Jump to content
  • Sign Up

More (human) gods? [Spoilers LW S3+PoF]


Ninutra.7926

Recommended Posts

There have been some questions streaming through my mind when it comes to gods, or divines in the world of Tyria in general. This is for the fun of speculation only!

According to Eternal Alchemy, beings such as the human Gods and Spirits of the Wild are only powerful entities, not creators of the world in any way. In that case, they are inhabitants of this world like anyone, albeit ones with much higher degree of power. If so, then:

  • Are gods a separate race? One that comes with naturally high magic concentration/powers? Were some of them divine from birth, or existed since forever, while the likes of Kormir and Grenth are ascended humans or... half-breeds, in Grenth's case? Are gods simply powerful humans that can just spawn out of thin air? Or did they all ascend at some point in time, but maybe so long ago that nobody could possibly remember? I personally lean towards the latter.

  • If it is possible to ascend, how does one acquire such power? Aside from sucking up another dying god, that is. Could one perhaps take in a large power pool from any source and just become a god? If so, then how many "gods" could there be in the Mists, if not all human(oids) came to Tyria? And potentially, how many can be created in Tyria itself? Can one take up magic over the course of a long life, instead of all at once? Could a long-lived race perhaps develop into something with similar power level to the Six? (let's just entertain the thought that Dragon's won't eat you, nor your magic)

  • Are humans specifically sensitive to magic and taking it up, because of their direct connection with their gods and the possibility to ascend? (also looking at the fact that they hail from the Mists) Could a charr or a norn, for example, strive to achieve such power? (and I am talking a situation more akin to what made Kormir a goddess, not the kind of "ascension" going on in Elon Riverlands, just to clarify)

  • Iirc, Balthazar did not use a lot of his powers between coming back to Tyria and eating the Bloodstone; all the visual tricks have been done by Lyssa's Mirror. He relied on diplomacy, rather than strength. He was a shell of his former self, and yet, he sponged in the power of the Stone easily, while everyone else either died or went crazy. Was his body somehow different from your regular human? Easier to house magic in, resilient to side effects? Again, back to the first point, is it a predisposition one is born with, or is it developed? (now that I think of Balthazar's body, which disappeared during his death, was itself only/mostly magic? If so, is it held in this state of matter by the strength of will, since it has a tendency to spread out? Do powerful beings possess some sort of gravitational-magical pull that keeps it together?)

  • If it is... developable, I am tempted to say there should be "deity academies" which teach people how to harness enough power to become gods, but that would probably be considered sacrilege.

It's a bit clunky post, correct me if I've forgotten something (it's late over here when I was writing this). Otherwise, what do you guys think? Would gladly read any theories that you may have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 65
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

There was a lore text by some dude which does mention theories that the 6 Gods aren't naturally "gods" but any human who could access and control and contain extraordinary amounts of magic can ascend and become a god. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Six:_Being_or_Playing_God

Human Gods were essentially divine aliens which brought humans to Tyria, so I want to imagine that humans are a species that while mundane and seemingly "normal" in all respects, each have the potential to harness enough magic if allowed to and become godlike beings.

Asura may have a part to play in the natural order of things through the Eternal Alchemy.Charr have no gods.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for posting, mate. There are plenty of more knowledgeable people lurking on these forums, but this topic always piques my curiousity.

@"Ninutra.7926" said:There have been some questions streaming through my mind when it comes to gods, or divines in the world of Tyria in general. This is for the fun of speculation only!

According to Eternal Alchemy, beings such as the human Gods and Spirits of the Wild are only powerful entities, not creators of the world in any way. In that case, they are inhabitants of this world like anyone, albeit ones with much higher degree of power. If so, then:

  • Are gods a separate race? One that comes with naturally high magic concentration/powers? Were some of them divine from birth, or existed since forever, while the likes of Kormir and Grenth are ascended humans or... half-breeds, in Grenth's case? Are gods simply powerful humans that can just spawn out of thin air? Or did they all ascend at some point in time, but maybe so long ago that nobody could possibly remember? I personally lean towards the latter.

It's possible that the gods are a separate race. We tend to think of those that have ascended to become gods, such as Grenth and Kormir, as they were: human. But their incarnate form, once they ascend, may simply be a way for them to maintain a positive, personal relationship with whatever host race they inhabit or feed on.

  • If it is possible to ascend, how does one acquire such power? Aside from sucking up another dying god, that is. Could one perhaps take in a large power pool from any source and just become a god? If so, then how many "gods" could there be in the Mists, if not all human(oids) came to Tyria? And potentially, how many can be created in Tyria itself? Can one take up magic over the course of a long life, instead of all at once? Could a long-lived race perhaps develop into something with similar power level to the Six? (let's just entertain the thought that Dragon's won't eat you, nor your magic)

Would I be correct in thinking that you fall into the "Humans came to Tyria from another world" category? I think they are native to Tyria. But let's put our tinfoil hats on, shall we? I believe that the race we refer to as "gods" use worlds within the Mists to reproduce. They have incredible influence over these worlds and can affect the evolutionary path of creatures living upon them. The "gods" walk the evolutionary path with lesser creatures until such time as said creatures have developed sufficiently advanced biology that members from among them can be harvested to form vessels for the "gods". In theory, this evolutionary development would mean that, yes, any suitable race could achieve godhood if they lived long enough. In fact, long-life may be one of several criteria through which we can identify races chosen by the gods.

  • Are humans specifically sensitive to magic and taking it up, because of their direct connection with their gods and the possibility to ascend? (also looking at the fact that they hail from the Mists) Could a charr or a norn, for example, strive to achieve such power? (and I am talking a situation more akin to what made Kormir a goddess, not the kind of "ascension" going on in Elon Riverlands, just to clarify)

Please see my former answer. I'm not sure why you're downplaying the process of Ascension in Elona. The failure to ascend, in my opinion, is at the core of a deeper mystery within the Guild Wars franchise.

As to whether humans are more sensitive to magic? In my opinion, yes, they are. Think of humanity as the gods' ideal host race. A charr or norn is unlikely to ascend into godhood as a charr or a norn. In other words, the process of ascension for any member of these races would, by necessity, require them to become human, or at least as close to human as realistically possible. I believe that the process of evolution, culminating in expressions of sentient life like humanity, is the means by which the gods foster a candidate race into godhood.

  • Iirc, Balthazar did not use a lot of his powers between coming back to Tyria and eating the Bloodstone; all the visual tricks have been done by Lyssa's Mirror. He relied on diplomacy, rather than strength. He was a shell of his former self, and yet, he sponged in the power of the Stone easily, while everyone else either died or went crazy. Was his body somehow different from your regular human? Easier to house magic in, resilient to side effects? Again, back to the first point, is it a predisposition one is born with, or is it developed? (now that I think of Balthazar's body, which disappeared during his death, was itself only/mostly magic? If so, is it held in this state of matter by the strength of will, since it has a tendency to spread out? Do powerful beings possess some sort of gravitational-magical pull that keeps it together?)

We don't really know how Balthazar fared prior to his return to Tyria. To compare his last outing in Path of Fire, with his previous exploits, seems like a stretch too far. There is no way of knowing if he was more diplomatic or more aggressive when he first took humanoid form on Tyria.

Your suggestion that the gods may be a separate race helps us to understand why everyone else went crazy when the Bloodstone exploded. Balthazar, as a member of the gods' race, is capable of metabolizing magic in a way that lesser beings, even magically-adept humans, cannot.

When you say that Balthazar's body is easier to house magic in, think about what your idea means: humans have been chosen by the gods to be their current host race. It stands to reason that the gods would ensure that humans evolve to become the most magically-adept race. In other words, Balthazar's humanity synergized well with his divinity.

  • If it is... developable, I am tempted to say there should be "deity academies" which teach people how to harness enough power to become gods, but that would probably be considered sacrilege.

It's a bit clunky post, correct me if I've forgotten something (it's late over here when I was writing this). Otherwise, what do you guys think? Would gladly read any theories that you may have.

It's not a clunky post. Plenty of other players have asked questions akin to these. I encourage you to keep exploring this topic and to form opinions of your own. Diversity of opinion is good for this forum :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ninutra.7926 said:There have been some questions streaming through my mind when it comes to gods, or divines in the world of Tyria in general. This is for the fun of speculation only!

According to Eternal Alchemy, beings such as the human Gods and Spirits of the Wild are only powerful entities, not creators of the world in any way. In that case, they are inhabitants of this world like anyone, albeit ones with much higher degree of power. If so, then:

When it comes to pantheons from around our world, there are a lot of gods that have nothing to do with creating the world. Only that they are powerful beings that generally hold the most sway over nature, fortune or some other substantive human ideal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

A common theory regarding the Six is that they were essentially the equivalents of the Elder Dragons from where they came from - living (or at least sapient) reservoirs and regulators of magic. Evidently, it's possible for a human to reach this state by absorbing power in the correct manner (although Kormir seems to have done so with the assistance of the others) - whether this means they were all originally human is open to interpretation. Certainly, there were indications in the Realm of Torment that there might have been a previous generation of gods that weren't even vaguely human, but the associated text was never formally implemented and therefore might not be canon. Certainly, there does seem to be indications that whatever the gods have become can absorb more magic safely than a regular human (or other mortal), but there is circumstantial evidence that this does have limits (for example, the gods didn't just split Abaddon's power among themselves but imprisoned him until Nightfall provided them with a suitable replacement).

Regarding humans and their connection to magic:

It was specifically stated at the end of Nightfall that the blessings of the gods were in all of humanity. Exactly what this entails is left open, but it probably does explain why things like the human racial skills exist despite the gods no longer answering prayers - use of such skills are not actually calling on the power of an external deity, but drawing on the blessings of the deity inside the human (which is why, if you're feeling particularly contrary, you can set the Hounds of Balthazar against Balthazar - something Chronomancers are particularly good at).

However, there does seem to be something that points to humans being particularly adept at magic... although their social structure means that they don't always have the chance to learn that other races do. There are indications, for instance, that while the asura know more about magic overall, humans seem to have more natural talent for it. An ArenaNet representative way back commented that humans have a more intuitive approach to magic, while asura are more logical, and there are some examples floating around of a human doing something and an asura not being able to figure out how they did it, including one case (in Sea of Sorrows) where the human is trying to explain it to the asura and the asura just can't see how the human is going from one step to another. (To be fair, though, that might be a distinction between mesmerism and elementalism rather than between human and asura.)

Certainly, there does seem to be a trend towards most of the truly powerful magic users being human... while particularly threatening asura tend to be threatening due to the technology they've surrounded themselves with rather than their own magical power. Of course, other races also have some fairly powerful practitioners (Flame Legion charr in particular) but humans seem to create more of them than other races, and humans seem to be less dependent on external power sources to achieve that level of power. Mind you, it has to be noted that this could just be that there are more humans around than other races to begin with, which means that there are naturally going to be more truly exceptional humans around just because of the statistics.

On that note, it is worth noting that Gaheron Baelfire, the Flame Imperator at the start of the game, was trying to get himself ascended to godhood. We stop him at the Citadel of Flame, so it's hard to say for certain whether he would have succeeded if not interrupted, but he certainly achieved a pretty significant power boost.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Stephen.6312 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the Orrian History Scrolls. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the
. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Yeah, that seems to be the go-to source. It's at odds with the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, though.

I don't know what to make of the whole "Humans are aliens on Tyria" thing these days. I held that belief largely because others here do, long before I formed my own opinion.

I have nothing against the idea, but the in-game sources aren't clear about the origins of humanity and the OHS is open to interpretation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Stephen.6312 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the
. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Yeah, that seems to be the go-to source. It's at odds with the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, though.

I don't know what to make of the whole "Humans are aliens on Tyria" thing these days. I held that belief largely because others here do, long before I formed my own opinion.

I have nothing against the idea, but the in-game sources aren't clear about the origins of humanity and the OHS is open to interpretation.

Deliberately so - ArenaNet has stated that the Prophecies Manuscripts were an unreliable narrator, and the truth is that humans came from elsewhere. Even in the Manuscripts, it's just the word "birthed" that implies being native - what's actually stated still indicates that humans were newcomers that tipped the balance that had previously existed on Tyria.

There's a lot of other stuff in the Prophecies Manuscripts that have proven to be... not precisely untrue, but only true from a certain point of view, just like the claim that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They are mist beings but other than that we don't fully know what they are or where they came from.

We know humans can become Gods, as we've seen with Komir and Grenth, the latter being a half human demigod.We also know Gods can fall and be stripped of their powers as we've seen with Abaddon, Dhuum and more recently Balthazar.We also know that when Balthazar arrived on Tyria he carried the severed head of his father and he also has a half brother Menzies.We also know that the Gods are not the same age either and that Melandru is the oldest of them while Kormir is the youngest.

This information alone is enough to speculate that the Gods much like the Elder Dragons, may have all at one time been lesser beings who have achieved and ascended into incredible levels of power.

For the Gods specifically there is a good chance that they were all either human at one time or like Grenth, demigods.. having one human parent and one divine parent.If I had to guess I would probably speculate the latter as it would just make more sense.From what we know of Balthazar I would expect he ascended after de-throning his father who may have been the previous God of War.. which would make Balthazar and Menzies both Demigods..This is pure speculation though as no official lore goes into much detail prior to the arrival of the Six or their origins.Suffice to say their origins are just as mysterious as the Elder Dragons and we'll probably never know for sure how old they are or how they came to be Gods, with exception to Grenth and Kormir of course which we do know for a fact became Gods after defeating a previous one.

@"Ninutra.7926" said:

  • Are humans specifically sensitive to magic and taking it up, because of their direct connection with their gods and the possibility to ascend? (also looking at the fact that they hail from the Mists) Could a charr or a norn, for example, strive to achieve such power? (and I am talking a situation more akin to what made Kormir a goddess, not the kind of "ascension" going on in Elon Riverlands, just to clarify)

I don't think humans are any more sensitive to magic than any other race.If a human can become a God then I would expect that it's possible for other races to do the same if they had the same blessing Kormir did.That said though the only way we know this can be done is through the defeat of a sitting God, Grenth became a God after defeating but not killing Dhuum.Or by killing a fallen God with some kind of blessing from the Six to absorb it's power, Which is how Kormir became a God after killing Abaddon.

In theory, if we had that same blessing Kormir did we could have potentially done the same thing when we killed Balthazar and become Gods ourselves.This obviously didn't happen though and his power largely got absorbed by Aruine and Kralkatorrik.. I am curious if we'll still see something come out of this in future.

I have toyed with an idea of Rytlock eventually becoming the new God of War as it would fit well with the whole Revenant Mists link, not to mention he carries Sohothin which was originally one of Balthazars personal Swords (Yep old Balthy had a duel Swords build before jumping on the Greatsword meta XD)Likewise Logan could also be a candidate if the Magdaer storyline every actually gets a payoff in Gw2.Last we know is Eir retrieved Magdaer from Ascalon and planned to have the sword reforged and gifted to Logan to help bring Logan and Rytlock closer together.. although this never happened and Magdaer has been completely absent from the game ever since.Really it's little more than just random thoughts for personal amusement though, I doubt we'll see anything like this happen in the game but who knows what's gonna happen in the coming years.Most of us had lost faith in Cantha ever coming after all these years but now it actually is :DVery welcome surprise that was.

  • Iirc, Balthazar did not use a lot of his powers between coming back to Tyria and eating the Bloodstone; all the visual tricks have been done by Lyssa's Mirror. He relied on diplomacy, rather than strength. He was a shell of his former self, and yet, he sponged in the power of the Stone easily, while everyone else either died or went crazy. Was his body somehow different from your regular human? Easier to house magic in, resilient to side effects? Again, back to the first point, is it a predisposition one is born with, or is it developed? (now that I think of Balthazar's body, which disappeared during his death, was itself only/mostly magic? If so, is it held in this state of matter by the strength of will, since it has a tendency to spread out? Do powerful beings possess some sort of gravitational-magical pull that keeps it together?)

This is because he was still a God.. he was depowered and fallen.. locked away in the mists like Abaddon was but both of them were still Gods.Killing Gods much like killing Elder Dragons has very dangerous consequences, even fallen Gods unleash massive amounts of energy upon their deaths.Kormir spared us this by absorbing Abaddons power and likewise Balthazars power got absorbed by Aurine and Kralkatorrik.

If Kralkatorrik and Aurine had not been around to absorb Balthazars power then Elona would probably look like a giant crater and we'd have come down with a pretty nasty case of total annihilation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the answers!

@"Stephen.6312" said:

It's possible that the gods are a separate race. We tend to think of those that have ascended to become gods, such as Grenth and Kormir, as they were: human. But their incarnate form, once they ascend, may simply be a way for them to maintain a positive, personal relationship with whatever host race they inhabit or feed on.

So basically they become untouchable politicians? Oh, my favourite kind.

Please see my former answer. I'm not sure why you're downplaying the process of Ascension in Elona. The failure to ascend, in my opinion, is at the core of a deeper mystery within the Guild Wars franchise.

And this is interesting. I am not very familiar with the details of the original Guild Wars, part of the reason why I'm posting here, to find answers. From what I gathered, the mechanical aspects of Ascension made you more powerful, but the goal was never to become as a god, nor to be considered one of them. That seems more like a false hope an "ascendee" would have, or something it was... advertised as. I would imagine many people involved had improbably high expectations towards the outcome. Whether that's true or not, that's not the point. I was focusing on Kormir's case, because there you had a direct, visible source of godly magic, that a proper, visible outcome, and that counts more as a good example in my book, not a religious movement which tried to ascend through more, shall we say, artificial means, with no "officially godly" result to speak of.

We don't really know how Balthazar fared prior to his return to Tyria. To compare his last outing in Path of Fire, with his previous exploits, seems like a stretch too far. There is no way of knowing if he was more diplomatic or more aggressive when he first took humanoid form on Tyria.

Not what I was going towards. The sole fact that he disguised himself as Lazarus and patiently plotted to get to the Bloodstone before revealing himself, that is playing defensively - that's my focus. Hiding himself behind the illusion made me think he didn't have the full extent of his powers, and that was true. So, how much magic could one have, and still be considered a god? It's the situation of an empty battery; you might have barely an power left, but still be fully able to take in power easily, if given to you. And that's just helps to illustrate the point of gods being either evolved humans or a separate species entirely, that's the idea of body that's easier to house magic in:

Your suggestion that the gods may be a separate race helps us to understand why everyone else went crazy when the Bloodstone exploded. Balthazar, as a member of the gods' race, is capable of metabolizing magic in a way that lesser beings, even magically-adept humans, cannot.

:-)

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@"Stephen.6312" said:It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the
. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Also my main supporting source for the immigration story.

So, having a background from the Mists, and direct connection to their deities, it stands to reason that humans are likely to ascend if given the chance.But then, what stands in the way of another race to also transcend into the god "species"? Let's say an asura wanted to become a god, and lead his krewe through the Mists into another world, to investigate the psychological effects of immigration into a different dimension (would make a great research paper). It's probably only a matter of time until that happens. If there are physical limitations of a body, and they would HAVE to become humans, then the Inquest is already on it, probably. There is probably no limit that ambition won't break.So if there is a race that will achieve godhood, even if it were to fail many times, it would probably be asura.

Now, I only wonder what is the point at all in becoming a god. It was mentioned that gods may "feed off" their connected race, but then it would make no sense for the gods to leave this world, unless they had a specific intention of finding or making a new race with which to be dependent on. Still, I don't believe in the similarities between them and dragons. As far as I imagine, the gods don't have a life purpose (aside from playing their part in the Shakespearian play), and have a free will. With the exception of the rouge gods, they all seem to exhibit some sort of compassion for Tyria and their chosen race, and to me, their exodus cemented that belief.

Now to wonder, whether an asuran god would be capable of putting own ambitions aside and becoming at least somewhat merciful...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Teratus.2859" said:

I don't think humans are any more sensitive to magic than any other race.If a human can become a God then I would expect that it's possible for other races to do the same if they had the same blessing Kormir did.

This is the sort of mechanic I wanted to know about. But if it can only be bestowed, now with the gods gone, I can't imagine we'd receive it. But this is also a chicken and the egg scenario. Who was the first to achieve godly power? If it could only be bestowed by another god, then how did they became a god? Etc. That's why I lean slightly to the natural argument of one simply being able to accumulate this sort of energy throughout one's life.

In theory, if we had that same blessing Kormir did we could have potentially done the same thing when we killed Balthazar and become Gods ourselves.This obviously didn't happen though and his power largely got absorbed by Aruine and Kralkatorrik.. I am curious if we'll still see something come out of this in future.It would be great to be a god, but imagine the headlines. "God Commander commanding an Elder Dragon", "The Divine and the Dragon, aka the World's End". I also don't imagine our friends would be very much into it.

I have toyed with an idea of Rytlock eventually becoming the new God of War as it would fit well with the whole Revenant Mists link, not to mention he carries Sohothin which was originally one of Balthazars personal Swords (Yep old Balthy had a duel Swords build before jumping on the Greatsword meta XD)Likewise Logan could also be a candidate if the Magdaer storyline every actually gets a payoff in Gw2.Now pray that these two won't ever have disagreements again...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well we know that none of the gods are native to Tyria. They come from somewhere in the mists. So I was thinking, what if every god came from somewhere else and they just met each other in the mists to start some kind of group project? We already know that every god has his/her own realm. We have seen the underworld, the fissure of woe and the realm or torment. What if these realms are actually their home worlds?

What gave me this idea is the fact that Kormir's library slowly started reverting into the realm of torment after her departure even though Abaddon is long dead. Therefore that shape can't be influenced by Abaddon, but must be the realm's natural state. This would also explain why both Grenth and Balthasar were struggling with their own realms, since they both rose to godhood and inherited their realms after defeating a sitting god. It would seem that shaping a world to their liking, even for a god, takes a lot of effort. Which might be one of the reasons for their Tyrian group project. After playing a certain fractal, we also know that there are other beings in the mists that would qualify as gods. At least they have the power even if they are not part of the group.

As for the question whether anyone can become a god: Well yes, but actually no.The known and confirmed method: Defeating a god and absorbing his powerWhile the result of this process is a new god, I can't really call it "becoming a god". Magic is not just some form of energy, it has specific properties and concepts attached to it. We've seen this when Zhaitan died and the other elder dragons started turning the dead into their minions. Every god has magic with special properties. Abaddon for example was the god of knowledge and water. Kormir adopted the knowledge part, put a little twist on it and became the goddes of truth. Just like Kormir put her twist on Abaddon's magic however, the reverse is also true and the magic put a little twist on Kormir. Therefore it is difficult to decide whether the human Kormir and the goddes Kormir are the same person. We still don't know what happened to Abaddon's water magic though. There might be some unknown god of water or the magic got absorbed by bubbles, who knows?

The unconfirmed method: Absorbing almost all the magic in a given worldMy theory is that this is how the first gods came to be. If this is true however, then Aurene is on the verge of becoming a goddess. She already has more power than Balthasar in his weakened state and she can travel through the mists. She currently holds the power of 1+2/4 elder dragons, 1 fallen god (including bloodstone battery) and 1 undead lich. This method requires having a body that can contain all that magic energy. We know from the raids that humans can hold quite a lot of magic energy, however again the magic twists them as much as they twist the magic. So a human attempting godhood this way may loose his original personality along the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ninutra.7926 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:

I don't think humans are any more sensitive to magic than any other race.If a human can become a God then I would expect that it's possible for other races to do the same if they had the same blessing Kormir did.

This is the sort of mechanic I wanted to know about. But if it can only be bestowed, now with the gods gone, I can't imagine we'd receive it. But this is also a chicken and the egg scenario. Who was the first to achieve godly power? If it could only be bestowed by another god, then how did they became a god? Etc. That's why I lean slightly to the natural argument of one simply being able to accumulate this sort of energy throughout one's life.

It's very much the same situation with Elder Dragons too, the true origin of both forms of power is completely unknown.Chicken and the Egg as you said lolI wonder if Anet will allow us to explore this in Gw2 at some point.. I'm not going to get my hopes up though haha.

If I had to put a guess on it though perhaps some form of evolution created the first Gods, but Elder Dragons.. those are tied into The All somehow so I have no idea how they would just come to be when they're so important to the natural balance.. perhaps they were created along side Tyria by whatever force created the world.

In theory, if we had that same blessing Kormir did we could have potentially done the same thing when we killed Balthazar and become Gods ourselves.This obviously didn't happen though and his power largely got absorbed by Aruine and Kralkatorrik.. I am curious if we'll still see something come out of this in future.It would be great to be a god, but imagine the headlines. "God Commander commanding an Elder Dragon", "The Divine and the Dragon, aka the World's End". I also don't imagine our friends would be very much into it.

Divine Commander and it's pet Elder Dragon xDAt least Braham wouldn't give us lip anymore, We'll change his Spirit of the Wild to Chicken so he can literally become a giant Co.. you get where im going with that lmfao XD

I have toyed with an idea of Rytlock eventually becoming the new God of War as it would fit well with the whole Revenant Mists link, not to mention he carries Sohothin which was originally one of Balthazars personal Swords (Yep old Balthy had a duel Swords build before jumping on the Greatsword meta XD)Likewise Logan could also be a candidate if the Magdaer storyline every actually gets a payoff in Gw2.Now pray that these two won't ever have disagreements again...

Haha yeah they'll probably have Foefire wars xD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:While the result of this process is a new god, I can't really call it "becoming a god". Magic is not just some form of energy, it has specific properties and concepts attached to it. We've seen this when Zhaitan died and the other elder dragons started turning the dead into their minions. Every god has magic with special properties. Abaddon for example was the god of knowledge and water. Kormir adopted the knowledge part, put a little twist on it and became the goddes of truth. Just like Kormir put her twist on Abaddon's magic however, the reverse is also true and the magic put a little twist on Kormir. Therefore it is difficult to decide whether the human Kormir and the goddes Kormir are the same person. We still don't know what happened to Abaddon's water magic though. There might be some unknown god of water or the magic got absorbed by bubbles, who knows?

Lyssa apparently has water according to GW2 sources, so it seems like some of that power got shuffled around a bit after Kormir ascended.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Stephen.6312 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the
. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Yeah, that seems to be the go-to source. It's at odds with the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, though.

I don't know what to make of the whole "Humans are aliens on Tyria" thing these days. I held that belief largely because others here do, long before I formed my own opinion.

I have nothing against the idea, but the in-game sources aren't clear about the origins of humanity and the OHS is open to interpretation.

A go-to source should rather be Cathedral of Silence story, specifically:

The Seventh Reaper: So shall it be. You seek the heart of Orr? Then you must go to the very beginning. The rock where the gods first set foot upon this world.The Seventh Reaper: There is an artesian well hidden in the mountains behind the temple of Melandru. There, you will find the place where Orr began.andTrahearne: The place where the Six Gods first walked upon Tyria. I never dreamed I'd see it, yet now we know it is the end of our great journey.Pact Commander: Where the gods first walked? What does that mean?Trahearne: Human myth says that when the Six Gods came to Tyria, they built the city of Arah. The "source" must be the place where they first set foot on Tyria.

The Orrian History Scrolls goes into a bit more detail, but it's not a reliable source.

As to the Prophecies manual - a lot was retconned, even in Prophecies itself, let alone Nightfall. It should be noted that A History of Tyria was intentionally written from an in-universe, and tthus unreliable narrator, viewpoint; same with The Movement of the World. This was done so that ANet could freely retcon it as they needed.

There are other in-game references, but imo, from the word of an avatar of a god and an expert on Orrian history is among the best sources we could get in-game.

As to the rest of the thread, too tired to read through the wall of text. Pardons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:A lot of it is basically 'we don't know', although in my mind, references to humans coming from somewhere else along with the gods are common enough to be persuasive.

It's certainly a common opinion in this forum. Do you have any references to help us ascertain whether humans are natives or immigrants?

The strongest ingame off the top of my head is the
. I think it's been said more blatently in some out-of-game sources, but they're often hard (and in some cases impossible) to track down these days.

Yeah, that seems to be the go-to source. It's at odds with the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, though.

I don't know what to make of the whole "Humans are aliens on Tyria" thing these days. I held that belief largely because others here do, long before I formed my own opinion.

I have nothing against the idea, but the in-game sources aren't clear about the origins of humanity and the OHS is open to interpretation.

A go-to source should rather be
, specifically:

The Seventh Reaper: So shall it be. You seek the heart of Orr? Then you must go to the very beginning. The rock where the gods first set foot upon this world.The Seventh Reaper: There is an artesian well hidden in the mountains behind the temple of Melandru. There, you will find the place where Orr began.andTrahearne: The place where the Six Gods first walked upon Tyria. I never dreamed I'd see it, yet now we know it is the end of our great journey.Pact Commander: Where the gods first walked? What does that mean?Trahearne: Human myth says that when the Six Gods came to Tyria, they built the city of Arah. The "source" must be the place where they first set foot on Tyria.

The Orrian History Scrolls goes into a bit more detail, but it's not a reliable source.

As to the Prophecies manual - a lot was retconned, even in Prophecies itself, let alone Nightfall. It should be noted that A History of Tyria was intentionally written from an in-universe, and tthus unreliable narrator, viewpoint; same with The Movement of the World. This was done so that ANet could freely retcon it as they needed.

There are other in-game references, but imo, from the word of an avatar of a god and an expert on Orrian history is among the best sources we could get in-game.

As to the rest of the thread, too tired to read through the wall of text. Pardons.

The trouble with the dialogue that you've offered is that none of the NPCs you've quoted state that humanity arrived with the gods, merely that the gods arrived. I'm sure you can appreciate why I disagree with your point. The only source that I know of, thus far, suggesting that humanity migrated to Tyria, rather than evolving from other races already dwelling on it, is The Six.

In another discussion you brought up guidelines you felt helped us to interpret evidence presented to us. What would your guidelines suggest? If I interpreted your remarks in that discussion correctly, you adeptly pointed-out that in-game opinions and statements carry some of the strongest arguments for or against a position. Well, we have the Orrian History Scrolls, seemingly stating that humans migrated to Tyria from the Mists; then you have the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, seemingly stating the exact opposite. Both sources, being written documents, are subject to interpretation. Hence, dismissing one or even both as the product of unreliable narration doesn't advance an answer to the question of mankind's origins. We need to find common ground so that both can be interpreted without conflict. Call that common ground what you will - retcon, unreliable narration, glaring error. It doesn't matter to me, as long as the explanation is reasonable.

I just don't find the current explanations, defending the "traditional" interpretative position of the Orrian History Scrolls, particularly convincing.

Your thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is said that all the races "embody magic" by Oola, lab Genius. We know the Elder Dragons absorb magic from the ones they kill. So it would seem that upon death, we all have some sort of outpouring of the magic we embody just as the gods do. We also know that we embody more magic today than we did in GW as the planets lvl of magic had increased. And since the gods seem to have a cap on how much magic they can absorb, it may be that the only thing that makes a god is how much total magic they can hold. The qualification of godhood seems to be reaching that "cap" of the mortal races. (Or, reaching the "cap" of the gods themselves with their help in the form of their blessing, which would make the definition of godhood self defining as the highest known "cap") Since the ED's have cycles of scouring the planet of all magic they can find, and absorbing it and then hibernating when there is nothing more to eat, the ED's may not have a magic lvl cap at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Stephen.6312" said:In another discussion you brought up guidelines you felt helped us to interpret evidence presented to us. What would your guidelines suggest? If I interpreted your remarks in that discussion correctly, you adeptly pointed-out that in-game opinions and statements carry some of the strongest arguments for or against a position. Well, we have the Orrian History Scrolls, seemingly stating that humans migrated to Tyria from the Mists; then you have the Guild Wars Prophecies Manuscripts, seemingly stating the exact opposite. Both sources, being written documents, are subject to interpretation. Hence, dismissing one or even both as the product of unreliable narration doesn't advance an answer to the question of mankind's origins. We need to find common ground so that both can be interpreted without conflict. Call that common ground what you will - retcon, unreliable narration, glaring error. It doesn't matter to me, as long as the explanation is reasonable.

I just don't find the current explanations, defending the "traditional" interpretative position of the Orrian History Scrolls, particularly convincing.

Your thoughts?

Well, both cases are potential unreliable narrators. Neither actually hold more solid weight than the other, excluding that one is newer, and supported by items of lesser weight (such as direct dev statements). And those two bits - particularly the "supported by other items" - shifts that weight. In addition, the Prophecies manual is outdated by a large degree having been retconned here and there since the days of Prophecies, while the Orrian History Scrolls still hold accurate everywhere else so far. And this shifts the weight again.

So while it is possible that either or even both are incorrect (not sure how the "both" would actually pan out - foreign but not brought by the gods?), the scales definitely tip in the favor of "humans were brought to this world by the Six from another".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And as I commented, the Prophecies Manuscripts never actually says that humans are native. It says "birthed upon the world", which can be read as implying it, but could actually be a poetic way of saying that they were brought to the world with wherever they were immediately beforehand being the metaphorical womb.

Now, I'm personally pretty sure that the intent in GW1 was that humans were originally created on Tyria, but that's been retconned just as the gods creating the world instead of simply terraforming it was retconned.

Either way, even in Prophecies, there's pretty clearly a moment where humans were not present, and then suddenly they were in large enough numbers to tip the balance. Other races have long histories on Tyria, even if they've forgotten most of them - there are no written histories going back that far apart from what the 'elder races' left behind, but every race with even an oral history has some reference to the last dragonrise except humans and, curiously, asura (as far as I recall). Kodan, norn, charr, and tengu all have some manner of legend referencing the last dragonrise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It has been referenced many, MANY times that humans are not native to Tyria -- most recently by Raven in the Bjora maze trial when you have to choose between one of two books, one of which is a detailed history of Tyria BEFORE HUMAN ARRIVAL.

What's fuzzy is where exactly in Tyria's timeline humans arrived. The only thing we know for sure is that it was after the last dragonrise, which was about 10K years before the game present. The timeline on the wiki isn't very precise and leaves much open to speculation, as has been gone over in previous discussions...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline

For example, it says that the Six arrived in Cantha with humans in 786 BE. Yet the first place the Six set foot on Tyria was in Orr. That implies humans were not with the Six upon their first arrival in Orr. Much has been made of this and other points about the early history of humans in Tyria in other discussions; feel free to search.

As for the Six...

The original Six that came to Tyria included Dhuum and Abaddon, who were replaced by Grenth and Kormir; counting them, that makes a total of eight gods that we know have been physically present in Tyria. There are potentially three more "gods" we know about beyond those eight.

  1. Balthazar arrived in Tyria carrying his father's head, so we know he had a father who was beheaded (presumably by Balthazar) before Balthazar came to Tyria. It has also been implied that Balthazar took his power from a previous deity before coming to Tyria. Whether or not that deity and his father were the same being is an open question, but that's the simplest explanation fitting the available facts.

  2. Menzies was Balthazar's evil half-brother. It has been implied that Balthazar killed Menzies, presumably in retaliation for past shenanigans (re: GW1). But it's not clear if Menzies was really a "true" god or if he has ever been physically present in Tyria. He certainly has never appeared in either GW1 or GW2, though we have seen his Shadow minions. His exact relationship to Balthazar and Balthazar's deceased father is also unclear; their mother (or mothers if they had the same father) is unknown.

  3. Abaddon, before coming to Tyria, supposedly took his power from a previous deity named Arachne. But the line between history and legend regarding anything pre-Tyrian is blurry at best, so we'll just say the reference is there in game and leave it at that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Jimbru.6014" said:

  1. Abaddon, before coming to Tyria, supposedly took his power from a previous deity named Arachne. But the line between history and legend regarding anything pre-Tyrian is blurry at best, so we'll just say the reference is there in game and leave it at that.

While the previous deity being called Arachne is only present in game files and thus are secondary canon at best, it is explicitly stated in a quest that Abaddon had a predecessor whom he took his power from. With that particular quest probably being intended to foreshadow that Kormir would be able to claim his power in turn, I'm inclined to think that this part at least is solid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) What the gods are

There are a few interesting tidbits we've learned over the course of the game. As far as what the gods might be, we get this curious line when trying to scan Balthazar with Taimi's device during "Heart of the Volcano":

Scanner: No—life—detected. Only—magic—energy—present.

What's also interesting is this particular statement from Koss regarding Kormir's fate:

I risked my life many times for Kormir, but she got what every great warrior deserves. She died courageously.

If, in addition, we look at Balthazar's final moments in the cinematic of "To Kill a God", we see what almost looks like a golem or armor type of thing (e.g. how

looks like a helmet about to shatter with fire pouring out of the eye sockets rather than it being actual bone despite sharing skull-like features) disintegrating around him as the magic inside goes wild rather than showing a skeleton, organs etc. When his arm is torn off and shatters, we see a beam of magic shooting out but no veins, tissue, or bones. While it's possible that this was an artistic choice to reduce graphic imagery due to the game's rating, there may be more to this choice of imagery than that.

There's also the curious line from Kormir in the immediate aftermath of

:

Player: Kormir?
Kormir: No. Yes. Kormir. And much more.
Player: Abaddon?
Kormir: No. His power. His knowledge. But not him. His will is broken. There is a new god of secrets. There is a new day.

If we look at these lines with their descriptions as well as the cinematic of Balthazar's final moments, I theorize the following possibility: When a being becomes a deity, they sort of "cease to be" as they transform into something new resembling their old self to some extent with some added perks like blinding presence in front of mortals, superior powers etc. Kormir the mortal died during the sacrifice, only to emerge as a new being who seems to have consumed Abaddon's memories (the statement of Abaddon's will being broken is curious as it suggests that in some way that will still exists, although it could just be a poetic way of saying that Kormir has absorbed all of what was once Abaddon).

In essence, gods seem to be vessels that contain their unique magic, and apparently this magic can't (or at least couldn't in the past) be shared between them because they chose to imprison Abaddon with his full godhood (even if they divided that godhood behind several locks to weaken him) rather than outright taking his power. They also didn't store that divine power into any artifact, so apparently it needs a "living" vessel. Curiously the gods' avatars, and later Kormir, stated that the act of replacement requires a choice that only a mortal can make. If that vessel is damaged enough, the magic within it pours out in a violent manner, threatening everything around it, so it needs to be contained.

In Aurene's case we hear her reciting Balthazar's scriptures (which she shouldn't have any knowledge of because she had been busy fighting Awakened and Branded until then) to Zafirah upon her resurrection. This, along with Balthazar's sword reacting positively to her compared to Kralkatorrik, suggests to me that Aurene (due to proximity to "ground zero") may have absorbed Balthazar's soul in its entirety for the sword to treat her as its master rather than Kralky who otherwise had absorbed the lion's share of Balthy's magic.

2) Balthazar's divinity in GW2

As for Balthazar's godhood and whether Aurene is now the god of war, I'd argue that Balthazar in GW2 was not a god anymore. While we've had a statement from Jessica Price (who otherwise has had pretty lore-accurate statements) claiming that in planning stages of Season 4 Aurene was meant to become the new god of war and combine dragon energy and divine magic in harmony to balance the system, Tom Abernathy later stated that such was never the plan. So either Jessica Price misunderstood Tyrian cosmology and how the whole Abaddon and Dhuum saga had established specific rules for god replacement, or this issue was heavily debated (or misremembered; after all, there's the unfortunate lore issue in the Book of Vlast which claimed that Vlast had fought against Branded for generations which earned him a legendary reputation in Elona when Kralkatorrik had only been awake for a little over a decade, and somehow this lore discrepancy got past QA in the editing phase) within the Narrative Team during the rewrites of Season 4 story arc until the team members decided to go for the more ambiguous ending regarding the fate of Balthazar's divinity and whether Aurene had replaced him.

I for one prefer the more ambiguous ending regarding Balthazar's divinity because it supports other statements that suggest that Balthazar was no longer a god in GW2. A couple of sources:

Taimi: You're thinking about how he absorbed all that magic from the bloodstone, hm? I've been thinking about that too. Why does he need all that power? Is he sick?
Player: Someone once told me it was impossible to look upon the gods.
Taimi: Another data point to support that Balthazar isn't as powerful as he once was. It could be the frequency of his glowy godness has been reduced.
Marjory: Why didn't he just kill us outright? I mean...he's a god! We almost had him. If Kas hadn't... But, he's a god! He should have wiped us all out with a thought.
Player: I don't understand either. His power wasn't what I'd expected of a god. (Source)

Balthazar: They abated me, dimmed my light... But they will see me now. [...]Balthazar: I was weak... I'm feeling much better now. (Source)

Lady Kasmeer Meade: I—please excuse me, Goddess. Perhaps I wasn't clear—we can't hope to defeat Balthazar without the aid of the Six.
Rytlock Brimstone: Or the five. Balthazar is one of the Six.
Kormir: No. He isn't. Balthazar has been stripped of his claim and title. He is no longer one of the Six.
Player: Stripped of... He's in Tyria as we speak, leading an army. He claims to be the god of war. [...]
Kormir: We stripped him of his power, and chained him in the Mists. There he would remain, forever—powerless to carry out his plans.Story Journal: In response, the rest of the Six stripped Balthazar of his power and chained him in the Mists, where he remained until Rytlock unwittingly released him. Once freed, Balthazar set out to recover his lost power, defeat the Elder Dragons, and claim their magic for himself in order to take vengeance on the other gods for imprisoning him. (Source)

I doubt all of these sources would be erroneous as we learn similar stuff not only from Balthazar but his opponent Kormir, and Taimi and Marjory likewise have supporting statements speculating similar things.

First, a true god has a blinding effect on people as seen when we get the blinded effect upon interacting with Kormir whereas we never get this with either Balthazar or Dhuum (the latter being confirmed as a deposed aka former god). Granted, Abaddon wasn't blinding us either despite being a full god in GW1, but that could be explained because his original body had been destroyed while the prison kept his magic from going rampant and he formed a new monstrous body for himself from the Realm of Torment while trying to re-absorbed his sealed power (having already unlocked some of it in Nightfall) so he had not "regained" that blinding effect.

Second, Balthy mentions how his light had been dimmed. He also wasn't powerful enough to kill Marjory despite massacring several White Mantle a few months earlier whereas Dhuum was still able to nearly wipe the floor in battle against Seven Reapers, Desmina, and ten experienced raiders. And this was when Balthy had already absorbed the Maguuma Bloodstone's power which was already a significant power boost with some of its remaining "old school" magic, and some of the magic from Zhaitan and Mordremoth. Third, Kormir herself states that Balthy is no longer one of the Six as his claim, title and power had been stripped. The story journal for the mission likewise reaffirms Kormir's statements.

The way I understand it is that the gods were able to somehow transfer Balthazar's divinity (well, most of it) from him without killing him, thus reducing him to the power level of Dhuum at most. We still don't know why Grenth wasn't strong enough to kill Dhuum. Were his genetics as the half-god son of Dwayna preventing him from absorbing all of Dhuum's divinity upon his ascension and thus allowing Dhuum to continue existing as a sort of Anti-Grenth half-god version, or did Grenth possibly assault Dhuum without consulting with the other gods and didn't have their granted gift that Kormir had which would then prevent him from fully absorbing the power?

I believe that the avatars' statement of a "choice only a mortal can make" may in fact refer to an idea that a half-god can't fully replace a full god; a mortal with no divine ancestry is more of a blank slate to make this transfer more complete (think of it like a hard drive being half full of divine magic already rather than being completely empty and thus allowing all those terabytes/whatever to fill the void). Of course this theory does become problematic when we think about Balthazar and Menzies's parentage and if either or both of them were half-gods, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility that Balthy's predecessor may have been reduced in power to the level of a half-god upon Balthy's ascension and was then killed off. Dhuum could be a special case of "unkillable" former god, after all.

If the gods did in fact take away Balthy's divinity, though, we then run into an important story detail that's yet to be addressed (and why I found Jessica Price's possibly mistaken statements about Aurene being planned to become the new god of war troubling): we know from Balthazar and Abaddon's deaths that the unleashed divine power requires a vessel. If Balthazar was no longer a god, someone must've already replaced him in the pantheon, especially as Kormir referred to the current pantheon specifically as the Six rather than the Five: "He is no longer one of the Six." One could argue that this is simply ambiguous writing and that no longer being one of the Six implies that the current pantheon is simply the Five now. We know from dev statements and from Kormir's alternate line in S4Ep1 Daybreak trailer that the "Facing the Truth" instance went through several rewrites during the curious PoF rewrites that even led to the recording of newly written lines, so this line may have been more straightforward in the previous recording such as the alternate line we heard in Daybreak trailer that explained the gods' reason for abandoning Tyria more clearly than the shipped line in PoF.

But even if we go with the idea that the pantheon consisted of five gods after Balthy's imprisonment, it still begs the question what happened to Balthy's taken divinity. The gods supposedly can't take that power into themselves because they didn't just absorb Abaddon's power. Even if we go with the idea that they may have just wanted Abaddon to stay imprisoned for a few thousand years so he'd come to his senses and repent, we'd still have the question why they simply didn't lock Balthazar with his full power but simply seal that power behind multiple seals as they did with Abaddon. In fact, it's rather strange that we've been given no indication that the gods left anyone to guard Balthazar's prison unlike with Abaddon. They could've just asked a few of Glint's Forgotten allies to move over to the Mists to act as Balthy's jailers; I'm sure Josso Essher would've been okay with a few less acolytes to work on the Legacy project. The gods somehow didn't seem to be aware of or didn't believe in the Legacy project because they couldn't think of any good way to deal with the Elder Dragon dilemma when Glint and Josso already had some inkling of a plan on planting the seeds of a new Tyria with her scions as benevolent replacements. Oddly enough Glint herself had no idea what the gods were up to as she lamented in "Crystalline Memories", so are the Forgotten to blame for keeping info from both the gods and Glint while acting as those two parties' middlemen?

A logical answer, based on the lore of Grenth/Dhuum and Kormir/Abaddon (who had replaced a predecessor), would then be that the gods had already chosen a replacement who they'd bestow Balthy's magic on. One can wonder which person from GW1 times (or from before or after, depending on if spirits can also be granted the gift to take a god's power) would be deserving of such a title. I'd support the theory that one of the five hinted heroes of GW1 may have become the new deity of conflict to embody the more virtuous aspects of Balthy. The GW1 hero(es) had saved the world many times over, and we even get an emotional monologue from the GW1 Hero about how Reiko's manipulations had turned him/her jaded to heroism in general and that the Hero understood that he/she was a killer but was at least acknowledging that he/she would not become a "knight templar" hero like the Ministry of Purity who, in their quest to defeat evil in Cantha, resorted to increasingly evil acts that made them no different from the foes they wanted to destroy:

Player: Martyrdom only works if people know you were martyred. We didn't save your life only to have you throw it away and be deemed a traitor.
Player: Good people, human and Tengu alike, died so you could live. If you wish to make such a sacrifice for others, make sure you are not doing so frivolously.
Xin Ji: How can you sit there and tell me to do nothing while you take up arms against the Ministry of Purity? I know your history. You are a hero, you are...
Player: A killer? It isn't as noble when you say it like that, is it?
Player: I have slaughtered thousands simply because someone told me it was for a just cause. But something you'll learn over time is, everyone thinks their cause is just.
Player: The Ministry of Purity feels their cause is just. Reiko may be evil, but the men and women she has tricked into obeying her are as much victims as the rest of Cantha.
Player: So, yes, I kill them like the killer I am. And if they were given the chance, they would kill me like the killers they have become. But that does not mean I have to like it.
Xin Ji: So, what? The great hero of Cantha is to become a pacifist? You've suddenly grown a conscience after years of fighting wars, slaying beasts, and defeating armies?
Player: It is true. I have spent many years in combat and taken many lives. Each time I've felt that I have allowed good to triumph over evil...
Player: But now I see the Ministry of Purity. An army so intent on defeating evil that they have become the very thing they wished to eradicate.
Player: I looked at them and I saw myself. Gullible. Idealistic. Willing to do whatever was asked of me, so long as the intentions were good.
Player: Evil acts with good intentions are still evil acts, Xin Ji.
Player: Make sure that in your quest to destroy evil, you don't become it.

Then there are the Hero's arguments with Reiko during their final battle that show how the Hero has chosen not to be a pawn ever again:

Reiko: I think you've said quite enough. So what if he has furthered my ambition? The people need hope. They need a symbol to rally to. I gave them hope, and I gave them the will to fight. What have you offered them? You are just outsiders, meddling in the affairs of Cantha. You're just another problem for the Ministry of Purity to solve.
Player: That's enough. I believed in your cause at the start of this. I have gone to great lengths to make this world a safer place, and you have turned that against me. You have used the people of Cantha. You have used me.
Player: This ends now. I will not allow myself to be used as a pawn ever again, and I cannot allow you to use others. We're beyond the point of settling this with words. Show me the strengths of your beliefs!

That kind of emotional maturing, as well as the GW1 hero's sudden disappearance from Tyria when the world needed him/her the most (why did the Hero not go help Elona deal with Joko who the Sunspears already suspected of amassing an army until Koss and Lonai led their doomed crusade against the lich, or go help Ascalon to prevent the fall of the capital and the tragic effects of the Foefire dooming the nation's human population?), could be explained if one of these GW1 heroes had impressed the gods enough to become Balthy's successor. As shown with Kormir, the new deity would come to realize their responsibilities go beyond helping Tyria, and the Hero's absence would thus be understandable due to having greater duties elsewhere with the rest of the pantheon. The added benefit of using one of the five suggested Heroes would also leave it ambiguous enough for devs so the actual identity would never have to be defined; that way they can preserve players' RP in case players had already thought of their own fanon fates for their characters. As for how to solve the new deity's sex (as we had both female and male Heroes), they can go the route they did with the Luminate of the Exalted who has gender-neutral armor and whose voice sounds like a mix of male and female: just have the new deity of conflict adopt a new name fitting of a god(dess) of war and have them be fully armored so we can interpret them as either male or female. I, for one, can't see any other person from GW1 becoming Balthy's successor, and this would likewise solve the aforementioned problem of the Hero's absence. Perhaps the writers will go with this idea or introduce another candidate down the line; either way, it would be nice to lift the veil of secrecy a bit. :)

Interestingly the short story "Requiem: Zafirah" also seemed to suggest that Balthy may have already been replaced by a new deity when contrasting her earlier feelings with her actual meeting with the fallen Balthazar. If we look at the virtues that Atsu tells Zafirah, these would easily fit the virtues of what Balthy's successor (e.g. GW1 Hero) represents even though that successor never announced having replaced Balthazar (also take note how, unlike Balthy who craves conflict so much he'd wage war on the dragons, the way Atsu interprets the deity's tenets is about not killing for glory but securing the safety of many):

He told me Balthazar praises those who act.
Balthazar praises those who step forward, not back.
Balthazar praises those who do not hesitate, both in life and on the battlefield.
And most importantly, Balthazar praises those who can take a life to save others.
To the Zaishen, it's never about killing, but killing to secure safety for the many.
Not to wage wars, but to win wars.
Not to kill, but to protect. [...]
I felt Balthazar's presence that day. His power was there, all around me, guiding my hand. It had always been there, I realized—a shadow of a thought in the back of my mind. It wasn't until Atsu spoke to me in that cave high above the Desolation that I finally realized my true calling. [...]
I learned the words Balthazar spoke to us long ago, when he helped humanity conquer Ascalon. I learned to listen to his voice deep within me and spread it to those who could not hear him. [...]
The moment I saw him, I knew this was my god. I knew this was the one I had pledged my service to. The one who had given me my gift. The one who had brought purpose and meaning back to my life.
But something was wrong. He stood before me, tall and imposing, power radiating from his physical form...but this power was different from what I had felt all those years before. His voice dissonant from the one I heard within me. [...]
My faith is not in the god himself. His flesh, such as it was. My faith is in what he made me feel—his power, his potential. A potential that lived on in Aurene.

Given the timeline here (and Zafirah's age), it seems unlikely that Balthazar would've still been a member of the Six at the time, and thus Zafirah may have initially felt the presence of the successor without realizing it, while Balthy's return as a somewhat empowered shadow of his former self might make her mistake that voice, that essence of war, with that previous god of war. Would Balthy really have waited for over two centuries and allowed 4-5 Elder Dragons to awaken and assault Tyria, without doing something about it? It would seem more likely to me that Balthy's temper tantrum took place earlier than that, perhaps sometime after Zhaitan's awakening if not before...unless the idea is that Balthy's temper tantrum was really recent, and he had had enough conflict to entertain himself with Menzies etc. until eventual boredom kicked in and he shifted his focus on the dragons...while letting them destroy Tyria for centuries when he could've gone after their power so much earlier as Kormir's flashback showed how power-hungry he already was).

This, then, brings us back to the question of Aurene's "godhood." Given the suggestions above and the lore of Nightfall, I doubt she's become Balthazar's replacement as a god per se. However, she seems to have devoured his soul given her reciting his scriptures upon her resurrection and how the sword reacted positively to her, so in essence she has taken over what was left of Balthazar. There should (hopefully, given all the hints above) be a replacement for Balthazar out there, and perhaps we'll meet them and the rest of the gods one day as devs have said that the gods' story isn't over, and there are many ways to get them involved (such as the big mysteries about whether Lyssa or one of her two halves aided Balthazar in some manner, why she mocked Kormir for staying behind as revealed in Kormir's journal despite being presented as a great friend to humanity unless Kormir has somehow become an unreliable narrator and manipulator despite being the Goddess of Truth, why Balthy specifically didn't curse Lyssa in his final moments, and if the Mad Souls' prophecies about Kormir repeating the cycle Abaddon and potentially his predecessor had fallen victim to and becoming the downfall of the gods end up being true).

One more interesting bit about Balthazar's fall from grace and the fate of Menzies is the following line we get from a knowledgeable djinn who presents it as an intriguing theory. Given how we see the Shadow Army fighting in the Burning Forest part of Dragonfall, one wonders if Menzies could've survived Balthazar's wrath and let Balthy forcibly take the Forged (converted Eternals) to Tyria:

Inquisitive Djinn: Menzies is the Lord of Destruction and half-brother of Balthazar. With Balthazar's ousting, it is assumed Menzies controls the Fissure of Woe.

3) Humans as aliens and the potential first human kingdom

We do have a few in-game sources suggesting the gods, Forgotten and humans came from somewhere else, and some of these are from non-human sources such statements from Warden Illyra referring to the Forgotten returning to the Mists from whence they came, and Enduring Icicle referring to the Forgotten as the "beings from the gods' realm."

However, there have also been some dev interviews which have stated that humanity originates from somewhere in the Mists as well as a PoF promotion timeline article which imply such. Here are some I could find although I'm sure there are more statements out there:

786 BE: The Gods Arrive, and They Brought Friends
The Six Gods first appear in Cantha, bringing humanity with them. Like gardeners starting a new patch, they transplant human beings to this lush new world, working the soil and tending their seedbeds to ensure the new crop will take root, spread, and thrive. (Source)

Ree Soesbee: There have been a lot of questions about the Seers and their ancient war with the mursaat. Sadly, these aren’t questions we can answer at great length without giving away some very deep secrets of the Guild Wars world. I can say that they are one of the oldest races of Tyria, dating back long before the Gods brought the humans to the world; to the time of the writing of the Tome of Rubicon. (Source)

Jeff Grubb: The full story of the origin of the humans has yet to be revealed. They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world). It seems, from their previous appearances, that they have come up from the south, so the “human homeland” may be further south than Elona and Cantha. [...] The Dragons, as we said, have always been here. The gods predate the humans, but not by much. (Source)

What's also interesting about these statements, as well as from what we learn in in-game Factions and the "Empire Divided" article is that it's suggested that first the Canthans and later the Kurzick and Luxons arrived at Cantha at different points in time, but we've never learned where they actually came from per se beyond the Reaper and the Orrian history scrolls stating that the gods first brought humanity with them to Orr but then transported them elsewhere.

Even in Tyria, we humans have forgotten where we came from...literally. All that is known of the origin of the Tyrian human race is that our species appeared more than 1,200 years ago on the northern continent. Humans settled Cantha even earlier, however, and appear to have done so on multiple occasions during what Canthans call the Late Pre-Imperial Era. Even less is known about the origin of the Luxon and Kurzick peoples, who arrived on the continent after the tribes that would become modern Canthans settled the northwest coast and Shing Jea Island. The humans of Cantha may have actually originated on Shing Jea, though this has never been proven. (Source)

If we take into account Doern Velazquez's curious statements that suggest he's not from any of the known human kingdoms (while he's being oddly cagey about his place of origin in general), it's possible that he may originate from the original Tyrian homeland for humans somewhere beyond the ocean. It does beg the question why Doern would want to keep his homeland a secret.

Player: Are you from Kryta?
Doern: Kryta? No, no...I mean, yes! Of course. The human nation, right? Kryta. Yes.
Player: That sounds mighty suspicious. Cantha? You don't look Elonian...
Doern: That information is classified. Maybe we'll talk more about it one day. (Source)

If a fourth human continent (possibly with Hispanic influences given Doern's name; perhaps it could even use some of the scrapped GW1 Utopia expansion ideas that were left over when some of that stuff was repurposed for the asura) exists out there, why hasn't this kingdom tried to reach out to the other human kingdoms and instead we get a clandestine agent like Doern who prefers to keep it a secret from even the trusted Commander (even if they're in Whispers)? Why hasn't that hypothetical kingdom ever tried to help the rest of humanity in a major way, especially if all the human tribes that were transported to the world of Tyria first settled there with the gods (potentially)? Once the writers have explored Cantha in the upcoming expansion, this fourth human homeland and why it's remained secret from the rest of the world opens a nice story avenue for a future expansion or living world plot, perhaps even tying it to the gods' potential return as surely that land may have the most artifacts, records and such of the gods' actions in their earliest days on Tyria if in fact Canthans, Luxons and Kurzicks have originated from there (and if other ethnicities like Elonians etc. also hailed from there but have simply forgotten their ancient past somehow). Unless this is the land of the Sunbeam Throne, and the King of All Cats reigns supreme there with his human slaves...err, caretakers...

Now, where could this potential fourth human continent be as a sibling to Central Tyria, Elona and Cantha? If we look at the world map of Tyria found in the Priory or its cleaned-up and translated version in the wiki, we notice what look like naval trade routes between some port cities. The recognizable ports on the map are Lion's Arch (Central Tyria), Kamadan/Palawadan (Isle of Istan), Kaineng City (Cantha), and the (sunken but it could potentially rise from the depths again if devs so decide) Battle Isles' port. However, we see that a solitary, extended trade route continues west from the Battle Isles, stopping by locations called Sunken Islands and Sunrise Crest (the latter being a region containing a continent-size Wetland and Howling Peninsula as well as Arid which is either another continent or a really big island). I'd hazard a guess that Sunrise Crest, more than the way smaller Sunken Islands, would be Doern's homeland; sadly we know nothing whatsoever about these locations (or most of the regions in the full world map, for that matter, so most of the planet still remains unexplored to this day). I can't help but wonder what mysteries those locations hold, and what other lore humanity can still offer us beyond what we'll learn in Cantha. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Jimbru.6014" said:It has been referenced many, MANY times that humans are not native to Tyria -- most recently by Raven in the Bjora maze trial when you have to choose between one of two books, one of which is a detailed history of Tyria BEFORE HUMAN ARRIVAL.

What's fuzzy is where exactly in Tyria's timeline humans arrived. The only thing we know for sure is that it was after the last dragonrise, which was about 10K years before the game present. The timeline on the wiki isn't very precise and leaves much open to speculation, as has been gone over in previous discussions...Well, it is also a bit fuzzy there if it meant Tyria the world, or Tyria the continent. I mean, we know they arrived on the continent in 205 BE, well after they were on the world.

And a note about the dragonrise date: while some sources say 10,000 BE, others sources say "3,000 years ago" (which would be roughly the date given to Forgotten arrival on the world in the old timeline). The latter date is usually given around Glint's age/purification.

  1. Balthazar arrived in Tyria carrying his father's head, so we know he had a father who was beheaded (presumably by Balthazar) before Balthazar came to Tyria. It has also been implied that Balthazar took his power from a previous deity before coming to Tyria. Whether or not that deity and his father were the same being is an open question, but that's the simplest explanation fitting the available facts.It really hasn't been suggested Balthazar got his powers from actual lore. It's just a player deduction / theory based on how divinity is passed on and "must have a vessel" and Balthazar has a father / half-brother; if one presumes Balthazar wasn't born as a god, then he had to usurp someone even if born as a demigod like Grenth.

  2. Menzies was Balthazar's evil half-brother. It has been implied that Balthazar killed Menzies, presumably in retaliation for past shenanigans (re: GW1). But it's not clear if Menzies was really a "true" god or if he has ever been physically present in Tyria. He certainly has never appeared in either GW1 or GW2, though we have seen his Shadow minions. His exact relationship to Balthazar and Balthazar's deceased father is also unclear; their mother (or mothers if they had the same father) is unknown.Given that Menzies' goal is to usurp Balthazar, it seems most definite that Menzies is not a god - he would be, at best, a demi-god.

  3. Abaddon, before coming to Tyria, supposedly took his power from a previous deity named Arachne. But the line between history and legend regarding anything pre-Tyrian is blurry at best, so we'll just say the reference is there in game and leave it at that.As Drax mentioned, Arachnia (not Arachne, who was just a spider broodmother) is only mentioned in the gw.dat. And even that doesn't mention her as being Abaddon's predecessor.Her existence is semi-canon at best, and her being Abaddon's predecessor is pure player theory.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...