Estelindis wrote...
Lots of reasons could be thought up that would do the job just as well, though. She could be working at a promising research site (Mars has cropped up a lot in Cerberus News), or lobbying interest groups, and feel she could make more of a difference there than in Shepard's ME2 squad. Alternatively, the fact that she carries much of the prothean information that Shepard has from the beacon et al could be viewed as meaning that she can't risk herself in the same mission as Shepard. If they were all killed in the suicide mission - assuming Shiala isn't around - there would be no relic of the beacon left to help the galaxy. She could see it as irreponsible to put all their eggs in one basket, certainly early in ME2 before the link between the protheans/collectors and the reapers is established - and, once it is established, she can be placed out of reach for a while, in a similar manner to Ashley and Kaidan (but not an identical one; as a long-suffering VS fan, I wouldn't wish that on Liara fans at all!).
To extend that latter idea a bit - and this is my personal favourite - Liara could see it as her responsibility to develop a new beacon system, so that if the fight against the Reapers ultimately fails then some future race might have another chance to be warned and succeed at beating the Reapers. It would obviously be a very challenging task, but I think she has cause to not see it as totally vain, since Reapers wipe out galactic civilization rather than life (and presumably, from her post-ME1 but pre-ME2 perspective, have a compelling reason for doing so which will persist). As a member of the long-lived asari species and also as an archaeologist, she should be perfectly placed to take a long-term view on such matters. In this scenario, she wouldn't want current galactic civilization to leave behind a negative legacy: that is to say, she would't want "us" to deprive the future of the prothean beacons that we used up without at least replacing them with something similar or even better.
Anyway, in any of these situations, Liara could have the position that she'd make more of a positive difference outside Shepard's squad. When they meet after Shep is brought back from the dead, Shep would have three choices: agree with her and be supportive; disagree but respect her choice; and disagree strongly and condemn her for "not helping."
Personally, I think that would have worked better than the storyline we got.
Incidentally, I never saw the prothean expertise as just an initial character situation for her to outgrow. Perhaps this is because I'm working on a doctorate myself and I know that the level of knowledge one acquires on one's specialist subject during that study period is rarely if ever exceeded by any other study in one's lifetime. Honestly, I found it preposterous that Liara was written as becoming an expert information broker in two years after a lifetime in academia and archaeological digs. I think it was nowhere near enough time. It's not that I don't see her as intelligent and talented - I do - but I don't think it was a credible development for her character as written. People can cry "character development," but all I see is character shoe-horning into a development that doesn't make sense. It never had to be written this way. So many better choices were available.
Liara's change in profession makes a lot of sense to me:
It indicates the significant impact Shephard's death had on her life.
Academic research requires a lot of focus on the researcher's part. Liara's mind is more occupied with finding
Feron and taking revenge on the Shadow Broker, it becomes the main focus of her life.
Research needs funding, if your mind's not fully in it, you will get into trouble sooner or later.
She becomes an Information Broker on Illium (with probably a rather limited radius of operation, I assume) to pay the bills. before she becomes the galaxy wide operating Shadow Broker. The change is gradual and not aprubt and sudden.
Archaeology is basically the gathering and interpretation of specialized knowledge, to learn how to handle information is a basic skill for anyone working an academic field, so it's not really a stretch to assume, that she can successfully work as an information broker after about two years.
Liara is still young and her motivations have a lot to do with her emotions. Archeological digs made it possible for her to lead a life away from society, an emotional need of hers after growing up as a matriach's daughter.
This changes after joining the Shepard's team, I think she learns to enjoy the company of others again, her life already takes a different turn during the events of Mass Effect 1.
After the death of the commander, retrieving her body, becomes the main focus of Liara's life, after that it's finding Feron and the SB.
Liara chooses what she does, she doesn't let her past dictate the future development of her life.
In my opinion, going back to her life as an archeologist, is what wouldn't make sense after everything that has happened, not at that point in time.
Again, Liara is driven by her emotional needs more than the needs of the galactic civilization and she is not an
engineer. Her building new beacons would be much more of a stretch than her becoming an information broker.
Besides, Asari lives, private or professional, are different from our own, most notably in length. Liara is already
an exception to their rule, becoming an expert in a specialized field at such a young age. She is not normal, even by Asari standards.
As I said, her actions always have been emotionally motivated and she tends to obsess about the things she does. That is what defines her as a person. Not being an archeologist or prothean expert, which is what makes her relevant to the plot of Mass Effect 1. That is in itself a result of those underlying character traits as much as
is becoming the Shadow Broker in the wake of Shepard's death.
Of course you could write the whole story differently, but some choices are the writers' to make.
You give people small choices and suddenly they want to decide everything!
And what makes one choice better than another is purely subjective.
My own view on this is of course hopelessly biased as well and I am rather happy that Liara has such a prominent role over the course of the whole trilogy and I can see why others are disappointed that Bioware doesn't tie all
squadmates or even more so at least the love interests, into the plot more equally, but pre-LotSB I shared that kind of disappointment and it didn't lead me to the conclusion that their treatment of the story and characters was somehow wrong. Same goes for Ashley, who I love dearly as well, and Horizon (though the dialogue there is rather badly written, even by my generous standards) was never a real problem for me.
An analysis should be more about what something is and not what it should be according to your wishes, personally I don't see the point in arguing alternatives to someone else's story, but if that's what floats your boat, than go ahead, but don't claim your ideas are neccessarily better by any objective standard, just because one character gets more attention than another you might favor. Writing is not a democracy.
I am trying to avoid most spoilers, but I have given my opinion about LIara's role in Mass Effect 3 as far as I know about it
a couple of pages earlier.
Modifié par Olive Oomph, 07 décembre 2011 - 05:42 .
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:D *cheers*
