Guild Wars 2

When Scarlet emerged from Omadd’s she claimed to have seen everything. Did she see Balthazar?

Scarlet said a lot of things, a lot of which should be taken with a….block of salt. And while Omadd’s theory was that the machine would let one see the Eternal Alchemy in its entirety, that doesn’t seem to be what actually happened. Like, at all.

I’m not so sure. We saw quite a bit when we were in Omadd’s machine.

We saw something very similar to Taimi’s simulation. Scarlett appeared to have the goal of waking the dragons.

The dragons seem to be more-or -less mirrors of the gods. Wake the dragons, call back the gods ala’ the Chutulu mythos?

The Sylvari are/were minions of Mordremoth. We also know that there are other Sylvari we haven’t met. ( We learn this in one Sylvari personal story.) who are the minions of Melandru then? Druids?

Destroyers serve Primordus, who serves Balthazar?

I think Scarlett was making radical moves to balance out the system of Gods/Dragons. Grenth’s opposite number was killed. Does this mean Grenth is excessively powerful? It would tend to unbalance the system toward entropy.

Ithilwen.1529:

I think Scarlett was making radical moves to balance out the system of Gods/Dragons. Grenth’s opposite number was killed. Does this mean Grenth is excessively powerful? It would tend to unbalance the system toward entropy.

The trouble with that line of thought is that only a couple of the gods and dragons line up. Grenth and Zhaitan, sure, Melandru and Mordremoth, Balthazar and Primordus… but after that? The only thing we know about the DSD is it makes minions out of water, so in theory it should go to the goddess of water… but doesn’t that mean Jormag should match up with the god of ice? Grenth’s already taken. And how do you begin to pick out a dragon counterpart for Dwayna or Kormir?

I am doubtful. While Scarlet and Ogden (and many others by association) like to claim The All and the Eternal Alchemy as the same thing, we’re told that The All is about the inner workings of Tyria, while the Eternal Alchemy is the inner workings of all things.

That’s like comparing Earth’s atmosphere, magnetic force, wind and water currents etc. to the expansion of the universe. They’re not the same, not by a long shot. But to Tyrians, who know so little about the multiverse, it might as well be.

@Ithilwen: The ELder Dragons existed on Tyria for dozens of thousands of years longer than the Six Gods ever first stepped foot on the world. The gods arrived after / at the later years of the last dragonrise, around 2,000-1,500 BE; we have records indicating the Elder Dragons going back at least 20,000 BE (possibly 30,000 BE depending on one’s interpretations).

Furthermore, we see clearly that Primordus does not serve Balthazar in Season 3 – and the whole “god to dragon” association fails dramatically after the first half.

Grenth is death so Zhaitan. Okay, then who’s Jormag, who is ice? And if we use Dhuum instead of Grenth, there is no god of ice (Dhuum was never associated with ice).

In recent update, Mordremoth is called life (though I would hardly call vegetation “life” but w/e), that would be Dwayna, not Melandru, so which dragon is “nature” for Melandru? Or if Mordremoth goes to Melandru, who does Dwayna go to?

There is no god of crystals, and no dragon of knowledge.

The only god/dragon that lines up perfectly is Primordus and Balthazar…. except Primordus is not war, and that’s Balthazar’s primary domain.

I don’t fully agree.

First , there has been a succession among the gods. Some have risen and others fallen. As I pointed out in another thread, each of the current gods have multiple associations. Some of them overlap.

I’d place Melandru as opposite Mordremoth, Earth and her specific affinity with plants.

Glint ( the lieutenant of Kralkatorik ) was a Mesmer and associated with crystals. So, I’d associate Lyssa with Kralkatoric.

I didn’t say or imply that the dragons served the gods. I said that they counterbalance. That being the case, The gods arriving at a different moment from the gods isn’t really relevant.

I see what I’m proposing as perfectly feasible. The gods represent creation and the dragons destruction.

@Aaron Ansari; Kormir took over Abaddon’s place. He had a strong water association.

Ithilwen.1529:

First , there has been a succession among the gods. Some have risen and others fallen. As I pointed out in another thread, each of the current gods have multiple associations. Some of them overlap.

True. But of the few cases we have of succession has one domain always remaining. In Grenth/Dhuum’s case, it is death. In Abaddon/Kormir’s case, it is knowledge. The other things associated with the four gods are superficial at best, and could be said to not ever be truly a domain they govern, but just a flavor they have.

These two domains also match exactly how the norn view the “Spirits of Action” (as they call the gods) – which they call Life, Death, War, Knowledge, and Nature (we’re not sure on what they call Lyssa though). Which would mark the one thing that ties Primordus and Balthazar together… irrelevant.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’d place Melandru as opposite Mordremoth, Earth and her specific affinity with plants.

Glint ( the lieutenant of Kralkatorik ) was a Mesmer and associated with crystals. So, I’d associate Lyssa with Kralkatoric.

In the story step Hidden Arcana, Glint’s telepathic skills are explicitly stated to be “unique” to her. Of course, the Dragonspawn exhibits similar attributes in Edge of Destiny, and Mordremoth’s second domain is mind (though he never uses telepathy on non-mordrem/sylvari).

So just because Glint used telepathy/mesmer magic, doesn’t mean Kralkatorrik even can. By all indication – albeit all of such comes from Edge of Destiny novel – he never once exhibits any mesmer like qualities, and aside from the color purple and shared animations, neither do the branded.

In short: Glint is unreliable in that regard. What we do see both Glint and Kralkatorrik linked to are crystals and air/sky.

So that second domain could link Kralkatorrik up to Dwayna, but that’s still not linking Crystals and Life.

Ithilwen.1529:

I didn’t say or imply that the dragons served the gods. I said that they counterbalance. That being the case, The gods arriving at a different moment from the gods isn’t really relevant.

Actually, it is entirely relevant because the gods arrived as gods, and the Elder Dragons are directly tied to the world.

This means that the gods are not tied to the world at all, thus their origins and their powers are intrinsically different.

The idea of associating gods to dragons has been around since we first learned that there were not five but six Elder Dragons. And time and time again, it fails to link up. For reasons both of us have presented. It has come up but failed to be anywhere close to conclusive so much that ArenaNet put a reference to the ever-returning discussion in the game.

The closest attempt I’ve ever seen was by splitting association by domains rather than directly 1:1 ratio, so that one god and one dragon held the same domain. This fell in error, however, because of too many assumptions (it forced assuming Jormag’s and Primordus’ second domains and the DSD’s two domains to fit well enough with the conceptual domains of the gods, and turned Kralkatorrik’s second domain into something much different than what it seems to be by all evidence (sky/air)).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ithilwen.1529:

First , there has been a succession among the gods. Some have risen and others fallen. As I pointed out in another thread, each of the current gods have multiple associations. Some of them overlap.

True. But of the few cases we have of succession has one domain always remaining. In Grenth/Dhuum’s case, it is death. In Abaddon/Kormir’s case, it is knowledge. The other things associated with the four gods are superficial at best, and could be said to not ever be truly a domain they govern, but just a flavor they have.

These two domains also match exactly how the norn view the “Spirits of Action” (as they call the gods) – which they call Life, Death, War, Knowledge, and Nature (we’re not sure on what they call Lyssa though). Which would mark the one thing that ties Primordus and Balthazar together… irrelevant.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’d place Melandru as opposite Mordremoth, Earth and her specific affinity with plants.

Glint ( the lieutenant of Kralkatorik ) was a Mesmer and associated with crystals. So, I’d associate Lyssa with Kralkatoric.

In the story step Hidden Arcana, Glint’s telepathic skills are explicitly stated to be “unique” to her. Of course, the Dragonspawn exhibits similar attributes in Edge of Destiny, and Mordremoth’s second domain is mind (though he never uses telepathy on non-mordrem/sylvari).

So just because Glint used telepathy/mesmer magic, doesn’t mean Kralkatorrik even can. By all indication – albeit all of such comes from Edge of Destiny novel – he never once exhibits any mesmer like qualities, and aside from the color purple and shared animations, neither do the branded.

In short: Glint is unreliable in that regard. What we do see both Glint and Kralkatorrik linked to are crystals and air/sky.

So that second domain could link Kralkatorrik up to Dwayna, but that’s still not linking Crystals and Life.

Ithilwen.1529:

I didn’t say or imply that the dragons served the gods. I said that they counterbalance. That being the case, The gods arriving at a different moment from the gods isn’t really relevant.

Actually, it is entirely relevant because the gods arrived as gods, and the Elder Dragons are directly tied to the world.

This means that the gods are not tied to the world at all, thus their origins and their powers are intrinsically different.

The idea of associating gods to dragons has been around since we first learned that there were not five but six Elder Dragons. And time and time again, it fails to link up. For reasons both of us have presented. It has come up but failed to be anywhere close to conclusive so much that ArenaNet put a reference to the ever-returning discussion in the game.

The closest attempt I’ve ever seen was by splitting association by domains rather than directly 1:1 ratio, so that one god and one dragon held the same domain. This fell in error, however, because of too many assumptions (it forced assuming Jormag’s and Primordus’ second domains and the DSD’s two domains to fit well enough with the conceptual domains of the gods, and turned Kralkatorrik’s second domain into something much different than what it seems to be by all evidence (sky/air)).

Or TL:DR, this topic of discussion is begging for one of my ‘Beating a Dead Horse’ Gifs.

I doubt Scarlet saw the entire eternal alchemy, as that kind of knowledge would take a thousand elonian libraries to write an introduction on.
I believe she saw the essence of the eternal alchemy, and from there, a relative truth about the dragons