I avoided IT for a while because it looked to me like people as disapointed as me trying to make sense of the bad ending presented, i've since had a read at the main points in this thread and while not 100% convinced, I'm intrigued.
For me the most convinving and hard to argue with elements are the fact that that the games presentation style changes so noticably after the lazer beam hits, the player literally has less controll over shepard and the fact that the aparatus presented to shepard by the star child so closely mirrored by the beam that is supposed to take shepard to the citadel.
Similarly, the one breath at the end of the destroy ending only really makes sense to me if shepard never actually made physically to the citadel.
I do have one thing to add, I haven't noticed this mentioned elsewhere (or not exactly anyway) but I haven't been able to read every post.
The first thing we see in Mass Effect 3 is the star child holding the normandy. That is some pretty big, heavy handed symbolism. Just a nice cinematic shot on first play through, but knowing the significance of the child it seems to me an indication of who is really in controll.
A few minutes later, the same child says "you can't save me" this is the most direct and earliest example of futility being forseshadowed in the game, it is refinforced throughout the game, Shepards failure on Thessia is the most obvious example of his failure to save everyone.
In many way, the idea of not being able to save everyone goes back to mass effect 1, with the death of either Ashley of Kaiden although the fact that mass effect 2 allows the player to literally bring everyone home from a suicided mission somewhat subverts that theme.
The ending of mass effect 3 is deliberately ambiguous. There is no dialogue or text, from the point shepard makes his/her choice up unitl the credits.
I think there is 3 ways to read it:
It is either a vague and messy literal ending which does little to give the player closure. This was my first thought.
Alternatively, IT is correct and we have either not seen the games conclusion or been part of a fanstastic piece of meta-narrative so unconventional that most players didnt quite get it, and many of those that did are still very unsure about what they have seen.
Finally, the entire game is a simply an exercise in Nihilism. Presenting and highlighting the importance of choice, then in the end showing the player the futuility of their actions and the inevitablity of events.
I don't actually know which I think it is, I could make a convincing argument for all 3 possibilities but IT is plausible as any at this stage, such is the deliberate ambiguity of the games conclusion.
Keep up the good work!
Modifié par withneelandi, 27 mars 2012 - 10:23 .
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