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Nikolai.3648

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  1. I agree with this. If you pay more attention to it, you will notice multiple details being present in Vanilla GW2 that appear to be either forgotten or intentionally ignored by the writers later on, simply because they would simplify the plot too much. Another great example is the Altar of Glaust that was used to grant Glint free will: It is still perfectly functional, as it is proven in one of Arahs exploration modes. There is no reason why the pact hasn’t used it by now. A perfect application would be one of the branded forgotten. They do not prove enough danger that they could not be transported to the place and the LS showed that Arah is now far easier to navigate than before. But even if it were a more difficult task, a purified Forgotten on our side could prove to be crucial because of their immense knowledge of everything related to the elder dragons, making them an ideal ally. Forget important potential allies, what about all the people the pact lost and could grant another chance by just establishing a save route to the Altar, cleansing corrupted pact members of said corruption routinely? At least their families would surly be pleased by that. There is no excuse for the fact that there was not at least a solid attempt being made at utilizing the Altar by now. Well, that’s not entirely true. Yes, there is no reason ingame for the pact not to use it. But from the writers POV it would reduce the atmosphere of lingering danger. So they just ignore its existence. If it is ever mentioned again, I am sure they will conjure up some excuse like a necessary time limit between cleansings or something along the lines to explain its absence in the story until now. But that takes work, which nobody like to do, so they just sweep some parts of the lore under the rug and hope people will ignore them.
  2. Ok, I am now honestly confused. Is it against forum policies to talk about a post of yours being reported? Or is just someone misusing a certain report function? Anyway, since some unrelated part of my post was also removed, I will just repost that:@Randulf.7614I do agree with you on that I would have liked to see the whole model ingame, as I said in my first post. But as you said, the limited space and the size of Drakkar so not support that. And now I am off to somewhere else, away from whoever apparently tries to impress Ben Shapiro.
  3. Because we are talking about a topic where the difference between these two distinct points of view gains special importance. One explanation why many people are uncomfortable with the way Drakkars redesign was handled is the lack of explanation given. Of course, this leads to the question what counts as evidence regarding such an explanation. This is your personal opinion. I am not stating that you should move away from it, but if you do not take into consideration that someone else might disagree with you there, you wont understand the reasoning behind why these people dislike the situation with Drakkar. I totally agree with you here: The process is not exclusive to Anet. Neither is this discussion. However, any time the lore of a fictional work is discussed, these points of views are important. What often happens is a silent agreement of all parties involved to just go with one approach, normally either Death of the Author or Authorial Intent, though other schools of thought exist and are sometimes used as a common ground. This works for many discussions, but it has its limits. We have obviously reached one in this discussion. It is not misleading. It is a prominent opinion that most people who are not believers of Authorial Intent will most likely share. You might disagree with it, but it is a valid way to approach the discussion of a work of fiction. A work of fiction is always artificial. And as with any art, it comes into existence twice: Once when the artist creates it and a second time when it is consumed. This leads to a big difference to a factual truth: If someone commits a crime in real life, they simply did so. It is an unchangeable fact and the only question left is if you can prove it. Or: A certain mathematical question has only one solution. In this case an objective truth exists. If you disagree with someone on the answer to said mathematical question, there truly is a right and many wrong answers. This is not always the case when discussing fiction: Our question was: Is there evidence why and how exactly Drakkar changed over the years? And we have people coming to different conclusions. And there is neither a right nor a wrong solution. Why? Because we do not only disagree on the answer to the question itself, but on the procedure that is used to reach said solution. If we both would agree on the same procedure, there might be an answer which is right or wrong. But if we disagree on that principal, this is no longer the case. We lose the base to discuss the correctness of the answer because we disagree on the validity of it. Like I said, this is a basic problem you can find in any discussion regarding a fictional work. And as such it should be obvious by now that some people will disagree with each other. They will follow their school of thought until the end. They won’t change their opinion on it. And this is perfectly fine - as long as it is presented as their personal opinion, not an objective truth. Which Konig and you did in you posts. I agree with you on the discussion being relevant. The way this information is handled is of importance when discussing lore. As such, people should discuss these issues more often. I personally have nothing against the information being spread out – but it will inevitably lead to disagreements regarding its canonicity.
  4. That's not how it works. Oh my. And why not? I have already shown you that there are multiple points of view regarding what arguments are valid in the discussion of a work of fiction. And I have also explained in detail why followers of “Death of the Author” would see any statement given outside of the discussed medium as void. You might argue of course that this holds value to you as a follower of “Authorial Intent” (you have never claimed yourself to be one, but it seems obvious from your post history, as I have already mentioned before – if you disagree, please do state which school of thought you follow instead), but at this moment we do have a problem, as we do no longer have any common base in discussing these matters. It would obviously be fruitless to continue this discussion. Sure, I could just give in and follow the rules of the discussion that you are comfortable with. But what makes your point of view worth more than my own? I am curious for your reasoning. So please, enlighten me.
  5. Thank you, but this was not what I meant. The new change in the power level was already sufficiently explained. I was talking about the flesh part. And as you mentioned, this is never stated ingame: The explanation also adds another minor problem, as the geographical changes we directly witness ingame or via NPCs talking about them do not really support the idea of the lake melting. But even if this was not the case, we are still left with the problem that the change is only shown, but not explained: No, it is not. We are shown the change itself ingame (it seems to be an icy skeleton now). The reason why it changed (why is it an icy skeleton now?) is never hinted at. And Drakkar is not alone regarding this: I can see the difference between the Hydras in GW1 and GW2. I don’t have any explanation for the change. That is bad. Minor tweaks like Wind Riders or Oak Hearts are to be expected, but a total redesign, as encountered with the Djinn, Hydras, Jormag or Dhuum should always be explained. Otherwise the redesign inevitable leads to a loss of immersion and damages the continuity and such the quality of the game. To get into more details why the redesign can almost never be explained by the new model itself, using Drakkar as a perfect example: This already starts of badly, as the skeleton parts do not fit the old Drakkar except for maybe its head – and that one only works if you assume it to be whale-like, while it actually looked far more like a Dinosaur. But let’s pretend that everything would fit perfectly together, and the casual player would directly realize that the skeleton is the one of the old Drakkar. How would they explain it: A: So apparently Drakkar was slain between the games and resurrected via Death magic.B: No, it just had a problem with rot which it lessened by freezing itself – it just did not work out well.C: No, Drakkar was obviously a parasite inside the old creature we saw in GW1.D : No, Drakkar got a rot problem, but only after some fire elemental crawled out from a dungeon and burned it up.C: Why do you then claim it was rot and not just the burn damage itself which reduced it to a skeleton?E: Are we even sure the green ice is just an aura, or is there some flesh underneath the ice?A: Nah, they would never make such an important clue that hard to see – I can hardly see the boss with all the AOEs. As you can see, without further hints ingame, there is no explanation given by the new design itself. It only leads to more questions. Anything that is only stated outside of the medium cannot be used in arguments regarding the topic. Which leaves us the small amount of clues we find ingame: There is some dialogue of the Kodan regarding the change of the region that can be interpreted to include a specific change of temperature that might lead to the rotting of a former frozen corpse. But Drakkar is never stated to be a corpse, which makes it hard to believe it just rotted away – no other Dragon Champion experienced this after all. There is at best a number of hints ingame that could point you into the right direction – or completely elsewhere. Which leads us back again to the main problem: This is just a statement by the Developers. It is not presented in the medium itself. As such, it has no value whatsoever in a discussion about the lore. That might change if the devs decide to add further proof for a theory ingame. Until then however, there is no clear answer to Drakkars change of appearance. I do not think that the lack of spoon-feeding the answers to the community is bad in itself. This approach leads to the fact that multiple theories can coexist with each other, leading to player discussing the lore and getting creative. It just also means that any argument that is based on “It is true because a dev said so” is worthless and to be discarded immediately. So anyone asking for a clear answer why such an iconic foe changed so much between the games will still be left without one that is truly supported by the lore. They can of course have their own head-canon and adapt the version that was presented in Guild Chat. It is just not any truer than the explanation of anyone else. And that is probably a good thing. However, to accept the possible explanation given in Guild Chat they will have to find it convincing. Does the idea feel compatible with already established lore? Does is sound reasonable? Does it sound like something you can easily accept or is it along the lines of someone acting out of character? Many factors may change your opinion on the explanation given by the Guild Chat. But in the end, it stays a matter of personal taste. And apparently, some players still ended up disliking the way the redesign was handled.
  6. As someone who is rather displeased with the redesigns of many creatures in GW2 (Hydra, Dhuum, Djinn, …) it came to no surprise to me that I disliked the one Drakkar got. Do not get me wrong, I like the design itself, it fits the theme of the battle and I wish we would actually see all of the body just because I like the details in the back so much, but it should have been a separate boss. The unexplained change of such an iconic figure is immersion breaking at best and even if we get an explanation later on, that does not dampen the effect the appearance already had on our experience of the episode. I see 2 main problems with the way this redesign was handled: 1) We don’t get to see any stages between the two extremes, only one abrupt change. While it might have been complicated to include such glimpses at Drakkar in the story, it would have certainly softened the impact of the new design. 2) If we are given an explanation ingame, it should always be complete and reasonable. This does not seem to be the case with Drakkar. Yes, there is this one dialogue talking about ice taking any form, but Drakkars body appears to be exclusively or at least mostly organic in GW1. I do not remember any ingame dialogue mentioning a decay going on. Neither is any ingame source mentioned on the Wiki-page. Such, the explanation given is neither complete nor appears truly reasonable. You mentioned that there is other dialogue ingame. I have either not stumbled upon it yet or forgotten it exists. As I mentioned, neither is it listed in the wiki. If you can, please provide a source for your statement. I DO remember the explanation given by the Devs. But any hints not provided ingame are more or less worthless regarding any interpretation of a fictional work. Judging from your post history, especially the following quote (from your topic about the origins of riftstalkers at 01.17.19 – I cant seem to quote it, sorry for this citation by hand) I believe you are a firm believer of “Authorial Intent”: “And why would we believe a player over a dev, exactly?I know my lore, and while there certainly are suggestions, these suggestions all rely upon the Unreliable Narrator and are subject to be false.” However, this point of view is not shared among all people. Everyone who approaches an interpretation as a follower of “Death of the Author”, which is especially reasonable when talking about a work of fiction, will not tolerate clues not being presented in the work itself being considered in the discussion. The reason for this is oftentimes obvious: The statement of an author is not an absolute truth, neither is it without influence or necessarily constant over time. To give a simple example: There is a simple poem about the love between a bee and a flower. The author later becomes famous and then claims that the whole thing was a metaphor for war to appear more woke. Does that make the poem truly about war? No, it does not. The authors words may not change the fictional reality after the work has been completed. While they may offer some new perspective that can be useful when analyzing a fictional work, they are neither prove not hint on their own. This of course leads us to the problem with Drakkar: It can be stated by the Devs that Drakkars body rotted away, but as this is never shown ingame, the statement cannot be taken into account when discussing the topic. There are at most some visual hints in the model that could potentially interpreted this way, but we are on thin ice there, as these clues rely on a favorably interpretation of the design. Not to mention that such a rot of a dragon champion has never been mentioned anywhere else ingame. Some people are not happy with the redesign. When they look for answers how the foe changed so much, they only get a weak argument ingame. Some might look it up online (many wont) and realize that there truly is no further, satisfying information given by a source they could accept. These people will be overall dissatisfied with the way the redesign was handled - and I believe absolutely rightfully so.
  7. Thanks, I forgot to mention this one! I also remembered another hint after I wrote the last post. It is debatable, so it was not that important, but I have wondered in the past: Why does the skill Call Owl still work? It is unknown how the racial skills work exactly. The human prayers seem to either not be directly linked to the Gods at all or, judging from the Hounds, at least continue to work with the blessing of the new God of Fire. But the Norn racial skills do seem to depend on the blessing of the Spirits of the Wild, judging from the Elite transformations, which worked this way since GW1. This leaves us with the question of how this plead for Owls aid can still be heard and the help granted if she were indeed totally gone. You can however flip the question around: If we know that another spirit of the Wild died, why is this never mentioned anywhere and Owls sacrifice treated with such importance? It might very well be the case that a Spirit reforms after a while – If the animals are truly linked to their Spirit of the Wild and the species owl did not die out, that would imply that the Spirit will be reborn as a weaker Spirit. That could still be seen as enough reason to be shellshocked over her “death” and also explain why Spirits seem to have different amounts of strength. Minotaur for example appeared to be rather weak. The difference in strength could of course stem from different aspects, but the Spirits never appeared to me like they gained power from something like prayers (The Otter trinket also implies otherwise), which leaves us with the question how this imbalance comes to be (if it truly exists and Minotaur wasn’t just depicted as too weak in the story). If they lose some power with each demise and need to reclaim it for a long time, that could explain why we do know that their linked animals react this way, but also why no one cares about the former “dead” Spirit anymore, since they have already been reborn and reclaimed their full power, leaving no reason to still cry over it by now.
  8. It should be noted though, that we do not know what “death” means towards a Spirit of the Wild. It is said that Owl has been lost forever. But what does that mean exactly? Will there be a new Spirit of Owl in the future? Will the old one be reborn? Judging from the fact that the corrupted Spirits of the Wild seem to be used as energy sources, it might be that Owl is being devoured by Jormag, fueling them as a sort of eternal source of energy. Interesting enough, there are a few details in the game that hint towards Owl still being faintly present and fighting against the will of the elder dragon: 1) There is still a spirit of Owl overlooking her destroyed lodge (similar to an avatar) which grants you her blessing for some collection. 2) The vision at her shrine in Lost Spirits Hallow speaks of an overwhelming sensation of hope. 3) With the newest patch the Broken Voice weapons were introduced. The name could refer to the Voice of Jormag (Whisper or Drakkar) being silenced – but it might also hint at Owls fate: Her voice being so broken that the Norn can’t hear her since her big defeat, but still being present in this world, unyielding fighting against Jormags will. If you take a closer look at the weapons you will also notice that their design does not fit Jormags icy style. They look pure, warm, nearly divine. And their glow literary spells out a certain word: OWL! So, there are some hints in the game that Owl might make a return. Should this truly be the case, my bet is on her bursting free from Jormags stomach during the final encounter with the dragon.
  9. I am afraid I can only provide the blessing that was used, not the context regarding the scene: “The road may be long, but you can walk it together.There may be storms, but you can shelter one another.The cold may come in winter, but you can shelter each other's warmth.Each companion to the other: two souls, united.May no weapon sever the bond that holds your hands together,And may no word sever the love that keeps your hearts as one.”— Sacred text of Lyssa. Goddess of love
  10. I want to tinfoil hat this: Our sources for Lyssa being the deceptive one is implications coming from Kormir specifically. Yes, Balthazar doesn't mention Lyssa, but he was literally breaking apart and dying. For all we know, the reason he didn't curse Lyssa is because he had feelings for her and she didn't actually do anything damning, or maybe they just had a closer friendship than between Balthazar and the other gods. My point being: why does everyone jump to suspecting Lyssa, and not Kormir? It was Kormir who told us Balthazar hid from the other gods using Lyssa's Mirror, but based on how he went to Siren's Landing, and his reasons for doing so, he had spent some time on Tyria without said mirror to hide himself - and they could have easily just checked his prison to see if he was still there. It seems odd a goddess of knowledge wouldn't know these things. It was Kormir who says "even Lyssa", as if to call her out while not calling her out, a typical kitten move in day to day discussions people use to call folks out while being subtle about it. It was Kormir who wrote in her journal that Lyssa mocked her for something that was very un-Lyssa-like. And it is Kormir who is prophecized to destroy the other gods and end the world. What if Lyssa is innocent, Balthazar's lack of calling her out is a red herring, and Kormir's words about Lyssa a method to make players/the Commander suspect Lyssa and willing to hunt her down once Lyssa shows imperfect colors. There's a tinfoil hat for ya! EDIT: And I just realized that would be an interesting way to fix the retcons to Balthazar's personality. His spoiled manchild reaction were created by projections that Kormir showed us after all. His actions during Season 3 and PoF were far more understandable due to being post-imprisonment and stripping, compared to his tantrums in the projections. Hell, every single word Kormir said could turn out to be a lie, a fabrication that's part of Kormir's plot. Not to say the other gods didn't do him in, but that the reasons weren't for what Kormir said. This could even, then, play into why Balthazar doesn't mention Lyssa. Lyssa is the goddess of illusions. She'd know trickery. If Kormir were to have tricked the other gods into turning on Balthazar, Lyssa is the one who would see through such actions best (followed by Grenth, who's known for teachings that pierce veils of illusions and lies, as the god who seemingly took over the roles of truth and knowledge while Abaddon was imprisoned). That is certainly a nice hat… I will keep it with the other ones that will be filled with liquor and chucked down during a Guidl-Raid if they ever come true :D
  11. Thank you for the explanation, it is always nice to see such obvious problems fixed, even if they should not have happened at all. I guess we will have to agree to disagree here. I find it far more understandable for someone to mess up some numbers (especially with multiple calendars around) than to mess up some basic facts regarding the lore you try to expend in your writings. Which is what I really liked about them. It was contradicting what we thought we knew. It shows us how the other side might have viewed the situation of the past. I still believe they should have made the Mursaat more sympatric to some degree. I do believe that they are one of the most realistic representation of real-life humans in the story in the way that they did not care about human life the same way humans normally don’t care about animals. Just compare these two races: Both believe themselves to be far higher up in the food chain than their surroundings. Mursaat felt as superior towards humans as we do to animals. We (and I use the word “we” to talk about humanity as a whole, not every individual of course) have no problem with keeping sentient and sapient beings mass enslaved in little cages and murder them just because they taste good. The Mursaat viewed humans as humans view animals and they did infact treat us better and slaughtered them for a far more important and later understandable reason, first to keep their race safe, then revenge. Even if they were so prideful, they don’t even come close to the amount of hubris humanity can provide. I do hope that my personal pet theory comes true in GW3 and we will get a comeback from them. If the Eye of Janthir only showed the fate of the Mursaat on Tyria, this means that some might have survived out of phase. I would actually expect them to have left a population there on purpose. Think about it: Why the hell would a race that is hellbend on outliving their former partners not have an emergency plan? The most logical decision for a race that has the ability to enter a safe realm (become out of phase) would be to establish at least two different homegrounds. One in Tyria and one out of phase to fall back to, in case things go terrible wrong on Tyria. There are no implications that suggest that the realm out of phase would no longer be a safe place for the Mursaat. So why would they be so stupid to abandon a place that proved to be an important shelter during a dragon rise? They saw what happened to their siblings on Tyria and are still waiting, preparing for their big appearance in GW3… well, at least I can cling on that hope, instead of having to accept that they were all murdered of in the cheapest way I could think of. But back to topic: The fact that during a war the two sides claim two very different stories to be true is to be expected. Because of that I did not find the contend of the tablets weird at all. It is a classical unreliable narrator, the one story-tool anet sometimes still seems to remember to use in the right way. I can only give that compliment back; I enjoyed our conversation. Talking with people who have a different opinion but do not directly jump at your throat is always a good experience because it sharpens your own mind a bit. The thirst thing always felt weird to me, but Lyssa is about teaching you to differentiate between what is Illusion and what is reality, what is important and what is not. If you think that staring at her is more important than surviving, than that could probably be a fair decision for her. But if you consider the fact that you need quite some time to dehydrate under normal conditions, I do believe the stories stem more from people who were close to death and were graced by Lyssa in a way to at least see a marveling work of art in their last moments, making them forget their thirst for the last few minutes of their life. A small gift of peace in their death. At least that sounds a lot more like her. It certainly comes down to it. We don’t see enough of Malchor to make a diagnosis, but I believe something among the lines of depression might be a good guess. In real life mental health problems are viewed as an illness. I have personal experience regarding this issue and am a firm believer of the fact that some people are not accountable in some situations. They need help against their own will. While this seems like going against someone’s wishes, you must remember that they do not act with a sane mind in certain situations. I do believe that everyone has a right to do what they want with their life (as long as they don’t hurt another person with it, etc) including ending it, if they wish to do so. But at the same time, they also have the right to be saved from themselves if they are no longer able to make this decision with a sane mind. Malchor is clearly out of his mind, helping him against his will sounds like the right thing to me. But yes, we don’t know how the Gods would think about that, if they even noticed it at all. They are not omniscient after all. I would guess the plot twist would not have been about who his father was, but about who or what Grenth really is. If you take a look at Kormir, you will see that she more or less kept her mortal appearance as a Goddess. Now take a look at his head: Grenth has the skull of a beast. The Gods keeping their appearance after ascension implies that he had this look while still being a mortal. Whatever species he was from, it was probably not a mix of Dwayna and a human. If we were still in GW1 times, I would have guessed it was because Dhuum looked like a skeleton and he took on that part of him the same way that Abaddon took on certain insectoid looks from Arachnia, who was planned to be a spider Goddess. But because of GW2 we know that 1) Dhuum probably was just the green glow and 2) that the Gods appearance also doesn’t change to their precursors after they ascended within a reasonable amount of time. This leaves us with the question why Grenth looked like this. However, if the whole story with the sculptor was a lie and Grenth simply of a different species to begin with, that would explain why he was so powerful to stand a chance against Dhuum and why he needed someone to claim him being part human to make him look more appealing to his new mortal followers. That even goes hand in hand with Grenth doing what is basically advertisement in his early days. Look at Desmina: He basically handed her a “join my club”-card. No other God cared about someone who did not pray to them before or did something they (dis)liked like that. It almost feels like he wanted to get a big fan club and being part human would make that easier for sure. It would at least make for an interesting twist. Regardless of this little theory, even if we assume the writers deleted the Inscription because it disproved that Malchor could have been the father: They never put proof of Machor being a father in the game either. That sure looks to me like they intended for it to stay a mystery, for reasons we may never know.
  12. While the number isn’t clear, I always interpreted the line in the way that it happened often enough that the Gods had to take action regarding the issue. It is of course also fair to assume differently. Regardless of the exact number of people, we can’t rule out that another sculptor was among them. I agree with your personal taste, but besides Lyssa who might actually act rationally, all other Gods acted nearly the exact way you described starting with GW2. It was a big decision that the writers wanted to make them more human-like and down to earth, that needed certain sacrifices, some of which I personally would not have made. I disagree... or, at least, if we take that approach, then the game itself is also ruled out for things like S2E7, which originally had secondborn sylvari dying before Riannoc, the first sylvari to die. At that point, you have nothing left to work with. I have to respectfully disagree. While I can understand your personal preference, I could never be happy with something so glaringly false being treated with the same respect as something we actually witness ingame. Also, I am not aware of this specific timeline issue? I thought Riannoc simply died before this happened. I could certainly be wrong though, the devs do mess up the lore on regular basis after all. Sometimes the errors are fixed after a while, sometimes we still have dead people walking around on the Bazar or in HOT. We are not talking about a simple flaw here. We are talking about 2 grave and stupid mistakes in a very short paragraph. A different thing would have been the Mursaat lore at Ember Bay. There was a mistake regarding the exact years that actually made me question if this lore was faked by someone else. But in the end, it turned out to be a simple mistake that got fixed later. That is a simple flaw and it did not really take away its credibility. That is something you can overlook when judging a source trustworthy. But claiming that Malchor made Grenths and Kormirs statue? That’s on a completely different level. Thank you for worrying about my enjoyment (Realizing that this may come of like sarcasm, it is not!), but I already went through my personal phase of discomfort with the way the writers handle the lore in GW2. It was quite painful to see the change of direction compared to the way they treated it in GW1. But I made my peace with it by accepting that there are bound to be mistakes. Even more important to me was the fact that something does not really need to be a mistake if it can be explained otherwise. A twisted modification of Occam's razor if you will. If you shift the question, you can change the answer. Our discussion is a great example: If you assume Malchor to be Grenth father, you will find certain stuff that implies (Dhuums final consumption, the exact location, etc) or directly states (the Pseudo-Lore you quoted) otherwise, leading you to see a mistake. The question would be: How could this happen? And the answer would be: Because the writers fucked up. A simple solution, one step to get to the answer that explains everything, nearly perfect regarding the law of parsimony. But if you change your view a bit and realize that nowhere is it directly stated that Malchor is the father, then the whole questions falls flat. There simply was no mistake because you have an alternative explanation. You can actually reach a perfect solution after zero steps, which makes it perfect if you only use Occam's razor to judge a theory. That may sound twisted, but it is actually quite amusing to do this because it creates lot of fan theories, which I personally really adore. It is also solid ground: I have solid arguments to attack the Malchor is his father theory, regardless if you agree with them or not, while it is nearly impossible to disprove that someone else was the father. This is fun to me. I understand that not everyone feels fulfilled by it, but I certainly enjoy this take on lore sometimes. It was indeed the quest I meant. Seeing that Malchor had severe mental health issues, this should however fall exactly under the description of either the Godess of Healing or the Twins of Mind if Dwayna wanted to distance herself from this. It does not seem to be an unsolvable issue to me in a universe that has mind manipulation and control in mortal-ish (Jokos) hands. It is indeed a question that comes down to how you regard the change to the inscription. To me that action mend that the writers wanted to leave a bit of mystery, but the fact that it was in the game in the first place might have been intended as hidden proof that Malchor was not the father. This is supported by the fact that Kormirs statue never had this issue, meaning they were aware of the fact Malchor did not create all the statues. You can interpret it otherwise, but that still leaves the other problems that I already explained and maybe a few more. Or you have zero problems if you accept that it was another sculptor.
  13. For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms? The link provided below ("The Six Gods lived in the city of Arah among their mortal followers. Sadly, the glory of their presence was too much for human senses to take in, and their radiance blinded those who stared too long upon their visage. Yet the Six wished their people to know them, for they loved their followers a great deal. They chose one man—the sculptor, Malchor—and granted him audience. His task was to make a statue of each god, so that humans might know their creators.") and the original story of Malchor presented to us before launch ("When the gods Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Kormir, Lyssa and Melandru arrived in Tyria, it was impossible, because of their divine nature, to appear before human eyes without blinding them. Thus they decided to fetch a sculptor, so that he could shape statues in their image... One after another, the gods presented themselves in his studio and for each one Malchor carved a statue in their image. Once a statue was finished, the God returned to the city of Arah, where no human could enter.") rely on that as their premise. The reason Malchor needed to sacrifice his sight is that there was no other way for the masses to see what their gods actually looked like. Thank you for your source, but what I meant was that you stated that only a single sculptor saw their true form, which we cant say for sure because many people went blind looking at them, some of them likely also sculptors. It was merely splitting hairs on my end, but it did lead to you stating your source, which I am thankful for because I did not find it after a quick search, despite knowing it existed. And as I stated, neither is it unlikely, especially since Dwayna is nearly always being depicted as deeply caring for every human she meets and all sculptors must have wanted to get a chance to depict the Gods, nor does the mere absence of another sculptor in the story proves anything. Claiming that basic skepticism regarding the reliability of a source is a radical approach shocks me. Even more so because the very source you quote states that Malchor created the statues of Grenth and Kormir, both becoming Gods after he died! This has nothing to do with washing out the atmosphere of Tyria, it is about devs being wrong about facts that were written in stone. You can’t really expect anyone to take these outside sources into consideration in an argument about lore, as much as it would prove to set the mood, because they are an offense to any person who takes the lore serously. Granted that they would call the map this way ingame, also granted that it would give it a Meta-Meaning. But Meta-Meanings hold no value in an argument. Here comes a great example: Path of the Gods has this flavor text: “There WOULD be eight, but nobody could find any statues of Dhuum.” This is in fact a valid question and qualifies as another minor argument to add to the list of arguments against Malchor being the father: Why are none of Dhuums statues found anywhere? A solution would be: Because Malchor did not make any. Why? Because he could not have created them because Malchor met Grenth during his lifetime, long after Dhuums fall. While the Gods had reason to destroy all evidence of Abaddon (and failed at that) they did not have a reason to destroy Dhuums statues. Even if Grenth cared about that, could he have gotten every last one of them if all 5 of the Gods failed at that when they really cared about destroying all evidence? No, that would make no sense. You can’t find the statues because they never existed in the first place. This gives the flavor text a nice Meta-Meaning. We can use the statues as an argument, but do we really want to use the Meta-Meaning as one? No. Because: 1) What qualifies as a Meta-Meaning is up for debate. 2) The fact that it would get a sweet Meta-Meaning has no real value regarding the argument. You are right on that. Strangely enough, Dwayna did it on a regular basis. She also helped the people overcome their problems so they could rest in peace. This is why it is even weirder that he still sticks around. This still leaves the problem that Lyssa could have solved the issue as proven with the mirror. No need to blind a mortal for that. But as it stand, we can safely assume that Malchor fails to fulfill the criteria he needs to be Grenths father, from the place of his death to arguably the mere presence of a soul (if you want to argue that Dhuum did not get to him quick enough before being defeated). But most importantly, if we would take your text to be cannon, he could not have made Grenths statue. That is a little bit more that just a few “ramifications”. We definitely agree on that part. But we have to interpret the facts presented ingame in such a way that they are compatible with the lore around it without regards of what the writers thought would be a cool concept. And since you can’t separate the statue lore from Malchor and Grenth, it leaves us with only two solutions that fit the problem: Either there was another sculptor who was Grenths father, or the whole story was made up by (human) followers.
  14. For starters, where is your proof for that claim? I thought the whole reason for the statues was because people looked at their true forms? Nothing ingame states that it was Malchor. Even if you take the holy texts regarding the pantheon at face value, which thanks to them being unreliable narrators we should not, never is a connection made. The only connection is both being sculptors who loved Dwayna. That’s all. You obviously can’t take sources outside from the game into it because it is at best psudo-cannon (or what did they call it last time?) at worst we get them stating that Malchor created the statues of Kormir. I do think that personal issues might have made someone’s resolve stronger, and we can assume that Grenths father died on the map, maybe even explaining why Dhuum came there – but your assumption is that his father his Malchor, which influences the way you interpret it. I can simply claim it was a sculptor who prayed at Lyssas temple shortly before dying. Dhuum shows up to collect his soul, Grenth throws a fit and battles him with his 7 companions. Which leaves us with a place that is not at all near Malchors place of death! The title of the map means little, because for the same travel distance a probably trained Sylvari took multiple days. If you take into consideration that humanity probably at that time lived ONLY on Orr, making the place the events could have happened much smaller, that means that Dhuum showed up at a completely different place. Even if we assume that it was Malchor, why would Grenth leave his father in this state? It is literary his job to care for lost souls like him and we know that Grenth tried to take his job seriously. Why would he leave the man who started his ascensions in such a pitiful state? Just to make it clear, I do believe that the writing team was not sure what they did and at the release of the game wanted to imply that Malchor was his father. It just contradicts other evidence. The most problematic proof was the inscription on the statue which was changed. They probably realized they kittened up there and changed it without a word. But this leaves the other problems and the question who made Grenth statue in this case. Which is another thing that made little sense. If you think about it, the whole statue lore is a mess: To start with, we know that the blinding thing is not necessarily true, which is why the whole explanation of why the gods needed Malchor in the first place starts to fall apart. While the Gods may blind people (Kormir in POF being proof), this is not the case for every God. Abaddon did not blind us in GW1 (if for mechanical reasons or because his chains or whatsonot not is not clear), but neither do the other Gods in their scriptures. Especially Lyssa just lived among humans without blinding them. If you claim that this is because they are the Goddesses for Illusions, you will also have to admit that she could just have given the other Gods artifacts to solve the issue. After all, her mirror proves that her artefacts are able to hide the truth even from the eyes of the other Gods, it will certainly be enough to ensure the eyesight of a few humans by putting a filter on the Gods visages. Btw, why exactly could the Goddess of Healing herself not heal Malchors eyes as payment for the great job he did? Here are two possible answers: 1) The whole story is a mess and was just made up so anet could exchange the good old statues for the (imo inferior) ones we have now. 2) Because the whole text even ingame was written by humans, aka unreliable narrators who have organized cults and all the reason to twist the words of the scriptures you have that come along with that. The story about Grenth being of mortal origin at all could have been an attempt to make the new God appear friendlier to the humans, if you want to take it to extremes.
  15. Agreed. The whole plot around Grenth and Dhuum is a strange mixture of great mystery and questionable writing. On one hand, it certainly suits Dhuum to be an enigma that breaks the “normal” rules that the other Gods apparently follow. Even without* Godhood, he could not be killed by the new God of Death, going so far as to call himself Death itself, which would sound like some hubristic boast if it not came from the one being who may indeed be the embodiment of death. There are some theories to explain this. One being that he simply says the truth. Remember that in the GW1 universe certain parts and rules of nature may be embodied by avatars. Often times these are lesser elementals, but a concept like death may as well have an avatar in the form of Dhuum. This does however leave the question of why this being decided to become a God. Another explanation would be that Grenth could not kill him for tactical reasons: Grenth could already have a certain amount of divinity in him via him being Dwayna's son and a Demigod. *Since the Gods can only handle a certain amount of divinity in them, Grenth might have been unable to take all of Dhuum's divinity and Dhuum might have kept a spark of his former glory. In this case, simply keeping him imprisoned would be most likely easier than to get another successor. Grenth's seed founding of divinity also helps to explain how he could beat a God in combat with only 7 other heroes as support. It however leaves the question where Grenth's divinity came from. Did Dwayna sacrificed some of hers? If yes, why couldn’t she sponge up the remaining divinity of Dhuum? The lore gives lots of room to mystery but at the same time stays logical enough for it to be explainable if the writers want to do so in the future. There are also multiple plotlines to combine well with Dhuum's, for example the MAD-alliance in GW1. The little touches like the short Gwen encounter in the Underworld-Raid, referencing her mother being there in GW1. This is good writing. But on the other hand, the lore around Dhuum that came with GW2 was badly handled sometimes. I am not even talking about his new looks or the changes to his speech habit. It is about how some of the writers did not bother to check if certain new parts of the lore are compatible with older ones. This seems to be a general problem in the game if we take a look at things like Malyck or the Mursaat, but regarding Dhuum and Grenth the biggest offender is probably Grenth's mortal father, which was imo a too hastily executed idea of how to make the new lore regarding the Gods more human. For starters, some people think that Malchor might be his father, but this is not clear at all. People just tend to assume so because we only know of one famous sculptor (despite there probably being hundreds of artists who fell in love with the Gods when they were still around) because we got sadly used to simple answers being spoon-fed to us via simplistic writing. There are however two main arguments against Malchor being Grenth's father. The first one stems from the fact that Malchor was supposed to be the creator of the statue design of the human gods and such also Grenth. This leads to the problem that Malchor would have been dead by the time he was supposed to make the statues, as Grenth avenged his dead father by defeating Dhuum. This argument is quite interesting, because it is in a weird position regarding its status as canon and might be an example of ANET trying to retcon their story. The inscription of the statues at release leaves no doubt about Malchor being their creator: "Grenth I feared the most, for in gazing upon him I saw my own end. But Grenth also embodies inevitability, the idea that all things have a time...and that time must inevitably pass." —Malchor Now for the fun fact. Between June and September 2017, the inscription was changed to the one you can see nowadays: "Grenth, Prince of Ice, God of Death. He embodies inevitability, the idea that all things have a time... and that time must inevitably pass." — Desmina This obviously leaves out the important part that Malchor was supposed to be the creator of the statues. I personally do think that it is important that the former inscription made it into the game and as such must have passed the internal lore check and should be treated as canon, but some people might argue that the change of the inscription happened because ANET fucked up and wanted to retcon the whole thing. That is a fair argument, which leaves us to the second important argument against Malchor being Grenths father. Grenth's father died when Dhuum was still around, kicking the whole ascension into godhood by replacing Dhuum into motion. But what happened with people who died before Grenth was the god of death? Well, we can see that in the hall of chains: Their souls were consumed by Dhuum and lost forever. As far as I am aware, there is not a single spirit around from someone who died during Dhuum's reign. Since Malchor's spirit is still around, he must have died after Grenth was already a god, as Dhuum would have consumed his very existence if Malchor died before Dhuums downfall. Even if you argue that Grenth might have been able to save his father’s soul somehow (which I doubt, as Dhuum is still able to consume souls even after being stripped of (most) of his divinity and after being forced into slumber in a place made for him to be imprisoned there forever), this begs the question why he would have let him in such a spot instead of making sure to take him to a better place in the underworld or even into Dwayna's realm of the dead. It would make no sense to challenge a god to save his father’s soul and then just let him rot in sunken Orr after winning the fight. And Dwayna, the merciful one, who even sends down avatars of herself to let souls rest in peace (Family Ties (Prophecies quest)), collect the soul of a single dwarf who worshipped her (Attack on Jalis's Camp) and generally does everything in her powers to help people, is suddenly supposed to let her former lover haunt his place of death instead of granting him peace? There is also a third and minor argument regarding location of the events: Malchor died west of the Cathedral of Zephyrs, while Dhuum's Last Stand is located near the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance. These are two very different places. Judging from the fact that in lore you would probably need days to travel between these two places (see Daliah and Rose), they are not even close to each other. Yet, we know that Dhuum fell there and “Where his father had fallen, Grenth would rise”, implying that Grenth's father died near the temple of Lyssa. That makes sense, judging from the fact that it certainly fits a sculptor to work or at least pray regularly at Lyssa's temple, who was the patron deity of artists. This does imply that it was indeed another sculptor. Since the space of Tyria is kind of warped due to gameplay reasons, I can understand people who want to count the two places as being close to each other, which is why I only count it as a minor argument, as it can be dismissed by a weird space-perception, but to me it is a deal-breaker. Ok, enough with this rant about how the lore was handled there. To the next point: I would personally regard the change of models to be a simple retcon. You could argue though that something happened between the encounters (he did have some time after he broke his chains after all), so he may have changed his looks. This actually might hold some value. He was already linked to a green glow in GW1, which you can also see in his “body”, especially around his heart and eyes. The new model may imply that he used the skeleton in GW1 in the same way he uses his armor in GW2: As a mere shell he binds his essence to. But yeah, your interpretation also makes sense. I just doubt the designers would think so far ahead when the made Dhuum's model. Quick note regarding the main topic, even if the most important things were already said: Dhuum hated undead creatures with a passion and was all about being the final end. He is the last God I would expect to share some secret regarding immortality, if he knew of it. And with it being unclear how much the Deities of Secrets really know, I don’t think Joko got it this way. Khilbron always appeared to be more of a byproduct of the mass destruction spell that was not intended for granting someone eternal life or even as a direct intervention of Abaddon. The scriptures in Jokos coffer can be explained otherwise. The Djinn seems to be the far better hint.
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