Guild Wars 2

I was wondering if the dragons are all primal hunger and chaos in their heads, or can they made intelligent decisions. Or do the dragon’s champions do the bulk of the thinking. Does it change between the dragons, which some think more the others?

The game seems to me to suggest fairly intelligent, rational and motivated thought on the part of Zhaitan. Personally, that’s not how I ever imagined him/it working so it seems kind of odd or jarring to me. It could be just that servants/champions of Zhaitan plot for his/its benefit, though – I’m not sure.

Edge of Destiny shows that Kralkatorrik thinks (though one can argue it’s not a high intelligence, but it is independent thought for sure), and from Claw Island on there’s quite a bit about Zhaitan having strategies and emotions that were previously unknown. But it still seems to be fairly basic things sans how his knowledge is gained from those he corrupts (he knows everything his minions knew before corruption – and possibly learned since, on that I’m not 100% sure of). Given how selective Jormag is in how he makes (stronger) icebrood (he doesn’t just corrupt everything that he can unlike the others), I’d say he’s fairly intelligent too if not the most intelligent (given that his minions show to be the most intelligent overall too).

I would like to think they are very unintelligent, because of how horrible their strategies and reactions are. It seems if they were intelligent, everybody would be dead by now. Of course, they do in fact show intelligence at certain times, so either their bad decision making is due to a need for the good guys to win, or the dragon’s minds are too chaotic to make rational decisions all the time (or something similar).

I can believe the “chaotic thinking” while being intelligent. But also realize that these beings have lived through multiple cycles of waking and sleeping. They probably don’t consider us a threat. One of the tengu outright state that they’ve yet to make their move.

So I consider everything they’ve done to be in “preparation” and not “elimination.” Zhaitan’s just forced to do them both at once due to his minions coming from corpses – thus he eliminates in small doses to prepare before sending out larger waves like that which attacked Claw Island and the order HQs – the biggest threats and those attacks nearly succeeded.

So if you look at their actions/strategies as “they’re trying to kill us all” of course they’ll look like morons. But if you look at it as their just conscripting forces (which is what Jormag and Zhaitan seems to have been doing), then that’s less so.

True, but why didn’t Zhaitan just send out all his champions at once? With no prior warning, it seems like he could’ve taken over all of Tyria in one move (and created plenty of minions in doing so). It seems like the champions must’ve been sleeping under Orr like he was, as there aren’t very many dragon corpses to raise in modern Tyria.

Of course, if Zhaitan was merely preparing or not fully awakened, it would make sense to keep his main force close for defense. Maybe the dragons hold back because they are being cautious of the other dragons, not because they’re worried about us.

I think trying to conceptualize how the EDs reason is not very productive. Their mental capacities are far beyond most mortals. It’s like trying to reason with a tornado or volcanic eruption.

exelion.2369:

I think trying to conceptualize how the EDs reason is not very productive. Their mental capacities are far beyond most mortals. It’s like trying to reason with a tornado or volcanic eruption.

I tried to reason with a tornado once. I said “Mister tornado, why have you selected to remove just the central tree in that grove instead of uprooting them all?”

His reply came very swiftly. “Because potatoes are not blue.”

I honestly could not argue his point.

In all seriousness, though, we have no indication that the dragons aren’t concerned with the other dragons. While we don’t know for sure, there have been hints that the dragons don’t like each other. When you look at it that way, the ED’s all seem to be holding back and preparing themselves. It’s like a 5-way Cold War as none of them want to make the first move and draw the others down on them. They are all plotting and planning how best to take over without being destroyed.

Now that Zhaitan is down, however, it may be that the next story expansion has the other four being more aggressive (although Primordius and Bubbles may not know, as their minions wouldn’t know of Zhaitan’s death)

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

In all seriousness, though, we have no indication that the dragons aren’t concerned with the other dragons. While we don’t know for sure, there have been hints that the dragons don’t like each other. When you look at it that way, the ED’s all seem to be holding back and preparing themselves. It’s like a 5-way Cold War as none of them want to make the first move and draw the others down on them. They are all plotting and planning how best to take over without being destroyed.

Now that Zhaitan is down, however, it may be that the next story expansion has the other four being more aggressive (although Primordius and Bubbles may not know, as their minions wouldn’t know of Zhaitan’s death)

Bubbles may or may not know depending on where it is. We dont really know that much about it.

I can’t wait till we face Primordus, out of all of them he fascinates me the most.

Excelliate.7914:

True, but why didn’t Zhaitan just send out all his champions at once? With no prior warning, it seems like he could’ve taken over all of Tyria in one move (and created plenty of minions in doing so). It seems like the champions must’ve been sleeping under Orr like he was, as there aren’t very many dragon corpses to raise in modern Tyria.

Of course, if Zhaitan was merely preparing or not fully awakened, it would make sense to keep his main force close for defense. Maybe the dragons hold back because they are being cautious of the other dragons, not because they’re worried about us.

I’d argue the cautious of other dragons point, personally.

Also, just because there’s no dragon corpses doesn’t mean that those champs were around during the last ED rise – firstly, there’s Bone Dragons so there’s draconic creatures that once lived in Tyria (said Bone Dragons origin is… Orr!). Secondly, Risen Abominations are created not from a single corpse but multiple corpses sewn together – the dragon champions of Zhaitan can be similar. So it’d take time to gether enough “materials” to make the dragon champions.

Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought that Tequatl the Sunless definitely looked more “pieced together” than an ancient being. Although you gotta wonder where he got bones that big to work with.

While Zhaitan’s champions could just be conglomerated pieces, or at least formed recently, it seems unlikely to me for a few reasons, the first being that, to me at least, the champions look like they are from one being, and Zhaitan seems to have all of its minions in the same stage of decomposition, no matter how fresh their corpses were. Another reason would be that the other dragons have massive dragon champions that look like they were part of the same species before corruption.

We know of at least two other dragons preserved since earlier awakenings — Glint, and Drakkar(Less similar to the others, but still dragon-esque). Now, the dragons could be created by the Elders, but if there was a dragon race, it seems more likely to me that the champions are holdovers, and preserved from awakening to awakening.

Not to mention The Great Destroyer, he was killed only “250” years ago.

Narcemus.1348:

Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought that Tequatl the Sunless definitely looked more “pieced together” than an ancient being. Although you gotta wonder where he got bones that big to work with.

Bones is the easy part – though if you wanna get technical, Tequatl and the other Zhaitan dragon champions don’t show any bone sans teeth.

But seeing how the risen were on the borders of Elona, they could easily conscript those giant kitten bones that could be found across continental Tyria and Elona.

@Excelliate: “the other dragons have massive dragon champions that look like they were part of the same species before corruption”

The Shatterer was, by far, never a living being. It is hollow – completely so. It’s just animated stone, lightning, and ether. The Claw of Jormag by looks is just a skeleton encased in ice (very similar to the Dragonspawn, in fact).

Thus the only fleshy dragon champion that actually looks like a dragon other than Zhaitan’s champions would be Glint. And given how an ogre can be changed by Kralkatorrik to look like this I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to change, say, a drake into looking like Glint.

The only evidence of a draconic race in ancient continental Tyria lies in Bone Dragons, which lack of back body.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Excelliate: “the other dragons have massive dragon champions that look like they were part of the same species before corruption”

The Shatterer was, by far, never a living being. It is hollow – completely so. It’s just animated stone, lightning, and ether. The Claw of Jormag by looks is just a skeleton encased in ice (very similar to the Dragonspawn, in fact).

Thus the only fleshy dragon champion that actually looks like a dragon other than Zhaitan’s champions would be Glint. And given how an ogre can be changed by Kralkatorrik to look like this I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to change, say, a drake into looking like Glint.

The only evidence of a draconic race in ancient continental Tyria lies in Bone Dragons, which lack of back body.

I’ve looked at the Shatterer, and I can’t rule out it not being an organic being at some point because its legs still look solid, and if Kralkatorrik can change things in crazy ways, than it could change a dragon that far too(same goes for Jormag). It is true though, that there is little supporting evidence for a large species of dragon to exist in ancient Tyria. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is the huge bones in the Ascalon Catacombs in GW1 that don’t look like Lupicus bones. I guess I want there to be a dragon race to explain where the elder dragons came from, and their minds—they could have been originally intelligent.

So ignoring the fact that it has absolutely nothing within its abdomen, and that its head is also hollow, and that the wings are literally just floating shards tethered by energy (as is its chest)…

Well, if you ignore those, and you’re only left with the legs, then yeah I guess you can argue it was once a living being because it really matches how the other Branded that were once living beings look (in which I mean their skin was grayed, they lost their hair, and everything beneath their skin became a pure solid mobile chunk of crystal – with the possible exception of minotaurs).

The Shatterer is without a doubt in my mind a bunch of rocks and crystals morphed and tethered together by energy – only the legs and head have any kind of detail to them that makes them look otherwise. The things basically a draconic purple Shadow Behemoth.

Honestly I’d have to side with the “War of the Dragons” theory with the races of Tyria merely being convenient fleshbags to turn to their purposes and otherwise beneath their notice. The death of Zhaitan at the hands of these fleshbags however … that could upgrade them to threat level and force the dragons to start their war in earnest with the combined races of Tyria filling Zhaitan’s now empty position in the war.

I view the dragons as being highly intelligent but do not view most being (humans, charr, etc) as something they need or want to converse with because they cannot fully understand what they are trying to say or mean. They might converse with the gods or spirits and other dragons but i do not see them treating the moral races the same way. Kinda like how we are with animals, i am stretching that but really only thing i can compare it to with the real world at this moment.

Well, Jormag’s heavily hinted to converse with the Sons of Svanir – both corrupted and not.