73 réponses à ce sujet

[rodgerage]

Well the title says it all. My opinion on him was a partly good person who got corrupted.

[TruYuri]

People who claim he's evil have to realize that he did all of that in an attempt to save organic life from imminent death. Saren was not really a bad guy. At least, not in the long run, other than his dislike for humanity, which is just his opinion. Indoctrination is what really destroyed him.



Playing Paragon at the end absolutely reveals that.

[rodgerage]

Yeah when i told him to kill himself i had a totally different opinoin of him but i didn't like how he dog Anderson

[Fortlowe]

Read Ascension. He's a complete doooosh!

[AdmiralCheez]

Reckless, merciless, and an all-around dirtbag, but I admire his charisma and resourcefulness. Felt a little sorry for him what with the indoctrination thing. Really sexy voice.

[Manic Sheep]

I haven’t read the books so this is based off the impression I had from the game.
Good person might be pushing it, from what we are told of him I got the impression is was somewhat like renegade shep only form the other side of the fence. Not MWHAHAHAHA world domination evil, most of what he did he probably thought was for the greater good. Ruthless, racist, jaded and from what Anderson said maybe a bit of a blood knight too.
From what we see in the game...Maybe it started out that way but I don’t buy his “I’m doing this to save all organic life” line. I think that’s just how he was justifying it to himself. He start off saying that but when pressed he switches from “I'm doing this to save organic life” to “this is my only chance” “I have been promised a reprieve from what is too come.”He was sacred ****less of the reapers and was trying to save his own hide.
All in all a good villan for the game. I like him and can sypathise with him, he serves as a kinda mirror for Shep....also you know...sexy voice.

Modifié par Manic Sheep, 31 janvier 2011 - 04:06 .

[The Grey Ranger]

Having read Ascension, he's more than a bit of a scumbag. Hates humans, kills innocents for no real reason or just as a distraction.

[EssenceEngine]

Manic Sheep wrote...
also you know...sexy voice.

QFT.
We need Saren to have a brother just to get that voice back.

[hawat333]

The Grey Ranger wrote...

Having read Ascension, he's more than a bit of a scumbag. Hates humans, kills innocents for no real reason or just as a distraction.

Mostly the latter. As a distraction, and tells a great deal about him. He always pursues the higher goal (which goal is usually right by itself), but never questions his own methods. He uses the Goal, the Greater Good or whatever to justify whatever he does, and that's why it was more or less easy for the Reaper to subdue him.
Saren could have been a great hero. He's one step from Shepard, but that very little step means everything.

[eshrafel]

I played the game first before having read Ascension, and I think this makes the apparent difference in character much more extreme. I fully suspect the writing of the book was finalised before various changes to the script and character were incorporated into the game. He certainly comes over as a stronger and more charismatic spectre in the game; it may just be better writing and that it was intended to be consistent.



I don't think anyone is going to argue that he would be considered on the 'renegade' side of the spectrum, but is also widely considered one of the best spectres the council had. There are obviously reasons for that. His self determination and resources could be applied to almost any task, and if the council *required* results, it could be pretty much guaranteed by having Saren on speed dial.



He had his failings which rapidly become apparent in ME1, but then so does anyone, even spectres. I believe his intentions were still good; as he became aware of what Sovereign was, and what it could do, his desire to try and save all life from extinction was preyed upon by the reaper, until it was so twisted and distorted that he could no longer see his original pure ideal for what the situation had actually become. It's already apparent by Virmire, and although I'm sure he'd hate it, I already feel sorry for him by that point. Perhaps there would've still been a chance then to save him; I don't know. I'm not convinced. I'm certain he would never have shot Nihlus without Sovereign's intervention. I'm sure he'd still have a grudge against Anderson, but that's not surprising. I always disliked the way Anderson instantly assumed *everything* was Saren's fault in ME1 as soon as his name comes up. In hindsight, he made the right call to follow it up with extreme vigilance, but there's no option to question it, or say "hold on a moment..." -- it came a bit of a crusade for Anderson, as good an officer as he was.



From the book alone, it's easy to conclude Saren is a cold-blooded, selfish killer; a one dimensional character plain and simple. Thankfully the game expands upon that hugely, and makes him really define the first game in a way that isn't really reached for in the sequel. At least he voiced Kuril in ME2, so he's there in spirit!



In short, I don't bear Saren any grudge or ill-will; what you see of him in ME1 is less of him and more of Sovereign, and before that he was just doing his job, in ways that perhaps many don't agree with. He was a powerful and tragic character, in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught out even with all his cunning by something no one ever suspected. I wonder if he had any friends or family left at the end. I suspect not, and with the real circumstances hushed up by the council, I imagine his funeral was a sad and quiet affair, if there was one at all.

[The Grey Ranger]

hawat333 wrote...

Mostly the latter. As a distraction, and tells a great deal about him. He always pursues the higher goal (which goal is usually right by itself), but never questions his own methods. He uses the Goal, the Greater Good or whatever to justify whatever he does, and that's why it was more or less easy for the Reaper to subdue him.
Saren could have been a great hero. He's one step from Shepard, but that very little step means everything.

Actually at one point in the book he kills an injured Batarian female who is in the hospital after he questioned her.  He is not a nice guy in any shape, form or fashion.  While he might be an effective spectre, he's bastard.

[neal sonntag]

From reading revelation he does seem like a renegade shep. then with sovereign he took the easy way out and just tried to keep himself alive. but there was a little good in him.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

I actually kind of wonder if he suffered from sort of contradictory attempts at characterization. All the back story we hear of him is that he's racist and kind of crazy violent at times.



But most of the times we meet him (aside from the Council meeting) show him to have a very noble motivation for all the things he does. I believe him when he says he's not doing it for just for himself. And it truly did make me sympathize with his him and his conundrum. How far would you go when they stakes are that high? If he truly believed that the Reapers' victory was 100% inevitable, I can understand why he did what he did, because he's doing everything in his power, no matter to the cost to avoid the death of everyone, everywhere.



But all that stuff that we hear about him before is still presumably supposed to be true, so I have to say it's weird that he seems to have become a much nobler character once he betrays you. Like indoctrination inadvertently rid him of racism or something. It's just a little strange that he tried to find a way to use Sovereign to destroy humanity, only to soon be desperate to save it.



In which case, was it really necessary to have him have been a bigoted megalomaniac in the past if his motivation in the game was the save everyone? There was a bit of a disconnect in my mind, I guess the main thing pre and post indoctrinated Saren have in common is that they still would go to any lengths to achieve their objective.

[Elvis_Mazur]

He is just like everyone else. The only thing Saren wanted from the beginning was to put Turians on the top.



The fact that he was corrupted by Sovereign doesn't change my view on him.

[darknoon5]

Maybe Saren's intenetions were to save life, but the only reason he ever got involved with Sovreign originally was a desire to increase his power, control the geth, and put humanity "in it's place."



So yeah, he's not a "good person" in any sense. There's a difference between being a douche and wanting to wipe out all life.

[shatteredstar56]

Saren was a turian. That said, he hated humans with a passion, and that was played unfairly into his Spectre status, making him biased as to whether any human would ever be ready to be a Spectre. He had good intentions, regarding Soveriegn, but he deployed them badly, and got power corrupted. I think, and he would hate me writing this sentence, that he was just as human as the rest of us. He wasn't good, and he did a lot of bad things, but he wasn't necessarily evil.

[eshrafel]

Jedi Master of Orion wrote...

I actually kind of wonder if he suffered from sort of contradictory attempts at characterization. All the back story we hear of him is that he's racist and kind of crazy violent at times.
...
 There was a bit of a disconnect in my mind...

Well put, and I agree. There is quite a disconnect to the point where they seem different characters. The one put forth in ME1 is undoubtedly a stronger, deeper character, and that is what I think of when I see "Saren", at least. One-dimensional villains? Save that for the batarians! 

[Jedi Master of Orion]

One thing that sticks out for me is his opening scene. When we first see him talking to Nihlus he seems to talk in an almost mustache-twirlingly evil tone of voice. And maybe that is still the intention of the scene, But looking back on it now, I can actually see another way to interpret it.



I think the way he says "Nihlus" in a very quiet and sort of subdued voice could conceivably be seen as a sense of disappointment or sadness. Because he realized that he needed to eliminate witnesses, but the one person who ran into him was an old friend. And since he has always been known to do whatever it takes to get the job done, he "knew" that he had to kill him to have any hope to save all organic life.



Nihlus was his protege after all, it paints his statement about "Nihlus was a fellow Specter, and a friend" in very different tone.

[darknoon5]

There's nothing noble about him. He was an amoral douche, who realized he was doing something terrible, even by his standards, but was too far in to stop. It's probable his whole "save the galaxy" trash was the indoctrination twisting his mind to think he was actually doing something good.



I respect him for being able to break indoctrination briefly, and for being willing to end his own life to stop the reapers, but if he hadn't been power-hungry, and determined to undermine humanity, he would never have had to.

[Kim Shepard]

Guys, Saren was in Revelation, not Ascension.

Saren is my favorite character, so obviously I have a very high opinion of him. I don't think any of the things he did were evil, just Renegade. Shepard can make many similar decisions in-game. The way he acted in Revelation didn't contradict his ME1 personality for me either. Keep in mind, he was about 20 years younger, and a lot can change during that time. In Revelation, the death of his brother was still fairly recent. In ME1, his main focus for years had been Sovereign and the Reapers. The basics never change - he's ruthless, brutally efficient, and willing to go very far to get the job done.

His first intention with Sovereign, according to Revelation, was a way to get some form of revenge against the Alliance and the Council, but that was before he knew the Reapers were going to destroy all organic life. I can't blame him for not doing everything Shepard did, like warning the Council. We know how well that went over. Saren had been working for the Council for a long time. He probably knew that they would just call him insane and dismiss everything the same way they did for Shepard.

Also, the conversations with him on Virmire and the Citadel, watching Shepard help Saren realize that he was indoctrinated, are the best I've ever seen in a game.

[Tasha vas Nar Rayya]

You listen to this girl ^ she is a Saren pro!

[darknoon5]

Of course Saren isn't evil, there's no such thing. He is a douchebag though, and a cold-blooded murderer. There's a difference between renegade Shepard's actions and blowing up a refinery, knowing 100's would die, for little to no reason. Zaeed does this on a far lesser scale (what, 3 miners?), and even then, every option is against him for doing it.

He also repeatedly murders and tortures people throughout revelation. His murder of Jella is particularly disgusting, as there was no reason for him to do it. He also deliberately and unnecessarily puts Kahlee in risk, knowing she'd undergo torture, and possibly death, and knowing all the alliance marines would probably be killed.

If you're happy defending that, fine, but he's a nasty piece of work, proven long before he encountered Sovereign, and by the reasons he searched for Sovereign. I just struggle to see how people define him as "a good person gone bad," or whatever. Most of the ruthless acts he commits are completely unnecessary is what makes it worse.

Modifié par darknoon5, 03 février 2011 - 10:36 .

[Siha89]

rodgerage wrote...

Well the title says it all. My opinion on him was a partly good person who got corrupted.

I agree he wasn't all that bad I felt sorry for him on Virmire and at the citadel it was clear he was being controlled I felt kinda bad when he died

[eshrafel]

Kim Shepard wrote...
The way he acted in Revelation didn't contradict his ME1 personality for me either. Keep in mind, he was about 20 years younger, and a lot can change during that time.

This is a reasonable point, but I suspect my problem is more with the writing than the character. I think that perhaps the problem in the book (for me at least) comes from the fact there is very little to balance things from his point of view, probably due to an imposed page limit. There is just not enough story there to get any real sense of the character beyond skin deep; so as such it might indeed work in context, but I feel that in the book it could be interpreted as the character just being an immoral or corrupt figure, as opposed to the way it is presented in the game - in context - that these deeds, on the surface potentially terrible, are for a greater or higher purpose. I guess the book cut it a little "black and white" for my tastes. 

There was clearly some shining glory early in his career as a spectre that made him legendary, and I'd certainly like to know more about that. As with so many ME characters, well developed, but underused!

Going back to the comment about "Nihlus", it's a rather ambiguous intonation he uses... it's certainly not evil or malicious. It's more just a resigned statement. As soon as he saw Nihlus, he knew what it meant. Another thing that should be taken into account is that Saren and Nihlus are clearly friends of a kind, and Nihlus seemed a perfectly reasonable and trustable person. How much Nihlus knew of Saren's jobs I don't know. Spectres are destined to be lonely souls it seems.

Modifié par eshrafel, 03 février 2011 - 10:57 .

[Kim Shepard]

darknoon5 wrote...

There's a difference between renegade Shepard's actions and blowing up a refinery, knowing 100's would die, for little to no reason. Zaeed does this on a far lesser scale (what, 3 miners?), and even then, every option is against him for doing it.

Shepard also has the option to kill all of the colonists on Feros, and in gameplay, it can be done with grenades the same as Saren did with the refinery. Saren gave his reasons - the people inside would attack them, no matter what their reasons were for being there, because those people would see it as protecting the refinery. You don't have to agree with his actions or his reasons, but it is possible for Shepard to be equally ruthless.

He also repeatedly murders and tortures people throughout revelation. His murder of Jella is particularly disgusting, as there was no reason for him to do it.

He might have thought Jella didn't have much of a life yet anyway. In Saren's eyes, her life was probably over and no longer useful aside from the one piece of information she had. They didn't give a specific reason, but Saren is the kind of guy who always has one, and it's not pointless torture.

He also deliberately and unnecessarily puts Kahlee in risk, knowing she'd undergo torture, and possibly death, and knowing all the alliance marines would probably be killed.

Shepard can also choose to stay with the mission objective and go after the real threat rather than save hostages or other people in danger. Saren's practical - he isn't going to put himself and his mission at risk to save a random person he only met once.