Guild Wars 2

OK, work with me here a moment… we know the dragons consume magic, correct? I also recall the dragons feed until satiated, then go to sleep. Seems to be, thinking about it, that there needs to be a constant source of new magic trickling into Tyria to replenish what the dragons have consumed. Once the quantity of magic in Tyria reaches a certain level the dragons stir, awaken and feed again. Which begs the questions… what happens if the dragons don’t drain the magic periodically? Can there be too much? Are we doing more harm than good as a whole by killing the dragons? (Not that they can be lived with regardless…)

Are the dragons a necessary component in maintaining a magic equilibrium in Tyria, and what are the long term consequences for disturbing that equilibrium?

[Wild theory with nothing to back it]
When I thought of what would happen to the world that only had an influx of magic that stayed in the world, a thought came to me. What if the “realms” in the mists, where for example the gods reside, were once worlds like Tyria that got over-saturated with magic and got swallowed into the mists?
[/Wild theory without anything to back it]

That aside, it doesn’t take the dragons to remove roaming magic from the world – the seers made the bloodstone for exactly this reason, to seal off the magic from Tyria. While there might not be any seers left (we don’t know of any, in any case), if coming destruction from over-saturation of magic would threaten the world, the bloodstones would be studied and possibly replicated in order to seal off the excess magic.

This was actually brought up in another thread though the OP had it backwards thinking Elder Dragons were the source of magic and not removing it.

Something to keep in mind that’s interesting is this:

Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan: "Defilers! Poisoners! We see you. We know your foul intent. These waters must remain as they are – and you must die! "

This doesn’t seem like one of the risen’s typical psychological attacks that they so love. The way it sounds in game makes me think that this guy truly thinks we are the ones corrupting the land. So by extension, it may be that Zhaitan views himself as helping the world – and the other Elder Dragons may think similarly.

Something interesting to think about.

But anyways, my own wild speculation since that’s all we can do:

I suspect that the Elder Dragons are coalesced magic given sentience. We’ve been constantly told that “dragons are power” as that’s the direction Anet wants to go. Anything that’s draconic is magically powerful. But what if that’s meant more literally? And the fact Elder Dragons need to devour magic to survive? It’s little different than how we need nutrients. Furthermore, from Edge of Destiny, Glint’s thoughts describe Kralkatorrik as “more magical than physical” – so I think the whole draconic appearance is just Tyria’s rule for how something very magically powerful shapes itself naturally. It would also explain why Zhaitan is such an eldritch abomination – though it looks draconic, it’s just loosely so.

So I think that if the world becomes full of magic more Elder Dragons will take shape and begin devouring magic in order to survive. Literally making an endless cycle like the jotun creation myths – even if you’re victorious, the Elder Dragons will return, even if not the same ones.

Yeah, I did have it backwards. At the time I was thinking that Primordus was the source of energy that was powering the Central Transfer Chamber and therefore was why it was a hotbed of magic. Then I applied the logic to Orr, but Konig’s got a very interesting point about the potential of the dragons not being finite.

On top of that, I still think that the world we haven’t seen yet (not Cantha or Elona) has their own problems with different elder dragons.