Who even cares about Elsword lore in 2026? Me. And I’m here to “academically” roast Raven Cronwell
Imagine I had posted this ten years ago. Imagine it’s 2016 again and I’m here shitting on Raven. Me, someone who actually liked Raven, before well… the side-story update. Because man, was that a letdown. Let’s be honest, KoG has never shown me good lore besides one time between Harnier and Fenriart, but even they had to retcon that into Fenriart actually not being the objectively bad guy who made the El go boom to save Harnier’s life. No, it was some rando called Dantelion who made it explode. Because we can’t have any decent tragedy be canon in this game. Unless it involves a shota being killed.
Which is why, I suppose, I should’ve kept my expectations low when I jumped into this game and saw Raven’s bio. What’s not to like about an underdog who rose to nobility through merit alone, got bitches, then got betrayed by a man he called “a brother”? What’s not to like about that character then accepting a deal for revenge (willingly) coming from the in-universe equivalent of Skynet only to then see, after many years, the error of his ways and try to redeem himself by fighting with the good guys?
Well… what’s not to like is the fact that KoG does nothing interesting with the sheer narrative gold spilling from that premise. In fact, just like they did for Harnier and Fenriart, they have this character archetype that’s practically begging for narrative nuance and complexity and just either ignore his backstory or make said backstory more and more implausible just so it can be as PG as possible.
Here’s what I mean.
When no lore was actually good lore
I started playing Elsword around Sakra Devanam’s release on NA. Do not remind me how long ago that was. I feel old enough by writing this in current year. I remember that the early game was quite longer because each job change had a story quest accompanying it. And, granted, nothing about the story was fascinating or particularly breaking narrative ground, but let’s just compare the background associated to Sword Taker and some quotes from Weapon Taker, which are, respectively, the first job change leading to what you kids now call Furious Blade and Imperator.
Weapon Taker circa 2015 - from Elwiki
Weapon Taker now - from Elwiki
I don’t think I need to add more to this, but in case you’re curious, WT goes from the Raven who decides to revive the name of the Crow Mercenaries to be a force people can trust instead of a name stained in both ruin and fear (let’s not forget it’s the Crow Mercenaries you fight in Altera) to… well, just a guy who modifies his arms so he can fight down his redemption path better. So, what about Sword Taker? Well, back in my day, that used to be the Raven who was so horrified to know what he became under Adam’s control he decides to never use his Nasod arm ever again. And I have the receipts right here:
Sword Taker’s lore in 2015
Do you see why, with this blurb alone and the fact that Furious Blade was the first Raven third job change path teased, why people wanted that Raven to be the “canon” Raven? If you look at the fanart/fanfics of the Elgang back in the day, a lot of the group art or fics involving Raven travelling with the Elgang had Blade Master Raven as their “canon” Raven. If there was one Raven who could’ve embodied a good, safe redemption arc where we don’t have to expand into “ugly” territory about what Raven might do, it was the Raven who understood he had to separate himself from any Nasod influence—as much as he can. Over Taker (Rage Heart’s first job change), by comparison, be it then or now, is a constant danger to himself and others. This is not the Raven who can safely travel with other people, be it in 2015 or as how the lore stands now.
OT lore (2015)
Granted, the new lore retconned the “rage” part (ironic since the third job has rage in the name), but I still wonder who was the genius who decided that a man with chronic pain from battle and a potentially dangerous arm that might cost him his life more than Imperator’s overheat mechanic was the Raven to choose to make canon.
You could say that maybe Rage Hearts’ story was more ambitious than FB’s, but that’s exactly what plays against it. By all means, I was ready to have a Raven who struggles against his own body for a greater ideal (that’s why I mained Veteran Commander back in the day), but this is KoG writing. Not only do they retcon lore every few patches because they can’t deal with their own plotholes otherwise, but sometimes… sometimes those retcons just makes my entire investment in a character go up in smoke.
2016 had me too distracted with Ain, but by 2019, I noticed what the Raven Side Story was about
Let me enumerate what I liked about Raven pre “Side-story”, which I will now refer to as a highschool flashback because that’s what it is and you don’t get to pretend otherwise. You cannot read that and tell me it’s anything other than Owen/Seris/Raven in highschool. So, here’s what I loved about old Raven (the Raven with no stupid surname):
Rose through nobility as a military man for his achievements
Had a mercenary order (the Black Crows) under his command and was charismatic enough to at least seem well-respected. Also, he got Seris as a fiancee.
Was stabbed in the back by “Alex” AKA Owen, someone who “was like a brother” to him
Hurt a lot of people under Adam but wants to redeem himself in the name of who he used to be and his loved ones
And right off the bat, point one goes up in smoke. Why’s that? Well, because nepotism. Raven gets privilege handed off to him because his dad was well-connected and gets him adopted by General Cronwell. Now, keep this bit of “new” lore in mind:
So, disregarding how high my eyebrow goes up when I read how Raven supposedly gave up “many things” to upgrade his life from commoner to nobility, this story establishes that not only General Cronwell is a hero, but that Raven is going to a place only nobles can go and that the Cronwell’s status is so high just uttering it makes grunt 1 and 2 go away and not contest it.
And this is the guy who later gets framed and thrown in jail. The guy now cruising the privileged high-life so openly nobody can do much but throw petty “harrumph! Commoner!” at him while they turn tail, eventually gets betrayed and loses everything to all the losers who couldn’t even be openly hostile to him because the Cronwell name protects him.
You know what? Maybe we should trust KoG. Maybe Owen will be this really suave, intelligent, manipulator who will help the jealous grunts strike where—
Oh.
Oh, he wasn’t even hiding it. He straight up just said it. And this is the man who Raven considered “a brother” to him? This is the “Alex” I've been ready to despise for being a snake? Frankly, now I kinda respect him. Imagine being openly hostile to the adopted son of the most powerful (or implied most powerful) noble family besides the Velders (royalty) and the guy doesn't even push back!
So, let’s check how my list is: Commoner who rose through nobility by sheer badassery? Objectively incorrect now. It’s pure nepotism now, regardless of what the tiny blurb in base Raven’s background says. You can’t have it both ways. Stabbed in the back? Nope. Owen was very open about what he was gonna do, so even if we assume Raven considered him a “brother”, that can now be held against him because why would you trust someone who tells you, to your face, out in the open, that you’re a chess piece to them?
But surely, surely, we can see the relationship that has been the core of Raven’s personality, the core wound that Adam took advantage of, be developed, right?
Eh. Maybe for some people, but not me.
Seris fell in love with an idiot and that’s now an objective, canon-approved fact
You know, maybe it’s me and my girl brain wanting more out of a romance that marks a character, regardless of their gender, in a very important way. That’s why I can’t really get behind things like, say, NaruHina or SasuSaku, where the pining is only going one way.
If I had to point to a realtionship in the shonen genre (which fits the Elsword lore, more or less) that I thoroughly enjoyed the development of, it was EreHisu. This post isn’t about the finale or whatever else, but if you focus only on the Uprising arc, how both of these characters got to save each other, talk, get closer and overall (especially on Eren’s part) be willing to save each other from fate itself, you get the vibe I like. I like fictional relationships—insofar as the relationship is crucial to a character’s journey—to feel more than a one-sided crush. So, how does Raven/Seris fare?
Well, not very well, that’s for sure.
It’s, as far as the highschool flashbacks go, a relationship only dictated by Raven’s feelings. His interactions with her don’t draw anything more than her smiles and her gentleness and whatnot.
And he’s saying this to a woman who fought and won with him. A woman who was, first and foremost, seeking to be his equal and probably has good instincts for battle.
Even when we’re told Seris has her own goals for independence, what she wants to prove and her opinions over what objectively is odd and we know for a fact marks the beginning of the end for the two, is ultimately secondary to Raven’s feelings and drama. That is bad enough to me as it is, but the more I read the new lore on Elwiki, the more implausible their relationship becomes.
From Chapter 79 in the story quest
This is Raven Cronwell, Rage Hearts, 29 years old. And this is the man Seris loved? A man who speaks like an awkward teenager at 29 even if he was supposedly adopted by cream of the crop nobility, lead a Mercenary band, and was engaged to a noblewoman before he even says these wonderful lines. Trust me, they’re funny at first because “haha, Raven’s such a dork”, but then you gotta rewind and sit with what you just said. Raven. Out of all the characters. Is such a dork.
And I wish my complaint was just that, but the more you look at the flashbacks, the more it becomes clear that Seris isn’t really a person with goals, with things she’ll fight for, argue about or anything when she’s with Raven. Raven is the one who holds her character back and clearly doesn’t respect her enough to let her follow her goals or respect them in any meaningful way.
And all he heard was “wow, she’s such a positive girl who sacrificed an ‘easier life’ for the battlefield”. Nothing about her right to choose for herself or her sense of camaraderie in battle. No, that’s not important you guys.
So, that’s point #2 of the ingredients that made Raven’s backstory work for me. I cannot believe for the life of me that the guy who will compliment Aisha for being the Elgang’s designated water heater and who never helped Seris achieve her goals of actual independence and fierce need to prove herself, is the same guy who actually loved (and was loved by) Seris and lead said mercenary band on merit alone.
In fact, the sad part is that since now Raven is functionally a nepo baby, Seris’ engagement with him feels like the opposite of what she wanted—a choice imposed on her by her family. Because why wouldn’t it be? The Cronwell name has a lot of influence, Seris met him through the military academy so she gets to “settle” for an illusion of choice and liberty she was actually never given. The only one who got to choose was Raven. He got to choose her, his mercenary army and all the rest.
And that really, really makes him look all the worst when you get to the part of his backstory where he leads an assault on Velder under King Nasod’s control.
Raven won’t say sorry to anyone, and the worst part is that the writers won’t demand that out of him
Why do I say Raven led an assault on Velder when the lore technically doesn’t say he ever did? Well, because it’s not hard to infer that with the lack of lore around the matter. Here. Current Raven lore:
New lore glosses over this fact, but if you read the Altera lore (even more so back in the day), the Black Crow mercenaries the Elgang fights against is, in fact, experiments made by Adam fusing humans to Nasods. Now, the new lore wants you to infer it’s all Raven’s former comrades and whatnot, but that doesn’t really work because Raven doesn’t even worry that Seris might be among them. Which is why the lines I highlighted in the screenshot are important. If he wants revenge against Velder and he caused chaos in the world in the name of revenge (which he doesn’t do much of in Altera, at least not visibly), then it stands to reason Velder was part of that chaos. Not that the game would ever wish to imply this, but it’s not a stretch to think Raven and the Black Crows may have turned people into yet another member of their group until they filled an airship full of them.
Now, that’s dark. But it’s possible to read this only because Raven, for all his tragic pining over his fridged fiancee, never… actually mourns her.
No, really. I had to go back through all the versions of the lore I remember, and nope. There’s not a single moment besides some dungeon clear quotes (the kind of blink-and-you-miss-it dialogue you may as well not even pay attention to because the game doesn’t demand you do so) where Raven even mentions her.
He doesn’t mourn her, people don’t really remember him either, and the one odd line where Ciel mentions how people in Lanox would take bets on who could beat him (we don’t know if this is pre or post-betrayal, which makes it more interesting to me) isn’t enough.
We have a Raven who fused with his arm, let it become more and more part of him, to the point of near madness (original lore) or becoming a permanent liability (new lore), and could not once. Not even once, through 70-something chapters of story, ever make a gesture of remorse or mourning to Seris nor to anyone in Velder or any other place outside saying “sorry” once to the heroes. And with Adam now being downgraded from in-universe Skynet to “oops, I was actually trying to defend you from demons and got carried away”, is it any wonder Raven just waltzes into Velder and nobody says a thing?
Ultimately, I think that KoG made a catastrophic writing mistake by making Raven a playable character. Because they don’t really want to tackle anything that might scream “mature themes” too loudly, they have no choice but to flatten Raven so his story gets to be as “uncomplicated” as possible. But, in doing so, they also shot the very appeal any villain-turned-ally must have: a believable and nuanced redemption arc.
In a game so hellbent on refusing to have any of their playable or growing cast of allies have the tiniest dirt on them (the Harnier/Solace retcon still hurts my soul), Raven has no place as the character he deserved to be. Instead, the more the game says about him, the more the characters around him become far more compelling. He’s outshone by the very characters who were supposed to be the supports of his character arc, the basis and foundation of who Raven was meant to be.
And that, sadly, is something Raven can’t ever come back from. Which is why, now, of all times, I must make another post…
In Defence of Owen Felford: The Traitor with more depth than KoG intended
