[Spoilers] Living Story Season 4: THE RETURN OF SCARLET BRIAR

[Aurelius.6829]

@moonstarmac.4603 said:I can see it now. Joko restore's Scarlet's life...Scarlet brutally dismembers Joko leaving him in many pieces, alive, and still in the Domain of the Lost. Scarlet takes control of the Awakened, walks right up to Kralkatorrik and pets him on the nose. She, and her army, are then devoured by the crystal dragon and the Commander decides that Kralkatorrik may be good to keep alive. LWS4 ends with Joko's head screaming "I'll get you next time Scarlet! Next time!" que the Commander waking up to find it was all one messed up dream after a night of heavy drinking in Amnoon...someone broke out the 300 year old keg of Dwarven Ale.

I really need this as an episode.Please Anet, do it.

[Torolan.5816]

@Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324 said:Ah, the days when highly xenophobic Kraits made an alliance with part of the Nightmare Court in order to butcher Kessex Hills.

Last year, the largest democracy of the world elected a rich xenophobic guy to be their president.80 years ago, the land of Poet and Thinkers waged war against their neighbours because one guy said so.160 years ago, the largest democracy of the world nearly destroyed itself because a part of the noble people would not let go of slavery.416 years ago, the most advanced seafarers in the world had the elisabethian law for the poor but waged bloody campaigns against/with their neighbours.1700 years ago, the most advanced and republican nation found it to be acceptable to invite the people they had looked down upon for centuries into their lands because they were dying out and starving in their golden palaces.

I could enlarge this list at my leisure. Xenophobic does not mean inflexible, especially when you think that Dredge, Sylvari and Krait do not compete for the same ressources.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@Torolan.5816 said:Xenophobic does not mean inflexible, especially when you think that Dredge, Sylvari and Krait do not compete for the same ressources.That's part of the problem, though. One of the things that make krait krait is that none of the other races have anything they want, besides a source of slaves and sacrifices. Scarlet turned that upside down by somehow acquiring pieces of one of their lost obelisks... which solved the problem of giving the krait something they wanted, but at the cost of adding 'acquired ancient krait relic from the bottom of the sea when the krait themselves couldn't' to the long list of implausible feats Scarlet pulled off with no visible effort.

[Torolan.5816]

I do not see why someone with the knowledge of the priory at her disposal could not have indeed found something like that, especially when Mordremoth was involved in her thoughts. Maybe he had a little quack quack with the DSD long time ago and so Scarlett found it somewhere in the deep. Maybe she also simply pacted with their prophets and made a really good offer in potential slaves for the meager price of getting powerful albeit temporary allies.

i gladly give that is still a little Mary Sueish though, and that could have solved better. But what do you expect from a story that flip flops from Caudecus to Lazarus to Balthasar, back to Lazarus and then to Balthasar again? Aside from her marvelous aquisition of manpower and ressorces, the Scarlet arch actually made sense contrary to"I am so naive" Caithe and "My sister you met five minutes ago is dead" Marjory ls2 stuff and the ironically funny attempt of Anet to stay on course with ls3 somehow.

[draxynnic.3719]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Torolan.5816 said:Xenophobic does not mean inflexible, especially when you think that Dredge, Sylvari and Krait do not compete for the same ressources.That's part of the problem, though. One of the things that make krait

krait

is that none of the other races have anything they want, besides a source of slaves and sacrifices. Scarlet turned that upside down by somehow acquiring pieces of one of their lost obelisks... which solved the problem of giving the krait something they wanted, but at the cost of adding 'acquired ancient krait relic from the bottom of the sea when the krait themselves couldn't' to the long list of implausible feats Scarlet pulled off with no visible effort.

And on top of that, if you go into the story of the Nightmare Court, one of the events that lead to Cadeyrne forming the Nightmare Court was because he thought the sylvari should be more ruthless with their enemies - specifically the krait - for their own survival. So the Nightmare Court allying with the krait was out of character from both sides.

[Torolan.5816]

There is a possible solution for that too, scouting. The nightmare court has in my observation only a very limited knowledge what is going on around them as contrary to the Inquest they seem to not really be interested in territory so they don´t come around very much. What better chance is to understand the modus operandi of the krait than working with them? Besides that, Faolain is the surpeme ruler of a realm full of leafy snakes. If she approved it, the common nightmare court members may have murmured but ultimately obliged her in fear of being destroyed.

Of course we would not have this discussion right now if Anet had taken the time for an attempt to explain how Scarlet did it, so my reasoning is hypothetical of course.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@Torolan.5816 said:I do not see why someone with the knowledge of the priory at her disposal could not have indeed found something like that, especially when Mordremoth was involved in her thoughts. Maybe he had a little quack quack with the DSD long time ago and so Scarlett found it somewhere in the deep. Maybe she also simply pacted with their prophets and made a really good offer in potential slaves for the meager price of getting powerful albeit temporary allies.Scarlet never had Priory resources (she hid out under the Priory, but never had access to their archives that we know of), but the issue isn't that Scarlet was able to get the obelisk shards. It's that she was able to when the krait couldn't. We're talking a formidably intelligent race optimized for aquatic life. Anything dangerous enough to drive them off from their most valued religious relics should've torn a stranger with a very terrestrial body plan into chum, regardless of whether she had an Elder Dragon riding in her mind.

i gladly give that is still a little Mary Sueish though, and that could have solved better. But what do you expect from a story that flip flops from Caudecus to Lazarus to Balthasar, back to Lazarus and then to Balthasar again? Aside from her marvelous aquisition of manpower and ressorces, the Scarlet arch actually made sense contrary to"I am so naive" Caithe and "My sister you met five minutes ago is dead" Marjory ls2 stuff and the ironically funny attempt of Anet to stay on course with ls3 somehow.

We'll have to agree to a difference in taste there. On the narrative side, which seems to be your focus, I think ANet has been degrading a little. Part of it is length- six releases in S3, against 20 odd in S1- but part of it is also that their current writing process seems optimized to hone specific moments at the expense of what comes between. Both on a patch-to-patch level, and between individual instances in an episode, the connective tissue of the story has been fraying and falling apart since HoT.

On the other hand, though, it's been quite some time since ANet's trampled over their established setting, factions, and characters the way they did in S1 (the recent kittenstorm about Balthazar arguably being a prominent exception). I'd wager most of the people active on this forum are invested in the worldbuilding over the story writing, so on the whole it's a trade off I'm happy to take.

[Torolan.5816]

Let´s assume that Mordremoth rode her mind as you said.For the krait, the DSD is probably just a horrible wall of tentacles and maws. Maybe the DSD has no interest in the krait as servants and just wants them gone, devoured or dead so he brought his full power to the table and swept them out in a brutal and effective assault because their own feeling of supremacy prevented them from fleeing when they could have saved their artifacts with little effort.For Mordemoth, the DSD is a brother/sister and competition he knows for millenia. They probably don´t get along very well, but he had thousand of years to anticipate how his/her brother/sister works and where he would potentially hide stuff like this.