Guild Wars 2

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The following is a theory on Scarlet I’ve come up with while reading a lot of other theories here on the forums. A lot of stuff in here is not mine, but I’ve read way too much to know what is and what isn’t anymore. Therefor in advance kudos to everyone I stole ideas from. Also, there is so much speculation going around I might have confused fact with theory and vice versa, and because I’m not that deep into the lore I might have missed facts or generally accepted theories that might impact this theory. This is the main reason I’m posting this, as I would love to have input on this theory to check if it is actually plausible. The quotes used are all from either ‘What Scarlet Saw’ or Scarlet’s journal.

Scarlet’s Journey
From the moment Ceara emerged from the tree, her focus was on the complexity of life and finding her own way. In ‘What Scarlet Saw’ we followed her while she was gaining the knowledge she thought she needed to create something as complex as life itself. It was this focus that led her to be so intrigued by the Eternal Alchemy. However, Ceara got kicked out of Rata Sum. From that point there is a considerable gap in time to the next part of the story, ‘several months’. I think that during these months of wandering, she wandered a little too far and had an encounter with the entity described in her Journal, which until proven otherwise I’ll assume is Mordremoth (the encounter could also have been a mere champion of Mordremoth). This ‘encounter’ was much like the one Svanir had when he became corrupted, just a lot weaker. She probably wouldn’t have noticed something was wrong. It didn’t corrupt Ceara directly, but did leave a bit of corruption in her mind, leading into the events described in the Journal we recently got to read. In her search for answers, Ceara got driven back to Rata Sum, as she thought the Eternal Alchemy would hold all the answers. Her stay with the hylek was a mere distraction while figuring out what to do next (‘Hylek alchemy was diverting, but she considered it a cul-de-sac on the road she had chosen’).

When Omadd found her and gave her ‘the chance to explore the Eternal Alchemy again’ she devoted herself to that pursuit. The events described in the journal could stretch out to a point just before she entered Omadd’s device. We know part of what Ceara saw when she was in the device. My guess is that while reaching out with her mind, her mind also became more vulnerable. Mordremoth used this weakness to gaze into Ceara’s mind (intrigued/attracted in the first place by his own corruption that seemed to be present in her), saw her position towards the predetermination of her race and enforced this thought. It is even possible the entire encounter with the Pale Tree is linked to this, up to the point it was all an hallucination directed by Ceara’s own thoughts and emotions. When Ceara finally emerged from the device as Scarlet she had changed. Her mind was now totally focussed on removing this predetermination. As the predetermination seems to be a direct result from the Dream, this would require Scarlet to destroy the Dream.

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Mordremoth
Back to Mordremoth. What does it want? There are several possibilities. One option is that it wants the Sylvari as its minions, but the existence of the Dream is preventing the corruption from getting a hold. Another option is that it sees the Sylvari race as a threat, given the role Sylvari had in the defeat of Zhaitan and the cleansing of Orr. It could also be the dragon just sees the Dream as a threat, in case it uses other Pale Trees to create an army of Sylvari minions (Malyck would have ‘escaped’, probably accidental as his pod could have fallen in a river or rolled down a hill for all we know). Whatever it is, destroying the Dream has to benefit the Dragon in some way for this theory to work. Lacking the power to destroy it itself, Ceara provided a great opportunity for outsourcing this problem. Set on the right path by her own thoughts, enforced by the dragon, Mordremoth could remain hidden.

Scarlet’s reasons
Back to Scarlet. The first part of her life was about learning, about creating things. I guess it’s just the basis for what she is doing now, as it enables her to engineer the things we’ve already encountered. Her true goal would now be to destroy the Dream. Simply destroying the Pale Tree wouldn’t seem to do, as the Tree is not the source of the dream. Also, it would destroy all future offspring of her race (should we call it a ‘family’ if it becomes known there could be more trees?), and the fact that she wants all Sylvari to be free of the Dream’s influence instead of just her (as she already seems to be pretty far from its influence) would suggest she doesn’t want her entire race to become extinguished. ‘Those that did not evolve inevitably failed’, and by destroying the entire race evolution is out of the picture, thus destruction would mean failure. Also, ‘My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what what we were “born to be.”’ would suggest she still cares for ‘her’ people. How to destroy the dream then? Well, the Pale Tree is strongly linked to the Dream, much stronger than any single Sylvari. I do think this is where the toxin Scarlet created comes in. The hallucinations it caused were already pretty powerful, as they could even kill infected people, and are probably way more powerful if introduced into a dreamworld. By injecting the toxin into the Pale Tree, I think it plausible it would find its way into the Dream and do so much damage to it the Dream would no longer be viable for supporting the Sylvari minds. Though it wouldn’t be destroyed entirely (for which more knowledge than we have right now would be needed, as even the Pale Tree doesn’t exactly knows what the Dream is), it would become to dangerous for the Pale Tree to stick to it.

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Closing
Do I have proof? Nope. Just suspicions and theories. Even worse, there are still a lot of things I haven’t fitted in yet. What is Scarlet’s plan for Lion’s arch and the three Orders? How do the leylines fit in? How can she be certain the toxin will cause the Dream to be unusable and that the Pale Tree can actually let loose? What is the story behind the portals? How do the Mists fit in? Some wild guesses I have thrown together to fit the story (for which most of the time I have again no proof or even reasonable suspicion):

• The Molten Alliance provided Scarlet with the knowledge and materials for the drill.
• The Aetherblades provided airships for transportation.
• The Toxic Alliance provided the toxin.
• All of the above provide an army and laborers.
• The drill we saw in the hideout could be for drilling a hole in the roots of the Pale Tree, to administer the Toxin directly (like Marjory’s device).
• The drill could also be used to drill for the leylines, which magic could be needed to create enough toxin for the entire Dream to become infected (in the Tower of Nightmares the magic came from the Krait Shard).
• The laser we are testing for her in Lornar’s Pass is really a precision weapon and could be used to kill (a lot of) defenders of the Pale Tree fast, without actually hurting the Pale Tree itself. No idea why it would be on the head of a marionette though, except because it makes a fun bossfight and looks great in game.
• The corruption in her mind slowly makes Scarlet more insane, to the point where all that matters is the pursuit of destroying the Dream. We experience this now in how she shows more of herself these days, perhaps because she is getting more careless.
• The three Orders and Lion’s Arch will be attacked to weaken our troops and to serve as a distraction from the real thing. Attacking all orders at the same time might break the Pact as everyone would probably go to defend their own base, or at least split them up long enough for Scarlet to do what she wants without too much interference. Also a nice benefit for Mordremoth, taking out the groups that apparently can defeat a dragon.
• Because of gameplay reasons it is very likely we will defeat Scarlet before she succeeds. The grand finale would then be in the Grove and will introduce Mordremoth to the world, and we can get ready for Living World Season 2.

Please let me know when I missed important fact or if you feel you know something that can improve this theory! I will update this post if needed.

Since no one else has taken you up on this yet, I guess I’ll factcheck to the best of my ability.

It does all seem plausible to me- not necessarily always the most likely, but still well within the realm of possibility. For the most part your facts are good, only misrepresentations were about Scarlet wanting to free the entire sylvari race (only evidence for that are the ambiguous lines you only partially quoted- my own reading was that she was affected by those problems because she was a sylvari, but considered the rest of her people too stupid to enact her solution).

And since you asked for things that could be relevant… first, it has been observed that the thing the marionette is lowered down out of matches the top half the Scarlet’s planned drill. If so, it’s probably be too big to dig for the Pale Tree’s roots, which are in any case exposed and readily accessible if she can get back into the Grove. Also, it’s a pretty popular theory by now that the Nightmare Court are also sylvari under Mordremoth’s sway. That’d play into your theory well- there’s a good synergy between spreading Nightmare within the Dream and wracking the Dream with the Pale Tree’s own fevered hallucinations.