Guild Wars 2

My issue with Trahearne is that he’s simply a tool (in both a descriptive sense and his role in the big picture). I didn’t mind him when we first met him on Claw Island. As a side character, his herky jerky self really isn’t too jarring. If we were able to keep our existing NPCs around when Trahearne gets introduced to the story, then I’d be fine with that as well.

The crux of the matter is that the character of Trahearne just isn’t likeable and we get him forced down our throat immediately after being told that we couldn’t continue playing GW2 with NPCs which we probably liked. That’s a real kick in the shins. As it currently stands, my interest in the Personal Story system has fallen like a rock after the Claw Island resolution point and this happens consistently on every character that I’ve played. If we had the option of killing an NPC, I’d have probably shanked him many times by now (which is a rather unusual emotional response for me as a player).

Trahearne in one picture

That’s taking a molehill and making it into a mountain if you ask me.

Again, where is tree-bro stealing your thunder? Bad memes aside? Because just about every compliment he gets, you get two.

^
Not only that, but the compliments frequently come from him. I seriously don’t understand how he comes off as a pompous jerk to some people, when he is always asking for your opinions/advice and mentioning that he couldn’t have accomplished things without you. He’s nothing but nice to you throughout the whole story.

Ego aside, seeing as I really don’t care about the whole rank thing, I think they could have just made the character better.

I feel bad being subordinate to a rock with a face painted on it carrying an enormous greatsword. He’s just a terrible character. He’s just plain boring. Not to mention the voice actor just seems bored with it himself. The entire game.

Red Falcon, because I can easily make a corresponding or bigger list for many video game protagonists including this one — yet many people still clamor that their own characters “deserve” to be that Special™ and more. The term “Mary Sue” as it’s commonly used isn’t so much about how over the top a character may or may not be, it’s become a keyword for “someone else’s character I don’t like” (especially if it’s a woman).

I don’t like the way Trahearne is handled, either, though I do like the basic idea behind him. But just calling him a “Sue” doesn’t actually address any of the huge continuity problems or other issues that plague the game’s story. What makes Trahearne a problem is based on these issues, not on the fact that someone who isn’t the PC is allowed to be important.

I admit I also don’t get the “boring” accusations that some people make, though that’s more down to personal taste. We should be able to learn more about him, yes, but that holds true for every other NPC as well.

@Chad
Mary Sue means a character that’s idealized and uses clichès.
Trahearne is exactly that in my opinion; nothing is wrong or shady about him, he’s the all good boy of the pack.
Logan is also a “good boy” but at least he did mistakes in the past, there is some depth to him.

Trahearne has no depth, he jumps out of nowhere and states his mission is to heal Orr and unite the orders against the dragons etc… Isn’t something missing here?
It’s completely unrealistic that other NPCs are going to accept him right away, and the mission where he “proves himself” seems just a quick way to get him in the role they wanted him in.
Realistically, all he’s got is knowledge about Orr, he did nothing to Tyria or to really prove he can lead an army against a Dragon.

Destinity’s Edge won battles against Dragons and represent all races, it would make a lot more sense for them to be the final team.
Especially since all of its members have a lot of depth to them, they are renowned heroes and very powerful.
They perfectly fit there, while him does not in the least – when NPCs agree with him it sounds very finctional and unrealistic, it breaks the immersion.

Henche why most people are disappointed with the Trahearne part of the story.

That’s not what a Sue is, at all.

A Sue is someone who fixes every problem, does everything by themself, is constantly saving the ‘real’ heroes, and whom everyone, unquestionably, adores.

THAT is a Sue.

A Sue is not a competent leader who asks their subordinates for advice and suggestions, a Sue does not need the help of others to accomplish anything.

In no shape, model or form can T-Paine be considered a Sue.

Your definition is just wrong. Many characters can be unlikeable, or despised and not be Sues.

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

That’s not what a Sue is, at all.

A Sue is someone who fixes every problem, does everything by themself, is constantly saving the ‘real’ heroes, and whom everyone, unquestionably, adores.

THAT is a Sue.

A Sue is not a competent leader who asks their subordinates for advice and suggestions, a Sue does not need the help of others to accomplish anything.

In no shape, model or form can T-Paine be considered a Sue.

Your definition is just wrong. Many characters can be unlikeable, or despised and not be Sues.

Sound like what our character is force to do for most of the Personal Story because NPCs can’t keep up with our character most of the time in the Personal Story or tend to make some big mistake and our character is the one being sent in to fix that mistake all the time.

Pretty much, I’d argue there are a few instances where your PC comes up short, mostly during the “can’t save everyone” missions, but other than that…

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

That’s not what a Sue is, at all.

A Sue is someone who fixes every problem, does everything by themself, is constantly saving the ‘real’ heroes, and whom everyone, unquestionably, adores.

THAT is a Sue.

A Sue is not a competent leader who asks their subordinates for advice and suggestions, a Sue does not need the help of others to accomplish anything.

In no shape, model or form can T-Paine be considered a Sue.

Your definition is just wrong. Many characters can be unlikeable, or despised and not be Sues.

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

“A Mary Sue is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws”

Exactly what I said.
Perhaps you should read definitions of specific terms before telling others they don’t know those definitions.

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

I can’t help but think there’s a bit of circular thinking going on here. Trahearne sucks because he sucks? Why? Where is he stealing your thunder? Specifically what lines of dialog? What battles? All I’m hearing is generalities and “lol tree jesus”.

You keep bringing up how you don’t see any evidence as to why everyone’s complaining about Trahearne stealing the show, and you keep saying that the player gets more praise and compliments than him, and yet thus far you’ve only cited a single mission. As I said before, in that very same mission, it ends with NPCs talking about how Trahearne is the one true hope Tyria has to stand against Zhaitan against all odds.

In the ruins mission where you have to extract a priory team, I posted a screenshot demonstrating lack of player acknowledgement. When you finish the boss fight of that mission, your character doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. The entire cutscene is the NPCs gushing over how Trahearne saved their lives, and is obviously more than qualified to lead the Pact because he’s such an incredible hero, and how could they have doubted him for a second. No one mentions you at all. You don’t say a word. You’re essentially not even there.

In Light in the Darkness, when you get to take a ride into the Dream, you get to see the future and how important your role is going to be. But wait, that’s not right. Because you’re not even featured in it. All you see is Trahearne rallying the troops and leading the pact. Would it have been difficult to replicate the player character in those scenes? At least have him or her standing around, maybe a /point followed by all the other ghostly NPCs charging? I don’t think that would’ve been too much to ask. After that, the Pale Tree grants Trahearne the legendary sword, Caldabolg. While you, the player, stand there twiddling your thumbs. As someone else said, it’s Trahearne’s “King Arthur” moment. The Pale Tree even says to him, “Your friend will help you.” She addresses him far more than she addresses you, because you’re of lesser importance. You’re reduced to being the hero’s “friend.”

In the Source of Orr, the mission has the biggest setup of any of the missions in the game, including the mission to kill Zhaitan. You even get special part at the end where “Fear Not This Night” starts playing and Trahearne is doing his ritual, all that. It feels like the final mission. It feels like the most important mission. This mission is given far greater weight than the followup, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the mission where it’s Trahearne’s chance to shine. The culmination of his oh-so-important Wyld Hunt that’s way more special than every other sylvari’s because of how intangible it was.

So this brings us to the followup mission. Kill Zhaitan. You, the player, finally get your chance. Having had to deal with standing in Trahearne’s shadow for the past 30 levels, it’s finally time for you to be the hero. Alarm bells were already ringing when the setup was a cursory, “Ok well, go ahead and go kill Zhaitan now.” Where was the big setup that the previous mission had? Also, why do I have to do this with 4 other players? Why am I not even featured in these cutscenes with Destiny’s Edge? Because I didn’t enter the dungeon first? Even the guy who does enter the dungeon first has precious little screen time.

So you beat Zhaitan, trudge back to Fort Trinity, and hey, look at that, NPCs are /cheering for me. That’s more validation than I’ve gotten in the last 30 levels, so it’s a welcome sight. But even then, Trahearne still overshadows the player. You walk into the fort, and one of the first conversations you hear, is a conversation about how Trahearne has saved the day. Trahearne did it. He actually did it. He cleansed Orr! He led us to victory! A toast to Trahearne! If you can stomach it, and you do stick around for them to stop praising him, you get a single line in your honor. “And a cheer for the commander for slaying Zhaitan!” Second to Trahearne again.

These are just some of the examples off the top of my head. I’ve already typed out way more than I intended to, and I could keep going on about Trahearne’s ridiculous shoehorning into each of the Order storylines and how he’s best friends with every mentor, and all the Orders owe him. You say he’s not a Mary Sue, but he is one, in every sense of the word. He has no real character flaws, every character in the game is head over heels for him (including the player character), he just so happens to be a brilliant military commander despite doing nothing but studying Orr for 25 years, and he has an answer for every single obstacle he encounters. You can’t get more Mary Sue than that.

I hope those examples help you better understand where we’re coming from. And I don’t think “Hail, Warmaster! Good to see you!” makes up for it.

First of all, Wikipedia is not credible in it of itself as a source.

A Mary Sue is a type of fanfiction character, self inserted into a story, that has everyone love them, always succeeds, and in general is completely out of place in the story.

I’m not going to argue semantics, nor am I going to refute every last instance of T-Paine’s supposed glory hogging. I am going to post some images that show in the personal story, post T, you get an incredible amount of respect.

http://i.imgur.com/u5i1K.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2ZBZ0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oWt4G.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lLZEe.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aj2EI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oUs9Y.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IyrKG.jpg

I could go on, I have about another dozen or so examples, but that will have to do for now.

You feel what you feel about the personal story quest change. I can’t change your mind about that. But I believe my moutains out of molehills analogy still stands. Your personal character gets an incredible amount of respect from the most powerful people in Tyria.

manwiththemachinegun.6873:

First of all, Wikipedia is not credible in it of itself as a source.

A Mary Sue is a type of fanfiction character, self inserted into a story, that has everyone love them, always succeeds, and in general is completely out of place in the story.

I’m not going to argue semantics, nor am I going to refute every last instance of T-Paine’s supposed glory hogging. I am going to post some images that show in the personal story, post T, you get an incredible amount of respect.

http://i.imgur.com/u5i1K.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2ZBZ0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oWt4G.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lLZEe.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aj2EI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oUs9Y.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IyrKG.jpg

I could go on, I have about another dozen or so examples, but that will have to do for now.

You feel what you feel about the personal story quest change. I can’t change your mind about that. But I believe my moutains out of molehills analogy still stands. Your personal character gets an incredible amount of respect from the most powerful people in Tyria.

Ya I find a lot of those dialogues that give our character the major credits in the personal story but most of them seems to only be in dialogues people can easily miss if they don’t take the time and talk to NPCs after the Personal Story mission.

There are plenty of dialogue given our character credit after claw island. I think the reason for all this unnecessary hate for Trahearne is people’s egos getting the better of them now.

The hate just start out small with people saying “they could of just improved Trahearnes personality to be more suitable for his character role and provide some background info about why the Orders respected him” since throughout the Personal Story I’ve seen a lot of dialogue showing that Trahearne has a long history with each Order that made him well respected by them and now some how turned into “Trahearne is the reason why everything in the Personal Story is horrible and if he never existed the Personal Story would have been 100% good.”

@manwiththemachinegun
Don’t take offense but I tend to believe wiki over random people on the internet when it comes to definitions; perhaps I’m biased because I’ve seen people twisting meanings of terms a lot in forums.

As for Trahearne.
It’s not about you not getting the credit, it’s the bad way Trahearne is introduced and handled.
That whole piece of story makes no sense and is irritating, especially as it happens after one of the deepest moments of the story.
In general, when you kill a core character, you need to replace it with something equally deep or more.
Perhaps they were forced to release so they didn’t go as deep but my point stands that the whole Trahearne part was a fiasco.
Trahearne in his current state can have a part in your story as a side helper or something similar, certainly not the main leader of the Pact.
To lead the Patch a character needs to at least meet their depth if not exceed it, else it will feel like he’s forced in.
So when looking at the big scheme, Trahearne failed to meet the depth requirements you met thus far, and also failed to be a realistic choice for Pact leadership.
Any member of Destiny’s Edge alone is a lot deeper and makes more sense to be the leader, they should have made Trehearne into a similarly deep character – or at least build some hype about him before he “jumps” into your story.

OT: Is you nickname by any chance related to the MIDI with the same name?
Aka this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jho-peCAKs
Still one of my fav pump up songs to listen during MMA/BB.

@ Red

That the thing Anet needed to cover with Trahearne. I’ve seen a lot of dialogue in the Personal Story about Trahearne did important things for each order in the past before GW2 Story began but that was only a small bit of the bigger picture they had with Trahearne when they chosen him as the Pact Leader.

Trahearne has a large history with each Order but Anet didn’t cover enough of that history to make people realize why Trahearne is important.

I think Anet needs to reintroduce the Hero Stories like they did in GW1 with the Bonus Pack (Gwen’s Story, Togo’s Story, and etc.) so we experience and learn what made him respected as the leader of the pack. We already have the reason why Trahearne needs to be the leader since our character can’t be the leader because that would make the order we joined feel superior to the other 2 which would only lead to distrust and high tension between all 3 Orders. However, our character did state Trahearne is well respected by all 3 Orders but that the only question that remains for me about Trahearne.

We’ve seen Trahearne has…

1) Connections to many people and races we have never or rare meet in person because of his travels.

2) the knowledge to handle diplomatic tasks.

3) respected by all 3 Orders because of his History with all 3 Orders before GW2 Story began.

4) Knows how to properly deploy units and find good places to setup bases in the battlefield.

5) Can handle the paper work because of his scholar life which he will be given a lot of since he is the leader of the Pact. (Thank the six we are the commander or else we will be the ones getting all the paper works and be stuck on a desk filling those things out)

Out of the 5 things I’ve seen it was the Trahearne’s History with all 3 Orders Anet did not cover enough on.

@manwiththemachinegun

I don’t know how you consider half of those examples of the player being the focus of the story. They’re nothing more than a “hello.” A greeting. The other half seem to be words from Trahearne himself, which are entirely irrelevant. The problem is the role you play in the story vs. the role Trahearne plays. Batman praising Robin and showing him respect doesn’t change the fact that it’s still Robin.

Cliff.2803:

@manwiththemachinegun

I don’t know how you consider half of those examples of the player being the focus of the story. They’re nothing more than a “hello.” A greeting. The other half seem to be words from Trahearne himself, which are entirely irrelevant. The problem is the role you play in the story vs. the role Trahearne plays. Batman praising Robin and showing him respect doesn’t change the fact that it’s still Robin.

Thank you for handing me my baterangs Robin.

Cliff.2803:

@manwiththemachinegun

I don’t know how you consider half of those examples of the player being the focus of the story. They’re nothing more than a “hello.” A greeting. The other half seem to be words from Trahearne himself, which are entirely irrelevant. The problem is the role you play in the story vs. the role Trahearne plays. Batman praising Robin and showing him respect doesn’t change the fact that it’s still Robin.

Good analogy.
I believe Trahearne would fit as a Pact leader only if a lot of story was put behind him (which would require more storytelling and missions about him earlier), and only if he did something at least as outstanding as putting dragons back to sleep a la Destiny’s Edge – or at least if he had some special powers.
The only good thing is that he’s neutral to both orders and races so they have no reason to hold prejudice.

Instead Trahearne jumps out of nowhere with popped collars and backwards baseball hat, making you wonder what the hell is happening to all you experienced to far.

He comes out of nowhere and pulls a Kormir.

In all seriousness, I do think he’s a cool character. It’s just he does quite literally come out of nowhere and suddenly become awesome. I like to see characters that I know becoming stronger, but he just jumps to greatness with almost zero development in between due to the bizarre pacing of the story.

Although once he does become the pact leader, I don’t like the way you get brushed aside by everyone after you’ve done so much. You’re still acknowledged (rarely), but you’re just a subordinate. I don’t really have the same heroic feeling that I had in GW1.

Otherwise I do like an NPC that can put up a fight, and he makes an awesome meatshield for my elementalist.

Red Falcon.8257:

Good analogy.
I believe Trahearne would fit as a Pact leader only if a lot of story was put behind him (which would require more storytelling and missions about him earlier), and only if he did something at least as outstanding as putting dragons back to sleep a la Destiny’s Edge – or at least if he had some special powers.
The only good thing is that he’s neutral to both orders and races so they have no reason to hold prejudice.

Instead Trahearne jumps out of nowhere with popped collars and backwards baseball hat, making you wonder what the hell is happening to all you experienced to far.

That the thing about Trahearne that has been bugging me as I go through the Personal Story. All these dialogues showing that Trahearne does have a long history with each order that made him well respect long before GW2 story began. However, Anet only showed bits of that history through dialogue in each Order Path of what Trahearne did for each Order before GW2 began.

We’re missing a large chunk of the bigger picture they have for Trahearne and that is his past History with each Order.

EdwinLi.1284:

We’re missing a large chunk of the bigger picture they have for Trahearne and that is his past History with each Order.

I might not hate Trahearne so much if the picture had been filled in from the beginning. As it is I don’t see the character as having any credibility. It’s a bunch of “because this person over here said he’s awesome” garbage with nothing impressive taking place on screen.

And the downright sycophantic way that the NPCs talk to and about Trahearne is honestly stomach turning. Even though I think my character deserves more of the credit than Trahearne does I’d feel uncomfortable about her having her boots licked like that. It’s just over the top.

BrunoBRS.5178

trahearne is one of the best-developed characters in the personal story, he actually undergoes character development and stays around for plenty of story arcs. he’s not as intrusive as people make him sound, you’re still the other half of the reason the pact exists, and you’re almost as in charge of it as him. you still get to boss people around, and whenever someone mentions him, they mention you too.

You are joking right? Trahearne get’s randomly tossed into the story line and has no personality other than seeming uptight, he is boring and not interesting in the least. He is not likable at all and actually rather annoying.

In all honesty I don’t even think the biggest problem is that the story feels hi-jacked or that another character is being intrusive, the problem is that Trahearne is the character that does it.

If it had been a different character like Tybalt or Sieran or someone with some personality I would have been more than happy to have them take the lead, because they where great characters.

The worst part about the story is the fact that Trahearne is in it, not the story itself.

In my post I am just talking about the overall story of GW2 and how most Fans, future players, were exspecting more. After seeing so much work on the game, all we can now do is ask “Why”.

Every player that has been waiting so long for GW2, half of it for the story; might feel like they have been thrown under a bus. I feel this way. I’m told of this dark shadow over the land all of this amazeing lore, and Trahearne is going to be remembered over the player. “I forged no legend to the people”, im in the story but the people believe he had done everything when the player pretty much grabed Trahearne by the hand and given him hope.

And I have to go through a very importaint part of “My Story” with other players? That is the last straw for me, I find it hard to play GW2 now. And honestly ruined alot going for the story.

It is madness ArenaNet has done that to the story after saying things that reflect a mysterious random tale, and the only thing we knew was we would fight a huge Dragon, that is powerful enough to comand a Land that is under the mighty weight of the sea to rise: An overall legend of Dragon’s that make mountains rumble; only to have their imagination, that cannot be promised.

I will agree there should be a little durection to the overall story, but Trahearne had the shoes of the Heroic roll, otherwise taking a very good reason to even do “the not so personal story”.

A Player Charracter, starts out with the shadows of the past and trying to make them A right, having a choice.

Then no matter what the player has to join some Order. (when Dragon’s threaten all people, a choice to not join any Order would lead to a compleatly fun adventure.)

But none of that matters when the story is compleatly flipped around making one charracter that is not yourself, The Hero. Oh! Yes there is that sidekick.

I find the lay out silly, because it dose not match up as a good plot; it being a Personal Story first, then turning into a Plot with a 3 path choice, but throwing personal out and just being a normal story plot, a few things can be difrent along the way…

I have to ask ArenaNet; why say “What is your Story?” when it was not going to be mine anyway? Mind as well scrapped all of the options about what I want my charracter to be, at creation. I honestly love those options and the first part of the story that uses the options, It has became a useless tool to tell a story. I understand you had to get the game into the hands of many long waiting fans, and it took so much work from only a hand full of people, congrats for a great game. I wish you guys gave yourself more time to think over an atchual Personal Story.

@Kiraki

You know you’ve just proven my point how people are now just over reacting to Trahearne now.

@ Tearthy Flame

Well that the point. Personal Story is not the main story but just our character’s perspective of the Main Story.

Main Story Characters: Members of Destiny Edge(Logan, Zojja, Caithe, Rytlock, and Eir) , Our Order mentor (Order Story only) and Trahearne (Orr Story only).

Personal Story Characters: Our Character.

The Story of GW2 has always been separated between Main Story and Personal Story with our character been the secondary character of the Main Story but the Main Character of the Personal Story because the Personal Story is our character’s point of view of the Main Story, not the main story it self.

If you don’t like the concept that the Personal Story is not the Main Story but just our character’s perspective of the Main Story then you may want to consider another game because Anet most likely has plans for the Hero of Legend who will damage Jormag’s teeth and destined to Slay Jormag to not be our character but a new NPC.

@ EdwinLi

Thank you for another veiw at the story, it is understandable why they did this but I am one that took ArenaNet’s word by heart, and I know I exspected so much more. So if ArenaNet did not so strongly put out “It is your Personal Story” I would not be talking about it like this. They made the main epic edvent of the Personal Story a Dungeon that can be played over and over by any charracter, after AN said a player had to make a new charracter to kill Zhaitan again and could do the full personal story alone.

I do have some reason to say these things, because whatever happened in the past mistakes and rights I made in the story are forgoten, and that runins the feel of the player being importaint.

Adding:
ArenaNet focused on all players having fun and they should not of brought whats ment to be a Personal Story into the mix, after players could allready invite others into their story. I do not see why some players wouldn’t say “Who want’s to help me kill Zhaitan!” Sharing a most epic moment.

The story is fine by its self, but it is runined as a personal story for the player. That is all.

Just adding my voice to this as well, without going into an elaborate diatribe about Trahearne he seemed to me like an incredibly contrived, forced character that’s bludgeoned into the role of leadership with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. He’s introduced as an acquaintance of your mentor who happens to be a scholar specializing in Orr, okay that makes sense no problem there… skip forward a bit and suddenly because he’s received some divine mandate from his “god” he’s Neo here to save the matrix with his magic sword and you’re relegated to his flunky with no real input from you.

Well I don’t to say too much but clearly this isn’t anyway to tell a “personal” story, no one wants to be sidetracked but some self important condescending know-it-all who is only there because everyone drank the punch and is suddenly seems to believe his BS.

The personal story should be about your character, his or her choices, his or her friends, his or her accomplishments not just being caught up and dragged along by the progress of some redic mary sue that’s dropped into things.

In fact the really funny thing about this is ArenaNet shows us that they know how to do a companion character right in your mentor (I can only mention the Vigil mentor since that’s all I’ve seen) who you develop a believable bond with and steps aside in a very memorable fashion to allow your own personal growth/story to progress. Why this sort of writing couldn’t have been extended to Trahearne is beyond me.

EdwinLi.1284

@Kiraki

You know you’ve just proven my point how people are now just over reacting to Trahearne now.

I loved all the personal story lines up until level 50. After that you are saddled up with a very unlikeable character with boring dialogues and you have no way of getting rid of them. And even worse than that they become a huge focus of your story, which in turn ruins the story for me.

I do not see how that is in any way over reacting.

Blueroseknight.7954:

I’m not trying to be unfair, I know the writers tried their best.

After making it to 80, and playing the stories for a few alts up to 30. I think this is more insulting than it is, complimentary. The PS writing is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. It reads and plays out like bad fanfiction.

It’s almost concertedly bad, cringe worthy and painful to listen to.

Personality has no impact on my character’s interactions, and the background you choose at character creation, does virtually nothing, and fails to extend past the first 20 levels or so, but it doesn’t matter because the writing is so flat, that it doesn’t matter.

How Arenanet’s writers managed to make an evil carnival boring, is beyond me.

Trahearn is like “George Lucas prequels writing”. Introduce a character who is important or significant, because you are told he is. Not shown. Then make the character, wooden, bland and uninteresting.

I had not heard of the hate with Trahearne before I played: “A light in the darkness.”

I was upset that this…this…scholar, replaced my beloved mentor Forgal, a character I not only deeply liked, but felt a personal bond with. Yeah, Forgal knew Trahearne, and that was good enough for me to not ‘hate’ him, but I hated Trahearne the moment Forgal died. I hate that he replaced such an awesome and inspiring figure.

Then I did the Light in the Darkness. I played through with my friend and I watched the whole thing as felt like…what the f…that was the worst story mode of my life. Am I really second fiddle to…this guy??? Where am I in relation to the story. I feel like…I am not even the MAIN character anymore.

Its one thing that this guy took over Forgal’s spot, but I have NO inter-personal development with this guy. He’s telling me what to do, where to go, and everyone is slathering themselves with butter when he’s around. I’m an after-thought to them, and I feel like no hero…

Allright, here’s the thing. One of the main reasons people transfer a lot of hate onto Treesus is because he shows up in one of the first “Bend over and take your screwing” story missions. You go up against swarms of infinitely spawning undead, and Trahearne, the so-called “Orr expert” is along for the ride.

Except this expert is completely pants in a fight. Fine, he’s not a soldier, I get that. But he’s supposedly been studying and learning of the undead for years, can’t he do ANYTHING to make the mission easier? Have him toss up some lines of warding, or turn undead, or something. As it is all he does is throw around babbys first necromancer spell while you do all the work. He doesn’t even have the brains to rez you when you get knocked down for gods sake.

Just fixing the game mechanics of giving him an AI worth a crap would go a long way towards blunting the hatred for him. The dissonance of this super duper expert being completely and utterly useless really makes things worse.

Now just speaking story-wise, here’s what really got me. Trahearne is a liar. No, seriously. Why do you spend all this time uniting the orders into the pact? To kill Zhaitan, right?

What’s Tree boy’s wyld hunt? To cleanse Orr. And this is exactly what he does, after promising all the orders and soldiers he’s out to kill Zhaitan. He cleanses Orr in a big fancy ritual, then almost flat out says “Well okay cool, my wyld hunt is done. I’m just gonna go sit around the fort. I suppose you can go kill that Zhaitan dude, commander. I’ll just be over there sipping wine.”

The only character I leveled up was a Sylvari so I was lucky enough to see Trahearne enough to not see him as a stranger suddenly stepping into the story and stealing the spotlight. However, when the story shifted it’s focus from me to him I did find it a little jarring. I haven’t finished the story yet, thinking that maybe by the end he would accidentally get killed and I’d retake the spotlight. Obviously not by these posts.
When Trahearne took center stage I lost interest in the story. He’s a very… nice character. But he’s also very bland, as others have stated, and fails to leave an impression on the player, unlike Tybalt (I was very disappointed when they killed him off). Now if it were Tybalt instead of Trahearne I could see myself enjoying the story a lot more…

Trahearne would be a much better character if he weren’t voiced by a text-to-speech program.

Red Falcon.8257:

@Chad
Mary Sue means a character that’s idealized and uses clichès.

In other words: the player character.

What exactly one regards as a “Sue” differs from person to person — some focus on the “author’s self-insert” aspect, others on “s/he can do no wrong” or “everyone loves her/him”, still others on “bends and breaks the rules of the setting”. However, the one thing that many discussions about “Sues” that I’ve seen have in common is that the term is usually only applied to characters that people don’t like — yet other characters who are at least as over the top as the “Sue” get a free pass. The label is applied to marginalized people more readily than to privileged ones, because the former aren’t expected or “allowed” to be as competent as the latter. It is applied to NPCs more than to PCs, because we are the PCs and we somehow “deserve” to be Special™.

That is why I consider the term to be meaningless as well as hypocritical. Instead of calling someone a “Sue”, it’s much better to point out to the writers exactly why the character is aggravating, over the top or just plain broken.

I’m not saying Trahearne isn’t problematic, mind you. For me he’s a big symptom of the mind-bogglingly lazy and disjointed writing in which continuity doesn’t exist, and in which the PC is turned from a person immersed in her own culture into a nameless, faceless, culture-less generic filler whose friends and accomplishments are forgotten after each act. Does Trahearne get all this credit and attention in the story because the writers simply couldn’t be arsed to write the diversity of the PC’s origins and choices into the plot? That’s my hunch at least, so I’m extremely annoyed with the writers, not the character.

Do I hate Trahearne? Not really. Has dumping him on me suddenly and making it The Trahearne Show made me less enthusiastic about my Personal Story? Yes. I admit, I’ve never played GW1, so I’m used to having my character be The Hero, as opposed to The Hero’s Sidekick.

The way he’s written just… annoys me. We’re running to a big important fight when I meet him, and he starts monologuing about himself. Could he have found a worst time to give you his life story? Then he’s my “friend” who is going to follow me whether I want him to or not. Having a scholar of Orr on your side makes sense, but the way a bond is assumed in no time is jarring.

As you get further on, everyone’s thrilled to see him, as he’ll be a great help! Except for the part where he follows me around while -I- handle everything. No mystic chanting to hold off the worst of the undead with his extensive knowledge or anything for flavor; he’s not even that big a help in the fights. Personality wise, he is, as others have said, rather flat. Stopping Zhaitan and cleansing Orr comes across less as something he’s doing, and more as the only thing he is, raising the question of why he bothers breathing after.

At some point, I just stopped caring about the Personal Story. I don’t feel I have any impact on it, and you could put literally any other player in my place and it would be well nigh identical. It’s a source of XP and a small amount of lore about what’s going on in the world. I won’t be incorporating any of it into my character’s story and RP. While some random Commander and Trahearne were off killing Zhaitan, Morenin Entalle was assisting the Seraph.

For me, the issue with Trahearne was not that he’s the leader instead of the PC (since the PC would naturally be on the front lines rather than holding a desk job,) but that the fact that he’s the leader is constantly being talked about and treated like a central plot point, and he’s around so much of the time, as if he doesn’t trust you to handle a mission without him or doesn’t have anything to do besides tag along.

A character can hold an important role without being central to the story or being the focus of so much dialog and cutscene time. The Pact leader could (and I think should) have been a lot more peripheral.

No one complains about General Soulkeeper, for example, although she was also your superior if you were a Vigil member like I was – but Soulkeeper mostly just gave you your marching orders and left you to get the job done. She wasn’t constantly tagging along expecting the PC to prop her up emotionally and then taking credit for the PC’s work.

It’s not just about Trahearne being leader. It’s about how his leadership position was implemented in the game.

The storyline works fine when it’s just about loads of people working together, with no one particularly special or chosen. We don’t need a chosen one, PC or NPC. I would rather have the story be about my character as just one among many of the Pact, than have the spotlight firmly fixed on Trahearne with my character off to one side. It’s not about wanting the PC to have more glory, it’s about being the focus of one’s own story – even if that story is about being a footsoldier in the fight.

I found the game was truly my story right up to the bit where Trahearne was introduced then it effectively became his story and from then on I was his unwilling sidekick. Arena Net are not bad at writing, but they often neglectful of the player character and lack consideration for the effects of npc/player interaction.

Trahearne was written as the players best buddy, yet nothing he does or says ever puts him in such a position. He fought with the player character yet never proves his prowess, often relying on the player character to do the dirty work. He leads the orders yet never proves his ability in command, constantly asking the player character to make every decision and lead every important and dangerous mission. Such a character needed to be written quite differently and required several opportunities to prove himself to the player, such as Rurik or Thackery from Guild Wars one.

Unfortunately they went the Kormir route, which is to this day widely disliked. It is quite a bizarre choice really, Arena Net even acknowledged back in the day the faults of this approach when people started complaining about her being a glory thief. When Thackery from Guild Wars Beyond tried to steal Gwen people reacted in the same way, but Arena Net fixed issue with missions that made us appreciate his character and actually root for him.

Arena Net are capable of doing it right as we have very many likeable characters through our personal story (Unfortunately they are always taken from us after one or two missions) so it boggles the mind as to why they wrote a pivotal character like Trahearne in such a way.

We are meant to be hero’s, the saviours or Tyria, due to thoughtless writing with the Zaitan story arc we are reduced to nothing more than glorified henchmen.

I would love to hear from an Arena Net writer on this subject.

From Wuss to Warrior. It was a silly trope in the 80’s and it’s still a silly trope today, the funny part is it’s not even me. However, let me put aside my lack of disinterest in Trahearne for a moment (though it is very hard) and talk about how I was hoping for more consequences from my actions. More consequences in general for losing so many to Zhaitan. I get an overwhelming feeling that everyone was more concerned with leaving their Vigil Mentor behind than they were with the endgame content. Regardless of if said mentor pops back up in the future (spoilers a mile away?) I think the game is lacking how to follow through on a story (perhaps rushed it even).

As we have been told a million times over like a broken record, once one is in Zhaitan’s grasp he knows all they know. Not only would I find it prudent for a certain Master of Whispers to be more on guard than ever. I find it completely pointless that I’m condemned to run about with the endless chatty Kathy wielding ‘salad bowl’ as a ridiculous amount of risen bore me to undeath as I begrudgingly continue on.

It’s so hard not to fuss about Trahearne. For those who love him, I’m sorry. I understand that he appeals to a certain demographic, but in the long run he’s not nearly as engaging, provocative, or just plain interesting. I’d rather have Gavin back at this point. The story tromps along like a nerdy episode of As the Caladbolg Turns, complete with cheap love stories that pander to the appeal of progressive thought but fall short of actually hitting the mark. I think that the writers did their best and were perhaps confined to a head writers vision of how they wanted this story to end. They did as they were told and it shows, by the Six it shows! After hours and hours of bang for our buck dialog being continuously droned on by voice actors I respect. I unfortunately found my mouse always hovering over the “skip to end” option instead of feeling inclined to actually listen.

This post will eventually get washed away into a sea of opinions rallied behind the Team Trahearne and Team Need More Story Please. However, I hope that for the voices that have spoken already a much needed fire was lit in the story department. So that when I buy the first expansion 6 months from now our cries, cares, concerns, complaints and compliments will be met with some sort of reward and not just a locked Black Lion Chest.

TBH it felt like my character had some obligation to beef up this geek’s confidence as if he felt bad for him, like that dorky cousin your mom forces you to hang out with and make feel better. Then he goes and ends up taking credit for your work lmao.

Trahearne : “Oh noes, I don’t think I can do it, I can’t lead or anything. Omg wat do?”

Tree Mommy : “You can do it, you’re so special have a legendary weapon!”

My Char : “You can do it Trahearne I beliebe in you!!! You’re so awesome trust me!”

~* I accomplish things pretty much by self *~

Trahearne : “I KNEW I could do it!!”

….

I don’t like the guy. Nobody I knows likes the guy. They can all come up with better explanations than I can. Know why? I haven’t really felt a “hook” or really anything to draw me into caring. I can’t come up with any reason better to hate or like him than has already been brought up but I just don’t care enough to like him and he doesn’t help me along to.

I was having way more fun just doing oddjobs for the Tribune as a Legionnaire in the PS.

You know who I’d follow in to kill the Elder Dragons happily? Commander Shepard—oh wait, that was me.

Personally, I liked Trehearne. I really didn’t like Tybalt though, so it is quite possible I was just happy to have someone less annoying by my side.

I will be honest i did not like Trahearne beyond his first appearance. He always seemed oddly bored and uncaring while at the same time depending fully on you. Received all the credit for everything you do and only once really pulled his weight. The personal story became the rise of Trahearne and only made me wish i could willingly join the legions of Zhaitan just to kick his kitten

I didn’t like Trahearne at all during my initial play of the game, for essentially all the reasons stated—but then I made a sylvari. That shed some more light on him; in the end, he’s a pretty tragic character who eventually -gets- a happy ending of sorts.

The problem is the execution of that.

As people have said, we don’t get to see why he has all three orders indebted to him. We don’t get to know he has a debt from a watery assassin that’s just as equally mysterious. We’re missing out on the twenty-five years of history that shaped this character, made him into who he is today, and very little is ever actually explained.

Playing as a sylvari made me realize that, even among his own people, he’s basically an outcast. He was the only one of the Firstborn “blessed” with a dream they all thought impossible. He was the only one who’s dream would lead him to a dead land with rotting corpses and ruined texts for friends (besides Caithe, but she never stayed there long-term).

And that plays up a -very- tragic character.

But as covered, we don’t get to see his real rise to glory beyond suddenly becoming leader of the Pact. We don’t get to see how he became this charismatic marshal that everybody has respect for. If they could flesh this out in a future expansion against one of the other Elder Dragons? I think it’d do wonders.

… And furthermore, get his VA to put a little more passion into the role. I know he’s capable of it; it’s apparently the same guy who does Fenris from DA2.

If Guild Wars 2 was a novel, Trahearne would be a great protagonist; he is a peaceful scholar with an almost impossible Wyld Hunt who is unwillingly thrust into a position of leadership. Unfortunately, Guild Wars 2 is not a novel, and despite the player characters generally being very bland, it is the player character who is supposed to be the hero of the story, and unfortunately Trahearne overshadows the player from level 50 onwards. And why does he get to use a greatsword despite being a Necromancer? So unfair.

Make no mistake, I love the character of Trahearne, but the fact that 30 levels’ worth of personal storyline is focussed on him is more than a little annoying.