The "Good" leaders of the GW world.

After looking at the potential failures of leadership in the next generation of GW(2) leaders, lets look at the existing leaders of GW(1).

King Adelbern
The archetypical over-the-hill warrior king. He was great once, and his biggest challenge came during his last years.

Depicted to be a stubborn die-hard by Prince Rurik in the first chapter, I think he somewhat redeemed himself somewhat when we went to rescue him in the Titan quests. Leading from the front!.

Prince Rurik
Man of Action, for a while anyway. Depicted as the real hero of Ascalon, by leading the people in a retreat. What? Oh well, heroism is not all about killing stuff.

His decisions are questionable in an "out of a pan into the fire" way. He did make the ultimate (or maybe not) sacrifice for his people. I'm just glad the White Mantle did not take our betrayal out on the Ascalonian refugees.

Jalil and Brechnar Ironhammer
Suicidal buggers. (See Thunderhead Keep and Ring of Fire Mission) Nice enough chaps, thought they look completely silly in the movie clips.

Besides their suicidal tendencies, they seem to make level-headed decisions. Not bad as leaders go, while they are alive.

Confessor Dorian and Justicar Hablion
We thought they were good, now they're just throw-away evil characters. Their motivations are unknown, although they could have lived it up in Lion's Arch, instead they were trampsing in the swamp and snow, getting themselves killed.

Evennia and Sadira
Typical young rebel leaders. They were doing well until they started messing with forces beyond their understanding.

Handing the Sceptre of Orr to Vizier Khilbron? Not too smart, ladies. In the end, their organisation paid for their failures, and one of them paid with her life. The other is living it up with the Seven Dwarves in S. Shiverspeak. FAIL.

Vizier Khilbron
Since its the Kingdom of Orr, I assume there's a King of Orr, who has an evil Vizier of the Sinbad mould. That alone drops points for the King of Orr. Shame on you.

As for Vizier Khilbron, his mistake was probably to constantly underestimate players who paid for their game. We'll win eventually. Get that into your thick skull. Got us at every turn though until the end though. Too smart to be a good guy.

Seer and Glint
Enigmatic, so I am not sure if they are actually the good guys. Their granny voiceover kills it for me though. Guides more than leaders.

And for though people wondering why Glint and his descendents won't help us in GW2, take a look in the mirror at what you were doing to get Bonus for Dragon's Lair. Sunny side up for you, sir?

Master Togo
Top bloke, lead from the front all the way to the bitter end. (Except when he gets stuck in Vizunah Square Mission).

He's always right, and made the ultimate sacrifice. 10/10 leader. *Yawn*

Emperor Kisu
Everyone was quick to use the "N" word to describe his descendant, but lets take a look at the good Emperor for a while.

Ok, Master Togo and a couple of Canthan Peasants praise his good work, but open your eyes. Look at the state of the place and tell me he's a good leader. Sure, he might very well be a benevolent leader surrounded by corrupt officials, but that makes him a failure too.

He does not have a troops to keep the city in order. So no wonder he does not want a protracted war in the distance against the Tengu. Anyway, the Tengu can talk, and are geographically a barrier between the humans and the non-talking Kappa and Nagas. Don't praise his sentient humanoids policies just yet.

Lets not forget that he's descended from an Emperor who allowed himself
to be killed by his super powerful bodyguard.

Count Zu Heltzer and Elder Rhea
What the heck are you guys fighting over? Both of them are push-overs with regards to their national treasures. Gave it to a bunch of strangers at the urgings of a few foreigners. I'm glad our storage systems aren't run by these guys. Dubious moral leadership.

Kormir
She admitted it. Its all her fault, all this Nightfall business. Curiousity got the better of her and she unleashed it on the world. And just to add insult to injury, she gets rewarded for it, instead of us.

Elona deserves Palawa Joko just for that reason. Curse ye Gods! The first thing WE would've done if we became a God is to feed Palawa Joko to Aijundu. (ok, maybe not, we all love Palawa Joko.)

Notice how she never fights when she's in the missions with you? At least give us some Shouts! All she taught me was how to use the Ressurect Signet, and everything else she did was either wrong or dubious.

Elder Suhl and Co.
Bunch of blame-shifting softies. They deserve their Corsairs and monsters. Leeching beaurocrats! I hope Palawa Joko got you!

Warmarshal Varesh and her Generals
We never even got a chance to think they were good. Varesh is too pretty to be evil, although the extra eyes became a bit disturbing after a while.

The fact that the Kournans on the ground were not interested in the fight is obvious. Varesh and Co. were foiled as often by their own Kournan troops as by us. Think about it. Poor detached leadership and a failure to bring the populace alone with their policies.

The Princes of Vabbi
They whimpered, they promised, they ran and hid, and eventually were cajoled into helping. Two of them had throw-away personalities, but Prince Bokka the Magnificent rocked.

Typical autocrats, taking care of themselves first, and hiding their heads in the sand when trouble comes. Their only good decision is in the fashion sense for their soldiers.

Palawa Joko
A sparkle in a sea of characters that lacked personality. So what if he is an evil undead tyrant, we love him.

He was decent to us, as well. So what if he wants to rule the Desolation, its not as if anyone else wants to be there, except to farm SS/LB points.

Crafty bugger made us do ALL his reconstruction work for him. Thats astute thinking. Obviously the undead are as lazy as humans without his leadership. And if he's able to band them all together again to threaten the world, all the power to him.

Excellent work, nice collection and very interesting to read.

I totally agree about Palawa Joko.

Prince Rurik on the other hand I would say is one of the better leaders. Although many people hate him for his overaggroing, he really does come across as a heroic and passionate man. I think killing him was as big a mistake as destroying Ascalon.

That aside, if he had lived through the Shiverpeaks our heroes could have got off early and settled down in the Ascalon settlement. The Lich would never have found the scepter, the undead would have eventually fallen apart due to lack of leadership. The titans would have never been released and the mursaat would have carried on as always, which was only taking 6 chosen every now and again. Not much at all.

Oh, you missed Jalis

Actually, Prince Ahmtur did come across as a good leader to me. He was the only one during the meet-the-princes mission that actually believed Varesh was a threat, and he fought while the other two hid. The problem was that he was pretty much solely responsible for Vabbi's security with no significant help from the other two, and hence his forces were thinly stretched even before Varesh showed up, so he was basically caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Now, Prince Mehtu the Wise certainly failed to live up to his reputation...

An FDS against fire titans.

That says it all and that's my opinion about him.

Jalil and Brechnar Ironhammer
Suicidal buggers. (See Thunderhead Keep and Ring of Fire Mission) Nice enough chaps, thought they look completely silly in the movie clips.

Besides their suicidal tendencies, they seem to make level-headed decisions. Not bad as leaders go, while they are alive.[/quote]

Brechnar was cool because he sacced himself to get us through. Which is funny because even with all henchmen, I could take out all those mursaat at the beginning. Talk about a waste

Agreed

Agreed

Agreed

I wonder what the other Seers, Mursaat and Glint will play in GW2. Maybe Glint has been busy and has been making a baby dragon army

Agreed. Considering that Elona is her homeland, she should be doing something more than just chillaxing with Melandru while Palawa is wtfpwning Elona.

Agreed. His damn whiney voice made me want to strangle him.

Agreed

Kinda agreed, while I do agree that Bokka = win, I would like to point out that Ahmtur isn't a scaredy cat, he's a soldier.

Agreed. Palawa Joko = godly amounts of win

He obviously expected the players to supply a Winter spirit for him...

Which is funny, Winter is bugged. Apparently it changes the damage to cold AFTER armour has been factored in.

All this love for Palawa Joko:

I see an undead race being very popular, or at least support for the Mordant Crescent (basically, traitorous Sunspears given power over death. Death Knights FTW?)

Undead are plain awesome.. But turncoat jedi? blechh disgusting. Although the Jedi clearly proved that even at the peak of your power you could be crushed fast.


And for those who didn't get it, the sunspears were like Jedi.

Adelbern

Was a good man, though a bit too stubborn about tradition and defending Ascalon. Real ass to his own son, too. I'd say his greatness began to decline as he got older.

Rurik

People hate him, though I don't. They say he can't tank, IMO he tanks fairly well for an NPC. He truly was dedicated to his people, all the way until the end. He could have made a difference if not for Dagnar.

Togo

I hated him. I hated Factions. Leaderwise though, he was very useful, and instead of sitting on his cushy chair barking orders, he usually travelled with us.

Kormir

Good leader, the Nightfall manual gives more backstory to her, I just think she didn't deserve Godhood though.

Princes of Vabbi

Mehtu the Wise and Bokka the Magnificent were the scaredy cats (though Bokka's hilariousness made up for that). Ahmtur the Mighty is definitely the bravest and the most assertive of the group. Don't got much to say about him as I took Margrid's story path, and still haven't gotten around to playing through Master of Whisper's missions after unlocking him at the end.

Palawa Joko

Very cunning leader, hilarious too. I can see how his original invasion during Turai's lifetime was of big significance. I just wish he was on our side, though. Elona didn't deserve to get the guillotine in GW2.

"I leave you alone for a few hundred years, and you let everything go to hell!"
-Palawa Joko

Best line ever.

Actually, the PC Gamer thing said that Palawa Joko saw the Sunspears as his enemies, and wanted to crush them.

As far as I know, the only "Sunspears" he met was us, and we helped and saved him.

If only the later generations of Sunspears knew how to play their diplomatic cards right. /moan

Clearly we got him to do what we wanted because we had Zhed around. Our descendent's didn't have Zhed around so they phailed

Brings up an interesting question. Why didn't we just secure him with a solid squad of Veldrunner centaurs? Never let him raise his army in the first place.

Two answers I can think of:

1) We gave our word.

More importantly, however:

2) Palawa represented a way to build an army to help counter Varesh's. Basically, it's a case of balancing one villain against the other.

It obviously led to problems later, but at least the world isn't in Torment now.

I love Palawa and all that funny things he used to say, but man i just hope that in GW2 he and his army will get some kind of cooler armor because right now he looks like a clown and i would excpet undead army to be kind of mighty and scarry like Orrian undeads but NO! In NF we got some mumies and sphings and stuff. Oh and i hope those Death Knights (sunspear traitors) will look cool.

Yeah, I agree.

Nightfall undead were ugly. Your standard mummies and whatnot. The only thing I liked was the giants, whose heads would fall off...

I hope they still have junundu

Vizier Khilbron was not evil at the beginning, like Shiro, all he did was tricked by the demon and used the wrong spell.

How about Abaddon??

Agree'd totally for Palawa Joko he was the cooliest semi-bad guy ever
and that too is my favourite line
"I leave you alone for a few hundred years, and you let everything go to hell!"
-Palawa Joko
agree'd best line ever!

I did some reading on Kisu and I find his leadership brilliant and cunning. He has agents in the city keep the scale of the two gangs balanced so neither gets too powerful and tries to go for the throne. I also like how he lets the Kurzicks and Luxons keep their freedom despite their blood fued.

On the other hand, that's essentially admitting that if it wasn't for the two being at each other's throats, they would have the power to threaten the throne. Not really an encouraging thought for the quality of his leadership or the strength of his power base.

On the other other hand, he's just had the population of his domain decimated by a supernatural plague. And before that, was running a city that is far, far over burdened due to the long-lasting effects of the Jade Wind that mean that everyone is cramped in 1 giant city, with only a tiny minority of guards at his disposal. You try governing that.
(And you can see a lot of similarities between Lord Vetinari and Emperor Kisu if you look hard enough).

As for the rest, well:

Vizier Khilbron - Was he actually evil, or just corrupted after Orr exploded? Now that we know theres a massive corruption dragon down there, who's to say. Well, if was actually a Vizier, then he probably was evil, thats how these things work. But it might just be an honorary titles for evil undead. Who knows?

Evennia - Annoying. Especially for those cartographers among you. She just stood there on he little cliff taunting you with her spare exploration. I got the better of her, though! I got the spiders to kill her. Fun.

Glint - Turned out to be very forgiving, in the end. I wouldn't trust someone who went about stealing my eggs with the protection of my young. Not that I have eggs or young, but the principle is the same.

Elder Rhea - Helped Zho learn how to make a Black Moa, who in turn taught us. Win.

Seer - Who on Earth are you? I mean, come on! You're from an ancient race that hates the mursaat... care to tell us why? Or what the Mursaat are? nope, you just like hovering there looking really mysterious. I want my curiosity satisfied, dammit!

The Gods - What are you doing now, huh? While our world was being raped by everything imaginable, all you did was get Balthazar to tread on Lion's Arch. Real helpful, guys.

Grenth in particular - You really, really suck. You can't keep control of your realm, we have to recapture all the villains you let free like Shiro and the Lich... Olias is the only who seems to trust you, saying "Abaddon is dead. And I assure you, Grenth will not make the mistake that the other gods did. We will not hear from Abaddon again in this lifetime... or the next.". Translated, thats, "Oh, He'll be out terrorizing the world again in a few months after getting released for good behavior"

The correct term is "on the gripping hand" (Ten points if you get the reference...)

On the vestigial arm, however, that was policy before the plague hit. I'll concede on having to deal with overcrowding, however, but if he had a strong enough powerbase he should be trying to gun for them instead of playing them off against each other.

Of course, for all we know he could have been preparing to drop the hammer on them when Shiro intervened.

Some of these leaders make sacrifices of themselves for good of soceity or good for others (for example, Kormir sacrificed herself to become a demi-god and bring in a new era and Togo sacrificed himself to save the Emperor). Other than that, most of the leaders (especially Kisu) are pretty much screwed up.

Some sacrifice...

Yeah, sign me up! I'm willing to give my all to the cause!

(That said, it COULD be considered a sacrifice if it means she now has to watch her land devastated by Palawa while for whatever reason being unable to intervene...)

I dunno, the tone I got from the movie clip was that she was maddened by the power that was being unleashed, and wanted it all for herself. Or it could just be poor CG and bad voice acting.

She's the new evil god, I say.

Nah - the point of the scene was that if someone didn't take control of the power, it would have exploded over everything and killed at least the heroes if no-one else (possibly up to and including the entire world, if it turned out the world's balance required it). She did it to prevent that.

That said, it could be that Abaddon's portfolio is inherently corrupting in some way - Abaddon wasn't the original God of Knowledge, after all.

IS it me who did not understood their character or they weren't exactly evil. They were just (over)zealous and had some gods who were teh kind to get on the non-infused nerves.

Six of one, half-dozen the other. Hablion certainly seemed to enjoy killing the Chosen on the Bloodstone, but it's possible that he just thought he was just eliminating a threat to the greater good.

Certainly they're no higher than LN (even a Lawful G character should start objecting to human sacrifice) on the D&D axes, but we don't really have enough information to know for sure if they were actually evil or just doing what they felt needed to be done to defend Kryta.

There are, however, certainly some strong indications that the White Mantle weren't exactly believers in equality.

On the prosthetic wrist, though, Emperor Kisu was born after the Jade Wind, so hasn't been alive for hundreds of years. Blame his ancestors and be done with it.

GW is riddled with hilarious voice acting so I would notch it on ANet not getting the message across properly

Okay, that's a really strange Motie...

He plays with words.

What about the other great leaders?

Shiro - lead the army of afflicted and shirokens and things.

Undead Lich - lead the titans to crush those who would oppose him, and let's not forget that he did trick us into getting that Scepter for him.

The guy who beat Palo Joku (spl?) all those many years ago.

And the most important leaders of all... US? We lead other humans, centaurs, char, asuras, because we rule! We've beaten gods, titans, dragons, every single enemy that has underestimated us ended up defeated. M. Bilson? We beat him too.

It goes without saying that I kick ass.

Varesh wasn't really evil. Kayet corrupted her long before the game started. We never saw her do anything by her own will. That final, tired "Yes...hail Abbadon..." said it all: Her body and mind were loyal to Abbadon, but her soul was his slave.

though he technically dosen't count since he refused the position, I think Pyre Fierceshot had a lot of qualities of a good leader, if a rather brutal one.

He is a Charr though so that's to be expected

It's a common trope that the best leaders usually don't want the job.

Arsie said:
King Adelbern
The archetypical over-the-hill warrior king. He was great once, and his biggest challenge came during his last years.

Depicted to be a stubborn die-hard by Prince Rurik in the first chapter, I think he somewhat redeemed himself somewhat when we went to rescue him in the Titan quests. Leading from the front!.

=========================================

If the players went w/ Adelbern, this would be a very short game - we retake Ascalon and the surrounding lands, pray to melandru to get the grass & crops growing again, and call it a day.

The Charr really aren't that intimidating, and they don't seem to be very good at using tactics - they basically seem to rely on the fact that their big scary cat-things to push others around.

I felt Rurik's death was rather empty - he should have at least died by being swarmed by stoen summit dwarves...