Mursaat - Good or Evil?

I've just completed the mission where you unleash the Titans, and I've questions regarding the truth of the Mursaat.

They seem cruel before and after we discover their true intentions. However you look at it, the chosen were guilty of nothing. They were "chosen" to unleash the Titans (unknowingly of course), but they were innocent. That alone doesn't make them evil though; it makes them harsh and austere, but not evil.

Still, after Saul and company defeated the Charr, the Mursaat turned on the Mantle (my understanding was that the Mantle was initially noble, but the Mursaat killed all but three of the most zealous, it went to Hell). Essentially, they killed those that didn't devote themselves completely and totally.

Were the Mursaat more along the Chaotic Good alignment, or were they truly tyrannical and simply preventing the Titan's from being released solely because they thought that only the Titan's could truly destroy them? Was it the fear of their own demise or nobility that made them guard the Titan's prison?

Quotes from GuildWiki makes it seem like they were afraid of the Flameseeker Prophecies so they helped stop the Charr invasion in order to gain followers to help them prevent the prophecy.

This is really interesting, after I discovered they were just keeping the titans sealed I thought oh well, they're nasty, I wouldn't go take a drink with them but they were doing a very important thing. They need to kill some innocents (poor people, couldn't they use someone less innocent for the bloodstones?) but after all they're a sort of gatekeepers who prevent havoc.
But now I think you're right, doing it just for selfishness, cause only the Titans could kill them could be a good reason. Still, to do it, they were half extermineted by us (yeah the unleashers) so I don't know if it's an acceptable deal...

Of course, their intentions were a bit less than moral. However, what they were doing was indeed important, and the Mursaat should be commended for keeping the Titans locked, if nothing else.

I was actually thinking that. They had been going for at least 2 years (they had only been the 'Gods' of the White Mantle for that long, so who knows what they did before) and all they seemed to be doing is keeping that door closed to protect their own asses. Which to me they failed at anyway cause the Titans popped up elsewhere to become the gods of the Charr.

And then we come along, unleash them, but defeat them which makes me view the Mursaat as being a bit spineless, worried about their own fate rather than doing something about the problem

Have looked through the GW plots quite extensively with a few friends from a complete Role Play perspective... We have decided that alignments simply do not exist in GW. In place of B&W alignments (which usually add some bad cheese to everything) there are instead motivations or justifications for everyone's actions. Some might be doing really horrible things (like the mursaat/white mantle sacrificing the chosen) but in their eyes it was completely justified and necessary. For a greater good type cause even as far as they're concerned. For all we know, because presuming we really know all is very presumptuous. And yet, they're made out to be some horrible bad guys to us (the players)? Why?
Because our (admittedly selfish) interests are not aligned with theirs. Er, wait, what are our interests? The story is a bit vague in telling you exactly what you think, possibly leaving for the player to fill in their own. But the most accurate blanket assumptions seem to be "to keep the Ascalonian refugees safe in our new home in Kryta" (quite selfish, we just got here our perceptions of what's going on are very very ill informed) and "Because I felt like it".
Which is another point of lacking alignment: the players do a lot of very decidedly evil things. We leave masses slaughtered in our wakes, give the scepter of Oor to one of the biggest villains in the game, unlock the door of komalie (sure, we shut it too, but only after we screwed up bad), destroy the holy relics of two societies (spear of archaemorus & urn of saint viktor). We unleash Palawa Joko on the world again, and then we unleash Kormir as a new god on the world? (Yes, this is a terrible thing. Kormir is bad bad news.) But we're the players, so we're totally the good guys!
Don't forget we regularly slaughter sentient masses for the odd whims of an old man and his yak! (Yea we're good guys.)

Bit less sarcasm though. I don't think they were just doing nothing about the issue - they had that entire fort thing that we busted through on speed. There's no way they had their summer homes there or anything, it was on an active volcano, they had that many strictly to guard the gate. And probably as a last lines of defense. They were doing quite a bit around Kryta and the Southern Shiverpeaks to prevent this, and they were most definitely present in numbers. Aside from being worried about their own arses they were at least indirectly trying to save the rest of us. If it meant sacrificing beings of lesser intelligence and thereby worth... Well they're far from the only "superior" race in GW to have that sort of an opinion. Notably the Titans and some Asura. Could likely accuse most GW races of treating most if not all others a bit like we treat cattle if one were to try.

We don't know what "alignment" the Mursaat are of. They killed thousands in order to save their race. We don't know if they even knew what was behind the door.

Many people want to, for some reason, say that the Mursaat were holding back Abaddon - they are angelicizing the Mursaat. Truth is that the Mursaat show themselves to be egotistical and evil, a race who'd do anything to save their own skin and use other races to any point (much like the Asura), not as someone who are trying to kill a few for the salvation of many which people want to believe.

Also ac1inferno, I suggest not using the unofficial wikia as a source for lore, that thing is so incorrect on many levels that, when it comes to lore, it should be nuked. In what you quoted alone, I saw three errors (along with grammar), biggest one being the mention of the Maguuma Jungle, which is 100% pure speculation.

I know this was a dose of sarcasm, but there are a couple of flaws here:

We give the Sceptre of Orr to the Vizer before we knew what he really was. The guy had pretty much everyone fooled.

Did we destroy those relics, or was it the work of Shiro's minions? And for that matter, weren't we following Togo's orders (who was with us the whole time?

Kormir... okay, that one has yet to be seen, but the thing I am more thinking is that it should have been us as the statue, not her


I will admit we did leave a trail of destruction across 3 continents, but remember: history is written by the winners. Just ask Lukas The Great

In the Throne of Secrets, my friend.

Anything RED is Evil ! kill it !

Not sure I agree with you. The "morality" of intention is just as subjective as morality itself. Perhaps in their eyes, utilizing other races to "save their own skin," as you say, is completely justified and moral. True, it may be seen by others as egotistical, but be careful when labeling facets of a multi-dimensional race like the Mursaat; would humans not do the same to save humanity?

This has been a very interesting read.

I have often felt our characters were as much victims as heros. We are taken off guard by the Charr invasion, 2 years later we try to mop up the mess only to finally agree to join Rurik and head west to Kryta.

We unwilling walk into TWO civil wars with the most current being between the shining blade and the white mantle, and our sense of outrage causes us to align with the shining blade.

The one player in this drama that no one has brought up has been the seer.

The seer had all the motive in the world to see us unlock the door to bring vengeance on his enemies. I have no doubt he knew who the Lich was, and I doubt that he cared. He is never part of a main mission objective, but a side bonus, hidden off a bit in shadow. He even gives us more then one opportunity to become infused.

Glint I don't believe ever meant for us to unlock the door. I think the prophesy was to keep the door locked and defeat the "flame-seeker" before he did unleash the titans. She sends us off to clean up the mess afterward as it was not her intent to see humanity destroyed after finally getting us there to save it!

The seer complicates things by gaining our trust with added magical protection, and then pushing us gently along without any warning that maybe opening the door is a bad idea. Unfortunately, there isn't an alternative ending to see what would have happened had we not accepted the seer's gift, nor allowed the door to be opened. That wasn't even a choice in the game to advance it.

That was the only thing I didn't like about the story line. I loved the twists and turns, but I didn't like feeling like a fool every time I thought we "won."

Back to the original posters idea, definitely EVIL as is the Seer for that part. It may be a relative point, but I think it is suppose to be our point as heros that no race is lesser then the others, which naturally made getting three of them together (norn, charr and asuran) so difficult in EoTN. :-)

I would say Neutral for the Mursaat but it seems most of the time their intentions are judged harshly


but i need go back and catch up on the lore im pretty sure most of you guys and girls know a lot more what's going on

You know, after re-reading my own post, I might have to agree with you that maybe I am neutral after all.

When we destroy the various towers, those are human spirits that attack us. Now why would human spirits attack us to keep us from destroying any more barriers unless they knew what they were protecting? Could the chosen have known after all why they were chosen? Of course, the lich was controlling Rurik's spirit, so who's to say the Mursaat wasn't controlling the spirts of the chosen humans, but I never put much consideration into it until reading this thread.

By the time nightfall roles around, there is sheer chaos in the underworld with titans being a part of it. Ugh.. *shakes fist at Anet authors* Come spill your secrets.. you taunt us!

Yes. We would. Maybe not all of us, unified together, but there would most definitely be groups devoted to doing so or die trying. But since we mostly have speculation... We don't really know that every single mursaat out there was involved in sacrificing chosen. Could there not have been some that said "Erm, hey guys? Wait?"
We don't know the lifespan of a mursaat either (past 'not immortal'). They are presented as a sort of "endangered" type of race, they could have lived their entire lives believing that that was just how things are done and never really being able to question it.

Handing the scepter over to the Lich was definitely an evil act - even if we didn't know what we were doing. Some of the best evil stuff happens without the victims players knowing what they're really doing.
Kindof like what Phoenix Denfer was saying, even though we didn't know, somebody most definitely did. Heck, one of my friends swears Glint staged all of it just so her prophesy would "come true". But that does go back into heavy sarcasm, because this plot has too many holes and outright stupid things to take completely seriously. (If you don't believe me, check out Saidra's horrible death scene and Evennia's speech after again.)

Kormir is less of an evil thing for the story and more of a disaster to players. Aside from the fact that she kindof inadvertently started it all by poking her spear where she shouldn't have, she is supposed to be completely shining for the story. Looking at it as a player going through the campaign though... She makes the most obviously anti-tactical moves in attacking Gandara ever. And she does them on purpose. Which results in loss of many lives, people getting lost and scattered, chaos, and more death. She sends us to go do all the real work. Worst of all she leechs through all of Torment ... and then snags the open god spot. There's a logic fail in letting every player in an MMO become one god, yes, so even though it should have been us it obviously can't be. But why couldn't it at least have been someone that actually did something like Dunkoro, Tahlkora, or Master of Whispers? Even Lonai and Mhenlo would be more deserving than Kormir.

The human spirits at the end of Abbadon's Mouth (did we see them anywhere else?) guarding the seals seem to be more bound than controlled. I would doubt the Mursaat would be directly controlling them even when they were attacking us. If they knew what they were protecting or not is pure speculation, because there's really not anything about that.
The Lich either had to have been playing us all along or working with somebody else that was watching us (Glint! *cough* sorry) to manage getting Rurik's body. I would wager he's doing it in a different method too, since Rurik was undead and the spirits where ghosts.

No, I meant her statue should be our statue, as in we are the ones that killed the god, not her, and we are the ones that should have ascended to godhood through it

You bring up an interesting thing here, because while the rest of the undead are... well, just undead (animated bones and such), Undead Rurik seems to have Rurik's spirit in him. Though I have to admit we do know Abaddon was behind it all, it does make me wonder there.

Which also brings up another question: who had it in for the Mursaat so bad that the titans were made and the prophecy given?

I'm trying to tie this with the river of souls that is in the underworld that we released just prior to taking on Shiro and the Lich one more time. There is definitely a theme of needing souls as fuel you might say. I may have to go into wiki and re read some of the dialogue again.

One thing I am REALLY looking forward to in GW2 being less dependent on revealing the lore when accepting quests.

When you work in a group, rarely is there time to really read what the npc has to say. Repeat the quest enough times, and it become automatic to click, accept then follow a mission arrow. >.<

First of all, why do you say "multi-dimensional" race?

Secondly, I would assume some of humanity would, and I wouldn't say that humanity is not egotistical. In truth, every sapient GW race is very egotistical. Humans, charr, centaur, tengu, asura, mursaat at least all view themselves to be greater than the other races.

If you read the dialogue of Defend Droknar's Forge, you'd see that she says that the Titans are more destructive than she foresaw. As such, it means she did intend for us to open the door, but also to quickly seal it with Khilbron's defeat.

The human spirits have been driven insane, according to Jacob Slinger in the HP outpost. He says that many of them have been driven insane and he is one of the few that didn't. Another one of the few would be Leah Stone. Also, if you note, when the soul batteries on the bloodstone are destroyed, about 5 spirits leave above the player - that is, from the soul battery itself in addition to those who attack us.

Regarding the whole spirits thing, a good (but not-updated) research can be found here. It holds everything prior to Dhuum's introduction, which added just a tiny bit.

Also note that the Titans are not in the Underworld but the Realm of Torment.

I know, I was joking.

In the Realm of Torment. It's not confirmed that the Realm of Torment is within the Underworld. They are all part of the afterlife, and the Underworld and Realm of Torment are connected, but they are not proven to be the same thing. The Fissure of Woe also might be connected to the Underworld, or both the Underworld and the Realm of Torment, as well, but it isn't the same thing.

The River of Souls doesn't seem to have anything to deal with this scenario. Don't try to connect everything together, there are things without a connection to everything else. And yes, souls are constantly used as fuel/energy. Mostly by demons, mind you, but look into the thread I linked above for further details and keep that discussion there, if you can.

All I can say Konig is.. wow..I will read that thread carefully. You are right, i confused the realm with underworld. Perhaps the equivalent of Paradise and Hades? The underworld has villages and what appears to be somewhat "normal life" while the realm was filled will all manner of interesting characters, that aren't exactly pure. (I'm thinking of the jaded charr looking for his gods.)

Anyhow, I will read and contribute there.

Thank you!

Actually, if we relate this to the greek mythological afterlife, the greek underworld would be more like the Mists (or the Rift, in my opinion - depends on if the Realms of the Gods are in the Rift or not, which I think they are). The Realm of Torment would be more like Tartarus, and the gw Underworld is like the Asphodel Meadows, and the Hall of Heroes is like the Elysian Plains. But the gw afterlife is far more intricate than 3 places in the greek underworld (criminals/indifferent/heroes).

The gw Underworld is the home of the valor-less (chaos-planes), the normal folk (forgotten vale), the followers of Grenth (Ice Wastes), and nightmares (Spawning Pools), along with whoever dies there (Bone Pits). The Realm of Torment is the resting place of the worst of the worst and those who were touched by Abaddon (whether follower or enemy of), and the River of Souls carried souls to an abyss - which might very well be the "Void" that is mentioned of by Dhuum (who's nicknamed "The Voice in the Void ")