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queer-as-used-by-tolkien · 2 years

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Storyline Study: Personal Story

Yesterday, I reblogged various threads of a post about what makes "war stories" so special, and now I'm going to derail into GW2.

Please note that this may be colored slightly by the fact that I main human + Vigil story. Feel free to read that into this analysis. (Also, playing as norn I think puts a slightly different spin on the PS, so this doesn't apply to them as much.)

The reason I, personally, am so attached to GW2 is because of the reasons we're fighting. Core/PS was introduced with "the dragons are horrific eldritch abominations, forces of nature we can't HOPE to stop, whose champions' defeats take the sacrifice of whole races." This is literally the synopsis on the back of Edge of Destiny. The price of fighting is huge, on a national level and a personal one, and everyone in the story consistently chooses to pay it anyway. What's interesting is why.

PS opens up with the player, young, untraveled, and naive, fighting in defense of the only home they's ever known - the city they's lived in all their life (or the Dream they haven't set foot outside of yet). They spends the next thirty levels traveling, fighting back the same threat they was faced with at level one, getting to know their racial mentor, and, eventually, learning about dragon minions.

I've talked before in a reblog (but apparently it got deleted, so here's the OP) about how the real reason the player is so famous is because they help people. In all the mundane ways, not just the big, war-related ones; they expresses care and concern for the civilians who suffer, in every map and throughout every map meta. They's done that from day one. They isn't famous because they fought the baddie in the tutorial; they was fighting alongside already well-established heroes, and at best the player is acknowledged only by association. No, the player is famous because they spread their care and kindness throughout the countryside afterward, becoming a hero in connection to their big heroic accomplishment at the tutorial only retroactively. (I mean, it's even in the name: renown hearts. Almost nowhere else in the game does it refer to our fame so blatantly.)

Throughout all eighty levels, the player continues to do this, showing their care and concern for the civilians, showing where their heart lies - with the people of the world who will suffer if someone doesn't step up to fight the dragons.

After the story establishes this solid motivation for the player, through focusing the story on aiding your country and becoming a valued advisor of your nation's top leadership, the player chooses an Order - chooses, in essence, that the way they can serve their country best is by fighting the dragons. That choice was generally understood to be a death sentence, because Elder Dragons were understood to be unstoppable forces of nature. But the player chose it anyway, because defending their country - their world - was important enough to try anyway, to go out fighting despite it being impossible.

I'm Vigil main, and I'm heavily Vigil-biased in all ways, but "some must fight so that all may be free" is a pretty good descriptor of the whole PS. Aside from being Almorra's personal motivation, and the motivation of the whole Vigil, it is also shown to be the motivator of the player, regardless of Order, by their behavior throughout the game.

The player chooses their Order but does not stop lending aid to anyone around who so much as looks like they need it; a passing traveler or merchant without a guard draws the player like a moth to a flame, and they pitches in to any regional or local battle they finds. This shows where their heart is, in the love and care and concern for the common people.

The player could've served their country or the world some other way, but they chose to fight dragons, because they saw dragons as most important. They saw dragons as more important than even their racial mentor did; this is the key that eventually brings Destiny's Edge together; "you have led, by word and by deed."

The player continues this even after being appointed Commander, and the story supports this by introducing the other primary character, Trahearne. Trahearne can be seen as symbolically representing the important qualities of the Commander, almost as a backup in case/when these qualities get edited out by players.

Trahearne also plays the role of a major supporting character, having similar goals and motivations; he has dedicated his life to cleansing Orr, because it used to be full of such life and what has happened to it is a tragedy - something to fix, and something to prevent from happening again. The devastation of Orr can be understood to symbolize the devastation to the people of Tyria if the dragons are allowed to win, and Trahearne's response to it as something that has already happened perfectly encapsulates the way the Commander reacts to it as something that cannot be allowed to happen in the future.

And the great and amazing thing is that everyone else in the story agrees. All the vast armies of unnamed soldiers - they have those same motivations and values. We know that because the Orders wouldn't exist otherwise. Nobody wants to fight such a losing battle unless they're bitter and/or seeking (futile) revenge. And those few are not the ones who are passionately leading the charge.

The leaders are the people like Almorra and Trahearne, who are fighting because the devastation and loss of life is so abhorrent to them, personally. The Pact is such a beautiful thing because everyone is united in a common goal, by a common motivation, because the dragons are honestly just that evil.

But most powerful of all is that we never expected to win. Cleansing Orr was supposed to be impossible. Killing Elder Dragons was assuredly impossible. Even trying to fight the dragons was just a defiant cry into the void, a declaration that we would not go down without a fight. Nobody expected to win, just to die, sure they'd done all they could.

And that refusal to do otherwise, the refusal to do other than hope, even amidst the destruction and lifelessness and horror of Orr, was motivated by our love for our homelands, for our people. And the player showed that by a lifestyle of helping wherever they could - by every renown heart and every event, multiple times per level, for eighty levels.

That's why I love the PS so much, I think. It's about hope in the face of the impossible, fighting on in the face of despair, because the world and life is worth fighting for, not because we ever expected to win.

And that's why actually cleansing Orr and defeating Zhaitan were such huge milestones, why everyone spent so much time marveling that we actually did it - because nobody was doing it in order to actually do it, but rather because they couldn't, in good conscience, do anything else, and it was worth it to give their lives to the cause.

The rest of the game post-Zhaitan does keep this theme of caring about the civilians, of course; but fighting the dragons now is just really difficult, not impossible and hopeless. Now there is a chance of survival, and you're fighting for a better future, and fighting isn't that hard anymore. You're not walking to certain death, you're fighting for a hope, emboldened because you know it really is possible.

After Zhaitan's defeat, there always remain hearts and events alongside the main story, because at heart the Commander is a kind and caring person who fights for the civilians, but the story itself is no longer about that concern, it's no longer about showing why the Commander cares or how dedicated the Commander is to the cause, but rather about the logistics of getting that done. It's about the Commander using their own force of inspiration, and the cause of fighting for home and country, to gather allies, proving it again and again, but in a sort of background way. The main focus of the story has moved on.

The story has moved on to questions such as is it even a good idea to be fighting dragons? The story has been, slowly, ever since S3 at the latest, having us question our decisions, making dragons out to be less and less "eldritch abominations" and more and more "corrupted/tormented by their own magic," with the ability to be spoken to and reasoned with, and even pitied. This idea runs counter to everything I've just talked about.

The ending of S4, where we speak to Kralkatorrik and we find out he's been controlled by his Torment this whole time and he's actually thoroughly miserable - it COMPLETELY destroys the whole point of Almorra's story and the way it related so beautifully to the rest of the game that made it compelling. And this is true of all of Core PS - to find out we were just wrong the whole time, completely ignorant, just misunderstanding the whole nature of the universe? That, by rights, we shouldn't have been trying to kill Zhaitan, but speak to him? It destroys all the moral and emotional credibility of the whole story. (I try to think about that as little as possible.)

Really, Core PS (and maybe up through HoT, perhaps) is a completely different story with a completely different message than S3 and onwards, and maybe that's why I've never really cared about the later parts of GW2 so much.

I've always preferred the PS because it is the most compelling part of the GW2 storyline. It was our first time. We had never won before. We were fighting clearly outlined Evil, personified as unstoppable forces of nature, and we could only win against them by such extreme acts of selfless Good as sacrificing our lives for strangers.

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skaald-of-the-hearth-fires · 2 months

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@nyoka-gorefell

I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about Logan! Yeehaw!

I mained human so I kinda liked Logan. I've always been biased toward him. I didn't necessarily think he'd made the right decision, but I supported his right to make it. Like he said in the Dream-vision of him: you would have made the same choice, any of you, if the one you loved was in danger!

Basically, it was a bad spot all around. Lose-lose situation. He made the most of it. That was my view.

I'm planning a rewrite of Edge of Destiny (someday lol) to make it better + clearer what was going on with Logan + etc.

And I found something: the narrative in the book does not condemn or exalt either decision. Either decision would have been bad, no way around it.

One problem: that's not how books work.

The way the climactic decision-point works is that you make a personal sacrifice for the good, moral quality being extolled by the narrative. If the thing you sacrificed was, itself, considered good by the narrative, there would come a surprise twist that would mean the thing wasn't actually sacrificed, as a "reward" for making the selfless decision to uphold good and moral purity or whatever.

The problem with Logan's story is that neither option was presented as the 'moral, good' option. As Logan was leaving, Eir said "you have to do what is right," but beyond this, no indication is given to Logan which option is morally superior. You can? sorta? infer that of course the main conflict with the dragon is the preferred one. Rytlock and Eir's dialogue after Logan leaves also clarifies this.

But Logan himself was never presented with a clear moral dichotomy; he was merely given the trolley problem, which is bad however you slice it.

I bet Logan would have haters even if he'd stayed; Kryta would have fallen into disarray. The Ministry would have taken power. We'd have Caudecus in charge. Human/charr relations would heat up. We'd have the return of the White Mantle like snap, or else all-out anarchy. Humanity would be toast. Logan would get all the blame from the playerbase.

So in my rewrite of Edge of Destiny, I'm fixing the problem. I'm going to assign a clear moral status to each option, and make it clear where Logan stood on that moral issue when deciding. How did I pick which option was favored?

Easy. I look at the rest of ArenaNet's storytelling. Their centuries of lore and worldbuilding. The lessons of the other story arcs. Anet's message is consistently unity. Stand together. Stand strong. The races stand unified. The Orders stand unified. With unity, many impossible things [slaying an Elder Dragon] may be achieved.

So the preferred option, the morally good option according to the storytellers, was that Logan stay. Stand with his allies. Represent human/charr unity. Defeat an Elder Dragon.

And, somehow, Queen Jennah would survive, because love and protecting people is not morally bad. If Logan sacrificed the queen for the sake of the moral truth of the narrative, proving his selflessness and commitment to the ideal of the narrative, then the queen would survive to "reward" him for his virtuousness.

It doesn't seem in-character for Anet to write Jennah as a typical damsel-in-distress, hero-gets-the-girl type of story, BUT: he didn't. Logan DIDN'T choose the morally-good option.

Typical Corruption arc: hero begins with the ideal of the story (unity is good), then over time, some negative trait overtakes him. Greed, selfishness, over-protectiveness, whatever - and leads him to destroy everything he holds dear (Destiny's Edge; his broship with Rytlock; Snaff dying; Glint, hero of humanity, dying; Kralkatorrik surviving).

I think if the book had actually written Logan like this (with the base game of GW2 being his redemption arc), he would have a lot less hate. I think a lot of the hate comes from the fact that the Edge of Destiny narrative DIDN'T outright condemn Logan's actions. And even the base game is a bit vague.

Logan didn't get his comeuppance for his bad choices (beyond the queen ditching him a few years down the line, I suppose). That's where the hate comes from.

Because nuanced, flawed characters exist, and those are the best kind. I really like Logan's character. He's one of the most human characters in the game. I like that for him.

(Also, perhaps, some of the hate stems from the assumption that Logan was simping the whole time. I'd be fed up with him too, actually, if that were true. But the queen for sure returned his feelings. Logan was acting within the bounds of an established relationship.)

This has been

Character Study: Logan Thackeray (part II)

thank you for reading!

#logan thackeray #rytlock brimstone #destiny's edge #edge of destiny #queen jennah #logan/jennah #jennah/logan #kryta #minister caudecus beetlestone #white mantle #ebonhawke #gw2 #gw2 human

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