Quote Originally Posted by UAnchovy View Post
So I feel as though there has to have been a substantial degree of separation between elezen and dragon at the time of Ratatoskr's death and afterwards. If the two societies were truly closely integrated, you wouldn't expect them to have been able to separate so quickly, to become militant against each other so quickly, and for the Ishgardian narrative to be so convincing. I would hazard that most of the statues in the Mists and the Forelands were built by dragons, or were in dragon territory, whereas the bulk of elezen lived in what is now the city of Ishgard or Coerthas. Archaeological evidence of Halone worship may well exist, but it would exist in the territories that are still currently inhabited by Halone-worshippers.
I think that the two societies could have, indeed, been closely integrated. As instigators of the impending disaster, the remaining four of the Knights Twelve likely spread the word that their people would no longer be welcome among the dragons. While many Elezen and dragons alike might have been resistant to the notion, their tune would quickly have changed once Nidhogg's campaign of terror began. Nidhogg very likely started by rooting humans out of the Churning Mists, and he would likely have been just as ruthless at dealing with any human-friendly dragons who tried to defend them.

Essentially, no matter how closely integrated the two societies were, eliminating that integration (which was, in Nidhogg's view, the whole reason this awful tragedy happened in the first place) was at the top of Nidhogg's to-do list. The end of human/dragon friendship literally happened as quickly as Nidhogg wanted it to, and his ruthlessness did much to support the lies the Knights were spreading about their own responsibility for the chaos. As far as the humans knew, Nidhogg (who'd never been secretive about his distain for humans, even before Ratatoskr's murder) had finally decided to clean house, and that was all there was to it. The fact that Hraesvalgr seemed content to just step aside and let the slaughter happen likely did little to sway anyone from thinking that their former friends had all turned against them.