Guild Wars 2

I hate Traeharne cause he stole my personal story and I essentially became Sidehsow Bob.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Kalavier.1097:

Rebound.3409:

- He quite literally takes credit for everything you do.

He literally takes credit for only one thing as far as I’ve seen, and that’s purely because it’s a case where he HAD TO. Otherwise, he and Destiny’s Edge credit you with everything.

My last story run through, at one point my character was told “Charr, Norn, and Sylvari are singing songs in YOUR PRAISE/honor.” Not Traehearne, My character.

To OP. His introduction was weak, but the bulk of the hate comes from people jumping to conclusions and not actually paying attention (which is where this credit stuff comes from). Some people demand that they be commander of the pact (despite the fact their character is literally an unknown figure for the most part, where Traehearne is respected by the three orders already), and focus purely on that.

His introduction was weak and the reason he was chosen was weak. It wasn’t because he was the best or first choice, it was because the the orders couldn’t choose a leader from amongst themselves because they were afraid of favoritism.

“Gixx: Logic dictates that it cannot be a member of any of our orders, lest one be seen as above the other two. Quite a conundrum!”

In other words, in spite of the need to pull together and select the best amongst themselves to lead, they were forced to choose a scholar with no military training because they were unwilling to commit completely to what needed to be done and were afraid of in fighting. Not the best choice or for the best reasons. They could have chosen a leader amongst themselves and had him as an adviser.

No they couldn’t, because if they did ANet would have had to effectively written three different stories from that point forward dependent on which Order you joined. Then your Order might actually matter and people could have widely different experiences. It would be uncontrollable madness.

Because they wanted to ensure an utterly equal pact. A leader coming from the vigil would not make the Priory or OoW happy at all, and they may be less enticed to accept it. Each other had differing viewpoints of how to handle situations, so why would the Priory dedicate a chunk of it’s numbers into a group lead by a vigil member who they aren’t entirely a fan of?

Also the fact that branching storylines effectively have to be controlled. IE, at Orr you have three storylines. They start and end at the same point however. As was said for living story once. If they did LS based off your race, class, and order, you’d have a HUGE amount of variations. Keep on adding more and more choices, it becomes a huge mess to continue or keep consistent.

Kalavier.1097:

Because they wanted to ensure an utterly equal pact. A leader coming from the vigil would not make the Priory or OoW happy at all, and they may be less enticed to accept it. Each other had differing viewpoints of how to handle situations, so why would the Priory dedicate a chunk of it’s numbers into a group lead by a vigil member who they aren’t entirely a fan of?

But why is this random sallad head thrown in, one that is clearly not a military commander?

I mean it could have been say… Rytlock that was chosen to lead the war against the dragons. Trahearne could still have followed you to complete his own quest to cleanse Orr, but why lead the Pact?

Dawdler.8521:

Kalavier.1097:

Because they wanted to ensure an utterly equal pact. A leader coming from the vigil would not make the Priory or OoW happy at all, and they may be less enticed to accept it. Each other had differing viewpoints of how to handle situations, so why would the Priory dedicate a chunk of it’s numbers into a group lead by a vigil member who they aren’t entirely a fan of?

But why is this random sallad head thrown in, one that is clearly not a military commander?

I mean it could have been say… Rytlock that was chosen to lead the war against the dragons. Trahearne could still have followed you to complete his own quest to cleanse Orr, but why lead the Pact?

A: He’s equally respected by all three orders. He also respects all three orders equally.
B: He has perhaps the most extensive firsthand knowledge of Orr around. Hell, him and Caithe were the only two people who saw Zhaitan personally before then, IIRC.
C: He was surrounded by those with experiance about leading a campaign like this, and he wasn’t afraid to seek them out for advice.

His introduction if you weren’t a Sylvari was weak, I’ll completely support that.

I like how people keep saying that Trahearne stole credit from the player character.

He didn’t steal anything, in fact he makes it Perfectly clear that he owes everything to the Player character, on multiple occassions. It’s just that the rest of the world seems to think he’s the big shot of the two of you.

It’s poor writing decisions that doesn’t cast enough limelight on the Player Character, if anything.

Also the fact that they try and make a Hero out of a guy who has SUPPORTING CHARACTER written on his forehead. I mean Trahearne is meek, reticent, scholarly and in no ways an actual fighter. There’s absolutely nothing wrong about the character in itself, but rather how that character is presented and the role he’s given. Trahearne’s the guy who should be barely holding his own against the big, scary enemy, succumbing to fatigue just as the Player Character comes around and tags him out, letting Trahearne pass out and rest while you personally proceed to kick copious amounts of behind. Sometimes, though, the writers got it all backwards instead.

Me? I’m personally happy that Trahearne was willing to deal with all the administrative stuff so that my Pact Commander can go out picking flowers, stomping rabbits to see if I can break 1.000.000 damage, dress up in a pink skirt and run around the Reach tossing rose petals at people, finally take some time to practice that awesome choir bell solo I dreamt about and generally be a total schtickwaffle to anything remotely resembling a quaggan when it happens to come my way.

The problem with Trehearne is that in every way that matters, he is completely worthless. The bad dialogue and dull, monotonous, unskippable VO just add insult to injury.

He’s worthless as an NPC, doing generally zero damage in combat, barely acting to divide agro with the swarms of NPCs that usually appear and when he actually does draw agro, spends most of the time defeated. If he was taken from the combat, with the missions rebalanced for solo or one fewer party member, the game would lose nothing.

He’s worthless as a source of information, a droning, boring encycopaedia, doling out monologues which either describe what you can already see, have already been told by someone else, or tell you nothing that couldn’t be gained (and skipped in replays) by simply having interactive documents laying around. Alternatively, the player VO could narrate what is being shown. Treevis could be removed and the story would lose nothing.

He’s worthless as a leader. Most of the decisions are made by the player and carried out by the player, we could come to those decisions without Tree-bore Extra Strong anyway and the story would lose nothing. The Pact leaders deciding amongst themselves as a united front, a group leadership which offers choices to the player would make far more sense and I’d argue, be far more interesting.

He’s worthless as the cleanser of Orr. The cleansing of orr could be carried out by nameless Pact mages, nothing lost there and arguably orr isn’t cleansed in the game world, so the idea of cleansing could be removed no one would be the wiser. Literally nothing would be lost.

TreedleDee is worthless against the Big Bad. Zhaitan is stopped by a group of players, Trehearne has nothing to do with it. Removing him from the end of the game would have zero impact on the story. Infact being congratulated by the leaders of the Pact, would make far more sense and be more interesting as dialogue.

TL:DR Salad-face is terrible in combat and interacting with him at all is made worse by the fact he adds nothing to the game that couldn’t be better done by someone/something else. He could literally be excised from the game files without any impact on the story.

Think of it this way…

If you were the big leader of the Pact, YOU would be dealing with the paperwork. Generals typically don’t lead from the front, they sit behind a desk. Traehearne sat behind the desk and dealt with the paperwork and other aspects while you kicked kitten in the field.

Kalavier.1097:

Think of it this way…

If you were the big leader of the Pact, YOU would be dealing with the paperwork. Generals typically don’t lead from the front, they sit behind a desk. Traehearne sat behind the desk and dealt with the paperwork and other aspects while you kicked kitten in the field.

Or, the pact leaders could do all that. Alternatively, given that it’s a game and there is no background administration, no one could do it, since no one does do it. Trehearne could be removed and nothing would be lost.

MarkoNS.3261:

I am shocked to find out that a lot of people dont like Traeharne, besides Tybalt those are the only 2 npc from the main story i like. tell me the reasons you dont like him i am curious.

Ps – Anet dont kill him , if you must kill him give us an option to spare him.

I can attempt to explain why there seems to be a lot of players who don’t like him.

I, for the record, am ambivalent towards him. I just don’t like the execution of the 2nd half of the Personal Story.

1. People are more likely to take the effort to voice their displeasure with something than their satisfaction with it.

The feedback on forums, social media, and in-game is not necessarily representative of the entire community’s attitude towards Trahearne. The outspoken ones may or may not be the majority. You might already know this, but covering this anyway just in case.

2. The first half of Personal Story introduced the player’s story and his/her race very well. It is likely that given limited resources and time, the developers decided to converge all paths once the the player begins to confront the threat of Zhaitan. This is not necessarily bad, but the immersion becomes very negatively affected once you play through the Personal Story on a 2nd character. This negativity might be associated with Trahearne who plays a very big part in the 2nd half of the Personal Story.

3. Compelling story often involves compelling character development.

This has always been an Achilles’ heel of Western RPGs that follow the traditional tabletop RPG style of allowing the players to create their own avatar. Designers of Western role-playing video games fail to consider that tabletop RPGs can incorporate compelling storytelling and character development while allowing players to dictate the protagonists’ personality and origins because the narrative is being managed by a human game master. The GM can accommodate player choices by reacting accordingly allowing for full immersion. It is a lot less easy to to accomplish that in video games given limitations in asset development and AI programming.

That’s why Japanese RPGs have for years, been superior at storytelling in this genre. The protagonists are intricately designed and the narrative tailored by professional writers to tell a focused story. That’s why linear games like the Last of Us have critically acclaimed narratives and character development.

I think the ArenaNet developers recognized that and tried to come to a compromise. Without being able to control what the player’s character will turn out to be, they instead focused the narrative on an NPC whose personality and character development that they could design, hoping for the player to experience compelling character development vicariously as a sidekick.

Therein lies the problem. Players in role-playing games are meant to be the heroes, not the sidekicks. That’s why there’s the backlash. Personal Story became “Trahearne’s Story” and the fact that the execution of Trahearne’s character development felt incomplete and rushed only exacerbated the problem.

You can see how much better this situation was addressed in the narrative of Season 2 of Living Story.

Fixing this problem in Season 0 of Personal Story will conceivably take up resources that ArenaNet probably feels can be better spent on new content. I don’t expect this to be fixed. At least with what they are doing so far, one can be optimistic for the future.

Petrol.9086:

Also the gameplay dosen’t really synch up with he story. What i mean is gameplay wise he’s utterly useless and lies dead on the ground 90% of the time while you do all the work, but storywise everyone thinks he’s amazing because reasons.

Hating Trahearne for this is stupid.

Even Destiny’s Edge, the most epic heroes of GW2’s time, lie dead in the dirt 90% of the time.

EVERY SINGLE ALLIED NPC IN THE GAME EVERYWHERE is made so abysmally weak, just to make our PC feel all the more epic. Trahearne has no uniqueness to this.

This changed slightly with story relevant NPCs in Season 2, but only in that they’re all now immortal (this includes Trahearne!), but the damage they do is so little damage that you can pull a simple ambient rabbit to them and afk for ten hours for the rabbit to still be above half health when you get back – and the NPCs at 1% health for eternity.

wolfyrik.2017:

Kalavier.1097:

Think of it this way…

If you were the big leader of the Pact, YOU would be dealing with the paperwork. Generals typically don’t lead from the front, they sit behind a desk. Traehearne sat behind the desk and dealt with the paperwork and other aspects while you kicked kitten in the field.

Or, the pact leaders could do all that. Alternatively, given that it’s a game and there is no background administration, no one could do it, since no one does do it. Trehearne could be removed and nothing would be lost.

Going with this logic, we could literally remove a huge chunk of npcs and have ‘nothing lost’ storywise.

Lost sister? Who cares. She physically appears once or twice early on, then once again, ONLY if you pic the tank option. Remove her and nothing is lost.

Guy from tutorial area with the pet fox? Appears twice. remove him and nothing is lost.

So on so forth with named npcs until eventually, there is just the freaking player character and nameless mooks.

Difference is, that sword was actually needed to cleanse Orr. Traehearne new the ritual. Other aspects make sense for him to do. Simply spouting “But we could insert nameless mook number 13 to do that!” or “We could remove that character!” doesn’t work because then I ask you apply that to… everybody.

Oh hey, we could remove Tybalt from the Claw Island arc and lose nothing from the story according to that logic. Staying behind? Anybody could do that. Replace him with some random high ranking OoW character and bam, success! But then the loss wouldn’t be as heavy, because it’d be some random nameless character. Likewise for the cleansing of Orr, if it was some nameless or random group of Pact spellcasters doing the ritual, it wouldn’t have the impact IMO.

Ashen.2907:

Sir Alric.5078:

Choosing Trahearne at that point in time was really the only reasonable option,

No. Actually it was an entirely unreasonable option.

He had no command experience, no military experience at all as near as we can tell. He actively demonstrates a complete lack of tactical acumen in play. He also admits to having no understanding or experience of Orrian creatures after claiming to have studied Orr extensively.

The idea that there was not a single combat trained and experienced military officer available to fill a command position, any one of which would have been a better choice, is ludicrous. This is particularly true in a continent in a continuous state of war.

NO ONE said there are no better commanders than Trahearne in Tyria. But how many of them were readily available, willing to take the position, and already had the trust of the three orders? There was only Trahearne at the time who fulfilled all three of those conditions.

Besides, all the complains about Trahearne are just excuses and you know it. What most people are really complaining about is that someone else became the Pact Leader instead of the PC. That’s it. It’s the “I’M TYRIA’S ONLY HERO, HOW DARES THIS GUY STEAL MY SPOTLIGHT??!” mentality. If that’s the case, then even if you replaced Trahearne with someone else better suited to be a general, nothing would have changed. People would just be hating that guy instead of Trahearne.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Petrol.9086:

Also the gameplay dosen’t really synch up with he story. What i mean is gameplay wise he’s utterly useless and lies dead on the ground 90% of the time while you do all the work, but storywise everyone thinks he’s amazing because reasons.

Hating Trahearne for this is stupid.

Even Destiny’s Edge, the most epic heroes of GW2’s time, lie dead in the dirt 90% of the time.

EVERY SINGLE ALLIED NPC IN THE GAME EVERYWHERE is made so abysmally weak, just to make our PC feel all the more epic. Trahearne has no uniqueness to this.

This changed slightly with story relevant NPCs in Season 2, but only in that they’re all now immortal (this includes Trahearne!), but the damage they do is so little damage that you can pull a simple ambient rabbit to them and afk for ten hours for the rabbit to still be above half health when you get back – and the NPCs at 1% health for eternity.

What you quoted was me explaining what makes him even WORSE than what i wrote in my first sentence, and a general problem when characters we’re supousedto like are nothing but dead weights at best, annoyance that breaks the quest/dungeon at worst.
Not ever did i write that this is something unique to Traherne ever.

And yes DE are worthless, and i think that is absolutely kittened aswell i also think that it damages the perception of the members of Destinies Edge even more beyond the cringe worthy juvenile BS we have to sit through during story dungeons.
If you can’t tell, i’m not really a fan of the DE characters either.

Hell it damages the new characters as well and most of the time having them along is nothing but a chore. Hell they’re annoying even if they are immortal, i just did the part in Glints Cave and Majory or whatever her name is was at best useless and kittened and at worst made it harder for me when she decided it was time to hit the vortex crystal for no kittening reason.

I think players perception of these characters would warm up alot if they actually helped players and were useful in one way or another.
Just look at Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, you can’t help but get attatched to that character simply because she is so helpful.
I think Anet need to come up with a way how the characters could help the player, say with buffs or if they actually did damage and they could bump up the difficulty or HP to compensate. Maybe they could save the player from death once their HP reached a certain ammount once every X seconds/minutes. Hell anything else than the mobile doorstops they are now.

I think it is also the way Trahearne was the center of attention while we the players are like his bodyguard which no NPC cares until we beat that Champ dragon or save them and it reflected in the dialogue. Other than that, we players are nothing more than just another character standing there and doing nothing until we are asked by Trahearne or some random NPC to go do this and that.

However, I think they ""FIX"" this situation in HoT. But I will refer judgement until I actually play it the whole story for HoT. But I am hopeful that ANET may just pull it off with HoT. (fingers crossed)

Sir Alric.5078:

NO ONE said there are no better commanders than Trahearne in Tyria. But how many of them were readily available, willing to take the position, and already had the trust of the three orders? There was only Trahearne at the time who fulfilled all three of those conditions.

Besides, all the complains about Trahearne are just excuses and you know it. What most people are really complaining about is that someone else became the Pact Leader instead of the PC. That’s it. It’s the “I’M TYRIA’S ONLY HERO, HOW DARES THIS GUY STEAL MY SPOTLIGHT??!” mentality. If that’s the case, then even if you replaced Trahearne with someone else better suited to be a general, nothing would have changed. People would just be hating that guy instead of Trahearne.

Case in point. Kormir.

“OMG, SHE STOLE MY GODHOOD. WAAAAAA.”

I always reply to those people with “Hey, how would you do a next expansion if you are a freaking god?” and from GW2 era viewpoint. “How could they make you a god, and in GW2 not invalidate you? Way I see it, it’s either the god becomes unknown and/or so weak nobody remembers them… Or Anet makes a random npc (or picks one) to become the god.”

By making Traehearne leader, they make future writing easier. They can reference Traehearne as leader of the pact, while “the commander” did these extra things. The commander is a universal and vague title, making it easy for players to slot their own characters into it if they wish (I personally, play none of my characters as if they were the commander).

Frankly, I think all the ‘general’ type figures at the time would be too busy with their actual jobs to lead the pact. Charr and human military leaders would be busy with their own issues, and besides those… you have the vigil. :P

Kalavier.1097:

wolfyrik.2017:

Kalavier.1097:

Think of it this way…

If you were the big leader of the Pact, YOU would be dealing with the paperwork. Generals typically don’t lead from the front, they sit behind a desk. Traehearne sat behind the desk and dealt with the paperwork and other aspects while you kicked kitten in the field.

Or, the pact leaders could do all that. Alternatively, given that it’s a game and there is no background administration, no one could do it, since no one does do it. Trehearne could be removed and nothing would be lost.

Going with this logic, we could literally remove a huge chunk of npcs and have ‘nothing lost’ storywise.

Lost sister? Who cares. She physically appears once or twice early on, then once again, ONLY if you pic the tank option. Remove her and nothing is lost.

Guy from tutorial area with the pet fox? Appears twice. remove him and nothing is lost.

So on so forth with named npcs until eventually, there is just the freaking player character and nameless mooks.

Difference is, that sword was actually needed to cleanse Orr. Traehearne new the ritual. Other aspects make sense for him to do. Simply spouting “But we could insert nameless mook number 13 to do that!” or “We could remove that character!” doesn’t work because then I ask you apply that to… everybody.

Oh hey, we could remove Tybalt from the Claw Island arc and lose nothing from the story according to that logic. Staying behind? Anybody could do that. Replace him with some random high ranking OoW character and bam, success! But then the loss wouldn’t be as heavy, because it’d be some random nameless character. Likewise for the cleansing of Orr, if it was some nameless or random group of Pact spellcasters doing the ritual, it wouldn’t have the impact IMO.

Oh… now you give legitimacy to my point. The story is written so poorly and the NPC are so faceless, so one dimensional, that you could literally remove them and nothing would be lost. Moronharne is no difference.

The issue is not JUST the character, its the story telling. Its poor. It is flat. It creates no sense of immersion, no feeling of contribution.

There is one single exception: Tibalt.

So now consider the point that in the entire personal story, most people remember only 2 of the NPC’s; Tibalt and Moronharne.
One, because they love him, the other, because they hate him.

…Traeharne should have been the bloody villain! At least the feeling we fel towards him would have made sense.

Sorry friend, just because you play a sylvari does not make the character any better. He is bad, and there is a LOT of reasons for it, and a lot more people who feel that way then there are otherwise. Whether they are opinions or legitimate complaints is utterly irrelevant. The point it, the character is loathed, and he should not be where he is.

I honestly hope when HoT comes around, we get to kill him and he is forgotten once and for all.

ZOMG Trahearne stole my desk job/figurehead leader role and left me to do all the action hero theatrics!!1!111!

Scratcherclaw.2713:

(Potential Spoilers)
The whole Trahearne taking credit thing isn’t necessarily him taking the credit himself. It’s him receiving credit from other NPC dialogue or writing that he doesn’t deserve.

Yeah .. i was really shocked when i read this. It means more or less :
The greatest Danger for Mordremoth is mostly Trahearne

Trahearne was the reason I thought Necromancers were weak and wouldn’t play one for the longest time. I went through PS first as a human with Forgal as my mentor and I never had to save his rear at all. Suddenly, this odd salad was thrust at me and he was dead constantly – made me think necros had nothing in the damage and health area.

On topic – I’m more okay with Trahearne now than I used to be. Doing the ps as a sylvari gives him an actual real introduction so there’s no huge jump in believability when he shows up – my character has met him and a firstborn as a companion makes sense.

But it.. really doesn’t with any other race. Claw Island is the wrong time to first introduce him to every other race besides sylvari – there should have been talk of him before, during the Order part of the PS. The sudden replacement of your mentor is jarring and the instant friendship makes no sense unless you’re sylvari. It just doesn’t work to suddenly have this tight friendship where you basically give him all the control over the Pact and respect him as a great leader.

The stealing credit thing is a real feeling, not limited to young boys. I felt it my first time through and I hated every mission with Trahearne because I knew he was going to talk endlessly, die constantly, and make me feel like his personal bodyguard and butler. Fighting NPCs should be the same level as you are and not weak as paper. S2 fixed a lot of that (though Maj and Jory standing on the wall in Fort Salma apparently having kissyface time and ignoring Belinda dying while I solo that stupid ‘PROTECT MY MINION’ mordrem was pretty awful) and last time I played PS since the voice changes – Trahearne was actually useful but it doesn’t change my initial experience of feeling like a bodyguard for an incompetent oaf who was forced on me and who gives me all my choices and then announces all my decisions to the Pact instead of me telling them or having any of my own. The last parts of ps revolve around him and carrying him and it’s boring, so so boring.

But, all that said, I hate the writing now more than I hate Trahearne. There are a dozen ways he could have been better introduced to all non-sylvari and a better way to handle him and the Pact. It just wasn’t done.

Ok, since people insist on make critics on Traeharne as if he were a real person, Ill repeat myself. Traeharne is just a caracter. As dull, boring or infuriating as we could perceive him, he is NOT THE PROBLEM. The problem is how the Pact part of the Personal Story has been told: the poor Sylvary necro is just a central point that concentrates the inconsistency of the narrative.

In some media, a character like Traeharne culd be great. It could reach some special deepness and give us the struggle of a shy person under the pressure of an imposed leadership, the wonder and horror of a book scholar confronted with the real version of his knowledge, and the heartache of a good and compasive guy forced to take the harsh and ruthless way to save the people around him.

Sadly, an epic MMORPG game is NOT a good place for a character like this. Even LESS when forcing things to tell that story steal time, focus and relevance from the central character. If you really want to put a character that complex and deep into a straightforward story like the “Pact Arc” you have to make him the protagonist. The alternatives are to make him much less relevant, or to make the real hero like a thounsand times MORE DEEP AND COMPLEX.

As it is, Threarne is an incomplete character with lots of good intent stuffed into him, but without the sharp definition an epic tale needs to work.

The problem with Trahearne is mostly the bad writing. The character itself isn’t bad at all, but the storytelling in the second half of the personal story is so bad it’s hilarious. ArenaNet has improved on a lot of this points during LS 2 which came as a surprise to me because LS 1 was even worse than the personal story, but nevertheless.

The nail in the coffin for the personal story is the Claw Island mission. In fact, this mission is so hilariously bad I cannot help but wonder who thought it was a good idea to put it into the final game. It pretty much sums up what’s wrong with Trahearne and pretty much the whole second half of the story.

1. The plot hole
The plot hole in this mission is so big Zhaitan could disappear in it. It’s the death of the mentor. The intention behind the death is to highen the stakes in the fight against the elder dragon, but it doesn’t work because it’s so poorly written it’s ridiculous. Two of the three mentors don’t have a legacy of being particularly good fighters. Capable, yes, but strong enough to stop an undead horde for any significant amount of time? Not by a long shot. Especially not if they try to hold a huge gate against them which already is capable of holding them back for a short amount of time and is too large for the mentors to keep an undead horde from trying to break it even while they fight the mentor. It doesn’t make sense at all.

2. No Storytelling via game mechanics
The personal story doesn’t tell the plot by the use of game mechanics which is crucial in video games.
Your faction loses the battle, but unless you’re a newbie you’ll hardly feel threatened by the zombies at all, in fact you wipe the floor with them and feel like you could go on for quite some time. The game fails entirely at giving you any sense of urgency to retreat which could have been avoided easily:
Show the player that his forces are being crushed, show that more and more soldiers die on the battlefield, bring more and more zombies and increase their strength more and more while your allies shout at you to retreat to the gate. Depending on your skill you can fight them off longer, but staying on the island is not an option, you have to make a run for it or you’ll die, plain and simple.

3. The Trahearne setup
You more or less meet Trahearne as a scholar who studied Orr and knows a lot about it. He is introduced as somebody you would call on for some advice, but not as the big shot he becomes very quickly. The setup is rubbish, plain and simple. Let’s imagine a different approach:
You don’t meet Trahearne at Claw Island, you have to go to Orr to find him because taking down Zhaitan is his chosen purpose in life, and that’s before the pact is armed and ready to invade it. You meet some more or less untrustworthy guides and make your way to find him while he studies the undead.
You blow his cover and bring him in jeopardy but you can make up for it by at least bringing him home alive. While you got him in hot water because you’re neither experienced nor prepared for the realm of the walking dead, you also proved that you have potential, therefore he decides to teach and guide you so you can do what he cannot and that’s delivering the necessary punch to actually kill them once and for all.

Now Trahearne is in the position where you look up to him. He’s not a great hero or leader, but he’s the one who can show you the ropes and is bound and determined to do everything to get the job done and that also means to combine the three very capable orders to one force. He’s not a military commander, but he can show all of them how to use their strengths to greatest effect against the undead menace, thus slowly becoming the leader the pact actually needs.
Under his guidance you become the dragon killer and when the time has come to finally invade Arah, he has tought you everything he knows while you’ve also reached the peak of your strength. What you’re doing during the final battle is beyond Trahearnes capabilities and with the ultimate defeat of Zhaitan you become Tyria’s greatest hero.
Now also the final ceremony makes a lot more sense, Trahearne is no longer the big shot, you are, but you bring him with you because without him you’d have never reached this point. With showcasing that Trahearne did a fine job coordinating the effort of the three orders during the final battle to keep Zhaitan’s army away from Arah, he also grows as a character by becoming the true leader of the pact and growing as a character himself.

Please note that I didn’t add anything to the personality of Trahearne this way, but I guess most of you would agree with me that he would be much more likeable now and wouldn’t feel as unnecessary as he does in the personal story. In the end the bad storytelling broke the character, but not what he actually is or did in the personal story.

To make my point more clear, I’m going to put an example: Obi kittenenobi.

At least in the old movies, he is a great, GREAT character. Memorable, full of background and purpose.

Star Wars: A new Hope could easily have been about him. How he felt as the lone and last jedi in all the galaxy, how the plea of the princess came to change his tragic but simple life, how the androids annoys him, how the young Luke showing both promise and failure worries and make him proud… With the focus on him, Obi should have been an even more amazing and interesting character.

But then the story couldn’t have been the fun, fast, heroic and fascinating Space Opera we know. The heroic road of Luke would have lost shine, and all the story would suffered.

That is why Obi has a narrow role, as a mentor of the Hero, and then DIES. That is why all the “important” people on heroic stories are distant, busy or dead. That is why they are interesting, yet have short, simple and unique tasks. That is why the focus and deepness of any heroic story always stays with the main character, even if he is not so deep or interesting.

That is why Traeharne fails as a story element: To our character, he is not a mentor, a boss, a companion, an idol, a rival, or a dear one. He does have a role in the lore of Tyria, but lacks a solid place in the story of the hero.

Alicornus.7095:

….
Let’s imagine a different approach:
You don’t meet Trahearne at Claw Island, you have to go to Orr to find him because taking down Zhaitan is his chosen purpose in life, and that’s before the pact is armed and ready to invade it. You meet some more or less untrustworthy guides and make your way to find him while he studies the undead.
You blow his cover and bring him in jeopardy but you can make up for it by at least bringing him home alive. While you got him in hot water because you’re neither experienced nor prepared for the realm of the walking dead, you also proved that you have potential, therefore he decides to teach and guide you so you can do what he cannot and that’s delivering the necessary punch to actually kill them once and for all.

Now Trahearne is in the position where you look up to him. He’s not a great hero or leader, but he’s the one who can show you the ropes and is bound and determined to do everything to get the job done and that also means to combine the three very capable orders to one force. He’s not a military commander, but he can show all of them how to use their strengths to greatest effect against the undead menace, thus slowly becoming the leader the pact actually needs.
Under his guidance you become the dragon killer and when the time has come to finally invade Arah, he has tought you everything he knows while you’ve also reached the peak of your strength. What you’re doing during the final battle is beyond Trahearnes capabilities and with the ultimate defeat of Zhaitan you become Tyria’s greatest hero.
Now also the final ceremony makes a lot more sense, Trahearne is no longer the big shot, you are, but you bring him with you because without him you’d have never reached this point. With showcasing that Trahearne did a fine job coordinating the effort of the three orders during the final battle to keep Zhaitan’s army away from Arah, he also grows as a character by becoming the true leader of the pact and growing as a character himself.

Please note that I didn’t add anything to the personality of Trahearne this way, but I guess most of you would agree with me that he would be much more likeable now and wouldn’t feel as unnecessary as he does in the personal story. In the end the bad storytelling broke the character, but not what he actually is or did in the personal story.

Fantastic. I would love to play that story, Alicornus!

Agreed. both of you raise very good points. Well put.

<<< Fanboying here; MARSHAL T, MARSHAL T, MARSHAL T, MARSHAL T!!!.

Alicornus.7095:

What you’re doing during the final battle is beyond Trahearnes capabilities and with the ultimate defeat of Zhaitan you become Tyria’s greatest hero.
Now also the final ceremony makes a lot more sense, Trahearne is no longer the big shot, you are, but you bring him with you because without him you’d have never reached this point. With showcasing that Trahearne did a fine job coordinating the effort of the three orders during the final battle to keep Zhaitan’s army away from Arah, he also grows as a character by becoming the true leader of the pact and growing as a character himself.

He pretty much does say that. He even says that the world owes a debt to the PC. And he wished he was there to see Zhaitan defeated. I really don’t know why a lot of people have selective memory on him. Someone even quoted as to what was actually stated by marshal T.

Yes, he does, but it doesn’t mean a thing because it never feels like Trahearne is crucial for the Orr campaign in the first place and the player character has almost no development in the story.

Is not selective memory. Is the way the story has been told. It doesn’t matter what Traeharne said, because the whole story contradicts him.

Lets try this (No, don’t do this for real, just do it with your imagination, ok?):
1- Get a baby.
2- Tell him, in the softest and cutest voice you can pull off “You are a hideous monster and I hate you”.
3- See the baby smile.
4- Yell at him, with the more atrocious and agressive voice you can “I love you and I will give my life for your well being”.
5- See him cry.

The message is not in the actual words, but in how you speak them. This is the magic of narrative: When we hear stories, we are all babies.

Rebound.3409:

Personally i don’t like him because (summed up):
- Some of the most terrible voice acting i’ve heard in any game. Even picachiew has more depth and feeling then him.
- He quite literally takes credit for everything you do.

^this
plus his development from a scholar to a general seems so forced and stretched.

the bad voice acting(he sounds so freakin bored! compare the emotion in his voice to zojja. major difference. he’s like the (girl from twilight) of GW2 in how much emotion he lacks)

he literally comes in middle of the story from no where and jsut goes “oh hey, i remember [insert priory/order/vigil person]. hows it going” and you have no idea the story there. he could be a drunk for all i know

the bad voice acting

he somehow gets all the orders of tyria to follow him….why? cause he had a dream? what about all the other wild hunt sylvari with dreams, none of them get armies just cause.
did he do something to gain the respect and obedience of all the orders? no. YOU DID.

the bad voice acting

and the fact in story missions he just seems so static. caithe flips around and attacks fast. traeharne just slaps the sword or whatever weapon(back on claw island) he had from time to time….for NO DMG.
he could knock them back. but he doesnt
he could put conditions like cripple, a stun, blind, or poison. but he doesnt
he could kitten REVIVE YOU WHEN U DOWNED. but he sits there saying some out of place quote when i’m freaking getting curb stomped by 3 undead.
he could summon undead to fight the undead thus providing you some meatbags to use as cover. but he doesn’t…..

he’s basically that little kid your babysitting that you have to drag around as he takes all the credit while spoutin the most obvious observations
“they coming from the water” no duh we on claw island. where ELSE would they come from
“beware the channels, they coming” no duh, we patrolling the channels of lion’s arch for a reason!
“theres to many” there 3 of them! and 3 of us!(me, my pet, and the lesser note of existance, traeharne).
“be carefu-” stab stab stab we in a fight! no duh be careful. how about warning me of incoming reinforcements, or of an incoming knockdown. stab stab stab

-Traeharne might have worked if GW2 is a book. but in game, coupled with the horrible NPC AI. i’ve grown to hate him so much.
at least other NPCs have interesting things to say and emotion. Traeharne just says the obvious in a bored voice.

I think that one reason people don’t like Trahearne is that a few people didn’t like him, were vocal, and the meme caught on. I don’t mean the common use of “meme” involving pictures with captions, I mean the actual original definition of an idea that latches onto a brain strongly enough to exclude other conflicting ideas.

So there’s been bandwagoning and mob mentality on top of a running joke that’s become serious to some.

That doesn’t mean criticisms of the character and the story are invalid. Some people have well-reasoned opposition to him (that I don’t entirely agree with, but I understand their position). But there are a good number of people just me-tooing, “You hate him? Me too! Lol he is a useless flat salad who stole my glory!”

“You’re a scholar, not a general, Firstborne. Why should we trust you?” – Watch commander Talon.

Although that line is really nonsensical in the grater arc in that instance, it pretty much sums up what I believe most of the orders would have said. Trahearne, should have been an advisor.

If trahearne was introduced earlier, like lets say during the order arc, and we developed a relationship with him, I think we would’ve liked him a lot better. It also would’ve been good to have him and the player character actually go and retrieve his sword together, rather than just give it to the buglier. I wouldn’t have minded playing second fiddle to someone who actually had experience or proved they deserved all the hype surrounding them, heck that’s what you were doing in the order! And nobody seems to be complaining about that!

Instead, he’s introduced in one instance, and in the very next becomes commander of the largest military organization in Tyria! Just because he has a magic sword, and is the only person there not associated with one of the orders, heck we could’ve gone with some random skirt if that was the requirements for it. And even with his extensive knowledge of Orr, and being and expert on risen, he seems to get surprised and foiled at every dang turn!

TheLastNobody.8319:

If trahearne was introduced earlier, like lets say during the order arc, and we developed a relationship with him, I think we would’ve liked him a lot better. It also would’ve been good to have him and the player character actually go and retrieve his sword together, rather than just give it to the buglier. I wouldn’t have minded playing second fiddle to someone who actually had experience or proved they deserved all the hype surrounding them, heck that’s what you were doing in the order! And nobody seems to be complaining about that!

Instead, he’s introduced in one instance, and in the very next becomes commander of the largest military organization in Tyria! Just because he has a magic sword, and is the only person there not associated with one of the orders, heck we could’ve gone with some random skirt if that was the requirements for it. And even with his extensive knowledge of Orr, and being and expert on risen, he seems to get surprised and foiled at every dang turn!

yep

its like that later story where you are “Afraid of causign the death of someone under your command”

and then literally the next story arc is a norn who admires you, and dies to nagas….
i hated that arc cause
1. that came out of nowhere…and is such a major coicidence that it oh so happened to match my choice
2. i met the norn in 1 mission…..lost her in the 2nd. and they expect me to care….i didn’t even know the norn long.(what makes her stand out from the 50 smucks who died last mission..oh she admired me. i guess that makes her deserve to get a name…..)
hell i’ve spent more time getting to know the sylvari wardens in lion’s arch who greet me as i go through to the grove.

Traeharne is like that norn. he’s thrown in and they expect me to immediatly care about him.
unlike the norn, who got the boot satisfying fast. Traeharne stays.

i would have MUCH rather prefered Destiny’s edge to unify and lead the pact
or the Vigil leader(whats her name…the charr whose daughter is in charge of ash legion)

both of them are better choices. specially the vigil leader as she’s got a personal grudge against the dragons. she’s experienced and built the entire vigil despite alot of racial hate.

but Traeharne…he belongs in a library. as an advisor to the vigil or priory. not kicking the vigil leader out of her chair and sitting in it like he all of a sudden knows all there is to commanding a giant army.

imo the problem lies in how ANet writes its stories. The best way that I can think of for them to do it would be to hire someone who writes for a living and knows how to tell a story. Then give them the broad outline of the story wanted and let them write it.

The impression I’ve gotten though is that they’ve done it the same way they did the living story, by committee. And not by one committee but by at least two. This would explain the bad writing and the plot holes between the arcs as each was written separately from each other and the small things were missed in a rush to finish. They also seemed to not have hired someone to simply sit and read it through with a critical eye for things said and done that were weak or wrong, like the bandits in the first human story arc locking themselves inside a burning building for no good reason or Logan, a grown man and the leader of the Seraphs, whining about how he looks in a temporary disguise.

If this is what they are doing, then they should admit to themselves that they don’t have the ability to write good stories and hire someone who does write for a living to tell their story. And in particular, stop story telling by committee!

I never like playing the big OP hero role, so I should like Trahearne, right? Wrong. As plenty of others have said, his voice acting was/is terrible (some of it has been cleaned up now, thanks Anet!). As for the credit stealing, it is there. It’s not always big stuff, and he often actually takes credit from other NPC’s stuff, not the player, but he’s still a credit stealing kitten.

As for examples for those who always demand them: the name of Fort Trinity and “his” cleansing ritual for Orr were stolen from the player and a group of priory NPCs. There’s more, but I’m not sifting through a bunch of dialogue to keep people happy.

Hopefully HoT won’t go down the all-too-easy route of having him corrupted and slain; but instead just make him back off a bit. Being called “Commander” every few lines was bad, but nowhere near as bad as being called “Boss” every five seconds.

He’s a terrible character.

There is not a single reason for me to care about him at all. Most of the other order mentors have a personality and a reason why I like them. They have back stories to themselves other than “I research Orr”. They have something to live for.

Seriously, the only thing we really know about Trahearne is that he’s firstborn, somehow knows all of these order people, and that his mission is to restore Orr.

The only way they could have redeemed him is if he died during the Zhaitan fight. But no, he gets plot immunity because reasons.

No ones jealous of him, we just want a better character.

Renim.6921:

He’s a terrible character.

There is not a single reason for me to care about him at all. Most of the other order mentors have a personality and a reason why I like them. They have back stories to themselves other than “I research Orr”. They have something to live for.

Seriously, the only thing we really know about Trahearne is that he’s firstborn, somehow knows all of these order people, and that his mission is to restore Orr.

The only way they could have redeemed him is if he died during the Zhaitan fight. But no, he gets plot immunity because reasons.

No ones jealous of him, we just want a better character.

how to fix zhaitan fight
kicks Traeharne off the ship
problem solved >=D
he died like he lived, a failed character.

arenta.2953:

how to fix zhaitan fight
kicks Traeharne off the ship
problem solved >=D
he died like he lived, a failed character.

Hard to do since he’s not on the ship. We do the Zhaitan fight without him.

Donari.5237:

arenta.2953:

how to fix zhaitan fight
kicks Traeharne off the ship
problem solved >=D
he died like he lived, a failed character.

Hard to do since he’s not on the ship. We do the Zhaitan fight without him.

Yep. He explicitly doesn’t take part in the Orr campaign after the Cleansing. And the praise for slaying Zhaitan goes to the player character.

Donari.5237:

arenta.2953:

how to fix zhaitan fight
kicks Traeharne off the ship
problem solved >=D
he died like he lived, a failed character.

Hard to do since he’s not on the ship. We do the Zhaitan fight without him.

That’s no excuse; my character would gladly drag him onto the ship in that battle, for the sole purpose of kicking him off it.

GreyerSkies.6287:

Donari.5237:

arenta.2953:

how to fix zhaitan fight
kicks Traeharne off the ship
problem solved >=D
he died like he lived, a failed character.

Hard to do since he’s not on the ship. We do the Zhaitan fight without him.

That’s no excuse; my character would gladly drag him onto the ship in that battle, for the sole purpose of kicking him off it.

doubt my character would. her pet wolf already has first dibs <.<
if she tried to do it the wolf would headbutt her off the ship…..problems of being an asura with a wolf bigger than you…

I’m fairly sure the entire crew, destiny’s Edge, and others would restrain or kill you before you could succeed in the first place. :P

Kalavier.1097:

I’m fairly sure the entire crew, destiny’s Edge, and others would restrain or kill you before you could succeed in the first place. :P

na.
tell logan the queen is below deck -problem solved
tell rytlok logan called him runtlock- problem solved
tell zojja your experimenting if a sylvari can survive a fall like a leaf- problem…….mostly solved(she might join you)

as for caithe…..point out something pretty like a sunset or dragon
and Eirr…………………………..can we drug her ale?

Kalavier.1097:

I’m fairly sure the entire crew, destiny’s Edge, and others would restrain or kill you before you could succeed in the first place. :P

I am pretty sure, you are wrong.

Kalavier.1097:

I’m fairly sure the entire crew, destiny’s Edge, and others would restrain or kill you before you could succeed in the first place, because that’s what they, personally, want to do to him. :P

FIFY

Kalavier.1097:

wolfyrik.2017:

Kalavier.1097:

Think of it this way…

If you were the big leader of the Pact, YOU would be dealing with the paperwork. Generals typically don’t lead from the front, they sit behind a desk. Traehearne sat behind the desk and dealt with the paperwork and other aspects while you kicked kitten in the field.

Or, the pact leaders could do all that. Alternatively, given that it’s a game and there is no background administration, no one could do it, since no one does do it. Trehearne could be removed and nothing would be lost.

Going with this logic, we could literally remove a huge chunk of npcs and have ‘nothing lost’ storywise.

Lost sister? Who cares. She physically appears once or twice early on, then once again, ONLY if you pic the tank option. Remove her and nothing is lost.

Guy from tutorial area with the pet fox? Appears twice. remove him and nothing is lost.

So on so forth with named npcs until eventually, there is just the freaking player character and nameless mooks.

Difference is, that sword was actually needed to cleanse Orr. Traehearne new the ritual. Other aspects make sense for him to do. Simply spouting “But we could insert nameless mook number 13 to do that!” or “We could remove that character!” doesn’t work because then I ask you apply that to… everybody.

Oh hey, we could remove Tybalt from the Claw Island arc and lose nothing from the story according to that logic. Staying behind? Anybody could do that. Replace him with some random high ranking OoW character and bam, success! But then the loss wouldn’t be as heavy, because it’d be some random nameless character. Likewise for the cleansing of Orr, if it was some nameless or random group of Pact spellcasters doing the ritual, it wouldn’t have the impact IMO.

Pointing out how easy it is to replace minor characters, and comparing them to Trehearne, only proves my point. It shouldn’t be so easy to dismiss certain characters. If the lost sister is the one I’m thinking of, I literally had no idea who she was, or why we should care. Bad story-telling, bad dialogue used in a bad attempt to tug players heart-strings. The whole thing felt forced and awkward. Much like Trehearne.

You brought up Tybalt, which is an excellent counter-example.Tybalt does have an impact. Tybalt does get removed and players feel it, something is lost. Tyablt is well written, has good VO work and has value within the campaign, both as a character and a plot device. Players typically enjoy tybalt, they enjoy listening to his corny jokes, spotting the numerous apple references throughout the PS and he’s a decent NPC to have around. Not as excessively worthless as Trehearne.

As a character and plot device, Tybalt has a point, a specific role within the story which makes sense and it works. He is precisely the opposite of Trehearne in every conceivable way. Good story telling, done well. Remove him from the PS and people would be dissapointed, the story would lose some charm and humour it sorely needs. Trehearne brings none of these things. He’s barely a plot device, as you said, it’s the sword that’s important. His information is barely of use and doesn’t really progress the story, he’s little more than just an exposition machine. A VO’d encyclopaedia entry. He brings neither humour, peril nor any other emotion and has no real role that couldn’t be fulfilled better by other existing characters, who would make more sense or even, as you say, mook no.13.

He was okay. Not amazing, but okay. He took a lot of focus in the vanilla story, but as more stories unfold (each featuring the player) Trahearn’s hogging will seem less and less severe.

Also, don’t worry about Anet killing him, you will. Dragon’s going to try very hard to corrupt him, he’ll be on the verge of it for a while, you’ll have to beat him up and then he’ll make you kill him and swear to say he died fighting the dragon – as a PR move for Sylvari kind. Canach will make a long purblic speech – auto-skip will not be an option.

I’ll be very suprised if that isn’t the script they go with.