When did Jormag come out?

[Sinolai.3860]

I recently returned to gw2 and got really hooked on the story. The best writing and voice acting I have seen in an MMO. I have almost finished the Icebrood Saga now and only yesterday I realized something. When Aurene and commander speaks about Jormag they refer to a singular entity as "they". I almost completed the whole saga thinking they mean "they" as "Jormag and her champion" or "Jormag and the Ice Legion" and was a bit confused when I felt like the topic had nothing to do with the champion or the legion. When did they manifested their non-binary nature? I think I have completely missed that part.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

Anet has said since launch that the dragons have no actual gender, and that any gender they use is simply for convenience. This is seemingly how Kralkatorrik, a "male" could produce an offspring, Glint, without any female dragons around. And how Glint did the same without a male dragon.

 

This is also why the vast majority of dragon minion never refer to their dragon masters as he or she, they almost always just say "the dragon", or the dragon's name.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Sinolai.3860]

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Anet has said since launch that the dragons have no actual gender, and that any gender they use is simply for convenience. This is seemingly how Kralkatorrik, a "male" could produce an offspring, Glint, without any female dragons around. And how Glint did the same without a male dragon.

Is it anywhere in the story? Aurene immediately corrected Caithe when she called her "him". Primordus is called "him" before Jormag uses the pronoun and calls him brother, even though he never speaks. At what point "they" sticked on Jormag and why "they"?

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 minute ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

Is it anywhere in the story?

I'm not sure.

1 minute ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

and why "they"?

While seemingly odd, the use of "they" is grammatically correct when referring to a singular object that has no gender. The more common "it" is typically reserved for non living entities, and is generally considered insulting when referring to an intelligent person/creature.

[Sinolai.3860]

25 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

While seemingly odd, the use of "they" is grammatically correct when referring to a singular object that has no gender.

I get that. But then you'd expected all the dragons to be called "they". Why is Jormag the only one? If it comes from the realization that dragons are intelligent, I would have expected some sort of short discussion about it in the game (like the  joke about glory of dragons when talking about a dragon flock :P). The sudden change is just slapped on your face and the explanation seems to be buried in some old newsletters detatched from the game...

Bangar infact does refer to Jormag as "it", but this is likely becouse he disrespects the dragon 😄

Edited May 20, 2021 by Sinolai.3860

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

Is it anywhere in the story? Aurene immediately corrected Caithe when she called her "him". Primordus is called "him" before Jormag uses the pronoun and calls him brother, even though he never speaks. At what point "they" sticked on Jormag and why "they"?

Never mentioned in specific terms, no, but throughout the entire game's story the Tyrian perception of the Elder Dragon slowly evolves from viewing them as mindless forces of nature to intelligent entities, particularly we see this happening in Season 4 with Aurene. Tyrians' interactions with Aurene make them realize that Elder Dragons aren't actually mindless forces of nature, and they adapt pronoun usage instead of "it" or "the dragon" that we see in the personal story and Heart of Thorns.

 

Side note: it's the Commander correcting Caithe about Aurene's gender, not Aurene. The Crystal Dragon family is the weird bunch by being the ones who specify their gender to mortals (Aurene telling the Commander who told Caithe). Or rather, Glint, Vlast, and Aurene specify their gender to mortals, and call Kralkatorrik male in turn (Kralkatorrik does refer to Aurene and Glint as female, but this seems more done out of respect for his loved, and never refers to himself as male). Primordus is the only other Elder Dragon to be associated with male or female, and it's done by Jormag.

While only speculative, I believe Jormag labeled primordus as male as a means to associate him with the driven-nigh-mindless Kralkatorrik, which sparks an antagonistic view of Primordus, as opposed to such towards Jormag.

And of course, there's the developer viewpoint where using an actual gender creates an associated sense to the audience, even in our ever growing "woke" culture (I feel a little dirty using that slang...), and simply because phrases like "I have stayed my hand, brother." and "Grandfather, look at me!" have a lot more oomph than "I have stayed my hand, sibling." and "Grandparent, look at me!"

  

31 minutes ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

I get that. But then you'd expected all the dragons to be called "they". Why is Jormag the only one? If it comes from the realization that dragons are intelligent, I would have expected some sort of short discussion about it in the game (like the  joke about glory of dragons when talking about a dragon flock :P). The sudden change is just slapped on your face and the explanation seems to be buried in some old newsletters detatched from the game...

Bangar infact does refer to Jormag as "it", but this is likely becouse he disrespects the dragon 😄

We refer to Kralkatorrik and Primordus as male because others (Glint, Vlast, Aurene, and Jormag) refer to them as male. We refer to Jormag as they because Jormag doesn't associate with either male nor female gender (though Sons of Svanir still refer to Jormag as male because of their gender biases :D). I don't think there's any in-game dialogue about it, it's just "what gets used". Mordremoth and Zhaitan were killed before Tyrians began associating genders to Elder Dragons, though some few do refer to them as he/him - this is very rare and is used in the increasingly outdated method of using masculine pronouns to refer to an individual with unknown gender ("they" becoming the more accepted pronoun usage for such situations).

Edited May 20, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

I recently returned to gw2 and got really hooked on the story. The best writing and voice acting I have seen in an MMO. I have almost finished the Icebrood Saga now and only yesterday I realized something. When Aurene and commander speaks about Jormag they refer to a singular entity as "they". I almost completed the whole saga thinking they mean "they" as "Jormag and her champion" or "Jormag and the Ice Legion" and was a bit confused when I felt like the topic had nothing to do with the champion or the legion. When did they manifested their non-binary nature? I think I have completely missed that part.

I actually think that GW2 has worse story telling than modern WoW.

And FF14 has the best story-telling in my opinion.

 

One episode Jormag was it and then the next episode it was called they for no actual ingame reason or explanation.

If I remember correctly, the problem of referring to Jormag as "they" out of completely nowhere coincided with the non-binary outcry on social media growing rapidly. I'll never see Jormags's they as anything other than a nod to that outcrying community.

Jormag ought to have stayed it and for me it will always be it.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

4 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If I remember correctly, the problem of referring to Jormag as "they" coincided with the non-binary outcry on social media growing rapidly.

I'll never see Jormags's they as anything other than a nod to that outcrying community.

Jormag ought to have stayed it.

Elder Dragons have been labeled as genderless (aka non-binary) by ArenaNet since 2010, before the social media movement got popularity. There was no outcry for non-binary Elder Dragons, and if there was and catering to such, Primordus would be the "they" in this story because Jormag was dubbed male by the Sons of Svanir in core GW2.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Abraxxus.8971]

Regarding Glint and birthing eggs without a male. There is the possibility that dragons in Tyria, much like animals in the wild of the real world, mate with each other regardless of parent/offsrping relationship. The example I give is from the memory crystals of Vlast in the Desert Highlands:

Vlast: The death of the jungle dragon has accelerated our sire's rise.

[Sinolai.3860]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Never mentioned in specific terms, no, but throughout the entire game's story the Tyrian perception of the Elder Dragon slowly evolves from viewing them as mindless forces of nature to intelligent entities, particularly we see this happening in Season 4 with Aurene. Tyrians' interactions with Aurene make them realize that Elder Dragons aren't actually mindless forces of nature, and they adapt pronoun usage instead of "it" or "the dragon" that we see in the personal story and Heart of Thorns.

While only speculative, I believe Jormag labeled primordus as male as a means to associate him with the driven-nigh-mindless Kralkatorrik, which sparks an antagonistic view of Primordus, as opposed to such towards Jormag.

And of course, there's the developer viewpoint where using an actual gender creates an associated sense to the audience, even in our ever growing "woke" culture (I feel a little dirty using that slang...), and simply because phrases like "I have stayed my hand, brother." and "Grandfather, look at me!" have a lot more oomph than "I have stayed my hand, sibling." and "Grandparent, look at me!"

  

We refer to Kralkatorrik and Primordus as male because others (Glint, Vlast, Aurene, and Jormag) refer to them as male. We refer to Jormag as they because Jormag doesn't associate with either male nor female gender (though Sons of Svanir still refer to Jormag as male because of their gender biases :D). I don't think there's any in-game dialogue about it, it's just "what gets used". Mordremoth and Zhaitan were killed before Tyrians began associating genders to Elder Dragons, though some few do refer to them as he/him - this is very rare and is used in the increasingly outdated method of using masculine pronouns to refer to an individual with unknown gender ("they" becoming the more accepted pronoun usage for such situations).

Thanks. This is quite good look at the subject. Wish they could have somehow brought this on screen and not have the discussion behind the scenes. For me the sudden change in how to refer on things came completely out of nowhere even though I think I have been following the story development very enthusiastically. Sidenote: When I said Aurene corrected Caithe, it was Aurene. She just couldn't speak yet so she used the commander as mouthpiece 😛

[Sinolai.3860]

37 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I actually think that GW2 has worse story telling than modern WoW.

And FF14 has the best story-telling in my opinion.

Havent played FF14 myself so cant tell. Compared to WoW, classic's story was better but the current wow lore makes less and less sense every year.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Elder Dragons have been labeled as genderless (aka non-binary) by ArenaNet since 2010, before the social media movement got popularity. There was no outcry for non-binary Elder Dragons, and if there was and catering to such, Primordus would be the "they" in this story because Jormag was dubbed male by the Sons of Svanir in core GW2.

Genderless means something  different than "non-binary".

Genderless describes the absence of a gender, like with a stone.

"Non-binary" means there is a gender, but it's outside of the male-female spectrum.

Unlike Elder Dragons being genderless, "non-binary modern-internet-genders" weren't attributed to Jormag until Arenanet shoehorned they into the Grindflood Saga.

 

42 minutes ago, Sinolai.3860 said:

Havent played FF14 myself so cant tell. Compared to WoW, classic's story was better but the current wow lore makes less and less sense every year.

That's one of the main problems many have with the mundane lore turning into cosmic revelations.

But I think that Bellular and his team make the lore pretty understandable for us common peons.

In fact, the lore is the last thing I can still enjoy from WoW and I don't even need to pay for that.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Abraxxus.8971 said:

Regarding Glint and birthing eggs without a male. There is the possibility that dragons in Tyria, much like animals in the wild of the real world, mate with each other regardless of parent/offsrping relationship. The example I give is from the memory crystals of Vlast in the Desert Highlands:

Vlast: The death of the jungle dragon has accelerated our sire's rise.

Timeline doesn't add up in that scenario.

4 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Genderless means something  different than "non-binary".

Genderless describes the absence of a gender, like with a stone.

"Non-binary" means there is a gender, but it's outside of the male-female spectrum.

Unlike Elder Dragons being genderless, "non-binary modern-internet-genders" weren't attributed to Jormag until Arenanet shoehorned they into the Grindflood Saga.

Generally speaking, the use of "genderless" means absence of male and female genders, especially back then and in the context it was given before the internet can of worms about that stuff got really opened. It's typically meant to mean there is no sexual dimorphism in a species, that there are no reproductive organs, or that there is fundamentally simply "one gender".

 

And a side note: "none" is also "non-binary". Non-binary simply meaning "not of two" so being "of zero" is also non-binary.

 

That said, ArenaNet never once themselves made any point to use Jormag's non-binary nature as being at all related to the recent social movements that's occurred over the past half-decade or so. Only people like you are making that connection, just because the one ANet writer used a common phrase to refer to "neither male nor female sex".

[ugrakarma.9416]

officially the "jormag rising" episode of icebrood saga.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jormag_Rising

Edited May 20, 2021 by ugrakarma.9416

[Bast.7253]

The magazine release depicting the content coming with the Grothmar episode I believe was the FIRST tell. It talked about Taimi's research and referenced the Elder Dragons, their domains, their genders, and special notes about them.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-04-2019/