Balthazar did nothing wrong

[Wintermute.5408]

Now that EoD is done, we know for a fact that there were no catastrophic events whatsoever to happen upon Kralk death. His magic would just go to Soo-Won anyway, get absorbed into reactor yada yada. Worst case scenario, we'd have Dragon void manifest slightly earlier. Which would be perfectly killable, probably solo, by chaddest of the gods.

Would we just let Balthazar do his thing, Kralk wouln't go on rampage through Tyria and Mists, causing unspecified, but clearly terrible amount of casualties. Would we let Balthazar do his thing, Jormag and Primordus would also not go and kill gods know how many people. Balthazar original plan for dispatching them was done with surgical precision, and almost no collateral damage. Sure, his crusade over Elona caused death and suffering - but he went with all-out warfare only after we run in and started disrupting his plans like morons that we are. We as Commander caused so, so much more damage than him, as rightfully pointed out by none other that Joko (praised be).

Let's face the truth - out of all the human gods, he was the only one to actually fight for the world of their loyal worshippers. Rest just kittened off, leaving humanity to almost certain doom, covering with pathetic excuse of "oh no, we could deal damage to the world if we stood up to its literal annihilation".

I demand an event of formal apology from my commander to the only god that truly gave a kitten about humanity, stood up to defend it, and got killed for it by us ungrateful sobs.

[Ashantara.8731]

2 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Balthazar did nothing wrong

. . . other than killing the other Gods and wanting to wreak havoc on the world.😉

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Well, Aurene was still vital, even if only because of unexplained reasons that she's simply capable of fulfilling the role that six were incapable of fulfilling before.

2 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Let's face the truth - out of all the human gods, he was the only one to actually fight for the world of their loyal worshippers. Rest just kittened off, leaving humanity to almost certain doom, covering with pathetic excuse of "oh no, we could deal damage to the world if we stood up to its literal annihilation".

Yeah, except no. The gods didn't abandon humanity, but were partaking in a Plan B (where Plan A was Glint and her children aka Aurene, and Plan B was "find another, safer, world for humans to migrate to") with the intention of returning once Plan B was viable.

And while the Kormir Speech in-game didn't showcase it well, the Kormir speech in Daybreak trailer does: a conflict would result in either the magical imbalance (which we now know would be Void manifesting and unmaking the world) or the destruction of the Six (and superpowered Elder Dragons capable of consuming the multiverse, as we almost got with Kralkatorrik after Balthazar's death).

It really was a lose-lose scenario if the Six Gods fought. And this includes Balthazar fighting.

 

That said, Balthazar was still antagonized into villainy by the Commander in Season 3. But at least Aurene's Insight addresses this a bit. That Balthazar was far too focused on his revenge that it made cooperation impossible. Still should've been showcased a bit better, esp with IBS's ending. Menzies still would have made far more sense as an enemy than turning Balthazar into a Fiery Abaddon 2.0.

 

2 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

. . . other than killing the other Gods and wanting to wreak havoc on the world.😉

Balthazar didn't kill any other gods though? Just wanted to.

[Slowpokeking.8720]

The whole Balthazar went evil came from nowhere, it would made much more sense if it was Menzies.

[Trejgon.9367]

If we let balthazar just murder all other EDs as he pleased, Aurene would not have time to grow, and take her place as an ultimate replacement ED, and soo-won would "break" very quickly. with void consuming everything shortly after pof with no one having any clue what the heck is going on.

The "almost no collateral damage" of Balthazar actions is inherently flawed, because "collteral damage" we didn't hesitate about was throwing whole of Tyria away. He was told that Tyria will be destroyed if he proceeded with Omadd's machine, and yet he pushed through the plan, and even tossed out a line of how tyria does not matter to him.

So unfortunatelly, but no, he had to be stopped.

[voltaicbore.8012]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Well, Aurene was still vital, even if only because of unexplained reasons that she's simply capable of fulfilling the role that six were incapable of fulfilling before.

Yeah, I don't like the lack of explanation either. It's possible to piece together a very weak post-hoc explanation along the lines of Aurene being the only ED aside from Soo-Won to have access to all 6 of the ED domains we killed including Soo-Won.

But that still leaves open the gaping question of why Aurene can succeed. While we can at least somewhat understand why Soo-Won cannot handle re-absorbing the magics she split off from herself (we're told the Void corruption was something she didn't start off with, as it corrupted her children and then began corrupting the whole system as we continued to kill those children), it still doesn't really explain why Aurene can succeed at that task. We're left with just accepting that for some unexplained reason Aurene can handle it.

36 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

If we let balthazar just murder all other EDs as he pleased, Aurene would not have time to grow, and take her place as an ultimate replacement ED, and soo-won would "break" very quickly. with void consuming everything shortly after pof with no one having any clue what the heck is going on.

This is also what I've come to accept as the best excuse for opposing Balth - just buying more time for Aurene to grow/prepare for her role as the magical solution to everything. Even now, Soo-Won is concerned that Aurene didn't have enough time to be ready. This of course fails to account for the possibility that

4 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

His magic would just go to Soo-Won anyway, get absorbed into reactor yada yada.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for Joon to scale up (maybe even with a few hiccups along the way) the jade charging process to handle the increased load. Her system handled it when Jormag and Primordus did their kiss of death in Dragonstorm anyways, and it wasn't like we bought a huge amount of time between when Balth would have done it vs when it actually ended up happening.

Overall though I just choose to be satisfied that ANet is ready to pivot away from EDs.

As for apologizing to Balth... not sure I'm on board with that. I fully agree that Balthazar, to the end, was the only one among the Six that remained willing to participate in the struggles of Tyria, but he makes it pretty clear that when it comes down to it he doesn't care that much about the welfare of humanity. Ultimately protecting us was never his end goal, and he was more than willing to erase all of us if that's what it took to get what he wanted.

I hope ANet is just as willing to abandon the Six (as a main story element) as they were to abandon the EDs.

Edited March 22, 2022 by voltaicbore.8012

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

6 hours ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Now that EoD is done, we know for a fact that there were no catastrophic events whatsoever to happen upon Kralk death. His magic would just go to Soo-Won anyway, get absorbed into reactor yada yada. Worst case scenario, we'd have Dragon void manifest slightly earlier. Which would be perfectly killable, probably solo, by chaddest of the gods.

Would we just let Balthazar do his thing, Kralk wouln't go on rampage through Tyria and Mists, causing unspecified, but clearly terrible amount of casualties. Would we let Balthazar do his thing, Jormag and Primordus would also not go and kill gods know how many people. Balthazar original plan for dispatching them was done with surgical precision, and almost no collateral damage. Sure, his crusade over Elona caused death and suffering - but he went with all-out warfare only after we run in and started disrupting his plans like morons that we are. We as Commander caused so, so much more damage than him, as rightfully pointed out by none other that Joko (praised be).

Let's face the truth - out of all the human gods, he was the only one to actually fight for the world of their loyal worshippers. Rest just kittened off, leaving humanity to almost certain doom, covering with pathetic excuse of "oh no, we could deal damage to the world if we stood up to its literal annihilation".

I demand an event of formal apology from my commander to the only god that truly gave a kitten about humanity, stood up to defend it, and got killed for it by us ungrateful sobs.

Except this is fundamentally false.

The upset of the dragon cycle had already caused massive issues like giant ley line creatures rampaging around, widespread mutations of humans and animals into giant ley infested monsters, dangerous to normal people unbound and volatile magic to appear everywhere, and various time rifts were starting to open up in places like Jahai. And all of this while Soo-Won was in the reactor.

The world was already suffering from catastrophic consequences from dragon deaths because Soo-Won and the reactor wouldn't contain it all. We already see how void was leaking through and causing issues with anything Jade powered in EoD, imagine all the issues stated above, plus even more rampant jade malfunctions, because that is what would have happened if we didn't stop Balthazar.

4 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Yeah, except no. The gods didn't abandon humanity, but were partaking in a Plan B (where Plan A was Glint and her children aka Aurene, and Plan B was "find another, safer, world for humans to migrate to") with the intention of returning once Plan B was viable.

There is no substantive evidence that the gods had any plans to return, or were in the process of looking for a new world  for humanity. The only suggestion of such a thing was from one book written by a religious fanatic with nothing else in the entire franchise, let alone Kormir herself who said fanatic supposedly got this information from, supporting it.

2 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

I hope ANet is just as willing to abandon the Six (as a main story element) as they were to abandon the EDs.

Abandoning would require they never bring a story to a conclusion. The Elder Dragon story got brought to its conclusion. It literally cannot be described as "abandoned"

Edited March 22, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

2 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

Yeah, I don't like the lack of explanation either. It's possible to piece together a very weak post-hoc explanation along the lines of Aurene being the only ED aside from Soo-Won to have access to all 6 of the ED domains we killed including Soo-Won.

But that still leaves open the gaping question of why Aurene can succeed. While we can at least somewhat understand why Soo-Won cannot handle re-absorbing the magics she split off from herself (we're told the Void corruption was something she didn't start off with, as it corrupted her children and then began corrupting the whole system as we continued to kill those children), it still doesn't really explain why Aurene can succeed at that task. We're left with just accepting that for some .

They did explain it back in LWS4. During Glint's trials her recordings state that the key to overcoming issues with taking in too much magic are to share said magic with others, instead of hording it like the Elder Dragons currently do.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scion_%26_Champion

Quote

Glint: You will see, Scion, that absorbing magic comes naturally. But the power, its temptations...they exact a price.

Glint: Champion, this magic is powerful and dangerous. Share the burden so she can absorb it.

Aurene: (roar)

(Upon completion.)

Glint: Well done. When Elder Dragons gorge on magic with abandon, the world falls out of balance. We have no choice but to act.

Glint: To use power responsibly is to know when and how to share it—and when not to use it at all. Now continue to the next trial.

Glint: More powerful still, and more dangerous...

(After completing the first phase.)

Glint: Good. Power has many uses, Scion. By choosing to share it and heal wounds, you strengthen your bond with mortals.

Glint: Remember that bond. As the power grows, so will the dangers. And the temptations.

This is backed up by the PoF Kesho cutscene where Sadizi states

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Way_Forward

Quote

Sadizi: We theorize these vacancies must be filled with entities that circulate and share magic rather than hoard it.

Sadizi: Only then will the balance of magic truly become stable. Only then will Glint's legacy achieve its ultimate purpose.

 

And both Kralkatorrik, and Soo-Won, support these arguments during conversations with them at the end of LWS4, and EoD. both pointing out her unique connection to mortals, and how Elder Dragons had traditionally been going at it alone.

The old Elder Dragons had issues because they tried to carry the burden of magic by themselves, and in the process hoarded it all within themselves causing these issues. Aurene's connection to mortals, and her sharing of magic with those around her instead of hoarding it into herself, prevent her from having these issues becuase she wasn't just stockpiling what is essentially a toxic substance in her body.

[voltaicbore.8012]

29 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Abandoning would require they never bring a story to a conclusion. The Elder Dragon story got brought to its conclusion. It literally cannot be described as "abandoned"

You are correct, I agree it was inaccurate for me to apply "abandoned" to the ED story. My personal gripes with it aside, the ED story has been very directly addressed and intentionally brought to a conclusion. I should have changed both instances of "abandon/abandoned" to "depart/departed", as that is actually what I intended to sy.

[Wintermute.5408]

5 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

. . . other than killing the other Gods and wanting to wreak havoc on the world.😉

Let's be honest, they deserved it. Their whole rule was deeply corrupt. Imagine throwing a legitimate god of Death (who actually took his job responsibly, and didn't tolerate immortal and undead cheaters) into prison, just to have your dimwit son take the throne. And don't even get me started on what they did to Abaddon.

[Wintermute.5408]

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The upset of the dragon cycle had already caused massive issues like giant ley line creatures rampaging around, widespread mutations of humans and animals into giant ley infested monsters, dangerous to normal people unbound and volatile magic to appear everywhere, and various time rifts were starting to open up in places like Jahai. And all of this while Soo-Won was in the reactor.

Hey, we ourselves go and axe off not 1, but 2 elder dragons shortly after. Nothing happened. And Balthasar in his chad wisdom was even going to absorb the magic from Primordus, so it would definitely be safer than what we did.

[Kalavier.1097]

3 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Hey, we ourselves go and axe off not 1, but 2 elder dragons shortly after. Nothing happened. And Balthasar in his chad wisdom was even going to absorb the magic from Primordus, so it would definitely be safer than what we did.

 

Jormag and Primordus? The ones we had an elder dragon sitting on both to help deal with the effects?

 

Also, that completely ignores the fact you would have Jormag dying over in the shiverpeaks with nobody to absorb/deal with the blast there :P.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Hey, we ourselves go and axe off not 1, but 2 elder dragons shortly after. Nothing happened. And Balthasar in his chad wisdom was even going to absorb the magic from Primordus, so it would definitely be safer than what we did.

What @Kalavier.1097 said. Nothing happened after Jormag and Primrodus died because Aurene was around, as an Elder Dragon, to maintain the balance in their absence.

Same reason why all the unbound/voltile magic, and the ley infused monsters, vanished after Aurene ascended. She was maintaining the balance.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Trejgon.9367]

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for Joon to scale up (maybe even with a few hiccups along the way) the jade charging process to handle the increased load. Her system handled it when Jormag and Primordus did their kiss of death in Dragonstorm anyways, and it wasn't like we bought a huge amount of time between when Balth would have done it vs when it actually ended up happening.

Did she actually have it running by the time of flashpoint? how old that reactor is really 🤔

I have my doubts if reactor was even operational, and notice that not only there is a decent chunk of time passing between balthaar potentially killing primordus and jormag in flashpoint, and the time when they actually die, but also Aurene ascends to ED status during that time as well - Soo-won and reactor "can handle" additional load at that time (even when it starts leaking void magic into jade batteries) only because there is Aurene doing fair share of balancing on her own. And notice how quickly Soo-Won "breaks and starts going on the rampage when Aurenes share got dumped in her face to manage.

(For reference on amount of time we "bought" by stopping balthy at flashpoint, from that speculated moment of death of primordy and jormag, we:

1. go to sirens landing and deal with last mursaat to see what balthy was up to next,

2. whole PoF happens 
3. we deal with pof consequences, Joko, escapes domain of the lost, starts invading central tyria,

4. commander assembles alliance against the plague, and invades domain of kourna, get's rid of joko,

5. we start tackling Kralkatorik escalating with balth's magic,

6. Kralkatorik managed to dismantle mists resistance, forcing us to accelerate any plan to deal with him, this plan fails,

7. we get all the way from thunderhead to LA "because people deserve to know"

8, get back and finish off kralk, Aurene ascends to ED status,

9. Blood Legion emperor throws a party and starts subverting charr to go "get themselves their own ED"

10. We wait non-specified amount of time before blizzard stopping us from following Bangar's forces subsidies, and we got to bjora

11. after a decent chunk of time investigating bjora we get knocked out and tame again unspecified amount of time recovering

12. during that recovery charra civil wars goes from "we need to prevent it" to "is already going on for too long" Dominion get's established, united legions assemble against it

13. we again wait unspecified amount of time for ice wall across drizzlewood to disappear

14. we drop into the party just in time to see bangar re-awaken jormag after flashpoint

15. whole campaign of trying to defend against both primordy and jormag plays off, with us running around everywhere

in short, expansion and two living world seasons worth of time Aurene got to prepare, and for Joon to get the whole reactor thing going at capacity where it barely handles the spike from pimordy and jormag blowing themselves up)

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

What @Kalavier.1097 said. Nothing happened after Jormag and Primrodus died because Aurene was around, as an Elder Dragon, to maintain the balance in their absence.

Same reason why all the unbound/voltile magic, and the ley infused monsters, vanished after Aurene ascended. She was maintaining the balance.

 

Indeed. She was able to absorb some of it, filter some, and the majority just went back into the system. But Aurene couldn't directly see the network of ley-lines because she only had access to parts of it, IIRC the end of EoD correctly.

 

And yeah, while it's not huge now remember the whole side arc of the commander literally starting to go insane because they had been directly exposed to so much ley-magic (before Aurene hatched)? That was what... s2 at some point? Or was it after HoT? I forget exactly. But there was the "Sad Anomaly" sequences and all.

 

Plus in a way, since Dragonfall we have the Skyscales. One of the draconic family that unlike the rest actually does feed off excess magic as well as regular food sources. So that's undoubtedly helping Aurene out.

[Trejgon.9367]

48 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

And yeah, while it's not huge now remember the whole side arc of the commander literally starting to go insane because they had been directly exposed to so much ley-magic (before Aurene hatched)? That was what... s2 at some point? Or was it after HoT? I forget exactly. But there was the "Sad Anomaly" sequences and all.

"current stories", during LWS3 I believe

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

8 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

There is no substantive evidence that the gods had any plans to return, or were in the process of looking for a new world  for humanity. The only suggestion of such a thing was from one book written by a religious fanatic with nothing else in the entire franchise, let alone Kormir herself who said fanatic supposedly got this information from, supporting it.

Against my better judgment...

Kormir's personal journal also states that the gods all believe Tyria is doomed with no hope, which is sharing the same mindset.

There's also no substantive evidence countering, or even anything presented beyond this one believer (whom is not portrayed as fanatical - at least not to the point of making kitten up - if you say otherwise, then it's merely a cast of interpretation and nothing more), and as such no reason to believe it isn't true.

Most importantly, however, there's the Doylist reasoning: with no counter-argument presented, this is unlikely to be a red herring on ArenaNet's part, at least in so far as during Path of Fire's planning. While later writing may change, currently it seems evident they put that piece of lore there for the specific purpose of showcasing the Six Gods' intentions in leaving as a reward to those who dig deeper.

  

7 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

They did explain it back in LWS4. During Glint's trials her recordings state that the key to overcoming issues with taking in too much magic are to share said magic with others, instead of hording it like the Elder Dragons currently do.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scion_%26_Champion

This is backed up by the PoF Kesho cutscene where Sadizi states

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Way_Forward

There's a certain irony in you citing those pages...

The problem however is that End of Dragons effectively retcons this. Soo-Won, like Aurene, does not hoard magic but shares it. She even bonded with Kuunavang decades ago, and has her magic constantly siphoned.

Yet she's incapable of handling the magic. And it seems that the other Elder Dragons were doomed from day 1, and it wasn't because they were "hoarding magic":

Soo-Won: Where I brought my children into being when all was timeless, cold, and empty...

Soo-Won: And with their coming, I watched as the world grew all around...full of hope inthe warmth of a maturing sun.

Aurene: Primordus, Kralkatorrik, the others...they were all here as the world formed?

Soo-Won: A while, yes. I created them as tools—mindless as Nature—to stay the Void's unrelenting push toward entropy...

Soo-Won: But here, so long ago, there was a time they called me..."Mother."

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mother's_Lament#Ambient_dialogue

This dialogue seems to imply that the Elder Dragons' greatest defense against the Void wasn't "sharing magic rather than hoarding it" but rather being mindless. Though we know that didn't work. And that the Void's "unrelenting push" and influence was inevitable.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[ugrakarma.9416]

Well, lets calm down, yes was a villain, but was a great villain, if not the greatest without sounds cheap/mary sued like Scarlett's.

 

- He's the real defeater of White Mantle, tricked them, stole their money, divided them and imprisioned rebels.

- He ahead of us, fixed the Lazarus problem, hiding the final aspect on a Abbadon Shrine full os traps/guards; we really unecessarily just un-doing this to kill Lazarus.

- He near tricked Dragon Watch, and stolen Ommad Machine in front of them.

- He near killed Primordus/Jormag in one blow.

- He Killed Vlast, he killed commander, subjulgated Aurene.

- He tricked Palawa Joko, imprisioned him.

- Caused havoc on Grenth Realm.

- While we need take complicated plans and mobilize "whole world" to kill Kralkatorrik. Balthazar just build a Warbeast and was going to straight up "solo" him using Warbeast as pet.  The god of war is really no joke.

 

So it makes no sense to me for Kormir to shrug his shoulders and say "its your problem, have courage!". Even if it's to sake of the nostalgia "hey you're me past", it's still feels weird her just shrug her shoulders when clearly Balthazar was no joke. 

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Against my better judgment...

Kormir's personal journal also states that the gods all believe Tyria is doomed with no hope, which is sharing the same mindset.

There's also no substantive evidence countering, or even anything presented beyond this one believer (whom is not portrayed as fanatical - at least not to the point of making kitten up - if you say otherwise, then it's merely a cast of interpretation and nothing more), and as such no reason to believe it isn't true.

Most importantly, however, there's the Doylist reasoning: with no counter-argument presented, this is unlikely to be a red herring on ArenaNet's part, at least in so far as during Path of Fire's planning. While later writing may change, currently it seems evident they put that piece of lore there for the specific purpose of showcasing the Six Gods' intentions in leaving as a reward to those who dig deeper.

Kormir's journal only shares the mindset that the world is doomed, not that the gods should, or are, doing anything about it.

The concept of burden of proof works around the idea that the person making the claim, in this example the person claiming the gods are going to look for a new world and save humanity, provide evidence for that claim to back it up. No evidence was provided, and no evidence can be found, meaning the idea fails the  burden of proof concept.

Consider the following. If the gods were truly looking for a new world to move humanity to, since they considered Tyria a lost cause, why have they told no one about this? Why leave their followers, both living and in the Mists, in the dark, and believing that the gods abandoned the world? This especially being true during Path of Fire. Why did Kormir, when confronted with Kas's questioning about the Gods' inaction, not mention such a plan in an attempt to console her, and instead told us what the gods told the GW1 heroes back in Nightfall "you already have everything you need, figure it out yourself. bye bye no!". Not only that, but in End of Dragons we have the actual, literal, apocalypse begin, with the Void beginning to consume all of Tyria from the Harvest Temple to as far north as the Blood Keep, and yet the gods didn't show up, and made no effort to save humanity from impending annihilation.

To believe the idea that the gods have this plan you must also believe that the gods are

1. Actively malicious toward their own followers, leaving them in the dark, and to believe the gods have left them, and that they are all going to die horribly in a doomed world.
2. Deliberately trying to self sabotage their own religion by making everyone believe they simply abandoned Tyria, turning public opinion against them.
3. So monumentally incompetent that, after hundreds of years of working toward said goal, when the very apocalypse they were trying to save humanity from actually happens, they were either unaware, or unprepared, and thus unable to take any action.

And given the lack of mention, or action, on such a plan in EoD, and EoD resolving said apocalypse by having us stop it, and creating a situation where it won't, and can't, happen again, what would be the point of the gods having such a plan in the future narrative? Occam's razor suggests no such plan is in motion given it makes no sense, has no place in the current narrative, and doesn't jive with the actions of the gods throughout the game.

This not even getting into how another one of the PoF lore books, the one about the Order of Shadows, suggested that the Order of Shadows was actually evil, and killed some Order of Whispers agent, and that something would come of it, when nothing else in PoF, or LWS4, suggested as such, or developed such a plot. Showing that these lore books were wrong, or at least retconed, by the time the very content they appeared in actually came out.

The actual doyalist perspective is that its simply a relic of an idea abandoned by the time PoF was finalized, or a cast of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing during PoF's development. Anet has systemically hammered in the idea that the gods have simply left Tyria to its own devices, with ghosts like Gwen in Dragonfall, to Abrorstone refugees in EoD, all mentioning the gods just straight up abandoning Tyria.

The gods having such a plan would also cut into the Lyssa narrative Anet has very clearly set up. Why would Lyssa, the god most connected to mortals, be staying behind to do something behind the other god's back when they all agreed to do this plan to save humanity?

3 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

There's a certain irony in you citing those pages...

The problem however is that End of Dragons effectively retcons this. Soo-Won, like Aurene, does not hoard magic but shares it. She even bonded with Kuunavang decades ago, and has her magic constantly siphoned.

Yet she's incapable of handling the magic. And it seems that the other Elder Dragons were doomed from day 1, and it wasn't because they were "hoarding magic":

This dialogue seems to imply that the Elder Dragons' greatest defense against the Void wasn't "sharing magic rather than hoarding it" but rather being mindless. Though we know that didn't work. And that the Void's "unrelenting push" and influence was inevitable.

 

Except Soo-Won was hording magic, and not sharing it.

Making a bond with Kuunavang =/= sharing magic, no more then an Elder Dragon "corrupting" anything into a minion is sharing their magic in the true sense. It just means she got a minion. She didn't mind control/mentally dominate Kuunavang, but there is nothing to suggest she ever gave Kuunavang any powers via magic sharing like Aurene has with the Commander via the Crystal Champion, or Dragon Slayer, mastery lines(among other things)

Likewise, the whole idea behind sharing magic is that you aren't hoarding it in your body. If Soo-Won wasn't hoarding it in her body then there would be nothing for the Jun's reactor to pull out of her, since it wouldn't be in her body in the first place. The fact that it was in her body to be extracted means she was hoarding it in herself like the other Elder Dragons.

This is further reinforced by the conversation Soo-Won has with Aurene at the very end of EoD. Just before she dies she tells Aurene that she believed it was the Elder Dragons' destiny to live solitary lives, and it was Aurene, and her connection the the mortals around her, that made her change her mind. However, Soo-Won only recently met Aurene, and had been connected to Kuuavang since long before Aurene was even born. Showing she doesn't consider her bond with Kuunavang the same thing as what Aurene has with the Commander, Caithe, and others. Which further reinforces what I said above.

So no, they didn't retcon it, they were actually pretty consistent about it all the way to the end of EoD. Aurene is special, her connection to mores is unique, and the ability to share her magic via this connection is key to preventing the same issues the other dragons ran into. Which is consistent with what Sadizi said in Pof, what Glint and Kralkatorrik said in LWS4, and ties into Soo-Won's comments at the end of EoD.

One unbroken chain, reinforcing an idea going back over 4 years of content now.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[maxwelgm.4315]

Balthazar had wants and needs that were not completely made clear during the story - unless you want to go by the theory that it's simply his "nature" to wage war as a vessel for divine magic, like the Elder Dragon personalities also developed out of birth in spite of being "mindless as Nature" according to Soo-Won.

 

We don't know the extent to which the Elder Dragons were the reason for him to be stripped of his godhood. The gods, including Kormir, simply up and left humanity to its fate, which doesn't make sense regardless of her justification that they could not clash against the Elder Dragons (they could not communicate directly to humans either? Did they take any humans at all to colonize a new world?). Even worse, they left their domains even though that was long before Kralkatorrik learned how to consume the Mists. Grenth to mention just one left the Underworld allowing Dhuum to become free. So we really got no proper motivation behind the gods' behavior towards their subjects other than the writers convoluted a nuclear winter plot device in order to write off human gods. With that said, if they ever do give proper justification it would have to play into Balthazar's intentions as well, as he literally says Tyria is of little concern compared to how much he wanted to wage war elsewhere (I assume against the other gods, but there might be something even beyond that).

[Wintermute.5408]

15 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

 

Jormag and Primordus? The ones we had an elder dragon sitting on both to help deal with the effects?

 

Also, that completely ignores the fact you would have Jormag dying over in the shiverpeaks with nobody to absorb/deal with the blast there :P.

While that would be a fair point, we also observed 2 deaths of elder dragons without any absorption mechanisms in place. Nothing happens when Zhaitan dies. Almost nothing happens when Mordremoth dies. Both their magics got dispensed through ley network and absorbed by other elder dragons literally across the world.

Honestly, Aurene never even needed to be present for any of the ED killings. We could just probably plug her into some leyline nexus and have her watch netflix or something. All 3 times she pokemoned into a more adult state was just due to massive amounts of magic consumed, so there was never an explicit reason to even carry her around. Other than abusing Kralk specific weakness, of course. She'd still grow into an elder dragon one way or the other.

As for elder dragons sharing magic instead of hoarding it - I'm pretty sure all of them shared it, a lot. They had numerous champions, armies of corrupted, and whole sections of world terraformed. How is it different from Aurene branding Crystal bloom members? I mean, sure, we don't call it dragon corruption. Still the same thing though.

[Trejgon.9367]

6 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

As for elder dragons sharing magic instead of hoarding it - I'm pretty sure all of them shared it, a lot. They had numerous champions, armies of corrupted, and whole sections of world terraformed. How is it different from Aurene branding Crystal bloom members? I mean, sure, we don't call it dragon corruption. Still the same thing though.

It is not same thing - corrupting things ain't sharing, and corrupting for the sake of acumulation of more magic definitelly does not qualify for "sharing".

Aurene does not just "brand" crystal bloom members, or bloomify kralk's brand, she processes magic and then put it out back into the system, as it goes instead of doing what other EDs did - consume all of it, go to sleep once there is nothing left to consume and then "bleed out" magic as certain asura has summarized sleeping primordus.

9 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Nothing happens when Zhaitan dies.

We starve out Zhaitan before confronting it.

10 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Almost nothing happens when Mordremoth dies.

Magic blasts out into leylines, and big chunk of that is being absorbed by aurene's egg parked in tarir, that was in quite close proximity, so it's not like we had no mechanism in place for this one.

11 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

She'd still grow into an elder dragon one way or the other.

Tell that to Vlast, whom was being prepared by same group, for same role, was around for 2 centuries longer than aurene, happened to be in kesho during both zhaitan and mordy dying, and yet did not quite get even remotely close to achieving ascension to ED status.

13 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

there was never an explicit reason to even carry her around.

Except, it was quite explicitelly stated in LWS3 that distance matters (ED's closer to zhaitan/mordy's death were getting their deathyness/plantiness faster, and primordus literally moves to ring of fire islands for the sake of getting closer to where both of these two died. That is quite Explicit reason if you ask me.

[Kalavier.1097]

6 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

This not even getting into how another one of the PoF lore books, the one about the Order of Shadows, suggested that the Order of Shadows was actually evil, and killed some Order of Whispers agent, and that something would come of it, when nothing else in PoF, or LWS4, suggested as such, or developed such a plot. Showing that these lore books were wrong, or at least retconed, by the time the very content they appeared in actually came out.

The actual doyalist perspective is that its simply a relic of an idea abandoned by the time PoF was finalized, or a cast of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing during PoF's development. Anet has systemically hammered in the idea that the gods have simply left Tyria to its own devices, with ghosts like Gwen in Dragonfall, to Abrorstone refugees in EoD, all mentioning the gods just straight up abandoning Tyria.

The gods having such a plan would also cut into the Lyssa narrative Anet has very clearly set up. Why would Lyssa, the god most connected to mortals, be staying behind to do something behind the other god's back when they all agreed to do this plan to save humanity?

 

 

The PoF also feature a book of a follower of Kormir who talks about them seeking out a new garden.

As for the order of Shadows book, since it's not only still ingame but also, IIRC a literal achievement for finding all the parts, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the book is wrong or retconned. As I recall, the book did not say the Shadows were evil, just that they were playing the very long game and trying to keep Elona stable. Infact, this is pretty much the exact thing said to the commander upon arriving at Vabbi by an agent. The commander is told not to go in guns blazing stab all the awoken, because without the Awoken the people of Vabbi would not only be defenseless, but the region would crumble and collapse as a society.

 

They wanted to be rid of Joko, but they didn't want Elona to collapse and be ruined by it. And I recall seeing dialogue from them recently on wiki where they were dismissive, if not outright hostile toward the Order of Whispers for "abandoning Elona".

 

 

1 hour ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Magic blasts out into leylines, and big chunk of that is being absorbed by aurene's egg parked in tarir, that was in quite close proximity, so it's not like we had no mechanism in place for this one.

 

Also IIRC, the Raid first part storyline is literally that when Mordremoth died, there was a sudden and drastic, magically charged windstorm that blasted past which caused all the spirits and magical guardians to go crazy.

[Scavarius.6059]

he was an egomaniac warmonger that didnt care what a war against the elder dragons would entail. the others stripping him most of his power just made him give even less of a kitten about anyone else, including the other gods.

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

They wanted to be rid of Joko, but they didn't want Elona to collapse and be ruined by it. And I recall seeing dialogue from them recently on wiki where they were dismissive, if not outright hostile toward the Order of Whispers for "abandoning Elona".

Well didn't the book hint that they maybe are not exactly pursued the goal of getting rid of joko? As in, actually making sure that nothing happens to joko in predictable future?

Anyway it is not like Joko didn't threaten rest of tyria which could be sort of wake up call for Shadows, and not like anyone could predict that Commander is going to gather primeval ghosts, corsairs, and forgot who else was in that "alliance".... hippie charrs? Rip a tear in reality to portal those troops from Tomb of Primeval Kings, besieges Joko in the heart of his domains, and then actually pulls off that everyone else was failing at - actually disposes the lich.

Imagine you are order of spies and manipulators that started turning evil-ish, and only pretend to fight against the opressing dictator, while starting getting comfy with actually not really going for it, and then some random outlander portals in army to the middle of the country, infiltrates gandara the moon fortress, and just flat out kills that dictator. What do you do? of course you adapt to this new weird situation and try to forge something best for yourself out of it - which order of shadows actually did.

 

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Also IIRC, the Raid first part storyline is literally that when Mordremoth died, there was a sudden and drastic, magically charged windstorm that blasted past which caused all the spirits and magical guardians to go crazy.

I haven't ever got into the raids in the way that could allow me to actually get the story of it, my whole career in it was two attempts at wing 1, learning session of Vale Guardian, then next run that went up to sabetha but was consistently failing her dps check untill disbanding, and well I was focusing rather on learning mechanics more than what is the story supposed to be there so...

I wouldn't know 😉