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Fahrars are an intelligent idea that resonates with me.


Hypnowulf.7403

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I have a lot of ground to cover with this and it'll delve into some pretty deep and introspective topics. Just a heads-up as to be forewarned is to have four arms, or something along those lines.

I came from a broken home—as I understand many will have, that's not exactly an uncommon occurrence these days—but my partner didn't and this has given me something of a unique perspective. There is, in my opinion, a certain toxicity to biological parenthood. My partner was adopted by her grandparents and raised by them which allowed her to come into her own person without the presence of toxic expectations. With biological parenthood there's almost always the expectation of what the parent believes the child should be, the ideal of perfection that the child can only fall from. Our schooling has the same problem that there's the ideal of the perfect grade which one can only fall from, rather than having a grade one builds up to via contribution.

This is an innately human problem. It's something that I can perhaps only see outside of to a degree thanks to my autism, it's also something that really adds to the alien nature of the charr as a culture and promotes their difference from the familiar comforts of humanity. I think that being taken out of one's comfort zone is important, I like to challenge myself. However, I've recently learned that neurotypical brains will take such a challenge as being similar to a physical attack, the same regeion of the brain lights up when someone is being physically attacked or having their ideologies challenged. That's unfortunate. As such I do wonder if I'll see a degree of agressive backlash to my meanderings as it challenges a very innate, hardcoded ideology. It challenges the value of biological parenthood.

Let's say that a child is taken from their biological parents and is being raised by a team of trained child rearers. These child rearers are taught to have the perspective that building up is more important than having any preconceived ideals, so instead of having any expectations of what they believe the child should be they should encourage the child to explore their own identity and individuality to discover their own talents. This is a far less toxic, less stressful environment for the child as the child isn't faced with those ideals of perfection that're so very commonplace in biological parenthood. They're building up instead of falling down from a pedestal of perfection. If you're beginning from a place of perfection then you can only fall, after all. However, if you're building up then the only ceiling is your own potential.

This team of carers is then coupled with teams of teachers who encourage youth to discover what their interests are and to pursue them, providing them with the means of doing so. Early on, these children are organised into classes which will help them further discover this truth of their very selves. As they approach tweens and the early teenage years, they'll begin to really pin down what it is they want to do with their life and they can be organised into other groups who're like-minded. It may seem strange to think of the charr as having warbands of chefs, warbands of artists, and warbands of engineers but we've learned that this is how it works for them. This is because "war" has an unusual meaning to the charr.

The only time the charr have really warred for conequest was when the Flame legion enslaved the other three legions to do their bidding. At this time, the Flame legion were trying to survive by mimicking and aping what they'd seen teh humans do. Their perspective was that if the humans are so successful then they should do what the humans do. When in Rome, yes? If the humans have gods, the charr shall have gods. If the humans are misogynistic, the charr shall be misogynistic. If the humans are obsessed with conquest, then the charr shall be obsessed with conquest. Admittedly, the charr were never very good at conquest. Their conquests lead to more examples of humans killing humans than charr killing humans. Adelbern's Forefire, Orr's vizier sinking Orr, you know what I mean. Even the Searing didn't actually kill anyone. The charr aren't good at conquest because that isn't their nature.

What, then, does war mean to a charr?

To a charr, war is preventative. War is the idea that the world is a hostile, terrible, toxic place that's out to kill you and in order to protect that which you value you must militarise. The war for the charr is the war to protect, always to protect. It's the war to protect their cubs, their cutlure, their land, or whatever else they deem it necessary to protect. You can see this protective culture even amongst the Olmakhan who value the Commander based upon how the Commander is with their cubs (you know what I'm talking about). The Olmakhan often yammer on about protecting this or protecting that because it's so hardwired into the charr psyche. The charr exist to protect. In order to protect you'd need something to protect. You'll also need support to help those who protect. That's how charr society is structured.

Conversely, this is why Smodur's efforts to create an alliance between as many races as possible was a very, very clever idea. If everyone is allied with the charr, then everyone is protected by the charr. This means that everyone can feel comforted by the presence of the charr and the charr won't have reason to fear them. The Vigil is an extension of this desire to protect, too. You can hear it in Almorra Soulkeeper's speeches, but most importantly the belief that "Some must fight, so that all may be free."

Similarly, the charr would have a vested interest in protecting their cubs. The purpose of a fahrar is to protect their cubs from bad parenting and to ensure that whatever the cubs want to do they can flourish and have the chance to do that. If a group of charr decide to be chefs, then you can have a warband of chefs because this warband then supports the protectors, just as it gives the protectors something worthwhile to then protect. Everything contributes to this cycle of protecting and protected. If a warband happens to be of sculptors, they may then create grand sculptures of past charr heroes. The charr will then want to protect these sculptures and the sculptors who created them, we can see evidence of this within the charr lands as well.

It excites me because it's very similar to notions I've had about the erroneous nature of parenthood and schooling where I believe we should begin at the bottom and build up. Otherwise all a young person can do is fall from grace. They can only fall from grace with their parents, they can only fall from grace with their schooling. It's a very human perspective, a very neurotypical perspective, to want to be perfect and to expect perfection from others. However, you're not protecting the interests of the youth if you're forcing your own ideals of perfection upon them, are you? This is where a lot of toxicity with parenthood derives from, because parents don't protect the children but only their own selfish ideas. It's a very self-interested, selifsh perspective. That's just self-protection at the cost of all else. It's that in particular that seems to be antithetical to charr culture.

The charr place an importance on the selfless nature of protection. If a warband sacrifices their lives to protect others then that's a truly heroic thing to do. Just as if the Vigil were to do this, that's a heroic thing to do. It's the truth of being a protector, if you're truly a protector then you're selfless. You have to be. You can't ever consider protecting yourself in this equation, instead you're protecting everything and everyone else. As much as will allow you to do so. The only threat comes from that which would threaten that which you protect, thus the politics of the charr are focused around trying to deal with potential threats to that which is protected. This is also where some potential charr toxicity can come from as we see with Bangar. Though I feel there's more to Bangar than meets the eye. I can smell misdirection.

Bangar's trying to pull the wool over Jormag's eyes to protect his charr. I'd bet my hat on it. It's a very nice hat. I like it.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say really. I like the concept of fahrars because they're based around the concept of building each person up rather than putting them on a pedestal of perfection only to break them down. It's incredibly toxic for biological parents to see their newborn child as perfect, as that child can only ever disappoint them. This inevitably leads to broken homes.

I think there's a lot that could be taken from charr culture to fix our problems with parenthood in contemporary real world human culture, as we do have a parenthood crisis currently with there being far too many broken homes.

I hope this won't get deleted as this is a very personal topic for me and I wanted to talk about it. I understand why it can be a controversial topic and I understand that I will receive some backlash for talking about it. It's unfortunate that feeling attacked will often come before and impede self-awareness as my intention isn't to attack anyone but rather to acknowledge a very real problem and to be fascinated by how the fiction of another world seems to have already solved it. Fascination and curiosity is all it is. I definitely think the charr are onto something. What's happening with Rytlock and his son right now is extremely interesting because it raises the question of whether Rytlock's son would truly be better off or not to have known his biological father. I'd be more inclined to say no.

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@"Jimbru.6014" said:In real human society "fahrars" are called boarding schools, especially the ones of the military academy type.

It's not really the same though for the reasons I mentioned, is it? For it to be an appropriate analogue then a number of things would need to happen:

  • Childen would need to have rotating carers that pay attention to them on a per-child basis rather than more generalised care;
  • The systems of teaching would need to adopt a building up approach, rather than having a perfect grade where students can only fall from grace if they fail to reach that point;
  • The boarding schools would need to encourage individuality rather than uniformity;
  • The classes would need to be small and focused on specialised, individualised teaching (with six students or less) rather than large, impersonal, and with generalised teaching;
  • Finally, they would also need to help like-minds group together in tightly knit social units which are curated and tailored specifically to the children involved.

I've actually been to a boarding school and they are, for the most part, a deeply impersonal experience that's quite different from what lore and in-game sources show the fahrar to be. There's a reason why charr children are so well-adjusted and the impressively progressive and highly practical systems of the fahrar are why that is. I feel that this is a perspective though that wouldn't mesh with neurotypicality so I can understand how alien it is, which leads me to think that whomever put in the most work on the charr is likely as autistic as all get out as I relate to it on a deep and personal level. It's the sort of conclusion one could only arrive at after a lot of research and introspection as it's almost diametrically opposed to how we handle children.

We have two polar opposites as the only two options. 1.) The child is raised by their biological parents, or 2.) The child is raised by an orphanage/boarding school. In the prior case the parents will hold their children to their own ideals, from which the child can only fall from grace. This is, as I said, why there are so many broken homes. In the latter case there's a deeply impersonal, "professional" nature to the proceedings which can be equally as damaging to a child's development.

I haven't really seen anything like the fahrar executed quite so eloquently in reality. It's more reminiscent of how wolves rear their pups than it is to how humans raise their young.

(Edited to add the point about smaller classes as I forgot to reiterate that.)

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Have you actually considered that many (probably most) children actually have parents who are not godkitten jerks? Being a toxic parent has nothing to do with being a biological parent. You said your partner was raised by her grandparents - they're biological too and still have raised her fine. On the other hand, non-related adoptive/foster parents can be bad too. And a fahrar type of raising children would be problematic as well, even if you were able to have only non-toxic caretakers (and that would be very difficult to do and maintain).

There are studies saying that kids have problems from NOT being raised in a family. It's the biggest problem of institutional child care. They don't suffer material hardships, but have emotional problems from not having close enough relationships with their caretakers, not having someone "just for me". Many of those kids have problems with living on their own as no one had enough time to teach them. They have problems with finding and keeping partners. Many of them tend to end up in downright bad relationships (with manipulators, domestic violence of some kind and so on). I think that some similar models of education/child raising are (were) used in totalitarian countries where the governments wanted people to see them as a "family" and be obedient.

So I assume that while there is a number of children with parents so bad that they'd be better off in a fahrar, there's still the rest (the bigger part, I hope) who would suffer there. And if you're not living in totalitarian (which the charr pretty much are) society, a fahrar education would not prepare kids well for living on their own.

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I've a number of things to say of the OP but only enough time and patience to get into a few.

For starters, you've made a LOT of assumptions about...well, most everything you've been talking about that can't really be backed up by observable reality or the story presented in GW2 respectively.

I'll only touch a little bit on the nature of parenthood and child rearing in real life as I don't really think that its an appropriate discussion for this game lore forum. To be concise, I think you radically misunderstand the nature and dynamics of parenting and family in general, in particular I think you greatly over-estimate this idealized expectations of the children that you think parents have. Hell, I sometimes wonder if parents aren't putting enough expectations onto children, we've all heard of the "participation trophy" issue that the last two generations grew up, and stagnated, under. Regardless I think you're, in a sense, strawmaning parenthood, whether biological or adoptive (there really is no reason to think that only biological parents would behave in the way you're describing but not adoptive parents) most parents don't have expectations of complete or even partial perfection for their children, just expectations of doing good enough. Expectations of being a good person, doing their best in whatever they do, etc. Expectations that most any child can meet and typically exceed. But more importantly, I think you are greatly underestimating the basic but incredibly vital need a child has for their parents love. Your "professional team of rotating caregivers" will not be able to provide this fundamental need of the child, you can not train people to have real unconditional love for a child that they have been assigned to. Only family, whether biological or not, can raise a child with real love.I am fully aware that not every person that has a child will be a good or even mediocre parent, that some people are neglectful or abusive to their children. Some people are just terrible excuses for human beings. I am sorry that you grew up under these or similar conditions, but that just doesn't mean you should judge everyone else as being equally unfit or that the entirety of the system of the nuclear family, the foundation of human civilization itself, should be done away with. Frankly, its the damage that's been done to the nuclear family over that past 50 odd years via cultural and civil deconstruction that's greatly exacerbated the problem of broken homes. But at the end of the day the vast majority of parents, biological or adoptive, are good and loving caregivers to their children and the best people to raise them.

(That went a lot longer than I intended it to)

As for schools, I agree that they are an absolute load of clusterfuckery and something I could probably write multi-page essays on, and I'd suspect that we'd disagree a great deal on that subject, so in the interest of time and staying within the bounds of this forum's intended purpose I'll leave it at that.

On a side note, people really over use the word Toxic. Everything is toxic these days, toxic this, toxic that, so-in-so is acting toxic, what you said is toxic, toxictoxictoxic. The English language in infamous for an overabundant amount of synonymous descriptors, surely folks can think of one or two other words for "bad" other than TOXIC.

Now, for something more relevant and appropriate for this forum: the Charr.You have a rather rose tinted glasses view of the Charr but the fact of the matter is that you wild misunderstand them, their nature, their actions, their history, just about everything. Firstly, I've seen you twice claim that the Searing didn't kill anyone, this is explicitly wrong. The Searing that the charr performed killed HALF of the population of Ascalon. Its really not worth going into who had ore right to the lands that were Ascalon, that's a dead horse that's been beaten into sludge at this point, but the Charr were the aggressors, they did kill thousands of civilians, caused unimaginable environmental devastation to the lands of Ascalon, and went on to attack two other human nations that were too far away from their ancestral homelands to realistically be a threat or fall under said claim of being originally charr lands. When Guild Wars Prophecies was being made the Charr explicitly were designed to be evil monsters, it was only later when GW2 was first being planned that Arenanet decided to make the Charr more than that. Simply put, conquest absolutely is the central pillar of Charr civilization, not protection. You seem to have a hangup about the Tyrian humans, which is on you, I don't really care much anymore, but what we have here isn't some scenario where the Charr are some misunderstood race 'that didn't do nothing' but by their on words this isn't true. The Charr are naturally hyper-aggressive, competitive, value victory and strength before all else, (many) are vocal about their disdain of "lesser" races like humans, are perfectly willing to be underhanded, and aren't ashamed if anyone else knows all this. On an individual basis, they aren't really any better or worse than anyone else, especially humans, but their culture is actually a dangerous one, to both themselves and to the other nations of Tyria. The Olmakhan (and some Lion's Arch charr I suppose) are at this time an outlier, a representation of what the Charr could very well be, yes, but they are not yet there, nor is it necessarily a sure thing that they will make it. Like any sapient species, its up to each individual whether they will continue the old ways as a cog in the war machine or try to become something more.

I question whether the fahrars are good for the Charr, much less real world humans. I've observed some undercurrents in from a lot of the dialog of various Charr NPCs that seems to imply that the separation of parents and cubs to the degree it currently exists isn't at natural to the charr as they would like to claim. Things like Rytlock's behavior when Ryland is introduced, various bits of dialog from cubs, that one charr lore post from way back before the game was in alpha iirc, little thing that paint a picture of the great war machine being what forces fahrars instead of parents and warbands instead of families rather than what would be natural and more....healthy for the charr as a race and a civilization.

Lastly, there is this that you brought up:

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:However, I've recently learned that neurotypical brains will take such a challenge as being similar to a physical attack, the same regeion of the brain lights up when someone is being physically attacked or having their ideologies challenged. That's unfortunate. As such I do wonder if I'll see a degree of agressive backlash to my meanderings as it challenges a very innate, hardcoded ideology. It challenges the value of biological parenthood.

Why was this necessary to include in your OP, how did this improve your arguments in anyway other than gas-lighting people that might disagree? Because that's what it felt like to me: gas-lighting. It felt like you intentionally put this out to make anyone that disagreed or questioned your suppositions on parents and the charr and everything else in your OP seem like close-minded and unable to think outside their "ideologies" that 'aggressively' attack rather than logically debate. Its really disingenuous.

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@anninke.7469 said:Have you actually considered that many (probably most) children actually have parents who are not godkitten jerks?

Statistically that isn't true, it's the exception that proves the rule rather than vice versa. Various metastudies have shown that we're amidst a parenting crisis due to the evidenceable issues with biological parenting. As I said, I expected backlash because this is a very neurotypical ideology and neurotypicals react to challenged ideologies in the same way they would react to a physical attack. I don't mean any harm, it's just that scientifically we know that humans aren't very good at biological parenting.

@anninke.7469 said:You said your partner was raised by her grandparents - they're biological too and still have raised her fine.

They aren't a direct biological relation though so the expectation for perfection that exists within parents who have a direct biological link to their child wasn't there. This is just reitering points I've already made, which is something I expected to have to do but it is depressing that it is the case. The issue stands that with direct biological parenting there are expectations of the child that are toxic to the child, this is the case within the vast majority of direct biological parenting scenarios.

The problem is is that there exist neurological changes at childbirth to both parties which seem to create negative and toxic impedances to effective parenting. We cannot change that with wishful thinking.

@anninke.7469 said:On the other hand, non-related adoptive/foster parents can be bad too.

Statistically this is not the case, foster parents are shown to be better parents because they're more able to accept the child as they are rather than according to what they believe the child should be.

@anninke.7469 said:And a fahrar type of raising children would be problematic as well, even if you were able to have only non-toxic caretakers (and that would be very difficult to do and maintain).

That could be said about anything which is why we turn to evidence to dictate the effectiveness of any scenario. Is there any solid evidence of any problems with the fahrar system? I haven't seen evidence of any but what I have seen are many well-adjusted charr children and a surprising absence of mental illness amongst the charr. As for maintenance? It need not be, any system can be efficiently planned, especially if the population is managed by encouraging responsible breeding practises and not overbreeding beyond the capacity for these systems to handle.

@anninke.7469 said:There are studies saying that kids have problems from NOT being raised in a family.

I didn't say there weren't. In fact, I said that impersonal methods of raising children are just as problematic as the issues caused by biological parenting. You're viewing this from a very neurotypical perspective and leaning on human approaches to child care which are specifically what I tend to have an issue with. I understand that orphanages and boarding schools are far from efficient when it comes to rearing children. A lot of these problems are because humans are very irresponsible with breeding which leads to an overabundance of new children which burdens these systems and results in impersonality.

@anninke.7469 said:So I assume that while there is a number of children with parents so bad that they'd be better off in a fahrar, there's still the rest (the bigger part, I hope) who would suffer there.

I can't agree with this. I believe that the system wolves have for rearing pups which uses very personal carers which rotate amongst small groups of children is the better option as each child is given a lot of personal care without excessive wear on any one carer. I do believe that a fahrar will result in better adjusted, happier children. As we see evidenceably with the charr this is the case. You say that charr children are worse off for being in the fahrar but I haven't seen any evidence supporting that.

@anninke.7469 said:And if you're not living in totalitarian (which the charr pretty much are) society [...]

You're operating from a very human perspective again and viewing the charr from a very shallow surface level. The charr aren't totalitarian. If that were the case then uniformity would be enforced and it clearly isn't. I'd wager you haven't played the charr storyline so you haven't witnesse the strong personalities and identities within the player's warband. Furthermore, the charr show that challenging authority is welcome so long as you can prove that you're in the right, which is contradictory to any definition of totalitarianism that I can find.

@anninke.7469 said:[...] a fahrar education would not prepare kids well for living on their own.

I disagree but I know I won't convince you. As I said, I'm dealing with a neurotypical phenomenon and neurotypicals who respond to challenged ideologies as though they were physical attacks. I expected the backlash. It's unfortunate and disappointing but it is what I expected nonetheless.

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A very interesting topic, in my opinion :) A lot could be discussed, but I don't have enough knowledge about charr lore or even real-life statistics to comment properly.

My only comment would be: ideally, in a perfect world, any context in which a child is growing up (family, school, etc.) would be like you said: "(...) building up is more important than having any preconceived ideals, so instead of having any expectations of what they believe the child should be they should encourage the child to explore their own identity and individuality to discover their own talents.". Maybe fahrars do this, maybe they don't, I don't know. Because if we think about it, the charr, and therefore fahrars, have their own expectations: they want their cubs to become soldiers, to put "warband above self, legion above warband, charr above legion". Maybe the Olmakhan grow their cubs in an even less toxic way than fahrars do. But again, my knowledge of gw2 lore is limited.

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Fahrars wouldn't prepare kids to live in other kind of society. They are finding a role in which kid is good, then are focusing on it. If they would have to life in other kind of society, where you have to adapt to other roles, they would have problems. For example, like in western european society, where you often work in job which isn't connected to your specialisation - and thats why our schools have their aproach, with general knownedge teached and with grades, it's more suitable to our reality, they aren't to make you perfect in anything, but to give you possibility to develop in any direction in future - Charrs don't have that in fahrar, it's education heading into one, most fitting for the kid and whole society direction. Actualy, schools like fahrars were working irl, in totalitarian regimes around the world (both on right and left side of politics). And they were raising really competent, but fanatical peoples, who knew only what school teached them.And this is also the case for Charrs. Fahrars can work only in their semi-totalitarian culture, with controled economy based on war. In this situation, fahrars are best solution. But in different situation, different means are betterPS: I would upvote your first post, but I was raised by parents in same way their grandparents raised your parent, and I'm sure there is a lot of people who had similar, not so stresfull childchood with parents. I just don't agree that most of parent-child relations are toxic, I'm sure they aren't in my area

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@The Greyhawk.9107 said:For starters, you've made a LOT of assumptions [...]

Not really assumptions. Research. I've done a lot of reading of metastudies of the issues with biological parenting. As I said though, I expected this backlash. It's a neurotypical issue and neurotypicals respond to challenged ideologies in the same way they respond to physical attacks. You clearly are responding to an attack in a very emotional way, even though it isn't meant as an attack.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:I don't really think that its an appropriate discussion for this game lore forum.

It's discussing the nature of charr fahrars, why is that not a relevant discussion? That sounds like an illogical attack founded on emotion which is being masqueraded as an appeal to authority to remove an opinion you personally find distasteful.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:To be concise, I think you radically misunderstand the nature and dynamics of parenting and family in general [...]

I think that your perspective of it is blinkered by the neurotypical experience. We can all throw statements like that out, can't we?

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] in particular I think you greatly over-estimate this idealized expectations of the children that you think parents have.

Are you trying to claim that there isn't a statistical bias toward idealised expectations in biological parenting? There are even studies which show that a parent judges their own self-worth based upon the ability of the child to meet those standards which leads to poor mental health.

Furthermore, I'm not making any claims about your intellect or your inability to understand things which suggests that you're operating from an emotional mental state. My desire is to challenge ideologies and present different opinions, your reaction to this is telling. If this were a social experiment...

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Hell, I sometimes wonder if parents aren't putting enough expectations onto children [...]

This is a very conservative opinion to have and it implies a certain guilt you have regarding your own position which could be fuelling a cognitive dissonance. I don't think it's healthy to have any expectations of anyone, it only results in psychological trauma for all parties involved.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] we've all heard of the "participation trophy" issue that the last two generations grew up, and stagnated, under.

Guild Wars 2 itself makes use of the participation trophy system with each and every event. I don't see a problem with this system if it encourages participation and contribution as many may have self-esteem issues that would be solved by having such systems in place. There are many genius level intellects that are often downtrodden and ignored because they lack the confidence to speak up, this is one problem we're trying to solve.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Regardless I think you're, in a sense, strawmaning parenthood [...]

That isn't how the strawman fallacy works. I don't think you're unintelligent so I can only assume you know that and that this is hyperbole designed to elicit a response.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] most parents don't have expectations of complete or even partial perfection for their children [...]

I feel that every Millennial alive, every child of the "burnout generation," would disagree with this statement. There are actually papers published regarding how Millennials have a "perfectionism problem" which is instilled by toxic parenthood and schooling. You can research this for yourself if you feel so inclined.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Expectations of being a good person [...]

The concept of "good" is wildly subjective. It's why I prefer kindness and cruelty as they relate to suffering and the easing of. The expectation of doing good can vary from person to person. A person like yourself may see excessive conservativism and far right-wing beliefs as "good," whereas your child may be liberal and lacking in that "goodness." For example, in prior generations a parent may have believed that being straight is "good" and that their child is a sinner for being anything other. This is the problem with expectations of "good."

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] doing their best in whatever they do, etc.

And when their best isn't good enough? That leads to obessions with perfectionism which has lead to the current personality problems Millennials face.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Expectations that most any child can meet and typically exceed.

An expectation as it's expressed by a parent can be and often is inflated by the mind of the child to the point of obsession, this is why I've stated that any undue expectation in a parent-child relationship can be toxic for all parties involved. What seems like a small expectation to you can be the end of the world to your child, and not understanding that can put undue stresses and grievances upon your child leading to traumas later in life.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:But more importantly, I think you are greatly underestimating the basic but incredibly vital need a child has for their parents love.

Why is it then that statistically children reared by adoptive parents are more well-adjusted than those raised by biological parents? Why is it that so many broken homes exist to the point where most governments in the world recognise a parenting crisis? Why is it that the parenting crisis has gotten so bad that it's actually resulting in relationship crises in some countries which is causing an unexpected dip in breeding rates? I don't think that's true at all. I can't see the evidence for it.

It seems emotional and like an appeal to emotion to me. It sounds flowery and nice but in reality it's just sophistry because love can come from any number of sources, it's erroneous to suggest that a caregiver cannot provide love to a child that's just as valid—if not moreso—than that which a biological parent could provide.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Your "professional team of rotating caregivers" will not be able to provide this fundamental need of the child [...]

Why not? That's a sort of hyperbole, isn't it? It's like saying that oxygen can't provide us air to breathe. It's a very strange claim to make and I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. We see with many instances of adoptive parenting that they absolutely can provide this love to children. As I've stated, I know one instance of this myself, personally. My partner is far more socially well-adjusted than I am. They weren't lacking for love.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] you can not train people to have real unconditional love for a child that they have been assigned to.

Says who? This seems like another emotional claim deriving from a position of old world conservativism. Why do you believe that this is the case? Why can a carer not experience unconditional love for their charge? As an autistic person I've met a number of carers who're exceptionally loving. I think that anyone with any mental health issues will be able to relate to this, that's why your claim rings untrue and hollow with me.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Only family, whether biological or not, can raise a child with real love.

You're saying the same thing over and over again. Which in turn is leading to me saying the same thing over and over again. Let's not turn this into an exercise of who can filibuster the best.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:On a side note, people really over use the word Toxic.

It's a helpful, well-understood, and descriptive word. It's like saying that we overuse the definitive article. Whilst you could make a case for that I really doubt it'd be very sound or practical. We have language for a reason.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Everything is toxic these days, toxic this, toxic that, so-in-so is acting toxic, what you said is toxic, toxictoxictoxic. The English language in infamous for an overabundant amount of synonymous descriptors, surely folks can think of one or two other words for "bad" other than TOXIC.

This is a textbook definition of what toxic is. Thank you for providing it. This is an incredibly toxic response because it's unhelpful, emotional, irrational, and it doesn't contribute anything to the discussion at hand. I'm a little befuddled honestly as to why you'd give me such a good example of what socially toxic behaviour is, it seems detrimental to your position.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:You have a rather rose tinted glasses view of the Charr but the fact of the matter is that you wild misunderstand them [...]

I apparently wildly misunderstand a lot of things. That's a claim you like using to substantiate your arguments, isn't it? That others "wildly misunderstand" any point you personally disagree with. It's an interesting debating tactic but not one that I could bring myself to use as I find it manipulative, intellectually dishonest, and disingenuous. It's also an attempt to bait an emotional response, of course.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] their nature, their actions, their history, just about everything.

Naturally. You cannot claim that I "wildly misunderstand" without further attempting to build that into the hyperbole of claiming that I understand nothing, that's just your modus operandi.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Firstly, I've seen you twice claim that the Searing didn't kill anyone, this is explicitly wrong. The Searing that the charr performed killed HALF of the population of Ascalon.

That's an interesting claim. Can I see the bodies of those it killed? Can I see the NPCs who were absent after the Searing? You can cite Gwen but we know that Gwen was alive and well aswell. The only NPC deaths we know of were caused by the Foefire, not by the Searing. I'd be very interested to know why you believe the Searing killed anyone when there's plentiful evidence showing that the Searing killed no one. Are you confusing the Searing with the Foefire?

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] but the Charr were the aggressors [...]

Incorrect. This is like the Pan-Indian view of Native Americans that United States citizens tend to have. The Flame legion were the aggressors, not the charr. The other legions were enslaved to the Flame legion at the time and were bound by magic and fear to do their bidding. I have not argued that the Flame legion attempted to mimic the human capacity for conquest, I've stated in this post and others that attempting to mimic the human capacity for conquest was the raison d'etre of the Flame legion. However, the Flame legion was ousted, demonised, and punished time and time again for these actions by the other three legions once they had won their freedom.

Furthermore, your Pan-Charr view of the lore ignores the Olmakhan who clearly played no part in any of this.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] they did kill thousands of civilians [...]

Did they? The Foefire did. Can you show me the evidence of the Flame legion killing thousands of civilians? The Flame legion did attempt conquest but they were notoriously—perhaps even hilariously—bad at it. They couldn't kill many humans at all, that was the problem. Humans were, perhaps rather interestingly, quite good at killing themselves. As I've pointed out it was the Foefire that killed the majority of Ascalonians, just as it was the vizier of Orr who killed the Orrians.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] caused unimaginable environmental devastation to the lands of Ascalon [...]

Incorrect. The Flame legion caused environmental devastation, devastation that has been almost completely reversed by the efforts of the Iron legion. Have you been to contemporary Ascalon? It is a very green and beautiful place.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] and went on to attack two other human nations [...]

Well, they tried to. Like I said, the charr were notoriously bad at conquest. They also made peace with the norns fairly quickly which is also telling. The charr and the norn ended up as close allies despite how similar the norn look to humans, why was that do you think?

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] that were too far away from their ancestral homelands to realistically be a threat or fall under said claim of being originally charr lands.

Incorrect. The Flame legion were responsible for these actions and paid for it in kind. Furthermore, they were attempting to mimic the human capacity for conquest as it was said capacity that lead to the initial ruination of the charr. It's why Balthazar preferred humankind, after all.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:When Guild Wars Prophecies was being made the Charr explicitly were designed to be evil monsters [...]

How is this relevant? It just feels like another appeal to emotion. Yes, the charr were designed as the villains of that game because that game was told from a purely human perspective. Since then the story has expanded. Eventually you have to let Guild Wars 1 go. You're turning the original Guild Wars into propaganda and that isn't healthy. It doesn't matter what the charr were designed to be because it isn't relevant to the narrative as it stands now.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Simply put, conquest absolutely is the central pillar of Charr civilization, not protection.

Incorrect. ArenaNet have made it clear time and again that protection is core to the charr experience. It's just that you cannot let Guild Wars 1 go and you're turning it into a very focused kind of propaganda where you can only see the charr as they existed in Guild Wars 1. The Flame legion was responsible for that. Your Pan-Charr view of the entire charr species is not only incorrect but it belies a potential undercurrent of ethno-superiority and bigotry. It's a very bigoted way to think. This is precisely one of the things I set out to challenge.

One of the reasons I talk about these things is to discover whether there is a link between ethno-superiority ideologies and the perspectives of those who cannot let Guild Wars 1 go. I'm always interested in investigating this as I believe it's a worthwhile topic to investigate.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:You seem to have a hangup about the Tyrian humans [...]

I do indeed. Why do you think that is? Is it perhaps that I wanted to provide a view that's contrary to the perspective of Guild Wars 1 players, which derives from a place of ethno-superiority? What do you think might be unearthed by challenging those ideologies in particular? As I've said, when dealing with neurotypicals, challenging ideologies is reacted to in the same way as physical harm so the results are telling and self-evident. It's long been my belief that there's a strong link between ethno-superiority and those who can't let Guild Wars 1 go. You seem to delight in proving this belief to be correct and valid.

I've always wanted to provide a pro-charr perspective because to a healthy person there's no harm in doing so. There's no harm in providing a pro-asura, pro-sylvari, pro-gay, or pro-black perspective unless one has a vested interest in demonising a group for one reason or another. And if they do, that betrays the inner-workings of their mind. You shouldn't need to feel offended by an autistic person who finds relateable concepts amongst the charr. I strongly suspect that if I had wrote a similar post about humans rather than the charr, your reaction would've been inverse to what it is now.

Do you see what you've shown me? If a person has healthy perspectives they wouldn't be worried about an autistic person writing a pro-charr post, they'd just be happy that the autistic person has a group they can relate to.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] I don't really care much anymore [...]

If you didn't care, why write so much in the first place? Why continue to write so much after this? Why even bother to post? You are clearly invested in your Guild Wars 1 perspectives of both the charr and the humans, which is one of the things I set out to illustrate. This is a problem that ArenaNet perhaps needs to investigate and solve because it's still lingering despite their best efforts to show the cooperation of the races. In fact, I wrote another thread detailing just how much I love that this cooperation is the focus.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] but what we have here isn't some scenario where the Charr are some misunderstood race 'that didn't do nothing' but by their on words this isn't true.

I can't parse this, sorry. It might be my autism but it doesn't read like anything I can make any sense out of.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:The Charr are naturally hyper-aggressive, competitive, value victory and strength before all else [...]

This is directly contradicted by the presence of the Olmakhan. Here's a question: Why do you think ArenaNet felt it was necessary to include the Olmakhan? Your perspective of the charr is skewed by how you've transmogrified the prior game in the series into personal propaganda. The charr may be competitive but that doesn't need to be toxic. As for aggressive? Not really. There are many wars and fights the charr could've engaged in but chose not to.

There's a sylvari in the Black Citadel who actually makes a point about this. The charr have the strength to break through a brick wall, yet they also have the wisdom not to, and the intelligence to find a better way. There are plenty of inclusions within the game which are contradictory to your beliefs.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] (many) are vocal about their disdain of "lesser" races like humans [...]

This is a misinterpreation. After almost having been driven to extinction the three legions have a habit of trying to be intimidating so that no one has any funny ideas about trying to commit genocide against them again. There are plenty of cases where the charr will defend humans and praise them. Did you miss where in the Black Citadel a charr cop defends a group of humans from a drunken charr, or the interactions between Logan and Rytlock in Dragonfall? Your perspective doesn't stand up to scrutiny and isn't supported by the game. Your perspective is a poinsonous, toxic one that derives from your inability to let go of Guild Wars 1.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:[...] are perfectly willing to be underhanded [...]

I never said they weren't so I'm not sure why you felt this was relevant. I never said that the charr were paragons of virtue and truth, I never said that the charr were a representation of some paladin-like notion of good, in fact I've been very vocal about my opposition to notions like that. I'll continue to be. Sometimes being a little underhanded is the only way to enact a greater kindness. The Order of Whispers is an organisation dedicated to this perspective.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:On an individual basis, they aren't really any better or worse than anyone else, especially humans, but their culture is actually a dangerous one, to both themselves and to the other nations of Tyria.

The races of the Pact don't seem to think so, nor does Logan. The Vigil is lead by a charr who's devoted to the egalitarian handling of justice and those who follow Almorra don't find her to be dangerous to themselves or anyone else. I'm sorry I have to point out just how often your views are contradicted by the game, you have these views because you're in a strange mental space where everything is still as it was in Guild Wars 1. It isn't. The charr as they are today are as positive a force in Tyria as any of the other five races. They stand together, united, to make a difference for a kinder, better world for everyone. I value that.

The purpose of my thread was to simply offer a pro-charr piece whilst also highlighting the ethno-superiority problem ArenaNet has with some elements of their community. As I said, you've thus far taken delight in proving this perspective I've had of obsessive Guild Wars 1 players correct. Those who cannot let go of Guild Wars 1 are a toxic element of this community.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:The Olmakhan (and some Lion's Arch charr I suppose) are at this time an outlier [...]

This is the perspective of a bigoted mind. Anything that doesn't agree with your position is an "outlier," even if those "outliers" represent the majority. You don't want to accept that your ideological beliefs are wrong, and you're reacting to those beliefs being challenged as though they were a physical attack. This is exactly the kind of backlash I expected from those whose core beliefs derive from a position of ethno-superiority. As I said, I expected this backlash. It was necessary.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:I question whether the fahrars are good for the Charr, much less real world humans.

We've already been over this and we don't need to go over it again. As I said, we don't need this to devolve into who can filibuster the best.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:I've observed some undercurrents in from a lot of the dialog of various Charr NPCs that seems to imply that the separation of parents and cubs to the degree it currently exists isn't at natural to the charr as they would like to claim.

I've never seen any evidence of this so we'll have to agree to disagree. I'd even think that your views are suspect at this point because of your propagandised, slanted perspective which I've already proven. Which is what I set out to prove. The question comes down to "what is natural," though. Is that for you to define? Is it perhaps even an outmoded notion in the first place? Or is it a lack of awareness that since we are all animals, all of nature, whatever we do can be constituted as natural?

If the charr children are well-adjusted and as adults they aren't riddled with mental health concerns then I'd say that it's fair to call the fahrar system natural for the charr. Then again I do find the point moot as the entire concept of "natural" is nebulous and vague at best and is often used as an emotional appeal rather than a logical one.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Things like Rytlock's behavior when Ryland is introduced [...]

Rytlock is proud of his son, yes. I don't see how that's relevant to your belief of Rytlock seeing the fahrar system as a negative factor within charr culture? It doesn't really support it.

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Why was this necessary to include in your OP [...]

Yes. For all the reasons you've now realised. It wasn't "gaslighting," which is just another emotional appeal if we're both honest. It was intended to root out any connections between ethno-superiority and those players who can't let Guild Wars 1 go. If you didn't have this problem you wouldn't see anything negative to react to. My post, for all intents and purposes, is just an autistic person stating their love for the charr. As I've said, if I had written this about the Ascalonian humans then your reaction would've been a stark inverse.

I've done what I set out to do.

(Edited to clean up a couple of quotes.)

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@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:I have a lot of ground to cover with this and it'll delve into some pretty deep and introspective topics. Just a heads-up as to be forewarned is to have four arms, or something along those lines.

You seem to have given a great deal of thought to these positions prior to posting, so I'll make every attempt to be respectful. You are obviously aware that your positions with regards to biological parents and traditional methods of raising children was going to be controversial. I do believe, as you yourself acknowledge, have wandered off the beaten path with regards to discussion of the lore of Guild Wars. Though couched in a discussion of the fahrar system and Charr sociology, as it has been revealed, I think it would serve you better to move back to the main road. Developing your perceptions of the fahrar system and your expectations of how they would act in Tyria could be a useful for resource for further game development or lore writing from the developers, assuming they read this thread.

First and foremost it should not be forgotten that this is fiction. The developers are not peering through camera lens and observing the Charr in their natural habitat. The Charr just like the Asura, the Sylvari, and even the Humans of Divinity Reach are a fabrication of actual human imagination living in the 21st century in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Reading your post felt as though you were disconnecting from this fact. That you enjoy the Charr race the most in the game is one thing. That your post begins to speak of the Charr as though they are real is another.

I want to address your concept of biological parenthood. That specific term conveys very little information and at no point did you try to clarify it. Do you mean the providers of the gamete or the providers of the gestation? The self evidence of that term becomes even more diluted when we talk about a fictional race where reproduction is not explained or elaborated. Exactly how do imagine that Charr even begin to procreate? Given the abundance of magic and magi-tech within the game we could begin to imagine even more fantastical methods of reproduction. Perhaps the Charr do not even "biologically" procreate at all. This makes the comparison to real world human rearing even more of a stretch.

With regards to the fahrar system specifically. As I already noted everything within this game is a human invention, including this system of child rearing. As any good student of European history can tell you, the fahrar of the Charr is closely match to the Spartan agoge system. I won't go into a discussion of Spartan history ant the merits of their social systems, but rather encourage you to research the topic. I think a lot of the points you raised about the toxicity of "biological parenthood" could be addressed by reviewing this and other ancient histories.

Your conceptions of the Charr as you present them are interesting, though I'm not convinced entirely faithful to the lore of the game. Did you play the original Guild Wars game or read the novels? Perhaps you would be more forgiving of human behavior in Tyria if you had a broader perception of the historical lore within game. I think the humans of Tyria have been, in general, conceptualized to be far more tolerant than the actual humans of Earth. I hope my points did not come off as an aggressive backlash but rather an honest discussion while trying to stay within the boundaries of Guild Wars lore.

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While I heavily disagree with your post I can agree this is what makes the Charr such a great fantasy race.The Charr are so alien to human perspective. Its fantastic to really be able to play as a something that just doesnt think or live like a human at a very basic level.

Compare this to what their closest cousin, the WoW Orc. What's supposed to be this vicious beast with a culture built up hundreds of years without any human interactions, really you could just replace them with tribal humans and nothing would change or be weird.

The Charr on the other hand are the opposite, they dont have human emotions, they have charr emotions. And while most of it is similar, theres a key difference in their culture, and thus not only the way they live but also the way they think and speak.It's really great to be able to finally truley play as a viscous beast.You couldnt replace the charr with a different race of humans without changing anything, it just be too weird.

Of course anything after the core game kinda tarnished this but at least it's got that solid core.

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I think that much of this post falls apart pretty early on around the moment that we start talking about the Charr warring as a preventive measure. From what i'v observed of Charr society and what Ecology of the Charr, as well as the Olmakhan, have to say on the subject the Charr have been suffering from a soul sickness since pretty much their earliest days on Tyria. They came into their world defining it by warfare and conquest, in their eyes what mattered first and foremost was that might makes right, that the strength of the individual overcome and rule all those before them. In theory, if not practice, this was a Meritocracy and it extended to even how they viewed the rest of the world. The Charr were the strongest, the Charr had the right to rule Tyria by conquest, and conversation was out of the question. They should own everything that the eye can see and so they spread out from the Far Shiverpeaks and into the lands below. They washed over Ascalon and drove out it's native inhabitants, for them killing was not good enough. They had to be enslaved and used to drive the Charr warmachine forward, this can be seen with the humans, and if their tribute records are accurate it was so for the Grawl as well.

The way you framed it makes it seem like the Olmakhan are the Charrs natural state, a sentiment I have heard from others. But I feel it is the exact opposite, the Olmakhan are an anomaly in the Charr we've been presented with. Perhaps at some point in the distant past they were in touch with a more natural element and gradually moved to more unsavory means overtime, but even then Ecology points out the Charr were conquerors not protectors, who often exterminated civilian populations to achieve their ends. Perhaps one could construe that as protecting your society by wiping out an enemy so throughly they can never come to harm you, but I think if you engage in measures that extreme on some level you simply want power or to harm the people in question. Thus is my mind the Legions have always been aggressors, not protectors.

Likewise I feel like saying the Charr merely mimic what humans do pulls an enormous burden off their shoulders and removes the culpability from their actions, even in the era of the Flame Legion I don't think you can pin the blame for their choices on anyone but themselves. To my knowledge there's no recorded evidence of the Charr ever viewing human culture in enough detail to see them as misogynistic(I would argue that given their time period humans were actually very progressive in their gender roles, having a pantheon of Mother Goddesses will do that.) and instead clapped their women in chains for one key reason: they knew and understood that women who took up the shamanic arts could command the skies and conjure the rain, in doing so they were a threat to Flame Legion supremacy and after Havocbringer pulled her stunt that kind of power could not be allowed. Therefore they put on hold orders, which eventually escalated to slavery, and by the time we reach modern Guild Wars they apparently had 'breeding farms' lined up for their females. These acts are so horrific in their own right, and so far away from the patriarchal societies that humans had, that it seems to me that it's purely a product that was made and sold by the Flame Legions.

Saying they copied the Gods has a lot more meat to it, it's undeniable that the Flame Legion turned to outside forces in order to even the playing field when they believed humanity had cheated for so long. But even then the demonic sacrifices, sometimes even to the point of the Titans consuming their own people, seems like a trait they largely inherited. They had no truth faith in the gods, to them it was all about the power and as long as the Titans could express that power they would make whatever offerings they had to. I would agree it's imitation out of desperation, but it's elements are uniquely 'Charr' in nature. The moment the Titans could no longer express that power the Charr turned, because might makes right after all.

Between the people who brokered the treaty I do not see Smodur the true sign of Charr progression. To the contrary Smodur comes off as an opportunist and a vulture, perhaps it's just his smug voice acting but I do not believe a man who would build a racial ghetto in the side of his city has any real stock in protecting the other races of Tyria or making them feel 'comforted' by his presence. To me a generous reading of his character is that he did what needed to be done for the survival of his people after the Dragonsbrand threatened to turn the tides of the war, and unfavorable interpretation was that he desperately needed the Claw of the Khan Ur to ascend. Instead to me the real visionary is Malice who both took preventive measures to contain the Renegades in Grothmar and who helped get the Claw of the Khan Ur back when the ceasefire was in it's infancy, even knowing her subordinates might harm her should they find out too soon. That, to me, makes her the real forward thinker of the Imperators.

If there's one thing that I agree with you on, at least in part, it's the Charr are on some level driven by fear. They fear harm from the outside, they fear change, they might even fear themselves, and I feel Bangar is mostly motivated by that fear. He wants to protect the Charr, to have their best interests in mind, but I think framing him as just a protector does a disservice to his character. He definitely wants to rule it's beneficial for him to push a war economy that exploits anyone he deems as weak to maintain that rule. Those protections do not extend to the elderly who he might view as too weak and infirm to serve the Legions, the farm in Grothmar proved that. It also doesn't include anyone who might sympathize with the other races as he views them as a threat to the society Charr have built. He is not selfish, to dismiss him as such would downplay the evil he represents, he's an embodiment of the lust for conquest and the idea of Charr above all others. Protecting other Charr is a component of that, but no more then just a component.

As for the the Farhars teaching selflessness and protection, they can to a degree with their warband mates. But they also emphasize a loyalty to the Legions above all others, and sometimes they can come off believing the self is even more important then the warband. Some see their warband mates as bullet sponges to be used and discarded at a moments notice, many more believe your warband mate is only as good as his use. If he's injured or crippled he may be forced into becoming a Gladium as he no longer optimal, if he practices magic he might be shunned and ostracized for his perverse art and only the Flame Legion and to a lesser extent Ash has any real acceptance of sorcery, and of course if he runs or is not prone to violence he might be beaten or even executed in the Bane as a coward. Charr societies emphasis on protecting it's warband is undercut by the actual values ir holds, which is why they have always come off as less organized and communal then humans by comparison and why I often view their military prowess as somewhat overhyped. This is to say nothing of course of the fact that some Primuses, like Rylands, were especially brutal. Going so far as to even beat their cubs with metal rods.

I do know how many, if any, of these critiques to Charr society Anet shares. But I think the one major takeaway from Icebrood Saga is that Fahrars are bad, and they're definitely showcasing the negative effects of ripping children away from their parents.

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