Now, as you might've guessed by the title, I've got some feelings about Mass Effect 3's ending. Rather like Kaiden, I want more. And since it seems doubtful that BioWare is going to release a patch or some free DLC with a different ending -ideally based on my recommendation, or better still, after deep consultation with me- we've got to settle with what we've got. I don't think BioWare's gonna buy me a steak sammich, either.
Surprise, surprise, though. I wasn't wild about the ending. If put on the stand, I'd probably say I felt three things, on reflection. The first is, I'm bitter. For fairly obvious reasons. The second is, I'm in mourning. Again, for fairly
obvious reasons. It's at this point that I should probably make a spoiler warning. Yeah, we're talking about the endings in detail. If you don't want that spoiled, and didn't figure out what's going on here, yet, you should leave. Now. Ahem. The third thing I feel, is unsatisfied. I'll get into that in a bigger way later. But, suffice it to say, I didn't like the ending. I didn't like the set-up for the ending. I didn't like any of the choices, or how they played out, or why they played out, or anything. I think, the whole damn thing might just be a shell game played on the players. And we're going to look at them, academically-like, now, and we're going to figure this out. Or I'm going to figure this stuff out. You're probably just going to agree with me, and praise my efforts with carp. And cookies. Or something. Moving on!
The first complaint I have with the endings is simple. They're petty. Not like they stole your candy, or they kicked some mud at you, I mean the writing itself is petty. What I mean by this is, sometimes, drama's a necessary part of story. Sometimes it makes perfect sense, in a horrible sort of way, that something goes down in a certain way. There weren't no surprised audience members when Satine died at the end of Moulin Rouge. The death of most of the cast of Hero, too, makes a certain amount of sense inside the narrative. The endings of Mass Effect 3 don't. Yeah, sure, there's enough justification as it happens for why events should/must happen as they do, but there's no reoccurring plot thread that necessitates it. There's no real thematic push. In fact, despite the writing staff claiming (I think it was Casey Hudson who said this) that Mass Effect 3's going to have wildly divergent endings because they don't have to make a sequel off of any of it, there's literally nothing in the story until that final choice that necessitates any of it. The story doesn't veer at all until you get there. So, really, the writers could have in put any particular endings that they wanted. Yeah, sure, there needed to be a destruction option, and probably a control option, and the synthesis option was gravy for all us transhumanists out there, but the difficulty in a choice is never what you get, it's what you don't get. Let's break it down:
Option One: Control
Pros:
Cycle ends (for now.)
Massive technological increase for 'organics' (We'll get to that term later.)
Cons:
Shepard dies.
Illusive Man is vindicated.
Reapers still potentially a threat; cycle isn't broken, just halted.
Option Two: Synthesis
Pros:
Cycle ends.
Transhumanism/Singularity achieved (?).
Cons:
Shepard dies.
Galactic Civilization is shut down with no effective or immediate way to rebuild it.
Option Three: Destruction
Pros:
Reapers destroyed.
Shepard lives (potentially.)
Cons
Geth and EDI are both destroyed.
Cycle is not halted, simply stalled.
Galactic Civilization is shut down with no effective or immediate way to rebuild it.
Shepard dies (potentially.)
The first thing you might notice is, completely unintentionally, The Illusive Man is right. There are very, very good reasons why controlling the Reapers is a good idea. You get access to a bunch of technological upgrades, including the tech to rebuild mass relays. If you ever want to see civilization rebuilt to look anything like it was, before, this is the best choice. But it means harnessing the Reapers, who might manage to slip that harness before you've developed tech to counter them. And next time, you won't have a Crucible. It also fails to address the 'problem' of the cycle- that organics and synthetics will inevitably fight to destroy each other. And Shepard dies.
Next up is Synthesis. Probably the most paragon option, also the one that most appeals to me, philosophically. I assume, at any rate. It's not like BioWare actually explained what happened. (I'll get there, don't worry.) The problem is, well, it's bloody magic. Seriously, my Shepard was possibly a greater Messiah figure than Jesus himself -not hyperbole- by the time she got to this stage. But this ending? Like... what? What happens? Everyone becomes tech-y? And so the Reapers leave, because civilization isn't organic anymore (We'll get there), and so it's against their programming to kill? Or something?
Ignoring all of that, there's still a bunch of really big problems. The mass relays are gone. Civilization is shattered, and people have all, to the individual, undergone a massive physiological change. Accept for anyone too far away from a mass relay to be affected, I guess. Their asses are getting Reaped. Also, EDI points out in the beginning that she's not really living in that Eva body- she just piloting it, whilst she still 'lives' in all of those servers in the Normandy. So when she walks away with Joker, even though the Normandy is in ruins, is this to say that her servers survived? Did enough of her 'intellect' stay in the Eva body that she's still functional, even if at a diminished capacity? What the hell happened? We don't know, because there wasn't an epilogue (We'll get there.)
The last ending is Destruction. The 'Anderson' choice. On the plus side, Shepard might live through it. Sorta. Seriously, a Reaper blast, and then lo-atmo reentry? The woman's a beast. I'd make a more concerted effort to joke about being unkillable, but, well, see the last three paragraphs. Also: Banshees can kiss the darkest part of my pale, white ass.
So, yeah. Shepard could live though it. But the cycle isn't halted. Not even a little bit. It's just delayed, but unlike the Control ending, where civilization might manage to ascend or something before the cycle starts up again, here, all you've got is a reprieve and the vague assertion that, well, maybe this time it won't happen like it did last time. True, that is a good formation of the induction fallacy, but Occam wasn't no fool, either. Problems are brewing. Either the problem of synthetic death, or the problem of thwarting synthetic death.
There's also the problem of genocide. Maybe even xenocide. Not the Reapers, mind you. They can go duck a sick. No, EDI and the Geth are wiped out. And if you got the AWESOME resolution for the Geth conflict, you're probably aware, because you spent a bunch of time making that damn argument yourself, the Geth are people. Not just people, they're actually pretty decent people. EDI's not too bad, either. I'm not saying that they wouldn't volunteer for xenocide, if you asked them. But you don't. And that strikes me a bit too much like a knife in the back. There's also, again, the problem of civilization being pretty broken. Yeah, sure, tons of scientists and techies are all in the same area. And yeah, sure, they've got plenty of Reaper tech to play with. Maybe they'll learn something? But I doubt it's going to be soon. In fact, I think it's not too unfair to say that no alien member of the fleet is going to live to see their homeworld again, with the possible exception of the Krogan. And while that means the Sol system is going to become a cultural haven and really cool and awesome, well, sucks to be the rest of the galaxy, huh?
So, those are the choices. Like I said, none of them are especially good. Which is a problem. Worse, few of the bad things are a requirement of the narrative. The big one is, the mass relays get taken out. Because the energy's too big, or something. It needs the energy inside the relays to spread the wave of whatever-you-choose. Why? Like I said, there's nothing requiring this until the plot requires it, at -literally- the last minute. It's drama to add drama. It's an extra twist of the knife, because the writers could. It's, in short, petty.
Perhaps the bigger problem for me, though, was Shepard's death. In fact, I very, very nearly went for the Destruction option because, while I knew Shepard died in the Synthesis option, I suspected she might make it through Destruction. In my game, I would've been right. I'd also have been the worst human being, ever, in addition to one of the greatest. But, that point's been covered. Death. See, let's get right down to it. Mass Effect claims to be about hard choices, about picking the lesser evil, about shades of gray. Now, I'm a philosophy student set to graduate with a BA this spring. I've seen my fairshare of purportedly philosophical games and moral dilemmas. Almost universally -and BioWare's especially guilty of this, at times. Knights of the Old Republic, I'm looking at you.- the options boil down to saintlier-than-saintly, or puppy-kicking evil. Yahtzee has a pretty good breakdown on this, and I might be paraphrasing him, but you get my point. Most morality has you as either literally an embodiment of good, or an embodiment of evil. And the plot usually bends over backwards to justify your existence as such, and go on about how great you are. Mass Effect, despite purporting to be a 'shades of gray' game, too, still has a moral breakdown. There's paragon and there's renegade. I'm not going to go too in-depth, here, but both are moral philosophies, both are fairly relativist and permissive when need be, and both are occasionally forced, by the story, to pay for sticking to their philosophy when push comes to shove. Except when there isn't. Every now and then, you're rewarded for sticking to a philosophy, exceptionally, with the ability to resolve a difficult situation. And this gets down to the real heart of the problem. Is, in the Mass Effect trilogy, there is precisely one instance where you cannot make a good decision. Well, two, now. But before Three's ending, there's only one. That's the Survivor choice on Virmire. Every other choice you make, has good reasons for why you're making it, and every other heavy choice has a paragon or a renegade option to help you out. And every single other hard choice in all three games, with the exception of the endings, has a way out. If you prepare enough, if you're strong enough on your philosophy, you can overcome the shortcomings. Except here. There is no good way out in the end. And that's a massive disappointment. There is no perfect, golden ending. There's no preparation that can save you. There's no special, super-secret-ultimate handshake you can do at just the right moment, there's no one you can punch in the face. There's just a series of bad choices. And no matter what, you die. Prepare as much as you like, you're still dying.
It's abroken promise, to me. It's the ending of the game. It's the final choice. It's the big one, for all the marbles. This. Is. It. And all the preparation you do across three games. All that work -easily sixty hours, if you're trying for it- amounts to, no cunning plans. You settle for what you can get, and then you die. And civilization, for a time, dies with you. That's not a triumphant win, in my book. That's not pulling one out at the last second- and let's be honest, here. We were all expecting to be able to pull one out at the last second. We all wanted to retire with Liara, and have a quiet, unassuming life with a bunch of blue kids while she data-trades, or lectures at a university, or something. We all wanted a moment where the Council thanks you for your services, hails you as the savior of the galaxy, and then you ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Because everything in these games until now has said, this was perfectly possible. Hell, BioWare themselves said this was perfectly possible. And it isn't. Because the writers said so, at the very last minute. That, too, is petty. And, I? I'm bitter. I'm in mourning.
But, you know what? I might be able to live with that, if only there was some kind of closure. This kinda surprised me, because BioWare's usually really good about this. A story doesn't end at the end of the climax. At least, it shouldn't. It ends at the end of the denouement. You can't end at the end of the climax, because actions don't happen in a vacuum. They effect- especially, in the case- everything around them. So, once the action's done, you need to explain the ramifications of the actions, and resolve the plot for the characters. Put simply, you can't end a story with the a cowboy shooting the bandit at high noon. He needs to speak with the sheriff for a moment, look fondly at his heart-of-gold lover, and then ride off into the distance. Likewise, Shepard can die, I'll accept that. But there's almost no explanation of what happens next. Not immediately next, I mean, what happens next, like, in the next twenty years. Fifty years. Where's society going from here? What happens for all of Shepard's crew? Does Tali invent a method of jumping to Hyperspace, and so she and Garrus retire to Rannoch and live out their lives in a house she build next to Legion's grave site? We don't know. Does Kaiden go on to teach more biotics? Does he meet a pretty girl and settle down, even if he'll always be in love with Shepard, who died to save everyone, but loved someone else? Did Liara secretly conceive without Shepard's knowledge, and raises the child to be everything her second mother was? Yes, okay, I really, really like Fem!Shep/Liara, and it's not just because Hawt Lesbian Secks. And I really, really believe heroes with a strong romantic commitment should not, under any circumstances, die. Same goes for the partner. It's so... petty. And mean. Get invested in something, and then, whoop! No! You can't have it! Biddy-bye, now!
But all of those complaints revolve around the endings themselves, and my biggest single problem, the reason I referred to the endings as a shell game oh-so-long ago, is the nature of the endings. Not the choices, but the why-you-have-to-choose. According to the Catalyst, the Reapers exist to bring order to chaotic 'organics'. Because, according to them, organic and synthetic life are both inevitabilities, but so, too, is the inevitability that they will fight. And this fight will be a galaxy-destroying one. A real war for the history books. A wake-the-neighbors-up-and-call-the-cops brawl. There are two problems with this. First: is that not precisely what the Catalyst causes, each and every fifty thousand years, with its Reaper fleets? Sure, a long view might say that the conflict would be worse if the Reapers didn't enter the picture and a war brewed up on its own. Like forest fires, right? (I'm aware. That was a touch of sarcasm.) But, well, the problem with the long view is, again, the induction fallacy. And this time, it plays out with a bit of a stronger defense. There are two notable AIs in the Mass Effect trilogy: Geth, and EDI. Both are, well, largely benevolent. They are violent, insofar as it is necessary to preserve their existence, and beyond that, they're really pretty nice. The Geth even preserved the homeworld of the species that tried to murder them, for when said species came back. Worse still, the strongest, best resolutions of the conflict involving the only prior Sythetic-Organic conflict (Geth v. Quarians) is integration and symbiosis. There is no theme, I say, not a bit that intimates to the player that this is a particularly notable problem, or that the alliance is temporary and will eventually devolve into destructive conflict again.
Finally, the distinction between organics and synthetics is a false one. Shepard makes this point herself several times throughout the game. The mechanics that make up a species are varied enough, even through 'organics', that they don't especially matter. Sentience is the important characteristic, not how one achieved it. The Geth are
people, and that their bodies are made entirely of metal makes this statement no less true.
Yet, the ending claims this is not so, that diplomacy will, eventually, fail. That this dichotomy is inherent, and untenable to the extent that massive and widespread chaos will ensue. This is, I say, in violation of everything the games have said on the subject, so far. And Shepard, for all her intellect and oratory power, is unable to refute this. Its galling. This, her moment of victory. The win, the saving moment of not just Humanity, but the galaxy. Not just now, but for always. The moment you achieved, through sweat, and blood, and tears, and sacrifice. The moment you got to, despite standing your ground, and with every assurance that you were right to do so. The moment where you get to trumpet your philosophy supreme.
And you compromise. To a premise that requires game breaks it very rules.
That is petty. And that is why I'm bitter. Because you told me I could win, BioWare. And I couldn't. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much effort I put into your game, you cajoled me along, and then permitted me choose the degree to which I lost. Is that, perhaps, an unfair accusation? Is it maybe petulant, and childish? Is this a biased essay, through which I'm giving voice to my grief as a coping mechanism. Well, yes. But you lied to me, so duck a sick, huh?
But let's not end on that note. Let us, instead, speak of what the game could have been. For all that it will, doubtlessly, come to nothing, it's nice to dream, yes?
The point up until Shepard enters the Citadel, again, is fine. Wonderful, even. In fact, the Citadel, again, is fine, too. It's an affirmation of everything Shepard's done, so far. And standing up, battered and burned, after getting hit from a Reaper's cannon? Incredible. The Illusive Man confrontation? Loved it. In fact, I'm fine with everything, up until Shepard needs to reach the panel again, and then passes out. Instead of failing to reach the panel, I would have Shepard succeed, without issue. The tension will come, because she can't find any way to make the Crucible fire. There just isn't an option, there. Moments will tick by, tension builds, until EDI pipes up to mention, as far as she can tell, the problem is, the Crucible doesn't have a target. EDI believes she can force it to target Reapers. Because she's built with Reaper tech, she can use herself as a model, and have the Crucible create an energy wave that disables similar thought patterns, effectively killing the Reapers. However, because she's on such a smaller scale than Reapers, she'll need to sync herself with one of them before firing, or else the Geth will be destroyed, too. Or, she can modify the wave a bit, and the Reaperswill be completely dominated. The Geth, too. But, eh. Human evolution, right?
So, here's the branch. Control or Destruction. None of this magic Synthesis stuff. Destruction goes like this: EDI reveals that the only way she's going to get close enough for the sync she needs, is if she gets really close. Like, inside a Reaper. Joker gets the Normandy moving, but a stray Reaper shot takes out an engine, or something. The point is, Normandy's not doing too well, but it's not out of the fight, yet. All hands abandon ship, except Joker, who decides to stay on and ensure the Normandy gets there. A couple of shuttles fly off the Normandy (One of which will come pick up Commander Shepard) and The Normandy rams a Reaper. Joker has time to say something meaningful to EDI, probably a mutual “I love you”, and then dies on impact. EDI gets into the Reaper, syncs, and then fires the Crucible. Reapers die, but EDI's in one, so she dies, too. The Geth survive just fine.
Other branch: Control. EDI fires off the burst, but the strain of modification causes the electricity on the Normandy to short out, or something. I'll level, I'm a paragon player to the core, so I haven't really thought this one through. But, the skinny is, the Normandy is disabled, and goes down. Or maybe not. But the Reapers are under control, and form up, and combat ceases.
Cut to: Six months later. On Earth, Shepard is getting into her dress blues whilst talking with her love interest (Liara) about some love-interest-specific banter (She's pregnant, or something.) They exposit on some of the changes that've happended since the war ended, and as the walk to an award ceremony we see some of the reconstruction efforts. I'm thinking there's either representative from all the races you gathered, or a bunch of Reapers, depending on which path you took in the background, helping out. Shepard is hailed as a hero, a meaningful speech is made about dedication and sacrifice, and then she accepts a medal and stares off into the distance, whilst making some profound-yet-brief and fitting statement about the possibilities of the future. And that choir -you know the one- sings a series of increasingly high notes in the background.
This ending has a few different things working for it, I think. The first is, Commander Shepard doesn't die. The second is, it's not bleak. Yeah, there's a bit of a shameless, petty knife twist in there. There's no reason for Joker or EDI to die, except to add some final drama. There has to be some, somewhere, right? But the take-away message is, we rallied, we succeeded, and while it was by the skin of our teeth, we walked away with everything intact. Better yet, even a renegade Shepard justifies her actions as for the good of the future. This is precisely that: a good future. We suffered, we persevered, and now, it's time for a galactic renaissance as we celebrate how close we've all gotten, and the fact we're alive.
So. That's my take on the endings of Mass Effect 3, both what what's wrong with what they are, and how I think they could be improved. If you've sat through this entire thing, I'd be happy to know what you think, and how you felt. Academically, of course. If you didn't read through this all, well, that's okay, too. I doubt the world would run if it were full of people just as geeky as I am. The tl;dr is down below.
BioWare: I'm critical of this ending, because I loved this series. It was epic, it was sweeping, and while there might have been story problems here and there, the Mass Effect trilogy has undoubtedly raised the standard both for roleplaying games, video games, and story-telling in general, everywhere. This series will be one of the classics, one of the sets I delight in watching my children to play. Beyond all else, thank you for that.
The end.
P.S: the tl:dr
The endings of Mass Effect 3 were unnecessarily depressing, violating several themes from throughout the series and unfairly forcing the players to pick one of a series of options that did not well-reflect the choices or the resolutions of previous conflicts. Additionally, the lack of an epilogue of some kind left the player without any lasting resolution. And FemShep/Liara is the one true pairing. Anyone who disagree will be stabbed. Survivors will be shot, and then burned.
Modifié par FunstuffofDoom, 10 mars 2012 - 07:29 .
Retour en haut
Destroy the Reapers, leave the galaxy without the fail-safe of the Reapers, in danger of starting the cycle of created vs creator.
