The villain in Destiny 2 is called Dominus Ghaul. You should not call him Gary, warns Bungie.
It is probably the best-known – and funniest – scene from the reveal trailer of Destiny 2: Cayde-6 forgets the name of the enemy during his speech. First, he calls him “Gary.” Then he thinks for a moment, throws in two more names, and states: “I have no idea, something with G.”.
Cayde-6 represents in this trailer a cool gunslinger with a shoot-from-the-hip mentality, greeting his comrades with “scum,” making no big words, and emphasizing loot rather than noble goals like saving humanity.
In contrast to Commander Zavala’s speech, who depicts the noble Guardians as the last hope of humanity, numerous amusing moments arise here. And Zavala knows the true name of the enemy: Ghaul.
The community received this heavily staged trailer well. “Gary” suddenly became a running gag in the Destiny forums. No one called or calls the opponent Ghaul. Gary is his name – and many players wrote directly: This is how they will always call him.
“Don’t call him Gary”
The reveal of Destiny 2 put fans in a kind of mood “Yeah, there is something to do again. A new enemy, new loot, I am ready to fight alongside Cayde-6!”
During E3 2017, however, the developers tried to create a distinctly darker mood. A new trailer titled “Our Darkest Hour” was released.
There are no funny moments at all. Instead, we get to know Ghaul as a real threat. He wants to teach us what deathly fear means. The Guardians face their greatest threat as Ghaul takes away what they could always rely on: The Light of the Traveler.
During E3, numerous interviews were conducted. Some press representatives allowed themselves the joke of referring to Dominus Ghaul as Gary. I noticed that especially the community manager DeeJ was keen to present Ghaul as a serious adversary. This is not an enemy to make jokes about, but a menacing opponent. You can call him whatever you want, DeeJ said, but his name is Ghaul, and he will be the greatest challenge for the Guardians.
Also, Bungie’s Twitter page wrote a few days ago: The name is Dominus Ghaul. Do not call him “Gary”.
The players can call him what they want
The developers currently want to emphasize that the starting scenario of Destiny 2 is dark. The darkest hour for the Guardians. And the reason for this is Ghaul. Many players have noticed this on social media. They emphasize: “We will call him what we want!” Every Guardian will call him Gary out of spite, says one user. Another writes: “Stop making Dominus Ghaul out of Gary. That will not happen.”
However, there are also voices that see it similarly to Bungie: Ghaul is an interesting and fearsome character – and the Gary jokes only ruin this image. It was an amusing scene when Cayde-6 forgot his name in the trailer. However, one should now stop repeating this joke over and over again. That is lame.
Where does Bungie want to take Destiny?
It remains exciting where Destiny will develop in the future. In year 1 of Destiny 1, there was a nebulous story about great things like hope, a new age of humanity, about the light and about unfathomable threats. A very serious, mystical setting.
With year 2, Destiny became significantly lighter. Cayde-6, the old rogue, brought humor into the MMO shooter and continues to do so with Destiny 2. However, it should not create the image of Destiny that the Guardians are just fooling around and merely shooting aliens in the face. They still fight for the big goals – for the light, for the salvation of humanity, for hope.
And Ghaul – or Gary – threatens everything for which the Guardians fight.
What is your opinion on this?
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