Prince Uldren Sov, the Master of Crows/The Crow, Freelance Lightbearer
- Voiced by: Brandon O'Neil
"The Queen herself judges who may or may not enter the realm. Me? I see no reason she should be available for whatever washes up at the reef."
—Uldren Sov
"They call me...the Crow. My boss wants to see you."
—The Crow
The Queen's confidant, chief enforcer, and brother. Unlike his sister, he is upfront about his distrust of the City. He is driven insane after the apparent death of his sister during the events of The Taken King, and becomes the main villain of Forsaken.
Following his demise at the end of Forsaken, Uldren Sov's body was found by a Ghost named Glint (nicknamed Pulled Pork by several Guardians met along his journeys) and was revived as a Lightbearer known as the Crow. Unfortunately, Uldren's history as the Arc Villain of Forsaken has not been forgotten, and he's been ostracized from the Tower. He now works as the Spider's chief officer, and is the focus character of Season of the Hunt.
As Uldren Sov
Uldren Sov
- Ace Pilot: He's a rather good pilot, as shown by the opening to The Taken King.
- Advertised Extra: He features prominently in the trailers for the base game (in clips from a scene that
does not actually exist). In the actual game he has two scenes where he acts as a glorified lackey for his sister and doesn't even get a name prior to the release of the House of Wolves expansion. He is much more important in the Grimoire entries surrounding the Reef and it's politics, and he eventually takes over the House of Kings and then becomes the main villain in the Forsaken expansion. - Arc Villain: For Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion, where he leads a mass jailbreak from the Prison of Elders and kills Cayde-6.
- Arch-Enemy: His murder of Cayde-6 has cemented himself as the Young Wolf's most hated nemesis, even willing to abandon the duties of a guardian and cross the solar system just to put a bullet in Uldren's head.
- Asshole Victim: This line is blurred due to his revival as a Guardian, but he was heavily mistreated by just about everyone he came into contact with because his face was that of the infamous prince. This ranges from being killed repeatedly after being revived to the Spider attaching explosives to his ghost Glint to coerce him into his service. This has the result of garnering sympathy because he is clearly suffering for the acts of his past self. He's also victimized more than once; as Uldren, he's an unrepentant murderer who the Young Wolf executes, but the reason behind his crimes is that he was a victim of deception from both Riven and his sister the Queen. Unlike most examples of this trope, it applies both before and after his resurrection.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Ghost Fragment: Reef 4
shows him having one in an extremely simple and subdued manner: he let himself be captured by the House of Kings, and after they beat him up for a while, they brought him before their Kell... and after all the defeats and losses the Fallen on Earth suffered, the Kell of Kings willingly abdicated the throne and let Uldren take over. - Badass Normal: Uldren could take down hordes of Vex, infiltrate the Black Garden, and survived the Battle of Saturn - feats that even Guardians have failed to accomplish with their paracausal powers. Notably, when Crow tries to replicate his feat by attacking a handful of Vex using only his Hand Cannon, he was quickly overwhelmed and killed.
- Battle Trophy: He walks off with Cayde's Ace of Spades after using it to shoot Cayde.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Uldren was envious of Guardians, desiring their power in spite of their freedom from politics, even though he had a bitter hatred for them. After dying, he gets resurrected as one, albeit lacking any memories of his past.
- Defiant to the End: Even staring down the barrel of the Ace of Spades in a mirror of Cayde's own death, Uldren still refuses to give in. Rather than begging for mercy, he justifies his actions as being for Mara's sake and berates the player for pursuing their revenge rather than any real justice.
- Disc-One Final Boss: For all of the advertising on Forsaken making him up to be its main antagonist, he's only really present during the expansion's first half, which focuses on the hunt for him and his Scorn underlings. The latter half of the expansion instead focuses on the mastermind manipulating him, and he's quickly offed by the time the story comes at the doorstep of the Dreaming City.
- Everyone Has Standards: As much as a jerk as he is toward the player, he's clearly shocked and appalled by the murder of the Queen's Guard committed by House of Wolves.
- Sadly his corruption by Riven and desire to see his deceased sister has drove him to commit atrocities similar, becoming just as bad as the House of Wolves, if not worse.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: A big Jerkass to be sure, he truly does love his sister. His reasons for committing all his atrocities in Forsaken is motivated by bringing her back to life.
- Evil Is Petty: As evidenced here.◊ According to the Lore in Forsaken, he hates Guardians and does everything in his power to torment them. His actions range from shooting them and sending them on doomed quests, to dunking their ghosts in "intolerably stinky selenophenol" and tricking them into dismantling powerful weapons.
- Face Death with Dignity: Upon being at Petra and The Young Wolf's mercy, he doesn't beg for his life and simply closes his eyes before they execute him.
- Fatal Flaw: His personal mindset straying too far from Mara's and by extension the Reefborn Awoken are what set up most of his downfall, having been manipulated by Riven through the Anthem Anatheme, a reality-altering power source fueled by wishes and unrealistic desires that the Awoken's lack of true desire makes them immune to.
- Greed: Relative to the rest of the Awoken. Tellic II states that Uldren had desires which deviated from the Awoken's (or lack thereof). This is what allows Riven to manipulate him, having tapped into the Anthem Anatheme irradiating from Uldren through these desires.
- Season of the Lost reveals that his devotion to his sister isn't entirely willing on his part, due to Mara having shaped his consciousness to follow her will when they were reborn in the Distributary.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The Forsaken lore paints him as being desperately envious of Guardians, who are given great power without being bound up in politics.
- Hate Sink: Uldren's first act in Forsaken is to murder Cayde-6 in cold blood (and not some cheap death, either; he's Killed Off for Real according to Word of God), triggering the Young Wolf's quest for vengeance and setting a darker tone to the story; one that's taking elements from a Western revenge tale. Year Two of Destiny 2 essentially starts with your character (and by extension, the fandom) out for Uldren's blood, going to the Reef to hunt him down as well as the Fallen Barons he leads, then bringing him to justice for his crimes. Naturally, he goes down much like Cayde did, but in a significantly more pathetic manner, having been duped hardcore by the Voice of Riven. Then he gets resurrected as a Guardian, which would force the Vanguard to clear him of all of his crimes despite the time between those acts, his death, and his resurrection being mere moments on a cosmic scale.
- The Heavy: His acts drives the plot for Forsaken, ranging from creating the Scorn, staging a jail break at the Prison of Elders, and murdering Cayde-6 leading to the Guardian's quest for vengeance. However, Uldren is being manipulated by Riven into committing these deeds and reveals herself as the true mastermind behind the events of Forsaken.
- Heel–Face Turn: While his revival into the Guardian Crow functionally makes him into a different person, the effect is basically the same. It takes some time before he gains the respect of the player character and the Vanguard, but becomes a valuable ally.
- Hero Killer: He murders Cayde-6, one of the leaders of the Vanguard and a very powerful guardian.
- In the Hood: He's taken up this look by the time of Forsaken.
- As the Crow, he still has it, and given the way it hangs over the side of his face it's also a variant of Eye-Obscuring Hat.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Riven is the mastermind behind the events of Forsaken, but she doesn't have a relationship with The Young Wolf and is only being target by them due to the potential threat she poses to the Solar System, while it is her Unwitting Pawn, Uldren, who becomes their worst enemy due to him having personally murdered their mentor and friend, Cayde-6.
- Jerkass: He's extremely rude and condescending to anyone that is not his sister.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As rude and standoffish as he is, he just wants to ensure the safety of the Reef and his sister... but all he cares about is the Reef and his sister.
- The gold seems to have faded considerably by the time of Forsaken, as he breaks into the Prison of Elders, releasing some of the worst criminals the system has ever seen, and effectively declares war against both the Reef and the City.
- The lorebook 'The Forsaken Prince' sheds a little more light on Uldren's hatred of Guardians, showing him crying for a Fallen Archon that was mortally wounded by them and callously left to die. His desperate desire to save the dying Archon leads him to unwittingly create the first Scorn. The Archon turns out to be Fikrul.
- Upon becoming the Crow, he displays a certain level of fondness and admiration for Guardians and fellow Lightbearers, and is far less abrasive in favor of being more withdrawn and reserved.
- Season of the Lost posthumously expands on the "gold" part. Uldren was celebrated as a hero and protector of his people, who spent his time composing stories for children when not (or during) missions for Mara. Even Petra (his killer) and Joylon (his closest friend) both express sorrow at how far he had fallen, especially in light of Riven's (and Savathun's) manipulations.
- Kick the Dog: His Nightmare seems to be rather fond of doing this to the Crow, at one point even asking him if he remembers what it felt like to pull the trigger and kill Cayde-6.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: He was resurrected by a Ghost during the events of Black Armory. Like many Guardians born this way, he lost all memories of his past. The Spider wants to make sure he doesn't learn about his past, making sure he never strays too far away from the Tangled Shore.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After killing Cayde-6 and wreaking havoc upon the Reef in his quest to free who he thinks is his sister, it's all the more fitting that Petra and the Young Wolf raze his mini-kingdom of Scorn to the ground in turn before cornering him and shooting him dead as he lies helpless and broken upon the ground, just like how Cayde went out at his hand.
- Love Makes You Evil: His decent to villainy is driven by his desire to see his sister again.
- No Name Given: Up until House of Wolves, no name for him was given.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Uldren is a pompous jerk, but he's also the first to respond when the Guardian draws a weapon against the Queen's Fallen guards, and he takes to the front line in a fighter craft during the battle against Oryx's fleet.
- Secret-Keeper: The Collector's Edition of The Final Shape reveals Uldren had access to Vex memory fragments of the race that became the Witness, including the exact moment the Penitent killed the other two factions to gain the political sway required to enact the ritual. It's unknown if he actually knew what any of it meant, however.
- Sole Survivor: He is the only known survivor of the Awoken fleet that attacked Oryx's dreadnaught, having crash-landed on Mars, and attempting to return to the Reef to search for his sister.
- Sore Loser: He is not happy when the player Guardian actually manages to bring them a Gate Lord's head. When the Queen says that they'll honor the agreement to help them get in the Black Garden, he says that they should just kill them here and save the Vex the trouble.
- The Spymaster: Commands the Crows, which serve as the Awoken's intelligence gathering agents.
- Swallowed Whole: The Voice of Riven devours him during the climax of Forsaken, though he's still in one piece after you slay the abomination.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While Uldren was already a big Jerkass when you fist meet him, his corruption from Riven has turned him into a cold-blooded killer.
- Unwitting Pawn: Uldren spends most of Forsaken driven by his desire to find his sister, guided by a hallucination of Mara Sov. Said hallucination turns out to be an illusion made by the Ahamkara Riven in order to lure Uldren towards the Dreaming City and free Riven from her shackles. When Uldren brings a Shard of the Traveler and melds it with the Watchtower's ambient Taken corruption, the Mara Sov hallucination congratulates him, before revealing herself as the monstrous Voice of Riven and devouring Uldren after he accomplished his purpose.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Acts like a major Jerkass to the player, but his behavior is driven by his desire to protect his sister and his people.
- What You Are in the Dark: At the end of Forsaken as he lays defeated and staring down the barrels of both the Young Wolf's newly reclaimed Ace of Spades and Petra's Vestian Dynasty he makes mention that the line between light and dark is thin. He follows by asking the Young Wolf if they know which side they're on. After a brief instant of hesitation they answer with a silent nod causing Uldren to close his eyes an accept his fate, but a cut to black before the kill shot makes it ambiguous who pulled the trigger.
As The Crow
The Crow
The Crow, in Season of the Hunt
- All the Other Reindeer: In the lore tab for Amnestia-S2, prior to being found by the Spider, what few Guardians Crow encountered out in the wild reacted to him with hostility and grief. While he's not aware of all the details, he at least knows that who he was prior to his resurrection did something to earn their ire.The Crow: I'm not stupid. I know... the person I used to be, he did something terrible. I can feel it when people look into my eyes and see him. The way you looked at me when we met.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: As an Awoken, Uldren was a Green-Eyed Monster whose jealousy towards the Guardians made him bitter and angry towards the Young Wolf. As a Lightbearer, Crow is a soft-spoken and gentle figure who looks up to the player as an inspiration and longs to join the Guardians of the Last City.
- Amnesiac Resonance: The Reef keeps a tight watch on his behavior as his personality eerily mirrors Uldren's emotional vulnerabilities, namely him misunderstanding his adversaries and being prone to manipulation in a group that typically isn't. As this comes up in the middle of an active crisis against the Witch Queen and the Darkness no longer messing around with the powers of the races under its thumb, it's understandable that they'd fear something going very wrong because of his impulses. Again.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In Season of the Chosen, when he gets fed-up with Saladin's aggressive stance towards full-on elimination of the Cabal, he asks what he was doing during the Red War, or rather what he wasn't doing. Notably, this doesn't get a response from Saladin, indicating that he was flabbergasted that Crow so bluntly said that to him. Crow, for his part, just comments about how the silence is bad static.
- Asshole Victim: This line is blurred due to his revival as a Guardian, but he was heavily mistreated by just about everyone he came into contact with because his face was that of the infamous prince. This ranges from being killed repeatedly after being revived to the Spider attaching explosives to his ghost Glint to coerce him into his service. This has the result of garnering sympathy because he is clearly suffering for the acts of his past self.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Sort of. While he is an adult, being reincarnated as Crow has made him into a more soft-spoken and kindly man, and he's a relative child in terms of Guardian age compared to much older veterans like Saladin and Zavala. This applies both in-universe and out, with players growing rather protective of Crow. This actually frustrates him when he realizes everyone doesn't want to tell him about his past, but characters like Petra hate him because of it.
- Back from the Dead: Sometime after Forsaken and during the events of the Black Armory, Uldren was revived by a Ghost in the Dreaming City.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In Season of the Lost, Crow starts getting fed up with how everyone is keeping him in the dark because of his past even though he knows his past self did something terrible. He then takes up Savathun's offer to find out exactly what he did to earn the Guardians' animosity. He immediately regrets that decision and is now downright terrified by the prospect of returning to being Uldren Sov.
- Big Damn Heroes: He kills a Hive Knight that has Osiris dead to rights by impaling it with his sword. Had he not, Osiris would have died as Sagira was no longer alive to revive him. This is eventually revealed to be a case of Engineered Heroics by Savathun, who was possessing or at the very least using Osiris' form to string Crow along as part of her plans.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Following the conclusion of Forsaken and Black Armory, Uldren's role more or less vanished and was only briefly mentioned in the lore for the Amnestia-S2 exotic ship. He makes a return in Season of the Hunt as the Guardian "Crow," working with Osiris and the Guardian under the Spider's orders.
- After being rendered Out of Focus during Season of the Splicer, Crow has so far returned as a major character in the following seasons.
- Character Development:
- Much of Crow's story arc revolves around his past and how it defines him, as well as how he deals with it. In Season of the Hunt, he tries to bury his past and make a new future for himself as a proper Guardian with the Young Wolf's help, as well as a growing acceptance with the Vanguard and some prominent names among the Guardians. That said, seasons such as Lost and Haunt make it a point to remind him that he can't let go of his past so easily and that not everyone is so accepting.
- Crow always expressed some fear and dread toward his past self. At the time of his resurrection, he didn't know anything about himself other than his new role as a Guardian, and that whatever his past self did was so bad the Guardians despise him with a passion. He's naturally not keen on finding more about his past and focuses on the present and the future. Starting from Season of the Haunt, however, Crow slowly starts to own up to his past and no longer tries to distance himself from Uldren Sov. This is even shown in Season of the Wish where Crow, in a conversation with Petra in the Warlord's Ruin dungeon, tells he's sorry for the trouble he unknowingly caused her in Season of the Lost before adding that "he" is sorry for what he did during the events of the Forsaken expansion.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: A good amount of his mistakes can be traced back to this. All he wants to do is to prove he can be a good Guardian and be better than Uldren. His track record is...mixed, to say the least.
- Consummate Liar: Downplayed. When Crow first arrived at the Tower, he made up small little lies about himself; not make a grandiose and elaborate backstory for himself, but enough to help fill in the blanks and for people not to ask too many questions. This ends up becoming something of a sore spot for him, stating in Season of the Haunted that Uldren used to tell people lies and tales about himself, which he takes as another reminder and point that he is still Uldren Sov at the end of the day.
- Criminal Amnesiac: After being revived, as what happens to all Guardians he loses all memory of his past life. This functionally creates a new person, more soft-spoken and humble, though ever aware of the dirty looks and hostility he gets from almost everyone he comes into contact with.
- Dark Is Not Evil: In Season of the Hunt, he wears a dark, tattered cloak bearing the Spider's sigil, and unlike his pre-resurrected self as Uldren Sov, Crow wants nothing more than to help others and join the ranks of the Guardians in the Last City. He gets his wish starting in Season of the Chosen.
- Deadpan Snarker: He's starting to slide into this with Season of the Chosen, particularly when he leaves Saladin horrifically burnt whenever he's fed up with his Holier Than Thou antics.
- Death Seeker: Sometime after discovering his past identity as Uldren, Crow is recklessly throwing himself at Lucent Hive, being maimed and even allowing them to torture him for a bit of information. After suicide bombing a group of thralls Eris Morn talks some sense into him.
- Dogged Nice Guy: He's on par with Devrim as one of the nicest characters in the game, but he also had to deal with some very heavy baggage on account of being a post-resurrected Uldren Sov. Nevertheless, he's happy to be this while Amanda tries to sort out her issues with him.
- The Dragon: Sometime after his resurrection as a Guardian and being discovered by the Spider, he was named as his chief enforcer in the Reef. He's not too happy about it since A) he wants to join the Last City to do more good and B) the Spider attached a bomb to Glint to ensure Crow's loyalty.
- The Lancer: He effectively becomes this for the Young Wolf after being freed from Spider, now fully aligned with the Traveler and its agents.
- Dramatic Irony: A lot of Crow's characterization is chock full of this. He occasionally mentions how he wished he could have met the Young Wolf earlier, as if he had, he would have survived whatever killed him. He also looks up to the Young Wolf and sees them as a source of inspiration, not realizing that the same Guardian he idolizes is also the same one who murdered him in his life as Uldren Sov.
- The Dreaded: Crow notes how the Scorn appear to fear him, which he uses to great effect to help the Young Wolf during Season of the Hunt. Whether it's due to him being Uldren Sov, former leader of the Scorn or having racked up a reputation in slaughtering them since becoming the Spider's enforcer is unknown.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Played straight with Zavala and Ikora, two characters who alongside the Young Wolf have every reason to despise Crow for his actions as Uldren Sov. Ikora is the first to officially welcome him into their ranks, believing Crow is not Uldren and that vengeance won't bring Cayde back. Zavala doesn't know who Crow is, aside from him being his bodyguard during the events of Season of the Chosen, but when he does know, he holds no malice and also welcomes him. It also probably helps that Crow saved his life twice.
- Subverted with Amanda Holiday. After Witch Queen, where she learns Crow is a resurrected Uldren Sov, she starts to distance herself from him. Season of the Haunt has her go even further and vehemently deny who Crow is, still thinking he's Uldren Sov.
- Zigzagged with Petra. While Crow is fundamentally a different person from Uldren, something Petra acknowledges, she's quite frosty with him due to some lingering resentment for Uldren's actions in the Forsaken expansion, though this also has to deal with the fact that Petra and Mara note how Crow is too much like Uldren when it comes to wanting acknowledgment, and his relationship with "Osiris" isn't helping. In Season of the Wish, however, Petra makes it clear she's long since forgiven both Crow and Uldren, knowing full well Uldren was little more than an unwitting pawn of Riven's.
- Enemy Without: In Season of the Haunted, he gets one in the form of the Nightmare of Uldren Sov that Eris binds to him, and though Nightmare Uldren can't do much more than talk, he puts that to excellent use rattling Crow and making him spiral.
- Fallen Prince: Though his status as prince of the Awoken is questionable after the events of Forsaken, when Uldren was resurrected, all he had on him was his old attire and the white shroud Petra used to cover his body, along with a ring. He still keeps the shroud, believing that, despite his old self being an enemy of the Guardians, he had someone who cared enough about him to lay his body to rest. But beyond that he has no interest at all in who he used to be, since he can tell just from how Guardians react to him that his past self was not good.
- Foil:
- He's become this with Lord Saladin. Saladin is The Last of His Kind, a bitter, aging Iron Lord who sees the enemies of humanity as monsters that need to be destroyed utterly. Crow, by contrast, is a fairly new Guardian who actually got to know the alien races that fight humanity, and empathizes with them instead of just seeing them as targets.
- Crow has a minor contrast to fellow Hunter Ana Bray. Prior to learning the darker secrets of her family, Ana was desperate to learn about her origins and ties to the Brays, going so far as to fake her own death so the Vanguard wouldn't stop her. Crow, on the other hand, wants absolutely nothing to do with his past, more so than other Guardians, due to his fellow Lightbearers' anger towards him. Unlike with Ana and other Guardians, the Vanguard has every reason to keep Crow's past a secret. Furthermore, whereas Ana comes to own up to the dark legacy of the Bray Family and use it for good with her sister, Crow becomes terrified at the prospect of him ending up like Uldren.
- Good Is Not Soft: Implied during Season of the Splicer. When people in the Last City attack the Eliksni Quarter and sabotage their ether supply, Crow turns up to tell them to leave, his gun drawn at the hip. When one of the saboteurs advances on him, Crow draws back the hammer, and they back down. Afterward, Glint asks Crow if he would really shoot them, and Crow notably hesitates, but doesn't really answer him.
- Glory Hound: Played with. Crow is very eager to make a name for himself, and believes that him saving Osiris will help him earn a fair amount of reputation with the Guardians of the Last City. It isn't for self-serving reasons, though: He wants to prove to the Guardians that he is a good person that wants to help others since following him waking up as a fellow Lightbearer, he's had nothing but a cold reception from them. After Season of the Hunt, he gets some mixed results from his actions:
- In Chosen, he nearly exposes himself saving Zavala, but also saves his life and earns Zavala's respect, which also earns his acceptance when he's finally exposed.
- In Lost, his memories are restored trying to understand Savathun and gets plunged into a severe mental health crisis. In Witch Queen, he willingly lets himself be tortured by the Lucent Brood to try and learn some information and suicide bombs thralls before Eris lambasts him and tells him to get his head on straight.
- In Risen, he tampers with a machine he doesn't fully understand to free Lightbearing Hive, ultimately commits an Accidental Murder killing Caiatl's Psion and jeopardizing the Vanguard's fragile alliance. He's consumed by guilt as a result of Saladin willingly pledging his allegiance to Caiatl to spare Crow from certain death at her hands.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: One of the driving conflicts between Crow and his Nightmare. From what Crow knows about his past, Uldren created the Scorn, betrayed his people, and played a role in Riven getting a foothold in the Dreaming City. All because he wanted recognition from Mara, something that infuriates Crow based his own interactions with Mara post-resurrection since, as he puts it, he threw away everything he had for her.
- Good Costume Switch: Working for the Spider has him wearing a dark getup akin to how he appeared in Forsaken, albeit In the Hood with the Spider's symbol on his poncho. In Season of the Chosen he ditches this for a much brighter set with a mask to hide his face, which gets destroyed when he saves Zavala from being killed during an assassination attempt.
- Hard Truth Aesop: One that forms most of the friction in his character arc: There is no point in heroics or growth if the path you willingly take to do so needlessly endangers or kills others. Saladin spends a significant amount of time trying to drill this into this head after seeing how gung-ho Crow is.
- Heel–Face Turn: As Uldren, he was antagonistic towards the Guardians, especially the Young Wolf when they came asking about the Black Garden and became a personal enemy when he murdered Cayde-6 in cold blood. His resurrection as the amnesiac Crow has made him an ally to his fellow Lightbearers.
- Heroic BSoD:
- He has not taken the revelation of him being Uldren Sov, Cayde-6's murderer and the leader of the Scorn, very well and demands that Ikora take him off the mission. This gets expanded in the seventh entry of the Ripples lore book "Isolation" where he travels to Venus and picks a fight with the VexExplanation.
- Goes through another one in Season of the Risen. His accidental murder of the Psiorium in a misguided attempt to free the Lucent Hive leaves him a miserable wreck and is wholly willing to let Caitl murder him. He feels even worse when Saladin manages to save his life, but in the process, he's forced into a life debt and joins the Cabal war council until his death.
- Hidden Depths:
- In his spare time, he collects things that are otherwise considered "broken" and keeps them in the hopes he can one day repair them.
- He's evidently learned a bit of Eliksni language, as he notes that they use "velask" as a way to say "hello".
- In Season of the Chosen, he is one of the few Guardians who sympathizes with the Cabal's current state, understanding their plight for having lost their home.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Subverted. Despite having learned that the Osiris he knew was Savathûn in disguise since all the way back in Season of the Hunt, Crow believes there must be some good in her given her prior interactions with them. This in spite of the fact that the Witch Queen is very well known for her lies and deceptions, with Petra believing Savathûn is using his bond with the Warlock to string him along. However, the lore of Hawkmoon confirms that Savathûn's fondness toward him was genuine, and in Witch Queen, it's revealed that Savathûn was legitimately well-intentioned, at least in regards to the Traveler, and even helped save humanity from extinction during the Collapse.
- I Hate Past Me: Although he doesn't know the full details behind the events that led to him becoming so despised by the Guardians before becoming a Guardian himself, Crow makes it clear to the Young Wolf that he really doesn't want to learn anything about his past. This feeling becomes reinforced in Season of the Lost, where he finally learns the truth of his past."You're afraid of who I used to be. That he'll come back somehow... I am too."
- In Season of the Haunted, Crow's disgust for his past self intensifies once the Nightmare of Uldren is bound to him, gleefully rubbing in Crow's face how it felt when he shot Cayde-6. After some time to get his bearings, though, Crow realizes that his Nightmare isn't Uldren, but his (rather warped) perception of Uldren, which, thanks to the Young Wolf and Eris, he's able to realize and come to grips with.
- Interrupted Suicide: At the end of Season of the Risen Week 4, Crow is nearly permanently killed by Caiatl before Saladin offers to be indentured into the War Council instead. The radio transmission that week has Crow protesting the decision — not only because of Saladin's departure but because he genuinely wanted to die in that moment.
- I Just Want to Be Free: He makes it no secret that he wants to join the ranks of the Guardians in the Last City, their feelings of hostility towards him be damned, but he's stuck working as the Spider's enforcer thanks to the bomb the crime boss stuck inside Glint's shell. Come the end of Season of the Hunt, Crow is picked by the Young Wolf as their reward for killing the High Celebrant, thus relieved of being in the Spider's employ. He also (somewhat) gets his wish to join their rank when Empress Caiatl comes knocking at the Last City's front doorstep in Season of the Chosen.
- Innocently Insensitive: Crow remarks how it's nice to work with another Lightbearer, since up until now he's been working with the Fallen under the Spider's banner. He also says this to the Young Wolf, the Guardian who took Cayde's death the hardest and the one responsible for making Crow who he is today.
- In the Hood: He still wears his cloak in this manner, which now partially obscures the left side of his face. After more people learn or realize who he is, he forgoes putting the hood up most of the time.
- Light Is Good: After being freed from the Spider's employ, Crow gains a new outfit that's primarily white.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Many characters make it a point to keep Crow ignorant of his past, mainly because of the drama involving Uldren Sov and the Guardians. Having said that, Crow is somewhat aware that his pre-resurrected self did something horrible to earn their animosity since any Guardian he came across before entering Spider's employ reacted with hostility and grief. He initially wants nothing to do with his past, but during Season of the Lost he starts getting fed up with how everyone starts to baby or act cagey around him whenever he tries to contact Savathûn despite the danger she poses. When Savathûn restores his memories, Crow sorely wishes he remained ignorant.Spider (in Season of the Hunt): Just don't mention the name Uldren Sov. For his sake.
The Crow (in Season of the Lost): Our past lives aren't supposed to matter. I'm beginning to wonder why I'm the only Guardian being judged by mine. - Malevolent Masked Man: Zigzagged. As the Guardian Crow, Uldren is far from malevolent. That being said, Osiris has him wear a mask during Season of the Chosen so as to not raise questions about his identity.
- Meaningful Rename: After being resurrected and finding himself under the employ of the Spider, Uldren was given the name "Crow" by his new boss. Aside from the name pertaining to the Reef's spy network that Uldren previously commanded, crows are often seen as bad omens and symbols of change or transformation, both physical and spiritual.
- That Man Is Dead: Declares this after he and the Young Wolf drive off Savathûn's Taken in the Harbinger Mission. He's started to have second thoughts after Season of the Lost when it becomes apparent that he share some disturbing similarities to Uldren, which the Nightmare based off his former self is all too happy to rub in."I'm not just a Lightbearer. I'm not the man I was before. He's gone, forever. I'm an instrument of the Traveler's will... I'm a Guardian."
- Meaningful Echo: In Forsaken, Banshee-44 asked the Young Wolf to "put Uldren in the ground" after he killed Cayde-6. Crow unknowingly echoes these words, stating he will find Amanda's killers and put them in the ground.
- Nerves of Steel: When he gets into an argument with Petra, and the latter puts a knife to his throat, he doesn't panic and instead chuckles, warning her to be careful about who she picks fights with, especially against a Hunter.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- In Season of the Risen he is disturbed by the Vanguard's use of the Psisorium, where Lucent Hive are kept in a not-quite-alive state in order to probe their minds for intelligence. When the Hive's plan is finally revealed and the player is sent to stop them, Crow becomes rightly assured of victory. Thus he makes sure the Psisorium could no longer be used, except that he has no idea how to shut it down properly. His rash actions cause the Psion operating it to die from psychic backlash, nearly shattering the new Cabal/Vanguard alliance.
- The lore for the Season of the Wish jumpship Unforeseen Consequences has Crow speak with Mara and state that the one thing he wishes he could take back is Cayde's death. The final lines of the lore entry reveal that he was actually talking to Riven again, with the implication that this wish is the reason that Cayde returns in The Final Shape, and that it will have a cost nobdy has figured out yet.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He briefly took off his mask during a moment of peace when he saw a Psion about to kill Zavala and warned the Titan Vanguard Commander in time. While Zavala passed it off as the stress getting to him, Osiris lambasts Crow for nearly exposing himself as they cannot afford to deal with the Cabal and the fallout of Crow's true identity coming to light and causing unnecessary drama.
- Odd Friendship: Between Risen and Haunted, he's started to become friends with the gloomy ex-Hunter witch, Eris Morn. It helps that she takes it upon herself to counsel him through his trauma.
- Out of Focus: His presence in the Season of the Splicer is barely seen and is only mentioned in a few lore cards, due to Ikora and Zavala purposely keeping him from helping the Eliksni from the House of Light settle in the Last City, as they don't want his identity becoming public yet and, more importantly, give Lakshmi-2 a very powerful PR weapon against the Vanguard.
- Parental Substitute: In Season of the Lost, he tells Petra he considers Osiris to be like a father figure. Unfortunately, as Petra also points out, the "Osiris" he knows of was Savathûn using the Warlock, meaning the man Crow considers to be family is also one of the greatest threats towards humanity. This doesn't deter him and believes not all of Savathûn's masquerade was malevolent, much to Petra's frustration.
- Put on a Bus: He's rendered Out of Focus in Season of the Splicer due to the complicated situation regarding him and the Eliksni and is absent in Season of Plunder, which focuses on the Spider and Mithrax.
- Rage Breaking Point: After being heckled by his own personal demons wearing his own face and using the name of his past self, who caused so much grief that Crow to this day has to deal with, Crow eventually snaps and fires an entire Golden Gun into his Nightmare of Uldren, which is essentially a cloud of emotions. It doesn't do much other than show just how effective the Nightmares of the Lunar Pyramid can be to those with unaddressed issues, since the only person we've seen exposed to Nightmares for an extended period of time prior was Eris.
- Refused by the Call: In Season of the Splicer, Crow practically leaps at the opportunity to help the House of Light settle in the City, given his experience with them while he was under the Spider's employ. Ikora and Zavala both refuse as, while he would be well-suited for the job, they still can't risk his identity going public yet, as the House of Light being helped by the man who killed Cayde-6 would give Lakshmi-2 and the Future War Cult a very potent PR weapon against the Eliksni.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He is right that Savathûn has some modicum of an benevolent cause underneath all of her actions. It's unlikely he'd think it would have anything to do with someone like the Witness, though.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After learning about his past from Savathûn, Crow is understandably shaken and tells Ikora he wants off the mission. She agrees and reassigns him to help out on a mission involving the Cabal.
- Ship Tease: He and Amanda Holliday start growing particularly chummy in Season of the Chosen, to the point that Amanda invites him out for drinks. She was even apparently building a sparrow for him. Their relationship becomes heavily strained in Witch Queen after she learns he's a post-resurrected Uldren Sov and is unable to reconcile the soft-spoken Crow with the man who murdered one of her dearest friends to the point that, in Season of the Haunted, she refuses to acknowledge him as "Crow".
- Lightfall brings shows signs of mending the rift as Amanda is starting to accept idea that it is unfair to hold Crow accountable for Cayde's death. That being said, she still needs time to process. In the meantime, Crow seems content to patiently play the Dogged Nice Guy. Unfortunately for both, this turns into a case of Ship Sinking, as Amanda sacrifices herself to free captives from a Shadow Legion base in the EDZ after it self-destructs. Crow does not take her death well, nearly succumbing to vengeance before Mara helps him through his grief.
- Spotting the Thread: As naive as he is, he was able to figure out based on prior interactions with other Guardians in the wild that his past self did something terrible enough to earn their hatred. As a result, he's not too keen to learn about his past until Savathûn offers him the opportunity in Season of the Lost.
- Straight Man: He serves as this for Glint. Best exemplified during the Coup De Grace mission, where he helps the Young Wolf with drawing Fallen Wrathborn to them. Glint goes on about flushing them out of hiding, while Crow just simply says he shot them a bunch of times before they decided to flee.
- Terrible Artist: He uses a drawing of a crow as his signature. Or rather, his attempt at a drawing of a crow. Amanda thought it might be a ship if she squinted while reading a manifest he'd written up.
- Token Heroic Orc: He was the only Guardian under the Spider's employ up until the Young Wolf freed him from his duties.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Crow's resurrection as a lightbearer has made him much more approachable and friendly towards the Guardians than he was as Uldren, even noting how nice it is to be working with them in Season of the Hunt. Unfortunately, his newfound kindness and the naivete that came with it has a bad habit of biting him in the ass. It nearly cost the Vanguard their alliance with the Cabal after he accidentally killed one of Caitl's most trusted .
- The Unmasking: During Week 5 of Season of the Chosen, Crow almost blows his cover when he warns Zavala of an assassination attempt on the latter while unmasked, though Zavala ends up dismissing his recognition of Uldren's face as a hallucination; Osiris is not so forgiving, chastising Crow during the weekly briefing. Then, during Week 7, Crow is again forced to save Zavala from Psion assassins, this time in plain view of Caiatl, who didn't order the attempt. Crow's face is ultimately revealed to Zavala, though Zavala is sensible enough to realize Crow's circumstances and the fact that he saved the Vanguard commander from a final death.
- Violation of Common Sense: It's implied that his Accidental Murder of Caiatl's Psion happened because he used an emergency stop function instead of a regular shutdown sequence, ignoring the fact that the navigation menu called it a "SECURITY OVERRIDE." Had he stopped to check with the Psion before pressing the button, it's possible the entire diplomatic crisis would have been averted.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Season of the Chosen has him come to blows with Saladin over their views towards the Cabal, with the latter's hostile viewpoint aggravating Crow so much he asks where Saladin was during the Red War while his comrades were fighting.
- Subverted. In Season of the Lost, Crow eventually gets his memory back via Savathûn. When discussing it with the Young Wolf, he initially sounds like he's going to rage at them, only to back down and say they were right to keep his past a secret from him, noting he would have done the same in their position.
- He also calls out Saladin and Zavala when they imprison several Hive and subject them to Mind Rape at the hands of Caiatl's Psions. This really bites him in the ass later when he ends up disengaging the Psisorium improperly, killing the Lucent Hive and the Psion running it. He ends up nearly destroying the fragile Coalition between Caiatl's Cabal and the Vanguard, and nearly dies for his jumping the gun before Saladin cuts in and lets himself become part of Caiatl's War Council instead.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Crow makes the difficult decision to disengage the Psisorium at the end of the main Season of the Risen plot, seeing as how its purpose has been fulfilled and there's no need to further subject the Lucent Hive or the Psion running the operation to further stress. All this does is fully kill all of the Hive in stasis and Mind Rape the Psion so hard his insides liquify into slop and rocket out of his eye socket, nearly ruining the Vanguard's relations with Caiatl.
- In Lightfall his relationship with Amanda is on the mend following the revelation of his previous life, only for Amanda to die during a rescue mission in a Shadow Legion base. He swears to get revenge, but in a mirror of the Young Wolf's crusade following Cayde's murder many point out that it's unlikely to even bring Crow any closure.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Although it has not been brought up in the story, and it was done before he became a Guardian, Crow's murder of Cayde-6 and the nature of the Vanguard's dare, as well as Cayde's wish for his successor to be his murderer, means Crow is technically the most viable candidate for the vacant Hunter Vanguard seat. While Crow shows no interest in taking up the position like his fellow Hunters, Season of the Haunted does see him take up some of Cayde's old duties. At one point in Season of Defiance, he calls the Hunters 'his', implying he's well on his way to succeeding Cayde.
Glint
Glint, formerly Pulled Pork
- Voiced by: Richard Nguyen Sloniker
A friendly and naive Ghost who raised the Crow from Uldren Sov. Initially named "Pulled Pork" by those he came across, he was given a proper name by his new Guardian.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Compared to Crow, who's very intelligent and can extrapolate what happened before he was made into Guardian without needing to be explicitly told, Glint is kind of scatterbrained and has a hard time focusing on the important things.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Glint often gets so caught up on things that really don't matter that he often needs Crow to drag him back into focus.
- Explosive Leash: In order to ensure that Crow doesn't leave his sight, the Spider equipped Glint's shell with a modification that functions like this. If he goes too far from the Tangled Shore? Boom. It's thankfully removed by the end of Season of the Hunt.
- Good Is Dumb: Glint is friendly, kind, and really not very bright, as he tended to analyze even inorganic debris before he found Crow.Glint: I like to be thorough.
- Hidden Depths: Despite analyzing everything including debris until he found his Guardian, Glint is fully aware that Crow is an amnesiac Uldren Sov and tries to prevent him from learning of his past identity.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Various lore tabs and lorebook entries establish Glint as this for Crow, being a source of uplifting optimism out in the wilds prior to working for the Spider. In Season of the Haunt during Nightmare Containment, Crow says he's not sure what he would do if he lost Glint.
- The Masquerade: The weblore "Two Drinks Minimum" confirms that Glint is fully aware of Crow's previous identity, and is doing his best to keep Crow from finding out. Crow working with the Young Wolf has him on edge, as the whole partnership could reveal Crow's history from the Guardian that Glint considers the absolute worst candidate to learn it from.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Despite Glint doing his job of finding someone either living or dead and remake them into a Lightbearer, even succeeding by reviving Uldren Sov as the Crow, he got a lot of flak for it. In a Grimoire entry "Two Drinks Minimum", when discussing Crow's situation with his fellow Lightbearers, one of Glint's panels is scuffed and damaged, implied to be the work of Guardians.
- Only Friend: "Two Drinks Minimum" implies that Glint was a Living Emotional Crutch to Crow after his resurrection. Not surprising, given that a large majority of Guardians despise him for what he did in the past.
- Only Sane Man: In Season of the Lost, he has to act as the voice of reason whenever Petra or Crow get too heated. At one point, when Petra has a knife against the latter's throat, Glint tells both of them to cool their heads.
- Undying Loyalty: A trait shared by many Ghosts, as Glint sticks by Crow no matter what, and always sees the best in his Guardian, regardless of what everyone else thinks. Weapon lore in Season of the Haunted even has him elaborate that no matter how much Crow beats himself up, Glint still believes him to be a far better person to Uldren, and a great Guardian in general.
