That was the question posed to me when I first tried to introduce a friend to Guild Wars about a year ago. They had a point; why are so many of us running around, fighting monsters and fallen gods when we could be more comfortable at home with our families?
The answer, as so many things in the Guild Wars universe do, comes down to the gods.
The Prophecies Manuscripts give us a hint:
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When a hero dies, his spirit goes to one of two places: either it is buried with the deceased body, forever trapped inside the rotting flesh and rancid bones of the corpse, or it is released into the Rift. This latter honor goes to only those few whose deeds in life were legendary enough to be known across multiple worlds, and fewer still earn a place among the souls ensconced inside the Hall itself.
It�s since been shown that the spirit actually has many more destinations than just that, however this does give insight into one of the most important theological concepts in human religion on Tyria: If you want the favor of the gods, you have to do legendary deeds.
There is no concept of justification by faith alone, nor by self-introspection, nor by acceptance of any fundamental hierarchy of nature, nor even by good deeds; only legendary deeds can earn one a satisfying afterlife. This is supported by the fact, in-game, that the favor of the gods is only granted when someone achieves a truly remarkable or legendary achievement.
This cornerstone of human faith leads to a very noteworthy conclusion: The faithful must be active adventurers.
Living a quiet life at home, hurting no one and spending time happily with one�s family does not bring about the gods� good graces. In fact, it does the opposite; the ignominy of living a quiet life and dying peacefully in bed almost guarantees that the spirit will be forgotten, trapped in the rotting corpse. For many, this may be an acceptable trade-off; a quiet life now, a quiet afterlife later.
However, for those with any ambition in their hearts, the gods demand great things. This helps to explain the presence of so many adventuring monks. They are dedicated to the gods and therefore must adventure to try to achieve notoriety and fame for their talents and their piety. The concept of fame in the Guild Wars universe may be seen as a form of prayer. The more voices speaking a person�s name, the more likely that the gods shall hear and take notice.
This can be seen in the obsession of the Elonian Ascension Pilgrims in surviving the desert and making towers grand enough to draw the attentions of the gods. By following their greatest hero in living memory, Turai Ossa, many hoped that they could follow his lead into the glory of ascension and, presumably, thereafter into the Rift, maybe hoping to become �known across multiple worlds,� the ultimate religious crusade.
Shing Jea Monastery is another example of the importance of adventuring to the faith of the Five (later the Six) True Gods. This is a huge religious institution dedicated to teaching the arts and skills needed to brave the sorts of challenges the gods demand of humanity.
Even those who aren�t monks but who, nevertheless, are faithful or ambitious or just desire a nice afterlife, feel the religious call to action. This is where guilds come in.
Guilds are an international concept, as omnipresent in Elona and Cantha as in Tyria. This helps to bolster the fact that they are a shared part of the faith in the Six True Gods, rather than an isolated cultural artifact of any one continent. The recent PC Gamer article on Guild Wars 2 says it best:
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Guilds are a prominent force in Tyria, taking on challenges that individual adventurers fear to face�
The Guild Wars themselves were an example of this sense of great religious adventure. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of guilds in Tyria competing, bloodily, with one another to be the first to track down the bloodstones, exactly the sort of fame the gods desire from humanity.
The Heroes' Ascent tournament is another example. Here, faithful adventurers brave some of the deadliest fighting in known existence in order to gain the fame of having "taken" the Hall of Heroes and, potentially, the ability to traverse to other worlds, again following the decree of the gods to spread one's name through adventure.
Thus, in brief summary, most guilds are collaborations of humans faithful to the Six True Gods working together to try to achieve the wide notoriety they hope will achieve them a better place in the afterlife.|||an interesting and well thought out peice of writing, well done|||Quote:
Living a quiet life at home, hurting no one and spending time happily with one�s family does not bring about the gods� good graces. In fact, it does the opposite; the ignominy of living a quiet life and dying peacefully in bed almost guarantees that the spirit will be forgotten, trapped in the rotting corpse. For many, this may be an acceptable trade-off; a quiet life now, a quiet afterlife later.
Great post! However, there is evidence that suggests that a quiet life does not necessarily mean the spirit is condemned to rot with their physical corpse for the rest of all time. After all, if we consider the fate of spirits such as Sarah from Ashford Abbey, they certainly lived quiet lives as farmers, animal herders, and herbalists, and yet their spirits journeyed to the Underworld after they died.
In addition, the dialogue between Shiro and the two spirits of the Canthan civilians slain by the Afflicted at the end of the Nahpui Quarter mission suggests that most, if not all, of the spirits who die end up going to the Mists.
It may be that the 'trapped with the corpse' fate is merely a myth invented by the followers of the Gods in order to exhort them to achieve great deeds in life. Alternatively, it may be a form of punishment for those who committed great crimes.
I think it's far more likely that when somebody dies, their spirit is met by one of the Envoys, who guides the spirit into the Mists and into the realm of Grenth. There, Grenth judges all who come before him and directs them to their proper afterlife. Those who achieved only mediocrity in their life are relegated to spend their afterlife within the Underworld. Those who achieved greatness instead go to the Hall of Heroes. Those who committed grave sins are instead condemned to the Realm of Torment.
EDIT: A new thought just came to me. It's possible that the 'trapped with the corpse' fate was a system in place when Dhuum was running the show. He was, after all, described as a cruel and unjust God. Now that Grenth is in control, he changed the way the afterlife works.|||Quote:
Great post! However, there is evidence that suggests that a quiet life does not necessarily mean the spirit is condemned to rot with their physical corpse for the rest of all time. After all, if we consider the fate of spirits such as Sarah from Ashford Abbey, they certainly lived quiet lives as farmers, animal herders, and herbalists, and yet their spirits journeyed to the Underworld after they died.
In addition, the dialogue between Shiro and the two spirits of the Canthan civilians slain by the Afflicted at the end of the Nahpui Quarter mission suggests that most, if not all, of the spirits who die end up going to the Mists.
The Rift is something different than the Mists. The Rift lays in the middle of the Mist, being the most important place there. The spirits of the dead may go to the Mists but a place in the Rift and maybe even the Hall of Hero's is only reserved for the greatest of hero's.|||Very insightful post; I always just assumed that it seemed as though there were many "adventuring" types because those were the characters that we played, and that there were many thousands of unseen villager-types working behind the scenes of our grand escapades. This "adventure as a type of prayer" is a very interesting take on the situation of Tyria.
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