Bubbles - Elder Dragon of water and secrets? Or: Why Taimi forgot his name

[Operator.2590]

To add on to what I said earlier--yes, we can absolutely know things about the DSD. It isn't so much knowledge as it is comprehending. We'll use one of my favorite lovecraftian games to date (and the most obvious), Bloodborn. Knowing Eldritch information is known as Insight--and it helps you see and know things you otherwise wouldn't. But, as a double edge sword, that very same knowledge makes it easier to drive you insane--as Eldritch knowledge isn't meant to be known to us. It isn't meant to be comprehended by mere mortals.

@RyuDragnier.9476 said:We could then have Aurene gives us answers, but have some of them obscured. A way to where she can clear things up, but not everything. Like, it exists, its at this position, and these are its powers, but anything on weaknesses, minions, champions ends up being forgotten.

Which is why I like this a lot. Aurene can give us enough clarity to know the essentials, but nothing even close to fathoming or understanding the how and why. And that is classic Eldritch Horror.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Tanith.5264 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Taimi forgot because ArenaNet a) doesn't want to reveal the name or b) haven't made a name they feel is fitting.

One already exists. Cthulhu. Why settle for the lesser evil? ;)

"I am Vorn the Unspeakable!! The skulls of those who defy me bleach in the sun of a Hundred worlds. (politely asks) And you are?"

[perilisk.1874]

Hmmm... maybe Zojja bounced back quickly after HoT and decided to mount an expedition against this dragon, sort of like Braham with Jormag. She even told us all about it and invited Destiny's Edge and the Commander to catch up and help once we were able. Unfortunately, it cursed her with its horrible magic, and now everyone has practically forgotten she ever even existed. She's actually been traveling with us the whole time, occasionally seen or perceived, and then immediately forgotten.

[Fundor.2098]

Abaddon was the god of water and secrets. His influence overran and claimed the Realm of Torment, and pieces of the Realm began to spill over into Tyria. The Chinese manuscript talks about Abaddon being beautiful once, and then he became dark and corrupted by something, presumably the Realm of Torment and his fight with Arachnia. After his fall, Kormir gave up the portfolio of water for an unknown reason, and it was later picked up by Lyssa for safekeeping. Why? And now we have talk about the water dragon being very much eldritch horror themed? I wonder if the water dragon became corrupted by the realm of torment, or by Adaddon's influence, or if the two are linked to Nightfall somehow. Selbbub, the dragon of water and secrets?

But what if it worked the other way around? Would it be possible, that the DSD had corrupted Abaddon instead?"Abaddon gifting magic to humanity" could be a metaphor for him spreading the DSD's corruption. It could also explain why he turned on the other gods so fiercely and why the Five imprisoned him, instead of stripping him of his divine powers, as they did to Balthazar later on.

Abaddon and his Margonite followers were cast out of Tyria into the Realm of Torment, a realm within the Mists which would act as his prison, as his power could not be destroyed.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Abaddon

Maybe the Five imprisoned him, because they wanted to try purifying or healing his ED corruption, either failing at it or being successful - only to realise the whole thing had driven Abaddon mad for the rest of eternity?

And all of this could imply the DSD having secrets as his sphere of influence, which would then again corrupt Abaddon's sphere of knowledge/truth.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Fundor.2098" said:But what if it worked the other way around? Would it be possible, that the DSD had corrupted Abaddon instead?

Abaddon wasn't corrupted by anything. The comment in WP's article by "davekat" misquotes. This is the source Specifically this line: "Abaddon's fall was not overnight, but the evil that was budding in his heart had many long years to simmer." The word "corrupt" is never used (granted, it's a fan translation so there's always room for terminology error). But the implication is that Abaddon's descent into evil was a natural kind of thing.

"Abaddon gifting magic to humanity" could be a metaphor for him spreading the DSD's corruption. It could also explain why he turned on the other gods so fiercely and why the Five imprisoned him, instead of stripping him of his divine powers, as they did to Balthazar later on.

There's no metaphor. Abaddon took the Bloodstone to grant magic to various groups.

As for Abaddon "turn[ing] on the other gods so fiercely", your implication is that he reacted because magic was revoked, but this isn't true. The order of events is:

• The Six decide to spread magic to the Tyrian races; Abaddon takes up this task and spreads it "too freely".
• Margonites, seeing their patron god grant magic, take up worship of Abaddon even stronger and more oppressively. They assault the Temple of the Six, slaughter the non-Abaddon priesthoods, and desecrate the other gods' statues.
• The Forgotten are enraged at this (reason unknown, presumably given location the Temple may have been Forgotten) and wage war on the Margonites.
• The Margonites begin to lose, and Jadoth prays to Abaddon while stuck on an island and witnessing a Forgotten Armada sailing towards him in the distance.
• Abaddon considers for a moment, and decides to answer the prayer of his devoted by wiping out the Forgotten Armada and transforming Jadoth into the form we see in GW1; he does this because he's so annoyed over a long series of events - the revoking of magic and destruction of his faithful in a massive naval battle (my interpretation being that the Forgotten blamed the whole for the actions of a few fanaticals) was merely the straw that broke the camal's back, and not the sole cause as so many people tend to think.
• Abaddon then declares war on the Five Gods.

In short, Abaddon's declaration of war - his "turning on the other gods" - was not caused by them revoking magic, but by his faithful being slaughtered and the Five doing nothing. But even then, based on the much earlier quote about "the evil [...] had many long years to simmer" and all this happening in less than two years, indicate that the revoking of magic and slaughter of his faithful were but the straw that broke the camel's back, and not the leading cause.

Of course, this is all "out of game lore" (despite expanding on things mentioned in-game in GW1) so by modern ArenaNet factors, this means it's all perfectly acceptable to utterly and completely ignore. But until that happens, canon until otherwise.

[Bast.7253]

Well it's anyone's guess what domains the Deep Sea Dragon has now that we've learned Kralk is apparently "Fury" and Primordus is "Conflagaration." They seem kind of random and like they don't really have a whole lot of meaning.

But, and granted all dragons have corruption, I wouldn't be surprised if the deep sea dragon's domains were Water and Corruption. Maybe Water and Deceit.

But I like the idea of the actual domain of Corruption. Especially if they found a way to tie it into the grand scheme of things and the other elder dragons. I think there was a theory awhile back that the dsd could have been what birthed the original madness in Kralk. The livestream mentioned that the combined magics exacerbated it, but posed the question that there could have been something before that.

Aren't the Inquest Subjects always just combined from all other dragons, and in place of the dsd's minion since we still haven't actually seen one in game? Having the DSD link to the others could explain why that Subject is always able to withstand the combination of all of the elder dragons. I mean, Jormag and Primordus supposedly cancel each other out right? Maybe not that simply, but as we saw with Balthazar they have opposing forces. And you would assume the same would apply to Zhaitan and Mordremoth. Since Zhaitan is all about death and Mordremoth is more about blight and almost tumerous level growth.

But anyway, I think it would also be a good counter having the dsd possess that kind of connection in opposition to Aurene, who is already known to be able to create harmony among the different magics. And the similar nature between water and crystal.

Personally I've always liked the idea of the dsd being involved in Abaddon's downfall. Sure, it wasn't overnight, but could one of the earlier visits of the gods have given way to the dsd having somekind of corrosive effect on Abaddon? It feels a little bit more interesting, to me at least, than having his fall solely stem from the hatred in his heart or whatever. I mean I guess that's kind of a Lucifer trope or something, but eh...

I also like the idea of DSD being behind the magic that turned the Jade Sea into, well, Jade, and the forest to stone. Sure, it was supposedly magic from Dwayna that Shiro stole that caused it, but then we have the solid ocean fractal with tentacle monsters everywhere which.. sorry.. but no matter what profession Shiro is in lore or how edgy he is, why would his magic take on that form or have that much power? I mean, it took Abaddon dying to turn the Crystal Sea into the Desert, so why does a little gift of magic from Dwayna have that adverse of an effect on an entire region? It's just always felt like there was something more going on here or being hinted at.

I also wish we had more on the Artisanal Waters and what originally drew the Gods to Tyria. I mean, I get that Zhaitan was underneath that area, but it still feels like it has room to be fleshed out more.

Then again the same could be said for pretty much all of the lore in this game, it's always left so open ended or there's always some random 180 somewhere that makes you remember that they really just kind of write all of this on the fly. Which is why I think adamantly defending existing lore, dialogue, or claiming someone is wrong with 100% certainty is kind of a fool's errand.

At their current pace, and in the game's current state, I really don't feel like we'll get to a point where we replace all 6 elder dragons, and wouldn't be surprised to see Aurene take up the mantle as the one that balances it all. I'm not really offended by it, but it certainly doesn't add up to what they've previously established.

Either way though, it's a stalemate right now, because no matter how different Aurene is, if she isn't capable of solely holding that balance, we're not going to kill Jormag, Primordus, or the dsd, because we'll tip the scales too far according to what's already been established.

So that leaves us with several things moving forward:

1. Finding another dragon to replace Jormag.
2. Finding some other means to replace Jormag, whether it be the spirits of the wild or some ordinary being and newly discovered secrets via Taimi that make way for a multitude of possibilities with the story moving forward.
3. Aurene being able to balance it all, and we either kill Jormag and Aurene takes the power boost... or:
4. This talk of Lovecraftian horror, usually saved to describe the DSD and its minions, eludes to Jormag offering us alliance in the fight against the DSD, who just got a tasty little magic snack dropped into the ocean. (And no matter how far out or down he is in the ocean, you can't tell me he didn't notice when we have Mordremoth stretching his legs all the way over to Ascalon.)
5. The next threat we face is from the mists and Kralk's rift shenanigans was the catalyst that brought them here.

Personally, I don't really have any clue on what's next or have any expectations, and there are a lot of things I would like to see.

Going back on what I said earlier though, I think it would be pretty interesting to have the DSD be at the heart of a lot of events in history as a kind of hidden mastermind. Whether it be Shiro's effects on Cantha, Abaddon's fall, all the elder dragons slowly going insane and becoming these ravenous malevolent forces, etc. Would be funny to think that all along, we thought the DSD was only a threat in the ocean and thus left out of the forefront of the story, only to find out that its been the root cause of so many of the events that have transpired and led us to where we are now. It doesn't need to make itself known, because it has everything it needs right where it's at.

[Stephen.6312]

@"Lurana.7506" said:After I checked out WP's video (

) about the "Bound by Blood" Magazine, I saw an interesting comment about Taimi. In the video they talked about the possibility that Bubbles might be an enormous threat so that Jormag wants to provide help and persuades us to join him to grant us help in return.Taimi said in one instance (LS 3) she forgot the name of one ED:

After exiting the simulationCharacter name: Outside a few monkey anomalies, the room was very impressive. Next time, you'll have to program in some Jormag minions.Character name: Any idea what's happening with the other Elder Dragons?Taimi: Nothing on Kralkatorrik, and ditto for... Oh, what's its name? Brain malfunction. Starts with an s...?.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taimi%27s_Game

That must be Bubbles because we already knew the names of all the other ED's. And here's what one comment under WP's video stated:

Abaddon was the god of water and secrets. His influence overran and claimed the Realm of Torment, and pieces of the Realm began to spill over into Tyria. The Chinese manuscript talks about Abaddon being beautiful once, and then he became dark and corrupted by something, presumably the Realm of Torment and his fight with Arachnia. After his fall, Kormir gave up the portfolio of water for an unknown reason, and it was later picked up by Lyssa for safekeeping. Why? And now we have talk about the water dragon being very much eldritch horror themed? I wonder if the water dragon became corrupted by the realm of torment, or by Adaddon's influence, or if the two are linked to Nightfall somehow. Selbbub, the dragon of water and secrets?

Even though I doubt that an ED got "corrupted" like this, the comment made me think about the relation of water and secrets in the Guild Wars lore.

So here's what I'm thinking: What if part of Bubbles magic is that everyone forgets information about him? Just like the Silence, for every Doctor Who fan out there. That would explain why we have so few details about him, just a few Canthan sailors told stories about strange things happening in the Unending Ocean. It would also fit thematically (deep water - bad sight - washing away stuff (like memories) - secret). Taimi wouldn't forget the name of an ED and I doubt she is lying to us - so it might be part of their (Bubble's) magic? So Sailors knew something happened but we never actually got a proof that it has something to do with an ED. Maybe just nobody is able to remember them or information about them (e.g. their name, appearance, whatever).Finally this might fit the Cthulhu themed horror style the Devs mentioned in their announcement.Just imagine fighting an enemy no one is able to remember - but everyone knows is there. Imagine story instances in which even we as the player don't know what happened because the screen gets black and our PC "teleported" to another location as soon as we are able "to see" again - just because the PC can't remember, too. Just imagine the ways one could portray this in game play. And maybe that's the reason, we might ending up joining Jormag? Maybe Bubbles is the threat they were warning about in the trailer? Maybe Bubbles is one of the "trials to come".What are you guys thinking about this?

I think that you're right. The water sphere of magic is somehow hidden from terrestrial magicians. It's possible that the point where the air meets water, such as the horizon, has something to do with the fabric of reality. That is, this point of contact, this interface, may be one manifestation of the fabric. For terrestrial magicians, trying to penetrate the surface of the water involves trying to pierce the fabric of reality and this membranous veil is behind memory lapses, poor vision and the like.