[SPOILERS... maybe] The passage of time for Tyrians

[voltaicbore.8012]

In the Ebonhawk DRM, both the female human player character and Crecia speak as if a mere ten years since the signing of the treaty is enough time to expect Ebonhawke human residents to be okay with seeing armed Charr walking about the city in force. Sure, they were there to help, but the characters act like it's totally backward and utterly unbelievable that folks in the city might feel a sense of alarm and distrust.

I feel it would be similarly wrong to expect a survivor of gun violence not to feel somewhat startled and uncomfortable seeing a firearm strapped very openly on an (American) police officer's belt. Sure, the officer might be there to help and has nothing to do with that person's trauma, but the effect is there all the same and I think it would be dumb to say "it's been 10 years since you got shot, get over it."

In my opinion, this was a terribly disappointing and narratively inferior dialogue choice. I think it would have been much better to have the characters express an understanding disappointment regarding the situation, without the judgment.

Anyone else feel the same? Different?

[Randulf.7614]

DIfferent cultures. Crecia is showing no tolerance for holding such old ideas so long after the cause because in her military mind it's long time to move on and it is obstructing her from protecting them and others. As she says, she Black Citdael - ie the Charr - would not feel this way if the table were turned so she doesn't expect or understand why humans have this emotional reaction. And that difference between Charr and humans is what they were highlighting.

They didn't get much right with this episode, but they got that spot on. Anything else would have made no sense

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Randulf.7614" said:DIfferent cultures. Crecia is showing no tolerance for holding such old ideas so long after the cause because in her military mind it's long time to move on and it is obstructing her from protecting them and others. As she says, she Black Citdael - ie the Charr - would not feel this way if the table were turned so she doesn't expect or understand why humans have this emotional reaction. And that difference between Charr and humans is what they were highlighting.

They didn't get much right with this episode, but they got that spot on. Anything else would have made no sense

EDIT: subsequent playthroughs changed my mind from when I posted this.

Hard disagree with you there.

I actually missed that comment from Crecia, which I admit does increase the narrative value of her judgmental comments. However, if it really was merely a "highlighting" of cultural differences, I think I should have noticed a more "try to understand" set of responses.

Instead, we get a lot of snide dismissal (Crecia sarcastically says something to the effect of "just look at how far we've come",) or apologetic sweeping aside (instead of telling Cre to actually, you know, think about how others feel, Kas/Commander just promise to try to get those silly backward Ebonhawke folks ready for her arrival).

To me, the balance is clearly, clearly tilted towards labeling any human discomfort in Ebonhawke regarding Charr as backwards and straight-up wrong. I'll give it another playthrough on several other characters, but as of yet I'm completely unconvinced by "oh it's just highlighting different cultures."

[deatine.2498]

@Randulf.7614 said:As she says, she Black Citdael - ie the Charr - would not feel this way if the table were turned so she doesn't expect or understand why humans have this emotional reaction.

We are not talking about the humans' reactions though, we're talking about Ebonhawke. Ebonhawke is comparatively tiny and stands alone in charr territory. It still had renegade charr attacking at the games for the last 10 years. Crecia belonged to the imperator who actually backed the renegades. Of course Ebonhawke is careful and stubborn.If Crecia were sitting in some hicktown between human and centaur territory, with human separatists attacking regularly because it's an easy target, she probably wouldn't welcome a human delegation with open arms, either.

[Randulf.7614]

We'll prob just have to disagree then. I fully agree with Crecia's sentiments. Ebonhawke's prejudices are in conflict with the idea of unifying the World against the Dragons. To the rest of the team, to other outsiders, it is perfetcly understandable to have an attitude of "get over it, there are bigger problems". Dragon Watch alone has experienced so much death and destruction at the hands of the Dragons, it would have been natural to be more like Crecia, but instead us and Kas choose the more diplomatic route of trying to bridge the gap whilst pushing them to put aside old hatreds.

Crecia and the Legions moved on and accepted the treaty years ago. Yes, Bangar kept the Renegades going and for the residents to be mistrusting is natural for the human settlers, but for a military leader of a different race who have long since moved on from the issue? I can totally understand her attitude. If Crecia had been sympathetic, it would have not fitted her character or the situation

[voltaicbore.8012]

@deatine.2498 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:As she says, she Black Citdael - ie the Charr - would not feel this way if the table were turned so she doesn't expect or understand why humans have this emotional reaction.

We are not talking about the

humans'

reactions though, we're talking about

Ebonhawke

. Ebonhawke is comparatively tiny and stands alone in charr territory. It still had renegade charr attacking at the games for the last 10 years. Crecia belonged to the imperator who actually backed the renegades. Of course Ebonhawke is careful and stubborn.If Crecia were sitting in some hicktown between human and centaur territory, with human separatists attacking regularly because it's an easy target, she probably wouldn't welcome a human delegation with open arms, either.

That's something I forgot to consider as well - Ebonhawke is an outlier, and has weathered renegade assaults before, during, and after the treaty process.

That being said, on my third playthrough, I finally got significantly more text/audio that showed me I wasn't getting the whole picture. Specifically, Kas asks for understanding of the Charr-uncomfortable folks, and there's a significant amount from Cre at the end noting that the treaty is, in fact, just a piece of paper, and that trust is what matters. None of that played in audio or the chat box on my first playthrough, and I stayed in the instance to make sure I didn't miss it/get the MP.

I still find it annoying that every single person you rally to fight is a Separatist, thereby indicating that only an extremist/sympathizer would not be totally fine with Charr military presence, and frankly I still cannot stomach the Commander's "ugh guys you're so gross, it's been TEN whole years since we signed a piece of paper so forget your history and ongoing struggles" tone. I'd sooner see my city burn than grovel for help from such people.

But credit where credit is due: the missing dialogue that I finally heard convinced me that ANet was attempting a less judgmental position than I initially thought.

Now I have to go repair my client. NPCs are cutting their own story dialogue off with chatter, and I'm getting a weird mix of audio dialogue with nothing in the chat box, and chat box without audio (although the latter happens all the time in other places as well). Pretty clear something might be up with my client.

[Teratus.2859]

Charr are not humans, for the most part they don't care about feelings, especially foolish and self harming ones (by their perspective)Randulf is correct that this is a cultural difference and there's plenty of that in race as well as between races, even in reality between nations etcCan't expect everyone to think and feel the same way.. that wouldn't be a good thing at all and would cheapen the world.

What would be the point of having Charr, Human, Sylvari, Norn, Asura, Grawl, Hylek, Kodan, Tengu etc etc if they were all the same?Their differences is what makes the whole working together thing so interesting.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Teratus.2859 said:Charr are not humans, for the most part they don't care about feelings, especially foolish and self harming ones (by their perspective)Randulf is correct that this is a cultural difference and there's plenty of that in race as well as between races, even in reality between nations etcCan't expect everyone to think and feel the same way.. that wouldn't be a good thing at all and would cheapen the world.

What would be the point of having Charr, Human, Sylvari, Norn, Asura, Grawl, Hylek, Kodan, Tengu etc etc if they were all the same?Their differences is what makes the whole working together thing so interesting.

You completely missed the point. I wasn't taking issue with the fact that there are differences. I had a problem with what I thought was the writing very clearly judging (quite negatively, I might add) the Ebonhawke skeptics for being different from Crecia. Several subsequent playthroughs showed I was missing a lot of dialogue on my first playthrough, and it turns out ANet wasn't being quite as judgmental as I thought. That being said, there's still a remarkable lack of sympathy for a people who live as a minority far from their home civilization, as refugees suffering generations of physical attack from people who don't want them there. I find that to be a poor narrative choice.

[Teratus.2859]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Charr are not humans, for the most part they don't care about feelings, especially foolish and self harming ones (by their perspective)Randulf is correct that this is a cultural difference and there's plenty of that in race as well as between races, even in reality between nations etcCan't expect everyone to think and feel the same way.. that wouldn't be a good thing at all and would cheapen the world.

What would be the point of having Charr, Human, Sylvari, Norn, Asura, Grawl, Hylek, Kodan, Tengu etc etc if they were all the same?Their differences is what makes the whole working together thing so interesting.

You completely missed the point. I wasn't taking issue with the fact that there are differences. I had a problem with what I thought was the writing very clearly judging (quite negatively, I might add) the Ebonhawke skeptics for being different from Crecia.

Why?.. that's perfectly in line with a Charr attitude and Crecia's personality.It would have been completely out of character for her to have set aside her own opinions to consider their feelings.. Charr rarely do this in general, especially Soldiers.. it's considered a weakness that could get them killed.In her eyes the people were being stupid and bigoted and risking their lives based on foolish feelings.I would completely expect a Charr of all people to criticise that, even mock it.. which is what she did.

That being said, there's still a remarkable lack of sympathy for a people who live as a minority far from their home civilization, as refugees suffering generations of physical attack from people who don't want them there. I find that to be a poor narrative choice.

It's not really that far.. sure location wise it is but the two cities are connected via a direct Asura gate.. anyone can go between cities as they please really.

It's well known now that Ascalon lands belong to the Charr, Humans were the original invaders and drove them out. (thanks to Balthazar I think who encouraged them to fight the beasts in the North and take their lands)In the Charr's eyes they were completely justified in their war on humans and taking back their lands.They saw humans as invaders, as monsters who would skin their kind and wear their skin as armour (humans legitimately did that).And Humans saw Charr as savage beasts who would slaughter them and eat them (Charr legitimately did that too).Both sides did horrible things to one another in the many long years they were at war.

But that war is over now and the Charr have largely accepted that and moved on outside of a few radical factions like the Renegades which the Legions have completely disavowed, declared enemies of the legion's and actively aided in wiping them out for years.Add to that Bangar's recent uprising and aiming to bring back the Glory days of the Charr.. another radical Charr faction that the Charr went to war with to destroy.If you had spent a decade fighting your own kind, watching friends and bandmates die to uphold a treaty with people who then when under attack would rather spend their time worrying about you coming to help them and not trusting you then yeah.. you would also think they're acting like foolish idiots who would rather let their own people die than allow you, their official ally.. to enter their city and help them.You'd also be pretty offended to realise that everything you have done to uphold that peace treaty made no difference to these people because they still don't trust you or want you in their city after 10 years of peace and co-operation, (Human and Charr soldiers have been fighting enemy factions together since the treaty was signed)

I'm not saying there isn't any justifications for how the humans felt after all those years having do deal with Renegades and Charr like Bangar.. not to mention Human Separatists as well.But to expect the Charr to care about those feelings is way too much to ask.. especially after this much time has passed.The Charr moved on.. Humans didn't.It's easy for a human to say the Charr should care about how humans feel after their violent history.But then it would also be fair for a Charr to say Humans should move on and get over it already.

Neither of them is right or wrong to think or feel that way.

[Weindrasi.3805]

I'm not sure why people would have an issue with this. Crecia is a charr, and a charr from Blood Legion at that. The charr are trained to shut up their emotions and do what's best for the military--to function like a well-oiled machine. Of course Crecia, as someone from that culture, is going to scoff at the humans' emotions getting in the way of them surviving a battle. Blood Legion culture is even more extreme in this direction--their soldiers have less patience and shorter tempers on average. Honestly, for Blood Legion, Crecia is incredibly restrained and level headed (probably traits she learned during her childhood years in Flame Legion)--but she's still a Charr soldier, and should still be portrayed as such.I also don't see the connection being made between Crecia acting judgmental = Anet is judgmental. Crecia and the Ascalonians are characters in the story Anet is writing... their goal is to portray believable characters within the world they've established, not "judge" a segment of those characters as if they were real people against whom there is a grudge.

[Zola.6197]

I really did not get the impression Ebonhawke was being portrayed as “backwards.” It makes sense in fiction for them to be wary of Charr given the long history of conflict between them. It’s not as simple as just getting over it when you still live in it every day. I’d imagine a place like Ebonhawke on average would be more prejudiced against Charr for that reason. Doesn’t make it “right” but it does make sense when your city/surrounding lands has domestic Charr terrorists lurking about (renegades). I imagine a lot of separatists hail from FoR over someplace like DR.

Crecia isn’t wrong though, either. And yes, the interaction does highlight some cultural traits ingrained in her as a Charr.

I feel like Kasmeer helped paint a pretty balanced picture, gently but firmly rejecting the notion that their fear was entirely unfounded. It didn’t feel one sided to me at all.

But let’s face it, they’re gonna have to get over it eventually. This is another step toward that.

[Danikat.8537]

@Randulf.7614 said:DIfferent cultures. Crecia is showing no tolerance for holding such old ideas so long after the cause because in her military mind it's long time to move on and it is obstructing her from protecting them and others. As she says, she Black Citdael - ie the Charr - would not feel this way if the table were turned so she doesn't expect or understand why humans have this emotional reaction. And that difference between Charr and humans is what they were highlighting.

They didn't get much right with this episode, but they got that spot on. Anything else would have made no sense

I agree with all of this, but I also think if the Black Citadel was under attack and Crecia proposed asking the Ebon Vanguard to help protect it her idea wouldn't be accepted as easily as she seems to think and she might be surprised (and frustrated) at some of the responses. It wouldn't surprise me if a very vocal minority was opposed to her idea. I think the reasons they'd give would be different - probably claiming human soldiers can't possibly be as strong, disciplined or experienced as charr and couldn't contribute anything meaningful - but the end result would be the same.

We've seen a bit of that during the charr civil war, Crecia often had similar frustrations with other charr clinging to attitudes she thinks are out-dated and irrelevant or acting based on what she saw as an emotional response instead of common sense or military practicality. Look at the issues they've had integrating the Flame Legion, and the civil war itself. I think Crecia is sometimes a bit of an exception in insisting everyone should move on from the past, but she sees herself as doing and saying what's obviously best for everyone and therefore assumes anyone with any common sense will agree.

Sometimes that attitude can be an advantage, but sometimes, especially when dealing with people who are not ready to hear it that bluntly and be told they don't have time to think about it (even if that is for a very good reason, like destroyers are attacking) I think she needs to take a step back and accept that you can't force people to share your opinions and a bit of tact would go a long way.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Svennis.3852" said:

Crecia isn’t wrong though, either. And yes, the interaction does highlight some cultural traits ingrained in her as a Charr.

Exactly. I never said she was wrong about the need to move on, and as many have stated, it's not at all unusual or unexpected for a Charr to give the utmost priority to strategic needs. After all, the fahrar system places military indoctrination into the Legions over basic family ties, so I get that Crecia would see things the way she does.

I feel like Kasmeer helped paint a pretty balanced picture, gently but firmly rejecting the notion that their fear was entirely unfounded. It didn’t feel one sided to me at all.

This was a piece of dialogue I was missing from both the chat box and audio on my first playthrough. I finally got to hear it on my third run through on a different character, and I agree it very much softened the divide. I had to repair my client afterwards, and it appeared in all subsequent run-throughs without issue.

I just think it was a poor choice to have the Commander unquestioningly wag a finger at Ebonhawke in that tone of shallow exasperation, as if there was absolutely no reasonable justification for people to feel that way. The Commander doesn't have to be a master diplomat and orator, but they also don't have to be crassly naive either - I think that line was exactly the latter.

As this thread shows though, it seems so far most of you guys didn't really have a reaction to that line from the Commander, so I'll consider myself the outlier here. Thanks for the responses!