I have only recently gotten on the Indoctrination theory bandwagon and haven't got the chance to go through the nearly 700 pages of posts for this thread. So if I'm stating something that someone has already brought up, I'm sorry and I'm not trying to steal the spotlight from you.
What I can gather from reading the innitial post and from several youtube videos I've seen online, no one has yet been able to explain three scenes that are shown universally among all three endings. I'm speaking of the the flashes to the same 3 characters after you made your choice, the scene with Joker trying to save the Normandy, and the scene at the end of the credits with the child and grandparent. And I think I might have the answer as to why those scenes exist.
The thing that always confused me about the flashes to Joker, Anderson, and Liara was that they were the same for all three endings. Not only that, but the choice of the characters didn't make much sense. I mean if you were about to die/sacrifice yourself, wouldn't your LI be one of the faces that flashed before your eyes? Why is Joker in the flashes and not one of the other characters that you have spent more time with on missions and loyalty quests. And then I think of Anderson. People have previously stated that Anderson represent the part of Shepard that is resisting the Reapers and TIM is the part that is being indoctrinated by the Reapers. If those two characters have meanings behind them, then can one assume that the flashes of the same three characters have meanings behind them?
My mind instantly went to Sigmund Freud's structural model of the human psyche. Each of the characters shown in the flashes would represent a part of the psyche: Joker represents the Id, which is the part that focus's on a person's innate desires (possibly renegade decisions); Liara represent the Super-Ego, the part of the psyche that focuses on conditional beliefs (possibly paragon decisions); andAnderson represent the Ego, which is the part that mediates between the Id and Super-Ego. Taking that into consideration, the scene with TIM at the end makes more sense as it is your Ego that is loosing the fight to indoctrination (meaning that you are effectively loosing control of your own decisions).
You also see all of them sort of nodding in a half smile. Which can be taken as one of two ways. Either as a "farewell" expression given to you to show your complete loss of control to the Reapers. Or as a "good job" expression showing that you were able to overcome the Reapers and be able to maintain control over yourself. Now keep in mind im basing this assumption on knowledge I got from psychology class several years ago and only remember brief descriptions of Freud's structural model of the human psyche. So I could be right or wrong in this instance. But none the less, the fact that you see flashes those same three characters for every ending is just odd.
As for the scene with Joker trying to escape the energy wave created by your decision on the Citadel; I think people are trying to take this too litterally and need to take it in forms of symbols that have meaning. Rather then trying to figure out the plot holes that led to Joker fleeing the battle at the end, look at what is happening. You see Joker trying desperately to escape the massive energy wave produced by the Citadel. Taking into account what I said earlier about Joker representing your innate desires, you can start to peice together what the scene means. Your innate desires are trying to escape from the decision you made on the Citadel. This can easily represents the consequences that follow if you let your desires take hold of you. But then again, if that is true why is it shown for destroying the Reapers? I think the reason is simple, this is the Reapers saying that resistance was futile. In the indoctrinated endings its the Reapers saying that escape from our control was impossible to begin with. In the ending where you refuse the Reapers control, it is the Reapers giving the final FU to Shepard effectively saying, "no matter what you do, you will loose."
There is something else that I've noticed about that scene right when the Normandy starts falling aparent. In both the control and synthesis endings, the scene cuts out right before you see the Normandy explode. In the destruction ending, you actually see the explosion of the Normandy. This could coincide with my theory as the Reapers' final FU to Shepard as it feels more violent and destructive.
As for the scene on the alien planet, it could possibly represent taking a new journey with the Reapers. Which kinda makes sense since the Reapers were trying to take the most advanced races of each cycles and remake them in Reaper form. Remember, the Reapers were saying that they were trying to preserve the races for each cycle rather then destroy them (whether that is a lie orcestrated by the Reapers or actual truth is still up in the air).
And finally, the last bonus scene with the child and grandparent. For me, I felt as if this wouldn't have any bearing on the indoctrination theory since it happened after the scene where you see Shepard wake up. If you try to make that scene seem like its part of the indoctrination, then are the credits also part of the indoctrination? When or if the ending DLC comes out, will Bioware force you to watch the whole credits before seeing that end? I personally believe that the ending was supposed to add a little bit of closure and show that your actions did affect the galaxy. In the indoctrination endings, I believe that the next cycle found the "Black Box" that Liara made and used it to stop the Reapers. In the destruction ending, it shows that you were able to defeat the Reapers and in the process became a Legend passed down through time.
These are my personal feeling about these three scenes and am interested if anyone agrees or disagrees with my thoughts. And please forgive any grammer/spelling mistakes that I might have made. This idea kinda popped into my head as I was trying to go to bed and just couldn't fall asleep till I put it into words.
Edit: I've added a link to a youtube video with all three endings so it will be easier to examine my thoughts on these scenes
www.youtube.com/watch
Modifié par ZyionPrime, 18 mars 2012 - 09:17 .
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Or Legion's for that matter. I heard Ashley's about 100 times though..
