Sajuuk Khar.1509

Having Malyck and his tree show up in HoT. Hes one of the few plot threads in GW2 of any sort of significance that isn't resolved, or has a logical "in road" into the story to be resolved.

And a book in Path of Fire says the Six went to another planet, to terraform it into a paradise, and that they would return to Tyria and take their followers there once they are done.

Unrelated, but I am also guessing that Anet is setting up Braham to be Asgeir 2.0. Braham already has a weapon infused with Jotun magic(the bow), has gone north with a band of warriors(Dragon's Watch), has been given power by the spirits of the wild(Wolf, Ox, Eagle, Wolverine), killed a champion of Jormag with the spirit's help(Drakkar) and Jormag's already tied to mess with his mind. Unlike Asgier however, who had his entire hunting party get destroyed, leaving him alone to be manipulated by Jormag, Dragon Watch isn't all going to die, so Jormag's attempt to manipulate Braham will fail in the end, and, while Braham probably wont get the FINAL blow, he is going to do what Asgeir failed and use the bow to help kill Jormag.

If we take the world map of Tyriahttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/be/Tyria_%28world%29_map_2.pngAnd wrap it around a globehttps://i.imgur.com/qGVkbGt.pngWe end up with a situation where many of these zones would realistically be as large, or larger, then some states in the U.S. Whereas Primordus would only be a coupe miles wide using his head as a reference.

One could even argue him getting smaller throughout the various model changes was simply him compressing his body size down, not like he HAS any actual organs inside him really. He could probably make himself any size he wanted so long as he had enough material and magic to control it.

Honestly, people should be more concerned about the game not being finished, then Anet needing to think up some sort of post-Dragon narrative,

Also, going straight west or southwest wouldn't have worked due that giant, unscalable, ice wall on the western end of Bjora Marches, that seems to extend past the map in both directions. Bangar's army would have been forced to skirt around it, probably onto the giant ice lake, and then arrive in southern Drizzlewood, and then go north.

Jormag's idea is how to save the world is as it says "Ice fortifies. Ice protects" which is alluded to in this translation with the line The game has made it pretty clear at this point, the Dragons, and their minions, are liars, don't listen to them, don't consider anything they say, don't believe for a moment anything they say is true, its all a ruse. All they want is everything for themselves.

After posting a similar thread on Reddit, I figured I might as well do so here. This is how I suspect the rest of the season will go based on how the current plot is progressing, and how Anet has handled previous stories. The next story chapter is obviously going to take us to the northern part of Drizzlewood, where we will be continuing to follow Bangar, and trying to stop him from waking Jormag. We will obviously fail at this, and Jormag will almost certainly be awake by the end of the next story chapter. Bangar might die here, I could see him trying to use the bow to control Jormag, only to have Jormag just annihilate him now that his purpose is served, and all the Charr under him are Frostbrood. That, or he will be transformed into a Frostbrood champion by Jormag that we will either kill here, or later during the final battle. Probably the latter if anything. The next two chapters after that will probably be the Icebrood Saga's "mcguffin" section. The Rata Novus/Thunderhead Peaks story segment where we go somewhere to find some specific magic/technology/knowledge needed to stop Jormag. They will also most likely have a shared map like Bjora and Drizzlewood. I am not 100% sure where this will be, Thunderhead Peaks was itself something of a curve ball with the rest of the season location wise, but given that I've yet to see any suggestion the world map will be expanded, and that the story so far has been up north, and that we saw a section in the trailer with centaurs and human slaves, we may see another map in the Woodland Cascades, covering the main center section of it. The chapter after that will be the "fight Jormag" story section. Icebrood Saga's Dragon's Stand/Dragonfall map, where we deal with Jormag. Again, assuming they don't expand the map further north, this makes most sense to take place in that big ice lake area between Bjora, Drizzlewood, the EoTN, and Bitterfrost, as Jormag was already known to hang out around there back when Bitterfrost came out. I will also say this one will probably not be a two parter like Bjora, or Drizzlewood, but instead a single map like the other Dragon fight maps. I just don't see them splitting the big dragon fight meta into two separate, unconnected, metas. Now, I will say that I doubt this will be Icebrood Saga's last chapter. Icebrood Saga is different from the previous LW seasons in that its called a Saga, a term used for a long, epic, story, and has a dedicated prologue chapter unlike LWS 2, 3, and 4. Long epic stories that have a prologue tend to have an epilogue, and I could easily see Icebrood Saga having an epilogue chapter as well, taking place after Jormag is dead, and leading into the upcoming Cantha expansion. The most obvious place would be the Dominion of Winds, with the Tengu deciding to open it now that four of the dragons are dead. This will end with them either proclaiming they are going back to retake their homelands in Cantha, or the Canthan's just attack for seemingly no reason, leaving us going "welp, time to go to Cantha to figure this out" for the expansion. I will also guess that we will get Vision of the Past updates between Drizzlewood, and the next map, and between that map and the Jormag fight map, and these will show more of Ryland's action in between the story segments. Right off the bat I can see the next one dealing with Bangar's assault on the villages in southern Drizzlewood, and Ryland not being comfortable with killing all these people for no reason. Ryland will probably defect from Bangar at the end of the next chapter, after seeing how badly hes screwed up with trying to reign in Jormag. That doesn't necessarily mean hes going to join us, especially not after what Smodur did, but I don't see him staying with Bangar. With an average of 2 months between releases, and about 6-7 more releases before Icebrood Saga is likely over, this should take us into the middle of next year at the earliest, probably a little later in the year, and the expansion will come out a bit after that.

One could argue Jormag went more south to try to soak up some more of that delicious magic from Zhaitan and Mordremoth's deaths, and then went a bit back north after he got all he could from being so far away, but still in his controlled zone.

We are only like.... 4/9ths of the way through the Icebrood Saga. Not even technically half way. Less if we get another Visions of the Past type update. Plenty of time for some Norn stuff.

Its been stated that Bangar is going north to try to waken Jormag. Ryland and the forces he is commanding are likely just there to stall us. While we got ambushed by Frost Legion forces at the Bridge the end of this release, we also still canonally hold all the territory. If anything, I suspect Ryland will go north to meet up with Bangar, having delayed us a sufficient amount of time already. I would suspect we go north to find Ryland/Bangar, have some big fight at some ice fortress of doom, the Charr Civil War conflict is ended(not that Bangar or Ryland are dead mind you), and then the rest of the season is us still chasing down Banger, he wakes up Jomarg, we do something to remove Jormag as a problem(either we kill it or something) and then maybe we get some sort of tease to lead into the Cantha plot.

I do think this dev comment from late last year is very relevanthttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/997916/#Comment_997916

There is absolutely nothing colonialist about the Charr realizing their society is broken, and at least one of them trying to fix it. Colonialism would require an outside force coming in and making them change, this is purely an internal matter. The commander is making none of these changes, Crecia is. You are fundamentally wrong about the Klingons in Star Trek. In fact, its a pretty big point throughout The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 that the Klingon Empire is broken, and corrupt, and needs to change. Throughout both shows these corrupt elements are exposed and cut out, and it all comes to a head in Depp Space 9 when Ezri Dax tells Worf that the Klingon Empire is dying, and she believes it deserves to die, due to how corrupt it is, pointing out that Worf is the most honorable Klingon she knows, and even he just sits by and lets the corruption fester. This leads to Worf challenging the leader of the Klingon Empire, Gowron, and killing him in battle, and then handing the leadership of the Empire to the Klingon Martok, one of the few truly honorable Klingons, with the show heavily suggesting that Martok will lead the Klingons into a new age of actual honor, and cast aside the blood lust that has ruled Klingons since the Enterprise era. These sorts of large scale changes happen to not only the Klingons, but also the Cardassians, Ferengi, and Dominion. All of them start off with vastly different cultures then they end up with, and what they end up with is something closer to Federation(human) ideals, because all of their societies were shown to be broken as they were, and eventually it just broke down and change was forced. Hell, we know that the Klingons move so close to human ideals that they end up joining the Federation outright sometime in the future. It doesn't matter how Charr civilization developed, there are basic ideals of unalienable rights that are fundamentally intrinsic to all life. That Charr society allows people like Bangar, and Smodur, to exist, and allows them to throw away these intrinsic rights, means their society is broken, and we are seeing the result of that now. It should not be acceptable no matter the perspective,. Its telling that, in situations like those regarding children and fahrars, even after centuries of separating children from their parents to be put into the fahrars, and being told that you shouldn't really care or look up on your children, that we know MANY MANY Charr do, because even they are, at least subconsciously, aware that the entire system is dumb and broken to begin with. They are just so Stockholm Syndromed into accepting it few do anything about it. I honestly expect that, maybe not within the timeframe of GW2, but at some point in the future, everything that happens in this arc will lead to the breakdown and dismantling of Charr society as we know it currently because it simply cannot hold as is. The Olmakhan split off to escape the brutal persecution and discrimination of the Flame Legion they came from. The game makes no effort to show the side as anything other then black and white, because the situation was just that. The Flame Legion at the time was indisputably bad, and the Olmakhan left because they couldn't stand it, and are good for it.

The Charr have all the same problems the Klingons form Star Trek do, in that they are a race dedicated solely to war and violence, but war and violence are only a means to an end, not an end themselves. But the Charr, like the Klingons, have no sort of idea or plan for once that end is reached. Because of this, even if the Charr manage to take over the whole world, they will still need to keep their war machine going, and will inevitably turn on themselves, and consume themselves in that same war... which is pretty much what is happening right now. As has been said, the Charr have always had enemies... but what do they do once they don't? They turn on themselves. The ghosts aren't a major problem anymore, the Flame Legion has been defeated, and re-assimilated, there is peace with the humans, and three of the Elder Dragons are dead, including the one that was giving them the most trouble. And now, left absent a major enemy, the Charr society begins its collapse in on itself via infighting. What we are seeing now is the Charr's "Undiscovered Country" moment, where the Charr have to realize their entire civilization is fundamentally broken as is, and that things have to change if they want to survive. Crecia is basically the Charr's Gorkon, the leader who is willing to go against the norms to fix things, while Bangar and Smodur are the Charr's General Changs, the guys who want things to be the way they were, even if its obviously stupidly bad for them. Its really no different then the Norn's problem of caring about the "individual" to the point they basically lack a society, something even the Spirits of the Wild noticed and led them south so they wouldn't all die trying to take Jormag on one at a time. Or the Asura's egotism being so massive that their civilization basically spins its wheels in the mud all the time since 90% of what they invent is lost because no one is willing to share. Non-human civilization in fantasy and scifi exist to take on aspect of humanity, and personify it to the extreme, to point out the obvious flaws in such a society. This is true of Elves and Dwarfs in fantasy settings, to the Klingons and Romulans in scifi like Star Trek.

Making it to where Bangar gets the final kill on the Whisper allows Bangar to claim the victory over the dragon champion, and get more Charr on his side(as we hear has happened already), this in turn makes Bangar's rebellion stronger, causing fracturing within the ranks of the Charr, who have served as the military backbone of the Pact's armies thus far. In a perfect scenario, this rebellion could collapse Charr society entirely, removing them from the equation in term of forces Jormag and his Icebrood have to combat. Even if it doesn't(which it wont because the player will save the day) this still causes a massive disruption among Charr society, a lot of wasted resources, and a fracturing of the combined might of the Charr which is likely to last awhile, again, weakening the position that stands before him. To make it better, Jormag could theoretically just make another Whisper, slap it into another minion, and get back the mental subversion machine he had with Drakkar.