Rey's motivation is made clear multiple times leading up to that and heavily informs her refusal of the call as being because she is still "waiting for her family on Jakku" and cannot continue to wait for them if she embraces the call.

Weak.

Is it, though? People themselves can be weak, and it was a believable motivation, especially for a young woman who was abandoned as a child and held on to that hope of waiting for her family for her entire life. It was probably literally the thing she survived for, as we're shown that life on Jakku is far from easy.

*shrug*

It worked for me.

I've now read the full article, and I think he was just making a back-handed compliment to the lack of story in vanilla Destiny, in that self-deprecating, sarcastic way of his. At least the stranger's interactions have some closure, finally--UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE.

That's exactly how I read it.

It's very suspicious.

Rey's motivation is made clear multiple times leading up to that and heavily informs her refusal of the call as being because she is still "waiting for her family on Jakku" and cannot continue to wait for them if she embraces the call.

Weak.

And aren't you told right before you visit the Reef the first time that they don't take kindly to strangers? You're only there as the Queen's curiosity. Why wouldn't he be hostile?

I love mystery when it SERVES A STORY, but mystery just for the sake of tricking the viewer (or player) into caring long enough to introduce the NEXT mystery is the storytelling equivenalnt of click-bait headlines. This form of storytelling is hugely popular these days, and I largely blame JJ "mystery box" Abrams for it and (Something about David Lynch which is wrong and I'll ignore).

I'm pretty sure it was the Hulk who put it very well: it's actually clarity that drives stories. Clarity of characters, motivations, and decisions. If you have a whodunnit, the identity of the killer might be a mystery, but the motivations of the detectives aren't. The more you KNOW about what the characters are doing and why, the more drama you can have.

Abrams' problem is that the mysteries are often a part of the character motivations… Remember when Ray takes Luke's lightsaber, has her vision, then runs off "refusing the call"? By the books hero's journey stuff, but why does she do that? We are teased about her past on Jakku, and that's supposed to inform our decision somehow… but in the moment you are shaking your head wondering wtf is happening. And so it feels weak.

Why is the queen's brother hostile toward you? If we knew why, it could be way more powerful… but nope. He's just a dick for no reason.

Mystery can be fun… but not when everything is one big mystery.

That and possibly scarcasm.

If I'm following a story as it unfolds, and that story is full of suspense and mystery and questions begging to be answered... and then I begin to see that the storytellers don't actually intend to make good on any of those mysteries... well then I just stop caring about any new elements that get introduced along the way. I love mystery when it SERVES A STORY, but mystery just for the sake of tricking the viewer (or player) into caring long enough to introduce the NEXT mystery is the storytelling equivenalnt of click-bait headlines. This form of storytelling is hugely popular these days, and I largely blame JJ "mystery box" Abrams for it (although Linch deserves his share of the blame too). This whole idea that making the audience say "what the heck is going on" is perfectly adequate in and of itself, at that suspense never needs to go anywhere or build towards anything.

As it stands right now, Destiny 1 falls into that camp. And that's a shame. Many of us wanted answers (or at least exploration) to those questions in the expansions. But got self-contained "monster of the week" stories instead. So that makes Destiny 2 the place to pick up those larger, ongoing threads, right?

But Bungie wants Des2ny to be approachable to new players (good idea). But for that to really happen, Des2ny CAN'T continue those threads. Not in a deep or meaningful way. I made a post months back about how I wished Bungie would cut as many ties between Destiny 1 & 2 as possible. Set them in different times, featuring different characters... give Des2ny a clean slate to work from, and start all over again. Bungie clearly hasn't gone that far, but it is possible that they're doing something similar. We may never get answers to the prominent questions of D1. And while that is disappointing to a degree, I'll be ok with it as long as the pattern doesn't continue. If D2 starts a whole bunch of new threads, only to have them left dangling at the end of the game and then ignored in D3, then that will be a problem.

Maybe I read it wrong, but I feel like you're all interpreting that statement from Luke as his sincere opinion. I read that as dripping with Luke-brand sarcasm.

So there is a part of me that wants to dissect what I see in the the full quote which is once again below with my color edit intact.

Is there a world in which we never find out who the Exo Stranger was talking to on the phone?

Yeah, I mean, there’s a world where you never find out anything else about the Exo Stranger, and there’s a world where the Exo Stranger is the star of—

Destiny 3?

[Laughs] Yeah, there’s a world where the Exo Stranger has a cartoon or a comic book series or whatever. With Destiny, we have so many cool opportunities to tell stories in and out of the game. And we have a bunch of characters who are interesting, but the Exo Stranger is one that always makes me chuckle a little bit. Because I feel that’s one character where we actually wrapped up the arc. She gave you a sweet gun and then dissolved, presumably off to do something else. So I feel like, of all of our characters we’ve introduced and exited, we actually exited her effectively. But she always comes up. She always comes up, so there’s obviously something to that character that piques people’s curiosity.

After taking a moment to reread the full quote, I've decided I'm not going to go into the effort of parsing out what I see, since it seems to me that conversation would get to a pedantic level of "I interpret it this way". Ugh. Time can be better spent then bickering over verbiage.

For me, saying "He was just being sarcastic" is no different then having a kid brother say "I WAS KIDDING". Sorry, I ain't buying it. He is A LEAD speaking about his game to the press during one of the (if not THE,) biggest video game trade shows. There is a time and place for everything.

SO now we have, YES - he was being sarcastic while selling his wares which REQUIRES believe-ability. OR! NO - He meant what he said.

Either way - Shame.

If it was a far more casual sit down, like some random podcast on any old day, and everyone is laughing and having a good time, then yes - I'd be right with ya Wu. But this? Sorry. I respectfully disagree.

I've now read the full article, and I think he was just making a back-handed compliment to the lack of story in vanilla Destiny, in that self-deprecating, sarcastic way of his. At least the stranger's interactions have some closure, finally--UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE. And to speak to squid's point, if the reappearance of the stranger is a major event in Destiny 2, I'd downplay the possibility of that in much the same way at this point. I wouldn't want to give it away. My hope is they're much more confident about the narrative now, and there are many new elements and revelations, combined with some call backs that satisfy and surprise.

Of course, the counterpoint to this is that if the Exo Stranger does make a surprise appearance in Destiny 2, how does Luke even answer that question?

"Maybe we'll hear about that story someday, but right now we are simply looking forward to telling the stories in Destiny 2"

Not like his sarcasm has ever been misinterpreted before. Nope. Throw money at the screen? :-p

I don't for a second believe that comment was sarcasm.

If it was a far more casual sit down, like some random podcast on any old day, and everyone is laughing and having a good time, then yes - I'd be right with ya Wu. But this? Sorry. I respectfully disagree.

I mean, they did quote him as laughing while he said this, so it seems clear it was at least partially a spoken interview that was transcribed and edited.

Anyway, when I read it again here I was more sure it was sarcasm, but reading it again in full it comes right after this answer:

"Ghaul seems like a cool new big-bad to introduce in the same way Oryx rocked up for The Taken King and provided the main antagonist. But are we going to learn any more about the core story introduced in Destiny 1, who the Speaker is and where he comes from, what the Darkness is? Are we going to hear from the Exo Stranger? Are those kind of questions going to be answered in Destiny 2?

Not specifically all of those questions. I think some of those questions we’ve taken off the shelf to look at, and some of those questions we’re leaving on the shelf and may never answer. Personally, I think of Destiny 1 as sort of an issue zero in a comic book series. It’s about introducing the universe and some characters in it and some statements, but I think we want to—and a bunch of those statements were questions. I don’t know that we’ll answer all of those statements from the first game, and aren’t going to attempt to in Destiny 2 either. We’re telling a story here with some momentum and I think it’s going to show direction and progress for where the arc of Destiny is going to go. And that arc is, for us, really beginning with game two."

Reading Luke's answer to the Exo Stranger follow-up question is much more confusing/concerning when you have the highlighted sentence in mind.

Of course, the counterpoint to this is that if the Exo Stranger does make a surprise appearance in Destiny 2, how does Luke even answer that question?

Maybe I read it wrong, but I feel like you're all interpreting that statement from Luke as his sincere opinion. I read that as dripping with Luke-brand sarcasm.

So there is a part of me that wants to dissect what I see in the the full quote which is once again below with my color edit intact.

Is there a world in which we never find out who the Exo Stranger was talking to on the phone?

Yeah, I mean, there’s a world where you never find out anything else about the Exo Stranger, and there’s a world where the Exo Stranger is the star of—

Destiny 3?

[Laughs] Yeah, there’s a world where the Exo Stranger has a cartoon or a comic book series or whatever. With Destiny, we have so many cool opportunities to tell stories in and out of the game. And we have a bunch of characters who are interesting, but the Exo Stranger is one that always makes me chuckle a little bit. Because I feel that’s one character where we actually wrapped up the arc. She gave you a sweet gun and then dissolved, presumably off to do something else. So I feel like, of all of our characters we’ve introduced and exited, we actually exited her effectively. But she always comes up. She always comes up, so there’s obviously something to that character that piques people’s curiosity.

After taking a moment to reread the full quote, I've decided I'm not going to go into the effort of parsing out what I see, since it seems to me that conversation would get to a pedantic level of "I interpret it this way". Ugh. Time can be better spent then bickering over verbiage.

For me, saying "He was just being sarcastic" is no different then having a kid brother say "I WAS KIDDING". Sorry, I ain't buying it. He is A LEAD speaking about his game to the press during one of the (if not THE,) biggest video game trade shows. There is a time and place for everything.

SO now we have, YES - he was being sarcastic while selling his wares which REQUIRES believe-ability. OR! NO - He meant what he said.

Either way - Shame.

If it was a far more casual sit down, like some random podcast on any old day, and everyone is laughing and having a good time, then yes - I'd be right with ya Wu. But this? Sorry. I respectfully disagree.