Pacifien wrote...
Brass_Buckles wrote...
The topic does make me curious because while I've noticed this emphasis on the Family Unit Of Three, and I know it's part of Asian (or at least Japanese and Chinese) culture, I've never really delved into the reason behind why it's the ideal. So maybe one of you can enlighten me?
This is a recent phenomenon of Japanese and Chinese culture. One child due to law. One child due to economics and space.
A picture of Shepard having a baby with Garrus... or Wrex... has more to do with those Asari/Hanar porn games at Shin Akiba.
I thought it was only a legal thing in China. And then there's at least one city where they've temporarily repealed the law due to a falling population--not to mention the issue China is having with too many boys being kept and too few girls (families prefer male children and will have female fetuses aborted in favor of having a boy later). Chinese guys are having trouble finding wives already, and the problem stands to get worse in the near future.
As for it being a hentai/pervy porn thing? I'm not so sure, because it's not just the Ideal Family thing, but I notice a big trend in manga (and take that with a grain of salt, because again it's
NOT a good source for culture, but a trend often means that it's being influenced by culture somehow) is that romances are pretty much always expected to end with a child being born even if it doesn't happen within the scope of the story. For female characters, pregnancy and motherhood is often presented as the ultimate goal or something that will make them very happy. But mind you, I don't think there are half as many housewives in Japan as you'll see in manga; that's just what is expected to happen in the scope of most of their stories. I could be wrong, but I do believe that it's more a matter of the culture idealizing the concept of a stay-at-home mom who defers to her husband's judgment. This is a big contrast with any American comics or literature, where two characters may be romantically involved but actively choose not to have children or end up splitting up before they ever even get married--or, they may have a child and then split up, and you'll rarely see women staying at home in our comics or literature.
To bring this back on topic, I don't believe that that original artist meant to be half as creepy as the art comes across. Femshep looks very happy (disturbing, I know), and Garrus appears to be very attentive. What it seems to be meant as is a sweet family moment--Garrus becoming a good dad (which I somehow have trouble picturing) and Shepard being a good mom. But if we put Shepard to the standards of most manga (which is the style the art is in), does that mean the artist would expect her to set down her guns and stay at home? Well, fine for some Sheps, but only after the Reapers are gone. Somehow I don't see any of my Sheps settling down and I somehow suspect that despite his own 'bad turian' manners, Garrus would be a rather draconian father figure. (You do something wrong in that house, and you're gonna pay for it. You seriously think Garrus would let you get away with it? Better hope Mom-Shep is a near-pure paragon...) Now that said, the biology is impossible. The chirality is wrong, not to mention the species, and it's illegal to genetically engineer new sapient lifeforms. I guess you could in the Terminus Systems, if you never wanted to go back to Citadel space. For them to be parents with Shepard pregnant, I'd have to assume that either they're doing something seriously illegal or Shep went to the fertility clinic and picked a nice-looking donor for the biological father. And yes, I can totally see that happening, especially since I'm not sure any adoption agent in his/her right mind would give a child to Shepard and Garrus.
Since this was recently brought up in the thread, and despite the fact that I know it's been discussed many many times before what the difference between paragon and renegade is, but I think that it can be summed up as follows: Neither is truly evil and neither truly makes all of the best decisions. A pure renegade is xenophobic and a pure paragon is hopelessly naive. Both are ultimately out to do good, although the renegade is more selfish than the paragon. However, a paragon will always go for the plan that avoids the most civilian casualties, while a renegade will always go for the plan that gets the job done as permanently as possible, no matter what the cost. To me, Garrus falls someplace in between. A paragon does not kill and rarely beats a target he/she could arrest, detain, or coax and will try to avoid collateral damage to civilians who may be caught in the crossfire. Garrus is willing to kill and beat his targets even if he could simply capture them as long as civilian casualties are avoided.
That said, I think he was more paragon in ME1 than he is in ME2. In ME1, he spoke up for improving human/turian relations by reminding Shepard that humans and turians both have to share their space. He spoke up in my recent renegade playthrough--a fully renegade Garrus at this point--for preserving the Destiny Ascenscion, while Tali said my mostly-renegade Shepard should spare the human fleet instead. In fact his only real renegade moment is when he's against Saleon. In ME2, though, he's a different guy. He speaks out against beating criminals, but then he starts beating up Harkin himself. He wants to commit cold-blooded murder against Sidonis out of revenge for his squad--and yes, it's cold-blooded because it's premeditated (very carefully so in fact) even though he's angry and vengeful. And then Garrus wants you to keep the Collector base even though your Shepard, if he/she has been through the ME1 Cerberus side quests, knows very well that leaving the base to Cerberus is a bad idea, new weapons tech or no.
No matter his decisions, though, Garrus keeps being interested in justice. No matter how cold he might become through renegade choices, there's something fundamentally good in him. Something about him makes me wince when I choose renegade choices for him though. It's like I know I'm teaching him to be vicious, or encouraging it, and I feel like despite his good intentions I may be making another Saren. After all, don't other characters speculate in ME1 that Saren had good intentions, too? But he decided to achieve his goals at any cost--just like renegades try to teach Garrus to do. On the other hand, Garrus gets angry if you paragon him in ME2. He'll talk to Shepard afterward, but he sounds agitated. At the same time he insists on not being talked out of it so much that I can't help but think that's exactly what he's begging for Shepard to do--because deep down he doesn't want to kill a man he once considered a friend, betrayal or no. You don't get extra dialogue unless you prevent him from murdering Sidonis. I think that's telling--he closes up if he's murdered someone, and he's able to talk about it and maybe move on if he's talked out of vengeance. But that does not mean that making him a pure renegade will ultimately make him a bad person--only that he'll be a harder, colder individual, more ruthless in his approach, and less likely to find good in others. (In other words, you get Bitter, Jaded Garrus.) The ends justify the means. Whereas, paragon him and I hope that in ME3 we'll see a Garrus who is more mellow, more forgiving, maybe even less rigid than he was in either ME1 or ME2--a Garrus who can and does still trust people because he can still see good in them.
Retour en haut
The best way to do that is gather data so other people can figure it out! 
Brilliant. And would explain why we never see them 
![=]](https://lvlt.forum.bioware.com/public/style_emoticons/default/sideways.png)
