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Can we have more of Rox please?


Furious.2867

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I have to ask, since I see this written a lot. What makes her so likeable to everyone? She has very little personality and almost no character development since LS1. Any other character who appears with those traits seems to get slammed by the community, but Rox seems to have bucked that trend

I assume she's so bland as to be utterly inoffensive, but I am genuinely curious as to why so many people like her

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yeah, compared to other characters, Rox has remained mostly the same, even braham, who is currently being hated for his tantrums, has a hell of a lot more development than rox, but maybe that is just who she is, a very calm person. Or maybe her time hasn't really come yet, perphaps when the charr race is threatened somehow she'll start changing and we'll start seeing her more.

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That's exactly why I like Rox! She is calm and loyal.

She is calm enough not to be affected by Braham's outbursts. Loyal enough not to leave his side, even though she is well aware that Braham is acting like a complete nincompoop. I mean she keeps an eye out on him, and ensures he doesn't kill himself during his quest for redemption, while at the same time tempering him.

But I agree, I think she needs some more screen time so she can get developed more.

P.S. She has an amazing albino devourer with sass. And it peed itself in Rytlock's office back in LS1.

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@Halan.8951 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:I have to ask, since I see this written a lot. What makes her so likeable to everyone? She has very little personality and almost no character development since LS1. Any other character who appears with those traits seems to get slammed by the community, but Rox seems to have bucked that trend

I assume she's so bland as to be utterly inoffensive, but I am genuinely curious as to why so many people like her

Every time I hear about "personality" in online discussions, I'm kinda puzzled by what it actually means. To me it looks like "personality" means having quirks, weirdness-es and other things that distract the character from doing what he does. Basically personality, to me, means character is out of place.. he'd rather do other things than what plot says he should do.So I'd like having more focused and committed characters, to whom their role IS their personality, their calling or dharma. Like Caithe or Trahearne. And not some shmoe who got his place in story randomly, but rather be at home eating donuts instead of saving the world.

@"Yereton.8647" said:That's exactly why I like Rox! She is calm and loyal.

She is calm enough not to be affected by Braham's outbursts. Loyal enough not to leave his side, even though she is well aware that Braham is acting like a complete nincompoop. I mean she keeps an eye out on him, and ensures he doesn't kill himself during his quest for redemption, while at the same time tempering him.Exactly. She feels she needs to do it, because it's the right thing and she does. No need for silly "personality" stuff.

On topic - Rox is cool. Best of the second group of NPC heroes.

Personality is pretty much the opposite of how you have perceived it. Without a personality, you can pretty much bin a character altogether unless they are a one line feeder like the ambient ones around the world. It should be viewed as a fundamental and extremely important part of the main characters in the story. Some of them have it, but Rox's has not been fully fleshed out (yet) and her character has suffered for it. And I think that is largely due to having too many NPC's in our group/guild/circle

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@"Yereton.8647" said:That's exactly why I like Rox! She is calm and loyal.

She is calm enough not to be affected by Braham's outbursts. Loyal enough not to leave his side, even though she is well aware that Braham is acting like a complete nincompoop. I mean she keeps an eye out on him, and ensures he doesn't kill himself during his quest for redemption, while at the same time tempering him.

But I agree, I think she needs some more screen time so she can get developed more.

P.S. She has an amazing albino devourer with sass. And it peed itself in Rytlock's office back in LS1.

There's NOTHING annoying about her. Just a chill, cool cat.Image

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I think part of Rox's charm is that we don't know as much about her yet, or where her story is going to go. We know where they're steering Braham, we see Taimi continuing to awkwardly straddle the line between character and plot device for the foreseeable future, we can feel that they already seem to have done what they set out to do with Marjory and Kasmeer and are now falling prey to the notion that relationship drama is the natural place to go when the story isn't finished yet, and Canach's a snarky drifter. Rox, though, is in many ways still stuck mid-development at the end of S1, and compared to Rytlock, she hasn't been around to shut us down to the point of growing cynical about ever getting answers. She still has potential.

(And it does, admittedly, help that she hasn't displayed any character traits that prove divisive. There was a brief period at the start where she was the most hated of the new characters, but that's died down as the game's aesthetic has drifted. Anime eyes no longer seem so out of place.)

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She also seems to be our most dependable Follower When the commander needs things done we delegate it to rox (if she is with us) in HoT she served as our advance scout. ("Rox were on you") Rox is everything a Charr should be, a Soldier who calmly executes her orders and is loyal to the unit.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:I think part of Rox's charm is that we don't know as much about her yet, or where her story is going to go. We know where they're steering Braham, we see Taimi continuing to awkwardly straddle the line between character and plot device for the foreseeable future, we can feel that they already seem to have done what they set out to do with Marjory and Kasmeer and are now falling prey to the notion that relationship drama is the natural place to go when the story isn't finished yet, and Canach's a snarky drifter. Rox, though, is in many ways still stuck mid-development at the end of S1, and compared to Rytlock, she hasn't been around to shut us down to the point of growing cynical about ever getting answers. She still has potential.

(And it does, admittedly, help that she hasn't displayed any character traits that prove divisive. There was a brief period at the start where she was the most hated of the new characters, but that's died down as the game's aesthetic has drifted. Anime eyes no longer seem so out of place.)

@MrForz.1953 said:Can't say I miss her. I mean, to me she belongs to the Flame and Frost part of the living story as well as the Scarlet Briar related events. She's done her part.

Both of these are fair points. For me another issue is she feels very unlike a Charr. Tybalt was the same, but he had a certain endearing personality which I got why people liked him even though he was my least fav of the three mentors.

But, I get the idea that her potential exists and her inate blandness actually works to not be as divisve as the others

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I like her because she balances out Braham's hot-headedness and always seems to be the calm, level-headed one of the group (those two are like fire and water) but I do think she needs more to do. I'd like to see a living story episode or season that focuses more on her and allows her to grow as a character (maybe that will come into play when Braham's arc comes to an end)

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@Randulf.7614 said:I have to ask, since I see this written a lot. What makes her so likeable to everyone? She has very little personality and almost no character development since LS1. Any other character who appears with those traits seems to get slammed by the community, but Rox seems to have bucked that trend

I assume she's so bland as to be utterly inoffensive, but I am genuinely curious as to why so many people like her

She has a big sis kind of personality. Not every character needs to be complex.

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Rox actually has a rather intriguing subplot involving her mission as a free agent from Season 2 that is yet to be resolved. I posted a lengthy commentary about it on Reddit some time ago which included most of the relevant quotes relating to Rox's secret if anyone wants to read said quotes verbatim. To summarize the discussion from that thread:

Several Season 2 instances ("Plan of Attack", "Reunion with the Pact", and "The Pact Assaulted") hinted at and/or explored Rox's free agent status and what her secretive mission might entail. Curiously only charr player characters got to not only learn the identity of the aggressive and mysterious charr soldier Monti Scythescrape whom Rox was rather evasive about but also caught Rox outright lying to us thanks to charr PC's knowledge of annual weapons testing which Rox was initially using as an alibi for her lie before she quickly corrected herself and changed the subject. During these instances we also learned that Rox was spying on someone and apparently visiting the Imperator's office every time she returned to the Black Citadel, thus suggesting that she was working directly for Iron Imperator Smodur (or someone high enough in the Imperator's office) for reasons that remained unclear.

PoF has shed some light on this mystery but also included new intruing developments. The inquiries about Rytlock's whereabouts from S2 instances foreshadowed the charr brass's eventual interest from S3 in what Rytlock had learned in the Mists and the subsequent would-be tribunal once the Adamant Guard had arrested him in S3 Episode 2. Add to that the fact that Rytlock was being rather evasive about what exactly had been discussed in that closed-doors meeting and how he was freed and got his rank back without hassle in PoF's story instance "Sparking the Flames", and it seems to me Rox and Rytlock's plots may be connected via Smodur somehow.

The questions all of this raise are the following:1) Was Rox sent to spy on someone in Camp Resolve or elsewhere as her slip of the tongue in one of the S2 story instances implies? If so, who was she spying on and why?2) Has Rox been recruited by Smodur and if so, why has the Iron Imperator chosen a gladium like her who's untrained in spy games for such a discreet mission instead of picking any of the three High Legions' finest for the job? Is it because Rox might be closer to the target and thus have easier access to them?3) Is Monti Scythescrape potentially another spy and liaison (despite the charr PC not recognizing Monti's gear, it appears to be red tier 3 medium cultural armor and thus suggesting Blood affiliation), or is he actually a figure from Rox's past with another agenda?4) Why would Rox's mission, whether it's spying on someone on Smodur's behalf or not, be so discreet that she'd deliberately lie to the player character about what she was doing given how she's respected the PC during their adventures together and always been one of the most sensible members of the PC's guild? Regardless of if the PC was charr or not, surely Rox and/or Smodur would trust the PC with the matter given how the PC has proven their trustworthiness (especially as a charr) again and again particularly after the events surrounding the World Summit and helping the charr diminish the threat of the Ascalonian ghosts and Flame Legion, not to mention Elder Dragons?5) What exactly is going on with Rytlock and the charr brass, and why all the secrecy about the closed-doors meeting? Did Smodur really have the authority to strip a Blood officer like Rytlock from his rank without Blood Imperator Bangar's blessing (surely this would cause a political scandal as I doubt Bangar's the kind of person to let other Legions mess with his top underlings, and Iron couldn't hush-hush it either as the other Blood Tribune Fierhan Sparwind would take note of his fellow officer Rytlock's arrest), or was this something okayed by Bangar? Did Rytlock reveal more about his trip to the Mists (aside from meeting and freeing then-unknown-to-him Balthazar and learning the ways of the revenant from Glint) to the brass than he did to the PC?

It is curious to me that the expanded world map has spread east and now includes more of the Blazeridge Mountains as well as the Blood Legion Homelands and thus suggesting a potential future plot involving charr and their politics (with possibly both Blood Imperator Bangar and Ash Imperator Malice) that the writers have already been discussing during story meetings.

While it's possible that Rox's mystery was scrapped/put on hold like the Krytan Locket subplot from S2 (which Angel McCoy mentioned during a Q&A in her Tracon visit around the time of her departure from ANet), I'd be surprised if this is the last time we'll get to explore Rox's shenanigans, especially when the writing directly waved a new mystery right in our faces in PoF with Rytlock and the charr brass and refusing to tell us more about it for now. It's going to be interesting to see how much this plot will be developed in S4 now that Rox has made her return to the story and Dragon's Watch is reunited for the time being, but I for one look forward to finding out more as charr politics has always been one of the fascinating subjects of GW2 lore to me. :)

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I think people like her because she's kind of a blank slate. By itself, that'd be boring, but when compared to the other members (angsty Braham, Kasmeer, who completely dropped the ball with Balthazar and has that stupid hiccuping thing, and Marjory who irritated everyone with the whole "you're my guild leader now, but don't tell me what to do!!!" Nonsense.) it's an opportunity to create a character no one hates. Anet so far has been doing a very good job of making us hate the people we're supposed to work with, but mediocre at making people universally liked. Taimi, Rytlock, and Tybalt are about the only characters I'd say have a real solid positive rating. Rox isn't a "good " character, but she's not an obnoxious character and that makes her better than most.

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