This week’s seasonal story mission in Destiny 2 saw a particularly dramatic moment as the Guardian and their allies freed more prisoners from the Shadow Legion with Mithrax and Amanda Holliday. However, the abrupt nature of the cutscene featured left some players confused as to what had actually occurred. Here’s an explanation, as well as our take on the events of Season of Defiance thus far. Spoilers ahead.
Throughout Season of Defiance, players have been working with allies like Devrim Kay, Mithrax, and Amanda Holliday to free captives from pyramid ships around Earth. This week, Mithrax’s old rival and the antagonist of Beyond Light Eramis warned the team that attempting to rescue this particular group of prisoners would result in their death. Mithrax brushed this off as an idle threat, but it turned out to be a warning. Someone — the Shadow Legion, presumably — had planted a bomb in the base. The captives were intended as bait, and when Mithrax tried to free them, the base went into lockdown.
While the Guardian fought off enemies, Amanda Holliday hotwired the base’s doors to open, allowing Mithrax and the captives to escape. However, she was unable to make it out in time and was caught by the bomb blast. As a normal human without the Light or any paracausal abilities, Amanda was killed. The cutscene doesn’t really make any of this clear, but the alien indicator on the console Amanda is trying to hotwire is meant to be a countdown timer.
Afterwards, Crow swore revenge in a mirror of the plot of Forsaken. But back in Forsaken, players had a clear target for their vengeance — the Awoken Prince who had killed Cayde-6 and his Scorn Barons. Who are players meant to be getting revenge on at this point? The Witness? It isn’t around, having left at the end of Lightfall to who knows where. Calus? He’s dead. Eramis? She attempted to warn Mithrax and his allies of the danger. Revenge stories work best when, well, it’s personal. Without an obvious enemy to go after, the notion falls a little flat.
In addition to the awkward cutscene, Amanda’s death just feels forced. Like Rasputin in Season of the Seraph, it wasn’t clear at all that she had to die. In Rasputin’s case, it at least made sense for Bungie to get a powerful ally out of the way for plot reasons. Here, it simply seems like Amanda died to heighten the stakes of the season. But again, without someone to actually get revenge on, Amanda’s death doesn’t really motivate any narrative direction.
We’re a few weeks into Season of Defiance now, and while it started off as a promising counterpoint to Lightfall‘s disappointing narrative, the cracks have begun to show. The only way things could get worse at this point is if Rasputin and Amanda Holliday return as Guardians, undercutting the already meager impact of their deaths entirely. We hope Bungie can pull out of this spiral, but things are looking a little grim at the moment.
