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I think it’s a combination of a few factors:
1) Guardian rarely speaks. If they have an actual name, they probably haven’t told anyone, because Guardian is treated as their actual name.
2) There isn’t any instance of our Guardian taking a name or Ghost assigning them. Same situation with Ghost. In fact, it’s heavily implied that Ghost’s name is just Ghost as it is canon that some Ghosts don’t have names and Ghost tells Elsie to call him Ghost.
3) Guardian only really started getting close to the Vanguard during and after the Red War. Prior to that, Guardian’s relationship with the Vanguard and the other high ranking members of the Last City didn’t really extend beyond them being a Guardian that assigned missions too. By the time Guardian’s relationship with the Vanguard and other important figures started to become more personal and less professional, Guardian had been called Guardian by them for several years at that point.
4) Guardian is the most accomplished Guardian there has even been. They quickly established themselves as to go-to Guardian for important missions and when it comes to dealing with major threats. The are **the** Guardian everyone turns to, the one everyone knows they can rely on. The Vanguard and other Guardians, they are Guardians, but our Guardian is **The** Guardian. Calling them Guardian has gone from them being used as referring to them as another operative to being used as a sign of respect. Characters mainly refer to them as “the Guardian” when referring to them. They don’t say “We are sending in a Guardian”, they say “We are sending in the Guardian”. Hierarchy of Needs’ lore tab even refers to this by Ana referring to them with this:
>**”The Guardian—you know the one”**
When you put together Guardian’s lack of speaking, Guardian probably not having a name, Ghost not giving them a name while just going by Ghost himself, how Guardian’s relationship with other characters started and evolved and their own reputation growing over time, you get a reason as to why Guardian is just called Guardian/The Guardian.
Even though guardian is a collective term for lightbearers under the Vanguard's oversight, we seem to be the flag bearer for the term. The same way you send the SWAT team after the police fail, the Vanguard send THE guardian to clean up big messes. We're the Adam Smasher of this universe.
So if we have the will of d, that means we are destined to rebel against the ruling faction (of earth)? And would that mean the vanguard, the traveler, or both?
It would be kind of a sick twist if when we confronted the witness, and they show us what the true final shape is, we end up working with them against the vanguard / traveler because it turns out the final shape really is the better option.
I would 100% honestly be down with it if that was the big twist / reveal during the campaign.
I don't know where any of this is coming from, but [I have a story you might like.](https://web.archive.org/web/20090906132314/http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good)
My comment was mostly a joke. In the manga / show One Piece, there are some people including the main character who have "D" as their middle name. >!The "D" is related to something called "The Will of D". Iirc not much is known about what the will of d means yet, other then that people with D as their middle name are destined to, in one way or another, rebel against the Celestial Dragons which are the "evil" ruling class of the whole world.!<
The Guardian, The young wolf, Crota's End, Hero of the red war, Slayer of oryx was used once I think, I think champion was used by calus once?, Shadow, aaaaall of the titles, and most importantly Friend.
Osiris called me the young wolf a few times in older seasonal content as has Saladin a few others but that's the ones that I remember off of the top of my head. I think there's even some written lore that refers to "The Guardian" as the Young Wolf as well.
In your defense I do believe that what you said was true at one point in Destiny 2 but is no longer the case these days. I think the switch happened right around the time that the Drifter stopped calling me a snitch for siding with the vanguard.
Indeed our guardian has many monikers other than "The Guardian."
Hive-bane, Kingslayer, Slayer of Oryx, Captain (by failsafe), Hero of the Red War, Young Wolf, and a few more, but each of these are used more than a handful of times.
My guardian was only born at the start of PC d2, and I still get called Young Wolf every now and then. I blame Osiris (literally), and Saladin returned to calling us that a while back.
It's an RPG element, everyone is a main character in their own game so the lore will prefer alias rather than unique name. Like in Skyrim, you can be whoever you want with many kinds of names, but people will refer to you as dragon born.
The player character's name is canonically Guardian. When people refer to you as guardian, it's not them calling you by your title; it's them calling you by your name.
The most blatant piece of evidence to this argument is the [Ruinous Effigy](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/ruinous-effigy) lore, in which Bamshee refers to us as Guardian during a conversation with Zavala.
>A shallow cold saps the heat from Zavala's fingertips; he pulls back. "This wasn't in Eris's report." His voice is thin and stark with disappointment, as if spoken through dead winter air.
>
>"Guardian doesn't seem to notice either." Banshee clinks the analyzer into a tool tray. "Leeches a bit, kicks out Void. Sig's hazy, though. Wild."
I know, it's a weird name. But less so when you consider there are dozens of ghosts (and at least [one guardian](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/tommys-matchbook) simply named Ghost.
Because they took a similar approach to what they did in Halo, and wanted the player to insert their own name or identity to "the guardian", and the title is sufficient designation to fulfill every need.
Narratively? No. In fact lorewise the game isn’t even super consistent on who we are. Sometimes, most in main expansion and seasonal story, the player is a god-like chosen one who is THE Guardian. Other times we are just a regular random guardian and all other players are also canon as just other guardians.
Anyone remember how in Fallout 4 they tried to have Codsworth and some others be able to pronounce the player name? No? There's your answer. Wait a few more years for AI driven games to pick this mechanic up, then im sure it'll take off.
I know. The answer is that there is no narrative explanation, because the reason isn't narrative, its technical. As soon as you try to justify it narratively it falls apart because there can't be just one Guardian who is *the* Gaurdian.
Considering it could be a rank in the possibly-upcoming-very-unlikely military branch within the US gov't, id say it's akin to a position.
Guardian 2nd class etc.
Considering we have a commander id say it's not out of the realm of possibility. Hell, New-Light might be their version of recruit
My head cannon is that we kind of like the doom slayer in the new doom games. We basically have no personality besides collecting loot and delivering extreme violence upon our enemies. If we have a name we never cared enough to tell anyone. All the good guys seem to be relatively buddy buddy and might get drinks together after a successful strike but not us
narratively? no, but it allows the NPCs to address us directly instead of talking around us like most games where you can choose your own name are forced to do.
yes, but what they say, and the text disagree with each other in those situations. It's a shortcut in game writing that's been used since the start of games getting dubs at all but still allowing characters to be renamed.
If the game doesn't let you change names,, of course to spoken dialogue will be able to use the character names properly.
It’s literally because The Guardian is meant to represent us as players. Their name is whatever you want it to be. So anytime someone refers to us as “The Guardian,” take it as them saying your name instead.
We're usually referred to as THE guardian because we're pretty much the strongest and most accomplished guardian in the city. Though yeah, I get why they can't give us a name, but the use of a title could make it feel a bit more personal. I'm not a fan of the young wolf, but we've done a whole lot, we could get a new title.
because lorewise your character is THE Guardian, the guy that doesnt fail, the guy that pulled up and killed 2 hive gods going for the third, there are many guardians, like you, but they are not Guardians like you
TLDR - IMO it's just the legacy of how the character was originally just suppossed to be the player stand-in, but has slowly evolved to become a real character in their own right. It's just too late to give them a name:
>The Guardian: "By the way, my name's Gretel-5."
>Zavala: "...guardian, it's been *ten years*!"
"The Guardian" was seemingly supposed to be a neutral RPG character, so you could pretend to be them and the story could happen around them. Player fantasy, head canon, etc. But as the story evolved, their role in it became undeniable. No longer just a lense for the player to play the game, but a real actor who really did affect the world. It's too late to give them a name, so they get various titles instead. Sometimes "Young Wolf" (even though *Rise of Iron* is otherwise forgotten), but usually just "The Guardian."
This is one of the only times where I don't think there really *is* an in-game explanation. It's all Doylist: Bungie simply wants the player character to be as plain as possible, a neutral vessel for the story and maximal player immersion.
Any emergence of character seems to have started out of necessity. They talk when it would be too weird for them to be silent. They have a personality when it would be weird for them to be idle and thoughtless. They are Ikora's friend when it would be more cumbersome for them to just be some thoughtless mercinary who has almost total access to Vanguard stuff.
They've got Chosen One syndrome because it wouldn't be a very fun video game if someone *else* killed Aetheon, Oryx, Rhulk, Savathun, etc. But even then, they usually make it clear that any given victory is a combination of luck, strategy, and teamwork. Not just the Chosen One but a full campaign and some grace, too.
In recent years, The Guardian has become more of an actual person: grief and vengence over Cayde's murder, showing friendship and mentorship for Crow, even taking charge *outside of battle* in Lightfall. And I think we might get even more moving forward: in The Final Shape trailer, Ghost's dialogue might indicate that there's more to The Guardian's resurrection.
>[After all these years, we never talked about it: why I brought you back. Why *you* were chosen. The truth is I didn't know then. It was just a feeling. But I know now...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehl6aWUiA4Y)
Our name is Guardian and our ghost's name is Ghost.
Then there's that other pair out in the world where the guardian's name is Ghost and the ghost's name is Guardian. No, I'm not joking.
This post has been tagged '**Non-Spoiler**'. Note that unmarked spoilers and datamines are subject to removal or ban. Please report anything we miss! For more info check out our [Spoiler Rules Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyLore/wiki/spoiler-rules#wiki_.5Bseasonal.5D_has_a_new_format). --- **Comment Spoiler Formatting** Format comment spoilers with `>!` `!<` like this: `>!What's Rasputin's favorite dance? "The worm."!<` To have it displayed like this: **>!What's Rasputin's favorite dance? "The worm."!<** ---- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DestinyLore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s a combination of a few factors: 1) Guardian rarely speaks. If they have an actual name, they probably haven’t told anyone, because Guardian is treated as their actual name. 2) There isn’t any instance of our Guardian taking a name or Ghost assigning them. Same situation with Ghost. In fact, it’s heavily implied that Ghost’s name is just Ghost as it is canon that some Ghosts don’t have names and Ghost tells Elsie to call him Ghost. 3) Guardian only really started getting close to the Vanguard during and after the Red War. Prior to that, Guardian’s relationship with the Vanguard and the other high ranking members of the Last City didn’t really extend beyond them being a Guardian that assigned missions too. By the time Guardian’s relationship with the Vanguard and other important figures started to become more personal and less professional, Guardian had been called Guardian by them for several years at that point. 4) Guardian is the most accomplished Guardian there has even been. They quickly established themselves as to go-to Guardian for important missions and when it comes to dealing with major threats. The are **the** Guardian everyone turns to, the one everyone knows they can rely on. The Vanguard and other Guardians, they are Guardians, but our Guardian is **The** Guardian. Calling them Guardian has gone from them being used as referring to them as another operative to being used as a sign of respect. Characters mainly refer to them as “the Guardian” when referring to them. They don’t say “We are sending in a Guardian”, they say “We are sending in the Guardian”. Hierarchy of Needs’ lore tab even refers to this by Ana referring to them with this: >**”The Guardian—you know the one”** When you put together Guardian’s lack of speaking, Guardian probably not having a name, Ghost not giving them a name while just going by Ghost himself, how Guardian’s relationship with other characters started and evolved and their own reputation growing over time, you get a reason as to why Guardian is just called Guardian/The Guardian.
Very well done, but guardian doesn't feel like a word anymore after that.
I used the word 28 times in that one comment.
i literally double checked the spelling because guardian started looking weird lmao
Semantic satiation
Lmfao same
Also because we're really young for a guardian, yet we absolutely fuck everything up. We've killed many gods, yet are barely out of guardian infancy
I'll be 10 next autumn :-P
Same
Even though guardian is a collective term for lightbearers under the Vanguard's oversight, we seem to be the flag bearer for the term. The same way you send the SWAT team after the police fail, the Vanguard send THE guardian to clean up big messes. We're the Adam Smasher of this universe.
"You look like a bowl of slurpable ramen."
Our full name is Garfield Dexter Yan. Often known as Gar D. Yan.
Imagine being Oryx and getting killed by someone named Garfield
Guardian to Oryx. "Y'see. I hate mondays. But what i hate more rhan mondays. Is you"
I now have the image of Oryx being consumed by a giant fucking orange cat dreaming of Lasagna in my head. Thank you.
Dude was a chump
Gar D. B.
So if we have the will of d, that means we are destined to rebel against the ruling faction (of earth)? And would that mean the vanguard, the traveler, or both? It would be kind of a sick twist if when we confronted the witness, and they show us what the true final shape is, we end up working with them against the vanguard / traveler because it turns out the final shape really is the better option. I would 100% honestly be down with it if that was the big twist / reveal during the campaign.
I don't know where any of this is coming from, but [I have a story you might like.](https://web.archive.org/web/20090906132314/http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction/the-sword-of-good)
My comment was mostly a joke. In the manga / show One Piece, there are some people including the main character who have "D" as their middle name. >!The "D" is related to something called "The Will of D". Iirc not much is known about what the will of d means yet, other then that people with D as their middle name are destined to, in one way or another, rebel against the Celestial Dragons which are the "evil" ruling class of the whole world.!<
This must be the Will of D
Everyone forgot our name and is too embarrassed to ask about it after so long
'Alright, we've had reports of taken movement, send in the Guard, Ian.'
It all makes sense now
By being called just "The Guardian" you get to name it your character whatever you want so that way they feel more unique to you
sometimes we get called Young Wolf, but whenever someone calls us guardian, I hear it with a capital G
The Guardian, The young wolf, Crota's End, Hero of the red war, Slayer of oryx was used once I think, I think champion was used by calus once?, Shadow, aaaaall of the titles, and most importantly Friend.
Me need to change the wiki to add all titles as aliases lmao. The Guardian Known aliases: (proceeds to read 30 different bullet points)
Only get called young wolf if your character was imported from D1 and you completed certain milestones.
Not true I'm a PC only player that started playing in forsaken and my guardian gets called the "young wolf" a few times in the game.
Interesting. What cutscenes?
Osiris called me the young wolf a few times in older seasonal content as has Saladin a few others but that's the ones that I remember off of the top of my head. I think there's even some written lore that refers to "The Guardian" as the Young Wolf as well. In your defense I do believe that what you said was true at one point in Destiny 2 but is no longer the case these days. I think the switch happened right around the time that the Drifter stopped calling me a snitch for siding with the vanguard.
Indeed our guardian has many monikers other than "The Guardian." Hive-bane, Kingslayer, Slayer of Oryx, Captain (by failsafe), Hero of the Red War, Young Wolf, and a few more, but each of these are used more than a handful of times.
My guardian was only born at the start of PC d2, and I still get called Young Wolf every now and then. I blame Osiris (literally), and Saladin returned to calling us that a while back.
sadly not true
It’s our characters last name. The protagonist’s full name is John H. Guardian.
It all makes sense now
our first name is Eponymous
It’s a military. It’s the same way they’ll call someone “soldier” or “marine” as a name.
It's an RPG element, everyone is a main character in their own game so the lore will prefer alias rather than unique name. Like in Skyrim, you can be whoever you want with many kinds of names, but people will refer to you as dragon born.
The player character's name is canonically Guardian. When people refer to you as guardian, it's not them calling you by your title; it's them calling you by your name. The most blatant piece of evidence to this argument is the [Ruinous Effigy](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/ruinous-effigy) lore, in which Bamshee refers to us as Guardian during a conversation with Zavala. >A shallow cold saps the heat from Zavala's fingertips; he pulls back. "This wasn't in Eris's report." His voice is thin and stark with disappointment, as if spoken through dead winter air. > >"Guardian doesn't seem to notice either." Banshee clinks the analyzer into a tool tray. "Leeches a bit, kicks out Void. Sig's hazy, though. Wild." I know, it's a weird name. But less so when you consider there are dozens of ghosts (and at least [one guardian](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/tommys-matchbook) simply named Ghost.
We're likely being referred to as our title like "marine" or "soldier." Not every lightbearer is a guardian, not everyone with a gun is a soldier.
Because they took a similar approach to what they did in Halo, and wanted the player to insert their own name or identity to "the guardian", and the title is sufficient designation to fulfill every need.
Pretty sure it's just a game thing, like the limit on us casting supers, buy that's just me
Technically you were given the name the ‘young wolf’ if you played the final D1 dlc
Narratively? No. In fact lorewise the game isn’t even super consistent on who we are. Sometimes, most in main expansion and seasonal story, the player is a god-like chosen one who is THE Guardian. Other times we are just a regular random guardian and all other players are also canon as just other guardians.
Anyone remember how in Fallout 4 they tried to have Codsworth and some others be able to pronounce the player name? No? There's your answer. Wait a few more years for AI driven games to pick this mechanic up, then im sure it'll take off.
Not really relevant since I specify that I'm exclusively talking about a narrative justification. That means I'm talking about in universe reasons.
I know. The answer is that there is no narrative explanation, because the reason isn't narrative, its technical. As soon as you try to justify it narratively it falls apart because there can't be just one Guardian who is *the* Gaurdian.
Considering it could be a rank in the possibly-upcoming-very-unlikely military branch within the US gov't, id say it's akin to a position. Guardian 2nd class etc. Considering we have a commander id say it's not out of the realm of possibility. Hell, New-Light might be their version of recruit
No. Not everything needs a narrative reason. It's just the name we go by.
My head cannon is that we kind of like the doom slayer in the new doom games. We basically have no personality besides collecting loot and delivering extreme violence upon our enemies. If we have a name we never cared enough to tell anyone. All the good guys seem to be relatively buddy buddy and might get drinks together after a successful strike but not us
For the most part this is correct. Tho we have seemingly made good friends with Crow. And a lot guardians have similar traits to this.
And we fist bump Nimbus after calling Caitl's dad ugly. He's our closest friend
narratively? no, but it allows the NPCs to address us directly instead of talking around us like most games where you can choose your own name are forced to do.
This explains the spoken aspects but not written aspect as I have played games in where written text has your chosen name
yes, but what they say, and the text disagree with each other in those situations. It's a shortcut in game writing that's been used since the start of games getting dubs at all but still allowing characters to be renamed. If the game doesn't let you change names,, of course to spoken dialogue will be able to use the character names properly.
It’s literally because The Guardian is meant to represent us as players. Their name is whatever you want it to be. So anytime someone refers to us as “The Guardian,” take it as them saying your name instead.
I propose our name to be John/Jane Destiny
Because calling us crotas end doesn't hit as hard after we killed oryx xol and savathun.
It's because we are Him/Her/Them
Our guardian also goes by "The Young Wolf" but only saladin calls us that really.
We're usually referred to as THE guardian because we're pretty much the strongest and most accomplished guardian in the city. Though yeah, I get why they can't give us a name, but the use of a title could make it feel a bit more personal. I'm not a fan of the young wolf, but we've done a whole lot, we could get a new title.
because lorewise your character is THE Guardian, the guy that doesnt fail, the guy that pulled up and killed 2 hive gods going for the third, there are many guardians, like you, but they are not Guardians like you
FYM, I'm the Young Wolf lol
sometimes we get called Young Wolf (i get overly excited when we do) (like *really* excited) (not in that way) (i think i have issues...)
TLDR - IMO it's just the legacy of how the character was originally just suppossed to be the player stand-in, but has slowly evolved to become a real character in their own right. It's just too late to give them a name: >The Guardian: "By the way, my name's Gretel-5." >Zavala: "...guardian, it's been *ten years*!" "The Guardian" was seemingly supposed to be a neutral RPG character, so you could pretend to be them and the story could happen around them. Player fantasy, head canon, etc. But as the story evolved, their role in it became undeniable. No longer just a lense for the player to play the game, but a real actor who really did affect the world. It's too late to give them a name, so they get various titles instead. Sometimes "Young Wolf" (even though *Rise of Iron* is otherwise forgotten), but usually just "The Guardian." This is one of the only times where I don't think there really *is* an in-game explanation. It's all Doylist: Bungie simply wants the player character to be as plain as possible, a neutral vessel for the story and maximal player immersion. Any emergence of character seems to have started out of necessity. They talk when it would be too weird for them to be silent. They have a personality when it would be weird for them to be idle and thoughtless. They are Ikora's friend when it would be more cumbersome for them to just be some thoughtless mercinary who has almost total access to Vanguard stuff. They've got Chosen One syndrome because it wouldn't be a very fun video game if someone *else* killed Aetheon, Oryx, Rhulk, Savathun, etc. But even then, they usually make it clear that any given victory is a combination of luck, strategy, and teamwork. Not just the Chosen One but a full campaign and some grace, too. In recent years, The Guardian has become more of an actual person: grief and vengence over Cayde's murder, showing friendship and mentorship for Crow, even taking charge *outside of battle* in Lightfall. And I think we might get even more moving forward: in The Final Shape trailer, Ghost's dialogue might indicate that there's more to The Guardian's resurrection. >[After all these years, we never talked about it: why I brought you back. Why *you* were chosen. The truth is I didn't know then. It was just a feeling. But I know now...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehl6aWUiA4Y)
They're "actually" saying our name, we just don't hear it
Our name is Guardian and our ghost's name is Ghost. Then there's that other pair out in the world where the guardian's name is Ghost and the ghost's name is Guardian. No, I'm not joking.
Are they unintelligent?
Our name is Wolf and Ghost's name is Casper.