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I do not like Aurene, and I'm not afraid to say it. [Also spoilers]


Guy.9207

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47 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

PoF and LWS4.

 

During the trials we go through with Aurene at the beginning of "All or Nothing" the voice of Glint talks about how absorbing magic comes with dangers and temptations. She also talks about how its the Champion's duty to help Aurene manage those risks, and that by sharing her power with those around her she can help avoid those risks.

 

This ties back into the big cutscene during Path of Fire, that we see at the end of the story step "A Way Forward", which details how Glint and the Forgotten hoped that Glint's Legacy(the Scions) could stabilize the magic cycle by circulating and sharing magic, rather then hording it like the Elder Dragons do.

 

Furthermore, during the fight inside Kralkatorrik at the end of "War Eternal" Kralkatorrik specifically mentions that Aurene is unlike the other Elder Dragons, since she is able to take in all the various magics without them conflicting inside her. We know Aurene is able to take in much more magic then Elder Dragons normally can, because it doesn't conflict inside her.

 

Its story stuff tat the game has been talking about/building up for years.

 

Name one time Anet used an actual Deus Ex Machina, and not something people incorrectly call a Deus Ex Machina because they didn't like how the story went.

The first 2 examples have nothing to do with Aurene being able to balance the All on her own. How many possible ways could Aurene be different besides her potential ability? No one touches the possibility that she can until Jormag tells us balance is a myth. Jormag wouldn't have to tell us balance is a myth unless no one kittening knew! I agree with you the signs were there. I have been talking about the transition away from the 6 sphere config for years. A trail of bread crumbs that can be connected into a plot after everything has happened isn't drama. Drama occurs when the search for bread crumbs is relatable and compelling as the search happens. The search for breadcrumbs about Aurene's abilities never even happened. It is happening now, after Jormag told us how she was special.

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12 minutes ago, Psientist.6437 said:

The first 2 examples have nothing to do with Aurene being able to balance the All on her own.

They literally do though. Elder Dragons can't do it on their own not only because they horde magic, but the magic they horde doesn't combine right. Aurene not only doesn't horde magic, since she shares it, but it does combine within her. Both things are necessary.

12 minutes ago, Psientist.6437 said:

How many possible ways could Aurene be different besides her potential ability? No one touches the possibility that she can until Jormag tells us balance is a myth. Jormag wouldn't have to tell us balance is a myth unless no one kittening knew! I agree with you the signs were there. I have been talking about the transition away from the 6 sphere config for years. A trail of bread crumbs that can be connected into a plot after everything has happened isn't drama. Drama occurs when the search for bread crumbs is relatable and compelling as the search happens. The search for breadcrumbs about Aurene's abilities never even happened. It is happening now, after Jormag told us how she was special.

Except they did touch on it during the Kralk fight, and we saw demonstrable signs of it with volatile magic, and ley infused champion monsters, vanishing from the world after Aurene's ascension. All of which happened before Jormag said anything.

 

Also, Jormag saying the balance is a myth is wrong... why would you believe a creature known to lie? Most of what Jormag said was a lie as part of its desperate attempts to convince us to help it free itself of its bond to Primordus. Even Aurene points out Jormag has gone mad, and wonders why all the Elder Dragons do.

 

Hell, we saw that it said was wrong back in LWS3, PoF, and LWS4, with all the unbound/volatile magic, the ley line anomaly events with the giant running man, dragon minions, and Priory/Consotruim/Inquest, as well as the ley infused bounty monsters. All of which were caused by the Balance going out of whack.

Edited by Sajuuk Khar.1509
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4 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Name one time Anet used an actual Deus Ex Machina, and not something people incorrectly call a Deus Ex Machina because they didn't like how the story went.

Deus Ex Machina as in "an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel."  - which holds true whether I like the story beat or not. Aurene eating Joko to save the commander at the last second is a Deus Ex Machina and I LIKED that part; and said eating resulting in Aurene returning to life to help in an impossible fight is another. Calling it Deus Ex Machina would remain true even if it were a plot device the writers had planned years in advance.  
 

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1 hour ago, Obfuscate.6430 said:

Deus Ex Machina as in "an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel."  - which holds true whether I like the story beat or not. Aurene eating Joko to save the commander at the last second is a Deus Ex Machina and I LIKED that part; and said eating resulting in Aurene returning to life to help in an impossible fight is another. Calling it Deus Ex Machina would remain true even if it were a plot device the writers had planned years in advance. 

Dragons eating beings, and gaining their powers, is something established back in PoF, when Kralk did it to Balthazar. We also knew Aurene was there, since she shows up in the open world helping in the fight against Joko's forces, and that the Commander and Aurene share a mental bond, as Aurene has used several times previously.

 

Likewise, Ogden had earlier mentioned that her eating the Lich was part of the prophecy, and we see Awakened Sylvari who mention that dragon magic doesn't protect someone from the power of Awakening. So they had set up Aurene surviving Kralk "killing" her beforehand.

 

Aurene showing up to eat Joko, and gain his power, and her surviving Kralk "killing" her, were both set up beforehand, and thus don't qualify as a Deus Ex Machina. Neither is an unexpected, or implausible, situation occurring to resolve a plot.

Edited by Sajuuk Khar.1509
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I'm kinda in the same boat. I have to admit in the beginning i liked her. Protecting the egg, saw her hatch, raise her and travel along her side made me somehow connected to her. The first cracks towards this was when she killed joko. He was fantastic and interresting/entertaining and deserved a way better ending. The big letdown for me was when she ''died''. I was honestly sad about this and really wanted to take revenge for her death. But then she came immediately back from the death. After this i felt really disconnected to her.

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I DIDN'T like Aurene in the beginning - not the character (story etc.), but the art of her/she's ugly. 

BUT 

 

When she ate Joko, everything changed. That's one of many amazing things ANET did in their story! I went LIKE HAHAHAH, BWAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHA laughing so hard nearly fell off my chair.  Now the look don't even bother me anymore because Aurene ate Joko!!! 

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22 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

They literally do though. Elder Dragons can't do it on their own not only because they horde magic, but the magic they horde doesn't combine right. Aurene not only doesn't horde magic, since she shares it, but it does combine within her. Both things are necessary.

Except they did touch on it during the Kralk fight, and we saw demonstrable signs of it with volatile magic, and ley infused champion monsters, vanishing from the world after Aurene's ascension. All of which happened before Jormag said anything.

 

Also, Jormag saying the balance is a myth is wrong... why would you believe a creature known to lie? Most of what Jormag said was a lie as part of its desperate attempts to convince us to help it free itself of its bond to Primordus. Even Aurene points out Jormag has gone mad, and wonders why all the Elder Dragons do.

 

Hell, we saw that it said was wrong back in LWS3, PoF, and LWS4, with all the unbound/volatile magic, the ley line anomaly events with the giant running man, dragon minions, and Priory/Consotruim/Inquest, as well as the ley infused bounty monsters. All of which were caused by the Balance going out of whack.

The problem isn't the lack of clues, but that the clues are so obvious and within character expertise that characters need to confront them. The clues were a white elephant and a rational audience would interpret ignoring the white elephant to mean it isn't real. Especially if your audience is shown characters who have the expertise to see white elephants and had used that expertise to show that white elephants don't exist. Are you arguing that Tiami, Aurene and the Commander entered IBS and confronted Jormag knowing Aurene was capable of "balancing" the All? I agree that some of IBs's plot logic makes more sense if they did. If so, the most important discussion in the story so far happened off camera and our failure to share that information makes us partly responsible for the frozen civilians.

 

The problem with the term magic balance is that it can mean anything. It has become a cliche. What Aurene is supposedly able to do can't really be described as balancing. Aurene cycles magic. What is she keeping in balance? Why would Aurene tell us she still believes in "balance" if what she is possibly capable of doing is "balance"? Our A plot has become so hand wavy it can't support drama or practical melodrama.

 

You and I aren't going to see eye to eye on this. I don't care about solving some kitten plot puzzle made of cliched mystery boxes. I want drama or practical melodrama and we are not getting it from the A plot. The A plot is mostly just us being told what to do. Crystal Dragon Jesus is an archetype, but elevating an individual to the highest power level we know and having everyone depend on that individual's good graces is a kitten resolution to the theme of community. That is probably what annoys me the most. Once again, the theme of community is going to be used to deliver the theme of respect authority, respect those with power. I am still holding out hope though. There are resolutions, like returning the All to a wild or independent state, that resonate with the theme.

 

 

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there's no such thing as "The All".

 

and if they insist that there is "The All", it's either they want a large picture frame of reality to be blamed for kitten-ups, making the individuals escape individual punishments. also if they insist that there is "The All", they just want their target to think the he/she is part of  "The All" and everything will be a stalemate..

 

Everything is a composite and you can even scale the scope of the individual/entity when you isolate that from the whole composite. This will even prove the incarnation of the Word and God, as observed by John because with this framework, you can even isolate the Lord and God's team/circle as a composite separating themselves from the shizzy people..

 

And from these stressing of isolation of composites from the composite, each individual can be judged accordingly.. justice can easily be realized..

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Jormag wasn't lying about the "magic balance" being a myth. The scenes only make sense if we accept that everyone involved defines "magic balance" as meaning " X number of Elder Dragons linked together". Jormag isn't saying the need to cycle magic is a myth. Jormag doesn't want the world to end. This is the main drama of the A plot in IBS and the plot logic is so unnatural, it doesn't read well enough for people to understand. The hand wavy use of the term "magic balance" is partly responsible for the confusion. Imo, the writers intentially use the fuzziness of the term to hide the revelation of Aurne's abilities until the last moment. Aurene's abilities are a white elephant, Jormag tells Aurene she is free to kill other Elder Dragons and we respond by deciding to kill 2 Elder Dragons. Make no mistake, Jormag gives the plot permission to address the white elephant.

 

That scenario conforms to a very old archetype found in the traditional hero's journey, the hero, learning about their abilities, receives "training" from a flawed teacher who wants to use the hero for their own gains. IBS and scenes like the resurrection of Aurene show that you can't approach archetypes as though you can just plug them in and expect them to play.

On 8/15/2021 at 5:21 AM, SweetPotato.7456 said:

I DIDN'T like Aurene in the beginning - not the character (story etc.), but the art of her/she's ugly. 

BUT 

 

When she ate Joko, everything changed. That's one of many amazing things ANET did in their story! I went LIKE HAHAHAH, BWAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHA laughing so hard nearly fell off my chair.  Now the look don't even bother me anymore because Aurene ate Joko!!! 

I like this scene as well, though for perhaps different reasons. Joko is the archetypal edgelord. Just as he reaches maximum edgelord swagger, Aurene swoops in an says no, you are no now archetypal dragon poop.

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46 minutes ago, Psientist.6437 said:

I like this scene as well, though for perhaps different reasons. Joko is the archetypal edgelord. Just as he reaches maximum edgelord swagger, Aurene swoops in an says no, you are no now archetypal dragon poop.

I liked it cause she ate joko in general. No worse death than be turned into poop, and for a villian i found as annoying and...how to explain properly....Joko wasnt a good villian imo, and the writing didnt do him any favours either.

 

Regardless of not minding Aurene the final chapter of IBS feels so..janky and..not really polished or proper, rushed too.

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I agree. Not just Aurene, but I feel this game overall only rewards hardcores and the imaginative who are familiar with the original GW and/or care enough to read up on what's not presented in-game (and maybe build on that personally to compensate) .

It's all an empty vessel, which may be a feature and not an error. I do not know.

But as a super filthy casual who also missed LWS1, it's basically impossible to find any interest or attachment to what's just thrown in my face, the story or the characters.

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On 8/15/2021 at 2:31 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

The problem with the term magic balance is that it can mean anything. It has become a cliche. What Aurene is supposedly able to do can't really be described as balancing. Aurene cycles magic. What is she keeping in balance? Why would Aurene tell us she still believes in "balance" if what she is possibly capable of doing is "balance"? Our A plot has become so hand wavy it can't support drama or practical melodrama.

Except it doesn't mean "anything". It refers to a very specific thing in GW's universe, the magical balance of Tyria. Which, as we saw with the unbound magic, volatile magic, ley infused bounty monsters, and various ley line events, causes mass ecological devastation if it gets out of whack. Also, you literally just asked "why would Aurene tell us she believes in the thing she is doing" because she is doing it?

 

At this point it just seems like you are being intentionally obtuse about something that is pretty clear cut, just for the sake of it, rather then because its actually that vague.

 

On 8/15/2021 at 2:31 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

The problem isn't the lack of clues, but that the clues are so obvious and within character expertise that characters need to confront them. The clues were a white elephant and a rational audience would interpret ignoring the white elephant to mean it isn't real. Especially if your audience is shown characters who have the expertise to see white elephants and had used that expertise to show that white elephants don't exist. Are you arguing that Tiami, Aurene and the Commander entered IBS and confronted Jormag knowing Aurene was capable of "balancing" the All? I agree that some of IBs's plot logic makes more sense if they did. If so, the most important discussion in the story so far happened off camera and our failure to share that information makes us partly responsible for the frozen civilians.

Well

A. Yes they did believe it

B. It didn't happen of screen, we saw it talked about during the living world, as mentioned.

C. Us sharing the information or not had jack all to do with people getting frozen. Jormag was certifiably insane, and didn't care about anything anyone said. All it wanted was to be free of Primordus, and it was going to do whatever it believed was necessary to do it. Hell, Jormag had gone so far off the deep end it was j trying to rationalize away the balance to justify to itself, and those around it, its actions. Why would Jormag have given two flip flops about what Aurene says about the balance when it didn't care?

 

Edited by Sajuuk Khar.1509
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On 8/16/2021 at 4:08 PM, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except it doesn't mean "anything". It refers to a very specific thing in GW's universe, the magical balance of Tyria. Which, as we saw with the unbound magic, volatile magic, ley infused bounty monsters, and various ley line events, causes mass ecological devastation if it gets out of whack. Also, you literally just asked "why would Aurene tell us she believes in the thing she is doing" because she is doing it?

 

At this point it just seems like you are being intentionally obtuse about something that is pretty clear cut, just for the sake of it, rather then because its actually that vague.

 

Well

A. Yes they did believe it

B. It didn't happen of screen, we saw it talked about during the living world, as mentioned.

C. Us sharing the information or not had jack all to do with people getting frozen. Jormag was certifiably insane, and didn't care about anything anyone said. All it wanted was to be free of Primordus, and it was going to do whatever it believed was necessary to do it. Hell, Jormag had gone so far off the deep end it was j trying to rationalize away the balance to justify to itself, and those around it, its actions. Why would Jormag have given two flip flops about what Aurene says about the balance when it didn't care?

 

Aurene doesn't say "I believe in magic balance." She says "I still believe in magic balance" as she is preparing to kill two Elder dragons. That language only makes sense if she thinks she is doing something that doesn't conform to "magic balance".

 

There isn't any evidence Jormag is going mad except Aurene telling us. None of Jormag's actions demonstrate madness. Jormag's madness doesn't exist. All we are shown is anger. Here too, the writers are using language that doesn't map to anything real. It is just the semblance of drama. Why would Jormag believe telling Aurene that there isn't an All would convince Aurene to kill Primordius? Jormag tells us that "magic balance" is a myth in direct response to us saying we can't kill Primordius because of "magic balance." I think you are failing to see the two definitions of "magic balance" being used and how clumsily the writers try to juggle them.

 

Did the Arcane Council know Aurene could manage the All by herself? Would they have so readily allied with Jormag if they did? I forget who was present and asked the question about why didn't we do this before. Apparently it took them by surprise, as though Tiami, Aurene and Commander decided not to tell them.

 

edit: Tom Abernathy's comments on Twitter that Jormag always tells the truth infuriated this pretentious and feral English major. He did have a reason though.

Edited by Psientist.6437
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On 8/16/2021 at 8:32 AM, Dante.1763 said:

I liked it cause she ate joko in general. No worse death than be turned into poop, and for a villian i found as annoying and...how to explain properly....Joko wasnt a good villian imo, and the writing didnt do him any favours either.

 

Regardless of not minding Aurene the final chapter of IBS feels so..janky and..not really polished or proper, rushed too.

I think he is a good villain. I like a straight forward narcissistic predator who doesn't try to hide it from themselves. Not in general but as a villain. Compare him to someone like Thanos. Both are narcissistic predators. The person who will remake the universe into something that appreciates him is the real Thanos. The plan to save the universe is a cover story so he doesn't have to directly deal with his true nature. Thanos may be a more dramatic and complex character but there is a real place for someone like Joko.

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On 8/17/2021 at 1:52 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

Aurene doesn't say "I believe in magic balance." She says "I still believe in magic balance" as she is preparing to kill two Elder dragons. That language only makes sense if she thinks she is doing something that doesn't conform to "magic balance".

She probably says this because she actually doesn't think she can handle and balance all of her magic and that of Primordus and Jormag. So killing both Primorus and Jormag is a bad thing... but we do it anyways. Aurene is simply hoping that, as the magic goes out of control, something can be found to fix it while she does her best to slow the collapse down. We really only have had somewhat of a presumption Aurene can deal with the problem. But it is also likely she can't.

 

And to be clear at this point in the story, for as far as we know, the balance of magic is on a course of collapsing. Aurene is not keeping the balance and is in fact managing even less magic than she expected to be able to. She even tells the commander that most of Primordu's and Jormag's magic had escaped her. Although Aurene is being about secretive about this, since she only tells Taimi and everyone else that some of the magic is mission. If everyone else is acting as though everything is fine, it is because Aurene is lying to them and the commander is complicit.

 

The "Champion's End" instance kind of poorly threw all of this info out in a bit of a mess, along with the mess of Aurene not concretely explaining her throughs on being forced to kill Jormag and Primordus and the potential outcomes. But by the end, the dialog does make it fairly clear Aurene is not in control and things will likely go very bad. This loss of balance is actually forshadowed in PoF. Vlast says that the commander will need a specific powerfull weapon "when the world tips". The world tipping now clearly alludes to the balance of magic failing, and the story is heading that way. The problem is, that the weapon Vlast mentions, the commander don't have it and it is probably destroyed. So, yeah.

 

Anyways the solution is probably Dragon Jade.

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On 8/17/2021 at 3:52 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

Aurene doesn't say "I believe in magic balance." She says "I still believe in magic balance" as she is preparing to kill two Elder dragons. That language only makes sense if she thinks she is doing something that doesn't conform to "magic balance".

That's literally not now that combinations of words works. Her words were her stating she believes in the magic balance despite Jormag's claims that it doesn't exist.

On 8/17/2021 at 3:52 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

There isn't any evidence Jormag is going mad except Aurene telling us. None of Jormag's actions demonstrate madness. Jormag's madness doesn't exist. All we are shown is anger. Here too, the writers are using language that doesn't map to anything real. It is just the semblance of drama. Why would Jormag believe telling Aurene that there isn't an All would convince Aurene to kill Primordius? Jormag tells us that "magic balance" is a myth in direct response to us saying we can't kill Primordius because of "magic balance." I think you are failing to see the two definitions of "magic balance" being used and how clumsily the writers try to juggle them.

Except Jormag's very clearly psychotic actions throughout IBS, and within the talks it had with Aurene. All of Jormag's actions demonstrate madness. The constant death and destruction, its constant hypocrisy about everything its doing, Jormag's very obvious mental derogation from its normally calm and collected self into the rambling mess we see it in during Champions. Jormag is very obviously shown to be mentally unwell. And getting worse as the arc goes on.

 

Why wouldn't Jormag believe telling Aurene the All doesn't exist would serve as something to covnince her to kill Primordus? If the All goes out of whack then Tyria dies. Aurene very obviously wouldn't want that to happen. But, if the all doesn't exist, then there is no harm in killing Primordus. It was a last desperate act of an increasingly desperate creature.

 

I think you are, as I stated before, being obtuse about all of this to find issues where there aren't.

On 8/17/2021 at 3:52 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

Did the Arcane Council know Aurene could manage the All by herself? Would they have so readily allied with Jormag if they did? I forget who was present and asked the question about why didn't we do this before. Apparently it took them by surprise, as though Tiami, Aurene and Commander decided not to tell them.

Even if they did believe Aurene could manage te balance herself that doesn't mean they knew for a fact that her and the Pact could beat Primordus themselves. They allied with Jormag because they were hell driven to kill Primordus, and get revenge for their race. Not because of the magic balance.

 

And what took them by surprise was Aurene being able to cut off the dragons from the magic, not that she could maintain the balance. You are, once again, conflating two entirely different things as one.

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6 hours ago, PseudoNewb.5468 said:

And to be clear at this point in the story, for as far as we know, the balance of magic is on a course of collapsing.

The opposite has been suggested

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taimi#The_Icebrood_Saga_2

Quote

Player: We're low on dragons. Can Aurene handle the flow of magic alone?

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.

 

Quote

This loss of balance is actually forshadowed in PoF. Vlast says that the commander will need a specific powerfull weapon "when the world tips". The world tipping now clearly alludes to the balance of magic failing, and the story is heading that way. The problem is, that the weapon Vlast mentions, the commander don't have it and it is probably destroyed. So, yeah.

As far as we know the weapon Vlast mentioned was the Dragonsblood Spear, which was destroyed(by us) then remade. The point of the world tipping was likely in reference to Kralkatorrik becoming super powerful, upsetting the balance, and causing all the temporal.portal issues we saw.

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12 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

You don't supposed "time is limited" isn't ominous. Taimi doesn't really know the full situation. Aurene specifically tells the commander to be ready when the consequences come back around. And you can't ignore the fact that Aurene says she isn't holding most of Primordu's and Jormag's magic, which contradicts the first of Taimi's situations.

I supposed the 2nd situation is the one we are really in (something else being the other dragon or dragon jade), but lacking knowledge of the how the second situation can be occurring, the commander probably is dreading that "time is limited" is the correct answer of Taimi's possibilities, and we are just waiting for things to start to break.

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18 hours ago, Bristingr.5034 said:

Aurene sucks. Just let us kill her already or have Bubbles kill her, either is acceptable.

Did Taimi magically get cured? I thought she was supposed to have some un-curable illness?

Why. Won't. You. Let. Braham. Die????

 

Lol I don't feel quite this strongly about any of the characters, but I wouldn't be too upset by seeing Aurene get poofed for whatever reason in EoD.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying killing her would be smart or interesting, just that I am so indifferent to her that I wouldn't care if that happened. While she's of course the current reason we can keep killing elder dragons and worry less about magic imbalance, ANet can just invent something else to replace her role - that's how generic I feel she's been made out to be.

 

And yes, as @Sajuuk Khar.1509 correctly noted, many of us (myself included) inaccurately used 'deus ex machina' to describe Aurene's role. It was pretty obvious she was going to get resurrected and retain a central role in magic balance, and these were obvious precisely because ANet took the trouble of both foreshadowing them and explicitly explaining them after the events occurred. As @RabbitUp.8294 pointed out, it's not hard to follow. It's just dumb.

 

Just because something isn't deus ex machina doesn't mean it can't be a boring story choice. I happen to believe that

(1) starting from a point of "hey that thing we do (murdering dragons) has consequences, we need to rethink our approach", and

(2) resolving that with "actually keep doing the exact same thing, our pet dragon just deletes all those consequences", is

(3) uncreative and boring.

 

I get that she was set up to be important to the story, and accordingly is important to the story, but I just do not care about her at all. To me she's an easily replaceable plot device, and I suspect I'm far from alone in that opinion.

 

 

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1 hour ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

It was pretty obvious she was going to get resurrected

But when I made a thread complaining about how cheap the killing off of her was in LWS4E5, and how it creates unwinnable situation where it's either she resurrects or we are going to get huge deus ex machina in season finale, half of the forums rushed to AN's defence and how "mature" it is to have us fail, and for important characters to die xD

That arc they tried to pull off there could have worked, but not in span of 3 episodes, and would need a couple of major fixes on the part of needless escalation of urgency.

1 hour ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

(2) resolving that with "actually keep doing the exact same thing, our pet dragon just deletes all those consequences"

I was replaying PoF recently to catch up my main on all the story content in paralel with reruns (was doing story on different characters since pof landed) and I couldn't help but notice, that the cutscene for "The Legacy" was heavy on symbolism of 6 - when they removed two orbs from the all, everything starts collapsing, and whole symbolical end of the world started stabilizing and reverting only after they recreated whole "figures" with 6 nodes. Which should imply that aurene should not be able to just wave away consequences, and we still need to replicate the ecosystem function of at least some more of EDs at this point. And I am quite convinced at this point, that we will be dealing with that hanging thread in EoD.

This is exactly what I don't like within IBS writing drizzlewood forward - we just jumped into fighting back both jormag and primordus, and not only up from the beginning of champions we talk about making them kill each other, at no point all the way till the end, we do not stop to ask a question what about impact on the All? The topic was dropped in LWS4, and is only picked up gain in LWS rerun dialogues, after IBS. And I think we needed that dialogue to happen within IBS.

 

And because I cannot stress it out enough - going on from pof story, aurene was meant to only be first, of new generation of benevolent magical balansers (in-game called ED, but "Elder Dragon" does not seem to fit very well to a dragon whose age is still a single digit......), not the one to balance it all on her own. And IBS ignores the topic all together without even giving clear indication if that is still a thing or not.

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On 8/15/2021 at 1:46 AM, Obfuscate.6430 said:

Deus Ex Machina as in "an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel."  - which holds true whether I like the story beat or not. Aurene eating Joko to save the commander at the last second is a Deus Ex Machina and I LIKED that part; and said eating resulting in Aurene returning to life to help in an impossible fight is another. Calling it Deus Ex Machina would remain true even if it were a plot device the writers had planned years in advance.  
 

The whole eating Joko part was just a pointless cliffhanger. The bigger flaw was the fact that commander went to confront Joko without Aurene. Even if it flew right above our head that, yes, dragons eat magic and Joko uses magic to revive himself, she is still a powerful dragon that could have helped us fight him.

 

On 8/15/2021 at 10:31 PM, Psientist.6437 said:

The problem isn't the lack of clues, but that the clues are so obvious and within character expertise that characters need to confront them. The clues were a white elephant and a rational audience would interpret ignoring the white elephant to mean it isn't real. Especially if your audience is shown characters who have the expertise to see white elephants and had used that expertise to show that white elephants don't exist. Are you arguing that Tiami, Aurene and the Commander entered IBS and confronted Jormag knowing Aurene was capable of "balancing" the All? I agree that some of IBs's plot logic makes more sense if they did. If so, the most important discussion in the story so far happened off camera and our failure to share that information makes us partly responsible for the frozen civilians.

 

The problem with the term magic balance is that it can mean anything. It has become a cliche. What Aurene is supposedly able to do can't really be described as balancing. Aurene cycles magic. What is she keeping in balance? Why would Aurene tell us she still believes in "balance" if what she is possibly capable of doing is "balance"? Our A plot has become so hand wavy it can't support drama or practical melodrama.

 

You and I aren't going to see eye to eye on this. I don't care about solving some kitten plot puzzle made of cliched mystery boxes. I want drama or practical melodrama and we are not getting it from the A plot. The A plot is mostly just us being told what to do. Crystal Dragon Jesus is an archetype, but elevating an individual to the highest power level we know and having everyone depend on that individual's good graces is a kitten resolution to the theme of community. That is probably what annoys me the most. Once again, the theme of community is going to be used to deliver the theme of respect authority, respect those with power. I am still holding out hope though. There are resolutions, like returning the All to a wild or independent state, that resonate with the theme.

 

 

The All was just a nice depiction to show us the different aspects of magic each represented by an elder dragon. That stopped being a thing the moment we killed Zhaitan, then magic was no longer neatly seperated into 6 parts, but death magic leaked in the system.

 

The plan was never balancing the All, that was already balanced. It was about balancing the dragon cycle. As explained since as far back as the personal story, it is a cycle of extremes, elder dragons soak up all magic like a sponge, then they basicaly hibernate.. While asleep, that magic starts leaking out again, and eventually they grow hungry and wake up again, repeating the same cycle.

 

Magic in Tyria is like life force, it's necessary for living beings to survive and civilizations to evolve. That's the problem with Elder Dragons, they absorb so much magic that the residual magic drops too low, triggering an extinction event. Then, as magic leaks into the system, new life emerges. So our solution was to start killing them, but we quickly realised that too much magic is equally catastrophic.

 

Glint's legacy fit with the All, in that she wanted to cleanly replace two elder dragon with her scions. That way, while the other elder dragons hoarded magic, the scions would release theirs, maintaining the overall balance of the sytem. But without Vlast, and two dragons dead already, that plan was off the table. That's where Aurene's special prismatic dragon powers come into play. Because she was an offspring of Kralkatorrik that absorbed some of Mordremoth's magic as an egg, she could tolerate different kinds of magic. So, it seemed like she could handle the burden alone. 

 

As posted above, EoD will likely elaborate on that, possibly explaining that there's someone else involved.

Edited by RabbitUp.8294
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