Joon, an exercise is disappointment and how to ruin a story in an instant.

[angrax.1372]

On 6/22/2022 at 1:15 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Gameplay and lore split is a pretty big thing you know.

Says who?

[nembool.5981]

I've always felt that the entire expansion was a missed opportunity story-wise. So much rich culture, history and conflict in Cantha that was ignored, relegated and retconned for Jade Tech.

[Kalavier.1097]

9 hours ago, angrax.1372 said:

Says who?

Says the Asura running and jumping at the same speed/height as a Norn.

Says the Charr and Sylvari doing the same damage with a sword swing.

Says the guns and bows never running out of ammo/arrows.

Says the Asura gate not having any fee or inspection at all, when in lore there is a fee to travel by gate.

Says the crippled leg healing in 5-10 seconds, or returning to full health within seconds of leaving combat.

Says the time-locked maps with repeating events that involve very specific NPCs getting killed as bosses or in the process of the event.

There are elements of gameplay that explicitly conflict with lore for the sake of well, gameplay enjoyment. Talking about wiping out villages in gameplay holds zero relevance to the story of the commander, as it may not happen as you see it.  It's like in Star Trek Online where one raid/dungeon like instance gives the explicit scenario of a  shipyard, with 30ish docked ships (the goal is to destroy them all to cause severe damage to that faction's fleet strength). Yet in another instance you can (If geared and powerful enough) possibly destroy 100 ships. How can 30 ships be a major blow, if you can casually encounter and destroy 100 ships in two other encounters with no comment? Gameplay and lore separation.

Same thing here. I can run around Lake Doric or Harathi hinterlands and kill hundreds of Centaur and white mantle enemies, but that doesn't mean a thing in terms of what went down there in the lore, or how many enemies the Commander killed, vs how many enemies were killed by Seraph and other supporting individuals.

[Dante.1508]

I agree Joon sucks.. but then so did the story as a whole. Also even our commander character felt disjointed to me attacking joon every chance they get even after Aurene tells them Soo Wan wanted to be in the reactor.. The whole writing was abysmal.

 

Only saving grace was gorrik actually seemed really cool this expac.

Probably a hot topic but i feel developers are so busy trying to flood everything with modern social agendas they've forgotten what a real story is.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Dante.1508

[perilisk.1874]

Joon was written with personality defects that allowed for some ambiguity as to whether she would become an antagonist (or at least, for longer than one home invasion mission where the Commander was basically the villain). She had the whole arrogant, transformative lone-wolf technologist/mogul thing that could go heroic (Tony Stark) or villainous (Ozymandias, maybe Andrew Ryan). Always kind of a tossup.

 

I think the larger red flag was that she was a powerful, proud female leader who nearly single-handedly created a technomagically advanced civilization by extracting energy from a not-quite-cosmic being (which itself extracts energy from the planet) using a facility at the bottom of the ocean, and who has some sort of personal relationship with that being. You wouldn't be wrong to short floating island real-estate in Cantha. And if she ends up having a son and he starts saying creepy stuff about black winds, get out of there quick.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

SPOILERS FOR END OF DRAGONS

Spoiler

 

All I can really say is I wasn't fond of Joon as a character. She was okay, but just okay, and the story would've been better if she had given her life for the reactor and Mai Trin had lived to join FRIENDS. Joon's personality just reminds me of too many people I've met in the tech world (and not in a good way).

 

I'm hoping Joon won't feature prominently in LWS6 and they'll find a way to bring Mai back.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Geoff Fey.1035]

The little aside from Taimi that gave us a nod that "we really don't know who Joon is as a person" (after stumbling across her personal effects, child's room, mention of a husband, etc) was nice and all but nothing really came of it all.

That said, during the initial visit to the reactor and the fact that Joon herself got locked out of her own system kind of shows we weren't the antagonists but then she started lashing out like crazy at us. It's hinted at she was rendered unstable after Mai Trin's betrayal (that Joon should've seen coming after Mai infiltrated the reactor in the first place) but even still she started acting more and more paranoid.

After Taimi showed off her rig harness and they touched base on Joon's daughter, I fully expected the whole reason Joon refused to listen and didn't care about anything except continuing with Dragon Jade was because it was the only thing keeping her daughter alive.

I think the idea was less "personal stake" and more that ANet was trying to get at a xenophobia angle.

Minister Li with the purists was the best example of it but when Joon goes on her tirade that the Commander was trying to infiltrate the Empire and bring it down ("was that the plan all along?") it really leans into the fact that Cantha has zero trust for Tyria. Tyrians were bonded by the war against the Elder Dragons and everything that came from it, but Cantha was isolationist and ended up suffering all of the effects (instability from each ED killed, then when outsiders appear things get progressively worse). Even within Cantha that xenophobia seems very prevalent with descendants of Luxons and Kurzicks--even when referred to by their own close allies--seen as "lesser" than other Canthans. 

But then all of this feels like rationalization on my part--they never really further explored the whole racism bit. It's possible in S6 maybe we'll go to war with the Luxon remnants in the Turtle Highlands or some other.... thing,, but there were a lot of mature tones that didn't really have anything done with them.

Out of all the characters, Rama was the most well developed who went from a pessimistic, mistrusting, and exhausted detective that basically just wanted the Commander gone to an energetic, driven, and even playful hero (interactions with Gorrik) that was honored by the chance to live up to the promise that he could see in the Commander.

[Gibson.4036]

19 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

… was nice and all but nothing really came of it all.

 

This deftly captures most of EOD. Lots of characters and story seeds with potential, but very little satisfying development of them.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Geoff Fey.1035]

34 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

This deftly captures most of EOD. Lots of characters and story seeds with potential, but very little satisfying development of them.

A lot of the Guild Wars stuff lately has ended up like that.

1-80 - Pretty solid from a storyline perspective. The only hangup I have is that the "Champion of Orr" title isn't actually a title.

S1/S2 - Lots of great setup, character development, impact on the world, variety, and changing the status quo. The hunt for the egg (S2) dragged on and we all agree Caithe is a raging moron, but the rest of it was okay for the broader strokes.

HoT

• Most of the lore is built into the Metas. Without actually doing the Metas you lose a lot of character/lore building
• Odd inclusions with no actual result (Nightmare court appears then... gone)
• Unique named enemies which are nothing but fodder (Blighting Tree Champions--zero lore about them but they're unique designs with hints at personality)
• Rushed Act 3 (especially exemplified by Mouth of Mordremoth cut 2nd phase "It's climbing up the tree! After it--oh... no worries, it's dead. Huzzah")

S3

• White Mantle plotline required delving into Raids (which is fine)
• Entire Mursaat/Shining Blade storyline can be entirely cut with zero impact on the story. Legit there was no reason to include any of those plot points in the slightest, it all could have simply involved the corruption of Devona

PoF

• Kind of rushed overall, although it was interesting. 
• Incredibly good storytelling with the death and return, and starting to lean into the fact that the Commander isn't just a hero--he's a Dragon Champion
• Final battle was satisfyingly amazing but the epilogue was.... eh (heavy setup for S4)

S4

• S2+HoT was a good design because the expansion was the cap-end to the story. S3+PoF+S4 was strange because the ending of PoF would be like watching having just the 1st/2nd movies of a trilogy.
• All or Nothing *chef's kiss*
• Note: I know a lot of people don' really get how impactful All or Nothing was at the time of release. At the time--that was it. THere was nothing past that. It was a punch to the gut so hard it grips your spine and shakes you like a rag doll. There were stories through the GW2 website that helped expand people's background and reactions to it and you could feel the shattered glass in people's veins by how much this episode DEVASTATED them. ANet should probably add in an interim chapter or cinematic in here at some point because most new players truly don't get how impactful this one was because they do All or Nothing & War Eternal back to back so it looks like a half-hour between the two when lore-wise the Commander ended up wandering aimlessly with some severe PTSD
• War Eternal was a bit disjointed, but the storyline ending was well executed. Nice cap-end to the 2nd expansion.

Icebrood Saga

• Build up as this eldritch horror style storyline. Grothmar Valley you could tell something was under the surface that wasn't quite right and it keep escalating further and further. The scene with the Fraenir was horrifying when it smiled and you know you couldn't trust anyone or anything. The maps didn't have much lore beyond showcasing how people's minds were fraying but that was okay--unusual compared to prior storylines in that you really had to dig for the lore (similar to Dark Souls) rather than it being a story the way most had been beforehand
• Drizzlewood Coast threw all of that Eldritch horror out the window and it just because a war slog.
• Smodur was setup in S2 as relatively likeable and coolheaded and considered one of the best Charr for the job of Imperator due to progressive mindset. They completely trashed this with zero explanation (not big "betrayal" or "trauma" moment).... just suddenly "as bad as Bangaar" and using Blood Legion tactics of "send in the next wave" instead of all of the various tanks and everything the Legions had. This could have been subverted by "so many people joined Bangaar that we're resorting to desperate tactics" but they didn't even hint towards that.
  • Made even worse by the fact that they offed him in the middle of a dialogue choice and that's that. If you aren't 100% paying attention you could easily miss it--no cinematic or anything. Just pop.
• Dragon Response missions were a nice callback to the GW1 mission design. I liked that but that's a personal feeling. Decent story showing the struggle of trying to hold back both Elder Dragons.
• Dragonstorm was...... it was okay as a setpiece but was more "it just kinda happened" than any real big payoff the way we had for Zhaitan/Kralkatorrik. Was a letdown after how wonderfully S4 paid off, although we know the reason they axed the ending was because of focusing on EoD development.
• EoD - see prior posts in this thread. 
• Honestly I'd love to see a return to the storyline style of 1-80. It felt much more focused and directed, rather than trying to make each thing "fit" within a single contained episode or slam so much in that they can't possibly explore even a quarter of it because it doesn't gel with the overarching story (EoD).
• They could easily use collections  to flesh out storylines of other characters and make those achievements mandatory before continuing the next story. Sure it can lead to bloat and might be frustrating gatekeeping, but as we've seen with EoD Specialization Collections they are heavily leaning towards Gatekeeping since each individual profession needs to complete the story to get its elite weapon.
• But yeah there's just... lots of buildup and then either a hard right turn in lore/character with no real reason for it or just nothing is done period (or, like Zojja, they're just 100% forgotten about)

Edited August 7, 2022 by Geoff Fey.1035

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

2 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• Honestly I'd love to see a return to the storyline style of 1-80. It felt much more focused and directed, rather than trying to make each thing "fit" within a single contained episode or slam so much in that they can't possibly explore even a quarter of it because it doesn't gel with the overarching story (EoD).

Ironic you would say this given that the 1-80 storyline is literally tons of plots crammed within a single arcs, without giving them the time to explore most of the story that could be done with them, whereas

1. LWS1 is a giant arc all about scarlet and her plans
2. LWS2 is a giant arc about the crash Zephyrites, and finding Aurene's egg
3. LWS3, 4, and IBS, all used trilogies of 3 releases to tell stories with much more depth/content then anything in core.

2 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• Entire Mursaat/Shining Blade storyline can be entirely cut with zero impact on the story. Legit there was no reason to include any of those plot points in the slightest, it all could have simply involved the corruption of Devona

I mean it did have an impact in the story. After Balthazar's manipulation of the White Mantle, which lead to their subsequent collapse, the Shining Blade would OFC take the chance to find and kill Lazarus, the last remaining Mursaat, and the last vestige of the Mantle's power. Going after Lazarus also coincided with us tracking down the Eye of Janthir, which we were looking for because it could tell us where Balthazar went, leading into PoF.

It was the logical conclusion to the Mantle storyline told in the rest of the reason, and served as a logical inroad to PoF.

2 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• Build up as this eldritch horror style storyline. Grothmar Valley you could tell something was under the surface that wasn't quite right and it keep escalating further and further. The scene with the Fraenir was horrifying when it smiled and you know you couldn't trust anyone or anything. The maps didn't have much lore beyond showcasing how people's minds were fraying but that was okay--unusual compared to prior storylines in that you really had to dig for the lore (similar to Dark Souls) rather than it being a story the way most had been beforehand
• Drizzlewood Coast threw all of that Eldritch horror out the window and it just because a war slog.

When 99% of the "eldrich horror" stuff was coming from Drakkar, who was now dead.... yeah, its gonna end after the creature causing it is dead.

2 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• Dragonstorm was...... it was okay as a setpiece but was more "it just kinda happened" than any real big payoff the way we had for Zhaitan/Kralkatorrik. Was a letdown after how wonderfully S4 paid off, although we know the reason they axed the ending was because of focusing on EoD development.

The ending wasn't really axed though. we know IBS was originally going to have 4 more chapter in it, isntead of the 4 Champions releases it did have. Based on what we can gather

• Chapter 5/6 would have taken place in the Centaur Homelands, and involved what we saw in Chapnions 1/2(Primordus' awakening, the "alliance with Jormag", Braham getting his powers, Jormag's betrayal, Owl's Death)
• We probably would have gotten Vision 2 of the Past 2: Electric Boogaloo involving Braham going itno the volcano to become Primordus' champion
• Chapters 7/8 would have been around Anvil Rock, involving all of our forces coming together to fight Jormag/Primordus, resulting with what we saw in Dragonstorm where the two fight head on since thats what LWS3 set up for how they had to die.

Only thing that really changed was that we got the story in DRMs instead of on new full maps. But its the same overall story.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Kalavier.1097]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:24 AM, Dante.1508 said:

I agree Joon sucks.. but then so did the story as a whole. Also even our commander character felt disjointed to me attacking joon every chance they get even after Aurene tells them Soo Wan wanted to be in the reactor.. The whole writing was abysmal.

 

Because the Commander's only experience with "People trying to use dragon magic to fuel stuff" was the inquest, and every single time that ended HORRIFICALLY.

They are looking at "We have a dragon hooked into the reactor fueling the whole thing" with the personal experience of all those inquest failures.

On 8/6/2022 at 8:59 AM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

SPOILERS FOR END OF DRAGONS

  Hide contents

 

All I can really say is I wasn't fond of Joon as a character. She was okay, but just okay, and the story would've been better if she had given her life for the reactor and Mai Trin had lived to join FRIENDS. Joon's personality just reminds me of too many people I've met in the tech world (and not in a good way).

 

I'm hoping Joon won't feature prominently in LWS6 and they'll find a way to bring Mai back.

 

 

You do know you don't have to spoiler end of dragons stuff?

On 8/6/2022 at 1:55 PM, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

That said, during the initial visit to the reactor and the fact that Joon herself got locked out of her own system kind of shows we weren't the antagonists but then she started lashing out like crazy at us. It's hinted at she was rendered unstable after Mai Trin's betrayal (that Joon should've seen coming after Mai infiltrated the reactor in the first place) but even still she started acting more and more paranoid.

After Taimi showed off her rig harness and they touched base on Joon's daughter, I fully expected the whole reason Joon refused to listen and didn't care about anything except continuing with Dragon Jade was because it was the only thing keeping her daughter alive.

I think the idea was less "personal stake" and more that ANet was trying to get at a xenophobia angle.

Minister Li with the purists was the best example of it but when Joon goes on her tirade that the Commander was trying to infiltrate the Empire and bring it down ("was that the plan all along?") it really leans into the fact that Cantha has zero trust for Tyria. Tyrians were bonded by the war against the Elder Dragons and everything that came from it, but Cantha was isolationist and ended up suffering all of the effects (instability from each ED killed, then when outsiders appear things get progressively worse). Even within Cantha that xenophobia seems very prevalent with descendants of Luxons and Kurzicks--even when referred to by their own close allies--seen as "lesser" than other Canthans.

I wouldn't call Joon unstable at all? Also  Joon only discovered Mai Trin's background after she hired her and they got close. She didn't think it was a threat. However, Mai Trin betrayed the trust, and then later they found logs implying Joon was a target. Which is why she targeted the commander as our friends got spotted with Ivan. Plus no traces of  Ankka at the reactor, the evidence pointed at the commander smashing the place up or trying to, with Mai trin defending it and being killed.

So even though Li and Joon didn't see eye to eye, the evidence pointed toward the commander. Which is why we dumped the extractor on both to prove how we couldn't be at fault for the reactor.

 

Joon had little trust or like because it appeared to her that the Commander at first was against the reactor (true, based on inquest history of huge failure using dragon magic), destroyed it in an attempt to kill Soo-won, then fled. Afterwards, they basically say "you can never rebuild the reactor because we HAVE to kill Soo-won, there is no way you can safely extract magic from her anymore." which would destroy dragonjade after the stored batteries ran out without any replacement. So it looked like the commander was trying to destroy her life's work.

 

So in a way, the things looked like maybe the Commander was in league with the Aetherblades, and the goal was to destabilize Cantha.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

4 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

You do know you don't have to spoiler end of dragons stuff?

Its unfair to assume that everyone who reads this forum has played the expansion, especially since the forum has a follow feature where people automatically see what you post.

 

Anyone checking your profile will also be spoiled by your recent post history.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Kalavier.1097]

1 minute ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Its unfair to assume that everyone who reads this forum has played the expansion, especially since the forum has a follow feature where people automatically see what you post.

 

Anyone checking your profile will also be spoiled by your recent post history.

If somebody is going into the lore forum half a year after the expansion came out, I expect that they would expect things to be discussed that are spoilers.

Especially in a topic that straight up discusses an NPC of the new expansion. Just being in this topic is a spoiler, so marking posts with the spoiler drop down is... futile.

Yes, not everybody has played it. But if somebody is interested in the story of EoD I'd assume they would take time to play it first if they truly care about spoilers. Or at the least, avoid topics discussing it.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

31 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Because the Commander's only experience with "People trying to use dragon magic to fuel stuff" was the inquest, and every single time that ended HORRIFICALLY.

They are looking at "We have a dragon hooked into the reactor fueling the whole thing" with the personal experience of all those inquest failures.

I mean...

Zephyrites. They use magic crystals harvested from Glint's corpse and its remnant magic.

Taimi, and thus by extension the Commander themself. She used Omadd's Machine to manipulate dragon magic to their advantage (both attacking Primordus+Jormag directly, and empowering Scruffy 2.0).

Technically Bangar / Ryland, but that's also an example of negative.

29 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Its unfair to assume that everyone who reads this forum has played the expansion, especially since the forum has a follow feature where people automatically see what you post.

 

Anyone checking your profile will also be spoiled by your recent post history.

To be fair, entering a thread titled after a major EoD character is bound to spoil EoD content to the reader. At that point its their own fault.

Recent post history is a bit more fair comment but still, it would be the reader's own fault for knowingly going into a user's post history without consideration of where they might have been posting.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

Is Joon really a genius? Like Dennis Ritchie? Konrad Zuse? Ken Thompson? DJ Bernstein?

Or is she a 'genius' like Steve Jobs - great at marketing herself and claiming other peoples ideas and work as her own?

Because throughout the story, she had some serious Jobs vibes. Egotistical, reality denying and everything achieved was 'hers'.

Anyway, ANET dropped the ball hard. Again. They dropped the ball core. They dropped the ball with HoT and the severly damaged story. They dropped the ball with PoF. They dropped the ball HARD with icebrood saga and the total fluffification of the charr and norn. 

The story has some great moments. But there is always so much that could have been done better. An additional line her and there (for example, I just replayed the human commoner story with the lost sister arc, reporting to Logan about the treachery going on was cringe. Two, three  lines more, providing evidence and observations and it would have been much better) would make it all much better. Instead we get abrupt changes, nonsensical decisions that can only be explained with 'the npc knows everything already' and stunted development.

But hey, to balance the mess we get Taimi ex machina and the cava.... Aurene saving the day every other chapter. Ugh.

[Kalavier.1097]

Just now, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I mean...

Zephyrites. They use magic crystals harvested from Glint's corpse and its remnant magic.

Taimi, and thus by extension the Commander themself. She used Omadd's Machine to manipulate dragon magic to their advantage (both attacking Primordus+Jormag directly, and empowering Scruffy 2.0).

Zephyrites also only use what power is in the crystals, and don't try to build reactors from it. While in a way they use dragon magic, they have shown their limits from the start and are very clear in their goals. Vs the inquest who have repeatedly built labs and tried to harness pure elder dragon magic for their own goals, researching active dragon minions and such.

At a very basic glance, Joon gives more inquest vibes then Zephyrite vibes, with the whole massive reactor and actively using elder dragon magics to charge power cores. I forget where Taimi buffs Scruffy 2.0, but Omadd's machine was a very particular use in a desperate move to take out two dragons quickly, which the plans changed as they got more information.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

22 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Zephyrites also only use what power is in the crystals, and don't try to build reactors from it.

You sure about that? They're the ones who made the Holosmith specialization magitech, after all. The tech side of that magitech had to come from somewhere.

22 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Vs the inquest who have repeatedly built labs and tried to harness pure elder dragon magic for their own goals, researching active dragon minions and such.

To be fair, there were only two such labs, and the second one was successful, if not for an Awakened invasion. People mistakenly take Thaumanova to be the first one, but that lab was built for chaos magic - it was Scarlet Briar, via goading a gullable Inquest director, into adding dragon magic into the mix under the guise of more chaos magic.

Crucible of Eternity was the first lab built for studying and harnessing pure Elder Dragon magic, and Rata Primus was the second. Kudu caused the Crucible of Eternity to go critical for his experiment, but Rata Primus was sabotaged from an outside source.

27 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

At a very basic glance, Joon gives more inquest vibes then Zephyrite vibes, with the whole massive reactor and actively using elder dragon magics to charge power cores. I forget where Taimi buffs Scruffy 2.0, but Omadd's machine was a very particular use in a desperate move to take out two dragons quickly, which the plans changed as they got more information.

Taimi buffed Scruffy at the same time of converting Omadd's Machine into Taimi's Machine, which happened after she brazenly hopped into the machine to study The All with the mentality of "everything will be fine, I'm not a sylvari so I won't go crazy".

It was never a desperate move, they just decided that would be the "best course of action" to avoid casualties - not to take out two dragons quickly, but to take them out with fewest casualties. But Taimi was fully reckless the entire season and the Commander just did... nothing about it.

Same kind of writing with Braham's recklessness in Champions, where the Commander praised Braham for his "noble sacrifice" when Braham did the exact same thing that we spent months stopping Bangar from doing. Season 3 was the same but for Taimi doing what we stopped Scarlet for doing....

Sorry, bit of a rant there about the total hypocrisy of the Commander. It's only okay when they and their friends do it - just like when they antagonized Balthazar for identity theft... after spending time doing some identity theft themselves, and would continue to do it again later...

[itspomf.9523]

On 6/8/2022 at 11:38 AM, Nightbringer Tenchi.5794 said:

Joon is supposed to be this powerful CEO and revolutionary inventor and here she is throwing a tantrum like a 14 year old

Hate to say it, but this is entirely on-brand for any egocentric / megalomaniacal type, including but not limited to CEOs and their corpo lackeys.

[Dante.1508]

13 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Because the Commander's only experience with "People trying to use dragon magic to fuel stuff" was the inquest, and every single time that ended HORRIFICALLY.

They are looking at "We have a dragon hooked into the reactor fueling the whole thing" with the personal experience of all those inquest failures.

You do know you don't have to spoiler end of dragons stuff?

I wouldn't call Joon unstable at all? Also  Joon only discovered Mai Trin's background after she hired her and they got close. She didn't think it was a threat. However, Mai Trin betrayed the trust, and then later they found logs implying Joon was a target. Which is why she targeted the commander as our friends got spotted with Ivan. Plus no traces of  Ankka at the reactor, the evidence pointed at the commander smashing the place up or trying to, with Mai trin defending it and being killed.

So even though Li and Joon didn't see eye to eye, the evidence pointed toward the commander. Which is why we dumped the extractor on both to prove how we couldn't be at fault for the reactor.

 

Joon had little trust or like because it appeared to her that the Commander at first was against the reactor (true, based on inquest history of huge failure using dragon magic), destroyed it in an attempt to kill Soo-won, then fled. Afterwards, they basically say "you can never rebuild the reactor because we HAVE to kill Soo-won, there is no way you can safely extract magic from her anymore." which would destroy dragonjade after the stored batteries ran out without any replacement. So it looked like the commander was trying to destroy her life's work.

 

So in a way, the things looked like maybe the Commander was in league with the Aetherblades, and the goal was to destabilize Cantha.

I think you are reading a ton of head canon into EoD writing..

[stormemperor.3745]

Can I get a TLDR version

[Kalavier.1097]

13 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

I think you are reading a ton of head canon into EoD writing..

What parts? You mean the stuff gathered directly from the reports and papers you can literally read ingame lol?

[Sunchaser.9854]

I fed some parts into Novel Ai to Recap the sums of what i remembered from the EOD story and im not disappointed lmao. Down below if anyone wants.

 

 

Quote

 

Joon, designer of the magical jade golems sneered as she looked around. "You think proving you are innocent, proves you are INNOCENT? The world may soon end, but i will not let that happen!" She turned to the commander. "I'm going to kill you, here, and now, to doom the world.. so i can save it from dying! I have no other choice." Joon took out her buttons and called upon a legion of Jade golems the commander's smashed to smithereens. Perplexed, She was then punched in the face by one of them for being such an idiot.

"How did they get through my barrier!?" She yelled at her jade soldiers. "Get these things off me NOW!!!" she screamed as another punch landed on her, this time launching her through a window... "For the LAST TIME, I AM TRYING TO HELP YOUR IDIOTIC MIND SOLVE THIS PROBLEM!" screamed the frusterated and being shot at player character. "DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT THE WORLD IS ENDING?!?" They shouted back as she got up, and began shooting with her mechs at anything that moved within range. "If you want to die, be my guest!!" They fired again. "But if we all DIE because of your idiocy, there is nothing more i can do about it..."

Joon stared. "But I will Save Soo Won, the corrupted, with the powers of magic and friendship! And i'll prove once and for ALL who should be saved!"

The commander stood still, watching as the world burned behind them. Their mind turned.

"Are you aware.. that you could.. very well kill DANG NEAR EVERYONE BY HAVING THIS NONSENSICAL CHILDISH TANTRUM RATHER THAN INCREASE THE ODDS OF SAVING HER LIFE BY WORKING TOGETHER?" screamed the commander.

"NO!!!" screamed Joon, who was still hurling house plants at the frusterated commander. "I'LL SAVE SOO WON AND PROVE WHO SHOULD BE SAFE FROM DEATH WITH MAGIC! AND IT WILL TAKE A LOT MORE THAN YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!" she said, glaring at the frusterated commander. "So GET OUT OF MY WAY!" she ordered, pointing a finger at the commander.

And before anyone else had even realized what happened, the two were fighting. "YOU ARE A UNCOOPERATIVE IDIOT! WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER OR ELSE WE ALL DIE!" Screamed the Commander as they both dodged attacks. "THEN WHY AREN'T YOU USING ANYTHING BUT YOUR BARE MINDS TO FIGHT ME!? THERE MUST BE SOMETHING BETTER THEN JUST PUNCHING AT EACH OTHER!"

"I WILL SAVE SOO WON BY SHOOTING THE COMMANDER! IF I DON'T KILL HIM, HE MAY DESTROY THE WORLD BEFORE SHE SURVIVES!"

"HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY GOD kittenNG SENSE?!" The commander screamed, dodging a fist aimed their way.

She stopped moving for a moment, looking down. "It doesn't make sense, does it?"

They shook their head. "No, It really doesn't. But, if you're trying to help, I guess ill work with ya. If only cause im getting tired of punching you in the face."

Joon smiled. "We are best friends now, lets kill Soo won! We need to use our power together!" She grabbed his hand and teleported away.

Soo Won was floating above the city. She watched as everything fell apart below her. There were no signs left that the people ever lived there, just rubble and ash. "What has become of us?" She asked herself. Then she saw something flying towards her. "Is someone coming for me?"

The commander and Joon then shot Soo Won with a giant cannon, leaving her dead, and then everyone lived happily ever after and Joon somehow kept powering her jade mechs with the power of friendship and 0 consequences.

The next week, the commander fought a world ending threat with the magic of Aurene the dragon to defeat the evil Dragon #5, which they did using the power of love.

The following day, the commander became a famous hero for saving the world, and Joon was never heard from or seen again.

Soo won's death was written off as an accident.

As Soo Won lay there dying, She found herself thinking about her past. About the mistakes I made that led her to where she was today. Her family. Her friends. All those times she had let others down. She cried a tear and wept. Only for Joon to jam 4th of july sparklers in her mouth as she danced over her corpse and Continued living happily ever after.

 

 

EOD, Recapped by a AI lmao. (NovelAi) 

[Geoff Fey.1035]

5 hours ago, Sunchaser.9854 said:

Only for Joon to jam 4th of july sparklers in her mouth as she danced over her corpse and Continued living happily ever after.

I'm freaking sobbing!

[draxynnic.3719]

On the concept of Joon "not apologising for being brilliant":

There ARE some indications she's facing some prejudice at court. We're introduced to her having an argument with Li questioning her work, and her making a sardonic response that comes across as if she's fielded that sort of questioning before, and then we walk in on Li questioning her motives. 

But probably more telling is Kasmeer's observation in the trophy room: "They won't let her forget where she came from, so she won't let them forget where she's gone."

It's subtle, but there's an undercurrent there of Cantha's upper class being resentful that an illegitimate child, even one of an emperor, has become richer and more influential than they are through her own ingenuity.

We don't see much of it directly ourselves because we're not party to most of those interactions, but they might be contributing to Joon's less than ideal state of mind.

[Kalavier.1097]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

On the concept of Joon "not apologising for being brilliant":

There ARE some indications she's facing some prejudice at court. We're introduced to her having an argument with Li questioning her work, and her making a sardonic response that comes across as if she's fielded that sort of questioning before, and then we walk in on Li questioning her motives. 

But probably more telling is Kasmeer's observation in the trophy room: "They won't let her forget where she came from, so she won't let them forget where she's gone."

It's subtle, but there's an undercurrent there of Cantha's upper class being resentful that an illegitimate child, even one of an emperor, has become richer and more influential than they are through her own ingenuity.

We don't see much of it directly ourselves because we're not party to most of those interactions, but they might be contributing to Joon's less than ideal state of mind.

 

And in comparison to the last pair we saw of this nature, in Factions Togo helped secure peace with the Tengu and the Empire, but otherwise played a very "low" role, staying far away from court and generally just running Shing Jea. He became well known and famous, but never bothered (IIRC) with politics or riches.

Joon however, deals with the court and nobility a lot, and her power is much broader.

That is an interesting factor to consider, that maybe it's partly the stresses of all those people questioning her and implying perhaps she only has power because her sister (I think Li makes that kind of accusation ingame?) and not her own work. Combo that maybe, and this IS actual speculation/headcanon whatever, she considers slightly that the Commander may be trying to dismantle her stuff as part of those angry upper class figures plans?