72 réponses à ce sujet

[Eterna]

Hexxys wrote...

Efesell wrote...

Eh, evil just for the sake of evil isn't very interesting in a main villain.

I may not fully agree with the reasoning they have, but I prefer that they actually have reasons instead of just "Eh why not"

I'm going to have to disagree here.  True chaotic evil characters can be some of the most entertaining.  Heath Ledger's Joker, for example, is a modern example of how it can be pulled off to great effect.

Clearly,  the reapers should wear Clown face paint. 

[RogueBot]

I would have been fine if the Reapers' purpose was simply to (a) procreate by using the genetic material of a worthy species to create a new Reaper, and ( consume their resources to keep them going for another 50,000 years, as well as take any new science and technology as their own.

Guess I'm just a simple guy-- I don't mind simple explanations for my villains. Hell, they'd pretty much just be like humans that way, by conquering and feeding off those weaker than them. So they wouldn't even be "evil", not really... they'd just be an extremely powerful force making their way in the universe.

Modifié par RogueBot, 05 mars 2012 - 05:42 .

[Captain Blood]

being evil just for the sake of being bad is so yesterday....i mean omg.....it's not like the reapers commit genocide for ****s and giggles, yall

[Hexxys]

Eterna5 wrote...

Hexxys wrote...

Efesell wrote...

Eh, evil just for the sake of evil isn't very interesting in a main villain.

I may not fully agree with the reasoning they have, but I prefer that they actually have reasons instead of just "Eh why not"

I'm going to have to disagree here.  True chaotic evil characters can be some of the most entertaining.  Heath Ledger's Joker, for example, is a modern example of how it can be pulled off to great effect.

Clearly,  the reapers should wear Clown face paint. 

While the example wasn't meant to be taken literally, I must admit that'd be kind of awesome.

[Allworkandlowpay]

Hexxys wrote...

I'm going to have to disagree here.  True chaotic evil characters can be some of the most entertaining.  Heath Ledger's Joker, for example, is a modern example of how it can be pulled off to great effect.

Chaotic evil only works in a world where that type of polarized villain is believable. Star Wars, Comic Books, etc 

Mass Effect isn't one of them. Ever since the beginning of the series, our villains have been multi-layered and believable. To all of a sudden just let these intergalactic space lobsters have no reason to do evil except be evil, in a storyline full of the motifs of "ends that justify the means" and "greater good" seems silly.

[dw99027]

Spread the Love:

Now, our time has come

Here, but now it's gone

Organics don't fear the Reapers

Nor do the green the red and the blue

(We can be like they are)

Come on baby

(Don't fear the Reapers)

Baby take my hand

(Don't fear the Reapers) 

We'll be able to fly

(Don't fear the Reapers)

 Baby they're our bros

[elm]

Saren was the only good villain

[WarGriffin]

The Reapers however loose all thier mystic the moment you explain them

Remember the Reapers are inspired by the old ones. Beings of pure evil thay thier reasons are beyond human grasp

by giving a justification for thier logic... you kinda defeat the point of them.

The reapers were suppose to be unknownable beings

as Vigil said, your task is to stop them, not understand them

and apparently that was lost when you switch writers

[Allworkandlowpay]

WarGriffin wrote...

The Reapers however loose all thier mystic the moment you explain them

Remember the Reapers are inspired by the old ones. Beings of pure evil thay thier reasons are beyond human grasp

by giving a justification for thier logic... you kinda defeat the point of them.

The reapers were suppose to be unknownable beings

as Vigil said, your task is to stop them, not understand them

and apparently that was lost when you switch writers

It's not the new writers fault, it's half marketing and half the fanbase.

Bioware was stuck in a Catch-22. Either you leave them unknowable, and keep their mystique, and endure the wrath of the fanbase, or you explain them to add some sense of closure, allowing them to lose their mystique, and endure the wrath of the fanbase.

[Chuvvy]

Why can't they just be Lovecraftian? Some questions are better left unanswered, and the reapers were much more intimidating in ME1 when they were eldritch techno gods. In ME2 they just needed organics for the most basic human function, reproduction. Now, in ME3, they're trying to save the galaxy from the singularity.

Modifié par Slidell505, 05 mars 2012 - 06:03 .

[schythe1]

Efesell wrote...

Eh, evil just for the sake of evil isn't very interesting in a main villain.

I may not fully agree with the reasoning they have, but I prefer that they actually have reasons instead of just "Eh why not"

I think the point is that the reason both could and should have been better than:

Organics will create synthetics that will kill the organics so to prevent this we created synthetics to kill the organics before they can create synthetics that will kill them.

[WarGriffin]

schythe1 wrote...

Efesell wrote...

Eh, evil just for the sake of evil isn't very interesting in a main villain.

I may not fully agree with the reasoning they have, but I prefer that they actually have reasons instead of just "Eh why not"

I think the point is that the reason both could and should have been better than:

Organics will create synthetics that will kill the organics so to prevent this we created synthetics to kill the organics before they can create synthetics that will kill them.

Which is circular logic ie an infinity loop... which should make the reapers explode when they think about it

[dw99027]

Organics will create synthetics that will kill the organics so to prevent this we created synthetics to preserve the organics before they can create synthetics that will kill them.

Fixed for Truth.

[schythe1]

dw99027 wrote...

Organics will create synthetics that will kill the organics so to prevent this we created synthetics to preserve the organics before they can create synthetics that will kill them.

Fixed for Truth.

Preservation does not equal genocide which is what they have been doing.  

[dw99027]

Non-preservation equals irreversible genocide. Instead of 50000 year cycles of organic sentience, you get an eternity of pure AI.

[LordofMasks]

The bottom line is that the reapers have to be either straight up evil or hegemonists. This is simply because their motivations don't mesh with their nature. Each reaper is the collected intellect and perhaps personalities of a civilization, representing billions, hundreds of billions or perhaps even trillions of individuals. If this is the case and I am a reaper I am not going to risk my entire civilization('cause reapers can die, ya' know) to save some other civilization if there is no gain for me. The only way I would even think about it is if I was working to stop organics or synthetics from gaining enough power to become a threat to me. Also by doing so I increase the number of reapers and make my demise much less likely in the next cycle.

[Allworkandlowpay]

I think we also are limited in understanding the motivations of the Reapers to their fullest extent. We know what they were created or "born" for, but it's quite possible that's not entirely the case. I think over the millenia that their motives have changed. Reapers are ultimately what they were programmed to stop, and as they've grown in sentience, it seems more and more likely that they are more focused on survival than protocol.

[AnimatedMonster]

Reapers shouldn't be explained. Their appeal comes from their mystique.

You don't know their origin or motivation; that's what makes them scary.

They're the quintessential boogeymen.

[dw99027]

LordofMasks wrote...

The bottom line is that the reapers have to be either straight up evil or hegemonists. This is simply because their motivations don't mesh with their nature. Each reaper is the collected intellect and perhaps personalities of a civilization, representing billions, hundreds of billions or perhaps even trillions of individuals. If this is the case and I am a reaper I am not going to risk my entire civilization('cause reapers can die, ya' know) to save some other civilization if there is no gain for me. The only way I would even think about it is if I was working to stop organics or synthetics from gaining enough power to become a threat to me. Also by doing so I increase the number of reapers and make my demise much less likely in the next cycle.

The mere fact that despite their power, their motives-programming revolve around something other than themselves, is what makes them 'not inherently evil'.

[Hexxys]

Allworkandlowpay wrote...

Hexxys wrote...

I'm going to have to disagree here.  True chaotic evil characters can be some of the most entertaining.  Heath Ledger's Joker, for example, is a modern example of how it can be pulled off to great effect.

Chaotic evil only works in a world where that type of polarized villain is believable. Star Wars, Comic Books, etc 

Mass Effect isn't one of them. Ever since the beginning of the series, our villains have been multi-layered and believable. To all of a sudden just let these intergalactic space lobsters have no reason to do evil except be evil, in a storyline full of the motifs of "ends that justify the means" and "greater good" seems silly.

Reapers are machines, the most polarized form of "life" there is from our own.  I see no issue with these machines being hell bent on the destruction of advanced organic races "just because".  At the very least, their reasoning could be left ambiguous to at LEAST lend some credance to Sovereign's claim that the reapers are beyond organic understanding.

Right now they're just incomprehensibly stupid, not necessarily beyond the understanding of organic life as we were lead to believe.

[Nachtritter76]

Frankly, to even think in scales of bad to good is setting yourself up for failure, because those are human concepts. The Reapers were originally beyond our understanding and experience. They may be several millions of years old. Just the idea of time to them has become irrelevant by now. Good? Evil? They serve no purpose to things like them. Bioware created a 'monster' far too awe-inspiring and fear-inducing for their own writing. They seriously could NOT follow up on their creation, because things of such alien intellect and existence simply cannot be understood in simple human terms, and they require a lot of work to properly write up.

Simply put, you'd need a proper mix of H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur C. Clarke to write something of any worth on the scale of the Reapers.

Sadly, Bioware does not have writers of either author's caliber.

Modifié par Nachtritter76, 05 mars 2012 - 06:47 .

[The Rime Scheme]

Nachtritter76 wrote...
Sadly, Bioware does not have writers of either author's caliber.

It seemed like they did when they were originally hinting about the incomprehensibility of the Reapers' true nature, and I was genuinely pleased. Sure it seems shallow to have 'two-dimensional' characters that are simply good or evil or whatever, but I thought there's nothing wrong with struggling against something you don't understand. In a lot of ways, that could describe human nature - fear of the unknown, that sort of thing.

But as soon as it started coming out that we'd learn about the why of it (in the leaks, the achievement list, etc) I lost hope for anything new or at least unusual to come out of that part of the story. 

Modifié par The Rime Scheme, 05 mars 2012 - 06:54 .

[dw99027]

because things of such alien intellect and existence simply cannot be understood in simple human terms

A Human mind gave them birth and put them on paper/your TV. It's an oxymoron to claim what you claim because then no writer could follow up on his own creation. Lovecraft and Clarke would be nice, but unnecessary. And if you can't explain your own fictional creation in human(reader) terms, then you're a poor writer.

[Nachtritter76]

dw99027 wrote...

because things of such alien intellect and existence simply cannot be understood in simple human terms

A Human mind gave them birth and put them on paper/your TV. It's an oxymoron to claim what you claim because then no writer could follow up on his own creation. Lovecraft and Clarke would be nice, but unnecessary. And if you can't explain your own fictional creation in human(reader) terms, then you're a poor writer.

No. That's not a poor writer. Not if what is glimpsed at is good enough.

Go back and read Rendez-Vous With Rama again. Not the rest of the series, which Clarke regretted writing. The first one. All of the technology inside the ship is brilliantly described in visual terms. And some of the reasoning behind the occurances in Rama can be assumed. But by the end of the book, the only thing people know with certainty about the thing is that: it exists, it's alien, it's ancient, we're not alone, it didn't care about us at all, and they do things by the rule of three. That's about it.

So, are you saying Clarke's book in an example of poor writing?

See, you can DESCRIBE things in human terms. But you cannot UNDERSTAND them because they are so far removed from our own sphere of experience. Just like Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, who didn't care for humans anymore than they cared for any other mortal creature in the universe. Because we didn't even enter into the equation. Same goes with the Reapers. To suddenly give them such simple motives is a travesty of what they used to be.

Modifié par Nachtritter76, 05 mars 2012 - 07:14 .

[The Rime Scheme]

dw99027 wrote...

because things of such alien intellect and existence simply cannot be understood in simple human terms

A Human mind gave them birth and put them on paper/your TV. It's an oxymoron to claim what you claim because then no writer could follow up on his own creation. Lovecraft and Clarke would be nice, but unnecessary. And if you can't explain your own fictional creation in human(reader) terms, then you're a poor writer.

Within the fiction, that's perfectly reasonable. What yous suggest is even more ludicrous - with everything necessitating an explanation, then we couldn't conceive of the concept of being unable to understand something. We'd literally be unable to understand there's something we can't understand. It makes perfect sense, and is a reasonable thing to write, to simply have the Reapers be incomprehensible. We don't have to understand them to fight them. If Shepard were Sun Tzu he'd make note of the fact that it would certainly help out, but you don't have to understand the motivations of something to want to or be able to fight it.

EDIT: He put this in a better way than I did, and beat me to it regardless:

Nachtritter76 wrote...


No. That's not a poor writer. Not if what is glimpsed at is good enough.

Go back and read Rendez-Vous With Rama again. Not the rest of the series, which Clarke regretted writing. The first one. All of the technology inside the ship is brilliantly described in visual terms. And some of the reasoning behind the occurances in Rama can be assumed. But by the end of the book, the only thing people about the thing is that: it's alien, it's ancient, we're not alone, it didn't care about us at all, and they do things by the rule of three. That's about it.

So, are you saying Clarke's book in an example of poor writing?

See, you can DESCRIBE things in human terms. But you cannot UNDERSTAND them because they are so far removed from our own sphere of experience. Just like Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, who didn't care for humans anymore than they cared for any other mortal creature in the universe. Because we didn't even enter into the equation. Same goes with the Reapers. To suddenly give them such simple motives is a travesty of what they used to be.

 

Modifié par The Rime Scheme, 05 mars 2012 - 07:12 .