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queer-as-used-by-tolkien · 2 years

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‘nother character study on Trahearne because no character study can be comprehensive

Absolutely the difference between people who relate to Trahearne and people who don’t is LONELINESS, and being the weird kid, and being quiet and nerdy. But mostly loneliness. Normal people (as far as I know, since I’m not) are not super lonely. They have friends and acquaintances and such, even if they don’t see them super often or only online.

And, side note, not being able to see and interact with people (as during COVID lockdowns) is DIFFERENT from not having those people to exist in the first place. And a huge chunk of people I think don’t understand that. Like, in my personal life I have the opposite of those things. I have a huge family (eight siblings) and we all live in the same house (it is a big house, don’t worry), so I have PLENTY of actual human interaction and contact and talking to people and living my life, and lockdown couldn’t take that away.

Anyway: being on good terms and friendly with your family, that’s great and all, but there’s something… necessary about outside friendship. It’s a real problem when there’s no one OUTSIDE your family you can be friends with. No one you can be sure cares about you. And you’re trying to find friends, but, again, you’re also naturally the weird kid and also absolutely nerdy, and no one is quite sure what to make of you, and so you never do make any friends.

Enter Trahearne, who has that same situation, and is also, by the dictates of the story he’s in, your best friend.

I latched on to Trahearne initially because he died and because I had to kill him, which was horrible for me even though I couldn’t remember why I cared about him at the time. I knew the story said he was my friend and we’d spent the whole time trying to rescue him, and now I had to kill him, and that was Very Bad.

But I think I CONTINUED to obsess over him because, once I looked into the story as a whole, I related to him so hard. Yeah, he’s supposed to be your best friend, that’s his role in the story, you couldn’t not be his friend, but... if you distance yourself and say the Commander is just simply a faceless character, not your own self, and reframe it as reading a book where you’re purely an outside observer - Trahearne is still a compelling character to people who are truly lonely because he’s lonely, and for a lot of the same reasons, too, in a way that’s widely relatable to people who are lonely.

And his story arc about finding friendship and finally accomplishing his goals in life and even achieving more than he’d ever dreamed of, and finally dying for those people he’d come to care about - THAT’S relatable. That’s so fiercely something I want to happen to ME. That’s wish fulfilment right there. That’s living the dream. That’s skipping the lonely part and setting the story at the time where you finally find friendship.

And then you remember that, actually, he ALSO spent a full twenty-five years of loneliness first that the story never really bothers to explain, but that’s because - well, because the story says “he was alone for twenty-five years” and then it moves on so fast because you’re supposed to fill in the blank with your OWN experience. You’re supposed to relate to him SO much because the story is essentially saying “imagine yourself, all lonely, and then THIS happens” and it’s amazing? It’s what you’ve always wished for? And what’s not to like? I would love to have Trahearne’s situation, to have a real-life friend that I honestly cared about so much I’d die for, because I know - since I’m also the Commander - that the feeling is reciprocated. That relationship is almost a closed circuit in your head.

But also, the way the story gets you to relate to Trahearne so that it can build on your own experience that way? Leaving his past a blank slate so you can relate to him as hard as you need to? That’s - I mean that should be the high aim of all literature, honestly. To say “imagine yourself, in this particular area of life, and now imagine this new development!” This is my new philosophy: Literature is supposed to be fan-fiction of real life. And good literature can be fan-fiction of the life of anyone in the target audience (or broader), and the only requirement is that you suspend your disbelief in the details. It’s the feelings that really count, and in order to have those you need relatability.

But what if you DON’T have relatability? What if you’re not the target audience? What happens when you’re NOT a lonely person? You have friends, you have a social life, you’re fine. Trahearne then becomes offensive to you, because the story is treating him like he’s supposed to be you - like you’re supposed to relate to him, and you DON’T, and there’s this jarring disconnect, and you can’t even begin to comprehend why the story is treating him as someone who’s so important. And if you’re only playing for the story, well then, you leave, because it’s not your thing. But if you’re here for the game and the min-maxing and stats, and you’re playing the story for achieves, levels, and loot, well, you’re stuck, and you’re bitter, and now you’re a hater.

And that’s really the real tragedy here - not that Trahearne’s fate was shaped by haters, but that Trahearne’s fate was shaped by people for whom his story was not even intended in the first place. If the story was aimed at you and you hated it, that’s one thing; another thing entirely to count the opinion of people who are forced to be here as valid.

The story is and should be for the people who want to be here. In fact, everything should be only for the people who want to be there. I mean it’s even the philosophy behind our entire government - that in order to be valid you need the consent of the governed. I could write a whole essay on why school shouldn’t be mandatory, because if you don’t want to be there you won’t learn anything. The people who don’t want to be there shouldn’t shape the thing they’re part of.

The thing should be shaped by the people it’s designed for, otherwise you’ll get the people it’s designed for - the target audience, the marketing demographic, etc - you’ll get them up in arms and hating you, and nobody wants that. Everyone should be working towards peace. But that’s what we see with the GW2 fandom and Anet - the people who don’t want to be in the story complaining, and Anet listening to them and changing it, and the people who really care - the people for whom Trahearne’s story was written - WE are hurt.

I could do some meta-analysis on how this is a - to borrow a phrase from another fandom - another turning of the Wheel, that we’re lonely, that we’re the overlooked ones, the ignored ones, and we had this beautiful story lovingly crafted for us, knowing we’re quiet and don’t talk much and aren’t that confident talking in front of people - but now even that is yanked out of our hands by the people who manage to be louder, talk more and better and are good at enthusiastically expressing how much they care about everyone - except us lonely folks.

But - back to Trahearne - the story leaves out his backstory because that’s the key. All you need to know is that he was lonely. If there was more details we wouldn’t be able to relate so much. And yet, because we relate so hard, we desperately need and yearn for that very backstory. We want even further validation, because Anet has proven they know us extremely well, and we trust they’ll continue to deliver. Usually fans would get this fulfilment from sequels, but Trahearne is dead so there is no more going forward, only back. But his story is sort of dependent on that blank slate, so there really is nowhere else to go with him unless he comes back, and maybe that’s why nobody writes fic about Trahearne’s past, only about him not dying, or coming back - because his unexplored backstory is the cornerstone of the reason we care in the first place.

I used to be afraid that once I’d played all the missions Trahearne was in (back before I’d done all the sylvari missions) that I’d lose my obsession over him, that I’d stop caring because there was nothing more to learn. I’ve since found there was no danger of that, but it may have stemmed from the fact that, for me who mains a human character, playing the sylvari missions was delving into his backstory. And it was; but not too much. You gotta hand it to Anet, they’re good at this. I surrender my emotions to them every time I step into a story mission. I have to trust they’ll take care of my emotions properly.

Anet did everything so perfectly with Trahearne, coaxing you into trusting them, that not only was his death a shock, it was a betrayal of that trust. It wasn’t only that his death was wrong, it was that it was done so poorly, which again would be the subject of another post. His death wasn’t the problem.

I remember one day I logged in to play a story mission and I said to myself “I know I’m putting my emotions in Anet’s hands with this one” and that very mission was Darkrime Delves (I didn’t know that ahead of time) and it was a rollercoaster, it was brilliant, it was amazing; it brought me close to the edge of panic I’d once felt for Trahearne, and threaded through it all the knowledge Almorra was dying whether I did it or not, they had me fight it out, gave me the opportunity to die rather than kill my leader (but then, hey, you gotta come back and finish the fight - ) and then I didn’t have to kill her after all, Bangar came and killed her and stole all that anger and fear and terror and pointed it all at himself like a spotlight. It was a BRILLIANT handling of my emotions, an amazing catharsis for Trahearne’s death. And Trahearne’s death was just. hi. you win. you gotta kill him now and it was short and brutal and they didn’t even TRY. The dying isn’t the bad part (although I will hate Bangar until the end of my days). It’s how the dying is handled. I hate Bangar for Almorra’s death, but who do I hate for Trahearne’s death? Not Mordremoth. Not myself. No, Anet bears the full brunt of my anger for Trahearne’s death, because as the storytellers THEY were at fault for how it was handled.

I don’t know where I wanted to go with this post, I wrote it at midnight in a fit of passion - you can tell it's not my usual writing style and might not be as good as usual - and so it’s bounced between several separate subjects and has no proper ending tying it all together, but hey. this is a glimpse into my Midnight Trahearne Thoughts (also partially spurred by that Homeric hymn I had to write).

#trahearne #gw2 #almorra #darkrime delves #bangar #darkrime delves spoilers #visions of the past spoilers #the wind and nothing more spoilers #hot spoilers #man I don't EVER tag HoT spoilers anymore lol #fiction #storytelling #narrative #story theory #character study

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skaald-of-the-hearth-fires · 2 months

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Y'all I've always thought it was hilarious what Anet did to warbands.

So. you have Rytlock, who in Edge of Destiny said he had "about a dozen" brothers and sisters each. so including himself, that's 25 in a warband. The wiki says a warband is 6-25 members, so Rytlock was on the high end, and average would probably be 12-18 members.

and then every warband in the game proceeds to have BARELY 6.

you have 5 options to choose from for a sparring partner. Rox's old warband had 6 members (or maybe 7). We've still never met more than one of Rytlock's 'bandmates. Almorra gets one 'bandmate mentioned by name.

most charr in the entire game, including top-ranking tribunes and imperators, are not with their warbands, do not talk about their warbands, do not go places with their warbands. Tribune Bhuer Goreblade shows up with a small handful of 'bandmates in the charr level 10 story.

You do not see groups of 12-18 charr warbands roaming around Ascalon with fascinating life stories and 'bandmate dynamics and mourning the latest one(s) who died, with mementos, with stories about how 'my sparring partner saved my life' and 'this member of the warband whom I know least of all my bandmates would die for me and they proved it last week' and 'Im unhappy with bandmate X but I would kill for them' or 'bandmates Y and Z obviously love each other. wanna join the betting pool?' and the legionnaire who confides in you about their tough decisions of who they're picking to be their second/replacement. All within the same warband.

Not even one warband like this. Much less the multiple that charr culture deserves.

Even in IBS, the, at least half-way, charr-centric story, our main focus warband is Ryland's Steel warband. Who has, predictably, 6 members. And like 10 fresh-faced, unnamed recruits who have 0 history or dynamic with the Main Cast. even the 6 named members, who have vibes and character and a bit of a dynamic, are stupid shallow. (and tbf they didn't have time to explore it much, but really?)

We do not see Bangar's 'bandmates. We do not see Rytlock's 'bandmates. We do not hear anything about Almorra's old 'bandmates. We do not see Ember Doomforge's 'bandmates. We do not see Smodur's 'bandmates. We do not see Malice's 'bandmates. We do not see Efram's 'bandmates.

We see a lot of 'cubs this' (with Rytlock and with Efram), I heard a lot of speculation about 'cubs that' in fandom spaces, we see a lot of 'ohoho relationship/mating drama' (from Rytlock/Crecia and also Almorra/Bangar). We do NOT see ANYTHING about warbands, supposedly the building-blocks of charr society.

Even the charr player's old warband is mostly disbanded/defected to Dominion.

I have yet to see any real warband dynamics in canon.

Even in the books! Rytlock's 24 'bandmates are fair game because they're offscreen. And Anet has consistently refused to show any of them. Even Rytlock's dynamic with Crecia is pretty much just "we're old exes" and never "we grew up together. we fought together. our bonds are deeper than those of biology, than the fact we have a cub. I stabbed you once and you knew I didn't mean it because we are 'bandmates." Sure, Crecia mentions once "ohoho we used to see the ice elementals here as cubs."

But in the books! Sea of Sorrows for instance! iirc the majority of Sykax's warband is unnamed! Ember Doomforge, again, no mentions of warband! Rytlock nor Malice nor Almorra talk about inter-warband relations!

we never see any warbands larger than 6 members.

And this is all because, OBVIOUSLY, who wants to come up with 12-18 whole characters when it's just the one who's relevant to the story? Coming up with 6 is hard enough it only happens in special occasions. which doesn't include the legit actual player character.

(the player character, whose warband is decimated to TWO flaming members (including yourself!!) in the tutorial, and! yay! fun lorebuilding! you get to rebuild the warband. this adds a flaming total of TWO members. now you're at flaming four. FLAMING FANTASTIC. the player-flaming-character gets FOUR 'bandmates. this is atrocious!! and tbf if you compile all the options across all the branches you might end up in the (low end, probably) of 12-18. which is fair!)

but like. I do sympathize. I really do. characters are hard. names especially! which would be the bare minimum yknow. have an 18-member warband with zero dialogue but! they do have names! that wander around Ascalon. not even an event chain just average-sized warband representation PLEASE.

like. I did it myself. I invented a warband and I BARELY got them to 6 members. I had name, gender, profession for each of them. they were minor characters so they didn't even get the development that Ryland's Steel got. names, professions and the vibes from that. I felt so bad for only giving them 6 bc I was reinforcing the stereotype!!

but, so, uhhhh

I have been handed an OC. from a friend. who has given me full creative license to write abt them in my story.

I gave him 23 'bandmates. They all have names and genders. They're split up into who is whose sparring partner and who bunks with whom. That is all.

I also get VibesTM from each member's name. I'm slowly building relationship maps. (mostly just. from character A's PoV, ranking who they are closest with. Then doing it from Character B's PoV. it's WILDLY fascinating.) I have three charr 'bandmates who have their own little niche, they three are besties, they're each other's sparring partners and bunkmates and everybody (main relevant characters at least) knows them as 'those three'. and I know their names. none of the characters I'm writing about know them very well (relative to the rest of the warband ofc. ofc each one would DIE for them and probably knows their struggles and combat strengths and weak points and so on. but I haven't invented any of those yet) and that's all. I don't have a single bit of info about them except that and the vibes of each name. but hey!!!! WARBAND DYNAMICS MY BELOVED!?!!

#charr #warband #ascalon #gw2 charr #gw2 #rytlock brimstone #bangar ruinbringer #almorra soulkeeper #malice swordshadow #bhuer goreblade #ryland steelcatcher #steel warband #rox #crecia stoneglow #efram #I don't remember that guy's last name and I'm about to head to bed sorry

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