Tyria's Immune System

The speculation within the GW2 community has been given new life with the conclusion of S02E02 ‘Entanglement’. What do these elements shown in the Eternal Alchemy mean? Do they just represent the dragons or more? Maybe the Eternal Alchemy is some sort of immune system protecting Tyria.

Is there a connection with the Gods? What is the place of the Dragons in the Eternal Dragons and what role do the mysterious Sylvari play in all this?

What follows tries to adress all these questions. FULL CREDITS go to STEPHEN.6312, who’s the author of the article below.

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What you are about to read is my first attempt to cohesively explain the nature of Tyria’s immune system. Where I a student of the asuran colleges, they might call me a heretic. I may be wrong, but I’m not compiling these thoughts expecting to be right – instead, I’m exploring possibilities in the hope of approaching a better understanding of the inner workings of the Eternal Alchemy.

The Elder Dragons As A Six-Layered Defense System

Let me begin by usurping the long-standing idea that the sylvari are Tyria’s immune system. Ultimately, this explanation works regardless of whether you consider them the system, or the Elder Dragons. However, my theory begins with the presumption that the Elder Dragons are part of Tyria’s immune system.

Introducing The Elements

These Elder Dragons are commonly associated with elements, or combinations of elements. In the Season 1 episode, “The Edge Of The Mists” a scholar (I cannot remember her name, although you may recall her explaining about Ceara’s alliances corresponding to the four classical elements) introduced four elements of alchemy: fire, earth, air and water. These elements were symbolized by various factions of Ceara’s alliances. The Flame Legion represented fire; the dredge represented earth; the aetherblades represented air; and the krait represented water. More specifically, the races themselves did not necessarily represent the elements, but the magic they wielded did. Why? The aetherblades are a multi-racial organization of pirates, demonstrating that the magic Ceara sought was not bound up in them uniquely. However, it was bound up in the crystals they use to power their magic. Hence, the aetherblades provided air magic stored in crystals stolen from the Zephyrites. The Flame Legion supplied fire magic stored in searing crystals; the dredge offered earth magic stored in azurite crystals; and the krait brought crystals containing water magic.

So then, four elements were introduced, although the presence of six Elder Dragons suggests as many as six elements. At first glance, this works. What also works is the possibility that the Elder Dragons are mixing the four elements. Hence, ice may not be an element as much as it is a mixture of water and air magic; similarly, Kralkatorrik may use a combination of air and earth magic; Primordus, fire and earth magic and so on and so forth. Thus, you can either conclude that there are four elements to the Eternal Alchemy, or six elements. If there are four, they are fire, earth, air and water. If there are six, they are ice, undeath, fire, water, crystal and vegetation.

The Relationship Between The Elder Dragons And The Gods

In my opinion, trying to place the Elder Dragons into absolute categories, rather than viewing them as some sort of cohesive whole, is incorrect. In the same way, viewing the gods as somehow exclusive masters of their powers is not accurate. The two groups of six are all linked to each other. Reconsider the example I have already provided – Jormag, for example, uses both water and air magic, possibly granting him ties to Bubbles and also Kralkatorrik. In the same way, matching a single god to a single Elder Dragon is difficult because each set of six draw their power not from any one individual, but from all six. What further confuses this situation is that the human gods are often viewed from a conceptual point of view, whereas the Elder Dragons are viewed from an elemental point of view. The reason this is the case is because the human gods are personal entities – that is to say, you can get to know them and hence understand and empathize with them. The Elder Dragons have been associated with emotions before (Konig Des Todes, for example, did attempt to attribute emotions to each), but because they are not perceived as “friendly” this aspect of them is shrouded in mystery. However, viewing magic in elemental form and conceptual form is not actually inconsistent. To help illustrate this, think of destructive magic. Whilst it is commonly associated with fire, in reality any of the four forms of magic can be viewed as destructive if employed properly. Fire kills, but so does water, air and earth.

The Role Of The Elder Dragons

To continue our discourse, let us affirm that the Elder Dragons balance the magic of Tyria. Specifically, they regulate the amount of magic in Tyria by “inhaling” it whilst awake and “exhaling” it whilst asleep. If this is the case, you could say that the Elder Dragons will only awaken when the magic that they contain has been depleted and vice versa – they only go to sleep when they are satiated. Presumably, given that Abaddon indirectly powered the Searing through the magic of the Elder Dragons, the use of magic by those actively practicing it whilst the serpents sleep can accelerate the rate at which it is drawn from them. Conversely, careful maintenance of one’s magical footprint (for want of a better term) can stall the point at the reptiles awaken, if they awaken at all.

To continue, consider that the Elder Dragons keep the magic of Tyria in this realm of existence. It does not leave Tyria. Why? In my opinion, the locations of the various Elder Dragons is loosely indicative of their role. The Elder Dragons act as “plugs” in a sink full of holes. Those holes are weak points across Tyria, often denoted by an intersection of ley lines. Each dragon migrates to an area of Tyria associated with it’s element of magic. Hence, Zaithan goes to Orr and seals up the link between the Mists and Tyria evidenced by the door located at the Artesian Waters.

Now imagine that one of the holes between Tyria and the Mists does not get sealed or that, if we use the analogy of a door, it gets “jammed” open. This would lead to a rapid acceleration in the depletion of magic from the dragons which would cause them to stir. In this way, they act as Tyria’s immune system. They are like T-Cells or any other part of the human immune system emerging from the heart of Tyria (the Thymus of Tyria, for example) that head to the “orifices” of Tyria – it’s mouth, ears and nose (i.e. doors between the Mists and Tyria) to defend them whilst they consume Tyria’s magic. In this way, they ensure that no magic leaves Tyria and no magic enters Tyria during this important process.

The Sylvari Door

But the coming of sylvari may not be as advantageous as we imagine. In my opinion, when we read that Ronan became separated from his patrol and wandered into a cave we may in fact be reading about how this human inadvertently traveled into the Mists and found something therein – something that he wasn’t meant to touch. Why? Most of the entry points between Tyria and the Mists are located in subterranean locations. (Ronan may have come across one of Lord Ordran’s portals, for example.) Traveling back into Tyria, Ronan brought with him a seed that acted just like the vine seeds of Dry Top – a seed that formed a bridge between two worlds: Tyria and a location in the Mists called the Dream.

The Immune System Is Activated

The seed that Ronan planted took vast amounts of Tyria’s magic to grow. This magic did not stay in Tyria but traveled back into the Mists, fueling the Dream. Sensing that the system was compromised by the growth of the Pale Tree, the Elder Dragons roused themselves into action. But the dragons struggled to recover the magic harvested by the tree. Unlike the other races, sylvari cannot be corrupted (yet) by five of the Elder Dragons: Jormag, Kralktorrik, Zaithan, Primordus or Bubbles. Think of sylvari biology and spellcasting like an enigma code. The dragons do not understand how to crack this code and so cannot gather the magic taken by sylvari back into themselves in order to complete the cycle of renewal. What goes into the Dream has thus far stayed in the Dream and I contend that it is placing Tyria in peril.

Zaithan was the most familiar with the sylvari. Realizing that Tyria’s immune system was not capable of fighting back against the sylvari intruders, it sought to rouse Mordremoth. Mordremoth had not roused to “plug” his hole in Tyria. He may have been placed in a deep sleep by the Pale Tree. But he is one facet of a six-staged immune system designed to cohesively fight any form of magical intrusion and he alone understands how to recover magic from plants, including sylvari. If anyone is to help recover magic back into Tyria to restore balance it is Mordremoth. Only through him can all six Elder Dragons fight back against the invaders from the Mists.

If The Elder Dragons Perform The Role Of An Immune System Why Didn’t The Coming Of Humans To Tyria Arouse Them?

Firstly, we are assuming that humans migrated to Tyria from the Mists. If this is the case, the human gods, being facets of the Elder Dragons (and vice versa) and also being in harmony with the Eternal Alchemy, introduced into Tyria symbiotic magical beings who would not disturb the cycle of renewal. This is evidenced by the fact that the Elder Dragons can assimilate humans into their defensive armies, whereas they cannot assimilate sylvari.

The Elder Dragons Don’t Play Nice

This is the greatest weakness in my theory and I acknowledge that I may be wrong. The Elder Dragons don’t seem to respect the human gods or anyone else for that matter. Hence, you could conversely argue that the Pale Tree is Tyria’s immune system and that the Elder Dragons are not. However, I believe that the ancient nature of the Elder Dragons (i.e. the fact that they have risen and previously returned to slumber before) means that they are probably better candidates for the position of Tyria’s immune system. This is further hinted at by the fact that the Searing utilized magic drawn from them, rather than the Pale Tree (think of the Pale Tree as combining magic, the Elder Dragons split it up and this is also in keeping with the spirit of the gods’ intention as expressed in the Bloodstones) and by the fact that there may be other tree trunks linked to other great oaks found in the Maguuma who are now dead. Whilst someone may argue that this may be evidence that a great oak has been present as a manifestation of Tyria’s immune system in the past, I argue instead that it is evidence of a weak point between Tyria and the Mists through which sylvari have come in previous cycles. But how did they get through and manage to sprout a tree? They got through only because Mordremoth is the last “plug” in Tyria’s “sink” of magic to be activated and to close his drain. Hence, sylvari typically have more time to establish themselves in Tyria than other Mist invaders.

The Mursaat May Have Been Behind The Last Rising

The migration of the mursaat may have been behind the previous Elder Dragon rise as these powerful spell-casters consumed large quantities of magic from the Elder Dragons. I propose them and possibly several other races such as the seers, primarily because the mursaat are said to have withdrawn into the Mists when the Elder Dragons last rose, suggesting either that they fled back through the portal through which they had come to invade Tyria or alternatively were driven back by the Elder Dragons.

What Is The Tree, Really?

In my opinion, Ceara learned this from her vision – she realized that rather than fighting the Elder Dragons we should be letting them do their work, completing this part of the cycle of renewal. So she jump-started Mordremoth, something that Zaithan failed to do. Then she gathered an alliance of races to her side who possessed uncorrupted magic, preparing to “hide” them in the same way that Glint did during the previous cycle (she would use these races to reseed the world of Tyria after the Elder Dragons returned to sleep). During this time she also sought to capture Queen Jennah. As a mesmer, Jennah is perhaps the most competent illusionist, not only at creating illusions, but also tearing them down. Ceara may have wanted to use Jennah to break the powerful mesmer magic hiding the true nature of the Pale Tree. When this failed, she used the Tower of Nightmares to draw in a mesmer powerful enough to tear the illusion down. In my opinion, Kasmeer Meade may spearhead the revelation of the true tree growing in Tyria. I think that the tree may turn out to be someone that no one wants to think about.

What Will Happen When The Illusion Of The Dream Is Shattered?

We will have to fight against the tree and whatever other malevolence may power her.