#but it’s high time we go back to maguuma

[ratasum]

I want SO so badly to enjoy SotO. I really do I swear to god I did not come into it wanting to dislike it. I hesitated posting this at all. I'm still extremely hedgy about it.

I was incredibly excited, hype as hell, posting thoughts and analyses of the different things that dropped, and I genuinely enjoyed the first release. There was a high there, and outside of Mabon's death and what felt like a tendency towards more tentatively telling than showing anything, I was hooked in.

But the following two drops have just... killed any hope or enjoyment I had. With them being so short, plot threads that were genuinely fascinating feel like they won't have time to get tied up and will be left to dangle forever. Zojja, whose "exciting character arc" was bare bones and all told in journals you had to scavenger hunt for, was promptly ascended off screen and then shuffled out of the narrative (I have other issues with her writing too as someone who plays a LOT of asura but I don't want to get into it). We haven't seen her since the very opening moments of the second chapter, and anet leaned hard on bringing her back as a big thing in this expac.

But the most glaring thing to me is something that hits more personally. That for me, as someone who grew up adjacent to cults and now has family members actively IN a cult, the behavior of the Wizards has come off as incredibly suspicious since the JUMP, and I was genuinely hoping some of the ambient dialogue and some of the odd journals were going to mean something.

The isolating of new members away from anything they knew, the lovebombing of "you're here because you're special we can see what's so good and special about you," and the use of tragedy and personal loss IN THE MOMENT OF IT HAPPENING to pull the final string of "You can stay here and you'll never have to experience like that again; the world can't hurt you if you stay here forever."

It's terrifying to see this presented as a positive to me. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with it, since I see that kind of behavior play out in real time with my own family.

And it sucks because there's an EXCELLENT skeleton there. I'm fascinated by the Kryptis and their plight, I like that the wizards come off as incredibly shady and not actually as benevolent as they appear, the conflict has so much potential. I like (most) of the new characters. I ADORE the voice acting. And the Horn of Maguuma and Nayos are genuinely beautiful locations. There was so much potential for emotional turmoil in Zojja's arc if they'd followed through with it. Mabon was an interesting connection to the wizards I hadn't expected. We know some part of Lyhr regrets that he ascended at all, feeling like he was manipulated. There's the mystery of that Kodan who left without unascending!

But there's one drop left and with how short the last two drops were I just don't feel like there's enough time.

I hope they prove me wrong. I'm being as optimistic as I can.

I want to be wrong about my misgivings because I love this game, and when I complain, it's not out of malice. It's because I remember how it felt to be excited for every drop, waiting on the edge of my seat during Living Worlds and lamenting having to stop playing to sleep during expacs.

I want that feeling back and it sucks that I can't seem to find it.

[i-mybrunettelady]

4 and 12 for Alysannyra from the ask game?

hello anon! i assume you meant this ask game? Either way, Commander asks are so good, so we're going with them, and ty for dropping by <3

4. How intertwined is the role of Commander with them as an individual? Are they lost without it?

A good question!! Very intertwined. But not the way you may be thinking. Nyra's always been ambitious, wanted great things, we all know that, and the physical manifestation of that is her tenure as Commander. She's attached to the Pact, it's as much her child as Aurene is, and even though she does follow the canon storyline of resigning in season 3, she later rejoins in season 4 at the behest of Logan. But even if she didn't, her goal was met; people knew her name far and wide.

Yet, she would stay around the Pact for the rest of her life even if she wasn't the Commander still. She would try to affect its decisions and her word would (and does) carry great weight. And she'd use it to stroke her own ego, maybe even unknowingly. She can't stay away from what she created, she can't stay on the sidelines while the organisation her decisions brought to life and shaped since its infancy.

So yes, the role of Commander is important to her on a personal level. She could survive without being the Commander, but she's also the Champion of Aurene, so it's good. And she rejects the Wayfinder title because it's nearly not authoritative enough for her tastes. So she's either Commander or Champion! Though Astral Ward must call her Commander bc she asks to. It's.. It's a point of pride at this point.

12. How has their opinion of themselves changed during the course of their adventure? Was this a gradual change?

It was very much not a gradual change. She basically went from I AM THE GREATEST PERSON EVER to I AM A MURDERER AND THE LITERAL WORST in the span of... 45 days, iirc that's how long HoT takes place. Babymander Nyra, as I affectionately say, is the prideful, arrogant, egotistical, immature version of the person she is now; that's Nyra between personal story and HoT, so ages between 19 and 22! There's a lot to be said about Babymander Nyra but she is just that - a baby on a power trip, cocky, self-assured, nothing can touch her, she's soaring high above.

Then she had to do what she did in HoT and it forever changed her view of herself. In the aftermath of it, where she's dealing with self-loathing, grief, guilt, healing from a very difficult shoulder surgery to, y'know, help save it from when Mordremoth struck her, everything she was once proud of became a brand on her skin and bad. She still doesn't really like herself, but she's not as bad as she was back then. She's since had extensive therapy as well.

Now, she's a mixture of both. She's healing, she's doing better, but she will never be the person she was before Maguuma again. Nyra's awfully bad at self-compassion, so there are times where she actively resents it, even though it's still who she is, deep down. Nyra's view of herself is messy, complicated, ever changing, but deep down, she has remained the same. And I will leave you with this - if she were offered a chance to take it all back, she wouldn't. There are demands greater than her suffering, which is... herself and her ego and her ambition. So yeeeaaaaah.