I really barely understood anything about living story 3 - Episode 6: One Path Ends

Hello there misters and ladies!

I have recently came back to the game and unfortunatelly... I had too buy the Episode 6 and play with. Soo my memory about the entire living story 3 was a little rusty...

This is pretty much what I remembered before doing the chapter 6 just today:

-> We found out that Primodus is a big deal and try too put him in sleep state by going to a fire based place.

-> Aurene is born from the glint's egg and she is the must epic little thing ever seen in gw2 x'D

-> We go to a Ice map and help braham get... some scroll that will help him rally the troops against Jormag.

-> We kill Caudeceus (this npc I actually remember well because of the "Cadeceus Manor" dungeon story)

-> We found out that Lazarus (who tha bloody hell was this guy? I can't barely remember him... I only recall this npc having something to do with the " Bloodstone Fen" map?) was actually a fake... And he was the God of War, Balthazar.

And then I played living story 3, chapter 6 and my mind is totally blowed away, because I barely understood a thing there... :'(

Soo I want too understand this things:

1º Who exactly was this Lazarus? Was he real or fake and who was he supposed to represent?

2º The little npc girl, which happens to be... Lazarus enemy? in this chapter? Livia? who the bloody hell is she? Where did she came from? Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?

3º Why did all my 3 chars... have to became agents of the "Shining Blade"? I understand that my female Human would totally be ok with it, but why a Sylvari and a asura?

4º What was that little eyeball supposed to represent?

From what I asked around in guild chat... everyone that have played gw1 understood what happened there, soo I guess my problem may be that? I never played gw1 or know anything about his lore...

Thank you in advance, really apreciate for any and all comments about the lore of this ;)

@"Condutas.3580" said:Hello there misters and ladies!

I have recently came back to the game and unfortunatelly... I had too buy the Episode 6 and play with. Soo my memory about the entire living story 3 was a little rusty...

This is pretty much what I remembered before doing the chapter 6 just today:

-> We found out that Primodus is a big deal and try too put him in sleep state by going to a fire based place.

-> Aurene is born from the glint's egg and she is the must epic little thing ever seen in gw2 x'D

-> We go to a Ice map and help braham get... some scroll that will help him rally the troops against Jormag.

-> We kill Caudeceus (this npc I actually remember well because of the "Cadeceus Manor" dungeon story)

-> We found out that Lazarus (who tha bloody hell was this guy? I can't barely remember him... I only recall this npc having something to do with the " Bloodstone Fen" map?) was actually a fake... And he was the God of War, Balthazar.

And then I played living story 3, chapter 6 and my mind is totally blowed away, because I barely understood a thing there... :'(

Soo I want too understand this things:

1º Who exactly was this Lazarus? Was he real or fake and who was he supposed to represent?

2º The little npc girl, which happens to be... Lazarus enemy? in this chapter? Livia? who the bloody hell is she? Where did she came from? Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?

3º Why did all my 3 chars... have to became agents of the "Shining Blade"? I understand that my female Human would totally be ok with it, but why a Sylvari and a asura?

4º What was that little eyeball supposed to represent?

From what I asked around in guild chat... everyone that have played gw1 understood what happened there, soo I guess my problem may be that? I never played gw1 or know anything about his lore...

Thank you in advance, really apreciate for any and all comments about the lore of this ;)

Anise said that Kryta needs uncommon allies, so doesn't matter wheter the Commander is Asura, Charr or Sylvari.

The last episode was just something to not disappoint people that Lazarus was not Lazarus, and it was very harmful for lore players especially, so they putted the true Lazarus in the last episode and closed the whole White Mantle thread, that we dealt with during the season.

You could have learnt a lot about the Shining Blade, Livia etc if you just would be more curious after completing "The Shining Blade's secrets" chapter. :)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Shining_Blade_Manual_(complete)

I hope we're not bounded by the oath anymore, so we won't die if we'll tell the secrets of the Shining Blade. :D

@Arden.7480 said:I hope we're not bounded by the oath anymore, so we won't die if we'll tell the secrets of the Shining Blade. :D

Taimi likely heard everything anyway, so she can happily blab away unbound by any oath...

@"Condutas.3580" said:Hello there misters and ladies!

I have recently came back to the game and unfortunatelly... I had too buy the Episode 6 and play with. Soo my memory about the entire living story 3 was a little rusty...

This is pretty much what I remembered before doing the chapter 6 just today:

-> We found out that Primodus is a big deal and try too put him in sleep state by going to a fire based place.

-> Aurene is born from the glint's egg and she is the must epic little thing ever seen in gw2 x'D

-> We go to a Ice map and help braham get... some scroll that will help him rally the troops against Jormag.

-> We kill Caudeceus (this npc I actually remember well because of the "Cadeceus Manor" dungeon story)

-> We found out that Lazarus (who tha bloody hell was this guy? I can't barely remember him... I only recall this npc having something to do with the " Bloodstone Fen" map?) was actually a fake... And he was the God of War, Balthazar.

And then I played living story 3, chapter 6 and my mind is totally blowed away, because I barely understood a thing there... :'(

Soo I want too understand this things:

1º Who exactly was this Lazarus? Was he real or fake and who was he supposed to represent?

2º The little npc girl, which happens to be... Lazarus enemy? in this chapter? Livia? who the bloody hell is she? Where did she came from? Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?

3º Why did all my 3 chars... have to became agents of the "Shining Blade"? I understand that my female Human would totally be ok with it, but why a Sylvari and a asura?

4º What was that little eyeball supposed to represent?

From what I asked around in guild chat... everyone that have played gw1 understood what happened there, soo I guess my problem may be that? I never played gw1 or know anything about his lore...

Thank you in advance, really apreciate for any and all comments about the lore of this ;)

Lazarus was the last of the known mursaat on Tyria and was defeated in quest pack at the end of gw1. He was not killed though - you can read his full backstory on the wiki.

Livia was the npc and and and iconic character from gw1. She helped bring down the white mantle and mursaat rule so had a vested interest in finally killing lazarus once and for all.

The eyeball was a relic tied to the mursaat. More in depth info can be found under the eye of janthir wiki page. In this context, it tried to seek out the last of its masters in lazarus via the relics he was trapped in and inadvertandtly led us to him.

Other races being part of the shining blade was messy writing. There were many routes round this which made sense - induction into a human-centric group protecting a single nation was not one of them.

I am simplfying the explanations here, so again I do advise the more comprehensive explanations on the wiki if you missed them from side dialogues in game.

@"Condutas.3580" said:1º Who exactly was this Lazarus? Was he real or fake and who was he supposed to represent?

Last surviving member of the mursaat, he was a side-villain in Eye of the North, a major character in Saul's Story from the bonus mission pack, and a member of the primary antagonists in Prophecies. Mursaat are the false gods (actually a powerful race of spellcasters that have existed since the last dragonrise) of the White Mantle hence his importance in relation to Season 3's plot.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lazarus_the_Direhttps://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mursaathttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lazarus

@"Condutas.3580" said:2º The little npc girl, which happens to be... Lazarus enemy? in this chapter? Livia? who the bloody hell is she? Where did she came from? Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?

Livia was a hero from Eye of the North. Member of the Shining Blade, she became the third Master Exemplar (leader), and had sought out the Scepter of Orr.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Liviahttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Liviahttps://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Scepter_of_Orr

@"Condutas.3580" said:3º Why did all my 3 chars... have to became agents of the "Shining Blade"? I understand that my female Human would totally be ok with it, but why a Sylvari and a asura?

In all honesty? Bad writing. It seems to me they made up the Shining Blade Oath solely for the fact of allowing us to get to know about the Shining Blade weapon because they decided to utilize it in the story. While I like that a legendary weapon finally has lore, this felt very poorly crammed in.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Shining_Blade#Lore

@"Condutas.3580" said:4º What was that little eyeball supposed to represent?

That's the Eye of Janthir, an ancient artifact of White Mantle / mursaat origin from GW1 which played a role in Bastion of the Penitent (fourth raid wing).

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Eye_of_Janthirhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eye_of_Janthir

Season 3 in general was written in the perspective that players knew (and remembered) GW1 lore. Either by playing it or by reading up on it.

Same goes for the Hall of Chains raid wing that just came out.

@Arden.7480 said:I hope we're not bounded by the oath anymore, so we won't die if we'll tell the secrets of the Shining Blade. :D

We don't know any Shining Blade secrets to blab about, since talking about the oath is not one of the secrets (so why is talking about the intention to resurrect and kill Lazarus? Like I said, poor writing invented solely to introduce McGuffin Magic Sword that needn't be part of the story).

well, it's a really nice legendary sword. ;)

I'm in the same boat, I will even repeat/add the part that we join the human secret police because of something we could have been informed by our pact forces in Siren's Landing.

"Oh, we just saw a human god Balthazar going around here, I'm sure is of no importance to the Commander, Rytlock, Logan and the main people. Yeap."

Why? It makes no sense! :c It would have been perfect if we just had the big volcano ending with Balthazar saying "Screw this, I'm going to find another Dragon... TO VABBI!" and it would have been so much better.

@"Condutas.3580" said:

1º Who exactly was this Lazarus? Was he real or fake and who was he supposed to represent?Lazarus was the White Mantle's (Caudecus' cult) god. He was a character from GW1, but that wasn't really relevant to what we see of him in GW2- the only important things to know are that Caudecus tried to stop him from coming back, and then when he apparently did anyway, the White Mantle split, with some following their god and some following their leader.

The Lazarus we encounter in episodes 1, 2, and 5 was a fake, Balthazar in disguise. In episode 6, we revive the real one to kill him off and prevent him from being a threat in the future.

2º The little npc girl, which happens to be... Lazarus enemy? in this chapter? Livia? who the bloody hell is she? Where did she came from? Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?Former leader of the Shining Blade. This one is a place where playing GW1 makes a huge difference. The only other places you would've heard of her before now is one of the novels and the Shining Blade clubhouse instance. The important things to know is that she's the kind of person who will defend her country at the cost of her own soul, and that she obtained an artifact that allowed her to extend her lifespan by centuries to keep defending that country.

3º Why did all my 3 chars... have to became agents of the "Shining Blade"? I understand that my female Human would totally be ok with it, but why a Sylvari and a asura?That... doesn't have any widely accepted answer. It largely boils down to whether you feel it's a big deal or not, but there are plenty of people who think it is, and really didn't like that aspect of the story.4º What was that little eyeball supposed to represent?The Eye of Janthir? Again, something you could've gotten either from GW1 or the Bastion of the Penitent raid. The short answer is that it's an artifact tied to the mursaat (Lazarus' race), that one of it's capabilities was identifying people who could see through a mursaat's invisibility, and that almost everything else about it was a complete mystery, even if you'd played the first game. There was never before anything that indicated it'd cease to exist when the last mursaat died, or that it could give visions of where Balthazar was and what he was up to, but since we knew so little to begin with, the writers were able to get away with that bit of plot convenience.

From what I asked around in guild chat... everyone that have played gw1 understood what happened there, soo I guess my problem may be that? I never played gw1 or know anything about his lore...Being very, very thorough with GW2's optional content and the novels probably would've done most of the job as well, but yes, playing through the main story of GW2 wouldn't have prepared you by itself. In these cases, the wiki is your friend, but so are us lot here on the lore forum!

Yeah, my wife was similarly confused. So was I to a lesser extent, having played GW1 Prophecies but not Eye of the North, but was at least familiar enough with the mursaat and human gods to grasp what was going on.We unlocked season 3 specifically so we'd know what we were getting into for PoF. We just started PoF for the first time this weekend, after taking a while to get through season 3, and her reaction after episode 6 was "Yeah, I don't really get what we just did, or where we're going, or why we're doing it." Fair enough, wife, fair enough. So I had to run her through an awkward Guild Wars Lore summary, which was what I didn't want to do.It feels like there's an awful lot of exposition, but none that really fills you in on important background details. They need to get someone who's unfamiliar with GW lore to go through their scripts and say "What are we even talking about here?"

That episode simply made not much sense in any direction. It is there where I would wish for an option to just say no and tell Livia to get lost with her plot. I especially liked the part where the Eye of Janthir disintegrated, if that would be happening to any magical item in Tyria after the death of their creators not many items of note would be left and Joko could make a fortune with crafting. :)

@AstralDusk.1670 said:Yeah, my wife was similarly confused. So was I to a lesser extent, having played GW1 Prophecies but not Eye of the North, but was at least familiar enough with the mursaat and human gods to grasp what was going on.

I've played through Prophecies twice, Eye of the North once and Nightfall about halfway. I still had no idea who anyone was. I vaguely recognized the names of most of them but that's a long way from remembering who they are or what relationship they have one to another.

As for the Shining Blade oath part it's the single worst piece if writing in GW2 so far. If I wasn't long past caring I'd have been furious. As it was I was just irritated, which is worse, because it means I can no longer get emotionally engaged even by such an outrageous twisting of the character that's supposed to be mine. As far as the story is concerned my characters ceased to have anything to do with me long ago, though. I just listen to them spout nonsense in someone else's voice now as though its a bad radio play.

Your confusion in episode 6 is entirely justified, I knew who all the characters were and it made me angry instead. Anyone who didn't play GW1 would have no idea who Livia was and she was not built up in any way, if they wanted Livia to appear in ep6 they should have included that Shining Blade Agent in an earlier episode and our character should not have known who "Livia" was (why would they?). Lazarus and the Mursaat were treated with total disrespect, nothing more than a loose end someone wanted to snip off. And having nonhumans, especially Charr, join the Shining Blade is a total abomination.

Awful episode, I wish they hadn't done that story. The return of the Mursaat was something they teased us with, then snatched away with Balthazar, then just to spite us they summon Lazarus for <9mins and extinguish the race. Just awful.

I don't see the problem with chapter 6 - Remember that in Living Story 3, we don't really have a focus or a goal besides "gather Dragons Watch and watch out for dragon activity". These aren't our stories; rather, we are the guest stars in most of these theatres of war.

I get that people want to make this fight personal because Lazarus was a thing in GW1, but Mursaat have no relevance in today’s Tyria. This is GW1's problem, Livia’s problem, not the Pact Commander's problem – we just tagged along for the ride because a) It sounds like fun, b) We have nothing better to do and c) A Mursaat would have access to the Eye of Janthir, an object capable of locating Balthazar.

As for why you joined the blade as a non-human? The world is angling towards peace, and now you have human allies pretty high up in the Krytan court. Your only condition is that you don't tell of their secrets - how is this a bad thing? It's pretty clear at this point that no races are going to go rogue and ask you to act against human interests, as there are still four other elder dragons still tromping about - and the blade aren't going to jeprodise their relationship with a person who's slain 2 elder dragons and the human god of war.

Hell, who knows - maybe Livia owes us one now, and will help us in some way in a future expansion or living story? It's too early to say this was bad storytelling, as there are still many places the writers could go with this.

I don't think it's about making the fight with Lazarus personal, but rather that he was a pretty major figure and the White Mantle (therefore mursaat) were heavily relevant in Kryta's plot (bandits, centaur war dealings, ministry corruption - WM behind everything). So people just wanted more than "oh he's revived oh he's dead".

Not only that, but Season 3 began with making Lazarus a big deal, only for him to a) not be Lazarus in the most asspull revelation of all times, and b) the real Lazarus to be non-consequential despite the whole season making him sound consequential.

Why did she hated Lazarus soo much?

I do not remember if this is the case with Livia. But the cult of White Mantle involved human sacrifices, and many humans had relatives killed by them, most of the more obstinate persecutors of the White Mantle had some kinsman dead by them.

This is why I don't like games relying so much on past iterations and references to other games to tell a story. While I did understand was was going on, It wasn't natural, It required me to "research" quite a bit before having a complete vision of the situation. Clunky, nostalgia driven, incomplete, bad storytelling.

Yeah, season 3 fell into a lot of unnecessary lorespeak. Overall, I liked the story fine. But the wrapup of the season left me and other players very confused. I'm steeped in Guild Wars 2 lore, and I had no idea or understanding as to what people were saying toward the end of the season.

When my charr commander was like "MURSAAT!" I was like, "uhh....why does my charr know human things I don't know." This happened a ton. Someone should have been hanging out with the Commander to explain things along the way, and why they might have importance. The game assumes you know its lorespeak, and uses lorespeak it never has used before. Bad, bad writing.

Chapter 6 is the Phantom Menace of guild wars. It involves some characters from past and future stories,but otherwise can be ignored or considered non-canon and it wouldn’t affect anything else.