Guild Wars 2

We all play the game, we all fight the dragons, we all kill the things dragons create. We know how this makes us feel as players, and all the side characters, but has anybody asked the dragons their side of the story? We all tend to think of them as giant roaring forces of nature, but we seem to forget quickly that they are the masterminds behind all this catastrophe.

Zhaitan had a good thing going with orr, and from what you saw of his minions in the personal story some of them were quite intelligent, so wouldn’t that mean Zhaitan is at least as smart as them? Mordemoth broke the mind of a self proclaimed genius, and supposedly guided her in an overly complex campaign against, well, everybody. So wouldn’t that mean Mordemoth is of sizable intelligence also? These are ancient being with heads the size of large houses, there’s gotta be a brain in there somewhere…

And if there’s a brain, there has to be a personality too. We can all assume Zhaitan was a bit of a cult leader. And possibly very lonely (I mean all the risen ever wanted was for you to join them). He attacked the pacts laser ship when he easily could have flown away so I would say also that we can assume he was a bit arrogent. Also his ability was the least elemental, he basicly was picking up table scraps and sticking them back togeather. How do the other dragons feel about this do you think? Is Zhaitan perhaps the youngest? The Weakest? The one they don’t quite want to meet at the family reunion? This is of course assuming the dragons are all in cohoots. I mean if they really were trying to off one another you’d figure they would get around to it after a few thousand years

And Mordremoth, honestly? He might be abit of a jerk. He wasn’t just trying to expand his reign and eat abit of magic oh no, he went as far as to highjack somebody’s mind and wreck their personality. Was it a means to an end? A preferred method of operation? Pure lizard curiosity?

And what about the others? Is Primordus perhaps just a survivalist trying to keep his flame from going out? Does the deep sea dragon want to be left alone is the Unending Ocean? Is Kralkattorik scaled of Rytlock shanking him? Or are they all just hungry hungry lizards?

Please share with me what you think, Especially on Mordremoth, I like to know how a creature feels about me before i go on a year long multi parted quest just to stab it.

You are putting human traits onto non-human things.
We have a particular view of the world that is shaped by our cultural and social experiences and upbringing. Elder Dragon’s do not have anywhere near the same kind of social experience, nor do we have any idea how their brains function. So Yeah, I wouldn’t go trying to put human feelings or emotions onto them…

I imagine they’ll be more defensive. If you have a pack of wolves and you shoot one with a bow, the others are going to be cautious. They’re cunning like predators, but all animals have some sort of self-preservation instinct. If the dragons are smart enough to see civilization as a threat, they’re going to be more wary, and perhaps more subtle in their overthrow of civilization.

Despite ArenaNet’s sayings that the Elder Dragons are “beyond mortal comprehension” they have given the Elder Dragons hints of personalities that can be comprehended.

My old research, well before many discoveries about Mordremoth (and even a couple on Primordus) can be found here – I have an updated version going to be in the next GuildMag issue… whenever that will end up being.

I don’t think their personalities is really as simple as “I want to be left alone” or “I will survive!” like the OP is apparently trying to attribute.

As to the comment of “Mordremoth being a jerk” because he broke Scarlet… the Elder Dragons view mortals as insignificant. For a comparison: it’d be like a human experimenting on a little albino mouse… if you get what I mean.

I wouldn’t hold too much sympathy for the dragons. The elder dragons are called devourers so I’d guess that Snaff’s vision into Kralk’s mind, an insatiable hunger, will hold true for other dragons as well. They seem to care for nothing but themselves. They destroy and corrupt everything. They bend life, earth, and magic to their will. From what we see of dragon minions, there is not just disdain for life but an absolute hatred. I would assume the minions get that hatred directly from the dragon, where else?

How do you start negotiating with a dragon when you have nothing to offer it that it cannot take, the dragon’s hunger only grows, and it desires to corrupt and control everything? Absolutely, totally everything.

Everyone is a bit moody in the mornings. They just woke up, and the world is all different. Again! Annoying.

I think their viewpoint can be summed up with “I’ll kill all you kitteners!”

lakdav.3694:

Everyone is a bit moody in the mornings. They just woke up, and the world is all different. Again! Annoying.

The true answer to all our problems is building a giant metal kettle to hold over Mt. Maelstrom and make a big fat pot of coffee.

Rukh.9287:

lakdav.3694:

Everyone is a bit moody in the mornings. They just woke up, and the world is all different. Again! Annoying.

The true answer to all our problems is building a giant metal kettle to hold over Mt. Maelstrom and make a big fat pot of coffee.

Maybe make it a Cauldron of Cataclysm…

lakdav.3694:

Everyone is a bit moody in the mornings. They just woke up, and the world is all different. Again! Annoying.

And there’s no coffee to be found anywhere in Tyria. Not even tea.

My god, better hope that never boils over. Rivers of coffee flooding the map….

I can’t decide if that’s a nightmare or heaven.

Silhouette.5631:

and from what you saw of his minions in the personal story some of them were quite intelligent, so wouldn’t that mean Zhaitan is at least as smart as them?

Ehhh…. Umm… Not necessarily.
Ok so I tend to be mostly alone in this opinion but I don’t think EDs are intelligent in a way we think of it that way. My theory is that EDs are mostly instinctive. When they’re hungry they want to eat. When they’re tired they go to sleep for a few thousand years. And so on. But we have no conclusive evidence either way (so I might very well be wrong).
The two theories however have interesting implications, in the case of EDs not being intelligent this leaves us with a question but how can they perform complex tactics. In such a case this is where those intelligent minions come in. So an ED is like: “Me hungry!” and the champion (guided by the will of the ED) is responsible for figuring out how to do so (so basically tactical planning). In all cases where we’ve seen the Risen show any complex tactics they’ve always been accompanied by a champion of some sort.
But who knows maybe Zhaitan was just playing tricks on us (making us think the minions hand freewill).

Silhouette.5631:

Mordemoth broke the mind of a self proclaimed genius, and supposedly guided her in an overly complex campaign against, well, everybody. So wouldn’t that mean Mordemoth is of sizable intelligence also? These are ancient being with heads the size of large houses, there’s gotta be a brain in there somewhere…

Not necessarily. Ever read Call of Cthulhu? Well Cthulhu is an alien whose asleep (or dead? or neither?) in an underwater city he and his buddies built long ago while trying to colonize earth. Cthulhu send out “crazy-waves” and over the years drove many people to madness. Now Cthulhu doesn’t purposefully do this (as far as we know), his very nature is such that it drives men mad. It’s possible that Mordy might be the same, that driving Sylvari mad is simply a passive extension of his corruption and that he does knowingly drive anyone mad.
Also Scarlet was never really all that nice to begin with…
And also brain size != intelligence or else whales would have conquered the world years ago.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

You are putting human traits onto non-human things.
We have a particular view of the world that is shaped by our cultural and social experiences and upbringing. Elder Dragon’s do not have anywhere near the same kind of social experience, nor do we have any idea how their brains function. So Yeah, I wouldn’t go trying to put human feelings or emotions onto them…

Well according to the Zepherites EDs are like natural disasters, not inherently evil but by their nature destructive. However we’re not sure if this isn’t simply colorful language on their part however (since they’re technically like a cult… and cults sometimes think crazy thing).

CureForLiving.5360:

Well according to the Zepherites EDs are like natural disasters, not inherently evil but by their nature destructive. However we’re not sure if this isn’t simply colorful language on their part however (since they’re technically like a cult… and cults sometimes think crazy thing).

That’s also the standard Tyrian view of the Elder Dragons. The Pact and Orders know differently – as we experience in the personal story. This dialogue is just part of the entire “NPCs are subjective in what they say” (that, to me, feels like it’s been slowly going down the drain since Scarlet and Taimi became the expositionists).

Now, ask yourself: if you were teaching children, would you say that these world-ending entities were evil and seeking to consume your soul, or would you say that they were akin to mindless beasts?

Most teachers/parents would do the latter, to create a false sense of security for their children.