All or Nothing: Requiem: Zafirah's Story {discussion}

[Michram.6853]

https://www.guildwars2.com/narrative/en_zafirah.html

[Fenom.9457]

Not as much to speculate on the future of the game as there was from rytlock’s, but still very interesting. Helped the character a lot

[ThatOddOne.4387]

Balthazar being different in person to what Zafirah felt of him is the most interesting bit of it, really.

[Mickey Frogeater.1470]

Something was speaking to Zafirah during her prayers and it wasn't Balthazar! Whatever it was had a deep voice that was different from the voice of Balthazar(she mentions a dissonance between Balthazar's voice and the voice in herself)... Grenth and Balthazar's replacement whoever that is has left to find a new world so it can't be them... What entity with a deep voice seeks decisiveness and the willingness to act and the ability to bless her with excellent aim?

There are many spirits and hidden Tyrians that could communicate with Zafirah during her history... Even Mister E could be a candidate for the voice... His voice is deep.

[Loesh.4697]

So! I have a lot of thoughts on this story personally, since I am a human player of the Ascalonian variety and I also have a lot of cultural background with things like this. I personally am Vietnamese, and for those of you who are not familiar with the culture, by and large the majority religion in Vietnam is made up of a number of household spirits, gods, and goddesses, much like the humans of Tyria we are polytheistic with a large number of different deities representing things like war, or various aspects of nature. So for that reason i'v often been critical of faith in the Guild Wars 2 universe, especially with how the deities in the series are presented and how their followers are translated into the game.

I was pretty harsh on Path of Fire when it came out, and in many ways i'm still pretty harsh on the expansion. The way that it portrayed Balthazar as a god of war, if a stripped and disgraced god, never really sat right with me and felt a lot more one dimensional then his Guild Wars 1 presentation. One of my fondest memories of Guild Wars 1 was learning about Balthazar's duality as a god of peace as well as war from House Vasberg, while i'v always loved Lyssa the most of the Pantheon first and foremost Balthazar became a close second because of that. I am hardly the first person to point out that Balthazar and his followers in PoF were shallow and one dimensional, akin more to cackling cartoon antagonists then actual characters with none of that duality in his character expressed. That being the duality of being a protector, as well as destroyer, to hurt in order to heal, to be courageous in the defense of others.

For awhile I was actually very cynical of this aspect of the story, it was a critique that was leveled at Arenanet multiple times over the last year but they never really seemed to respond to or explore this critique. Then comes in Zafirah last episode and I thought for sure that she was going to be a tool used to hammer home how evil Balthazar and the Zaishan were, to an extent that has still happened, but there is a level of nuance and complexity to her faith that is worth exploring. Personally, she's one of my favorite, if not just my favorite character to come out of Guild Wars 2 since it...well, since it started. For a time I was worried that Guild Wars 2 would fall into the common trap of portraying religion as this all consuming evil, devoid of virtue and only defined by vice and corruption, for awhile it seemed like humanity was just going to be a punching bag to hammer out a hamfisted message about spirituality.

However the way Zafirah describes her tenants, the Zaishan she knew, and how she interpreted that faith really hit home to me. That notion that whatever Balthazar had become, the idea of Balthazar was good, that the faith he had created was virtuous, and that the people within it were not some uniform mass of evil raiders bent on pillaging the world for some nebulous plan that would obliterate Tyria. There is something appealing in the idea that even as the world falls apart, the virtues that the Church of Balthazar taught still hold true for her, that the power she felt was real and good, that she would not break in her beliefs just because of the hardship that she has endured.

I certainly want to see more of that.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:Balthazar being different in person to what Zafirah felt of him is the most interesting bit of it, really.

It's kind of as if they're backstepping from the spoiled manchild depiction shown in Facing the Truth, though that would also mean that Balthazar's fall from grace was a lot more recent than implied before.

Or they're implying that the being who's been blessing humans in war is not Balthazar, despite following the same teachings as pre-fall Balthazar and humans not knowing them, thus resulting in humans thinking it was Balthazar.

@Mickey Frogeater.1470 said:Something was speaking to Zafirah during her prayers and it wasn't Balthazar! Whatever it was had a deep voice that was different from the voice of Balthazar(she mentions a dissonance between Balthazar's voice and the voice in herself)... Grenth and Balthazar's replacement whoever that is has left to find a new world so it can't be them... What entity with a deep voice seeks decisiveness and the willingness to act and the ability to bless her with excellent aim?

There are many spirits and hidden Tyrians that could communicate with Zafirah during her history... Even Mister E could be a candidate for the voice... His voice is deep.

Plenty of humans have mentioned feeling gifts from the gods, despite the gods having left for a new world long ago, not just folks like Zafirah with Balthazar. So it could be Balthazar's replacement.

Also, it doesn't seem to be a literal voice, and Mister E seems to be 100% human based on lore from Head of the Snake.

[PseudoNewb.5468]

She stood in front of those weaker than herself. She died protecting the commander. Protecting us.

I don't know why Zafirah would exactly know this detail, maybe the Commander has told her so. Not sure that statement is a direct reference to Kralk's final attack, but I think it is, and it confirms something I noticed something after studying last episode's end scene. Kralkatoric was seemingly targeting the Commander with that final blast before Aurene stepped in between. In that scene Aurene starts to the left, but jumps back. While doing so Kralk's gaze remains fixed, seemingly on the Commander. Aurene, re enters the scene on the right side, presumably making a lap around the Commander and failing to draw Kralk's attention. With Kralk still charging his attack towards the commander, she finally steps forwards to perform her own attack that finally diverts Kralk's attention to her and away from the commander.

What exactly this means? I am not so certain. Some people think Kralk left because Aurene died and was no long a threat to him, but I am not so sure. It is still maddening, because Kralk, while initially targeting to kill the commander, is afterwards, depicted as backing away and leaving the fainting Commander alone. Even if his destroyed eye socket is bleeding all over the place, I can't imagine him not being able to take one last chomp at the commander.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@PseudoNewb.5468 said:

She stood in front of those weaker than herself. She died protecting the commander. Protecting us.

I don't know why Zafirah would exactly know this detail, maybe the Commander has told her so.

She was on the second platform which had a good viewing distance of the third (which got destroyed) and where the Commander and Aurene went to finish him off. She, Logan, Rox, and Bottica were in the best seats of the house, so to speak. Not the target, and in good view of the final climactic battle. The only question would be "would Kralkatorrik's big arse head be in the way of watching" (and if they could see, why didn't they lay suppressing fire)?

Though it's probable that the Commander explained what happened shortly after the "I don't know."

@PseudoNewb.5468 said:Not sure that statement is a direct reference to Kralk's final attack, but I think it is, and it confirms something I noticed something after studying last episode's end scene. Kralkatoric was seemingly targeting the Commander with that final blast before Aurene stepped in between. In that scene Aurene starts to the left, but jumps back. While doing so Kralk's gaze remains fixed, seemingly on the Commander. Aurene, re enters the scene on the right side, presumably making a lap around the Commander and failing to draw Kralk's attention. With Kralk still charging his attack towards the commander, she finally steps forwards to perform her own attack that finally diverts Kralk's attention to her and away from the commander.

What exactly this means? I am not so certain. Some people think Kralk left because Aurene died and was no long a threat to him, but I am not so sure. It is still maddening, because Kralk, while initially targeting to kill the commander, is afterwards, depicted as backing away and leaving the fainting Commander alone. Even if his destroyed eye socket is bleeding all over the place, I can't imagine him not being able to take one last chomp at the commander.

It's an interesting observation. Thinking on it, I recognized that but didn't really put significance to it. In theory, if he failed to spot Aurene, then killing the Commander would be the next best thing for Kralk to do since the Commander is Aurene's champion. If Vlast could figure it out just by briefly meeting the Commander or something, then Kralkatorrik probably could too.

Another possibility is that Kralkatorrik targeted the Commander because he knew Aurene could just fly around and dodge his attacks as she had been doing the entire time before, while the Commander couldn't. Forcing her to defend the Commander would effectively immobilize her, thus allowing him to easily target and overpower her.

[PseudoNewb.5468]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Another possibility is that Kralkatorrik targeted the Commander because he knew Aurene could just fly around and dodge his attacks as she had been doing the entire time before, while the Commander couldn't. Forcing her to defend the Commander would effectively immobilize her, thus allowing him to easily target and overpower her.

Good point. But does that mean that Kralkatorrick has knowledge and understanding of Aurene's compassion and emotional foundations? In order to formulate such a plan, he would have to have much more knowledge of the things beyond himself. Which is quite interesting considering how he is portrayed. I wouldn't expect him to have such tactical... Wait, he has the gift of prophecy. He doesn't need to understand why Aurene would voluntarily immobilize herself to protect the Commander, he just knows it will happen.

I wonder if that encompasses Kralks being, tracing and fulfilling the lines of prophecy without having the types of intelligence and knowledge to understand the full depths of causality in the chain of events he lays out. It would be an interesting "defect" of the dragon.

[ThatOddOne.4387]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:Balthazar being different in person to what Zafirah felt of him is the most interesting bit of it, really.

It's kind of as if they're backstepping from the spoiled manchild depiction shown in Facing the Truth, though that would also mean that Balthazar's fall from grace was a lot more recent than implied before.

Or they're implying that the being who's been blessing humans in war is not Balthazar, despite following the same teachings as pre-fall Balthazar and humans not knowing them, thus resulting in humans thinking it was Balthazar.

Yeah, the timeline doesn’t quite add up. Zafirah’s faith was found whilst Balthazar was very much chained up in the Mists and depowered, so I’m thinking and hoping it’s Balthazar’s replacement imparting the same blessings. The new God might have different opinions to Balthazar but is not there to pass them on so whilst they are still handing out the same blessings the ones receiving them are attributing Balthazar’s teachings to them, like you suggest.

[Mickey Frogeater.1470]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:Plenty of humans have mentioned feeling gifts from the gods, despite the gods having left for a new world long ago, not just folks like Zafirah with Balthazar. So it could be Balthazar's replacement.

Also, it doesn't seem to be a literal voice, and Mister E seems to be 100% human based on lore from Head of the Snake.

Are we even sure the Gods were ever the source of these gifts? For all we know something else was blessing Tyrians with it's power since the beginning and the Gods starting with Balthazar(who led the invasion of Tyria on behalf of Humanity long ago) stole the credit!

[ThatOddOne.4387]

We do know the Gods are the source of the gifts. Whether by intention or not, it seems to be more a case of Divine magic “imprinting” on humans then humans attributing the teachings of the Gods to the gift when it’s discovered.

On a side note these gifts MIGHT be what allows humans to stand up to other races as it were, some supernatural ability in a specific thing that gives them an edge.

[Mickey Frogeater.1470]

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:We do know the Gods are the source of the gifts. Whether by intention or not, it seems to be more a case of Divine magic “imprinting” on humans then humans attributing the teachings of the Gods to the gift when it’s discovered.

On a side note these gifts MIGHT be what allows humans to stand up to other races as it were, some supernatural ability in a specific thing that gives them an edge.

All I remember is Abaddon gifting Humans with Magic... And said Magic turning out to come from the Bloodstone which was gathered by Seers.

[ThatOddOne.4387]

Unless it's been a lie throughout all of the source material - Which I doubt and would also object to, then we know that the smaller 'gifts' are different from the general "Magic being gifted to humans" by the Gods which we now understand to on some level to be inaccurate.

One thing that just hit me is Zafirah's comment about Kralkatorrik getting ready to 'brand the entire world'. It's probably just her own despair talking, but still.

[kasoki.5180]

Can someone provide a link to those post-departure gifts of gods? I don't remember anything like that mentioned in the game

[ThatOddOne.4387]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Biography#Race_questions

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prayer_to_Dwayna

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prayer_to_Lyssa

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prayer_to_Kormir

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Avatar_of_Melandru

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hounds_of_Balthazar

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper_of_Grenth

When norn racials have a tangible benefit and effect related to what they are called, I don't think you can really get away with calling the above "Just magic" when a norn's beast form is specifically influenced by which Spirit of the Wild they prefer. Every other race's racials are specifically related to an aspect of their race so why would the human ones not be?

This is particularly relevant for the last three, which are all ultimates that all humans regardless of profession can access.

[perilisk.1874]

It will be interesting if we ever have a meeting with Z and Z at the same time.

Also, for some reason I feel like this story has the most relevance to the title "War Eternal". That whatever "good" essence she felt is the eternal part of the divine principle of war, rather than the temporary vessel of Balthazar. So, good news, bad news. Good news -- they'll probably resolve the question of who is the god of the war in the next episode. Bad news -- they'll probably make it Crystal Dragon Je-- Aurene, and thus create lots of lore issues .

[ugrakarma.9416]

@Loesh.4697 said:So! I have a lot of thoughts on this story personally, since I am a human player of the Ascalonian variety and I also have a lot of cultural background with things like this. I personally am Vietnamese, and for those of you who are not familiar with the culture, by and large the majority religion in Vietnam is made up of a number of household spirits, gods, and goddesses, much like the humans of Tyria we are polytheistic with a large number of different deities representing things like war, or various aspects of nature.

This is fascinating.

[ThatOddOne.4387]

@ugrakarma.9416 said:

@"Loesh.4697" said:So! I have a lot of thoughts on this story personally, since I am a human player of the Ascalonian variety and I also have a lot of cultural background with things like this. I personally am Vietnamese, and for those of you who are not familiar with the culture, by and large the majority religion in Vietnam is made up of a number of household spirits, gods, and goddesses, much like the humans of Tyria we are polytheistic with a large number of different deities representing things like war, or various aspects of nature.

This is fascinating.

It is! In terms of a fantasy setting polytheistic gods are the most interesting to me because they will have characters and personalities of their own. This is largely why I look dimly on attempts to peddle the "religion is bad" storyline that so many games and fantasy settings are eager to do these days, and I continue to hope ArenaNet will avoid it when it comes to the human gods.

(fingers crossed for rurik new god of war boys....)

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Loesh.4697 said:I was pretty harsh on Path of Fire when it came out, and in many ways i'm still pretty harsh on the expansion. The way that it portrayed Balthazar as a god of war, if a stripped and disgraced god, never really sat right with me and felt a lot more one dimensional then his Guild Wars 1 presentation. One of my fondest memories of Guild Wars 1 was learning about Balthazar's duality as a god of peace as well as war from House Vasberg, while i'v always loved Lyssa the most of the Pantheon first and foremost Balthazar became a close second because of that. I am hardly the first person to point out that Balthazar and his followers in PoF were shallow and one dimensional, akin more to cackling cartoon antagonists then actual characters with none of that duality in his character expressed. That being the duality of being a protector, as well as destroyer, to hurt in order to heal, to be courageous in the defense of others.

I would argue that what Balthazar did was to protect Tyria. It's just that his method was perceived to be unacceptable.

If you are one of the gods who has the duty to protect Tyria saw that the rest of your order choose to leave instead of to save, I'd be furious also, in fact I am furious. I'm really disappointed that Dwayna, Grenth, Melandru, especially Lyssa would turn their back on Tyria. Balthazar did what he thought was necessary in order to do everything by himself. The other gods stripped him of powers, so it makes sense that he has to get it from somewhere. If he can gain power and at the same time kill Primo then it's killing two birds with one stone. The whole thing that Balthazar did is pure desperation. He believes that he's running out of time that some sacrifices needed to be made and he won't allow a mortal to stop him from doing what is necessary in order to save Tyria. The Dev did poorly in conveying this message, but Balthazar's action is proof enough, at least for me, that his intention was to save Tyria.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@PseudoNewb.5468 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Another possibility is that Kralkatorrik targeted the Commander because he knew Aurene could just fly around and dodge his attacks as she had been doing the entire time before, while the Commander couldn't. Forcing her to defend the Commander would effectively immobilize her, thus allowing him to easily target and overpower her.

Good point. But does that mean that Kralkatorrick has knowledge and understanding of Aurene's compassion and emotional foundations? In order to formulate such a plan, he would have to have much more knowledge of the things beyond himself. Which is quite interesting considering how he is portrayed. I wouldn't expect him to have such tactical... Wait, he has the gift of prophecy. He doesn't need to understand why Aurene would voluntarily immobilize herself to protect the Commander, he just knows it will happen.

I wonder if that encompasses Kralks being, tracing and fulfilling the lines of prophecy without having the types of intelligence and knowledge to understand the full depths of causality in the chain of events he lays out. It would be an interesting "defect" of the dragon.

Edge of Destiny explicitly calls out Kralkatorrik as being calculating, and constantly changes tactics once noticing they're not working. So being tactical is actually par the course since Day 1 of knowing about him in detail.

@Mickey Frogeater.1470 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Plenty of humans have mentioned feeling gifts from the gods, despite the gods having left for a new world long ago, not just folks like Zafirah with Balthazar. So it could be Balthazar's replacement.

Also, it doesn't seem to be a literal voice, and Mister E seems to be 100% human based on lore from Head of the Snake.

Are we even sure the Gods were ever the source of these gifts? For all we know something else was blessing Tyrians with it's power since the beginning and the Gods starting with Balthazar(who led the invasion of Tyria on behalf of Humanity long ago) stole the credit!

Even if we ignore the references to the human biography option thrown into PoF to signify that those were indeed blessings from the gods, we also have the avatars of GW1 granting blessings to those who give offerings, and we have Lyssa's Muse's final speech in Nightfall, as well as the official website stating: "When your human character increases in level, they will gain access to a range of special racial skills granted to them by the Six Gods, such as summoning fearsome Hounds of Balthazar or beseeching the healing goddess Dwayna to restore your health." An explanation of the racial skills being confirmed as blessings and answered prayers by the gods.

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:I would argue that what Balthazar did was to protect Tyria. It's just that his method was perceived to be unacceptable.

Balthazar disagrees with your argument:

Balthazar: Your kind will not stop my campaign.Pact Commander: Balthazar! What you're doing... You'll destroy Tyria!Balthazar: Your home is a trivial concern.Balthazar: They abated me, dimmed my light... But they will see me now.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Volcano_(story)

Balthazar: Cowards. You may flee, but I will not. I do not avoid conflict... I am conflict.Balthazar: The Elder Dragons will die by my hands...and their power will become my power.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Facing_the_Truth

He no longer cared about Tyria and humans. He only wanted battle and revenge.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:I would argue that what Balthazar did was to protect Tyria. It's just that his method was perceived to be unacceptable.

Balthazar disagrees with your argument:

Balthazar: Your kind will not stop my campaign.Pact Commander: Balthazar! What you're doing... You'll destroy Tyria!Balthazar: Your home is a trivial concern.Balthazar: They abated me, dimmed my light... But they will see me now.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Volcano_(story

)

Balthazar: Cowards. You may flee, but I will not. I do not avoid conflict... I am conflict.Balthazar: The Elder Dragons will die by my hands...and their power will become my power.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Facing_the_Truth

He no longer cared about Tyria and humans. He only wanted battle and revenge.

The Narrative Team is full of contradictions.

The gods have already shown that they have no power to destroy Tyria even if they try. Their war against Abaddon, the war between Balthazar and Menzie, and the war between Grenth and Dhuum are proof of that. At this point, I would say that Kormir is full of kitten unconvincingly trying to use Abaddon as an excuse not to intervene. The Desolation is but a small area compare to the rest of Tyria. So the commander saying that Balthazar would destroy Tyria is over exaggeration. Even the Elder Dragons could not destroy Tyria.

If you look at Balthazar's response; "Your home is a trivial concern", he did not say "Tyria is a trivial concern".

He didn't even acknowledge that he's capable of destroying Tyria because he knows he can't. Instead, he correctly responded that the commander is not concern about Tyria as a whole, rather the commander is only concern about his home, thus he replied appropriately.

In the Facing the Truth, the council of the gods was to decide whether to battle the ED or not. Now why are they discussing that if the goal is not to save Tyria? When the other gods refused, Balthazar called them cowards. He only craved for power because the other gods have stripped him of his power, which showed his desperation.

The GW2 Episodes and the Expansion might not have addressed this, but Balthazar loves the humans. He enjoyed when humans battle in the Arena and many other things. He was the one who gifted the humans with Sohothin and Magdaer. The whole Path of Fire expansion showed that he didn't even bothered the humans nor create an army of humans. Yes there were humans who followed him in his desert campaign, but those are the ones who voluntarily do so. He could've easily forced Amnoon to rally under his flag if he wanted, but didn't, instead he used the souls of the dead and literally "forged" his own army. His actions shows that he wanted to preserve the humans however he can.

"It was Balthazar who urged humanity to engage the other races in battle and claim the world for themselves, believing the other races would fall easily."(https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar)

[ugrakarma.9416]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The Narrative Team is full of contradictions.

Sorry buddy this just reinforces Koning's point.That Balthazar's GW1 is not the same (in terms of personality) of GW2. Unfortunately it is what is there, whether from the point of view of the narrative is something contradictory or strange with previous lore, is another discussion. What we can not infer is that we are misunderstanding what he said and the narrative given to him in GW2, which is quite clear: he does not care more about Tyria.

But being the devil's advocates, what I find contradictory is that he takes care of hiding the last aspect of lazarus(and very well hidden behind rooms fulls of traps on a Abbadon reliquary). Did he mind a mursaat resuscitate because he still cared for Tyria or some selfish motive (accepting the narrative that he is full selfish now)?

[Loesh.4697]

Konig and Ugra more eloquently put together what I was going to say. When I dove into Guild Wars 2 lore, some of the first things I started to leaf through was the ecology of the Charr and the war between humanity and them, one of those things added onto the story was of course Balthazars personality as someone pushing for war with the Charr(...Though, to be perfectly honest I don't think that's strictly a bad thing as before the last hundred years the Charr were kind of jerks.) and then we had living world season 3 episode 6 playing literal devils advocate for Abaddon. I caught on rather fast that the nuance I wanted from the gods in Guild Wars 2 might not necessarily be a thing that would happen.

Heck I remember this very concern being raised in the lead up to Path of Fire and Galie Grey rather snarkily saying "Well, I never liked him anyway." which was oof, felt bad for those people who chose Balthazar as their patron god.

Don't get me wrong, I like GW2s storytelling more then pretty much any other MMO on the market right now, but it's portrayal of religion succeeds as often as it fails, and it really floundered in PoF. Kasmeer was not the insight into faith that I had hoped her to be, but Zafirah is at the very east starting to undo some of the mistakes of the story thusfar. I do hope to see her more in future episodes and perhaps explore these concepts more, especially if it does turn out we have more interactions with gods like Lyssa as well.

[ThatOddOne.4387]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:I would argue that what Balthazar did was to protect Tyria. It's just that his method was perceived to be unacceptable.

Balthazar disagrees with your argument:

Balthazar: Your kind will not stop my campaign.Pact Commander: Balthazar! What you're doing... You'll destroy Tyria!Balthazar: Your home is a trivial concern.Balthazar: They abated me, dimmed my light... But they will see me now.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Volcano_(story

)

Balthazar: Cowards. You may flee, but I will not. I do not avoid conflict... I am conflict.Balthazar: The Elder Dragons will die by my hands...and their power will become my power.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Facing_the_Truth

He no longer cared about Tyria and humans. He only wanted battle and revenge.

The Narrative Team is full of contradictions.

The gods have already shown that they have no power to destroy Tyria even if they try. Their war against Abaddon, the war between Balthazar and Menzie, and the war between Grenth and Dhuum are proof of that. At this point, I would say that Kormir is full of kitten unconvincingly trying to use Abaddon as an excuse not to intervene. The Desolation is but a small area compare to the rest of Tyria. So the commander saying that Balthazar would destroy Tyria is over exaggeration. Even the Elder Dragons could not destroy Tyria.

If you look at Balthazar's response; "Your home is a trivial concern", he did not say "Tyria is a trivial concern".

He didn't even acknowledge that he's capable of destroying Tyria because he knows he can't. Instead, he correctly responded that the commander is not concern about Tyria as a whole, rather the commander is only concern about his home, thus he replied appropriately.

In the Facing the Truth, the council of the gods was to decide whether to battle the ED or not. Now why are they discussing that if the goal is not to save Tyria? When the other gods refused, Balthazar called them cowards. He only craved for power because the other gods have stripped him of his power, which showed his desperation.

The GW2 Episodes and the Expansion might not have addressed this, but Balthazar loves the humans. He enjoyed when humans battle in the Arena and many other things. He was the one who gifted the humans with Sohothin and Magdaer. The whole Path of Fire expansion showed that he didn't even bothered the humans nor create an army of humans. Yes there were humans who followed him in his desert campaign, but those are the ones who voluntarily do so. He could've easily forced Amnoon to rally under his flag if he wanted, but didn't, instead he used the souls of the dead and literally "forged" his own army. His actions shows that he wanted to preserve the humans however he can.

"It was Balthazar who urged humanity to engage the other races in battle and claim the world for themselves, believing the other races would fall easily."(

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar

)

The Gods do have the power to destroy Tyria. A single battle between them, five versus one, turned a sea into a desert which is, so far, nothing on the level the Elder Dragons have managed, with Zhaitan raising Orr from the depths the only thing coming on par. When Abaddon was killed, his released magic would have destroyed Tyria from the Realm of Torment unless Kormir absorbed that power, which she did. Even then that surge was enough to trigger the Elder Dragon cycle. In contrast, it takes three Elder Dragons being killed before Tyria starts being destroyed. From this we can deduce that the divine magic of a single God is on par with three Elder Dragons in terms of the damage it can do to the world.

Balthazar was capable of destroying Tyria even when he did not have Divine power by virtue of the fact of still being able to fight, kill and absorb the energy of Elder Dragons, not through brute force, but through innovation and understanding of magic.

Also, the Forged attacked and killed humans in Elona so their souls could then be used to create more Forged. That's not exactly leaving humans alone.