So what do you think Slyvari taste like?

The other day I was thinking "Man, you could eat just about any plant as long as it's not poisonous"

So then it hit me. You could probably eat Sylvari. Do you think anyone has ever eaten Sylvari and what do you think they taste like?

Well, regular species are meat. So you could probably eat them to.

As for Sylvari: their skin, and "hair" are those of tree and not vegetables or fruit. Some herbivore species could probably eat them but not regular omnivore ones i think.The digestion just wouldn't work. So, I personnaly think that, among all intelligent species of GW2, Sylvari are the least likely to be victim of predation from others (Which make me think: wolves, wargs, ect...have no reasons to attack sylvari players).

I may be wrong. We don't how the structure of their flesh is. After all, we know they eat meat themselves.

@"Lametoile.7394" said:As for Sylvari: their skin, and "hair" are those of tree and not vegetables or fruit.Technically, sylvari are the fruit of the Pale Tree (and the avatar is a flower of it).

That said, their bone is wood, their blood is sap, their muscles are vines, their skin is a mix of muscle and leaves (and probably whatever the skin of apples, oranges, etc. are), and their hair are leaves, thorns, and branches.

So you can probably eat a sylvari, particularly the vine parts. Which would probably taste along the lines of celery or asparagus and other stalk-shaped vegetables, I'd imagine.

They wouldn't be like choya, with their melon-like insides.

(Which make me think: wolves, wargs, ect...have no reasons to attack sylvari players).Territory encroachment and fear for its well being. Animals don't just attack others for the sake of eating.

They’re nicknamed salads for a reason. >:]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Lametoile.7394" said:As for Sylvari: their skin, and "hair" are those of tree and not vegetables or fruit.Technically, sylvari are the fruit of the Pale Tree (and the avatar is a flower of it).

(Which make me think: wolves, wargs, ect...have no reasons to attack sylvari players).Territory encroachment and fear for its well being. Animals don't just attack others for the sake of eating.

good points

I'm thinking that Sylvari likely taste a lot like an Agapanthus or an Agave. The flesh of those plants are flexible and resilient against tearing under duress, similar to the dermis of an animal. The stalks feature considerable tensile strength yet remain soft, not unlike our tendons which mount muscle to bone, or ligaments which bind bone to other bones.

off topic: I was about to make a joke and say they taste like a Choristantha -the flowering plant I named my character after- and went to link a picture of the plant from a Bing image search. Much to my surprise the top hit for the species Choristantha are screenshots of my mesmer now lol.

well, there is this nice question 'why aren't all plants poisenous'.

And the correct answer is, 'all plants are poisenous, but some animals have adapted to eat them anyway'.

The stuff humans eat, can kill dogs and cats. Some of the stuff deer or cows can eat, would kill a human. There have been cases were cultivated brasicca species underwent spontaneous genetic mutations bringing back poisenous substances that had been suppressed.

So, most probably, since Sylvari are not bred to be tasty and digestible, they would taste like blackberry vines or walnut fruits or horse chestnuts.

A dedicated herbivore might be able to eat them without too much trouble, but there would be a good chance that a human, asura or norn would just keel over. Charr going down even quicker.

But Sylvari do make for great Golem batteries ......

@Magek.4718 said:So then it hit me. You could probably eat Sylvari. Do you think anyone has ever eaten Sylvari and what do you think they taste like?

Disgusting. Like Broccoli.

@"Tabasco.1743" said:off topic: I was about to make a joke and say they taste like a Choristantha -the flowering plant I named my character after- and went to link a picture of the plant from a Bing image search. Much to my surprise the top hit for the species Choristantha are screenshots of my mesmer now lol.

Only for you. :tongue: Bing, Google, and the like tends to cater search results to prior searches and browser history.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Tabasco.1743" said:off topic: I was about to make a joke and say they taste like a Choristantha -the flowering plant I named my character after- and went to link a picture of the plant from a Bing image search. Much to my surprise the top hit for the species

Choristantha

are screenshots of my mesmer now lol.

I hope that is the case. It was honestly embarrassing haha :sweat:

Sort of continuing this line of thinking, do you reckon Sylvari (especially those with the more flowery hairstyles) are exceedingly bothered and harassed by bees wherever they go during the spring and summer..?

@Oglaf.1074 said:Sort of continuing this line of thinking, do you reckon Sylvari (especially those with the more flowery hairstyles) are exceedingly bothered and harassed by bees wherever they go during the spring and summer..?

Also, I wonder if they have a fear of canines?

I always figured they'd taste like Alfaalfa or something...mixed in with tough twigs and some bizarre substance you're almost afraid to ask about. Now I want to lick a Sylvari and test out this theory. (and see if it'll make me see things, like flying pies and monster tacos.)

@Tsakhi.8124 said:Now I want to lick a Sylvari and test out this theory. (and see if it'll make me see things, like flying pies and monster tacos.)

Depends on if they are using the “mushroom cap hair” or not. :wink:

@Oglaf.1074 said:Sort of continuing this line of thinking, do you reckon Sylvari (especially those with the more flowery hairstyles) are exceedingly bothered and harassed by bees wherever they go during the spring and summer..?

Probably not any more than people can be, since they're larger, and most importantly, mobile.

@Eclipse.6203 said:

@"Magek.4718" said:So then it hit me. You could probably eat Sylvari. Do you think anyone has ever eaten Sylvari and what do you think they taste like?

I was thinking, "Like broccoli! Yummy!" How can you not like broccoli? D=

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Lametoile.7394" said:As for Sylvari: their skin, and "hair" are those of tree and not vegetables or fruit.Technically, sylvari are the fruit of the Pale Tree (and the avatar is a flower of it).Actually, they are quite possibly not. Fruits are constructs that nourish and protect seeds. This does not seem to be the case for sylvari. We do not know how exactly tree seeds are produced yet, but the sylvari do not seem to be directly involved, as far as we (and they?) know. So they can't be real fruit, even though their production looks similar.

On the other hand, the asura scientists in LS2 found them to produce pollen, which is really strange.

@"Oglaf.1074" said:Sort of continuing this line of thinking, do you reckon Sylvari (especially those with the more flowery hairstyles) are exceedingly bothered and harassed by bees wherever they go during the spring and summer..?So yes, this is not implausible. Rather than fruit, they maybe perhaps function as some kind of mobile flower things....? This is so weird.

In order to walk and fight and be durable for years and decades, they must have a high level of recalcitrance in parts, while maintaining mobility. They don't do photosynthesis, though, even though some are in fact green. So, I imagine they contain quite a lot of lignin (wood) in general, not just in the "bones". The epidermis is possibly being extra protected by layers of wax and pretty thick in general. So, whatever the taste is like, it'd be pretty unpleasant and hard to eat them :lol:

Can you eat grass?

Ok if you do, then you must have a very strong stomach.

@Fenella.2634 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Lametoile.7394" said:As for Sylvari: their skin, and "hair" are those of tree and not vegetables or fruit.Technically, sylvari are the fruit of the Pale Tree (and the avatar is a flower of it).Actually, they are quite possibly not. Fruits are constructs that nourish and protect seeds. This does not seem to be the case for sylvari. We do not know how exactly tree seeds are produced yet, but the sylvari do not seem to be directly involved, as far as we (and they?) know. So they can't be real fruit, even though their production looks similar.

Granted they won't actually act like fruit given their nature as "good dragon minions", but that's what the devs relate them to; Kristen Perry, one of the lead designers at the time, specifically used that comparison when explaining their appearance and bodily growth (while comparing the Avatar of the Pale Tree to a flower).

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ngogr

One prime example where the art borrowed from fruits would be their cores being taken after apples and the like; from there, the rest of the body grew. We can see this on the sylvari models, with the belly button taking the role of the bottom of an apple's core. To quote from the above link:

"Like many fruits and vegetables, there are two ends: the main stem and the opposing divot (which makes a really good belly button). Graceful leaves sprout from the growth socket, curving around and through the body to simulate the desired musculature. I used stems and broad leaves to articulate the carpal tendons and the flesh of the lower arms. Hosta leaves spiral out at the shoulders in a teardrop shape to form the deltoid "muscles," while branches spring from the clavicles."

And at the end:

"The Pale Tree Avatar is the communications conduit between the sylvari and their creator. If the Pale Tree is the plant and the sylvari are the fruit, what better thematic bridge than a flower?"

There's also in-game dialogue calling sylvari the "fruit of the Pale Tree" iirc. Plus in a way they are seeds already, being their own individual beings. They won't become a tree and sprout more sylvari, though, so it's like they're sterile seeds.

The specific make-up of a sylvari can and does vary, and can even change as we see with the Mordrem Guard growing thick bark skin as "natural armor", or with Canach changing visibly almost completely, or Caithe and Ceara taking on new hairstyles.

They don't do photosynthesis, though, even though some are in fact green.

They actually do. This got confirmed in an interview some years back after a scene in the novel Ghosts of Ascalon mentioning the sylvari Killeen becoming more energetic when in sunlight compared to at night. It's just that they cannot survive off of photosynthesis alone.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Calling them fruits is exactly what the devs continuously refer to them as though.I know. It's still wrong, though, for the reason I've mentioned.The devs also gave us the absolute nonsense explanation about the so-called generations of scarab plague. I just don't trust their knowledge of biology. It's really sad.

There's also in-game dialogue calling sylvari the "fruit of the Pale Tree" iirc. Plus in a way they are seeds already, being their own individual beings. They won't become a tree and sprout more sylvari, though, so it's like they're sterile seeds.This does not make any sense, sorry. Seeds are essential in sexual reproduction. "Sterile seeds" don't work.Sylvari seem to be some kind of asexual state of the Tree's lifecycle, but IRL you'd rather expect that in lower plants, certainly not trees. I suspect they rather are like worker bees in relation to their queen and are not involved in the reproduction at all. (Their might be a few "drones" around offscreen, producing pollen. Or whatever the asura mistook for pollen. :lol: )

They don't do photosynthesis, though, even though some are in fact green.

Edit: For the sake of my suspension of disbelief, I take it that "fruit" is meant metaphorically ingame and that asura scientists are brilliant in all things magitech, but don't have much of a clue whenever it comes to biology.

@Fenella.2634 said:The devs also gave us the absolute nonsense explanation about the so-called generations of scarab plague. I just don't trust their knowledge of biology. It's really sad.

Different devs. Kristen Perry is no longer with Anet if I'm correct.

@Fenella.2634 said:This does not make any sense, sorry. Seeds are essential in sexual reproduction. "Sterile seeds" don't work.And yet, seedless fruits are a thing that exist.

And before you go "but those were made in a lab" or some such, keep in mind that the sylvari are not naturally evolved species, but magically created.

@Fenella.2634 said:OMG, and here I had hoped they had at least a little sense... No, they certainly can't survive on photosynthesis. The surface : volume ratio does not work, plus they are clothed most of the time... Why even bother with PS at all?That's... more or less exactly what they said though. You're agreeing with them, but bashing them.

@Fenella.2634 said:Edit: For the sake of my suspension of disbelief, I take it that "fruit" is meant metaphorically ingame and that asura scientists are brilliant in all things magitech, but don't have much of a clue whenever it comes to biology.It's sylvari NPCs who say that, in the Grove IIRC. Not asura.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Different devs. Kristen Perry is no longer with Anet if I'm correct.The scarab plague "generations" is still canon, though.

@Fenella.2634 said:This does not make any sense, sorry. Seeds are essential in sexual reproduction. "Sterile seeds" don't work.And yet, seedless fruits are a thing that exist.

@Fenella.2634 said:OMG, and here I had hoped they had at least a little sense... No, they certainly can't survive on photosynthesis. The surface : volume ratio does not work, plus they are clothed most of the time... Why even bother with PS at all?That's... more or less exactly what they said though. You're agreeing with them, but bashing them.Yes and yes... It would have been so much easier to just not let them do any PS at all, but oh well... As long as it's really just a minor bonus and they don't depend on it.

@Fenella.2634 said:Edit: For the sake of my suspension of disbelief, I take it that "fruit" is meant metaphorically ingame and that asura scientists are brilliant in all things magitech, but don't have much of a clue whenever it comes to biology.It's sylvari NPCs who say that, in the Grove IIRC. Not asura.Ah yes, sorry. In this case, I go with metaphor. :)The asura scientists were the ones mentioning the pollen in LS2, which would be completely strange if the sylvari were any kind of fruit or asexual state. It could be, however, that the sylvari actually are the tree's male reproductive organs, which would explain the pollen. Or maybe asura are really not very good at plant biology.

@Arden.7480 said:Can you eat grass?

Ok if you do, then you must have a very strong stomach.

Yeah.

It might taste awful but you can definitely eat it.

Sylvari taste succulent, but some of them are toxic (bred from PvP haters usually), so beware if you start vomiting blood after having a nibble of us - it'll only last as long as you have left to live. ^^