Guild Wars 2

What if the Elder Dragons are not the source of the corruption?

Glint and the Pale Tree were freed of the corruption by the Forgotten, so maybe it’s possible that the corruption is not the natural state of the Elder Dragons.

The Elder Dragons consume massive quantities of magic over several millennia. It is possible that corruption was in the magic, leaking from somewhere. Over time, the corruption would build up in the dragons’ bodies, but, unlike the magic, would remain in their bodies even after they fell asleep. Eventually, the EDs would have built up enough corruption to start spreading it to others.

If the EDs were not originally corrupt, it is possible that they were guardians against the corruption. The EDs also have the natural ability to purify corrupted magic, slowing the pollution. The process of consuming magic then releasing it back into the world is a natural purification of magic.

The corruption is leaking into the magic. Killing the dragons is allowing corrupted magic to flow into the world with unknown consequences. When Mordremoth yelled his final words, “What have you done?” I felt as if there was something very wrong.

At first, the EDs were probably neutral, perhaps kind like Glint. The over-saturation of corruption would eventually turn them into the terrible beings we know today. Their mission to protect the world against corruption and to purify the magic would twist into the logic that “purify” also means genocide of the races that utilize magic.

I look forward to seeing what others have to say.

DuskyInsanePoet.4218:

Glint and the Pale Tree were freed of the corruption by the Forgotten, so maybe it’s possible that the corruption is not the natural state of the Elder Dragons.

The Forgotten’s spell didn’t remove or free Glint from Kralk’s corruption. It simply removed Kralk’s direct control over her and gave her free will.

As for the Pale Tree, unless I missed something, we still haven’t gotten exact confirmation on what exactly happened to the seed to give it free will. All we know is that something did happen.

Wasnt it revealed Mordy was the corruption? (although this may only be true for Mordy)
its a interesting theory

Erukk.1408:

DuskyInsanePoet.4218:

Glint and the Pale Tree were freed of the corruption by the Forgotten, so maybe it’s possible that the corruption is not the natural state of the Elder Dragons.

The Forgotten’s spell didn’t remove or free Glint from Kralk’s corruption. It simply removed Kralk’s direct control over her and gave her free will.

As for the Pale Tree, unless I missed something, we still haven’t gotten exact confirmation on what exactly happened to the seed to give it free will. All we know is that something did happen.

The Alter of Glaust and the ritual give back free will. Glint remained loyal to Kralkatorrik until she started reading everyone’s thoughts and then chose not to work for him. There’s a purified risen chicken at the alter, so the purification works on all Elder Dragon corruption, not just Kralk’s. In a way, all dragon corruption is the same somehow.

Also, the Zephyrites tried to protect Glint’s draconic magic so that it would not fall into the wrong hands, so dragon magic is corruptible.

The Forgotten used magic that could not be corrupted by the dragons, but that’s all they really tell us. The lore of the Forgotten is a mystery that holds the answers to many questions.

I know there’s a lot of muddy areas in my theory, but I’m doing the best I can with what little information we have on the true nature of the Elder Dragons and the lore of the Forgotten. I theory-craft for fun, it’s like putting together a puzzle missing most of the pieces.

Deleena.3406:

Wasnt it revealed Mordy was the corruption? (although this may only be true for Mordy)
its a interesting theory

Well, every time I read about the dragon corruption, it’s referred to in possessive form, “its corruption.” The Elder Dragons themselves are not the embodiment of corruption. They don’t personify it, but rather own it. Like magic, corruption seems to be a resource.

I really want to see Bubbles, and I hope that it’s not corrupted like the others. It would really make things more interesting to have a nice Elder Dragon. Also, it would add so much to the lore and might give me some more proof about the corruption theory.

I would like you to specify what ‘corruption’ is and what is not. Not just in a single dragon’s case, but on the whole, since you theorize that its a global thing that the dragons just picked up.

Some forms of corruption are easy to see as examples. Jormag’s corrupted ice. Mordremoth’s beastial plant creatures. Zhaitan’s undead nation. But what exactly is ‘corruption’? Is it a change in something’s nature? After all, dead things and plants are not supposed to move around killing people.

lakdav.3694:

I would like you to specify what ‘corruption’ is and what is not. Not just in a single dragon’s case, but on the whole, since you theorize that its a global thing that the dragons just picked up.

Some forms of corruption are easy to see as examples. Jormag’s corrupted ice. Mordremoth’s beastial plant creatures. Zhaitan’s undead nation. But what exactly is ‘corruption’? Is it a change in something’s nature? After all, dead things and plants are not supposed to move around killing people.

Corruption (n):
-moral perversion; depravity. Synonyms: dissolution, immorality
-perversion of integrity
-putrefactive decay; rottenness. Syn: foulness, pollution, contamination

Yes, plants and undead are not supposed to attack, but we have plenty of necromancers and Sylvari running around that want nothing to do with the Elder Dragons. The problem right now is if my theory is true, the EDs have the majority of the corruption, and anything else with non-dragon corruption has it in such low amounts that it has gone unnoticed. The EDs would have to been absorbing the corruption for millions of years to reach the amount they currently have.

What I found strange is that everyone has accepted that the EDs are a natural cycle of the world. They are so ancient that it is unknown where they came from. The consuming of magic is not their true goal, just a side effect of their destruction according to the Durmond Priory.

What I found strange is how the EDs magic is referred to as “dragon corruption.” Their magic is rarely referred to as “draconic magic” which is more accurate. Glint’s magic is always talked about as “draconic magic,” but she was well on her way to being an Elder Dragon herself. How was her magic different? Why are the EDs talked about like contamination and pollution? Aren’t they just a natural disaster like a hurricane or an earthquake? Natural disasters and pollution are two different things. Yes, they both cause damage, but pollution is rarely natural.

Unfortunately, the devs have been very careful in how much we know about the EDs. Glint’s egg, Gleam, and Bubbles could provide more hints, or could give us nothing.

See, there is my little problem. We are led to believe that the dragons spread their corruption. Thats alright. Anything can spread corruption, really, even inanimate objects. Heck, even ideas and suggestions. (Jormag and his Sons of Svanir)

The problem starts when we try to comprehend that the dragons themselves have been corrupted.

-We cant talk about moral perversion, immorality, as the dragons are just too darn big in every meaning of the word to be subject to our lowly mortal morals.
-We cant really measure the proposed perversion of their integrity. We know the dragons as they are, all the races we know of to have encountered them knew and know them as they are now. Technically speaking, the “purification” of Glint fits more into this definition of “corruption”.
-decay contamination and rot is tricky too. Suggesting that the dragons are corrupted in this manner would mean that their cycles had been messed with majorly. Their entire system would be disfunctional. Which might be the case, really, but we cant know without more information about the earlier cycles. But in either case, we are majorly messing up the system ourselves, killing one ED after the other.

Scarlet Briar (in thaumanova reactor fractal) notes that dragon magic and chaos magic is technically the same, or at least they are closely related. She doesnt differentiate between the dragons when saying that. From this I can guess that they either have some connection to chaos themselves (part of creation, the original state of the universe before creation, so maybe the part of the recreation of the world as well?), or it was this Chaos that corrupted them and their nature, if your theory is considered.

@lakdav.3694
Like I’ve said before, we essentially know nothing about the Elder Dragons. It wasn’t until recently that the devs dropped the whole “Sylvari are dragon minions” on us. The theory was there for 2 years before the reveal, but it could have easily gone the other way as well. But isn’t that what makes theory crafting fun?

The dragons could have been absorbing corruption and the dragon corruption is its form of bleeding into Tyria. It could end up being that all we’re doing in killing the EDs is causing a super magic storm, and raw primordial magic will envelope the world in chaos.

It pretty exciting to think that once the EDs are gone as a threat, we’ll see the dawning of something that has never happened before in the entire history of Tyria, Elona, and Cantha. So far the only theory I’ve seen for the ED death is the over-abundance of magic. I’m just proposing another possibilty.

DuskyInsanePoet.4218:

Also, the Zephyrites tried to protect Glint’s draconic magic so that it would not fall into the wrong hands, so dragon magic is corruptible.

I don’t think that the wrong hands were dragons who corrupt, but figures like the Inquest – people who would use her body’s magic for their own gains.

So far, nothing has twisted dragon corruption except other dragons (Subject Alpha), and even that’s in an uncommon environment. The only dragons not shown corrupted are those given free will, but such situations are sketchy – we haven’t seen Glint or her offspring touched by dragon corruption, and sylvari are tied to the Dream which seems independent from Mordremoth and the source of their “immunity” (which is nothing like Forgotten magic immunity, as they die when touched by dragon corruption – whether this is an effect of the Dream or an effect of being dragon minions has yet to be clarified and probably never will be).

Your theory doesn’t work, however, due to one thing:

DuskyInsanePoet.4218:

Corruption (n):
-moral perversion; depravity. Synonyms: dissolution, immorality
-perversion of integrity
-putrefactive decay; rottenness. Syn: foulness, pollution, contamination

That’s the dictionary definition which is not the same as what we see in-game.

Dragon corruption is the act of physically changing an entity (previously animate or not) – e.g., from flesh into crystal or ice – and either enslaving the pre-existing mind to the dragons’ will, or creating an enslaved mind.

That’s the main fallacy of your argument. Corruption is effectively enslavement, and the Six Elder Dragons are at the top of that chain – they’re the enslavers.

If corruption came from something else, then the Elder Dragons would be enslaved to that something else.

The only way your theory works is if “Zhaitan” “Mordremoth” and the other names are not the Elder Dragons, that the dragon bodies we killed (and minds in Kralkatorrik’s, Jormag’s, and Mordremoth’s cases) are not the controllers of the corruption, but the controlled. But this doesn’t work.

We go into Kralkatorrik’s mind and we see his body react to it. He is the source of his corruption.

We go into Mordremoth’s mind and see his body react to it. He is the source of his corruption.

So unless every dragon functions like Mordremoth – that their mind is tied to all of their corruption (which is in a way true but also isn’t – Mordremoth was unique, supposedly, in that he could transfer his mind and this was because of his second sphere of influence being mind which made him effectively immortal).

As such, the only other way your theory might work – and it becomes stretching at best – is if one goes the abstract route of “the source of corruption” is not a thing but “the magic which allows one to physically alter and mentally enslave another”. Which to all we can tell may be a thing – after all, what Abaddon did to the Margonites very much mirrors dragon corruption, as does what Adelbern did to Ascalonians via Magdaer and what Jalis did to the dwarves via the Hammer of the Great Dwarf.

But that’s not so much “the source of corruption” as it is “the method of corrupting” and at best it would just prove that corruption is not unique to Elder Dragons.

lakdav.3694:

Scarlet Briar (in thaumanova reactor fractal) notes that dragon magic and chaos magic is technically the same, or at least they are closely related.

She actually doesn’t say either. She says that the Inquest mixed the two up.

In the original LW if you talked to Kiel afterwards Kiel explained that the Inquest mistook dragon magic for chaos magic and mixed the two. In higher levels of the fractals when yo uget the dorm portion you can save the two nameless Inquest and they run to the entrance – if you follow them, they have a conversation explaining that the “special consultant” had egged the Thaumanova lab leader on into pushing the boundaries. They began playing a game of “who can push further” which led to the mixing of dragon and chaos magic.

In other words, Scarlet’s little speech is mostly lies. She didn’t “warn” the Inquest – she tricked them into doing it.