The Trees are part of the Squid's Plan! (major main quest spoilers)
After spending way too long playing through the new quests in SSO, I've come up with a theory. A real long theory. That the Life Wardens are siding with both Dark Riders and Soul Riders in order to repair the Wild Weave and reconnect with one another, inadvertently helping the Dark Riders to free Garnok.
Lemme explain.
This is the map in the Fort Maria portal room. It shows the seven major Life Wardens that we know of, but it also gives us some clues about the story going forwards.
First, the obvious.
Yeah, there's no way that little illustration in the corner is anything but Ol' Squiddy's Tentacles. But we knew he was imprisoned between worlds, in neither Pandoria nor Jorvik - so finding out he's been chilling in the Wild Weave, or a location only accessible by it, makes sense.
Next, when it comes to putting a name to each of these trees I think most are fairly self explanatory. We've known about most of these trees for years, even if they've never been a part of the story, such as with the Ice Tree by the Stonecutter's Vault in Dino Valley, and the Unnamed Tree way up near where you finish the Red String Trail in the Firgrove Mountains.
Where it gets interesting is with the two trees I couldn't place; such as the one between the Sentinel Tree in Mistfall and the Ice Tree in Dino Valley; and the one on the far left, signified by floating islands.
In my mind it makes sense to have a couple of the trees sprouting in Pandoria, since the two worlds are connected by the tree roots - and the only floating rocks I know about are in Pandoria - but who knows.
Overlaying the normal map on top of these locations makes it pretty clear that they're supposed to correspond to real map locations. The only anomaly is the Ice Tree and Sentinel Tree, whose positions are reversed on the portal map.
What's interesting is that Garnok, if I'm following the map's logic correctly, would hold exactly the same positioning as the Dark Core Oil Rig.
(For context, we know the Rig's position from old skybox errors that used to show it when stood in the right spots, some maps from the books (which I know aren't always canon anymore, but hey it's the best we've got) and, most recently, if the player looks South when entering Devil's Gap, thanks to that little black hole we helped Sunshine open up recently.)
Where am I going with all this? Okay!
Firstly, we know that the trees have helped the Dark Riders in the past. The Life Wardens have repeatedly said the only loyalty they have is to each other, and quite frankly after what the Jarl did, who can blame them. (Thanks Jon).
This is going into massive spoiler territory for the most recent quest as of 17/1/24 so if you haven't completed it yet, flee.
The Sentinel Tree in the Wildwoods has been corrupted by Pandorian magic for a while now. But in the newest quest, we saw Sabine using the Runesmasher to break into it and create a portal to free Erissa.
Side tangent about the hammer:
For those who didn't play the Halloween quests, basically one of the Jarl's servants got the ice valley smith to make a hammer that could destroy runestones, broke one open, and a Vala witch gave him immortality. Aka. Sive (or an identical Vala witch), who is deeply connected with the Life Wardens and who probably gave Sabine the hammer when we saw her in Devil's Gap, has no problem with this action.
The Life Wardens, or at the very least Sive, their ally, wanted the portal opened and Erissa freed.
Why?
To re-grow the Wild Weave.
Assuming Garnok's position on my map was correct, the only way the Dark Riders now have to free him is to go directly through the Wild Weave.
And since we're good people who like nature... yeahhh the Soul Riders are totally going to end up healing some trees and inadvertently opening the path to Garnok wide open.
Oh yeah. We're going to mess up royally.
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