Two lore questions, One about the 6 gods and one about reserrection

Hello!

I have been playing GW1 a little bit, and something I noticed is that lore wise, there are shrines all over which resurrect people. Characters actually dying seem few and far between due to the resurrection system. In fact during the Nightfall campaign intro they make it a big point in the tutorial that even normal people can be brought back through the shrines, with you only dying if you are too far away from a shrine. (But the shrines are everywhere!). Not to mention several classes were told to have resurrection abilities among other things. So what happened between GW1 and GW2 to make this feature no longer a viable way to prevent death?

And secondly, I have a question about the 6 gods. Technically 7. What happened in the last 250 years? I mean, I know Balthazar went crazy and killed them. but that seemed out of no where. And the game's lore has made it so that gods are not easy to kill. During GW1, as far as I am aware, we were not able to kill Abaddon, instead only seal him with the help of the newly birthed god. Using Abaddon again as the example, the 5 gods were not able to kill him either, instead only sealing him away. Anyway, my main question is... did the Balthazar really go crazy out of no where? I can not think of any hints within GW1 (from my admitably limited info) and the information found in the core game of GW2, which hinted towards the gods being dead and Balthazar being the one to kill them. All I can remember is mention of the gods being quiet, but their servants and avatars were still usable by the followers. For the Heart of Thorns expansion, it was very much hinted through out the core GW2 game that Slyvari were most likely servants of the jungle Dragon and that the Jungle Dragon was a thing. Even before Season 1 happened it was very much hinted at for that being a thing. But I can not think of where it was indicated that could have happened with Balthazar, did the devs really pull it out of no where?

Just for the case that you haven't played the PoF Story i'll use a spoiler.

! First thing Bahltazar didn't kill the other gods, they withdraw from Tyria. The gods thought that a conflict with the elder dragons would be inevitable, and that a war with the elder dragons could only lead to the destruction of Tyria. To spare Tyria this fate the gods except of Balthazar decided to withdraw from Tyria. Since Balthazar is the god of War it somehow makes sense that he didn't want to withdraw. To stop his plans to fight the dragons the other gods had to strip him from his powers and sealed him in the mist, which as well sealed the conflict between him and the other gods. That's why he swore revenge.!! That the shrine wouldn't work any longer could as well be explaned by the fact that the gods withdraw from the world. But i guess they just weren't necessary any longer gameplay-wise, since we now have waypoints and everyone can ressurect defeated players (and npc).

! You get the information concerning the gods in the PoF Mission Facing the Truth .

You're confusing resurrection with revival. People go into cardiac arrest all the time, but rarely die from it anymore because modern technology has changed our way of thinking about what death is (leading to the term "clinical death" instead which is usually braindeath). Most resurrection in the first game (and in many other games) is actually just revival and it had the limitations of such (e.g time limits, distance limits, etc.).

Resurrection is when you bring someone back who has been fully dead for some time, and is extremely rare in the Guild Wars universe. It has happened only a few times to mortals, and there were always really special circumstances surrounding it.

GW2 doesn't have either of these btw.. when a person is downed and then defeated, they are just "unconscious". This difference between downed, defeated and dead is very clearly demonstrated in Path of Fire storyline, but explain it here would give spoilers so I'll avoid.

Balthazar did not kill the gods, they just left Tyria but stayed nearby in the Mists. [More PoF spoilers I will avoid.]

@"Hannelore.8153" said:You're confusing resurrection with revival. People go into cardiac arrest all the time, but rarely die from it anymore because modern technology has changed our way of thinking about what death is (leading to the term "clinical death" instead which is usually braindeath). Most resurrection in the first game (and in many other games) is actually just revival and it had the limitations of such (e.g time limits, distance limits, etc.).

Resurrection is when you bring someone back who has been fully dead for some time, and is extremely rare in the Guild Wars universe. It has happened only a few times to mortals, and there were always really special circumstances surrounding it.

GW2 doesn't have either of these btw.. when a person is downed and then defeated, they are just "unconscious". This difference between downed, defeated and dead is very clearly demonstrated in Path of Fire storyline, but explain it here would give spoilers so I'll avoid.

Balthazar did not kill the gods, they just left Tyria but stayed nearby in the Mists. [More PoF spoilers I will avoid.]

Ahhh, that helps clear a few things up about the resurrection from the first game.

As for the stuff with Balthazar, thanks for the clarification. When a friend was just starting the expansion months ago they talked about how Balthazar killed all the gods and went on a warpath taking their powers and that we could no longer kill the eldar dragons because it would be counter productive to saving the world. Good to know he was mostly talking in half truths.

Actually, there was resurrection in GW1. Something happened between GW1 and GW2 that made it no longer available - what that was has been left ambiguous. It's generally supposed to be related to the gods withdrawing from the world, but regardless, it is in the lore that there was a time when resurrection was possible, and then there was a time when it was... not impossible, but certainly a lot harder to achieve.

Regarding the gods: We do in fact kill Abaddon in Nightfall. This released a huge amount of magic from Abaddon's essence, which Kormir absorbed to become Abaddon's replacement. Killing full-on gods is certainly not easy (for instance, it would not have been possible in Nightfall without the remnants of the chains used to bind Abaddon), but it is possible - doing so releases the magic contained within them, though, which can be quite dangerous.

However, Balthazar does not kill the other 5. They bound Balthazar in the Mists and left of their own volition.

Resurrection in Gw1 was a thing yes.. but there were limits to it.Someone who's body was destroyed entirely couldn't be resurrected at a shrine which would explain how so many died during the searing event and also the corruption of a person's soul would also forbid ressurection.. this we see multiple times in the Guildwars franchise.. in Dragon Corruption, the Forefire, Bloodstone magic.. etc etc.As for Gw2.. we don't die exactly.. more we get defeated and left incapacitated allowing us to quickly escape by teleporting to a waypoint or being healed by another person.

There are no more active shrines in Gw2 and this is likely due to the Gods weakened presence on the world thanks to the Dragons.. not to mention Dhuum's growing power in the Underworld.Dhuum was the original God of death.. and if there is one thing everyone should know about him its that he finds the very concept of ressurection insulting.

I won't go into the story with Balthazar since I doub't you've played PoF and I don't want to spoil it for you (It's really good.. seriously play it)But as for Abaddon.. when the Gods banished him the battle between them devastated much of the world.. this is why he was banished and not destroyed.A Gods power cannot be destroyed.. even a fallen God like Abaddon.. this is why his eventual death led to the ascention and creation of a new God.. and why Dhuum himself has never been destroyed but rather repeatedly sealed away.Gods are simply too powerful.. even when stripped of the lions share of their power they must still transfer their magical essence upon death or the resulting explosion of released power would tear the world apart.. This is a trait they also share with the Elder Dragons who upon death also release massive surges of magical energy into the world that are typically consumed by the other dragons making them far more powerful.

Without something to absorb a dead gods power.. or dead Elder Dragon's power the world's magic would not be able to stay in balance and it would die.This is exactly why we've stopped hunting Elder Dragons.

@Teratus.2859 said:Resurrection in Gw1 was a thing yes.. but there were limits to it.Someone who's body was destroyed entirely couldn't be resurrected at a shrine which would explain how so many died during the searing event and also the corruption of a person's soul would also forbid ressurection.. this we see multiple times in the Guildwars franchise.. in Dragon Corruption, the Forefire, Bloodstone magic.. etc etc.As for Gw2.. we don't die exactly.. more we get defeated and left incapacitated allowing us to quickly escape by teleporting to a waypoint or being healed by another person.

Without something to absorb a dead gods power.. or dead Elder Dragon's power the world's magic would not be able to stay in balance and it would die.This is exactly why we've stopped hunting Elder Dragons.

Huh, that is cool about the originally resurrection. The lack of the gods presence makes sense on the powers actually.

As for the Elder Dragons, I am sure it explains what happens as I go through the expansions, but..., if we can't kill them anymore without risking the world, how are we supposed to deal with them? I think there is 5 dragons left after all. On a side note, I am hoping we fight the Snow dragon soon, and the Sea dragon. I am especially looking forward to eventually dealing with the sea dragon, considering it is blocking the way to the other continents.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:Huh, that is cool about the originally resurrection. The lack of the gods presence makes sense on the powers actually.

As for the Elder Dragons, I am sure it explains what happens as I go through the expansions, but..., if we can't kill them anymore without risking the world, how are we supposed to deal with them? I think there is 5 dragons left after all. On a side note, I am hoping we fight the Snow dragon soon, and the Sea dragon. I am especially looking forward to eventually dealing with the sea dragon, considering it is blocking the way to the other continents.

Well at the moment we've had some luck putting them back to sleep.. although one is roaming around causing all sorts of trouble and we've no idea what to do about him right now.. we're keeping an eye on him though.The Sea Dragon unfortunately still hasn't even gotten a mention.. this is driving me nuts as well lol.

I can't wait for the story to focus on the Sea Dragon.. specially if it means more underwater content.. Gw2 has a superb underwater system that's been criminally underused since the game came out.I wish they would give it some TLC.. that's all it needs to become amazing.

@Teratus.2859 said:

Well at the moment we've had some luck putting them back to sleep.. although one is roaming around causing all sorts of trouble and we've no idea what to do about him right now.. we're keeping an eye on him though.The Sea Dragon unfortunately still hasn't even gotten a mention.. this is driving me nuts as well lol.

I can't wait for the story to focus on the Sea Dragon.. specially if it means more underwater content.. Gw2 has a superb underwater system that's been criminally underused since the game came out.I wish they would give it some TLC.. that's all it needs to become amazing.

Oh, that is cool about putting them back to sleep. That will be awesome to get to.

And oh totally, too many people hate the underwater sections, I've always loved it. There was just something so... different about an MMO that actually gave us combat underwater that felt right. But, it seems like it is mostly being forgotten outside of the base game from what I have heard so far. I do hope that if we get an expansion for the Sea Dragon with us exploring the sea (There is a ton of potential here. So many cool races) I want them to allow for another race to be selected on character creation. Hopefully the butterfly fish people, since we know they have been dealing with the sea dragon for a while, and races like Quagon have been running from said dragon. But, I doubt that will actually happen.

Ressurection is a magical thing. In GW1, being human centric, it uses shrines to the gods. In GW2, the asurans have developped waypoints, that function as resurection shrines.

As for the Gods. this is a huge spoiler to GW2 PoF story.

! Balthazar had an dissagreement with the other Gods about fighting the elder dragons. He wanted to fight and the gods deemed that too destructive. So they stripped Balthazar of his powers and chained him in the mists. The other gods left the mists and went bebeyond to unknown destinations. Balthazar was freed from the mists by a certain char and regained power from the bloodstone, primordus and jormag.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:So what happened between GW1 and GW2 to make this feature no longer a viable way to prevent death?

The TL;DR is simply "we do not know". Something happened in the past 250 years where resurrection magic as known commonly in GW1 ceased to function and was in turn forgotten. The leading theory is that the silence of the gods caused this. In GW1 it is presented that Grenth was the one allowing resurrections in the first place, and that Dhuum actively prevented such. Between the games, Grenth went silent then left the Underworld all together, while Dhuum broke free.

From a designer perspective, this change was ultimately done to make death a more emotional and logical thing - to cease the question of "why don't we just resurrect them?" like we get with the main plot deaths of GW1 (namely Rurik, Saidra, and Togo). To reinforce this, ArenaNet renamed everything around the typical death mechanics - why we call it defeated rather than dead, and revival rather than resurrection.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:And secondly, I have a question about the 6 gods. Technically 7. What happened in the last 250 years? I mean, I know Balthazar went crazy and killed them. but that seemed out of no where.

Er, Balthazar didn't kill any gods. He wanted to kill them. They had left the world and their realms as presented in Facing the Truth and The Departing. As presented in Garden of the Gods (Crystal Oasis scavenger hunt achievement reward), the gods went to find a new world in which threats like the Elder Dragons do not exist.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:During GW1, as far as I am aware, we were not able to kill Abaddon, instead only seal him with the help of the newly birthed god.

No, Abaddon was indeed killed. His divinity - not himself - was absorbed into Kormir. As was his knowledge and will. But not him, per se.

The other gods were not able to kill him not due to being inable to, but because a god's power - their divinity - cannot be destroyed. The god itself can be (albeit very difficult, like killing an Elder Dragon), but the magic must be contained. As presented at the end of Nightfall, and in fact Path of Fire though in this case it is a former god rather than current god like Abaddon, the god's body breaks apart upon death and unleashes all contained magic. In a case of a former god who regained power like Balthazar, this unleashing of magic is not strictly cataclysmic, but certainly devastating. But with a god's divinity? It would threaten to destroy worlds.

Given that the gods chose not to kill Abaddon, that implies that they had no proper replacement for Abaddon at the time, thus opted to imprison him rather than kill him.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:Anyway, my main question is... did the Balthazar really go crazy out of no where? I can not think of any hints within GW1 (from my admitably limited info) and the information found in the core game of GW2, which hinted towards the gods being dead and Balthazar being the one to kill them.

Balthazar did rather go crazy out of nowhere. It's one of the largest (if not THE largest and primary) complaint about Path of Fire, that the choice of villain came out of left field and his reasoning was done poorly.

The lore behind Balthazar is that over the past 1,300 years (aka since the Exodus) he's gotten a bit bloodthirsty due to having no true battles (despite, y'know, the Eternal Battle happening in FoW - a major oversight with that little bit), and the rise of the Elder Dragons was the perfect opportunity for Balthazar to flex his muscles. The other five gods thought that it would be better to avoid conflict instead, given that the battle would be a lose-lose situation (if the gods won, Tyria dies; if the gods lost, Elder Dragons become superpowered and cause even more devastation). Balthazr didn't like this reasoning (because hotheaded I guess), and threatened the other gods due to their "cowardice". So before Balthazar could act out his threats, like Abaddon had managed millennia before, the five gods beat Balthazar down, stripped him of his power, and imprisoned him.

Why does this not make sense? Well, aside from the fact he had his fair share of battle available to him 250 years ago (technically this may be 50 years prior to this disagreement by all indication, as Balthazar's stripping of power is hinted at points to be when the Elder Dragons first began to wake), there is the fact that throughout all of GW1, Balthazar is never presented as prideful, warmongering, or deceptive. And that's exactly what Balthazar is throughout Path of Fire - instead, the being given such description the best would be Menzies. Not only that, but Balthazar's plot is a complete rehash of Abaddon's backstory - wanting to do something, the other gods disagreed, he rampaged, he lost and got imprisoned and then he broke free due to meddling from an ignorant bystander messing with things beyond their comprehension.

The sad thing is that if they had just gone with Menzies instead, the plot would have made perfect sense. Or hell, if they made Balthazar's motivation to be that Menzies had defeated and usurped him, stealing his power but not killing him as a form of torment (being forced to live out his immortal life, unable to do anything to stop Menzies).

But instead, they presented all of this out of nowhere, with no buildup. Not even the "Lazarus reveal" had any proper build up. And the sad fact is that I was able to come up with a way to add proper build up five minutes after the reveal, without giving too much away. Especially if they had gone 9 episodes instead of a meager 6.

@"Hannelore.8153" said:You're confusing resurrection with revival. People go into cardiac arrest all the time, but rarely die from it anymore because modern technology has changed our way of thinking about what death is (leading to the term "clinical death" instead which is usually braindeath). Most resurrection in the first game (and in many other games) is actually just revival and it had the limitations of such (e.g time limits, distance limits, etc.).

Resurrection is when you bring someone back who has been fully dead for some time, and is extremely rare in the Guild Wars universe. It has happened only a few times to mortals, and there were always really special circumstances surrounding it.

Actually, this would be incorrect. ArenaNet made the intentional move of going from resurrection to revival for the purpose of making deaths in plot meaningful. In GW1, people actually died. It's literally lampshaded in the dialogue. For example:

"Remember all those times we were dying and I was the only one left standing but I used my signet on Alesia instead of you only to have her die while attempting to restore Lina's life? Yeah, good times. Good times."

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Reyna

Resurrection is also brought up multiple times in the plot - such as when Glint reveals the nature of the White Mantle's sacrifices on the Bloodstones, and say those killed atop of them can never be resurrected by any magic; or around Dhuum's prevention of resurrection and undead and Grenth's allowance of it.

@Satiodelf.2946 said:As for the Elder Dragons, I am sure it explains what happens as I go through the expansions, but..., if we can't kill them anymore without risking the world, how are we supposed to deal with them? I think there is 5 dragons left after all. On a side note, I am hoping we fight the Snow dragon soon, and the Sea dragon. I am especially looking forward to eventually dealing with the sea dragon, considering it is blocking the way to the other continents.

Four dragons left. And "how will we deal with them" is the current overarching plot that we're dealing with right now, alongside the Joko antics.

And given what little hints we have about the DSD's location, it's not strictly blocking access to other continents.

@mercury ranique.2170 said:Ressurection is a magical thing. In GW1, being human centric, it uses shrines to the gods. In GW2, the asurans have developped waypoints, that function as resurection shrines.

The lore around waypoints actually make them require active input by the user - by standing underneath them to teleport. Us being able to use waypoints at any time, even while defeated, is pure mechanics.

I have a theory that we never die in GW2.In GW1 the gods resurrect us because of plot arm- destiny and fate.In GW2 we never die, because we carry the hole in the pocket which pulls us out when we’re near-death.Just my theory, tho

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The lore around waypoints actually make them require active input by the user - by standing underneath them to teleport. Us being able to use waypoints at any time, even while defeated, is pure mechanics.

Not speaking fact, but theory here.Didn’t Snaff create the hole in the pocket in the Edge of Destiny book? Which allows a person to return to an attuned waypoint.Give or take a few years, Zojja might’ve perfected this tech. It still being rare or expensive tech, which is why only the pact commander has one.(Just a theory, what’s your thought?)

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The lore around waypoints actually make them require active input by the user - by standing underneath them to teleport. Us being able to use waypoints at any time, even while defeated, is pure mechanics.

Rather than to a waypoint, the hole in the pocket was a miniature asura gate that could expand that led to "any location once visited". No waypointing ever mentioned.

That said, against the theory: the PC has the ability to go to any waypoint at any time, even when unconscious, long before impressing Zojja.

For the theory of Snaff's device:

"Personal transporter?" Volla mused, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. Her coiled braids swayed gently around well-shaped and smoothly moving ears. "That's a Snaff device, isn't it? Hmph. Boikk was such an idea thief." She raised a hand and stroked her ears lightly, letting the tips of her fingers press gently over her delightfully wide forehead...https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/That_Old_College_Try

So it wouldn't be that exceptionally rare.

That said, the leading theory is that the entire waypoint system is based off of Snaff's hole in the pocket.

Either way, all NPCs we see - even Rytlock who would have gotten such a device if Zojja was giving them to trusted allies (this was during The Origins of Madness two-weekly period) - walk up to waypoints to utilize them. And no one could use a miniaturized asura gate while unconscious. So while the device may be tied to waypoints, and even allow teleportation without going directly to them in theory, it doesn't explain the PC's ability to waypoint while unconscious.

If I recall correctly, as was stated in original GW lore, Grenth kept the gates of the Underworld open to allow Dwayna's priests to freely resurrect those souls that would otherwise be lost. As has been stated in an above post, you can't expect a few priests scattered about the area to protect you in something like the foefire or major disasters. Also, as was stated above, now that the shift of power has transferred to the dragons, leaving the old gods weakened, they can't do what they did two hundred fifty years ago. That's the whole reason Balthazar is on a war path! He wants his power back!

@Jak.8627 said:now that the shift of power has transferred to the dragons, leaving the old gods weakened, they can't do what they did two hundred fifty years ago. That's the whole reason Balthazar is on a war path! He wants his power back!

The gods aren't weakened at all. They left.

Balthazar was weakened, yes, but by the other five gods. His power wasn't taken by the Elder Dragons or anything - no gods' power was. Preventing that from happening is exactly why they (sans Balthazar) decided to leave.