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AzuraBlackcoin.1809
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Braham is told he failed?
AzuraBlackcoin.1809
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in Lore
In Wishpers in the dark Living world, both Braham's guild mates and Braham himself said he failed.
Failed to kill Jormag. But, aren't we the reason Jormag went back to sleep?
Seems like a stretch to call that a fail.
I guess it either not common knowlendge what the commander and his guild does or that killing the dragons at the time was a bad idea. or the devs forgot about these plot points.
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To the Norn, it's an absolute failure. And that's all that matters in his mind.
What I don’t get is why LS5 is suddenly going with Braham having abandoned everyone. I don’t recall that happening since Jormag went back under the ice so what could he have done?. The wiki page for Braham also says that they went back to but I’m not sure exactly where that specific detail came from.
Maybe @Konig Des Todes.2086 can provide insight to this?
we need recap the LS3 dialogues, and some LS4, .... , in POF braham are near not mentioned at all.
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@AzuraBlackcoin.1809 Braham had nothing to do with Jormag going under the ice (not really hibernation, seems more like Jormag and Primordus went into a cocoon state, similar to Kralkatorrik at the end of the Dragonfall meta). So can't really say he didn't fail because he put Jormag to sleep.
But in the eyes of the norn, Braham was supposed to kill Jormag. Not put him into a state where they're protected but still capable of causing harm to the norn people, kill it. Braham failed (because of Balthazar/Taimi/Commander), and then he left the Far Shiverpeaks with Rox, and then went on to Elona to do completely unrelated stuff. In the norn's eyes, that's giving up, and giving up is a failure.
@Ayrilana.1396 Braham and Rox abandoned people when they went through Joko's portals. Instead of trying to figure out how to get to Jormag while it was in its cocoon, they "ran away" (in the eyes of the norn) and left to do other things. This isn't coming from a specific place, but is what Braham is shown doing in S4E1.
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All these squares make a circle.
All these squares make a circle.
Well, to me this looks similar to the drama with Eir's death. They want a bit of drama for Braham's character development, so they jump to an event that more or less fits.
Nevermind he already came to terms with Eir's death during HoT. Nevermind putting Jormag to sleep was not his fault at all.
If norn society was really that strict about "failure", we would have seen something similar with Eir earlier. Did she get any backlash for "failing" to kill Kralkatorrik besides from Zojja and her own selfblame? I don't think so. Quite the opposite, she was well respected. Norn may be painted as rather simplistic and straight forward, but they are not stupid and I am sure they should be able to tell what was Braham's doing and what wasn't.
I'm a bit torn, I do like the overall storytelling, but Braham always seems to get the out-of-nowhere drama... ^^;;
Edit: Alternative explanation: Braham may be just a terrible judge of character and his so-called friends were all just really awful people. Given how easily he was deceived by Ryland, this may actually not be that far off. So either his ex-guild then badmouthed him and spread rumours of his "failure", or other norns outside his circle don't really think all that badly of him and he just hasn't realized that yet.
Imo, parts of the Braham Oathbreaker premise are hard to accept. I can understand how his guild mates would feel abandoned. It is similar to real world guild drama. At most, it shows his guild to be weak and immature and unable to handle Braham leaving. Braham had to leave to find out what was going on with Jormag and he could have gone back to his guild or helped them transition. If he is an oath breaker because he didn't kill Jormag and the world as well, then there is something very wrong with Norn society. How could they shame someone for not destroying the world and be remotely rational or have a coherent or complex ethics system? Would a Norn homestead surrender to death if it allowed the homestead leader to remain true to a promise? It is hard for me to reconcile their nature based ethics system with such stubbornness.
Hopefully we see different Norn perspectives on Braham's actions and a more nuanced understanding of why Braham is an oath breaker and a failure. What we have now is close to an impossible personality pathology for a species.
The interactions between the Commaner and Braham are so flat. I understand the studio's goal of making the Commander an any person but doing so ignores the Commander's role in Braham's inability to kill Jormag. I would really like to see them share some branching dialogue that digs into the issue. Braham doesn't have to be the Commander's always loyal, chastised puppy.
weathering's everything
She DID get banished for failing to kill the Dragonspawn at first, which retaliated and attacked Hoelbrak. That was her big failure. Right now they're shaping up Braham to be like Eir, so I fully expect him to succeed in dealing with Jormag in some form, and being welcomed back by the Norn. Perhaps by finding a way to fight back Jormag's mental corruption.
The bolded section has legs. I can picture Braham picking a lot of immature people to join his guild. This approach could turn the focus of failure towards him leaving his guild and turning his back on Norn culture and Hoelbrook. That understanding of his failure wouldn't require Norm be irrational and would allow the studio to explore deeper into the relationship between the Commander and Braham. I would love to see the Commander deal with the guilt.
weathering's everything
Remember also that the current generation of Norn all grew up with stories about how someone was going to break the tooth and lead them all to defeat Jormag.
It's a bit immature, but plenty of Norn, particularly the young hotheads, are going to be immature about such an anticlimactic end to that story. They must have been absolutely pumped after Braham broke the tooth. Braham wasn't just another Norn going off to fight a dragon, he was the freaking Chosen One. He was the heir to Asgeir's legacy.
I'll bet the Svanir are having a field day recruiting angry, disillusioned, depressed and demoralized Norn. If the tooth was broken and they still failed, the story they all grew up with is over, and Jormag isn't going anywhere. Many of them probably don't see a future without Jormag now. The prophecy is gone.
The problem I have with all this is you can't say he failed when he not even started to fight Jormag because he needed to fight another ancient dragon in the meantime. Its more like the opposite he is doing more then ' prophecy' foretold.
just to recap Braham gathered the norms and show them the "sacred fire bow" can hurt Jormag, so its had a "profecie" atsmosphere around it(also theres the norm "legend" that anyone whos can hurt the fang can kill Jormag). Its just no so well developed in the LS3/LS4 dialogues, but theres a room for it, even if wasnt original intention of writers going in that direction.
main pvp: Khel the Undead(power reaper).
Braham wasn't involved in putting Jormag to sleep. Nobody present with Braham knows about the events that caused it.
After Jormag passed out, Braham immediately headed back south again, later investigating the awoken Portals. He comments on this in Grothmar some. He felt like his guildmates and the spirits of the wild were mocking him/laughing at him and basically ran away.
Eir did get banished for going after the dragonspawn and causing it to attack Hoelbrek. She regained her respect eventually though.
The bit about Braham though is the prophecy. It was whoever cracked the tooth, would lead the Norn to victory over Jormag and reclaim their lands. Braham cracked the tooth, but didn't kill Jormag or reclaim anything. He instead left the Shiverpeaks after Jormag disappeared. It's why they call him "Vowbreaker" or "oathbreaker" (I forget exactly which). Is because he didn't complete the prophecy. He also gathered around him Norn who heavily believed in it, and thus when it failed and he left, they blamed him.
Okay, some big, important parts here.
A: Braham left not to figure out what was going on, or to try to find a way to reach Jormag, but because he gave up, feeling like he failed and was being mocked. His actions after weren't investigating jormag, but later searching for the source of the Awoken portals dropping undead all over.
B: Braham, and the Norn/world in general at the time did not really know about the "end the world" bit. Braham outright rejected that when he found the Jotun/ancient scroll that he used to enchant Eir's bow. Again, this is a 100-200+ year old prophecy that whoever cracked the tooth, would defeat Jormag. Braham cracked the tooth, then failed to kill Jormag, and basically ran away in shame.
C: Braham's guildmates, and the vigil at Jora's keep are the ones who call him Oathbreaker, I don't know about others to the south. But this isn't a case of "I promised X, therefore I won't budge from doing it even if it means death." this is a case of a widely known prophecy that has basically surrounded the Norn culture for a very long time. And the person who did the first step failed.
What do you mean? Braham himself in Grothmar explained it perfectly. Jormag sank beneath the ice, and he sat there infront of his guildmates, feeling judged, mocked, and laughed at (by the spirits). And so he removed himself from the situation. This is why those Norn call him oathbreaker. This is why he considers himself a failure. He fixtated himself entirely on killing Jormag, and failed at that. Not privately, but infront of a group.
As he described Alva, one of the Norn who followed him. "She followed me because she thought I was our people's savior. They all did. Now I'll never get to make it right."
This isn't some minor thing, not even a major thing. This was a huge part of Norn culture, and their whole reason for heading south from Jormag to begin with. The promise that one day, a Norn hero will rise, and that individual will lead them north again and retake everything Jormag forced them to abandon.
Braham vs the commander was well covered in season 4. You may have missed it (I don't know) but season 4, and toward the end of S3 had them split apart and the relationship be hostile and strained.
As S4 continued, they started to mend their relationship, becoming friends/ "family" once again. This particular issue you bring up has already been dealt with and concluded, unless Jormag manages to cause it to surge up again.
The way it's described sounds like the people who jumped on were the younger people who were heavily into the prophecy. Braham describes them treating him as if "He was the savior of the Norn."
This is a completely false interpretation of events that happened. Braham did NOT leave Jormag to fight Kralk. Braham left because Jormag sunk under the glacier (sleeping/protective cocoon, or both) and he felt like he had publicly failed. He then wandered with Rox for a while, eventually ended up in Elona while investigating the Awoken portals.
While there, he helped out due to wanting to protect Taimi, and his relationship with the commander started to mend. And Kralkatorrik surged back into the picture and forced everybody to focus on him.
Braham did not leave to fight Kralk. Braham left to escape the shame he felt about failing.
Perihen has a point, especially with how Braham described the one female member of his "guild", Alva. She treated him as if he was a savior. The other Norn did.
What happens when a prophetic savior fails? The people turn against him/her.
According to the wiki, him and his guild all went back south to Hoelbrak after Jormag went back to sleep. It seems that they were there for quite some time before the events of LS4E1. So why are his guild mates all suddenly back north and saying that he abandoned them?
They could've headed back north, Alva was in vigil gear so presumably she was part of the vigil, or joined up afterwards. The guild could've signed up as part of the vigil to go back North. The "guild" could've been split, with Braham, Rox, and Garm heading south while the others stayed north. Either way, Braham left them behind.
Sounds like retconning.
Why? LS4:1 wasn't yesterday. Were they supposed to just sit on their behinds in Hoelbrak and watch the walls all this time? They maybe did for a while, then Braham and Rox left and the rest of the guild (feeling betrayed and abandoned) just went on to do whatever they wanted and ended up north where we met them.
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I just hope, in the end of the Jormag story, we and Braham jump down Jormag's maw and punch his heart, like we promised in the epilogue of Season 4.
I think there's more to it than that. We know that Jormag turned Braham's guild into traitors, so they likely created Braham's bad reputation as well in order to coax him into corruption since he is close to the Pact Commander and thus Aurene.
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Eir actually does get a bit of backlash by some norn. This is most notable in the Ghosts of Ascalon novel, where Gullik talks about Eir and shows visible disappointment with her because after Destiny's Edge, she's given up. Knut's family respects her, as do her friends, but other norn are hit and miss.
And it isn't "nevermind putting Jormag to sleep was not his fault at all" - it's that he just left after one failure. Counter to Eir, who failed multiple times, even got exiled from Hoelbrak for some of those failures, she didn't go off into distant lands for over a year, she came back within weeks to try again, and eventually succeeded. The only time she went away after failure was with Kralkatorrik - and as mentioned, some norn do hold her in disdain for it.
And it's likely the same with Braham - some hold him in disdain, others don't.
Do the norn know that killing another Elder Dragon would end the world? As far as we've seen, only Dragon's Watch and maybe the Pact knows this. Given how the charr react to Aurene, it's likely that it isn't common knowledge how important Elder Dragons are to the world's existence, so it makes sense that the norn are seeing "Braham gave up on killing Jormag" and not "Braham gave up on killing Jormag and the world".
Right now, you're assuming that what the players know = what everyone knows. This is never shown to be the case.
On top of all that, Braham did give up. He didn't leave to figure things out, and just happened to be brought along a wild ride of killing a different Elder Dragon. He full stop gave up on fighting Jormag.
This might be misinterpretation from dev comments before Whisper in the Dark got released, given it was added in preparation for S5. Keep in mind the wiki is written by players, so it is subject to inaccuracies.
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All these squares make a circle.
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What I saw on the wiki has been there for almost two years. It looks like Kossage was the one who updated the wiki. Was he embellishing the page with fan fiction?
My understanding is that Braham cracked the tooth and was going to lead the Norn up north to Jormag. He was convinced to instead send a scouting party which is being referenced as Destiny’s Edge; his guild. When they were about to attack Jormag, it went under the ice to sleep, so they went back to Hoelbrak. This was all before POF. Quite some time had passed between when Jormag went to sleep and the events of LS4E1.
We don't even know what exactly this oath is, his new title (or maybe surname?) is referring too.
Maybe it's an oath he swore off-screen to nornkind itself, or maybe just his guild.
What we had "before PoF" after Braham cracked the tooth was:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Meeting_of_Ministers
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Volcano_(story)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Flow_of_Magic
We had no pre-PoF statements that the group returned to Hoelbrak. However, we had something in S4E1:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_First_City
Technically no statement that Braham's guild went to Hoelbrak. Braham and Rox went back. Braham even states "Rox and I" not "we" or "my guild". Which is rather telling. And is what that line by Kossage's edits was referring to - rather than Kossage "adding fan fiction" it would be more a simple misinterpretation.
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All these squares make a circle.
All these squares make a circle.
Right, so, after trawling the wiki, here's everything that was said in-game about what went down with Braham's guild between One Path Ends and Bound By Blood:
One Path Ends (July 2017), "The Flow of Magic", from Taimi: "You won't believe what just happened, Commander. Guess. No, never mind, can't wait. Braham sent me a letter. Would you like me to read it? Of course you would. He says, 'Taimi. What did the commander do to Jormag? Destiny's Edge—my guild—had it surrounded, and then... Suddenly, an anguished roar, and it returned to the ice.' He says the norn want him to kill Jormag. Why oh why did he put his arrow in that tooth?... But since Jormag's all snoozy, he doesn't have a chance of killing it now, does he?... I don't know if he has a choice anymore. He's under a lot of pressure to live up to Eir's legend. And, he's so young."
Path of Fire (September 2017), "Sparking the Flame", from Rytlock, regarding Braham and Rox: "They're both fine. Still trying to figure out how to kill Jormag, just the two of 'em. I give 'em credit for trying, but they're a bit outclassed."
Daybreak (November 2017), "The First City", from Braham: "Rox and I were in Hoelbrak trying to figure out how to get to Jormag , since you put him to sleep under a mountain of ice.:
Bound By Blood (September 2019), "Revels & Rivals", between Braham and Ryland: Braham- "—and then he was gone, sunk beneath the ice. Just me. My guild. Wind howling in our ears. Thought the Spirits were laughing at me. I was so angry." Ryland- Where are they now? Your guild? Braham- "Dunno. Hoelbrak. Shiverpeaks. Doesn't matter." Ryland- They're your warband. It matters. Braham- "You wouldn't understand. Bet nobody's ever looked at you like you were a disappointment. Not in your kitten life."
Bound By Blood (September 2019), "A Race To Arms", from Braham: "My guild and I...we tried to take back the norn homelands. Thought my bow would be able to take Jormag down, but I never got the chance. I failed them... I left them back in the Shiverpeaks at the nearest Vigil camp. They weren't happy with me."
Best I can tell, that's everything. Between the Path of Fire and Daybreak quotes, you could loosely infer that Braham's guild didn't come to Hoelbrak with him, but there was never anything solid about their whereabouts in the game itself. I can't speak for out-of-game dev comments, but nothing that actually made it into a release has been contradicted.
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Yes and no.. Balthazar is more the reason although we had a hand in it.
Jormag's state however is interesting, It say's it's slumbering beneath the ice yet it's in part active as well.. communicating and commanding it's minions so it's not fully asleep/dorment but it's also not awake/active either.
It's possible what Konig said is true and that Jormag is in a cocoon state after the events of season 3 which could imply that Both Primordus and Jormag suffered pretty significant injury beacuse of Balthazar and Taimi's machine.. which would make sense since he was trying to kill them.
That may also hint that this threat on the horizon Jormag speaks of could be Primordus and not the Sea Dragon as some have speculated.. It would make sense in Jormag's case to make nice with those known for killing Dragons in order to eliminate another Dragon who's existence alone has proven dangerous to it.
Jormag and Primordus have had no interaction during the events of Gw2 yet a Fallen God and Asuran technology was able to put their magic against one another and almost kill them both as a result.
If that isn't incentive for Primordus and Jormag to now see each other as enemy or at the very least a major threat then I don't know what is.
Personally I'd very much like to deal with both these dragons at the same time.. us knowing that we can let neither of them fall without replacement or see catastrophe strike Tyria as a result.
I also very much like the idea of Jormag and Primordus seeking to manipulate mortals into joining against the other..
Flame Legion at one point worshipped Destroyers.. Primordus could find some lingering allies there, not to mention the Dredge who could easily be swayed.
Dredge hate Dwarves who remain Primordus main enemies in the depths and the Inquest could be swayed by the promise of power having a Elder Dragon on their side.
Jormag has already recruited among the Charr and Vigil and has attempted to find common ground with Dragons Watch and Aurine too.
The only thing we don't know about Primordus though is it's state.. It's probably in a similar state to Jormag but we've heard nothing about it since the events of season 3.
The forum looks awful, I hope the format bug gets fixed soon.
"Do the norn know that killing another Elder Dragon would end the world? As far as we've seen, only Dragon's Watch and maybe the Pact knows this. Given how the charr react to Aurene, it's likely that it isn't common knowledge how important Elder Dragons are to the world's existence, so it makes sense that the norn are seeing "Braham gave up on killing Jormag" and not "Braham gave up on killing Jormag and the world".
Right now, you're assuming that what the players know = what everyone knows. This is never shown to be the case." Konig Des Todes.2086
I hope the studio doesn't use this logic. Tyrian cities are better connected than real world cities. The role of Elder Dragons is one of the most important discoveries in the history of magi-physics and possibly the most important factor influencing the struggle against them. How does it stay a secret? Why would it stay a secret? Why wouldn't there be weekly or even daily updates on Elder dragons that spread through Tyria? An obvious answer would be that the studio said so, but I hate that type of impossibly 'just so' scenario. It makes me feel as though I'm viewing Tyria through a tube and nothing happens outside of the tube. Obiously the player will know things that not every Tyrian knows, but the role of Elder dragons would not be one of them.
weathering's everything
This reminds me of sharks.
Sharks can "turn off" half their brain during their deep sleep periods.
I wouldn't say Tyrian cities are better connected. I'd say the exact opposite. First off, asura gates are expensive and uncommon - only seven cities have them. Waypoints exist, but require people to have been somewhere else first. Secondly, there's no instant - and widespread - communication means. No internet, not even telephones. Dragon's Watch and highly important military individuals that are allied with Dragon's Watch (such as Pact/Orders leadership) have communicators, but even Bangar, an imperator, and Jennah do not. So your rank and file, let alone civilians, won't.
Transportation is fast... but expensive. And long-range communication is still pre-telephone era. I mean, Bangar Ruinbringer uses carrier pigeon (or equivalent of) to invite the Commander to the All-Legion Rally. That's how Queen Jennah contacted the Commander in Season 3. And Kito in Season 4.
This means that the only way for news to travel, is through slow newspapers and heralds - or the "holo-news", which seems mostly interested in races and surveys, not politics or even world states.
If you go through Divinity's Reach, there are NPCs who outright deny the existence of Elder Dragons - granted, this is meant to be 1325 AE dialogue, ergo before Zhaitan's defeat, but this is also proof that people are not really all that interested in spreading knowledge about the Elder Dragons. We have zero indication that "killing Elder Dragons is bad for the world" has been spread outside of the people on the front lines and higher ups of the Orders and Pact. And the notion of such is very far away from an "impossibly just so scenario".
If we take a step back and look at dialogue from the recent Dragon Bash, there is a lot of talk about killing the Elder Dragons. And it seems nothing to mention that the Elder Dragons' existence is vital to the world. Which just goes to suggest that your common Tyrian doesn't know that "kill one more dragon and the world dies" is the situation at hand.
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Taimi is writing her book on it...
i wonder if "the All" is some sort of "common knowledge" or still just stuff the researchers/scholars know
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To me the situation with the Elder Dragons seems a lot like the situation with climate change in real life. The experts, the ones on the front lines, know all the ins and outs of the current situation but the majority of people either don't want to hear it because they're so fixated on the older perspective (kill all the dragons) which the experts now know is incorrect, or they don't want to think about it at all and just want to get on with their own lives and more immediate problems closer to home and pretend the world isn't in danger of total collapse.
The rate events are going in Tyria it's entirely possible we could do something to replace or pacify all the remaining dragons before the majority of people in the world even get around to thinking about the fact that there are dragons.
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IMHO the problem is less that he failed to kill Jormag, the problems are
a) he survived
and
b) ran away
and
c) left his comrades behind to fight and die alone.
I think even we can understand why b and c are a problem for every norn. Because they would be a problem for humans as well.
My own tinfoil hat theory is that there is currently no such thing as the Deep Sea Dragon, and that it's a creature Tyrians actually create by pitting the fire dragon against the ice dragon. In the clash, the fire gets extinguished, but not before melting the ice into water. What remains of each dragon's consciousness could rush into the created water to preserve itself from oblivion.
As for the undersea horrors displacing the krait, who's to say that fire and ice are not already having this sort of interaction on the fringes of each dragon's maximum reach of influence? The reason why there's so little material about it in the old tomes and writings is perhaps that whatever deity or seer that has this information about Bubbles decided it was both inevitable and better for us all not to know. This theory is really not consistent with a lot of what we've seen, I know, but it's a fun thought for me nonetheless.
As for the whole Vowbreaker thing, I speculate (as have others in this thread already) that it comes from the fact that he rallied the Norn as their chosen champion, then backed off at the last minute and subsequently went off to do other things - leaving a lot of disappointed Norn in his wake. I'd still like to know precisely what the "vow" was that they consider him to have broken.