Is the Pale Tree a dragon?

[Jimbru.6014]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

Your "simplest explanation" is false, because Malyck. And Svanir. And Mazdak. And pretty much every single dragon minion that has a large distance to its Elder Dragon, but shows absolutely no difference. As well as the entire point of Glint's purification ritual being unique, as that and the entire Orr campaign is repeatedly stressing the fact that dragon minions have their very will and mind enslaved and nothing bar that or similar purification rituals can free their mind and give them new free will.

My simplest explanation is no more or less correct than yours, my speculative friend.

The simplest explanation is that a group used a ritual similar to that used on Glint on the cave of seeds Ronan found, thus explaining not just the Pale Tree, but Malyck too.

You're assuming an event that has no canon lore at all to support it. At least my argument fits the present conditions as we know them.

However, your point about dragon corruption being nigh irreversible, does bring up an idea: that the seeds which Ronan found were not yet truly corrupted by Mordremoth as the Mordrem and Blighting Trees are. Supporting that, we have Malyck and his pod which we find in the personal story, which also show no signs of Mordrem style corruption. So perhaps the Pale Tree grew up as she did, with Ronan and Ventari able to benevolently guide her, because she was both distant from Mordremoth AND she wasn't ever truly corrupted in the first place.

That said, the Pale Tree and Sylvari still had a connection to Mordremoth. By logical extension, that would also include Malyck. I now wonder if Malyck was actually a scout sent by Mordremoth under more subtle or suggestive influence, and that's why he vanished after the character's personal story. His sense of distance and loss -- from his creator, not unlike the lost confusion of the Mordrem in canon after Mordy's death. And once his secret (even to him) scouting mission was complete (locating the Sylvari and learning a bit about them) he headed west to find "his people" -- and likely ended up becoming a full fledged Mordrem indistinguishable from the horde, hence his utter disappearance.

Also, Caladbolg happened during the later half of Season 3, which would be just under 2 years ago. Not 4.

Incorrect. You get the Broken Caladbolg upon completing the Hearts & Minds mission, which is the end of HoT. Then upon the next daily reset after that, you get the letter that starts the quest line to repair Caladbolg. One right after the other. So 4 years is actually right. And when you finish repairing Caladbolg, that's the last we've heard from the Pale Tree.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"DarcShriek.5829" said:Of the champions you mentioned, only one belonged to Mordremoth. The devs have explained the Mordremoth's corruption is different than the other dragons. When we met Malyck there seemed to be no mordremoth influence on him. Am I forgetting something. We don't know where he came from as we never located his tree and we really don't know how he got to us. we only have a vague understanding about his whereabouts and therefore he proves nothing.Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Svanir become a champion at Lake Drakkar? Isn't there a dragon champion frozen in Lake Drakkar? Finally why were all the sylvari that fell for Mordremoth near Maguuma? why didn't they fall for him in ascalon? Proximity to elder dragons does make a difference. Aerin didn't come under mordremoths influence until he was close.

Would like a source for your dev statement, since from what we see in the game and what we were told in this post by Scott McGough, Mordremoth's corruption is ultimately very similar to other dragons' corruption. Particularly to Primordus. Like Primordus, Mordremoth focuses on creating minions by corrupting the environment - though he can corrupt living beings, slowly turning flesh into plant akin to parasitic growths ala The Thing. The main difference between Primordus and Mordremoth is where Primordus creates abstract mockeries with insectoid features, Mordremoth creates "clones". Like someone drawing from memory versus someone tracing.

Mentally speaking, mordrem are just as enslaved to their dragon as destroyers, icebrood, branded, and risen.

The only minions ever stated and shown to function differently are sylvari, and this is thanks to the Pale Tree and the fact they're somehow "cleansed".

Malyck did indeed have no Mordremoth influence on him, which is to my point: Unlike the Pale Tree, Malyck had no nurturing. People like to proclaim that Ventari and/or Ronan's kind nurturing of the Pale Tree is what made her not enslaved to Mordremoth's will. But besides the fact that the Orr campaign repeatedly states that minions are enslaved and it isn't a mere choice they can make to serve or betray their dragon (the belief that nurture can free a dragon minion largely stemming from the misconception that Glint chose to betray Kralkatorrik, when she was only able to do so after the Forgotten cleansed her), there was nothing magical about Ventari or Ronan's actions.

The reason why the "simplest reason" presented is false because of Malyck, is because Malyck nor his tree had no shown influence from external forces, and certainly not Ventari and Ronan as influences. Nor do they have access to the Dream of Dreams. This signifies that whatever allowed the Pale Tree to break free - and thus allowed Malyck to not be enslaved - predates Ronan finding the cave, as it had to happen to both seeds.

@Teratus.2859 said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

The Mouth is stated to be his body. While we don't see the tail, his body is only ever shown to be serpentine. In every depiction, even when Kralkatorrik's charging his laser.

The Heart of Thorns is a location, that location being the tree which is his base, the heart of his thorn-riddled domain.

@Jimbru.6014 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

Your "simplest explanation" is false, because Malyck. And Svanir. And Mazdak. And pretty much every single dragon minion that has a large distance to its Elder Dragon, but shows absolutely no difference. As well as the entire point of Glint's purification ritual being unique, as that and the entire Orr campaign is repeatedly stressing the fact that dragon minions have their very will and mind enslaved and nothing bar that or similar purification rituals can free their mind and give them new free will.

My simplest explanation is no more or less correct than yours, my speculative friend.

The simplest explanation is that a group used a ritual similar to that used on Glint on the cave of seeds Ronan found, thus explaining not just the Pale Tree, but Malyck too.

You're assuming an event that has no canon lore at all to support it. At least my argument fits the present conditions as we know them.

Malyck's Tree was cleansed. Pale Tree was cleansed. This is both canon lore. We had dev confirmation that Malyck's Tree was not a Blighting Tree, and it produced a sylvari, not a mordrem.

Since there is no event for which the Pale Tree could be cleansed after Ronan found the cave, and another seed from the cave was cleansed too, the only point in which a cleansing could occur is either a) before the seeds were put in the cave, or b) while the seeds were in the cave.

This is a logical deduction supported by canon lore.

What has no canon lore to support it, but in fact has canon lore to outright debunk it, is the proclamation that nurture or distance can free dragon minions.

@Jimbru.6014 said:However, your point about dragon corruption being nigh irreversible, does bring up an idea: that the seeds which Ronan found were not yet truly corrupted by Mordremoth as the Mordrem and Blighting Trees are. Supporting that, we have Malyck and his pod which we find in the personal story, which also show no signs of Mordrem style corruption. So perhaps the Pale Tree grew up as she did, with Ronan and Ventari able to benevolently guide her, because she was both distant from Mordremoth AND she wasn't ever truly corrupted in the first place.

Except that it's outright stated, repeatedly, that the Pale Tree and sylvari are minions of Mordremoth, that they are "meant to serve" Mordremoth.

This means that they were corrupted, 100%. And since they're not enslaved, this means that they were cleansed.

There is no "partial corruption". There are three states: Not corrupted, corrupted, and cleansed from corrupted. No middle grounds.

@Jimbru.6014 said:That said, the Pale Tree and Sylvari still had a connection to Mordremoth. By logical extension, that would also include Malyck. I now wonder if Malyck was actually a scout sent by Mordremoth under more subtle or suggestive influence, and that's why he vanished after the character's personal story. His sense of distance and loss -- from his creator, not unlike the lost confusion of the Mordrem in canon after Mordy's death. And once his secret (even to him) scouting mission was complete (locating the Sylvari and learning a bit about them) he headed west to find "his people" -- and likely ended up becoming a full fledged Mordrem indistinguishable from the horde, hence his utter disappearance.

ArenaNet devs pretty much confirmed that Malyck was not corrupted or serving Mordremoth. He didn't "vanish" so much as his story was cut from HoT. They fully intended to include him, but scrapped him because of time and "too many side plots" (sadly, really; they really could (and imo should have) have replaced the Ogre meta and tree in Tangled Depths for Malyck's and it would have been dandy).

They also confirmed last April that one of them (Matthew Medina) was drafting a story for bringing Malyck into the game. What happened to that is unclear, as was what format it was intended for (fractal? raid? side story? expansion? LWS4/5?). Should be noted, Matthew Medina worked on PoF so he was part of the expansion team. So we may see Malyck in Expansion 3 (unless the PoF team got put on S5?).

Also, Caladbolg happened during the later half of Season 3, which would be just under 2 years ago. Not 4.

Incorrect. You get the Broken Caladbolg upon completing the Hearts & Minds mission, which is the end of HoT. Then upon the next daily reset after that, you get the letter that starts the quest line to repair Caladbolg. One right after the other. So 4 years is actually right. And when you finish repairing Caladbolg, that's the last we've heard from the Pale Tree.

It requires completing Heart of Thorns to access, and you can do it before starting Season 3, but that doesn't mean it happens right after completing HoT. It was released between Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 3. ArenaNet considers release order to be the chronological order.

Which means, in canon chronology, Caladbolg was reforged after Caudecus was killed, but before Balthazar was found out.

[Tyson.5160]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Yeah Mordremoth was essentially a large seed spouting massive vines and serpent like appendages.He didn't look like a traditional dragon at all which is one of the reasons I like him so much.

He was a serpentine dragon. There's plenty of such designs through mesoamerican and asian mythologies.

His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

Isn’t the large tree in Dragon’s Stand where the double helix is, the Heart of Thorns?

[Tyson.5160]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It requires completing Heart of Thorns to access, and you can do it before starting Season 3, but that doesn't mean it happens right after completing HoT. It was released between Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 3. ArenaNet considers release order to be the chronological order.

Which means, in canon chronology, Caladbolg was reforged after Caudecus was killed, but before Balthazar was found out.

Im going to disagree with this because, what I think has happened is Anet noticed there was no proper conclusion for Heart of Thorns and added this stuff in retroactively. If you don’t have Season 3 and are able to do this content with just Heart of Thorns then I would say it was more of concluding point of HoT.

Very similar to how they went back and retroactively added a conclusion area for prophecies with droknars forge explorable. If we used the same logic there the ending for that last area, it would technically happened after eye of the north, which wouldn’t make any sense.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

Isn’t the large tree in Dragon’s Stand where the double helix is, the Heart of Thorns?

Yes.

@Tyson.5160 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

It requires completing Heart of Thorns to access, and you can do it before starting Season 3, but that doesn't mean it happens right after completing HoT. It was released between Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 3. ArenaNet considers release order to be the chronological order.

Which means, in canon chronology, Caladbolg was reforged after Caudecus was killed, but before Balthazar was found out.

Im going to disagree with this because, what I think has happened is Anet noticed there was no proper conclusion for Heart of Thorns and added this stuff in retroactively. If you don’t have Season 3 and are able to do this content with just Heart of Thorns then I would say it was more of concluding point of HoT.

Very similar to how they went back and retroactively added a conclusion area for prophecies with droknars forge explorable. If we used the same logic there the ending for that last area, it would technically happened after eye of the north, which wouldn’t make any sense.

ArenaNet didn't really use the same logic in releases back then, and that's a clear direct continuation due to ending up there after the final mission. Caladbolg Reforged, however, is not directly tied to the main story, but is a side story triggered by completing the main story. And literally every other release in Current Events (now Side Story) was a current event.

Hence the name of the category.

As in, it happening currently at the timefame of release. Not "this happened a year ago chronologically" but "this is happening now chronologically".

[Tyson.5160]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

Isn’t the large tree in Dragon’s Stand where the double helix is, the Heart of Thorns?

Yes

.

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It requires completing Heart of Thorns to access, and you can do it before starting Season 3, but that doesn't mean it happens right after completing HoT. It was released between Episodes 4 and 5 of Season 3. ArenaNet considers release order to be the chronological order.

Which means, in canon chronology, Caladbolg was reforged after Caudecus was killed, but before Balthazar was found out.

Im going to disagree with this because, what I think has happened is Anet noticed there was no proper conclusion for Heart of Thorns and added this stuff in retroactively. If you don’t have Season 3 and are able to do this content with just Heart of Thorns then I would say it was more of concluding point of HoT.

Very similar to how they went back and retroactively added a conclusion area for prophecies with droknars forge explorable. If we used the same logic there the ending for that last area, it would technically happened after eye of the north, which wouldn’t make any sense.

ArenaNet didn't really use the same logic in releases back then, and that's a clear direct continuation due to ending up there after the final mission. Caladbolg Reforged, however, is not directly tied to the main story, but is a side story triggered by completing the main story. And literally every other release in Current Events (now Side Story) was a

current

event.

Hence the name of the category.

As in, it happening

currently

at the timefame of release. Not "this happened a year ago chronologically" but "this is happening now chronologically".

Which is fair but any new player would never know that when going through the game especially if they don’t have Season 3. Much like a new player of GW1, wouldn’t know there was never a droknars forge explorable originally.

I would argue that the very reason they attached it to the main story progression was as a continuation of Heart of Thorns, not something chronologically attached to Season 3, even though it came out much later during Season 3. I would be more inclined to agree with you if it wasn’t attached to finishing Hearts and Minds.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Tyson.5160" said:Which is fair but any new player would never know that when going through the game especially if they don’t have Season 3. Much like a new player of GW1, wouldn’t know there was never a droknars forge explorable originally.

I would argue that the very reason they attached it to the main story progression was as a continuation of Heart of Thorns, not something chronologically attached to Season 3, even though it came out much later during Season 3. I would be more inclined to agree with you if it wasn’t attached to finishing Hearts and Minds.

Sure but by the argument that Caladbolg Regrown is pre-S3 because "people don't know when they were released" and "it's related to what it's attached to" would be like saying the first achievement of flyers and bandit champions are retroactive additions to core and that they take place in 1325 AE, long before Caudecus prepared to wage war on Divinity's Reach, and the same goes towards the ley-line anomaly and other ley-line overflow events.

But we know for a fact they're all post-HoT, all part of mid-Season 3.

The reason why it's attached to Hearts and Minds is no doubt to prevent spoiling new players. The first set of posters don't really spoil anything except the existence of airships and the Toxic Alliance. The second set, however, outright reveals Caudecus as a White Mantle member but requires completing S3E1 story to unlock. ArenaNet is capable of gating certain content, and usually do when they can and the content is spoiling content, like the second set of posters and Caladbolg Regrown.

If the content doesn't spoil plot, then ArenaNet is unlikely to gate it behind something else, such as the first set of posters. That doesn't mean the first set of posters are retroactively 1325 AE dated, just that players can see and interact with them at any point.

[Jimbru.6014]

Done with this discussion. Not going to continue with somebody who's obviously made up their mind beforehand.

[Teratus.2859]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

The Mouth is stated to be his body. While we don't see the tail, his body is only ever shown to be serpentine. In every depiction, even when Kralkatorrik's charging his laser.

The Heart of Thorns is a location, that location being the tree which is his base, the heart of his thorn-riddled domain.

It's both a location and Mordremoth, The tree is corrupted but also part of him.. where his mind is located and where his physical body the mouth and all his vines originate from.His physical core.. the heart or seed is rooted deep under that tree but it's all him.. all of it is Modremoth, the mouth the tree and everything connected to them.. all Mordremoth.The Mouth itself apparently being a manifestation of his hunger he could create/regrow them every time they died and did so multiple times apparently although we only seem to fight the one ingame the pact apparently fought and killed multiple mouths before/during and after we destroyed his mind.Even once his mind was destroyed his physical body lived on for a time until the last mouth was destroyed.The way the Dragon Stand meta resets.. kill the mouth then he wipes the map and resets it is pretty lore friendly.. the next mouth you fight in the next meta is supposed to be a new one.The only thing to overlook is the death scene which is only to symbolize the final death of the the last mouth.. it's only really relevant if it's the last time a player does that event.. otherwise we just ignore it and don't question why there's not a hundred corpses wrapped around the tree every time we come back xD

His physical body could always be destroyed and hacked apart but he'd always regrow it so long as his mind was intact.. and even if we dropped a nuke on the Magumma Jungle he'd be able to transfer his mind into any of his minions and regrow himself somewhere else in the world.Once we killed his mind though.. that's when he lost those abilities that pretty much made him immortal and his physical form could finally be destroyed once and for all.

[Teratus.2859]

@"Jimbru.6014" said:However, your point about dragon corruption being nigh irreversible, does bring up an idea: that the seeds which Ronan found were not yet truly corrupted by Mordremoth as the Mordrem and Blighting Trees are. Supporting that, we have Malyck and his pod which we find in the personal story, which also show no signs of Mordrem style corruption. So perhaps the Pale Tree grew up as she did, with Ronan and Ventari able to benevolently guide her, because she was both distant from Mordremoth AND she wasn't ever truly corrupted in the first place.

That said, the Pale Tree and Sylvari still had a connection to Mordremoth. By logical extension, that would also include Malyck. I now wonder if Malyck was actually a scout sent by Mordremoth under more subtle or suggestive influence, and that's why he vanished after the character's personal story. His sense of distance and loss -- from his creator, not unlike the lost confusion of the Mordrem in canon after Mordy's death. And once his secret (even to him) scouting mission was complete (locating the Sylvari and learning a bit about them) he headed west to find "his people" -- and likely ended up becoming a full fledged Mordrem indistinguishable from the horde, hence his utter disappearance.

They also had the Dream..

If I recall correctly Malyck didn't know what the dream was and never experienced it.It's stated too that both the Dream and the Nightmare act like barriers against Modremoths influence.. which could a big reason why many Sylvari born of the Grove were able to resist him.By that point the Grove Sylvari had become their own sentient race with their own culture and history etc.. they had known the world before the Dragon's call.. they had experienced freedom, friendship and love etc thus giving them purpose and something to fight for..

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

The Mouth is stated to be his body. While we don't see the tail, his body is only ever shown to be serpentine. In every depiction, even when Kralkatorrik's charging his laser.

The Heart of Thorns is a location, that location being the tree which is his base, the heart of his thorn-riddled domain.

It's both a location and Mordremoth, The tree is corrupted but also part of him.. where his mind is located and where his physical body the mouth and all his vines originate from.His physical core.. the heart or seed is rooted deep under that tree but it's all him.. all of it is Modremoth, the mouth the tree and everything connected to them.. all Mordremoth.The Mouth itself apparently being a manifestation of his hunger he could create/regrow them every time they died and did so multiple times apparently although we only seem to fight the one ingame the pact apparently fought and killed multiple mouths before/during and after we destroyed his mind.Even once his mind was destroyed his physical body lived on for a time until the last mouth was destroyed.The way the Dragon Stand meta resets.. kill the mouth then he wipes the map and resets it is pretty lore friendly.. the next mouth you fight in the next meta is supposed to be a new one.The only thing to overlook is the death scene which is only to symbolize the final death of the the last mouth.. it's only really relevant if it's the last time a player does that event.. otherwise we just ignore it and don't question why there's not a hundred corpses wrapped around the tree every time we come back xD

His physical body could always be destroyed and hacked apart but he'd always regrow it so long as his mind was intact.. and even if we dropped a nuke on the Magumma Jungle he'd be able to transfer his mind into any of his minions and regrow himself somewhere else in the world.Once we killed his mind though.. that's when he lost those abilities that pretty much made him immortal and his physical form could finally be destroyed once and for all.

The tree is that is the Heart of Thorns is the same kind of plant/tree as The Great Tree in Tangled Depths or the Ancient Tree HP in Verdant Brink. Which I think are meant to be Stonewood Trees. It's been corrupted, as those slowly are being, but that wouldn't make it Mordremoth's core.

It's been stated by devs that the Mouth of Mordremoth is Mordremoth's main body and his core. When a representation of Mordremoth, Zhaitan, and Balthazar show up, it shows their full body, and for Mordremoth it was the Mouth. I don't know why they chose to name it "Mouth of" but it has been 100% confirmed to be his body, his core. If the tree was his core, that's what would show up instead, and the "death of Mordremoth" wouldn't be described as "it impaled itself on a spike", since the spike that Mordremoth impaled itself on was part of the Heart of Thorns.

But his mind doesn't reside in a singular place. That's the thing about Mordremoth, and why "he is the jungle" - his mind is not only in his body, but in various parts of his corruption. There is no "core for his mind". There is no "heart or seed that houses his mind and from it stems everything". To quote Matthew Medina on that:

Mordremoth may, at one time, have had a traditional corporeal body as a "dragon". Honestly, it's the only one who probably remembers and at this point it really isn't important. At some point in history as it fed and grew however, it "became" the jungle. It grew into the ground, spread vines and roots as offshoots of its physical self, while at the same time, its mind grew to encompass this huge mass. As such, Mordremoth isn't one single entity, unless you are describing the entire jungle.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37782/of-bodies-and-minds-mordremoth#latest

And it's never established that every time the Dragon's Stand meta resets is a new Mouth - he can survive the death of his core body, thanks to his domain of mind, but nothing says that we see him growing a brand new one.

[Teratus.2859]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:His mouth was serpentine but his full design has never been capable of being shown..We do see in a vision though a heart/seed growing vines.. and the name of the expansion Heart of Thorns I'm pretty sure is a reference to Modremoth's design.. him being the literal heart of thorns.

The Mouth is stated to be his body. While we don't see the tail, his body is only ever shown to be serpentine. In every depiction, even when Kralkatorrik's charging his laser.

The Heart of Thorns is a location, that location being the tree which is his base, the heart of his thorn-riddled domain.

It's both a location and Mordremoth, The tree is corrupted but also part of him.. where his mind is located and where his physical body the mouth and all his vines originate from.His physical core.. the heart or seed is rooted deep under that tree but it's all him.. all of it is Modremoth, the mouth the tree and everything connected to them.. all Mordremoth.The Mouth itself apparently being a manifestation of his hunger he could create/regrow them every time they died and did so multiple times apparently although we only seem to fight the one ingame the pact apparently fought and killed multiple mouths before/during and after we destroyed his mind.Even once his mind was destroyed his physical body lived on for a time until the last mouth was destroyed.The way the Dragon Stand meta resets.. kill the mouth then he wipes the map and resets it is pretty lore friendly.. the next mouth you fight in the next meta is supposed to be a new one.The only thing to overlook is the death scene which is only to symbolize the final death of the the last mouth.. it's only really relevant if it's the last time a player does that event.. otherwise we just ignore it and don't question why there's not a hundred corpses wrapped around the tree every time we come back xD

His physical body could always be destroyed and hacked apart but he'd always regrow it so long as his mind was intact.. and even if we dropped a nuke on the Magumma Jungle he'd be able to transfer his mind into any of his minions and regrow himself somewhere else in the world.Once we killed his mind though.. that's when he lost those abilities that pretty much made him immortal and his physical form could finally be destroyed once and for all.

The tree is that is the Heart of Thorns is the same kind of plant/tree as The Great Tree in Tangled Depths or the Ancient Tree HP in Verdant Brink. Which I think are meant to be Stonewood Trees. It's been corrupted, as those slowly are being, but that wouldn't make it Mordremoth's core.

It's been stated by devs that the Mouth of Mordremoth is Mordremoth's main body and his core. When a representation of Mordremoth, Zhaitan, and Balthazar show up, it shows their full body, and for Mordremoth it was the Mouth. I don't know why they chose to name it "Mouth of" but it has been 100% confirmed to be his body, his core. If the tree was his core, that's what would show up instead, and the "death of Mordremoth" wouldn't be described as "

it impaled itself on a spike

", since the spike that Mordremoth impaled itself on was part of the Heart of Thorns.

I'm not arguing that it wasn't.. like I said Modremoth's body is literally everything he's corrupted that's attached to his phsyical mass like the tree and all his vines.The mouth is only part of that.. mordremoth is way bigger than just the mouth.. his vines extend all the way Ascalon and Timberline falls and every vine is connected to his physical body.The mouth is just his mouth.. it's not his entire body.. not even close lolI can't tell you how big Mordremoth actually is.. nobody can but I'd gladly speculate he's easily the size of the magumma region at least.. He is stated to be the Jungle after all.. he may even be much bigger than that.

It's stated on the Wiki that the tree housed his mind and as I said the final death scene cinematic depicts the final and only the final death of the mouth which takes place after the HoT final story instance where his mind is destroyed.

But his mind doesn't reside in a singular place. That's the thing about Mordremoth, and why "he is the jungle" - his mind is not only in his body, but in various parts of his corruption. There is no "core for his mind". There is no "heart or seed that houses his mind and from it stems everything". To quote Matthew Medina on that:

Mordremoth may, at one time, have had a traditional corporeal body as a "dragon". Honestly, it's the only one who probably remembers and at this point it really isn't important. At some point in history as it fed and grew however, it "became" the jungle. It grew into the ground, spread vines and roots as offshoots of its physical self, while at the same time, its mind grew to encompass this huge mass. As such, Mordremoth isn't one single entity, unless you are describing the entire jungle.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37782/of-bodies-and-minds-mordremoth#latest

And it's never established that every time the Dragon's Stand meta resets is a new Mouth - he can survive the death of his core body, thanks to his domain of mind, but nothing says that we see him growing a brand new one.

It's stated in the Wiki that his phsyical body can be destroyed and regrown over and over again so long as his mind remains intact.. granting Mordremoth essentially immortality.. hence the whole point of us destroying his mind in the story.It's also hinted by Laranthier of the Wild's dialogue in game that there were multiple battles with his physical form aka the Mouth.His dialogue changes depending on whether you have killed his mind or not.

Laranthier: Well met, Commander. It seems find ourselves on the dragon's doorstep.

Pre completion of HoT story-Commander: Is this really it? Have we really found Mordremoth in its lair?Laranthier: Our scouts believe the creature before us is feeding on ley-line energy for its master, but Mordremoth is an entity of mind and dream. That's where you'll have to go to defeat it.Commander: If that's true, how do I do that?Laranthier: I have faith you'll find a way in, Commander.Commander end option 1: Thank you, Laranthir.Commander end option 2: So even if we can't end things here, we can weaken Mordremoth. Let's do it.

Post completion of HoT Story-Commander: I don't understand. I thought I'd beaten Mordremoth...Laranthier: Though you killed Mordremoth within its realm of mind, the physical manifestation of its hunger remains in our world, still feeding on this hub of ley-line energy.Commander end option 1: In that case, let's put it out of our misery.Commander end option 2: Let's finish this.

You could state that only references when the Commander fought and killed the mouth but there are far too many inconsistencies for that to make any sense.

Kill the mouth before Hearts and Minds?.. Then what battle is Canach talking about?.. the mouth is already dead and the battle is over.Kill the mouth after Hearts and Minds?.. Mordremoth is already dead.. how is the mouth still alive and how come Modremoth still wipes us out after 25 mins?

The only way that meta event works in the lore is if there are multiple battles with a regenerated mouth and multiple endings that the player must overlook depending on their position.Kill mouth before H&M ignore the death cinematic, Mordremoth is alive and regenerating another mouth.Kill mouth after H&M Ignore the 25 minute phase, Mordremoth's mouth and mind are dead for good.. if any of him is still alive it will now starve and wither away,

This is the only way both mechanics and lore can make sense in this scenario with the confirmed information we have about the Dragon.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Teratus.2859 said:I'm not arguing that it wasn't.. like I said Modremoth's body is literally everything he's corrupted that's attached to his phsyical mass like the tree and all his vines.The mouth is only part of that.. mordremoth is way bigger than just the mouth.. his vines extend all the way Ascalon and Timberline falls and every vine is connected to his physical body.The mouth is just his mouth.. it's not his entire body.. not even close lolI can't tell you how big Mordremoth actually is.. nobody can but I'd gladly speculate he's easily the size of the magumma region at least.. He is stated to be the Jungle after all.. he may even be much bigger than that.

Not all vines connect to the Mouth of Mordremoth. The Mouth is his core body, it is the body that survived hibernation and it is the Mouth's mouth that is shown in Season 1. The vines are additional bodies. Not necessarily physically connected to the core body.

Unlike the other Elder Dragons, Mordremoth has a "one mind, many bodies" type of hive mind in addition to what the other Elder Dragons have (one will enslaving all). Some of those bodies are special mordrem, one of those bodies is Trahearne, and some of those bodies are vines. But the core body, the only one that he slept for millennia with, is the Mouth of Mordremoth, which is nothing more than a serpentine dragon appearance, similar to the Mini Mystical Dragon.

@Teratus.2859 said:It's stated on the Wiki that the tree housed his mind and as I said the final death scene cinematic depicts the final and only the final death of the mouth which takes place after the HoT final story instance where his mind is destroyed.

Every body of his housed his mind.

@Teratus.2859 said:It's stated in the Wiki that his phsyical body can be destroyed and regrown over and over again so long as his mind remains intact.. granting Mordremoth essentially immortality.. hence the whole point of us destroying his mind in the story.It's also hinted by Laranthier of the Wild's dialogue in game that there were multiple battles with his physical form aka the Mouth.His dialogue changes depending on whether you have killed his mind or not.

[...]

You could state that only references when the Commander fought and killed the mouth but there are far too many inconsistencies for that to make any sense.

I don't deny that the battle took multiple instances. I'm saying that he didn't grow a new Mouth every time. Mordremoth can only grow plants, and the Mouth is reptilian. That's the key difference. It has some plant pieces, but in large the body is scales not bark.

Since Mordremoth can only grow plants, and his core body is not a plant, it would mean that A) the mouth didn't die every time, or more likely (IMO), B ) he healed his body, not replaced it. You were stating originally that he replaced it as if it were fact; and while it is possible, there's nothing to prove it.

But this is getting off-topic.

[Naudiz.1032]

While I don't believe The Mother Tree to be a dragon, I think this is an amazing concept you've put into my head and I am going to cherish it forever, thank you!

But more related to the conversation (just my two cents): I don't believe the Pale Tree to be a dragon because of the way she was grown a tree from a seed that gained consciousness (somehow??) and created her own visage in the Avatar of the Pale Tree. That's my main argument. But, the origin of the seed Ventari and Ronan found is really shrouded and uncertain, for all we know it could very easily be Mordremoth's version of an egg, or even a completely separate dragon-egg from Mordremoth.

But what do I know? Only that the concept is amazing and stunning and I love it.