#lion's arch

[viewsoftyria]

Views of Tyria - Lion's arch - Tailoring station crab

[ratasum]

I think there were probably sea shanties that have only existed in Tyria for the last 100-150 years, all about Zhaitan raising Orr from beneath the sea.

Lion's Arch, old Lion's Arch, was rebuilt and founded by pirates and brigands. Many of these people probably lost friends and loved one when Orr rose, or witnessed it themselves and barely escaped with their lives (y'know, like Cobiah Marriner himself).

Songs about always being wary of the Dead Ships. Drinking to forget the eyes of the Risen shining beneath the waves.

Hell, songs about the Maw attacking Lion's Arch.

I can't write music to save my own life but if I could I'd absolutely play around with this idea.

[clemmykins]

this one cave in Lion's Arch....

[the-woods-call-me]

<I Rooftop Rascal I>

Please click for larger size. =)

[otvian]

BEACH PARTY DRINKING COMPETITION

Small drawing to remember my fav part of the part :3

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

can you talk to me about Logan? was he retconned into being a simp or was he always a simp? what else do u like about him

AHO YES

thanks for the ask!! I have had MANY thoughts about this.

So. Logan's story started in 1319 when he met Rytlock, then Caithe, and they fought in an arena in Lion's Arch for a while. This is documented in the official, canonical book Edge of Destiny.

Queen Jennah came to watch a match as part of international relations or something, and Logan was smitten immediately and went to talk to her before the match. (His brother was the queen's guard so that may have given him some leeway lol.) He told her he would fight for her, his queen. He asked for a token, and she gave him a scarf, which he wore while he fought. He was injured so terribly that he was unconscious, but he did have victory.

Once he woke up, Logan received an official summons to Divinity's Reach in Kryta. He went and met with the queen, who presented him to all the nobles, ministers, and other politicians as 'her Champion,' raising both their hands in the air. He would be her warrior outside Kryta, her presence on foreign fields. Then she turned to him, squeezeed his hand, and whispered in his ear, "thank you for answering my summons" (she is a queen). Logan squeezed her hand in return and responded that he would always answer her summons.

So she, on the spur of the moment, magically bonded him to her, a process whereby she went into his mind (Logan's mental monologue describes her as a thief in the night, and yet he welcomed her and led her into his memories).

This rocks her back for a moment in awe at the things he has done, but she quickly recovers in the presence of her court and declares to Logan that if she summons him, he must come. Logan kneels and promises he will.

After this, Logan returns to Lion's Arch to continue fighting in the arena, meets the rest of Destiny's Edge and goes off to fight dragons.

During the rest of the book, Logan and Jennah exchange letters in which Jennah clearly returns his love. She is concerned for his wellbeing fighting dragons and their champions, which as well all know is not known for its health benefits. See the tail end of her first letter:

As your queen, I could forbid you to do this thing, but I have seen you defeat a legion of charr. I have seen you slay devourers and destroyers, centaurs and ettins and worse. If anyone could defeat the Dragonspawn, it would be you. So, I will not forbid it. I will trade fear for hope and look forward to congratulating you on this latest and greatest of your victories. -- your queen, Jennah

She calls him 'my dear Champion' and says her trust in him was well placed, and wishes he could return home (but he is too busy for this) and 'you are most alive in the heart of danger' anyway.

My heart tells me to forbid you to go. I should. [...] if I lose you to Morgus Lethe, it would be worse than losing an army. [...] I think of you often. I imagine you marching across blasted tundra, battling monsters in caves of ice, standing stalwart against our enemies. Perhaps I am just imagining the battles you fight, but I choose to believe we have a deeper bond.

After the second victory of Destiny's Edge, Jennah writes in exultation that a champion of a dragon cannot stand against the champion of a queen. I fear to lose you, and I want more than anything to see you again. But you cannot fight for me by standing around the halls of Divinity's reach. The last thing I need is another polished advisor. They are just statues compared to a flesh-and-blood champion. So, fight for me. Defeat the Destroyer of Life. And in our long separation, I will content myself with letters and with visions of your heroism. Your queen, Jennah

Later, she addresses a letter to the Most Magnificent Logan Thackeray, after spending the book dropping her own titles as they grow closer, and she calls her desire to summon him 'selfish.'

Then follows the incident with Glint, Kralkatorrik, and Logan leaving to protect Jennah. (Their magical bond allowed her to communicate with him via telepathy.) We know how that goes. Logan's brother is killed in the fighting, and we last see Logan Thackeray taking his place and bearing his sword as Captain of the Seraph, left hand of the queen.

And so we see Captain Thackeray in-game, often in his office doing paperwork or clinging to the queen's side (often in spite of her gentle persuasion to depart for adventure and glory). So the man who was most alive in battle becomes the polished advisor Jennah never needed him to be, for the sake of her own protection.

So much for Edge of Destiny! but even officially-canon sources are nothing compared to in-game sources. Off we go to Divinity's Reach, 1325, five years later, when the queen is in danger from one of her own soldiers who went mad from dragon corruption, and the Durmand Priory has stepped in to help defend her.

The player, who has recently been delegated the role of 'Advocate of the Queen' in dealing with the three Orders of Kryta, has this conversation with her.

Advocate: Captain Thackeray is very worried about you, Your Majesty. Queen Jennah: Logan? He mustn't worry... please, tell him I'll be fine. If he is distracted, and gets hurt, I don't know what I would do. Advocate: If I may be so bold, ma'am, the two of you seem to care about one another very much. Queen Jennah: He is like an angel sent from Dwayna to be at my side. If things were different, or if Kryta were at peace, then, perhaps... Advocate: Good luck, ma'am. To all of us.

after the battle, another conversation is had.

Advocate: Speaking of Captain [Logan] Thackeray... it doesn't bother you that he's going to Lion's Arch? Queen Jennah: I'm worried, I'll admit. Caithe has never been trustworthy even in the best of times, and lately... Please, tell me you'll watch over him? Advocate: You know that you could stop him, right? One word from you, and he'd stay. Queen Jennah: No, Advocate. I have enough servants - I want a partner. Logan must be free to make his own decisions.

Note that these dialogues are not available to characters who pick the Vigil path. The first one (and most important, imo) is only available in the Durmand Priory path. Don't ask me why, that's a stupid decision (and perhaps the wiki just failed to document them in the other two paths), but here we have the lore still perfectly intact, confirming the books and even increasing on them. The strongest declaration of the queen's love aside from the magical bond is found in the game itself. "He is like an angel sent from Dwayna?" please.

Logan didn't simp for Jennah, although he did embarrass himself a few times and he is most certainly quite sappy and focused on Jennah's welfare and protection. It's his whole vocation. He is a guardian, and guardians protect. He is Seraph Captain, and the Seraph Captain serves the queen and defends her and her people. And he loves her, and she loves him. She cares for him fiercely and worries about him just as much as she did five years ago.

Contrast that to Season 3, Head of the Snake, 1330, five years after, where the player Commander approaches the queen again.

Commander: After the incident with Estelle, I meant to ask you about Logan... Queen Jennah: Captain Thackeray has provided unwavering, invaluable service to the crown. I expect he will continue to do so, especially given the current situation with Caudecus. Commander: Apologies if I've given offense, Your Majesty. Queen Jennah: That's not necessary. I hear the whispers, and I see with my own eyes. Logan is... a loyal servant, and a friend. I think he's coming to terms with that. At last.

Logan was never a simp until they forced him to be by taking his full decade of service, love, and devotion and said it was never appreciated. They ripped his lover out of his arms and forced her to tell him, against her own expressed feelings, that she never loved him, that all his years of service and sacrifice meant nothing to her and never had, that he had wasted himself on nothing. It makes a mockery of him, turning him into a blind fool whose expressions of unashamed, raw love were the foolish delusions of a lovestruck boy who, apparently, spent ten years trying to win her love and failing to measure up.

This was in a main story instance that everyone who played that episode could see.

This of course, holds no candle in fandom discourse to an offscreen source (book) and a conversation that occured in 1/15th of all possible story paths (1/5 chance of playing human, 1/3 chance of choosing Priory). The real funny thing is that Anet never removed these dialogues when they made the retcon.

Logan was a hero. He was a champion. He is skilled and experienced in both combat and strategy, in leadership and military management. Logan was evenly matched with a Blood Legion Tribune, and for a human that is no mean feat. He slew beasts with a company of five that it took the whole dwarven race to kill. He is one of, if not the strongest hero, aside the Commander, to exist in the modern day. There's a reason he was snapped up by the Pact almost immediately. And this retcon turns Jennah into a blind fool as well, failing to see the strength, courage, and heroism in front of her face, who loved and was devoted to her, and foolishly spurned his love.

So much for the canon!

I do not like this retcon, not one bit. I also hate changing canon. Undoing this retcon would change a lot of things going forward from Season 3, such as him being Marshal of the Pact, him being a ladies' man with all the ladies who aren't as dumb and stupid as the retcon made Jennah to be, and so on.

So I will fix the retcon while preserving a respect for both Logan and Jennah, and it is this: that it is not a retcon - that is to say, it has no power going backwards - but that it is a development. Jennah has fallen out of love with Logan after his repeated refusal to leave her side and be the hero she fell in love with. He used to have utmost respect for her, and would take her suggestions as commands. But here he does not, and when he finally did leave to kill Zhaitan, it was only to come back in S1 and be just as stubborn as ever. (Which is technically a limitation of S1's timing and development IRL, but it works.) He leaves to fight dragons but he comes straight back and does not listen. This is a minor improvement, but it is not enough. The queen can not love a man who will not listen to his queen.

This could read either as Jennah falling out of love, or that she, for his own good, says that she doesn't love him anymore, in order to let him leave and be his most true, alive self in battle. And maybe she misses him and is torn apart when she dreams of his battles with the Pact, and of his adventures with other women, but he is happy, and there was a part of him that was not while he stayed by her side and did paperwork and sacrificed himself for her safety.

So much for the retcon!

What else do u like about him? -- dabenport

I'm glad you asked, I have no clue! He's not a particularly compelling character to me. I'm asexual and have never been in a relationship, so I don't relate to... much of his existence lol.

I'll say I've mained human all my life (despite my fave race being sylvari) and Logan is pretty great. He has a sense of humor (as Seraph Captain, I can't exactly jump up and down saying 'pick me! pick me!' but I can certainly think it) (oh dear! the White Mantle is upon me! oh woe! is this the end for poor Logan?).

I guess what I really like about him is his devotion to the queen. The queen serves the kingdom, and Logan serves the queen. They are united in their service to the people. That's a great picture to me.

You can tell how much a person cares about something by what they sacrifice for it. Logan sacrificed Snaff, Glint, and the chance of defeating Kralkatorrik. Logan sacrificed a life of adventure. He sacrificed his relationship with Rytlock, an honorary brother, as well as the rest of Destiny's Edge. (Jennah's side of the relationship is much more hidden, not well known aside from what I've just related; she is a shadow in the story compared to Logan's bright flare of a hero, a mentor to human characters and connection to Destiny's Edge.)

Logan also sacrifices for fighting the dragons: in Arah he stayed behind, and although by some miracle he survived, it was clear he did not expect to.

Sacrifice is like catnip to me. Give something up for the sake of that which you love; gimme. It's the theme of all my blorbos. Somehow it doesn't come through in making Logan a compelling character to me. I can feel strongly about his overall story and write about that, but the long-term drudgery of writing a narrative is much more difficult. Perhaps it is because I have never been in a relationship and don't know what to show/how to explore that. Write what you know, they say. I don't know the strength of the feelings involved or how they might express. (I've also never really been a fan of the romance genre, possibly for the same reason, and I've had very few friends in my life, so I really have no sources of knowledge on what is it like to love that deeply.

Possibly for these reasons, it's difficult for me to write about Logan. Despite my high regard for him, he's just not compelling to me the way other characters (cough Trahearne cough Forgal cough Taimi - whose stories may contain love in some amount but are not focused on them) are. I write about him because I concluded that his PoV would be the best to tell the opening acts of Dreams of Freedom from, chronicling Destiny's Edge's journey in this AU of mine. Sometimes I reconsider, although I'm sorta committed now, and I do enjoy it when I can buckle down to it.

~oOoOo~

This has been

Character Study: Logan Thackeray

thank you for asking and giving me this opportunity to talk! On some level, all GW2 characters are my blorbos and I could talk about any of them at length. Logan is less compelling than other GW2 characters, but that is like saying a giant is short for being 12ft tall and not 15 or 20.

[tgmchrist]

The Breachmaker (1327 AE)

[gw2ambience]

Lion's Arch 🌊 ~

[salad-bolg]

So walking into Lion's Arch for the first time was rad :)

Glowing blue orbs? the architecture? Mosaics?? the bank is an OCTOPUS??? A freaking hermit crab tailoring station, glass sea jelly pavillion, and a lobster building too. Seriously?!

I heard a lot about old LA, I'm looking forward to checking that out (once I achievement hunt, that is (⌒_⌒;) but I can safely say new Lion's Arch will always be special to me!

[solvevi]

character reference for my asura, Collodi!

[vampiricsheep]

McScuse me?

[viewsoftyria]

Views of Tyria - Lion's Arch - Palms and fountains

[ratasum]

So @the-proofreader and I were doing LWS1 stuff and we mapped to Sanctum Harbor waypoint with... surprising results.

[gears2gnomes]

The End of Old Lion's Arch.

[the-woods-call-me]

+~ Goddess of the Final Harvest ~+

Please click for larger size. =) Rhianeth -- Northern Shiverpeaks (NA)

[commodorefluffypawz]

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