Guild Wars 2

I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation pieces between these two, some of the best and most amusing writing I have experienced so far in GW2.

Here’s the problem, however: During The Secret of Southsun, he was presented as an anti-hero, a man doing the wrong things for the right-ish reasons. He saw himself as a hero of the refugees trapped in Consortium contracts, and I personally wished I could side with him. However a lot of lives were lost and he was of course captured.

Whilst in prison, he has been remorseful and apologetic to the max which further endeared me to him.

Now he is on Anise’s billet, he appears to have turned into an utter sociopath! I know that some of his comments are intentionally directed at Anise, to elicit some reaction and possibly information from him. But it is as if the writers thought “Hang on, players LIKE this guy! That wasn’t supposed to happen!” and have turned him into the bitterist of grapefruit in response.

I still like the guy, the wit and humour, and his voice actor is great. During the party I would have accepted his sociopathic behaviour as just him trying to troll Anise. At the summit, however, he carried on in a similar vein, even though the tone and subject matter of conversation was unjustified in that setting.

tl;dr is: why has Canach gone from remorseful anti-hero to Hannibal Lecter?

He is acting villainous because new players will not have heard of him. How can he redeem himself if nobody knows he used to be a villain?

I actually quite like this development. His intentions have always been good – he just wasn’t handling it so well, and he understands that. But seeing how he reacts to things now, he is someone who will get the job done, in whatever way.
Putting him in a cell for a time is not making him a good guy. He shows remorse in the cell for how he handled it all, yes. But wouldn’t you when you are put in a cell? He’d be pretty stupid to stand there and say everyone got what they deserved if he ever hopes to get out of there again.
Canach is a smart guy, but not an entirely nice guy. And tbh I think the story really calls for someone like that.

Curae.1837:

Canach is a smart guy, but not an entirely nice guy. And tbh I think the story really calls for someone like that.

Yeah, I was hoping he’d be the Sylvari representative in my little group and delighted when it became apparent that he would be joining. He seems committed to working his debt off, and I think that he’ll provide a nice balance to the other scooby-gang like NPCs (I love them all, btw).

In the party, he knew his role and played the glowering thug to make sure that people wouldn’t get too close to the illusionary Anise.

I didn’t notice anything too off about him in the summit, although Anise and him were continuing their mutual poking of one another and she was obviously grating on his nerves. Nothing too bad there, in fact I thought that the player character’s threatening manner seemed more out of place there.

It was interesting how he didn’t say anything bad about The Pale Tree, though he was obviously uncomfortable. I do agree that he is a dark character, probably one of the darkest in the game so far, I just feel that his obvious sadistic streak is at odds with his stated intention of paying penance.

I absolutely love Anise and Canach together, Anise has always been a favourite of mine. Seeing Canach as Dr Lector is funny – I have a psychiatrist friend who chose that profession because of that character – remember he’ll only eat you if you’re rude

Canach is an anti-hero. He seems to suffer from the same inferiority complex that a lot of Secondborn suffer from (Cadeyrn, Scarlet) in that they feel like second favourite children compared to the Firstborn. This experience has made him a bit bitter and willing to go to greater lengths to distinguish himself, although at heart I think he still wants to be “good”.

I think he’ll do well under Anise. Anise herself wants to do what’s right for Kryta (and others, if it won’t conflict with Kryta and humanity’s well-being), but she’s willing to stoop to underhanded means to do it if necessary. She sees in Canach the same mentality and thus has taken him under her wing.

I dunno but have you seen Hannibal? If that’s what Canach is gonna be, then by all means, let’s get some good writing in here for once.

Well, just because someone is remorseful of their actions doesn’t mean they’re apologetic for their personality; if anything, Canach acting like a sociopath is simply a way to vent his frustration without actually stabbing and blowing people up.

Does that mean we can expect to see Canach join the Biconics then, Matthew?

He’s also been convinced that any means to achieve his goals were okay, because his goals were important to the world. He never really seemed to value other people’s lives, ideas, etc.

So I don’t think his “current” dialogue is inconsistent. He was cutthroat then and he’s cutthroat now.

What’s interesting (to me) is that Anise doesn’t seem to have a problem with hiring a (potential) sociopath. Either she imagines she can redeem him or she thinks its useful having a “Dexter” around to do “what must be done.” How far is she willing to go in defense of the realm?

If you ascribe to the theory that Anise is, in fact, Livia in disguise, then there’s practically no lengths she won’t go to in order to protect Kryta.

Perhaps chillingly, that also leaves open the possibility that one day she might decide that she could do a better job protecting Kryta as its Queen than Jennah or her descendants.

Zaxares.5419:

If you ascribe to the theory that Anise is, in fact, Livia in disguise, then there’s practically no lengths she won’t go to in order to protect Kryta.

Perhaps chillingly, that also leaves open the possibility that one day she might decide that she could do a better job protecting Kryta as its Queen than Jennah or her descendants.

I cancelled my subscription to that theory, only because I think it’s more interesting if Anise is a spiritual heir to the role that Livia served and that Livia is out and about involved in some other mysteries (assuming she still lives).

To your other point, it’s always been interesting observing the Grand Viziers: their role is always supposedly to support their boss, but sometimes they seem to relish being a power behind the throne. I don’t think that will be the case here, since it’s very rare that stories in GW1/GW2 get so nuanced.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Canach is very much still working through some of his anger issues, and we will be delving more into that side of him, as his involvement with our cast of characters evolves. He has a lot to atone for, and he genuinely wants to, but it’s not something that’s going to come naturally to him.

I’m looking forward to that.

As I said during Secret of Southsun, I wanted to side with Canach, and I find him to be one of the more interesting characters so far. I’m just amazed that they would let such an obvious sociopath out of jail!

MatthewMedina.5419:

Canach is very much still working through some of his anger issues, and we will be delving more into that side of him, as his involvement with our cast of characters evolves. He has a lot to atone for, and he genuinely wants to, but it’s not something that’s going to come naturally to him.

Keep at it. Canach and Anise have perhaps the best duo-chemistry I’ve ever seen in the entire GW franchise, and I’m happy to see more.

Just, for the love of Balthazar, and all that is holy, don’t make him into a fake-combat NPC who does 0 damage… Either make him useful, or don’t have him fight the same battles as us.

Remember, this guy is a resourceful baddass who had an entire boss fight all about himself. He shouldn’t be doing only 0 damage…

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

He’s also been convinced that any means to achieve his goals were okay, because his goals were important to the world. He never really seemed to value other people’s lives, ideas, etc.

So I don’t think his “current” dialogue is inconsistent. He was cutthroat then and he’s cutthroat now.

What’s interesting (to me) is that Anise doesn’t seem to have a problem with hiring a (potential) sociopath. Either she imagines she can redeem him or she thinks its useful having a “Dexter” around to do “what must be done.” How far is she willing to go in defense of the realm?

To be honest I think Anise is pretty much the same. She’ll reach her goals no matter what the cost, and if she has kill a few people to get there she will. I don’t trust her, and I probably never will.

Canach is one of the few characters I like, he has depth and their is no melodrama surrounding him. I am quite shocked that the only likable character in the living world is an actual Sylvari.

I loved Canach last patch…

… however… don`t take our entusiasm as a sign to cram him into everything, but make him matter.
You allready did it with the Biconics and some side characters who ended up as nothing more then “fancservice” and subsequently diminished their role in the overall spectrum of the game.

Please, sometimes you do not have to give the people what they want at once.

OmaiGodman.2098:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

He’s also been convinced that any means to achieve his goals were okay, because his goals were important to the world. He never really seemed to value other people’s lives, ideas, etc.

So I don’t think his “current” dialogue is inconsistent. He was cutthroat then and he’s cutthroat now.

What’s interesting (to me) is that Anise doesn’t seem to have a problem with hiring a (potential) sociopath. Either she imagines she can redeem him or she thinks its useful having a “Dexter” around to do “what must be done.” How far is she willing to go in defense of the realm?

To be honest I think Anise is pretty much the same. She’ll reach her goals no matter what the cost, and if she has kill a few people to get there she will. I don’t trust her, and I probably never will.

As long as you’re fighting for Kryta’s interests and it’s queen, you can probably trust her more than your own mother. Any hint of wavering loyalties?

Well… we don’t really talk about what happens to those folks. ^^

CETheLucid.3964:

OmaiGodman.2098:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

He’s also been convinced that any means to achieve his goals were okay, because his goals were important to the world. He never really seemed to value other people’s lives, ideas, etc.

So I don’t think his “current” dialogue is inconsistent. He was cutthroat then and he’s cutthroat now.

What’s interesting (to me) is that Anise doesn’t seem to have a problem with hiring a (potential) sociopath. Either she imagines she can redeem him or she thinks its useful having a “Dexter” around to do “what must be done.” How far is she willing to go in defense of the realm?

To be honest I think Anise is pretty much the same. She’ll reach her goals no matter what the cost, and if she has kill a few people to get there she will. I don’t trust her, and I probably never will.

As long as you’re fighting for Kryta’s interests and it’s queen, you can probably trust her more than your own mother. Any hint of wavering loyalties?

Well… we don’t really talk about what happens to those folks. ^^

If it were somehow favourable for her to get us thrown in jail, or worse, she’d do it. That’s why I don’t trust her. She’s not with us, she’s with us as long as we serve her purpose. If she suddenly decides that we’re but a small sacrifise in her big scheme, she’ll stab us in the back and walk over our corpse.

And that’s why I’ll never trust her.

OmaiGodman.2098:

If it were somehow favourable for her to get us thrown in jail, or worse, she’d do it. That’s why I don’t trust her.

Getting us thrown in jail or worse, as a hero the world over let alone for Kryta (if you’re a human PC), doesn’t pass muster logically.

It doesn’t make sense given the recent LS let alone the context of her character in the original story. Countess Anise’s interests are devoted to the well-being of Kryta.

True she has no qualms going into morally gray areas to accomplish that end, but she’s yet to have done anything that crosses that line any further.

She’s loyal to her queen and her country, in traditional Shining Blade style.

OmaiGodman.2098:

She’s not with us, she’s with us as long as we serve her purpose. If she suddenly decides that we’re but a small sacrifise in her big scheme, she’ll stab us in the back and walk over our corpse.

And that’s why I’ll never trust her.

If you’re a hero (moreso if you’re human) you and her are already serving the same purpose in that regard.

If you insist on being a cynic about it you wouldn’t be a victim of her sacrifice, you’d be the one rushing headlong into the trouble.

You’d beat her to the punch and probably survive because you’re a BA kind of hero like that.

If you can’t get over the fact that she isn’t a perfect pillar of morality in that regard, then yes. You’re correct.

You’ll never be able to trust her. Or Canach, or anyone like them for that matter.

GuzziHero.2467:

I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation pieces between these two, some of the best and most amusing writing I have experienced so far in GW2.

Here’s the problem, however: During The Secret of Southsun, he was presented as an anti-hero, a man doing the wrong things for the right-ish reasons. He saw himself as a hero of the refugees trapped in Consortium contracts, and I personally wished I could side with him. However a lot of lives were lost and he was of course captured.

Whilst in prison, he has been remorseful and apologetic to the max which further endeared me to him.

Now he is on Anise’s billet, he appears to have turned into an utter sociopath! I know that some of his comments are intentionally directed at Anise, to elicit some reaction and possibly information from him. But it is as if the writers thought “Hang on, players LIKE this guy! That wasn’t supposed to happen!” and have turned him into the bitterist of grapefruit in response.

I still like the guy, the wit and humour, and his voice actor is great. During the party I would have accepted his sociopathic behaviour as just him trying to troll Anise. At the summit, however, he carried on in a similar vein, even though the tone and subject matter of conversation was unjustified in that setting.

tl;dr is: why has Canach gone from remorseful anti-hero to Hannibal Lecter?

He’s acting that way to distract players from the secret, but much more potent evil that is Trahearne.

CETheLucid.3964:

OmaiGodman.2098:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

He’s also been convinced that any means to achieve his goals were okay, because his goals were important to the world. He never really seemed to value other people’s lives, ideas, etc.

So I don’t think his “current” dialogue is inconsistent. He was cutthroat then and he’s cutthroat now.

What’s interesting (to me) is that Anise doesn’t seem to have a problem with hiring a (potential) sociopath. Either she imagines she can redeem him or she thinks its useful having a “Dexter” around to do “what must be done.” How far is she willing to go in defense of the realm?

To be honest I think Anise is pretty much the same. She’ll reach her goals no matter what the cost, and if she has kill a few people to get there she will. I don’t trust her, and I probably never will.

As long as you’re fighting for Kryta’s interests and it’s queen, you can probably trust her more than your own mother. Any hint of wavering loyalties?

Well… we don’t really talk about what happens to those folks. ^^

I don’t doubt Anise is willing to sacrifice even a loyal Krytan if she considered it necessary to protect Jennah. Remember, the Shining Blade don’t server Kryta, they server the Krytan Royal Family.

I honestly don’t know why Anise is interested in the Pact. Their actions would be generally favourable to the Queen’s survival. Not only do they have many Krytans in their ranks, but they have positive diplomatic relations with Kryta and mutual interests.

It’s problematic for me that the PC, who is more closely aligned with the Pact than they are Anise or Jennah, would be made aware of Canach spying on the Pact and not inform the Pact of it.

Shiren.9532:

I don’t doubt Anise is willing to sacrifice even a loyal Krytan if she considered it necessary to protect Jennah. Remember, the Shining Blade don’t server Kryta, they server the Krytan Royal Family.

There is no precedent for that, lorewise or in-game. She’s Shining Blade. Not White Mantle.

Innocent people, let alone Krytans, do not disappear for her sake or for the crown. There is no need and certainly no desire.

You might be thinking of the ministry and it’s ministers, where such a thing is common place for them. It’s no big secret that the crown does not trust the ministry.

The ministry makes everything a corrupted bureaucratic mess and there is much political strife between the two.

The queen cares for her people.

There are no innocent people that the Shining Blade need to sacrifice for her sake, and the most recent LS makes that even more apparent with regards to Kasmeer.

Seriously, Countess Anise isn’t Livia. They’re different people analogically… and literally, for the conspiracy person.

Shiren.9532:

I honestly don’t know why Anise is interested in the Pact. Their actions would be generally favourable to the Queen’s survival. Not only do they have many Krytans in their ranks, but they have positive diplomatic relations with Kryta and mutual interests.

It’s problematic for me that the PC, who is more closely aligned with the Pact than they are Anise or Jennah, would be made aware of Canach spying on the Pact and not inform the Pact of it.

Technically, the Pact is handling it. You’re (the PC) aware of Anise and Canach.

The later wasn’t shy at all to inform you of his mission and the former made no effort to hide it. It’s almost like you’re pals or something.

If you’re going to do some sneaky dubious thing, you generally don’t tell a prominent member of the organization exactly what you’re doing.

They’re mostly harmless and I expect Canach and Anise will be a boon, not a hindrance. Time will tell.

The PC has multiple loyalties that generally all tie together. The PC is loyal to it’s people, followed by it’s chosen order, and then the Pact.

Generally, we’re trying to get the world to stop fighting each other and unite to fight the apocalyptic Elder Dragon threat.

In human society the crown and it’s Shining Blade protectors are the good faction that we’re supporting to that end.

Countess Anise has never proven herself a wicked person beyond some justifiable moral gray area stepping, and a repentant if not gritty Canach is being given his second chance under her.

Canache in Southsun was boring but had potential.
After all he goes through a Molten facility and picks up those sweet gloves.
I still want to know what happened there.

Now him teamed up with Anise was just so darn good.
I loved how he knew he was a distraction, and honestly I think that helped him enjoy his moments.
If he joins the biconics I won’t mind too bad. Though I totally called it, so did many others. :P

I think there are areas where there are potential for conflict between the Pact’s interest and Kryta’s interests. Orr is the big obvious one – human interests, even if it’s not currently a priority, would be for artifacts and locations of great cultural significance for humans to be returned to human control without any more damage than absolutely necessary. The Pact may agree, or the Pact’s interest may be otherwise – for instance, what if an asura proposed a plan to drain one or more of the cathedrals of magic entirely in order to fuel some technomagical weapon that can be employed against a dragon and its minions? For the Pact, this might be an entirely logical move. From the human perspective, though, this is sacrilege. For various reasons, it’s not practical for Kryta to attempt to move into Orr now, but I can certainly imagine that Anise might want to have agents in Orr to get an independent report of what the Pact is doing with the holy city.

And if that’s the objective, it might be to her benefit for high-ranking Pact officials to know that she has her eyes on Orr – as such knowledge might discourage them from taking actions that the Shining Blade might disapprove of.

There’s also the possibility that Anise suspects a mole in the Pact, and is sending Canach to investigate. In this context, she might trust the PC enough for the PC to know about the mission (and to be a possible source of support if needed), but otherwise prefer that Canach’s mission remain undercover.

Uhm. I hope Canach doesn’t turn upside down during the LS. I like him as he is. We need a character that can:
1: get kitty done.
2: That adds some spice on sort of plane situation that’s the character cast.
(don’t get me wrong there’s some of it. But so far it’s limited to two max three characters. The rest has little weight.)

I think the biconics need some one among them that acts on his own agenda and creats some conflicts or at least exposes them. Like how he exposed how Anise could be an old hagh with all that mesmer magic she dose.

Plus, Canach is a rambo in a way or two. So I totaly see him coordinate the group in a situation of danger, maybe when the main character is away. It would be nice to see him give sensible orders to our character and that actualy ends up helping/saving people. Sort of like how Dunkoro advised us back in Nightfall.

Just being much more rude then that.

I don’t consider Canach to be a sociopath so much as a hardened veteran of combat – which is in part thanks to being hunted for roughly half-a-year by the Consortium before his imprisonment. He does remorse his actions – as we see in The World Summit, he acknowledges he made mistakes and he intends to rectify such – but remorse for his actions (bringing in unrelated bystanders into his personal issues and harming them) does not omit him being a hardened veteran.

His dialogue about severed heads, going about killing all the party goers, were all him trying to get a reaction out of Anise, rather than him being some sociopath – and later on, to help distract the partygoers from realizing the Anise he was with was an illusion (once he found out about it). He might actually have that knowledge and ability to do such, simply from being so used to fighting (and do recall he brought a bag of the severed heads of assassins sent after him to Blingg when he was looking for Noll before the Secret of Southsun/Last Stand at Southsun storyline, so he had watched 3-or-more heads after decapitating them to know how long they remain responsive). When you know this – that he was sending the heads of those sent to kill him as a warning not to send more after him – his lines in Party Invitations doesn’t seem so sociopathic (which I’m not entirely sure is the proper term for such a psychological personality).

GuzziHero.2467:

tl;dr is: why has Canach gone from remorseful anti-hero to Hannibal Lecter?

What can’t Sylvari be vegetarians?

Stooperdale.3560:

He is acting villainous because new players will not have heard of him. How can he redeem himself if nobody knows he used to be a villain?

Living world S1! Well technically Southsun was fairly self contained, so ANet could probably focus on just that chunk as a self contained story (it was after all only a handful of updates, and a few instances which I assume wouldn’t be to hard to copy paste).

GuzziHero.2467:

It was interesting how he didn’t say anything bad about The Pale Tree, though he was obviously uncomfortable. I do agree that he is a dark character, probably one of the darkest in the game so far, I just feel that his obvious sadistic streak is at odds with his stated intention of paying penance.

Not necessarily, he’s moral compass probably hasn’t changed. He still very much seems like “ends justify the means”-guy to me, simply that he in retrospect saw that he’s action on Southsun were failed in both means and end (so he was going to free the consortium workers by releasing a wave of man eating deepsea monsters?). His remorse over Southsun doesn’t inherently mean that he won’t deploy the same tactics.

Andred.1087:

I dunno but have you seen Hannibal? If that’s what Canach is gonna be, then by all means, let’s get some good writing in here for once.

And like Hannibal in Hannibal (who was for the most part relegated to supporting character status, although for the best) would probably work in much the same way.

Jaken.6801:

I loved Canach last patch…

… however… don`t take our entusiasm as a sign to cram him into everything, but make him matter.
You allready did it with the Biconics and some side characters who ended up as nothing more then “fancservice” and subsequently diminished their role in the overall spectrum of the game.

Please, sometimes you do not have to give the people what they want at once.

Actually I think they handled hobo-tron, and Peneloopee and Bloomanoo fairly well. They were never crammed into the main story and mostly just hang around in the background saying a few lines. Although they did stretch it a bit… I’m starting to think Peneloopee and Bloomanoo are the heralds of death and destruction since wherever they go bad stuff goes down.

Yep, I already see it. We are not fighting Mordremoth, but Bubbles and the two Quaggans are his agents, here to bring chaos.

It was them, who lured the minions of Mordremoth there.
I mean no one should have known about this meeting, outside some high society big wits.
However suddenly, these two Quaggans are there sightseeing… That is the real conspiracy.

On the “fanservice”
Yes, they handled most of them good and it is nice that they phased them out early enough, before they overstayed their welcome. (wouldn`t mind some of them coming back at the right times.)
That can sadly not be said about the Biconics, but I guess we have a complete other topic dedicated to that particular “problem” (Tequatle and Rox cough )

Anti-heroes are great. Canach is kind of like the Vegeta of GW2, it seems. Not literally or exactly, but somewhat. He started out as a villain, now he’s being a ‘good guy’ because it is in his best interest. At least he is using logic and common sense in his justifications of why he is cooperating with Anise. He’s no fool. His interactions with Anise are spot on. I hope the writers don’t mess this one up with some cliche outcome. Canach needs to always be Canach. That being said, more Canach and Anise, please (plus you can use these two for even more interspecies/interracial social tones as you have with the LGBT social tones with other characters because tolerance is good (as long as you don’t make their relationship dialog on the in-your-face level of KasMar that it interrupts game play by making it dialog you HAVE to sit through (triple parentheses oh snap))).

Zera Allimatti.2541:

Anti-heroes are great. Canach is kind of like the Vegeta of GW2, it seems. Not literally or exactly, but somewhat.

Was a big DBZ fan back in the day. Just wondering who the Goku is then? Us perhaps? Would love to see his eventual ‘dark prince returns’ moment (now that I think about it Vegeta was the only character that had a proper character arch, granted did takes hundreds of episodes…).