Anet, Please Stop Humanizing Interdimensional Alien Monsters

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

6 hours ago, Rallicus.8367 said:

There is an interesting theory going around that 

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Decima and Greer are actually the bloodstone twins you meet during that one story mission, and that the "Titans" we're encountering aren't actually Titans at all. Which explains the humanized aspects.

 

I hope this is the case, but I'm skeptical. 

I'm extremely skeptical of that.

Spoiler

A leading part of the theory seems to stem from how Decima and the sister twin has the same voice actress (or seems to), but Greer and the brother twin doesn't seem to have the same VA to me. Additionally, Titans are made from souls and... we met the twins' souls right there and then. That wasn't an echo of them, that was the soul itself, released from the Bloodstone they were slain upon.

Additionally, as Drax said, Titans are said to be made from multiple souls, which is in part why they are able to split into 2-3 individuals at the end. One could theorize - without much support mind you - that every body a Titan reforms into is a new soul. This could mean, of course, sense these Titans are "evolved" and seem to only have one body that creates "white blood cells" (btw how do Tyrians know of white blood cells? has such studies ever been hinted at in the lore?) mean these only have one soul. But again, the twins' souls were in the Bloodstone shard until we freed them.

I'm more interested in the mursaat scientist who's soul was in the bloodstone, personally. And disappointed that they magically off-screen exploded a Bloodstone. Still curious when that happened and why the explosion was so well contained when Bloodstone Fen's wasn't.

 

[Pax.3548]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

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I'm more interested in the mursaat scientist who's soul was in the bloodstone, personally. And disappointed that they magically off-screen exploded a Bloodstone. Still curious when that happened and why the explosion was so well contained when Bloodstone Fen's wasn't.

 

Maybe something similar to Hablion happened here, he was slain on or near a bloodstone and his soul was captured in the stone. As for why the explosion seemed contained, My guess is that it wasn't, its just that the bloodstone here wasn't the same "caliber" as one of the five bloodstone, probable a lesser, much smaller one. That, and/or something absorbed the magic explosion, similar to what happened in LW3 (certain titan maybe?), and after centuries the land as somewhat recovered, except for the ground zero part

Edited September 12 by Pax.3548

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

21 hours ago, Pax.3548 said:

Maybe something similar to Hablion happened here, he was slain on or near a bloodstone and his soul was captured in the stone.

Well, yes. That's exactly what happened to the twins.

Which is why they cannot be the Titans.

21 hours ago, Pax.3548 said:

As for why the explosion seemed contained, My guess is that it wasn't, its just that the bloodstone here wasn't the same "caliber" as one of the five bloodstone, probable a lesser, much smaller one. That, and/or something absorbed the magic explosion, similar to what happened in LW3 (certain titan maybe?), and after centuries the land as somewhat recovered, except for the ground zero part

The four main bloodstones should have been on par to each other. The only differences would be magic absorbed from Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's deaths for the Bloodstone Fen one, presumably. So for the impact to apparently only be on the immediate area of the Bloodstone's location the magic would have been absorbed instantly, even faster than with Bloodstone Fen. Which seems a bit much since Balthazar was literally on the site and a divine vessel. And a much more controlled explosion physically too, since it didn't leave a big whopping crater with floating chunks all over - even with recovery those chunks would have landed or something.

There's also the question of when and how. The Commander believes it was a White Mantle / mursaat experiment given dialogue in nearby events, but if so then they should have held records and not need to do such experiments on the Bloodstone Fen one - or at least be well aware that such experiments lead to it exploding. This would imply not White Mantle or mursaat but the place had been isolated since then - indeed, the only viable culprits would be the Titans and Mabon. But how would they have managed to do something even a god could not in containing that explosion?

[Narcemus.1348]

I'm probably completely wrong, since everything it game seems to state that there was an explosion. But part of me has wondered what if instead of exploding it, the Mursaat took it into Bava Nisos in order to power something to protect themselves. Obviously there's no reason this should be the case, but I wonder still.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

41 minutes ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

I'm probably completely wrong, since everything it game seems to state that there was an explosion. But part of me has wondered what if instead of exploding it, the Mursaat took it into Bava Nisos in order to power something to protect themselves. Obviously there's no reason this should be the case, but I wonder still.

While possible that leaves a bit of a plothole regarding the countless shards we see embedded into buildings, trees, and boulders that imply they were forced in with high force.

[Narcemus.1348]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

While possible that leaves a bit of a plothole regarding the countless shards we see embedded into buildings, trees, and boulders that imply they were forced in with high force.

Agreed, either way it is weird. Moving the bloodstone has problems, definitely. But having it explode also struggles with how small the damage was. There of course is the option that we are seeing a bloodstone explosion after over a century of environmental healing or something much more efficient than Balthazar claimed all that power 

[Inssengrimm.7924]

This was my greatest gripe with SotO.

Boring humans with boring human motivations in a very boring human setting, just with a diferent image.
Kryptis set up was great, then it went to the trash very quickly with every boring human dialogue line delivered.

Humans are boring.
 

[Malus.2184]

On 9/2/2024 at 5:43 PM, VoiceOfUnreason.5976 said:

As the title suggests, this is a plee to stop what you're in the process of doing with the Titans and course correct. One of the biggest reasons the Kryptis failed to land as a faction is that about halfway in the story, you took these evil rift creatures, with unknowable goals, an unimaginable threat... and "brought them down to earth". In the blink of an eye, you stole all mystique and intrigue from the race and turned them into something that could genuinely be interchanged between any other race on Tyria. Like genuinely, once you get to inner Nayos and start engaging with these people. All they are is a rebel faction attempting to take down an evil dictator. They way they talk, the way the act, you could have replaced all of them with "humans from a foreign land" and it would have changed nothing about their story and conflict.

And like seriously, THIS is not a character that should be organizing a rebellion: https://imgur.com/a/aA55mAN
That's an unknowable space monster, and should be treated as such.

I don't want to go too far into this, because I think the SotO problem has been beaten to death already. But I say all of this to preface what I'm about to say:

I think you're in danger of going the same route with the Titans. I was super on-board with Greer. He seemed alien, his goals unknown. He speaks in a very cryptic way. Walks and acts like something where I can be like... "Yeah, I can see some primitive race worshiping this thing". Definitely happy with Greer. AND THEN CAME DECIMA. And she just completely ruined all of that mystique. Cliche, loud mouthed Disney villain. WAY TOO HUMAN. Way too recognizable. And again, something that could legitimately be interchangeable with anything we've fought before. And frankly, Ura is giving me those vibes too. I'm begging you not to let the Titans go down the same route as the Kryptis. Make them interesting. Make them something new. Don't fall back into tired villain writing tropes. You have a chance for something really cool, but dropping the ball on this element of the story could legitimately kill the momentum of Janthir Wilds.

While you think you say one thing that line about someone leading a rebellion is  an expression of social stigma, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma

The reason the Kryptis failed was because their story made no sense and they existed only for something for the player to interact with. There was no trace of them living anywhere in Inner Nayos. I had expected there to be burning oil drums with how they slummed it.

Btw, the Titans have human motivations because the soul that's used to create a Titan IS a human one that has been twisted and  tormented beyond recognition, https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Titan
Greer and Decima are probably the Maes twins while Ura is Rhea. While we do see their ghosts we also see the ghost of the Bog Queen confirming that the ghosts of Tyria are just malfunctioning copies of the original soul. This solves a mystery that has puzzled me for some time, how could Magdear create ghosts? That was outside the scope of Balthazar's power.

The answer to that is that the ghosts that inhabit Ascalon are just copies of the dead created by Balthazar's power and infused with Adelbern's anger and rage, perfect, eternal soldiers. Something that sounds a lot more like Balthazar. It also explains the reason Joko was in the Domain of the Lost to get more souls. There are no free souls on Tyria that he could pull from, they all go to whatever sorting hat they have. This means that all the Awakened were created by him personally breaching the veil.

Edited Friday at 08:46 PM by Malus.2184

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

The reason the Kryptis failed was because their story made no sense and they existed only for something for the player to interact with. There was no trace of them living anywhere in Inner Nayos. I had expected there to be burning oil drums with how they slummed it.

Besides, you know, all the houses you can find. The coliseum where they held events/fights, fortresses, churches, etc. etc.

Hell, there is even a spot called "The Burrows" where you can find lots of small Kryptis homes built into a few large mountains/hills.

Edited Saturday at 12:19 AM by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[draxynnic.3719]

19 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Well, yes. That's exactly what happened to the twins.

Which is why they cannot be the Titans.

The four main bloodstones should have been on par to each other. The only differences would be magic absorbed from Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's deaths for the Bloodstone Fen one, presumably. So for the impact to apparently only be on the immediate area of the Bloodstone's location the magic would have been absorbed instantly, even faster than with Bloodstone Fen. Which seems a bit much since Balthazar was literally on the site and a divine vessel. And a much more controlled explosion physically too, since it didn't leave a big whopping crater with floating chunks all over - even with recovery those chunks would have landed or something.

There's also the question of when and how. The Commander believes it was a White Mantle / mursaat experiment given dialogue in nearby events, but if so then they should have held records and not need to do such experiments on the Bloodstone Fen one - or at least be well aware that such experiments lead to it exploding. This would imply not White Mantle or mursaat but the place had been isolated since then - indeed, the only viable culprits would be the Titans and Mabon. But how would they have managed to do something even a god could not in containing that explosion?

It's not entirely clear, but the impression I've had is that the Janthir Syntri bloodstone explosion happened during Prophecies, possibly destabilised as part of some last-minute attempt to fend off the titans. In that context, it's quite possible that the bloodstone held less magic, since the level of ambient magic to absorb went up quite a bit between Prophecies and Season 3.

With respect to Bloodstone Fen, I'm getting the impression that they didn't really know what happened in Janthir. Caudecus visited at some point (I wonder if we'll get Valette's account of that sometime?), but he wasn't present when the Maguum bloodstone was being destabilised.

[Sunyavadin.7962]

Yeah, while the Maguuma bloodstone had been unstable for some time due to the tampering, the explosion happened after it absorbed a whole bunch of the magic released from an Elder Dragon's death, something it was by that point no longer capable of handling. Janthir likely did not face this same issue.

 

[Pax.3548]

On 9/13/2024 at 9:52 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The four main bloodstones should have been on par to each other. The only differences would be magic absorbed from Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's deaths for the Bloodstone Fen one, presumably. So for the impact to apparently only be on the immediate area of the Bloodstone's location the magic would have been absorbed instantly, even faster than with Bloodstone Fen. Which seems a bit much since Balthazar was literally on the site and a divine vessel. And a much more controlled explosion physically too, since it didn't leave a big whopping crater with floating chunks all over - even with recovery those chunks would have landed or something.

There's also the question of when and how. The Commander believes it was a White Mantle / mursaat experiment given dialogue in nearby events, but if so then they should have held records and not need to do such experiments on the Bloodstone Fen one - or at least be well aware that such experiments lead to it exploding. This would imply not White Mantle or mursaat but the place had been isolated since then - indeed, the only viable culprits would be the Titans and Mabon. But how would they have managed to do something even a god could not in containing that explosion?

I agree with draxynnic, the explosion most likely happened back in prophecies, specifically around the time Khilbron unleashed the titans around Tyria. I hope the next chapters tell us what happened exactly but I believe that after more than 250 years the land healed enough to mask the destruction that followed the explosion.

[Skub.8240]

It's not just the enemies that's a problem; maybe it's a petty complaint, but they've been "humanizing" the player races a lot more over the expansions. Asura and Charr used to feel incredibly distinct, culturally, from the humans and other races. They were different people, with different ideas and ways of life. Buy by the time we reach content like IBS and EoD, they're just kind of people. Asura are just small people, and Charr are just furry people. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the core of what the races *were* has kind of been scooped out, instead just making them funny looking humans like every other mediocre fantasy property does.

[Randulf.7614]

On 9/15/2024 at 12:49 AM, Skub.8240 said:

It's not just the enemies that's a problem; maybe it's a petty complaint, but they've been "humanizing" the player races a lot more over the expansions. Asura and Charr used to feel incredibly distinct, culturally, from the humans and other races. They were different people, with different ideas and ways of life. Buy by the time we reach content like IBS and EoD, they're just kind of people. Asura are just small people, and Charr are just furry people. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the core of what the races *were* has kind of been scooped out, instead just making them funny looking humans like every other mediocre fantasy property does.

To an extent I felt this with the Bearkin. They lacked a lot of distinctiveness in their speaking which felt a lot more like Olmakhan which felt more rural human than Charr. Voices, tone, style are all somewhat homogenous. Much of the Astral Ward are a variety of races and whilst I get intermixing for so many generations will soften cultures, they might as well all be human for all the difference it sometimes felt.

It hasn't hurt my enjoyment of the story by any significant amount and I understand they are probably avoiding stereotyping an entire race, but I wish they'd return to their vision and stylism of the early game when it came to presenting and directing their different racial characters.

[Morvran.8265]

I disliked Mabon for the same reason.

To me, Mursaat are the coolest race in GW. They used to be a powerful, ancient race shrouded in mystery with a menacing presence.

Enter Mabon. You'd think it would be treated like a huge reveal and an exciting plotpoint. Nope. He's just some random depressed dude working for the good of the world, introduced like it's normal, no different than a random human, and then goes out like a nobody shortly after.

Lamest possible use of a Mursaat imaginable that completely shatters any illusions you might have had about them. Which was probably the entire point, to show us they aren't all the same or whatever, because we can't have antagonistic or cruel races anymore in current year. Everyone must be humanized and nothing must be left to the imagination of the audience.

Edited Monday at 02:46 PM by Morvran.8265