EoD Aftermath Ideas (Big Spoiler Warnings!)

[zolcor.2601]

I had some ideas for the aftermath of EoD, the Void, and especially the Commander on a personal, and mental level. What if your actions as the commander since defeating Zhaitan helped create not only the Void problem, but gave birth to a new Void Elder Dragon (please bear with me on this) through your actions slowly over time. The final straw came when Soo-Won was defeated at the end of EoD. Eventually after EoD the Commander gets vivid vision-like dreams from this Void Elder Dragon as taunts and mockery to mentally break down the Commander. However it's not just the Commander who is affected. World leaders are affected as well such as Queen Jennah, The Pale Tree, and so forth. When they learn of this some people who viewed the Commander as hero now revile him/her as a villain now, even the Pact. The Commander enters a sort of depressed, irrate state with everyone that slowly heals over time until your showdown with the Void Elder Dragon, however it should go. However given what has happened in the past the world advises Dragon's Watch on the possible consequences of what could happen if this new Elder Dragon is killed. Also the mysterious E from your mail happens to be the Champion of this new Elder Dragon, and has been biding his/her time with you the whole time, waiting for the day the Void Dragon "awakens."

[SunRoamer.5103]

Isn't the fight against Soo Won pretty much already a fight against a "Void Elder Dragon"?

In any case we know pretty certainly that ANet sort of wants to move on from the Elder Dragon plot. Of course, Aurene is still around and there might be further throwbacks to ED lore, and Void can always be brought back in some way (although preferably not any time soon, because it feels like it will invalidate EoD in a sense), but definitely not in the shape of yet another Elder Dragon.

[Kalavier.1097]

Why do people seem to want the Commander to become some sort of villain character (or treated as such) by the world leaders/the entire world?

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Why do people seem to want the Commander to become some sort of villain character (or treated as such) by the world leaders/the entire world?

Because most people aren't good at writing, and "make everyone hate the hero" is an incredibly cheap/easy narrative stunt to pull to cause issues, so its something a lot of people end up jumping to as one of the first things they can come up with.

Its the same reason why people so often post "I want the Pact to fall apart, and all the races to start fighting each other again!" narratives. This despite the fact that would completely undermine, and invalidate, literally the last decade of the game's narrative, and create an unworkable situation where Anet would have to go back to early personal story type stories. Which would result in content going to a crawl as they have to develop 5 different concurrent stories.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

10 hours ago, zolcor.2601 said:

I had some ideas for the aftermath of EoD, the Void, and especially the Commander on a personal, and mental level. What if your actions as the commander since defeating Zhaitan helped create not only the Void problem, but gave birth to a new Void Elder Dragon (please bear with me on this) through your actions slowly over time. The final straw came when Soo-Won was defeated at the end of EoD.

That is exactly what The Dragonvoid is - or rather, was. A shapeshifting Elder Dragon formed from the Void via the personalities of all six Elder Dragons that Void had been slowly influencing over the several millennia of their existence.

10 hours ago, zolcor.2601 said:

Eventually after EoD the Commander gets vivid vision-like dreams from this Void Elder Dragon as taunts and mockery to mentally break down the Commander. However it's not just the Commander who is affected. World leaders are affected as well such as Queen Jennah, The Pale Tree, and so forth. When they learn of this some people who viewed the Commander as hero now revile him/her as a villain now, even the Pact.

Why would they see him as a villain? It's been well known for ages now what the consequences of killing the Elder Dragons were. This wouldn't be news to them. And despite knowing that killing another Elder Dragon could end the world, everyone still fully supported killing Primordus and/or Jormag during Icebrood Saga. So I cannot fathom this sudden 180 on their part about killing this hypothetical Dragonvoid Mk II.

10 hours ago, zolcor.2601 said:

Also the mysterious E from your mail happens to be the Champion of this new Elder Dragon, and has been biding his/her time with you the whole time, waiting for the day the Void Dragon "awakens."

Well that's just silly, imo. E has only shown interest in Krytan-related politics, and you can't be the champion of something that simply doesn't exist. The Dragonvoid - or this hypothetical Dragonvoid Mk II - didn't/wouldn't exist until multiple Elder Dragons died to turn the torment within the Elder Dragons into its original Void state but influenced by the ED's personalities, but E existed before even Zhaitan died.

Trying to add something to an establish "only existed after X" and turning it into a "always has been" scenario is just shoddy retcon writing. So IMO, I'd like to pass on that and make E a proper interesting character rather than shoving an interesting character into a new scenario in an attempt to make the new scenario interesting.

 

That all said, I think most people, and definitely ArenaNet, are tied of the Elder Dragon plot and everything being somehow tied back into the Elder Dragons. So I think we should keep some time away from Elder Dragon related plots - it's why Aurene was given the excuse of helping Cantha's dragonjade power issues at the end of EoD, to write her onto the bus for the next plot and now have an all-powerful Elder Dragon at our beck and call for the new plot.

[Malus.2184]

On 9/12/2022 at 4:43 PM, zolcor.2601 said:

I had some ideas for the aftermath of EoD, the Void, and especially the Commander on a personal, and mental level. What if your actions as the commander since defeating Zhaitan helped create not only the Void problem, but gave birth to a new Void Elder Dragon (please bear with me on this) through your actions slowly over time. The final straw came when Soo-Won was defeated at the end of EoD. Eventually after EoD the Commander gets vivid vision-like dreams from this Void Elder Dragon as taunts and mockery to mentally break down the Commander. However it's not just the Commander who is affected. World leaders are affected as well such as Queen Jennah, The Pale Tree, and so forth. When they learn of this some people who viewed the Commander as hero now revile him/her as a villain now, even the Pact. The Commander enters a sort of depressed, irrate state with everyone that slowly heals over time until your showdown with the Void Elder Dragon, however it should go. However given what has happened in the past the world advises Dragon's Watch on the possible consequences of what could happen if this new Elder Dragon is killed. Also the mysterious E from your mail happens to be the Champion of this new Elder Dragon, and has been biding his/her time with you the whole time, waiting for the day the Void Dragon "awakens."

No, no more Elder Dragons, ever. They completely dominate the story and their sheer narrative gravity makes the story about them even if they only have a side role. An example of this is PoF. You chase Balthazar the entire expansion and then in the end it becomes about Kralkatorik despite Kralkatorik being the McGuffin.

The Elder Dragons were a narrative mess that ruined any and all story they were placed by making the story about them by sheer value of being there. LW s3 is a good example of this. It starts out strong as being about The White Mantle, then Ep. 3 happens and it hits a narrative low-point since it becomes front and center about Jormag despite Jormag being absent from the Epidsode all-together. In Ep. 4 The White Mantle is utterly squandered and Caduacus is less of a threat and more of a narcissistic buffoon. Ep. 5 is all about Elder Dragons again despite being McGuffins. And Ep. 6 is just padding with only the slimmest of connections to Ep. 1.

This development is seen again in LW s4. It starts out really strong with it being about Joko, and then Joko is unceremoniously dispatched in Ep.3 and it turns out that he was just filler that we spend some time on before we got to the real threat, Kralkatorik.

EoD hits the nail on the head that the Elder Dragons were a bad narrative element. In the epilogue after Soo-Won is killed there's an exchange between the Speakers and the Brotherhood, "we only worked together because the world was at stake, once we leave this room we're back to being enemies again." The Elder Dragons were such a colossal existential threat that any internal  squabling was stupid. Their presence made the stakes too high, and the issue with stakes in narratives is that they're inversely proportional. The higher the stakes the less they matter to the audience. Give them the threat of the end of the world and they'll yawn because they know that they'll win in the end else the story will end. Give them the threat of the end of the world as they know it and they'll be a lot more invested since it means that the world will still be around, however, everything they're used to will be up-ended.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Malus.2184

[ugrakarma.9416]

Next Expansion: return of dragons.
Subtitle: EoD was a prank.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

7 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

Next Expansion: return of dragons.
Subtitle: EoD was a prank.

They did say the cycle was reborn not over.

[Bast.7253]

There are still a lot of things they can address or revisit in the aftermath but I think it’s fair to say they have no interest in it after how they resolved the 10 year story arc. 
 

My concern is that if they go in the gods direction they’ll follow the same pattern of having a few introduced and then some will get rushed. Introducing them all at once seems like the best way to go, whether that’s in Xotecca or them revisiting Tyria. 
 

I don’t think going to the mists for an expansion is necessary and may not even be possible but having a time skip could work, with one of the far off land masses added being their new hub with new people and new threats not requiring Aurenes help.

 

the good thing about the gods is that they’re inherently “human” and the writers can probably portray their stories a bit easier in the way they want. I’m just hoping they don’t wind up being writers personalities and humor with npc avatars like I feel some of the EoD characters are. Or bratty/whiny like Braham and Joon.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

LWS6: Commander is in Southsun drinking the finest alcohol from a coconut while lounging next to Logan, both enjoying a well earned rest. Queue a thicc hottie walking by who gives Logan "the look." Commander convinces Logan to go flirt. Rytlock is on comms and tells the Commander to go easedrop for him. The rest of Dragon's Watch chimes in to convince Commander to go do so.

Some awkward flirting later she drops the disguise and its Lyssa and her thicc double booty come to kidnap Logan. This is to trick the commander into helping her while appearing to be her enemy, because Lyssa helped Balthazar and is hiding it from Dwayna, who btw is royally livid that a mere mortal killed Balthazar and is out to punish who did it.

Expac 4: Return of the Gods: Wrath of Dwayna. Spoiler, we kill all the gods through several epic meta fights in their domains in the Mists only for Kormir to appear and absorb all their god magic in what has turned out to be a several hundred years plot to absorb all their magic, starting with Abaddon. We then have to protect Aurene from her as Aurene absorbed Balth's god magic. Aurene and Kormir then kill each other which somehow stabilizes all the ley energy in Tyria forever.

[Dib.4612]

On 9/12/2022 at 6:22 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Why do people seem to want the Commander to become some sort of villain character (or treated as such) by the world leaders/the entire world?

Because he/she is kind of an arrogant >insert private bodypart<.

[EdwinLi.1284]

On 9/12/2022 at 7:47 AM, SunRoamer.5103 said:

Isn't the fight against Soo Won pretty much already a fight against a "Void Elder Dragon"?

In any case we know pretty certainly that ANet sort of wants to move on from the Elder Dragon plot. Of course, Aurene is still around and there might be further throwbacks to ED lore, and Void can always be brought back in some way (although preferably not any time soon, because it feels like it will invalidate EoD in a sense), but definitely not in the shape of yet another Elder Dragon.

yep, Elder Dragon's story is basically done now. Aurene may still exists but her job now is just to maintain the flow of magic properly from now on until a thousand years or more later when things may become unstable again but that is far in the distant future when mostly everyone alive now will be long gone.

From here it is more of a matter of what will the Commander do now that the whole Elder Dragon threat is over in his/her life time. Everyone from Dragon's Watch also have went their own separate way in life as well but their path may cross eventually in the new journey due to circumstances.

Edited October 12, 2022 by EdwinLi.1284

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 10/11/2022 at 3:39 AM, Dib.4612 said:

Because he/she is kind of an arrogant >insert private bodypart<.

Eh, are they?

The most arrogant they get is a small bit in EoD, maybe in PoF but that feels less arrogance and more "I'm annoyed".

And all these really happened because people didn't want the Commander to continue being a blank slate. . .

[Kalavier.1097]

On 10/12/2022 at 2:24 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Eh, are they?

The most arrogant they get is a small bit in EoD, maybe in PoF but that feels less arrogance and more "I'm annoyed".

And all these really happened because people didn't want the Commander to continue being a blank slate. . .

Reminds me of when people kept complaining about the commander not getting credit, leading to that awkward line of Zojja praising the PC for being a huge chunk of Destiny's Edge power/damage.