I really need help understanding this…

...

A few reasons:

1. The dragons wreak the most damage right after they wake up, as they carve out territories for themselves. The year Kralkatorrik woke up, it did more damage than the other four active dragons put together. Mordremoth could've done the same- it was able to attack across the entire continent, and if it hadn't been stopped in the jungle, it might have burst outward with enough strength to displace the asura and destroy Rata Sum and the Grove, the same way Primordus and Jormag made refugees of the entire asura and norn races just after they woke up.
2. Timing. Left alone, Mordremoth probably wouldn't have woken up for ~45 years. By that point, the Pact was probably hoping to have all the other dragons dealt with. Dealing with one when it was the only threat on the field probably seemed a lot better than dealing with the same one when there were four other active threats breathing down Tyria's neck.
3. The ley line feast thing. When we fight the Mouth of Mordremoth, it's sitting in the largest concentration of magic in all of Tyria, bar none. In total it might still be less than what Primordus or Jormag have consumed, but going back to point one, those two displaced entire civilizations back when they'd eaten barely any magic. Mordremoth was going on the same sort of rampage, but with the equivalent of the Mario star amplifying it.

Aaron pretty much hit it on the head, but to elaborate on that first point: The Elder Dragons function in "pulses" of activities, but the most destructive we've seen of any (even Kralkatorrik after the events of Path of Fire) has been when they wake up, where they create a swath of land to call their own and begin making minions in preparation for future assaults.

And a few extra things:

At the time of Mordremoth's awakening, it was also the only active Elder Dragon, due to Zhaitan's recent death (who was active just before its death) and efforts against the gathering forces of Jormag (preventing it from becoming active for a time longer), and rather than the "it woke up" being the issue it was "it's the active threat" being the issue. This meant that all of everyone's attention could go directly to Mordremoth, but people weren't quite aware of it (in regards to the whole The World Summit build up).

Furthermore, Mordremoth showed that it was also among the (if not the) fastest spreading Elder Dragons. While Jormag took four years before reaching the norn lands, and Kralkatorrik simply went after Glint and did nothing for 10 years after, and Zhaitan only taking a dead nation upon waking, Mordremoth was sending forces all the way across Central Tyria weeks after waking up, with a swarm to come (stopped during the S.C.A.R. meta of Tangled Depths).

And from a developer's / audience's viewpoint (rather than an in-universe viewpoint), Mordremoth's awakening is the first (and, sadly, only) that players would get to witness first hand.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And from a developer's / audience's viewpoint (rather than an in-universe viewpoint), Mordremoth's awakening is the first (and, sadly, only) that players would get to witness first hand.

Well, we did send Primordus and Jormag’s energies back to pre-awakening levels, so we might see another awakening from those two, which might be just as catastrophic.

yeah all these > @Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

A few reasons:

1. The dragons wreak the most damage right after they wake up, as they carve out territories for themselves. The year Kralkatorrik woke up, it did more damage than the other four active dragons put together. Mordremoth could've done the same- it was able to attack across the entire continent, and if it hadn't been stopped in the jungle, it might have burst outward with enough strength to displace the asura and destroy Rata Sum and the Grove, the same way Primordus and Jormag made refugees of the entire asura and norn races just after they woke up.
2. Timing. Left alone, Mordremoth probably wouldn't have woken up for ~45 years. By that point, the Pact was probably hoping to have all the other dragons dealt with. Dealing with one when it was the only threat on the field probably seemed a lot better than dealing with the same one when there were four other active threats breathing down Tyria's neck.
3. The ley line feast thing. When we fight the Mouth of Mordremoth, it's sitting in the largest concentration of magic in all of Tyria, bar none. In total it might still be less than what Primordus or Jormag have consumed, but going back to point one, those two displaced entire civilizations back when they'd eaten barely any magic. Mordremoth was going on the same sort of rampage, but with the equivalent of the Mario star amplifying it.

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:A few reasons:

1. The dragons wreak the most damage right after they wake up, as they carve out territories for themselves. The year Kralkatorrik woke up, it did more damage than the other four active dragons put together. Mordremoth could've done the same- it was able to attack across the entire continent, and if it hadn't been stopped in the jungle, it might have burst outward with enough strength to displace the asura and destroy Rata Sum and the Grove, the same way Primordus and Jormag made refugees of the entire asura and norn races just after they woke up.
2. Timing. Left alone, Mordremoth probably wouldn't have woken up for ~45 years. By that point, the Pact was probably hoping to have all the other dragons dealt with. Dealing with one when it was the only threat on the field probably seemed a lot better than dealing with the same one when there were four other active threats breathing down Tyria's neck.
3. The ley line feast thing. When we fight the Mouth of Mordremoth, it's sitting in the largest concentration of magic in all of Tyria, bar none. In total it might still be less than what Primordus or Jormag have consumed, but going back to point one, those two displaced entire civilizations back when they'd eaten barely any magic. Mordremoth was going on the same sort of rampage, but with the equivalent of the Mario star amplifying it.

didnt really address any of my question but i guess thx anyways

It was not Scarlet that wanted to wake up Mordremoth at a specific point in time, but Mordremoth himself. He talked to Scarlet in her dreams and set her on a mission to awaken him, and she obliged, having figured out that she was a purified dragon minion. (And also gradually falling under his mind control influence.)

So the only one who can answer this question is actually Mordremoth himself. My explanation would be that it was just about time for him. The Elder Dragon Cycle seems to be structured in such a way that all the Elder Dragons wake up at about roughly the same time (in Elder Dragon terms, this probably means a span of 100-300 years?) It could also just be coincidental however. What we know is that Elder Dragons awake to feast, because during their sleep they have bled all that delicious magic back into the world.

So my guess is that Mordremoth, his secondary sphere of influence being the mind, is something of a lucid dreamer. Physically, he was still asleep, but in his mind, he was very much awake, conscious of his empty stomach, and capable of communicating that to his minions.

So he was able to contact Scarlet and manipulate her into jump starting his body (well, or what his equivalent of that is) with a surge of concentrated ley line magic, so that he could begin spreading and feasting on a proper scale.

One of the things that people often miss about Scarlet was that she was actually on our side. Scarlet was attempting to destroy Mordremoth... because she had been driven mad by what she was shown by Mordremoth... but she had been driven mad by Mordremoth... and so acted hastily and recklessly and with great urgency, refusing to cooperate with races that could not be subjugated or manipulated. Scarlet saw what Mordremoth would become, what it would be capable of, and even the unforseen (by us) consequences of destroying the dragons. And she felt that Mordremoth needed to be destroyed in spite of those consequences.

@"Aneirin Cadwall.9126" said:One of the things that people often miss about Scarlet was that she was actually on our side. Scarlet was attempting to destroy Mordremoth...

No, she wasn't.

A lot of people who think this are either trying to "hero-ize" Scarlet for some reason or another, sometimes misinterpreting her journals mention of "confronting" the voice in her head, but she never had any visible plans to kill Mordremoth or that message to Caithe about how "Tyria needs me".

But that wanting to "confront" Mordremoth wasn't in hostility but in her already-insane desire to learn more. Her holo-recordings during [A Study in Scarlet]() also make it clear that she wasn't after killing Mordremoth:

Scarlet Briar: Let me be clear. I'm not doing this for you; I'm doing it for me. Nobody tells me what to do. Not ever.

Why would killing Mordremoth be "doing this for [Mordremoth]"?

Even if that's not so and she did want to kill Mordremoth, she had been manipulated by him from the get go, with his specialty of implanting thoughts the subject believes to be their own ("[...] you've been taking credit for my ideas. They are mine! Not yours.")

And beyond all that, her final line shows that she was 100% enthralled by Mordremoth:

Braham Eirsson: It doesn't matter now. You're done.Marjory Delaqua: You've failed.Scarlet Briar: Wrong. Tyria will bow before a new master.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scarlet%27s_End#Dialogue

Scarlet saw what Mordremoth would become, what it would be capable of, and even the unforseen (by us) consequences of destroying the dragons. And she felt that Mordremoth needed to be destroyed in spite of those consequences.There is literally nothing that shows this.

At some point, yes, she was too far gone. Taken over. That much is clear... or at least I thought it was. Bowing out because I'm starting to sense a wee bit of hostility about this subject for some reason.

From what I can recall, Scarlet didn't woke him up. Scarlet was manipulated by mordremoth and what she did in lion arch was just send some juicy energizing meal to him. Thus this didn't wake mordremoth up, this gave him a push in power in order for him to spread his domain/influence faster. For dragons, the people of tyria are just insects that can be used in their internal power struggle.

Most of the strength of the dragons is most likely spent struggling against their bethren own influence. The though that they might have something against the people of tyria is probably just some narcissic point of view of people touched by collateral damage.

What's interesting however, is that people of tyria do have the power to tilt the scale of their power balance and this led to the end of a few dragons already and the strengthening of the other.

I don't know. I'm reading all these answers and this isn't how I remember it. If you read scarlet's journal, I'm not sure she was trying to wake modremoth at all, though that ended up being the result of what she did. She was trying to free herself from modremoth's control, which in turned ended up waking him. Basically she felt him inside her and she was fighting against it, and felt the need to track down that thing inside her mind. She was trying to find him. She was trying to escape that influence on her life. Influence she'd first been exposed to in Omadd's Machine.

The assumption she was trying to wake him, as opposed to breaking the connecting between modremoth and her, I don't know that I ever got that.

@Aneirin Cadwall.9126 said:One of the things that people often miss about Scarlet was that she was actually on our side. Scarlet was attempting to destroy Mordremoth... because she had been driven mad by what she was shown by Mordremoth... but she had been driven mad by Mordremoth... and so acted hastily and recklessly and with great urgency, refusing to cooperate with races that could not be subjugated or manipulated. Scarlet saw what Mordremoth would become, what it would be capable of, and even the unforseen (by us) consequences of destroying the dragons. And she felt that Mordremoth needed to be destroyed in spite of those consequences.

She may have started down a path of trying to resist Mordremoth, but like Caithe said:

Caithe: I've recently learned to not always rely on my senses. They can...betray you.

Caithe: My Wyld Hunt, Mordremoth's voice...they were tearing at each other and sometimes I didn't know which was which.Caithe: I was very confused, and I felt like the only person I could trust was me.

: That's the very time you should have leaned on your friends!Caithe: Don't you see? I didn't know who my friends were! Enemies, friends, even Faolain—it was all gray.Even if she was trying to resist Mordremoth, his thoughts became her thoughts, until it was her doing Mordremoth’s bidding.

@Aneirin Cadwall.9126 said:At some point, yes, she was too far gone. Taken over. That much is clear... or at least I thought it was. Bowing out because I'm starting to sense a wee bit of hostility about this subject for some reason.

It's not hostility, it's just that she was never actively working against Mordremoth, except maybe trying to resist his control over her mind. Somewhere down the road, something you read must have given you a wrong idea of Scarlet Briar. She was never a tragic hero. She was a ridiculously smart and energetic Sylvari who, in her relentless pursuit of knowledge, discovered some truths that ultimately spelled her doom and drove her insane. But even before that she wasn't really a nice person. Never that kind, never that helpful. Just very driven.

I never called her a hero. Konig-something-something put that word in my mouth.I said she was on our side... meaning her goal was that which we invetibly succeeded at:the demise of Mordremoth.

@"Aneirin Cadwall.9126" said:I never called her a hero. Konig-something-something put that word in my mouth.I said she was on our side... meaning her goal was that which we invetibly succeeded at:the demise of Mordremoth.

Still, no.You made it sound in your posts like you believe that Scarlet was actively working - or trying to work - towards Mordremoth's demise at some point, and that her goals aligned with ours. There is only so much merit to that, in fact, hardly any.Scarlet was, above all, full of pride, unwilling to accept any help or guidance from the very moment of her Awakening.Her thirst for understanding was out of bounds and there was no moral compass that would ever hinder her from achieving her personal goals or inconvenience her, which is why she ended up working with the Inquest and stealing from the archives, carelessly releasing aggressive steam fabrications into the wilds where they slaughtered any actual wildlife and travellers, causing alarm in Hoelbrak, murdering Omadd when she didn't have to, etc.Omadd's machine allowed her to glimpse into the All and gave her awareness of greater forces at work in the universe, but all that it inspired her to do was to plan to set them against each other, using the chaotic results to her own advantage. She never cared about the well-being of anyone in the world, but neither particularly much about the suffering of anyone in a way that went deeper than treating them as playthings and lab rats. She was just an indifferent psychopath conducting her experiments on an ever grander scale. Her sole goal was to understand the world as it is, burn it to the ground and make her mark on whatever would arise from the ashes.The only way in which Mordremoth ever was an enemy to her was in the fact that it was the unknown force that sought to seduce and manipulate her. Once she decided to fully confront him in her mind, she was already powerless to stop him from taking her over. That is when her chaotic and harmful social (alliances) and scientific (aethertech etc.) experiments were not longer purely directed at giving her understanding and perverted delight, but were playing into Mordremoth's hands most of all, a fact which she no longer took any offense with, which is, perhaps, the most ironic thing about her character arc.Scarlet Briar was always "mentally ill", as far as you can say that for a Sylvari, but Mordremoth made her into his own marionet somewhere along the way, probably finding it easy to influence her because of her lack of compassion and her total indifference to moral boundaries. Once he had taken hold, she was essentially just a perversion of a Sylvari and an unusually intelligent Dragon champion.Scarlet never actively worked towards Mordremoth's demise, and certainly not because of the implications for Tyria. She never gave a crap about Tyria's people, and she certainly was never - and you make it sound like this even now, despite wording it differently - some sort of misunderstood anti-hero who felt they were forced to do bad and rushed things for a noble cause and got taken over before she could succeed in her task of killing Elder Dragons.She was a psychopath who struggled with Mordremoth before any other Sylvari did, and fell under his influence before she could initiate counter-measures for her own sake. Her greatest and most chaotic work was all done in the service of the dragon, and she had never actively worked against him before that.The only side Scarlet Briar was ever on before she fell under dragon control, was her own. To state anything else means - and I don't mean to say this aggressively - that you don't have a proper understanding of her as a character.

Again, bowing out of this assuming my notifications don't light up anymore. Last time, please: never said 'hero' or 'anti-hero' and never implied either.

Edit: Old, but sums up my memory/impression of the story well enough. And no, I had not read this previously, so it did not shape my memory/impression of the story. https://www.guildmag.com/in-defense-of-scarlet-briar/

Edit 2: Again, I don't view Scarlet as any sort of 'hero,' at least in terms of 'good versus evil' in the traditional sense. We had a shared goal. That. Is. All.

@Aneirin Cadwall.9126 said:Last time, please: never said 'hero' or 'anti-hero' and never implied either.

What you said was

One of the things that people often miss about Scarlet was that she was actually on our side.

... which clearly leads us to believe you meant she was some sort of misunderstood hero, fighting the same fight as us but diverging in method. The problem with that is, like others have said before, Scarlet wasn't for anyone but herself and for anything but knowledge. She certainly was never on our side and was only against us because we were actively trying to stop her.

Also, please no one is being hostile here. If anything this is among the most civilized posts I read recently.

There's a world of difference between 'on our side' and 'hero'. Duchess Chrysanthea and 'Lazarus' were on our side before we switched sides. Palawa Joko and Pyre Fierceshot were on our side in GW1. There are any number of opportunities for a decidedly unheroic individual to work with heroes, because you don't have to be a do-gooder to see that a world-ending calamity is going to undermine your plots too.

(Not, mind, that I think Scarlet was ever on our side. Whatever her greater goal may or may not have been, her and her forces killed uncounted numbers of Tyrians and not a single mordrem. Yes, an argument can be made that we were working towards the same end, but you could say the same about Vizier Khilbron. That doesn't count for much when their means involved stomping on us.)

@"Aneirin Cadwall.9126" said:I never called her a hero. Konig-something-something put that word in my mouth.I said she was on our side... meaning her goal was that which we invetibly succeeded at:the demise of Mordremoth.

I never said you were calling her a hero. I said that you're "heroizing" (or "devillainizing") Scarlet - that is, you were making her to be better on the morality scale than she was.

Either way, Scarlet was not "on our side". She was never against Mordremoth. The only suggestion for such was her desire to "confront" Mordremoth, but that was in the scope of getting answers to questions she had. She never cared about killing Mordremoth, as you claim she did, and she never wanted to work alongside the governments of Tyria.

Her goal was not the demise of Mordremoth. It was the understanding of 'what is Mordremoth'. And she was willing to kill everyone she needed to do so.

Edit 2: Again, I don't view Scarlet as any sort of 'hero,' at least in terms of 'good versus evil' in the traditional sense. We had a shared goal. That. Is. All.No, we had not. :)

Here's my take on it. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the death of an Elder Dragon is probably an unprecedented event throughout the history of the world. The typical cycle would be the Elder Dragons waking up, absorbing magic from the world and causing general catastrophes that would cause mass extinctions or the collapse of any existing civilizations at the time.

So, us destroying Zhaitan was probably a huge shock to the natural order of things and is something the other Elder Dragons, even the slumbering ones, would have no doubt sensed and subsequently reacted to in some manner. The unrivaled power of the Elder Dragons was suddenly, and very violently being challenged by an outside threat, to the point of one of the six being destroyed. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if, following such an exceptional event, the remaining dragons would see fit to try and empower themselves more in order to adequately react to that new threat.

With that in mind, it would make perfect sense for Mordremoth, having sensed Zhaitan's destruction, to subconsciously reach out to one of its minions (in this case, Scarlet) in an effort to spur her into accelerating its awakening, so it could also absorb some of Zhaitan's magic and whatever else it could get its... tendrils on, in order to prepare itself to face the new potential threat to its existence. We see evidence of this through the fact that Mordremoth's minions started exhibiting magical traits similar to that of Zhaitan (as seen through the story), in addition to it positioning itself over a magically rich ley line hub to hasten its own empowerment. Had it waited instead, it might have compromised its own security by giving the pact more time to prepare measures to destroy it, which would not only be a big no no for Mordermoth itself, but as we've recently learned would also threaten to destroy the world as a whole (I mean, for all we know, we're the villains trying to disturb a natural cycle that keeps the world going and Mordremoth is simply trying to protect that cycle from an ignorant meddler).

Of course, all of this is speculation, but to me it makes sense. There's also the idea that Elder Dragons might be rivals with one another, and the thought of a rival absorbing Zhaitan's magic before Mordremoth could caused it to begin acting earlier as well.