82210 réponses à ce sujet

[flemm]

ThomGau wrote...

It wouldn't be the only detail left unresolved, would it ?

Haha, no

There are so many. But given the aggressively stupid nature of the retcon, it's not hard to imagine why so many important character traits are unresolved.

Once you have retconned Miranda's allegiance to Cerberus as the result of an unhealthy "obsession" with human dominance, all of the nuanced dialogue from ME2 just has to be ignored.

Once you have decided that Miranda being genetically engineered is inherently bad, then that obvious avenue of character growth is also closed off.

Similarly, the whole infertility issue can't really be addressed directly, because once it is addressed that way, it becomes obvious that it could easily be cured or circumvented (or, alternately, that it simply doesn't matter all that much).

Whoever is responsable for this trash should be ashamed. The fact that the game allows me to jump through some hoops and bypass the worst of it really changes nothing in that regard.

Modifié par flemm, 20 décembre 2013 - 05:03 .

[ThomGau]

Indeed, it changes nothing, on the contrary, bypassing this in ME3 makes it even worse. You deliberately create a new problem and you don't even resolve it afterwards.

Modifié par ThomGau, 31 mars 2012 - 06:50 .

[jtav]

And all that's left is a broken shell not fit for Shepard, as I once contended he wasn;t fit for her. Apparently it was too much to ask that he get a human dimension and she maintain her ambition and strength. Explain why I stay with her?

[MisterJB]

At least I can blame her "obssession with human dominance" on the idiocy of that yagh who failed to undestand Miranda's personality.
Not so with ME3.

[flemm]

jtav wrote...

And all that's left is a broken shell not fit for Shepard, as I once contended he wasn;t fit for her. Apparently it was too much to ask that he get a human dimension and she maintain her ambition and strength. Explain why I stay with her?

Because you know that's not Miranda

MisterJB wrote...

At least I can blame her "obssession with human dominance" on the idiocy of that yagh who failed to undestand Miranda's personality.
Not so with ME3.

Well, a lot of stuff *can* be ignored, but it's instructive as to how the character was being reworked to conform to certain ugly stereotypes.

Modifié par flemm, 31 mars 2012 - 06:54 .

[jtav]

Why do it though? That's what I'll never understand.

[Totally Not Swaggacide]

Miranda just doesn't deserve a better ending; she deserves an actual role not just "I'm looking for my sister".
Im not just saying this a Miranda fanboy but she would be an obvious choice for a squadmate considering her vast knowledge on Cerberus and how Liara, EDI, Traynor could easily help Miranda find Oriana.

[CrutchCricket]

I think you guys are making too much of this. I don't think character growth and developent were killed for Miranda. I just think it wasn't done. As for the dossier I think it's been discussed before that it was already dated in-universe by the time we read it. It could also be inaccurate in-universe as well. It has bad writing to be sure but why say it's only bad writing on Bioware's part? Make the report handed in to the Shadow Broker written by some incompetent, possibly biased operative who maybe later pays for his stupidity. Even the Shadow Broker can get bad info from time to time. I see nothing troubling here (other than the fact that they didn't think Miranda was worth investing more time in but hey, that's every ME2 exclusive)

[Sarcastic Tasha]

Out of all the characters introduced in ME2 Miranda was the only one I really wanted to return in ME3. She's a much better sentinel than Kaidan.

[flemm]

CrutchCricket wrote...

I think you guys are making too much of this. I don't think character growth and developent were killed for Miranda. I just think it wasn't done. As for the dossier I think it's been discussed before that it was already dated in-universe by the time we read it. It could also be inaccurate in-universe as well. It has bad writing to be sure but why say it's only bad writing on Bioware's part?

To answer primarily the bolded part, the reason I say that is because I'm not willing to close my eyes to the reality of what clearly has been driving Miranda's characterisation since ME2. And it is reflected in ME3, not just in the dossier, though it has been camouflaged somewhat, either because it clashes with what fans want, or because not everybody on the development team was "all-in" on that particular interpretation of the character (or some combination of the two).

The question of motivations is more murky, and here I will not speculate too much.

Modifié par flemm, 31 mars 2012 - 07:18 .

[Skullheart]

Her character just doesn't grow. No insight from her motivation and Cerberus. Where is the Miranda who said "I believe in what Cerberus stands for," or "I'm very good at just about anything I choose to do."

The woman in ME3, imo, is an impostor, I want my operative in the game, not a emotional unstable girl (she dies if Shep breaks up with her).

Modifié par Skullheart, 31 mars 2012 - 07:50 .

[Totally Not Swaggacide]

Emotional unstable girl?
That's called being a woman

[CrutchCricket]

flemm wrote...
To answer primarily the bolded part, the reason I say that is because I'm not willing to close my eyes to the reality of what clearly has been driving Miranda's characterisation since ME2. And it is reflected in ME3, not just in the dossier, though it has been camouflaged somewhat, either because it clashes with what fans want, or because not everybody on the development team was "all-in" on that particular interpretation of the character (or some combination of the two).

The question of motivations is more murky, and here I will not speculate too much.

But it is speculation on motives. You think the writers mean to write Miranda a certain way. But I'm not sure that's true. What we do know is that Miranda has zero growth in ME3. We also know that most of the ME2 characters are passed over or generally not very significant. Thus we can infer they just put them in to throw their fans a bone but didn't really do much work on them besides that (for example none of them but Jack got a redesign and I suspect that was pure necessity as it'd be downright bat**** to imagine a teacher wearing nothing but belts).

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 31 mars 2012 - 07:28 .

[Ieldra]

flemm wrote...

ThomGau wrote...

It wouldn't be the only detail left unresolved, would it ?

Haha, no

There are so many. But given the aggressively stupid nature of the retcon, it's not hard to imagine why so many important character traits are unresolved.

Once you have retconned Miranda's allegiance to Cerberus as the result of an unhealthy "obsession" with human dominance, all of the nuanced dialogue from ME2 just has to be ignored.

Once you have decided that Miranda being genetically engineered is inherently bad, then that obvious avenue of character growth is also closed off.

Similarly, the whole infertility issue can't really be addressed directly, because once it is addressed that way, it becomes obvious that it could easily be cured or circumvented (or, alternately, that it simply doesn't matter all that much).

Whoever is responsable for this trash should be ashamed. The fact that the game allows me to jump through some hoops and bypass the worst of it really changes nothing in that regard.

I know it's been said before, but I guess *were* were fighting the writers all along. We liked Miranda for all the "wrong" reasons as far as they were concerned. I wonder why the ME team is so utterly conventional, even conservative on certain topics. It's infuriating. There they had a character who was interesting within an SF context beyond the romance angle, and they can do nothing better than to gut her?

Or did they fear she'd end up more interesting than the protagonist? In ME2, she certainly is.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 mars 2012 - 07:28 .

[Totally Not Swaggacide]

@Ieldra2
Mac Walters couldn't risk Miranda being more interesting than Liara.

[flemm]

CrutchCricket wrote...

But it is speculation on motives. You think the writers mean to write Miranda a certain way. But I'm not sure that's true. What we do know is that Miranda has zero growth in ME3. We also know that most of the ME2 characters are passed over or generally not very significant. Thus we can infer they just put them in to throw their fans a bone but didn't really do much work on them besides that (for example none of them but Jack got a redesign and I suspect that was pure necessity as it'd be downright bat**** to imagine a teacher wearing nothing but belts).

Oh but they *did* do work on Miranda. Very much so. Not in terms of resource allocation, but in terms of reworking the character's motivations and introducing ideas that were entirely absent previously. The SB dossier is evidence of that. The reason everybody has a WTF? moment when they read that thing is because basically none of what's there fits with what we've seen previously.

The work they did basically strips the character of depth and nuance, but it still required work

As to the question of speculation, to an extent what you say is true. But speculating about the developers' motives is different from interpreting what's in the game. It's different because when a character is reworked to conform with ugly clichés, that is something that can be demonstrated based on actual evidence from the fiction we have in front of us.

*Why* the character was reworked that way is more difficult to speculate about, because that exists only in the minds of the people responsable.

Modifié par flemm, 31 mars 2012 - 07:38 .

[CrutchCricket]

I don't think there's evidence for anything other than laziness or the general ME1 favoritism. Miranda didn't grow because the devs were busy programming combat rolls or getting Ashley's hair just right. Assuming some kind of vendetta against Miranda doesn't make sense.

[CrutchCricket]

flemm wrote...
Oh but they *did* do work on Miranda. Very much so. Not in terms of resource allocation, but in terms of reworking the character's motivations and introducing ideas that were entirely absent previously. The SB dossier is evidence of that. The reason everybody has a WTF? moment when they read that thing is because basically none of what's there fits with what we've seen previously.

The work they did basically strips the character of depth and nuance, but it still required work

As to the question of speculation, to an extent what you say is true. But speculating about the developers' motives is different from interpreting what's in the game. It's different because when a character is reworked to conform with ugly clichés, that is something that can be demonstrated based on actual evidence from the fiction we have in front of us.

*Why* the character was reworked that way is more difficult to speculate about, because that exists only in the minds of the people responsable.

What did the dossier introduce? The infertility? Laughably irrelevant, so much so that it's not even brought up again. The chatlogs? I've argued before that they make sense for a pre-ME2 Miranda. Everything else is bad writing. Bad writing, like sh!t, sometimes happens.

As for ME3 I think resources and oversight make account for a large percentage of what is missing from Miranda. So you need to have her in ME3. Perhaps I'll even grant that she's meant to die. How do you try to get the average player to care about that, to form an emotional connection? Reinforce the Oriana/wanting a normal life angle. But again maybe that's speculating too much. If I want to cut it down to the bare bones all I see is a half-assed insertion (insert dirty joke here if you like). Which is annoying, but hardly a conspiracy

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 31 mars 2012 - 07:48 .

[flemm]

CrutchCricket wrote...

I don't think there's evidence for anything other than laziness or the general ME1 favoritism. Miranda didn't grow because the devs were busy programming combat rolls or getting Ashley's hair just right. Assuming some kind of vendetta against Miranda doesn't make sense.

Using terms such as "vendetta" or "conspiracy" (just to take another example) misses the point, really. What we see in the game is the result of conscious choices on the part of the writers/developers. That is a simple fact.

In Miranda's case what we have is not the absence of development. What we have is a reworking of the character that is then somewhat camouflaged. With the main focus being on Miranda as victim.

[Ieldra]

CrutchCricket wrote...
I don't think there's evidence for anything other than laziness or the general ME1 favoritism. Miranda didn't grow because the devs were busy programming combat rolls or getting Ashley's hair just right. Assuming some kind of vendetta against Miranda doesn't make sense.

You may be right....but what about the LotSB dossier? It points too much to what we've got in ME3 to be random.

[jtav]

Not a vendetta, but a particular worldview (or the belief that there audience has it). Miranda wants something, something that can rapidly be perverted to evil. She has a ruthless, unpleasant streak and is very ambitious. She challenges the traditional feminine ideal. But what they do in the dossier is jettison those things and suggest all she really wanted were things like a family after all. She's transformed from wanting the umabiguously evil ideal of human dominance to the good ideal of children.

[CrutchCricket]

flemm wrote...
Using terms such as "vendetta" or "conspiracy" (just to take another example) misses the point, really. What we see in the game is the result of conscious choices on the part of the writers/developers. That is a simple fact.

In Miranda's case what we have is not the absence of development. What we have is a reworking of the character that is then somewhat camouflaged. With the main focus being on Miranda as victim.

flemm, how'd you know I'd use the word conspiracy next? Get out of my head lol.

But no in all seriousness I agree that what we see is the result of conscious choice. The choice to work on something else. I see no evidence of deliberate change, only omissions.

[flemm]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Everything else is bad writing. Bad writing, like sh!t, sometimes happens.

Well, yeah. Which is why I say that motivations are more difficult to speculate about. But let's not slide into a false dichotomy where the only two possibilities are (1) clandestine meetings of all Bioware developers in a sound-proof room to figure out how best to gut Miranda as a character and (2) lack of any real creative direction due to indifference/game development reasons, etc.

The reality is neither of those two, of course.

There *is* a direction. Simply a deeply misguided one that is then... kept at arm's length for the most part, but which is still readily apparent (and which prevents there from being a more positive direction for actual character growth).

Modifié par flemm, 31 mars 2012 - 07:55 .

[ThomGau]

Totally Not Swaggacide wrote...

@Ieldra2
Mac Walters couldn't risk Miranda being more interesting than Liara.

Indeed, that would be a reason among other things

It seems there was a conflict or an incomprehension about the reasons why we love Miranda in the first place from the writers.
They also seem be very conservative and narrow minded when it comes to morality : White or Black, Grey isn't tolerated (just look at what they've done to Cerberus in ME3) which was't good news for Miranda from the beginning.

Modifié par ThomGau, 31 mars 2012 - 07:54 .

[CrutchCricket]

jtav wrote...

Not a vendetta, but a particular worldview (or the belief that there audience has it). Miranda wants something, something that can rapidly be perverted to evil. She has a ruthless, unpleasant streak and is very ambitious. She challenges the traditional feminine ideal. But what they do in the dossier is jettison those things and suggest all she really wanted were things like a family after all. She's transformed from wanting the umabiguously evil ideal of human dominance to the good ideal of children.

I have said before that maybe Bioware thinks Viewers are Morons and wouldn't get the subtlety of "advancement vs dominance". That may be a factor in omitting any Cerberus connections in ME3. However I don't see any of the other things you mention being removed by the dossier.