Theorys on the Pale mother

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> My argument says that while there seems to be several ways to cleanse minions, they likely boil down to one key factor: replacing the dragon magic within the minion with non-corrupt magic, while keeping them from corrupting the magic.

 

Possible, but with the Pale Tree, we have no evidence of anything in Ronan or Ventari's possession that would help with the "replacing" factor, and we know for a **undeniable fact** that merely feeding dragon minions magic will result in said fed magic being corrupted - with only few exceptions such as the Exalted's magic. In fact, everything we are told about Ronan and Ventari is that they held no magic in of themselves, and no special artifacts either. The only object of note surrounding either is Ventari's tablet, which is just normal stone.

 

Not to mention that, but if we were to presume that it was Ronan or Ventari who cleansed the Pale Tree, then we have a major issue of who cleansed Malyck's Tree. On the other hand, if it were the whole batch of seeds that got cleansed, through some unexplained event in the past, both situations get explained properly.

 

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> Nurture the pale tree, let it absorb pure magic naturally, you get a non-corrupt mordrem tree.

 

So where's your "replacing" part? Where's the catalyst to draw out the corruption?

 

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> Dragon minions would usually corrupt the magic they absorb, but the nurturing process kept The Pale Tree and Mawdrey from following their 'programming', while the forgotten spell seemed to directly free Glint's mind much faster.

 

Except that nurturing **does not work**, as it is explicitly stated throughout dozens of events and dialogues throughout not only the core game, Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, but also the novels. I mean, honestly, they practically slap players with a board that has "DRAGON MINIONS CANNOT EMPATHIZE!" throughout the story.

 

And yet people still think it's possible.

 

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> That changes nothing. The relation between dragons and minions change for each dragon. When Primordus was under the effects of Taimi's machine, all destroyers got knocked out, but all risen and mordrem were still active no matter what happened to their masters. We haven't seen destroyers and icebrood after they went to sleep, so we don't know what they are doing. We heard about mordrem, but we've only seen risen.

> With remaining mordrem and risen we have two behaviors: Scatterd and confused, then still following the dragon's will.

 

Per the destroyers: they got wiped out when they were exposed to a massive quantity of Jormag's energy. We see in Path of Fire that destroyers elsewhere were unaffected by the events of Draconis Mons. In fact, the achievements for the Wayfarer's Hedge, which involve killing the Decimators and the two destroyer wyverns, occurs after Primordus is put to sleep by the very notion that the achievement chain starts by getting an item from completing The Heart of the Volcano story instance. So even the destroyers in Draconis Mons survived Taimi's machine.

 

Per the mordrem and risen "acting differently" - I would be iffy about that. The confused ones are likely the Mordrem Guard, who as we see via Buried Insight, were never actually corrupted with their free will removed, but rather brainwashed in a more traditional sense (more specifically based on dialogue from Occam, Canach, and other sylvari, Mordremoth's call was basically mass telepathy where he tricked many sylvari into believe his whispers were their own thoughts, and it was only later that he went with more brute force methods that sylvari players hear and nearly succumb to). With the risen, the mindless risen remain mindless, while the more intelligent ones remain the same. Basically there was no change with them, though the mindless ones [can be persuaded to serve a new master](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Capture_the_beast). There's nothing so far to say that the normal mordrem wouldn't function the same as the risen.

 

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> The more of Zhaitan's magic a minion had, the more they keep acting for Zhaitan's will ever after their death. So this magic could not be just like a 'radio' connecting to the dragon and letting him take over minions. It can't just be something forcing the minion to act or some sort of reprogramming, that would also affect all minions equally. Orders end, control fades. Even if the kingpings were acting on Zhaitan's last order, that should have affected other risen too. Yet not all unchained risen act the same.

 

When Glint was first freed from Kralkatorrik's control, she remained serving him. It was not until she heard the thoughts of pain and suffering of those she was killing that she began to turn away from Kralkatorrik's commands.

 

If a person lives their entire life knowing and performing one deed, due to being unable to do anything else, but suddenly they're able to do other things they won't, not until they realize that they can, and chose to do so. Not everyone would chose to do so, that Kingpin obviously being one, but simply being freed does not mean they'll suddenly turn around and fight their old slavers when being a slave is all they knew.

 

We've even seen this among our own history.

 

> @"MithranArkanere.8957" said:

> But destroyers and icebrood that had plant and death powers were not going wild like inquest experiments.

> What could be the difference? The original dragon being dead? That could not be it, or there would be no risen still following the will.

> So something must have been done to the magic before putting them on the minions.

 

The difference is that with the Inquest experiments, it was "Zhaitan's magic + Jormag's magic" whereas with the augmented destroyers and icebrood and branded, it is "'s augmented magic" alone. I think that's a pretty critical difference.

 

You seem to be mistaking "the Elder Dragon" with "the sphere of magic". And if Taimi's proclamation in Season 3 is correct, that is no different than saying necromancers are Zhaitan's minions because they are full of and are channeling Zhaitan(sphere of death).

 

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > That doesn't really seem to be the case, based on the fact that Zhaitan and Mordremoth are now dead despite hundreds of risen and mordrem still being alive.

> I disagree on the term of hundreds. We see in s3 a lot of dragon minions corrupted by dragon energy. They are imbued by he energy of several dragons. Both living and death. This is something unique and part of the instability. Keep in mind that maps are frozen in time. In ember bay we see destroyers (while primordus is awake and rising nearby) who took unbound magic and turned into destroyers with undead or mordrem abilities. So they where alive minions for a then existing elder dragon with abilities of undead dragons, possible gained by consuming unbound magic. In siren’s landing we find the same unbound magic, but less Risen. Those who are there are not effected by unbound magic at all. This supports the theory that those risen are no longer minions and are not affected by unbound energy like corrupted minions. They actually seem to imuun to it like we are. So it seems these risen, like the silvari who are left over, are no longer corrupted and given the number, might have escaped corruption.

>

> There might even be a similarity to a certain sunspear in a cave who is awakened, but still Joko had no power over him.

 

Siren's Landing, based 5 years after Zhaitan's death, in of itself has over a hundred risen in it. This accounts for nothing of the amount of risen that remained when Zhaitan died, or the amount of mordrem when Mordremoth died. Doesn't matter that the maps are frozen in time - I was never referring to the pre-death maps in the first place, but the fact that dragon minions do not simply drop dead upon the Elder Dragon's account, and even when we fought to the Elder Dragons' lair, we had left hundreds if not thousands of minions behind us (figuratively speaking in Zhaitan's case, literally in Mordremoth's).

 

Also, destroyers didn't gain death/plant abilities by themselves individually taking in unbound magic, rather it was Primordus alone (by all appearances) that took in the dead dragons' magic, and it wouldn't be just the unbound magic we are able to collect, as most of it is in the ley lines we do not reach. The risen in Siren's Landing do seem to still be eating magic, but not as effectively as before due to the lack of Zhaitan's will to drive them to find sources of magic to siphon. But the unchained risen are 100% still corrupted dragon minions.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Also note as far i seen blighning trees are not sentient in anyway but pale mother is and to note she was not totally free from corruption neither sylvari as glint was it seems more of the pale tree and sylvari had more of a shield too the controll of mordremoth

[draxynnic.3719]

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

>

> No, what we see with Mawdrey is that there's more than one way to cleanse dragon corruption. It's a long established plot point that dragon minions **have no free will**, they are literally incapable of having their own wants and dreams. This is the horror behind being corrupted. When one speaks of "cleansing" or "purifying" dragon corruption, it is primarily about giving that minion a will of its own.

>

> The power of love and friendship, literal or metaphorical, would have zero effect on dragon minions. Even mordrem, as shown in the conversations between Faolain and Caithe, or the other mordrem guard - and they weren't even corrupted but rather coerced.

>

> It wasn't "simply magic" that purified Mawdrey, but either the specific sources used for that magic, or the combination of magic, the combination of any magic and specific artifact, or specific magic and specific artifact (likely one of the latter two given Branded Research).

 

Technically speaking, dragon minions _are_ able to have their own desires. However, they're only capable of feeling desires that are compatible with the dragon's. We see this with the ogre chieftain in Edge of Destiny, for instance - he's still motivated to seek revenge for his dead children, because this goal runs parallel to the dragon's own goals (as those who killed his children are also enemies of Kralkatorrik). However, it's likely that if the killer was a champion of Kralkatorrik, he would be unable to have this goal, as it would not fit within the boundaries enforced by the corruption.

 

Cleansing appears to remove these boundaries, allowing the cleansed creature to act in ways outside of the zone mandated by the dragon's goals.

 

Either way, Power of Friendship is not sufficient. You need to clear away those boundaries so that the former minion is even able to _think_ about defecting from the dragon before you can even _attempt_ to persuade it to do so.