The All (spoilers)

[voltaicbore.8012]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I love how you even sugercoat the fact that it's never explained why this is the case. It's just "because".

Lol you know by now that's Sajuuk's primary engagement with issues of explanation and logic. Not worth the time to even confront that.

The worst part about the above is... Anet seems satisfied to do the same, so in that sense, Sajuuk is actually in line with the stuido itself. We must simply accept that Aurene is just a better filter than Soo-Won was, for no other reason than we're told as much. I find my experience of the game is, these days, much improved by lore defeatism - just going to accept that Anet's standard for continuity is less robust than I'd like, and leave it at that.

[mandala.8507]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

(saying nothing about where the filtration goes to given that's how filtration systems work - it doesn't eradicate the gunk, just separates and gathers it).

Well, the simplest explanation is that, because the Void is the combination of all domains of dragon magic, Aurene's prismatic powers allow her to split the Void back into its more stable component parts. Beyond that, we really don't need a reason why she is better at storing all this magic than the others. And they do say she shares the burden across all of Tyria's magical forms so as to spread the load, similarly to how the Key of Ahdashim distributes the Djinn's connection to the Well of Ahdashim's magic at the end of Wing 7 to prevent the chance for future monopolized chaotic magical singularities like Qadim the Peerless.

But I like to think the writers are using the word filter more generically. I see Aurene as less of true filter and more like a catalytic converter. She's taking a substance and transforming it into a more palatable form. You could say she's doing this with her prism magic alone, or maybe by some other force she wields that we're not yet entirely privy to.

Clearly though, the Void and chaotic instabilities are still a hot topic of the lore moving forward. Perhaps we should cool our jets and see where this road takes us before jumping to exclaim nothing makes sense. Things are making sense to me so far.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

4 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

Lol you know by now that's Sajuuk's primary engagement with issues of explanation and logic. Not worth the time to even confront that.

The worst part about the above is... Anet seems satisfied to do the same, so in that sense, Sajuuk is actually in line with the stuido itself. We must simply accept that Aurene is just a better filter than Soo-Won was, for no other reason than we're told as much. I find my experience of the game is, these days, much improved by lore defeatism - just going to accept that Anet's standard for continuity is less robust than I'd like, and leave it at that.

It's unfortunate that I feel inclined to agree, but in large part the shallow worldbuilding was while under Tom Abernathy. While not as deep as when Jeff and Ree worked on GW1/GW2 (or before Jeff and Ree), at least under Scott McGough and Angel McCoy, even with a lot more retcons and questionable quality characters that, imo, overall lessened the experience (Taimi in particular), it still had detailed worldbuilding.

Maybe with Tom Abernathy moving on, we'll go back to hard worldbuilding... I don't expect it but I do hope so. The worldbuilding has always been where ANet excelled in the past.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Well, the simplest explanation is that, because the Void is the combination of all domains of dragon magic, Aurene's prismatic powers allow her to split the Void back into its more stable component parts.

That doesn't explain anything at all. Why is she prism? She absorbed crystal, but Kralkatorrik was straight up unable to filter all magic because it hurt him. So why was she able to filter it, why did she become prism? It isn't simply because "she shared magic" because Soo-Won did that too from start to finish and when talking about it both she and Kuunavang say that Soo-Won was simply unable to filter it after being bound to Water domain. And Jormag tied with Ryland, Bangar, and the Frost Legion but it did nothing to alleviate the Torment in them.

So why is Aurene "prism" and not crystal?

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Beyond that, we really don't need a reason why she is better at storing all this magic than the others.

Yes, we rather do. Otherwise it's just shallow worldbuilding with no explanation, no exposition. It's worldbuilding that is nothing more than a house of cards.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

And they do say she shares the burden across all of Tyria's magical forms so as to spread the load, similarly to how the Key of Ahdashim distributes the Djinn's connection to the Well of Ahdashim's magic at the end of Wing 7 to prevent the chance for future monopolized chaotic magical singularities like Qadim the Peerless.

But Soo-Won did this as well. She was sharing magic, not hoarding it. So why is Aurene this super special dragon baby.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

But I like to think the writers are using the word filter more generically. I see Aurene as less of true filter and more like a catalytic converter. She's taking a substance and transforming it into a more palatable form. You could say she's doing this with her prism magic alone, or maybe by some other force she wields that we're not yet entirely privy to.

Hmm, that would imply she's effectively destroying Void, but this notion runs completely counter to her statements. So she's not destroying it, but removing it from the system... and putting it somewhere, supposedly. Or maybe just spreading it out so thinly that it's not volatile.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Clearly though, the Void and chaotic instabilities are still a hot topic of the lore moving forward. Perhaps we should cool our jets and see where this road takes us before jumping to exclaim nothing makes sense. Things are making sense to me so far.

There's zero indication of Void going forward, let alone chaotic instabilities. Haze is outright stated in the story to be unrelated to Void despite similar visuals (literally ANet lampshading in dialogue their art asset reuse), and isn't a "chaotic instability".

I'm not sure where you get that it's "still a hot topic moving forward". But given you think that Void was a part of the deep lore since launch and link something as so drastically unrelated as a Flame Legion ritual to add tar and oil to a lake as tied to it because the ritual uses multiple synonyms of darkness, and are prone to insult people who disagree with you as seen in this and the other thread, I'm not really expecting there to actually be something you're pulling it from.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

8 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

However, EoD never explained two critical things about Aurene:

1. Why was Soo-Won, who also shared and filtered magic instead of hoarding it, completely unaffective while Aurene was?
2. Why is sharing magic useful?

To elaborate: Soo-Won is notably not a hoarder of magic, and has even actively drained herself of magic into jade for the past ~20 years. Yet she was able to do nothing in regards to the magical balance of the world, despite even handling it by herself originally. Meanwhile, Aurene somehow can do it all perfectly by herself, even better than Soo-Won, the mother of Elder Dragons and creator of the entire freaking world, ever could. She's not just cycling magic like Soo-Won was, but she's somehow - with zero explanation - a better filter. It's just told that she is a better filter, not why she's a better filter.

And then there's the whole sharing issue - if it was six Elder Dragons sharing magic, it makes sense. But one? In Season 3, one of the leading causes of concern was the sheer quantity of magic in the open world, and since Aurene doesn't hoard magic like Kralkatorrik, she would have filtered most of his magic back into the world. Killing Kralkatorrik would have made that matter all the worse when she replaced him, because that quantity of magic would increase. And that's got nothing to say about killing Jormag and Primordus afterward, who also hoarded a bunch of magic (albeit at that point not as much as Kralk did but still about as much as Mordremoth, each). One of the things about the Elder Dragons hoarding magic is that they took it out of the world, and shoving it all back into the world was causing the ley-lines to overflow.

To use an analogy: simply changing a water filter doesn't solve the issue of the dam overflowing, it just cleans up the water in said dam.

But like with how Aurene can magically filter out all magic perfectly, how Aurene sharing magic doesn't cause an even higher quantity of magic, and how that quantity of magic somehow reduced despite the whole sharing rather than hoarding.

Well

1. Soo-Won didn't filter and share magic like Aurene did. She hoarded magic within herself. This is why the Void began manifesting in her in the first place. The only magic she "shared" was in the same way other elder dragons did. Power to minions/items to help them take over. Except she didn't make a ton of hostile minions, she chose peaceful ones like Kuunavang.
2. It was Joon, and her reactor, that attempted to siphon and filter the magic in her to keep her stable. But the progressive buildup of magic from each Elder Dragon's death wasn't able to be kept up with by the reactor. Leading to it building up in Soo-Won, and causing her to go voidy.
3. Soo-Won is a naturally forming entity in the universe. Aurene was purpose built by Glint, The Forgotten, and the Exalted, to be an organic machine to filter magic. You might as well ask why dirt doesn't filter water as well as any half way decent purpose made water filter. Things designed specifically to do something tend to do it better than things that are not. Soo-Won wasn't made to do anything, she just exists.
4. Soo-Won didn't make the world. As she states, she created the Elder Dragons, and split the domains of magic among them, at Mother's Lament. Mother's Lament being one of the first pieces of the world to manifest before she split the magic domains, and thus, before the Void was dealt with. She never claims to have made it herself. She just balanced magic which allowed the world to continue to grow and life to begin evolving on Tyira.
5. As was explained by Sadizi back in PoF, the problem with the magic cycle was that it worked previously on a cycle of extremes. The Elder Dragons draining Tyria to a near magic-less state, only for it to seep out of them and for Tyria to return to a magic high state, rinse repeat. Aurene fundamentally changed that entire process.

To build upon your water example. Imagine the magic of Tyria being like a river, or a stagnant lake. With the Elder Dragons of old they consumed the river/lake to its bed, then the water slowly seeped out of them over time to full it back up. Killing an Elder Dragon is like immediately dumping a massive amount of water into a river/lake all at once. Even if that quantity of water moved through the river/lake normally over time, the sudden, and immediate, dumping of water in a shot period can cause its banks to overflow. Like how magic was before Aurene's ascension. Its like the water cycle of Earth, but if the water cycle only happened once every 10,000 years, and took all the water at once. This is why 6 Elder Dragons were needed, no one being could contain that much water(magic) within themselves.

Aurene fundamentally changed that. Instead of taking all the water at once, she cycles and filters it all the time like the water cycle on Earth works. Magic is being constantly "evaporated"(removed from the system), "condensated"(purified by Aurene), and  "precipitated"(returned back to the system). There's the same amount of water(magic) in the world, it just flows more regularly and consistently. Instead of going from world-wide drought, to 30 days/nights global flood.

7 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

They didn't explicitly stated "six", but they did say plural entities. As you yourself quoted Sadizi saying in HoT:

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

Taimi: The Exalted believed Glint's scions—plural—would shoulder the burden, but we only have Aurene now. But we're still here. Either she can handle it, or something else is out there. Or time is limited.

I love how you even sugercoat the fact that it's never explained why this is the case. It's just "because".

Sadizi also clearly says, as you quoted they theorized they needed multiple entities to achieve this. It was not stated as fact that they needed more than one. They just guessed they did. They didn't know for sure since, obviously, it hadn't been done before.

Glint, the Forgotten, and the Exalted, all admit to working on limited information since they aren't all knowing beings. Glint didn't even tell the Exalted all she knew of what would happen after Kralk's death, for fear of possibly messing things up. So not even her chosen people were working with the limited knowledge she had. They were working on even less.

And I recall Glint musing on what the Forgotten may have told the golds and vice versa, so they raise the question of what the Forgotten were doing behind the scenes to aid in this endeavor that neither Glint nor the Exalted knew about.

Edited March 24 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Gibson.4036]

22 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Well

Soo-Won is a naturally forming entity in the universe. Aurene was purpose built by Glint, The Forgotten, and the Exalted, to be an organic machine to filter magic. You might as well ask why dirt doesn't filter water as well as any half way decent purpose made water filter. Things designed specifically to do something tend to do it better than things that are not. Soo-Won wasn't made to do anything, she just exists.

I found this kinda funny since healthy soil IRL is actually amazing at filtering and binding contaminants into inert forms.

Makes one wonder why the GW universe needed Glint, The Forsaken, and the Exalted to “fix” it in the first place.

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

But Soo-Won did this as well. She was sharing magic, not hoarding it. So why is Aurene this super special dragon baby.

No, she wasn't. She was hoarding any meaningful quantities of her magic up until Zhaitan's death in the personal story, at which point she was forced to seek out Joon's aid to siphon off her excess magic so as not to become overwhelmed and fall to the darkness. She never shared it naturally, and the magic she was allowing Joon to take was still harming the world, just slowly over time as it was used and discarded and then eventually directly when she no longer had the strength to properly cleanse the magic at all and was putting significant amounts of Void magic into the dragon jade she was producing.

Pretty much the entire relationship between Aurene and Soo-Won in EoD was centered around the difference in their approach to their relationships and closeness to the rest of the living things on Tyria. We first encounter Soo-Won trying to convince Aurene that she must isolate herself for the mortals' protection and simply watch them from afar, as she had done for countless millennia. It isn't until Aurene is begging her on her deathbed that Soo-Won blesses her choice to stay among us, recognizing that she is capable of doing so and that her closeness to us is her strength and not a curse, as it had been for the elder dragons past. Similar to how Kralk saw that she was different from the rest as well, calling her the first of her kind.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Hmm, that would imply she's effectively destroying Void, but this notion runs completely counter to her statements. So she's not destroying it, but removing it from the system... and putting it somewhere, supposedly. Or maybe just spreading it out so thinly that it's not volatile.

No, that's not how a catalytic converter works. Matter is not destroyed, it is simply reformed. In the instance of Aurene, I would say more specifically that she is flipping Void magic into its opposite ordered form. Converting it much the same as the Forgotten did to Glint in the past and as they tried to do with Kralk. Aurene has this innate gift inside of her as the dragon of light.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

There's zero indication of Void going forward, let alone chaotic instabilities. Haze is outright stated in the story to be unrelated to Void despite similar visuals (literally ANet lampshading in dialogue their art asset reuse), and isn't a "chaotic instability".

Gorrik quite plainly states that Haze is just Void magic with something extra. How is that not a continuation of Void in the lore? And he uses the precise phrase "obvious disequilibrium", but I get that synonyms can muddy the waters.

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I'm not sure where you get that it's "still a hot topic moving forward". But given you think that Void was a part of the deep lore since launch and link something as so drastically unrelated as a Flame Legion ritual to add tar and oil to a lake as tied to it because the ritual uses multiple synonyms of darkness, and are prone to insult people who disagree with you as seen in this and the other thread, I'm not really expecting there to actually be something you're pulling it from.

And who are the Flame Legion's gods? The Titans, who are demons that were in league with Abaddon, who was the driving force behind pretty much every big bad in the first game and the catalyst for the Elder Dragon plotline in the second game.

And honestly, I have no clue how you've surmised that the tone you bring to this forum is in any way decorous while simultaneously projecting your lack of decorum and respect for others onto people who are understandably put off by your attempts to undermine them via snidely characterizing their deductions as being only worthy of your laughter. Perhaps look inward instead of out, friend. I'm very nice to people who are voicing their disagreements with kindness and humility. 

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

5 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I found this kinda funny since healthy soil IRL is actually amazing at filtering and binding contaminants into inert forms.

Makes one wonder why the GW universe needed Glint, The Forsaken, and the Exalted to “fix” it in the first place.

Yes, but it isn't as good as stuff like good water filters, which was the point.

[Gibson.4036]

12 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Yes, but it isn't as good as stuff like good water filters, which was the point.

I guess it depends on your criteria.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

10 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Well

1. Soo-Won didn't filter and share magic like Aurene did. She hoarded magic within herself.

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

No, she wasn't. She was hoarding any meaningful quantities of her magic up until Zhaitan's death in the personal story, at which point she was forced to seek out Joon's aid to siphon off her excess magic so as not to become overwhelmed and fall to the darkness. She never shared it naturally,

This is objectively false, and Kuunavang is the proof. She was bonded - not corrupted - by Soo-Won when Zhaitan rose. This is a heavy plot point in Kuunavang's and Soo-Won's story and why Kuunavang is visually different from Albax and her GW1 appearance, with light-blue fish-like scales. This would have been 100 years before GW2 started, before Zhaitan's death, and bonding is sharing magic rather than hoarding it.

In fact, the very fact that Soo-Won is cognizant is proof that Soo-Won wasn't hoarding magic like the other five, and even Jormag is stated by devs to have been less hoarding than the other Elder Dragons (which is hinted by both their higher cognizant and Jormag only corrupting the willing). Jormag still hoarded magic, until IBS where they began to try sharing bits of it instead but it was too little too late as they turned to using the Frozen that was even worse than before as it was solidly conflicting magic, like when Primordus and Kralkatorrik consumed Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's magic. The Elder Dragons' level of intelligence is directly tied, inversely, with how much they hoard magic.

Soo-Won even created the blue orbs (or Eyes of the Ocean as Canthans call them) as part of their sharing magic, and protected mortals in previous dragonrises.

 

The reason why Soo-Won needed Joon's help was because of the conflicting magic, and Soo-Won's inability to filter Void out of the magic unlike Aurene. But both Soo-Won and Aurene were sharing magic, not hoarding it.

10 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

1. Soo-Won is a naturally forming entity in the universe. Aurene was purpose built by Glint, The Forgotten, and the Exalted, to be an organic machine to filter magic. You might as well ask why dirt doesn't filter water as well as any half way decent purpose made water filter. Things designed specifically to do something tend to do it better than things that are not. Soo-Won wasn't made to do anything, she just exists.

The part of Aurene is also false - or half-false. Aurene was "purpose built", but not to filter magic perfectly. She and Vlast were both born to partially replace the Elder Dragons - and Glint was to do this as well. There is zero evidence that Glint, the Forgotten, or the Exalted understood the importance of filtering magic as this was introduced to the lore in Season 4. Prior to War Eternal, it was purely simply levels of magic and balance of The All - both of which vanished with War Eternal.

10 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

1. Soo-Won didn't make the world. As she states, she created the Elder Dragons, and split the domains of magic among them, at Mother's Lament. Mother's Lament being one of the first pieces of the world to manifest before she split the magic domains, and thus, before the Void was dealt with. She never claims to have made it herself. She just balanced magic which allowed the world to continue to grow and life to begin evolving on Tyira.

Kuunavang: The Void is raw magic—chaos incarnate. In the beginning, everything was Void.

Kuunavang: Then the Mother Dragon, Soo-Won, brought order, splitting the Void into six domains of magic.

Soo-Won: It was the beginning...

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 in the warmth of a maturing sun.

It's not explicitly stated "Soo-Won created the world", but the Void removes physical existence, and Soo-Won is what created life out of the Void.

So either Tyria was just a desolate rock with zero life and Void all over the place, or Void was just there in space and Soo-Won turned it to create rock and all life.

Either way, both constitutes as "created the world". She didn't just "create the Elder Dragons", she created the magic system, Elder Dragons, and beginnings of all life on the planet.

10 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

1. As was explained by Sadizi back in PoF, the problem with the magic cycle was that it worked previously on a cycle of extremes. The Elder Dragons draining Tyria to a near magic-less state, only for it to seep out of them and for Tyria to return to a magic high state, rinse repeat. Aurene fundamentally changed that entire process.

Yes, as Ogden described in Season 2 as well, but the issue is that because Aurene doesn't hoard magic, or even maintain much magic, she doesn't take magic out of the world, meaning that magic would be always at the extreme of "too much magic".

The original idea was to have six Elder Dragon equivalents to maintain a middle ground, by having magic within the Elder Dragon equivalents. Since Aurene is 1 and not 6, she'd need to have 6 middle-ground Elder Dragons' worth of magic in her... but she has equal or less than 1 middle-ground Elder Dragons' worth of magic.

To use numerical values, let's say the total amount of all magic in all six Elder Dragons and the world == 100.
The issue was that the Elder Dragons balanced magic between these two states:|

• World: 90; Six Elder Dragons: 10
• World: 10; Six Elder Dragons: 90

and it would go back and forth between those two states - between two extremes. Glint's Legacy was to replace the Elder Dragons with multiples (based on Season 3, 4+ replacements) so that it would become solely this outcome:

• World: 50; Six Elder Dragons: 50

But because we killed two Elder Dragons in the "middle" of the Dragonrise cycle, during Seaosn 3 when kitten was hitting the fan, it would have looked something like:

• World: 60; Four Elder Dragons: 40

But at the end of it all, Aurene is the only one, so it'd instead be something like:

• Aurene: 10; World: 90

Which just isn't fixing the issue of quantity of magic in the world, which was highlighted as a problem in Season 3. Simply "sharing magic with the world instead of hoarding" wouldn't fix that matter. Because the world is now in a state of an extreme: with too much magic.

But that's simply not shown. So in order for it to actually be balanced it would instead look like:

• Aurene: 50; World:50

Which puts her at hoarding more magic than the Elder Dragons could even when magic in the open world was an extreme low (due to there being six - even at 90% magic consumed, that'd be an average of 15 to each Elder Dragon, even if you drop Jormag low and Soo-Won lower due to less hoarding of magic, we'd not be seeing even Kralk and Primordus, the greediest of the four remaining, hit 20% of the world's magic).

And if Aurene doesn't have that much magic, and it isn't in the world, then where did that magic go? And it's not like you can just dump it into the Mists, as War Eternal stressed:

Aurene: Now we must ride...scion and champion. Flush Kralkatorrik...from the Mists.

Taimi: Right! If he dies in the Mists, that's it. His magic is gone. And so is Tyria.

Aurene: Yes. My vision came true. And so must his.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_End#At_the_Auditorium_2

And as Season 3 and PoF stressed, exposure to too much magic will make mortals go crazy, either becoming addicted to magic, becoming highly aggitated and aggressive, or exposed to wild hallucinations of anomalies. So it isn't like Aurene can pull a Key of Ahdashim and just share magic with every living mortal on the planet (which itself would be as horrible a choice as when the Six Gods freely gave magic and sparked a bunch of bloody wars).

Edited March 25 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Gorrik quite plainly states that Haze is just Void magic with something extra. How is that not a continuation of Void in the lore? And he uses the precise phrase "obvious disequilibrium", but I get that synonyms can muddy the waters.

That's the complete opposite of what Gorrik says.

<Character name>: If this haze looks similar to the Void, there's a lot of it around here.

Gorrik: Can you scan some samples? Apparently it's making workers ill. I suspect it's correlated with this unusual behaviour.

[...]

<Character name>: Loud and clear. Just scanned your last sample.

Gorrik: Much appreciated! Your readings suggest this haze is composed primarily of raw magic. Very similar to Void. However...

Gorrik: The samples contained an extra element not found in unfiltered magic. I'll run further analysis. In the meantime...

Gorrik says it is similar to Void. Similar means not the same. He says it is "unfiltered magic" with an extra element - unfiltered magic is what ley-line is stated to be on numerous occasions (granted, so is Void - one of the many issues EoD has with defining Void is that the way it's defined in terms of magical flow is 1:1 the same as ley-lines), and we later find a massive ley-line nexus in the story, being influenced by the demon (adding that extra element).

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

And who are the Flame Legion's gods? The Titans, who are demons that were in league with Abaddon, who was the driving force behind pretty much every big bad in the first game and the catalyst for the Elder Dragon plotline in the second game.

By GW2, the Flame Legions' gods are, in fact, not the Titans, but Gaheron Baelfire. And even then, Abaddon had no direct relation to the Elder Dragons, and certainly not the Void. So I fail to see any relation.

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

And honestly, I have no clue how you've surmised that the tone you bring to this forum is in any way decorous while simultaneously projecting your lack of decorum and respect for others onto people who are understandably put off by your attempts to undermine them via snidely characterizing their deductions as being only worthy of your laughter. Perhaps look inward instead of out, friend. I'm very nice to people who are voicing their disagreements with kindness and humility. 

The irony in this is seething, since I'm not the only one you're openly hostile with, let alone openly hostile with first. I've seen you shown hostility to anyone who remotely disagrees with you, certainly no humility.

Edited March 25 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[mandala.8507]

8 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Gorrik says it is similar to Void. Similar means not the same. He says it is "unfiltered magic" with an extra element - unfiltered magic is what ley-line is stated to be on numerous occasions (granted, so is Void - one of the many issues EoD has with defining Void is that the way it's defined in terms of magical flow is 1:1 the same as ley-lines), and we later find a massive ley-line nexus in the story, being influenced by the demon (adding that extra element).

I mean...the point of calling something very similar is not to point out its differences, only to note that it isn't entirely identical while recognizing it is mostly the same. And when the entire map is surrounded by Void effects and Void is explicitly mentioned when identifying this new magical force, Haze, it's a huge stretch to ignore all those indicators and then jump to thinking it is more so indicating its similarity to leyline magic than to Void (even though these two states are closely related).

8 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And even then, Abaddon had no direct relation to the Elder Dragons, and certainly not the Void. So I fail to see any relation.

Kormir states in PoF concerning the effects of Abaddon's death: "I was there to contain the damage, but by then it was too late. The surge of power upended the balance of magic in Tyria, and stirred Primordus from his slumber — triggering this latest cycle of destruction."

And you say Abaddon has no relation to Void, but could you tell me your thoughts on why there's a scrapper in Gyala Delves channeling Mallyx? Or just what you think the Abyss could possibly be connected to in the lore? There's a whole song they produced for EoD talking about the Abyss. Are you saying none of it is connected? We just bring up Abaddon and directly affiliated entities and concepts constantly in relation to the elder dragon story in the lore for fun, I guess?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

I mean...the point of calling something very similar is not to point out its differences, only to note that it isn't entirely identical while recognizing it is mostly the same. And when the entire map is surrounded by Void effects and Void is explicitly mentioned when identifying this new magical force, Haze, it's a huge stretch to ignore all those indicators and then jump to thinking it is more so indicating its similarity to leyline magic than to Void (even though these two states are closely related).

The point of calling something similar is to denote that while hey may seem the same, they are ultimately different. And that is important, especially here, since as you say Void is explicitly mentioned by characters referencing the visuals. As I quoted, the PC says that the Haze looks like Void, but then Gorrik says that it isn't, but similar. That similarity is foremost in their appearance.

What I got out of Gorrik's dialogue is basically: "Ley-Line plus demonic influence is something similar to Void". In other words:

• Haze = Ley-Line + Demonic
• Void = Ley-Line - ED Filtration
• Ley-Line = Death + Shadow + Plant + Mind + Ice + Persuasion + Water + Life + Fire + Destruction + Crystal + Fury (aka "without filtering" a specific domain out, like what Bloodstones or chak organs do)

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Kormir states in PoF concerning the effects of Abaddon's death: "I was there to contain the damage, but by then it was too late. The surge of power upended the balance of magic in Tyria, and stirred Primordus from his slumber — triggering this latest cycle of destruction."

And you say Abaddon has no relation to Void, but could you tell me your thoughts on why there's a scrapper in Gyala Delves channeling Mallyx? Or just what you think the Abyss could possibly be connected to in the lore? There's a whole song they produced for EoD talking about the Abyss. Are you saying none of it is connected? We just bring up Abaddon and directly affiliated entities and concepts constantly in relation to the elder dragon story in the lore for fun, I guess?

Yes. As I said, Abaddon had no direct relation to the Elder Dragons. He had an indirect relation because his unplanned death resulted in a temporary release of magic that stirred Primordus from slumber. It's not like Abaddon intentionally died for the purpose of unleashing Void by predicting Tyrians would kill the Elder Dragons or something.
But this indirect relation to the Elder Dragons waking up has no bearing on the Void.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

And you say Abaddon has no relation to Void, but could you tell me your thoughts on why there's a scrapper in Gyala Delves channeling Mallyx?

It's hard to say, because they reuse so many art assets. They have coral explicitly used solely in Orr and Risen-corrupted areas until now showing up in Gyala, as well as the otherworldly mushrooms, and the stone wurm designs from Mouth of Torment. Or how the enemies are creatures that were uniquely part of the Shadow Army (Abyssals, Shadow Beasts) and uniquely natives of the Underworld (Aatxes), yet mingle in a place so far completely unrelated to both.
Unlike the Haze using the same art assets as Void and being called out as different despite same looks, these are never brought up. Like the Archdiviner using the Mallyx elite visuals, it's entirely likely they just used that for the Brotherhood here because it was sufficiently demonic visuals.
What Lies Beneath is SEETHING with reuse of game assets without much regard to the original lore of those art assets, so I am not willing to make wild speculation as to a specific reuse of any singular art asset, especially when the one case it is brought up in story, we're told "they're not the same thing, they just look similar."

Until we have reason to believe otherwise, I'd say all other asset reuse is the same: "they're not the same, they just look similar."

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Or just what you think the Abyss could possibly be connected to in the lore? There's a whole song they produced for EoD talking about the Abyss.

I think you over-emphasize the one use of the word "abyss" in A World Without You. You're presuming it's a proper noun when there's zero evidence there is. Just look at the context of the lyrics, and it's clear that it's referencing the more traditional idea of an abyss:

How will our world go on without you
Are we ready for this
Stay above the abyss?
There's never been a world without you
Can we find our own way
Keep the darkness at bay?

To me, it's just talking about worrying for the world's future without the light (Soo-Won) they had always known. It's using "abyss" and "darkness" as metaphores for (potential) destruction and grim futures. I mean, it's clear in the story by the point this song plays that the Void or related things are not an issue - Aurene says so herself - this song is about Soo-Won's passing, and Aurene's special chosen one design keeps things like Void from literally being an issue.

2 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

We just bring up Abaddon and directly affiliated entities and concepts constantly in relation to the elder dragon story in the lore for fun, I guess?

From a Doyalist perspective, Primordus was brought up to answer a long lasting question from the playerbase about whether or not the events of GW1 triggered the Elder Dragons waking up.
From a Watsonian perspective, Kormir was listing all the consequences of the gods' actions if they intervene as an excuse to get out of fighting Balthazar herself.
And that's the extent of it. Sometimes, things are surface deep. Sometimes they go deeper, but not this time. The purpose wasn't to suggest a deep hidden lore connection between Abaddon, Flame Legion rituals, and Void through dialogue in lore that occur several years apart each time.

Edited March 25 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

This is objectively false, and Kuunavang is the proof. She was bonded - not corrupted - by Soo-Won when Zhaitan rose. This is a heavy plot point in Kuunavang's and Soo-Won's story and why Kuunavang is visually different from Albax and her GW1 appearance, with light-blue fish-like scales. This would have been 100 years before GW2 started, before Zhaitan's death, and bonding is sharing magic rather than hoarding it.

By this logic neither Jormag or Primordus were hoarding magic either, because they bonded with Ryland and Braham instead of corrupting them. Bonding with one being =/= sharing magic as a whole. Never has been. This isn't some "all or nothing" situation. Putting the smallest of leaks in a massive tank isn't going to stop it from taking in far more water than it leaks out. Nor does it change that the tank is fundamentally meant to hold water, not give it out.

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

In fact, the very fact that Soo-Won is cognizant is proof that Soo-Won wasn't hoarding magic like the other five, and even Jormag is stated by devs to have been less hoarding than the other Elder Dragons (which is hinted by both their higher cognizant and Jormag only corrupting the willing). Jormag still hoarded magic, until IBS where they began to try sharing bits of it instead but it was too little too late as they turned to using the Frozen that was even worse than before as it was solidly conflicting magic, like when Primordus and Kralkatorrik consumed Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's magic. The Elder Dragons' level of intelligence is directly tied, inversely, with how much they hoard magic.

Jormag never tried to share bits of its magic in IBS. It bonded with Ryland(covered above),  but its overall actions was still just hoarding. Be it with the Spirits of the Wild, the Frozen, etc.

And no, the level of intelligence is not directly tied to how much magic they hoard.

• Soo-Won had the most amount of magic within her of any of the Elder Dragons we faced, and yet was still displaying moments of clarity during the final battle, and after.
• Kralkatorrik had the most amount of displayed magic of a dragon we fought before Soo-Won, and, as the trip into his mind showed, he still had some sanity left. Though far less than Soo-Won showed.
• Zhaitan had the least amount of magic by the time we faced him directly, yet showed no intelligence/reason beyond being a rampaging beast.
• Mordremoth had more magic than Zhaitan, and yet was obviously mentally stable enough to speak intelligently, and hold some form of conversation.
• Jormag and Primordus were at equal levels of power when they destroyed each other, yet Jormag was far more intelligent and sane than Primordus, who was nothing but a mindless, rampaging, monster.

If Elder Dragon intelligence was directly tied to the amount of magic they hoarded then all of them would've started out equally intelligent at the beginning of the dragon rise, and have been largely equally mindless by the time GW2 begins, yet nothing suggests as such. Some, like Primordus, were just mindless beasts from the get go.

Collecting more magic leads to greater torment, but individual mental fortitude, and ability to cope with that torment, plays a factor in how long an Elder Dragon is able to remain sane while afflicted by it. Primordus had obviously been mentally broken in a previous cycle, as evidenced by it just being a big dumb rampaging monster this whole cycle. Even when it had far less magic. Magic leads to torment, torment leads to mind breaking, but once the mind is broken its shot... getting to a lower level of magic isn't going to fix that. Thus amount of magic =/= how intelligent they are.

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Soo-Won even created the blue orbs (or Eyes of the Ocean as Canthans call them) as part of their sharing magic, and protected mortals in previous dragonrises.

Kralkatorrik created things like Branding, Empowering, Recharging, and Pulsating, Crystals, to help its minions. Hell, I think most Elder Dragons are seen using their magic to make items or w/e to help their minions. That's no more "sharing" magic than Elder Dragons are "sharing" magic when they pump magic into their minions to make them more powerful/smarter.

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The part of Aurene is also false - or half-false. Aurene was "purpose built", but not to filter magic perfectly. She and Vlast were both born to partially replace the Elder Dragons - and Glint was to do this as well. There is zero evidence that Glint, the Forgotten, or the Exalted understood the importance of filtering magic as this was introduced to the lore in Season 4. Prior to War Eternal, it was purely simply levels of magic and balance of The All - both of which vanished with War Eternal.

Except we know Glint had seen events far beyond her own death, and past Kralkatorrik's death, leading to prophecies like the one Ogden mentions in regards to Aurene needing to eat Joko to be ready to fight Kralkatorrik, and Dulann's comments about Glint not sharing all she knew of what happened after Kralk's death to prevent it from affecting the outcome. If she could see that far into the future, she probably knew about needing magic filtration.

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

t's not explicitly stated "Soo-Won created the world", but the Void removes physical existence, and Soo-Won is what created life out of the Void.

So either Tyria was just a desolate rock with zero life and Void all over the place, or Void was just there in space and Soo-Won turned it to create rock and all life.

Either way, both constitutes as "created the world". She didn't just "create the Elder Dragons", she created the magic system, Elder Dragons, and beginnings of all life on the planet.

If Mother's Lament was already there then Tyria was already there, or at least one small bit of it during its early formation phase. We've seen lifeless rocks floating in the void before, like the one we land on during the random teleport sequence when fighting Commander Lonai in LWS4.

She also didn't create the magic system. Magic existed, as void, before hand. As did the various domains. She just split the domains from each other, as Kuunavang mentioned.

Likewise, she created the Elder Dragons to split magic, which allowed life to grow on Tyria. But she didn't create the rest of life on Tyira. Or at least that isn't said. All other life grew naturally

So she didn't make Tyria, the magic system, or life. She helped in its formation, but she didn't directly make any of them. Nature made them all.

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Yes, as Ogden described in Season 2 as well, but the issue is that because Aurene doesn't hoard magic, or even maintain much magic, she doesn't take magic out of the world, meaning that magic would be always at the extreme of "too much magic".

You're missing one major fact in this comment, and your following long explanation... and that is, as far as we know, Tyria's magic system is basically a closed system. It isn't just getting tons of new magic pumped into it from outside places like the Mists(not to say zero new magic is entering the world).

The Elder Dragons eat the world's magic, go to sleep, and the magic seeps back out of them until they're close to being out of magic. This causes them to get hungry, wake up, and eat it all over again.

If there being simply "too much" magic in the world is what causes all the giant ley-infused monsters, and the giant running man ley-anomoly then.... where exactly were these things back in GW1 when the dragons had been asleep for 10,000 years, and the majority of the magic they had previously consumed had already filtered back out into the world? Where were these things in the previous cycle, before the dragons woke up and the Dwarves/Seers/Mursaat/Forgotten/Jotun fought them? They didn't exist as far as we saw/heard..

Again, to use the lake/river analogy. A lake/river can hold a certain amount of water, just like the world holds a certain amount of magic in it. However, trying to just immediately dump that much water into a lake/river can cause it to overflow its banks. It needs to be added, and processed, over time, via the flow of the lake/river into other lakes/rivers/bodies of water. The flow of water is important to maintaining the level of a lake/river.

Tyria's magic cycle is the same. The magic needs to be flowed for it to not go crazy. But the previous Elder Dragons only flowed the system in incredibly slow increments of 10,000~ years. Leading to issues if magic is just dumped into the system in mass at once. Aurene flows the magic at a more constant/consistent basis. 

11 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The original idea was to have six Elder Dragon equivalents to maintain a middle ground, by having magic within the Elder Dragon equivalents. Since Aurene is 1 and not 6, she'd need to have 6 middle-ground Elder Dragons' worth of magic in her... but she has equal or less than 1 middle-ground Elder Dragons' worth of magic.

The original idea was to have 3 Elder Dragon equivalents, Glint, Vlast, and Aurene, maintain the system. Unless you want to explain who the other 3 were?

[mandala.8507]

35 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Yes. As I said, Abaddon had no direct relation to the Elder Dragons. He had an indirect relation because his unplanned death resulted in a temporary release of magic that stirred Primordus from slumber. It's not like Abaddon intentionally died for the purpose of unleashing Void by predicting Tyrians would kill the Elder Dragons or something.

The darkness doesn't particularly care which of its vessels ultimately consumes the Tyrian reality; whether it be fallen gods, cursed dragons, liches, faction leaders, fallen gods' relatives, disgruntled pirates, moms with late children, Pact Commanders...anything with power will do.

To quote Ankka: "Alchemy, you don't get it. Every change you make changes something else. You've never stopped the apocalypse, you just kept trading up."

46 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

They have coral explicitly used solely in Orr and Risen-corrupted areas until now showing up in Gyala

Coral is coral. The jade sea used to be water.

47 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

as well as the otherworldly mushrooms, and the stone wurm designs from Mouth of Torment.

on purpose

47 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Or how the enemies are creatures that were uniquely part of the Shadow Army (Abyssals, Shadow Beasts) and uniquely natives of the Underworld (Aatxes), yet mingle in a place so far completely unrelated to both.

again, this is deliberate

48 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Like the Archdiviner using the Mallyx elite visuals, it's entirely likely they just used that for the Brotherhood here because it was sufficiently demonic visuals.

This is absolutely, unequivocally done on purpose. No way you're saying the Archdiviner channeling Mallyx isn't on purpose and is just asset reuse. Tell me it ain't so.

51 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

What Lies Beneath is SEETHING with reuse of game assets without much regard to the original lore of those art assets, so I am not willing to make wild speculation as to a specific reuse of any singular art asset

You have no proof that this is the case. Like, none. You are just assuming this to be true. And considering Anet are the ones who made the map and picked the enemy types and not you, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt even if I didn't already disagree with you here myself based on countless hours of playing this game an analyzing exactly how they use the environment to tell stories even when they are repurposing assets.

And I disagree with you that some of these creatures were only used for very specific things and have no relation. Nightmare creatures invade The Sanctum after Kormir leaves it, which suggests they aren't solely related to the Underworld. The best connection they have is actually that they are associated with both of the fallen human gods.

Not to mention how I think words like "Nightmare" aren't used simply for lack of more nuanced naming schemes.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I think you over-emphasize the one use of the word "abyss" in A World Without You. You're presuming it's a proper noun when there's zero evidence there is.

Quote from the Scripture of Abaddon inscribed upon a plaque below his statue in the Durmand Priory Special Collections: "Abaddon! Lord of the Everlasting Depths, Keeper of Secrets, open mine eyes and bestow upon me the knowledge of the Abyss..."

There it is as a proper noun. I bet it's actually supposed to be a proper noun in the lyrics as well, but that'd be kind of weird looking to anyone who just wants to know what the song says.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

From a Doyalist perspective, Primordus was brought up to answer a long lasting question from the playerbase about whether or not the events of GW1 triggered the Elder Dragons waking up.
From a Watsonian perspective, Kormir was listing all the consequences of the gods' actions if they intervene as an excuse to get out of fighting Balthazar herself.

Pretty much every written work or line of dialogue in gw2 is presented from some perspective in-universe. It's very important for properly interpreting the text that we recognize all lines are coming from someone or something in-universe. The only slight exception to this, to me, is when an entity calls us "Hero", which is kind of a fourth wall break that may or may not be part of how the ultimate big bad works. NeverEnding Story style.

You've greatly oversimplified and gamified the narrative choices made by the writers for gw2 and it would take me ages to explain how to best understand what is meant by every line by systematically interpreting it through a plethora of lenses that range from character intent all the way up to authorial intent, narrative intent, and voice actor delivery all at the same time.

There are far more considerations being made on the studio's end than this on countless levels and by loads of individuals adding purpose and meaning to what ultimately ends up in the game before us.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And that's the extent of it. Sometimes, things are surface deep. Sometimes they go deeper, but not this time. The purpose wasn't to suggest a deep hidden lore connection between Abaddon, Flame Legion rituals, and Void through dialogue in lore that occur several years apart each time.

All I can say is I am rooting for Arenanet to artfully showcase how incorrect you are about this.

[Tyson.5160]

34 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

 

Likewise, she created the Elder Dragons to split magic, which allowed life to grow on Tyria. But she didn't create the rest of life on Tyira. Or at least that isn't said. All other life grew naturally

So she didn't make Tyria, the magic system, or life. She helped in its formation, but she didn't directly make any of them. Nature made them all.

 

Well Soo-Won is the Elder dragon of Water and Life, so maybe she did create the life.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, mandala.8507 said:

Pretty much every written work or line of dialogue in gw2 is presented from some perspective in-universe. It's very important for properly interpreting the text that we recognize all lines are coming from someone or something in-universe.

It's funny that I can pretty much agree with this, and say this is an argument against trying to connect every independent in-universe dialogue using the same general vocab as meaning the same very specific proper noun identity.

I honestly cannot keep up with this constant breaking down of pieces of the quotes, and how greatly I disagree with every point you made. Except, to a degree, this:

1 hour ago, mandala.8507 said:

All I can say is I am rooting for Arenanet to artfully showcase how incorrect you are about this.

I would LOVE for ArenaNet to artfully depict things interconnected. I just do not see it happening because I can tell, as a writer who's experienced multiple long-winded stories where writers come and go, it is extremely hard to pull off. Even for singular writers, maintaining a singular narrative consistently over 10 years is a masterstroke feat, and let's face it, ArenaNet writers may have created a fun and fascinating world back in the 00s, but by now those writers are all (or almost all) gone and there have been a number of less talented individuals coming in since.
As Conner Fallon said in his final blog post for ArenaNet:

I often say that working on a big ongoing game like Guild Wars 2 is similar to working in a big comic universe. Multiple people have spun multiple storylines, sometimes under different editors with different grand ideas. It’s a mix of careful planning and improv: every element of the world is a story that someone cared about, threads that can be picked up again. Sometimes, it may take a while.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/developing-the-aetherblades/
And as any fan of western comics can tell you, the existence of multiple writers working for a single character or narrative is the antithesis of narrative consistency.
So it is with no shred of doubt on my part that I'll know even if a future writer at ArenaNet manages to create a masterstroke of seamlessly connecting a multitude of unrelated dots together - even half of what you proclaim - it was not "always intended", and it never will be because the past is the past and those writers who never intended interconnection have come, made their mark, and left.
Hell, Tom Abernathy outright stated he didn't bother to read up on old lore, and never suggested it to the writers under him while he was the Lead Narrative Designer. if the Lead Narrative Designer of 2016-2022 didn't do this simple notion, how can we blind ourselves into believing it was planned all along since 2008? Hell, in the quote of Connor Fallon, he practically admits that it wasn't a singular idea since 2008 - as he said, multiple people have spun multiple storylines, sometimes under different editors with different grand ideas.

This isn't a matter of opinion whether the story was good or not. Admitting that retcons and new ideas were injected is the first step to recognizing just how good the storytelling was. If it truly feels natural as you claim, then it's all the more superior writing for it to be new ideas woven into the old.

So to say that people are ignorant for not recognizing it's one singular idea for over a decade through multiple writers... is itself ignorant.

[mandala.8507]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

ArenaNet writers may have created a fun and fascinating world back in the 00s, but by now those writers are all (or almost all) gone and there have been a number of less talented individuals coming in since.

🤮 You write for anything I should be aware of? Just for conscious consumerism purposes.

Huge yikes, wow.

[Tyson.5160]

On 3/25/2023 at 1:25 PM, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

• Zhaitan had the least amount of magic by the time we faced him directly, yet showed no intelligence/reason beyond being a rampaging beast.
•  

I wouldn’t necessarily call Zhaitan a rampaging beast as he has shown intelligence as well as tactics during the Personal Story.

 

…..

 

Trahearne: Where did that come from? This was supposed to be our way out.

Agent Zrii: The Orrians funneled us here. They've shown disturbingly advanced tactics ever since we arrived.

 

…..

Agent Zrii: Another dead end. Militarily, I'd say we're being funneled into a trap.

Crusader Afanen: I've seen the Orrians swarm and I've seen them lurk, but I've never seen them set traps. Are they capable of tactical thinking?

Trahearne: Oh, yes. I've seen them do exquisitely horrible things. If the Priory team found the artifact I suspect they found, it all makes sense.

……

 

That being said if you are specifically talking about the final battle, then yes he is rather mindless, however he is also starving. So his focus is destroy and consume strictly because he is starving.

Edited March 26 by Tyson.5160

[mandala.8507]

On 3/25/2023 at 6:27 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

As Conner Fallon said in his final blog post for ArenaNet:

I often say that working on a big ongoing game like Guild Wars 2 is similar to working in a big comic universe. Multiple people have spun multiple storylines, sometimes under different editors with different grand ideas. It’s a mix of careful planning and improv: every element of the world is a story that someone cared about, threads that can be picked up again. Sometimes, it may take a while.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/developing-the-aetherblades/
And as any fan of western comics can tell you, the existence of multiple writers working for a single character or narrative is the antithesis of narrative consistency.

I also wanted to mention that you've almost entirely decoupled this quote from the context in which it was said. Connor shares this anecdote in summary of a post detailing the answer to the question: "why Aetherblades, and why now?"

And he rounds out this summary in the very next paragraph, saying:

"With the Aetherblades, time allowed the ideas around them to mature and ripen, informed by the other stories that surrounded them. Looping them into Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons, in turn, brought all that history into play in our expansion in a way that made the whole thing better."

In my view, Connor is very plainly characterizing the situation as the exact opposite of how you've described the narrative development of gw2. He goes into great detail throughout his post sharing how developers are communicating between departments, iterating and reiterating on how each and every narrative beat locks into the mechanism of the the gw2 story, and always making sure to root their writing decisions in the history of the game, considering all that came before them.

And even putting aside your seemingly huge grudge against Tom Abernathy for...not reading the wiki? I'd need more context to know what weird narrative has been concocted to justify why he must be the root of all evil in modern gw2 — your point in this comment falls entirely flat on its face when we consider that the current narrative director, Bobby Stein, has been a writer and editor for gw1 from 2005-2007, a narrative lead for gw2 from 2007-2017, the credited (according to the wiki) narrative lead on living world season 1, living world season 2, HoT, and living world season 3, and associate narrative director from 2017-2021 (a role that, to me, directly addressed your concern about Tom's lack of a foundation in the previous storytelling of gw2 by setting up a highly knowledgeable and experienced veteran narrative team member in a leadership position that complemented Tom by filling in for any of his shortcomings as a newcomer more interested in current and future narrative threads.) Arenanet has always had someone there (and not just Bobby) to guide the gw2 narrative to where it needed to go.

I'm simply exhausted by yours and others' ill-founded doomsaying and spiteful putdowns of this game and of all the people who've put their hearts and souls into molding it into what it is today. I wish you were as knowledgeable about the lore as you are consistent in criticizing it.

If nothing else, stop being mean to developers. If you can't do that, it might be time to stop haunting the forums and seek out greener pastures. I cannot fathom putting so much time and effort into a game that I hold in such low esteem as you seem to.