Guild Wars 2

I would like him much more if just one NPC referred to him as a pansy. Just once.

NPC: Well done, Marshal Trahearne. You did it.
Trahearne: The Pact did it. Our combined efforts made this happen.

Trahearne: We will cleanse Orr together, as we were meant to do.

Trahearne: I know you’re probably tired of hearing this - especially from me - but thank you, Commander.

...Yeah, what a self-centered, glory hogging jerk he is. Being annoyed with other NPCs for gushing over him is understandable, but accusing Trahearne of glory hogging is silly, when he is always very humble and quick to mention that stuff wouldn’t get done without the help of the PC/other NPCs. Regarding his claims that he named Fort Trinity or created a ritual - considering all the continuity issues in the story, it seems likely that these are just more examples of them, rather than the character intentionally stealing credit.

I also don’t agree with the complaint that the story is all about Trahearne. By that logic, I should complain that the first half of my story was all about a deer, Malyck, Tybalt, and some frogs, since they were the focus of each arc. But I see it as my story of how I helped people with their issues, and ultimately joined up with someone who had common, bigger goals. Trahearne helped me weaken the dragon that I needed to kill, I helped him accomplish what he’d been working towards his entire life, which made me feel pretty awesome. Like the OP, I didn’t feel overshadowed, I felt like his partner, and from his dialogue it’s clear that he felt the same way about my character.

I do think that his introduction at Claw Island is seriously lacking. As a sylvari you get to learn a bit more about him (still not enough, IMO), but every other race has no exposure to him before that point, and very little backstory mentioned, which is lame. I’d really like to see some conversation options added where he tells you more about himself and his history, and future story quests showing flashbacks of him befriending the Orders/mentors. I also agree that his development seems rushed. I would’ve preferred some of the scenarios others described, like him failing at first, but overcoming his issues and regaining the respect of the Orders, rather than just becoming the leader with very little resistance. The scholar-turned-fighter concept is cool and I like Trahearne anyway, but I would’ve liked him much more if more time had been spent developing him and connecting him to all five races.

TL;DR: Trahearne’s character has some development flaws that I hope can be somewhat fixed with future additions to the story and tweaks to the current content, but I still think the concept is interesting and likeable, and hardly worthy of the constant circle jerk of hatred thrown at him.

Another thing that really bothers me is the fact that he is sylvari.

It’s just so random, it really ruins whole lore of the world.
We have basically two real political powers:
1) Asura with their gates;
2) Charr with their superior war machine.

Humans are just a shadow of their past. Norns are a bunch of rednecks living in northlands. And sylvari are just a third-world country with no influence whatsoever.

Yet when their tree-god suddenly tells that she chose Trahearne as the leader for combined army everyone fall in line and accept this as granted.
Why? This is such a gaping black hole in scenario.
It is as if some random dude from small african country got in charge of NATO. Yeah, because the shaman said so.

It would be much more logical to give power to someone who already has some political weight behind him. While Trahearne gets to be some councilor.

When I saw the vision during the PS I expected that Trahearne would build up his personality, change himself and actually earn his right to be a Marshall.
But no, he gets everything for free. All hail the brain fungi of the pale tree.

Good god his voice acting is HORRID,i always skip when he opens his kitten MOUTH

Logan,caithe,rytlock,human and sylvari toons are fantastic

He’s just not a very likeable character. I don’t know if its the voice acting or the dialogue written for the character, Maybe both but he comes off as a major kittenr.

Trahearne is an example (possibly the worst) of how ArenaNet can make amazing lore, fantastic locations and really interesting changes to the usual pattern of MMOs stealing lawn from Tolkien’s garden and then be let down by weak story writing that creates bad characters.

Trahearne suffers from the Mary Sue in a bad way, turning up out of the blue for anyone who isn’t a Slyvari and hijacking the personal storyline. He receives equipment and abilities his class isn’t supposed to be able to use. He is obsessed with Orr & appears to be -the- expert on it, despite Orr being a former human realm (presumably it’s another case where the humans have been hit over the head with kitten stick & forgotten everything that happened c.f. Ascalon). He is put into a position of leadership despite their being more experienced candidates. He also hogs the glory and suffers from a dull, arrogant personality that grates terribly after the very amusing Order mentors.

Some people have said all of these things are because player characters can’t -all- be the Hero Dragon Slayer, but to me Trahearne is a really horrible piece of lazy writing to avoid that. In effect Trahearne just demotes the player character to a UPS guy who wheels the Important! NPC to the next cut scene, clearing out the stabby monsters in the way, a negative unfun thing that was common in GW1. He also negates what ANet have said about the player having meaningful impact & development through the personal story. The story becomes about him, the player gets no credit & no recognition for anything they do (i.e. a Hall of Monuments, statue type thing). The characters from the start of the story (Lord Faren etc.) get ignored after you join an order, then the order is pretty much ignored after the Battle at the Fort. It just comes across as lazy writing to reduce the number of versions of a mission needed by just focusing on one unchanging NPC.

Azjenco.9425 had the best conception of how the Orrian chapter -should- have worked:

" When you got to Orr, you should have led your order through many campaigns. Meanwhile, Trahearne acts as a mediator between the orders, taking information from one to the other, and let them deal with what’s happening. The Vigil leads its forces on the forefront. The Priory uncovers arcane orrian knowledge and artifacts, granting the Vigil an edge in the war effort. The Whispers fight from the shadows, reconnoitering strategic info back to the Vigil, while assassinating key targets.

Trahearne should have been a intermediary, not a commander, while you lead the initiative on Orr. Uncovering info as Priory, doing espionage as Whispers, and taking the enemy head on. "

I’m hoping that Anet are listening to how disliked & unfun Trahearne is & write him out of the story, rather than force us to keep delivering him to cutscenes for the next 6 years.

My suggestion for writing him out would be something like that as he is a Necromancer obsessed with Orr & hauls around a powerful artifact, he is an ideal candidate for corruption by the Nightmare Court. Players have to work with their order to eliminate him & his cabal of sycophants to keep the Pact focused on fighting the dragons, rather than Trahearne’s obsessive & increasingly maniacal focus on Orr.

Trahearne = weedy melodramatic sneaky weasel

Takes credit for everything you do, and might even cry while doing it.

The blame for the hatred lies squarely with Arenanet.

His main dialogue and his actions in the story are completely suitable. His incessant negativity and whining in his idle dialogue is not only obnoxious, but would completely disqualify him as someone capable of earning and maintaining the level of respect needed to lead an army!

All his idle dialogue should be completely re-written and re-recorded. I love the Arenanet writers, but some one really kittened up on this one!

If we wanted to get all deep about this one could say he might be unpopular because too many people see part of themselves in him (e.g. quick to complain about stuff on the forums and give up easily). Does explain why he comes across as somewhat of a Mary Sue (pops out of nowhere and is given the job to save the day which is normally what the player does in games).

he’s the Kormir of GW2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxmkAoLC6_4&feature=plcp

Everyone hates Trahearne because Ascended Gear was his idea.

Poorly voice acted, given terrible hackneyed dialogue, no use to you whatsoever in the field, and a ‘Chosen One’ type character to boot.

Togashi Jack.9531:

He has an incredibly weak insecure personality. In Forging the Pact he all but tells you to go and talk to the orders for him because he’s not sure that they’ll like him. And he’s the leader.. Also suffers from being on the heels of Kormir who was the leader of the sunspears despite being an absolute moron and ends up stealing godhood at the end of the game just because..

I don’t see why his timidity or aversion to the spotlight is a bad thing, people who want to lead usually make the worst leaders after all.

What I don’t like is his voice actor, so-very-many-botched-lines. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to give the most junior voice actor on the staff one of the most important roles?

For me Trahearne is just the poster child for everything GW2 fails to do as a storytelling experience. It isn’t so much how he’s written – though he’s boring and his being a necromancer is totally at odds with everything about how he’s portrayed – it is the fact that he’s more important than the player character, that he gets the fancy sword, etc. He’s a focus for all the frustrations there are – the lack of control over your own tone or personality, the de-emphasizing of the player character in favor of the terrible cast of main characters, etc.

GW1 did these things so much better for the most part (let alone comparing to games like SWTOR or single player RPGs) , and because Trahearne is the central character he just becomes the poster child for all the mistakes.

The henchmen in GW1 managed to have more personality in 5 lines of dialogue than this guy has through the entire story.

EdwinLi.1284:

Flynch.6034:

I don’t mind being the sidekick and losing the glory to Trahearne too much, but what I would really love is if the devs re-wrote the ending and basically ‘offed’ Trahearne in such a manner that your character is forced to take over.

By ‘offed’ I mean, killed or possibly turns out to be a traitor or something. Anything. Just a twist that leaves the character/underdog coming up trumps in the last chapter, forced to make tough decisions etc etc

Bit more meat on the bone for the storyline.

You really want that job Trahearne will be getting from now on which is to remain in Fort Trinity for the rest of the Future Personal Story filling paper work of where Pact Units will go and what supplies goes were and where the bases should be deployed for the entire personal Story and never leaving Fort Trinity ever until all Elder Dragons are dead?

If I wanted that kind of job then I would be playing Command and Conquer.

hah well that’d be fine by me, as i’m presuming ‘Paperwork mountain’ is a Level 81 quest anyway

Creslin.1758:

Everyone hates Trahearne because Ascended Gear was his idea.

You’re lucky Ascended gear wasn’t called Trahearne Gear.

Trahearne gear would be made out of parts of Trahearne.

1st expansion will have Trahearne turn evil/corrupted and thus become our antagonist.

You heard it here first folks.

I don’t like him because he takes credit for everything and his dialog is just meh. He’s also weird looking. IF you’re going to make me get ordered around by someone, make that NPC at least good-looking, like Jora’s descendant from the Vigil, lol.

Yes, I am going to make a WoW reference, but he reminds me of Fordring taking all the glory for killing the Lich King, when really, the players did it. One of my online friends put it well as a nickname for Traeherne – Tree Fordring.

I am coining the phrase now. Whenever Anet does something to make GW2 more like WoW, it will be called Trahearned!

Friend: “Hey! Anet just added a new gear tier.”

Me: “WTF! Didn’t they say there wasn’t going to be a gear grind?”

Friend: “Yup, you just got Trahearned!!!”

Tomkatt.1684:

I finally leveled my main through to 80 and through the story and…well, Trahearne is freaking awesome. I never felt overshadowed by him, more like partners. Throughout the plot it was obvious that we saw our development alongside Trahearne’s own growth.

I dunno, not ranting or anything, I just don’t get all the hate. Is it envy for that wicked greatsword he’s got or something? He’s pretty cool, IMO (but yeah, dat sword).

I don’t hate, but I found him irritating both tactically and plot-wise. Basic bottom line is his AI sucks and he goes down faster than a swatted fly. I found his voice acting to be lame, though not as lame as many other NPCs. In terms of plot, I didn’t believe that we suddenly follow him because of the vague wishes of the magic tree, he seemed pretty stupid, and I was frankly doing a lot more important and dangerous things than he was. So it is more like envy for not running the army myself.

I do think some of the hate revolves around him not being seen as stereotypically macho enough to the chagrin of a certain class of player.

It is normal to have an insecurity as beying the new leader of an organization u didnt even expect to make, i see that part actually properly taken care off, there are others however, numerous other issues with the storyline, like u pretend in a mission its the first time ever u see a risen abomination when uve seen soo many untill that point, or the emotional part many times unproperly taken care of.

Flynch.6034:

hah well that’d be fine by me, as i’m presuming ‘Paperwork mountain’ is a Level 81 quest anyway

I rather have the bland jobs be left to the bland characters.

Latinkuro.9420:

He’s a moron, with a seed for a brain and he is boring so boring I mute the game and read what he is saying while pumping some trance music, worst endgame companion character ever ! In the companions department SWTOR totally beats GW2 I’m sorry to say.

I think this just about sums Trahearne up from my point of view having played the story through 3 times on three norns, he’s an idiot has no personality.

Well, as a Charr, the story becomes very, very un-Charr-ish.

My complaints about Trahearne have already been raised in this thread enough times. But on top of that, as a Charr your own character just suddenly changes their personality completely.

Also, the implementation of the Pact is horribly done. I get what they were trying to do with it, they (the story writers) wanted it to be some sort of feel good leftist, “everyone working together” thing, but the logistics, the unit cohesion and all that would be a complete terrible mess. I liked it in Claw Island where the different orders were working together to their strengths, but after that when suddenly any group of Pact NPC’s were completely mixed up, order and race… with rather than each order doing it’s part to support this alliance, they just powered their logistics and tactics with friendship and rainbows.

And another thing as a Charr and this pact, you are completely fine with allowing foreigners to run all over Charr sovereignty (civil war with Flame). As a Charr, you should not be happy with some big powerful internationalist organization taking your own soldiers and using them to do what they please in your territory. Sure the High Legions don’t like the Flame Legion, but they sure as hell don’t want to be usurped by some foreign power.

tl;dr: Trahearne is pretty bad, but taking a Charr deep into the personal story makes even less sense, is more awkward, and the personality changes are even more abrupt, unexplained and out of character.

I like Trahearne, but as my main is a Sylvari, he’s my leafy bro from early on.

I also like his voice. He sounds like a documentarian, which is pretty much what he is.

I didn’t have the AI problems that a lot of people are reporting. He stayed up fine and held aggro on some mobs while I dealt with the rest. Not sure if class makes a difference, but I main Mesmer.

To put it short Trahearne is meg.. shutup meg!. Joking aside i honestly dont see this ‘growth’ of charector people who like him talk about. He is still the same emotionless guy who suddenlly appeared in the story. Heck some of your ‘partners’ while working for him feel more fleshed out. He could be ordering you to attack the dragon, or ordering the janitor to sweep i cant tell the difference.

Isslair.4908:

And sylvari are just a third-world country with no influence whatsoever.

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders, with highly-placed members in all three and shock troops throughout. They’re very common in corrupted zones because their immunity to dragon corruption means that they won’t add to the enemy’s numbers, so while there are very few sylvari in general, there is a lopsided number in the Orders because the Orders are fighting the dragons— which is the sylvari’s instinct and mandate from the Pale Tree as well.

Their influence is out of proportion to their numbers. When the Pale Tree talks, the Orders listen, in part because the Orders are so densely packed with Sylvari, many either in positions of influence or rank.

This is also why the Orders give Trahearne more leeway, too. All of the Order Sylvari are very aware that he is a Firstborn, ordered by the Pale Tree to research and cleanse Orr as his Wyld Hunt— he’s been there his entire life, alone, doing nothing but studying everything about it. As (most) Sylvari defer to anyone with greater experience in any given field, respect the Firstborn, and obey the Pale Tree, you can bet that they will be influencing each Order they’re in to go along.

Trahearne is a first-born and was tasked at birth to clean Orr.

Kinda like born from royalty and commoners (players) have to clean up after him.

Kormir takes the cake though.

Sylv.5324:

Isslair.4908:

And sylvari are just a third-world country with no influence whatsoever.

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders, with highly-placed members in all three and shock troops throughout. They’re very common in corrupted zones because their immunity to dragon corruption means that they won’t add to the enemy’s numbers, so while there are very few sylvari in general, there is a lopsided number in the Orders because the Orders are fighting the dragons— which is the sylvari’s instinct and mandate from the Pale Tree as well.

Their influence is out of proportion to their numbers. When the Pale Tree talks, the Orders listen, in part because the Orders are so densely packed with Sylvari, many either in positions of influence or rank.

This is also why the Orders give Trahearne more leeway, too. All of the Order Sylvari are very aware that he is a Firstborn, ordered by the Pale Tree to research and cleanse Orr as his Wyld Hunt— he’s been there his entire life, alone, doing nothing but studying everything about it. As (most) Sylvari defer to anyone with greater experience in any given field, respect the Firstborn, and obey the Pale Tree, you can bet that they will be influencing each Order they’re in to go along.

All of this is pretty crazy, when you consider the very popular theory that the Sylvari are simply minions of a sixth Elder dragon. Sure they are friendlier than their Nightmare counterparts… but in only 25 years they have gained this much power and influence? What if this was their [former?] Draconic master’s plan all along? Infiltrate and consolidate power for the resistance against the Elder Dragons, fight the Sylvari dragon’s enemies (other Elder Dragons, as well as any opposition to this consolidation of power ie Flame Legion, Inquest, etc).

Once the Sylvari dragon does emerge, he already has already taken taken out any threats against himself from the non-Sylvari races, as well as the other Dragons.

Also, ironically, going with the way Sylvari work, Firstborns should be the worst choice.
They were born first, with no life experience at all. By most relations we see in the game they were woefully unprepared for the world – naive and lacking understanding. And they are at best 25 years old now.
The next generations are born gifted with the Firstborns collective experience – as a result, even if they are younger, they are supposed to be more mature and experienced.

The main reason why Firstborn are getting everything first (like Caladbolg – which one firstborn lost due to acing too rash, and your character recovered and proved they can use it) is because Pale Tree is playing favourites.

Sylv.5324:

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders

That’s not the point.

Sylvari may be quite common in the world (which is already really stupid snce they are so young of a race) but they lack any political weight in the world. No mighty army, no oil, no essential technology. Just a bunch of treehuggers.
They are a good gun fodder in the grinder of war. But will political leaders give them any token of power? No.

There are no sylvari in the Order higher ranks. It is always either asura or charr.

And Trahearne was never in the Orders actually.

Trahearne’s the new Meg!

Isslair.4908:

Sylv.5324:

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders

That’s not the point.

Sylvari may be quite common in the world (which is already really stupid snce they are so young of a race) but they lack any political weight in the world. No mighty army, no oil, no essential technology. Just a bunch of treehuggers.
They are a good gun fodder in the grinder of war. But will political leaders give them any token of power? No.

There are no sylvari in the Order higher ranks. It is always either asura or charr.

And Trahearne was never in the Orders actually.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Laranthir_of_the_Wild

Past the x/y/z order quest line, it became Trahearne’s story. I don’t know anyone who actually liked it.

Surbrus.6942:

Sylv.5324:

Isslair.4908:

And sylvari are just a third-world country with no influence whatsoever.

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders, with highly-placed members in all three and shock troops throughout. They’re very common in corrupted zones because their immunity to dragon corruption means that they won’t add to the enemy’s numbers, so while there are very few sylvari in general, there is a lopsided number in the Orders because the Orders are fighting the dragons— which is the sylvari’s instinct and mandate from the Pale Tree as well.

Their influence is out of proportion to their numbers. When the Pale Tree talks, the Orders listen, in part because the Orders are so densely packed with Sylvari, many either in positions of influence or rank.

This is also why the Orders give Trahearne more leeway, too. All of the Order Sylvari are very aware that he is a Firstborn, ordered by the Pale Tree to research and cleanse Orr as his Wyld Hunt— he’s been there his entire life, alone, doing nothing but studying everything about it. As (most) Sylvari defer to anyone with greater experience in any given field, respect the Firstborn, and obey the Pale Tree, you can bet that they will be influencing each Order they’re in to go along.

All of this is pretty crazy, when you consider the very popular theory that the Sylvari are simply minions of a sixth Elder dragon. Sure they are friendlier than their Nightmare counterparts… but in only 25 years they have gained this much power and influence? What if this was their [former?] Draconic master’s plan all along? Infiltrate and consolidate power for the resistance against the Elder Dragons, fight the Sylvari dragon’s enemies (other Elder Dragons, as well as any opposition to this consolidation of power ie Flame Legion, Inquest, etc).

Once the Sylvari dragon does emerge, he already has already taken taken out any threats against himself from the non-Sylvari races, as well as the other Dragons.

Strange popular theory because if this popular theory became true, and Sylvari became all evil, we wouldn’t be able to play as them and well, you thought there was rage over the upcoming patch, imagine what would happen if people weren’t able to play their lvl 80 Sylvaris all of a sudden. Lol.

Celestina.2894:

One thing to keep in mind is that unless you are a Sylvari, he is literally shoe horned into your story because really the Zhaitan story is very Sylvari focused.

For me, I never felt overshadowed myself. At the same time though, I do not hate but I also do not like him. He had potential for being a interesting character……..but felt rushed, especially for non-Sylvari players.

Unfortunately, presentation has never been GW’s strong point. The plot and lore? Great, but the presentation is where is normally falls apart with exceptions such as Tybalt. Some will tell you otherwise, but even Guild Wars 1 had bad presentation with a few exceptions. Funnily enough, in my opinion Nightfall was the strongest of the stories……..while having possibly the worst character in Kormir.

Kormir wasn’t that bad tbh but there really was no reason to make Kormir a Goddess when you defeat Abbadon. It just doesn’t feel right for a character who lost nearly her entire army, her own eyes and can barely fight to become a goddess. I think that that ending kind of sucked.

Nightfall story was pretty good though but it has a few weak spots but still far better then the other campaigns of original guild wars.

Guild wars 2 is: dragons want to kill everything we should unite and go to slay them all! That’s what I got from the story it’s just bad. GW 2 is so much different from original that I can’t even call it a sequal to the original it’s an entirely different game and it plays like a WoW clone (despite not having healing classes dedicated to it there are classes that are most efficient healing supporting so you still have a trinity but then with tank dps and support instead of healer).

I don’t like it probably I will play again if they fix all the countless elementalist buggs along with the class being useless compared to other classes like guardian / mesmer.

Surbrus.6942:

Sylv.5324:

Isslair.4908:

And sylvari are just a third-world country with no influence whatsoever.

That’s false. They’ve systematically (and disproportionately) populated all three orders, with highly-placed members in all three and shock troops throughout. They’re very common in corrupted zones because their immunity to dragon corruption means that they won’t add to the enemy’s numbers, so while there are very few sylvari in general, there is a lopsided number in the Orders because the Orders are fighting the dragons— which is the sylvari’s instinct and mandate from the Pale Tree as well.

Their influence is out of proportion to their numbers. When the Pale Tree talks, the Orders listen, in part because the Orders are so densely packed with Sylvari, many either in positions of influence or rank.

This is also why the Orders give Trahearne more leeway, too. All of the Order Sylvari are very aware that he is a Firstborn, ordered by the Pale Tree to research and cleanse Orr as his Wyld Hunt— he’s been there his entire life, alone, doing nothing but studying everything about it. As (most) Sylvari defer to anyone with greater experience in any given field, respect the Firstborn, and obey the Pale Tree, you can bet that they will be influencing each Order they’re in to go along.

All of this is pretty crazy, when you consider the very popular theory that the Sylvari are simply minions of a sixth Elder dragon. Sure they are friendlier than their Nightmare counterparts… but in only 25 years they have gained this much power and influence? What if this was their [former?] Draconic master’s plan all along? Infiltrate and consolidate power for the resistance against the Elder Dragons, fight the Sylvari dragon’s enemies (other Elder Dragons, as well as any opposition to this consolidation of power ie Flame Legion, Inquest, etc).

Once the Sylvari dragon does emerge, he already has already taken taken out any threats against himself from the non-Sylvari races, as well as the other Dragons.

The Sylvari as minions of a sixth dragon has as much evidence supporting it as Sylvari being agents of Melandru. Fun to think about but really shouldn’t be used as evidence for any argument.

I actually like his voice – a lot. However, it does feel somewhat…weird not to be the central hero of the story, but rather just the second in command to a NPC. We are just so used to being the one(s) in the center of attention that we get jealous of him I suppose What with the game starting with “This is my story” and everything

Kormir Syndrome – That is all that needs to be said. Bloody leechers and glory stealers.

I hate trahearne.

I want to stomp on his larynx with my boot.

“CommanDUH may I have a word with you, I need your advice”..on every mission!? What in the hell? Youre supposed to lead us against an effing enormous dragon and you want my lvl 62 warrior’s advice? We are in deep kitten.

No offense to the voice actor though.

Frotee.2634:

I actually like his voice – a lot. However, it does feel somewhat…weird not to be the central hero of the story, but rather just the second in command to a NPC. We are just so used to being the one(s) in the center of attention that we get jealous of him I suppose What with the game starting with “This is my story” and everything

His voice is not one that inspires. If I were to follow a leader onto the field of battle against risen ankle biters, he better not be a soft-spoken englishmen(no offense). He needs to be rugged, scratchy voice. Or the guy from Full Metal Jacket, the drill seargent.

Gomer pile!

Trahearne is the GW2 equivalent of GW: Nightfall’s Kormir; both take will take your spotlight, both are in a higher position than you, and both are considered more important to the history of Tyria than you. At least Trahearne has the decency to step down from his position of power to hand it off to you. Kormir, on the other hand, she didn’t do much.

I noticed he gets credit for Fort Trinity aswell.
Now, Forgal, there’s a guy I could get behind “cough”.
Though he should have just taken a waypoint when he died on Claw island.

I’m going to chime in on the pro-Trahearne side as well, but my main is Sylvari (and also a Cycle of Night necromancer) so I felt a connection with him the first time I went through the PS. I don’t think he’s a glory hog at all, certainly not in the way of Kormir, who goes on to become a god after you do all the work. Trahearne steps back from crowds and celebrations, prefers to spend his time alone when he can, and doesn’t even seek to accompany you on the final mission. I really felt like I was an equal in the structure of the story.

And I think the voice actor’s underplaying the part is legit. Trahearne is ridiculously serious, but, well, he’s ridiculously serious. And out of his depth. He’d rather be the idea guy, so he partners with you to be the muscle. I think it works well.

Pro: Being selfish of Trahearne’s role and making the narcissistic assumption that role should be yours is a tad childish.

Con: Uppity, monotone-english, cold fish, hapless Fern commands elite Pact soldiers. I wonder if ole’ Monty was his inspiration…

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

He’s the Prince Rurik, Master Togo and Kormir of GW2.

I dunno about that.

- Prince Rurik died early on so we didn’t have to listen to him through the entire campaign. And we got to kill his undead form. It was a great day for Chosen everywhere.

- Master Togo worked behind the scenes while you were on the ground getting things done. Given how utterly intractable the dispute was between the Luxon and the Kurzick sides? He was necessary as a figure both sides respected. Also, he straight-up sacrificed himself at the end so we could deliver unto Shiro the mother of all beat-downs. It was so bad he wasn’t nearly as threatening when he popped up serving Abaddon.

- Kormir spent the first part of the campaign gathering an army only to have them routed when she underestimated how powerful her enemy was. She had her eyes removed, and thus there was a reason she didn’t do much other than talk – she could not see. When it came to the finale, it seemed thematic that since she was already “tainted” that she couldn’t proceed. Plus, if any of you seriously thought you were going to have your character ascend into becoming the Sixth God/dess . . . I have some lovely marshland to sell you in Kryta.

Trahearne wasn’t as grating to me. The voice actor could have done better, probably, but really this guy is having to deal with the prima donna attitudes of the three Order leaders and keep visible to make sure any one of the three Orders isn’t taking too much credit. I have absolutely no interest in playing politics trying to satisfy that balance, so he’s welcome to it while I go do the business that needs doing.

Logan needs a brick to the face. A few times. Mostly to remind him that he should either admit to his Queen what he feels or let it go. He needs a few more on the topic of Rytlock but that’s mutual between the two. That charr needs more boulders to the face than King Adelbern does.

He has all the personal dynamism of Droopy Dog.

I don’t see why he’s hated so much either. Maybe it’s easier since my main is Sylvari so I knew him longer. Still, Trehearne is the one who brings the army together, gathers information and figures out what everyone is supposed to do. Without him you wouldn’t know what to do next, so don’t see how he’s actually ‘stealing’ credit for everything. You’re still the uber commander of his army.

They probably should of made him more durable so people wouldn’t think so little of him, but they didn’t want him holding your hand through every mission.

I hated Trahearne at first, but after leveling up to 80 and going back and finishing my story to where the Pact gets made (on my Sylvari char, so I knew him already) I actually… really like him. When I saw how he was introduced at Claw Island, I felt like he was a glory stealer. After going through the story more, it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to be there, and he doesn’t feel all the way up to the task. He even questions the pale tree when she gives him Caladbolg, saying that he’s just a scholar and isn’t good at fighting, couldn’t someone better do it? The pale tree comes off as kind of controlling, actually.

Edit: it’s been mentioned, but yes: Trahearne goes out of his way to thank you and try to redirect praise to you. It’s almost always the other characters that try to pin accomplishments on him. Also, how personable would YOU be if you lived in Orr alone for 25 years?

If Trahearne is the apparent know-it-all on all things Orr and Undead, wouldn’t he have a plan already to end the war against the dragons? oh, because he needed the plant sword with every professions’ skills imbued into it? c’mon, now. maybe it’s just coincidence, but how come Trahearne doesn’t get Risen-pulled? all the missions in Orr, they never really attacked him much when i was rollin’ through Orr. he did not need us to accompany him into the dream to get the sword at the end…

if he is the “know-it-all”, and he shows up to the enemy’s doorstep to get rid of them, wouldn’t they be gunning for him first? or the undead should have gone Terminator-style and infiltrated the Pact ranks to attempt a murder. The only thing that came close to it was the Vigil one with the mesmer mole.

still hoping for a marauder shields like expansion/rewrite.

but if he became a leading commander (with apparent experience) to take back Elona from Palawa Joko, and my ele as second in command, i can see that happening.