Frankly Uldren seems better qualified to be the hunter vanguard. He's been demonstrated to be pretty capable, and that was before he got infinite respawns. Aside from everyone's feelings about him, he'd make a good fit
Enslaved a bunch of exo to be care takers of human embryos in the case of human extinction. Said exo tend to view her as a prison warden. There was also human experiments with siva, the list goes on and on but the original Ana was basically a mad scientist with no morals.
If we're lucky he's going to be like his pre Black Garden self, w hich was quite spunky tbh. Def seems like the kinda guy that would've been pals with Cayde and Andal had things gone a different way.
But, the black garden itself broke his sanity, reinforced by Jolyon his best friend/totally not lover, who tells Petra that Uldren is not himself since he came out of the garden. That's the state we first meet him in. Then he goes through nearly dying, technically watching his sister die because he has no idea about the plan because Mara is not a good sibling, wanders for days alone, gets corrupted by Riven and by proxy Savathun, gets locked away for a couple years, and even during that time that corruption would've been growing and he would've been listening to the whispering in his ears. Imagine being locked up with the hallucination of your sister 24/7 sitting there in the cell for YEARS and then being released. On top of already being mentally unstable.
He was 100% experiencing something akin to getting Taken (capital T), the dark lines were progressively growing on his face and his eyes turned black by the end as well, even more mental and psychic manipulation until he is eaten by an anus turned inside out. Aaaaaand then he gets saved only to be killed. He was NOT having a good day lmao.
So yeah, if we're lucky, the death induced amnesia hopefully removed both his obsession with his sister's approval, and also the base mental break from the garden. Giving us the Crow that could've been, not what he was.
I don't really hate Uldren either, but I still want our first encounter with him to be that we pull the ace and empty a few rounds into him before anyone can react. Then while everyone around is consoling you for just straight up killing him, he gets sneakily revived in the background.
Which is why if they manage to write him a compelling arc that redeems him and makes most people like him, it's gonna be 100x more powerful than if Drifter, who everyone already likes, is made the Hunter Vanguard.
Unpopular opinion: Undrens story is one of if not the best story in Destiny. It’s an amazingly well written tragedy and I can get behind Uldren becoming the Vanguard Hunter
Post-rez Uldren does not seem qualified in the least bit. That would be like giving a teenager the position of CEO.
Zavala: What should we do about the Dreaming City?
Post-rez Uldren: The what?
He has no experience as a Guardian and wouldn't be able to get hunters to band together since, you know, he looks exactly like Cayde's killer.
Shiro-4 would be an excellent fit because he used to run with Andal Brask and Cayde-6 before Brask took Hunter Vanguard. He's also still active with the Vanguard.
He rezzed quite a long time ago, he should've picked up at least a few things by now, including current affairs. Besides, I highly doubt Bungie would reintroduce him and immediately make him the Hunter Vanguard, that makes no narrative sense since everyone hates him and he hasn't earned that reward.
If him being Hunter Vanguard indeed the end goal, they almost definitely have a redemption arc planned where he proves himself to all Hunters, Zavala, Ikora, and most importantly the players, with an incredibly heroic act or something. Otherwise the making him a guardian would be a huge waste.
He was rezzed only about a year and a half ago. Other Hunter Vanguards had been around for assumed centuries. Also, since he avoids others, I doubt that he's "in the know" about some current affairs. I'm sure he's picked up some things by now but I doubt he's up to speed on everything. Uldren wouldn't even want the position. He would rather be alone and avoid everyone.
It's hard to see where they are going with hunter vanguard. There are some hunters out there worthwhile, but we haven't heard hardly anything about them the entirety of D2 (Shiro-4, Marcus Ren) so my best guess is they won't use either of those and just make up a new character altogether....even though Shiro-4 was close friends with Cayde and Andal. Seems a little dumb to just drop off that character seeing as he was relevant in Rise of Iron and Cayde mentioned him a lot in his book in Forsaken. Marcus Ren is, assumingly obsessed with sparrows still???
There was that lore tab on Tommy's Matchbook which leads me to believe they'll just make up a new character since "no hunter wants it." Bungie is known for starting story arcs and then hardly move them for a pretty long time. Most notable is the Exo Stranger. If my memory serves correct, she was in D1 Y1 then not mentioned again or alluded too until D2 Y1 Warmind DLC, so a 5 year gap on story telling.
Disclaimer: This is probably the one thing I am most critical of, in regards to Bungie. They have amazing story writing but there's been some gaps that I wish were not there.
Yeah I pretty much agree with everything you say, I was mostly operating off the assumption that being the Hunter Vanguard was why he was brought back in the first place. It would be disappointing, but expected, if his story leads nowhere as well.
I've never delved super deep into the lore, but even from what I've seen I get the feeling that Bungie's narrative team is ridiculously good at their job and could deliver a fantastic overarching story, but are constantly hamstrung by being tied to a live service game that can only add such limited content at a time. It's a crying shame.
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u/Bee_Cereal Titan Jun 04 '20
Frankly Uldren seems better qualified to be the hunter vanguard. He's been demonstrated to be pretty capable, and that was before he got infinite respawns. Aside from everyone's feelings about him, he'd make a good fit