Xeranx wrote...
Goneaviking wrote...
[removed to shorten post]
A woman suggests to a man that they go up to her room. She uses sexy undertones to get a particular message across. When they get up to her room she goes to the bathroom to freshen up. When she comes out she pulls out a gun and a badge and informs him that he's under arrest. Prior to that action it's obvious that the man and woman will have sex, correct?
This would be a lie, would it not? Implying intention to deceive and manipulate?
Another example: If someone holds a gun on you the implication is that you will be shot or can be shot. There's no obvious notion that you will be shot. Without context there's nothing to glean from what you're witnessing on a television show, in a book, or even if this were in-person.
If a gun is being pointed at me, I assume they intend to shoot me. Context may change it, if for example it's a toy gun, or it's someone I trust making a very bad joke, but I would be an idiot to assume that someone pointing a real gun at me doesn't intend me harm, if not death.
As it is, Morinth straddling Shepherd attempted to force a mind meld on to Shepherd who didn't have the willpower to resist. Context is present in that scene.
Short form: there's a difference between something being implied and something being obvious. What you're arguing is context. Without being fed all that information from Samara what would your idea of Morinth be?
Samara isn't the only source of information about Morinth, you get information from the Eclipse, and from Aria which support Samara's claims. As does information gained from Nef's diary and mother.
There again you have the conversation gleaned from conversation with Morinth herself in dialogue, and while looking around her apartment, she consistently demonstrates an enjoyment of danger, and comments more than once that she likes to kill.
"You're an artist on the battlefield" is such a clumsy statement that it appears to be all about manipulating Shepard. My first run through the game, despite keeping Samara, had me cringe at that line. With or without context it's a bad line. My mentione of the "sounds like you too" line is to show how defensive she is. People are saying she's not capable of lying which someone does to cover their backside. Being defensive like that is interesting when you think about all the things she's supposed to embody by being a Justicar. She could have simply stated that she's nothing like Morinth, but instead she says, "sounds like you too". Shepard's comment was merely an observation rather than a pointed attack.
Dodgy lines aside, it didn't seem defensive when she turned my observation back on me. If she'd gotten angry and refused comparison with Morinth it
would have seemed defensive.
Yes, revelling in combat is different from revelling in murder, but isn't it odd that Samara elects to join the order that would allow her to kill anyone deemed corrupt? The same order whose code is black and white with no room for gray, but she's regarded as being virtuous? Rather than request the Justicar Order take Morinth down or bring her in she makes it her personal mission to take Morinth out and is allowed the freedom to kill the corrupt as that's what the title of being a Justicar gives her. By the way I'm not saying Samara's evil, but there is room to state that she might not be on the up and up. Even a con man can be well learned. And, a con man will volunteer enough information to keep you hooked while still keeping vital information to themselves.
What other group would give her the training and freedom to track Morinth? Even the rest of the Justicars aren't actively pursuing her in favour of their own missions despite the centuries long trail of bodies she's left behind her. It's not completely impossible that Samara's playing Shepherd, but as of this posting no one has actually provided any evidence that supports it as being likely. The closest anyone has come has been to say that the primary source of information is Samara, but that doesn't actually strengthen the argument.
It's also worth taking the time to note that the code doesn't eliminate gray, nor remove wiggle room to achieve a greater good. Nihilus escaped Samara by ensuring that killing him would kill innocents, when you witness Samara execute the Eclipse you also witness her offer to spare them if they give up the Ardat-Yakshi. These are gray acts.
The same moment Samara tells you about how she revelled in combat is also the same time she tells you she killed a whole village and left just the kids. After Morinth is dead she still offers up information to incriminate Morinth in the deaths of those villagers who died at her (Samara's) hands. This goes back to Samara joining the Justicar Order and all the freedom that entails. If Samara recognizes that those villagers are innocent why does she not show mercy? She said Morinth threw them at her implying that they had no will of their own, but still shows no mercy? And I can bring that back to the Eclipse mercenary who is unarmed and helpless when Samara approaches her, and summarily kills her. I can't reconcile all that with what is supposed to be the image of a morally steadfast individual against another individual who - for the most part - we've been poisoned against from the moment we met her pursuer. I'm sorry.
The Eclipse soldier was armoured, and given that we had to kill a squad of armed Eclipse not two minutes before the cutscene it's entirely likely that she'd been armed at the outset of her encounter with Samara, but even if not then she certainly doesn't take the lifeline offered by Samara and refuses to give up the information. The execution was ruthless, brutal, even immoral according to my own code, I'd never argue it wasn't but it does nothing to establish a pattern of deceit.
As for the villagers, a tragedy yes, but they did attack Samara and Samara, like anyone else had the obligation to defend herself. Unlike the Eclipse Samara kills, and unlike the apartment scene, we aren't witnesses and we can only take it at it's barebones without reading too much into an anecdote a hundred years old.
I wouldn't present Samara as a representative of any desirable system of morality; she's ruthless and intolerant. I have not, and would not argue against that assessment and I wouldn't disagree with anyone who cited those (or many other traits) as reasons they disliked her. But I still haven't heard any credible arguments that support the "she's a liar" theory.
As for Morinth, having never recruited her I already know she loves art and music, she enjoys the high life and craves excitement. If she were fleshed out she could be a very interesting character, but even as I appreciate that potential, she still demonstrates a death fetish and she still tried to mind kill my character. That is the context I'm operating out of.
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