Let's see. For the four Gates we do know about:

  • Lilian's Gate: This is a very much "why the heck did she not do X" situation yes, but I do think people are underselling it somewhat. Yes, undead(and constructs for that matter) are immune to her guardian virus trump card. It works on virtually everything else, though, and the few outliers can usually be ignored by the simple fact that there's an epic druid squatting in the area. Lilian is an elf, so it's not even like she'd die of old age any time soon, either. She did make a number of tactical mistakes - arguably the only reason she did so poorly against him is because the narrative wanted to show what abilities Xykon gained from his transformation - but I'd say the only really damning mistakes were blabbing about how her greatest asset worked and the existence of the other Gates.

  • Dorukan's Gate: The only real problem here was human error; Dorukan did manage to keep a hold on himself until Xykon literally forced his girlfriend's soul to watch her corpse get devoured. Did he make a fatal mistake? Yes. Is it that easy to ignore? Well... I'd say no, personally. As for the dungeon itself, I'd say that the Sigil was more of a last line of defense rather than the only one that mattered. Remember, Xykon's forces basically gutted the dungeon and there probably would have been guardians to warn Good-aligned people away otherwise even if Dorkuan had croaked by then.

  • Soon's Gate: I think the Sapphire Guard did shoot themselves in the foot by antagonizing the goblins so much when TDO clearly knew that the Gates were a thing, so even if it hadn't been Team Evil specifically there was always the risk of them invading. In a sense, it was possibly the only Gate where the most realistic option was "bring an army". That being said, it wasn't lost easily, and if Miko hadn't destroyed the gem with the Gate in it then Soon would have finished the two biggest threats. And unless you have magical weapons you can't even hurt him. That being said, if the ghost-paladins can't return after getting "turned", then the defenses would have been seriously weakened and the city would still have been in ruins whether or not Miko had blown up the Gate. Still, the flaws it did have aren't exactly ones that could really be fixed easily and/or aren't exactly obvious ones.

  • Girard's Gate: I'll be blunt; calling this one a bust because the Draketooths were wiped out by Familicide is like calling a snow fort a failure because it can't stand multiple point-blank tactical nuke strikes. It was actually hidden better than any of the other Gates except maybe Soon's, and it had a large number of high-level sorcerers as defenders. While undead can ignore a lot of some of the stronger illusion spells and True Seeing is an extremely efficient counter, it's still a bit of a catch-22. An army will probably not have the resources to give enough people True Seeing, and smaller groups are unlikely to have as much raw spellcasting power. Remember, illusions were only the main class of abilities they could use, so even if half the spells they knew were illusions they could still spontaneously cast the other half just fine, and that's assuming that your protections don't get dispelled.


Honestly, the biggest reasons the Gates have fallen could be said to be narrative reasons rather than inherent flaws:

  • Lilian used the forces of nature to defend her Gate; she was killed by Xykon(undead) the Gate was accidentally destroyed by Redcloak(unnatural lifespan extension.

  • Dorkuan trusted in his wizardry and the Sigil of Pure Heart; he was killed by Xykon(a sorcerer) and his Gate was destroyed by Elan(Good-aligned but dumb).

  • Soon's Gate was protected by the army of Azure City and the Sapphire Guard; the city fell to a stronger army and the Gate was destroyed by Miko, a fallen paladin - and if Redcloak(wronged by the Guard) hadn't turned all the oathspirits, she probably wouldn't have gone straight for the gem either).

  • Girard protected his Gate with his family of sorcerers and deception; the family was wiped out by Familicide and Roy saw through his bluff simply because of cross-class ranks in Knowledge(engineering and architecture).