Is Joko really immortal?

[norbes.3620]

> @"Torn Fierceslash.6375" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > > @"Dayra.7405" said:

> > > > At least he cannot die, as he is already dead ;)

> > >

> > > Zhaitan died. ;D

> >

> > Zhaitan wasn't a lich.

> >

> > That said, liches are all **_extremely_** hard to kill, but not immortal. Nothing seems to be truly immortal (except Dhuum?!?) in the GWverse.

> >

> > We've seen three kinds of liches in GW1:

> > * The first kind seemed unkillable, but was felled by ripping its soul out of its body using powerful magic of the Bloodstone. Khilbron (and The Hunter).

> > * The second kind was easily killable (or so it seemed) but made minions that kept coming back on their own. Zoldark the Unholy.

> > * The third kind was seemingly killable, but hard to do so; sort of a mix of the two above, every time its body was killed its soul was released and it could only be destroyed by dispersing the soul, it similarly kept bringing back minions with ease. Fendi Nin.

> >

> > Joko is most likely of the first kind of lich. This would mean we'd need to rip his very soul out of his body. I can only think of two, possibly three, ways to do this:

> > 1. Kill him atop of a Bloodstone that's been inscribed with soul batter mursaat magic (there's only one left: the Ring of Fire bloodstone).

> > 2. Use the Scepter of Orr to command his soul out of his body.

> > 3. Possibly, using Spectral Agony (or in our case, Signet of Agony) to attack his soul directly, permanently scarring him.

> > Third case is unlikely to occur since it would require a Season 3 mastery. First case is unlikely occur due to location. This means we'll likely call in ~~Livia~~ Kerida and locate the Scepter of Orr in Episode 4 (or we contact her and she brings it to us).

> >

> > Unless they decide to go the sealing route, or present some stupid "we're so much more powerful that we actually can defeat and kill him in a normal one-on-one fight" that would utterly destroy Joko's backstory with contradictionary plotholes (ANET PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS).

> >

> > And a note on the second and third kind, since we don't deal with The Hunter despite knowing it "faked its death", it's possible Zoldark similarly faked its death and thus is still out there. Similarly, it's possible that Fendi Nin's soul had over time reformed like Jahnus' soul in the Desolation (or any other number of non-Foefire souls; seems all souls can so long as they retain the will to do so, but they're much slower at it than Foefire ghosts).

> >

> > > @"Ardid.7203" said:

> > > Will their creations also stop working If he turns somehow defunct? Will all the Awakened "die" if he finally "dies"? That would be a HUGE blow to the desert nation, even for the resistance groups.

> >

> > Well, Khilbron's undead kept going on for six years after his destruction, as we see them in the Depths of Tyria in Eye of the North; however, Zoldark the Unholy's undead fell once Zoldark did. Now it's possible Zoldark did this in his attempt to trick the adventurers into thinking he was truly and fully dead, but it would imply that liches that make themselves immortal do _not_ bind their minions' lives to them while those who make their minions immortal do.

> >

> > This would suggest, in turn, that the Awakened will remain roaming about after Joko's destruction, should such an event occur.

>

> Could there be a 4th option?, like D&D Liches he could have a source of his power destroyed, maybe a Gem, his original grave, a artifact or maybe if he was killed in the mists ( or another world) their would be no way from him to heal himself.

 

i would not think of is as impossible but we dont know very much about him so it could could take a while to find the horkrux

[Arden.7480]

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"Arden.7480" said:

> > > @"Dayra.7405" said:

> > > At least he cannot die, as he is already dead ;)

> >

> > Zhaitan died. ;D

>

> Zhaitan wasn't a lich.

>

> That said, liches are all **_extremely_** hard to kill, but not immortal. Nothing seems to be truly immortal (except Dhuum?!?) in the GWverse.

>

> We've seen three kinds of liches in GW1:

> * The first kind seemed unkillable, but was felled by ripping its soul out of its body using powerful magic of the Bloodstone. Khilbron (and The Hunter).

> * The second kind was easily killable (or so it seemed) but made minions that kept coming back on their own. Zoldark the Unholy.

> * The third kind was seemingly killable, but hard to do so; sort of a mix of the two above, every time its body was killed its soul was released and it could only be destroyed by dispersing the soul, it similarly kept bringing back minions with ease. Fendi Nin.

>

> Joko is most likely of the first kind of lich. This would mean we'd need to rip his very soul out of his body. I can only think of two, possibly three, ways to do this:

> 1. Kill him atop of a Bloodstone that's been inscribed with soul batter mursaat magic (there's only one left: the Ring of Fire bloodstone).

> 2. Use the Scepter of Orr to command his soul out of his body.

> 3. Possibly, using Spectral Agony (or in our case, Signet of Agony) to attack his soul directly, permanently scarring him.

> Third case is unlikely to occur since it would require a Season 3 mastery. First case is unlikely occur due to location. This means we'll likely call in ~~Livia~~ Kerida and locate the Scepter of Orr in Episode 4 (or we contact her and she brings it to us).

>

> Unless they decide to go the sealing route, or present some stupid "we're so much more powerful that we actually can defeat and kill him in a normal one-on-one fight" that would utterly destroy Joko's backstory with contradictionary plotholes (ANET PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS).

>

> And a note on the second and third kind, since we don't deal with The Hunter despite knowing it "faked its death", it's possible Zoldark similarly faked its death and thus is still out there. Similarly, it's possible that Fendi Nin's soul had over time reformed like Jahnus' soul in the Desolation (or any other number of non-Foefire souls; seems all souls can so long as they retain the will to do so, but they're much slower at it than Foefire ghosts).

>

 

Of course Zhaitan wasn't lich, I only meant that it's not like that you can't kill death itself, while you can.

 

Seems like Dhuum is only one exception.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Torn Fierceslash.6375" said:

> Could there be a 4th option?, like D&D Liches he could have a source of his power destroyed, maybe a Gem, his original grave, a artifact or maybe if he was killed in the mists ( or another world) their would be no way from him to heal himself.

 

The key difference between D&D liches and GW liches is that D&D liches bind their soul to an artifact, while GW liches have never shown any hint of such.

 

Yes, we do get items called phylacteries, but Khilbron was killed while his retroactively-included one was kept intact, and any champion Awakened has a phylactery drop while being very obviously _not_ liches. Indicating that phylacteries hold a very different role in GW than in D&D and simiar lich settings.

 

We've never seen an example of someone binding their soul to an object and maintaining a separate body. The only examples of soul binding to objects we get (in chronological order) are: Shiro'ken, Oola's/Inquest golems, Exalted, Forged.

 

No examples of someone controlling their walking corpse, just a constructed body replacing their original.

 

> @"Arden.7480" said:

> Of course Zhaitan wasn't lich, I only meant that it's not like that you can't kill death itself, while you can.

>

> Seems like Dhuum is only one exception.

 

Zhaitan is not "death itself" either. Arguably, Dhuum isn't either. We're not quite sure why he can't die, if he truly can't, but it would seem based on his GW2 model and method of sealing that at this point he **was** killed, and is now nothing more than a disembodied and very powerful soul.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

There's many ways to make a lich in fantasy, and they are all tricky to kill.

 

One of the most common methods Lich stay unkillable is by putting their soul outside their body in a receptacle. Usually called a phylactery. Unless you destroy that, the lich cannot be killed. So they hide the phylactery away in a place they think nobody will ever find it. GW has always draw a lot of inspiration from GW themes, so this could be the case with Joko. But we haven't seen this explained to happen anywhere in the story of either game.

 

Some liches are just powerful mages or creatures like dragons that turn into undead naturally when they die, just because of having a lot of magic in their bodies. Those are very powerful, but not as hard to kill as special liches using some gimmick to stay alive.

 

In GW1 we saw a particularly nasty method, in which a lich called Fendi Nin managed to keep his soul from leaving the psychical plane. When killed, instead his soul being released to the mists, his spirit appeared in the form of a demon-like wraith and reformed his body in little time. But when Palawa was defeated in the Battle of Jahai nothing of the sort happened. He just didn't die. They could not destroy his body. They had to seal him away under a monument.

 

Khilbrom had been dabbling with ancient Orrian magics when he released the cataclysm, and after that he had become a lich. We do not know if he turned into a lich on purpose, or if he became undead because of the magic that caused the Cataclysm. It's perfectly likely agents of Abaddon had a hand on making it easier for him to get such magics from a place like the Reliquaries or the sunken Abaddon temple. However he turned into a lich, the result was that he would just keep coming back until killed after spending enough time over the Bloodstone, which hints he was likely full of 'life force' magic like gw2's necromancers, and he could not return once he was drained of that. There's an item called "[Khilbron's Phylactery](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Khilbron%27s_Phylactery_(Infused) "Khilbron's Phylactery")", but we do not know it it was used to keep his soul or if it was just a keepsake, since the item doesn't have a flavor description.

 

Mazdak the Accursed is a powerful lich that is just immune to most forms of damage, except Caladbolg. But he was reanimated by Zhaitan's power into a risen. It's not like he didn't die, it's more like he could not be hurt at all.

 

Most other 'liches' we see in the game can be killed by normal means, meaning they are just powerful undead mages.

 

There's only one real clue to what kind of power Joko has: Scourges.

 

When we talk with the Elite Specialization Scourge NPC, Akesi Xuni, we learn scourge magic is a variation of Palawa's magic. She doesn't explain much, but she does say that Palawa tried to teach a bunch of people his magic. But when they understood Palawa's power and how he wanted to use it, they ran away. We also know that they have changed their magic to be different to what Joko taught them. While joko appears to attach tar and rock to corpses and inject life force into them to animate them and keep them subservient, scourges create sand shades. Basically they put their life force into sand to form shades, then use these shades to protect allies and attack enemies, in what appears to be a little bit of elemental magic mixed with their life force manipulation.

 

So from the little we can know, Joko's power appears to be mostly a mix of death magic, Life Force manipulation, and just a little bit of Elemental magic. But that doesn't tell us how he manages to appear seemingly immortal as if he had an infinite source of life force regenerating him so fast he can't be killed and won't stay defeated for long.

 

We can only speculate beyond that.

He filled a leyline system with his tar and keeps leeching magic off Tyria?

He found one of the two unaccounted bloodstones and managed to link himself to it to keep draining life and death magic off it?

Maybe some powerful ancient artifact like the scepters of orr and the staff of mists?

We may never know.

[Trise.2865]

First off... something that is immortal can't die. If it can be killed, then it wasn't immortal. Anyway, moving on...

 

We know that Joko lives by magic. We know that the dragons consume magic (technically, we only _know_ that _Zhaitan_ consumed magic, but hey...). What if we figure out a way to "feed" Joko's magic to a dragon?

 

Kralkatorrik is the most obvious, as the most powerful threat at hand. He's not too bright from what we can tell, so he could be manipulated and lured, but we risk getting ourselves (or worse, Joko) Branded.

 

Aurene is much more agreeable. She would be hesitant, but would consume Joko's magic if we asked her to. She isn't exactly stealthy, nor is she strong enough to fight Joko by herself, and tackling the entire Awakened army by ourselves would be suicide. We would have to figure out a way to disable Joko, and get her close enough to eat him, all without raising too much attention... that's asking a lot. The biggest risk here is we hand not only ourselves, but also Aurene over to Joko as Awakened slaves.

 

We do have a third option, but it's a long shot... Primordus. As a living lava flow, Primordus can be pretty much anywhere in Tyria, so he can easily emerge in Elona, and his power to incinerate would easily overwhelm Joko's army without risk of "turning" them. Getting Primordus's attention will be very difficult since we don't really know where he is, and he is preoccupied battling both the Dwarves and Jormag. Primordus isn't dumb. Luring him into conflict with Joko (and potentially Kralky) would require some pretty serious blutz waves... but we know how to do that. We know how to affect and direct Leyline energy, because we've studied Scarlet's work directing a burst to awaken Mordremoth. We could reengineer some of that tech to send a focused pulse under the ground, saying "look! there's a big, tasty concentration of magic over here! I sure hope some big, scary, underground Dragon doesn't come try to eat it!"... and we center that pulse directly at the Bone Palace (or wherever Joko happens to be). The benefit to this plan is that we can do it basically from anywhere, as well as drawing Primordus into conflict with Kralkatorrik (and away from us). The downside is: drawing Primordus out and creating this dragon war basically means forfeiting most, if not all, of Elona... and possibly destroying the world in the crossfire.

[perilisk.1874]

Primordus is having a little naptime.

[Apolus.3157]

No.

Next question.

[alphafert.6730]

Got no idea

[Vagrant.7206]

> @"Avador.8934" said:

> There's always a way to kill the immortal. I wonder what would happen if we just throw him into a volcano... I guess it would be hard to crawl out of it when it literally melts you. And sooner or later we'll probably have to defeat him somehow, and locking him again would not just be repeated history, it would be a bit lame to be honest... It should be more like a 'final' ending next time.

 

In GW lore, Liches are near immortal, but they can be killed if their soul or magic is ripped out of them via some means. In GW1, this means killing the Vizier on top of a Bloodstone (which can suck souls of the killed out of their bodies), or attacking Fendi Nin's soul directly when you down him. In GW2, there is another means of doing this -- Elder Dragons can literally eat magic.

[Castigator.3470]

But can you kill a Lich by destroying its body? Can Aurene's gastric acid dissolve a lich? Even if the soul is tied to a body, the ties are worthless, if the body is gone.

Plus, a dragon can absorb the magic ties themselves, breaking the magical bond between soul and corpse.

The dragon's ability to absorb magic energy is the real balance breaker here. Turai Ossa spent three days trying to kill Joko, but ultimately ended up banishing him, because he would just reassemble.

[Randulf.7614]

Joko is dead - Aurene basically ate or unbound his magic and ate the rest of him. I guess there is a chance his soul might somehow reappear and they reinsert him into the Halloween picture, but I think that's about it.

[Fenom.9457]

Not immortal enough lol

[voodoo.7412]

immortal dose not mean he cant be killed

Balthazar is a example or if u check like elfs in lord of the rings are immortals but can be killed so they don't die of old age but can be killed in wars....

Joko is near a god himself and can be killed only by something that can absorb the power he got ,so Aurene can as dragons can absorb powers from other dragons and gods.

im sure he's dead maybe Aurene can raise the dead now.

maybe he will re appear in the foundry of failed creation like the first lich after he got killed by the titans as you know there a mouth of torment in the desolation we may get access to it again..

[Malediktus.9250]

Immortal and invincible are two different things

[Lahmia.2193]

Aurene's magic > Joko's immortality.

[Ruadan.9301]

We can definitely say that he is dead(er than usual when is killed) now, if he ever comes back, it will not be anytime soon. However, the devs on reddit seem to have hinted that we should wait and watch out for whether there might be more Joko one day. Whether that confirms his immortality even in regards to having been eaten by a dragon, or whether they're just making him an underworldly Halloween spectre of some sorts, I am not certain. Could also be that they're just talking about flashbacks. Or maybe they don't even know yet, which is perfectly possible.

However, they seem not to want to say something about Joko never coming back into the franchise.

Jessica Price in particular gave a little nod to this by saying "Play and find out ;)".

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

She later expanded, though, to clarify she wasn't giving any hints or indication that he _would_ be coming back either. She meant exactly what she said: we're not going to know whether he comes back or not until we play through the future releases.

[Ruadan.9301]

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> She later expanded, though, to clarify she wasn't giving any hints or indication that he _would_ be coming back either. She meant exactly what she said: we're not going to know whether he comes back or not until we play through the future releases.

 

It seemed she expanded because people started talking about some comment she supposedly made about Lyssa.

 

As for Joko, the little wink she gave could in fact indicate he is not forever off the table for future content, which doesn't have to mean he's currently on it either, of course.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

_"Guys, you're reading WAY too much into "I can't talk about what we're doing next." There's no secret code underlying these answers, just, literally, I can't talk about what we're doing next,"_ seems pretty conclusive to me, but regardless, it seems like we're reaching the same conclusion from two different directions: Joko's gone for now, but that doesn't mean he might not be back eventually.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:

> _"Guys, you're reading WAY too much into "I can't talk about what we're doing next." There's no secret code underlying these answers, just, literally, I can't talk about what we're doing next,"_ seems pretty conclusive to me, but regardless, it seems like we're reaching the same conclusion from two different directions: Joko's gone for now, but that doesn't mean he might not be back eventually.

 

I think he is dead, or errr ultra dead? however I would love for him and his awakened to combat the mad king in Halloween.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"voodoo.7412" said:

> immortal dose not mean he cant be killed

It technically does, but a lot of stories tend to take the idea of unaging and call it "immortality".

 

Immortality means "not mortal"; to be mortal is to be able to die; to be not mortal is to be unable to die.

 

The gods, Balthazar included, are not immortal. However, for sake of flavor and unreliable narrator, they (and their avatars) may be called "immortal" nonetheless.

[ugrakarma.9416]

it is also common to forget the distinction between indestructible and immortal. Superman for example have a almost-indestructible body, but not immortal. Joko I think is the reverse, a destructible body but immortal, well til someone have a idea to "digest" him and his magic lolz.

 

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

>I guess there is a chance his soul might somehow reappear and they reinsert him into the Halloween picture, but I think that's about it.

 

I could see that. New Haloween quest with the mad king getting us to help drag Joko into the Mad Realm. Having his spirit stuck with King Thorn for eternity would the the absolute worst possible outcome for Joko. His own personal hell.

[aceofbass.2163]

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> We've never seen an example of someone binding their soul to an object and maintaining a separate body. The only examples of soul binding to objects we get (in chronological order) are: Shiro'ken, Oola's/Inquest golems, Exalted, Forged.

 

Excuse me my good sir. Pardon me for raising a question but wasn't lazarus able to do this?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"aceofbass.2163" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > We've never seen an example of someone binding their soul to an object and maintaining a separate body. The only examples of soul binding to objects we get (in chronological order) are: Shiro'ken, Oola's/Inquest golems, Exalted, Forged.

>

> Excuse me my good sir. Pardon me for raising a question but wasn't lazarus able to do this?

 

He was able to split his body and soul and implant it into other people and into objects, but he couldn't maintain a (full) separate body, especially at the time of the later. He needed someone to bring them together to allow him any action.