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Aurene and the Commander didn't seem to be that close in LWS4. [Spoilers?]


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It seemed to me in the latest Living World season that Caithe was closer to Aurene than the Commander was, especially after her little _"upgrade"_.

And to be completly honest, I'm not really a fan of it.

The Commander is supposed to be Aurene's champion, but the two did not feel close at all to me. They seemed pretty close up until the end of Path of Fire, but after that they drifted apart.

Neither of them showed any affection towards the other and the Commander's voicelines towards Aurene were usually pretty ordinary, how one would adress an acquaintance rather than a friend. NPC's kept telling the Commander that _"you two are soooo close and she loves you soooo much uwu"_, but it was never _shown_ through actions. Rule nr.1 of storytelling: show, don't tell.

 

To me Aurene seemed closer to Caithe and the Commander seemed closer to the rest of Dragon's Watch. I know Caithe basically raised Aurene and the Commander has known the members of Dragon's Watch for quite some time, but with their connection as Scion and Champion I still think they should have been much closer than they were portrayed to be in the latest Living World season.

Just to be clear, I don't mean close as a dog and it's master. Lord no, she's a dragon not a pet. I mean close as friends. They did not seem like friends to me, more like colleagues.

 

I know she wasn't able to speak, but I would have loved some classic Han Solo & Chewie interactions where Aurene just chirps and the Commander immediately understands her because of their connection and just goes _"Oh yes good idea."_ and everyone else is like _"what???"_.

 

Does anyone else feel like the Commander and Aurene fell apart during this Living World season?

To any ANET employees reading this: Was the growing distance between Aurene and the Commander written in on purpose?

 

(p.s. it's still been a frickin awesome season tho, good work <3 d.s.)

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The upgrade scene was kind of a huge let down. Not the chaithe part of it, i like that shes relevant, but it was established that we had this telephatic communications with aurene and i was expecting here to start talking to us sooner or later.

 

Now it seem if i want to talk to her ill have to go through her secretary first.

 

Well i would have had to* aurene is dead for the time being.

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> @"zealex.9410" said:

> The upgrade scene was kind of a huge let down. Not the chaithe part of it, i like that shes relevant, but it was established that we had this telephatic communications with aurene and i was expecting here to start talking to us sooner or later.

>

> Now it seem if i want to talk to her ill have to go through her secretary first.

>

> Well i would have had to* aurene is dead for the time being.

 

It makes sense, though. Next time we see Aurene, she'll probably be Glint-sized (they didn't build that model for nothing) and even more powerful, and that's before she consumes the remainder of Kraalkatorik's energy. She's going to have to be written out of the story to keep from trivializing whatever challenge the commander faces next (having to focus on balancing magic and whatnot), but she will still need a champion. Caithe is going to have to take our place, or else the player would be stuck hanging out with Aurene. So they will be downgraded to the Previous Champion.

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This season Aurene has basically been a confused and afraid teen going through puberty. I think it makes sense that there’s some distance. She’s not a cute little creature anymore; she’s pumped full of weird magic, having prophetic visions of her death, and has the world literally depending on her. And likely, she knew she was going to die post-trials.

 

Now I don’t entirely disagree with you; even if those intimate moments are rare, they should still exist. There have definitely been a lot of weird Aurene related missteps this season, like when she collapsed after eating Joko and we just... left her there...

 

Edit: I’ll say though, I liked the closeness between Aurene and Caithe. It made me happy to see Caithe finally find her purpose (in character and narratively) after she’s had such a consistently tragic storyline... Not that it stayed happy for long. :/

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I agree with this sentiment, I did not feel like the Commander was that close to Aurene in this episode either. Or in previous episodes for that matter. Almost all we tell her are some sort of requests/commands. When it comes to adressing her feelings there was one short "we didn't think about it from your perspective" monologue in this episode and... that's about it I think? Even after witnessing Aurene's visions of her dying over and over the Commander wasn't really that shaken at all while pretty much everyone else was shocked or terrified.

 

Like really, I even felt jealous when that cutscene with Aurene branding Caithe happened. Now that's a close bond right there. Why didn't my character offered to speak on behalf of Aurene if there was an emphatic connection between us right from the start? Instead the Commander just kinda stood there like they didn't understand what Aurene was trying to say just like the rest of Dragon's Watch. And I get it really - there would be technical difficulties if the Commader was to take Caithe's place in this cutscene due to different models and such, but I'm just saying - in that moment I believed that Aurene and Caithe were close, like they trusted each other.

 

But yeah, other than that I like where the story is going, great job ANet <3

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> @"Edel.2169" said:

> Like really, I even felt jealous when that cutscene with Aurene branding Caithe happened. Now that's a close bond right there. Why didn't my character offered to speak on behalf of Aurene if there was an emphatic connection between us right from the start?

 

I guess this is just an example of how different people are, but during that scene I was thinking "No way in hell would the commander let a dragon corrupt him, even if it is Aurene". I appreciated her using Caithe as the Guinea Pig as opposed to the player character.

 

 

 

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I mostly agree, but I don't think they ever fell apart because I don't think they really had any natural connection. It's going to be a bit more subjective than that obviously, but at no point did I feel they established the link they kept trying to force. It's one of the reasons I'm glad they did what they did at the end

 

Caithe was a more natural choice for her Champion given her Wyld Hunt and her involvement in day to day raising. And whilst they touched on it this episode, they could have really built on it a lot more and established a stronger link with her than us. It was one of the few things the episode got right - giving Caithe relevance again

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> @"Jables.4659" said:

>

> I guess this is just an example of how different people are, but during that scene I was thinking "No way in hell would the commander let a dragon corrupt him, even if it is Aurene". I appreciated her using Caithe as the Guinea Pig as opposed to the player character.

>

>

 

It's not that I would necessarily like my character to become branded, it's that I would like a moment of similar emotional depth - the moment that would've shown that there's a real connection between our character and Aurene compared to Caithe who had just that telling us that "she loves you so much that it hurts". Like was said above, even a hug and maybe some heartfelt words would be enough.

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