[*Spoilers* If you could change One moment in the entire story of GW2, what would it be? *Spoilers*]

I would have had Balthazar be Menzies.

["No Quarter" [Steel Warband disscussion]]

I'm far more interested in just how gutted the Charr are militarily now.

A majority of Iron and Blood joined Bangar, after all.

I also really liked the Seraph coming to help them - making a difference, and how they showed they could be versatile - Able to help both in the forest and the open ground. With magic and regulars.

["No Quarter" [Steel Warband disscussion]]

So about Charr being the strongest militarily...

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

I don't think promotional material is going to accurately reflect the lore. They can't go "he's a rogue god but not really a god because the other gods stripped it from him" in the promotional material because that's a spoiler, and intended as a reveal within the story.

Alternatively, he is a rogue god from the perspective of TYRIA who know him as a god from all their history and lore so naturally they are going to continue to refer to him as a god even though that is not strictly accurate because they do not know any better.

[How Did the Charr get so Advanced?]

We already know that centaur are probably going to be involved in the story from the trailer, and the human slaves that were also seen.

Bangar and his army are going into the Woodland Cascades next update, the only logical explanation is that he’s going to ally with the centaur and is aiming to attack Kryta.

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

But if you believe that the Gods have similar designs for all of humanity, why limit their schemes to one human kingdom that was already scoured? Genuine question because it seems a massive hole in your theory that they'd want the Foefire to happen and "show their hand" in such a fashion when the Charr were about to win and kill all the humans anyways.

Cantha is by far the most populated human nation. If the Gods somehow wanted to 'Foefire' or equivalent all of humanity, they would have started there, and there is absolutely no indication that has happened. The closest is the Jade Wind, but that was caused indirectly by Abaddon and his grand revenge plot.

I probably wouldn't no, not because I don't find the take interesting, but because there's no lore to support it. The Mursaat are responsible for the White Mantle, not the Gods, and the Mursaat certainly don't have a connection to the Gods.

The Foefire happened long after Orr sunk. Abaddon was dead before the Foefire happened, and if you mean the Searing, then Abaddon also engineered that so being 'horrified' by it would be bizarre and not at all supported.

And all this still doesn't take into account that the Gods had ready, permanent access to human souls and lifeforce regardless. They go to the Underworld and the Gods realms when they die, so the Foefire still defeats the purpose you yourself are theorising the Gods have because Foefire Ghosts do not go to the Underworld.

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

But how does the Foefire save humanity? More to the point, why only Ascalon? Why wasn't there a Foefire in Cantha or Kryta, in that case? It's certainly within the Gods power to engineer such. Whilst interesting, there is nothing to suggest that humanity will only lose wars without a God of War able to intervene. That's not really how the Gods work, mechanically speaking.

The Foefire was a feat of magic performed by a desperate and mad human king, using an extremely powerful magical sword, the chances of it having anything to do with the Gods is very slim, and as stated flies in the face of the Gods stated reason for withdrawing from Tyria.

I agree that humanity is the Gods chosen race, my reasoning behind that is much simpler though: The Gods filled a similar role to the Elder Dragons on the humans (and Forgotten's) old planet, and something went badly wrong which caused that planet to be destroyed, thus the Gods vowed to protect the remaining race of that planet out of guilt and a sense of duty.

As for them continuing to hang around in some capacity, that's because they are quite clearly sentimental on some level. Lyssa did not want to leave at first, and was the last to agree to do so, Grenth specifically fought Dhuum to stop him consuming the souls of dead humans (A fact that makes the assertion that the Gods require human lifeforce in some manner all the more strange), Kormir doesn't require much explaining, Dwayna and Melandru have not been at all shown to have a bad bone in their bodies from the scant information we have on them. Balthazar was always the odd one out in the "angry uncle" sense, and that seems to have been a conclusion the Gods drew themselves when he had his fit at the prospect of them retreating rather than fight the Elder Dragons and cause yet more seas to turn into deserts and ultimately doom Tyria regardless, because even winning against the Elder Dragons means Tyria is destroyed. The Gods knew that, which is why they withdrew to avoid needing to fight the Elder Dragons.

Furthermore, in terms of the Gods having 'grand designs', well, they do. It's Glint's and the Forgotten's plan for replacing the Elder Dragons. From Glint's memories we know that the Gods are involved, and certainly knew of the plan at the very least.

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

That is a very odd take on it with absolutely nothing to back it up.

How do you draw a connection between the Gods and the Foefire?

How do you assume that the Gods 'prefer human lifeforce', or even consume magic at all? There is no evidence that they do. Balthazar only needed to because he was depowered by the other Gods.

Why do you assume the Gods are some kind of grand pantheon of villains?

Kormir directly says "No." to Rytlock, so Rytlock IS wrong about saying Balthazar is one of the Six.

There is a lot wrong with your post.

[How Did the Charr get so Advanced?]

Yes, I agree with that. It's the whitewashing I am referring to.

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

Right, Rurik from a personality standpoint slots neatly into a "God of Protection", if the Gods wanted a replacement for Balthazar that embodies more... Agreeable aspects of the portfolio. One who fights wars to protect others, rather than for conquest, and knows when a war is lost and when it is time to prioritise protection of the people that remain - Which would lead into him agreeing to withdraw with the other Gods in the face of the Elder Dragons. He literally died to protect his people. This is why I drew him out as a possibility. Sure, he got turned into an undead and died, but if they really needed a replacement for Balthazar quickly, Grenth could have returned him.

And sidenote, yes, I 100% agree that Balthazar still had a divine spark, and was still very much a demigod and monstrously powerful being, but from a purely 'scientific' standpoint, he had no divine magic. That is the realm of the Gods only.

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

"They dimmed my light." Light often refers to 'divinity' when talking about Gods. The blinding aura when around Kormir is quite clearly caused by 'light'.

"Balthazar has been stripped of his claim and title, he is no longer one of the Six." Title being "God of War" which requires divinity. Dhuum was no longer the "God of Death", because that was taken from him by Grenth, which included taking his power. In this instance, both claim and title mean the actual divine power that allows the God to take the name. There is no previous instance of a God that has lost it's divinity still claiming to be and referred to as a God, or even on the same power level as a God.

Speaking of Dhuum, him continuing to be so damned powerful despite no longer being a God is yet further justification for Balthazar to not have his divinity - Even without it he was still monstrously powerful, just like Dhuum was. Thus, he was in the same state of Dhuum.

[How Did the Charr get so Advanced?]

Like, I legitimately do not get this push amongst some to make the charr seem what they are not.

They have always intended to be warlike and belligerent. That is quite literally meant to be their appeal. They don't care about what others think about them, they look out for the charr first and damn the rest.

I do not see what is wrong with that, it's a fantasy race, trying to identify with them and pin real life values to them is bizarre to me.

Like the charr for what they are, not for what you want them to be or what you think they represent.

[How Did the Charr get so Advanced?]

Imagine legitimately believing the charr aren’t warlike and don’t build things specifically for war.

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

Good questions and answers here! All I really have to contribute is my continued spitballing about the new God of War.

• Balthazar has been replaced already, we just don’t know who it is. He was replaced 200 years ago or at least before Zafirah was born.

Kormir does not refer to the Gods as the Five, she still calls them the Six. This is someone who knew them as the Five for her mortal life and so calling them the Five wouldn’t be strange for her if that was the case.

Zafirah was receiving blessings and felt a divine presence. When she met Balthazar she notes that his presence is different from the one she’s been feeling her whole life.

• The replacement for Balthazar is, in my opinion, either Rurik or the GW1 hero as they are the most likely candidates from the previous roster.

[Shadow in the ice end is too weird (LS5 ep2 - Heavy spoilers)]

Because the charr are not really critical thinkers by majority. They'll follow Bangar over believing a commander who is either not charr or has 'betrayed' the charr and been around non-charr for too long.

Other races would be more inclined to believe the Commander, but that would be precisely what Bangar wants. He wants an excuse to go on the warpath again, particularly against humanity.

Given the centaur in the cinematic trailer for this story, I'm reasonably certain we'll be seeing the charr under Bangar invading Kryta, with the help of centaur. All this to aid Jormag's 'aim' to simply cause chaos to get at Aurene I imagine.

That said I did like this episode. The spirits not being corrupted is a surefire indication to me that 'divine' forces can't be subverted or corrupted by Elder Dragons.

[Whispers in the dark reactions? [spoilers]]

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:

@ugrakarma.9416 said:More note:

The depth this episode has given to the Norms "Gods", aka spirits, is remarkable, for a long time we reliquished on human gods as source of "powerful magic".

This episode showed in a more explicit way, that norm spirits can be powerful as human gods.

I really do not think the Spirits of the Wild are as powerful as Gods, for example, four of them fought Jormag and were still defeated, and more to the point, there was no cataclysm caused by the clash of powers as would have happened if the Gods fought the Dragons.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@ugrakarma.9416 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

It could also be bubbles, due to the ship sinking in the original trailer reveal. I think having bubbles be the one who is the big bad and maybe even the one who corrupted the other dragons would be cool~ Either that or its something in the mists coming for us. As seen in the map the svanir are able to make portals to the mists, but I thought we fixed that in the norn personal story if we chose to defend the spirits? We shut them out. Why are they in the mists? What are they doing? Asgeir and jormag came to an understanding? Jormag SPARED the norn because it values life? I feel like Jormag is shaping up to be an anti-hero, and whatever it's speaking about will come and inevitably we will turn to it for help because Aurene simply wont be enough.

is basically like the Saint-Seya plot, where

Saga

the apparent "villain" was just overwatching the real big threat coming: the invasion by other gods.

Evil Saga says he is the only one who can protect this world from the invasion of other gods such as Zeus, Hades and Poseidon and whoever stands in their way must die.

After some thought Im pretty sure we will be killing the human gods. They are evil. They have caused pretty much 90% of all the catastrophic events on tyria and we had always been acting on their/our believed to be best interests. Im pretty sure we are setting up for a mists invasion where its side with the elder dragons, or Die beneath the might of the foes we've yet to face. (Demons, the gods, mist walkers) As its stated when you do the mastery for essence manipulation, "It's been so long since the norn COULD channel the spirits." This indicates that the spirits have been suppressed and not by jormag. I believe when the gods left the first time in made it harder to have access to the mists... the second time was intended to close the way. (Until Kralk came in like a wrecking ball...)

... What? The Gods are not evil.

How would we know, We've only spent limited time with them. And always have we seen them through the fanatical view of the humans~ Im pretty sure they are the burning legion in this scenario and the humans are their orcs.

You're going to be massively disappointed, because we know the Gods are not evil by their actions, and indeed their inaction as well. We haven't seen them through the fanatical view of humans, we literally talked to one in Path of Fire, and had opinions given from those who are not fanatical or even human. And there's evidence of their activities throughout GW1.

The Gods are the "Burning Legion" of Guild Wars, that's a new one, I'm honestly staggered as to how you could draw that conclusion given all we know. There are 0 similarities.

[Whispers in the dark reactions? [spoilers]]

@ugrakarma.9416 said:More note:

The depth this episode has given to the Norms "Gods", aka spirits, is remarkable, for a long time we reliquished on human gods as source of "powerful magic".

This episode showed in a more explicit way, that norm spirits can be powerful as human gods.

I really do not think the Spirits of the Wild are as powerful as Gods, for example, four of them fought Jormag and were still defeated, and more to the point, there was no cataclysm caused by the clash of powers as would have happened if the Gods fought the Dragons.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@ugrakarma.9416 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

It could also be bubbles, due to the ship sinking in the original trailer reveal. I think having bubbles be the one who is the big bad and maybe even the one who corrupted the other dragons would be cool~ Either that or its something in the mists coming for us. As seen in the map the svanir are able to make portals to the mists, but I thought we fixed that in the norn personal story if we chose to defend the spirits? We shut them out. Why are they in the mists? What are they doing? Asgeir and jormag came to an understanding? Jormag SPARED the norn because it values life? I feel like Jormag is shaping up to be an anti-hero, and whatever it's speaking about will come and inevitably we will turn to it for help because Aurene simply wont be enough.

is basically like the Saint-Seya plot, where

Saga

the apparent "villain" was just overwatching the real big threat coming: the invasion by other gods.

Evil Saga says he is the only one who can protect this world from the invasion of other gods such as Zeus, Hades and Poseidon and whoever stands in their way must die.

After some thought Im pretty sure we will be killing the human gods. They are evil. They have caused pretty much 90% of all the catastrophic events on tyria and we had always been acting on their/our believed to be best interests. Im pretty sure we are setting up for a mists invasion where its side with the elder dragons, or Die beneath the might of the foes we've yet to face. (Demons, the gods, mist walkers) As its stated when you do the mastery for essence manipulation, "It's been so long since the norn COULD channel the spirits." This indicates that the spirits have been suppressed and not by jormag. I believe when the gods left the first time in made it harder to have access to the mists... the second time was intended to close the way. (Until Kralk came in like a wrecking ball...)

... What? The Gods are not evil.

[Spoiler: Whisper in the dark: Final Cinematic.]

@"cptaylor.2670" said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"Arden.7480" said:I think my long speculated theory is going to become true this Season!

We go BEYOND! The way the cinematic starts with the shot at the starry, astralaria-like thing above us, as if hinting that the true problems lie not on Tyria, but somewhere else.

I don’t quite agree...buuut I certainly lean more towards something more than being just another ED.

If the gods are beings from the mists and aren't really on the same level as Elder Dragons, I'm not really sure what could be out there that could be threatening to something like Aurene though. Or, if it is strong enough that Aurene would truly need help from Jormag, I'm not really sure what we would even be able to do to help. Besides, we had a cosmos eating elder dragon last season, so I doubt it will be anything more menacing than that.

I'm really just suspecting deep sea dragon. The theme of ice fortifying, this Lovecrafian theme or whatever. The bit in the cinematic with the sinking ships.

I think since we're in the area though tying in the dwarven fractal they added recently with the cryptic spider and being that possesses people could be interesting. We haven't really seen any ancient evils other than elder dragons thus far. Might be cool to see some entities similar to evil versions of the celestials/spirits of the wild.

Still really curious as to what the point of all of these new classifications are, like "fallen" and what not. I mean, outside of them solely existing to justify the mastery, do they have any other meaning? Thus far we really only knew about icebrood, but are these other things other forms of corruption or evil that's taken root? Something not even related to the elder dragons?

The Gods are on the same level as the Elder Dragons.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

I do feel the need to note however that I do actually like the charr as a race, I simply object to people ascribing traits to them that simply do not (currently, at least) apply to them beyond a few individuals. (And the Olmakhan as strange as their introduction was)

It should be telling though that the ones who those traits do apply to are all charr who have spent a lot of time amongst other races and outside the bounds of the Legions.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

@"deatine.2498" said:None of that changes what humans did, though, or for what reasons. They simply do the same as any other race: expand, invade, start a war when there's resistance. The fact that they seem the better choice to the dwarves or some other races, doesn't change anything about that.In fact, those races might prefer humans for the same reason that you use against charr: humans are not nicer, humans simply seem weaker and might not be able to cause as much damage through expansion even if they wanted to .And "but they're the bad guys, so it's okay if we invade their land and kill them off" is obviously only useful as propaganda. At least charr don't pretend they're the good guys while being the bad guys like humans do.

What is actually the point you're trying to make here?

If it's "the humans are just as bad" then I have answered that: They are not.

The humans do not "pretend" to be good guys when they're actually bad guys, that's ridiculous and if you can't see that then further engagement is pointless.

Humans try to fix their mistakes or regret mistakes made by others of their race: Up to and including going against their own gods if necessary. Charr do nothing of the sort because they do not view similar actions taken by their race as mistakes. This is the fundamental difference between the races and what makes humans far more sympathetic.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

Again: I’m pretty sure that the dwarves preferred having humans as a neighbour over charr, considering the charr warred against dwarves and humans didn’t. (and all the current inhabitants of the Krytan region would prefer it being dominated by humans than centaur)

Given half a chance they WOULD have gone against the whole world, that’s what you’re ignoring, if anything Ascalon holding out by itself and giving the charr such a bloody nose put paid to that ambition during the post-GW1 - pre-GW2 time period. Loesh is absolutely right to say that the charr's restraint is everything to do with time and resources and not out of some benevolent realisation that what they did before was wrong.

Point still stands, they are a thoroughly unsympathetic race and attempts to make them so will fall flat precisely because of all the reasons I have listed before. The assertion does not stand up to scrutiny and evidence.

The charr do not need to be sympathetic to be compelling.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

It's still not even the Searing. The charr still prosecuted the war after the Searing and after they had overthrown the Flame Legion.

My previous point still stands, there are no charr who really regret what charr did during the Searing and afterwards (Or go "IT WAS THE FLAME LEGION ALL THEM"), whilst there are plenty of humans who have regrets about similar atrocities that humans have committed (Even if they were not even directly involved/affected or even of the same nation).

This is just the character of their race, and I don't get why people can't just accept that and instead need to find a way that the charr are somehow 'justified' in performing those atrocities, when if it was the humans they would be roundly criticised and lambasted.

It's called double standards and I see it in full effect when it comes to charr and humans.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

Even the assertion that PoF was human focused because it involved Balthazar and was based in Elona is nonsensical and I don’t understand why ArenaNet said that. It was Aurene-focused, everything else including the human gods was badly represented window dressing and does not constitute “human focus”.

Hell, the last stages of the story didn’t even involve Elona or Elonians in any special or notable role at all.

Or it could be presented as human focused if one admits that this focus constitutes breaking down the core features of said race and having the narrative essentially go to them “lol your religion is stupid”.

If PoF was human-focused, then it was not good focus at all.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Sylum.1806 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:ArenaNet isn't saying "the charr were in the right to retake Ascalon", they're saying "the charr believe they were in the right to retake Ascalon."

They do. They 100% do. One of the earliest cinematics of GW2 introduces us to the Ascalon Catacombs, and what are some of the first lines in there?

This was originally Charr land. The humans pushed us out and built Ascalon on top of it. Over 200 years ago, we took our land back.

I know what your response to this would be. "But that's just how the Charr see it, Anet isn't trying to do anything here" - I'd like to point out that it was one of the earliest introductions to the lore of GW for a potential new player, before the release of GW2. This line is also fairly irrelevant to the actual dungeon, but they put it in for a reason. Why do we have to know that it was originally Charr land? What does that have to do with fighting 200 year old human ghosts? They could've just focused on the Foefire instead.

I'll tell you why. Because Anet wants to drive home the narrative that humans = evil, charr = good guys who just took back what's theirs. Anet wants us to forget GW1's version of the story, they want to put the whole thing on new foundations so this is what new people will take as fact, and this is what they'll defend to the bitter end. See this thread.

When was the last time GW2 players were exposed to the wrongdoings of the Charr commited against humans? Was there even a time? From what I recall we were supposed to take the Charr's side each and every single time.

And humans don't "have to just concede it". Part of the peace treaty with the charr has been humans regaining some lands of souteastern Ascalon (namely that bit nestled between the Dragonbrand and Blazeridge Mountains). Humans are conceding the majority of Ascalon

because they're losing,

not because "the charr deserve Ascalon more."

Are they losing though? Last time I checked the Charr couldn't do anything with Ebonhawke for hundreds of years and were starting to fall apart because of having so many enemies (humans, ghosts, flame legion, dragons) and no allies. Bangar too realizes, along with people in this thread, that the Charr are weaker than ever.

Humans are conceding because Anet wants Charr to be playable. Simple as that. Otherwise it'd be the perfect opportunity for a counterattack. Humans beat the Charr by killing the Khan Ur and dealing with the divided legions, they are even more divided now.

And "who Ascalon belongs to" is the core of the "amnesty to the charr" situation, since the core part of that "amnesty" is the charr taking Ascalon. And humans are not being painted as villains anywhere.

By amnesty I meant we're supposed to forget every wrong they ever did and just sue for peace.

The only people who don't see what Anet is doing here are those who simply don't want to.

I want to clarify something.

I don't just see the Charr as pitch black, and I don't hate them in that sense. Pyre is one of my favorite characters in GW1 and made me want to roll a Charr ranger for GW2. I think the Charr have great potential for the lore. But to me it seems like Anet wanted to tell a "greyer" story in GW2, making the Charr not be purely antagonistic. My problem with this portrayal is that they went completely overboard with it, ended up continously favoring the Charr version of the story and making Ascalonians seem like the villains. They really did Ascalon dirty in GW2.

Basically in GW1 we get to see Ascalonians as the good guys, in GW2 we see the Charr as the definitive good guys. This doesn't make the story grey, only gives the vibe that GW1 doesn't matter and we should roll with GW2's version because that's the most recent and Anet's known to retcon the lore when it suits them. I think they missed the mark.

What I'm trying to say is, if the intention was to make things grey in GW2, they should've

painted it grey in GW2.

What they are doing instead is just flip which side is bad in the sequel and stick with it, without ever showing the other side.

This is either intentional and Charr favoritism, or a botched attempt at a grey story. Either way currently it's only going to alienate some long time fans.

Since it's been consistent for 7 years, I'm going with the former for now.

1. You keep repeating ArenaNet is spitting on GW1 and "Ascalon" (I'm assuming you're referring to Ascalonian Humans and the Human kingdom of Ascalon, and not the land of Ascalon) but you forget that you can only play as Humans in GW1. Of course the POV is gonna be pro-human and anti-Charr.
2. Characters not being able to have their own distinct POV is bad writing. Which you only seem to begrudgingly acknowledge in your later responses after more reasonable people pointed out how ridiculously narrow-minded and personal your original post was.
3. The real evil of war is that all sides are convinced they are on the right side. Everyone thinks they are the protagonist of the story. It's messy, it's nuanced, it's complicated. A good story-teller is supposed to show that, not tell it to you point-blank. You are having dissonance because you are confusing the subjective POV of the Ascalonians from GW1 and the Charr from GW2 as the objective POV of ArenaNet and that is pretty blinkered. To then blame them for having a personal agenda when they are depicting how two sides see the same conflict differently in a very realistic manner (not so different from our real-world tribal conflicts) when YOU are the one taking this personally is beyond ridiculous.

To go along with the last bit said here the humans ARE the evil, They and their gods are 100% the cause of almost all the major conflicts and turmoil on tyria. They committed GENOCIDE pf the "Lesser" races for not being like them, and have led conquest after conquest. We only saw their narrative In GW1 but in the further lore, the story goes that when they came here they followed balthazar (A psychopath) to conquer the world. The humans are JUST as xenophobic as the charr are, and frankly I feel the charr are one of the few who have the rite to be. They've been hunted and when they fought back, they found the humans had gods on their side ones who ONLY cared about the well being of the humans. I don't believe balthazar ever changed but that we saw him differently because for the first time, our views and purpose did not align with his.

Im a norn player because of what they were in guild wars 1, the humans not being favorites here? Really. They've been center stage the entire game and litterally have had so many redemption arcs within this story alone. They are becoming fast friends with iron, ash and to some extent blood legion and we even have blood brothers forming from soliders who fight together (See logan and Rytlock.) Looking at the larger narrative the charr are basically a lot like the humans, both worshiped powers beyond them and both got scorned. The charr chose to industrialize and focus on weapons of war, they chose to grow while humans still cling to the Six whom of which are some of the most evil beings in the setting. The tales of them do not speak of fond happy times, they speak of how cruel they could and would be and how the humans were merely their "Play-things".

Lyssa came and convinced men to fight only to die~ Rather then aid them, or even warn them.Balthazar willingly consumed the souls of his fallen, and tormented those he deemed "Cowardly".Melandru killed a mans son, for killing a creature that had harmed him and then left him for dead.Dwayana DROVE PEOPLE MAD, by her shear appearance and presence.Abbadon held secrets, and Kormir continued in his legacy as well denied us any help regardless of if we needed it.

Grenth is the only one to show compassion and even mercy out of all of them, though even then he still claimed the life of a woman who murdered her abusive lech of a husband for all he had done to her and her children. So looking at the humans religion, their way of life and the ideas they come from and how they believe they are superior to ALL the other races INCLUDING the norn/charr/asura/sylvari I would say the charr were the victims. But due to their primal nature they retaliated and decided to wage war; The norn and asuran we hadn't met yet and the sylvari had yet to be born. Im sure that had the humans met the norn prior to the events that transpired when they got here the outcome would be much the same. But I believe the norn would of killed them all because the spirits in my eyes are stronger than the gods, the spirits fought jormag when the gods wouldn't even try. Kormir even stated that the dragons were STRONGER than the six which is why they wouldn't fight, because should one of them fall the outcome would be catastrophic.

The story isn't about who was the victim though, or who was the winner. The story is about two groups of people and two differing species setting aside their differences and coming to realize they aren't that different. The story is a redemption for both of them and a new chapter for them, one well executed and one that has been going since we met Pyre for the first time in Eye of the north. If you still can't see that neither side was the villain fully and neither side won much of anything, rather they lost tons of lives and even almost collapsed as civilizations you are either willfully ignorant to the purpose of the tale or choose to pick a side on the opposite end of a line no one drew in the first place.

Actually... No.

The humans have not genocided "lesser races", give examples, don't just say it. On the other hand we know the charr HAVE during their time on Tyria.

Balthazar was not a psychopath, you're wrong, and he did change. We know this for a fact, that you deny it doesn't make it true.

The parables of the Gods you are referring to are just that, parables, and hardly proof that the Gods are bad and can be interpreted in benevolent ways, if they even happened.

• Lyssa inspired those soldiers to fight regardless, that they died is irrelevant, she did not personally kill them, but she gave them the courage to fight and their contribution to the battle could have made the difference, but we don't know, and she certainly didn't have a hand in making sure each and every one of those soldiers die.
• Balthazar consumed the soul of a singular coward so that cowardice could not further harm others, he took the coward's shame as his own.
• Melandru did not kill anyone. There is no implication that she did. She was simply saying in that parable that animals killing humans and humans killing animals is the way of nature. That is not malicious and there's no implication she personally made sure the guy's family got eaten by wolves.
• Same for Dwayna. She did not intentionally blind people, she did not intentionally make sure that a tree fell on a guys house after he denied someone refuge from a storm.
• Secrets are not automatically bad, that's by far the most ridiculous of your statements.
• The wife in question still committed murder.

So... No, everything you said was wrong. (Including Dragons being stronger than the Gods). The charr are not victims, and whilst I disagree with the OP's tone, he has a point.

It's all very well going on about the "Charr PoV" but the problem is that PoV has next to no redeeming qualities, even when it was touched on in the so-called human-centric GW1. The charr didn't rebel because they felt bad about what happened to the humans, they liked what happened to the humans, they rebelled against other charr because they were being controlled and tricked. This still doesn't make them the victims, because they still ultimately approved of the Searing and all the humans who died as a result of their war. (And continued to prosecute it even after they overthrew the Flame Legion, which should tell you all you need to know)

And not a single charr character has ever shown regret for what happened, whilst you see plenty of humans regretting the actions of their own race - Including, again, in the so-called human-centric GW1 (Rurik and Adelbern), where whilst the main characters and only playable race were humans, it still showcased just how bad humans can be.

Quite a few of the storylines in GW1 are about humans helping other races, as well, namely asura, dwarves and norn (AND EVEN CHARR), so I don't really see how the accusation that only a human PoV was espoused in GW1 holds water. Did the humans make war on the dwarves and norn? No they didn't. Did the charr? Yes, they did. There are significant differences in the characters of these two races and how they act towards the world they inhabit that people are willfully ignoring in favour of this charr apologist stance because they cannot possibly fathom the mighty, unbeatable charr having lost to the evil invading humans at one point in history.

People can gurn and moan about how the humans displaced the charr and centaur but I'm pretty sure the dwarves preferred to have the humans as neighbours over the charr, and I'm sure sylvari and asura in modern Tyria prefer to have humans as their closest other neighbours over vast tracts of lands owned by marauding, vicious centaurs. So there's some perspective for you.

King adelbern was Xenophobic, the canthans were xenophobic and as it turns out even the citizens of divinities reach share xenophobia. The charr do as well so literally they are the same in that respect and to say otherwise is ignorance. Kind Adelbern wanted no one but humans to live and keep ascalon, the Vizer sunk his ENTIRE nation and killed off its people in a "Im taking my ball and going home" moment.

Humans helping other races? Yes when it suited them, which is a parallel of how our species works in the real world. Most people don't do good unless they directly bennefit; The norn got help from the humans because the humans needed the norn. The dwarves only got help because they were needed durring prophecies and the stone summit were an enemy to both. In eye of the north the only reason the dwarves got involved was for the sake of killing their long time enemy the destroyers, The humans are NOT the victims of anything but their own hubris.

The gods a parallel to greek gods, they are neither good or evil but are whimsical. The ONLY RACE they care about are the humans, so when and if tyria goes to explode I promise the humans will be whisked away by their gods but the rest of us will be left to fend for ourselves. They are generic fantasy drivel, frankly I actually would like to destroy the remnants of them because I loathe their existence by this point. They don't contribute much in the grand-scheme of things, we have magic users and technicians from charr and asuran respectively. We have warriors from charr and norn, whom would lore wise make more sense to be better fighters than the humans on sheer size and the fact they live harsher lives.

Just because your favorite race FOR ONCE is not the focus, doesn't mean you get to bash on the others. This is a norn and charr story at least until the saga concludes, enjoy it or move on until its done. I skipped most of PoF and only logged in to get the episodes; I played it later on to get to a point where I understood what was going on but Im so done with human centric kitten that I can't be bothered to care. (Because its literally just the same old stuff with them.)

So you’re just petty and narrowminded, right.

For the record even a cursory glance of this forum will tell you that I like that charr and norn are getting some attention, I just don’t buy into the narrative that the charr are sympathetic at all.

Just pray ArenaNet don’t treat the norn spirits of the wild like they did the human gods, which is a very real concern I have.

[About the Charr victim complex, and Anet's hatred for Ascalon]

@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@Sylum.1806 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:ArenaNet isn't saying "the charr were in the right to retake Ascalon", they're saying "the charr believe they were in the right to retake Ascalon."

They do. They 100% do. One of the earliest cinematics of GW2 introduces us to the Ascalon Catacombs, and what are some of the first lines in there?

This was originally Charr land. The humans pushed us out and built Ascalon on top of it. Over 200 years ago, we took our land back.

I know what your response to this would be. "But that's just how the Charr see it, Anet isn't trying to do anything here" - I'd like to point out that it was one of the earliest introductions to the lore of GW for a potential new player, before the release of GW2. This line is also fairly irrelevant to the actual dungeon, but they put it in for a reason. Why do we have to know that it was originally Charr land? What does that have to do with fighting 200 year old human ghosts? They could've just focused on the Foefire instead.

I'll tell you why. Because Anet wants to drive home the narrative that humans = evil, charr = good guys who just took back what's theirs. Anet wants us to forget GW1's version of the story, they want to put the whole thing on new foundations so this is what new people will take as fact, and this is what they'll defend to the bitter end. See this thread.

When was the last time GW2 players were exposed to the wrongdoings of the Charr commited against humans? Was there even a time? From what I recall we were supposed to take the Charr's side each and every single time.

And humans don't "have to just concede it". Part of the peace treaty with the charr has been humans regaining some lands of souteastern Ascalon (namely that bit nestled between the Dragonbrand and Blazeridge Mountains). Humans are conceding the majority of Ascalon

because they're losing,

not because "the charr deserve Ascalon more."

Are they losing though? Last time I checked the Charr couldn't do anything with Ebonhawke for hundreds of years and were starting to fall apart because of having so many enemies (humans, ghosts, flame legion, dragons) and no allies. Bangar too realizes, along with people in this thread, that the Charr are weaker than ever.

Humans are conceding because Anet wants Charr to be playable. Simple as that. Otherwise it'd be the perfect opportunity for a counterattack. Humans beat the Charr by killing the Khan Ur and dealing with the divided legions, they are even more divided now.

And "who Ascalon belongs to" is the core of the "amnesty to the charr" situation, since the core part of that "amnesty" is the charr taking Ascalon. And humans are not being painted as villains anywhere.

By amnesty I meant we're supposed to forget every wrong they ever did and just sue for peace.

The only people who don't see what Anet is doing here are those who simply don't want to.

I want to clarify something.

I don't just see the Charr as pitch black, and I don't hate them in that sense. Pyre is one of my favorite characters in GW1 and made me want to roll a Charr ranger for GW2. I think the Charr have great potential for the lore. But to me it seems like Anet wanted to tell a "greyer" story in GW2, making the Charr not be purely antagonistic. My problem with this portrayal is that they went completely overboard with it, ended up continously favoring the Charr version of the story and making Ascalonians seem like the villains. They really did Ascalon dirty in GW2.

Basically in GW1 we get to see Ascalonians as the good guys, in GW2 we see the Charr as the definitive good guys. This doesn't make the story grey, only gives the vibe that GW1 doesn't matter and we should roll with GW2's version because that's the most recent and Anet's known to retcon the lore when it suits them. I think they missed the mark.

What I'm trying to say is, if the intention was to make things grey in GW2, they should've

painted it grey in GW2.

What they are doing instead is just flip which side is bad in the sequel and stick with it, without ever showing the other side.

This is either intentional and Charr favoritism, or a botched attempt at a grey story. Either way currently it's only going to alienate some long time fans.

Since it's been consistent for 7 years, I'm going with the former for now.

1. You keep repeating ArenaNet is spitting on GW1 and "Ascalon" (I'm assuming you're referring to Ascalonian Humans and the Human kingdom of Ascalon, and not the land of Ascalon) but you forget that you can only play as Humans in GW1. Of course the POV is gonna be pro-human and anti-Charr.
2. Characters not being able to have their own distinct POV is bad writing. Which you only seem to begrudgingly acknowledge in your later responses after more reasonable people pointed out how ridiculously narrow-minded and personal your original post was.
3. The real evil of war is that all sides are convinced they are on the right side. Everyone thinks they are the protagonist of the story. It's messy, it's nuanced, it's complicated. A good story-teller is supposed to show that, not tell it to you point-blank. You are having dissonance because you are confusing the subjective POV of the Ascalonians from GW1 and the Charr from GW2 as the objective POV of ArenaNet and that is pretty blinkered. To then blame them for having a personal agenda when they are depicting how two sides see the same conflict differently in a very realistic manner (not so different from our real-world tribal conflicts) when YOU are the one taking this personally is beyond ridiculous.

To go along with the last bit said here the humans ARE the evil, They and their gods are 100% the cause of almost all the major conflicts and turmoil on tyria. They committed GENOCIDE pf the "Lesser" races for not being like them, and have led conquest after conquest. We only saw their narrative In GW1 but in the further lore, the story goes that when they came here they followed balthazar (A psychopath) to conquer the world. The humans are JUST as xenophobic as the charr are, and frankly I feel the charr are one of the few who have the rite to be. They've been hunted and when they fought back, they found the humans had gods on their side ones who ONLY cared about the well being of the humans. I don't believe balthazar ever changed but that we saw him differently because for the first time, our views and purpose did not align with his.

Im a norn player because of what they were in guild wars 1, the humans not being favorites here? Really. They've been center stage the entire game and litterally have had so many redemption arcs within this story alone. They are becoming fast friends with iron, ash and to some extent blood legion and we even have blood brothers forming from soliders who fight together (See logan and Rytlock.) Looking at the larger narrative the charr are basically a lot like the humans, both worshiped powers beyond them and both got scorned. The charr chose to industrialize and focus on weapons of war, they chose to grow while humans still cling to the Six whom of which are some of the most evil beings in the setting. The tales of them do not speak of fond happy times, they speak of how cruel they could and would be and how the humans were merely their "Play-things".

Lyssa came and convinced men to fight only to die~ Rather then aid them, or even warn them.Balthazar willingly consumed the souls of his fallen, and tormented those he deemed "Cowardly".Melandru killed a mans son, for killing a creature that had harmed him and then left him for dead.Dwayana DROVE PEOPLE MAD, by her shear appearance and presence.Abbadon held secrets, and Kormir continued in his legacy as well denied us any help regardless of if we needed it.

Grenth is the only one to show compassion and even mercy out of all of them, though even then he still claimed the life of a woman who murdered her abusive lech of a husband for all he had done to her and her children. So looking at the humans religion, their way of life and the ideas they come from and how they believe they are superior to ALL the other races INCLUDING the norn/charr/asura/sylvari I would say the charr were the victims. But due to their primal nature they retaliated and decided to wage war; The norn and asuran we hadn't met yet and the sylvari had yet to be born. Im sure that had the humans met the norn prior to the events that transpired when they got here the outcome would be much the same. But I believe the norn would of killed them all because the spirits in my eyes are stronger than the gods, the spirits fought jormag when the gods wouldn't even try. Kormir even stated that the dragons were STRONGER than the six which is why they wouldn't fight, because should one of them fall the outcome would be catastrophic.

The story isn't about who was the victim though, or who was the winner. The story is about two groups of people and two differing species setting aside their differences and coming to realize they aren't that different. The story is a redemption for both of them and a new chapter for them, one well executed and one that has been going since we met Pyre for the first time in Eye of the north. If you still can't see that neither side was the villain fully and neither side won much of anything, rather they lost tons of lives and even almost collapsed as civilizations you are either willfully ignorant to the purpose of the tale or choose to pick a side on the opposite end of a line no one drew in the first place.

Actually... No.

The humans have not genocided "lesser races", give examples, don't just say it. On the other hand we know the charr HAVE during their time on Tyria.

Balthazar was not a psychopath, you're wrong, and he did change. We know this for a fact, that you deny it doesn't make it true.

The parables of the Gods you are referring to are just that, parables, and hardly proof that the Gods are bad and can be interpreted in benevolent ways, if they even happened.

• Lyssa inspired those soldiers to fight regardless, that they died is irrelevant, she did not personally kill them, but she gave them the courage to fight and their contribution to the battle could have made the difference, but we don't know, and she certainly didn't have a hand in making sure each and every one of those soldiers die.
• Balthazar consumed the soul of a singular coward so that cowardice could not further harm others, he took the coward's shame as his own.
• Melandru did not kill anyone. There is no implication that she did. She was simply saying in that parable that animals killing humans and humans killing animals is the way of nature. That is not malicious and there's no implication she personally made sure the guy's family got eaten by wolves.
• Same for Dwayna. She did not intentionally blind people, she did not intentionally make sure that a tree fell on a guys house after he denied someone refuge from a storm.
• Secrets are not automatically bad, that's by far the most ridiculous of your statements.
• The wife in question still committed murder.

So... No, everything you said was wrong. (Including Dragons being stronger than the Gods). The charr are not victims, and whilst I disagree with the OP's tone, he has a point.

It's all very well going on about the "Charr PoV" but the problem is that PoV has next to no redeeming qualities, even when it was touched on in the so-called human-centric GW1. The charr didn't rebel because they felt bad about what happened to the humans, they liked what happened to the humans, they rebelled against other charr because they were being controlled and tricked. This still doesn't make them the victims, because they still ultimately approved of the Searing and all the humans who died as a result of their war. (And continued to prosecute it even after they overthrew the Flame Legion, which should tell you all you need to know)

And not a single charr character has ever shown regret for what happened, whilst you see plenty of humans regretting the actions of their own race - Including, again, in the so-called human-centric GW1 (Rurik and Adelbern), where whilst the main characters and only playable race were humans, it still showcased just how bad humans can be.

Quite a few of the storylines in GW1 are about humans helping other races, as well, namely asura, dwarves and norn (AND EVEN CHARR), so I don't really see how the accusation that only a human PoV was espoused in GW1 holds water. Did the humans make war on the dwarves and norn? No they didn't. Did the charr? Yes, they did. There are significant differences in the characters of these two races and how they act towards the world they inhabit that people are willfully ignoring in favour of this charr apologist stance because they cannot possibly fathom the mighty, unbeatable charr having lost to the evil invading humans at one point in history.

People can gurn and moan about how the humans displaced the charr and centaur but I'm pretty sure the dwarves preferred to have the humans as neighbours over the charr, and I'm sure sylvari and asura in modern Tyria prefer to have humans as their closest other neighbours over vast tracts of lands owned by marauding, vicious centaurs. So there's some perspective for you.