In a recent TowerTalk Lore Special Angel Leigh McCoy and Scott McGough were discussing Scarlet Briar and her influence on the Guild Wars 2 universe. A lot of interesting things came up that I have thought about, but I was most interested in the ways in which Scarlet redefines what it means to be Sylvari.
GameSkinny saw in its GW2 Fasion Contest that a lot of creative roleplayers out there who did interesting things with their armor and backstory, but the game itself has (before this month) only presented players with two types of Sylvari.
Previously there were the good Sylvari that did as the Pale Tree requested, whether that be Wyld Hunts and adventuring or simply being kind and following Ventari’s wisdom. The Nightmare Court Sylvari served as the other type, trying to corrupt the Dream of Dreams. Scarlet is neither.
There are other races in Tyria, but Asura come in four types of snarky (Inquest, Synergetic, Dynamic, Static), Charr come in four legions (Ash, Iron, Flame, Blood), Humans are widely varied based on class and ethnicity, and Norn are as individual as possible. Only Sylvari fit into two nice boxes and I can’t say that anymore because Scarlet Briar might have blown the boxes up.
The thing she did, that almost nobody in Tyria has ever done, is travel with an open mind. The only great traveler I can think of (beyond Nicholas who maybe deserves his own article) is Mhenlo and when Mhenlo moved around the world he always carried with him a distinctly Ascalonian perspective. I would argue that Scarlet Briar is the first NPC to ever be open-minded enough to redefine her race.
Scarlet started off as a different sort of Sylvari, though. She was born with a base understanding of the Eternal Alchemy (the way things work) that The Dream never taught any other Sylvari.
Understanding the world is a trope of great villany. Sylar from Heroes, The Master from Doctor Who, and Professor Moriarty from Sherlock are all super creepy villains with a little too much understanding of how things work. This shouldn’t be possible for a Sylvari. They should wake up stupid and innocent, but Scarlet didn’t wake up stupid; she woke up scheming.
After stealing knowledge from every accessible race on Tyria and being experimented on by a mad Asura, Scarlet changed her body and her mind. She is now a super-villain that the several million citizens of Tyria have to group up to defeat.
We knew that Sylvari could grow their own armor from their cultural sets. We knew Sylvari could change their physical form. We didn’t know they could break their connection to the Pale Tree. We didn’t know they could completely forget Ventari’s teachings. What makes Scarlet a new species (Superiari?) is that she is not contributing to the legacy of her people in the Dream of Dreams. She is not Sylvari (in my opinion) if she isn’t connected. Your thoughts?
