The gods and gender imbalance (spoilers)

[Reema.7360]

The fortune teller that tricked Shiro into killing Emperor Angsiyan was also female. And the final boss in CM story, Captain DeLana.

There's a whole other issue: Since the main villainous group of Charr and Norn are misogynist there are NO female villains from those two species except from a few open world bosses associated with pirates or the renegades (though the only one I remember is the Raven shaman at that one skill point cave in Snowden Drifts).

[castlemanic.3198]

@Reema.7360 said:The fortune teller that tricked Shiro into killing Emperor Angsiyan was also female. And the final boss in CM story, Captain DeLana.

There's a whole other issue: Since the main villainous group of Charr and Norn are misogynist there are NO female villains from those two species except from a few open world bosses associated with pirates or the renegades (though the only one I remember is the Raven shaman at that one skill point cave in Snowden Drifts).

Flame legion kinda has a history of it though (though it's more of an excuse for not having female models in GW1 that's been inserted into lore), and it's a large part of gw2 lore. I'll give you svanir though, that seems overkill and unnecessary with regards to bad guys being bad guys.

Also, wasn't the fortune teller also the whispers at the back of vizier khilbron's mind? and both were ultimately a demon of abaddon?

[Oglaf.1074]

@castlemanic.3198 said:I'll give you svanir though, that seems overkill and unnecessary with regards to bad guys being bad guys.

No the Svanir have just as a proper backstory as to why they hate women. It is not just mysoggyknee for the sake of mysoggyknee. Same as the Flame Legion.

[castlemanic.3198]

@Oglaf.1074 said:No the Svanir have just as a proper backstory as to why they hate women. It is not just mysoggyknee for the sake of mysoggyknee. Same as the Flame Legion.

"Women are not allowed to join the cult because of Jora's "crimes" against Dragon." That's the farthest thing from a proper back story in the history of anything. It's a hugely flimsy excuse to not include female svanir.

And a lore excuse to explain why no female charr existed in GW1 is still an excuse, not really a proper lore based backstory. They managed to create a bunch of cool lore surrounding the freedom of female charr to help fight agains the flame legion, but it's still to cover up a fact of game development (that they never considered making female models because they never foresaw needing them for a GW2 and it's less work to model a single gender instead of both).

[Oglaf.1074]

How is it any flimsier than that Flame Legion? It is not. The only difference is that Jora was so awesome that her actions alone were enough to warrant it (in true Norn style) as opposed to the entire female sex of the Charr messing with the Flame Legion.

[castlemanic.3198]

@Oglaf.1074 said:How is it any flimsier than that Flame Legion? It is not. The only difference is that Jora was so awesome that her actions alone were enough to warrant it (in true Norn style) as opposed to the entire female sex of the Charr messing with the Flame Legion.

It's flimsier because the charr had a game development reason for why only males were presented, and thus they built up lore surrounding it, made it a huge deal and had it have a huge impact on charr society. They were forced to come up with lore to compensate for the matter and they spent the time and effort on building up the importance of why that happened. It ultimately is just to cover up a game development thing, but they put justice in the effort to make it work (creating multiple characters and scenarios involved with the lore, three of the statues in the black citadel are associated with the freedom of the charr from flame legion gasp thanks to Kalla and her essentially doubling the number of soldiers the three legions had together and making all charr equal in that respect).

Whereas the norn have a single line of dialogue to completely and wholly explain why female norn aren't included in the sons of svanir, and on top of that, the sons of svanir didn't even need that, they could have easily made use of female norn models for sons of svanir, turned the skin blue and added some ice for icebrood versions of female svanir. Considering however very little went in the way of non-human risen to represent female versions of corrupted races, it seems they didn't even need to do that, especially the heavily oakheart like icebrood norn. There was no or very little reason why to make any lore prevent sons of svanir from accepting female norn within their ranks, development wise or lore wise. Thus, the sons of svanir are flimsier in all aspects compared to flame legion.

[Oglaf.1074]

You realize how small of a thing the Sons of Svanir are in comparison to The Flame Legion, right? They are quite literlly a boy's club. Not to mention that the other Norns don't even consider them to be evil. Of course they're not going to have anywhere near the impact that the Flame Legion has/had on Charr society.

Nah, methinks you're just biased here, really. And not getting how Norns work.

[castlemanic.3198]

@Oglaf.1074 said:You realize how small of a thing the Sons of Svanir are in comparison to The Flame Legion, right? They are quite literlly a boy's club. Not to mention that the other Norns don't even consider them to be evil. Of course they're not going to have anywhere near the impact that the Flame Legion has/had on Charr society.

Nah, methinks you're just biased here, really. And not getting how Norns work.

Neither of us have confirmation of the numbers of Sons of Svanir, so there's no point in going into a debate on that topic. And they don't consider the sons of svanir who do not act against other norn evil. Even then, Norn distrust the sons of svanir, even the peaceful ones.

And how is it biased to acknowledge there was a factual basis for one set of lore and none for another set? Having Jora kill svanir and thus all women being banned is like having one woman perform 'magic' and declaring all women are witches and should be burned. It's flimsy reasoning that simply doesn't work and shouldn't have a space in GW2 when it doesn't need it. Also, according to you, the flip side should be true, in that female norn hold every position of power within norn society because Jora defeated svanir. Norn society looks at someone building their own legend, regardless of their gender, regardless of what that legend is exactly, and praises them as an individual, looking at their individual strengths and accomplishments, with perhaps some expectation on that person's descendents to carry on their own legend in their own name. Jora killing svanir had zero impact on general norn society, they ultimately took the path they would have over 250 years had jora and svanir not even existed, because it's all about the individual and their legend. Svanir, by contrast, seem like rage fueled teenagers mad that a female killed their hero and thus banned all females because they couldn't even look at things through a norn like fashion (which could be tied to Jormag, but that's a different topic).

All in all, there's facts behind the flame legion not having women in their ranks, and nothing to support svanir not having women in their ranks. Calling that biased is illogical at best.

[Oglaf.1074]

Yeah, you just don't get Norns. It is all about your Legend and both the fame and infamy that brings about. Jora killing Svanir was not just one person killing another in the eyes of the Norns - especially the Sons. It is not Jora the person that caused them to ban women, it is Jora the legend. And yes, you're correct that the Sons are "rage-fueled teenagers" because that's how the other Norns see them. As I said, they're a boys' club full of misguided and stupid alike in the eyes of the other Norns who are left alone to do their own thing unless they take it too far - again like "bad egg"-teenagers.

Which is why it is silly of you to try and have a kitten-measuring contest between them and the Flame Legion based on cultural impact and the like.

[castlemanic.3198]

@Oglaf.1074 said:Which is why it is silly of you to try and have a kitten-measuring contest between them and the Flame Legion based on cultural impact and the like.

How????What??I'm utterly confused. Why would you ever think that this was some sort of kitten measuring contest?

It was entirely about the reasons for introducing that lore, not based solely on the lore itself, and the reasons for introducing that lore are flimsier for svanir than it is for flame legion, objectively so.

How is this a kitten measuring contest if it's never been about the factions themselves but their representation and their entire reason for being from a developer's standpoint. The developers spent all this effort on flame legion lore, explaining why there werent females because they had to do something to explain the missing female charr in GW1, that wasn't necessary for svanir and they could have logically gone down a different path that included female svanir, but the devs didn't for...... no reason apparently.

I've explained, multiple times, that the devs had no reason to make svanir male only, but needed to explain why there were no charr females in GW1. That's my issue, that's my gripe with the svanir. It's baseless and unneeded for the svanir to have been male only, from a developers standpoint, it was unnecessary and they used an absolutely flimsy reason to make svanir male only, instead of giving it the depth required to have svanir be male only, the depth they gave the flame legion. A single line indicating why svanir are male only is by default, objectively flimsier than being forced to come up with a reason due to devs not creating female models and giving it the time and space it needed to fully develop into proper lore.

I don't think I can explain this again from a different angle, this will be my last reply for this specific conversation because i've navigated every possible terrain to explain it's about developer's intentions and reasons, not the lore by itself in an isolated scenario away from developer input.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Reema.7360 said:The fortune teller that tricked Shiro into killing Emperor Angsiyan was also female. And the final boss in CM story, Captain DeLana.

There's a whole other issue: Since the main villainous group of Charr and Norn are misogynist there are NO female villains from those two species except from a few open world bosses associated with pirates or the renegades (though the only one I remember is the Raven shaman at that one skill point cave in Snowden Drifts).

I personally don't count those as "major main villains", they're more of "minor main villains". But when you add those, you add in dozens other females and males.

@castlemanic.3198 said:Also, wasn't the fortune teller also the whispers at the back of vizier khilbron's mind? and both were ultimately a demon of abaddon?

No, Khilbron was tricked/converted by Razakel.

[Fenom.9457]

WHY does it matter?

[Yuyuske.7182]

As long as it doesn't turn into some sort of "Men are all evil because of toxic masculinity, women are good and pure" garbage, I don't really care. The gods are mostly women because it just kinda turned out that way.

[Ayakaru.6583]

To above, are you evil if you don't free will (regarding the Herald)And why are so many people saying great and benevolent Palawa Joko is evil?

[Chadramar.8156]

@castlemanic.3198 said:"Women are not allowed to join the cult because of Jora's "crimes" against Dragon." That's the farthest thing from a proper back story in the history of anything. It's a hugely flimsy excuse to not include female svanir.

And a lore excuse to explain why no female charr existed in GW1 is still an excuse, not really a proper lore based backstory. They managed to create a bunch of cool lore surrounding the freedom of female charr to help fight agains the flame legion, but it's still to cover up a fact of game development (that they never considered making female models because they never foresaw needing them for a GW2 and it's less work to model a single gender instead of both).

Agreed. I find both enemy factions to be flimsy because "a woman did a 'bad' thing, therefor we built our ideology on hating women" makes no sense to me unless the society in question was deeply sexist to begin with and saw women as inferior things instead of individual people. Men who opposed these factions were not used as a handy excuse to demonize and enslave all other men. If norn and charr are supposed to be egalitarian, where did that mindset come from? But it's also true that for the charr, at least, the devs made a much bigger effort to build lore to explain the (lazy and all too common) development decision from the first game.

[BeardedVagabond.8136]

It really does not matter. Scarlett was not the best bad character. Nor was Faolin. I think they just have a hard time writing a bad female character. Because society

[Michram.6853]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Penguin.1345 said:Since kralky gobbled up Balthazars magic, does he need a replacement?

Balthazar was stripped of his divinity before the events of Season 3 (and probably before the events of GW2 in general). He was imprisoned in a near mortal state. Balthazar being so weak is actually a plot point of Season 3 (though not mentioned until his reveal in Flashpoint). The magic that Kralkatorrik ate came from the bloodstone, Primordus, and Jormag.

Balthazar's divinity had to go somewhere.

Kormir said that other 5 took his powers. So they are "Gods of war".

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@Arden.7480 said:Kormir said that other 5 took his powers. So they are "Gods of war".Kormir said they stripped him of his power, not that they took his power for themselves.

[ugrakarma.9416]

No one cares about "gender balance", im most worried about balance of boredom.In most mythologies, wars and the like is associated with even men, while "caring", reproduction, life is associated with women. "Justice" is very ambiguous.In fact, atm, we have more "caretaking gods" than gods of punishment / war.

[Osred.3864]

I seriously doubt the writers even realised this when writing it.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

Lets not even get into the fact that GW2 has been subtly hinting that something is up with Lyssa, maybe even that she helped Balthazar. Lyssa may not be as "good" as she seems.

Or better yet, she is the only one of the gods besides Balthazar(at least before he went crazy) that actually seemed to give a damn about humanity, and helped Balthazar because of that. Meaning Dwyana, Melandru, and Kormir are the real "evil" gods, while Lyssa is the only good one, and Balthazar was a good god gone bad after being imprisoned.

[RyuDragnier.9476]

@"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:Lets not even get into the fact that GW2 has been subtly hinting that something is up with Lyssa, maybe even that she helped Balthazar. Lyssa may not be as "good" as she seems.

Or better yet, she is the only one of the gods besides Balthazar(at least before he went crazy) that actually seemed to give a kitten about humanity, and helped Balthazar because of that. Meaning Dwyana, Melandru, and Kormir are the real "evil" gods, while Lyssa is the only good one, and Balthazar was a good god gone bad after being imprisoned.

Considering Lyssa is a pair of twins, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to have one of them having helped Balthazar. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me in general if one of them is evil and the other good.

[Westenev.5289]

It's a Human thing.

You'll also notice that it was a King who sunk orr, abandoned Kryta and charred Ascalon in Foefire.

It was a Queen who put Kryta back together, and a Queen who currently maintains Human prosperity. There is also a male figure who intends to overthrow said through terrorism and the distribution hard drugs.

[castlemanic.3198]

It was a vizier who sunk orr, not the king. Just a slight correction.

You'll also note that a male human now leads the pact, a sylvari male previously led the pact and sacrificed himself to destroy an elder dragon, that queen jennah's father was the king before she was, the master of peace was male.

The reality is, the gender balance is not important, because arenanet are NOT doing any hint about what gender fills what role in the good/evil spectrum, there are multiple major characters of varying importance and story impact of varying genders, as good writing tends to do. Like all endeavors, some parts fall flat, while others are done better than expected.

@ugrakarma.9416 said:No one cares about "gender balance", im most worried about balance of boredom.In most mythologies, wars and the like is associated with even men, while "caring", reproduction, life is associated with women. "Justice" is very ambiguous.In fact, atm, we have more "caretaking gods" than gods of punishment / war.

I don't believe video games have to adhere to the standards set by mythologies, especially when there's so much lore that isnt pantheon based (especially now with a ton of elder dragon stuff, everything mists related and other things i'm possibly forgetting).

Also worth considering is that each god is a patron to either entire classes or certain aspects of classes:"Grenth is the God of Death and Ice. He is the patron god of Assassins, Water Elementalists, Necromancers, and Ritualists,""Balthazar is the God of War and Fire. He is the patron god of Warriors, Fire Elementalists, Protection and Smiting Monks, and Command Paragons,""Dwayna is the Goddess of Life and Air. She is the patron Goddess of Wind Prayers Dervishes, Air Elementalists, Healing Prayers Monks, and Leadership and Motivation Paragons""Lyssa is the twin Goddess of Beauty and Illusion, individually known as Lyss and Ilya. She is the patron Goddess of Mesmers and Assassins, and is also associated with the Energy Storage techniques of Elementalists and the Mysticism of Dervishes""Melandru is the Goddess of Nature and Earth, and the eldest of the modern Gods. Many of her followers are Earth Dervishes, Earth Elementalists and Rangers"Also worth considering is that when Prophecies was first released, each god had a class most associated with their theme, with elementalists having a toe dipped in each god's domain, this of course was expanded with factions and nightfall.

I'd also argue that Dwayna is the only caretaking god. While Melandru is a goddess of nature, she also persues balance in nature, which can sometimes mean culling unwanted aspects in a violent manner. Kormir is a god of truth and knowledge which is really neutral in terms of caretaking vs violent in my opinion. Lyssa is about beauty and illusion, but beauty can be used to blackmail, and illusions can have a crucial place in battles, especially in terms of deception and how that can change the tide of a battle. Grenth, being the god of death, I feel that's self explanatory, same with Balthazar being the god of war. (Someone help, was it Kormir or Grenth that was most associated with Justice? Can't seem to find that info. Perhaps both.)

It can be taken for the six to have domains beyond simply what's presented. As Konig said in another thread, it was hinted that Balthazar was a craftsman god (specifically to do with armour and weaponry), and it can be taken as Dwayna being a goddess of fertility, Melandru as a goddess of plentiful bounty and crops, the justice theme that i have trouble pinning down and others that we could possibly think of that either fall within or outside of the bounds of either caretaking or war/punishment. I'd certainly imagine grenth would have ties to punishment, considering he controls the underworld and the domain of the lost (let's for now ignore the fact they are leaving their domains and the mists entirely).

[Zenith.7301]

@Chasind.3128 said:I don't really see an issue or problem with this. I get it from a writer standpoint to appease a small group of people who care about gender differences if that was where I was aiming, but from an in depth story pov, what does it matter? For how they became gods/demi-gods has nothing to do with their gender, but their deeds. Them being male or female I doubt has anything to with who is "evil" or "Good".

The God of War was released, then later killed. He'd still be alive if a certain charr didn't need his flaming stick back so bad. Good Vs Evil is all in perspective. What crosses through your mind when you think of how a God of War would act? Would they be loving and kind? Calm and quiet? No, not for me anyways. Ultimately, Balthazar gave you many chances and was impressed by you; he didn't WANT to kill you but you literally got in the way of his plans deemed it the best option. To the story, he is evil & to the gods they did not side with him but that's not evil. The goddesses from what you can tell aren't helpful at all. When you finally meet kormir, she's just as useful as she was in Nightfall. (which she wasn't FYI) Some people view not being helpful as bad, as in they're not on your side depending on the dire of situation. I think most of the Gods as neutral. It's inclinded that one of the mesmer goddesses tried to take on Zhaitan and he ate her up. But the priestess of lyssa could just be spewing crap and trying to 'demoralize' the character. If she were to try to take on the elder dragon before you, was she aligned with balth or did not know the weight of her actions? Maybe it was just a lie from a risen priestess, as kormir said everyone else (deities) bailed. The imbalance of the sexes between the useless gw2 deities, I do not have a problem with it, nor have I thought about it until now. If grenth decided to act against the commander, then he'd be sniped as well. Same with any of the female goddesses.

TL;DR - God of War wants battle, chaos and war. He went against commander & got his kitten handed to him. End of story. There is no Good vs Evil. Just perpective VS perspective. The Goddesses/ Gods tend to be as placid as what they represent. No big surprise there.

If you have an issue, then you're looking to hard into it.

And yet their reasoning for putting Kalla in this expansion that had nothing to do with Charr was to balance it from a racial/gender perspective....