After EoD: Bolt and Deep Sea Dragon

[LadyKitty.6120]

Kitty finally made Bolt yesterday and today upon inspecting the text from adding it to armory, it read "Interwoven with an impression of a dragon whose name Tyria is yet to learn, Bolt is imbued with strength of a storm-swelling inside it like a thunderous inferno, eager to aid its wielder in combat".

Upon taking a closer look at it, especially at hilt, there's indeed a dragon head, there's a noodle woven in the structure of the blade and claws like Soo-Won's. As a whole, it does resemble our now-familiar (albeit shorter and fancier) noodle a lot in Kitty's opinion.

For reference, image from wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/a6/Bolt.jpg/1280px-Bolt.jpg

Any thoughts? Did Anet already sneaky-spoil Soo-Won's appearance long ago?

[DanAlcedo.3281]

As others have said before on that topic. 

I does not have to be an elder dragon. 

Could be a long dead lesser dragon or one in a place we didn't go yet. 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

Or whatever kept at bay by the fact that there were dragons and gods in Tyria and now it's empty and basically free for all.

Or something that was sealed long ago and find a way to get out of it's prison due to the fact that magic could be unstable after the dragons were ended.

Or whatever classic or original trope the scenarists can imagine. (it could be the inquest doing stupid experiments, centaur attacking divinity reach, Kraiths sending an army of slave, horrors coming out of the fractal or even a Skriit finding a shiny while some Quaggan are qooing)

 

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

There's a huge difference between the Bolt dragon and Soo-Won: Soo-Won doesn't have wings.

 

Soo-Won is, to be specific, a Lindwurm design of dragons: two forelimbs, no hindlimbs, no wings, and a snake-like body. A lot of eastern styled dragons are in this design, a snake-like body with either just two forelimbs or both two forelimbs and two hindlimbs (sometimes called a 'lung dragon' or aptly, a 'long dragon').

The Bolt Dragon in contrast, which might not be an Elder Dragon as DanAlcedo said, has no limbs (fore or hind) but has two wings, making it a amphithere much like our legendary dragonling Xiuquatl. Though I should say the Bolt Dragons, as there are four dragons (or one repeated four times) woven throughout the blade from hilt to tip. The heads also match the GW2 logo head pretty well, which is also the shape of the head of GW1 Primordus, the Jormag Totems, and the Sons of Svanir logo. I would disagree with it matching Soo-Won's head - she lacks the little snout horn, or the back of the head spikes (she has whiskers and antlers instead, respectively).

Edited June 2, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Kalavier.1097]

As mentioned, there are more then the Elder Dragons. The regular dragons exist and while we don't have encounters with all of them, it's not surprising that one may have inspired Bolt.

[ugrakarma.9416]

Would be too odd Anet spoil ED design on a weapon design.

even if they did give spoilers, they have a history of problem between the intended design of dragons and in-game adaptation.

I suspect Soon-Woon was mechanically developed using the Mouth of Mordremoth. So the snake-like design is convenient.

side topic: would be cool if potential spoils gain life on the game lore like "menzies fate".

Edited June 3, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Tyson.5160]

The text states that it’s an impression of a dragon, whose name Tyria has yet to know, so it could represent Soo Won, like an imitation of, but not exact copy.  Similiar to the Jormag idols and Jormag graffiti not looking like Jormag, but representing Jormag.

[draxynnic.3719]

I was thinking myself that the design might be stylised, but I'd find it unlikely that a wingless dragon would be stylised to have wings unless the artist really had no idea. What is fairly common from what I've seen, though, is depicting a dragon that does have legs as a serpent with wings.

Soo-Won also didn't seem to have a lot of lightning attacks from what I recall, being mainly focused on water effects. Lightning was more Kralkatorrik's thing, but Bolt's dragons don't look like Shattered dragons. Know what does have wings, a generally serpentine appearance, and often associated with lightning? Saltsprays. Corrupted Saltsprays in GW2 appear to use a variety of elements, but in GW1, most Saltsprays, including Kuunavang, used a mix of fire and lightning.

So it's possible that the dragons on Bolt are stylised Saltsprays. Raises the question of whether the lore is saying that the creator of Bolt based it on a dragon that was known to exist but the name wasn't known, or if the "whose name Tyria is yet to learn" bit could actually mean that people don't know which dragon the creator intended to give homage to. Could be a bit of both. Maybe it was some random saltspray (or family of saltsprays) that the original creator wanted to pay homage to, but the subject(s) simply didn't have historical significance except as the inspiration for Bolt.

If they are Saltsprays, though, it's possible that we'll find out in the upcoming season. We've had legendaries trigger different dialogue boxes before with Astralaria - would be interesting if, at some point, people who have Bolt when running into a future Saltspray character get a "hey, that's me!" response.