r/Guildwars2 • u/ChaosSatyr • 1d ago
[Fluff] Anyone else feel like Vloxx needs a hug? Spoiler
Just finished Visions of Eternity and I can't help but feel bad for Vloxx. So many good intentions and generally a good guy who got a touch overambitious. You can see how pained he was dealing with the situations that caused him to do what the did. I think he needs a hug and to become the commander's friend.
Edit: I still think he needs to be punished for what he did. I am just acknowledging that he was driven by pain and trauma and genuinely wanted to help even though he chose terrible methods. And by the end he seemed remorseful.
Also it’s worth noting the commander has probably murdered far more people than Vloxx by far but because they were “bad guys” it was ok.
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u/Malusorum 17h ago
Vloxx needs therapy. He has a savior complex while holding himself responsible for anything going wrong.
ANet did the right thing by never showing the one specific thing he would change to make to fix everything, because he lost perspective and saw everything at once in the most doomer bias you can imagine.
For example, he was focused on the scarab plague itself and completely overlooked the spread of humanity that came to be because of it.
Or the ideas of Bangar and the fanaticism it created, while ignoring that him going the way he did caused the Legions to reflect on Charr culture and see that they were heading down the wrong track.
Etc., etc.
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u/MithranArkanere 🌟 SUGGEST-A-TRON 14h ago
Yeah. The best thing Bangar may have done for the charr is igniting a Charr Renaissance.
Just imagine charr visiting the Olmakhan and going, "I want me some of that". Not the old-timey subsistence living, but stuff like having their own families and the military not being their only expected future.
Get together, elect a new Khan-Ur, reforge the Claw of the Khan-Ur to have a new 5th gem for the Olmakhan, and start discussing how to move forward.
So the first big change would probably be to get rid of the Fahrar system. Eventually, the Charr Legions would become the United Charr Nations and switch from a Nation in Arms system to having compulsory military service. They are still charr, after all; no way they'd just jump straight to voluntary military.
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u/ShortTruckHardLuck 23h ago
I am conflicted about him myself - he is the leader of the Inquest. He talks very eloquently of making a difference and saving the world but where were those ideals when directing one of the most nefarious organizations in the history of Tyria? Do you think the countless members of inquest who's lives were sacrificed, or the victims whom the inquest kidnapped and murdered were maybe just a little water under the bridge?
He appeals to the commander's sense of vanity and good while also lying to them by omission. He says he thought we'd understand - understand how he did a 180 after being responsible for death beyond counting?
I still don't understand what he intended to do, but he was going to do it regardless of any one else's input. It means that what ever is happening in his head is independent of reality.
He knows how to read people and exploit them, while also utterly dismissing them at the same time. We were only valuable as far as the damage we could do. We were the perfect cog for matrix of his design.
Vloxx does not trust. He may not even know what friendship is. I even doubt he knows what seeing eye to eye really means - or even knows the value of compromise.
His sincerity and earnest desire to do some good definitely seemed authentic, as was the sense of confused defeat he seemed to have in the end. Vloxx needs to work on himself, and work on connecting with people in a meaningful way. That is something I would like to see.
But can he be forgiven? I don't know. But I know that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - and as the commander I would be glad to help him takes steps to help communities (like being a guest speaker at schools to teach them not to do crimes lol!)
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u/Eliongw2 20h ago
He was going to delete existence. There is no pain and suffering if nothing exists.
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u/ReplacementNo7769 14h ago
He's just textbook psychopath. There was no reasoning with him, can't trust a thing he says, even though he seems to show some remorse, that could just be an act.
He was using everyone and everything around him to achieve his own misguided delusional goals. Wouldn't trust him with a butter knife.
He's honestly dangerous even behind bars especially with that silver tongue He's got...
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u/PantherCaroso A KNIFE? NOW THAT'S A KNIFE 14h ago
Yeah, people are easy to get swayed by these things. Reminds me of Gortash.
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u/samthenewb 9h ago
They way he orders Sebb to his certain doom so nonchalantly makes me very doubtful of how much Vloxx can be trusted. Sure inquest are evil, and Sebb is dumb thinking he could actually win against the Commander. But Vloxx is the inquest leader, his subordinates are depending on HIM to succeed. Vloxx doesn't lead the inquest, he just uses them. Vloxx doesn't care about individuals or why they follow him or the Inquest. The moment they are unnecessary, Vloxx just bails on them, hands them over to Kuda. Loyal Vloxx followers are completely abandoned, treated terribly afterwards. I plainly don't see how that is any different than other potentially sociopathic leader.
To be clear, his lack of empathy isn't simply because he surrounded himself with inquest. It extends to the totality of people in the world. His plan, while left un explained, would have at the minimum, removed the notion of individual self from all living beings. Isgarren says specifically that Vloxx intends to remove the foundation of free will or greed. That foundation is likely the very notion of self. Only an extreme lack of empathy could cook up such a plan. None of the chit chat, from Isgarren and the Commander during that final battle seemed to sway Vloxx at all. The only thing Vloxx responds to is getting beat so hard, that he understood that he was on the brink of being killed and yielded. For the foreseeable future, the only way to control him, is simply to threaten him with punishment if he steps out of line.
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u/ShortTruckHardLuck 7h ago
This is what i am seeing as well. I just think at that point though commander might have realized that they are behaving similarly. A threat comes up, destroy it. Someone is a bad person, kill them. Dragons, tyrants, crazed and depraved - if they oppose us, kill them. I think my commander at least would want to see if just this once we can pick up the pieces and build something better - if the target was willing.
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u/Eateroftwinkies 1d ago
I want to see the Wayfinder / Commander go visit Vloxx in wizard library prison the way he visited Canach in Vigil jail. They later became adventure buddies so Vloxx can become an adventure companion too right?
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u/Extension-Chemical 17h ago
Is that in the game still, or was meeting Canach one of the parts of LWS1 that didn't make it to the final cut? Regrettably, I don't even remember meeting Canach, the earliest I can remember is seeing him serve countess Anise, and him and the Commander making references to the prison.
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u/Robmart 15h ago
You're correct on that part. The only part of Canach's S1 story that is in the game is his boss fight. You can access it from the Eye of the North.
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u/Extension-Chemical 14h ago
That's really sad tbh. He's one of my favourite characters. They could have included his arc instead of the event fillers that we got.
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u/Happy-Anxiety-2770 16h ago
No. I feel for his initial dam-related trauma but somehow everyone forgets that he was the leader of the Inquest. Or people forget what the inquest is aside from being a bunch of black-red wearing goofballs.
Whatever hero fighting the corrupt asuran system he believed himself, he allowed/promoted/orchestrated whatever effed up things the inquest has been up to for dunno how many years. IMHO the commander and Isgarren were too nice with him.
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u/ChaosSatyr 10h ago
Oh, I said I thought he needed a hug, that does not mean I think he gets to skip punishment. He did horrible things. I was just recognizing that there is a lot of hurt that drove his actions.
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u/sususu_ryo manifesting proto-sylvari in gw3 (and malyck's tree) 1d ago
i hope he joins us (by becoming main story NPC permanently)
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u/AutumnHeathen 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yes. I also hope that we get to be friends with him. Actually, I'm pretty sure we will. Or at least allies.
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1d ago
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u/GildedGreyMist GildedGreyMist.5208 1d ago
I definitely see some narcissistic tendencies in him but at the same time I also get what led him down the path he was on. Though I might also be deep in all these random speculative thoughts from my own habitual reading and writing.
There's no way I condone what he did but the thoughts leading to the actions seem very heavily built on desperation bordering on insanity. There's a good heart there but it's led by terrible actions and 'a means to an end', basically. The dam collapse likely wasn't the first experience in Vloxx's confrontation with death or loss due to lazy or money-grubbing bureaucrats, especially from what we've seen in current Asura society that relies heavily on the Council not being corrupt and actually giving labs and krewes the budgets they need to function.
The dam was the catalyst of Vloxx's internal collapse, by far, but what else has he seen as an Asura in that huge machine? He's obviously a 'gifted' kid by Asuran standards, probably had plenty of work and jobs in areas where he directly witnesses the injustice of failed experiments or loss of life due to budgets, corruption, unwillingness to 'take a chance' on something that doesn't have an immediate payout. The corruption revolving around Flaxx and the Inquest most likely has also been going on for years at this point, and he may easily have cottoned on but had no way to try to bring it to light without being silenced.
And the dam? He tried to fix that. He tried to lobby and it failed. He tried to fix it himself, with his own money and manpower so the bigwigs didn't have to waste their precious coin on safety precautions. It was all removed, reverted because he didn't go through the proper channels, but going through the proper channels would have taken too long and resulted in a denial in the end regardless.
Then it collapsed, like he said it would. 700 workers, 700 Asura dead just like he said would happen. And what's he left with in the end?
"I could've prevented it. If I tried harder. If I tried again. They'd all be alive if I tried harder or made a bigger deal, or was louder about it. It's my fault because I just didn't do enough and I could have."What's an Asura to do after that, in his mind? Join the people he's working against to try to fix his past wrongs. That straw that broke the Dolyak's back probably broke his own mind at the same time. Driven to become director of the Inquest, he sees every lost life now as a 'means to an end' after he locates and begins the expedition to Castora to retrieve Ancora.
"It's alright, they can die because once I ascend, once I have the power, I'll fix it. I'll bring them back. I'll reverse the dam collapse. I'll destroy every threat before it can become a threat. And only I can do it because only I see the cuts that need to be made. I've been in the machine so long I know what needs to be done. I've seen it from the inside. And the Commander will surely understand, right? They've been in the machine for so many years now, they've been inside, they've seen terrible injustice, they know how it feels! We can fix the world together if they agree to join me. We can make a world of no suffering."
Narcissist? Yes, absolutely, but there's so much driving the narcissistic plot within his head. The lives lost that he's taken on to his shoulders because he feels he just didn't push hard enough. He's taking blame where he doesn't have to, but we've seen that in Commander as well. The Commander takes on so much blame for lives they couldn't save because they're just one single person, but over the years people have come to rely on them. Why couldn't Commander save this person? Or that person? Did they even try? Why aren't they doing enough?
Perhaps that's what Vloxx hears in his own head every step of the way. "Why couldn't you save those people? Why couldn't you convince the supervisors to agree to these plans? Why couldn't you convince the council to listen to you? Why aren't you GOOD ENOUGH?"
I didn't write this with AI I'm a writer damn it
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u/Chiorydax Chronicler of Lacrymosa 1d ago
While I definitely see your point, I've got a bit of a different angle.
He probably had a deep psychological shift from everything. Saw unbelievable carnage and learned that there were people out there pulling at the very fabric of reality (who allowed the bad things to happen). One of the most natural responses to such trauma is to want to take control of the situation. He felt betrayed by the powers that be and decided to take things into his own hands, because someone had to.
And yes, narcissism does have traits linked to wanting control, but there's more to it than that. I'd argue this was just a singular obsession born out of desperation.
Because he's not looking for praise. He's not looking for any kind of validation. His eyes are set entirely on his goal, consequences be damned. And above all, he actually is willing to have his mind changed. He throws a bit of a tantrum first, but he listens. The Commander is someone he respects and who has ascended to his level to see exactly what he sees. At first he's hurt that he doesn't receive the Commander's approval, throws a fit over it. But he does manage to come around and ask the Commander what the solution is. He values our perspective enough to change.
I get that most real people who behave like Vloxx are probably narcissistic. But Vloxx's goals are built on empathy, not entitlement. He's not self-important, he was inspired into action by the Commander. He isn't trying to preserve his image, he just can't accept that there isn't a solution at the end of this.
So yeah I think he's pretty neat lol
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u/ChaosSatyr 1d ago
He would need to meet most of these criteria to be diagnosable as narcissistic:
- an inflated sense of self-importance
- fantasies of unlimited success or power
- believing oneself special
- needing excessive admiration
- entitlement
- exploiting others
- lack of empathy
- envy, or believing others are envious
- arrogance
I think these fit:
- an inflated sense of self-importance
- believing oneself special
- exploiting others
- lack of empathy
I'm not sure the rest do though... maybe he is arrogant although the way it comes through is as believing he is special.
Also, the main character (commander) fits a lot of these.... soooo.... *shrug*
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1d ago
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u/ChaosSatyr 23h ago
- envy, or believing others are envious -> Never came up
- fantasies of unlimited success or power -> He seeks to end his own power through his solution, narcissists would try to extend their own power and constantly seek more
- Arrogance -> That never came up, do you have an example when it did.
- needing excessive admiration -> He actually kept out of the spot light and didn't seek admiration. He did these things at the expense of it so this one doesn't fit.
- entitlement -> No where in the plot did he say he was "deserving of this power" or anything of the like so this doesn't fit either
- envy, or believing others are envious -> No envy, the closest thing you could say was there to this was trying to be like the commander who he admired. But he didn't covet the commander's successes he instead agreed with the reasoning behind the decisions that created them.
So... most of them are not there.
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u/mamathzilla 4h ago
There's an Order of Whisper's profile you can read in Leyline Hollows that speculates Vloxx has depressive episodes. He needs a bit more than a hug!
I have a lot of thoughts about Vloxx and how he came to be the way he is by the time we meet him. I'm sad VoE was a short expansion because I have a lot of questions!! Instead we got four chapters of him rocking up to say "I respect you but you'll never understand me, anyway bye" and then poofing away. I still had fun because that became very funny to me after waiting months at a time for an update but man I would have liked an actual narrative. Granted, I think most of Castora was really about Isgarren. So. Oh well.
I hope Vloxx is back in the future and just as morally questionable, even as an NPC on our side. :) I'm sad no more Sebb and Kuda (?) though. They were a fun mad science villain trio together.
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u/danfmac 1d ago
Vloxx was part of the inquest for over a decade helping them murder, experiment and generally be the worst evil faction in the game.
He doesn’t need a hug, he needs a bullet.
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u/ShortTruckHardLuck 23h ago
I don't want to kill him, but this fact you point out definitely makes me think carefully about how I view him. He seems sincere in the end, about his desire to reform. I think killing him would be just another drop of blood in the veritable ocean of death he started.
I would rather see him spend what's left of his life helping communities, whether that's latrine duty, tending to the sick, mucking out stables, or helping villages with their irrigation, or teaching school kids about the dangers of crime. I want to see him show us with real actions what it is like to really help people.
I want to see him make friends , and understand what he took away from people - when he was directing the inquest. I want him to understand the scars left behind by the activities he directed.
And I want to hear it from him with my own ears. I want to see him try to fix himself, and try to heal the damage the Inquest left behind.I feel like that's what my commander would want.
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u/Astral_Poring Bearbow Extraordinaire 2h ago
He seems sincere in the end, about his desire to reform.
He is also a textbook psychopath that knows how to sound sincere when talking to others and telling them things they want to hear. I would not trust him at all. Remember, that a lot of people that did trust him ended up dead as a result of his actions. And i bet he seemed sincere to them too.
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u/vinta_calvert Vinta.2576 16h ago
For what it's worth, the Inquest aren't exclusively evil, they just believe in research without limits and are willing to get their hands dirty to remove anything in their way. They still contribute beneficial data and resources to Rata Sum.
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u/danfmac 15h ago edited 13h ago
People are defending the inquest now?
Fuck.
The inquest is a racial supremicist faction within the Asurans with the end goal of dominion over all the other races of Tyria.
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u/ShortTruckHardLuck 7h ago
In canon - not all of them are like this. There is one npc who joined the Inquest for the resources for his research in helping disabled people. Sebb weaponized his research. Gorrick and Blish were also once Inquest. Some who joined treated it like a scholarship or job opportunity without believing in Inquest ideals. At least its inferred through various npc dialogue scattered around expansions. A lot of rpers play ex- Inquest, or reluctant or press-ganged Inquest because its apparent that not all inquest are 1 dimentional villains
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u/mamathzilla 4h ago
Which NPC was doing disability research? I'd like to track that down in game :)
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u/AcaciaCelestinas 13h ago edited 13h ago
"The Nazis aren't exclusively evil, they just believe in removing Jews, the lgbt, the disabled etc for the betterment of society. They still contributed to get us to the moon!"
That's the argument you just made. Because that's what the Inquest are, watered down Nazis with a coat of kid friendly paint and a less stupid leader at the top.
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u/missusamazing 21h ago edited 21h ago
💯 💯 💯 This thread: "Anyone else feel like HITLER needs a hug?"🤮
Hitler thought his intentions were good and just, and necessary to fix the world and make it better, and he was very ambitious. Experimenting on humanoids and other creatures, genocide, and other horrific actions and everyone in the comments here is like "Lalala~ this faction leader, he's not so bad 😊 "
But I guess since he's not a racist shitbag, we let all the other stuff slide. Coolcoolcool.
Vloxx only "reformed" after getting his ass kicked and it absolutely wasn't his choice to do so. In other words, unlike Hitler, he didn't kill himself before justice could be served. I don't see a path to redemption for this character. He's not apologetic for the murder and torture he's responsible for. He wasn't then and he isn't now.
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u/Anggul Anggul Daemellon 17h ago edited 16h ago
He wouldn't have gotten that far if the people of Tyria weren't so hilariously stupid they allowed to Inquest to continue existing for all that time. The Commander included.
'Hm these guys keep trying to experiment on and/or murder everyone and making the crises facing the world worse, shall we do something about them?'
'Nah it'll probably be fine, they surely won't do it again right?'
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u/vinta_calvert Vinta.2576 16h ago
Lacking an Inquest faction wouldn't have stopped Vloxx, I don't think. They were just a tool for resources and opportunity. With his intelligence and the passion inspired by the Commander, he would likely have still done everything he could to amass resources and make the expedition into Castora.
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u/Anggul Anggul Daemellon 16h ago
Hard to do that without an army of amoral murder-scientists
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u/vinta_calvert Vinta.2576 16h ago
The Inquest are not the only researchers who could have found a route to Castora. They were just the resource he had access to.
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u/PantherCaroso A KNIFE? NOW THAT'S A KNIFE 14h ago
Honestly I thought they went down under after CoE, but apparently Kudu has a daughter and she continued his work in Sandswept Isles.
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u/Happy-Anxiety-2770 15h ago
To be fair Commander&co stopped quite a few inquest operations in the past all around Tyria but it was pretty much an one evil faction at a time thing and the time to crush them for real just happened now.
Also I'm pretty sure it would have been pretty hard to end the whole Inquest because similarly to for example the White Mantle they had ties to the related nation's government (Caudicus/ministry), just a lot more and stronger ties than WM as the Arcane Council was perfectly okay with Inquest as long as that relation was left in the dark and they kept up the good work toward Asuran supremacy.
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u/Anggul Anggul Daemellon 15h ago
Yes the arcane council are morons, even from the start of the core game the Inquest are running around murdering other Asura. Surely them wrecking other Asura's labs and killing the researchers set back Asuran progress.
The Commander and co. should have said 'we don't care about your arcane council, we're killing these Inquest assholes.'
Sure you can't be sure you've wiped out all of such a large group, they'll still exist in the corners, but not so widespread and brazen.
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u/Happy-Anxiety-2770 15h ago
I think until relatively recently Commander&co had their hands full with the dragon and related problems. I'm not sure they could have afforded a full scale war with the Inquest on top of that.
Since the events of EoD Commander was pretty much unavailable (in the clutch of other-dimension demon-mommies (if only!) then listening to slowtalking bear monologues) and I'm sure the rest of the world had their own short-term problems to deal with (and we didn't have an asura-focused expansioin/LW until now).
But yeah I don't disagree, Arcane Council has a strong Tyrian tech ceo/billionaire assembly vibe.
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u/lurkinguild 1d ago
Maybe a hot take, I found him kind of irritating by the end. Seriously amazing voice acting but the characters decisions anoyyed me 😂
He presents himself as having some grand vision the commander would agree with if only he had the time to explain and is doing things for the greater good but in reality he's just got a major god complex and admits he was somewhat winging things as he goes ultimately revealing a plan that completely goes against his original stated intentions that the commander absolutely wouldn't consider even for a second.
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u/Meowing-To-The-Stars 5h ago
No. He needs a cold, dump cell. I don't know what's up with this community that was also simping for Mai Trin and Ankka
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u/danfmac 3h ago
The commander has murdered precisely zero people.
I don’t understand why people need to slag off the Commander to defend their favorite villain.
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u/ChaosSatyr 2h ago
Are you not counting all the people you have murdered as the commander to get all the way through the main plot and all the expansions? You have murdered plenty. Claiming self defense or that it was sanctioned doesn’t matter. Arguably the Inquest was sanctioned and all their murder, there was a whole plot and afterword about it.
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u/DogfishHeadBeer DCBeer.4936 1d ago
https://dps.report/Vcv5-20261016-184449_boss bro needs to die... pls I can't keep up this damage
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u/Miraweave 19h ago
Especially given that Vloxx's desperate adherence to a complete-non plan and immediate regret the second you pull him back from the brink of literally destroying reality makes the whole thing feel subtextually like a suicide attempt more than anything.