Guild Wars 2

As pretty much everyone knows by now, the end of the personal story is a final fight with Zhaitan that many people are disappointed with. After defeating Zhaitan, most people thought that the continued presence of the mobs in Orr was just because GW2 is an MMO and they simply wouldn’t change it because of events that transpire in an instanced area. More than a year from release now, there is no change in the presence of Zhaitan’s minions, except for one…

Tequatl is stronger now, and this was said to be cannon, and not just a mechanically revamped encounter.

I was also thinking about the nature of living story content, and I realized that Anet could have easily just removed undead from some areas in the world to show progress from defeating Zhaitan without effecting the personal story, but instead the dragon’s champion is stronger.

The scene in which Zhitan is defeated also simply shows him falling into the abyss. This does not seem like a truly final death scene to me. Zhitan is also the dragon of undeath, something tells me that he cannot be killed as easily as he was.

Here are the important factors to consider in review:

• The presence of the undead has not changed since release.

• Tequatl is canonically stronger, a year after the game’s release and his master’s supposed defeat.

• We do not actually see a truly dead Zhaitan, or have his corpse.

• Zhaitan is the dragon of undeath, and may not be killed simply through battle.

Based on these things, I believe Zhaitan is still alive, and we will fight him again.

Please let me know if I got any information wrong, or if you see reasons to believe that I am wrong.

Edit: Know that the corpse of Zhaitan found by breaking out of the map in the story mode is not conclusive evidence, since this is something only seen through a glitch. And if you weren’t aware, glitches are not cannon.

Edit 2: I would like to add something else to the belief that Zhaitan is alive. We don’t know if ANY of the dragons can really be killed. The only recorded “defeat” of the dragons simply put them to sleep. We don’t know what the elder dragons are, or how they really function. It could even be possible that Elder dragons pass their power to a champion when they are killed, making that champion take it’s place (which may be what we are seeing with Tequatl).
There are also some flimsy ties between the Dragons and the human gods. It has been established that the human gods cannot truly be killed unless their godly essence is absorbed by another being (see Abbadon and Kormir). We can’t even say the dragons don’t work in a similar way.

No, Zhaitan is dead, devs annunce his death in some interview.

im really sorry if this bursts your bubble kind of hard….on a topic im sure you put a lot of thought into

but………

i think they also have said that they are revamping the fight IN the dungeon, to make it a little cooler and more of a finite death

nihavel.6592:

No, Zhaitan is dead, devs annunce his death in some interview.

If your talking about the Tower Talk interview I believe the word used is “defeated” not “dead”. Regardless of what it is, I don’t think Zhaitan will be featured in the story in the near future.

Why would anyone source WoodenPotatoes on this? Not only does he not work for ArenaNet but he’s been wrong in the past. This isn’t an attack on WoodenPotatoes more an issue of people putting him on some kind of pedestal simply because they are too lazy to read the text inside the game themselves.

ok lets see…
here I go:

1: Zhaitan eye mouth etcetc Undeads ARE Zhaitan basically until you don’t kill ALL of them Zhaitan is basically alive

2: there are Hundreds of Undead Necromancers running around that could make a ritual to ress Zhaitan there are even undead leaders that could arrange this

3: he is MORE then a necromancer he is the lurer of all the dead and Plauges and remember ALL those games and stories with a Necromancer if a necromancer is dead he Sure kitten hell gonna have someway to ress him self or be present as a Ghost/Spectral being and as I said Zhaitan was WAAAY more then a necromancer.

simple Canons wont EVER gonna kill this dragon.

They aren’t simple canons though. Zojja modified them using research obtained via Crucible of Eternity which was researching the nature and control of the Elder Dragons and their magic.

Technically speaking about the dev bit, they only say defeated and there’s claim going in the lore forum that Angel said Zhaitan wasn’t dead at PAX – while unrecorded. Sounds dubious given how much time it took to be mentioned anywhere, personally, especially since it is so concrete of a response which is very unusual for ArenaNet without some indication of “that’s not the full story”.

I’ll be honest though, none of the OP’s points hold water.

• The risen actually have gotten changes – aside from Orrian risen becoming larger, all risen are now hunched over. They weren’t in the beginning.
• You won’t get any story progress with them until there is a fill update focused on them – that’s how the so-called Living World works. They focus on one thing at a time, usually one thing a month.
• Tequatl’s powerboost (and the temple priests if that ever becomes tied to story, though I’m doubtful) can easily occur in many explanations go be post-Zhaitan. There’s a couple lore forum threads that speculated on it.
• Just because Zhaitan makes undead doesn’t really mean he is one himself. His corruption is more of rot and decay which he certainly appears like, but like a necromancer that doesn’t prove he is undead.

Edit: oh, and Zoltreez, the Eyes and Mouths of Zhaitan are minions. The Eyes were the kings and queens of Orr (living and dead by the time of the Exodus). They aren’t actual parts of Zhaitan, they just have unique abilities that connect them more to Zhaitan than the other minions.

Shard of Zhaitan item description states he is forever dead.

Nothing else to be said. He’s confirmed to be dead.

Did anyone see a body? I didn’t see a body so I dont beleive he is dead.

Kinda like Mace Windu…no one saw his body. That bad kitten is still alive!!!

Well, here’s the thing, each of the Elder Dragons represent a primal aspect of nature:
- life (guessing it’s Mordromoth the jungle Elder Dragon)
- death (Zhaitan)
- earth (Kralkatorrik)
- air (Jormag)
- fire (Primordus)
- water (Bubbles also known as the Deep Sea Dragon)

I highly doubt that it would be possible to kill death or anything that is an aspect of death. My own guess on what happened at the end of the Arah story is that the cannons (which are based on the studies of the Inquest into dragon energy) weakened Zhaitan to the point he’s withdrawn back into hibernation to lick his wounds (we never did see a body and it’s assumed that because Zhaitan fell from the tower after being hit by the cannons he is well and truly dead). Due to Zhaitan retreating, his vast amount of power and control had to go somewhere, say his second in command, Tequatl the Sunless. This would explain why Tequatl has suddenly gotten much stronger yet none of the other dragon champions (Shatterer and Claw) have had much of a power increase since their master is still alive and well.

mexay.3902:

Shard of Zhaitan item description states he is forever dead.

Nothing else to be said. He’s confirmed to be dead.

One can, quite easily, argue that the description is talking about the shard being forever dead.

Nightsong.5973:

Well, here’s the thing, each of the Elder Dragons represent a primal aspect of nature:
- life (guessing it’s Mordromoth the jungle Elder Dragon)
- death (Zhaitan)
- earth (Kralkatorrik)
- air (Jormag)
- fire (Primordus)
- water (Bubbles also known as the Deep Sea Dragon)

I highly doubt that it would be possible to kill death or anything that is an aspect of death. My own guess on what happened at the end of the Arah story is that the cannons (which are based on the studies of the Inquest into dragon energy) weakened Zhaitan to the point he’s withdrawn back into hibernation to lick his wounds (we never did see a body and it’s assumed that because Zhaitan fell from the tower after being hit by the cannons he is well and truly dead). Due to Zhaitan retreating, his vast amount of power and control had to go somewhere, say his second in command, Tequatl the Sunless. This would explain why Tequatl has suddenly gotten much stronger yet none of the other dragon champions (Shatterer and Claw) have had much of a power increase since their master is still alive and well.

Interview with Jeff, Ree, and Scott with GuildMag (in their most recent magazine, the 9th), Jeff states that there is an Elder Dragon of vegetation, ice, elements, fire, and water. Not mentioning all one by one though but as examples.

Thus, Mordremoth is vegetations. Kralkatorrik who uses crystal, fire, and lightning would be elements.

Jormag is not air at all. He is ice, pure and simple.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Random-thoughts-on-some-of-Gorr-s-rambling/first

In this thread, I noted how Gorr made a weapon to be effective against the Risen by negating the essence of Zhaitan’s tangible will/corruption inside them. This leads me to think that even with Zhaitan’s main body dead, his will and power live on through all those he’s corrupted.

Also, in regards to Zhaitan just falling into the abyss, I feel that they did this to not truly conclude things, to not actually show him dying in case they wanted to bring him back in the future, though it just comes off as odd, since I’d think the Pact would want to find the body to confirm the kill, since they know well enough to do that anyways.

Shiren.9532:

Why would anyone source WoodenPotatoes on this? Not only does he not work for ArenaNet but he’s been wrong in the past. This isn’t an attack on WoodenPotatoes more an issue of people putting him on some kind of pedestal simply because they are too lazy to read the text inside the game themselves.

Actually, I think that person originally linked the video because of the footage on it, where he breaks out of the map (sort of) and then goes and looks at Zhaitan’s dead body.

Shiren.9532:

nihavel.6592:

No, Zhaitan is dead, devs annunce his death in some interview.

Why would anyone source WoodenPotatoes on this? Not only does he not work for ArenaNet but he’s been wrong in the past. This isn’t an attack on WoodenPotatoes more an issue of people putting him on some kind of pedestal simply because they are too lazy to read the text inside the game themselves.

I’m not sourcing WoodenPotatoes voice…i’m sourcing what he did in his video….talk about lazy, sheesh

You guys do know that the video I posted shows Zhaitan’s dead body, floating in water?

He’s dead. You can see so for yourself at 11:05 in the video

i’ll even re-link it for you guys with the time in the video

You can find lots of world boss mobs by getting outside of the map and swimming underneath it or beyond the edges of it.

This was raised in the past when someone found dragon models on/under/outside one of the Orr maps (I think it was Malchor’s Leap but it may have been Straights of Devastation). It was one of the dragons you see flying in the sky with the air ships.The general consensus was that the model is for some reason stored inside the map but outside of normal view and it exists there, out of sight, waiting for when the game needs to load the graphic or model somewhere else on the map (in the case of Zhaitan it would be during the boss fight and the “cinematic” of his body falling – it’s been a long time since I did Arah story mode).

I don’t spend my time getting outside/under the map (aside from when mesmer staff used to send you there all the time) but I know I’ve seen Shadow Behemoth’s “dead body, floating in the water” and I suspect other models are also doing the same. If you have to get outside/under the map and swim through “solid” structures to see it, I somehow doubt that could be considered canon.

This topic is basically being covered in the lore forum (and other places) already:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Important-Lore-question-regarding-Zhaitan
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Zhaitan-is-still-alive
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/No-Risen-Karkas/first#post1156321

Lore in GW2 generally is left open ended. Very rarely will the writers commit to something, and it’s not uncommon to see them change something that was previously stated as fact in game and turn it into PoV history which was just wrong. Even if every racial leader in the game came out and said “Zhaitan is dead and gone forever” nothing is stopping the writers from saying two months later “we never said he was dead and gone, the characters did – and they were wrong” and just bring him back.

I was under the impression you can’t kill an elder dragon, only put it back to sleep (this is really old lore though, I think it goes back to pre-launch previews setting the scene for GW2 and the elder dragon threat). Maybe there was something in the Personal Story that stated they found a way to permanently stomp him (even then it is limited to their PoV – GW2 has a bad habit of undermining their lore this way), but I can’t remember it that much, but given how mixed people’s thoughts are on his dead or alive status, I suspect what happens to Zhaitan at the end of Arah Story Mode is unclear to a lot of people.

Zhaitan’s model stored underneath/outside the map is not the same thing as Zhaitan’s dead body.

Jordo.5913:

I’m not sourcing WoodenPotatoes voice…i’m sourcing what he did in his video….talk about lazy, sheesh

You guys do know that the video I posted shows Zhaitan’s dead body, floating in water?

He’s dead. You can see so for yourself at 11:05 in the video

That’s a glitch.

Aka a bug.

Aka exploit.

Aka NOT canon.

Watch you tube channel of "Wooden potatoes ". A massive dragon corpse was put in Arah before but then they removed it. So I’m pretty sure they have plan for Zhaitan

Zhaitan has been stated by the devs to be certainly dead.

That said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if what’s happening now is that Tequatl is absorbing the power from his dead master. One day, a new Elder Dragon of Undeath will arise, and his name will be Tequatl.

As someone said before, go look at the Arah explorable tokens, Shard of Zhaitan.
“A small piece of Zhaitan, forever dead.”

You literally go around in Arah and collect small pieces of Zhaitan’s dead body.
“Oh look, a part of Zhaitan!” – /me picks it up and puts it in the wallet

Zaxares.5419:

Zhaitan has been stated by the devs to be certainly dead.

Can you cite that? I haven’t seen it yet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/No-Risen-Karkas/first#post1156321

Mathew Medina states:

“Canonically, yes the Lost Shores weekend and lead-up was set after the events of the Guild Wars 2 personal story and the defeat of Zhaitan, so this is partially what made it possible for the karka to establish a clawhold on Southsun Cove.”

The huge thing was stating….that if Zhaitan was still alive somewhere, somehow, there is no way the event with the Karka storming Southsun Cove could happen. Also explains why there are zero risen Karka when we kill them.

Jordo.5913:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/No-Risen-Karkas/first#post1156321

Mathew Medina states:

“Canonically, yes the Lost Shores weekend and lead-up was set after the events of the Guild Wars 2 personal story and the defeat of Zhaitan, so this is partially what made it possible for the karka to establish a clawhold on Southsun Cove.”

The huge thing was stating….that if Zhaitan was still alive somewhere, somehow, there is no way the event with the Karka storming Southsun Cove could happen. Also explains why there are zero risen Karka when we kill them.

Thing is, defeated doesn’t mean dead. It may have just left Zhaitan very weak, maybe forced him back to sleep.. although his death would explain Tequatl becoming stronger- to fill his place.

Either way, the karka saw the opportunity, be it the weakening or death of Zhaitan, and took Southsun. There’s no way of telling which one it actually was.

I think that they have pressure from the community at large to redo the fight. I also think they know that was cruddy end to the first chapter in gw2. We do know that they have said on record that if they go back to do a major revamp to a dungeon it will have to make sense to the story to go back.

So I offer that if you believe that arenanet will go back and redo the zhaitan fight because it is kittenty, then you should also believe he is alive because they will not revamp unless they can connect the changes to the story.

Well, there’s two things we need to consider.

1. What ARE Elder Dragons? If they’re actually a force of nature of some sort, then I don;t think we could actually kill them in the traditional sense.
2. Zhaitan knew what all his servants knew and could command them telepathically at will, so it is possible that his conscience is actually implanted into every minion he has, and thus killing the dragon himself wouldn’t actually kill him, but only destroy his body.

jweez.7214:

I think that they have pressure from the community at large to redo the fight. I also think they know that was cruddy end to the first chapter in gw2. We do know that they have said on record that if they go back to do a major revamp to a dungeon it will have to make sense to the story to go back.

So I offer that if you believe that arenanet will go back and redo the zhaitan fight because it is kittenty, then you should also believe he is alive because they will not revamp unless they can connect the changes to the story.

uhhh…Tequatl update made zero sense and was out of left field…..the patch after it nor before it had anything to do with undead, dragons, or Sparkfly Fen

the living story literally took a commercial break for an update

Clockwork Chaos – “Hi, I’m Scarlet and I’m here to kidnap your Queen!”
SAB – Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump,
Tequatl – btw, Tequatl is stronger now…..for funsies
Twilight Assault – “Oh hi!, Scarlet’s back, sorry you did random stuff for a month!”

just in case, a picture of zhaitan corpse…

Apolyon.6937:

just in case, a picture of zhaitan corpse…

The model found by breaking out of the story mode’s map can only be viewed through a bug in the game. Bugs are not cannon, nor anything that can be seen as a result of a bug.

This has already been discussed a number of times in this post, and was even added to the initial post as an edit.

Please be more observant in the future.

Zaxares.5419:

Zhaitan has been stated by the devs to be certainly dead.

That said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if what’s happening now is that Tequatl is absorbing the power from his dead master. One day, a new Elder Dragon of Undeath will arise, and his name will be Tequatl.

Nooo, we should name him Taco the Deathbringer! I’m sorry but I couldn’t resist anyhow I don’t know what lore says about Tequatl, but it is not entirely impossible that he will be the new Zhaitan unless Taco died during this battle. (which is hard to say)

Apolyon.6937:

just in case, a picture of zhaitan corpse…

so only I think that picture feels realy creepy ?

Tequatl inherited all of Zhaitan’s memories and abilities when he died.

And btw, The dragons can be put down permanently.

I seriously hope he is still alive so we can fight him again. I don’t mean the way we did it last time either as that was kitten. >.>

It’d make up for that if it was this super challenging final Final encounter with Zhaitan.

I have a theory. Each of the Elder dragons is part of the creator of Tyria, and this particular world within the Mists. Each is also said creators “rage” dealing with some ancient incident that caused it to split into many pieces, each representing a different part of the world, and start terrorizing the populace, probably wiping most of life, then going to sleep. Examples of this theme are shown with Death (Zhaitan), Ice (Jormag), Fire (Primordus), Earth (Kralkatorrik), and Water (Bubbles).

Said theory also holds that our characters, are in fact the Champion of whatever dragon represents Life, possibly the only one still sane and knowing the “rage” needs to be quelled. Thus our characters are the only ones who can pull this off because they are the only ones (other than the other dragons and their champions) that can slay the dragons. We killed Zhaitan, purifying the rage of Death, and his power over death returned to the creator, as will all the dragons and their powers eventually. We will find this out much much later through some complicated story with a ton of loopholes that make no sense.

Yeah, crazy man theory~

You forgot the Jungle dragon (life?) I secretly hope that what Scarlet ran into in your “journey” was the great jungle dragon and that she secretly works for him.

The Jungle Dragon I feel is Nature. Scarlet most definitely works for him in my scenario, as do the Nightmare Court (without realizing it). In said theory, both Scarlet and Faolain are both champions of the Jungle Dragon.

Zeivu.3615:

Tequatl inherited all of Zhaitan’s memories and abilities when he died.

And btw, The dragons can be put down permanently.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

We did it in GW1, EOTN. Also during the Bazaar of the Four Winds, the people mention Glint’s death. Used to be under the control of the Shatterer

It is clear that dragon champions can be killed, there are numerous accounts of this. and Glint is a dragon champion, not a true elder dragon. Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, Primordus, Jormag, the 2 mystery ones are the only beings known as elder dragons.

Kurodius.7463:

• We do not actually see a truly dead Zhaitan, or have his corpse.

.

Of course not. What do you think all that Zhaitaffy was.

In Arah Explorable: Zhaitan is dead.
In Tyria: Zhaitan is alive.

This is the only way that the temporal stability that ANet strives for actually works. You can’t interact with other PCs in Tyria where you have killed Zhaitan and they haven’t (indeed, even NPCs in some of the dungeons). Therefore at all times assume he is alive, unless you are in Arah explorable or have just killed him in arah story.

Apolyon.6937:

just in case, a picture of zhaitan corpse…

Even though your picture lines up with my theory, ANet have repeatedly stated that glitched content is not at all canon.

zamalek.2154:

In Arah Explorable: Zhaitan is dead.
In Tyria: Zhaitan is alive.

This is the only way that the temporal stability that ANet strives for actually works. You can’t interact with other PCs in Tyria where you have killed Zhaitan and they haven’t (indeed, even NPCs in some of the dungeons). Therefore at all times assume he is alive, unless you are in Arah explorable or have just killed him in arah story.

Do you know of any specific npcs that specifically mention Zhaitan by name in a way that suggests that they think he is alive?

I know his minions haven’t subsided and that npcs talk about Zhaitan’s minions, I mentioned that in the original post.

I would also like to add one more thing to the theory:

It is very possible that Anet planned Zhaitan’s return from the beginning. He’s the only Elder dragon they could revamp mechanically and have it make sense in the world. They may have known that the Zhaitan fight was not up to par and planned to bring him back once they got a handle on managing the game.

As the first 2 replies indicate, he is in fact dead 100%. They are revamping the in-dungeon fight to give you more of an exciting encounter while also showing that he is in fact dead.

Really a shame. Such potential gone to waste.

TehPwnerer.7215:

As the first 2 replies indicate, he is in fact dead 100%. They are revamping the in-dungeon fight to give you more of an exciting encounter while also showing that he is in fact dead.

Really a shame. Such potential gone to waste.

If you were to continue reading, you would see that the claim that the devs said he was dead has been disputed and claims they used the term “defeated.”

And as has been said countless times already, that screenshot is the result of a bug. And one more time: Bugs are not cannon.

Please be more observant in the future and be sure to read past the first two replies.

RyuDragnier.9476:

The Jungle Dragon I feel is Nature. Scarlet most definitely works for him in my scenario, as do the Nightmare Court (without realizing it). In said theory, both Scarlet and Faolain are both champions of the Jungle Dragon.

While off topic, this is an interesting subject.

The Pale Tree appears to be related to the nature dragon strongly, and may even be the dragon itself.

I am of the belief that the Pale Tree is a former dragon champion like Glint was. The Nightmare court claim that Ventari’s tablet corrupted the Pale Tree from its true nature.

Regardless of what one believes about the Pale Tree I think this is worth noting:

In the dream, Sylvari players see images of things in the outside world. Nothing in the dream is fabricated, all that one sees in the dream exists or existed at one point in the past. That means that the level one boss for the Sylvari (a large nature dragon) existed in the world at some point or still exists now.