GW2: Scarlet and the 2013-2014 Living Story

As I've had some discussion about before, I'm not real happy with Scarlet in GW2. The latest content patch provides sort of a summary of her actions and offers a little bit of clarity about the goings on. It's good, especially for people who have missed parts (myself included), but it doesn't address the points that bug me to my satisfaction.


I still feel she's too "perfect" - something that gets even worse as we're offered up another example of "oh, she planned this all the time."
I still feel the gathered disparate factions up far too easily, especially for someone who comes across as crazy - something which is, at least, addressed, just not well enough to satisfy me.

So what do we get? We get a recap of all the alliances and events along the way, with some theorizing by friendly characters and a few behind-the-scenes recordings of Scarlet addressing her conspirator/minions. Not much actually new this release, save 1) she has the Aetherblade pirates doing something in the Mists and 2) it's made clear that Lion's Arch is the point of her interest, though exactly why isn't clear. Of course, it seems a little odd to me that she's already shown so much interest in Lion's Arch, yet it doesn't seem to have been "confirmed" as her target, even for her, until the most recent bit of information gathered by the sonic probes all over.

So she offered Flame Legion magic to the dredge and dredge tech to the Flame Legion in order to get access to both and make the probes, which are then planted along ley lines to search for... something that seems to be in the Lion's Arch area. Why they needed her for this is still beyond me.
She uses Inquest tech along with pirates to get the Aetherblades up and running in order to have a technical/military advantage, especially with an air force. Why they decided to do this under a crazy person rather than on their own still bugs me.
She offers krait the obelisk shards they want to develop a potent toxin, apparently even foreseeing the neutralization of it as a way to make a more powerful toxin. How she was in such a position to make that offer when they couldn't get the pieces themselves is, again, something that defies my logic.
She uses her spiffy knowledge of steam-tech creatures to undermine and take control of the watchworks in use by Kryta (based on the same tech) to build a further army, even testing a huge version. Why she needs that when she already has these other factions apparently at her beck and call is... well, yeah...

So all this leads to the conclusion (from the NPCs, at least) that she's going to attack Lion's Arch. She can overrun it with air power, or watchwork armies with advanced tech, or poison everyone. Yeah, okay, that sounds bad.

The more interesting little detail that comes out, however, is a comment made by the asura consultant in reviewing everything. He states that Omadd's isolation chamber was just that - that Scarlet would only have been able to see/contact something she brought in with her, perhaps buried in her psyche. This implies she didn't reach out into some "great beyond" when she touched something and went homicidally insane, but perhaps saw something that already exists in the sylvari Dream...

There are plenty of theories, of course. The most convincing I've seen is the seriously-hinted-at, but not openly-state elder dragon Mordremoth. A combination of a named ability on one dungeon boss and a nature-based room in an Inquest facility where the other rooms are based on the known dragons leads to the belief that there is an elder dragon by that name with some nature-related powers.
While sylvari are immune to corruption by the known dragons (unable to be animated by Zhaitan, for example), it seems feasible that a nature-aligned dragon might be able to affect them. And given their existence, it further seems plausible that such a dragon might affect the Dream - potentially even being the influence behind the Nightmare Court. And if there is some trace of its influence residing in or probing at the collective sylvari consciousness, turning away from the Pale Tree and getting stuck alone with it could very well have created Scarlet.
It isn't proven, but it seems to fit pretty well.

But that doesn't quite lay out what's coming. If all that is, more or less, true... Well, we can expect a reveal of Mordremoth and a big battle of some sort at Lion's Arch, but we don't really know how it's going to go down. If Scarlet is being controlled, as the NPCs seem to believe, I have trouble seeing how Lion's Arch could actually stand up to a focused assault by everything she's got at her disposal, though I suppose she could just storm the place to take whatever she's after. If she's trying to defy the dragon... well, it could be buried there, and she could be meaning to attack it instead of the city... but it seems like she's taken a long, circuitous path if that's actually her goal. Her marshaled forces could work against a dragon, I suppose, but they seem a little excessively varied.

Suppose we'll just have to see what comes. I can say seeing threads brought together makes me a little more interested in the story - but I still don't particularly care for the narrative design of Scarlet herself.