Guild Wars 2

I just love the voice of Mordremoth, it’s very creepy and powerful, i’ve heard only sylvari characters can hear him speaking to his servants.

While it is neat, it goes against what Anet had shown to us to be how dragons communicate – not in anything one can easily identify as a language.

So while it’s a cool effect, it feels like yet another case of breaking lore (and this time lore created while HoT was in development, no doubt!) for the sake of cool.

personally i think its much more likely that mordremoth isnt actually speaking but rather the sylvari player character is capable of understanding the orders that Mordy is sending telepathically having come from mordremoth themselves, the voice is just the manner in which the game allows the player to know that while they are technically still connected to mordremoth the PC is perfectly capable of at worst ignoring these orders, at best using mordremoths strategies against it

I found the voice interesting, but what was more interesting was Canach’s comment toward the commander (sylvari revenant I just made). “Weak willed Sylvari fail to it, the rest, myself and the commander especially, fight back.”

I loved the new open conversations involving the player though.

edit: Actually, the voice isn’t breaking lore at all. Scarlet and Aerin both heard voices as they went mad. As somebody else said, perhaps the voice is merely the translation of orders. We are experiencing what Scarlet went through, but our willpower is greater (for now).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

While it is neat, it goes against what Anet had shown to us to be how dragons communicate – not in anything one can easily identify as a language.

So while it’s a cool effect, it feels like yet another case of breaking lore (and this time lore created while HoT was in development, no doubt!) for the sake of cool.

One would of course assume that its minions would be able to understand the orders, and thus make it understandable speech. It is after all only Sylvari that can hear it and they should thus be able to “translate” it to understandable speech. Just like how non-native speakers that understands a language translates it in their heads.

A very awesome addition to the game. I understand the weird feeling of a dragon talking in normal language, but the coolness of it wins out for me.

I also like lordkralls interpretation of it being translated through the sylvari mind for gameplay reasons

Like Shadow said, I think its just telepathy the Sylvari can understand, because ive been playing a Charr in the beta, and none of these VA lines occurred when I went through those parts.

lordkrall.7241:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

While it is neat, it goes against what Anet had shown to us to be how dragons communicate – not in anything one can easily identify as a language.

So while it’s a cool effect, it feels like yet another case of breaking lore (and this time lore created while HoT was in development, no doubt!) for the sake of cool.

One would of course assume that its minions would be able to understand the orders, and thus make it understandable speech. It is after all only Sylvari that can hear it and they should thus be able to “translate” it to understandable speech. Just like how non-native speakers that understands a language translates it in their heads.

Or another interpretation is that it’s possibly not even that – the sylvari PC hears it in a form that Ogden would hesitate to call a language, but it’s translated for the sake of the player.

Alternatively, Mordremoth could have learned language from the sylvari. Glint learned language from listening on on the minds of beings who think and speak in a language – Mordremoth could have done the same. It would make sense that the dragon of Mind might have more of an interest in how the minds of others work than the other Elder Dragons.

Kalavier.1097:

edit: Actually, the voice isn’t breaking lore at all. Scarlet and Aerin both heard voices as they went mad. As somebody else said, perhaps the voice is merely the translation of orders. We are experiencing what Scarlet went through, but our willpower is greater (for now).

Ogden Stonehealer: Glint has the power to communicate with her mind. She learned language from humans this way.
Ogden Stonehealer: According to her, other dragons speak and think in something I hesitate to call a language. But not Glint.

Scarlet Briar’s Journal: It communicated with me through images of death, destruction, and destiny. I must know more. I must confront it and put an end to this madness.

Yay for inconsistency?

While the voice is cool, I think it would also have been cool if sylvari see flashes of images of what Mordremoth wants its minions in the area to do – like when the camp is under attack, a flash of the survivors being dragged off by mordrem+surviving sylvari.

But voice works. shrug

Though I wouldn’t mind if it spoke in the same language that the Dragonspawn from EoD spoke in, which had a very Lovecraftian Elder Gods vibe to it.

Shiren.9532:

I think it’s for the better this time. Zhaitan set the bar very low for Elder Dragons, between it’s limited characterisation in the Personal Story, very limited personalities among its minions and the terrible fight mechanics at its defeat, Zhaitan made Elder Dragons look kind of pathetic. Three years later, a lone sylvari succeeded where Zhaitan failed and had a campaign that was all about her for over a year.

The force of nature concept wasn’t working imo, it didn’t make for an interesting villain.

At least with sylvari it has the lore to argue that EDs communicate with their minions, sylvari are Zhaitan’s minions, so perhaps Mordremoth’s voice is simply ArenaNet’s representation of how an ED communicates with it’s minions. It’s not a new concept – even Zhaitan communicated with its minions.

I don’t disagree.

And I wasn’t saying it’s new/different for Elder Dragons to communicate. The Elder Dragons never came off as ‘forces of nature’ despite Anet’s claims in interviews – in the game, and especially Edge of Destiny (which says Kralkatorrik communicated with his newly made minions too), they always came off as intelligent.

I agree that Zhaitan wasn’t done so well, but that doesn’t mean Scarlet was better because she blew up LA (that was, quite literally, all because Anet forced the good guys to play hot potato with the idiot ball).

I like the voice and thinks it’s a neat menacing touch, and since sylvari are now considered related to it, it makes sense that they could interpret what it says to an extent.

That being said…it does make it feel a bit less dragon of nature-ish to have it giving out commands like that, making it seem more like a dragon champion instead.

Perhaps have a low growl/whisper/other unintelligible noise when it speaks, but have words that we understand pop up in it, like “kill”, “capture”, “bring them to me”, “I hear/see you”. Or perhaps flashes of images like Konig suggested referring to what it wants the minions to do/are doing.

Nilkemia.8507:

I like the voice and thinks it’s a neat menacing touch, and since sylvari are now considered related to it, it makes sense that they could interpret what it says to an extent.

That being said…it does make it feel a bit less dragon of nature-ish to have it giving out commands like that, making it seem more like a dragon champion instead.

Perhaps have a low growl/whisper/other unintelligible noise when it speaks, but have words that we understand pop up in it, like “kill”, “capture”, “bring them to me”, “I hear/see you”. Or perhaps flashes of images like Konig suggested referring to what it wants the minions to do/are doing.

That was actually something I was thinking about. What if, similar to Zhaitan, mordemoth has a champion (or several) acting as it’s Voice/mouth? And that specific champion is what we are hearing.

But would powerful mordrem be this ‘Voice of Mordremoth’ champion’s servants?

Depends how the setup goes. Is it a hivemind and the champion is merely voicing the orders? Or is the champion it’s own being and commanding forces?

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve come to expect the dulling down of the Dragons, but I’m still not fond of it.
I’d have preferred unintelligible, maddening whispers throughout the jungle and, in the case of story instances visual effects/hallucinations.

Dragons should have been more akin to lovecraftian gods than opposing army leaders. :-(

I did enjoy hearing Mordremoth’s voice while playing the story instance. However, I was initially disappointed by the voice sounding rather similar to the Mordrem Guards and Mordrem Court (yes, Verdant Brink actually had both much to my surprise despite Colin Johanson’s earlier statements implying otherwise, but this may have been a “bug”), but then I reasoned that maybe his voice only sounds that way because that’s how our sylvari perceives it: as a kind of deeper Mordrem Guard voice.

I also liked the nice touch of hearing what sounded like demonic whispers in the background during the sylvari creation screen. Makes sense that sylvari currently in the Dream would hear ol’ Mordy’s whispers before even being “born”. It was suitably creepy.

However, only sylvari hearing Mordremoth’s voice makes me wonder how this storyline will play out for the other four races. Regardless of race, the Pact Commander did step into Omadd’s machine which let them peek at the All, so shouldn’t this technically have some consequences for other races than just sylvari even if it means them not hearing Mordy’s voice in their head? Could it mean that, once/if we confront Mordy directly, other races than sylvari can actually understand him when he addresses us out loud in person (if such were to happen), or will our little machine trip give us some other side-effects? I look forward to seeing what these consequences end up being.

Shiren.9532:

I think it’s for the better this time. Zhaitan set the bar very low for Elder Dragons, between it’s limited characterisation in the Personal Story, very limited personalities among its minions and the terrible fight mechanics at its defeat, Zhaitan made Elder Dragons look kind of pathetic. Three years later, a lone sylvari succeeded where Zhaitan failed and had a campaign that was all about her for over a year.

The force of nature concept wasn’t working imo, it didn’t make for an interesting villain.

I’m with Konig in saying that there are plenty of hints (and outright statements depending on whether NPC dialogue can be deemed trustworthy regarding an Elder Dragon’s feelings) in the game to show that Zhaitan very much had a personality.

While most people in Tyria may see Elder Dragons as forces of nature, we learn through the Risen’s statements (their adoration of Zhaitan, promising eternal life via undeath, and outright lies as they gloat about the dragon having devoured the human gods;) as well as comments from Trahearne etc. (that Zhaitan is afraid and angry at our successes during our campaign in Orr in the Personal Story) that Zhaitan very much did have a distinct personality. A true force of nature wouldn’t have cared to get these message across or worry about what we were doing; it would’ve just continued “mindless” corrupting until it had been brought down.

However, I do agree with you that what we got left us wanting for more as far as Zhaitan is concerned.

(cont’d)

(cont’d)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ogden Stonehealer: Glint has the power to communicate with her mind. She learned language from humans this way.
Ogden Stonehealer: According to her, other dragons speak and think in something I hesitate to call a language. But not Glint.

Scarlet Briar’s Journal: It communicated with me through images of death, destruction, and destiny. I must know more. I must confront it and put an end to this madness.

Yay for inconsistency?

The key thing here to me is the following: “According to her.” In other words, this means that it was a subjective statement from a character, and Glint may not have the full truth and the Elder Dragon was far more versatile in language-learning than she assumed. Perhaps Kralkatorrik communicated in a different way with her because she was a dragon whereas humanoid, intelligent minions would’ve heard actual understandable language being spoken in their minds instead.

Or then the answer could be a bit more complex as I’ll present below.

If we’re bringing established lore into this, let’s not forget this piece of a foreshadowing gem from A Study in Scarlet:

Scarlet Briar: Ever since I came out of Omadd’s machine, you’ve been taking credit for my ideas. They are mine! Not yours.
Scarlet Briar: Let me be clear. I’m not doing this for you; I’m doing it for me. Nobody tells me what to do. Not ever.
Scarlet Briar: It’s not true. None of it. I don’t have to listen to you. Get out of my head!

Sounds to me that by this point Mordremoth was definitely having arguments in a language Scarlet could fully understand. He even had the nerve to bully Scarlet and belittle her superiority complex by claiming he was behind all her ideas, which made her furious.

I can’t find a reference to when Scarlet’s ramblings from above were taking place, but based on the timings of the other two holo-recordings in that instance and how those two were in chronological order, it’s possible that this third holo-recording only took place after the Tower of Nightmares story. It would make thematic sense too, as ToN was the first time we heard Mordremoth’s leitmotif playing in the game alongside Scarlet’s leitmotif, which hinted at the true mastermind behind Scarlet and might have also indicated that ToN was the true turning point of ol’ Mordy finally winning this mental game he’d been playing with Scarlet, possibly thanks to him being boosted when his corruption was spread by the Toxic Alliance and the Toxic Hybrid (briefly) while ToN was still standing.

Maybe Mordremoth initially didn’t have the kind of language the modern, intelligent Tyrian races would understand, which is why it only sent images into Scarlet’s mind at first. However, as Mordy kept playing around in Scarlet’s mind, he learned the modern Krytan language over time, being the intelligent Elder Dragon that he is, and could eventually communicate with her with complete and complex sentences as implied with the mind games he was playing with her?

Also, based on how fast the Toxic Hybrid evolved and expressed some rather interesting philosophical statements which showed self-awareness during our fight with it in ToN, it may have been Mordy’s attempt at testing a more intelligent Mordrem capable of speech in action, hence showing Mordy becoming more proficient linguistically. Of course this theory depends on whether the Mordrem Guards and Mordrem Court only came into being after ToN or if they were already in action by the time we were all busy fighting in Scarlet’s War. Then again, we don’t yet know if Mordy had minions capable of “understandable” speech during the earlier Awakening, but perhaps HoT will reveal more about this.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I agree that Zhaitan wasn’t done so well, but that doesn’t mean Scarlet was better because she blew up LA (that was, quite literally, all because Anet forced the good guys to play hot potato with the idiot ball).

As I look back on it, the writers could still save this by giving an explanation that by this time Mordremoth was already expanding his Mind powers and was subtly messing with the minds of the Captain’s Council ever so slightly, making them act like fools for a while to allow Scarlet to invade LA successfully. I mean, Mordy is the Elder Dragon of Mind, too.

…One can dream, right?

That’s a valid point. Sons of Svanir don’t refer to Jormag as “the ice dragon” or any of the other such descriptors. To the Sons of Svanir, when not described by name Jormag is simply “Dragon” – Jormag is their god, the Spirit of Dragon, the ultimate dragon of which all others are pale imitations.

A term like “Jungle Dragon” implies that Mordremoth is simply one of a group – which, of course, from our perspective he is, but from the perspective of his minions he should stand out more. Given the earlier lore about the vines actually being part of Mordremoth, possibly a better descriptor that could reasonably easily be chopped in is to refer to Mordremoth as “the jungle”. Mordremoth isn’t simply a dragon that happens to have influence over the jungle – to the Mordrem Guard, Mordremoth is the personification of the jungle itself that will grow to cover the world.

Something that bothered me about Zhaitan was that during the conversations about the ‘Eyes’ and the ‘Mouths’ of Zhaitan it was seemingly implied (to me) that Zhaitan operated differently than other Elder Dragons when it needed to see or consume things.

Perhaps the Ogden quote suggested that yes, there was something ‘not quite a language’ being spoken as Elder Dragon…ese… but whether or not each Elder Dragon has its own method of ‘vocalizing’ that language is in the air.

Not to mention Mordremoth is the Dragon of Plant and Mind correct? The Latter Sphere might lend some precedent to why the Minds of Sylvari (whom were intended to be its servants originally) could hear his voice.

Kalavier.1097:

Depends how the setup goes. Is it a hivemind and the champion is merely voicing the orders? Or is the champion it’s own being and commanding forces?

If the other four dragons we’ve encountered are anything to go by, champions are their own being but enslaved to their Elder Dragon, while grunts are more or less mindless.

Every champion and non-mindless lesser ranked dragon minion thus far has spoken as being a champion serving their dragon.

Shiren.9532:

On a note of the Mordrem Punishers etc making Mordremoth look intimidating – I really wish Mordrem didn’t call Mordremoth “the Jungle Dragon”. It makes sense for the Pact to say that or the allied forces, but actual Mordrem should be calling Mordremoth by it’s name, or master or the creator or something. The Jungle Dragon gives too much emphasis to Mordremoth being just another dragon, limited to a specific element, I feel like Mordremoth’s servants shouldn’t say call it “the Jungle Dragon” – that feels like something someone in Divinity’s Reach would call Mordremoth.

draxynnic.3719:

That’s a valid point. Sons of Svanir don’t refer to Jormag as “the ice dragon” or any of the other such descriptors. To the Sons of Svanir, when not described by name Jormag is simply “Dragon” – Jormag is their god, the Spirit of Dragon, the ultimate dragon of which all others are pale imitations.

A term like “Jungle Dragon” implies that Mordremoth is simply one of a group – which, of course, from our perspective he is, but from the perspective of his minions he should stand out more. Given the earlier lore about the vines actually being part of Mordremoth, possibly a better descriptor that could reasonably easily be chopped in is to refer to Mordremoth as “the jungle”. Mordremoth isn’t simply a dragon that happens to have influence over the jungle – to the Mordrem Guard, Mordremoth is the personification of the jungle itself that will grow to cover the world.

You mean like how risen called Zhaitan “the Dragon” when not referring to him by name, too? :P

Shiren.9532:

I completely agree. Scarlet was more accomplished because the plot forced it to happen, it wasn’t a well constructed outcome given how many allies had to hold the idiot ball, or how many factions were written into uncharacteristic alliances for Scarlet’s convenience. Scarlet’s arc was poorly constructed and delivered and in hindsight you can see it’s a framework of “she needs this tech and this tech” that wasn’t fleshed out enough. Colin has even said, the goal all along was the destroy Lion’s Arch, which implies the reason (ley line clusters) was made up to justify the conclusion.

Still, she did succeed and that makes Zhaitan (and other EDs by association) look bad. Zhaitan didn’t accomplish much during its time in the spotlight (in Sea of Sorrows it has more impact getting out of bed than it did during the Personal Story). If a single sylvari can impact Tyria almost as much as an ED, the EDs need to raise the bar.

I believe the reason these factions had these so-called lore-breaking alliances was because Mordremoth was already spreading his influence through Scarlet, her champion. He is the Dragon of Mind, after all, so persuasion/intimidation played a large factor there. Just listen to this older LW Season 1 recap video from Anet where it’s specifically stated that “[Scarlet] seduced the Nightmare Court and deceived the krait into an uneasy alliance.” Also note how she threatened to kill the Aetherblades and replace them with holos in one of the holo-recordings if they didn’t obey her, or how she addressed the krait who questioned her about delivering on her promises. How could a lone sylvari make pirates, who outnumbered her, fear her so much, how did usually misogynististic/xenophobic factions like the Flame Legion and the drege side with her, how did she know where to seek for the artifacts which the krait craved to earn their oratuss’s favour, what could she have said to “seduce” this splinter group of the Nightmare Court who were already masters of the art and who saw Scarlet as not one of their own?

One might say “bad writing”, but I say it’s foreshadowing that it was all Mordremoth all along, and him being the Dragon of Mind, having knowledge of the world’s ancient secrets, and knowing which buttons to push gives us enough of a handwave to justify Scarlet’s successes with forming the Anti-Pact.

As we saw by the end of S1 with the Scarlet’s death cinematic , we have both visual and aural confirmation that Scarlet was little more than a puppet for Mordremoth by the end similar to how the Twisted Marionette was a puppet for her. We see the mad grin on Scarlet’s corpse before the Breachmaker hits the ley line, thus completing her objective for her master at the expense of her life. Note how Scarlet’s leitmotif fades away and is totally overcome by Mordremoth’s leitmotif in that cinematic as we follow the redirected leyline to the Heart of Maguuma into the mouth of the very Elder Dragon who was behind Scarlet’s actions all along.

If anything, Scarlet’s actions proved that Mordremoth is as big if not a bigger threat than Zhaitan was by now if his minions alone can already bring so much destruction in their wake. She brought LA down, disturbed DE, and left Viathan Lake a toxic waste, and she was only a dragon champion. Ditto for Shadow of the Dragon, another champion, who delivered a devastating blow to the Pale Tree, allowing Mordremoth to use the cracks in her defenses to start seducing sylvari to join his army and potentially depriving the Pact of a fifth of its forces while also subsequently bringing the mighty Pact fleet, which had been so effective against Zhaitan’s army, down in an instant. These make the actions of Risen minions like Mazdak the Accursed and Labwan the Deceiver look rather pathetic in comparison and show that Mordremoth is being more active and far more cunning than Zhaitan was.

So no, I don’t think Scarlet makes EDs look bad in comparison. Her and the Shadow of the Dragon’s actions prove by association that Mordremoth, their master who was pulling their strings, is now the biggest threat to the existence of Tyria and the most dangerous Elder Dragon the heroes have faced so far.

I do agree, though, that parts of this story could’ve been told better. I would’ve wanted to see more interactions between Scarlet and her evil faction leaders in some way instead of the snippets we got to witness via holo-recordings. It would’ve helped sell how cunning Mordremoth was in making these factions work for him and his champion. But I understand the writers were in a tricky spot there; if they showed too much, more people would’ve likely figured out who the entity really was, and they wanted to keep it a mystery until the finale.

draxynnic.3719:

A term like “Jungle Dragon” implies that Mordremoth is simply one of a group – which, of course, from our perspective he is, but from the perspective of his minions he should stand out more. Given the earlier lore about the vines actually being part of Mordremoth, possibly a better descriptor that could reasonably easily be chopped in is to refer to Mordremoth as “the jungle”. Mordremoth isn’t simply a dragon that happens to have influence over the jungle – to the Mordrem Guard, Mordremoth is the personification of the jungle itself that will grow to cover the world.

I suppose one explanation for this could be that unlike Jormag who appears to follow the concept of the survival of the fittest or Zhaitan who appears to want his minions to adore him as a saviour or some such, Mordremoth is far more in-your-face with his intentions and ambitions in a “pseudo-intellectual” way. He acknowledges the existence of the other EDs by identifying himself as the Jungle Dragon instead of the Dragon, but he sees himself superior/more dangerous than the others while possibly belittling the other EDs’ achievements. After all, the Anti-Pact was like him mocking the Pact’s victory over Zhaitan and showing how he can twist the nobility of that group with a more nefarious Pact of his own, and he brought the very force that had defeated Zhaitan down with just a few key moves just to rub in how much of a chessmaster he is, being the Dragon of Mind and all that jazz.

Or it could simply be shoddy writing. But I like my theory better similar to my explanation of Scarlet and ol’ Mordy’s influence as seen in my post above.

I don’t think that the alliances Scarlet made was (fully) related to Mordremoth directly. The only alliance that has any indication of potential Mordremoth influence is the Toxic Alliance. There’s nothing related to mind alteration or plants in the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, or even the watchwork stuff.

And I don’t think that the krait’s initial acceptance to work with Scarlet was due to Mordy’s influence either – we only have indication that their minds were altered after the alliance was formed (said by Angel as the reason they continued working for her and why they couldn’t go back to the other krait aside from kill-on-sight orders from said other krait leaders).

The reasons for the Molten Alliance and Aetherblades working for Scarlet was bad writing through and through – as well as the watchwork being so easily altered by Scarlet (original lore placed steam creatures as being from another world entirely, fully mysterious with no relations to anything known by the Priory to the point that even the type of metal itself is a mystery – but S1/S2 reveals that they were made from metal Scarlet obtained from the dredge… something the Priory knows very well).

Well, the MA’s reasons weren’t so much bad writing as that Angel kept going back on the reason – first it was one reason, then it was another, when approached on this she came up with reason #3. And we never got the Aetherblades’ reason for joining – but their reason for staying was literally “promises of riches and being killed if disobeying Scarlet”. Quite the motivator there… But what was worse was their reason for continuing to work with Scarlet after their initial failure (especially MA which was: Flame Legion couldn’t go back without facing death penalty for failure (okay, makes sense), and dredge ‘liked the opportunity of ransacking a city’ (uhm… they’re not bandits, y’know?).

Strangest thing about the MA was that the dredge leadership changed during Sorrow’s Embrace, with implications of peace in the future, but then we suddenly get ‘all dredge are evil again and are working with forces they hate the most because it gives them access to magic they want’. Sure, works well enough… sort of… but assaulting Lion’s Arch benefited the dredge in no manner.

And again, there’s ZERO indication of any mental foul play with anyone other than the Toxic Alliance – whom have had shown subliminal hints of being corrupted by Mordy.

I just want to throw this out there: when Mordremoth communicated with Scarlet in images of destiny and blah blah, it was asleep. Now it is fully awake, perhaps it has regained the ability to communicate in a way that seems closer to language.

With that out of the door, I think this is just so that the player can understand.

I have a feeling he’ll be more involved. Especially since those vines are supposed to be part of him.

I for fun glided down to the lowest part of the center chasm in Verdant Brink, and noticed below the dark (It looks like water at one point, then just a chasm at another), every single big tendril was actively moving around.

Hopefully they do some unique racial dialogue for each race/unique things in different parts of the story, and play on the Sylvari player character-mordremoth relationship more.

That line from Taimi is very misunderstood. A lot of people take it to mean that all vines are Mordremoth, but Taimi actually said she theorized that those attacking waypoints (thus those in the ley line network) are Mordy, but the rest – the jungle tendrils and the ambient vines – are minions and corruption respectively.

Well, either way. The dark area underneath the destroyed airships has vines actively moving around in scary ways. o_o.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

While it is neat, it goes against what Anet had shown to us to be how dragons communicate – not in anything one can easily identify as a language.

Also as Mordy is the dragon of Mind maybe that influences how he communicates?

Shiren.9532:

I think it’s for the better this time. Zhaitan set the bar very low for Elder Dragons, between it’s limited characterisation in the Personal Story, very limited personalities among its minions and the terrible fight mechanics at its defeat, Zhaitan made Elder Dragons look kind of pathetic. Three years later, a lone sylvari succeeded where Zhaitan failed and had a campaign that was all about her for over a year.

Yeah they could have done a bit more, since many of Zhaitan’s Champions seemed to have a limited amount of autonomy. So they could very well have had a bit more personality. Mind you I think the biggest issue is that we don’t get the time to learn any of the minions personalities since most don’t survive outside of a singular instance.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

While the voice is cool, I think it would also have been cool if sylvari see flashes of images of what Mordremoth wants its minions in the area to do – like when the camp is under attack, a flash of the survivors being dragged off by mordrem+surviving sylvari.

Well I wanted to say that they don’t have the capacity to overlay images… but then again they’re able to put damage effect and water effects over the screen so hopefully they’d be able to implement something similar to show flashes of images.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well I wanted to say that they don’t have the capacity to overlay images… but then again they’re able to put damage effect and water effects over the screen so hopefully they’d be able to implement something similar to show flashes of images.

Also would be annoying or maybe even dangerous. Depending how they do flashes, seizure warnings?

But having random images flash up on the screen for Sylvari but nobody else would distract from things in the cutscene, like if something spawns a bunch of bad guys in cutscene that charge you, the Sylvari characters might not see that.

Of course they can overlay images; they can even overlay videos. Remember when they showed you Lions Arch being attacked by Scarlet? Or the New Lion’s Arch? Those were videos that had been put on top of everything, while you had already been loaded into the map.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think that the alliances Scarlet made was (fully) related to Mordremoth directly. The only alliance that has any indication of potential Mordremoth influence is the Toxic Alliance. There’s nothing related to mind alteration or plants in the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, or even the watchwork stuff.

Yeah, there isn’t any conclusive proof for this, but doesn’t it strike you odd how Scarlet, a female sylvari, was able to gain audience with two powerful and angry factions and convince them to work together without them just choosing to kill her after extracting whatever valuable information she had? If she didn’t have Mordy’s backing in some way by then (and she did appear to possess some powers as seen with the vines coming out of her arms with which she killed Omadd after exiting the machine) to subtly influence the faction members’ thoughts, I wonder how she would’ve gotten as far as their base to even talk to their leaders and convince them to join forces.

Sure, one could argue it’s due to bad writing, but why would the writers, who are knowledgeable about GW2 lore considering they even had a veteran of GW1 writing with them, make such an elementary mistake? Just because the concept of these alliances was cool, they honestly forgot and didn’t have time to double-check due to a busy schedule, or they thought people wouldn’t mind? Or was it maybe all part of a bigger plan? I guess it all depends on how early on the Mordremoth connection was thought of and when they “finalized” where the story would be going. We at least know they had a mastermind behind the scenes pulling strings in mind as early as the end of the Flame and Frost storyline when a Molten prisoner hinted at someone else’s involvement.

Strangest thing about the MA was that the dredge leadership changed during Sorrow’s Embrace, with implications of peace in the future, but then we suddenly get ‘all dredge are evil again and are working with forces they hate the most because it gives them access to magic they want’. Sure, works well enough… sort of… but assaulting Lion’s Arch benefited the dredge in no manner.

Was it actually ever stated anywhere by devs that this was indeed all the dredge siding with Scarlet as it appeared to be with the krait (at least initially until the oratuss backed out when they realized the prophet thing was a sham and only the Toxic krait remained after Nightmare Tower’s destruction)? Or is it possible that this was simply some commissar’s faction who realized they could use the help Scarlet’s Molten Alliance provided to keep their workers in line before their workers rebelled too?

At least we know that the female dredge expressed worry that the moletariate would show signs of misogynism after siding with the Flame Legion as seen in one of those letters we found lying about, so clearly not everyone in dredge-dom was happy about the alliance.

(cont’d)

(cont’d)

The reasons for the Molten Alliance and Aetherblades working for Scarlet was bad writing through and through – as well as the watchwork being so easily altered by Scarlet (original lore placed steam creatures as being from another world entirely, fully mysterious with no relations to anything known by the Priory to the point that even the type of metal itself is a mystery – but S1/S2 reveals that they were made from metal Scarlet obtained from the dredge… something the Priory knows very well).

I was quite surprised by the steam creature and Scarlet connection as I too thought the original lore painted a different picture of the creatures’ potential origin. But it’s not like it can’t be made to work. What if Scarlet, due to getting in close with the dredge, managed to discover a metal even the Priory didn’t know? It’s not like the Priory or Whispers had undercover agents all the way in every dredge stronghold, so there’s still a potential element of mystery there for this to work lore-wise.

Well, the MA’s reasons weren’t so much bad writing as that Angel kept going back on the reason – first it was one reason, then it was another, when approached on this she came up with reason #3. And we never got the Aetherblades’ reason for joining – but their reason for staying was literally “promises of riches and being killed if disobeying Scarlet”. Quite the motivator there… But what was worse was their reason for continuing to work with Scarlet after their initial failure (especially MA which was: Flame Legion couldn’t go back without facing death penalty for failure (okay, makes sense), and dredge ‘liked the opportunity of ransacking a city’ (uhm… they’re not bandits, y’know?).

Yeah, Angel’s responses may very well indicate that all this overarching narrative wasn’t that thought out to the end (as they were still experimenting with the Living Story stuff before tying things together into a season-spanning story arc), but they could still make it work. Also, depending on if the Mordremoth connection was already there by S1, the writers couldn’t have just waltzed in during S1 and told us “Yeah, the reason the Molten joined and still work for Scarlet is also due to subtle manipulations of the true mastermind, the Jungle Dragon” because that would’ve spoiled the surprise, so they had to come up with roundabout answers. But again, your guess is as good as mine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m overanalyzing this way too much. :P

The Aetherblades are a curious thing. Was it ever explained why Mai Trin had to be freed from prison? Why couldn’t Scarlet have replaced her with some other underling and promote that goon as a captain instead? Why did she need Trin especially? There’s still an unresolved plotline of what Mai Trin is going to do in the Mists now that her master Scarlet is dead. Will her crew carry out their mission there, become pawns of Mordy, or become a forgotten element? I hope that it won’t be the latter; I want some closure as Mai Trin has potential to become an interesting adversary especially if we learn more about her motivations.

Scarlet downright threatening Aetherblades and keeping them in line with fear seems to indicate to me that Mordremoth was already showcasing his power through her. We also know that the fear connection is heavily linked to Mordremoth due to the psychological horror effect from Scarlet’s backstory as well as the Nightmare Tower: fear is the mind killer, so maybe making people afraid will allow Mordy to affect them more easily? Maybe Scarlet demonstrated her vine powers by gruesomely killing the leader of a mutiny or some such, keeping the pirates in line. Why else would a bunch of high tech pirates not try to gang on her and tear her to shreds with their superior numbers the next time she showed up and then go looting elsewhere? Could be bad writing, or maybe there’s more going on behind the scenes. I do wish we’d seen more interactions between Scarlet and her alliances so this stuff could be cleared out…

(cont’d)

(cont’d)

And I don’t think that the krait’s initial acceptance to work with Scarlet was due to Mordy’s influence either – we only have indication that their minds were altered after the alliance was formed (said by Angel as the reason they continued working for her and why they couldn’t go back to the other krait aside from kill-on-sight orders from said other krait leaders).

I’m not proposing that Mordy’s influence was as visible at first as what happened after the Toxic Alliance was exposed to the Nightmare Tower. I’m talking about more subtle mind manipulations, one could say persuasion like the Jedi mind trick in a way, until these factions were in too deep to back out anymore.

Scarlet knew where to get the obelisk shard which she could persuade the krait with, and this information had likely come from Mordy (unless she had other means to discover its location). What if she used some sort of pollen to soften the krait to get to meet their leaders (without getting killed or enslaved by them) and then struck a deal?

This, along with her persuading the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades, may seem far-fetched, especially because we didn’t really get to see the exact signing of the deal taking place in-game, so there’s no conclusive proof one way or another unless a writer comes in and clarifies the issue. But I do think it’s possible that the writers may have used (or could retcon) a good enough reason for Scarlet to have pulled off these amazing deeds.

We’ve never been given any indication when Scarlet changed her original hairdo (as seen in “Newly Awakened” instance) into the more iconic “cone” one as far as I know. We learn in “Prosperity’s Mystery” instance from an off-hand comment by Rox that Scarlet may have modeled her hairdo after the cone we find in her secret room, and interestingly enough staying close to the “cone” makes Rox sneeze. Not only that, but during the Origins of Madness release in S1 we also saw these interesting objects which bear a striking resemblance to both the cone in Prosperity and Scarlet’s hairdo. We also know that sylvari tend to change their hairdo after an emotional experience (see Caithe adopting Wynne’s hairdo to “bear [her] pain”), so something must’ve prompted Ceara to change her hairdo at some point too.

Are all these instances simply separate and cute continuity nods, or could there possibly be a greater connection there? Why draw our attention to these seemingly insignificant things? In literature anything like this would be called Chekov’s Gun, something in the background which holds significance later.

We know Scarlet travelled around, and it’s possible she may have ventured beyond Prosperity and maybe all the way to Verdant Brink. Maybe she got her hands on one of those cones which may have fallen under Mordremoth’s influence? What if that cone hair she had could, along with her awakening vine powers as seen with Omadd’s death, also produce a kind of pollen (notice Rox’s sneeze in the instance) to allow her to subtly influence the faction leaders to form these alliances? That way Mordremoth’s influence wouldn’t have to become as apparent as it became with the physical changes of the Toxic Alliance, but still allow Scarlet to not get herself killed when she went to meet with the other xenophobic factions.

Sure, this is simply a crazy theory with no conclusive proof so it can be easily dismissed, but that cone scene has bothered me ever since I saw it and especially after we learned Scarlet’s hairdo was once different in S2. Just something to think and speculate about.

Kossage, the reasons you came up with that speculation is precisely why Scarlet is terrible writing.

And the only way to fix it is to shoehorn in some higher power that subtly influenced everything around her. Which just proves how badthe storywriting was.

Only Sylvari hear it?? that’s so cool. I only played a sylvari so I didn’t notice it.

The book Edge of Destiny, we’re given a glimpse into Kralk’s mind, which shows that it is intelligent. The force of nature part comes from its unquenchable hunger as well as its power (turn into a sandstorm). Kralk is capable of intelligent thought and decision making, but animalistic and base in its urge, its ravenous hunger for magic. Presumably the other dragons would be capable of the same.

Your thread reminded me to check something…

and son-of-a-kitten….

Dunno if that’s intentional really, Sariel. Hiring a voice actor a year+ in advance to just narrate some trailer seems a bit unusual.

It could be they were just trying to find voices of Mordremoth and his name popped up in a meeting. It could also be that two VA have similar voices after heavy editing.

I’d agree, but if it isn’t the same guy, he’s copying the original one’s style. The processing I think is a little different, but it’s tough to hear it in the more recent clip.