Guild Wars 2

The fact that you have to kill a load of Zhaitans mega powerful minions (e.g. mouth of zhaitan, eye of Zhaitan etc.) to weaken it indicates that the minions of Zhaitan are “part” of Zhaitan. What I mean here is do they have an individual conciousness of their own or are they simply part of one big hive mind that is Zhaitan?

They are all apart of the hive mind, and they all work in Zhaitan’s best interests, but the more powerful ones all have varying degrees of independence.

This is the situation for all Elder Dragons as best we can tell:

• They all have some sort of mental link to each other (Dragon to all minions and minions to each other) which is how they differentiate friend from foe (no link = foe). Some think of this link like a hive mind, but it isn’t entirely clear.
• The standard minion are mindless – or near mindless depending on dragon – grunts. More powerful minions, the champions, have a level of autonomy to them however – this includes personality and ability to make their own choice.
• No dragon minion – champion or mindless grunt – has free will. The enslavement/removal of free will is part of dragon corruption.
• However, there is a Forgotten ritual known to return one’s free will (they forced Glint to undergo this ritual, and some players suspect that the Pale Tree and Malcyk’s Tree was put under the ritual too while seeds).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

which is how they differentiate friend from foe (no link = foe).

Well, not the risen. There’s this event where a skritt test subject is able to trick them into thinking he’s one of them with just a scent derived from risen fish oil. The inventor claims that it’d work on any of “the nonsentient ones”.

Risen are a bit odd overall with their grunts – those that were of the sapient races (charr, human, krait, etc.) hold more average intelligence than other dragon minions seem to, but those those that were wildlife, etc. appear as smart as other dragon minions’ average grunt (read: nigh mindless).

And I just remember that some branded were tricked by an illusion in Edge of Destiny. So the friend/foe mechanism may not relate to all dragon minions but just destroyer/icebrood/possibly mordrem. Still all dragon minions have some sort of mental connection to their dragon and its champions – Kralkatorrik controlled its minions via telepathy in Edge of Destiny, and the Pale Tree states that Zhaitan knows all its minions know, at least upon the point of corruption (and this seems to extend to all other dragons and their minions).

TBH, there’s a lot of back-and-forth with the lore of GW2. This is just one of them.

inch.3769:

The fact that you have to kill a load of Zhaitans mega powerful minions (e.g. mouth of zhaitan, eye of Zhaitan etc.) to weaken it indicates that the minions of Zhaitan are “part” of Zhaitan. What I mean here is do they have an individual conciousness of their own or are they simply part of one big hive mind that is Zhaitan?

The mouth specifically was Zhaitan’s source of food, so killing the mouths literally starved Zhaitan. So it could be a indirect way of weakening him.

If your looking for more lore on Zhaitan check out my lore video!

If your looking for more lore on Zhaitan, check out my lore video!

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

which is how they differentiate friend from foe (no link = foe).

Well, not the risen. There’s this event where a skritt test subject is able to trick them into thinking he’s one of them with just a scent derived from risen fish oil. The inventor claims that it’d work on any of “the nonsentient ones”.

No link = foe is true as it was proven in Edge of Destiny the book then they somehow blocked the dragon champion mind from the dragons source directly (meaning his link was broken/clog leading to the vast army of Icebrood to turn around and attack the champion itself since its no longer linked and consider a foe.

I think it varies from dragon to dragon. Jormag seems to apply a more direct control in a lot of ways. Zhaitan and Kralkatorik seemed content to control their minions subconscious, dictating how they were to react and what they desire. We have seen both Branded and Risen effectively operate with a degree of autonomy, which makes sense considering the fact that controlling such armies directly would take a lot of focus.

As further proof for this we see that the Risen in Orr will go about the day to day tasks they had when they were alive in a sort of mockery of life. Only when they detect an ‘enemy’ or have Zhaitan or a champion call to them do you see them leap into action.

Jormag doesn’t seem to take direct control over his minions. The Dragonspawn still had some autonomy like other dragon champions. He doesn’t even care if his minions get killed by his non-minion followers (Sons of Svanir). He doesn’t even seem to care if non-followers kill his minion (see Frost Portal skill challenge in Frostgorge) as it proves the individual is strong.

But it seems that the grunt minions that are nigh mindless for all dragons will attack anything that doesn’t seem to be of their own kind. With Jormag, this link appears mental.

The risen also have a mental link of some kind – Zhaitan’s said to know all his minions knew, though it’s unclear if this is a “during the time of their corruption” or “always once corrupted”; if its the later then the purpose of the Eyes seems redundant, tbh.

In all honesty, there’s a lot of inconsistency across the game’s story. The mental connection between Elder Dragon and minion is seemingly part of it.

IIRC, they mention one time during the story that Zhaitan knows anything the person knows/saw before death, and knows what they see after death.

Likely, the Eyes of Zhaitan simply process all this data and only funnel relevant information to the dragon instead of “Risen Thrall saw a bunny. Chased bunny until it escaped into a burrow.”

There is some clashing information on that point, though. Like Konig said, some parts of the lore are portrayed inconsistently.