Teased in book 2, Zet the Arc Warden finally makes its live appearance in book 3 of DOTA Dragon’s Blood.
Despite his very limited screen time this season, don’t think that this character plays a tiny role in the story. In fact, Arc Warden plays one of the most influential roles in Dota 2’s universe by being the only hero in existence to rival the strength of the two most powerful entities—Radiant and Dire.
It’s not about how powerful Arc Warden is either, but what it does with it that has so many diehard Dota 2 fans loving this hero to the moon and back.
Here’s everything you need to know about Arc Warden in DOTA Dragon’s Blood, including his original lore, story personality, and first appearance.
Warning: Major spoilers if you haven’t watched DOTA Dragon’s Blood Book 3
Who is Arc Warden in DOTA Dragon’s Blood?
To understand Arc Warden, we need to revisit his origin story.
Before anything existed at all, there was something called the primordial consciousness. There were no universes, no planets, or living things. Just this single primordial mind.
Then, the Big Bang came, and things came into being. During this Big Bang, the primordial mind split into many smaller fragments and scattered. Of these fragmented minds, there were three significant ones. The two largest scattered fragments birthed the Radiant and the Dire, their real names being Radinthul and Diruulth. The third smaller fragment was Zet. That’s Arc Warden.
Polar opposites in every possible way, the Radiant and Dire consciousnesses were locked in a battle with one another and would do anything possible to overpower the other, even if it came as a detriment to something else. This includes influencing others to fight for their cause which we see numerous times over the course of DOTA Dragon’s Blood.
The Radiant and the Dire were so destructive in their efforts to eradicate the other that Zet eventually decided to insert itself into the conflict and become a peacekeeper.
The Warden originally wanted to unify the Radiant and Dire, but didn’t have enough power to do so being the lesser fragment of the three. In a last-ditch effort to protect everything from the Radiant and the Dire, Zet gathered all its power and imprisoned the two conflicting fragments by fusing them together into a sphere. Then, it hurled them deep through space to orbit around a random planet.
Severely weakened, Zet would then go on to become the Radiant and Dire’s jailer by watching over what some called “The Mad Moon”. The main plot for DOTA Dragon’s Blood takes off many many (oh so many) years after the creation of this moon.
But why is Arc Warden suddenly appearing now in DOTA Dragon’s Blood?
Zet is the reason the War of the Ancients hasn’t begun yet, which is what a normal game of Dota 2 is.
As long as Arc Warden lives, the Radiant and Dire are forever trapped inside the moon. The bad news is that no matter what, Zet always fails. We learn this when Invoker converses with the struggling Arc Warden. What makes this worse is that no matter how Invoker remakes the universe, Zet and the rampaging Ancients will always exist because they predate the universe. You can’t quite wish that away now, can you?
So when we witness Invoker striking down Arc Warden, we are seeing the beginning of the War of the Ancients.
Personality and powers of Arc Warden in DOTA Dragon’s Blood
A shadow of its former self, Arc Warden is a formidable entity in DOTA Dragon’s Blood whose entire existence revolves around maintaining unity between the Radiant and the Dire. It wants nothing else outside this one desire.
At the same time, Zet is an insanely powerful character in DOTA Dragon’s Blood. During its final fight with Invoker, the cosmic entity creates a perfect electrical duplication of itself to amplify its lightning attacks.
First appearance of Arc Warden in DOTA Dragon’s Blood
Arc Warden makes its first-ever appearance as a statue at the end of Episode 7 during book 2. We then see Arc Warden alive in Episode 4 during book 3.
Status of the DOTA Dragon’s Blood anime
All three seasons of DOTA Dragon’s Blood are available on Netflix. The streaming platform has yet to greenlight a fourth season.
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