So Trahearne was actually Evil?
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…revelation came too late to prevent the Pact air fleet from launching its invasion, and Marshal Trahearne led his army into a devastating ambush on the edge of Maguuma…
y’all are reading the second half of the sentence and ignoring the first.
the revelation came too late to prevent the Pact air fleet from invading. had it come earlier, the attack could have maybe been stopped and a new strategy could’ve been coordinated or the Pact could’ve relocated. this is pretty obviously implied.
and like someone else said, an ambush is an unexpected attack.
don’t grasp at straws.
Incursiön [iN]
I feel sorry for Trahearne. If I remember rightly he accepted leadership of the Pact reluctantly. He has been put in this position because of his skills and knowledge of understanding and defeating Zaitan. As much as the personal story felt more like Trahearne’s story than mine, I do not blame him as a character for that. I blame Anet for that.
I personally like Trahearne. If he does turn to the dark side, I hope we get the chance to save him.
Caithe kept her secret from most people, and I expect Trahearne was as much in the dark as we were. I think the Pale Tree kept the secret from the rest of the Sylvari in an attempt to protect them. If everyone found out this information the Sylvari would have been in great danger ages ago, as they are now.
I hope Trahearne has survived and continues to help the Pact through this. I think he, and other key Sylvari, will be key in bringing the race back into the trust of the other races. Caithe on the other hand, due to keeping a secret that could have stopped the Pact from going into a trap, may not be so easily forgiven. Especially by her own people.
There is a lot to be discovered yet. It may well be that all Sylvari get corrupted at some point. If the Pale tree falls (attempts have already been made) the rest of the Sylvari race will lose that protection. That said, I do not believe the Pale Tree is the only one of her kind. But this is going off topic slightly.
Back on topic, I do not believe Trahearne, at present, is corrupt. Whether he stays that way we won’t know that yet.
(edited by Rin.1046)
On a related note, all Sylvari player characters and Caithe were given the Wyld Hunt to kill Zhaitan. Was this Mordremoth’s influence?
As we know Sylvari belong to the elder dragon Mordremoth. We know he wants to take over Tyria. Zhaitan is dead —> means one less elder dragon which can be dangerous to him --> one less Elder Dragon to compete for Tyria’s magical resources. Mordremoth just has advantages of the Zhaitan’s death!
So could that mean that Mordremoth actually influenced Trahearnes Wyld Hunt to kill Zhaítan? So that there is one less elder dragon and he has more power to take over Tyria?
and like someone else said, an ambush is an unexpected attack.
By definition, yes, an ambush is an unexpected attack. The debate is why Trahearne seems to have changed tactics so drastically and why this ambush was not foreseen.
Trahearne was the reluctant leader. He chosen not just for his knowledge of Orr and Zhaitan but to act as a neutral party. One that the Pact factions could rely on to arbitrate their differences; to trust to have no ulterior motives in amassing the largest army Tyria had known. The entire third act of the PS was gathering intel for Trahearne and the Pact so they could weaken Zhaitan and move against the ED with a minimum of casualties.
Yet, throughout LS2, we see Trahearne running headlong into the Jungle. He ignores clear and present dangers. The fort at Camp Resolve remains incomplete. At no point does he ask the PC to gather intel on Mordremoth’s forces. In fact, there seems to be no voice of reason at all. DE simply shows up to further their own glory, so we could not rely on them. Caithe is AWOL and as a by product, so is the PC. And the Mother Tree was in turn purposefully evasive and then down for the count.
Trahearne’s change in personality is what is suspect. Why is the brooding, often overly introspective and cautious Marshall suddenly so hell bent on taking the fight to an ED that has thus far managed only the barest of footholds into Tyria proper? He is also the only character outside of DE and DE 2.0 that knows something is up with Caithe and that a dragon egg is involved. That knowledge alone should have given Trahearne 1.0 pause and he would have sent out search parties and gathered as much intel on why Caithe was acting strangely and what her intentions were with the egg.
Instead we get Trahearne 2.0 who simply tells us, “Good luck! See you for supper after we kill this dragon.”
Maybe Trahearne was under direct influence and he has been corrupted. Maybe he was under indirect influence and Mordremoth had clouded his judgment. Maybe he’s out for revenge and should have relieved himself of command after Mom was attacked. Was he overconfident? Or, maybe he’s just incompetent.
These are questions we are left with and I hope we discover some interesting answers in HoT.
(edited by Cherokeewill.7504)
Nice summary, Cherokeewill. Trahearne, however, DID give us an excuse for the rush. Mordremoth, unlike Zhaitan, is not yet fully awake and is still at the initial minion-building stage. This apparently provides a window of opportunity during which the dragon is more vulnerable, encouraging him to make a headlong rush instead of the careful step-by-step advance used with Zhaitan. Perhaps Trahearne is only guilty of overestimating that vulnerability, especially in light of his ignorance of the vulnerability of a significant part of his own forces.
If anything, the Points of Interest 18 summary implies that Caithe is in fact probably being influenced by Mordremoth at this point (seeing as she’s taken the egg without explaining why, and couldn’t be bothered to at least warn Trahearne that he might be leading the Pact into a trap), seeing as they’ve basically made Mordremoth a Plant Dragon version of an M.E. Reaper.
Trehearne says in the personal story that he’s no military leader. This ‘stupidity’ ( in this context it would be a mistake out of inexperience) manifests itself in making a grave tactical error by underestimating Mordi and flying way too low.
His decisions we’ve been part of before have been by and large strategic, something you’d expect from someone with an academic background that’s studied his enemy.
Hanlon’s razor applies because it was a ‘stupid’ tactical mistake to make, made because he’s an inexperienced general.
Relentless Inquisition [PAIN] – FA
This ‘stupidity’ ( in this context it would be a mistake out of inexperience) manifests itself in making a grave tactical error by underestimating Mordi and flying way too low.
Was anyone else a little disappointed by this? Randomly carpet bombing the jungle, then ships getting smashed out of the air by giant vines?
There are a lot of images in the cinematic of Sylvari attacking, but it’s not really clear where they came from. Are they Sylvari on the ship that have suddenly turned under Mordy’s influence, or did they somehow get on board with the vine attack?
It seems like it would have been a lot stronger of a story moment if the giant vines were cut altogether, and the cinematic had instead revolved entirely around Sylvari pact members turning.
Imagine the fleet gliding over the jungle on the way to Mordy. No random firing down into the canopy. It’s heroic, and glorious. Pact members are arrayed across the decks with the wind in their hair, standing in bold defiance against the great dragon they are about to destroy.
We get some closer shots of Sylvari members among them. On their faces we start to see sinister side glances at their fellow Pact members, who themselves fail to notice.
Then violence erupts as a fifth of the Pact turns on their peers. We see them cruely slicing into pact member and setting flame to munitions stores. The fleet disintegrates into falling, flaming rubble as it did in the cinematic.
That feels like it would have played right into where they are taking the story, but would have had more impact. The oversized, “force of nature”, thing that ArenaNet really loves feels like it repeatedly undermines the story. The gigantic, impersonal threat seems designed to awe us, but often has less impact because it is so crazily outsized.
No, he wasn’t. But he will maybe become evil. We will see.
(edited by Mortifer.2946)
Trahearne is a plant. He has cabbage instead of brain. Of course he will lead people to their death. He has absolutely no idea how to command.
Truer words were never spoken….
In all seriousness, I do hope that Trahearne gets corrupted and then we have to kill him. Then really happy music plays while everyone dances on his corpse.
That would be great.
Fear the might of Shatterstone!
i imagine it comes down to the fact that Trehearne tried to take on mordremoth in the same fashion of zhaitan, which of course will not work.
each dragon behaves very differently from the other, so a new approach of attack is needed for each one. Trehearne was an expert on Zhaitan and his minions, the player character is the ‘expert’ on mordremoth and its minions.
in short trehearne was attempting a hail-mary too soon, and now we see the results of his shortsightedness.
“If I remember rightly he accepted leadership of the Pact reluctantly. He has been put in this position because of his skills and knowledge of understanding and defeating Zhaitan.”
That, and his neutrality. As a member of an existing Order, the PC would not be seen as unbiased. Trahearne was known to and respected by high-ranking members of all three Orders.
“I think the Pale Tree kept the secret from the rest of the Sylvari in an attempt to protect them.”
Basically. As long as the Dragon slept, and as long as she was providing this protection, why risk a revelation that could turn the world entire against her children? Plus, there’d always be the concern that some of them might reject the Dream and embrace this other nature.
Reminds me. To whoever made the earlier comment about “locked into” the Dream, that’s not even how it works. We’ve met Soundless who had been Dreamers, but were working to put the Dream behind them. (At least one failed, and returned to Astorea, going by NPC ambient dialogue.) Similarly, we know that the Nightmare Court tries to twist Dreamers and Soundless alike to the Nightmare.
The Dream is as much a choice as anything else in life, basically. And the Pale Tree herself sees them all as her children – not just the Dreamers. She cares for the Soundless even though they chose to leave her shelter and protection. And she even worries about her wayward children who have fallen to Nightmare.
So, for all Grove Sylvari, the Dream is not something you are “locked” into or out of, but a choice – the choice to accept the Dream – that you can always change your mind about.
… this probably doesn’t apply to Malyck, since he’s not born of this Tree. We really know nothing about his kin, only that they have no Dream in the first place. I am not sure an outsider Sylvari could join the Grove Pale Tree’s Dream, since they have no connection to her.
As for the points made in Cherokeewill’s and Carlin’s recent posts: I will go so far as to say that Trahearne probably has a general knowledge in the Elder Dragons at large, although, yes, his extensive study of Zhaitan was specific to that one dragon.
He knew OF Mordremoth, something very few even among the Sylvari seemed to, and I agree with the general consensus that he pushed for an offensive based on the fact that Mordremoth was so newly-awakened.
The problem? Apparently, Mordy is a morning person, and woke up bight-eyed and thorny-tailed. (Either that, or ley line energies have a bigger kick than a pot of coffee.)
Not reading too much, I speculate that Mordy wanted Zhaitty’s power, so he sent his trees to do his bidding (Trahernia).
This is followed by the fact that Rytlock felt that he got over nerfed as a Warrior, due to people telling him “ZOMGBBQWARRIOROPZZZZZ!”, and decided to make his own class (Revenant).
Caithe is a confused and lost soul that thinks she knows everything, so she decides to steal the egg to troll the player and run away from a dragon fight when she can clearly help.
Then we just stand and stare at some golden arches until a few hundred years go by when Heart of Thorns come out… we then send our descendants to attack Mordy, you know he will be weakened from all that waiting. A few generations is quite the long time for them dragons. he might even be ready to go back to sleep.
I like my version of the story. lol
I think the reason for Caithe pursing the egg even further was probably to allow the Pale Tree to manufacture its own egg, create a dragon capable of influencing new born Sylvari and grant them lasting protection (and even turning the minions Mordremoth has already when hes finally felled.) and a true rallying point now that the tree is dormant.
That influence is still sort of there, but anyone with doubts in their mind that the Pale Tree can protect them is more than likely a target for Mordremoth’s influence.
Imagine what the Pale Tree could do, if it could just create another elder dragon? On par with Mordremoth? It lacks the ability to right now, but this could be one of the paths that the story takes, fight fire with fire. To a degree, the Sylvari as a whole are already this, they can’t be corrupted into other minions, but come from a particular dragon to begin with, so why not bind them to a -good- dragon instead?
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