#they get treated as irrelevant after their introduction and are set aside to fill up empty spaces

[diana-3]

I'm not saying he's straight up an awful character, please don't take it that way and yeah, as far as plot goes he got the absolute shit end of the stick. At most I thought he could be the YW second hater (after Uldren) at most, and be a thorn on comms, but I never thought he'd go as far as to say sabotage or sell us out or anything evil.

I just...really don't like him 🤣 we don't jewhaw, and it's from the ending dialog from that strike for veterans.

Your right in a lot of it!

One one hand, he's dealing with a decorated, celebrated hero whose saved the world more times than years they've been alive. They've got a list of achievements as long as you can imagine. They're up there with Osris and Saint-14 in terms of recognizing. There's no confusion when people talk about the Young Wolf. Or at least, there shouldn't be.

On the other, he's dealing with someone coming back to life, fresh from the grave (his words). He's overly helpful and bends over backwards because he wants more guardians to make it and help the fight against the darkness. That's the New Light. Or at least, they should be.

To me, when he was first introduced he seemed like the stereotype overly helpful wanna be hero tutorial guide. And he ends up falling into such a role because he doesn't play really any impactful role past the New Light mission. We really don't do anything with him aside from the Gally quest, unless I just totally missed something. Then I ran some strike with my brother as the fire team leader and got a totally different set of lines from anything I'd heard before. A whole new version of him.

He's just kinda there, spouting out idle lines and offering bounties cause they felt like they needed someone there. Why? Cause it's what became the norm-- a planetary vendor to offer bounties, items and sometimes special quests. Someone to be on comms for that planets strikes. Like how Devrim is for the EDZ.

But they couldnt just introduce someone as the placeholder vendor, "hey, I'm shaw han, I've been placed here by the vanguard to help!", That would have been too cheap (although it might have cured some of those plotholes and allowed him to be kind to all guardians regardless of age). He needed a stake in the story. He needed to feel real.

And ngl it was bungled to hell and back.

Should the New Light mission be retconned? Idk, maybe. It might fix up some of the plotholes, but not all. I understand Bungies need to introduce new lights to the campaign and let it feel new, you know? Let them make their own story, their own lore about when they were found and what they got to experience (especially since the red war and everything was taken away, which I'm still irritated about but that's another post all together) but as you pointed out--now we've got alternate timelines of the same character.

Our guardian, also commonly referred to as Young Wolf.

On one hand, when they were first rezzed they managed to kill an archon priest for a warp drive to get off planet and went on to defeat humanities challenges.

On the other, they came after the red war and never had to experience Crota, Oryx or the old tower, only being alive just before the release of Stasis abilities.

And I would argue he wasn't alone though, between the new lights coming around and his fire team as well as everyone else who stayed earth side that don't get a mention often like Marcus Ren. He's absolutely allowed to feel alone, cause hunters usually run alone or in small packs. And he's allowed to be angry because his fire team, his friends, died.

It's absolutely dangerous, but he's never really alone, he's often in contact with the Vanguard from the way he speaks and if he felt like he needed more backup, Zavala wouldn't have said no. Hell, when Zavala thought we'd been captured on Nessus during Operation Piccolo, he started to get Operation Obo started to come rescue us himself.

And yeah, you're right, plotholes are endless here when it comes to him and the whole New Light campaign. The dudes a walking contradiction in terms of cannon.

For old lights it felt like there was a break between massive disasters and the YW had been called on to go clean up Navota before she became the next Omnigul. She wasn't as much of a threat as some other things, which is why they were only just now getting called in.So for YW it was a trip down memory lane that was all too easy. And Shaw has this "well she wouldn't have been an issue if you'd stuck around home." Attitude about it.

Imagine how that would suck, seeing someone so decorated, so powerful, so competent blow through the very being who ended your two best friends life. Imagine if they hadn't left earth and stuck around to do your job?

Then his fire team would still be alive, he wouldn't have been put in the position to lose them to begin with. It's a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda from him. And he lays the blame totally at the YWs feet. Not the fact that it was an accident that his fire team got split up during the mission. Not that it's a part of life and a risk a guardian takes everytime they leave the city. A NL gets that slack but the YW isn't afforded the same kindness.

And yeah, he's entitled to feel that way. Maybe he's right. If we stuck around, maybe someone else would have been able to handle all the universe ending attempts and we could have saved his friends. Probably not though, plot armor and needing to sell games meant that the YW gets sent in when other fire teams die.

Hawthorne felt the same during the Red War when we took off to gather the Vanguard, but she eventually realized we did the right thing. We didn't get a verbal apology from her, but her demeanor has changed toward the YW and the vanguard by the way she speaks.

And you're right, he's not had the chance to change, and probably never will, he's unfortunately fell into the trap of useless vendor, like Hawthorne, Ikora, Devrim and Spider ....I could go on.

Once their little side missions are taken care of, they're often regulated to behind the sidelines to wait for the chance to be relevant again. They're just vendors, there's no need to change their dialog more, or give them more comms time if it's not relevant to the story.

To me it felt very irritating that for new lights his response to the Navota strike by the end was

: "it's part of the job. We knew that when we took the mission. It's dangerous. But we got a better chance than most at surviving, and we should do what we can. Get stronger and help us out. You got what it takes to be great. I believe in you."

But for veterans it was more like: "it's your fault the cosmodrome is such a wreck. If you'd stayed on earth instead of flying off, we could have taken care of the fallen, vex, cabal, taken and the hive close to home and none of this would happened. But no, you HAD to go play hero. It was selfish. My friends blood is on your hands."

Now he didn't say those words exactly, I do remember the "playing out hero fantasies" and "should have stayed on earth" lines from the end of the strike on the veteran lead, to me it dripped with resentment and anger, but everyone interprets things differently based off their own experiences.

What sounds like resentment to me, might just sound defeated to you and can totally change someone's perspective.

I'm not saying that no one should like him, or that he's evil. I understand why veteran players don't vibe with him. He gives off a totally different feeling for us than New Lights.

It's like seeing someone new and then they introduce you to someone they got sore feelings toward, you see a whole new side to them that they don't show you, cause they're not angry with you. While secretly being the very thing that made your new friend angry with the other person.

It was a weird experience for me to hear one set of lines over and over again, and then get tossed into the other timeline and hear the difference.

But at the end of the day, I guess it don't really matter. Like him or don't? 🤷 Lol I remember a lot of discourse when he was first added, probably around the time I made my reply to the post tbh when it was up in the air if they'd do anything else with him. Seeing as he only got the New Light intro mission/Navota strike, idc about him anymore 😅

I just remembered a lot of people saying if you didn't like him you were a dick (or worse) and had no justification for it because he was so helpful toward new lights.

NOT SHAW HAN GOING INSANE AND KILLING HIS FIRETEAM MEMBER OVER AN ENGRAM WHEN HE SAID WE CANT BE TRUSTED WITH STASIS LMAO THIS MOTHERFUCKER IS DOG SHIT