Nissun wrote...
I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that ME3 is completely shattering the stablished paragon "do not harm innocent lives" and the renegade "whatever is necessary" choices.
"Arrival" did it already. What Shepard did was brutal. But he had to do it. In the flashback, when I heard Javik say something like "Their lives will be avenged on the next cycle", I thought that sure, it was ruthless. But when you actually imagine the scale of the war he was living through, you realize that said choice was necessary. It was desperate.
And besides, a few moments later, when the VI tells him that civilian lives have to be sacrificed, he hesitates. (I hope I'm not misremembering this) So he's not a heartless monster.
Even Garrus tells Shepard, that humans are not ready to make sacrifices, because they always try to save everybody, and that is just not possible sometimes.
And Javik himself has that amazing quote (I just started his DLC, so I had to come in here to comment) when Shep says the war can be fought with her honor intact: "Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer."
I agree that the dialogue in the game seems to be putting the idealism of paragon choices into some perspective.