Guild Wars 2

First of all, sorry for this long post, if you don’t want to waste time, just read the last sentence
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Personally, I think Trehearne, as a character, has a really strong potential that the story doesn’t succeed in exploiting.
He’ s quite young – I think he’s about 23, right? -, deals with death – as a Necromancer – and with destruction – Orr is kinda depressing, if you think of it. Also, as a firstborn he had no social/cultural roots to start from.
So I can see why someone may get a little depressed (yes, I see him that way). Even I would be depressed.
The problem is that he is supposed to be a better leader than us. Well, coming from tons of stories in which we saved the day, it is actually quite hard to understand.
I, as a sylvari, got to know him previously, yet even then I saw him as something “above” everything, even impassive or apathic.
I know, we must have someone who isn’t part of any order to lead the Pact, impartiality, knowledge about Orr etc etc, yet I think that the story does’nt explain why I have to take a step down, supporting him.
During the story, I feel that the narration tries to make us accept him as a good leader, a friend even, but it fails, deeply.
Because he appears as a forced substitute to characters that are deeper and stronger in many ways. And they weren’t even leaders.
I won’t judge his AI, his skills in combat. If we had a super-necromancer aiding us, the story would feel much less epic, easy even. And I like having to fight to succeed.

But then, everything I was, character-speaking, seems to vanish. Now we are his shadow, and our character goes on without a single complain. Why is that?

I’ve read many of other players comparing him to Kormir, and I see why.
ANet has made a Kormir-like plot, once again (we can’t deny it). I actually didn’t care in Nightfall that Kormir became a goddess. She was a decent character (to me), and it fitted the story, leaving us able to continue our legend.
Trehearne isn’t able to satisfy me in such a way.

I would understand him being my “boss” had I been given a good reason. It could have been done in many ways.
Why not making Kormir herself appear in all Her Magnificence, telling us how the story forgot those real heroes? She could tell that even if those great saviors were mostly forgotten, that way the were able to achieve greatness, through their lives and those of their descendants (wink to GW1 player). Then she could prophetize to the player that he/she will become legend by doing many things, not only by defeating Zhaitan. That he won’t be known to the future generations as the Savior of Orr, because the Pact needs to be stregnthened, so its leader has to become famous. Something like that, I don’t know. That would give us a reason, even if it is “I will be super cool one day, I can let him take the credit this time”.

Ok, I know, that’s a lame idea (I’m not a writer, in case it isn’t obvious), and it is a “lore-murder”, but I would have preferred it.

So, basically: Treahearne needs to be more alive, or we need a cookie or something to let him do his things.

Ok, im going all conspiracy theory here here, but if this is what anet has planned, then kudos and i take back everything i say about the story sucking.

As some of us know, if you are in the whispers and go to the priory, you meet a fellow spy there saying something like ‘dont count what must not be counted’, refering that there is another dragon we dont know of.

And trahearne could be that dragon. Think about it, he’s known at least one person in each order to learn their weaknesses, and forming the pact was his way of ridding the world of the rest of the dragons, weakening the pact more, while making them do his dirty work.

And him making us his commander was only to keep an eye on us, and send us on suicidal missions, hoping we dont come back.

OTGBionicArm.2417:

My reaction to realizing that this is in fact Trahearne’s personal story, and not my own.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I can’t stop and i’m at work kitten youuuuuuuu HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The fix for the Trahearne problem is simple, stop playing your personal story quests at level 50 when you are sent to Claw Island. In this manner, we avoid any stupid, needless deaths of likeable NPCs, we save our sanity by never hearing Trahearne’s cacophonic voice (assuming you didn’t roll Sylvari,) and you are actually left with a good taste in your mouth about your character’s accomplishments.
Don’t worry, you won’t miss anything over the next 30 levels. Zhaitan turns out to be a pansy. If you’re wanting some interesting story after this point, I suggest doing story mode dungeons instead of personal story quests—excluding Arah, if you want to completely avoid The Salad.

I just got my first character to 80. After experiencing the let down of the story’s progression past Claw Island, I can confidently say that I won’t be doing the story on any other character. I also don’t particularly care if I ever kill Zhaitan. It’s ridiculous that the story isn’t solo the entire way through but that’s for another thread.

One of my favorite games is to listen to NPCs talking and see who would have been a better choice for a VA than Trahaerne’s. So far, even the most generic of NPC dialogue has had better acting than salad man. I get that his character is a depressed sadsack with possibly little to no social skills. But he should not have stayed that way throughout the entire story. There was zero character development with him beyond his wooden delivery getting slightly more forceful words to drone out once he got a special sword in his hands.

If the guy shows up in future storylines, I will avoid what I can and skip through what I can’t.

I wonder if there were problems coming from the Trahearne actor recording all his voice parts against 10 possible voice actors for the player character. Maybe his parts were recorded first and he was unable to find a natural conversational rhythm.

He also had some pretty bad lines though. Any time in a movie or book that a character is telling you the plot it’s a sure sign that the storytelling isn’t particularly good. The plot should unfold from events. Trahearne was regularly telling you things out of conversation as you were travelling.

I’ll just say this, I think when it comes to personal story Rift did it right. You’re part of a chosen breed of individuals so you’re not a chosen one, but your character is given respect and spotlight.

With GW games it’s usually like you’re just part of the scenery, watching the story unfold around you and you’re really not a part of it. In some ways I think Anet just underestimates the need to have the player be part of the narrative and actually be one of the main characters and not just one cog in a massive machine. I understand why they go with this style of storytelling but for the lore to become something memorable and have a feeling of personal impact, the player has to be put behind the wheel.

Kharegim.2846:

I agree with everything that has been said here and that is why it disturbs me anet has plans to bring him back in future storylines, please for the sake of everyone here just do it for one mission where we can watch him die and lets be done with the credit mooching cabbage.

Dropping him without any kind of conclusion would be kind of jarring, since they’ve already done that far too much with some of the other characters in the game. Then again, I agree that any conclusion to his story should be fairly brief. Maybe he dies, maybe he just goes away and continues his studies elsewhere – but I don’t think it’s a great idea to spend too much time on such a boring character when many players are already sick of the sight of him.

Changing his personality too radically, or his voice actor would be a bad idea too (see Anders in Dragon Age 2 as an example – it was way too far fetched although a formerly popular character became more widely disliked, in that case.) I think it’s time they accepted that the concept wasn’t as effective as they hoped in its execution, phase him out and then move on to more compelling ones.

I can safely say we all hate how story mode is effectively Trahearne’s personal story once he’s introduced and we’re just the whipping boy for his tasks. I’m trying to power myself through the story but I can’t help but feel like it was set up so you’d just be the cardboard cut-out hero to Trahearne’s evil plans. I’m fairly certain that nobody wanted to be the kitten of Mr Salad. Every time he talks I’m tempted to punch him into fertilizer.

And while I accept that he is a ‘vital’ piece in the story (I guess but not really), I would deeply enjoy watching said salad be removed in a glory filled and spectacular death. It’d make up for the more tragic ones previous. Maybe.

To be honest, I dislike how every character’s death seems to serve forced character development. I want to see Trahearne disappear entirely from any future story lines. Or make him a villain. Have him fail grotesquely at his tasks, that would actually make him more likable.

Or if he turns into a villain, then don’t make it some kind of tragic corruption of his innocent heart. Instead, make it his devious plan all along to betray the player and their orders, and give him a good reason to do so. That’s how you write an interesting storyline.

But honestly, I think most of us would prefer if this empty character no longer hogged the spotlight any more.

Lynx.1352:

I can safely say we all hate how story mode is effectively Trahearne’s personal story once he’s introduced and we’re just the whipping boy for his tasks.

No. No you can’t safely say that. Please stop trying to speak for me, folks, I have been adequately clear.

- The Personal Story needed a bit more work to smooth it out a bit. It was an interesting concept but suffers from feeling exactly like eight small arcs welded together rather than one story.

- Trahearne is okay, and I felt more like he was hitching a ride with me for a time, and later I was making use of his resources to get my goals met. Especially with that whole Searing Cauldron bit.

- He didn’t steal anything from me, I got plenty of glory before we set foot on Orr and everyone I talk to knows my character is perhaps more instrumental to success than he is. He may have cleansed Orr, but if it weren’t for my character he never would have got that far.

Trahearne gets a lot of undue hatred. He earned whatever praise he got, and people must be completely blind to the praise and importance the Hero got. Trahearne didn’t steal the spotlight, and his arc is effectively over before the actual fight with Zhaitan.

For that matter, Kormir didn’t steal the spotlight either. She just got way more reward than she deserved.

I think people are just salty the entire story isn’t completely focused on their character and they aren’t given heaps upon heaps of praise at every turn.

You know who stole the spotlight and got a lot of unnecessary praise and the undying love of multiple NPCs? Mhenlo. And that lasted nearly all of Factions.

I’ve got no problem wih him. However, I miss Tybalt and Forgal, 2 really kitten characters, i hope they will return somehow.

Personal story is good from lvl 1-50 and then again from lvl 70-80, i enjoyed those quests.

But use less technology. This makes every class feel dumb but the engineer, and every race but the asura/charr.

In my opinion it isn’t just Trahearne. All the sylvari seem bland, except perhaps the Nightmare Sylvari, who are quite nice baddies.

I have no issues with Trahaerne.

I did however cheer when a certain other character got pwned…..annoying little pillock.

As for DE having more to do with the story, I really dont want that as I cant stand logan after than awful writing in the book from a very poor author who could not handle the job given them. The less I see DE the better.

I agree with the people saying Trahearne is just plain bland and far too central in what should be our character’s story.

I’m simply ambivlanet toward the character rather than actively hating him but in a way that’s even worse than hating him. Trahearne could get killed off and I just wouldn’t care which isn’t the result one wants in story. In comparison,I’m more curious to learn about NPCs like Doern Velazquez or Wynnet Fairhaired than Trahearne. I think Faolin’s death would certainly have an impact.

The problem is that we’re never shown Trahearn’s qualifications to be a leader or any interesting personality traits at all for that matter. All we are shown that he’s dedicated to his field of research and he is hesitant to take on a heavy responsibility. Those aren’t exactly memorable traits.

We’re told he’s the world expert in undead but surely there must be others who have been studying undead since Orr rose. They never take the time to show Trahearne being far more brilliant than the hundreds of other scholars who must be studying a threat that flooded an entire city.

Plus we see him given all this responsibility for no reason apart from a weird vision of the future. Anyone who has read fantasy knows better than to put blind trust in visions (even if they are from an omniscient tree).

If Trahearne actively tried avoid his responsibility/fate out of abject fear (or even antipathy or simple laziness) that would add a dimension to the character. Instead he just accepts it in way which is utterly uninteresting.

And that’s because real courage comes in overcoming abject, incapacitating fear. We never see that in Trahearne. He’s never incapacitated, he just rises up to the challenge seemingly without effort.

ArenaNet tries to show how great Trahearne but it just ends up making him look like there is never any real challenge (or emotion) on his part. And that’s simply boring. Overcoming challenges and failures is what makes a character interesting, Trahearne just does what needs to be done and succeeds.

Even worse ArenaNet tries to show how great he is after he’s been made the leader which is completely backwards. Trahearne should have been the one following our characters around from the start, asking if he could join us rather than our characters (and their mentors) following Trahaerne’s directions like we were his minions.

Our characters should have been instrumental in Trahearne’s rising to his position of authority, instead we end up seemingly riding on his coat tails. Rather than our character’s investing in Trahearne and being the ones who got him to his place, Trahearne is the one seen investing in our characters. That makes our character’s indebted to an NPC instead of the other way around and that is bad story design.

As others have pointed out, this is one of those instances where an NPC is made more central than the characters. Writers often slip into this form of favoritism toward their NPCs rather than giving the center stage to the player character. I dont know if that was that case with Trahearne, but think about this: From all that we have seen and know, if Trahearne never met our characters, he would still have become the leader of the Pact.

And that is just plain wrong for a video game storyline. The PS should have made it clear Trahearne would be nowhere if our characters hadn’t come along, not the other way around.

I don’t hate Trahearne, but he’s just not interesting as a character to me. He comes over as a bland and boring character, that stays in the story for too long. I wouldn’t have minded having him in the story for a few missions, but having him besides me during half of my personal story is way too much. What’s worse is that he takes over right after my favourite characters get killed off. I love all 3 orders mentors, those were my favourites in the personal story (especially Sieran), they were a ton of fun, had great personalities, and we did cool stuff together. Having them replaced by this bland and boring character for the rest of my personal story feels bad. I’d much rather have sacrificed Trahearne and have kept my Order’s mentor for the rest of the story. Now that would’ve kicked kitten.8)

Besides Trahearne being bland and boring, some of his quotes come over rather… bad. Not the kind of person I’d like to work together with. I blame the writers.

What I hope for an expansion, which hopefully comes with more personal story, is there for either:
-Don’t have the same character besides me during the majority of my personal story.
-Or if there will be, at least make it a fun character, like any of the 3 Orders mentors were.

Take note of this Anet please kill Traherne in glorious combat! And after he’s dead the personal story should have you leading the fight against the next threatening dragon.

Me and my guild have always hate a deep hatred for Traherne, and how he likes to steal moments….but it all came to a hilarious climax after a moment doing a quest with were saska is conspiring against you….Traherne has this line something like “They were targeting you, but the real target is CLEEEEEARLY me”

Instantly, everyone who was with me during that guild was like “GOD kitten TREHERNE, CAN’T EVEN LET US HAVE OUR OWN ASSASSINS?!”

Ever since it is a running joke in my guild to put Treherne in every situation of our lives as the kitten friend who takes all the glory.
“You got a speeding ticket, but it was CLEARLY for me”
“You got a girls number last night, but she CLEARLY wanted me”
“You got an A on your final, but it was CLEARLY meant for me”
"Tybalt sacrificed himself for you, but he CLEARLY did it for me"
(that last one burns)

So and and so forth.

While we all hate Treherne…he does provide a source of humor.

Lol, my friends do something similar, but with his This won’t end well quote.=P

Target a random rabbit: This won’t end well
Complete your story: This won’t end well

Painking.4703:

Honestly I think it’s entirely for continuity reasons, same with Kormir jacking your spotlight in GW. They need to be able to say “Zhaitan was slain by Firstborn Sylvari Trahearne”. Not, “Zhaitain was slain by the commander of the pact but we know absolutely nothing about him.”

Yes, that is logically sound. However, Trahearne was not even present for the final battle. He disappeared (thank god) while Destiny’s Edge came in to do the dirty work (WTF?).

So in the end, the commander and Destiny’s Edge killed Zhaitan. The commander united the orders. Trahearne just gave a lot of speeches and annoyed people.

Dark Saviour.9410:

I’ve got a lot of grievances with the Personal Story (and with some of the world-building aspects in general), but I’ve got to say, aside from continuity problems and the disjointed nature of chapters in general, one thing I think is a major issue is that everything ends up exactly the same for everyone.

When the orders were first announced, I loved the idea that, as stated, they each had a different approach to fighting the dragons (“Vigil smash”, OoW wanting to put them back to sleep, the Priory searching for historical references and relics, etc.), and I feel that if this was embraced ’til the end, we could have alleviated a lot of the problems we had here.

Allow Trahearne to be Marshall, but instead of just leaving us as a generic ‘Commander of the Pact’ regardless of our prior choices, give us a partner based on our order, and have our path to take down Zhaitan be dependent on that. Have Trahearne just give us general authority as needed, but otherwise take a back seat. The story could then have 3 (or more, depending on the degree you’d like to implement prior choices into this) distinct endings that all have the same result; Zhaitan is dead. Or if you really must have everything converge into the same “plan” in the end, then it could be that all 3 orders enact their plans in parallel, so you only see a part of what it takes to ultimately bring him down.

Basically though, Trahearne could have still had his story and been the “Leader of the Pact”¹ without being ever-present in yours. Kahedins didn’t do much at all in the first part of my story, and Steward Gixx didn’t steal the show in the second part either, so had Trahearne been left as the general “glue” binding the final paths together while not consistently being thrown in our faces, I’d imagine he would be considered much less of a burden and would be far better-received.

¹ vroom, vroom, vroom!)

Personally I would love to see this, a partner dependent on our choices and eventually we defeat Zhaitan with how our orders were planning to. While maybe OoW members get the leader of said order, instead of a new partner/mentor. 'Cause replacing Tybalt would sting. Putting him to sleep, killing him, whatever. I’m kinda neutral for Trahearne as a character, but thrusting him into our story with no prior meeting, friendship formed, or anything threw me off balance. I would even like it more if he originally was going to be YOUR second hand, but instead you stepped down to fight on the front lines, leaving him with the politics of getting people together and strategizing effective ways to move. While you’re on the front lines trying to help people and keep them alive, either way – anything is better then giving him the spotlight so suddenly.

Vodac.9742:

Me and my guild have always hate a deep hatred for Traherne, and how he likes to steal moments….but it all came to a hilarious climax after a moment doing a quest with were saska is conspiring against you….Traherne has this line something like “They were targeting you, but the real target is CLEEEEEARLY me”

From the Wiki article script:

Trahearne: You’ve been the primary focus of these attacks so far, but it’s clear that I am the real target.
<Player Name>: That fits. If you can’t trust me, or I’m dead, you lose your second-in-command. It makes you and the Pact more vulnerable.

. . . sorry, that’d be my conclusion as well. Get rid of the Player Character and the Pact can’t survive. After all, we’re the thing that makes it actually work

I personally really hoped they were setting up Traherne to be another Pale Tree type thing. He sacrifices himself to cleanse Orr, and becomes a tree similar to the Pale Tree that gives life to the country again. Was actually very disappointed with the actual ending.

Yumae.7256:

I personally really hoped they were setting up Traherne to be another Pale Tree type thing. He sacrifices himself to cleanse Orr, and becomes a tree similar to the Pale Tree that gives life to the country again. Was actually very disappointed with the actual ending.

I’m fairly certain there’s a better reason for that than “we’re bringing him back again later for the next story arc”. I’m also . . . fairly certain he will get a heroic sacrifice later on. I can see no other end to his story arc if it’s intended he be a hero alongside the player and Destiny’s Edge.

I suppose another end could be him being killed off to prove a future opponent is very seriously deadly, but I think that could be a colossal waste of the character.

You need to find whoever did the voice acting for Trahearne and get your money back, anet. The dialogue writing isn’t great, but the line delivery is what makes it aggravatingly dull to listen to / be around this character.

Simply put, Trahearne is a bad fanfiction character.

- Everyone loves him. In fact, the three orders all happily unite beneath his banner, not because he’s qualified as a military leader, a strategist, or really anything beyond being a scholar, but because he’s Trahearne.

- Trahearne is the only being brilliant enough to think that the orders should unite against the dragons. Given the mentality of each order, this is utter crap: the Priory are brilliant, the Vigil believe in victory at all costs, the OoW is incredibly cunning and clever. And I am supposed to believe that not one of them said “Hey, you know what? We’re fighting against the dragons…and you’re fighting against the dragons…and so are they. We should work together!”?

- He appears with almost no pretense and our characters blindly follow him. Let’s recap, shall we? The charr storyline has you, a soldier, ultimately follow someone with no experience. The norn are expected to follow someone who cannot demonstrate strength. The asura are expected to follow someone clearly inferior to them. The humans are told to answer to someone whose orders come from a magic tree. Only the sylvari have any real reason to follow him.

- The Pact, which is itself made up of an elite few, is expected to lead the charge. Zhaitan has gone from being a massive threat to someone felled by what is a comparatively small portion of the Tyrian population, despite being arrayed against overwhelming numbers, ancient and powerful magic, virtually unlimited resources, and not to mention sheer incredible power.

- The story goes from being about our particular race to being about our particular faction to being about the Pact. Those I have associated with in my story are gone, replaced by mere glimpses and flashes of characters that appear briefly and then vanish. The only real constant is Destiny’s Edge, who have been omnipresent: you receive letters of congratulations from them, see them in dungeons. Yet their role is petty at best.

- Furthermore, with DE, these well-known and well-established characters are made secondary to Trahearne. I can see the world uniting behind these five heroes, who even had a little spiel in Edge of Destiny about how each of them bringing their unique talents made them a superior team (during the Lion’s Arch arena bit). Heck, Rytlock has incredible military experience as a tribune! Logan has great experience too, being one of the highest-ranked military individuals in Kryta. Eir’s cunning and skill, as well as her tactical knowledge, makes her exquisite in small-group combat. Zojja is brilliant and probably has an army of golems that she and others have tinkered with. Caithe is the morale-booster, the glue, and the one who knows just how hard-hitting a surgical strike can be. If you told me at any point in the story that the world was uniting behind them, I’d be all for it because it is the most logical thing to do.

Expecting anyone to follow Trahearne because a tree said so? No. I’d not follow him any more than I’d follow the crazy man on the street corner screaming about the coming apocalypse, or the man who said that he is driven solely by a dream or some sort of providence. Trahearne is shoe-horned in, made to seem like he is important, and the real heroes – Destiny’s Edge, our characters, those characters we’ve interacted with along the way – are made to sit in the back seat and obey his every whim.

Maendis.3794:

Simply put, Trahearne is a bad fanfiction character.

Oh boy, another checklist.

- Everyone loves him. In fact, the three orders all happily unite beneath his banner, not because he’s qualified as a military leader, a strategist, or really anything beyond being a scholar, but because he’s Trahearne.

Wrong. They grudgingly accept his leadership and chafe a bit at working together in the beginning. It’s not until the Battle of Fort Trinity they really behave in a unified way.

- Trahearne is the only being brilliant enough to think that the orders should unite against the dragons. Given the mentality of each order, this is utter crap: the Priory are brilliant, the Vigil believe in victory at all costs, the OoW is incredibly cunning and clever. And I am supposed to believe that not one of them said “Hey, you know what? We’re fighting against the dragons…and you’re fighting against the dragons…and so are they. We should work together!”?

Forgal said something about “we can’t afford to be fighting each other with the dragons out there”, during the Personal Story. But the Vigil can’t see eye to eye with the other two orders. The Order of Whispers was playing a longer game for this, but got their hand forced by Zhaitan.

- He appears with almost no pretense and our characters blindly follow him. Let’s recap, shall we? The charr storyline has you, a soldier, ultimately follow someone with no experience. The norn are expected to follow someone who cannot demonstrate strength. The asura are expected to follow someone clearly inferior to them. The humans are told to answer to someone whose orders come from a magic tree. Only the sylvari have any real reason to follow him.

He shows up in Act 2 of the Sylvari Personal Story line, introduced as a Firstborn. Also, the humans believe in six Gods who refuse to directly intervene or do more than token acts. “Because a magic tree told us” is less silly in that comparison.

- The Pact, which is itself made up of an elite few, is expected to lead the charge. Zhaitan has gone from being a massive threat to someone felled by what is a comparatively small portion of the Tyrian population, despite being arrayed against overwhelming numbers, ancient and powerful magic, virtually unlimited resources, and not to mention sheer incredible power.

The Pact brings a lot to the table, and I won’t bother getting into every particular piece as it develops. It’s worth noting a lot of things in Personal Story threads show up here, along with one very ancient and powerful artifact which was lost in Orr when it sank. The Pact is using cutting-edge stuff and focusing rather than swatting at anything that sticks up.

- The story goes from being about our particular race to being about our particular faction to being about the Pact. Those I have associated with in my story are gone, replaced by mere glimpses and flashes of characters that appear briefly and then vanish. The only real constant is Destiny’s Edge, who have been omnipresent: you receive letters of congratulations from them, see them in dungeons. Yet their role is petty at best.

I got nothing here. I could argue, but this is a point I rather would like to have seen some work on.

- Furthermore, with DE, these well-known and well-established characters are made secondary to Trahearne.

No, Trahearne is secondary to them. He’s not the one who spearheads the mission into Arah . . . it’s Destiny’s Edge.

and the real heroes – Destiny’s Edge, our characters, those characters we’ve interacted with along the way – are made to sit in the back seat and obey his every whim.

They’re too busy squabbling for most of the game until they start growing up. At least two voluntarily put themselves in the background (Caithe and Eir) but the other three all are unable to look past grievances and get to work together.

Actually I’d say Trahearne serves the exact purpose Anet wanted him to serve. This thread is 10 pages+ long now and people are talking about him — good and bad. Mission accomplished.

Oh and in the FWIW department, as I understood it the voice actor for Trahearne is actually quite accomplished. Might be a lack of other voices to play off of or no real script when his stuff was recorded.

I completely agree with most comments here. When i first did the personal story line, i wanted to like Trahearne. I was like “oh, so you’re going to be the leader of the army that rises against the main boss? okay, let’s do this, twiggy!” and i was very keen.

And after every step of the personal story line, i got more and more disappointed. I first felt it when the Pale Tree gave a vision about Orr and i saw Trahearne was supposed to be the leader. It’s my story line, i’m the main character, why is he the leader? Okay, whatever, let’s move on… heeey, why does he get a cool shiny sword? Okay, whatever, i don’t use a greatsword anyways… Why does he take credit for kinda everything that i do? Okay, whatever, i can’t change it anyway, seems i’ll just have to go with it……
And ever since then, with my newer characters, i feel that i need to force myself to do the 50+ personal story quests. And i usually get angry enough to let that stupid Trahearne die off first, and only then engage in fights, and at least have a laugh about how useless he is while still taking all the credit…

I just hate his voice acting. He’s mono toned everytime you talk to him and I find him annoying to listen to.

What bugs me the most about Trahearne is that even his voice actor grew bored of him. He is an uninteresting character, who automatically wins at life. And somehow, the character himself seems to be aware of it to a degree that he is perpetually bored with his “adventure” in Tyria.

From his colourless design to his flat tone of voice. Even a magical sparkling sword could not save him from the descend into bland, boring Mary Sue-hood.

In fact, that sword easily lodged him in there even deeper.
This next bit is a bit spoiler heavy, so whoever reads and didn’t do Claw Island… stahp.

A necromancer by nature. As we are introduced, Trahearne is a somewhat distant, stoic young plant-bloke, burdened with the immense task to one day cleanse Orr. For moments, I felt for him, and felt that together with my character, we’d make it happen. That for the sake of his scholarly needs, the great orders of the world would fix the land and leave this bleak plant to his studies.

After so much as two quests, I realised this character could not and would not be fundamental to my story. Then suddenly, the gates on Claw Island shut. My companion stuck in there. And oh yes, the unimaginable happens. The dull scholar becomes my sidekick. And within a minute’s notice, I am his sidekick.
Forever.

Is he ever grateful? Does he ever truly mourn the loss?
No.
This stoic isn’t stoic because stoic is cool. He isn’t stoic because he learned to control himself perfectly. He isn’t stoic because he must be the one and only shoulder to lean on for all other characters. He isn’t even the Spock, who gets excited over the tiny amount of things he does like. No, Trahearne is stoic. Just stoic.

No reason other than him being a boring scholar who is so bored of his own adventure he forgot how to display emotion, in face and voice (and speech volume, at that. “To arms.” he almost mumbled carelessly when the entirety of the new-shapen Pact reared up to defeat the Risen).

Stuck with my new hero-in-the-making, I soon realised he would never be the stuff of legends. Heck, if this were a story about the One Trinket that had to be taken to Volcano Ominous, I don’t think he’d even be worthy of brushing my feet hair.

The story goes on and on and eventually Destiny’s Edge meets Trahearne. And meets me again. Without second thought, without my character doing a thing, Trahearne goes, “im here, im leader k?” and they just accept. Just like that. And then they never meet again, live seperate lives and so forth.

I still feel that Trahearne was never meant to be as he is now.
As if somewhere, he was a last-minute decision tossed into the fray, to replace the Destiny’s Edge members from being the player characters’ true guides, friends, sidekicks or even heroes.
I hope something will be done about it in the future. I don’t think anyone would mind if the entirety of the existing current story would be overhauled just to fix this flaw. His initial concept was fine. Return him to that, Arena Net. The character deserves better than to be perpetually bored.

Tl;dr: Replace him. Fix him. Help this poor bored, boring bugger!

Anet I can’t believe you expect people to read and pay attention to this [insert vaguely derogatory plant term here]‘s dialogue instead of skipping all of it and jumping on the baseless “he stole all my credit” bandwagon. Please immediately change Trahearne’s model so he is wearing a big neon sign around his neck that says “THANK YOU COMMANDER PLAYERNAME YOU’RE THE BEST!” Also from level 59 onward make him cling to the player’s face like a karka hatchling so they can always see it. You should be ashamed of yourselves for not doing this from the start.

i love trahearne

he’s attractive
his voice is attractive
we are BFF’s

Is it just non-sylvari who dislike Trahearne? In the Sylvari storyline, he shows up pretty early, offering advice and helping in later missions. I think the first time he’s introduced is in the second part of the personal storyline, but it might be earlier.

He just ends up flowing into the position of marshal, not stuffed into it.

And I like him better than Caithe. If you guys think Trahearne’s depressing, you should see Caithe…

Arikyali.5804:

Is it just non-sylvari who dislike Trahearne? In the Sylvari storyline, he shows up pretty early, offering advice and helping in later missions. I think the first time he’s introduced is in the second part of the personal storyline, but it might be earlier.

He just ends up flowing into the position of marshal, not stuffed into it.

And I like him better than Caithe. If you guys think Trahearne’s depressing, you should see Caithe…

Caithe was likeable, Trahearne is just a giant snoozefest.

Trahearne…

“Commander, halp, I can’t tie my shoe.”

That is all.

Arikyali.5804:

Is it just non-sylvari who dislike Trahearne? In the Sylvari storyline, he shows up pretty early, offering advice and helping in later missions. I think the first time he’s introduced is in the second part of the personal storyline, but it might be earlier.

He just ends up flowing into the position of marshal, not stuffed into it.

And I like him better than Caithe. If you guys think Trahearne’s depressing, you should see Caithe…

The problem is that he’s not an interesting or fun character and that he takes up too much of the personal story. I doubt a lot of people would’ve had issues with him if he were there for just a few missions and then got killed off or left the story like so many other characters do. Instead he hi-jacks the story at around level 40, and doesn’t leave, even after beating Zhaitan.
It’s totally OK for a story to have likeable and dislikeable characters. What’s not OK is to take away all the fun characters and force the player to be with this same boring guy for over half of the full story.

I didn’t find Caithe to be very likeable at times, but at least she doesn’t appear in about every friggin’ mission for over half of my personal story.

I want either more variety in the people in my personal story, or have a more interesting and fun guy hanging out with me throughout the majority of my story missions.

This won’t end well

Milennin.4825:

I want either more variety in the people in my personal story, or have a more interesting and fun guy hanging out with me throughout the majority of my story missions.

There is, unfortunately, one problem, and it’s increasingly evident the longer this discussion goes on. (Including talk about Braham and Rox, or Logan, or Caithe . . . )

What you might find interesting and fun some other people would find boring and cliche, or badly done.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

There is, unfortunately, one problem, and it’s increasingly evident the longer this discussion goes on. (Including talk about Braham and Rox, or Logan, or Caithe . . . )

What you might find interesting and fun some other people would find boring and cliche, or badly done.

Obviously, that’s with everything.

That doesn’t mean they can’t, or shouldn’t, try to create a character that’ll be likeable by as many people as possible. While not everyone may have liked Tybalt as a character, most people I’ve seen on these forums like him very much. Same goes for the other 2 Order mentors.
On the other hand, how many people actually like Trahearne as a character, vs how many people disliking him? Yeah, those numbers wouldn’t be pretty if it was possible to somehow get them. But the fact that this thread about disliking Trahearne has reached almost 500 posts, and is one of the largest threads in this section, should indicate that he’s not liked by the majority of the players (how many posts in here do you see people defending the character, really?).

Back to your point: That is why they shouldn’t make the player team up with the same one character for over half of their personal story. It’s not fun for those who don’t enjoy that character.

Milennin.4825:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

There is, unfortunately, one problem, and it’s increasingly evident the longer this discussion goes on. (Including talk about Braham and Rox, or Logan, or Caithe . . . )

What you might find interesting and fun some other people would find boring and cliche, or badly done.

Obviously, that’s with everything.

That doesn’t mean they can’t, or shouldn’t, try to create a character that’ll be likeable by as many people as possible. While not everyone may have liked Tybalt as a character, most people I’ve seen on these forums like him very much. Same goes for the other 2 Order mentors.
On the other hand, how many people actually like Trahearne as a character, vs how many people disliking him? Yeah, those numbers wouldn’t be pretty if it was possible to somehow get them. But the fact that this thread about disliking Trahearne has reached almost 500 posts, and is one of the largest threads in this section, should indicate that he’s not liked by the majority of the players (how many posts in here do you see people defending the character, really?).

Back to your point: That is why they shouldn’t make the player team up with the same one character for over half of their personal story. It’s not fun for those who don’t enjoy that character.

But on the other side . . . if the people like the character and he’s shuffled off rather quickly (someone mentioned Rytlock here) then it’s not satisfying.

As for:

But the fact that this thread about disliking Trahearne has reached almost 500 posts, and is one of the largest threads in this section, should indicate that he’s not liked by the majority of the players

Some people, like me, post here a lot either for or against him. This isn’t a “one post per person” poll. And I wouldn’t trust polls online anyway – I’ve seen them invalidated way too easily. I would think there are more people who do not care about Trahearne one way or the other, or people who would make fun of him . . . than those who actually actively hate him.

I’d like to see him corrupted by a surviving Zhaitan, leading to a sundering of the Pact. It would be more interesting if Zhaitan had pulled a Loki and brought the races together only to shatter them at right moment, and give the Dragons some proper power. Right now it just seems like things are going too well and what is supposed to be at least as powerful as a god was shot down a little to easily. It would also give the players a chance to deal with him in an interesting way, whether they hated him or not. Just a quick idea…

His character isn’t bad – ok it’s pretty flat, and very annoying having him replace the fantastic order mentor.

My main gripe is the voice acting for him is awful. I know the standard in the game isn’t amazing, and often it is laughably (in a good way) funny/cheesy.
But I don’t know what happened with the VA for Trahearne – it’s so dull and lifeless it’s painful to listen to. Kind of ruins an already mediocre character.

I was a little upset when I saw the Pale Tree’s vision of Orr and Trahearne got to deliver the military speech. I feel like my character should have been given control of the pact later on to replace Trahearne due to an injury or something. The Tree’s vision could have been Trahearne’s speech, but then the PLAYER gives the speech in real time later due to fate changing etc. This would have been a sweet way to do it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I would think there are more people who do not care about Trahearne one way or the other, or people who would make fun of him . . . than those who actually actively hate him.

There are also a few, myself included, who completely resent the writing done to Trahearne. I really despise how he turned out in some missions, whereas he actually seems likable in the next. The early Sylvari quests where he’s involved were decent enough, and I found he was actually well written into the questline in Orr wherein you deal with Orrian deathships. The thing is, he seems to have a variety of personalities and variable voice work, based on whatever mission you get into.

While in the questlines where you directly accompany him through Orr, Trahearne has the emotional range of a dead goldfish… he actually sounded regretful in another questline I did on my alt, wherein a great loss was suffered that he found out about after he regrouped with my character. He even made the very considerable comment that he wished he’d been there to make a difference, after which he quietly acknowledged in a remarkably sad tone that that’d have done the Pact no good either. For a moment, I wanted to pick him up and hug him, and then the next quest he was his same deadened self once more.

Ultimately – and I said it before – it’s not a bad character concept, it’s just very poorly executed and it’s made him rather dull to work with.

My 2c is that the Orders needed someone neutral in charge, but someone who could lead from behind.

The player character can’t lead the Pact because you’re too good at the whole high-risk mission thing. The Orders’ leaders don’t get along and have different philosophies and talents.

Is he the most inspiring leader of all time? No.

Inspiration and results are two different things. The Pact needed someone who knew Orr. Trahearne knows more than anybody he’s been there most of his “adult” life. Terrain knowledge and routes are everything in a military campaign.

He was the only real choice.

He ruined the entire story line for me, It feels like I did all the effort, then the rug gets pulled out from under me. The personal story is about Trahearne, not the player.

Jyenh.5739:

I didn’t mind my character tagging behind the leader who was ‘destined’ to defeat zhaitan. He is the world’s best scholar on all things orr after all. If his personality was askew, so be it. The one thing that did annoy me was how my character, although he was second in command, seemed to have gotten pushed out of the story, maybe my memories a bit off but towards the end I don’t think he was even referred to much, he was just sitting in the background.

At the very least, since I’m left with this feeling it’s not a good sign anyway.

Actually Trahearne was not destined to defeat Zhaitain, he was destined to cleanse Orr.

It is your Sylvari character and Caithe (I think, but it has been a very long time) who are the ones that were destined to defeat Zhaitain. That’s part of why it makes no sense for Trahearne to be leading the Pact as there is no absolutely no reason for him to be doing so or even for anyone to have considered having him lead the Pact.