Dragon Tears

[Duke Serkol]

I've been thinking lately about the Dragon Tears.

A huge deal of the plot from Cross is supported uniquely by the Tears and their powers.
But what do we, I ask, really know about these Tears?

I definitely do not claim to be an expert (which is why I ask in the first place), but it seems to me the answer is: very little.

Direa tells us:

  The key to activate
   this ruin is the
   '"Dragon Tear"'...
   It was given to our ancestors
   by the extinct Dragonians as a
   symbol of our friendship.

and

  This Dragonian ruin is a product
   of their '"crystal of wisdom."'
   Its power is unknown, yet much
   too powerful for any human.
   If the ruin were to be
   activated by chance, it would
   emit uncontrollable power...

Kid for her part says:

  That fort's supposedly a ruin
   built by the extinct Dragonians...
   I heard there've been all
   kinds of mystic rituals there.
   It's said that the Dragon Tear
   was needed for the rituals...

Concerning their powers, Harle suggested:

  Regarding your mémoire
   az zis Serge...
   You may be able to rewrite it
   if you use ze Dragon Tear.

Which seems quite different from returning to your old body (the opposite really, a final step to fully become Lynx).

Most interestingly, upon shattering the second Tear, Steena says:

  There is nothing we can do
   about the Dragon Tear...
   Its shattering result does
   not come as a surprise.
   However, you also carry
   the fate of the Dragon Tear
   from another world.
   The broken pieces of
   love and hate: although
   contradictory, they are two
   sides of the same coin...
   A mysterious force may
   come to light when the
   two pieces are united...
   Perhaps this force will be
   the legendary Chrono Cross...
   The only problem is, the shrine,
   which is said to give life to the
   Chrono Cross, is nothing but a
   cavern inside Divine Dragon Falls.

So yeah, it's no surprise to her that the Tear shattered... but I wonder how she... "guesses"(?) that the remains of both can be used to summon the Chrono Cross.
Either way, she also has heard a legend about a seventh dragon:

  Great Dragon Gods!
   We are yet unable to
   utilize the altar...?
   I know that we need
   the six Dragon Relics
   that offer up divine
   supplication...
   Could 'that' legend be
   true... Is there a
   seventh dragon, and a
   seventh Element...!?!

...which is interesting because I don't recall Harle giving you any sort of seventh relic before merging with the other dragons.

And I think that's pretty much all we know. Which, like I said, is very little.
I don't have a problem accepting that the Tears, having been made by the Dragon God(s?), have the power to do all the stuff they do in the game.
Rather my question is... why would they possess these powers in the first place? What was their original purpose?

We know they were supposedly used in rituals within Fort Dragonia. What manner of rituals? Could there be anything that somehow relates to the ways they are used in the game (to switch bodies or melt away one only to let its owner be reborn) but not go to such extremes that the Tear shatters?
(Does this, perhaps, have anything to do with the depictions of evolution on the walls in the top chamber of Fort Dragonia?)

Or was that the first time they were used? And if that is the case, had the Dragon God(s) planned for the events to play out the way they have? Unlike Belthasar, they shouldn't have knowledge of the future, so that seems unlikely (or was it a wild guess that at some point some child would become the arbiter of the flame and FATE would possess his father to switch bodies with him? ...yeah, this is sarcasm, obviously).
Besides, if the Dragon Gods made them, couldn't they just give Serge is own body themselves?

When was it determined, and revealed to the guardians of the Tears in the two Guldoves, that some connection existed between the Tear and the Chrono Cross? They didn't even seem to know that another world with a second Tear existed until you revealed this to them...
Yet, it seems the Dragon Gods created the two-pedestals altar in only one of the worlds after the split, either realizing only then that with two Tears it was now possible to summon the Chrono Cross, or having planned it ahead when creating the Tear in the first place (but again, I don't think they should have known the world would eventually be split in two...).
In either case, it'd make little sense to have altars for both Tears in both worlds since there's not four of them, so I really am inclined to think it was made after the split.

But how does allowing someone to summon the Chrono Cross benefit them anyway? Especially if they are only an echo of the original Dragon God that only exists to further the Time Devourer's destructive purposes...


...and I thought Chronopolis made little sense

[Vehek]

We know they were supposedly used in rituals within Fort Dragonia. What manner of rituals? Could there be anything that somehow relates to the ways they are used in the game (to switch bodies or melt away one only to let its owner be reborn) but not go to such extremes that the Tear shatters?

The Gamepro interview says:

it also had the ability to reconstruct a person's body by recombining his body cells.
(...)so instead the system rebuilt Serge's body in its original form. However, the act of restructuring a whole body was too great a strain on the system and caused it to overload, shattering the Dragon Tear once Serge was reborn.

So maybe a partial restructuring would leave it intact?

[Duke Serkol]

Ah, so you would say this suggests the Tear may have been used to perform healing cerimonies?

That would make sense... and it'd easily fit in the "If only they'd bothered saying it in the game, we wouldn't have felt so lost" category.

However, that still doesn't quite explain the evolution mural.
And there still is the Chrono Cross summoning issue to deal with.

...mh. It would be tempting to suggest that the Tear may actually predate the Dragon God and that it could have been used to help evolve the Reptites into the Dragonians... but that's the human evolution as influenced by Lavos' Frozen Flame depicted on those walls.

Maybe the Dragonians were trying to "bring salvation" to mankind by using the Tear to change them in a more planet ecosystem friendly species than the one begotten by the flame, which then resulted in the demi-humans?

[Kodokami]

I like to think of the Dragon Tear as a mirror, reflecting the memories of those who use it. In the first instance, when Lynx activated the Tear, Serge is reflected across the Tear to Lynx, and thus he becomes Lynx (and vice-versa). The transformation is not physical, but only a transfer of minds. Later, when Serge (as Lynx) looks into the Tear, it reflects back his memories, and the Tear rewrites them into his original body. (for a similar example, Tron Legacy: when Flynn creates CLU 2, he first creates a mirror to reflect his likeness onto the program). As Vehek noted with the Gamepro interview, however, the Tear shatters because of too much strain (which was a pretty interesting read, as I had never seen that interview before).

While thinking of this over dinner, I came up with a theory on how the two Dragon Tears became the Tears of Hate and Love. First of all, I have another theory on how the Tear of Hate forms (involving Harle) but this theory--that the Tear of Hate most likely formed from Lynx's growing enmity--seems more plausible.

  The enmity is growing!
   The only thing pure in
   this world is enmity!

If I remember correctly, this quote is shortly before (or when) he actually shatters the Tear. The Tear of Love is a bit more complex. When Lynx succeeded in acquiring Serge's body, Harle could have continued with him and eventually stolen the Flame, but she didn't; rather, she betrayed the Dragons' wishes and rescued Serge, a human, instead. She probably would have continued to betray the Dragons had Serge not wanted to finish his quest. As such, Harle was forced to betray herself and her love for Serge. So I'm quite sure Harle's love formed the Tear of Love.

Your other questions and the quotes are a bit more confusing. 1) Steena talking about the seventh Dragon and the seventh Element, for instance. Harle wasn't created until 1006, yet Steena speaks of her as a "legend." I suppose the Dragonians could have discovered the possibility of the seventh Element before, however. 2) The pedestals supporting two Tears while only one existed can only be explained by "Belthasar did it." Unless the Dragonians, once again, discovered the possibility of the Chrono Cross before. Guldove "legends" sure are foreshadowing in nature. Perhaps that's the point.

Also,

  Its power is unknown, yet much
   too powerful for any human.
   If the ruin were to be
   activated by chance, it would
   emit uncontrollable power...

imagine if the Dragon Tear were used as weapon, regenerating its user!

[ZeaLitY]

It's hard not to avoid "Belthasar did it" in this case.