Guild Wars 2

Warning: Story Spoilers for Season 2

I am a huge fan of the lore of Guild Wars. Anet does an amazing job with their writing. In the middle of Season 2 we were given a cinematic that showed us The Eternal Alchemy. There was a whole ton of speculation around that, and there still is. I don’t think any of it has actually been “answered” yet, but, I believe I found a little clue from Anet while playing through the rest of Season 2

While wandering around the Arcana Obscura, in the “Echoes of the Past” episode (it doesn’t show up in the later episodes), I stumbled on a book called “The Map of the All” The book reads as follows:

“If you’re not mistake, this tome was written by someone known as the Apostate. It appears to describe something similar to what you saw in your vision of the Eternal Alchemy.”
“The author calls it the Antikytheria, describing it as cosmic mechanism made of many parts, all spinning around a central body known in ancient Krytan as Thyria.”
“Six large bodies orbit the world, existing in primal symbiosis. The energies move with the push and pull of positive and negative, ever in motion.”
“The Apostate says one thing that is especially troubling…‘Should the energies become imbalanced, the world will tilt and all beings will fall off it into the void.’ It’s probably a metaphor.”

This is all sorts of interesting to me.

First, this is cool because the Apostate was a friendly Margonite that you meet in the Realm of Torment in GW Nightfall; not much else on that end, but still cool to me.

Second, This text screams foreshadowing based on the last snipit. The story writers said themselves, “no text is wasted.” What could this mean for the future of Tyria and GW? We unbalanced the world by killing Zhaitan and our vision showed us something very similar.

Thoughts?

In Hidden Arcana you can talk to Ogden about the Dragons and the All at the end:

Please, tell me about the Elder Dragons.

Ogden Stonehealer: You already know much about them. But for Miss Delaqua’s benefit…
Ogden Stonehealer: The Elder dragons may be as old as the world itself. They’re more than creatures.
Ogden Stonehealer: They’re part of nature’s workings. They rise and fall on a cycle that spans millennia.
Ogden Stonehealer: Much of what we know about them comes from a document written by the first humans to walk the face of Tyria: the Scroll of the Five True Gods.
Ogden Stonehealer: It is written in an ancient dialect, therefore it is subject to interpretation.
Ogden Stonehealer: In it, the gods revealed the names of the Elder Dragons: Mordremoth, Kralkatorrik, Jormag, Zhaitan, and Primordus.
Ogden Stonehealer: There is one other name listed, but it is illegible, lost to time. I suspect this is the deep-sea dragon.
Ogden Stonehealer: The gods expound on how Tyria’s health is tied directly to them. This portion is somewhat abstract, however.
Ogden Stonehealer: There are varied theories on what it means, but I believe it refers to the natural balance of magic.
Ogden Stonehealer: Too much magic, and the world spins out of control. Too little, and it crumbles into darkness.
Ogden Stonehealer: The last time the Elder Dragons awoke, they wiped out almost every intelligent race on the planet.
Ogden Stonehealer: It is from this low-magic environment that the gods built the world as they wanted it.
Ogden Stonehealer: They are the ones who brought humans to Tyria.
Ogden Stonehealer: The gods shared the magic stored in the Bloodstone. That is a complex tale for another time.
Ogden Stonehealer: Slowly, more magic seeped back into the world from the dragons, over thousands of years. Cultures evolved again.

How does this all tie into the Eternal Alchemy?

Ogden Stonehealer: Ah yes. Only you asura would attempt to quantify nature itself. But then, your people are somewhat limited. No offense.
Ogden Stonehealer: By attempting to define the undefinable, you actually move further from the truth rather than closer to it.
Ogden Stonehealer: The Eternal Alchemy, nature, our world, the All—however you want to name it—is beyond understanding.
Ogden Stonehealer: We can only grasp portions of it. Even the Elder Dragons are small relative to the All.
Ogden Stonehealer: We see only certain layers of the Mists, the Elders, and Tyria. Anything beyond that is hidden from us.
Ogden Stonehealer: We must content ourselves with first understanding what’s before us.
Ogden Stonehealer: Right now, the Elder Dragons are the most critical to understand.

Hidden Arcana*

Arcana Obscura is part of Episode 8, which doesn’t feature this. Either way, all of this is well known and had been commented upon a lot during Episode 5’s release. Pretty much we’re seeing a lot of hints pointing to “killing the Elder Dragons without replacement will destroy the world” – the “without replacement” comes from Ogden in the same episode who states the Brotherhood of the Dragon believed Glint could become an Elder Dragon given time and magic. This leads folks to think that’s the purpose of Glint’s egg, and why Tequatl got a power boost. Given that the Pale Tree is indeed a minion of Mordremoth, she and the sylvari could also – theoretically – function as such (even Malyck could).

Thank you for the additional info. Sorry, I’m late to the episode 5 discussion.

Maybe we are hoping to use the egg to replace one of the elder dragons with a “good” dragon.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Hidden Arcana*

Arcana Obscura is part of Episode 8, which doesn’t feature this. Either way, all of this is well known and had been commented upon a lot during Episode 5’s release. Pretty much we’re seeing a lot of hints pointing to “killing the Elder Dragons without replacement will destroy the world” – the “without replacement” comes from Ogden in the same episode who states the Brotherhood of the Dragon believed Glint could become an Elder Dragon given time and magic. This leads folks to think that’s the purpose of Glint’s egg, and why Tequatl got a power boost. Given that the Pale Tree is indeed a minion of Mordremoth, she and the sylvari could also – theoretically – function as such (even Malyck could).

And the possibility of the Pale Tree becoming an Elder Dragon makes the struggles with the Nightmare Court all the more potent.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

and why Tequatl got a power boost

This reason being that Tequatl was gaining power from the death of Zhaitan?

Having been playing a lot of FF14, I can easily see the Elder Dragons (their bodies) being more of a proxy-vessel. As that is how Primals act in that universe, they can be killed but no matter how many times, they always come back. Similar to how once defeating Abaddon, Kormir took his place, which could easily imply – using Tequatl as an example – that perhaps the Pale Tree could replace Mordremoth on his defeat. Assuming we “kill” him in HoT that is. Then again, we also have an egg running around so it’s either Pale Tree takes up the mantle of Overgrowth or the new offspring will.

I wonder if Glint’s idea was that by nurturing a young dragon, it would grow up and become less of a category-5 maelstrom and more like… well, Glint. But then again I liked the idea behind Elder Dragons never truly dying and that were there to be a Guild Wars 5, we’d see them rise again :P

The Apostate was indeed a Margonite, but why would he know about the all or the eternal alchemy? I’m curious if this is another hint pointing at Abaddon’s actions had something to do with the immanent rising of the dragons. It’s always been thought the gods had no relationship to the dragons, and it’s possible they didn’t immediately, but I just don’t see how with evidence… like GLINT, how they couldn’t have known.

Last thing, it says it’s probably a metaphor at the end of the book, a metaphor… for what? Is it simply the obvious? The death of a dragon? Or something else? The elder dragons are powerful, but Tyria is but one small piece of the world. Something has been hinted with Mordremoth’s progression, that he’s becoming very powerful, very quickly. He was even able to find away to get woken up early. Balance works in two ways though

As Abaddon was the god of knowledge and secrets, and his libraries were full of forbidden knowledge, it stands to reason that his servants would have access to some of the stuff as well.
Maybe the existence of the dragons was such a forbidden knowledge, as was their place in the All, and by proxy, the concept of the All itself.

Mushroomz.4280:

The Apostate was indeed a Margonite, but why would he know about the all or the eternal alchemy? I’m curious if this is another hint pointing at Abaddon’s actions had something to do with the immanent rising of the dragons. It’s always been thought the gods had no relationship to the dragons, and it’s possible they didn’t immediately, but I just don’t see how with evidence… like GLINT, how they couldn’t have known.

I’d be surprised if the disappearance of the gods wasn’t tied to the Elder Dragons in some way. With the way things have been going, we might need to find out what happened to them in order to get their help.

They aren’t Dragons themselves, but, between his sphere of influence and his war with the gods over sealing magic away, is it possible that Abaddon was a Dragon Champion? He supposedly wasn’t the first god in his role, so usurping that could have been the first attempt in subverting the new rule of the gods. It would explain how he would have such information to give to his servants. Those servants, the Margonites, are a sort of branded human that once lived in the area the Deep Sea Dragon is popularly believed to be resting. The Searing, the Cataclysm, and the Jade Wind all left those areas ripe for nearby dragons (Kralkatorrik, Zhaitan, and potentially the Deep-Sea Dragon respectively). He orchestrated the release of the Titans, who devastated the Mursaat, neighbors to Mordremoth and ancient enemies of the Elder Dragons. Side effects of those events also left the dwarves weakened against Primordus and potentially gave Jormag more allies. (I missed most of the not-strictly-campaign-story lore in GW1 so forgive me if I’m missing something important.)

Last thing, it says it’s probably a metaphor at the end of the book, a metaphor… for what? Is it simply the obvious?

It just means that the world wouldn’t literally tilt and dump everyone off of it.

Personally, I’m a fan of the idea that defeating each Elder Dragon simply causes the remaining ones to absorb that power, meaning that it wouldn’t literally be impossible to kill them all, but it would essentially become that way. To me, that’s more interesting than simply making that power immutable, because it leaves the Dragons technically defeatable while still creating a logically growing threat that can’t be dealt with the same way every time. It also still sort of fits the metaphor, as tipping the scale off balance into one Dragon would result in such a power that it might as well throw everyone into the void.

Some of the comments in this thread about the egg and Tequatl do make a good argument that the power just re-manifests in a new Dragon (or equivalent). I don’t like this idea as much personally, but it’s not too bad. Trying to find alternatives like Glint is not a bad little plot that can be taken it different ways each time. This one does have a harder time fitting into that All explanation though, since the power can’t really be thrown off balance if it just immediately looks for a new host, but an explanation for that can certainly be given.

Mushroomz.4280:

The Apostate was indeed a Margonite, but why would he know about the all or the eternal alchemy? I’m curious if this is another hint pointing at Abaddon’s actions had something to do with the immanent rising of the dragons. It’s always been thought the gods had no relationship to the dragons, and it’s possible they didn’t immediately, but I just don’t see how with evidence… like GLINT, how they couldn’t have known.

Last thing, it says it’s probably a metaphor at the end of the book, a metaphor… for what? Is it simply the obvious? The death of a dragon? Or something else? The elder dragons are powerful, but Tyria is but one small piece of the world. Something has been hinted with Mordremoth’s progression, that he’s becoming very powerful, very quickly. He was even able to find away to get woken up early. Balance works in two ways though

If we’d all voted for Evon, we might’ve found this out.

Abaddon was not a dragon champion. That’s blasphemy. Show some respect for your lord and master.

He gave his sanity, and later his life, to protect Tyria from the dragons.

I’m still convinced there must have been a reason why Abaddon wanted magic to remain wild and free. I think he knew about the dragons. Remember the text on the ceiling above his statue? “Beware of ….”. He knew, and somehow he was convinced magic could not be allowed to be concentrated into the bloodstones (maybe because they would it too easy for the dragons to consume?). The other gods on the other hand didn’t believe him, and he was forced to wage war on his own kin.

What else could convince the God of knowledge, the wisest of them all, to wage a war he was sure to lose (1 vs 5)? Surely he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Nightfall and his acts of evil in GW1 were just… madness. You spend a thousand years in Hell, and tell me you’ll still be able to think straight. You’ll be consumed by fantasies of vengeance before the first century is over… And Abaddon manifested his dark dreams in reality, that was a part of his power, his “aspect”.

And yes, I roleplay a follower of Abaddon ingame :-)

Jokubas.4265:

I’d be surprised if the disappearance of the gods wasn’t tied to the Elder Dragons in some way. With the way things have been going, we might need to find out what happened to them in order to get their help.

Be surprised then. Because it’s been stated multiple times that the Six Gods left to let humanity rise or fall on their own. And they left in Year 0 – 1070+ years before the Elder Dragons began waking. They went silent after Abaddon’s death, as that was the final tie keeping them in contact with Tyrians.

Most Recent Source

The likelihood of Abaddon being a dragon champion is nigh unlikely. The Margonites were turned into ethereal demons, not tentacled monstrosities that the DSD’s minions are.

And Apostate doesn’t know about the Eternal Alchemy – he never refers it to such. Why wouldn’t he know of the All, when his researched delved into forbidden knowledge?

Not trying to strengthen the idea of the connection between gods and dragons, but isnt it strangely convenient that only the Deep Sea Elder dragon’s name is damaged beyond recognition in the Tome of the Five True Gods? Given that Abaddon was a god of the seas as well as secrets, and that the tome is specificly assigned to 5 gods, without Abaddon, whose name was nigh erased from history after his fall.

And I would be quite interested in the context of the entire book supposedly written about the 5 true gods where it dwells into 10k+ years old lore about elder dragons in such specifics as their names and spheres of influence…

Again, not trying to beat the dead horse about any connection, but that supposedly important book certainly isnt weakening the idea either.

Mental Paradox.3845:

He gave his sanity, and later his life, to protect Tyria from the dragons.

I’m still convinced there must have been a reason why Abaddon wanted magic to remain wild and free. I think he knew about the dragons. Remember the text on the ceiling above his statue? “Beware of ….”. He knew, and somehow he was convinced magic could not be allowed to be concentrated into the bloodstones (maybe because they would it too easy for the dragons to consume?). The other gods on the other hand didn’t believe him, and he was forced to wage war on his own kin.

From a roleplaying perspective, you can believe whatever seems fitting for your character to believe.

However, the whole point of sealing magic within the proto-bloodstone artifact in the first place was to hide the magic from the dragons – and it was successful in doing so. If Abaddon had the security of the world in mind, it’s much more likely that his concern stemmed from the knowledge that keeping the world in a low-magic state was nonviable in the long run, not because free magic was safer from the dragons.

(A possible counterpoint is that the dragons know everything their minions knew, so all it would take was for a single mortal who knew about the bloodstones to be corrupted and the dragon would know what to look for. However, without higher concentrations of ‘free’ magic the dragons probably would never have woken at all.)

Yeah, dismiss my beliefs as “roleplay”, same as what you lot did in “that other thread”.

The mob mentality in here…

“Ogden Stonehealer: Right now, the Elder Dragons are the most critical to understand”

For the first time in over two years of playing this game and enjoying the lore, I’m starting to think there is something else out there mucking about with the fates of the Gods and Elder Dragons. I’m not simply talking about any of the ancient races either. Something in the Mists that’s so far down the road the in-house Loremasters only have a vague idea of they want it to be.

Before then, I hope we get some shocking twists and turns dealing with the Gods and EDs. But color me excited for the long haul.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Yeah, dismiss my beliefs as “roleplay”, same as what you lot did in “that other thread”.

The mob mentality in here…

I wasn’t dismissing it as roleplay – I was giving my own interpretation while acknowledging that while roleplaying, you’re free to roleplay whatever beliefs you choose.

However, while not roleplaying, you can’t hide behind your roleplay to deny other people the right to give dissenting opinions either.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Yeah, dismiss my beliefs as “roleplay”, same as what you lot did in “that other thread”.

The mob mentality in here…

Roleplay prospective as in there isn’t much supporting your theory other than your own speculations on the matter. Is your theory possible? Sure, but the writers would need to expand and add more into Abaddon’s actions and motives than what’s already in the game(s) at the moment.

Until then, Abaddon didn’t want to reseal magic after the Gift probably because it would be totally against his own logic/motto, “Act with magic, act within reason, act without mercy.”, and while the resealing of magic increase hostilities between the Six; the actual war started/snowballed from the actions and conflict between his Margonites and the Forgotten.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Abaddon was not a dragon champion. That’s blasphemy. Show some respect for your lord and master.

He gave his sanity, and later his life, to protect Tyria from the dragons.

I’m still convinced there must have been a reason why Abaddon wanted magic to remain wild and free. I think he knew about the dragons. Remember the text on the ceiling above his statue? “Beware of ….”. He knew, and somehow he was convinced magic could not be allowed to be concentrated into the bloodstones (maybe because they would it too easy for the dragons to consume?). The other gods on the other hand didn’t believe him, and he was forced to wage war on his own kin.

What else could convince the God of knowledge, the wisest of them all, to wage a war he was sure to lose (1 vs 5)? Surely he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Nightfall and his acts of evil in GW1 were just… madness. You spend a thousand years in Hell, and tell me you’ll still be able to think straight. You’ll be consumed by fantasies of vengeance before the first century is over… And Abaddon manifested his dark dreams in reality, that was a part of his power, his “aspect”.

And yes, I roleplay a follower of Abaddon ingame :-)

Was abbadon mad? Yes, so he was. You made a good point there. In the realm of madness which was a reflection of Abbadon will did prove, to me, that Abbadon was mad. The jumbled up architecture and warped sense of space, geometry, intend, and will.

However, this madness of Abbadon could go against your point that he can not be an elder dragon champion. Case in point Cera or… What’s her name again? Oh yea, Scarlet!

Can elder dragon usurp power of the six human gods? I believe so as proved in Orr where the six temple magic came under Zhaitan influence and control. What if Abbadon came to Tyria before the other five gods. While he was alone in Tyria his will and power came under the influence of elder dragon. If he did then it would explain his transformation both physical and mental from a human god to a mad half primeval tyria god. Because of the horror of that may explain the other 5 human gods leaving Tyria not wanting the same fate to befell them.

Edit: could Abbadon came under the influence of the deep sea dragon. They are both having the aspect of the deep sea. Could Abbadon have closer affinity to the deep sea dragon than just being a hypothetical elder dragon champion.

lakdav.3694:

Not trying to strengthen the idea of the connection between gods and dragons, but isnt it strangely convenient that only the Deep Sea Elder dragon’s name is damaged beyond recognition in the Tome of the Five True Gods? Given that Abaddon was a god of the seas as well as secrets, and that the tome is specificly assigned to 5 gods, without Abaddon, whose name was nigh erased from history after his fall.

This detail has been overlooked by the lore forums for a considerable amount of time. To date, this is perhaps the strongest hint that there may be a correlation between the dragons and the gods.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Hidden Arcana*

Arcana Obscura is part of Episode 8, which doesn’t feature this. Either way, all of this is well known and had been commented upon a lot during Episode 5’s release. Pretty much we’re seeing a lot of hints pointing to “killing the Elder Dragons without replacement will destroy the world” – the “without replacement” comes from Ogden in the same episode who states the Brotherhood of the Dragon believed Glint could become an Elder Dragon given time and magic. This leads folks to think that’s the purpose of Glint’s egg, and why Tequatl got a power boost. Given that the Pale Tree is indeed a minion of Mordremoth, she and the sylvari could also – theoretically – function as such (even Malyck could).

IMO, anything other than a dragon cannot replace it. I base this on the testimony of Glint in Edge of Destiny regarding what Elder Dragons feed on, the statements of both risen Prince Nekandezzar and the Mouth of Zaithan. Elder Dragons feed on living beings, whether they be humans, charr, norn, asura, dredge, plants, bacteria, whatever. This is their foremost diet. Granted, they do feed on artifacts, but this is not their foremost food source. Because of this, we can only really surmise that Oola’s statements about living beings embodying magic are correct (i.e. we are a form of magic).

With these thoughts in mind, only beings capable of feeding not only on “ambient magic”, but also artefacts and life-forms can replace Elder Dragons. To date, only Glint and Tequatl form viable alternatives.

According to the current lore we have, Dwayna was the first of the gods to set foot on Tyria.

Stephen.6312:

This detail has been overlooked by the lore forums for a considerable amount of time. To date, this is perhaps the strongest hint that there may be a correlation between the dragons and the gods.

Or they just don’t want to reveal it yet. Even if there is a connection between Abaddon and the DSD, it does not mean that the other gods are likewise connected.

The reason the god-dragon alignment theory keeps coming up is that there are some that line up nicely. The reason it keeps falling down again is that you just can’t get them all to line up without more stretching than a Pilates class.

That is mostly because we strive to line up everything perfectly while most of the time we ignore that the human gods as well as humanity itself are alien to Tyria, meaning that neither originated here, which in turn warrants that if there is a whatever connection between the two types of powerful godlike superbeings, there will still be differences.

There are too many things pointing at a possible connection, but not nearly enough things defining what exactly this connection might be.

draxynnic.3719:

The reason the god-dragon alignment theory keeps coming up is that there are some that line up nicely. The reason it keeps falling down again is that you just can’t get them all to line up without more stretching than a Pilates class.

Does it, though? I remember reading somewhere that Abbaddon was originally the god of water/ice before he was cast out and Grenth took it over. If that is true, I think we have all 6 lining up pretty well:

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

That leaves me with Jormag and Dwayna, and if Jormag is more about cold wind than he is about ice itself, that matches up with Dwayna’s element. Only if the water element part is true, though, but not as much stretching as you first claimed.

Rognik.2579:

Does it, though? I remember reading somewhere that Abbaddon was originally the god of water/ice before he was cast out and Grenth took it over. If that is true, I think we have all 6 lining up pretty well:

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

That leaves me with Jormag and Dwayna, and if Jormag is more about cold wind than he is about ice itself, that matches up with Dwayna’s element. Only if the water element part is true, though, but not as much stretching as you first claimed.

I would add a small alternative: Jormag = Grenth (ice) and Zhaitan = Dwayna (the balance or cycle of life and death, or arguably just life. Because everything does die as part of life).

I’m not particularly attached to any of this, though, just playing with it a little.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Abaddon was not a dragon champion. That’s blasphemy. Show some respect for your lord and master.

He gave his sanity, and later his life, to protect Tyria from the dragons.

I’m still convinced there must have been a reason why Abaddon wanted magic to remain wild and free. I think he knew about the dragons. Remember the text on the ceiling above his statue? “Beware of ….”. He knew, and somehow he was convinced magic could not be allowed to be concentrated into the bloodstones (maybe because they would it too easy for the dragons to consume?). The other gods on the other hand didn’t believe him, and he was forced to wage war on his own kin.

What else could convince the God of knowledge, the wisest of them all, to wage a war he was sure to lose (1 vs 5)? Surely he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Nightfall and his acts of evil in GW1 were just… madness. You spend a thousand years in Hell, and tell me you’ll still be able to think straight. You’ll be consumed by fantasies of vengeance before the first century is over… And Abaddon manifested his dark dreams in reality, that was a part of his power, his “aspect”.

And yes, I roleplay a follower of Abaddon ingame :-)

RP or not, you have some very valid point and some very credible theories.

Rognik.2579:

draxynnic.3719:

The reason the god-dragon alignment theory keeps coming up is that there are some that line up nicely. The reason it keeps falling down again is that you just can’t get them all to line up without more stretching than a Pilates class.

Does it, though? I remember reading somewhere that Abbaddon was originally the god of water/ice before he was cast out and Grenth took it over. If that is true, I think we have all 6 lining up pretty well:

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

That leaves me with Jormag and Dwayna, and if Jormag is more about cold wind than he is about ice itself, that matches up with Dwayna’s element. Only if the water element part is true, though, but not as much stretching as you first claimed.

If I made one slight alteration to your list then the alignment make even better sense to me:-

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth => Zhaitan=fauna=Dwayna
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

As pointed out numerous times before, and something that people seem to be forgetting when they make the ED=God list, is that Abaddon isn’t a god any longer. Lyssa took his alignment of water after his fall, and Kormir has no elemental alignment at all.

Moral of the story, the elemental alignments of the gods might be more of a personal preference than something that might be actually tied to the God’s powers themselves.

Rognik.2579:

draxynnic.3719:

The reason the god-dragon alignment theory keeps coming up is that there are some that line up nicely. The reason it keeps falling down again is that you just can’t get them all to line up without more stretching than a Pilates class.

Does it, though? I remember reading somewhere that Abbaddon was originally the god of water/ice before he was cast out and Grenth took it over. If that is true, I think we have all 6 lining up pretty well:

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

That leaves me with Jormag and Dwayna, and if Jormag is more about cold wind than he is about ice itself, that matches up with Dwayna’s element. Only if the water element part is true, though, but not as much stretching as you first claimed.

Melandru is nature, not plants. She has both plant and animal life in her domain, while Mordy has only plant.

Kralkatorrik is crystal, not chaos.

Abaddon was water, true, but his main focus is knowledge. And his successor does not have water, while his predecessor may not have either.

Grenth is death and ice, but if you’re not taking Kormir then you should go with Dhuum not Grenth. Thus there is no ice, only death.

So your line-up is:

Zhaitan = Death = Dhuum/Grenth
Mordremoth = Plants = ?
? = Nature = Melandru
? = Life = Dwayna
Primordus = Fire = Balthazar
DSD = ? = ?
? = Knowledge = Unnamed Predecessor/Abaddon/Kormir
? = Beauty/Illusion = Lyssa
Kralkatorrik = Crystal = ?

And Jormag isn’t cold wind – we hardly ever see wind related to him. His corruption is black and blue ice. His corruption’s advance results in freezing temperatures in water (?and air?). So no, no tie to Dwayna. If any god, he ties to Grenth – but again, Dhuum was unrelated to ice!

Of course, even this isn’t accurate. For the dragons have two spheres, not one. The gods also have two spheres, but that second sphere (the elemental sphere) changes in both cases of succession we see! So thus the gods, arguably, have one sphere each: Life, War, Death, Nature, Knowledge, and Beauty/Illusion (I picked War because that’s what the norn call it, and all other elemental ties seem arbitrary). With the dragons we have: Fire and ?, Death and Shadow, Plant and Mind, Ice and ?, Crystal and ?, and whatever the DSD is (nothing says the DSD is tied to water the first element (fire, ice, etc.) is what the dragon’s corruption makes, and for the DSD that’s tentacles as best we know).

So your individual line ups become:

Dwayna = Life
Dhuum/Grenth = Death
Melandru = Nature
Balthazar = War
Abaddon/Kormir = Knowledge
Lyssa = Beauty/Illusion (unclear which, if either, is the “prime” attribute)

Zhaitan = Death and Shadow
Mordremoth = Plant and Mind
Primordus = Fire and ? (speculated to be either Earth or Destruction)
Kralkatorrik = Crystal and ? (speculated to be Air)
Jormag = Ice and ? (speculated to be Spirit)
DSD = Complete Unknown (first sphere is not what it corrupts – in this case, water – but what the corruption takes form as – which is unknown)

So best lineup you have is by trying to give the gods a second permanent attribute and tie each attribute to both a god and dragon, but not necessarily the same god and dragon. And then take some presumptions and stretching you can get thus:

War = Balthazar
Fire = Balthazar and Primordus
Earth = Melandru and Primordus
Nature = Melandru and Mordremoth
Mind = Lyssa and Mordremoth
Water = Lyssa and DSD
Knowledge = Kormir
Spirit = Kormir and Jormag
Ice = Grenth and Jormag
Death = Grenth and Zhaitan
Shadow = Grenth and Zhaitan
Life = Dwayna
Air = Dwayna and Kralkatorrik
Crystal = Kralkatorrik

But even then, as I pointed out, there’s some stretching, and things still don’t match up. Where is the dragon of war, the dragon of life, and the dragon of knowledge? Where is the god of crystal? Grenth is attributed thrice. It just doesn’t work.

Hence Drax’s funny joke of more stretching than a Pilates class. You have to stretch it to work.

All right, I will admit I was pigeonholing the spheres of influence a bi too much, but Konig, you’re doing the exact opposite. I was never trying to make a grand pronouncement like “the Gods are the dragons. The humans are killing their gods” or something on that scale, simply that there is a link. I’m also not going to try and link every single god, past and present, just to satisfy a 1:1 correlation. If Zhaitan can die, and has died, then it’s reasonable to assume that elder dragons may have died in the distant past, and were perhaps replaced. Perhaps there were more than 6 elder dragons in the past.

There are still things we can draw from this. 6 is quite possibly a mystic number in Tyria, with both the 6 human gods and 6 elder dragons. Perhaps there is a link between the gods and the dragons, but in the most remote way. I feel convinced that there is a link between Lyssa and Kralkatorrik, considering that both of their signature colours are purple. When Kralk flew over Ascalon, the ground below it instantly corrupted, which seems pretty chaotic to me. And yes, the creatures turned into crystals, but don’t most people consider crystals beautiful?

As for DSD, how could you say he doesn’t have the sphere of water? He lives in the water! I don’t think we’ve seen any of him minions yet, either, so claiming tentacles is just as much conjecture as anything I’ve thrown out so far. I can’t quite see how at this moment, but perhaps this dragon feeds off secrets, caused by the numerous shipwrecks it has caused.

As I said before, it doesn’t have to be a perfect correlation. It doesn’t even have to be more than a passing similarity. But there seems to be too much of a parallel to be just a coincidence, especially when there are writers behind the scenes. Just remember how people were debating about sylvari being dragon minions, and the end result of that.

Meanwhile, in ArenaNet headquarters, the staff and giggling evilly over all this speculation and how accurate it is (either close or far from the truth).

Regarding succession as oppose to take over, I would separate Kormir succession to Abaddon from that of Grenth take over of Dhumn. Abaddon died and Kormir inherited his power. In the case of Dhumn he did not die so Grenth did not inherit any power from Dhumn. Dhumn is a god of death so Grenth’s own godly power is not from Dhumn’s power over death. So where did Grenth get his godly power from? It is true his mother is reputed to be Dwayna and his father was reputed to be Malcor, the famed sculptor, nonetheless Grenth was a mere mortal originally. The story goes he had the friendship and help of 7 champion heroes. So by all account he did not have any obvious godly power, but he did some how acquired godly powers and became the god of death.

I would speculate that the possibility exist for Grenth being the successor to Balthazar’s father who most likely was a god and who died during the Six crossing over from their world to Tyria.

Rognik.2579:

I’m also not going to try and link every single god, past and present, just to satisfy a 1:1 correlation.

If you can’t justify the generations of gods to the same dragons, then it’s not really a correlation. That was half of my point.

There are similarities, yes, but the similarities end quickly. And to try to argue past that is stretching it.

Rognik.2579:

I feel convinced that there is a link between Lyssa and Kralkatorrik, considering that both of their signature colours are purple. When Kralk flew over Ascalon, the ground below it instantly corrupted, which seems pretty chaotic to me. And yes, the creatures turned into crystals, but don’t most people consider crystals beautiful?

Abaddon’s signature color was purple more than Lyssa. Jeff Grubb was asked whether Abaddon and Kralkatorrik had a connection due to the shared color after the first GW2 demo which featured Blazeridge Steppes. His response was “purple is the color of evil in Guild Wars” (greatly summarized). Mordremoth also has a consistent purple glow (Mawdrey, Vine Crawlers, certain ambient vines). Even some of Zhaitan’s corruption had purple (go visit Desmina Hallows).

The color purple isn’t a very strong basis for tying a relation. Else you tie Lyssa to Abaddon, Kralkatorrik, Mordremoth, and Zhaitan.

And we see that non-evil corruption of Kralkatorrik’s is blue.

Rognik.2579:

As for DSD, how could you say he doesn’t have the sphere of water? He lives in the water! I don’t think we’ve seen any of him minions yet, either, so claiming tentacles is just as much conjecture as anything I’ve thrown out so far. I can’t quite see how at this moment, but perhaps this dragon feeds off secrets, caused by the numerous shipwrecks it has caused.

The first sphere of influence seems to be what the Elder Dragon is titled as. We don’t have a title for the DSD, but for the others, we do. Elder Crystal Dragon. Elder Ice Dragon. Elder Fire Dragon. Elder Death Dragon. What do these titles represent? How their corruption takes form.

It’s got nothing to do with where they live. And we are explicitly told he twists water into tentacled monstrocities, tyvm.

Rognik.2579:

As I said before, it doesn’t have to be a perfect correlation.

IMO, if it isn’t perfect correlation, it’s not a correlation.

Avariz.8241:

Regarding succession as oppose to take over, I would separate Kormir succession to Abaddon from that of Grenth take over of Dhumn. Abaddon died and Kormir inherited his power. In the case of Dhumn he did not die so Grenth did not inherit any power from Dhumn. Dhumn is a god of death so Grenth’s own godly power is not from Dhumn’s power over death. So where did Grenth get his godly power from? It is true his mother is reputed to be Dwayna and his father was reputed to be Malcor, the famed sculptor, nonetheless Grenth was a mere mortal originally. The story goes he had the friendship and help of 7 champion heroes. So by all account he did not have any obvious godly power, but he did some how acquired godly powers and became the god of death.

I would speculate that the possibility exist for Grenth being the successor to Balthazar’s father who most likely was a god and who died during the Six crossing over from their world to Tyria.

Grenth got his godly power over death from Dhuum, even though Grenth couldn’t kill Dhuum. One theory is that since Grenth was born a half-god, he couldn’t withstand the full power of Dhuum thus leaving Dhuum as less-than-a-god. Grenth was born in Tyria, thus there’s too great a timespan between Balthazar’s father’s death and Grenth’s birth (let alone rise to godhood).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Rognik.2579:

As I said before, it doesn’t have to be a perfect correlation.

IMO, if it isn’t perfect correlation, it’s not a correlation.

Math would beg to differ. There are actual formulas in statistics that can give you a mathematical degree of how correlated two factors are based on a grid or best-fit line to points of data (eg. height vs family income), and this correlation factor ranges from 1 (perfect correlation) to -1 (inverse correlation, eg. the more cats you have, the fewer mice there are) with 0 being no correlation at all. I may be arguing based on a .1 correlation currently, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, just that my data points are faulty,

I can’t argue for or against any of your other points right now, but there’s still so much we haven’t been told about the other dragons. Even Zhaitan, the one we learned the most about as we went to slay him, still has information about him coming out post-mortem (like his spheres of influence). So I’m willing to table this debate until at least HoT is released.

In the context of mathematics, many terms have completely different meanings than they would otherwise. In the case of the lore here, having any lack of correlation breaks down the likelihood of any correlation existing.

What Koviko said.

15 charr

I was about to point at the futility of discussion if we cant even agree on what “correlation” is, but come to think of it, we dont even know the full range of these aspects and what smaller concepts they could include within themselves. We have only heard, what, four aspects being mentioned? Shadow, death, mind and plants(or nature, cant remember which at the moment).

Look at what we (presumably) know for sure: Zhaitan=shadow and death.
Not even undeath. Not stagnation. Not rot and decay. Not darkness. But all these can be included in Shadow and Death. Even though it sounds grammaticly illogical to connect Death with UNdeath (undeath is the negation of natural normal death), while we know full well that undeath fell into Zhaitans sphere of influence.

We dont have a list. For all we know, we only have concepts. Knowledge could be a part of Mind. Secrets can be a sub-aspect of knowledge. The Unknown can equal Secrets, and that in turn can connect to the deep unknown of oceans.

Its possible, but we dont know. We dont have a full comprehensive list.

I still think that the more important question still is why does a book about the 5 “true” human gods delve into ancient dragon lore and their spheres of influence.

Rognik.2579:

draxynnic.3719:

The reason the god-dragon alignment theory keeps coming up is that there are some that line up nicely. The reason it keeps falling down again is that you just can’t get them all to line up without more stretching than a Pilates class.

Does it, though? I remember reading somewhere that Abbaddon was originally the god of water/ice before he was cast out and Grenth took it over. If that is true, I think we have all 6 lining up pretty well:

Zhaitan=Death=Grenth
Mordremoth=Plants=Melandru
Kralkatorrik=Chaos=Lyssa
Primordus=Fire=Balthazar
DeepSeaDragon=Water=Abbaddon

That leaves me with Jormag and Dwayna, and if Jormag is more about cold wind than he is about ice itself, that matches up with Dwayna’s element. Only if the water element part is true, though, but not as much stretching as you first claimed.

In GW 1 there are in-game myths of Melandru turning individual human into trees. That is Melandru has the ability to turn fauna to flora.

In GW 2 in-game, I have come across a myth that tell of Melandru’s preparation and activities on Tarnished Coast across the waters from Orr. That seemed to indicate Grove area. This could be a long shot but it could indicate a possibility of Melandru involvement in the plot surrounding the pale tree pod, Ronin, and Ventari. Oh, also Melandru=plant and animal/human sphere of influence.

Edit: Of cause Kralkatorrik have the ability to turn people/animals and plants into crystals.

Care to link that myth of Melandru in the Tarnished Coast? Don’t think I’ve come across that one.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Care to link that myth of Melandru in the Tarnished Coast? Don’t think I’ve come across that one.

Out of luck there. Like most players I adventure pass most areas I do some times stop and examine but I never have taken notes. This was well over a year ago in game anyway. Sorry.

Any clue where it was?

Only “old myth” I know of Melandru presented in GW2 comes from the Orrian History Scrolls

Though I think there may have been a mention by the Priory scholars near the Henge of Denravi in Brisban, but only in that the druids revered Melandru.

From the top of my head way back 18 months ago or there about…sorry I can only remember sparse and broken content of the message but can not pin point the material that it was written on ‘…Melandru…alone walking the …’high road’…long through Orr…far have she walked on bare feet…cowed…in rags…through the night…leaves…bending over with swell of sadness…dripping tears like blood…silently…made preparation for the coming storm/furture…activities/building across the waters to the north…west?…

I give up. So inclusion it is or mostly was around the high road Northern Orr.

Sounds like you mix Dwayna and Lyssa’s entries in the Orrian History Scrolls and mix things up with other things so… Unless you can come up with where you saw such…. And the Orrian History Scrolls are in Malchor’s Leap.

Pretty sure not Dwayna because I do remember it being like Dwayna’s and made sure it not being Dwayna. I do remember getting it mixed with Lyssa…but did a rechecked but came up nothing that I can remember now…

The content of the passage is as is ….It is just a matter attributing to whom…most likely Melandru’s…

Late edit: Myths of gods turning hubris human into trees might have included Dwayna beside that of Melandru.

lakdav.3694:

That is mostly because we strive to line up everything perfectly while most of the time we ignore that the human gods as well as humanity itself are alien to Tyria, meaning that neither originated here, which in turn warrants that if there is a whatever connection between the two types of powerful godlike superbeings, there will still be differences.

There are too many things pointing at a possible connection, but not nearly enough things defining what exactly this connection might be.

There certainly are a lot of possible connections. One theory floating around is that the gods were essentially the equivalent of the elder dragons on another world. Another theory basically has there being a number of magical domains, and the gods and dragons both draw from (or compete over) the same pool of domains, meaning that they do have a lot in common.

However, being unable to make a 1:1 correlation sinks theories based on the idea of every god having a counterpart among the dragons and vice versa.