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The Joko Finale


DonArkanio.6419

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Not something like what Joko had and utilised, at least in scale. Liches have been done a few times in the GW franchise without overdoing it, but whilst it is a shame they killed him off and in such a pathetic, disrespectful-to-their-own-story way, we've had a pretty sizeable amount of undead content in GW2 when you take Zhaitan and Joko into account.

If we are talking about Joko's powers being passed on, well they seem to have abandoned that idea. They took what they needed for Aurene to resolve the plot quickly and ignored the rest. That's often the way with GW2's story.

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@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if Joko somehow tapped into Dhuum’s power for immortality, which would make sense on how Aurene gain that immortality, rather then “ Lich Magic.”

There's been nothing thus far linking Joko to Dhuum. However, there are two things that do suggest where Joko got his immortality.

The first is a djinn - in GW1, there is a quest chain to find a djinn who would grant any wish every 100 years; the instructions to find the djinn was found in a Coffer of Joko, from before Joko lost to Turai Ossa.

The second is Abaddon - also found in coffers of Joko, were scriptures of Abaddon. In of itself, doesn't seem related, but when we combine with the fact that Vizier Khilbron was a devoted follower of Abaddon before becoming a lich, it does seem a bit telling.

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if Joko somehow tapped into Dhuum’s power for immortality, which would make sense on how Aurene gain that immortality, rather then “ Lich Magic.”

There's been nothing thus far linking Joko to Dhuum. However, there are two things that do suggest where Joko got his immortality.

The first is a djinn - in GW1, there is a quest chain to find a djinn who would grant any wish every 100 years; the instructions to find the djinn was found in a Coffer of Joko, from before Joko lost to Turai Ossa.

The second is Abaddon - also found in coffers of Joko, were scriptures of Abaddon. In of itself, doesn't seem related, but when we combine with the fact that Vizier Khilbron was a devoted follower of Abaddon before becoming a lich, it does seem a bit telling.

If it’s a portion of Abaddon’s power, it would make sense, how Aurene absorbed it and was then able to use that ability. He was the God of secrets after all. Strange he would never use the immortality on himself. Unless Abaddon knew of methods that made Dhuum immortal.

The reason, I thought Dhuum had some sort of connection was mainly because he seems to be the only god that can’t die in the traditional sense. That being said, I highly doubt we will ever hear the exact reason or process that Joko became immortal.

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Technically speaking, we were never told that Dhuum cannot die. Merely that Grenth couldn't kill Dhuum. This could be because Dhuum cannot die, but it's also possible it's because some other reason - Grenth wasn't strong enough, Grenth's morality got in the way of doing it, or perhaps the consequence of killing Dhuum was too great (gods explode on death if their magic isn't fully contained after all).

Though the fact Dhuum goes from having a body that's half a skeleton, to a body that appears to be a spirit in armor, does suggest the whole "cannot die" bit. Especially when we consider that gods' and demigods' bodies break apart upon death - how does one kill a god without a body?

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Technically speaking, we were never told that Dhuum cannot die. Merely that Grenth couldn't kill Dhuum. This could be because Dhuum cannot die, but it's also possible it's because some other reason - Grenth wasn't strong enough, Grenth's morality got in the way of doing it, or perhaps the consequence of killing Dhuum was too great (gods explode on death if their magic isn't fully contained after all).

Agreed. The whole plot around Grenth and Dhuum is a strange mixture of great mystery and questionable writing. On one hand, it certainly suits Dhuum to be an enigma that breaks the “normal” rules that the other Gods apparently follow. Even without* Godhood, he could not be killed by the new God of Death, going so far as to call himself Death itself, which would sound like some hubristic boast if it not came from the one being who may indeed be the embodiment of death.

There are some theories to explain this. One being that he simply says the truth. Remember that in the GW1 universe certain parts and rules of nature may be embodied by avatars. Often times these are lesser elementals, but a concept like death may as well have an avatar in the form of Dhuum. This does however leave the question of why this being decided to become a God. Another explanation would be that Grenth could not kill him for tactical reasons: Grenth could already have a certain amount of divinity in him via him being Dwayna's son and a Demigod. *Since the Gods can only handle a certain amount of divinity in them, Grenth might have been unable to take all of Dhuum's divinity and Dhuum might have kept a spark of his former glory. In this case, simply keeping him imprisoned would be most likely easier than to get another successor. Grenth's seed founding of divinity also helps to explain how he could beat a God in combat with only 7 other heroes as support. It however leaves the question where Grenth's divinity came from. Did Dwayna sacrificed some of hers? If yes, why couldn’t she sponge up the remaining divinity of Dhuum?

The lore gives lots of room to mystery but at the same time stays logical enough for it to be explainable if the writers want to do so in the future. There are also multiple plotlines to combine well with Dhuum's, for example the MAD-alliance in GW1. The little touches like the short Gwen encounter in the Underworld-Raid, referencing her mother being there in GW1. This is good writing. But on the other hand, the lore around Dhuum that came with GW2 was badly handled sometimes. I am not even talking about his new looks or the changes to his speech habit. It is about how some of the writers did not bother to check if certain new parts of the lore are compatible with older ones. This seems to be a general problem in the game if we take a look at things like Malyck or the Mursaat, but regarding Dhuum and Grenth the biggest offender is probably Grenth's mortal father, which was imo a too hastily executed idea of how to make the new lore regarding the Gods more human. For starters, some people think that Malchor might be his father, but this is not clear at all. People just tend to assume so because we only know of one famous sculptor (despite there probably being hundreds of artists who fell in love with the Gods when they were still around) because we got sadly used to simple answers being spoon-fed to us via simplistic writing.

There are however two main arguments against Malchor being Grenth's father. The first one stems from the fact that Malchor was supposed to be the creator of the statue design of the human gods and such also Grenth. This leads to the problem that Malchor would have been dead by the time he was supposed to make the statues, as Grenth avenged his dead father by defeating Dhuum. This argument is quite interesting, because it is in a weird position regarding its status as canon and might be an example of ANET trying to retcon their story. The inscription of the statues at release leaves no doubt about Malchor being their creator:

"Grenth I feared the most, for in gazing upon him I saw my own end. But Grenth also embodies inevitability, the idea that all things have a time...and that time must inevitably pass." —Malchor

Now for the fun fact. Between June and September 2017, the inscription was changed to the one you can see nowadays:

"Grenth, Prince of Ice, God of Death. He embodies inevitability, the idea that all things have a time... and that time must inevitably pass." — Desmina

This obviously leaves out the important part that Malchor was supposed to be the creator of the statues. I personally do think that it is important that the former inscription made it into the game and as such must have passed the internal lore check and should be treated as canon, but some people might argue that the change of the inscription happened because ANET fucked up and wanted to retcon the whole thing. That is a fair argument, which leaves us to the second important argument against Malchor being Grenths father.

Grenth's father died when Dhuum was still around, kicking the whole ascension into godhood by replacing Dhuum into motion. But what happened with people who died before Grenth was the god of death? Well, we can see that in the hall of chains: Their souls were consumed by Dhuum and lost forever. As far as I am aware, there is not a single spirit around from someone who died during Dhuum's reign. Since Malchor's spirit is still around, he must have died after Grenth was already a god, as Dhuum would have consumed his very existence if Malchor died before Dhuums downfall. Even if you argue that Grenth might have been able to save his father’s soul somehow (which I doubt, as Dhuum is still able to consume souls even after being stripped of (most) of his divinity and after being forced into slumber in a place made for him to be imprisoned there forever), this begs the question why he would have let him in such a spot instead of making sure to take him to a better place in the underworld or even into Dwayna's realm of the dead. It would make no sense to challenge a god to save his father’s soul and then just let him rot in sunken Orr after winning the fight. And Dwayna, the merciful one, who even sends down avatars of herself to let souls rest in peace (Family Ties (Prophecies quest)), collect the soul of a single dwarf who worshipped her (Attack on Jalis's Camp) and generally does everything in her powers to help people, is suddenly supposed to let her former lover haunt his place of death instead of granting him peace?

There is also a third and minor argument regarding location of the events: Malchor died west of the Cathedral of Zephyrs, while Dhuum's Last Stand is located near the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance. These are two very different places. Judging from the fact that in lore you would probably need days to travel between these two places (see Daliah and Rose), they are not even close to each other. Yet, we know that Dhuum fell there and “Where his father had fallen, Grenth would rise”, implying that Grenth's father died near the temple of Lyssa. That makes sense, judging from the fact that it certainly fits a sculptor to work or at least pray regularly at Lyssa's temple, who was the patron deity of artists. This does imply that it was indeed another sculptor. Since the space of Tyria is kind of warped due to gameplay reasons, I can understand people who want to count the two places as being close to each other, which is why I only count it as a minor argument, as it can be dismissed by a weird space-perception, but to me it is a deal-breaker.

Ok, enough with this rant about how the lore was handled there. To the next point:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Though the fact Dhuum goes from having a body that's half a skeleton, to a body that appears to be a spirit in armor, does suggest the whole "cannot die" bit. Especially when we consider that gods' and demigods' bodies break apart upon death - how does one kill a god without a body?

I would personally regard the change of models to be a simple retcon. You could argue though that something happened between the encounters (he did have some time after he broke his chains after all), so he may have changed his looks. This actually might hold some value. He was already linked to a green glow in GW1, which you can also see in his “body”, especially around his heart and eyes. The new model may imply that he used the skeleton in GW1 in the same way he uses his armor in GW2: As a mere shell he binds his essence to. But yeah, your interpretation also makes sense. I just doubt the designers would think so far ahead when the made Dhuum's model.

@Tyson.5160 said:If it’s a portion of Abaddon’s power, it would make sense, how Aurene absorbed it and was then able to use that ability. He was the God of secrets after all. Strange he would never use the immortality on himself. Unless Abaddon knew of methods that made Dhuum immortal.

The reason, I thought Dhuum had some sort of connection was mainly because he seems to be the only god that can’t die in the traditional sense. That being said, I highly doubt we will ever hear the exact reason or process that Joko became immortal.

Quick note regarding the main topic, even if the most important things were already said: Dhuum hated undead creatures with a passion and was all about being the final end. He is the last God I would expect to share some secret regarding immortality, if he knew of it. And with it being unclear how much the Deities of Secrets really know, I don’t think Joko got it this way. Khilbron always appeared to be more of a byproduct of the mass destruction spell that was not intended for granting someone eternal life or even as a direct intervention of Abaddon. The scriptures in Jokos coffer can be explained otherwise. The Djinn seems to be the far better hint.

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@"Nikolai.3648" said:

For starters, some people think that Malchor might be his father, but this is not clear at all. People just tend to assume so because we only know of one famous sculptor (despite there probably being hundreds of artists who fell in love with the Gods when they were still around) because we got sadly used to simple answers being spoon-fed to us via simplistic writing.

It's more than that. The original lore we got on Malchor- a simplified version of which did make it into the game- established that the gods kept apart from the humans while wearing their true forms in order to avoid blinding them. The whole reason Malchor got commissioned to sculpt the gods was so that only one artist would need to be exposed. Those facts- Dwayna had a son with a sculptor, the gods didn't mingle much with their wrshippers, only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form, that sculptor fell tragically in love with Dwayna- makes a pretty strong case.

Grenth's father died when Dhuum was still around, kicking the whole ascension into godhood by replacing Dhuum into motion. But what happened with people who died before Grenth was the god of death? Well, we can see that in the hall of chains: Their souls were consumed by Dhuum and lost forever. As far as I am aware, there is not a single spirit around from someone who died during Dhuum's reign. Since Malchor's spirit is still around, he must have died after Grenth was already a god, as Dhuum would have consumed his very existence if Malchor died before Dhuums downfall. Even if you argue that Grenth might have been able to save his father’s soul somehow (which I doubt, as Dhuum is still able to consume souls even after being stripped of (most) of his divinity and after being forced into slumber in a place made for him to be imprisoned there forever), this begs the question why he would have let him in such a spot instead of making sure to take him to a better place in the underworld or even into Dwayna's realm of the dead. It would make no sense to challenge a god to save his father’s soul and then just let him rot in sunken Orr after winning the fight. And Dwayna, the merciful one, who even sends down avatars of herself to let souls rest in peace (Family Ties (Prophecies quest)), collect the soul of a single dwarf who worshipped her (Attack on Jalis's Camp) and generally does everything in her powers to help people, is suddenly supposed to let her former lover haunt his place of death instead of granting him peace?

I more often see this brought up as further (potential) evidence for Malchor being Grenth's father. We don't have any solid account of Grenth's motives in overthrowing Dhuum; the knowledge that his father's soul had remained in the world, which would've drawn Dhuum's direct attention, could justify both why Grenth opposed Dhuum, and what old Death Unavoidable was doing along the north coast of Orr in the first place.

There is also a third and minor argument regarding location of the events: Malchor died west of the Cathedral of Zephyrs, while Dhuum's Last Stand is located near the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance. These are two very different places. Judging from the fact that in lore you would probably need days to travel between these two places (see Daliah and Rose), they are not even close to each other. Yet, we know that Dhuum fell there and “Where his father had fallen, Grenth would rise”, implying that Grenth's father died near the temple of Lyssa.

I will point out that Dhuum's Last Stand and the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance are both within the region called Malchor's Leap. That particular line always felt like a writer being irritating clever with a double meaning, but it does fit.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:[... ] only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form [...]

For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms?

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:It's more than that. The original lore we got on Malchor- a simplified version of which did make it into the game- established that the gods kept apart from the humans while wearing their true forms in order to avoid blinding them. The whole reason Malchor got commissioned to sculpt the gods was so that only one artist would need to be exposed. Those facts- Dwayna had a son with a sculptor, the gods didn't mingle much with their wrshippers, only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form, that sculptor fell tragically in love with Dwayna- makes a pretty strong case.

Nothing ingame states that it was Malchor. Even if you take the holy texts regarding the pantheon at face value, which thanks to them being unreliable narrators we should not, never is a connection made. The only connection is both being sculptors who loved Dwayna. That’s all. You obviously can’t take sources outside from the game into it because it is at best psudo-cannon (or what did they call it last time?) at worst we get them stating that Malchor created the statues of Kormir.

I more often see this brought up as further (potential) evidence for Malchor being Grenth's father. We don't have any solid account of Grenth's motives in overthrowing Dhuum; the knowledge that his father's soul had remained in the world, which would've drawn Dhuum's direct attention, could justify both why Grenth opposed Dhuum, and what old Death Unavoidable was doing along the north coast of Orr in the first place. [...] I will point out that Dhuum's Last Stand and the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance are both within the region called Malchor's Leap.

I do think that personal issues might have made someone’s resolve stronger, and we can assume that Grenths father died on the map, maybe even explaining why Dhuum came there – but your assumption is that his father his Malchor, which influences the way you interpret it. I can simply claim it was a sculptor who prayed at Lyssas temple shortly before dying. Dhuum shows up to collect his soul, Grenth throws a fit and battles him with his 7 companions. Which leaves us with a place that is not at all near Malchors place of death! The title of the map means little, because for the same travel distance a probably trained Sylvari took multiple days. If you take into consideration that humanity probably at that time lived ONLY on Orr, making the place the events could have happened much smaller, that means that Dhuum showed up at a completely different place. Even if we assume that it was Malchor, why would Grenth leave his father in this state? It is literary his job to care for lost souls like him and we know that Grenth tried to take his job seriously. Why would he leave the man who started his ascensions in such a pitiful state?

Just to make it clear, I do believe that the writing team was not sure what they did and at the release of the game wanted to imply that Malchor was his father. It just contradicts other evidence. The most problematic proof was the inscription on the statue which was changed. They probably realized they kittened up there and changed it without a word. But this leaves the other problems and the question who made Grenth statue in this case. Which is another thing that made little sense. If you think about it, the whole statue lore is a mess: To start with, we know that the blinding thing is not necessarily true, which is why the whole explanation of why the gods needed Malchor in the first place starts to fall apart. While the Gods may blind people (Kormir in POF being proof), this is not the case for every God. Abaddon did not blind us in GW1 (if for mechanical reasons or because his chains or whatsonot not is not clear), but neither do the other Gods in their scriptures. Especially Lyssa just lived among humans without blinding them. If you claim that this is because they are the Goddesses for Illusions, you will also have to admit that she could just have given the other Gods artifacts to solve the issue. After all, her mirror proves that her artefacts are able to hide the truth even from the eyes of the other Gods, it will certainly be enough to ensure the eyesight of a few humans by putting a filter on the Gods visages. Btw, why exactly could the Goddess of Healing herself not heal Malchors eyes as payment for the great job he did? Here are two possible answers: 1) The whole story is a mess and was just made up so anet could exchange the good old statues for the (imo inferior) ones we have now. 2) Because the whole text even ingame was written by humans, aka unreliable narrators who have organized cults and all the reason to twist the words of the scriptures you have that come along with that. The story about Grenth being of mortal origin at all could have been an attempt to make the new God appear friendlier to the humans, if you want to take it to extremes.

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@Nikolai.3648 said:

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:[... ] only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form [...]

For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms?

The link provided below ("The Six Gods lived in the city of Arah among their mortal followers. Sadly, the glory of their presence was too much for human senses to take in, and their radiance blinded those who stared too long upon their visage. Yet the Six wished their people to know them, for they loved their followers a great deal. They chose one man—the sculptor, Malchor—and granted him audience. His task was to make a statue of each god, so that humans might know their creators.") and the original story of Malchor presented to us before launch ("When the gods Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Kormir, Lyssa and Melandru arrived in Tyria, it was impossible, because of their divine nature, to appear before human eyes without blinding them. Thus they decided to fetch a sculptor, so that he could shape statues in their image... One after another, the gods presented themselves in his studio and for each one Malchor carved a statue in their image. Once a statue was finished, the God returned to the city of Arah, where no human could enter.") rely on that as their premise. The reason Malchor needed to sacrifice his sight is that there was no other way for the masses to see what their gods actually looked like.

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:It's more than that. The original lore we got on Malchor- a simplified version of which
established that the gods kept apart from the humans while wearing their true forms in order to avoid blinding them. The whole reason Malchor got commissioned to sculpt the gods was so that only one artist would need to be exposed. Those facts- Dwayna had a son with a sculptor, the gods didn't mingle much with their wrshippers, only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form, that sculptor fell tragically in love with Dwayna- makes a pretty strong case.

Nothing ingame states that it was Malchor. Even if you take the holy texts regarding the pantheon at face value, which thanks to them being unreliable narrators we should not, never is a connection made. The only connection is both being sculptors who loved Dwayna. That’s all. You obviously can’t take sources outside from the game into it because it is at best psudo-cannon (or what did they call it last time?) at worst we get them stating that Malchor created the statues of Kormir.

The weight of the argument rests on the unlikeliness of there being two sculptors who both happened to fall in love with Dwayna... but yes, if you take the radical approach of discounting everything that didn't make it into the game, it weakens the argument somewhat. It also washes out and diminishes most of Tyria's setting, so I personally am not inclined to take that approach, but to each their own.

(As far as mistakes go, the game is perfectly capable of contradicting itself, so I don't know that cutting outside documents makes dealing with that particular problem any easier.)

I more often see this brought up as further (potential) evidence
for
Malchor being Grenth's father. We don't have any solid account of Grenth's motives in overthrowing Dhuum; the knowledge that his father's soul had remained in the world, which would've drawn Dhuum's direct attention, could justify both why Grenth opposed Dhuum, and what old Death Unavoidable was doing along the north coast of Orr in the first place. [...] I will point out that Dhuum's Last Stand and the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance are both within the region called Malchor's Leap.

The title of the map means littleTo be clear, my interpretation of the line in the scrolls was that it was being metaphorical- that Grenth would not face the same fate as his father- with a cheeky little nudge-nudge, poke-poke, see what we did there, we put that last battle within the map called Malchor's Leap, so it has a second meta meaning! However, it's worth noting that characters
do
use the map names to refer to areas, meaning an inhabitant of Tyria would tell you that Dhuum's Last Stand is within the region of Malchor's Leap.

Even if we assume that it was Malchor, why would Grenth leave his father in this state? It is literary his job to care for lost souls like him and we know that Grenth tried to take his job seriously. Why would he leave the man who started his ascensions in such a pitiful state?

We can fairly safely assume, based on what we see in Guild Wars 1, that Grenth either never interpreted his duty to include chaperoning ghosts on into the afterlife, or else found himself unable to do so. In Malchor's case, at least, his own spirit makes a powerful case that it wished to remain behind... even despite all the crap that the risen had subjected Orr to. Why would Grenth try to overrule his wishes?

Just to make it clear, I do believe that the writing team was not sure what they did and at the release of the game wanted to imply that Malchor was his father. It just contradicts other evidence. The most problematic proof was the inscription on the statue which was changed. They probably realized they kittened up there and changed it without a word. But this leaves the other problems and the question who made Grenth statue in this case. Which is another thing that made little sense. If you think about it, the whole statue lore is a mess: To start with, we know that the blinding thing is not necessarily true, which is why the whole explanation of why the gods needed Malchor in the first place starts to fall apart. While the Gods may blind people (Kormir in POF being proof), this is not the case for every God. Abaddon did not blind us in GW1 (if for mechanical reasons or because his chains or whatsonot not is not clear), but neither do the other Gods in their scriptures. Especially Lyssa just lived among humans without blinding them. If you claim that this is because they are the Goddesses for Illusions, you will also have to admit that she could just have given the other Gods artifacts to solve the issue. After all, her mirror proves that her artefacts are able to hide the truth even from the eyes of the other Gods, it will certainly be enough to ensure the eyesight of a few humans by putting a filter on the Gods visages. Btw, why exactly could the Goddess of Healing herself not heal Malchors eyes as payment for the great job he did? Here are two possible answers: 1) The whole story is a mess and was just made up so anet could exchange the good old statues for the (imo inferior) ones we have now. 2) Because the whole text even ingame was written by humans, aka unreliable narrators who have organized cults and all the reason to twist the words of the scriptures you have that come along with that. The story about Grenth being of mortal origin at all could have been an attempt to make the new God appear friendlier to the humans, if you want to take it to extremes.

Oh, I agree the statue lore is a mess. There are several parts of the setting like that. I do think there's a third answer, though- while creating the Orrian zones, they came up with the Tragedy of Malchor and thought it was a neat story, and so put it into the setting without fully tracing out the ramifications.

However, I do believe that the devs did address the blindness thing in a post around PoF- something along the lines of 'it's inevitable, but not instantaneous,' which does mesh with Malchor's story too- he doesn't go blind until he's already done most of the gods. Given that all the scriptures only have the gods using their true forms long enough to say a few choice words, it's safe to guess that the human onlookers weren't any worse off than the PC was after our encounter with Kormir.

(Still doesn't get Dwayna off the hook for not healing him.)

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:[... ] only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form [...]

For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms?

The link provided below ("The Six Gods lived in the city of Arah among their mortal followers. Sadly, the glory of their presence was too much for human senses to take in, and their radiance blinded those who stared too long upon their visage. Yet the Six wished their people to know them, for they loved their followers a great deal. They chose one man—the sculptor, Malchor—and granted him audience. His task was to make a statue of each god, so that humans might know their creators.") and the
("When the gods Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Kormir, Lyssa and Melandru arrived in Tyria, it was impossible, because of their divine nature, to appear before human eyes without blinding them. Thus they decided to fetch a sculptor, so that he could shape statues in their image... One after another, the gods presented themselves in his studio and for each one Malchor carved a statue in their image. Once a statue was finished, the God returned to the city of Arah, where no human could enter.") rely on that as their premise. The reason Malchor needed to sacrifice his sight is that there was no other way for the masses to see what their gods actually looked like.

Thank you for your source, but what I meant was that you stated that only a single sculptor saw their true form, which we cant say for sure because many people went blind looking at them, some of them likely also sculptors. It was merely splitting hairs on my end, but it did lead to you stating your source, which I am thankful for because I did not find it after a quick search, despite knowing it existed.

The weight of the argument rests on the unlikeliness of there being two sculptors who both happened to fall in love with Dwayna...

And as I stated, neither is it unlikely, especially since Dwayna is nearly always being depicted as deeply caring for every human she meets and all sculptors must have wanted to get a chance to depict the Gods, nor does the mere absence of another sculptor in the story proves anything.

[...] but yes, if you take the radical approach of discounting everything that didn't make it into the game, it weakens the argument somewhat. It also washes out and diminishes most of Tyria's setting, so I personally am not inclined to take that approach, but to each their own.

Claiming that basic skepticism regarding the reliability of a source is a radical approach shocks me. Even more so because the very source you quote states that Malchor created the statues of Grenth and Kormir, both becoming Gods after he died! This has nothing to do with washing out the atmosphere of Tyria, it is about devs being wrong about facts that were written in stone. You can’t really expect anyone to take these outside sources into consideration in an argument about lore, as much as it would prove to set the mood, because they are an offense to any person who takes the lore serously.

To be clear, my interpretation of the line in the scrolls was that it was being metaphorical- that Grenth would not face the same fate as his father- with a cheeky little nudge-nudge, poke-poke, see what we did there, we put that last battle within the map called Malchor's Leap, so it has a second meta meaning! However, it's worth noting that characters do use the map names to refer to areas, meaning an inhabitant of Tyria would tell you that Dhuum's Last Stand is within the region of Malchor's Leap.

Granted that they would call the map this way ingame, also granted that it would give it a Meta-Meaning. But Meta-Meanings hold no value in an argument. Here comes a great example: Path of the Gods has this flavor text: “There WOULD be eight, but nobody could find any statues of Dhuum.” This is in fact a valid question and qualifies as another minor argument to add to the list of arguments against Malchor being the father: Why are none of Dhuums statues found anywhere? A solution would be: Because Malchor did not make any. Why? Because he could not have created them because Malchor met Grenth during his lifetime, long after Dhuums fall. While the Gods had reason to destroy all evidence of Abaddon (and failed at that) they did not have a reason to destroy Dhuums statues. Even if Grenth cared about that, could he have gotten every last one of them if all 5 of the Gods failed at that when they really cared about destroying all evidence? No, that would make no sense. You can’t find the statues because they never existed in the first place. This gives the flavor text a nice Meta-Meaning. We can use the statues as an argument, but do we really want to use the Meta-Meaning as one? No. Because: 1) What qualifies as a Meta-Meaning is up for debate. 2) The fact that it would get a sweet Meta-Meaning has no real value regarding the argument.

We can fairly safely assume, based on what we see in Guild Wars 1, that Grenth either never interpreted his duty to include chaperoning ghosts on into the afterlife, or else found himself unable to do so. In Malchor's case, at least, his own spirit makes a powerful case that it wished to remain behind... even despite all the kitten that the risen had subjected Orr to. Why would Grenth try to overrule his wishes?

You are right on that. Strangely enough, Dwayna did it on a regular basis. She also helped the people overcome their problems so they could rest in peace. This is why it is even weirder that he still sticks around.

However, I do believe that the devs did address the blindness thing in a post around PoF- something along the lines of 'it's inevitable, but not instantaneous,' which does mesh with Malchor's story too- he doesn't go blind until he's already done most of the gods. Given that all the scriptures only have the gods using their true forms long enough to say a few choice words, it's safe to guess that the human onlookers weren't any worse off than the PC was after our encounter with Kormir.

This still leaves the problem that Lyssa could have solved the issue as proven with the mirror. No need to blind a mortal for that.

I do think there's a third answer, though- while creating the Orrian zones, they came up with the Tragedy of Malchor and thought it was a neat story, and so put it into the setting without fully tracing out the ramifications.

But as it stand, we can safely assume that Malchor fails to fulfill the criteria he needs to be Grenths father, from the place of his death to arguably the mere presence of a soul (if you want to argue that Dhuum did not get to him quick enough before being defeated). But most importantly, if we would take your text to be cannon, he could not have made Grenths statue. That is a little bit more that just a few “ramifications”.

Oh, I agree the statue lore is a mess. There are several parts of the setting like that.

We definitely agree on that part. But we have to interpret the facts presented ingame in such a way that they are compatible with the lore around it without regards of what the writers thought would be a cool concept. And since you can’t separate the statue lore from Malchor and Grenth, it leaves us with only two solutions that fit the problem: Either there was another sculptor who was Grenths father, or the whole story was made up by (human) followers.

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@Nikolai.3648 said:

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:[... ] only one sculptor saw the gods in their true form [...]

For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms?

The link provided below ("The Six Gods lived in the city of Arah among their mortal followers. Sadly, the glory of their presence was too much for human senses to take in, and their radiance blinded those who stared too long upon their visage. Yet the Six wished their people to know them, for they loved their followers a great deal. They chose one man—the sculptor, Malchor—and granted him audience. His task was to make a statue of each god, so that humans might know their creators.") and the
("When the gods Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Kormir, Lyssa and Melandru arrived in Tyria, it was impossible, because of their divine nature, to appear before human eyes without blinding them. Thus they decided to fetch a sculptor, so that he could shape statues in their image... One after another, the gods presented themselves in his studio and for each one Malchor carved a statue in their image. Once a statue was finished, the God returned to the city of Arah, where no human could enter.") rely on that as their premise. The reason Malchor needed to sacrifice his sight is that there was no other way for the masses to see what their gods actually looked like.

Thank you for your source, but what I meant was that you stated that only a single sculptor saw their true form, which we cant say for sure because many people went blind looking at them, some of them likely also sculptors. It was merely splitting hairs on my end, but it did lead to you stating your source, which I am thankful for because I did not find it after a quick search, despite knowing it existed.

Unless I'm missing something, we don't know that many people went blind looking at them. I've been working under the assumption that the gods realized the issue fairly quickly and took steps to address it, which would mean relatively few people would ever have had the opportunity of meeting them (and knowing that they were doing so). That is, admittedly, unconfirmed, but most other explanations hinge on the gods being either ignorant or uncaring, and I find those... distasteful, personally.

[...] but yes, if you take the radical approach of discounting everything that didn't make it into the game, it weakens the argument somewhat. It also washes out and diminishes most of Tyria's setting, so I personally am not inclined to take that approach, but to each their own.

Claiming that basic skepticism regarding the reliability of a source is a radical approach shocks me. Even more so because the very source you quote states that Malchor created the statues of Grenth and Kormir, both becoming Gods after he died! This has nothing to do with washing out the atmosphere of Tyria, it is about devs being wrong about facts that were written in stone. You can’t really expect anyone to take these outside sources into consideration in an argument about lore, as much as it would prove to set the mood, because they are an offense to any person who takes the lore serously.

I disagree... or, at least, if we take that approach, then the game itself is also ruled out for things like S2E7, which originally had secondborn sylvari dying before Riannoc, the first sylvari to die. At that point, you have nothing left to work with.

The informal consensus seems to be that the most functional approach is to take statements at face value until they're contradicted by a higher form of canon... and even then, one detail being contradicted can't be allowed to discredit the entire source. Not to say that there isn't room for skepticism about whether those things will be contradicted in the future, or whether the devs have changed other things behind the curtains already and simply not clued us in yet, but taking the approach that any flaws discredit the whole piece would seem to leave us with too little to, well, discuss.

As for the last bit... my experience is that the folks frequenting this forum have found it necessary to strike a balance between seriousness and being offended. If you fall further towards that end than I do, that's fine, but I found that mix to be seriously undermining my enjoyment of the game, and I scaled back accordingly until I was able to accept that the devs would make small mistakes. (The bigger oversights still rankle, but things like an anachronistic listing of the gods barely warrants notice these days.)

To be clear, my interpretation of the line in the scrolls was that it was being metaphorical- that Grenth would not face the same fate as his father- with a cheeky little nudge-nudge, poke-poke, see what we did there, we put that last battle within the map called Malchor's Leap, so it has a second meta meaning! However, it's worth noting that characters
do
use the map names to refer to areas, meaning an inhabitant of Tyria would tell you that Dhuum's Last Stand is within the region of Malchor's Leap.

Granted that they would call the map this way ingame, also granted that it would give it a Meta-Meaning. But Meta-Meanings hold no value in an argument. Here comes a great example: Path of the Gods has this flavor text: “There WOULD be eight, but nobody could find any statues of Dhuum.” This is in fact a valid question and qualifies as another minor argument to add to the list of arguments against Malchor being the father: Why are none of Dhuums statues found anywhere? A solution would be: Because Malchor did not make any. Why? Because he could not have created them because Malchor met Grenth during his lifetime, long after Dhuums fall. While the Gods had reason to destroy all evidence of Abaddon (and failed at that) they did not have a reason to destroy Dhuums statues. Even if Grenth cared about that, could he have gotten every last one of them if all 5 of the Gods failed at that when they really cared about destroying all evidence? No, that would make no sense. You can’t find the statues because they never existed in the first place. This gives the flavor text a nice Meta-Meaning. We can use the statues as an argument, but do we really want to use the Meta-Meaning as one? No. Because: 1) What qualifies as a Meta-Meaning is up for debate. 2) The fact that it would get a sweet Meta-Meaning has no real value regarding the argument.

Agreed.

We can fairly safely assume, based on what we see in Guild Wars 1, that Grenth either never interpreted his duty to include chaperoning ghosts on into the afterlife, or else found himself unable to do so. In Malchor's case, at least, his own spirit makes a powerful case that it wished to remain behind... even despite all the kitten that the risen had subjected Orr to. Why would Grenth try to overrule his wishes?

You are right on that. Strangely enough, Dwayna did it on a regular basis. She also helped the people overcome their problems so they could rest in peace. This is why it is even weirder that he still sticks around.I suspect this is where the devs would chime in with something like 'the gods work in mysterious ways'... but, to be more charitable, one could argue that Malchor's unresolved business wasn't the sort of thing that outside agency could fix. Showing a couple souls that their child lived and was being cared for is one thing (I'm assuming that you're referring to the post-Searing quest given by the Avatar of Dwayna); getting an artist to come to grips with toxic perfectionism and tragic love is quite another, especially when you're already the focal point of the matter.

However, I do believe that the devs did address the blindness thing in a post around PoF- something along the lines of 'it's inevitable, but not instantaneous,' which does mesh with Malchor's story too- he doesn't go blind until he's already done most of the gods. Given that all the scriptures only have the gods using their true forms long enough to say a few choice words, it's safe to guess that the human onlookers weren't any worse off than the PC was after our encounter with Kormir.

This still leaves the problem that Lyssa could have solved the issue as proven with the mirror. No need to blind a mortal for that.Indeed. We're clearly missing something in why the gods forced themselves to dwell apart... but, then, we're missing a whole lot of the gods' motivations. This is one of those places where I don't think an unanswered mystery necessarily equates to a plot hole.

I do think there's a third answer, though- while creating the Orrian zones, they came up with the Tragedy of Malchor and thought it was a neat story, and so put it into the setting without fully tracing out the ramifications.

But as it stand, we can safely assume that Malchor fails to fulfill the criteria he needs to be Grenths father, from the place of his death to arguably the mere presence of a soul (if you want to argue that Dhuum did not get to him quick enough before being defeated). But most importantly, if we would take your text to be cannon, he could not have made Grenths statue. That is a little bit more that just a few “ramifications”.

Oh, I agree the statue lore is a mess. There are several parts of the setting like that.

We definitely agree on that part. But we have to interpret the facts presented ingame in such a way that they are compatible with the lore around it without regards of what the writers thought would be a cool concept. And since you can’t separate the statue lore from Malchor and Grenth, it leaves us with only two solutions that fit the problem: Either there was another sculptor who was Grenths father, or the whole story was made up by (human) followers.

But the statue lore can be separated from Malchor... or, rather, it must be separated, unless you figure that Malchor's spirit took a break from his madness a couple hundred years ago to do one for Kormir. That is part of interpreting the facts presented in-game, yes? So, if it's possible that someone else did a statue of Kormir in Malchor's style, it is also possible that someone else did a statue of Grenth in Malchor's style.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:Unless I'm missing something, we don't know that many people went blind looking at them. I've been working under the assumption that the gods realized the issue fairly quickly and took steps to address it, which would mean relatively few people would ever have had the opportunity of meeting them (and knowing that they were doing so).

While the number isn’t clear, I always interpreted the line in the way that it happened often enough that the Gods had to take action regarding the issue. It is of course also fair to assume differently. Regardless of the exact number of people, we can’t rule out that another sculptor was among them.

That is, admittedly, unconfirmed, but most other explanations hinge on the gods being either ignorant or uncaring, and I find those... distasteful, personally.

I agree with your personal taste, but besides Lyssa who might actually act rationally, all other Gods acted nearly the exact way you described starting with GW2. It was a big decision that the writers wanted to make them more human-like and down to earth, that needed certain sacrifices, some of which I personally would not have made.

Claiming that basic skepticism regarding the reliability of a source is a radical approach shocks me. Even more so because the very source you quote states that Malchor created the statues of Grenth and Kormir, both becoming Gods after he died! This has nothing to do with washing out the atmosphere of Tyria, it is about devs being wrong about facts that were written in stone. You can’t really expect anyone to take these outside sources into consideration in an argument about lore, as much as it would prove to set the mood, because they are an offense to any person who takes the lore serously.

I disagree... or, at least, if we take that approach, then the game itself is also ruled out for things like S2E7, which originally had secondborn sylvari dying before Riannoc, the first sylvari to die. At that point, you have nothing left to work with.

I have to respectfully disagree. While I can understand your personal preference, I could never be happy with something so glaringly false being treated with the same respect as something we actually witness ingame. Also, I am not aware of this specific timeline issue? I thought Riannoc simply died before this happened. I could certainly be wrong though, the devs do mess up the lore on regular basis after all. Sometimes the errors are fixed after a while, sometimes we still have dead people walking around on the Bazar or in HOT.

[...] but taking the approach that any flaws discredit the whole piece would seem to leave us with too little to, well, discuss.

We are not talking about a simple flaw here. We are talking about 2 grave and stupid mistakes in a very short paragraph. A different thing would have been the Mursaat lore at Ember Bay. There was a mistake regarding the exact years that actually made me question if this lore was faked by someone else. But in the end, it turned out to be a simple mistake that got fixed later. That is a simple flaw and it did not really take away its credibility. That is something you can overlook when judging a source trustworthy. But claiming that Malchor made Grenths and Kormirs statue? That’s on a completely different level.

As for the last bit... my experience is that the folks frequenting this forum have found it necessary to strike a balance between seriousness and being offended. If you fall further towards that end than I do, that's fine, but I found that mix to be seriously undermining my enjoyment of the game, and I scaled back accordingly until I was able to accept that the devs would make small mistakes. (The bigger oversights still rankle, but things like an anachronistic listing of the gods barely warrants notice these days.)

Thank you for worrying about my enjoyment (Realizing that this may come of like sarcasm, it is not!), but I already went through my personal phase of discomfort with the way the writers handle the lore in GW2. It was quite painful to see the change of direction compared to the way they treated it in GW1. But I made my peace with it by accepting that there are bound to be mistakes. Even more important to me was the fact that something does not really need to be a mistake if it can be explained otherwise. A twisted modification of Occam's razor if you will. If you shift the question, you can change the answer. Our discussion is a great example: If you assume Malchor to be Grenth father, you will find certain stuff that implies (Dhuums final consumption, the exact location, etc) or directly states (the Pseudo-Lore you quoted) otherwise, leading you to see a mistake. The question would be: How could this happen? And the answer would be: Because the writers fucked up. A simple solution, one step to get to the answer that explains everything, nearly perfect regarding the law of parsimony. But if you change your view a bit and realize that nowhere is it directly stated that Malchor is the father, then the whole questions falls flat. There simply was no mistake because you have an alternative explanation. You can actually reach a perfect solution after zero steps, which makes it perfect if you only use Occam's razor to judge a theory. That may sound twisted, but it is actually quite amusing to do this because it creates lot of fan theories, which I personally really adore. It is also solid ground: I have solid arguments to attack the Malchor is his father theory, regardless if you agree with them or not, while it is nearly impossible to disprove that someone else was the father. This is fun to me. I understand that not everyone feels fulfilled by it, but I certainly enjoy this take on lore sometimes.

I suspect this is where the devs would chime in with something like 'the gods work in mysterious ways'... but, to be more charitable, one could argue that Malchor's unresolved business wasn't the sort of thing that outside agency could fix. Showing a couple souls that their child lived and was being cared for is one thing (I'm assuming that you're referring to the post-Searing quest given by the Avatar of Dwayna); getting an artist to come to grips with toxic perfectionism and tragic love is quite another, especially when you're already the focal point of the matter.

It was indeed the quest I meant. Seeing that Malchor had severe mental health issues, this should however fall exactly under the description of either the Godess of Healing or the Twins of Mind if Dwayna wanted to distance herself from this. It does not seem to be an unsolvable issue to me in a universe that has mind manipulation and control in mortal-ish (Jokos) hands.

But the statue lore can be separated from Malchor... or, rather, it must be separated, unless you figure that Malchor's spirit took a break from his madness a couple hundred years ago to do one for Kormir. That is part of interpreting the facts presented in-game, yes? So, if it's possible that someone else did a statue of Kormir in Malchor's style, it is also possible that someone else did a statue of Grenth in Malchor's style.

It is indeed a question that comes down to how you regard the change to the inscription. To me that action mend that the writers wanted to leave a bit of mystery, but the fact that it was in the game in the first place might have been intended as hidden proof that Malchor was not the father. This is supported by the fact that Kormirs statue never had this issue, meaning they were aware of the fact Malchor did not create all the statues. You can interpret it otherwise, but that still leaves the other problems that I already explained and maybe a few more. Or you have zero problems if you accept that it was another sculptor.

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@"Nikolai.3648" said:

Also, I am not aware of this specific timeline issue? I thought Riannoc simply died before this happened. I could certainly be wrong though, the devs do mess up the lore on regular basis after all. Sometimes the errors are fixed after a while, sometimes we still have dead people walking around on the Bazar or in HOT.

It was one of the ones that was fixed after a while. They original dialogue stated that Riannoc was still alive and adventuring.

[...] but taking the approach that any flaws discredit the whole piece would seem to leave us with too little to, well, discuss.

We are not talking about a simple flaw here. We are talking about 2 grave and stupid mistakes in a very short paragraph. A different thing would have been the Mursaat lore at Ember Bay. There was a mistake regarding the exact years that actually made me question if this lore was faked by someone else. But in the end, it turned out to be a simple mistake that got fixed later. That is a simple flaw and it did not really take away its credibility. That is something you can overlook when judging a source trustworthy. But claiming that Malchor made Grenths and Kormirs statue? That’s on a completely different level.I honestly find it more understandable than stuff like the mursaat tablets. The piece opens with listing the Six, and the author rattled off the names that are used in GW2 instead of those that would've been around at the time. That seems to me like it'd be an easy mistake to make, and since Dwayna is the only one with any specific role to play in the piece- and since the contradiction can be easily recognized and written off accordingly- it doesn't complicate much.

The mursaat tablets, on the other hand, still contradict almost everything we were told about the Forgotten's activities during humanity's early days... and, because our previous knowledge also came from what was presented as an in-universe and fallible account, the muddle isn't so easily resolved. It's not clear, even now, how true either of the two accounts are.

As for the last bit... my experience is that the folks frequenting this forum have found it necessary to strike a balance between seriousness and being offended. If you fall further towards that end than I do, that's fine, but I found that mix to be seriously undermining my enjoyment of the game, and I scaled back accordingly until I was able to accept that the devs would make small mistakes. (The bigger oversights still rankle, but things like an anachronistic listing of the gods barely warrants notice these days.)

Thank you for worrying about my enjoyment (Realizing that this may come of like sarcasm, it is not!), but I already went through my personal phase of discomfort with the way the writers handle the lore in GW2. It was quite painful to see the change of direction compared to the way they treated it in GW1. But I made my peace with it by accepting that there are bound to be mistakes. Even more important to me was the fact that something does not really need to be a mistake if it can be explained otherwise. A twisted modification of Occam's razor if you will. If you shift the question, you can change the answer. Our discussion is a great example: If you assume Malchor to be Grenth father, you will find certain stuff that implies (Dhuums final consumption, the exact location, etc) or directly states (the Pseudo-Lore you quoted) otherwise, leading you to see a mistake. The question would be: How could this happen? And the answer would be: Because the writers kitten up. A simple solution, one step to get to the answer that explains everything, nearly perfect regarding the law of parsimony. But if you change your view a bit and realize that nowhere is it directly stated that Malchor is the father, then the whole questions falls flat. There simply was no mistake because you have an alternative explanation. You can actually reach a perfect solution after zero steps, which makes it perfect if you only use Occam's razor to judge a theory. That may sound twisted, but it is actually quite amusing to do this because it creates lot of fan theories, which I personally really adore. It is also solid ground: I have solid arguments to attack the Malchor is his father theory, regardless if you agree with them or not, while it is nearly impossible to disprove that someone else was the father. This is fun to me. I understand that not everyone feels fulfilled by it, but I certainly enjoy this take on lore sometimes.A very fair point. I will admit, I've never been too involved with the fan theories, and that's shaped my approach, but I certainly see the merit in dealing with the contradictions by getting around them altogether... and I am happy to hear it works for you. It's good to talk with folks who have a different approach, and this back-and-forth has been a pleasure.

For my part, my preference for the Malchor theory largely comes down to minimizing coincidence. We don't have a lot of recorded instances of mortal-divine dalliances; in fact, Malchor and Grenth's father are, at this point, the only ones. While that leaves us with very little to work with, it seems to me a bit too odd that both such stories would revolve around a male sculptor who fell in love with Dwayna specifically (when arts in general and sculpting in particular are so closely associated with Lyssa). There are details they could add that would make that easier to swallow- say, that Dwayna made a hobby of mingling with the artistic community- but in their absence, and with the hardest evidence against the theory being removed from the game, it feels to me like the odds are against these two sculptors being separate individuals.

(I'm discounting Lyssa's supposed fanboys from the dalliance list here, because I have a hard time accepting 'standing in front of a statue until you die of thirst' as a love story.)

I suspect this is where the devs would chime in with something like 'the gods work in mysterious ways'... but, to be more charitable, one could argue that Malchor's unresolved business wasn't the sort of thing that outside agency could fix. Showing a couple souls that their child lived and was being cared for is one thing (I'm assuming that you're referring to the post-Searing quest given by the Avatar of Dwayna); getting an artist to come to grips with toxic perfectionism and tragic love is quite another, especially when you're already the focal point of the matter.

It was indeed the quest I meant. Seeing that Malchor had severe mental health issues, this should however fall exactly under the description of either the Godess of Healing or the Twins of Mind if Dwayna wanted to distance herself from this. It does not seem to be an unsolvable issue to me in a universe that has mind manipulation and control in mortal-ish (Jokos) hands.I suppose at that point it comes down to a question of morals, doesn't it? I'm not comfortable with the idea of reaching into someone's head and fixing them, but that might come down in part to the experiences those around me have had with the mental health system. Trying to filter that bias out... it seems a question of whether the gods have a right to determine how much he should care about this pursuit he'd given his life for, in light of the pain his obsession was causing him. I would still tend to come down on the side of respecting his choices and autonomy so long as he was the only one being harmed, but I can see some merit on both sides of that argument.

But the statue lore
can
be separated from Malchor... or, rather, it must be separated, unless you figure that Malchor's spirit took a break from his madness a couple hundred years ago to do one for Kormir. That is part of interpreting the facts presented in-game, yes? So, if it's possible that someone else did a statue of Kormir in Malchor's style, it is also possible that someone else did a statue of Grenth in Malchor's style.

It is indeed a question that comes down to how you regard the change to the inscription. To me that action mend that the writers wanted to leave a bit of mystery, but the fact that it was in the game in the first place might have been intended as hidden proof that Malchor was not the father. This is supported by the fact that Kormirs statue never had this issue, meaning they were aware of the fact Malchor did not create all the statues. You can interpret it otherwise, but that still leaves the other problems that I already explained and maybe a few more. Or you have zero problems if you accept that it was another sculptor.

There is that. What do they gain by making it a mystery, though? If you're correct, they made the change specifically to perpetuate a false theory. That's something they've only done when they have a (potential) reveal or twist in mind for the future, but I have trouble seeing where the identity of Grenth's father could become a relevant plot point.

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@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:It was one of the ones that was fixed after a while. They original dialogue stated that Riannoc was still alive and adventuring.

Thank you for the explanation, it is always nice to see such obvious problems fixed, even if they should not have happened at all.

I honestly find it more understandable than stuff like the mursaat tablets. The piece opens with listing the Six, and the author rattled off the names that are used in GW2 instead of those that would've been around at the time. That seems to me like it'd be an easy mistake to make, and since Dwayna is the only one with any specific role to play in the piece- and since the contradiction can be easily recognized and written off accordingly- it doesn't complicate much.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree here. I find it far more understandable for someone to mess up some numbers (especially with multiple calendars around) than to mess up some basic facts regarding the lore you try to expend in your writings.

The mursaat tablets, on the other hand, still contradict almost everything we were told about the Forgotten's activities during humanity's early days... and, because our previous knowledge also came from what was presented as an in-universe and fallible account, the muddle isn't so easily resolved. It's not clear, even now, how true either of the two accounts are.

Which is what I really liked about them. It was contradicting what we thought we knew. It shows us how the other side might have viewed the situation of the past. I still believe they should have made the Mursaat more sympatric to some degree. I do believe that they are one of the most realistic representation of real-life humans in the story in the way that they did not care about human life the same way humans normally don’t care about animals. Just compare these two races: Both believe themselves to be far higher up in the food chain than their surroundings. Mursaat felt as superior towards humans as we do to animals. We (and I use the word “we” to talk about humanity as a whole, not every individual of course) have no problem with keeping sentient and sapient beings mass enslaved in little cages and murder them just because they taste good. The Mursaat viewed humans as humans view animals and they did infact treat us better and slaughtered them for a far more important and later understandable reason, first to keep their race safe, then revenge. Even if they were so prideful, they don’t even come close to the amount of hubris humanity can provide. I do hope that my personal pet theory comes true in GW3 and we will get a comeback from them. If the Eye of Janthir only showed the fate of the Mursaat on Tyria, this means that some might have survived out of phase. I would actually expect them to have left a population there on purpose. Think about it: Why the hell would a race that is hellbend on outliving their former partners not have an emergency plan? The most logical decision for a race that has the ability to enter a safe realm (become out of phase) would be to establish at least two different homegrounds. One in Tyria and one out of phase to fall back to, in case things go terrible wrong on Tyria. There are no implications that suggest that the realm out of phase would no longer be a safe place for the Mursaat. So why would they be so stupid to abandon a place that proved to be an important shelter during a dragon rise? They saw what happened to their siblings on Tyria and are still waiting, preparing for their big appearance in GW3… well, at least I can cling on that hope, instead of having to accept that they were all murdered of in the cheapest way I could think of. But back to topic: The fact that during a war the two sides claim two very different stories to be true is to be expected. Because of that I did not find the contend of the tablets weird at all. It is a classical unreliable narrator, the one story-tool anet sometimes still seems to remember to use in the right way.

A very fair point. I will admit, I've never been too involved with the fan theories, and that's shaped my approach, but I certainly see the merit in dealing with the contradictions by getting around them altogether... and I am happy to hear it works for you. It's good to talk with folks who have a different approach, and this back-and-forth has been a pleasure.

I can only give that compliment back; I enjoyed our conversation. Talking with people who have a different opinion but do not directly jump at your throat is always a good experience because it sharpens your own mind a bit.

For my part, my preference for the Malchor theory largely comes down to minimizing coincidence. We don't have a lot of recorded instances of mortal-divine dalliances; in fact, Malchor and Grenth's father are, at this point, the only ones. While that leaves us with very little to work with, it seems to me a bit too odd that both such stories would revolve around a male sculptor who fell in love with Dwayna specifically (when arts in general and sculpting in particular are so closely associated with Lyssa). There are details they could add that would make that easier to swallow- say, that Dwayna made a hobby of mingling with the artistic community- but in their absence, and with the hardest evidence against the theory being removed from the game, it feels to me like the odds are against these two sculptors being separate individuals.

(I'm discounting Lyssa's supposed fanboys from the dalliance list here, because I have a hard time accepting 'standing in front of a statue until you die of thirst' as a love story.)

The thirst thing always felt weird to me, but Lyssa is about teaching you to differentiate between what is Illusion and what is reality, what is important and what is not. If you think that staring at her is more important than surviving, than that could probably be a fair decision for her. But if you consider the fact that you need quite some time to dehydrate under normal conditions, I do believe the stories stem more from people who were close to death and were graced by Lyssa in a way to at least see a marveling work of art in their last moments, making them forget their thirst for the last few minutes of their life. A small gift of peace in their death. At least that sounds a lot more like her.

I suppose at that point it comes down to a question of morals, doesn't it? I'm not comfortable with the idea of reaching into someone's head and fixing them, but that might come down in part to the experiences those around me have had with the mental health system. Trying to filter that bias out... it seems a question of whether the gods have a right to determine how much he should care about this pursuit he'd given his life for, in light of the pain his obsession was causing him. I would still tend to come down on the side of respecting his choices and autonomy so long as he was the only one being harmed, but I can see some merit on both sides of that argument.

It certainly comes down to it. We don’t see enough of Malchor to make a diagnosis, but I believe something among the lines of depression might be a good guess. In real life mental health problems are viewed as an illness. I have personal experience regarding this issue and am a firm believer of the fact that some people are not accountable in some situations. They need help against their own will. While this seems like going against someone’s wishes, you must remember that they do not act with a sane mind in certain situations. I do believe that everyone has a right to do what they want with their life (as long as they don’t hurt another person with it, etc) including ending it, if they wish to do so. But at the same time, they also have the right to be saved from themselves if they are no longer able to make this decision with a sane mind. Malchor is clearly out of his mind, helping him against his will sounds like the right thing to me. But yes, we don’t know how the Gods would think about that, if they even noticed it at all. They are not omniscient after all.

There is that. What do they gain by making it a mystery, though? If you're correct, they made the change specifically to perpetuate a false theory. That's something they've only done when they have a (potential) reveal or twist in mind for the future, but I have trouble seeing where the identity of Grenth's father could become a relevant plot point.

I would guess the plot twist would not have been about who his father was, but about who or what Grenth really is. If you take a look at Kormir, you will see that she more or less kept her mortal appearance as a Goddess. Now take a look at his head: Grenth has the skull of a beast. The Gods keeping their appearance after ascension implies that he had this look while still being a mortal. Whatever species he was from, it was probably not a mix of Dwayna and a human. If we were still in GW1 times, I would have guessed it was because Dhuum looked like a skeleton and he took on that part of him the same way that Abaddon took on certain insectoid looks from Arachnia, who was planned to be a spider Goddess. But because of GW2 we know that 1) Dhuum probably was just the green glow and 2) that the Gods appearance also doesn’t change to their precursors after they ascended within a reasonable amount of time. This leaves us with the question why Grenth looked like this. However, if the whole story with the sculptor was a lie and Grenth simply of a different species to begin with, that would explain why he was so powerful to stand a chance against Dhuum and why he needed someone to claim him being part human to make him look more appealing to his new mortal followers. That even goes hand in hand with Grenth doing what is basically advertisement in his early days. Look at Desmina: He basically handed her a “join my club”-card. No other God cared about someone who did not pray to them before or did something they (dis)liked like that. It almost feels like he wanted to get a big fan club and being part human would make that easier for sure. It would at least make for an interesting twist. Regardless of this little theory, even if we assume the writers deleted the Inscription because it disproved that Malchor could have been the father: They never put proof of Machor being a father in the game either. That sure looks to me like they intended for it to stay a mystery, for reasons we may never know.

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