155 réponses à ce sujet

[Saaziel]

Skirata129 wrote...

I don't see why teaching him not to
feel guilt is a bad thing, but teaching him to avoid accountability is.
Teaching him to feel guilty for his successful hits would be the
equivalent of training a dog to pee inside and then rubbing its nose in
it.

There is a fatal flaw to accountability , It is easily remedied by "not giving a damn" ; Like your boy, Zaeed.

" Yeah, I killed a bunch of innocent workers for my petty revenge. What of it?"

Not that i disapprove of Zaeed , definitely a top 5 for me. "Guilt" however is a lot harder to get rid of, people often need to rationalise their past deeds , develop psychosis or seek escapism; Anything to lessen the feeling.

For one thing , guilt has an internal repercussion component (Its bad in and of it self) , this gives incentives to do with moderation. Accountability, on the other hand ,only matters if you're the little guy.

Modifié par Saaziel, 11 juillet 2011 - 10:46 .

[Skirata129]

I wouldn't say that accountability is a trait of the little guy, as it depends who you're accountable to. I meant more along the lines of holding yourself accountable, which doubles with taking responsibility. Zaeed does a good job of this, like you said by acknowledging the consequences of his actions and basically blowing them off as irrelevant. Thane's argument annoys me because its out of character for him. You'll notice on his loyalty mission after talking with mouse he mentions that if he doesn't hold himself accountable, who will? Thus his argument that his body was the killer rather than him seemed like a cop out by the writers on both shepard and thane's part, as his argument didn't even make sense IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS OWN ARGUMENT. You say your body did the actual killing? fair enough. did you or did you not accept a contract to kill this person of your own free will and place yourself in such a situation through premeditated means in order to allow a highly efficient weapon (thane's body) kill them?

that is the coup' de etat in this argument. That he OF HIS OWN FREE WILL, accepted and carried out the assassination of another creature. If he took responsibility for this but explained it as his viewpoint that his contractor would have killed them in some other way, so he might as well feed his family from the inevitable outcome, which ties in better with his Nihilistic undertones.

Modifié par Skirata129, 11 juillet 2011 - 11:06 .

[Saaziel]

 My reply was directed at what i quoted , I'm not that concerned with character consistency to be honest.

I assumed that you didn't understand why "Accountability" wasn't as effective as "Guilt", which what i believed this part was pertaining to : " I don't see why teaching him not to feel guilt is a bad thing, but teaching him to avoid accountability is." (Edited)

Specifically about Thane, I'm not sure about the extent of his beliefs: That said it is implied that it is contingent on a notion of dualism of some sort. There is Thane the Drell and Thane the assassin; I wouldn't assume that he accepts contracts in the manners we are accustomed to. In fact , from what i can remember , its not a matter of choice for him.

However he did show himself accountable on the murder of his wife and her killers. I'm not sure how the Hanar killings and those revolving around his family are phrased. It might be interesting to take note of the syntax used in both cases , and compare them. Thane might be less self contradicting under this light.

Regardless , I'm not taking sides here.

In any event I'd say that this issue is certainly a tribute to the writers; Had they not made such characters , these type of passionate discussion wouldn't be possible.

Skirata129 wrote...

I wouldn't say that accountability is a trait of the little guy, as it depends who you're accountable to.

That's exactly my point.

And why i don't give much merit to accountability , "Personal" or otherwise ; Its a one way street . I'll hold you accountable , but its not necessarily possible for you to do the same for me. And higher up the food chain you get , the less it matters.  

Modifié par Saaziel, 11 juillet 2011 - 11:55 .

[Skirata129]

I'll have to disagree on that. taking responsibility for your own actions is what keeps people focused on reality rather than blind ideals. if you can't realize that your action and it's immediate consequnce are the result of your own decision, it destroys your capability to apply logic, which never has a good result.

[Saaziel]

However you seemed to agree that even if we accept responsibility, it doesn't imply repercussions; Like Zaeed.

If you're accountable but aren't liable to the results or don't care, it loses its merit.

[Skirata129]

nah, that seems more reflective of a genuine badass type. they aren't really affected by violence and usually justify it within the context of "the end justifies the means". Thane's method was a more sophisticated version of "but I didn't MEAN to do it". it comes across as a weak character trait, someone who is unwilling or unable to handle the idea that yes, people do have selfish motives for murder and other actions in life. it's whether they let this define them that determines whether the audience sympathizes with them or views them as a monster or a necessary evil.

[Stardusk78]

I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR PHILOSOPHICAL BS.

[Bad King]

Pups_of_war_76 wrote...

Mash Mashington wrote...

Shepard is not very smart

[Seboist]

Shepard has shown herself to have the IQ of an empty beer bottle with her comparing the genophage to the first contact war, asking Tali if she's royalty, being surprised over Asari being able to mate with each other, etc etc

[Saaziel]

Skirata129 wrote...
Thane's method was a more sophisticated version of "but I didn't MEAN to do it". it comes across as a weak character trait, someone who is unwilling or unable to handle the idea that yes, people do have selfish motives for murder and other actions in life.

Thane did , however , admit that he killed for selfish motives : The murder of his wife's killers when confronted by Kolyate (Spelling ?). He also show remorse at the deaths of innocents at the Dantius towers , because he wasn't fast enough. He takes responsibilities for Thane the Drell and his actions , not the assassin's.

[Fhaileas]

I bet ME2 writers were all chuffed up about how "profound" they were being with all the philosoraptorish silliness liberally strewn in the game. Except of course, there were no heady ruminations associated with Shephard's miraculous resurrection. I guess that issue was too ho-hum for them...

Edit: Forgot to add that I loathed Thane's character, but then again I hated most of the new squadmates excepting perhaps  Kasumi.

Modifié par Fhaileas, 12 juillet 2011 - 02:43 .

[Medhia Nox]

To be honest - most people suck at philosophy.

[Skirata129]

Saaziel wrote...

Thane did , however , admit that he killed for selfish motives : The murder of his wife's killers when confronted by Kolyate (Spelling ?). He also show remorse at the deaths of innocents at the Dantius towers , because he wasn't fast enough. He takes responsibilities for Thane the Drell and his actions , not the assassin's.

which was a start, but he only took credit for those that he killed independent of a contract. Those that he was hired to kill he believed that it was not him who did the killing. That just rubbed me the wrong way, especialy as we aren't able to rebut that argument. and it's not like debating this has to ****** him off. I get into political, philosophical and moral arguments with my friends all the time and we don't hate each other when someone has a different opinion. the entire point of a debate is to be charismatic and sway others to your point of view, not alienate them.

Modifié par Skirata129, 12 juillet 2011 - 02:14 .

[naledgeborn]

Skirata129 wrote...

did anyone else find shepard's inablity to counter thane's argument annoying? when thane started going on about his body doing the assassinations rather than his mind, I would have liked nothing better than the ability to point out that yes, his body did what it was trained to do, but he chose to allow it to be used it that way. when he accepted the job, he accepted the moral responsibility for the killing. his argument that a gun is not responsible for who pulls the trigger was BS, as a gun is unable to avoid situations where it's trigger might be pulled or refuse to be used by someone who would use it to perform violent acts.

How do you guys feel about this?

Shepard's an idiot.

[dreman9999]

Skirata129 wrote...

all decisions must be based on the assumption that we have a choice.

The flaw is that most decisions is based on the consept of calulation. AKA, I need to eat, to eat I need money, to get money I need to work. Most people act on pattern then just make dissions. Also, you point is mute do to the fact you agruing human philosophy to Drell.
They think one way, we think another.

[Son of Illusive Man]

I fully agree.

There's so many good opportunities for ideas to be argued in the game, and there is so much stupid crap people say in the game that Shepard should respond to with a verbal ****-slapping. However, he always says something stupid.

He seriously sounds like a 5 year old sometimes, even paragon Shep.

*Adversary makes a good point, but one that could be easily refuted
Shepard: "Well that doesn't matter! YOU'RE A BAD GUY AND I'M RIGHT! So HA!"

It's hard to see Shep as the protagonist when he can't logically defend his actions, but does them anyways.

[Grunk]

I don't particularly want my Shepard to sit and bandy words with jerks like Vasir. I'd rather have just put a bullet in her noggin via Renegade interrupt and called it a day. "Blah blah you're just like-" BLAM. Whatever. I didn't recklessly endanger a bunch of civvies to work for a guy that I for some reason think of as a partner despite his reputation as a double-dealer who makes sure no one can gain an edge. Yeah, I'm working with Cerberus (who brought me back from the DEAD) to stop a galactic threat, you're working with some dude to take down slavers, and we're the same.

Re: Thane, I thought his argument was extremely convenient for defending himself from his actions as an assassin, but he also has perfect recall of experiences via his crazy eyeball freakout thing; who the hell actually knows how his mind works? For all we know, he experiences sensation in some weird out-of-body kind of way and his body acts as a kind of recorder for the senses. Then he experiences them at will. If he experiences things at a weird kind of distance and considers his body a puppet and executes his training by some kind of rote physical conditioning kind of thing, then it gradually starts to be a little less of a cop-out. Basically, I'm unwilling to make a judgement without knowing how Drell work psychologically. But for now, I'd agree that it smacked of silly quasi-monastic crap.

Finally, I wish people wouldn't harp on "We fight or we die." It was part of a brief trailer meant to be action-packed and thrilling. Should Shepard have sat down, paused the video, and described exactly how he intends for the galactic war to play out and what role each faction would play in it? Jeez. No one says "Give me liberty or give me death," was a stupid cheesy one liner that betrayed Patrick Henry for a dunce. I don't think that Shepard is an idiot; the way the character's been portrayed always made me assume his strongest attribute is his charisma, not his stellar genius. He comes off as smart enough to me.

[WidowMaker9394]

Paragon - patient idiot

Renegade - impatient idiot

Neutral - My name is Shepard and I have no opinion

[procyon8]

Skirata129 wrote...

did anyone else find shepard's inablity to counter thane's argument annoying? when thane started going on about his body doing the assassinations rather than his mind, I would have liked nothing better than the ability to point out that yes, his body did what it was trained to do, but he chose to allow it to be used it that way. when he accepted the job, he accepted the moral responsibility for the killing. his argument that a gun is not responsible for who pulls the trigger was BS, as a gun is unable to avoid situations where it's trigger might be pulled or refuse to be used by someone who would use it to perform violent acts.

How do you guys feel about this?

There are a lot of things about Thane that annoy me, this included.

[ICameForTheMuffins]

I'd love to see where this thread goes...

[mauro2222]

Medhia Nox wrote...

To be honest - most people suck at philosophy.

Haha how could that be? I mean for real xD, seriously...

WidowMaker9394 wrote...

Paragon - patient idiot

Renegade - impatient idiot

Neutral - My name is Shepard and I have no opinion

This xD

Modifié par mauro2222, 13 juillet 2011 - 07:53 .

[ZeroCrewX]

Wow this thread is... really?? For the last friggin time people need to learn to read between the lines and not think everything is as it is shown.

Two arguments :
1- Yes I agree, because it's far likely that someone will defeat the reapers by going into depth for crap he doesn't care about.
2- We're talking about a marine, a VERY good Spectre, who is the only hope of survival in the galaxy. So you tell me then, why would Shepard waste his time with **** like arguing too much?
Read between the lines and you shall see - he IS smart, he IS very good at philosophical debates, however - he doesn't out blunt say anything - everything has a hidden meaning and a purpose behind his/her words.

[Ahriman]

ZeroCrewX wrote...
Read between the lines and you shall see - he IS smart, he IS very good at philosophical debates, however - he doesn't out blunt say anything - everything has a hidden meaning and a purpose behind his/her words.

Man, that's just lame. It looks like you are protecting some kid with Down's syndrome. "No, he's smart, usual people just don't understand him!".
Sorry, couldn't ignore that.