Guild Wars 2

Hi luvs,

Warning: Do not read this if you have not completed the Heart of Thorns Personal Story Mode —> spoilers below!!!

Okay, so today I came across a reddit thread made 3 years ago . . . and it made me wonder if it had any influence on what ends up happening to Trahearne. Were there really that many people who disliked him? Just because of his accent or look or personality or role he played?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18z681/bobby_stein_on_trahearne/?st=ixyztrp6&sh=69b42781

And speaking for myself, I loved everything about him . . . he was one of my favorite characters . . . so imagine my distress when I discovered the sad news. He was a strong sylvari, just like my character. I know he could have had the power to distinguish Mordremoth’s thoughts from his own true real Source-aligned ones. And even though Anet decided to have him be weak and succumb to the dragon’s susception, Anet could have at least given us a choice like we got with Zoja and Logan! As a writer myself, it is frustrating to see things happen that I feel shouldn’t have occurred and should’ve instead unraveled a different way. My character would not have let him die or be corrupted . . . she would have done something – anything! I know it’s just a game, but because it is just that exactly, literally anything can happen and it doesn’t have to be a certain way or follow rules (unlike how in real life we cannot always save the people we love . . . so if I cannot do that irl, then I’d at least like to be able to in a made up world that has the option to go the way one wants . . . but I guess that is only if you or I are writing our own books). I know I cannot change the company’s choice or the community’s voice . . . but the new Living Story is still in the process and I would like to request that “our” character that we play gets a choice to set up a beautiful grand memorial for Trahearne in the Grove like Braham did for Eir in Hoelbrak. He deserves just as much or more! The people that don’t like him can say no to it, and those that he was special to can feel some closure.

In memory of our dearest Trahearne,
~ namaste ~

I think it’s okay.

The pact fell apart, and the death of the marshal is a good token to go back to step and completely redesign your military. If Marshal trahearne survived, it would be harder to make a believable reorganization within the pact. Plus sometimes good guys gotta die so you don’t get the ‘oh, he’s the hero, he will survive’ sentiment. Now that Trahearne and Eir are dead, no main character is save anymore, meaning you will take the next elder dragon a little more seriously before they cut down more of your friends.

TBH, I actually pictured Logan’s death in HoT, but that didn’t happen. Instead we have a blind zojja and comatose logan now, so that might be interesting.

On a side note, if you’re worried about spoilers you can type [spoiler!] Text [/spoiler!]
or

[spoiler!]
Text
[/spoiler!]

to hide the text (minus the exclamation marks) and it would look like this

PS, we have a memorial for many interesting characters of GW1 and GW2 in our guild hall, but a true memorial for trahearne seems conflicting, on one side, he’s the marshall, so I think there maybe should be a gallery of statues of marshals somewhere in LA, but on the other hand, sylvari don’t funeral customs or rites, they believe in the dream, and that life is just a fleeting moment between the dreams. So if they die, all value of the mortal shell disapears, While there’s not a clear answer, I always believed that it’s okay to abandon sylvari corpses as they don’t value their mortal shells (at least in life-death relations)

I do think the community influenced his fate. The outcry against him was enormous.

I’m not agreement with them though – his VA wasn’t great, but I didn’t feel like he stole our thunder or was a terrible character either. Like the rest of the Sylvari story arc in HoT, his time in the game was cut short needlessly.

I think when you have such a disliked character thrown into an undeniably important role, there really is no good way to get rid of it. We could have given him some grand send-off befitting the commander of the greatest force for good in Tyria, but too many players would just be too indifferent to the man himself. Like being forced to attend the funeral of a person you didn’t care for. You’re just stuck there thinking “whatever, the guy was kind of a jerk anyway”. (Not that Trehearne was a jerk or anything).
So your other option is to let him fade into obscurity and leave people wondering “well what about his accomplishments? Sure, he was boring and annoying, but shouldn’t we honor his actions”? not realising that any kind of funeral would be overshadowed by your lack of caring for the individual.
Either way, people wouldn’t be happy with how it was handled.

Yeah, I didn’t care for him at all.

I’m perfectly fine with him being a non-thing. I just wish he had been a non-thing before he became a thing in the first place.

As a character he was pretty bland and inspired a lot of disdain because he felt shoehorned into an important role because he knew more about ONE dragon than anyone else.

Not for his ability to lead, not for his ability to inspire, no. Because he knew more about a single dragon than anyone else did. That’s it.

Who’s charge was it to lead? Ours. To inspire? Ours. To kick heinie? Ours. (The player.) Who got most of the credit? Him. Because he got a bunch of low-flying airships made and blew a big slow-moving target out of the sky with them.

It was obvious he had no idea what he was actually doing when we did the whole Morde thing. I mean.. what kind of strategy was “Take all the airships and hover just above the canopy of the jungle then randomly fire into the jungle?”

Like.. everyone with any sort of tactical sense would have both questioned and refused to do that. It was literally the worst plan in the history of plans. Would have been better off using that searing cauldron again or something to clear kitten out and send in ground troops that way.

But, hey… This is what we get when we put the guy who has no idea what he’s doing in charge.

Yet, I digress. Frankly the only good way to have handled Treehorn was to never have had him as a character in the first place. It should have been someone else, or at least they should have made him more than just “random tree scholar dude,” you know. Someone with some real qualifications, which he simply didn’t have.

Then again there’s so little sense in the Pact as a whole I suppose I’m not surprised everyone was eager to fire at nothing and pretend it would actually do anything as a strategy.

trianglecubed.3750:

Yeah, I didn’t care for him at all.

I’m perfectly fine with him being a non-thing. I just wish he had been a non-thing before he became a thing in the first place.

As a character he was pretty bland and inspired a lot of disdain because he felt shoehorned into an important role because he knew more about ONE dragon than anyone else.

Not for his ability to lead, not for his ability to inspire, no. Because he knew more about a single dragon than anyone else did. That’s it.

Who’s charge was it to lead? Ours. To inspire? Ours. To kick heinie? Ours. (The player.) Who got most of the credit? Him. Because he got a bunch of low-flying airships made and blew a big slow-moving target out of the sky with them.

It was obvious he had no idea what he was actually doing when we did the whole Morde thing. I mean.. what kind of strategy was “Take all the airships and hover just above the canopy of the jungle then randomly fire into the jungle?”

Like.. everyone with any sort of tactical sense would have both questioned and refused to do that. It was literally the worst plan in the history of plans. Would have been better off using that searing cauldron again or something to clear kitten out and send in ground troops that way.

But, hey… This is what we get when we put the guy who has no idea what he’s doing in charge.

Yet, I digress. Frankly the only good way to have handled Treehorn was to never have had him as a character in the first place. It should have been someone else, or at least they should have made him more than just “random tree scholar dude,” you know. Someone with some real qualifications, which he simply didn’t have.

Then again there’s so little sense in the Pact as a whole I suppose I’m not surprised everyone was eager to fire at nothing and pretend it would actually do anything as a strategy.

What you (maybe) fail to understand is, we could’ve done jackskritt without the Pact.
While we were having our little destiny’s edge field trips, Trahearne was leading the pact into Orr. Did you really think 1 human (or whatever race you played) could run from Lion’s Arch to the Ruined City of Arah, storm in, and fight an elder dragon?
With that meager hall of monuments sword?
Of course we did the important stuff. but do you think we even wouldve had the oppertunity to TRY if the pact didn’t pave the way to Arah?

I had no idea Trahearne was disliked to that point, I’m actually shocked!

He is my favorite character, it made me cry to see him die and the game feels a bit emptier now that he’s gone. People say that he was taking all the credit, I never felt that way, when you would defeat someone or something, people would always be cheering for you and when Trahearne was getting “the credit” he would be really humble about it and say he “couldn’t have done it without you”. I wish they wouldn’t have killed him but instead, don’t know, made him less important in the story or make him take a different path, knowing he’s still alive and might cross paths again later.

With the cinematic at the end of the HoT story, when you kill Trahearne and the ley lines go crazy and hit the egg, I really hope that somehow a part of his soul (his uncorrupted one) merges with the egg and lives on in Brill’s baby dragon. I think that would be interesting and cute! But that would be too cool to be true and since people disliked him, I guess they were pretty happy to get rid of him.

Anyways! I feel your pain, Trahearne lovers.

Samaelle.9301:

I had no idea Trahearne was disliked to that point, I’m actually shocked!

He is my favorite character, it made me cry to see him die and the game feels a bit emptier now that he’s gone. People say that he was taking all the credit, I never felt that way, when you would defeat someone or something, people would always be cheering for you and when Trahearne was getting “the credit” he would be really humble about it and say he “couldn’t have done it without you”. I wish they wouldn’t have killed him but instead, don’t know, made him less important in the story or make him take a different path, knowing he’s still alive and might cross paths again later.

With the cinematic at the end of the HoT story, when you kill Trahearne and the ley lines go crazy and hit the egg, I really hope that somehow a part of his soul (his uncorrupted one) merges with the egg and lives on in Brill’s baby dragon. I think that would be interesting and cute! But that would be too cool to be true and since people disliked him, I guess they were pretty happy to get rid of him.

Anyways! I feel your pain, Trahearne lovers.

Trehearne got on my nerves too and I just didn’t like him, but I really don’t see why people thought he got “all the credit”. As you said, he went well out of his way to make sure that you got the credit you deserved. He blatantly admitted that he was nothing without you.

Yeah It made me annoyed. He was my favorite character and personally I didn’t believe my character was at the point to lead an entire army(human). I see no problem with him at all really, he didn’t even do anything ridiculous and he was a generally kind person.

Amaimon.7823:

Plus sometimes good guys gotta die so you don’t get the ‘oh, he’s the hero, he will survive’ sentiment. Now that Trahearne and Eir are dead, no main character is save anymore, meaning you will take the next elder dragon a little more seriously before they cut down more of your friends.

I agree with this.

I remember telling a friend who was complaining about all the characters killed off in A Song of Ice and Fire to read The Sword of Shannara and then see if she felt differently about it.

That book establishes early on that the main character absolutely, without question, cannot die or the entire thing is over. And after the 2nd or 3rd time the same secondary character seems to have died or was in a “no way he could have survived” situation and then makes a miraculous escape it becomes pretty clear all the rest of the party are invincible too. Which makes the story somewhat boring and predictable. Which is a shame because otherwise it’s a great book and the Shannara series generally is fantastic.

I do think Traherne was killed off partially because he was unpopular. But I think it would have had more of an emotional impact and therefore would be a better storyline for people who liked him.

Also you’re saying your character would have done something to stop him being corrupted, but remember the last time we saw him was in Camp Resolve before the Pact fleet launched. Then we don’t see him again until we find him at the base of Mordremoth’s tower/tree thingy at the start of Hearts and Minds, and by then it was too late. There was literally nothing we could have done.

And I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness that Traherne was being corrupted. Mordremoth put a lot more effort into corrupting him that he did with any other sylvari – the weak ones succumbed to a few whispered suggestions from miles away. Traherne was captured and beaten and physically absorbed by Mordremoth, all while being mentally bombarded.

It’s honestly amazing he was still mostly himself and able to help us fight the dragon. If he was weak we’d have arrived to find him fully corrupted and had to fight him as basically Mordremoths new body.

He wasn’t weak. He held on to himself long enough for us to reach him despite being physically and mentally half-absorbed by Mordremoth. The unending mental battery and insidious thought-twisting that every other sylvari suffered must have been peanuts compared to that.

The “The Elder Dragon of Mind’s weakness is its mind!” and “Trahearne can send us into it!” asspulls will never be anything other than BS of the purest kind, though.

It did feel a bit like they got rid of him because of his haters, and it didn’t help that HoT ended as abruptly as it did, leaving so many threads hanging what feels like permanently. Still, with the recent bit of closure I’m more-or-less satisfied with his arc, and I say that as someone who liked him and never understood the haters. Yeah, some of his writing in the PS was clunky and hamfisted … but he’s hardly alone in that. And very much unlike the new batch of NPCs, with Trahearne I actually felt that he was my friend, that he was always glad to see me or work with me, that he knew he the Pact needed me and trusted me with it in return.

Danikat.8537:

Amaimon.7823:

Plus sometimes good guys gotta die so you don’t get the ‘oh, he’s the hero, he will survive’ sentiment. Now that Trahearne and Eir are dead, no main character is save anymore, meaning you will take the next elder dragon a little more seriously before they cut down more of your friends.

I agree with this.

I remember telling a friend who was complaining about all the characters killed off in A Song of Ice and Fire to read The Sword of Shannara and then see if she felt differently about it.

That book establishes early on that the main character absolutely, without question, cannot die or the entire thing is over. And after the 2nd or 3rd time the same secondary character seems to have died or was in a “no way he could have survived” situation and then makes a miraculous escape it becomes pretty clear all the rest of the party are invincible too. Which makes the story somewhat boring and predictable. Which is a shame because otherwise it’s a great book and the Shannara series generally is fantastic.

I do think Traherne was killed off partially because he was unpopular. But I think it would have had more of an emotional impact and therefore would be a better storyline for people who liked him.

Also you’re saying your character would have done something to stop him being corrupted, but remember the last time we saw him was in Camp Resolve before the Pact fleet launched. Then we don’t see him again until we find him at the base of Mordremoth’s tower/tree thingy at the start of Hearts and Minds, and by then it was too late. There was literally nothing we could have done.

And I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness that Traherne was being corrupted. Mordremoth put a lot more effort into corrupting him that he did with any other sylvari – the weak ones succumbed to a few whispered suggestions from miles away. Traherne was captured and beaten and physically absorbed by Mordremoth, all while being mentally bombarded.

It’s honestly amazing he was still mostly himself and able to help us fight the dragon. If he was weak we’d have arrived to find him fully corrupted and had to fight him as basically Mordremoths new body.

To add on this, I was kind of sad they pulled out on Taimi. You can tell from the dialogue and cinematics that Taimi’s death was on the table there.
She’s close to the machine, “well, what do you kn-”
boom!
she flies away
she conveniently lands on a rock that was FAR away during the fight

really, it’s like they had completely planned out for Taimi to die there, but in the end decided “nah, let’s not”.
While I don’t want Taimi to do, she’s one of the few characters I would’ve something for if she died. I would’ve gone full Berserk on the six and primordus if she fell in the lava there.

Chadramar.8156:

And very much unlike the new batch of NPCs, with Trahearne I actually felt that he was my friend, that he was always glad to see me or work with me, that he knew he the Pact needed me and trusted me with it in return.

Are you a sylvari on your main, by chance? Part of the reason non-sylvari players tended to hate Trahearne is because he shows up out of NOWHERE in the personal story, then starts to take it over. He doesn’t become your friend, you’re just kind of shunted to him.

I do feel like the new guild is full of characters I know pretty well, but that’s because I played a good chunk of LS Season1. If you didn’t get the chance to do that – I can definitely understand why you wouldn’t care to know who these randos following you around are.

I mainly play sylvari, yes. It does make a difference, and they could have handled that better — but I still think that even outside the initial racial storyline, they did a much better job at establishing Trahearne as a partner and friend who actually liked us and needed us than they did with any of the “biconics”. Just as they did a much better job at establishing the PC’s place in the Personal Story. The writing and story-flow were more clunky then at times, but (that one hilariously bad “ZOMG Trahearne is suddenly a combat and leadership god!” mission in Timberline aside) at least they never gave me that “Okay, is there any reason why my character is even here? You could replace me with a lampshade and nobody could tell the difference,” feeling of LS1 and, slightly less so, LS2. In LS3, scratch “lampshade” and replace it with “NPC punching bag”.

The only time I recall any of the “biconics” ever showing actual friend-like behavior towards the PC was Canach’s support for a sibling during HoT. At the same time, some of the others are flat-out hostile, which doesn’t help my overall impression of them versus my impression of Trahearne, either.

trianglecubed.3750:

Yeah, I didn’t care for him at all.

I’m perfectly fine with him being a non-thing. I just wish he had been a non-thing before he became a thing in the first place.

As a character he was pretty bland and inspired a lot of disdain because he felt shoehorned into an important role because he knew more about ONE dragon than anyone else.

Not for his ability to lead, not for his ability to inspire, no. Because he knew more about a single dragon than anyone else did. That’s it.

Who’s charge was it to lead? Ours. To inspire? Ours. To kick heinie? Ours. (The player.) Who got most of the credit? Him. Because he got a bunch of low-flying airships made and blew a big slow-moving target out of the sky with them.

It was obvious he had no idea what he was actually doing when we did the whole Morde thing. I mean.. what kind of strategy was “Take all the airships and hover just above the canopy of the jungle then randomly fire into the jungle?”

Like.. everyone with any sort of tactical sense would have both questioned and refused to do that. It was literally the worst plan in the history of plans. Would have been better off using that searing cauldron again or something to clear kitten out and send in ground troops that way.

But, hey… This is what we get when we put the guy who has no idea what he’s doing in charge.

Yet, I digress. Frankly the only good way to have handled Treehorn was to never have had him as a character in the first place. It should have been someone else, or at least they should have made him more than just “random tree scholar dude,” you know. Someone with some real qualifications, which he simply didn’t have.

Then again there’s so little sense in the Pact as a whole I suppose I’m not surprised everyone was eager to fire at nothing and pretend it would actually do anything as a strategy.

A few things i dont like about your comment, you talk about the prestige of defeating Zhaitan. The commander played a very small part, the commander basically brought DE together and helped with a few side missions. At no point was the commander the head of the mission, the NPC were more impressed fighting with DE then a new commander such as yourself.

The whole Trahearne thing, he was a scholar. Thats a huge thing, he was a humungus reason for the death of a Elder dragon. Info is the most important, for instance in basketball. The coach and scouting team gives a report on players. You must follow the report in order to most effectively hep our team and make there team worse.

This example is straight from Stephen Jackson whop won a championship with the Spurs who have had success since the 1989 season. He said " If you dont follow the game plan, Pop would take you out" and it was because you are hurting the team.

If a player can only go right, you make him go left and double on the spin. Thats a Basketball reference.

Now imagine its for a Elder Dragon, the most powerful beings that we know. Trahearne did his research and had the commander seek advice left and right from other people as well as seeing the Pale Tree for guidance.

For me he was actually a great character, not the most charismatic but a great character when it came down to the big picture.

Now we get to the HOT, if you read my comments about HOT i have a serious disdain for the story.

Trahearne would of done some research, he would of gotten counsel and he would of made a strategic move.

The pact attacking head on without scouting alone shows the EX- MACHINA of the GW2 HOT story.

Everything about GW2 has been EX-MACHINA since HOT. Taimi i need to help my ghost friends ……… wow if your WP thats really funny but for me im tired of the crap.

On ember bay they talk about races teaming together to fight dragons and they fail. Even with more powerful info and magic then we have.

Taimi makes a machine that she doesnt truly understand and it can kill 2 elder dragons, taimi has a machine that runs scenarios and its always right.

Dont blame Trahearne for the HOT story line, that story does not show the real backround of a character. You dont go 4 years with a character acting a certain way and then 1 day just for story line purposes acts completely irrational or out of character.

Thats GW2 EX-MACHINA

Yeah, Trahearne going all “I’m mad now, charge!!” without planning or preparation was … weird. Even considering the immense worry for the Pale Tree and maybe the subtle influence from Mordremoth to encourage recklessness, it felt quite OOC for him. He of all people would have known how vital information is, considering how long he struggled with his Wyld Hunt.

Blowing up Treehearne’s head almost made the price of entry worth it.
Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more cathartic character death. The focal point of nearly all the bad writing and voice acting (fiiiiiiiiiire, he monotones as he leads one of the biggest expeditionary forces ever to get blown up) up until LSS1 in your hands? God, I danced in front of his mangled body for a solid minute and spammed the cheer emote while he was talking. I could not believe one of my most hated characters ever was going to die by my hands.

Thank you, Anet. We may not always see eye to eye, but that was a wonderful experience I’ll never forget.

Theege.9783:

Blowing up Treehearne’s head almost made the price of entry worth it.
Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more cathartic character death. The focal point of nearly all the bad writing and voice acting (fiiiiiiiiiire, he monotones as he leads one of the biggest expeditionary forces ever to get blown up) up until LSS1 in your hands? God, I danced in front of his mangled body for a solid minute and spammed the cheer emote while he was talking. I could not believe one of my most hated characters ever was going to die by my hands.

Thank you, Anet. We may not always see eye to eye, but that was a wonderful experience I’ll never forget.

Really? I truly do not understand peoples issue with Trahearne.

Like people turned on Cyclops in the X-men universe when wolverine became “hit” thing.

People hate the “boy scout” character yet when it comes to the real world. Everyone complains left and right about leader ship.

Regardless, after i defeated Mordemoth and Trahearne asked me to strike him. I just stood there and then the dragon took over him, i still just stood there. I got into discord and asked my guild mates had they finished the story? They said yes and i asked if there was a way to leave without killing him. I literally just defeated the dragon in hand to hand combat. They said “nope, just hit him and get out” and i was like huh.

Even if you liked the death of Trehearne, story wise it didnt make sense and it was kind of horrible.