#you know when she's having those visions of getting killed by kralk

[moth-tea-merchant]

Aurene in lws4

california girls we’re inconsolable

dreams of doom the visions wont stop

[felidae-charr]

That was... literally the worst living story patch I’ve ever played.

Naturally, spoilers. And if you can’t tell from the title: I have a very negative opinion of the latest living world story patch. EXTREMELY NEGATIVE, in fact. If you choose to read on past the read more, you need to expect both spoilers and heavy negativity - because in my opinion the way ArenaNet have treated their characters this patch has been fucking disgusting to the extreme and it absolutely destroys the climax of the patch. Worthless fucking garbage.

I’m going to sum up my problem with this patch in a simple sentence, to begin.

Characters are not given the time to be characters. ArenaNet presents us with cool ideas for these characters, but takes no time at all to explore these ideas, and this means that when Aurene dies, I don’t fucking care.

My favourite - my favourite - character, and her death feels empty, hollow and meaningless even more so than Eir’s death did. I was furious with how they treated Eir in Heart of Thorns, but how they’ve treated Aurene has me spitting feathers and I just legitimately spent fifteen minutes ranting the ear off of my partner because these writers are only getting worse as time goes on and it’s destroying any love I had left for the GW2 shitscram of a story.

“But what do you mean?” you ask. “What do you mean characters don’t get time to be characters?”

Allow me to give you a hypothetical situation:

This latest living story patch doesn’t end on fighting Kralk. It doesn’t end on Aurene being fruitlessly fucking murdered for no good reason and it doesn’t end on a bullshit cliffhanger. It also doesn’t involve an instance where characters become fearful of Aurene for all of ten seconds, and then immediately flip-flop back to totally trusting her and the Commander after some harsh words. No. No, none of that. Instead, picture this:

Aurene is given an extra few instances where she just gets to be a character. She gets to be afraid of death. She gets to be afraid of failure. She gets to struggle with the weight of her fated task on screen. We see her sulking. We see her feeling sad, lonely and isolated, the only offspring of Glint left after her brother’s slaughter at the hands of Balthazar (to save the Commander, no less) and not even able to talk to the characters like the Commander or Taimi because of her very nature. We’re not just told of her fears, we’re shown them. Aurene is allowed to just be.

And then we go into the trials. We see more of her struggle, her initial reluctance to work together because she’s the Scion and she has to be strong for everybody! She has to become strong enough to avoid the fate she saw in her visions! We don’t just do some arbitrary, asinine bullshit in the trials; perhaps we save Aurene from herself in a more impactful way when she is shown the Branded version of herself. Something meaningful. Something that shows Aurene and our Commander truly connecting, forming a bond instead of us just giving her a little pat on the head and saying “Hey, it sucks that you only saw horrific visions of you dying a painful, terrible death but we’re here with you :) “

Then we go into the Forge, and in the Auditorium we are attacked by the Brand from the Rift. Aurene displays her new, growing power, and characters are allowed to be afraid of her.

Rytlock is allowed to be distrustful of her because he is very much a distrusting sort. He becomes somewhat distrustful because Aurene is a dragon and nobody can really know how she feels, and Aurene can’t verbally tell him. He’s distrustful because Aurene is immature and has been afraid. He’s distrustful because he has been burned by Kralk once before and he lost Glint, and he is fearful of the idea of losing a second good dragon. Rytlock is allowed to be a character.

Canach is allowed to feel some manner of distrust when he sees Caithe enter her partnership with Aurene. He’s allowed to be suspect of yet another dragon that can turn Sylvari into minions, and perhaps he doesn’t immediately believe that Caithe is entirely herself. Canach is allowed to remember the horrors of Mordremoth and the feeling of having a dragon inside your own head and he is allowed to squint in suspicion at what he sees because it isn’t like he has any other experience of dragons! Canach is allowed to be a character.

And imagine another entire instance letting them feel that way. Instead of the bullshit thirty second scolding that seems to totally change their mind. Imagine an entire instance where you have to try and regain the confidence of these people, people who have LEGITIMATE REASONS FOR BEING UNCERTAIN and who SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THOSE LEGITIMATE FEELINGS HANDWAVED AWAY. Imagine a small but whole instance of these characters getting to feel that way, of having to be reasoned with because they have valid fears and concerns that deserved to be recognised. Instead of ArenaNet just giving you the idea that these characters have feelings, only to magically make them disappear less than one minute after they voice those feelings, and for those fears to never be brought up again.

And imagine after that, an instance of having to console Aurene! Of Aurene feeling hurt and broken because even when she tried to communicate with her friends, the only family she has left who has turned on her, and the Commander and Caithe having to tell Aurene that it’s okay. They’ll come around. They’re still a family. Imagine Aurene being allowed to actually try and prove herself to these people to win their confidence back. Imagine Caithe and Aurene actually being allowed to explore the idea of Caithe becoming “Aurene’s Voice” and talking to these uncertain characters. Imagine Aurene being allowed to express herself!

And now imagine Aurene’s death, after that. Now imagine, after the extra time being taken to look at these characters and their fears, their uncertainties, their hopes, their dreams, their desires to achieve a better result for Aurene than they managed for Glint, imagine how much Aurene’s death means.

It would have meant so much more. It would have been so much more impactful. To have come so close and to be met with failure, and beyond that, to have been shown Aurene in a personal way, to have been shown how hard she had to fight to overcome what she saw in her visions and how frightened it made her, to have been shown Aurene winning the trust of the only surviving family she had left, and then to have her snatched away when we thought we were on the cusp of winning.

What ArenaNet did to Aurene this patch was fucking disgusting and I am appalled. The writing for this living story has been getting worse and worse and worse. Characters aren’t allowed to feel like characters anymore. They’re killed on a whim, they have their emotions handwaved away like it means fucking nothing, and it hurts me because this game is better than this. It has done better than this.

I remember an entire instance, a whole story step, devoted to Trahearne and the Pale Tree. When Trahearne was at his lowest, we had a story step where he visits the Pale Tree, and she shows a vision of Orr to our not-Commander-at-the-time and to Trahearne, to try and encourage him. We get an entire story step devoted to Trahearne admitting his fears, telling us how he does not feel ready for this destiny that’s been given to him, how he doesn’t think he can do it. Of course there was some fighting in that story step, but even though Trahearne was not well received overall, those story steps FUCKING MATTERED.

This game used to let characters breathe. It used to let them think and feel and it used to give their emotions validity and meaning. It used to be able to treat the characters it had with respect, to give them the time they deserved so that when things happened to them, it was impactful. Why were we so angry at Eir’s death? Because a character that we had come to love, a character that ArenaNet had given the time to be a character with fears and hurts and had given a small but notable arc in trying to heal from the death of Snaff and the abuse of Zojja and a character that ArenaNet had cared enough about to explore and let exist and grow in the world got killed without a second thought, for no reason. She was killed as a plot device to turn Braham into an asshole - where Braham had not been given as much care and love as Eir had.

This game used to do better by the cast of characters it had, and I cared about what happened to them. In another world where it still did that, Aurene’s death this patch would have had me sobbing. I was moved by Trahearne’s sacrifice at the end of HoT. I was genuinely upset and sad. I wished I could have done more to save him. And the crazy thing is that I still like Aurene more than I like Trahearne - and yet her death didn’t make me shed a singular tear. A character I adored the concept of, who I thought had been done so well up until this point, horrifically killed defending my own character and I felt... nothing. Empty, hollow and angry that she had been so mistreated by the writers.

Fuck you, ArenaNet.

All of these characters deserve more time than you give them. You used to give your characters time, and as a result, they felt believable and lovable and I cared about what happened to them.