Guild Wars 2

We had a vision of the eternal alchemy in the last mission of Entanglement in Living World season 2. There, 6 orbs representing the Elder Dragons revolve around the Pale Tree. A second later, the green orb hits the center, and then vines are everywhere. Marjory thinks that the revolving machinary is Tyria, and that the Pale Tree is at the heart of it. The Elder Dragons revolve around the her, and she is independent from them.

We learnt later that Sylvari were meant to be minions of Mordremoth. Some came to think of the Pale Tree as another rogue Dragon champion, similar to Glint. In that case, Mordremoth would have created the Pale Tree. How could Tyria function before the Pale Tree’s creation, without its heart? There would be nothing for the Elder Dragons to revolve around.

So who came first, the Dragon or the Tree? If the Tree exists before the Dragons, how can Mordremoth control Sylvari with such ease? Is the green orb Mordremoth? Did the green orb “usurp” the Pale Tree? That must be a monumental event; did it happen in the past or the future?

The Pale Tree is less than 250 years old, in GW1 we could see the small tree near Ventari that would grow into the Grove and the Pale Tree later.
Elder Dragons are several thousand years old, Dwarven scripts and tomes relating previous dragon awakens proves that they exist for that long.

EDIT: At least the Pale tree we know is ~250 years old but other “Pales trees” may exist, who knows?

capitalizm.2046:

There, 6 orbs representing the Elder Dragons revolve around the Pale Tree. A second later, the green orb hits the center, and then vines are everywhere. Marjory thinks that the revolving machinary is Tyria, and that the Pale Tree is at the heart of it. The Elder Dragons revolve around the her, and she is independent from them.

This is wrong on two accounts:

First, as shown during Hidden Arcana, the central gold orb is Tyria, not the Pale Tree.

Second, Marjory thinks Scarlet’s sketched depiction of The All is Tyria with the Pale Tree at its heart because she doesn’t know what it represents and thinks “the Pale Tree is the center of a sylvari’s world” because it’s the most important thing to them. She thinks the sketch is metaphorical, not literal, and thus interprets a metaphorical meaning.

As we see in the vision, and know from the short story, the Pale Tree was more of Scarlet’s entryway to view The All – she had to bypass the Pale Tree to see it. The Pale Tree, when confronted by a non-sylvari, suspects that the vision we saw was (part of) the vision Scarlet Briar saw.

capitalizm.2046:

We learnt later that Sylvari were meant to be minions of Mordremoth. Some came to think of the Pale Tree as another rogue Dragon champion, similar to Glint. In that case, Mordremoth would have created the Pale Tree. How could Tyria function before the Pale Tree’s creation, without its heart? There would be nothing for the Elder Dragons to revolve around.

So who came first, the Dragon or the Tree? If the Tree exists before the Dragons, how can Mordremoth control Sylvari with such ease? Is the green orb Mordremoth? Did the green orb “usurp” the Pale Tree? That must be a monumental event; did it happen in the past or the future?

As mentioned the Pale Tree is barely 250 years old. The seed that became the Pale Tree was planted between the events of Prophecies and Eye of the North. There was an 8 year timespan for the planting to happen.

The Elder Dragons have existed for thousands upon thousands of years. Depending on when the last awakening was (some lore implies ~10,000 BE, other lore imply ~2,000 BE), they could be at minimum 30,000 years old, or 9,000 years old (3 awakening cycles with cycles being either 10,000 years or 3,000 years).

So who came first? The Elder Dragons.