User:-Makai

I've been playing GW for a little over three years now, so I thought it time to make a GWW account. Below are some suggestions and/or observations.

Stuff

Who Speaks for the Heket?

Earlier, I was a little appalled by Nicholas's most recent desire. In response, I thought I'd try to gather a little sympathy for our poor amphibious friends. For aesthetic reasons, heket are one of my favorite races in Guild Wars and I wish they could be portrayed in a positive light.

To begin, I think it's important to understand that, unlike many territorial creatures in Guild Wars, heket are sentient. Proof can be found in the Nightfall quest, For Your Ears Only, where the player overhears heket speaking the common language. Also, the use of weapons and tools to craft dwellings (primarly found in Sparkfly Swamp) show that heket are intelligent, sentient creatures.

However, the focus of my argument has little to do with heket found in Nightfall. Considering Varesh hired the heket as mercenaries to combat Vabbi and the Sunspears, they had to be stopped. What I'm concerned about are the EOTN heket, also known as frogmen. Unlike NF heket, frogmen are confined within certain boundaries and their conflicts are strictly defensive.

I'm a little disgusted by the actions of the Shining Blade in Gadd's Encampment, specifically the quest Frogstomp, where the player helps Hayda wipe out an indigenous tribe. Here is Bartholos's reasoning:

"Ah, <Player name>, have I got an opportunity for you. The Shining Blade has its hands full, what with civil war, White Mantle, and crazy Asura. Now we've got an infestation of frogmen. They're a threat to the camp and, frankly, they smell funny."

I find it interesting how Bartholos mentions "infestation" when several heket structures can be seen throughout Sparkfly Swamp, indicating the agari tribe was there before the Blade. Furthermore, he literally adds insult to injury in the reward dialogue:

"I'm glad to hear the frogmen have been dealt with. Now, maybe we can focus on matters at hand instead of worrying about croaking in the middle of the night."

In my mind, the Shining Blade is no better than the White Mantle. The Mantle sacrificed Krytans to keep its power while the Blade slaughtered the agari tribe because they got in the way of recovering a bloodstone. I'll even go so far as to say the Blade's invasion of Sparkfly Swamp is similar to the Charr's conquest of Rin (though obviously on a much smaller scale). And let's not forget the Kournans. At least they were "generous" enough to enslave the centaurs instead of just completely wiping them out.

In the end, the big difference lies in manipulation. The Mantle sacrificed Krytans to please the Mursaat, just as the Charr conquered Ascalon to pay tribute to the Titans. In the case of Zhed and his kin, they were enslaved to fuel Varesh's war machine. Unlike these villains, the Blade was not swayed by some supernatural force; its decision to kill the agari was completely conscious.

And thus, as the War in Kryta continues with the bloodstone presumably being used to combat the Mantle, remember those agari who died trying to protect their homes and families from bigoted invaders. The armrests on Salma's throne are caked in amphibian blood.

---Makai 02:01, 1 June 2010 (UTC)