Ecology of the Charr

This discussion has evolved to become a more detailed discussion of Charr culture and history based on in-game examples and the new PCGamer Guild Wars guide.

Especially of interest is the fact that apparently the Charr were at war with the old gods, before the humans even arrived. This leads to some interesting thoughts:

Also, here is a revised Timeline, with Charr events listed:

(Edited Timeline from Original Guild Wars manuscript [updated to include Ultimate Guide References])

It's unknown when the Charr arrived in Tyria. The Ecology article states they fought with the Forgotten, the only real threat to the Charr until humans arrive. They could have been on Tyria before the Forgotten arrive, or after.

10,000 BE (Before Exodus) Last sign of Ginganticus Lupicus (the great giants) walking on Tyrian continent (best guess).

1796 BE Serpents [the Forgotten] arrive in Tyria

205 BE Humans appear on Tyrian continent, [war with Charr begins?]

[??? BE Charr Khan-Ur assassinated]

100 BE High-planes[sic?] human settlements become known as Ascalon.

1 BE Gods give magic to races of Tyria

174 AE Serpents [the Forgotten] leave the world of men

[870 AE (approx) Charr Burnt Warband discovers Titans, start worshipping them as gods]

898 AE Great Northern Wall built

1070 AE [The Searing] Charr invade human kingdoms

1071 AE Bay of Sirens renamed Sea of Sorrow

1072 [Humans defeat Titans]

1075 [Kormir Ascends]

1078 [Present Day - Eye of the North start]

[1102 (approx) Ascalon City falls, human King Adelbern casts final spell]

[1118 (approx) Kalla Scorchrazor overthrows Flame Legion]

[1165 AE Ventari dies after writing Tablet]

[??? AE Iron Citadel raised on ruins of Rin]

[1328 (approx) AE Guild Wars 2 Start?]


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Original Question: Are Charr "Evil"?

EDIT: After much thought, I have decided that while in human terms, the Charr are "evil"; they do not consider themselves as evil. I do think they wish to conquer the world of Tyria, despite their respect of Norn and Asura, I don't think this would stop them from going to war against either race if it suited their purposes.

As many posters have noted, we have not seen all Charr or heard their side of the story. Much remains unanswered.

Pfft @ the charr

Even Pyre, who is meant to be less evil, still calls me "Meat". If it were me in that clip I would have helped Gwen, lol.

In my opinion the charr are evil, seeing as they have no allies (To my knowledge), and are disliked/not respected by anyone who comes into contact with them. Ascalonians, Krytans, Orrians, Norn, whoever.

The Norn look down on the charr most likely for being inferior, but clearly dislike them. The charr simply try to better everyone and everything around them, not caring what they do. That's pretty evil to me.

And yet, according to the PC Gamer SPOILER, the Norn actually allow the Charr to raid Kryta!

It makes no sense to me either.

Hmmm, That is odd.

Well the Norn are always looking for the best hunts, and the charr can't offer that to them. So perhaps they just didn't see the point in fighting them?

As i said the Charr are evil from a humans perspective. They believe in victory at any cost which means they dont have feelings in the battle - they will kill as long as victory is ensured.

Charr have free will but i see the Charr as being brought up to see humans as nothing - a good Charr to us will still treat a human like dirt. Its the Charrs culture imo.

As for the Norn - they look upon size as a challenge. They dont care if somethings going to attack the "small" humans. If its more trouble than a challenge its not worth it to them. Would you say thats evil or just Norn culture?.

you have a point, but the charr live in this world with countless other things, you think they'd learn some basic manners, lol. Like, pl0x dun nuuk ascal0n

QFT.

It's about where you stand, who you are and how you look at things.

I like to think of the Charr as a cross between the Klingons of Star Trek and the Orcs of LotR. They're similar to orcs because they have no honor and will use dirty tricks whenever it suits them, but they're like Klingons in that they love fighting and war. I know, the Klingon resemblance is hard to see because Klingons are all about honor, but if you can picture a Klingon that has no sense of honor, then I think that would be the Charr.

Really, I see the Charr as the anti-human. They're almost completely opposite of us. As such, I don't think anyone will ever try to play them to be the hero, but rather to be the anti-hero. Anyone familiar with comics should definitely know what I mean. Venom (from Spider-man) was portrayed as an anti-hero for a long time.

Basically, that sums up the role that I think the Charr players will fulfill in GW2 -- the anti-hero. They're not villains anymore, but they're not quite heroes yet either, they're anti-heroes. They do good when it suits them.

Picture a typical party that has one character of every race, and you'll likely see the human as the leader, the Asuran as the brainiac, the Norn as the warrior, the Sylvari as the voice of reason, and the Charr as the obnoxious jerk who no one wants around but no one can do without due to the skillset he brings to the table.

Here's another way to think of it. The Asurans balance out the Norn. The Sylvari balance out the Charr. And the humans are balanced already because we always manage to span the personality gamut.

They are not really a cross of Klingon and Orc, they are Orc. Anything weaker than them is not worth respecting, they have no honor, and they exist to destroy. Actually, the LOTR orc is a great analogy: No one ever worried about orc rights in LOTR. No one cared about their "point of view." They were evil. These are not WoW orcs, with a colorful history, honor, and redeeming characteristics. Thats why WoW orcs work as a playable race, and currently at least, Charr do not. It would be like having one Chaotic Evil character in a party of Good characters. Anyone who's played D&D knows how well that works out...

True, and that's why I clarify my point with "at this time." Of course it's possible for the Charr to turn "good" before GW2 goes live, but then that raises another question: Would this satisfy people who want to play Charr? IMO, Anet has painted themselves in a corner: They either have to re-define the Charr race as it is currently known, or they will have a radical different game where the Player no longer does "good" things. (as defined by current Guild Wars).

The LotR orcs need to burn. They're basically zombies covered in feces and the IQ of a tomato.

I prefer Warcraft orcs, whom are opposites basically - they have honor and whatnot, though this background is not truly explored until WC3.

I really like charr. In the Gwen and Pyre discussions he I always agree with what he's saying, not the weak and angry Gwen.

I think it'll be like WoW. In WoW the undead you play as are enemies of the alliance (who in a traditional view would be the good guys, since they're humans) but the undead you play as have suffered as they strove to free themselves from the dominating Lich King and essentially won their freedom. They have feelings like normal people and have a strict code of honor and government. They're not just mindless killing machines like the Urak Hai, for example.

I GW2 the Charr will most likely be very factional. You'll fight Charr and they'll be Charr outposts that are neutral with you. I also expect, that different players will experience different hostilities/friendship depending on their race/title. Obviously if you were a pure Ascalon that wanted nothing but revenge you could probably go through the whole game with Charr as your foes but if you made the effort you could get to know some factions and reap the rewards.

<--- Pure Aslcalonian



Yes, I want the charr to burn, and in the clip between Gwen and caged Pyre, I was like "Yes! Go Gwen! Have at the b**tard!"

Then my character had to step in (Laaaame). first place i went when the full GW:EN game came out was the charr home lands, lol. But sadly my killing spree came to a quick end when I reached points in the game that my graphics driver couldn't process and my GW program would shutdown when trying to enter said areas.

Since then I've stopped playing GW:En really. Until I get my new computer at least. The charr like fire? Oh, I'll give them plenty of it...

Me guess you are one of those screaming "KILL ALL THE LUXON/KURZICK SCUM" in AB?
Anyhow, Charr arent evil by default, they were only mislead by the Titans to invade the human world, but when they realized what they have done, it was to late to turn back because they know that even if they would leave the human lands humans would still want vengeance for what they have done, and even if some of them wanted to turn back after they discovered that the Titans weren't gods they were quickly silenced by the Shamans.
But now with Titans exposed as frauds, and Shamans dead it is possible for Charr to turn a new page.

Not really. we're still the worthless lower life form in their opinion and they continue to kill us instead of trying to negotiate. If they were that sorry they would have tried to make su understand instead of sending more warbands through the far shiverpeaks.

They send Warbands on the Ebon Vanguard, a unit that exist only to destroy them, so I really doubt Vanguard were in a mod to negotiate.

the charr aren't really evil. they are being controlled by the shaman caste who want to take over the world. the rest of them...well they're not "nice" but they're not evil.

The charr made no attempt to right their wrong. I think they would still destroy ascalon, but just not for the reasons they did while under the shaman's power.

SPOILER



For the record, the Charr do destroy Ascalon before GW2 (save "Ghost Ascalon City" itself). See my other thread, PCGamer Ultimate GW2 Spoilers for details. As it looks now, the Charr won't be turning good anytime soon.

but you have to remember that the lands were ascalon is built, belonged to the charr before we pushed them back.

Aye, the Charr likely held all of Ascalon before humans even arrived on Tyria. The first bit of land that the humans took when they arrived in Tyria was Ascalon. And the manual says that the Charr and humans have always fought, likely due to the human "invasion" and them settling in Charr territory.

Originally, the Charr probably just fought to get their land back, but over the centuries, that desire probably evolved into a natural hatred toward humans. The titans capitalized on this natural hatred and stirred the flames to the point that the Charr successfully seared the land.

By the end of Eye of the North, it seems that Pyre and his ilk no longer hate the humans outright because they have learned to respect them, but they still don't exactly like humans and probably never will. That doesn't mean they wouldn't show up in interspecies parties in GW2. The Norn don't particularly like humans or Charr, but they deal with them because they have learned to respect them (at least to a certain degree).

Didn't someone on these forums say that the Charr have four different sects or something like that? That combined with their religious views are a clear sign of culture, however crude it may be. The Charr may be ruthless, but they are not savage animals or anything. I think a large part of the problem is just a misunderstanding between the two races which has led to an inbred sense of hatred.

Honestly, you know what I think? Mordakai, this part is particularly aimed at you since you seem to be the most vocal disapprover of the outlook on the Charr species in GW2. ANet can very easily sidestep all your concerns by doing something very simple. Make one of the four groups of Charr (probably one that we have never met before) desire peace with all the species. Problem solved. Just make that group curious about other species, and have them desire more peaceful relations. So far we've only seen the more aggressive Charr, but there's no reason to think that the entire species is that aggressive. There can be more peaceful ones.

Here's what I think our purpose in GW2 will be: bring peace among the species. That's it. Pretty much every race except the Sylvari and Asurans are in conflict with another species or distrustful of other species. The few people who want peace among the species will be our own characters and a few NPCs. We'll basically be putting out little fires here and there, so to speak, which will be the smaller story arcs that ANet was talking about doing. There's no reason why there can't be Charr doing that too, even with the spoilers we've seen so far.

EDIT: Sorry, I had to add one more thing...

So explain why Pyre helped rescue the Ebon Vanguard if he has no honor, and explain why he stuck with the heroes through the end of GWEN if he finds them not worth respecting. Keep in mind, even the Norn don't respect weak things. They'll kill you if you're not strong enough to fend them off. The Charr are no more evil than the Norn. Just 'cause there are a few bad eggs in a bunch doesn't make them all bad. Look at how merciless some humans can be. So far we've only come into contact with the Charr military. You think their civilians are as heartless as that?

The problem with this question as to whether or not Charr are evil is hard to answer because of the ever changing back story. At first we saw them as invaders to "our" land and they brought nothing but destruction and death. Finding out we now invaded their land changes everything. Regardless though they still look at us as a food source and more often then not we would be percieved as such. We don't consider ourselves evil when we eat beef so I get the feeling they feel the same way. So it's hard to call them evil when we were the ones who threw down the gauntlet first.

Come GW2 when these ancient dragons are awakened the charr will be the least of our problems. They'll be looking for help from everyone else just like the rest of us. Although I've always wondered what type of relationship they've had with the centaurs. And now they have Asura, Sylvari and I'm hoping at some point Tengu to relate to.

I understand how you want to avoid a conversation over controversial current events hear on earth, but in my mind, the actions of the Charr and Ascalonians are allegories to a recurring theme in history.

1. "Lesser" creature has land.
2. "Greater" creature takes the land.
3. "Lesser" creature rebels.

Imperialism, racial superiority: it's sort of a twist with these common themes. Yes, the Charr are ruthless: they have no compassion, they burn and pillage, etc. But they also have been brought up to see humans as no more than animals, just as Gwen sees the Charr.

Another interesting thing to consider is the Charr family. Nothing is created mature (spare the aforementioned Uruk-hai example), so there must be Charr children and Charr mothers. We've seen the fighting, conquering Charr. What about the family dynamic? It may be we'll find out that, for example, "Charr children are abandoned by their mothers at a young age," something that makes us have less empathy for the creatures. But maybe we won't; it may never even come up.

While the "evil" decisions our character makes along the way are made out of ignorance, does that make them any less bad? As Plato said: "Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil."

In the end, I think a quote from Brother Mhenlo himself offers good conclusion: "A thin line divides good from evil in the psyche of a man. Your choices determine the path you take. Choose wisely."

PS: That was very long, but this is something I've been pondering for awhile also.

They were tools. The Ebon Vanguard served a purpose - another group to fight the Charr that still served the Shamans. The player served a purpose - a way to get out of Charr lands with a powerful protector until things calmed down enough to return.

Of course, the one thing we don't know (so far) is just how vicious the final invasion of Ascalon and the raids into Kryta were/are. It could be that they're still eating or enslaving their victims, or the invasion of Ascalon could have been preceeded by a "We know you can't stop us, but we'll let you pack up your stuff and leave first" decree, with the raids having a similar "Give us what we want and you won't get hurt" connotation. Or anything in between.

This is way off-topic, but the Uruk-hai are not created mature if you go by the books. Uruk-hai are just a tribe of large orcs. The movie screwed that part up. Sylvari, however, are born mature.

Asking if something or someone is evil, is exactly the same as asking what their definition of evil is.

Everyone draws a line at a different point. Most people draw wriggly lines with regards to evil.

It all depends. If you were charr, then no the charr are good and not evil. If you were human, I'd say that the charr were evil not good. Killing and enslaving humans? Good if you're a charr, bad if you're human. They follow the old jungle law, the survival of the fittest. They want to become the strongest and rule. Is that evil? No, if you're the one's that are going to rule. Yes, if you're the one being enslaved.

As for being tricked by the shaman's? Do you really think they care that they were tricked into nuking ascalon? They're angry cause the shaman's tricked THEM, not cause they got sent to kill humans. They'd probably go and nuke ascalon again if they had the chance, with or without the shamans. Hell, old pyre, your supposedly trusty ally is proud his dad played a part in destroying ascalon. No regrets there. That seem 'good' to you?

And as for why they helped the vanguard, well, they're helping themselves. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The majority of charr follow shamans, so freeing the vanguard to get them to fight the shaman's is the smart thing to do. Especially if they're helped by a godslaying player character who has travelled the world killing things. Meanwhile, they can sneak around the background and recruit for their cause. After all power is what matters right? So hey, why follow those losers the shamans? They're getting their butt kicked by pathetic humans. Obviously the gods are fake so you charr should revolt and join the rebels, right? But if they win and become the majority, well, they'd turn on the vanguard without doubt. They tolerate human's cause it's in their best interest right now, but after? It's even in the cutscene after you finish gwen, about future threats, and there's a nice pic of the charr (and pyre?).

You guys are missing my point. My point is not that we can't have sympathy for the Charr, of course we could.

My point is so far nothing has been shown to establish such sympathy. You'd think that in GWEN Pyre would be a bridge between the Charr and Humans. Perhaps he was meant to be. In my opinion, he fails.

Again, the story tells of Charr abducting and torturing children! You can't defend that, can you? Sure, maybe the Ascalonians did the same to the Charr, but my point is, we never see it.

We can only judge based on what we know. And all we know at this point is that Charr = Evil, and Ascalon = Good. Sure, it's a matter of perspective, but it's the only perspective we've been shown!

IMO, Anet has a lot of work to do if they want to make Charr a playable race by GW2... or maybe GW2 will be for mature players only? Torture and kill for fun!

Antother thing they did was feed some of the the imprissoned ascalonians some form of plant root, which destroyed tastebuds and stomach lining. After which it's the only thing they can eat. (story from a collector, I'll try and get a link)

Teh Linkage


"Five long years I spent in that prison camp. Five years of daily degradation and terror at the hands of the Charr. I'll never forgive them for what they did to me... to us. The only food they provided was some sort of burrower root. those blasted roots destroyed my taste buds... and much of my stomach lining. Now, they're the only thing I can digest. Please, help and old war veteran find his next meal. Go out and find me 5 Fibrous Mandragor Roots in return for:"'

I think you could draw similarities in the animosity between human and charr with the hate/hate relationship of the medieval crusades.

If you look at it from a religious point of view you have the charr who were following the demands of their (now known to be false) gods and so they went in and invaded ascalon, now pyre may be fighting against fellow charr to make them see that these gods are false; but he still has apprehensions of what to make of humans for 2 reasons:

1-he has always been conditioned (if that's the right word) into the notion that humans are his mortal enemy.

2-If you had just found out your gods weren't real, would you trust ppl who believe in a different pantheon? how do you know that THEIR gods aren't false too. just who DO you trust?

@ The Shelf-> As far as sci-fi similarities go i think the best description would be the Jafa from stargate.

I didn't understand a word of that under you mentioned the Jaffa, now I understand it perfectly and you're right! LOL

I'm such a dork XD

its not that "we are missing your point" Mordakai, its just that you are in denial.


the fact we dont see it, it doesnt mean it isnt happening. the fact that im not looking at my tv, it doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

to the point mentioned that the charr havent offered a peace treaty to the humans, well if they are winning the war, why should they? out of the "goodness" of their hearts? bs, the strong dont need to have pity on the weak. Especially if they are trying to recover the lands that belonged to them from a long time ago.

and that doesnt need to mean that the perspective we've been shown is the right one, when GW2 comes out and we play as the Charr, im sure we'll get their perspective of how they see things.

about the prisoners of war.
well, the charr only eat meat, they dont eat veggies, so they dont have veggies to give to them, and they being primary meat eaters, why should they give their meat to the prisioners, they should have killed them, but instead, they let them live (even if its a degrading enviroment ). find me how many games where there are prisioners of war they are "treated with kindness".

you remind me of a guildie, he just plain hates the Charr, virtual racism ftl.

??? OK, first off, I don't hate the Charr in real life. They are not real. Therefore, I can't be "racist" against something that doesn't exist.

You are obviously not getting it. I dislike what Anet is doing, by making Monsters into a Playable Race. It would be the equivalent of letting us side with Varesh and kill all the Sunspears. (Had Anet done that, then I wouldn't care about the Charr. Then Guild Wars would already be established as a game without rules, without morals, and where you can be a "hero" or "villian.")

But, in fact, that has not been my experience with Guild Wars. As the "heros" we always try to do right. Sometimes we fail, but never has our character been forced to do something most of us would consider "wrong."

As for the argument: "we don't know everything about the Charr"; well, that's not my fault. It's Anets. Why should it be my job to do their backstory for them, and come up with the justification of torturing children?

Because that's basically what Anet is forcing Charr players to do: defend the torturing of children. Good luck with that.

Mordakai, you're right. We haven't seen any of the good aspects of Charr at all in GW1. But why is that a pre-requirement to ANet showing us the good aspects of Charr in GW2? None of the other races have been developed very much yet. We've only just been introduced to them. In the case of the Charr, since we've already known about them, we've just been given a slightly better understanding of the situation they are currently in.

I don't know a lot about Warcraft lore, but wasn't it the case that all we knew about the orcs was that they were evil in Warcraft 1 & 2? I don't think it was until Warcraft 3 that they were given significant background to show us that this was not the case. Like I said, though, I could be wrong about this.

In any case, I don't see the current "evil" status of the Charr as a hindrance to their being "good" (absolutely or relatively) in GW2.

Regardless, though, I'm just looking forward to using Charr in PvP... That's gonna be fun.

i dunno why i bother with this discussion, Anet is gonna make the Charr a playabale race, i might play them in the pve, i will certainly join teams that have Charr players in them, ill probably play pvp with a charr every now and then.

and with the little we know about the Charr (as you have said so), im gonna hold any positive or negative judgement about them until we learn more about them in GW2 or possible another small expansions for GW1 before GW2 comes out.

im off of this discussion.

I guess this turned into a rant against Anet more than a discussion, sorry about that.

In order to get the discussion going again, I'm going to post some "pro-Charr" comments:

They don't believe in gods. I actually respect the Charr for this, although obviously I don't share their morals. Maybe in GW2 we'll find out all of man's gods (Balthazar, Melandru, Dwyana, etc) are not real either, but are something else.

I guess the positive side to all this is that GW2 looks like it will be a more mature game, dealing with bigger issues than just "Defeat the Bad Guy." Hell, if any game can create a controversy about one of it's fictional races, that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Chaotic Neutral

Somewhere I thought I read some piece of lore than in ancient times the area where Ascalon was was formerly Charr territory. I haven't been able to find this piece of lore lately, but I'm still looking.

If I do ever find it, it would explain a lot - and cast the relationship between humans and Charr into a very different light.

I don't see the way Charr treat humans and even human children as any different than how humans treat apes or dolphins or whales - they see it another species and outside their moral compass. As predators, they see any other animal as prey or a superior predator.

To get Charr and humans to stop killing each other you would have to get them to not see each other as other -animals- but as other -people-. That of course, is in addition to the animosity that also exists between the two. Its similar to an ethnic conflict - each side backs it emotions on a claim that the other is not a 'true and real person' and then a fear that this is false helps fuel an anger towards the other. A sort of logic where your people 'kill' theirs, but their people 'murder' yours.

I've been looking forward to the day I could play a Charr hero since the first day I logged into Guild Wars.

It's in the PCGamer Guide. I left it at home, so can't quote it directly, but basically the Charr were the superior race in the Ascalon area, from North and South between the Shiverpeak Mountain ranges. Then the humans came, (they call them an infestation, which fits your description of Charr viewing humans as animals). The Humans won early victory, with the help of their gods, and so the Charr felt they needed gods to compete. Enter the Flame Legion, and the Titans. Then the searing, the fall of the Titans, and Charr civil war. In a way, it seems once again we are responsible for destruction: by helping Pyre kill the Shaman leader, we set up the unification of the Charr and the fall of Ascalon. (where are we when this happens is not explained).

I'm sure others tried to explain this to me, but I was too dense.

That's the best explanation of it so far: Is it "torture" to keep pigs in small places for pork? Never thought of it like that...


And so, maybe the clues that Humans are the Monsters have been in GWEN all along, I just didn't see it: The Asura call us "bookah", their word for Monster. I'm not about to call the Charr good, but I'll stop calling the Ascalonian's good... if King Addlebrain had any sense, he would have left Ascalon long ago. Blood is on his hand as well...

If Ascalon was charr territory and they did want it back that's fair enough, I'd be doing the same thing.

But instead they turned to destroying the land? Like, talk about irony, why would they do that to their own land? And how in hell did the ascalonians manage to build that freaking heck of a wall in the time it took between the charr being pushed out and the time they pushed back.

Though I guess it would explain alot about why the charr attacked to me, and I do now see them as alot less evil. I hadn't known that it was taken charr land (Which would explain the reason the wall was built in the first place in the position defending against the north.

I remember one of the first things I saw in the charr home lands was a small bridge of ascalonian design. I coudn't understand why they would build a bridge based on the designs of their enemies. Now knowing what I do now it could well be that ascalonian buildings and design was charr made, which would explain the bridge. Back in those times charr dind't have the titans which would change their culture quite alot, and this could be the reason for having no titan effigies(sp?)


This thread has indeed given me much to think about...But still, from our point on view we were wronged because we were peaceful and all we knew was this charr threat. I wont ever like the charr, but I can understand them more and no longer hate them