") fits like a glove for him.
• Expansion set in Elona, same as Nightfall. Also massive Forged presence in the Mouth of Torment.

So with Abaddon dead, I think Anet just took another male god because close enough and gave him a story written for a timeline where Abaddon was spared but probably stripped of his godhood entirely and chained up much like Balthazar.

I actually wouldn't mind if it turned out Abbadon was still around plotting around. Abbadon would be a really good candidate to actually fulfill the role of a Lovecraftian being now, a being so twisted and shapeless that he permeates the environment and has even influenced the god of war into rebellion. They could even legendarily retcon his death into having us kill Kralkatorrik through his influence and resurrecting him fully in the process. Yeah, that would be a pretty good way of fixing the Balthaddon mess while still looking like another typical Anet mess-up.

I agree with the OP and maxwelgm, Abaddon seems more lorefriendly than Balthazar as a bad guy that doesn't care of the world.

Except lore teaches us Abaddon did care for the world and for the races of Tyria. He was the god to go against all the other gods and give the races magic. he wanted them to be better than they already were, to have more of a fighting chance. Of course his ideals didn't align with those of the other gods so it led to war and destruction. But everything we know about Abaddon says he had beef with the other gods, he never had any ill will toward Tyria or it's inhabitants.

@"SevenBitBrian.8413" yes, was his idea to give us the magic, but the lore teaches us that gods care for Tyria. Not like the 6 we saw in PoF, 1 in destruction rage and 5 in fear....for me until PoF: Abaddon was established as a villain, Balthazar a god of honor in battle and Kormir one that sacrifices herself for Tyria.

If you search about Zhaisen Order you can see how wikis (of gw1 and gw2) describes it as "a guild that holds tournaments to honor and protect holy places" and how the become in the PoF Story :s "Death to blasphemers!"

They're not very different in GW2. We're just seeing them from a different point of view in GW2 than what was presented to us in GW1. Kasmeer is going through the same thing the players are. She was raised her whole life believing these "divine" beings were good and had the best interests of all of Tyria in mind. Because she was raised form a different point of view. But the commander, Rytlock, and so on, see it from another point of view.

Balthazar was always petty, he killed a guy just because the guy outsmarted him in a game. Mortals were always nothing but playthings to him.

It was Jeff Grubb who regretted killing Abaddon, but knew the plot demanded it.

The story of Path of Fire wasn't even a twinkle in the backs of developer minds during Nightfall.

The plot is basically Nightfall 2.0, in the same light that The Force Awakens is just A New Hope 2.0, but to say "it was supposed to be Abaddon" is like saying Kylo Ren was supposed to be Darth Vader but because they killed Vader off they couldn't do that.

Sadly, unlike The Force Awakens, to make Path of Fire work they had to twist a lot of lore. They should have gone with Menzies or Dhuum instead.

@SevenBitBrian.8413 said:Except lore teaches us Abaddon did care for the world and for the races of Tyria. He was the god to go against all the other gods and give the races magic. he wanted them to be better than they already were, to have more of a fighting chance. Of course his ideals didn't align with those of the other gods so it led to war and destruction. But everything we know about Abaddon says he had beef with the other gods, he never had any ill will toward Tyria or it's inhabitants.

From what we know of Tyrian history, Abbadon was very "spartan" in his treatment of humanity. Even before becoming "mad" and waging war against the gods (unless it gets retconned into him being corrupted by Steve or something), his Margonite followers ,which at the time were still pretty human, wrecked havoc across the seas. His teachings also supposedly include things like "act with magic, act within reason, act without mercy" as per the GW1 wiki. It is also said the wars among humans (and possibly among every race at the time?) during the time before the Exodus, happened because Abbadon released magic to the world. So while it is agreeable that he somewhat cared about humanity, and probably enough to give them power against the Dragons, he did not care if it also gave them the power to wage war on each other until only the strongest remains, which is "neutral" at best.

With GW2 and the introduction of Elder Dragons, "releasing magic" might not even mean his own magic anymore. Perhaps he knew about the Dragons and purposefully and somehow started leaking magic from them faster than naturally. In the Arah explorable dungeon we find out the gods did not know they were using Zhaitan's magic in the whole bloodstone deal, but Abbadon is the god of secrets after all, and might have known this from the start.

Another option is that he was that much stronger than the other gods and, just like Balthazar in PoF, believed he could take on the magic of every Dragon. The only godly realms we really see in-game are the Underworld and the Fissure of Woe, and while they are immense, consider that the Realm of Torment was not Abbadon's realm, but rather a place where twisted and violent souls go to remain eternally imprisoned. Now, even after being stripped of his godhood and having his physical shape completely destroyed, Abbadon was still able to overrun this Realm with his presence and even influence Tyria from there, which is a pretty heavy indication of his power and/or knowledge in relation to the other gods. And if he thought himself so much better it would make sense that he would try (alone) to somehow acquire magic from the Dragons. The more I write about it, the more it seems like PoF should have been PoA (Path of Abbadon).

@"SevenBitBrian.8413" Do you think is our fault as a "different point of view" that Kormir who sacrifices herself to save Tyria run out for being safe without trying nothing while the worlds is going to be destroyed? (by ED or Balthazar)Or "by magic" all Zhaisens that protect tyria an the honor of combat becomes inquisitors?

@Konig Des Todes.2086 yes, that's right... until we have more info, we face a lore mess of epic dimensions

@Luindu.2418 said:@"Konig Des Todes.2086" yes, that's right... until we have more info, we face a lore mess of epic dimensions

I wouldn't go that far, tbh. It's a bit of a twist on Balthazar - and even more so on Zaishen - but hardly a "lore mess of epic dimensions".

The closest thing to that was Scarlet, and this is not as bad as Scarlet.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" well, i'm very dissilusioned with the direction of the God's lore.

• Even if Balthazar turns "a bad guy" at least I expect that it has a good explanation (Abaddon's lies, Dragon's Corruption...).Kormir and the others to leave us alone, and the apparently because he are less power of ED's (or because he can't control his own powers?).
• Godhood stripping for Balthazar that doesn't affect his powers and make me suspicious that they don't do the same with Abaddon.
• The decission of not make a realm/prission for him (like they do with Abaddon's) and throw it with chains and no guards in a random place of the mists.
• 90% Abaddon's worshippers changes his minds "magically" (that the balthazar adept in the LS3 that seems too radical to me and the Zhaisens)

On other hand I like the Sunspear, Joko nd Joko's Domains lores. Something can change in time, but the nature/behaviour of the Gods seems more like a static thing for centuries of GW Lore.

@"Elementalist Owner.7802" said:To me, Balthazar made more sense after listening to Garden of the Gods, the lore book found in Crystal Oasis. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Garden_of_the_Gods

The last page tells us the Gods left to find a new place for humanity, but I assume Balthazar stayed behind to fight the Elder Dragons since he's the god of war and he'd never flee from a fight.

The problem is that living world season 3 and the main story of POF don't adequately portray Balthazar's motivations, sure they might have shoe-horned in an explanation in a collectible lore book, but for someone who just plays the story instances, Balthazar ends up being a one-dimensional and stereotypical "I want revenge and power" villain. For these reasons I feel that Abaddon would have been more interesting.

@Luindu.2418 said:@"Konig Des Todes.2086" well, i'm very dissilusioned with the direction of the God's lore.

• Even if Balthazar turns "a bad guy" at least I expect that it has a good explanation (Abaddon's lies, Dragon's Corruption...).Kormir and the others to leave us alone, and the apparently because he are less power of ED's (or because he can't control his own powers?).
• Godhood stripping for Balthazar that doesn't affect his powers and make me suspicious that they don't do the same with Abaddon.
• The decission of not make a realm/prission for him (like they do with Abaddon's) and throw it with chains and no guards in a random place of the mists.
• 90% Abaddon's worshippers changes his minds "magically" (that the balthazar adept in the LS3 that seems too radical to me and the Zhaisens)

On other hand I like the Sunspear, Joko nd Joko's Domains lores. Something can change in time, but the nature/behaviour of the Gods seems more like a static thing for centuries of GW Lore.

1. They did have an explanation. Whether it's "good" or not is up to the individual. But the explanation was basically that a god of war went so long without being able to fight he became battle hungry, and once finally presented with a challenging opponent he was denied it. This combined with his view that running would be cowardice, and him having anger issues led to an outburst. Rather than giving him a chance to calm down or worse prepare to go through with his threats, the gods proverbially pounced on him to prevent a potential cataclysmic event. This led to his imprisonment which only allowed his anger to fester.

Having a fault of the god that was known since proverbial Day 5 of GW lore and pre-emptive (perhaps OVER emptive) caution on the other gods to prevent a repeat of cataclysmic events be the leading cause of this conflict is, IMHO, good writing. What's bad writing is that they used so little words to describe all this, and that this honestly wouldn't be enough to make Balthazar lose faith in his own beliefs (honorable war) despite the fact that he did (done to make him a villain).

2. Regarding the stripping part... It did affect his powers, greatly. He could only regain his strength after absorbing magic from a bloodstone and two Elder Dragons, one of which being the Elder Fire Dragon.

Why didn't they just strip Abaddon of his power? Because the power of a god cannot be destroyed and the power of a god without a vessel becomes cataclysmic. A point that is reaffirmed in GW2. This means that unlike Abaddon, they had a vessel for Balthazar's power. Kormir does still refer to the gods as "the Six" after all. This means Balthazar was usurped in a manner akin to Dhuum being usurped by Grenth, but rather than aided by seven mortals Balthazar's successor was aided by five gods (presumably), and we do not know Balthazar's successor.

3. The Realm of Torment was not "made" for Abaddon. It was Abaddon's realm from the beginning - and he was imprisoned in the heart of his own domain. Given the cinematic where we're shown Rytlock freeing Balthazar, it's likely Balthazar was imprisoned in the Fissure of Woe (there's a lot of dangling chains - the Fissure of Woe had chains coming out of the sky - and what looks like burnt out furnaces) - so Balthazar was likely imprisoned in the heart of his own domain as well. The reason Abaddon's prison was so much better was because the one who made Abaddon's chains were... Balthazar. On top of that, Abaddon still had his power (see above paragraphs) while Balthazar didn't so they didn't need to go so sophisticated for Balthazar, since the gates in the Realm of Torment were made to block Abaddon's power from influencing things (no need to make such for Balthazar).

4. As for Balthazar's worshipers... that is, indeed, a thing of poor writing. I can understand many devotees becoming fanatic over their patron god's return, but there were too few mentions of devotees who lost their faith due to Balthazar's dishonorable actions. In the same light, the rather... bland human/charr PC interactions are similarly poor writing (I had hoped that human PC, if not charr and possibly norn, would have had different dialogue throughout PoF).

@jwaz.1908 said:

@"Elementalist Owner.7802" said:To me, Balthazar made more sense after listening to Garden of the Gods, the lore book found in Crystal Oasis.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Garden_of_the_Gods

The last page tells us the Gods left to find a new place for humanity, but I assume Balthazar stayed behind to fight the Elder Dragons since he's the god of war and he'd never flee from a fight.

You realize that Abaddon was, in fact, even worse than Balthazar in his portrayal in terms of lore only from the main missions, right?

Until GW2 brought it in the game via obscure objects, the lore about Abaddon granting magic existed only outside of the game. Same with him being a wise being who often advised the other gods, or the events of the war beyond the Temple of the Six and the Horde of Darkness (and of those two, only the Horde of Darkness was in the main plot - but as a footnote; the other was in the game, but as an outpost description). The lore about Abaddon behind behind the events of the Searing, Cataclysm, and Jade Wind was all and solely in side quests. The lore of Abaddon allying with Menzies was in side content. Almost all of Abaddon's lore was not in the main missions.

Abaddon had no dialogue himself, no stated motivation beyond revenge and becoming "the only true god", and certainly no history beyond "he started a war with Margonite followers, lost and was imprisoned before the gods left." The only lore about Abaddon's involvement in pre-Nightfall post-Exodus events in the main plot was that he had Shiro and Khilbron as generals after their deaths, corrupted Tombs (one side comment for that, even), and had an alliance with Dhuum.

And that's how it is for everything in GW lore, really. About 60-80% of lore is always in the open world, not the missions.

And the biggest issue about Balthazar - that he went from honrable to honorless - actually is explained in the main plot of S3 and PoF. It's just explained poorly because the ultimate defacto cause of conflict was Balthazar shouting "I AM CONFLICT!" which was, sadly, completely out of character... until we think about the fact that he is a warrior, a god of war, who has had no proper personal battle for centuries if not longer. The last personal fight he was in was against Abaddon, as far as we know only the Eternals and mortals fought Menzies' forces (and there are hints that the battle with Menzies ended before Balthazar's imprisonment). If you had someone who's life was defined by the battles he had, only to go a thousand years without a challenging fight, that person would be itching for a new glorious battle.

Abaddon's plot only felt so good after one digs through all the buried lore. It wouldn't be surprising if Balthazar is the same.

Though that doesn't change the fact that, as it stands, Menzies would have been a better foe.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:It was Jeff Grubb who regretted killing Abaddon, but knew the plot demanded it.

The story of Path of Fire wasn't even a twinkle in the backs of developer minds during Nightfall.

The plot is basically Nightfall 2.0, in the same light that The Force Awakens is just A New Hope 2.0, but to say "it was supposed to be Abaddon" is like saying Kylo Ren was supposed to be Darth Vader but because they killed Vader off they couldn't do that.

Sadly, unlike The Force Awakens, to make Path of Fire work they had to twist a lot of lore. They should have gone with Menzies or Dhuum instead.

Kylo Ren probably wasn't supposed to be Darth Vader, Snoke on the other hand was definitely supposed to be the Emperor.

I found all the stuff in LW Season 3 about Balthazar-as-Lazarus to be overly convoluted (and to detract from the actual payoff of the Lazarus storyline, which I'd been looking forward to for a lot longer). I think it would have been better if Balthazar had joined us as an ally against the Elder Dragons, we'd help him build an army, be put in a morally awkward position as he works to accomplish his goals by any means, and get some glimpses of what he's doing in Tyria and why he isn't as powerful as we'd have thought, and then when we learn about the death of any more Dragons being catastrophic (hopefully in a less jarring way than we actually ended up learning it), Balthazar wants to press on whereas we want to not destroy Tyria. Then we learn that Balthazar kind of knew this might happen the whole time, we have the big fall-out, and we're in the same position with Balthazar as an enemy at the start of PoF.

I feel like giving the players some time to see things from his point of view and fight for the same side would make him a bit more three-dimensional, as the moustache-twirling we see in PoF generally does a disservice to the character. It'd be nice if we could have seen some of his purported tactical genius, for example, so that we're all that more fearful later on when we turn against him. It also means we'd avoid the whiplash of finding out that "Lazarus" was actually a character who was totally unconnected from the storyline that we thought we were following.

Its not that he stayed to help humanity and disagreed with starting again somewhere without dragons, he disagreed with running from a fight. He stayed to fight just to win, not so save humanity, which is why he was willing to kill us and Elonians, and why he didn't care about collateral damage. I know that's not quite the OPs question but I think it's relevant

@Luindu.2418 said:

• The decission of not make a realm/prission for him (like they do with Abaddon's) and throw it with chains and no guards in a random place of the mists.

On top of what Konig has already said...

We still haven't got the full story of what happened to Rytlock in the Mists, just a couple of highlights. It's possible that the gods did put various protections over Balthazar's prison, and Rytlock simply managed to overcome them without finding out that they were guarding a fallen god.

Heck, it's even possible that he did pick up that information, but didn't consider that a random stranger in the Mists might be the fallen god that was being guarded.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 @"draxynnic.3719"

3. About the Realm of Torment i'm not sure if he really was Abbadon's realm or a prission that he "corrupt" (I tend more to this one) but i was talking (poor writing :p ) about this: ["The realm has been cut off from mortal access until Nightfall. "](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Realm_of_Torment ""The realm has been cut off from mortal access until Nightfall. "") A closed "prission" from 0 AE to 1075 AE aprox while the "Balthazar's Prission" have been closed 250 years at most? (supposing that Balthazar was chained the first days the Gods cut contact).Even if must be a good explanation as you said: the poor writing, the need of more details and the fact that we can compare with Nightfall and gw1 lore, makes the story (imho) worse.

On the other points, more or less I agree with you, we need a tons of details to understand this changes.

I mostly just liked the gods better when they didn't speak directly to mortals. That was the thing that made the interactions with the Lyssa avatar in nightfall special. The idea that even talking directly to an avatar of one of these beings was such a rare occurance. The idea that the Gods were som consumed or above it all they wouldn't even think to speak with mere mortals.The idea of the literal god of war, or the jungle dragon engaging in so much monologuing and trash talk makes them feel petty and mundane. Despite all the extra stuff, the HoT story feels much more right playing a non-sylvari character because it successfully employs the same narrative device of letting the player's imagination fill in specific details as only speaking with Zhaitan's underlings did. WHen it doesn't talk to you directly, it just seems more powerful and threatening because you get the impression you are beneath its notice.

Balthazar in LS3 I can forgive in a mursaat disguise (even then it would have worked better if the herald and not balth was the one responsible for all that) but once his true form is known... I just can't get over how mouthy he is to a mortal he finds little more than an easily dispatched nuisance. Combined with the relatively small (for a god) scale of the model, the big glowing sword alone doesn't really give him the presence of such a legendary feature.

Compare that with Abby or Zhaitan, or Mordremoth. You saw the effects of their massive power, but you worked in relative obscurity to try and thwart them all the way up until the end because beings of that magnitude just... wouldn't bother conversing with mortals unless necessary, and definitely wouldn't bother with threats or taunts. It wasn't until right there at the end, when you're literally in their face and prepared to kill them directly (because unlike Balthazar you aren't dumb enough to think you can any earlier) and they're forced to view you as something more elevated than all the other puny mortal creatures running around.

The truly powerful know how to delegate. Part of that sense of power is that you don't converse with them, you talk to their underlings who, even as underlings, are massively powerful. After sucking up a bloodstone and basically a whole dragon's worth of energy he just seems amazingly weak. Like I could buy that level of power from some Zaishen priest gone mad or a lieutenant , but not the god of war himself. He's the god of war and his plan is the same one we used to defeat zhaitan? He just cobbles together some magic scraps and arcane secrets and build a tank in stead of an airship.

He comes off as not only petty but weak. I know he's supposed to be weakened and seeking power, but he seems TOO weak considering all of the magic he's already managed to grab during the LS.

Balthazar actually makes more sense than Abaddon.

Abaddon was against the other gods and wanted to give humans magic. But he would not have gotten the world destroyed. He instead wanted to give humans lots of magic and save the world by taking it into his real in mists through "Nighfall". And all that magic juice he gave to his followers turned them into demons able to survive in the mists.

For Balthazar that would be a cowardly retreat too. He'd rather go down with the boat.

@Luindu.2418 said:@Konig Des Todes.2086 @"draxynnic.3719"

3. About the Realm of Torment i'm not sure if he really was Abbadon's realm or a prission that he "corrupt" (I tend more to this one) but i was talking (poor writing :p ) about this: ["The realm has been cut off from mortal access until Nightfall. "](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Realm_of_Torment ""The realm has been cut off from mortal access until Nightfall. "") A closed "prission" from 0 AE to 1075 AE aprox while the "Balthazar's Prission" have been closed 250 years at most? (supposing that Balthazar was chained the first days the Gods cut contact).Even if must be a good explanation as you said: the poor writing, the need of more details and the fact that we can compare with Nightfall and gw1 lore, makes the story (imho) worse.

On the other points, more or less I agree with you, we need a tons of details to understand this changes.

Technically, the Realm of Torment was not cut off. See: Door of Komalie.

And just because Rytlock managed to stumble into there via an unexpected, unprepared portal doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been "closed off" for far longer than Abaddon's had Rytlock not been there. In the same way, had it not been for Kormir activating the Apocrypha by accident then Varesh wouldn't have been able to perform her rituals (at least not as easily), so Abaddon would have been imprisoned longer.