Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Diatribe on Joko and his purpose in the LWS4 story. Ep 3 Spoilers.


Okami Amaterasu.9237

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 134
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Anet's writers are beyond help. Not only is dialogue usually terrible, it has random jokes weaved into a trash plot. Currently they are on a crusade to finish off anything decent from gw1 lore (see: lazarus, palawa joko, gods etc.)

Lazarus deserved a legitimate storyline given the stature of the Mursaat and the whole flame seeker prophecies. Instead not only is Lazarus just a bad vehicle for this Balthazar plot but he is killed in some meager tomb on Orr.

Joko the infamous Scourge of Vabbi dies to Aurene. To rub insult on the wound they make the whole cutscene show that he knew the significance of the gods and dragons and was executing a plan to outsmart us but guess what. One adolescent dragon can randomly appear inside his heavily fortified fortress and he has absolutely no defense ready for it. Was Turai too stupid to try and feed Palawa's body or is Aurene just gonna eat/consume any magical enemy we defeat just because she needs to be the catch-all star of the show?

None of the Gods' motivations make any sense and the writers are too terrible to make a coherent story about them. Gods randomly leave just because, Balthazar randomly is rogue just because. Its incredibly lazy writing when it doesn't even take that much effort to have characters with reasonable motivations. A children's book is more compelling than what they put out here.

When you first visit the Omlahkan they spew all this nonsense that they should flee and not fight the inquest. Yet during the very mission afterward when a inquest golem confronts the Elder, he screams something about never surrendering. literally wut?

My mind is blown. Every time it seems like there may be an interesting plot getting developed it instead goes the way a bad joke.It says something that the best story content this game has seen has come from a team not even dedicated to writing any lore whatsoever. (raids)

But to answer some of the questions:

  1. They aren't going to dedicate any resources to change the map, too much work.
  2. Nothing in gw2 is to scale. We have to use our own imagination to think there were more people at the docks. The scarabs should have been able to fly away but they wanted to make them interact-able and use mounts. Its a case where gameplay trumped realism.
  3. They made some nonsense up about the generations of scarabs. There was no indication the previous scarab plague had any issues spreading.
  4. No idea, perhaps inquest were doing other experiments on the charr there as well.
  5. Anet cannot have their lgbt couple dying
  6. They butchered Joko. He got the Lazarus treatment.
  7. GW2 is not a dark or serious game. The story is closer to a children's book where the good guy is always going to win. There are no grey motivations, only black and white.
  8. Kito is plot device. He will appear when needed to push things along just like Asuran portals always appear when we need to go to a new region.
  9. GW2 story cannot handle too many moving parts. Kralk for all intents and purposes is AFK until the story revisits him. This is the same reason Primordus and Jormag conveniently got put to "sleep".
  10. As repeated before Joko got the Lazarus treatment. His character has always been jokey and comical but he has had dark motivations. GW2 simply marginalizes any such motivations in favor of making the player character the Hero of the Day.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Okami Amaterasu.9237 said:• And then, get this, he decides Not to unleash the plague again elsewhere, such as Lion’s Arch with Portals to every Main City kitten Kitten Kitten Kitten, but to Taunt the Commander into coming after him in Kourna. Whyyy? Why don’t you just Wait until your “third generation scarabs” are ready? Why even launch an “attack” against Amnoon with only first generation scarabs? It didn’t kill nearly anybody! Just to be a mean, meany jerk and say “Ha Commander! There! Try and stop me now! (even though we just stopped his plague right there) I’ll be waiting for you in Kourna! (why reveal your location) Once I have the full “third generation” scarabs, nothing will stop my plans! (Plot; rising tension, ghost magic at the moon fortress gate stops it anyway, fake tension).

Perhaps Joko knew that he could best the commander and that Aurene would have to come to their rescue (just like with Balthazar), and his plan the whole time was to have his corporeal form devoured by Aurene so that he could possess her and now have a God-Magic-Infused Dragon body as a host for his Lich essence...?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I won't go into length because I'm tired but I'll say this:

I loved the dialogue. It felt like I was confronting Joko as we knew him in GW1. A trickster and a manipulator who treats everything as a game simply because he can outlive everything. I loved the cinematics, they were all very well done.

I do not get the whole "the scarabs can only infest humans" thing. This makes no sense at all, for lengthy reasons that I just can't bother to get into. There's no logical reason that one species and one species only could be vulnerable to their behavior of incubating eggs and larvae within living hosts; humans are not THAT different from all the other species, native to Tyria or not, and even if it were just a case of built up resilience over millennia of dealing with parasitic scarabs, norn, asura, and possibly charr would not have this exposure (sylvari too but they're plants so they're different topic entirely; they're also magical dragon minions). Add in that if it weren't for humans, they'd only incubate their eggs and larvae among wheat, this makes two completely opposing environs for the scarabs to house their young in, which is drastically uncommon. Add in the experiments of Episode 2 showing us with moas, choya, charr, and karka both living ones incubating scarabs and dead ones, this makes even less sense. The only actual possibly explanation. Ultimately, the only reason I can think of for why this is the case, would be magical manipulation to create a sub-breed of scarabs that can target humans specifically in addition to their standard biological functions.

It's also annoying, that the Vabbian Sunspears, Tahlkora, and the griffons were just neatly and conveniently forgotten. As if they never existed. Despite the fact that they'd have such a pivotal role in the plot against Joko, far more than our Primeval Queens did.

And then there's something the OP complains a little too much about: deaths. While the personal story had very clearly overdone the death department of both meaningful and meaningless deaths, while HoT only touched meaningful deaths, with Path of Fire touching no deaths (aside from the nameless which don't even count as meaningless tbh), Season 4 is pretty bad in that we had a setting of a stage for something far, far worse than anything seen before in terms of warfare, and yet we had no meaningful deaths. Whether it was Taimi, Faren, Braham, Rox, or even Zaiem or Gorrik, someone should have died. Not many deaths - don't want to overdo it - but someone should have died.

Makes me regret being able to save Taimi in Episode 1.

But worse, however, was that this was just pure out completely anti-climatic. Firstly, Joko dying in a draconis ex machina way is just poor writing. Yeah, sure, you get your 15 seconds of shock from Aurene doing what she did, but that style of death is more appropriate for your Starscream styled villain. Of which, Joko was not.

Secondly, you just took THE villain of the entire franchise, and turned him into a freaking half-time miniboss for the plot. Seriously? You put Joko on par to Caudecus? Not even that, but he hardly got any screen time. Very few villains get a proper amount of screentime in this game - the only villain that has, imo, was Scarlet... who I detest for the quality of her design. I'm not upset he died - I kind of expected him to, just not so soon.

Lazarus and Dhuum got it bad enough, and these three were the only real villains that were carried over to the game. Joko was better than those two, but really it feels like Anet just doesn't give a shit about maintaining character standards.

Thirdly, you kill him off right a one hell of a massive reveal about his character, while also heavily hinting (to the point of practically promising) out of the game to go into his background, yet never do. Now that he is dead, why would we bother plot wise? It's just like Balthazar and his apparent "real motivations" that never got delved into. You just hinted that not only did he know from the beginning the importance of the Elder Dragons, but suggest in his dialogue that he has lived long enough to see the gods and dragons "come and go". Which just makes players BEG to know just who is he? And then you kill him off. And we will go into his backstory...why? Who cares (in-game), he's dead now.

I loved that ending speech of his. But honestly? It should have ended with him going something along the lines of: "You may be able to beat me in raw strength. But you can't kill me. But I? I can kill you, Commander. And in all honesty, I probably should, with all the damage you've done. But I won't. I won't because I enjoy this. Taking your glory, watching you flounder about as you ruin the world you try oh so desperately to save." And then leave through a portal. For him to put his nation at risk for the sake of petty revenge, to watch his own commanders fall and laugh about not re-Awakening them, to fight the Commander and talk about being nemesis to each other, to prove that they really are immortal, and to have the Commander at his fingertips... and then to spare him. To leave. Consider the massive psychological blow that would have been.

(Seems I did get lengthy... And yet I could have gone about four times longer).

I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I won't go into length because I'm tired but I'll say this:

I loved the dialogue. It felt like I was confronting Joko as we knew him in GW1. A trickster and a manipulator who treats everything as a game simply because he can outlive everything. I loved the cinematics, they were all very well done.

I do not get the whole "the scarabs can only infest humans" thing. This makes no sense at all, for lengthy reasons that I just can't bother to get into. There's no logical reason that one species and one species only could be vulnerable to their behavior of incubating eggs and larvae within living hosts; humans are not THAT different from all the other species, native to Tyria or not, and even if it were just a case of built up resilience over millennia of dealing with parasitic scarabs, norn, asura, and possibly charr would not have this exposure (sylvari too but they're plants so they're different topic entirely; they're also magical dragon minions). Add in that if it weren't for humans, they'd only incubate their eggs and larvae among wheat, this makes two completely opposing environs for the scarabs to house their young in, which is drastically uncommon. Add in the experiments of Episode 2 showing us with moas, choya, charr, and karka both living ones incubating scarabs and dead ones, this makes even less sense. The only actual possibly explanation. Ultimately, the only reason I can think of for why this is the case, would be magical manipulation to create a sub-breed of scarabs that can target humans specifically in addition to their standard biological functions.

It's also annoying, that the Vabbian Sunspears, Tahlkora, and the griffons were just neatly and conveniently forgotten. As if they never existed. Despite the fact that they'd have such a pivotal role in the plot against Joko, far more than our Primeval Queens did.

And then there's something the OP complains a little too much about: deaths. While the personal story had very clearly overdone the death department of both meaningful and meaningless deaths, while HoT only touched meaningful deaths, with Path of Fire touching no deaths (aside from the nameless which don't even count as meaningless tbh), Season 4 is pretty bad in that we had a setting of a stage for something far, far worse than anything seen before in terms of warfare, and yet we had no meaningful deaths. Whether it was Taimi, Faren, Braham, Rox, or even Zaiem or Gorrik, someone should have died. Not many deaths - don't want to overdo it - but someone should have died.

Makes me regret being able to save Taimi in Episode 1.

But worse, however, was that this was just pure out completely anti-climatic. Firstly, Joko dying in a draconis ex machina way is just poor writing. Yeah, sure, you get your 15 seconds of shock from Aurene doing what she did, but that style of death is more appropriate for your Starscream styled villain. Of which, Joko was not.

Secondly, you just took THE villain of the entire franchise, and turned him into a freaking half-time miniboss for the plot. Seriously? You put Joko on par to Caudecus? Not even that, but he hardly got any screen time. Very few villains get a proper amount of screentime in this game - the only villain that has, imo, was Scarlet... who I detest for the quality of her design. I'm not upset he died - I kind of expected him to, just not so soon.

Lazarus and Dhuum got it bad enough, and these three were the only real villains that were carried over to the game. Joko was better than those two, but really it feels like Anet just doesn't give a kitten about maintaining character standards.

Thirdly, you kill him off right a one hell of a massive reveal about his character, while also heavily hinting (to the point of practically promising) out of the game to go into his background, yet never do. Now that he is dead, why would we bother plot wise? It's just like Balthazar and his apparent "real motivations" that never got delved into. You just hinted that not only did he know from the beginning the importance of the Elder Dragons, but suggest in his dialogue that he has lived long enough to see the gods and dragons "come and go". Which just makes players BEG to know just who is he? And then you kill him off. And we will go into his backstory...why? Who cares (in-game), he's dead now.

I loved that ending speech of his. But honestly? It should have ended with him going something along the lines of: "You may be able to beat me in raw strength. But you can't kill me. But I? I can kill you, Commander. And in all honesty, I probably should, with all the damage you've done. But I won't. I won't because I enjoy this. Taking your glory, watching you flounder about as you ruin the world you try oh so desperately to save." And then leave through a portal. For him to put his nation at risk for the sake of petty revenge, to watch his own commanders fall and laugh about not re-Awakening them, to fight the Commander and talk about being nemesis to each other, to prove that they really are immortal, and to have the Commander at his fingertips... and then to spare him. To leave. Consider the massive psychological blow that would have been.

(Seems I did get lengthy... And yet I could have gone about four times longer).

I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

That ending you suggested would have been infinitely better, I'm gonna stay up for a while thinking about it lol. Also yeah, I can't believe they hyped him up to have on-hands knowledge about the Movement of the World from long before humans were around (did they really want to write what he said? Was he not a human once?) on the very same cutscene where they kill him. He also sounded a lot more serious (kudos to the voice actor) than the rest of the dialogue when he said the commander was monumentally stupid for killing the lifeforce of the world. And now there is no in-game reason save for if they actually "hurt" Aurene, for us to even dwell into that. This is going to be my new Malyck Tree. Or my new Steam creatures. Or my new Shadowstone vs Consortium plot. Or my new Nightmare Court. Or my new Balthazar's motives. Or my new Pale Tree and Mordremoth's link to the Dream. Well you get the idea

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I won't go into length because I'm tired but I'll say this:

I loved the dialogue. It felt like I was confronting Joko as we knew him in GW1. A trickster and a manipulator who treats everything as a game simply because he can outlive everything. I loved the cinematics, they were all very well done.

I do not get the whole "the scarabs can only infest humans" thing. This makes no sense at all, for lengthy reasons that I just can't bother to get into. There's no logical reason that one species and one species only could be vulnerable to their behavior of incubating eggs and larvae within living hosts; humans are not THAT different from all the other species, native to Tyria or not, and even if it were just a case of built up resilience over millennia of dealing with parasitic scarabs, norn, asura, and possibly charr would not have this exposure (sylvari too but they're plants so they're different topic entirely; they're also magical dragon minions). Add in that if it weren't for humans, they'd only incubate their eggs and larvae among wheat, this makes two completely opposing environs for the scarabs to house their young in, which is drastically uncommon. Add in the experiments of Episode 2 showing us with moas, choya, charr, and karka both living ones incubating scarabs and dead ones, this makes even less sense. The only actual possibly explanation. Ultimately, the only reason I can think of for why this is the case, would be magical manipulation to create a sub-breed of scarabs that can target humans specifically in addition to their standard biological functions.

It's also annoying, that the Vabbian Sunspears, Tahlkora, and the griffons were just neatly and conveniently forgotten. As if they never existed. Despite the fact that they'd have such a pivotal role in the plot against Joko, far more than our Primeval Queens did.

And then there's something the OP complains a little too much about: deaths. While the personal story had very clearly overdone the death department of both meaningful and meaningless deaths, while HoT only touched meaningful deaths, with Path of Fire touching no deaths (aside from the nameless which don't even count as meaningless tbh), Season 4 is pretty bad in that we had a setting of a stage for something far, far worse than anything seen before in terms of warfare, and yet we had no meaningful deaths. Whether it was Taimi, Faren, Braham, Rox, or even Zaiem or Gorrik, someone should have died. Not many deaths - don't want to overdo it - but someone should have died.

Makes me regret being able to save Taimi in Episode 1.

But worse, however, was that this was just pure out completely anti-climatic. Firstly, Joko dying in a draconis ex machina way is just poor writing. Yeah, sure, you get your 15 seconds of shock from Aurene doing what she did, but that style of death is more appropriate for your Starscream styled villain. Of which, Joko was not.

Secondly, you just took THE villain of the entire franchise, and turned him into a freaking half-time miniboss for the plot. Seriously? You put Joko on par to Caudecus? Not even that, but he hardly got any screen time. Very few villains get a proper amount of screentime in this game - the only villain that has, imo, was Scarlet... who I detest for the quality of her design. I'm not upset he died - I kind of expected him to, just not so soon.

Lazarus and Dhuum got it bad enough, and these three were the only real villains that were carried over to the game. Joko was better than those two, but really it feels like Anet just doesn't give a kitten about maintaining character standards.

Thirdly, you kill him off right a one hell of a massive reveal about his character, while also heavily hinting (to the point of practically promising) out of the game to go into his background, yet never do. Now that he is dead, why would we bother plot wise? It's just like Balthazar and his apparent "real motivations" that never got delved into. You just hinted that not only did he know from the beginning the importance of the Elder Dragons, but suggest in his dialogue that he has lived long enough to see the gods and dragons "come and go". Which just makes players BEG to know just who is he? And then you kill him off. And we will go into his backstory...why? Who cares (in-game), he's dead now.

I loved that ending speech of his. But honestly? It should have ended with him going something along the lines of: "You may be able to beat me in raw strength. But you can't kill me. But I? I can kill you, Commander. And in all honesty, I probably should, with all the damage you've done. But I won't. I won't because I enjoy this. Taking your glory, watching you flounder about as you ruin the world you try oh so desperately to save." And then leave through a portal. For him to put his nation at risk for the sake of petty revenge, to watch his own commanders fall and laugh about not re-Awakening them, to fight the Commander and talk about being nemesis to each other, to prove that they really are immortal, and to have the Commander at his fingertips... and then to spare him. To leave. Consider the massive psychological blow that would have been.

(Seems I did get lengthy... And yet I could have gone about four times longer).

I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

To comment on your bit about his backstory. Why would we learn more? Perhaps Aurene's reaction after eating Joko and feeling week could imply that we need to find out more about Joko's backstory in order to help heal her in the next episode? Perhaps he's more than just a lich and more than just a human, and he was here during the previous dragon rises. Perhaps something about him made Aurene ill and we need to find out more about him in order to help her.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"cptaylor.2670" said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I won't go into length because I'm tired but I'll say this:

I loved the dialogue. It felt like I was confronting Joko as we knew him in GW1. A trickster and a manipulator who treats everything as a game simply because he can outlive everything. I loved the cinematics, they were all very well done.

I do not get the whole "the scarabs can only infest humans" thing. This makes no sense at all, for lengthy reasons that I just can't bother to get into. There's no logical reason that one species and one species only could be vulnerable to their behavior of incubating eggs and larvae within living hosts; humans are not THAT different from all the other species, native to Tyria or not, and even if it were just a case of built up resilience over millennia of dealing with parasitic scarabs, norn, asura, and possibly charr would not have this exposure (sylvari too but they're plants so they're different topic entirely; they're also magical dragon minions). Add in that if it weren't for humans, they'd only incubate their eggs and larvae among wheat, this makes two completely opposing environs for the scarabs to house their young in, which is drastically uncommon. Add in the experiments of Episode 2 showing us with moas, choya, charr, and karka both living ones incubating scarabs and dead ones, this makes even less sense. The only actual possibly explanation. Ultimately, the only reason I can think of for why this is the case, would be magical manipulation to create a sub-breed of scarabs that can target humans specifically in addition to their standard biological functions.

It's also annoying, that the Vabbian Sunspears, Tahlkora, and the griffons were just neatly and conveniently forgotten. As if they never existed. Despite the fact that they'd have such a pivotal role in the plot against Joko, far more than our Primeval Queens did.

And then there's something the OP complains a little
too much
about: deaths. While the personal story had very clearly overdone the death department of both meaningful and meaningless deaths, while HoT only touched meaningful deaths, with Path of Fire touching no deaths (aside from the nameless which don't even count as meaningless tbh), Season 4 is pretty bad in that we had a setting of a stage for something far, far worse than anything seen before in terms of warfare, and yet we had no meaningful deaths. Whether it was Taimi, Faren, Braham, Rox, or even Zaiem or Gorrik, someone should have died. Not many deaths - don't want to overdo it - but
someone
should have died.

Makes me regret being able to save Taimi in Episode 1.

But worse, however, was that this was just pure out completely anti-climatic. Firstly, Joko dying in a draconis ex machina way is just poor writing. Yeah, sure, you get your 15 seconds of shock from Aurene doing what she did, but that style of death is more appropriate for your
styled villain. Of which, Joko was not.

Secondly, you just took
THE
villain of the entire franchise, and turned him
into a freaking half-time miniboss for the plot.
Seriously? You put Joko on par to
Caudecus
? Not even that, but he hardly got any screen time. Very few villains get a proper amount of screentime in this game - the only villain that has, imo, was Scarlet... who I detest for the quality of her design. I'm not upset he died - I kind of expected him to, just not so soon.

Lazarus and Dhuum got it bad enough, and these three were the only real villains that were carried over to the game. Joko was better than those two, but really it feels like Anet just doesn't give a kitten about maintaining character standards.

Thirdly, you kill him off right a one hell of a massive reveal about his character, while also heavily hinting (to the point of practically promising) out of the game to go into his background, yet never do. Now that he is dead, why would we bother plot wise? It's just like Balthazar and his apparent "
" that never got delved into. You just hinted that not only did he know from the beginning the importance of the Elder Dragons, but suggest in his dialogue that he has lived long enough to see the gods and dragons "come and go". Which just makes players
BEG
to know just
who is he?
And then you kill him off. And we will go into his backstory...why? Who cares (in-game), he's dead now.

I loved that ending speech of his. But honestly? It should have ended with him going something along the lines of: "You may be able to beat me in raw strength. But you can't kill me. But I? I can kill you, Commander. And in all honesty, I probably should, with all the damage you've done. But I won't. I won't because I enjoy this. Taking your glory, watching you flounder about as you ruin the world you try oh so desperately to save." And then leave through a portal. For him to put his nation at risk for the sake of petty revenge, to watch his own commanders fall and laugh about not re-Awakening them, to fight the Commander and talk about being nemesis to each other, to prove that they really are immortal, and to have the Commander at his fingertips... and then to spare him. To leave. Consider the massive psychological blow that would have been.

(Seems I did get lengthy... And yet I could have gone about four times longer).

I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

To comment on your bit about his backstory. Why would we learn more? Perhaps Aurene's reaction after eating Joko and feeling week could imply that we need to find out more about Joko's backstory in order to help heal her in the next episode? Perhaps he's more than just a lich and more than just a human, and he was here during the previous dragon rises. Perhaps something about him made Aurene ill and we need to find out more about him in order to help her.

Plot twist: Joko IS the original scarab plague

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, so after replaying the episode I didn't see any portal that Joko's spirit went into as suggested by another poster in a different thread. But I'm not good at catching those things anyway.

What I did notice is that the blue swirling around her kind of looked like spirits at times.

Also, I'm really thinking that the start of the next episode is going to be a vision from Aurene. Possibly showing us what Joko knows, perhaps one briefly showing his origin and moving forward.

Not to say it won't happen at the start of the next episode, but it seems odd that the commander doesn't also feel the way Aurene feels at this moment and there's no mention of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okami Amaterasu, Manimarco Devil and Konig Des Todes are completely right. Many of things of what you wrote here were going through my mind aswell when i played the story. And imo the worst step anet took was to go the WoW route of killing of all the good (storywise) characters from the previous game without creating anything new that even holds a candle to those characters. But at least in WoW the story has an epic and serious tone to it which still makes it fun to play and that is also lacking in gw2. Why kill Lazarus at the end of ep 6 ls 3 (that was completely random and destroyed and further use for that character)? Why kill of Joko now after he did nothing but provoke us with (at the end) meaningless threats.And even though the Balthasar being rogue and evil was bearable storywise (just far to short) the reason for his actions are nonexistant. Most others reasons have been brought up in this thread already.

The biggest problem i see with anets writing is, that they do not seem to have a coherent thought-out story script after which they develop this game.

You can see this clearly on many occasions. Ls3 was about wether they should go for a dragon or the white mantle as their next objective and it was a permanent back and forth only to scrap both ideas for randomly introducing balthasar who has somehow gone insane...The raid story even indicates that it should have been the real resurected lazarus and not balthasar in disguise.And then right after balthasar was dead the crystal dragon appeared and seemed to spread mayham in the city amnoon, but that too was completely ditched for some joko chapters in which he does nothing and only brags about how great he is. And then he dies too.

Of all the things anet should do, the first one should be to hire a proffesional book/script writer to have a good foundation for the games story. As it is right now the story is riddled with so many plotholes, stupid decisions and ex machinas (aka randomly appearing convenient plot devices) that the great foundation gw2 was build upon gets completely wasted and ruined.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definitely feel we needed more time with Joko, and he needed to go out with far more of a cost to Dragon's Watch. Guild Wars 2 has a massive problem with killing off characters who still have heaps of value left in the story. Some recent examples are Lazarus, Vlast and Joko.

Lazarus - He was the return of the Mursaat. The Mursaat were extremely iconic villains of GW1, and historically were extremely badass and tough to kill, even one on one. It was only after Ascension and the enchantments in our armour from a Seer that we could take them on. And the glorious return of these amazing villains was over in 5 minutes. Balthazar impersonating him does not count. How much more interesting would it have been, if we put him back together, we nearly take him out because we ambushed him, then he wipes the floor with us for a moment, turns invisible then legs it? Then we are faced with a horrible choice. Lazarus or Balthazar? We choose Balthazar with the knowledge we have just left an extremely dangerous foe out in the wilderness somewhere, ready to strike back on his own terms. He could have even come into play in an interesting way in future story, because if Tyria is doomed, we need an escape route. Lazarus would have one as the Mursaat fled into the Mists during the last Elder Dragon rising. But nope. Gone in 5 minutes and went out like a wimp.

Vlast - The first scion of Glint. Aurene's older brother. The grandson of Kralkatorick! 5 minutes of screentime before death. He had so much knowledge and power. He knew about the Exalted (perhaps their connection to the Mursaat, as there's even several lines of dialogue from mutliple characters pointing out how similar they look), the Forgotten, ancient cities of theirs and sources of great power. He, like Aurene, is an alternative to Elder Dragons. He could have played a major role in raising Aurene. And the memory shards we found revealed an extremely interesting character, of someone raised into a legacy they never wanted, who just wants to be free to roam Tyria's skies, who never had a champion like Aurene, and so never really cared about weaker beings. He even left the Exalted to rust in Kesho and be buried forever. But he was a dutiful son who wanted to see his mother's work through to the end, and despite the heavy burden she laid upon him, he loved her. So when Kralkatorick killed her, he dedicated all of his strength to wiping out the Branded. And we got 5 minutes with such an interesting character. 5!

Joko - They nerfed the hell out of him and then just one shotted him with Aurene. I don't mind the way Aurene killed him. How do you kill an immortal lich? Beat the hell out of him, eat him, rip his magic out of him and then turn the remains into poo. And he has no magic to just regenerate from that. Well done. But it happened too soon and way before we could really feel his weight in the story. He needed to do damage. He should have killed off and perhaps awakened either Marjory and Kasmeer. Maybe those two could finally be of use to the story. I went through the whole patch and did not even realise they weren't there. That's how little impact they have. Come on, at least he could have taken out Braham (whose story has been mishandled in the way he repairs his relationship with us. I actually liked the ideological battle we could have had with him). Also, they should not have made the Scarab Plague only infect humans. Think about it. If they infect everyone, then Joko just sends a few through those portals out into northern Tyria, the Krytans, the Asura, the Charr and the Norn all get massacred, then he just waltzes up there and awakens everyone and his army has quadrupled in size and he rules Tyria. It would have raised the tension massively for that to be a risk as we go through this story.

I loved this story, I really did. Just as I loved HoT, LWS3 and PoF, but every single one of them just wastes so much potential! Where was Mallyck in Heart of Thorns? Why was the story so quick? Why did the Exalted do nothing? Where is the rest of Glint's plan? Why just off Caudecus and Lazarus before they do any meaningful damage? Why were Balthazar's motivations just "herr der I like fighting so I'm not running"? Why not something more interesting like he genuinely believes fighting is the right thing to do and hates the idea of leaving his loyal subjects behind to get killed and corrupted? Why not feed that into Braham's story? Balthazar could have killed dragons once he got strong enough. If Balthazar was more of a grey villain, than Braham could have been extremely pissed off that we killed him. And so on and so on. They waste potential.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Literally been waiting years to fight Joko, or at least talk with him (because, at least in gw1, it seemed to be not your typical villain), yet they just tossed him away like trash. They're butchering all the good stuff from GW1, both Joko and Lazarus had infinite potential to make the story more interesting, but these pathetic writers are completely fucking up GW's lore. I'm getting so sick of this stupid Aurene, she's the next Trahearne. I sincerely hope she dies at the hands of Kralka.

I wonder which major GW character is going to be fucked next. I'm guessing the Seer/Seers are next in line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Okami Amaterasu.9237" said:• Why did no one die? All of that tension and fear from EP 1 and 2 is Gone and wasted emotional effort. At least Mordremoth killed Eir and Trahearne, not to mention Faolin and most of the Pact. Zhaitan killed many, many characters from the Personal Story and the Pact, including your Order mentor.That's something of a false comparison given that the Elder Dragons are the main villains of the game, whereas Joko was always just a side character(and important one, but one none the less) even back in GW1.

• He brags that he’ll destroy the Commander’s homeland and bring Tyria to an end with the Scarab Plague, but he doesn’t.And then, get this, he decides Not to unleash the plague again elsewhere, such as Lion’s Arch with Portals to every Main CityIts stated the Corsairs were making sure he couldn't send more plague ships out, and given that we destroyed his portal hubs, he couldn't just portal it anywhere.

Why is Kralkatorrik just a stationary rock on the side of a cliff at this point?Same reason the their Elder Dragons make lairs and rarely left them. They are so powerful, and their minions are so numerous, why would they do anything directly unless they have too?

I thought there was a lot of tension and worry that he might fly off again,No one in the game ever made him possibly flying off again a big worry. The only people who did that were forumites who were trying to concoct reasons as to how Anet will surly drag out the Kralkatorik plot into another expansion by having him fly off to somewhere.

What is he doing? Why is there no sense of URGENCY to the situation?Because there IS no urgency due to the whole "If we kill another Elder Dragons the world will die" thing, forcing everyone to stop hunting dragons for a moment and thing about how to avoid that.

Why is everyone so nonchalant and ambivalent about his death? No one is celebrating or cheering in happiness that the Scourge of Vabbi has been destroyed! There was momentous joy when Zhaitan fell, some when Mordremoth was destroyed, great joy and praise when Balthazar died,Because Joko is just a guy who was immortal and sort of an ass. He was never an Elder Dragon, or God, level threat.

• Were we not meant to take Joko as a serious villain?Joko was never serious, period.

• I want people to Die in the GW2 story.• kitten, Blish is a golem and his arm got sent through the portal and his arm is HELPFUL once we're there! Why wasn’t it Taimi or Gorrick’s arm? Why does all of the danger of something going wrong happen to the people Most equipped to stop it?Because, after the massive backlash Anet got for killing named NPCs off in droves in both the base game, and in HoT, they learned people don't fall for the attempted emotional plays because of how overused they are.

@Ferus.3165 said:Why kill Lazarus at the end of ep 6 ls 3 (that was completely random and destroyed and further use for that character)?Because Lazarus was literally just one guy who realistically would have never been able to accomplish anything besides sulking around in the shadow trying to take down a nation that had moved so far beyond him it would have been like an ant trying to kill an elephant.

Or, to be put more directly, he died that way because that is how he should have died.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Sajuuk Khar.1509

  1. The Elder Dragons are built up as the main villains, but what's wrong with bringing more characters into the mix? Especially when they are more interesting. The Elder Dragons for the most part are not characters. They sit around and do nothing. Arenanet realised they don't make interesting villains. That's why we we've been up against non Elder Dragon villains ever since HoT. Kralkatorick was around for some of that, but he was not the primary focus. That by no means Elder Dragons are not interesting creatures. They are these titanic monsters with the power to wipe out the planet, they have mysterious origins, and it's an interesting problem to deal with them being essential to keep Tyria around, but they are massacring its populations. But they need to be balanced with interesting characters for a better story.
  2. The Elder Dragons have an extreme hunger for magic. They have the power to go out and get it. So why don't they move? Zhaitan can be rationalised to have remained where he was because he had so much magic to soak up in Orr, the land of the human gods. Primordous was kept at bay by the dwarves and eventually did move to a very advantageous location (the most efficient destroyer factory on Tyria and right under a Bloodstone). Mordremoth and Kralkatorick have only recently awoken. Jormag doesn't really have any excuse. But now, Kralkatorick is supposed to be on a rampage as he hungers for magic. Primordous and Jormag are delayed. Bubbles is off wreaking havoc in the southern half of the planet judging by the rumours from ocean races. It makes sense that 5 out of 6 were very close together at the start of this rising, as Tyria must have been the last place left with a lot of magic so they all went there at the same time. Now, they should all be branching outward.
  3. The end of PoF and the start of LWS3 made Kralkatorick out to be a massive imminent threat. But he is not. We are meant to worry about him, but the story needs to give us good reason to.
  4. Palawa Joko brought an entire country to its knees. He wiped out some of the greatest powers humanity has ever known and has been one of the most powerful monarchs (if not the most powerful one) in Tyria for 250 years. He completely warped the minds of his citizens, both living and dead. He is their entire world. Especially for awakened, bound and driven to serve him, now free. Granted for this one it's very early days and there's plenty of time to deal with it, but they need to.
  5. There is nothing wrong with having a comical villain, but for a villain to be menacing, they need to also act menacing. I for one loved how well he transitioned from jokey fun guy to still insulting us, but berating us on our mistakes and making it clear he intends to make us suffer, and he's not joking around, he's going to to annihilate us. Then Aurene got him. But the kind of attitude he showed right beforehand was great, especially when it showed how powerless we were to stop him. Don't get me wrong, I love how they've done Joko, I just think there should have been more of him. Also, the best way for a villain to be menacing is for them to deal a lot of damage, and the best way for that to be effective is for it to happen to places we care about. That's why character deaths or suffering are so important.
  6. If people don't suffer for their mistakes and there are no consequences to large actions and the story does not get serious often enough, people stop caring. I don't think Arenanet's gone too far with this yet, I still love their story, but it's something to keep an eye on.
  7. Do you understand how powerful the Mursaat were? He could have walked right into the throne room and killed Queen Jenna if he wanted. Mursaat can turn invisible and are extremely powerful in a fight. The only way to see them was to become ascended, and the only way to fight them was with enchanted armour from the Seers. He was still a major threat with or without the White Mantle behind him. As for his future relevance to the story, the Mursaat are the only ones who were unscathed by the last Elder Dragon rising. Lazarus would know how to escape into the Mists. That right there makes him one of the most important people in Tyria. Perhaps Joko would have even sought him out, as Joko was clearly aware killing the Elder Dragons was not an option, and it would be a good way for him not to be devoured by one, and a way for Lazarus to be worked into current story. Perhaps Dragon's Watch would have sought him out and been forced to bargain with him for a similar purpose. The Mursaat link to the Exalted could have been explained. He's also one of the last (if not the last) person to have witnessed the last Elder Dragon rising, so he has knowledge that would be useful. I came up with all of that in a few seconds. Imagine what professional writers could do with months or years.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like the best way to have Palawa Joko's presence felt in future stories, now that he's gone, is to make sure there are consequences for Aurene eating him. Canach speculated Aurene and Kralkatorick were made much more aggressive when they absorbed Balthazar's power, which makes sense given one of his spheres of influence was War. And something that lends evidence to this is that Aurene looks a bit plantlike in some parts of her body, indicating Mordremoth's magic physically altered her before hatching. So, what might she have inherited from Joko? Well, she might be able to awaken people now, and/or seize control of Joko's existing Awakened. She did take literally all of his power after all. Now, very importantly, Joko, was ruthless, did not care much for morality and was extremely egotistic. Becoming an immortal lich and taking over Elona for them to worship him as their god king for 250 years is a good demonstration. So I feel like an interesting way to move forward and ensure Joko's death has meaning, is that Aurene becomes more like Joko and Balthazar. Which is problematic given how much damage those two have wrought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

I cannot understand the decision that Arenanet gave this episode to the same team who created S3E6. How can you give a team a story (S4E3) that deals with the death of a beloved GW1 character, when they already kittened up a death of a popular GW1 character before? Did Arenanet not notice that ppl were upset with how Lazarus was killed off? Why do they even have the chance to kill another beloved villian character off?But luckely the team improved a bit; Lazurus characer and death in S3 was awful. Were as joko´s character portrayal in S4 was better then POF, only his death was too soon and kitten.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"WafflingMean.4351" said:I feel like the best way to have Palawa Joko's presence felt in future stories, now that he's gone, is to make sure there are consequences for Aurene eating him. Canach speculated Aurene and Kralkatorick were made much more aggressive when they absorbed Balthazar's power, which makes sense given one of his spheres of influence was War. And something that lends evidence to this is that Aurene looks a bit plantlike in some parts of her body, indicating Mordremoth's magic physically altered her before hatching. So, what might she have inherited from Joko? Well, she might be able to awaken people now, and/or seize control of Joko's existing Awakened. She did take literally all of his power after all. Now, very importantly, Joko, was ruthless, did not care much for morality and was extremely egotistic. Becoming an immortal lich and taking over Elona for them to worship him as their god king for 250 years is a good demonstration. So I feel like an interesting way to move forward and ensure Joko's death has meaning, is that Aurene becomes more like Joko and Balthazar. Which is problematic given how much damage those two have wrought.

Canach's speculation doesn't really have much ground. Aurene has grown bigger, and more powerful since Balthazar's death. She didn't really become more violent or aggressive though. Sure, we see her destroy some stuff for us, but let's be real - she never destroyed anything we weren't actively trying to destroy. So where's the supposed Balthazar influence?

And besides, I wouldn't call that development interesting. Making arbitrary assertions about how particular type of power is "evil" or "aggressive" and skews the personality of its wielder in that particular way is such a cliche. An interesting development would be to use this gained power as a catalyst to trigger an internal conflict and lead the character to a catharsis. Aurene still needs a lot more character for that to happen though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

Third team also loves to kill off interesting villians. First Lazarus ( who was interesting, not OP as many people claimed, but interesting thanks to GW1 ) and now Joko. And not just killing them, but also doing the killing in a quite disapointing way. Especially with Joko and when he hinted that there could be more to him than we know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Konig Des Todes.2086 , you are a better scenarist than those who work at anet, and I'm serious :) !I never see a good universe be so wasted by lazy writers like Guild Wars 2 was, it's so sad :'( !

Joko or Lazarus deserve a better development than that, but they're prefer creating new allies ( Gorrik, Spearmarshal, etc... ) and on the other side Marjory, Kasmeer have disppear.They don't have enought space in the story to put all those usel*ss characters, it's ridiculous :angry: !

Sorry, I'm very angry :'( ...

Praise Joko \o/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Walhalla.5473 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

Third team also loves to kill off interesting villians. First Lazarus ( who was interesting, not OP as many people claimed, but interesting thanks to GW1 ) and now Joko. And not just killing them, but also doing the killing in a quite disapointing way. Especially with Joko and when he hinted that there could be more to him than we know.

Since when is Joko interesting? His motivation is non-existent. His character is pompous and uppity. This isn't someone who wielded near-godlike powers for centuries. This is an insecure teenager. Not to mention he's evil because he's evil. Heck, even Faolain is more interesting than this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I did enjoy this episode overall, I agree with almost all the criticism in this thread. Anets writer should read it with a lot of care and take notes.My imagination regarding Joko's possible secret plans was going wild during the last cutscene. And then...well it has been said before: Draconis ex machina.

Were we supposed to cheer and be happy that Aurene took out a much more interesting and beloved ( \o/ ) character than herself? From what perspective could I view Jokos alleged eternal death as something positive for the guild wars 2 franchise? I just can't. But I guess there are a lot of similar cases with Dhuum, Lazarus and others. Sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just finished it...how on Earth did an entire team sign this story off? I mean to kill of a major villain just 3 episodes in and in the cheesiest, worst possible way? No real lore on Joko, his immortality just dismissed with jokes, no lore on ths scarab plague. I mean we had an entire season of material and it was just blown away on the wind as if it meant nothing.

Yes he dialogue was great and fun, but it doesn't excuse some of the worst story writing in an episode in the entire game. Even Scarlet got a better build up and death than this.

Awful, really awful

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ambrucor.2103 said:While I did enjoy this episode overall, I agree with almost all the criticism in this thread. Anets writer should read it with a lot of care and take notes.My imagination regarding Joko's possible secret plans was going wild during the last cutscene. And then...well it has been said before: Draconis ex machina.

Were we supposed to cheer and be happy that Aurene took out a much more interesting and beloved ( \o/ ) character than herself? From what perspective could I view Jokos alleged eternal death as something positive for the guild wars 2 franchise? I just can't. But I guess there are a lot of similar cases with Dhuum, Lazarus and others. Sad.

Speak for yourself. I actually did cheer his death, he was such an overrated character. Sure his death was a bit out of nowhere but only superficially. It's been established that Aurene has a connection to the PC, he wasted too much time monologuing and gave her ample time to crash the party.

His death was less contrived than his near victory with the suddenly the PC is helpless out of nowhere shit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...