Guild Wars 2

The purpose of this thread is to provide constructive feedback in regards to the high possibility of Elder Dragons becoming future antagonists to the story of Guild Wars 2. In short this thread will deal with the concept of a dragon as the main evil and how to make the dragons not so cut-out and plain. I will be using Skyrim and WoW: Cataclysm as some examples, but for the subject of the thread let’s keep it constructive on GW2! Also, long texts ahead! So grab your drinks and snacks before you start reading!

So why am I making this topic? Well, to make it simple i’m worried about the idea of Elder Dragons being the antagonists of the story in Guild Wars 2. Why you might just shake your head and say “Dragons are the best antagonists! They breath fire and kittens out!” but not quite. The problem of making an Elder Dragon the antagonist is that it may or may not cause problems in the general feeling and “reeling” in parts of the story. I’ll explain.

What makes a good antagonist and why are they important?
Good antagonist’s, for the most part, are characters people can relate to. They’re people who have a history, motivations, flaws, and quirks. They aren’t evil because they’re just “evil”; they have a reason for their actions. The more familiar, realistic, as well as power driven they are the better, usually, the antagonists. A good antagonist contributes to the story. They are the reason why a story exists and the better the antagonist the more driven the story becomes. No one wants to play a game about a quaggan who swims all day (though how adorable would that be!). People want action, adventure, and someone to swing their sword at.

So why are Elder Dragons concerns for antagonists
The main issue with Elder Dragon’s (I’m gonna start abbreviating them as ED’s for now lol) is that they aren’t as flexible and robust as human counter parts. From what we know currently, we don’t know if EDs are intelligent, sentient creatures that can communicate. From what they were described as they were described as “forces of nature”. Well, this is where a problem begins to arise. Normally a story is driven from a good antagonist because they have a reason for their misdeeds or evil. In the case of an ED, from what we can tell, they don’t seem to have a reason. They don’t have a loved one to protect, they aren’t power hungry (from the information we have), and they don’t want to rule the world for whatever reason. They have no history that we can understand their motivations from or quirks of their own. They just want to gobble up all the shinies of magic and go to sleep, thus destroying the world in the process. They’re evil because they just are and that makes for a bland antagonist.

You can’t relate to a giant force of nature, nor can you sympathize with them. You can’t have a pleasant conversation with it nor can you spare them because then they’d just continue destroying everything.

So what makes a dragon a good antagonist?
Well assuming the EDs can’t communicate or are sentient they must be made good antagonists through their actions. Granted, all villains in order to be successful must show their evil not tell you it, but this is even more so with the EDs. We must be shown how powerful they are, how destructive they are, and how vital it is that we stop them. Zhaitan was NOT a good example of this and i’ll get to why.

Zhaitan, Deathwing, and Alduin as dragons in game
Why am I comparing Zhaitan to other dragons from other games (WoW and Skyrim)? Well, i’ll explain. Zhaitan’s story from the personal story was, in short, poorly done. I’m not talking about the “flaws” of the personal story but more so the character himself. You don’t see Zhaitan’s minions until you get into one of the orders and then you begin seeing them frequently. Even then though, you don’t actually see Zhaitan himself until the story mode of Arah. In short, we never see Zhaitan’s own power, we just see how many minions he can throw at us. Sure his lieutenants and minions were all horrifying and tough but every time we beat them back someone would say “Oh my gosh Zhaitan is so powerful and blah blah blah”. We were never shown how powerful he was we were only told.

And when we finally get to see Zhaitan in all his “might”, he hits our ship, get’s cut in half stranded on a giant exclave, and then we proceed to nuke the kitten out of him with the almighty flak cannon of the #2 button. What an scary ED, eh? Deathwing from WoW had this problem as well. He was barely or infrequently shown and we had very few interactions with him. That and the fact that he had a history and story that was never really explained well and was just “I want to blow everything up” made him for a poorly done antagonist. That and when you finally fight him you scrub his back for him. Alduin from Skyrim was a bit better because he didn’t want to destroy everything, he just wanted to make Mankind bend their knee to the dragons so they could rule the world again. Alduin even had his own personality and interacts and shows how strong he is throughout the game. Although, he didn’t appear that frequently so he wasn’t as strong of a character as he could have been.

Which is once again another problem with Zhaitan. We never had any interactions with him or chats with him, he never showed us a personality and we never actually saw him do anything. Heck, his lieutenants were scarier than he was, they actually did stuff! So in short he didn’t feel all that threatening or “evil”. If Zhaitan were to have a conversation with a therapist here’s how’d it go:

Player: So Mr. Zhaitan could you please explain to us why you’re trying to consume all the magic of Tyria and destroy everything?
Zhaitan: Well y’know I’ve got about like 9 different mouths and sometimes my tummy grumbles and I need to feed them but i’m too lazy to do it myself so I send other people to do it for me. Also because I’m evil(x9)
Player: But why are you so evil and destructive? What drives you to do these horrible things?
Zhaitan: Because I can and it’s free.

…Pretty interesting reasons right?

Conclusion
So assuming EDs don’t have personalities or are intelligent and the reason why they do all of these things is because it’s their “instinct” or “nature” then Arena Net, show us! Show their power! Have scenes where they swoop down and blaze everything with their breaths! Where they participate in fights and actually do something alongside their minions! Make them land in front of our PC’s and make is shiver in our boots while pleading that they don’t take Chauncey Von Snuffles III! Make them all powerful and destructive. Don’t say it, show it! This is of course we are assuming they don’t have any reasons at all and are just forces of nature and nothing more. If they do have reasons and a history and personality, show us that too!

So how does everyone feel about the upcoming EDs as antagonists? Do you have concerns, worries, and questions? Or are you happy with how they are portrayed and don’t mind it? Post your thoughts below!

Actually I’m pretty sure that we do know that the Dragons are intelligent Sentient beings.
The fact that they can communicate through their minions confirms that. Jormag has to be intelligent to have been able to know that having the Sons of Svanir follow it would be extremely helpful to its cause, rather than just relying on flying about killing/transforming things.

Glint also talks about Kralkatorrik being angry or whatever. Anger/any emotion is a product of the capacity to think/react. e.g. trees do not have anger, the wind does not have anger.

(Sorry for lazy response, my brain is dead from writing essays.)

Heh thats fine. I was debating whether they were sentient or not since I did know Kralk went after Glint when he awoke, though I wasn’t sure.

My concern still stands though. If they are sentient and intelligent then even better, but if they just send wave after wave of minions while they sit atop their “base” doing nothing until we finally confront them all the while never figuring out more about them or interacting with them personally, then i’ll be deeply saddened. Zhaitan had an amazing look and concept going for him, yet the only time you ever encounter or see him is in Arah story mode, and when you do finally meet the big baddy he gets destroyed.

Because Zhaitan is a 500m+ long dragon, whose breath/corruption can instantly turn people to Risen.

If he flew over timberline falls for example and ‘showed his power’, we’d probably be dead (like in Forging the Pact).

A foe that size (against humans) isn’t going to have a SUPER AWESOME FIGHT. We’d do nothing to scratch it. I prefer to have my characters ALIVE. Cause you know, Kralk’s flight south left a grand total of a single person alive with the brand.

Sure, we don’t see the dragon themselves smashing things, but we can see what they can do with the Dragonbrand, the icebrood crystals in Frostgorge, and the risen throughout Orr. In the one storyline you see Zhaitan’s corruption basically turn EVERYTHING in the lake area at Mount Maelstorm into Risen, when you had shortly been there before and it was all fine.

Honestly, if you are going to take the time to compare something on the scale of an ED to something similar from another game, Final Fantasy 10’s Sin is the best place to start as Sin is basically on the same power scale. On top of this, they made bloody well sure the player understood very clearly how awesome Sin’s power was. By the time you actually face it, you pretty much wonder if it can even be defeated since every attempt to that point ended in either utter failure, or a short break in it’s destructive rampage (Which is not really a success, IMO).

I had kind of hoped they would have gone along that line for the Zhaitan fight, personally. Hit the dragon from various sides to bring it down, weaken it, then finish it off from up close in some fashion.

My point is, I do sort of agree with the OP, they really do need to do a better job of making us understand the threat these creatures pose instead of just telling us “be scared of that thing. it’s big and mean.”

Brand is enough evidence of the danger of the dragons.

I normally don’t go around ANet bashing, but as Zelkovan states, I think ANet could use a little improvement in their story-telling and in their portrayal of the EDs in-game.

Storyline-wise, I think having the EDs as primary antagonists is fine, but the way the dragons are going to be portrayed have to be thought through carefully. Take Galactus from the Marvel series for example: despite being a cosmic entity which destroys planets without mercy, I personally feel attached to the character because I can (sort of) understand his motivations. As we begin to learn more about this cosmic entity through the protagonists in the Marvel world, we begin to really understand Galactus, find out the extent of his alien mind, and thus even begin to ‘care’ for him. With Zhaitan, all we really know is that he is powerful dragon who creates Risen without rhyme or reason.

Combat and game mechanics-wise, the final battle with Zhaitan was also a downer. As Zelkovan so accurately puts it, taking down Zhaitan was simply a matter of pressing #2 on the keyboard. Aside from having to dodge a posionous field of undead spit, there was almost zero skill required (no dodges, no having to leap from falling platforms, etc). Funny thing is, ANet is capable of coming up with some very memorable fight scenes. Fighting Abaddon from GW1: Nightfall was one – having to battle a gigantic god with nothing but swords and fireballs made for an awesome fight. The Storm Wizard batlle in SAB was also another memorable fight – remember having to run around in circles just to avoid the increasingly decreasing amount of platforms and jumping on random clouds to avoid being struck by lightning? Combat in these scenes made the boss seem more challenging and epic to defeat.

Nonetheless, ANet has been improving in their story-telling and combat mechanics, so I hope to see more!

The key to making a Draconian and monstrous antagonist in general a threat is quite rightly stated by the OP, a matter of presence.

Dragons cant tell us how they feel, they cant give us inter-banter dialogue so their actions must speak for themselves, this means that the devastation is what has to be the method which gives the player pain and motive to vanquish them.

Example from the books:

Krally took quite a big chunk out of Tyria when he first woke up, he created the brand and left a full swath of devastation where ever he went which was impactful because it shows how brutal the dragons path of destruction can be.

The key to a dragons influence, is to make their actions leave a trail, scars, devastation, raw chaos in its wake.

This also means, don’t pull the cheap thing of “and its already happened you arrive to see whats left” this means, show us a big pact fort, being ready to stand against the forces of the Jungle Dragon, Mordremoth, for example.

And suddenly, the defenses are tested, at first, a wave comes in, you fend off the first wave of minions, then the second, then the third, gradually, the defenses begin to get over-run.

Some might say “But isn’t that essentially Claw Island over again?” You’d be right, except for one big difference.

This time, we get to see what we are up against, the full might of Mordremoth, the Jungle Dragon, coming at the storm of its army.

There is that horrifying silence as every man stops fighting and time slows down to witness a towering dragons foot “shatter” the wall like it was nothing more than archaic stone.

Then another foot comes down and demolishes the gate, before the dragon roars a mighty breath and annihilates entire ranks of airships with one of its brutally powerful elemental breaths, be it flames, or some kind of endless mass of vines ripping from its maw like the Kraken in POTC dead mans chest, yanking the ship into the sea.

The Dragons power, must show exactly how horrifyingly unstoppable it can be when it is unleashed at full force.

And against it, you, are an insect, against a monster.

So the pact has brought its anti-zhaitan mega lasers from the pacts capital ship to destroy Mordremoth, they’ll save the day!

The laser fires, the dragon takes a hit, it gets wounded, but…

Suddenly, its hand, grips out and tears the capital ship from the fleet, causing an almighty explosion as its hand is ripped apart, but so to is the entire fleet of pact air ships annihilated in one brutal devastating explosion.

Despite everything, injured, but alive, Mordremoth rampages on, with a lost hand, a cut jawline, and an angry limp, towering over us without mercy, and shattering our homes without care.

It will pave its way to its target, until it has succeeded.

Or we end its horrifying existence.

That, is how you make a dragon fight and a dragons presence worth noticing, when it leaves kessex hills as nothing more than a smoldering ruin over-run by vines and nightmarish apparitions, when it seeks the other pale tree, and RIPS off its head barbarically, nourishing itself on the liquid magic from its torn stump to rejuvenate its health and life force.

When we finally confront it as it tries to do the same to the grove, and in a brutal and bloody battle we throw ‘everything’ at it in a desperate attempt to protect the pale tree from its doom.

When we finally stop this unstoppable juggernaut and send it into oblivion with its heart torn from its chest and its body ceased with a final laughter from its dark vocal cords of brutal amusement from its triumphs, and its ultimate defeat.

The dragon must hurt the world, before it can be a threat, to the world.

The only problem is people usually like having their characters… you know, LIVE.

Hence why Zhaitan hardly made an appearance. If he flew over Timberline falls during the forging of the pact and let lose his breath, most (if not all) present would DIE.

You have to BALANCE it. Yes, these are major threats, but if you show them effortlessly destroying the ENTIRE pact force (As you say) leaving NOTHING left, then you go into despair/giving up. “Why bother, it just smashed everything!”

There is a balance point. Yes, perhaps a number of airships go down alongside a fortified forward location while facing the next dragon (Jungle, Jormag, etc). But not THE ENTIRE force of the Pact. Again, Zhaitan was 500m long. Bigger then some scifi starships. A human or norn is an ant to him, and wouldn’t even scratch his hide. Why should he bother swooping toward us until we prove ourselves a danger?

I’ve heard that Jormag literally doesn’t care about Sons of svanir killing female icebrood because they are ANTS to him.

Honestly, the brand is a good example of the danger of the dragons. Kralk, just flying, basically not even noticing those beneath him, destroyed so much.
I’ve heard Jormag literally not care about sons of Svanir killing

If you look at Zaitan you can see both the strength and weaknesses of elder dragons in the storytelling. Zaitan was both intelligent and malign. His leading minions were too. The concept of raising an island and corrupting the worshipers of the human gods is great. The eyes of Zaitan were ok as villains and although they could articulate for Zaitan they should have done it more. The main problem with Zaitan was that we didn’t see him earlier and when we did see him it was an anti-climax. I don’t have any problems with other Elder Dragons in the living story as long as they themselves actually feature more.

I also don’t see any problem with the Elder Dragons being alien and incomprehensible from a human perspective. Many horror writers have realized that the unknown is more terrifying than the known. A force that cannot be placated or reasoned with can be much more dangerous, even if it is a force of nature.

Indeed, and some settings which had a horrible, terrifying force and later explained it found the force to suddenly be stripped of it’s ability to scare.

See the borg in star trek from their first appearance to Voyager flying through their space. Or reapers from mass effect…

If the Dragons appeared more often and more directly interacting toward us… they either go from “That’s not as scary” or “Okay, they can wipe us out instantly. Why don’t they?”

And having the next dragon we fight stomp the Pact(well, stomp almost all the pact), then get defeated later only starts a terrible cycle of “Oh, we gotta make this guy scary. We’ll show him destroying all the awesome pact weapons and tech! Then later they get stronger/better tech and beat him!” repeated for every dragon.

Kalavier.1097:

Indeed, and some settings which had a horrible, terrifying force and later explained it found the force to suddenly be stripped of it’s ability to scare.

See the borg in star trek from their first appearance to Voyager flying through their space. Or reapers from mass effect…

If the Dragons appeared more often and more directly interacting toward us… they either go from “That’s not as scary” or “Okay, they can wipe us out instantly. Why don’t they?”

And having the next dragon we fight stomp the Pact(well, stomp almost all the pact), then get defeated later only starts a terrible cycle of “Oh, we gotta make this guy scary. We’ll show him destroying all the awesome pact weapons and tech! Then later they get stronger/better tech and beat him!” repeated for every dragon.

You do make very good points but I agree with you in that I think a compromise can be made.

People don’t necessarily want the Elder Dragons to just wipe the floor with everyone because then there would be no story and all the characters would have died. I’m just asking that they have more of a presence. They don’t need to swoop in and destroy everything in sight or obliterate armies with one fell swoop (though those would be interesting plot turns. E.g. a kitteny general leads a massive army into battle only to get wiped the floor with). If the Elder Dragons really were that strong then we would have been destroyed by Zhaitan because he would have corrupted the entire pact as we invaded Arah.

It’s mainly on the skill of the writers at Anet. They can make a story in which the Elder Dragon’s are seen as strong and having presence in the story but not completely wiping the floor with us and without it being a cliche cycle of them stomping us and then we rally back and beat them somehow. I’m not asking them to put us on the front line immediately after finding them and smacking at them with tiny blades while yelling “For Ogden’s hammer savings guy!” I just want them to be more of a…force. Making them appear more often doesn’t quite mean that they become less terrifying because by that sense Zhaitan would be the most terrifying. Zhaitan was never shown in the personal story until Arah but he was about as threatening as a hush puppy

It all has to be executed well and the more feedback Anet gets the better they can do it. Even the most mundane or simple things, if done well, can look and feel amazing.

One thing I thought of is the Pact doing a pre-emptive strike against Mordemoth, akin to what happened with Kralk. Strike it while it’s waking up, kill it before it can truly cause damage (though Kralk that happened anyway with the brand.)

So the Pact sends the Commander, a sizable (but not HUGE chunk of the Pact) force alongside some tanks/airships to the Falls region to try to find and kill it while it isn’t fully active (Also setting up a sizable/decent fort like fort Trinity or the WvW keeps close by). Then we see it firsthand (or glimpses, like Smaug in the prologue to the hobbit movie) sweep through our forces, killing a good chunk, using itself or it’s newly awakened dragon champions to break into a fortified camp/keep we setup nearby, and basically driving us back.

Then later that keep can be a plot point to be retaken (Like Arah) to kill the dragon when the Pact has the forces/means to do so.

So not only do you get to see the dragon emerge/kick kitten , but at the same time it doesn’t deal so much damage the Pact is left in tatters, and the Commander (among the survivors) sees firsthand a dragon rising.

edit; If that makes sense storywise or in general at all :P.

i agree with almost nothing that has been typed into this thread
seriously, you might as well throw a star trek red shirt into maguuma jungle, watch him get obliterated michael bay style, and enjoy your rehashed zhaitan campaign..
although, instead of pulling ideas out of my.. writing 101 text book
a few ideas based on what i’ve encountered in game that might perk my interests for a season 2…
i don’t care if zhaitan is my disgruntled neighbor, being more human-ish or showing better presents, oops i mean presence does not blatantly make it a better villain.. minions are bad enough, they really are.. arena net does need to organize even their high level zones so that they aren’t an ugly boring mob fest.. and also, zhaitan was easy to kill.. this is fine, why assault a beast if you can’t kill it? but was the conclusion satisfactory to the players? will we see some sort of reincarnation? i wouldn’t be totally against that
now, skipping directly past scarlet and keeping on the subject of elder dragons.. to be quite honest, i’m hoping mordremoth is dead already.. Dead, you heard me.. i’m not interested in more little shop of horrors poison spamming or whatever this dragon rising is supposed to captivate us with.. aside from lion’s arch, does it even have anything to do with mainland tyria, can’t queen jennah just build an extra door.
based on zhaitan being easy to kill, is it possible that there are inhabitants in western tyria capable of dampening an elder dragon awakening? will they need our help to finish mordremoth off? will they become aware of the grove and hate our sylvari? after what scarlet did, do We hate our sylvari.. in light of everything do we accept the pact for what it is worth? if we Fail to make allies in Western magguuma and strengthen our forces against further dragon encroachments, will the corruption seep in from every corner of tyria until we are left with nothing but our own graves?
anyway, i’m sure if they can fit in some new skills, crafting, terrain, and maybe even a playable race it will make many of the players happy.. and be much more productive than

Lore-wise, Zhaitan was in no way easy to kill though, cheshirefox. That was in battle mechanics only, with us spamming a single button to kill him. Prior to that, the whole campaign in Orr was about systematically weakening him.

We thinned his Risen numbers, took control of the temples to lessen his influence in the land, cut off food by taking care of his “Mouth”, destroyed some of his “Eyes”, either destroyed the supplier of dead bodies or the place he corrupted them, took away his control of his own navy, and last but not least, we started to process to cleanse the very land itself. That’s only the stuff I can list off the top of my head, as well.

So the battle itself might have been easy, since we basically hamstringed him, sewed his eyes and mouth shut, tied his arms behind his back, and let him starve for a bit, but getting there not so much lore-wise.

As for my own thoughts on the antagonist matter, I think a lead dragon champion would fit the best, with its Elder Dragon master being the alien force/puppet master. They could have gotten good results if they had expanded the role of the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan. They could have introduced him during the Battle for Claw Island, killing your mentor, and they could have fitted him in throughout the storyline afterwards.

It would have given your character more of a personal reason to continue fighting, and the Eye would have provided a good creepy and mocking villain throughout the rest of the PS. The conclusion would be us finally killing him during the cleansing of Orr mission, and we would have moved to finally kill his master afterwards.

I will agree that Zhaitan was indeed less present in the storyline than what some would have like, but that doesn’t make him less powerful.

What I’m seeing in him is what I see in Darkseid from DC comics. This being can destroy worlds all by himself. Instead he uses his minions to do the work and his power is calculate by how many follows him. Zhaitan was mainly an intelligent being that would command troop, he was no warrior, but mainly a commander/tactician, IMO.

This next ED, I’m having some question about it, first would be: “What will happen when he awoke fully?”. It might sounds simple, but keep in mind that 3-4 norn’s spirits (wiki is down, can’t verify) gave their life so that the population of Tyria could gather and flee from Zhaitan. Even after that sacrifice, many were corrupted. So what can be expect from this new awakening? Will it affect the Tyria we know of or “change” the maguuma waste(new map) so that we will need to help/correct it.

I use the term “change” instead of destruction because I think that we assume much about those EDs while we don’t know much. What if those 6 beings (the EDs) were not just powerfull but also what kept the world on balance. Maybe Zhaitan has a particular way of balancing the world that would not fit our description of balance, bur that in his own mind, he was only restoring the world(how making it his own while the 5 other EDs were sleeping).

So I’m thinking maybe this dragon isn’t going to attack us, maybe he will only try to right what is wrong. Again, what is right for him might not be right for us, but still..

I was also worried about the maguuma jungle/waste, I’m guessing that the last time he was awake, the Maguuma desert was a vast jungle.. What happenned there is still a mystery to us.. but by opening that part of the map, we might find a dragon fighting to restore balance against the next antagonist.

There’s also the problem of the Jungle Worm and Triple Head-Worm which could be a sign of what’s coming next.

tl;dr:
Zhaitan was more of a tactician than a warrior
Next ED might be a Good ED, who knows..

My biggest problem with the dragons is that they are explained to be elemental forces that want nothing but the destruction of all life, and to achieve this they sit still miles away from anything living. Are they lazy? Need a nap after their thousand-year sleep? Maybe it’s just arrogance, but it’s never explained and – yes, of course it makes sense for an MMO and for balance – but it doesn’t make sense for the story.

And with the apparent contentedness for sitting there, Zhaitan’s attack on LA was completely misguided. From our point of view it makes a lot of sense – give the heroes motive, make the dragons “here and dangerous” and not “miles away in Orr”. But from Zhaitan’s… from what we know about the dragons, an attack on the human stronghold “to break their morale” or whatever is completely out of character.

And, like other posts, I’m worried about the scope for varied storytelling when all of the dragons are inherently the same, just with different coloured minions. I think it is smart for ANet to focus on more relatable villains – like Scarlett, to an extent – within the Inquest and Nightmare Court and such, but this weakens the dragons’ presence again – emphasising the dangers of the Flame Legion by degrees makes the dragons seem less dangerous.

cheshirefox.7026:

-snip-

I’m a bit confused by your post…your spelling and structure threw me off a couple of times(no offense). From what I gathered you don’t really care about the Elder Dragons as long as we get content and updates (so do I)…But people do care about a good story and villain. Look at Scarlet, she was poorly done and presented and she’s now one of the hate memes associated with the game now. Which is quite sad because I honestly believed if she was shown better the overall reaction to her would have been much more positive.

Also, actions speak louder than words. Therefore, yes, if the EDs actually do stuff, they will be better presented. I mean, if a guy walked up to you and said “I’m so evil! I do so many evil things” then laugh like a madman, you would think he is a fool. However if another person attacks a town or hurts someone in front of you, you’re far more prone to think them evil or bad. Since Elder Dragon’s can literally wipe out entire cities, they need to somehow show off their evil, hence why I repeatedly used the word presence.

Erukk.1408:

As for my own thoughts on the antagonist matter, I think a lead dragon champion would fit the best, with its Elder Dragon master being the alien force/puppet master. They could have gotten good results if they had expanded the role of the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan. They could have introduced him during the Battle for Claw Island, killing your mentor, and they could have fitted him in throughout the storyline afterwards.

It would have given your character more of a personal reason to continue fighting, and the Eye would have provided a good creepy and mocking villain throughout the rest of the PS. The conclusion would be us finally killing him during the cleansing of Orr mission, and we would have moved to finally kill his master afterwards.

I think this is a viable solution too. It definitely circumnavigates the problem of how powerful Elder Dragons are in retrospect to us. Especially if future dragons use minions to voice their thoughts, kind of acting as their voice for them.

What i’m hoping is that the Elder Dragon’s aren’t the same every time we fight them. E.g. we take down all their champions and minions and the final fight is us finally seeing them and battling them out right then and there. It would basically be a rehashed Zhaitan campaign, only with different colored minions and (hopefully not) the same mechanics.

To be honest, I have a sneaking suspicion there’s a good reason why the Elder Dragons don’t come at the same time. If you consider the fact that different dragon minions fight each other, they simply do not want the others to exist. What if this entire thing is a giant Highlander moment, where there can only be one that obtains all the power of the other dragons? Or in another videogame way…what if all the Elder Dragons are part of one singular being, and they need somebody to defeat all of them to awaken said being?

If the 2nd one could be considered the case, what if our characters were the champions of that singular being, and we’re just doing what we’re supposed to be doing without even realizing it? If you consider Scarlet aware of a voice in her head, and she slowly listens to it without realizing it, then could it be possible that our characters are the same way? It would make for one hell of a plot twist.

I don’t see the dragons as being “evil” I just seeing it being it nature. The races to the ED’s are what a baby would be like to a lion. A quick easy meal.

They feed of the magic of the world through the laylines. Once that runs out, my guess would be they move on to the magic users. I.e. People. Dose this make them evil, or just trying to servive?

I don’t think the dragons are evil. Sure they know what they are doing. And they have no remorse about it. But then, When you eat something are you sorry you did? I don’t think you are. Your just trying to servive and live. Eating other living things is what every animal on the face of this planet dose. Weather it’s animal or vegi.

Evil is always subjective, so from the perspective of the citizens of Tyria they are evil – and that is what matters in game.

Oh come on, no love for Dragon Age Origins?

The Archdemon was the coolest final boss ever.

VIVorcha.7853:

Oh come on, no love for Dragon Age Origins?

The Archdemon was the coolest final boss ever.

But dragon age origins had other villains besides the archdemon. Teyrn Loghain being the main one, and the actual villain of the game that you were fighting most of the game.

Same with FFX, the final boss and the main villain is the same.

Garrak.5164:

This next ED, I’m having some question about it, first would be: “What will happen when he awoke fully?”. It might sounds simple, but keep in mind that 3-4 norn’s spirits (wiki is down, can’t verify) gave their life so that the population of Tyria could gather and flee from Zhaitan. Even after that sacrifice, many were corrupted. So what can be expect from this new awakening? Will it affect the Tyria we know of or “change” the maguuma waste(new map) so that we will need to help/correct it.

Um. This entire paragraph s just wrong.

Several Norn spirits sacrificed themselves so the NORN (nobody else involved really) could flee south from the far shiverpeaks to the shiverpeaks region between Kryta and Ascalon. They weren’t involved against Zhaitan at all.

Yeah, GW1 antagonists were pretty dope. Khilbron, Shiro, Varesh, they all had motives. They weren’t the best, but you were eventually informed of why they were doing the things they were doing.

The best antagonists are the ones who, once you discover their true intent, you actually have to ask yourself if you’re really the good guy.

Zhaitan is a veritable Sauron. He’s bad, he must be stopped at all costs, no questions asked, and while it didn’t feel that weird in Lord of the Rings, the intermediate years have seen many a form of that trope, and people these days yearn for something more.

Well, they still have a chance to redeem themselves if they make expansions. Though I really am not interested in seeing Anet try to put some feeling behind Palawa Joko :P

Very interesting. Great topic!

However, I don’t see the ED’s as the main antagonists. Before you all jump on me about this hear me out.

We do see Zhaitan as the main antagonist in the Personal Story. Thats fine. But I see the EDs as a backdrop. A setting for why the world is the way it is right now. It provides motivation for the Player Character to do what he is doing. Otherwise the PC is your typical adventurer just out doing things, and fighting against the EDs and their minions simply because they were bored one day and decided fighting EDs would be cool. There is much speculation as to whether or not the EDs can even be killed, although Zhaitan has been said to be dead, its not officially confirmed (but thats a whole other topic and I won’t get into it here).

I see the LS BEBGs (Big Evil Bad Guys) as the main antognists for each season. Much like any TV series. While in the (shows) universe there is an overarching evil force, each new season introduces a different BEBG that is somehow connected to that force.
Season 1 saw Scarlet Briar as the main antagonist, but with strong connatations of a connection to an ED. (Mordreth, although that was never reaveled in-game to my knowledge)

If we were to encounter and defeat all the EDs, and the world gets better and everyone lives happily ever after. That wouldn’t leave much to do afterwards. As an MMO you NEED to leave much of the world and story open ended. So the game remains playable for years to come.

I do agree the Zhaitan fight was lacking, and wasn’t as epic as I had hoped it would be. But the ending did leave many unanswered questions and left lots of room to add more to it at a later point.

pdavis.8031:

Very interesting. Great topic!

However, I don’t see the ED’s as the main antagonists. Before you all jump on me about this hear me out.

We do see Zhaitan as the main antagonist in the Personal Story. Thats fine. But I see the EDs as a backdrop. A setting for why the world is the way it is right now. It provides motivation for the Player Character to do what he is doing. Otherwise the PC is your typical adventurer just out doing things, and fighting against the EDs and their minions simply because they were bored one day and decided fighting EDs would be cool. There is much speculation as to whether or not the EDs can even be killed, although Zhaitan has been said to be dead, its not officially confirmed (but thats a whole other topic and I won’t get into it here).

I see the LS BEBGs (Big Evil Bad Guys) as the main antognists for each season. Much like any TV series. While in the (shows) universe there is an overarching evil force, each new season introduces a different BEBG that is somehow connected to that force.
Season 1 saw Scarlet Briar as the main antagonist, but with strong connatations of a connection to an ED. (Mordreth, although that was never reaveled in-game to my knowledge)

If we were to encounter and defeat all the EDs, and the world gets better and everyone lives happily ever after. That wouldn’t leave much to do afterwards. As an MMO you NEED to leave much of the world and story open ended. So the game remains playable for years to come.

I do agree the Zhaitan fight was lacking, and wasn’t as epic as I had hoped it would be. But the ending did leave many unanswered questions and left lots of room to add more to it at a later point.

Well assuming we kill all the EDs, which will probably take a couple of years, Anet could have well developed GW3 =P

They aren’t “main” antagonists because of how open-ended an MMO is but they are currently the antagonists we need to kill asap or we’re all dead. Granted if they continue GW2 after we defeat all of them, i’m still sure there will be things that as adventurers we need to do. After all, everyone back in the early 20th century thought WWI was “The War to end all Wars” and many didn’t believe another huge war like that would happen again. Then came WWII…I can imagine that if the EDs damage the world enough political wars or fights may break out. Or just pure chaos.

Anyways keep posting your thoughts guys! The more opinions on the matter the better!

Counterpoints:

1) We hear Zhaitan speak through his minions, thus is self-aware/sentient.

2) He makes calculated attacks, thus is intelligent.

3) Risen appear in the starting zones for sylvari, and in several other zones before joining the orders. Sure, not the other races’ starting zones zones, but that’s because Zhaitan is arguably more prevalent in the story of the sylvari. Norn have Jormag, charr (to some degree) have Kralky. The other races don’t have minions that I recall straight away, but the zones that do are easily accessible from the get-go for anyone.

4) No interaction with Deathwing? I didn’t play WoW much, but I can’t count the amount of times he would swoop over and kill me.

I do agree that the EDs don’t make the perfect antagonists, but ANet supplements with other villains along the way. I’m still not a big fan of Scarlet (and to be fair, her end goal is to awaken Mordy, so still dragon related), but she was the main antagonist of the story for quite some time.

I wish ANet would resolve some of the mysteries regarding the EDs. Every un-resolved mystery and cliffhanger is like an itch waiting to be scratched.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

I wish ANet would resolve some of the mysteries regarding the EDs. Every un-resolved mystery and cliffhanger is like an itch waiting to be scratched.

Of course it is. They did that on purpose. We will only get small trickles and tidbits of history and information about the EDs. It allows for the player to use thier imagination more. Its what all good story tellers do, they leave stuff unexplained as it adds to the mystery and intrigue.

pdavis.8031:

Its what all good story tellers do, they leave stuff unexplained as it adds to the mystery and intrigue.

Good story-tellers leave the future unexplained; that’s where the audience’s imagination comes into play. The past is pretty important to give as much depth as possible. Guild Wars has a history of rich lore, so much so that most players will never know the half of it. Hopefully Anet will elaborate significantly on the history of the Elder Dragons at some point, even if they really are just destructive forces.

That is also true, however some of what we do know about dragons doesnt come from in game. For example mordreth. Mordreths name doesnt ever appear in game, but does on the wiki. We only know of 4 of the dragons names from dwarven and jotan lore, and (from what I understand) Nightfall in GW1. (Ive only just started gw1 so havent got that far.) We do know that there are 6 from in game. But the last time they arose was about 10,000 years before the start of gw1. Must of the history was lost during that time. Much of the history of the mursaat, forgotten, tengu, and others is forgotten. And probably will never be recovered. And leaving such history lost and forgotten just adds that much more to the world. It makes it seem more real. Rather than having a fully recorded hostory of everything, its better to leave much upnto speculation and the imagination.

A minor point: A force of nature can be a powerful antagonist so long as you play out human stories against it (or charr, asura, etc). Look at Lucifer’s Hammer, The Perfect Storm, Mother of Storms, etc.

Still, it has to be an immediate, devastating, present force of nature. Not something a continent away you read about on the news.

@pdavis: I know what you mean, but now that I know about Modremoth, I want to find out more about him. Can you imagine if ANet chose to just continue leaving him as a perpetually imaginary figure? It’d be so unfulfilling – there’d be no catharsis.

It’s also why Scarlet was a bit unfulfilling for me as a character. Her debut into the world was as a crazed sort of villain. Wanton killing? Check. Maniacal laughter? Check. Hallucinations? Check. But she still seemed to me like a flat character.

I think it’s partly because I can’t empathize with her. She seems like she was supposed to be painted as a tragic character, but the game didn’t really bring that part across. She seems to have been born a snob – even as Ceara.

Side note: If we ever encounter Primordius, I want him to talk, be civil (Lawful Evil, but civil), and be voiced by Keith David. An encounter with Primordius, prefaced with a civil, if arrogantly one-sided, conversation in his voice would set the stage for the encounter perfectly.

^ That would be so cool.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

@pdavis: I know what you mean, but now that I know about Modremoth, I want to find out more about him. Can you imagine if ANet chose to just continue leaving him as a perpetually imaginary figure? It’d be so unfulfilling – there’d be no catharsis.

It’s also why Scarlet was a bit unfulfilling for me as a character. Her debut into the world was as a crazed sort of villain. Wanton killing? Check. Maniacal laughter? Check. Hallucinations? Check. But she still seemed to me like a flat character.

I think it’s partly because I can’t empathize with her. She seems like she was supposed to be painted as a tragic character, but the game didn’t really bring that part across. She seems to have been born a snob – even as Ceara.

Oh I totally agree! It would be awesome for more story and in game information about the EDs in general. But I get why they leave a lot out as well.

I still believe there are in fact 7 dragons total, not 6. Why 7? If you’ve noticed, each of the dragons can be linked to a different deadly sin.

Jormag – Wrath
Kralkatorrik – Greed
Primordius – Sloth (face it, he has the power to easily take the surface, but does NOTHING)
Mordremoth – Envy (if the Sylvari are his minions, they look enough like humans and seek info to the point where he could be seen as being envious of the races)
Bubbles – Lust (this is a massive guess)
Zhaitan – Gluttony (he had a mouth that loved to eat, and he loved to kill things just to add their knowledge to his own, a literal insatiable hunger for people’s knowledge)

This leaves a single sin unaccounted for…Pride. So my guess is a 7th dragon will be revealed, this one probably will be the most intelligent of the bunch, and likely a manipulator, with massive pride in his ability to subtly make any race or creature do his bidding.

Lol at Primordus.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I still believe there are in fact 7 dragons total, not 6. Why 7? If you’ve noticed, each of the dragons can be linked to a different deadly sin.

Jormag – Wrath
Kralkatorrik – Greed
Primordius – Sloth (face it, he has the power to easily take the surface, but does NOTHING)
Mordremoth – Envy (if the Sylvari are his minions, they look enough like humans and seek info to the point where he could be seen as being envious of the races)
Bubbles – Lust (this is a massive guess)
Zhaitan – Gluttony (he had a mouth that loved to eat, and he loved to kill things just to add their knowledge to his own, a literal insatiable hunger for people’s knowledge)

This leaves a single sin unaccounted for…Pride. So my guess is a 7th dragon will be revealed, this one probably will be the most intelligent of the bunch, and likely a manipulator, with massive pride in his ability to subtly make any race or creature do his bidding.

Interesting. However its been stated several times, both on the wikis and ingame clearly state that there are 6 dragons. It makes sense to have 6 dragons as forces of evil as a balance to the six gods

pdavis.8031:

RyuDragnier.9476:

I still believe there are in fact 7 dragons total, not 6. Why 7? If you’ve noticed, each of the dragons can be linked to a different deadly sin.

Jormag – Wrath
Kralkatorrik – Greed
Primordius – Sloth (face it, he has the power to easily take the surface, but does NOTHING)
Mordremoth – Envy (if the Sylvari are his minions, they look enough like humans and seek info to the point where he could be seen as being envious of the races)
Bubbles – Lust (this is a massive guess)
Zhaitan – Gluttony (he had a mouth that loved to eat, and he loved to kill things just to add their knowledge to his own, a literal insatiable hunger for people’s knowledge)

This leaves a single sin unaccounted for…Pride. So my guess is a 7th dragon will be revealed, this one probably will be the most intelligent of the bunch, and likely a manipulator, with massive pride in his ability to subtly make any race or creature do his bidding.

Interesting. However its been stated several times, both on the wikis and ingame clearly state that there are 6 dragons. It makes sense to have 6 dragons as forces of evil as a balance to the six gods

Well, unless they pull what they did with the Six, and have another Dragon appear to replace Zhaitan, having absorbed his power, making it 7 encountered total. Since if you include the backstory of the Six, Abaddon was replaced by Kormir, making 7 human gods total mentioned.

Possibly, but that would still leave only six, there has been speculation that tequatl could become an elder dragon. He got stronger after Zhaitans “death”. So unless they bring in some other random dragon, tequatl has the best shot.

you forgot dhuum who was the god of death beofre grenth, who said necromancy? are you nuts NO death is permanent and i kille vne more muhahahaha. and then their is melzines or what ever his name is who rivels balthasar all the time.

BUT back to dragons.
you seem to miss little quirks here and there.
YES the primary goal is to defeat the dragons but they allready left their dangerous mark deep into all of the 5 races core.
the huamsn race struggles allready with enslavement or extintion and then there is cadaceus probably a whitemantle traitor who doesn´t care about the dragons at all. also many npcs in DR state they don´t “BLEIEVE IN DRAGONS” it seems many citiziens begin to even doubt dragons exist at all. they don´t care about them, becuase they have more imidiant problems to deal with.
the norn lost lots of their proud hutning days from GW1 when several spirtes where killed by jormag, luring many norn to the sons of svanir to regain what many norn believe is their pride and strengh. and the others wnat to forge their own legend all the time. but even if the legend was build on saving other it is always part of their pride that can bring them doom. the nron need to be even more selfless to one day dmaage jormags tooth.
mysteries rank aroudn the sylvari msotly in our community: are they dragon minions? HOW did the nightmare court came to be? what is caiths secret hinted at by scarlet? who came the one capsle from with the very neutral sylvari that had no connection to the dream at all?
asura are crafty the smartest and dnagerous inventors. their politics are ricked evne wporse then the human ones and xenophobie is on the rise again with the inquest and the seemingly not caring councler flux. will those asura force the asurian race to lock anyother race out? flux even shows those steps in the first steps of the PS. will they betray the other races?
the charr are in a constant battle with ghosts flame legion and traitors to the weapon peace. As much the charr have achived in their shourt past since the searing they still struggle with minor problems to this day and then there is the seemingl never ending fronts with ascalonion humans, even if the msot of them want peace, the seperatists seem to be supported by cadaceus in some way.

the dragons wait. they lurk. they only show their presence and leave a mark. they turn from imidiant thread to fact to tales to myths to the populuse or unimportant . they races pay less attention to them, somethign all orders struggle against to prevent.

the dragons learned since they fought dwarves, mursaat, the seer, jotun and the other old races.
they wait they let petty fight among the races tear them appart.
thats why zhaitans fought to destroy threhearn and us the commander, because we brought proof of united strengh is the way to defeat them.
the dragons at the moment wait for the day when queen jennah is dethroned and the white mantle rises his banner over the human capital, when the asura will get secluded from the others, when their is a distrust against the sylvari, when the charr have to many fronts to fight on and when the norn lose their way and their pride fully.

and with our battle in the PS story we delay the worst case scenario and then force the dragons out. i know we will NOT face primordus until the end. he will commit something that make all our efforts look pointless and that invloves us doin as anet want us to expirence the PS and LS.

the onyl thing anet ahs to do is to make this theory more solid with very very subtle hints.
but thats just a theory,
a game theo…… gets shot

pdavis.8031:

RyuDragnier.9476:

I still believe there are in fact 7 dragons total, not 6. Why 7? If you’ve noticed, each of the dragons can be linked to a different deadly sin.

Jormag – Wrath
Kralkatorrik – Greed
Primordius – Sloth (face it, he has the power to easily take the surface, but does NOTHING)
Mordremoth – Envy (if the Sylvari are his minions, they look enough like humans and seek info to the point where he could be seen as being envious of the races)
Bubbles – Lust (this is a massive guess)
Zhaitan – Gluttony (he had a mouth that loved to eat, and he loved to kill things just to add their knowledge to his own, a literal insatiable hunger for people’s knowledge)

This leaves a single sin unaccounted for…Pride. So my guess is a 7th dragon will be revealed, this one probably will be the most intelligent of the bunch, and likely a manipulator, with massive pride in his ability to subtly make any race or creature do his bidding.

Interesting. However its been stated several times, both on the wikis and ingame clearly state that there are 6 dragons. It makes sense to have 6 dragons as forces of evil as a balance to the six gods

Yes, based on known lore they say there are six dragons in Tyria. Who’s to say knowledge wasn’t lost, it has been 10000 years since they last awoke and the loss of a large amount of knowledge is possible over such a period of time. This knowledge could be accurate, but Cantha and Elona are still unknown as to whether they have Elder Dragon presences outside what is known at the current time. Sure, we have the Order of Whispers who could say something, but maybe the Order doesn’t know as much as they let on.

Zarkir.6473:

pdavis.8031:

RyuDragnier.9476:

I still believe there are in fact 7 dragons total, not 6. Why 7? If you’ve noticed, each of the dragons can be linked to a different deadly sin.

Jormag – Wrath
Kralkatorrik – Greed
Primordius – Sloth (face it, he has the power to easily take the surface, but does NOTHING)
Mordremoth – Envy (if the Sylvari are his minions, they look enough like humans and seek info to the point where he could be seen as being envious of the races)
Bubbles – Lust (this is a massive guess)
Zhaitan – Gluttony (he had a mouth that loved to eat, and he loved to kill things just to add their knowledge to his own, a literal insatiable hunger for people’s knowledge)

This leaves a single sin unaccounted for…Pride. So my guess is a 7th dragon will be revealed, this one probably will be the most intelligent of the bunch, and likely a manipulator, with massive pride in his ability to subtly make any race or creature do his bidding.

Interesting. However its been stated several times, both on the wikis and ingame clearly state that there are 6 dragons. It makes sense to have 6 dragons as forces of evil as a balance to the six gods

Yes, based on known lore they say there are six dragons in Tyria. Who’s to say knowledge wasn’t lost, it has been 10000 years since they last awoke and the loss of a large amount of knowledge is possible over such a period of time. This knowledge could be accurate, but Cantha and Elona are still unknown as to whether they have Elder Dragon presences outside what is known at the current time. Sure, we have the Order of Whispers who could say something, but maybe the Order doesn’t know as much as they let on.

Oh I agree much knowledge was lost, as I said in an earlier post. But what we DO know is that there are 6 dragons, while we could speculate on a 7th or even more, there is no proof or evidence to suggest otherwise.

The Elder Dragons to me, seem more like the Reapers of Mass Effect (At least as they are portrayed in the first two installments), alien, unstoppable and horrifying; they corrupt the living to become mindless drones, their own minds are largely unknown and probably unknowable.

However, OP your are still correct, that even if an anatagonist cannot directly communicate with the player (Though oddly enough the reapers do on several occasions directly communicate with shepard ), they have to demonstrate that power. And despite people’s statements that we would end up dead if we saw it, this isn’t true – it could make for some fantastic cut scenes to stand by and witness the corruption of a “new brand” forming and creating a new explorable zone and giving that sense of powerlessness to undo the damage.