Mr. Brainheart wrote...
]If you feel someone's opinion is uninformed or have good reason to believe it's incorrect or unfair than you should not have to accept it. Critique is often very valuable. Anyway, the Ashley Williams thread is not the place for such a discussion.
It's contextual. You just saw the result of blurting out arguments and counter-arguments. I have my own opinion on the matter but I decided to keep it to myself because like you said, this isn't the place and sometimes just moving on is the right thing to do. Fuelling the fires is counter-productive. I was taught that understanding is the key to knowledge, and to understand you need to be able to accept people's opinions no matter how wild they are - dismissing perspectives narrows your own.
Anyway, Horizon.
In my opinion, Horizon is the trial of the relationship between Shepard and Ashley.If we are ignoring the confines of the game here, Horizon would be the point that either makes or breaks the relationship depending on the outcome of the interactions between Shepard and Ashley.
As always, there is no firm way to interpret the situation and it's outcomes as there are a huge amount of variables involved including the player's own interpretation of both characters.
Ashley is more than likely aware of the rumours of Shepard's return by the time of Horizon. However it is easy to not realise this if you haven't paid attention to the plot or haven't read between the lines. Ashley has mourned Shepard for almost two years now. How she dealt with the loss is open to interpretation here and I believe it affects the outcome of the scenario. For the player, it is easy to forget that it has been two years and this instantly paints Ashley in a bad light for being angry/frustrated or whatever emotion you attached to her for this scene. If the player takes into account the time difference and is considerate enough they will sympathise with Ashley and try to reassure her. If not, then the player probably moves onto one of the ME2 romances or just goes off in a huff.
Another point to consider is the player's attitude to Ashley as a whole; how 'in love' their Shepard is with her character. If the player simply used Ashley because they didn't want to romance an alien and were not interested in her at all then the player is probably going to approach the situation wanting to end the relationship and tell her where to stick it. Conversely, if the player does want to continue the relationship then they are going to once again try and reassure her.
The case with reassuring is that Ashley arguably doesn't need/want to be reassured - she just wants the problem to go away. Does she want the problem solving? I don't know - that's up to the player, but for me I interpret it as her just wanting to hide from the issue; her lover, who she saw asphyxiate, has come back from the dead, ignored her (or so she thinks), and joined up with something that is commonly known as a terrorist organisation. Once again the amount of empathy the player has with Ashley is important here. Does the player understand why she is thinking these things, why she is angry? It depends on how you interpret the whole thing. I gave her the space I felt she needed, reassured her as best as the game would allow and then got on with the rest of the story. Others might simply think she is being completely unreasonable, however to think that I think that you yourself have to be unreasonable for not being able to empathise with her and see things from her perspective. As with everything in Mass Effect and arguably any form of art, it is completely open to interpretation and how involved the observer is in relation to said piece of art.
On the whole I agree with your own analysis, YCF.
Modifié par Hellfire257, 07 mai 2012 - 06:30 .
Retour en haut
