57139 réponses à ce sujet

[Goddy10]

Rulycar wrote...

This almost makes the ending bearable ... almost.
Does it explain Normandy?
Does it explain friends?

Again, the theory as it has been decided on here INCLUDES what happened to the Normandy, so if that is the case, what you saw happen to the Normandy...Never happened.

[wryterra]

Rulycar wrote...

This almost makes the ending bearable ... almost.
Does it explain Normandy?
Does it explain friends?

Yes it does. Everything from Harbinger hitting Shepard on the run for the beam to Shepard waking up (or credits rolling) is Harbinger attempting to indoctrinate Shepard at *the* last possible moment. Offering Shepard the 'easy way out' of compromise, which will result in a sense of completion so she lies where she is and dies. 

If Shepard fights, however and is determined to kill the Reapers it is Shepard rejecting the indoctrination which is why she then wakes up, bloodied but alive and free of Reaper control, on the streets of London. 

The Normandy crash didn't happen. None of the indoctrination sequence really happened. The game hasn't ended yet. 

Modifié par wryterra, 12 mars 2012 - 02:16 .

[Melra]

Lugaidster wrote...

Melrache wrote...

I hope this ain't true, sure add more endings, if you so please, but don't take away the one I already have. Sure the ending is confusing, but if we start throwing indoctrination around, then the game is already lost. Nobody has properly survived the indoctrination, Shiala was able to resist it, but she wasn't human. So unless the super human Shep goes even more super, the people who are crying for happy ending would seemingly lose that as well.

You're not making a very compelling argument there. Just because no one has been able to resist indoctrination doesn't mean they Shepard can't. I mean, we're fighting the reapers, by your logic we can't defeat them because no one has done so before. If that's true then Shepard should've shot himself a long time ago (not before getting wasted and having frantic sex with everything that moved).

Cheers

Indoctrination isn't same as fighting Reapers physically, my argument works. You just can't see it.

People have destroyed Reapers before and with right kind of weaponry it was proven to be possible. However there has been no evidence of anyone escaping indoctrination.

[Elendstourist]

I really really really hope this theory is true. The biggest part of me thinks, that all the facts you fine Sirs found cant all be coincidence. No way.

After feeling sad, empty and unsatisfied when I finished the game yesterday, I have already declared the hallucination thing my personal ending for ME3. Even if it really is the ending and there is no hallucination and so on... It will remain my ME3 ending forever. I need this

[TamiBx]

themidz wrote...

Mr.Pink wrote...

Goddy10 wrote...

Again I have to reiterate; a line should've been drawn under this with these two facts. There is NO way this couldn't have been done on purpose. Bioware have put these things in the game to give players clues:

1. Shephards dreams were NEVER explained, nor did he ever talk to any squadmates about it. I refuse to believe that is just a plothole.

2. The Codex on Indoctrination. The evidence is all there in writing; Ghost-like hallucinations, voices in the head, the humming Vega mentioned. This is all blatantly intentional.

If it isn't, it's one of the most elaborate accidents I've ever seen.

The dreams were supposed to be symbolic of that child representing all of the humans back on Earth. Shepard is chasing him, trying to save him, trying to comfort him, etc., but when you finally catch him, he just burns up into flames, supposedly being symbolic of  the fact that everyone on Earth is dead, there will be heavy casualties, you can't save them all, etc. The final one where Shepard is in hte dream and he catches the boy to see him with another Shepard, and then sees them both burn is supposed to be foreshadowing of what is about to happen later in the game, Earth has had heavy losses, and Shepard dies at the end. 

EDIT: This is out of my curiosity, how does Shepard never discussing it with his team make it a plothole?

iam not sure but didnt shepard mentioned it to your LI in bed before cerberus mission? i think that he said that he have nightmares, didnt he?

Hmm...that might depend on who you romanced. My Shep romanced Kaidan and she never mentioned anything...

[Venusyl]

Game not over yet. Like I said BioWare "Indoctrinated" us with those endings and endings are well tightly locked boxes.

[JasonTan87]

Omilophile wrote...

JasonTan87 wrote...

It is Heckett that gives the crucible it's name. In this case, the trial does not necessary refer to shepards personal one (although it might be so), but instead to the building of the crucible itself as a trial.

 
Actually it was the writers of the game...

The person who names it in game is significant, because it is this person which assigns the primary context that significance of the name functions in. 

[blooregard]

Lurchibald wrote...

Actually.... how the hell did that kid make it all the way from that duct to that evac point? we're supposed to believe that he avoided countless husks, cannibals and reaper weapons fire, not to mention, why did he crawl TOWARD the very recently exploded room where we first see him?

and if thats a picture of him on the citadel how the hell did aybody else get off earth without being shot down?

[sjrskl]

Anyone notice how the protean VI doesn't say what the catalyst is until after Cerberus hacked it ? Could it mean that the indoctrinated presence detected was in fact Shepard and he could only tell it after he has been hacked ? Also when Shepard asked as to why the VI couldn't tell it was because the reapers shouldn't know about it. something smells fishy here.

I'll reiterate some other points.
-The VS will question if you will know if you are controlled or not , Shepard doesn't answer it

-The little boy being represented in the end as the catalyst doesn't seem real mostly because it is never made clear if he actualy exists or not it could be a sign of the indoctrination correlating with the strange dreams shepard has. A counter arguement has been the fact that you see him in a picture but there is no actual proof that that picture is even real or Shepard just seeing it.

-When in the consensus Shepard takes notice of the fact that Quarians are wearing environ-suits even in the past at which point legion explains it is all the interpretation of Shepard because he hasn't seen the Quarians without suits this points to the idea that when shepard is in contact with a virtual reality he interprets it in a way he understands it making it obvious that he can be fooled by it. This points to the 1m1 pictures in the ending maybe it was lazy design but to me it could be deliberate. Someone posted a while back in this thread that 1m1 is used in optics in correlation with convergance a hint to this is the point where it all comes together and this has been seen before on the shadow broker ship also the rest of the enviroment is completely devoid of any numerals or visual hints.

-Throughout the game Cerberus shows up around the time Shepard does and they always bump in to each other and on Sur'Kesh a crew member specifically says every war has it's traitors this does not get resolved.to me this points to the possebility that shepard is being spied on the entire time either by someone close to him or himself without knowing it.

-Edi questions if you know you know you are not in virtual reality after the server mission on rannoch.

-On the Cerberus base it is revealed that TIM doesn't want Shepard killed when asked by Kai Leng.

-the "good" red ending is the hardest to achieve and is the only one where Shepard wakes up.

-Anderson And TIM show up as if from out of nowhere in the final confrontation.

-When people are being indoctrinated they claim to see ghosts and hear voices Shepard has all of this happen to him/her.

-Anderson mentions seeing walls shift and Mentions how the place on the citadel strangely resembles the collector base as Shepard described it even though that is not the case he also mentions that there are multiple ways on to the platform but there is only one, playing to the idea of indoctrination.

-TIM looks like a husk and when Shepard chooses either control or synthesis we see him looking like one as well before disintegrating.

-there is a religious undertone to the whole event where shepard is first confronted by his good and evil side in the form of Anderson and Tim and after "defeating" Tim he is uplifted to make a choice and going through what seems like purgatory to being uplifted to a "heaven" and him being called shepard is going a bit strong on the whole space-jesus thing. but it points to the mindset that this is the place shepard goes to when he dies. it is also telling that he has no way of looking at his feet and a gun with unlimited ammo all pointing to the dream/death thing.

-The Catalyst is unreliable Shepard can't argue with him because he is somehow right and when compared to harbinger he sounds very much the same (in that i mean his inflection and mannerisms)
-When presented with the final choice the catalyst makes it pretty clear that choosing the destroy option is the worst one because machines will rise up and kill all and edi and the geth die and hell even shepard will die do not choose this one !!!.
He then appeals to the question do you think you can control us ? implying that this is in no way a possibility he clearly says you will die but you will control (sounds to me like this one makes you lose you're individuality in a greater concious a.k.a. becoming part of a reaper or a husk (further implied by the husk like look when shepard disintigrates)).
Lastly you can choose to sacrifice you're individuality again but in this case every organic is reshaped into a organic/synthetic hybrid (this implies to me the same thing as control but rather than fighting for control Shepard has to surrender all control and be released into the greater conciousness).
The whole mass relays blowing up and normandy being stranded in my strange metaphysical way of thinking represents the part where shepard is fighting with the last bit of his sanity and understanding and seeing the people (s)he cared about for the last time before Shepard finally dies (or in two of the three endings where he gets huskified and only in one where he has beaten the indoctrination attempt by the reapers). 

Or Bioware did not know how to end this series and just pulled allot of bs and came up with the endings as cannon to destroy their own franchise and trust in the francise.

Modifié par sjrskl, 12 mars 2012 - 02:28 .

[Lurchibald]

Lugaidster wrote...

Melrache wrote...

I hope this ain't true, sure add more endings, if you so please, but don't take away the one I already have. Sure the ending is confusing, but if we start throwing indoctrination around, then the game is already lost. Nobody has properly survived the indoctrination, Shiala was able to resist it, but she wasn't human. So unless the super human Shep goes even more super, the people who are crying for happy ending would seemingly lose that as well.

You're not making a very compelling argument there. Just because no one has been able to resist indoctrination doesn't mean they Shepard can't. I mean, we're fighting the reapers, by your logic we can't defeat them because no one has done so before. If that's true then Shepard should've shot himself a long time ago (not before getting wasted and having frantic sex with everything that moved).

Cheers

That's What Morinth said about mating with her and look what happend with that

[JasonTan87]

JasonTan87 wrote...

Keep in mind; with such an ending without a closure, it is very easy to see what we each want to see. It's very easy to read into the narrative and find things that are not there. Hope, combined with emotional desperation, makes a most persuasive force. (This reminds me of TIM's own failing)

I myself am wary of giving the writers too much credit; especially in instances where there is the possibility of me deluding myself into making a masterpiece out of someone's sloppy work. Traditionally, Mass Effect followed fairly conventional soap-opera conventions. Unlike the Matrix, which sought to question reality from the onset, we do not have this meta-narrative coming from the last two games. Making the last 20 minutes of Mass Effect 3 into a post-modern meta narrative that is an 'indoctrination' of the player; while entirely plausable, is unlikely.

The thing is, we can't tell if this is deliberate just yet. I'm most willing to buy into this theory, but I can't help but ask myself:

If this was really true, why hold the 'real ending' back? Why not just release it with the rest of the game, and be credited for the stroke of genious? Why risk the fan backlash? Why look sloppy when you can look good right off?

Why troll us, their fans?

You know, they could have just told us in a press release, with a sly smile, that it's not over yet. Then they wouldn't have any of this PR firestorm on their hands.

Even if it was true, the current state that ME3 was released in (supposedly a complete game out of the box) is also paramount to bad writing. The narrative, as it is now, it violates the reader-writer contract by not offering the real ending to provide closure to the story. Even if there was an overarching meta-narrative embedded within, the writing must be consistant and clear enough for us to reach that conclusion without having a 'panel' to 'interpret' the ending for us. Mass Effect 3 has neither.

The very fact that the 'panel' has to 'interpret' their vision to us shows how the narrative has failed to communicate the different levels of the narrative.

In addition; the whole crucible thing itself could have been handled more adequately. Hallucination is not an excuse for sloppy writing. The writing for the crucible onwards; while brillant if this theory holds true; still feels sloppy and rushed. Imagine how much more convincing if they had a fluent narrative without the gigantic plot holes, and the Normandy had a proper reason for running away with your crew all on it. It also end with Normandy getting knocked out of FTL, but not show the crew coming out of the Normandy on some random planet.

The fact that the ending feels rushed worries me; because such meta-narrative twists require a high level of finesse to pull off.

What worries me the most is that people are losing their objectivity, calling what what may very well be a rushed conclusion 'a stroke of genius'. We must never forget that Bioware is telling us a story, and the very fact that we are unable to see the structure of the meta-narrative clearly (if it even exists) shows an inability to communicate their artistic vision properly through the medium.

[Anthraxius Omega]

The dreams were supposed to be symbolic of that child representing all of the humans back on Earth. Shepard is chasing him, trying to save him, trying to comfort him, etc., but when you finally catch him, he just burns up into flames, supposedly being symbolic of  the fact that everyone on Earth is dead, there will be heavy casualties, you can't save them all, etc. The final one where Shepard is in hte dream and he catches the boy to see him with another Shepard, and then sees them both burn is supposed to be foreshadowing of what is about to happen later in the game, Earth has had heavy losses, and Shepard dies at the end. 

EDIT: This is out of my curiosity, how does Shepard never discussing it with his team make it a plothole?

I beg to differ: Shepard doesnt die in option "renegade" destroying the reapers. So no forshadowing there. And even in dreams Shepard would fight the flames and not just burn with a kid.

Maybe plothole is the wrong word for it, but it is strange that you never have even the possibility to mention them to anyone. Try to remeber Sarens indoctrination. There could be paralells--
The biggest factor I would consider akward is the coloring of the last options: controlling the reapers is paragon? Renegade is destroying the reapers and LIVE? Synthesis means reaper code for eyerone?
There is more to it that meets the eye.

[Leonia]

Melrache wrote...

People have destroyed Reapers before and with right kind of weaponry it was proven to be possible. However there has been no evidence of anyone escaping indoctrination.

What about Shiala?

[Sl4sh3r]

If any of this is true, they screwed over their own game...

http://www.metacriti...-3/user-reviews

Modifié par Sl4sh3r, 12 mars 2012 - 02:21 .

[Lugaidster]

Melrache wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Melrache wrote...

I hope this ain't true, sure add more endings, if you so please, but don't take away the one I already have. Sure the ending is confusing, but if we start throwing indoctrination around, then the game is already lost. Nobody has properly survived the indoctrination, Shiala was able to resist it, but she wasn't human. So unless the super human Shep goes even more super, the people who are crying for happy ending would seemingly lose that as well.

You're not making a very compelling argument there. Just because no one has been able to resist indoctrination doesn't mean they Shepard can't. I mean, we're fighting the reapers, by your logic we can't defeat them because no one has done so before. If that's true then Shepard should've shot himself a long time ago (not before getting wasted and having frantic sex with everything that moved).

Cheers

Indoctrination isn't same as fighting Reapers physically, my argument works. You just can't see it.

People have destroyed Reapers before and with right kind of weaponry it was proven to be possible. However there has been no evidence of anyone escaping indoctrination.

People have destroyed reapers, but actually beaten them? Following the analogy with the indoctrination it would be as saying people have fought and delayed indoctrination but not actually escaped it.  As such, my original point stands: the fact that no one has escaped it doesn't mean that someone can't escape it.

[mad825]

Personally, I'm going on the idea that "Squall is dead" thing. Shepard died at the beginning of ME2 and ME3 is about trying to reconcile with death.

Could someone explain that every bit at the end? Where the "grandpa" is telling the stories to the little kid. I can never understand that and it seems very out of place.

Modifié par mad825, 12 mars 2012 - 02:24 .

[SogaBan]

byne wrote...

It may explain BioWare's silence on the matter, until "more people have played the game", or until all regions have the game. It may explain Jess M.'s twitter about fans "reacting before having all of the facts". It may.... just may explain these super sh*tty endings in a way that would make BioWare the God of RPGs.

Is it likely? No. Am I reaching, insanely? Yes.

But is it possible?

Yes.

Fine points and apparently logical arguments... but that doesn't give a neat ending. In some other thread I have repeatedly been stressing on "NEAT, LOGICAL and CONSISTENT" ending(s) to tthe trilogy.

The points you have raised may have a LOGICAL ending or if we stretch a little further we may also get a CONSISTENT ending. But that leaves the "NEAT " part out.

Why?

With Shepard hallucinating, it's quite natural for him to delude the reaper/catalyst as something/someone of whom he has been getting the nightmares repeatedly. But that leaves us with one technical question. Remember, what Catalyst said when Shepard asked whether he can get any assistance in destroying the reapers? The catalyst said, "THe Reapers are mine. I control them..." Okay that statement 'probably' cleared who created the reapers but at the same time it moves to " who or what is Catalyst?" A deity? A reaper embodiment? A super advanced AI? We don't know for sure.

And even if we assume that after DESTROYING the reapers, Shepard comes out of the indoctined hallucination then that leaves us with even more questions...

If (as the points you have made) Shepard is rising from ashes in London (after the credits) then that means he was never in Citadel (after the conduit run) and that altogether negates the fact that Shepard has actually destroyed the Catalyst...

Secondly, with Catalyst/reapers are destroyed along with the mass relays, how come Shepard (or for that matter any living beings in Sol and other systems) survives (considering what happened in "Arrival").

And if by destroying the catalyst, Shepard can overcome the indoctrination effect - the how come he still "hallucinates" the escape of the Normandy without him??

Finally, if you say that the entire thing was just a dream-hallucination sequence (after the conduit-beam entry) so that means Shepard has not yet beaten the Reapers! Either that or he destroyed them in some metaphysical world (some crappy ideas like Matrix and all...) the altogether it negates what Mr Hudson said - that ME3 is the end of SHepard's story arch...

So many loose ends! So many lacunae!

There is no way you can justify by even the most stringent of logic(s)...!!!

[Chara Jade Lionsend]

TamiBx wrote...

themidz wrote...

Mr.Pink wrote...

Goddy10 wrote...

Again I have to reiterate; a line should've been drawn under this with these two facts. There is NO way this couldn't have been done on purpose. Bioware have put these things in the game to give players clues:

1. Shephards dreams were NEVER explained, nor did he ever talk to any squadmates about it. I refuse to believe that is just a plothole.

2. The Codex on Indoctrination. The evidence is all there in writing; Ghost-like hallucinations, voices in the head, the humming Vega mentioned. This is all blatantly intentional.

If it isn't, it's one of the most elaborate accidents I've ever seen.

The dreams were supposed to be symbolic of that child representing all of the humans back on Earth. Shepard is chasing him, trying to save him, trying to comfort him, etc., but when you finally catch him, he just burns up into flames, supposedly being symbolic of  the fact that everyone on Earth is dead, there will be heavy casualties, you can't save them all, etc. The final one where Shepard is in hte dream and he catches the boy to see him with another Shepard, and then sees them both burn is supposed to be foreshadowing of what is about to happen later in the game, Earth has had heavy losses, and Shepard dies at the end. 

EDIT: This is out of my curiosity, how does Shepard never discussing it with his team make it a plothole?

iam not sure but didnt shepard mentioned it to your LI in bed before cerberus mission? i think that he said that he have nightmares, didnt he?

Hmm...that might depend on who you romanced. My Shep romanced Kaidan and she never mentioned anything...

In my game, Garrus was my LI, and while Shep did mention that she had been having nightmares, she never actually includes any details such as the boy, the whispers, etc.  I actually found it rather frustrating throughout the entire game, especially since Liara seemed to know that something was wrong, and I didn't understand why Shep wouldn't just say there was a boy on Earth she couldn't save.  At one point, Shep even has the option to say that she was thinking about the fallen, but she mentions the VS specifically and disregards the boy.

And just to touch on the Vega issue, I always went down to talk to him because he kept mentioning the humming, so I was waiting for him to become indoctrinated...and it never happened.  Struck me as super peculiar.

[Ecmoose]

JasonTan87 wrote...

Omilophile wrote...

JasonTan87 wrote...

It is Heckett that gives the crucible it's name. In this case, the trial does not necessary refer to shepards personal one (although it might be so), but instead to the building of the crucible itself as a trial.

 
Actually it was the writers of the game...

The person who names it in game is significant, because it is this person which assigns the primary context that significance of the name functions in. 

Well, technically Hackett does not name it that either.

"They're calling it the Crucible."

It's the scientisists working on it that named it.

[Lurchibald]

blooregard wrote...

Lurchibald wrote...

Actually.... how the hell did that kid make it all the way from that duct to that evac point? we're supposed to believe that he avoided countless husks, cannibals and reaper weapons fire, not to mention, why did he crawl TOWARD the very recently exploded room where we first see him?

and if thats a picture of him on the citadel how the hell did aybody else get off earth without being shot down?

the kid appears way more than to be just a coincidence.

[Melra]

Lugaidster wrote...

Melrache wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Melrache wrote...

I hope this ain't true, sure add more endings, if you so please, but don't take away the one I already have. Sure the ending is confusing, but if we start throwing indoctrination around, then the game is already lost. Nobody has properly survived the indoctrination, Shiala was able to resist it, but she wasn't human. So unless the super human Shep goes even more super, the people who are crying for happy ending would seemingly lose that as well.

You're not making a very compelling argument there. Just because no one has been able to resist indoctrination doesn't mean they Shepard can't. I mean, we're fighting the reapers, by your logic we can't defeat them because no one has done so before. If that's true then Shepard should've shot himself a long time ago (not before getting wasted and having frantic sex with everything that moved).

Cheers

Indoctrination isn't same as fighting Reapers physically, my argument works. You just can't see it.

People have destroyed Reapers before and with right kind of weaponry it was proven to be possible. However there has been no evidence of anyone escaping indoctrination.

People have destroyed reapers, but actually beaten them? Following the analogy with the indoctrination it would be as saying people have fought and delayed indoctrination but not actually escaped it.  As such, my original point stands: the fact that no one has escaped it doesn't mean that someone can't escape it.

Protheans seemed to know that they could've defeated them, if they just had realized few things earlier. Indoctrination isn't same as beating the Reapers. Just silly comparison.

Though it would be even better storytelling to have Shepard overcome such thing, simply because he's Shepard. Not that I couldn't see that happening to appease the crazy fanbase.

Modifié par Melrache, 12 mars 2012 - 02:28 .

[ZedderZulu]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before (probably has, I haven't read all 1734 pages yet) but on the subject of people hearing whispers during the talk with the god-kid, I've now convinced myself that whenever the kid speaks, his words are being simultaneously spoken by Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer - Hale's voice being more evident. Not sure what that says about the idea of "it's all in Shepard's head" - I mean, the "kid" is an ancient alien entity, he's probably not going to communicate normally.

I like the idea of the illusion theory - certainly the thought that the endings may not be "final". I had kind of resigned myself to seeing my Shep die, but like a lot of other people here, I was ...disheartened to think that all my time and effort in unifying the galaxy was effectively irrelevant.

Modifié par ZedderZulu, 12 mars 2012 - 02:26 .

[sheppard7]

The endings might be why the prices on eBay have dropped to almost retail prices for the CE. Sellers are now trying to just recoup their money? But you can still pick them up at local gamestops from the cancels.

Modifié par sheppard7, 12 mars 2012 - 02:26 .

[Lugaidster]

Sl4sh3r wrote...

If any of this is true, they screwed over their own game...

http://www.metacriti...-3/user-reviews

To be honest, those would be low regardless. The gay romance option and the day 1 DLC are both enraging enough to some to actually bombard metacritic with low scores. So the fact that they are low because of the endings wouldn't mean that they woudln't be low if the endings were good.

As many who say that the ending haters are a vocal minority, it's most likely that if we didn't have a problem with the game, we wouldn't bother posting there. For that very reason, I don't pay much attention to the aggregation of user reviews. I've never bothered posting there and I loved both ME games before.

[TheRealQueen]

sjrskl wrote...

-Edi questions if you know you know you are not in virtual reality after the server mission on rannoch.

For me it was Joker, but I didn't even think about that!! Great point!!