Guild Wars 2

So, back during the Scarlet arc I predicted that the sylvari as intended-minions theory was correct at it’s most basic level, and that this ought to show itself in three ways:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/escape/We-killed-the-puppet/first#post3860435

1. Some Pale tree Sylvari will start to go a bit mad as Mordremoth tries to overcome the walls the Pale Tree created. These won’t be major NPC’s from the base game however, in order to not effect the personal story.

2. When we reach the other tree, the Sylvari will now be under the influence of Mordremoth (due to no walls protecting them). Therefore they will no longer be friendly, and will most likely act more like traditional minions. That doesn’t mean that they have to be mindless though.

3. Mordremoth’s Dragon champion will be a dragon with a tree on it’s back (like the opening instance for Sylvari). Chances are, the champion will be the other tree that we’ve learned about.

My theories went a little bit deeper, but there didn’t seem to be much point in attempting to theorise much further because anything posted regarding minion theory was always vigorously ‘disproved’.

Well, things have changed, and as my three predictions from 9 months ago are looking pretty good, I thought I’d expand on my theory.

As we know, Sylvari don’t grow from planted seeds, they come out of fruit pods on the tree. Therefore I think it safe to consider the Sylvari to be the fruits of the Pale Tree, a method or spreading seeds, rather than seeds themselves.

However, there ‘were’ a bunch of actual seeds in that cave, and as one of those seeds when planted grew into the Pale Tree, the keeping with the real world biology, these seeds ought to have come from another older tree of the same genus.

That means that the other Malyck’s tree could well be the tree that created the seeds that were hidden in the cave. But if that’s the case, then that would make the other tree significantly older, as it would most likely need to date back to the time when Mordremoth was last awake. Otherwise why were the seeds hidden, and why are there not lots of trees.

But then, where does Mordremoth fit into the equation? Surely if the sylvari and pale trees are minions/champions then those seeds came from him right? But just like dragon eggs create dragons, tree seeds should create trees. Dragon Eggs (which is what the seeds would essentially be if they came from mordremoth) should create more dragons, not trees. So these seeds had to have come from another tree. Unless of course I’m right about the Pale Tree being a Dragon.

Personally I think that the big clue is still in the Sylvari starter instance, Shadow of the Dragon was a dragon with a tree on it’s back. Not a syvari/mordrem dragon made up of vines and plant material in the shape of a dragon, but a being that is both dragon and tree.

This leads me to one conclusion, the other tree is not one of Mordremoth’s champions like I previously thought. The other tree `is` Mordremoth.

If the other tree is Mordremoth, then what about Shadow of the Dragon?

Previously (until we saw the Shadow in physical form) I actually thought that it might be the dragon side of the Pale Tree fighting the avatar side within the dream to try and regain supremacy. I didn’t post this back during the scarlet arc because it was hard enough getting people to discuss the minion theory. Essentially I thought that deep below the Pale Tree, a dragon body lay hidden among the root system under the earth. A body, that theoretically move if it so wished.

However, we’ve now seen the Shadow of the Dragon in physical form, which on the surface makes this a little more hard to explain. Unless of course the lack of tree on the back of the recent incarnation of Shadow of the Dragon is another clue.

You can take a cutting from a plant, and both parts of the plant continue to grow. It could be the case that the physical connection between the Shadow of the Dragon and the Pale Tree was separated much like a cutting. Shadow (being the cutting) then going somewhere else to regrow and regain strength. As you can also re-attach a cutting to a plant, then it would make sense that Shadow of the Dragon wanted its tree part back, especially if that’s the part that grows fruit (sylvari/mordrem) and eventually seeds.

Assuming this is the case, it will be interesting to see what happens to the Pale Tree now that we’ve killed her dragon half in both the dream world and the physical world. In theory she should no longer be under as much pressure without Shadow fighting Avatar. But equally, if we just killed something that was a part of her, it could have a negative consequence too.

Also, if the Mordremoth tree decides to relocate to take on the Pale Tree (or us), is the Pale Tree now stuck in one spot like a normal tree, or has she grown a new dragon body in her root system?

Does the shadow of the dragon not have a tree on its back when we kill it? I never really looked. This is a great theory, I just assumed that the shadow of the Dagon meant the shadow of mordremoth, because the pale tree recounts it as coming staight from the dragon (can’t remember exactly what she said but right before it attacked at the world summit). I didn’t delve too much into thinking about where the seeds came from and if they were eggs why they weren’t dragons, once again I assumed that they were eggs, but mordremoth worked very different from elder dragons(which he does).

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure that it didn’t, I only played through the instance once. But I am sure that I felt confused that there was no tree on the back, maybe I just missed it, but that confusion was definitely there.

That said, if there `had` been an obvious tree on the back it would have killed off my Shadow/Avatar Ying/Yang theory. We couldn’t see the majority of the dragon during the fight up in the pale tree, but that fight made me waiver. I wasn’t sure how it could be possible that Shadow had physical form and still be the Pale Tree’s dragon side, but assuming I’m not mistaken in the assertion there was no tree on the recent Shadow encounter, then it still works.

I didn’t really go into them above, but there are a few reasons why I linked Shadow and Avatar previously.

1. They have the same unique name pattern "[Avatar/Shadow] of the [Pale Tree/Dragon].
2. Shadow was ‘in’ the dream.

Shadow being in the dream is a pretty major thing, especially now that we’ve had the basics of minion-theory confirmed. We know that the dream is unique to the Pale Tree and we know that Pale Tree Sylvari have a unique protection from Mordremoth. It makes sense that the dream was the mechanism that the Pale Tree prepared the ‘walls’ around the Sylvari mind.

But if the dream is Mordremoth protection, how does the Shadow get in there? The two don’t work, if the Shadow represents Mordremoth as a presence in the dream, then the walls shouldn’t stand up to him. Also, now that Shadow is the physical presence of a different plant dragon, how did he get in there when Mordremoth couldn’t.

Finally, Avatar lies to Sylvari PC’s telling them that Shadow represents Zhaitan (which is clearly not the case). Why would she need to lie about that? She could have not named the dragon and argued that it represented draconic influence in general. Unless of course the truth was that Shadow was her dark side, now that’s a reason to lie.

I thought the dragon was getting the dream through nightmare, and that the nightmare was how mordremoth would get into the dream and take back his sylvari. As for the pale tree lying about the dragon being zaihten influence I have three things that could be. 1. She was saying it was the players wyld hung symbol to fight dragons. 2. It may have been a lie. 3. She may have thought it was zaihten because mordremoth technically should have awakened so soon. Idk

When a Elder Dragon sleeps there is a nexus of lye lines i.e. Primodus. If the speculation holds up that sleeping elder dragons are a source of magic then it could be the nexus of lye lines is created by Primodus. What happen when Zhaitan died? Shouldn’t his body seep out magic? If that is the case then Zhaitan body should be a nexus of lye lines. The linkage I am trying to make is Zhaitan dead body is seeping out magic as a nexus of lye lines, and the speculation is lye lines from Zhaitan dead body could have been flowing to dormant dragon champions like Teq, and Shadow of the Dragon. So part of Zhaitan magic have been passed to Teq and Shadow of the Dragon. So both Teq and Shadow of the Dragon have constituents of Zhaitan.

Honestly, I’m thinking that these seeds are Mordremoth’s “form” of dragon eggs. That they have this unique capability to grow trees if planted into the dirt and nurtured as one would with a seed of any kind. Perhaps that’s how the Shadow of The Dragon came to be, that it was a seed left un-buried and, when called, broke out of its shell and began to terrorize.

Actually your theory fits perfect. The attack on the summit has left me confused for quite some time but your theory would explain quite a bit. I never understood how the Pale Tree Avatar is doing fine in all her power, a roar happens, the lights go dim, and all of a sudden she is crippled. Not so mighty now are ya? I kept wondering how this happened so fast.

If you question the Avatar, she says “The Mordrem tore at my roots and wounded me” (something to that effect). That’s silly. How did they do that so fast? What? A bunch of wolves we never see were thrashing around underground… And left after crippling her in a few seconds? Why not finish the job?

It makes more sense that the Shadow of the Dragon tore free from The Pale Tree—in an instant—and proceeded to fly right to the top to dispatch you. The Pale Tree is now mortally wounded without it’s dragon half and needs a new one (Glints Egg) to survive. The only thing not explained is how the tree became sentient on its own and had a different will than the dragon half? :-) sounds a little far fetched, but could work.

Idk if this is a bump so sorry. I looked at screenshots from when I killed the shadow of the dragon, and he did have a tree on his back, not saying this disproves you. And as for what archon said about it not making sense why the pale tree collapsed, she is originally a mordremoth champion freed from his control by Ventari and Ronan(IMO at least) and when the mordrem attacked the grove she would have had to resist mordremoth a control, and the avatar collapsed because the avatar is just a manifestation of the pale tree. Also I believe she said that the shadow of the dragon “tore it’s claws into the dream” and she shielded the dream from its attack, which leads me to believe not only did she have to resist mordremoth corruption for herself, but all sylvari that were connected to the dream and those not yet awakened.