Guild Wars 2

It comes as no surprise to the majority of players that there are six Elder Dragons (the “EDs”, being 1) Undeath, 2) Ice, 3) Crystal (or rock), 4) Fire, 5) Water and 6) Plant life (or jungle)) and six human “gods” (whom we shall refer to as “the Six” for the purpose of this discussion). Of course, within Tyria herself although the EDs are living entities, whereas the Six are merely a legend. No player’s character has seen or heard from them in-game in the same way as they witness dragons flying in the sky etc etc. But my post is really how the two forces are seen to collide.
To begin, let us consider that the EDs are in fact embodiments of Tyria herself. Alternatively, you could consider them the forgers of Tyria. Either way, they are closely tied to Tyria herself. Now let us consider the Six. According to human loremasters, the Six brought mankind to Tyria. Where mankind comes from, or even the Six for that matter, is pure speculation. However, we can probably safely conclude that the Six are not Tyrians any more than humans are.
So what does this mean? Consider that humans are an invasive force upon the face of Tyria. The recorded troubles of Tyria began subsequent to the arrival of humans, suggesting that the planet is in fact sentient and/or that the EDs embody that sentience. So why would the EDs begin their work now? And what kind of work is it? I speculate that they are working to protect Tyria (and any races native to it). This isn’t as far fetched as you might imagine. Anyways, I’ve got to go but will return later to continue this. Thanks for reading.

Stephen.6312:

The recorded troubles of Tyria began subsequent to the arrival of humans, suggesting that the planet is in fact sentient and/or that the EDs embody that sentience.

Unfortunately you are mistaken. The only reason why the “troubles of Tyria” seems to begin after humans only because humans were the ones who started recording Tyria’s troubles in their history books, scrolls, stones, etc. that were used for educational purposes.

In fact, with the help of the Priory, we have learned that the troubles of Tyria predates humans, a.k.a. the first arrival of the EDs, thus they are determined to excavate whatever information they can find to defeat the dragons.

You drew the wrong conclusion, but you make a good story.

As Sir Vincent III says, we only know of the troubles of Tyria post humanity’s arrival because most of the history of the world as we know it comes from humanity (and more and more of it is proving to be wrong by the whims of ArenaNet >.>).

We have learned that the conflicts easily predate humanity – the jotun were a brutal race even before they fell, fighting to rule the Shiverpeaks back then. There was the previous several risings of the Elder Dragons that predate the Elder Dragons (the last one being roughly 10,000 BE). The charr were also hostile before humanity’s arrival, and subjugated the grawl and kicked out other races from Ascalon.

And let’s not forget that during the last Elder Dragon rise, the mursaat betrayed and nearly wiped out the Seers before fleeing the world to save their own rear ends.

I think that you’ve both brought up a good point which I concede.

My theory about the ED’s being embodiments of Tyria, however, I will continue to speculate about.

Stephen.6312:

I think that you’ve both brought up a good point which I concede.

My theory about the ED’s being embodiments of Tyria, however, I will continue to speculate about.

That is a very good story but not the first. The Square game called Chrono Cross (edit: now that I think of it, it might be some other game) also have the story based on the idea that the dragons are somewhat part of “earth”. That story line is really good, but in the end, it’s too shallow and boring because it leave the hero feeling defeated. How can the hero fight the dragons if the very nature of their extermination will also cause global annihilation?

So if the EDs are embodiments of Tyria, how can the hero destroy the very planet they live in? But this is not the case. The fact that no such retaliation (like weather change or earthquake) came from Tyria after defeating Zhaitan proves that your theory, may be a good story, is unfortunately also not accurate.