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Story direction is a little...political/ideological (spoilers) - returning player


Mykhel.6532

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6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

It's bought up several times that people honestly do not understand the relationship between Aurene and the commander.

That's my point. It's confusing. Somehow Bangar comes to a complete conclusion.

 

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Since the earliest descriptions of Bangar has existed, as far as I can recall, he has ALWAYS been described as the wildcard imperator, one who would leap to violence and war if given the chance and is the unwilling signer of the treaty/cease fire.

Before IBS, Bangar's name is not mentioned once nor is his character described. We are TOLD he is a wildcard. We are never shown it.

 

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

And this part is... absolutely not new. The Sons of Svanir from day 1 of GW2 have been noted to hate women, and will outright slaughter any female norn icebrood they find. Jormag doesn't care, but they do.

What? Where is this demonstrated?

 

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

When one dies suddenly (without a replacement, or means to be replaced) the other often suffers severely. Depression or rage are very common in these causes.

Pretty ridiculous to base your survival on if one dies, don't count on the other to continue leading...

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

He kills the hostage needlessly, and THAT IS THE POINT. He doesn't want to sit around a table and talk, he wants to smash the uprising, and punish those who abandoned his legion.

He could have stopped the defection with the return of Ryland. It's absolutely ridiculous to believe this was a smart move in any way. Ryland was the number 2 and no Imperator wanted to lose even more Charr lives if they could be saved. His entire character in IBS was insane.

 

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Bangar... getting bested by every adversary? Where does this happen? I recall two fights he's in, one vs Almorra, and one vs the commander. Otherwise, he is leading a very successfully rebellion against the legions.

Yes. In which he loses both. There is no other fight that is shown to the player where he is victorious...

 

6 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Jormag is agender. This was established before IBS came out as Jormag went from a background force to the focus.

No it wasn't. There isn't a single mention of this in the living story.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

This isn't an insert, this is just an acknowledgment of the fact Elder Dragons are not biologically like anything else.

Jormag refers to Primordus as her "Brother." Soo-won is referred to as the mother of the dragons. There is clear establishments of gender among the Elder Dragons.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Gorrik has literally always been established as an individual with severely lacking skills in regards to interacting with people. "Gets fooled" what the? I'm sorry but did you go into that instance knowing Ankka was an Aetherblade ready to kidnap him the moment she walked up? She was an old comrade, coming forth to offer help.

There are hundreds of ways this could have been introduced. They chose to make Gorrik look dumb.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Joon started jade tech. However she is not responsible for every single development or advancement. This is like saying Bill Gates is responsible for every single thing Microsoft has done. Or Steve Jobs for Apple.

I'm aware. She still gets all the credit.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Li is pretty much a typical ministry of Purity agent from winds of change, after they cleaned up the affliction.

Rama hates babysitting people. At first he's unhappy because he's stuck sitting around with these foreigners instead of doing his job.

They are boring and feckless. Minister Yi's character is a prop for the women to step on basically.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Li is not the Empress's right hand man. He's the Minister of Security. The Empress is also the sister of Joon, which is where Joon's clashes with the nobility comes from. It's not that she has zero respect for him. It's that he wants to isolate Cantha, Joon wants to open the borders, and the Empress is open to the idea of reconnecting with the rest of the world.

His entire job is security. He's bringing up serious issues and is discarded like he's some random moron in a crowd. It's bad writing.

 

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The last part is also a key question for the OP I have. You bring up Gender a bit, but I ask, would you hold the same views with it swapped? If Joon was male, and Li was a woman, would it still be a problem?

You miss the point entirely with this statement. It is never a single instance...it's always a huge pattern as I have demonstrated here with these many examples. I didn't question Zojja's brilliance or Eir's prowess in Destiny's edge. They were well-written with quality story arcs. This is the injection of politics and ideology into a world where it doesn't belong.

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10 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

I don’t know about you, but I think jormags voice (which is amazing btw) can be interpreted as both female and male. It’s a really unique voice which makes it difficult to know the gender. Besides if jormag was female, why does svanir follow them? They hate females.

Guess it has something to do with Jormag getting a voice and becoming agender was part of IBS and new whereas the sons of svanir were part of the base game and now 10 years old. Maybe back than Jormag wasn't even female or agender, but male.

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12 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

I don’t know about you, but I think jormags voice (which is amazing btw) can be interpreted as both female and male. It’s a really unique voice which makes it difficult to know the gender. Besides if jormag was female, why does svanir follow them? They hate females.

Because Jormag's allure is like that of a seductive woman. The proverbial Jezebel. That was how I always viewed this dragon. My interpretation is that of men don't want any Icebrood women because there is only one woman in their hearts: Jormag. Anything else is a cheap imitation that needs to be destroyed.

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4 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

Guess it has something to do with Jormag getting a voice and becoming agender was part of IBS and new whereas the sons of svanir were part of the base game and now 10 years old. Maybe back than Jormag wasn't even female or agender, but male.

I agree. I don't know if I thought Jormag was a guy or girl back in the day, but I almost felt they ruined Jormag by giving it a voice. Honestly, I think even with the storyline I know of now, it would've been better if none of them spoke except Aurene because of the corruption.

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3 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

I agree. I don't know if I thought Jormag was a guy or girl back in the day, but I almost felt they ruined Jormag by giving it a voice. Honestly, I think even with the storyline I know of now, it would've been better if none of them spoke except Aurene because of the corruption.

 

2 minutes ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I vaguely remember from doing Holbrek events, ten or so years ago, that The SoS adore Jormag, and she is the only girl for them.  I suppose it is about time I re-visit Holbrek on an alt and fill those heart events again.  It would jog my memory.

Skaald Stjarna, an NPC from the norn starting area, clearly calls Jormag he/him, which makes it clear that Jormag was male when the game first came out and the change in gender was done with IBS. Of course, there is also the chance that this was planned from the beginning, that the Norn considered Jormag male at the time, but I dare to doubt it.

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Just now, Scalacious.4139 said:

 

Skaald Stjarna, an NPC from the norn starting area, clearly calls Jormag he/him, which makes it clear that Jormag was male when the game first came out and the change in gender was done with IBS. Of course, there is also the chance that this was planned from the beginning, that the Norn considered Jormag male at the time, but I dare to doubt it.

To be fair some major shrinkage happen in cold weather so its possible the change was inevitable.

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8 hours ago, Xerac.1542 said:

You raise some interesting points, but have you heard about the phrase art imitates life? 

I see why you would not like to be confronted with the same problems in a game we are facing irl but warring nations/tribes/villages/species have always been a big trope in any story. 

I'm fine with your latter point, but Art imitating life doesn't have to also imitate politics/ideology. You can draw the famous bowl of fruit picture, replace the fruit with Elder Dragons and it would still be imitating life without knowing anything about what the artist's politics/ideology were. It makes it very clear, at least to me, that the writers cannot do their job without injecting their own politics into a game.

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Honestly the only part that really that made me really uncomfortable is the very very very thinly veiled communist propaganda at the end of the first arc of EOD. Its an optional convo after beating Mai Trin between Gorrik and one of the Moleman and goddamn they could had done without it.

 

Everything else is just surface level "conservatism bad progessitivism good", "old people bad young people good" "yay diversity" (that one i agree with at least). Which is really whatever and pretty much unsurprising considering the game's target audience.

Edited by Ashgar.3024
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1 minute ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

That's because in lore, Jormy doesn't have gender.

 

Also, obvious troll bait post is obvious

This is not a troll post. Period. It's my legitimate opinion on the direction of this story. I have never seen lore making Jormag agender. It's also stupid as hell for everyone in the story to be like "Well, Jormag is an evil, destructive Elder Dragon, But let's make sure we respect their pronouns!!!" How utterly ridiculous.

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2 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Honestly the only part that really that made me really uncomfortable is the very very very thinly veiled communist propaganda at the end of the first arc of EOD. Its an optional convo after beating Mai Trin between Gorrik and one of the Moleman and goddamn they could had done without it.

Yup. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was the combination of so many pieces that made me want to write this.

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3 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

Honestly the only part that really that made me really uncomfortable is the very very very thinly veiled communist propaganda at the end of the first arc of EOD. Its an optional convo after beating Mai Trin between Gorrik and one of the Moleman and goddamn they could had done without it.

I thought the molemen were socialist though?  How could a citizen of the moletariat not make communist conversation?

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16 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

Because Jormag's allure is like that of a seductive woman. The proverbial Jezebel. That was how I always viewed this dragon. My interpretation is that of men don't want any Icebrood women because there is only one woman in their hearts: Jormag. Anything else is a cheap imitation that needs to be destroyed.

Ah I see. I did not. When I first heard jormag my mind was omg it’s a male. Wait no it’s a female 👀 is it male? “Insert confused rat noises” 

I did not see jormag as a seductive female. I saw them as manipulative and this is how the voice came across to me as well. 
 

your view of jormag is interesting though. I can see how you came to that conclusion. 

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3 minutes ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I thought the molemen were socialist though?  How could a citizen of the moletariat not make communist conversation?

They 100% started out as a communist parody. Writers are trying to make them more acceptable now so they're toning them down a bit.

Edited by Ashgar.3024
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6 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

That's my point. It's confusing. Somehow Bangar comes to a complete conclusion.

 

Before IBS, Bangar's name is not mentioned once nor is his character described. We are TOLD he is a wildcard. We are never shown it.

Bangar came to the wrong conclusion, why is that so weird? Especially when we later have the Aetherblades call on the commander to "Call off your dragon" and Aurene gleefully commenting on how they think she's a pet to the commander.

Pretty sure Bangar has been named before in the lore, and being told he's the wildcard of the trio is describing his character.

7 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

What? Where is this demonstrated?

Did you not pay attention at all to... any of the lore in the shiverpeaks? Even ingame it's very explicitly established that the Svanir cult do not like women, at all. In Edge of Destiny it's literally brought up that when norn parties went out to fight the icebrood champion, men returned. Women never did.

8 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

Pretty ridiculous to base your survival on if one dies, don't count on the other to continue leading...

It's called they are deeply connected on a spiritual level. Again, we've seen instances of claws and voices being replaced. It's when there is not a chance to replace the other the Kodan Claw (or Voice) falls into these rage fueled fits or severe depression.

9 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

He could have stopped the defection with the return of Ryland. It's absolutely ridiculous to believe this was a smart move in any way. Ryland was the number 2 and no Imperator wanted to lose even more Charr lives if they could be saved. His entire character in IBS was insane.

 

Yes. In which he loses both. There is no other fight that is shown to the player where he is victorious...

A: Again this assumes everybody is thinking 100% rationally at all times. Smodur was not only losing his legion members to the enemy, but he was entirely losing control of the situation and had it all in the hands of the enemy. He was trying to push himself to be Khan-Ur, and didn't want to show any weakness. Ryland also had insulted him/set himself up as superior. Smodur wanted that attitude cut down.

B: You are basing Bangar's entire career off two fights?

12 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

No it wasn't. There isn't a single mention of this in the living story.

Jormag refers to Primordus as her "Brother." Soo-won is referred to as the mother of the dragons. There is clear establishments of gender among the Elder Dragons.

I'm sorry, but it was made clear in all the interviews and statements before IBS released.

And likewise, there is clear establishments of dragons being able to reproduce asexually. Gender for Dragons is not a fixed thing.

 

13 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

There are hundreds of ways this could have been introduced. They chose to make Gorrik look dumb.

I'm sorry that you've never had any former friends who manipulated you? Gorrik wasn't dumb looking in that instance. I'd note nobody expected her to suddenly pull out an airship and kidnap him. Taimi just wanted somebody there because she was jealous of how Gorrik talked about her, and didn't want to risk her crush.

14 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

I'm aware. She still gets all the credit.

 

They are boring and feckless. Minister Yi's character is a prop for the women to step on basically.

 

His entire job is security. He's bringing up serious issues and is discarded like he's some random moron in a crowd. It's bad writing.

Joon doesn't get nearly as much credit ingame as she does by people complaining about her.

I mean, you can't even be assed to spell his name properly, so how can I know you actually paid attention to the story?

He was trying to call out the jade mechs replacing his soldiers, when the Empress was fine using both. It's literally brought up that it was just a grudge between Joon and Li (and he even sends her a letter later admitting they have issues, but fully sharing information on the reactor) when they get told to argue in the next room. He's not being dismissed.

Re-reading the dialogue, it starts with Joon pointing out how Li is getting too involved with the jade mech tests. Later he calls out a threat, and the Empress simply states that these topics are not suited for an open court instance with a full crowd of civilians.

20 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

You miss the point entirely with this statement. It is never a single instance...it's always a huge pattern as I have demonstrated here with these many examples. I didn't question Zojja's brilliance or Eir's prowess in Destiny's edge. They were well-written with quality story arcs. This is the injection of politics and ideology into a world where it doesn't belong.

Maybe, but I'm still calling out the fact you directly brought up their gender as part of the argument. If the gender isn't part of it, but the writing is, why bother?

18 minutes ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I always thought the Sons of Svanir Pledged themselves to Jormag and so all other females were contemptable in their eyes.  I had assumed that the dragon encouraged this point of view.  That was the feeling I had got from the base game Sons of Scvanir.  I haven't played Living World 4 very much.

 

14 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

Because Jormag's allure is like that of a seductive woman. The proverbial Jezebel. That was how I always viewed this dragon. My interpretation is that of men don't want any Icebrood women because there is only one woman in their hearts: Jormag. Anything else is a cheap imitation that needs to be destroyed.

This is laughable because it literally ignores every single bit of established lore from GW2 launch era.

The sons of Svanir hold women in contempt because Jora  murdered (in their eyes) Svanir and rejected Jormag's gift.

And as such, in a "sins of the father" type thing, female norn are not worthy of Jormag's gift because of it. Thus they slaughter any female norn icebrood they find. Jormag literally has been stated by devs to simply not care about these actions, viewing the wants of the Svanir cult as akin to ants, not worth interferring.

Jormag isn't offering them love or affection. All Jormag offers is power in exchange for embracing the ice. This reads as a serious misunderstanding of established lore.

4 minutes ago, Scalacious.4139 said:

 

Skaald Stjarna, an NPC from the norn starting area, clearly calls Jormag he/him, which makes it clear that Jormag was male when the game first came out and the change in gender was done with IBS. Of course, there is also the chance that this was planned from the beginning, that the Norn considered Jormag male at the time, but I dare to doubt it.

Also is the chance simply these Norn didn't know anything besides  "giant ice dragon" and thus just gave it a gender. Much like how everybody describes Zhaitan as male but we have zero idea if that's accurate or not.

 

1 minute ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

This is not a troll post. Period. It's my legitimate opinion on the direction of this story. I have never seen lore making Jormag agender. It's also stupid as hell for everyone in the story to be like "Well, Jormag is an evil, destructive Elder Dragon, But let's make sure we respect their pronouns!!!" How utterly ridiculous.

Besides the parts where Jormag was trying to convince Aurene to join them, and Aurene was being respectful back, if keeping her own distance.
 

1 minute ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I thought the molemen were socialist though?  How could a citizen of the moletariat not make communist conversation?

How dare the Dredge, who have long, long, since freaking GW1 launch, who have held Communist/socialist themes, reference... those themes.

 

Just now, Freya.9075 said:

Ah I see. I did not. When I first heard jormag my mind was omg it’s a male. Wait no it’s a female 👀 is it male? “Insert confused rat noises” 

I did not see jormag as a seductive female. I saw them as manipulative and this is how the voice came across to me as well. 
 

your view of jormag is interesting though. I can see how you came to that conclusion. 

Because the lore since GW2 launch has been that Jormag is offering power and promises, not love or anything like that.

The conclusion is based off a severe lack of understanding of the Svanir cult.

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3 minutes ago, Mykhel.6532 said:

It's also stupid as hell for everyone in the story to be like "Well, Jormag is an evil, destructive Elder Dragon, But let's make sure we respect their pronouns!!!"

Technically, if we go by english rules - dragon should use "it", but that's not the point. You missed the part, where I said, that lore-wise Jormy doesn't have gender, voice in your head is per-person basis.

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Just now, Kalavier.1097 said:

Bangar came to the wrong conclusion, why is that so weird? Especially when we later have the Aetherblades call on the commander to "Call off your dragon" and Aurene gleefully commenting on how they think she's a pet to the commander.

Because there is absolutely no lead up to this. It started there at the points you're saying. It was also defined throughout that the Commander was Aurene's Champion. This is in direct relation to the Champion of the other Elder Dragons. In what way has a Champion ever controlled their Elder Dragon? I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Bangar was an absolutely terrible character.

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3 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Technically, if we go by english rules - dragon should use "it", but that's not the point. You missed the part, where I said, that lore-wise Jormy doesn't have gender, voice in your head is per-person basis.

I agree with you 100%. If they said "it" I wouldn't have batted an eye. But you still haven't said where in the lore this is... where does it say this? When did this come out? When is the player made aware of this?

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5 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Also is the chance simply these Norn didn't know anything besides  "giant ice dragon" and thus just gave it a gender. Much like how everybody describes Zhaitan as male but we have zero idea if that's accurate or not.

Like I said, there is a slight chance that it was planned that way from the start, but I highly doubt that. It is much more likely in my eyes that the gender of Jormag was changed subsequently for IBS to fit the zeitgeist.

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11 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

They 100% started out as a communist parody. Writers are trying to make more acceptable.

That is unfortunate. Socialism kills people, mostly socialists, but still.  Every large socialist government irl has been easily taken over by a dictator, who then proceeds to inflict misery upon the people.  I talked with a survivor twenty years ago, one of the ones who got herself smuggled out.

Edited by Zebulous.2934
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59 minutes ago, LSD.4673 said:

No, "my position" is that this is a game, with writing aimed at teens. Man-children aren't the intended audience. So what a man-child takes as being "ideological" and "man hating" is in fact simply what the teens of today are into. The same way 10 years ago they were into Call of Duty and Battlefield, which is why the Charr and the Pact all talk like modern American soldiers instead of fantasy characters.

"you take point and provide suppressing fire!" said the fantasy cow-cat creature with a sword. But i found that offensive because the fantasy cow-cat creature seemed to have left-wing beliefs.

Just so we're clear, we aren't disputing the observation.  You're just saying it's okay because the target audience likes it.  I guess I don't see why it needs to be all one way in order for teens (who says teens are the target audience of this game anyway?) to play it?  Is that really how the kids are today?  And if so, I rather agree that I'd prefer they not cater to that mindset and be a little more varied in their character portrayal and storytelling.

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