God of War? more like God of Battle maybe.

[DaZeeHero.5210]

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, the Art of War

 

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
― Sun Tzu, the Art of War

 

Meanwhile my fire boi be like "Raah I kill dragon now, screw caution and screw consequences! also murder a bunch of random people cuz why not!"

[Squee.7829]

Maybe he just doesn't follow the Sun Tzu philosophy of warfare. ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

[Dean Calaway.9718]

2 hours ago, DaZeeHero.5210 said:

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, the Art of War

 

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
― Sun Tzu, the Art of War

I'd be willing to bet some money you actively facilitate this, and I'll leave it at that.

[Tsakhi.8124]

I don't know for sure, because I haven't gotten very far in the original Guild Wars, but wasn't Balthazar originally the god of honorable combat? If so, it seems weird for him to do such a dramatic heel turn. When I see his... bloodthirstiness, I think of Ares when his son died. His rage blinded him to all the consequences of his actions. That does beg the question as to what the catalyst was for such a dramatic change.

[DaZeeHero.5210]

He was pretty angry at the other gods but they wouldn't have punished him if he hadn't wanted to do something unreasonable to begin with.

[DaZeeHero.5210]

3 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

I'd be willing to bet some money you actively facilitate this, and I'll leave it at that.

I'm always happy to facilitate some Sun Tzu.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Tsakhi.8124 said:

I don't know for sure, because I haven't gotten very far in the original Guild Wars, but wasn't Balthazar originally the god of honorable combat? If so, it seems weird for him to do such a dramatic heel turn. When I see his... bloodthirstiness, I think of Ares when his son died. His rage blinded him to all the consequences of his actions. That does beg the question as to what the catalyst was for such a dramatic change.

Pretty much. Even towards the end of GW1, his incentive for getting involved in the Wintersday conflict was that he saw a time of great conflict coming and he wanted Tyria to be ready. Which makes an attitude of "I don't care what happens to your world, I just want my trophy!" to be a pretty big heel turn. Balthazar was always a hothead in all senses of the word, but in GW1 he was a god who did ultimately still care about going to war for the right reasons rather than purely for the sake of fighting, and had an air of being a patron of competition in all forms and not merely lethal action, including methods of winning a war without fighting.

I don't want to belabour the point too much, but from a narrative (but not mechanics) perspective, Balthazar's switch was possibly the lowest point since Scarlet, and in some respects possibly eclipsed even that. Kinda feels like they felt that people were getting bored of fighting dragons and took the WoW approach of taking a nuanced character with shades of grey and painting him full black so the players could kill someone with name recognition.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

11 hours ago, Tsakhi.8124 said:

I don't know for sure, because I haven't gotten very far in the original Guild Wars, but wasn't Balthazar originally the god of honorable combat? If so, it seems weird for him to do such a dramatic heel turn. When I see his... bloodthirstiness, I think of Ares when his son died. His rage blinded him to all the consequences of his actions. That does beg the question as to what the catalyst was for such a dramatic change.

Yes. PoF did him dirty, his personality is more akin to how Menzies is depicted in GW1. To the point that most folks I know think PoF's plot would have been 10x better if we fought Menzies rather than a depowered Balthazar. Comparing to ancient Greek gods, Balthazar in GW1 was more akin to Athena than Ares.

As to the catalyst it was, according to the devs on reddit... Boredom.

Boredom turned the god of honorable combat into a god of bloodthirst revenge.

Specifically, being bored with not having had a "real fight" since Abaddon (despite, y'know, Menzies being around and actively waging war on him for his divine power), and Balthazar was so battle hungry he wanted to fight the Elder Dragons despite being fully aware of the consequences - that killing the Elder Dragons would destroy Tyria in an unspecified way, and if he were to lose that it would make the Elder Dragons unimaginably powerful. So the other gods put it to a vote and said no to fighting, and Balthazar didn't like that so he vowed to defeat the other gods first. So they did the sensible thing and knocked Balthazar down a peg, removed his divine power (which we still don't know the fate of but based on Nightfall lore and Kormir's words in PoF, found a new host to make a god), and imprisoned him. And he didn't like that so he vowed to enslave or kill the other gods in turn for the "betrayal".

At least according to Kormir that's the order of events. Balthazar only tells us the other gods "betrayed him" and took his divinity through cowardice. But one of his flaws established in GW1 is being a sore loser, so that isn't exactly reliable narration.

And like drax said, his last involvement in GW1 was active concern for Tyria and Tyrians albeit in a heavy handed way ("stop wasting time partying and start preparing to fight"). TBH it doesn't make sense to turn any of the Six Gods into villains from how they were depicted in GW1, especially when you decide the motivation predates GW1. If I were to be to villainize any of the Six, it would be under the guise of "they love humans too much it becomes toxic". The kind of overbearing parent or ruler that ends up unintentionally restrictive, either through the "for your own good" mentality or, better yet, simply being too distanced and different to realize that it's not what their subjects would want. Make them a tragic villain not just the next WoW raid boss on the docket.

The irony of that is that how GW1 ended Balthazar was leaning exactly towards that angle with Balthazar - "stop partying and prepare for the upcoming darkness". Take that a step further with forcing humans to stop enjoying their current life for some vague darkness on the horizon and you get a far more interesting plot of the value of sacrificing current freedom for future survival and the debate of whether or not that "darkness on the horizon" is even real or worth concerning about.

Edited August 19 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[DaZeeHero.5210]

Yeah if Balthazar's motivation was to test us to prepare us for tougher battles, that would make sense but you'd think the other gods would know that and or he'd be honest with them about it.

[EdwinLi.1284]

On 8/19/2024 at 12:54 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Yes. PoF did him dirty, his personality is more akin to how Menzies is depicted in GW1. To the point that most folks I know think PoF's plot would have been 10x better if we fought Menzies rather than a depowered Balthazar. Comparing to ancient Greek gods, Balthazar in GW1 was more akin to Athena than Ares.

 

This honestly makes me concerned how they may handle Menzies since they deal with this plot with Balthazar already. 

The build up with the Shadow army growing attempts at invading tyria as background lore currently and with Balthazar gone, it will be no surprised if Menzies may become a focus for a future expansion.