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Zhaitan is he really dead.


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I dont really think zhaitan was killed at the end of guild wars 2 campaign for a couple reasons. First I believe that zhaitan is a collective or hive mind if u will. I think that zhaitan can rise again from his undead minions to exact his revenge. Think about it in the campaign u fight enemies known as zhaitan's mouth and his eye. When u kill them zhaitan feels pain. Why is this? Then there's the fact that zhaitan receives the knowledge of the enemies he kills. To me this seems like the undead is a single mind so I think for a future expansion we go to another continent where zhaitan has been rebuilding him self since his fall in orr. This would be really cool because it would bring back a really cool villain who's boss battle was underwhelming and give him a chance to show his full wrath maybe we have to get past the sea dragon before we get to the other continent maybe where stranded on the continent because of the sea dragon. Picture this we go out to fight the sea dragon when we are attacked by his minions then the sea dragon comes from the depths and wrecks our ship we get stranded on a strange new world that looks alright at first but as we go further inland we are met with undead resistance. We later find out that zhaitan has been rebuilding himself since our last battle.

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Zhaitan was a hive-mind sorta deal yes, but the key point is that it was a one-way street: Zhaitan reaches out through his minions only. They were a tool to spread his influence and enact his will. A puppeteer and his puppets. When we killed Zhaitan this hive-mind got killed as well, which is why post-death Risen are running around all feral and the like.

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I honestly think the risen acting feral doesn't prove anything as creatures of a hive mind get farther away there connection weakens so they do the last thing zhaitan had on his mind to defend himself because he was being attacked so as u get closer to the main cluster of undead they act more intelligent that's why u see the undead acting more organized as u get closer to orr but the farther u get the less organized they are. That's why zhaitan needs necromancers to expand and organize his army that are out side of the hive mind reach. That's why we didn't see necromancers in orr working for zhaitan

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You’re still seeing the hive-mind in the wrong light. As I said, it is not a two-way thing. It was merely a one-way thing of how Elder Dragons (as Modremoth did this as well) function. It is a commmand structure with the dragon doing everything, and the more powerful dragon minions (such as the various “body parts”) are just relay nodes to boost the “signal” given off by the dragon. The reason why the Mouth of Zhaitan is named just that is so symbolic to the point where it almost becomes literal. Almost.

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Ya I guess u might be right on the fact that it's a one way street but that still doesn't mean zhaitan dead. Zhaitan I would argue is the smartest of the dragons because of his ability to acquire information through mortals so his ''death'' could have easily been a trick considering the fact that the only confirmation of his death was the fact that we saw him fall in what I assume to be the ocean. So the question now is less if his minions can continue his power in the since of giving him an entire new body and more how much of his body he actually needs before he dies. Meaning as long as his head is still intact and functioning he can be rebuilt using other undead minions.

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@TexZero.7910 said:How do you kill that which is already dead ?

Undeath technically makes you deadable again, I reckon.

Besides, do we even know if Zhaitan itself is undead? Might just be all the necromantic powers it possess that makes it look that way. I mean, if Zhaitan is undead that would imply it died at some point, which raises the questions of who killed it and who else came along and raised it from the dead afterwards?

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@Oglaf.1074 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:How do you kill that which is already dead ?

Undeath technically makes you
deadable
again, I reckon.

Besides, do we even know if Zhaitan itself is undead? Might just be all the necromantic powers it possess that makes it look that way. I mean, if Zhaitan is undead that would imply it died at some point, which raises the questions of who killed it and who else came along and raised it from the dead afterwards?

Now there's a cool idea. What if zhaitan is a minion of dhuum

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@jthadman.5826 said:Ya I guess u might be right on the fact that it's a one way street but that still doesn't mean zhaitan dead. Zhaitan I would argue is the smartest of the dragons because of his ability to acquire information through mortals so his ''death'' could have easily been a trick considering the fact that the only confirmation of his death was the fact that we saw him fall in what I assume to be the ocean. So the question now is less if his minions can continue his power in the since of giving him an entire new body and more how much of his body he actually needs before he dies. Meaning as long as his head is still intact and functioning he can be rebuilt using other undead minions.

1) All dragons possess this ability to gather information via corrupting mortals. It is implied that Jormag does it with the Svanir and we see Modremoth do it in the HoT story.

2) Zhaitan doesn’t have to be particularly smarter than the rest. Given our interactions with both it and Modremoth, Elder Dragons in general seem to be highly intelligent beings. They just don’t seem too interested in conversation.

3) You’re forgetting the big plot point of Elder Dragons releasing their “essence” whenever they die (much like the human gods). There’s no “soul” left of Zhaitan to be put into a new body or anything like that. The finality of the death of an Elder Dragon is the whole reason behind the conflict between your character and Balthazar in the PoF story.

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@Oglaf.1074 said:

@jthadman.5826 said:Ya I guess u might be right on the fact that it's a one way street but that still doesn't mean zhaitan dead. Zhaitan I would argue is the smartest of the dragons because of his ability to acquire information through mortals so his ''death'' could have easily been a trick considering the fact that the only confirmation of his death was the fact that we saw him fall in what I assume to be the ocean. So the question now is less if his minions can continue his power in the since of giving him an entire new body and more how much of his body he actually needs before he dies. Meaning as long as his head is still intact and functioning he can be rebuilt using other undead minions.

1) All dragons possess this ability to gather information via corrupting mortals. It is implied that Jormag does it with the Svanir and we see Modremoth do it in the HoT story.

2) Zhaitan doesn’t have to be particularly smarter than the rest. Given our interactions with both it and Modremoth, Elder Dragons in general seem to be highly intelligent beings. They just don’t seem too interested in conversation.

3) You’re forgetting the big plot point of Elder Dragons releasing their “essence” whenever they die (much like the human gods). There’s no “soul” left of Zhaitan to be put into a new body or anything like that. The finality of the death of an Elder Dragon is the whole reason behind the conflict between your character and Balthazar in the PoF story.

I'm not forgetting the fact that elder dragons release power when they die because that never really happened with zhaitan. Though this could be so to the fact that the writers didn't come up with the idea of magic being released till later but dont u think that if zhaitan died there would be some sort of huge magical explosion like the one that happened when we killed balthazar. I did forget that all of dragons get information through corruption.

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It did happen with Zhaitan but story-wise the relevant characters only came to realize it in retrospect (after Modremoth bit the dust).

So yeah, you’re most likely right in that it was probably a plot device/point the HoT writers came up with many years after the original writers had us kill off Zhaitan.

They probably felt the story needed a twist rather than our characters just axing the Elder Dragons one after another.

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@Oglaf.1074 said:It did happen with Zhaitan but story-wise the relevant characters only came to realize it in retrospect (after Modremoth bit the dust).

So yeah, you’re most likely right in that it was probably a plot device/point the HoT writers came up with many years after the original writers had us kill off Zhaitan.

They probably felt the story needed a twist rather than our characters just axing the Elder Dragons one after another.

What I'm trying to say is that the zhaitan boss battle was a bit anticlimactic. I think it was held back by game developers technology and skill at the time. I think more people enjoyed the world bosses. Now I think the idea of changing a really minor detail in lore to bring him back isnt that bad of an idea. The writers could even pass it off to the fact that we know so little of the dragons and what we do know of them isnt technically true. Making zhaitan a true hive mind in the since that he can rebuild himself is not a bad idea. At the end of the day zhaitan's survival is more beneficial to us as players this is because when u kill off a character as big as an elder dragon ur not just killing the dragon but ur also killing any future content that the dragon could hold. Dont get the idea that I'm just a zhaitan fan boy because I'm not I think zhaitan should die but not yet if we bring him back for one final expansion we can give him a truly note worthy death. Think about it like this why did the new star wars movie suck? They killed off snoak too early he was mysterious and undeveloped. We as viewers wanted to uncover his secrets and see some character development. Now let's compare this too zhaitan. Zhaitan was a hugely hyped up antagonist he practically seemed invincible throughout the guild wars 2 story and then we have a couple victories show up on his door step and kill him. The boss battle was quite dull to be honest and when we beat him he just plummeted into the sea. Now if we bring him back maybe the sea dragon helps him get back up on his feet or maybe even take control of his corpse and uses his essence to control the undead he commanded them we get more gameplay and a cooler ending to the elder dragon zhaitan

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When Zhaitan died, all of his powers his essence leaked out. They used that as in game lore to explain the power buff Tequatal got. Also in Siren's landing some of the Risen Knights are rounding up stray risen to control. So some influence of Zhaitan is still lingering.Now we know that we killed the mind of Mordy yet we never got to see his real form minus all the vines. So at the end of personal story when we blow Zhaitan apart with the laser we destroyed his body but and this is just a big but, His mind could of been somewhere else. So he could of survived but completely powerless now as the other Elder dragons feed on his spilled magic.So if Zhaitan is alive he would not pose any threat to the world anytime soon unless he is getting help from another . An Dhuum would never help Zhaitan.

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Yes he’s dead.Cinematic upon activating the final pedestal:Sadizi: The millennia-long Elder Dragon cycle is one of feast and famine. Ravenous, they rise. Sated, they sleep.Sadizi: Glint and the Forgotten set out to break this cycle of extremes and to restore true balance.Sadizi: But when two Elder Dragons were unexpectedly eliminated from the cycle at one time, we believe it created a void. (Speaking of Zhaitan and Mordy)Sadizi: A void that caused the system to break down and the collapse to begin.Sadizi: The hope was that Glint's legacy would stabilize the cycle.Sadizi: We theorize these vacancies must be filled with entities that circulate and share magic rather than hoard it.Sadizi: Only then will the balance of magic truly become stable. Only then will Glint's legacy achieve its ultimate purpose.

Imbalance of magical energy is the proof.

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Here is the truth:If the devs start to run short on ideas they will bring back Zhaitan in one shape or another. With the current rate of dragonslaying I fully expect this to happen or even to have all of them merge at some point into some super undead-plant-crystal-fire-ice-whatever dragon after each is beaten individually.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression from what i read is that Elder Dragons differ from Gods in that the former are akin to primal elements that were there at the beginning of the world, primal elemental forces that took the individual form of dragons. Killing a dragon destroys the individual form in which those forces are concentrated and releases those primal forces back into the world. Sort of like a 1000 megaton thermonuclear explosion going off.

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I don't think Anet will pull this plot twist, based on HoT and LS3. When Mordremoth died, Jormag and Kralk cannibalised "mind and cabbage" energies to create hybrid minions. Since Mordremoth was creating mordrem minions from corpses durring HoT, I think it's safe to say Mordremoth ate Zhaitan - meaning Zhaitan must have died durring the personal story, or soon after.

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Zhaitan is very definitely dead. We don't see (most of) his body, but other characters in the story have.

You know how the dungeon tokens for The Ruined City of Arah dungeon are called Shards of Zhaitan? That's not a metaphor, they're literally tiny pieces of his corpse which are found all over the area and which some NPCs are interested in obtaining for their magical properties. In an early version of the explorable mode dungeon it was possible to see his corpse, but that was taken out when the design of the dragon in the story mode was changed. (I can't remember if they made him bigger or smaller, but either way having him in the explorable mode didn't fit any more.)

We also learn during Season 2 that the Priory has his tail in their Special Collections. And as discussed at the moment of his death his magic was dissipated and largely absorbed by the other Elder Dragons. Apparently this is what allowed Mordremoth to use corpses of dead Pact soldiers as a template for his minions, and created the Vine Touched Destroyers. We didn't know this until later of course, but that's often the case with new discoveries.

The NPCs in Siren's Landing also seem pretty confident he's dead, and specifically talk about the remaining risen being less focused and coordinated, although still a threat, and how his corruption is slowly fading from the land now he's not around.

Also, I don't think this is cannon so much as game mechanics, but it used to be possible to drop below the map after finishing Arah story mode and find Zhaitan's body. Unfortunately that seems to have been fixed around the time they made it into a single-player story instead of a 5-player dungeon, it used to be pretty easy (you basically just had to jump off the airship and bring a revive orb) and I've not been able to do it since, and not for lack of trying.

QFxVE0hh.jpg

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@jthadman.5826 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:How do you kill that which is already dead ?

Undeath technically makes you
deadable
again, I reckon.

Besides, do we even know if Zhaitan itself is undead? Might just be all the necromantic powers it possess that makes it look that way. I mean, if Zhaitan is undead that would imply it died at some point, which raises the questions of who killed it and who else came along and raised it from the dead afterwards?

Now there's a cool idea. What if zhaitan is a minion of dhuum

Zhaitan was n tyria thousands of years before dhuum.

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The mere fact that other elder dragons have absorbed and thus gained access to Zhaitan's death magic is proof enough that his magical energy has left his body and seeped out into the world. That would only happen if Zhaitan himself was "killed". If it was possible to absorb another dragon's unique magic properties before their death or when their death was incomplete, I'm sure we would have seen instances of that already. Also, if it was a case of being a hive mind and having one's consciousness capable of moving between other entities connected to him, I'm sure Zhaitan would have had his minions gather the magical energy dispersed when its main body died before the other elder dragons could get to it. In fact, if the hive mind theory was true, I would have imagined that Zhaitan would not have put all his eggs (or in this case, magic) in one body to begin with, and rather had a back-up in case his main body was destroyed, which doesn't' seem to be the case.

And if it wasn't possible for Zhaitan to spread his magic or have his minions absorb it after his death, then it's already too late for him, even if he is still alive, because the magical energy that used to belong to him has already been absorbed and so he won't be able to return to his former strength with that void of magic existing, unless one of the other currently awake elder dragons die (or alternatively, some other all powerful being such as a god died within his vicinity). Basically, he'd never become the threat he used to be, and would just be another road bump on the path to much greater adversaries. I reckon rather than ANet trying to bring him back to life, they just need to rework his encounter a bit in the original story to be better.

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@jthadman.5826 said:I dont really think zhaitan was killed at the end of guild wars 2 campaign for a couple reasons. First I believe that zhaitan is a collective or hive mind if u will. I think that zhaitan can rise again from his undead minions to exact his revenge. Think about it in the campaign u fight enemies known as zhaitan's mouth and his eye. When u kill them zhaitan feels pain. Why is this? Then there's the fact that zhaitan receives the knowledge of the enemies he kills. To me this seems like the undead is a single mind so I think for a future expansion we go to another continent where zhaitan has been rebuilding him self since his fall in orr. This would be really cool because it would bring back a really cool villain who's boss battle was underwhelming and give him a chance to show his full wrath maybe we have to get past the sea dragon before we get to the other continent maybe where stranded on the continent because of the sea dragon. Picture this we go out to fight the sea dragon when we are attacked by his minions then the sea dragon comes from the depths and wrecks our ship we get stranded on a strange new world that looks alright at first but as we go further inland we are met with undead resistance. We later find out that zhaitan has been rebuilding himself since our last battle.

If you go further into the story, you will find out that he really died, and his magic spread to the other dragons too. I don't want to spoil you anything, but you wanted the spoilers so i give them so.

For exmaple in HoT we can see Mordremoth using death magic, in Season 3 we can see new versions of Destroyers and Icebrood, we can see they use death magic.

Zhaitan's spectrum is death (saying just in case).

He's dead, what I've been wondering since I saw how powerful magic Joko uses is that: could he ressurect Zhaitan and/or Mordremoth? Their bodies might haven't been destroyed.

Is he only able to ressurect the bodies that just died? Or also long dead ones?

Awakened Zhaitan or Mordremoth.... that would be so cool.

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If Joko could resurrect an Elder Dragon it would just be a big dragon corpse rampaging around (which, to be fair, is still a significant threat!) without any of the special Elder Dragon powers they used to have.

However, I doubt he could. Even if his power was up to snuff, Zhaitan’s body is too far gone (shot up by a lazor that sliced him up and then dissected by the Priory). Not sure what happened to Modremoth but I doubt the Priory wouldn’t have done the same to it.

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