Revenge: A Dish Best Unserved

Some friends and I were talking about the concept of vengeance, the idea of “an eye for an eye,” and how prevalent it is in our world. As you know, vengeance breeds more vengeance. It’s a constant back and forth of getting back at the person who wronged you. Just look at high school and college rivalries and how they tend to get out of control, ranging from vandalism to theft to worse.

During our conversation, I brought up Destiny 2 and it’s Forsaken expansion. The plot of that campaign revolved around our character chasing down the man who murdered one of our favorite people. As a side note, I mentioned how Zavala, the commander of the Vanguard, refused to take action, even though his friend had been killed in cold blood. Many people, in-game characters and Destiny players alike, found his stance unforgivable.

However, as we continued our discussion, I realized something:

Zavala understood the dangers of vengeance and made the right choice.

First, let’s get a bit of context, especially for those who are unfamiliar with Destiny’s lore or just getting into the game and only know tidbits due to old content getting vaulted.

In the world of Destiny, the Vanguard consists of quasi-immortal beings (our playable characters) called Guardians who protect the last bastion of humanity. Three people, Zavala, Ikora, and Cayde-6, lead the Vanguard. Zavala, who represents the Titans, is the mission-minded, level-headed Vanguard Commander. Ikora, the Warlock representative, is wise, intelligent, and passionate. Cayde, the representative for the Hunters, is jovial, unconventional, and fires off quips as fast as he shoots his gun.

For those of us who’ve played the game prior to Forsaken, Cayde held a special place in our hearts. Voiced by the talented Nathan Fillion, his jokes and wisecracks were a breath of fresh air amongst the Vanguard’s stoicism and the interstellar doom we fought on a daily basis. He brought light to our lives.

Then, that light was snuffed out by a man named Uldren Sov. Everyone was heartbroken. Ikora, seething with anger, declared that the Vanguard would hunt him down and mount his head for what he had done. Her rallying speech made us all determined to make war with Uldren’s people.

And then, Zavala said no.

“We are not an army. We are not conquerors. We are Guardians.”

He chose to keep the Vanguard home, to focus on keeping it safe. Ikora’s disbelief echoed the player community’s outrage. She even called him a coward to his face. However, Zavala refused to start a war that would create more dead bodies. In response, our Guardian left to avenge Cayde and kill Uldren alone.

Revenge dyed the Forsaken campaign in blood as we hunted Uldren and his minions down. Even those of us who were not privy to vengeance painted our actions over as “meting out justice.” That’s what we kept telling ourselves as we foiled Uldren’s plans and executed him. Ending his life brought us neither catharsis nor our friend Cayde back.

Some time later, we were reunited with Mara Sov, the queen of a race called the Awoken and Uldren’s sister. She was aware of what had transpired and was not at all surprised at her brother’s death. However, she did have this to say:

“Were you satisfied by your vengeance? I wasn’t.”

This was a very tense moment for many reasons. Mara is a very powerful being who cheated death, and, unlike our Guardians, she did so by her own power. Regardless of how she understood the reasons behind Uldren’s demise, she was still unhappy with it. She could have ended us right where we stood.

Instead, she let us go. Perhaps she could have forgiven us. It is equally possible that she was still debating how she would exact her revenge on us. Even if she did, though, those plans would have been moot due to one of Destiny’s biggest plot twists: Uldren was revived as a Guardian. Although he had no memory of his previous life, he was alive again.

According to N.T. Wright, “Vengeance keeps evil in circulation. Whether in a family or a town, or in an entire community like the Middle East, the culture of revenge, unless broken, is never-ending. Both sides will be able to ‘justify’ further atrocities by reference to those they themselves have suffered.”

The only way to end the cycle of vengeance is to grant forgiveness. Many of us will agree that we enjoy watching someone get what they deserve. It is easier to get back at someone than to forgive them. However, this will only worsen the problem, hence the need for forgiveness.

Mara may have stayed her hand, but the Guardians continued to exact vengeance even after Uldren died the first time. As stated before, he had no memories of his past. Imagine his confusion when Guardians attacked and alienated him for reasons he did not understand. This drove him away into the intergalactic wilderness, and we wouldn’t learn until two years later, during the Season of the Hunt, that he ended up in the hands of the Spider, a black market smuggler with deep pockets and dangerous clientele.

In an interesting turn of events, we ended up working with Uldren, now called Crow, to stop a certain group of alien invaders. He proved to be a valuable asset and was very interested in Guardians, even though they had treated him badly. Once the threat had been repelled, Spider offered to give us whatever we wanted in the room as a reward. To his chagrin, we picked Crow. Obviously, Crow was bewildered by our choice. When asked, we simply replied, “Because…you’re a Guardian.”

Now, while many believed this was the first step to breaking the cycle of vengeance, there was someone else who broke it long before we did: Commander Zavala.

Zavala chose not to pursue revenge at the very beginning. He chose to defend the living instead of avenging the dead because he knew that was not his place, not the Vanguard’s place. Guardians guard, not attack, and he stuck to that principle. Yes, Cayde’s death tore a hole in his heart. Whether he forgave Uldren or not was uncertain. However, although it was not explicably said, he knew that revenge was not the way. He shouldered that burden, and our criticisms, like a true Titan.

The story of Zavala breaking the cycle of vengeance continued into the Season of the Chosen, when a militaristic race called the Cabal began another war campaign. Their empress, Caiatl, reached out to Zavala to negotiate working together to defeat a common enemy. However, instead of treating each other as equals, she demanded humanity serve her as underlings. Zavala declined, sparking a new conflict between the Vanguard and the Cabal.

Despite the failed negotiations, Zavala understood that they needed to stand as equals in order to face their foes and still strove for as peaceful a resolution as possible. This choice is even more poignant when you consider the fact that, years prior, the Cabal had robbed us of our powers and temporarily kicked us out of our home. Again, in-game characters and real world players chastised him for his decisions. Even Lance Reddick, Zavala’s voice actor, was praised for reading fan-written dialogue for how we wished Zavala responded to Caiatl’s demands. People claimed that Lance understood Guardians better than Zavala did. While many demanded blood, Zavala sought an armistice.

Behind the scenes, Crow, forced to wear a mask, had been assigned to guard Zavala from potential assassination attempts. As predicted, Cabal forces acting against Caiatl’s orders tried to kill Zavala, but Crow intervened, calling out to him before he could be shot. However, he had taken his mask off, and Zavala saw him. He saw Uldren. He wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination or a haunting.

It does beg the question: why would he think that the spirit of Uldren Sov haunted him? Perhaps he had not fully moved on after Cayde’s death. People’s psyche and thought processes are often affected by those around them. As a child, I was fine with picking up spiders and other creepy crawlies. However, after years of hearing my mother freak out whenever a spider appeared, that discomfort slowly grew in me, too. Same could be said for racism. In the movie 42, where the late Chadwick Bosemen played Jackie Robinson, there was a scene near the end where a boy heard his father yelling racial slurs, followed by the rest of the adults around him screaming the same. You can see the bewilderment in his face, but he slowly copies his father, as if to impress him or to blend in. In Zavala’s case, the murmurs, whispers, and curses for making what many call “the wrong choice” have no doubt given him second thoughts. Did he truly make the right decision?

As the conflict with the Cabal drew to a close, Crow saved Zavala again, taking a knife to defend him. Zavala asked him if he was alright. Crow turned to him, mask broken and face exposed, and said, “I’m alive.” The shock in Zavala’s face is easy to read. A moment later, he set his jaw in a firm gaze. None of us knew exactly how he would react. For all we knew, this could have been his chance to do what everyone told him to do all along: exact vengeance for what happened years ago.

Zavala saw Crow’s face. He saw ULDREN, the murderer of his friend…and extended his hand to help him to his feet.

The Bible has an interesting phrase when it comes to returning evil with good. Doing so “heaps burning coals on a person’s head.” As painful as that sounds, it refers to a practice in ancient Israel. If someone’s home fire had gone out, they went to a neighbor’s house, carrying a bowl on their head, and requested a burning coal or two so that they could restart their fire and survive the night. It was an act of blessing and providing.

That’s exactly what Zavala did for Crow. He could have continued the cycle of vengeance, but his act of forgiveness left a lasting impact on Crow, even if he did not fully understand it.

“Zavala looks at me, and I feel like he really sees me. Who I am, not who I was…I know it’s taboo to talk about the people we were before, but…The weight that’s been hanging around my neck since I woke up in this body…It finally feels a little lighter.”

Again and again, Zavala has proven that revenge and retaliation are not the way. Despite what others said, he stuck to his guns. Ikora called Zavala’s choice “cowardice,” but in truth, he made the bravest decision possible. He chose to be the bigger man.

Looking back at how he handled the cycle of vengeance, nipping it in the bud so early, he was able to focus on what truly mattered: the people that Cayde died to protect. And now those around him, Ikora, Guardians, Crow, are all the stronger for it.

As a Titan main, I am proud to call him Commander.