Guild Wars 2

I am suffering from a bit of confusion regarding Charr cubs. Supposedly, and I am quoting from the wiki here, “As soon a cub is weaned (at around one year of age) they enter a fahrar of one of their parents’ legion. The fahrar is the cubs’ first warband and they are trained as a military unit under supervision of an adult and are considered an adult when the warband no longer needs supervision.”

If you are in the Black Citadel, you see this clearly. Cubs are with Fahrar and doing stuff with their Fahrar. However, Lion’s Arch seems to have atleast two cubs, one who teams-up with a Asura child and a human child to give you the background on Destiny’s Edge and another Princess Leyha (behind bank) who are clearly old enough to be in Fahrar but are not. Leyha also talks about her “parents” – indicating that she lives with her parent. There is also the Charr orphan in the Shiverpeaks but we don’t know exactly how young he was when his parents and those of his Norn friend got killed and he made his way to the Shiverpeaks with his friend and joined the orphan homestead run by a Sylvari.

Now I am perfectly happy to assume that Charr in Lion’s Arch don’t send their kids away and live very differently then Charr in the Black Citadel but Leyha also talks about joining the Ash Legion. So what’s the deal? Do the Legions even take older Charr from outside the Charr areas who didn’t grow-up in Fahrars etc? Or is Leyha just dreaming about that as well and she has about as much chance of joining the Ash Legion as her human friend?

I guess Leyha and her parents live outside the legions (which probably makes them gladiums), that’s why she would have to ‘join’ one in the first place, normally cubs are born into a legion.
As to whether the Ash Legion would take her in… maybe they make exceptions, maybe it’s just a kid’s dream.

I don’t think the fiction perfectly lines up with what’s presented in game. In particular the fiction seems to imply that cubs have little contact with their parents, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

I think Lion’s Arch is corrupting Charr values lol.
There’s even a conversation between two Charr about wanting traditional fahrar values, but at the same time their children must work with the outside world and other races.

I’m thinking that if some charr live outside of Black Citadel (or even outside Ascalon and the lands ruled by the charr) then they tend to give up some of their “traditions”. I guess living in LA is just different – remember that it’s a city of pirates, marauders, anarchists and so on. Stands to reason the charr there wouldn’t care for the traditional “grooming” of their children.

Also, probably after hearing tales of the old ways and of fahrar, they might form one fo their own with other Lion’s Arch cubs, essentially a street gang.

Give it a generation or so and Lion’s Arch will see gangster Charr prowling it’s streets.

Xomic.5792:

I don’t think the fiction perfectly lines up with what’s presented in game. In particular the fiction seems to imply that cubs have little contact with their parents, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

Well, as far as I know the fiction doesn’t say that it’s ALWAYS the case. There could be exceptions, and if someone lives outside of Charr lands then even if he wanted to rise his cub in a fahrar there just could be none around.
Not to mention that (as others said) if a Charr leaves his homelands he probably doesn’t want to follow the Charr family lifestyle anyway.
The cubs raised the traditional way don’t have much contact with their parents from what I’ve seen.

While the babby charr joining fahrar is the standard for Legion charr, it is not an enforced rule for the entire race. Charr, like the other races, are not all the same.

Netsu.3769:

Xomic.5792:

I don’t think the fiction perfectly lines up with what’s presented in game. In particular the fiction seems to imply that cubs have little contact with their parents, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

Well, as far as I know the fiction doesn’t say that it’s ALWAYS the case. There could be exceptions, and if someone lives outside of Charr lands then even if he wanted to rise his cub in a fahrar there just could be none around.
Not to mention that (as others said) if a Charr leaves his homelands he probably doesn’t want to follow the Charr family lifestyle anyway.
The cubs raised the traditional way don’t have much contact with their parents from what I’ve seen.

I’ve actually found the amount of contact “traditionally raised cubs” that is suppose to go on between cub and parent a bit confusing, in particular given the cub spends more time with their mother than father, I find it strange that the personal story for the charr is so heavily focused on their sire. I’m not even sure the character’s mother is brought up at all.

Thanks for your input guys. I suspect that the case is that Charr who live in Lion’s Arch, but more generally just outside of the legion controlled areas, have the choice to raise their kids differently and more often then not, do. There might be ways for these “outside” Charrs to join a legion at some point in time but that is assuming they even want to. I imagine the cubs of the, for example, the Charr commander of Claw Island (assuming he had cubs) would be more keen to join the Lion Guard then the Legions. Who knows!

Although, from what I have seen, Charr cubs growing-up outside of Fahrar still seem to have the concept of a “warband/Fahrar” but happy to have it made-up of their friends regardless of what race their friends are. So maybe Leyha will grow-up to form a warband with her human best friend. I would like to see that!

“Charr Cubs starving in Cantha”, …..did anyone else see that in-game quote? Strange since the Human races is(was) dominate there. (Last time we checked)

Effectively, every race has at least two cultures: their ‘native’ culture, and their Lion’s Arch culture.

Charr in Lion’s Arch are all effectively gladiums unless they chose otherwise. More or less. I’ve seen mention of charr not being in fahrars because they’re in Lion’s Arch, as well as charr being annoyed they can’t join one and the legions because they’re in LA.

@Hunter: No, haven’t seen such. That is odd. Care to provide a location and context for that phrase? Might be just a saying.

Xomic – that actually really annoyed me during character creation! I was like, “wait, scuse me, how about the mom? I think she has probably done some awesome stuff, why aren’t we hearing about HER? We may not have even met our dad.”

There was a lore article on this, posted by ArenaNet.

Charr parents keep tabs on their cubs occasionally, but they do not raise the cubs themselves. The cubs are raised in a fahrar, within a group that will become their warband – and their family.

Some charr are more interested than others in developing some form of relationship with their parents (ask Rytlock’s aide-de-campe about it. Though she’s Blood Legion, she seems to have something of a soft spot regarding the subject, and wishes her parents had decided stay in touch with her.)

Charr gladium (former Legion charr) as well as charr born outside charr territories (which, I suppose, would also be considered gladium by Legion charr) do raise cubs by themselves occasionally.

The legions do accept charr who were not raised in a fahrar, provided they’re willing to prove themselves, and there’s a legionnaire willing to take them in (this is the case of a charr engineer somewhere in the Iron Marches).

The NPC didn’t say Charr cubs starving in Cantha just cubs, which made me think it meant human children. The Canthan empire apparently kicked out the other noative sentient races, I cant see them letting charr in.

Xomic.5792:

Netsu.3769:

Xomic.5792:

I don’t think the fiction perfectly lines up with what’s presented in game. In particular the fiction seems to imply that cubs have little contact with their parents, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

Well, as far as I know the fiction doesn’t say that it’s ALWAYS the case. There could be exceptions, and if someone lives outside of Charr lands then even if he wanted to rise his cub in a fahrar there just could be none around.
Not to mention that (as others said) if a Charr leaves his homelands he probably doesn’t want to follow the Charr family lifestyle anyway.
The cubs raised the traditional way don’t have much contact with their parents from what I’ve seen.

I’ve actually found the amount of contact “traditionally raised cubs” that is suppose to go on between cub and parent a bit confusing, in particular given the cub spends more time with their mother than father, I find it strange that the personal story for the charr is so heavily focused on their sire. I’m not even sure the character’s mother is brought up at all.

My impression is that even though cubs aren’t raised by their parents who they are is still important because they’re expected to take after them to some extent. So when they’re growing up in the fahrar they’re told about their parents and told they have to either live up to their standards or prove they’re not the same (depending on who their parents are).

In the case of our characters I assume it’s just that the father is more exceptional than the mother so he is the one who stood out as an example to either follow or avoid. Or the one who’s exploits happen to have an impact during the chunk of their life we see.

My norn and human characters haven’t had their parents mentioned either (I picked the dead sister option on my human) so I think we’re supposed to assume it just doesn’t come up during the course of the game rather than anyone deliberately not talking about it. (Sylvari obviously only have one parent – the Pale Tree – who does play a big part in their story, and I haven’t played an asura much yet.)

I don’t see any contradiction between given lore and the in-game encounters we have… in any culture, not every individual/family fits into the cultural norms & trends.

I don’t think it’s a contradiction, but I do wonder if it’s ever difficult for charr outside Ascalon. Some of them seem to be glad to be away from the Legions and probably don’t want their kids to go into a fahrar, but I can imagine others feeling torn between staying where they are with the life they’ve established and moving ‘back home’ so their kids can have a traditional upbringing.

perhaps the ones in LA will join the lionguard when they grow up,and its kinda of an arrangement with the legions since the truce with the humans

Isn’t there a Charr couple in Lion’s Arch talking about forming a fahrar for their cubs that includes children from all races, due to there not being enough Charr cubs in LA for a Charr-only fahrar?

I havent heard of that, but it would not suprise me. If they did that it could end up becoming like a real Lions Arch military academy too.

I imagine the charr living outside legion territory mostly raise their kids themselves, but teach them a more worldly view than the fahrars do. They teach them of their native culture, about the legions, charr history, charr culture... basically all the stuff they would learn in the fahrar. But it gets mixed in with a bit of education and values from other cultures. Enough charr knowledge to not make them look incredibly out of place if they found themselves in black citadel one day, but with more knowledge of the ways of life outside of charr land than traditional fahrar cubs.

Kind of like immigrants into the U.S. or some other country. A child born in America to Korean parents for example probably knows a hell of a lot more about Korea than the average American child from their parents alone, but they also know what they need to know to live in America.