Joko! Why? (Spoilers)

So let me get this straight. We have one of the coolest characters from gw1 as an antagonist in gw2. He is on par with perhaps the lich king from WoW. And on the first story mission where we go directly against him, and we begin to see more of his gw1 character that we all came to love, anet decides to let the dragon eat him and kill him off? SERIOUSLY?

This is akin to playing warcraft3 loving the character the lich king, waiting for an entirely new game (wow) to come out to finish his story line, playing wow years later, and waiting for years to finally confront this old adversary that we know is out there waiting. Waiting for years until the second expansion (Wrath of the lich king) to finally fight him in an epic raid battle with numerous encounters leading up to it in a grand finally.

With joko, we learn about him in gw1, his story line is left open ended. We wait for years to figure out what happened to him, 2 expansions into gw2. We should expect a lot of build up of scenes and dialog into confronting this formidable adversary which has been both ally and neutral enemy in the past. He is also a well developed character, with lore surrounding him and hes a very likeable adversary/ally. I would expect a giant fight with him and numerous encounters leading up to a battle where we finally duke it out with joko, INSTEAD, he's eliminated in the first real encounter and fight we have with him..... BY A BABY DRAGON..... A BABY....

This is unbelievable, you let scarlet live on for ages and nobody liked her. How do we praise joko if he's dead by the dragon?, and all he had to do was pounce on him!? WoW........ (sure hope he's immortal and is coming back, because so far all of the antagonists in this game have been flat, or they have no personalities (ie. the dragons.)).

Edit: yes I do think he's dead now too, because the focus of this expansion is Kralkatork, and he's the elder dragon we need to kill, and they don't want joko in the way, he's finished now, ok bye bye no more from him, emotionless dragon's only. So much for a cool character...

@Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

Edit: yes I do think he's dead now too, because the focus of this expansion is Kralkatork, and he's the elder dragon we need to kill, ...

You not following the story. We not killing any dragon anymore. Joko's dead is a twist that makes us wonder if commander is getting retired or? what is next?

Thing about Joko is he's the kind of character that you can make dozens of living stories on. He's like those cartoon villains that can't die and will always return for a new episode. Unfortunately the primary focus for GW2 is on dragons, so Anet had to throw Joko under the bus at some point. A shame too since he is one of the more likable villains in the GW universe. I'd be more than happy to pay for DLC story arcs staring the magnanimous Joko and associated merchandise. Although probably everyone else would want the same and the core GW2 team would be in trouble, heh.

Joko was a much more interesting antagonist than the dragons IMO.

Personally I found all the "Praise Joko" to get really old and annoying. He wasn't quite as big a villain as you say (imo, yes I played GW1) or as universally loved. I will admit that I expected a more drawn out story with him too though, more battles and an epic end.

But then again Aurene (who is a she and more of a teenager by now) eating the guy is an interesting twist.

@"Nate.8146" said:Thing about Joko is he's the kind of character that you can make dozens of living stories on. He's like those cartoon villains that can't die and will always return for a new episode. Unfortunately the primary focus for GW2 is on dragons, so Anet had to throw Joko under the bus at some point. A shame too since he is one of the more likable villains in the GW universe. I'd be more than happy to pay for DLC story arcs staring the magnanimous Joko and associated merchandise. Although probably everyone else would want the same and the core GW2 team would be in trouble, heh.

I found his monologue at the end to be incredibly pretentious and self-absorbed. 'That so many bought what I was selling?' Right, because spending the last 2.5 centuries raising their loved ones, feeding them propaganda, and replacing or destroying anything that contradicts your own didn't have ANYTHING to do with it. He's a narcissist and I'm glad he's gone before he outstayed his welcome.

And cartoon villains suck because they always come back and it just gets tedious. Like Scarlet always "winning" despite the battles we 'won'; it was done that way because 'the show must go on'. Cartoon villains always come back to give the heroes something to fight against and look good doing it which is probably why there's a bit of a renaissance with shows with more complex protagonists and antagonists (heroes not always being good, villains not always evil).

@"Jumpin Lumpix.6108" said:So let me get this straight. We have one of the coolest characters from gw1 as an antagonist in gw2. He is on par with perhaps the lich king from WoW. And on the first story mission where we go directly against him, and we begin to see more of his gw1 character that we all came to love, anet decides to let the dragon eat him and kill him off? SERIOUSLY?

So let me ask you this: what exactly did you expect to happen? He was an immortal who got triggered and tried to use a weapon of mass destruction because of a petty personal grudge. There's no other possible conclusion to this story beside him dying.

And no, he was not a more interesting antagonist. There's nothing interesting about him, he's a caricature, a farce. An immortal, supposedly centuries old, acting like an insecure teenager, stealing credit and overcompensating with oversized statues? Come on. In what Universe can this pass for plausible behaviour? He's a joke and a comic relief. But interesting? He's not. Now, the dragons are interesting at the moment, because of one simple reason - unlike Joko, we cannot afford to kill them. So far every answer to every problem faced by the player character has been "kill it". But suddenly it no longer works, which puts Kralkatorrik in the unique position to be the antagonist which forces the story to take a turn and find a different solution. This is so much more interesting than Joko.

Joko was ok, but had enough time in the limelight, its good to move on. he was a funny character, but ultimately a caricature.

One thing to consider: this is at least the 3rd time Joko has died. To be a lich he must at some point have been alive (suspected to be during the later days of the Primeval Dynasty but I'm not sure we have a reliable source for that) and then died and been resurrected. Then he was killed by Turai Ossa, but came back to life (or undeath) and then was sealed away by the Order of Whispers.

From what I've seen there's no reason to think this time was more effective than either of the previous attempts. Besides which death in Tyria has always been only as permanent as the writers want it to be. The player character - a normal mortal - was killed during PoF and that only lasted as long as it took them to find the door. And come to think of it Joko was also trapped, not only in the Underworld but also in a cage, during that time and he got out too. (So is that 4 deaths? Or did he somehow get there without dying again?)

I'll be very surprised if he's gone forever this time. I think it's far more likely he's somewhere in The Mists (probably the Underworld, but it could be somewhere else) and will come back to Tyria as and when it suits the story...or we'll encounter him in the Mists somewhere, like we did after we killed the Lich/Vizier in GW1. (Come to think of it this could be a perfect opportunity to reignite the feud with Mad King Thorn and give us some new Halloween content.)

Minority here: I'm glad that Joko is gone. I get the rough idea of his characterization and being in love with himself, but thought he was more than annoying in core-PoF with him throwing a tantrum. I give him kudos for the "shock value" in Episode 1 with Taimi, though. But I have generaly a hard time to sympahtize with villain-type characters and couldn't really describe what a "good" one would be for me. So take that with a huuuuge grain of salt.

I don't think he is dead, How did he get out of his underworld prison? We didn't let him out and he was pretty much there as soon as we got out.

To summarize @Danikat.8537's excellent synopsis: the reports of Joko's fourth (or is it fifth?) undeath have been exaggerated. (Or ... maybe not?)

I agree: if ANet wants to bring back Joko, it wouldn't take any major contortions or retcon.

Joko will never die, Joko our lord and savior.Praise Joko!

@"InvaGir.9158" said:Praise Joko!

You spelled "dinner" wrong.

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"InvaGir.9158" said:Praise Joko!

Laugh all you want peasant but when Joko return you will get on your knees and beg for mercy.Just wait

@Danikat.8537 said:I'll be very surprised if he's gone forever this time.

Three words: Dragons eat magic. He's only coming back as a gigantic sparkly blue (insert word for fecal matter that bypasses the child friendly forum filter) but that should be about it.

@Edgy McEdgelord.4790 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:I'll be very surprised if he's gone forever this time.

Ooo, that might hurt when the ring pops out!

! Fact! Joko will be back, Aurene has to take a number two sometime.

@phs.6089 said:

@Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

Edit: yes I do think he's dead now too, because the focus of this expansion is Kralkatork, and he's the elder dragon we need to kill, ...

All your base are belong to us.

You can read more from all sides of the discussion, with comments from the lead writer for ep3 in the AFC subforum

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/584385#Comment_584385

Heed the prophecy of the cult of the blue oysters!

"I hear the music, daylight disk. Three men in black said, 'Don't report this Ascension.' And that's all they said. Sickness now, the hour of dread. All praise. He's found the awful truth. Balthazar. He's found the saucer news."

Joko will return. The King in Yellow! Riding in a UFO...

All praise!

Or something like that.

He was never really a main bad guy in my books. I would of been surprised if he lasted beyond the next LS tbh

I get why people think he will be coming back... sort of... but dragons eat magic, Aurene is a dragon, Aurene eats magic. What keeps a lich "alive"?

Hopefully only in the mad realm with Mad king thorn oooooo the havoc!

@Feanor.2358 said:He's a joke and a comic relief.

you mean he's Joke-o?

I will see myself out