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[47th Pickle]

 I’ve never had reason to post on the Bioware forums before,
and I hesitate to create yet another thread on the ending, but I would like to
add my voice to those expressing dissatisfaction with the endings. I’m certain
that what I’m about to say has been mentioned before, but I’d like to state it
again (and at some length), for redundancy’s sake.



Now, I am fine with endings where the hero dies if it’s
handled in a way that feels right (for example, Mordin’s and Legion’s death),
yet the problems with this ending extend beyond simple complaints of “you’re
just angry Shepard died”. The endings, as currently constructed, aren’t good on
several levels. They fail thematically, they have plot-holes, they derail
characters, and they fail to deliver closure.






For me, and I feel for quite a few players as well, the
characters were what drew me into the story. Reapers and end-of-the-universe
stuff are exciting, but the small interactions with my crew are what interested
me. I, stupid as it may sound, really grew to care about my crew, my allies, my
romantic interest, and all the other characters I ran into. What I wanted,
above all, was an ending that would give some sense of closure to these
characters’ stories, even if it was as simple as “Dragon Age” and its little
pop-up bubbles. Instead, I’m left wondering who lived, who died, where is
everyone, and what just happened?

 

If it wasn’t enough that the characters don’t really get an
end, we also see the defined traits of several characters ignored. After three
games, I just don’t believe that Joker would fly away from battle and leave
Shepard behind. Not Joker, he would stick there till the bitter end (as
exemplified, for example, when the SR1 was destroyed). Also, why did everyone
else return to the Normandy
and leave Shepard? Besides being a plot-hole (how did they have the time? Why did
the Normandy
get them? Etc), it goes against characters who just told me, in various ways, “I’ve
got your back to the end”. I doubt my Shepard’s love interest, after tearfully
proclaiming that her place was at Shepard’s side till the end no matter what
came, would just shrug and hop on the Normandy
leaving Shepard behind.

 

And it’s awful to think that even in an ending where Shepard
lives, the man/woman/alien s/he loved will be marooned on some distant world, perhaps
never to meet again. There’s poetic tragedy, and then there’s just plain
tragedy. After all, we’ve grown to love these characters, and three games worth
of relationship building just comes to naught. Hell, even the personal relationship
you had with Harbinger is totally ignored.

 

However, the greatest issue to me is the thematic clash with
the rest of the series. Despite all the alien menaces you’ve faced, the general
theme of the series seems to be one of hope and success against all odds. In “Mass
Effect”, you defeated Sovereign against impossible odds and emerged, smiling
and victorious, from the rubble. In “Mass Effect 2”, the box blurb of which read
“They don’t expect you to survive…They call it a suicide mission. Prove them
wrong”, you could once again emerge victorious against impossible odds. Even
throughout “Mass Effect 3”, there was a thread of optimism: bringing the
disparate races together, defeating a Reaper here and there, amassing war
resources, watching the Crucible get assembled, all leading to this idea that
maybe, with all the right choices and effort, you could win.

 

Yet, the ending is utterly pessimistic. The galaxy has been
effectively shut down without the mass relays. Communication is destroyed,
travel gone, these worlds separated from each other forever. Your crew is
scattered, and almost all the species have lost their leaders, who will be
forever trapped on Earth, unable to return home. So, the question becomes: why?
Why was this pessimistic ending, which ends up rather unexplained no matter
which you choose, selected as a suitable conclusion?

 

In the end, it’s rather striking how badly this ending
misses the mark, and on how many levels. Perhaps we may never have gotten the
so-called “Disney” ending where everyone goes home and is happy and it’s a lifetime
of babies and peace for everyone, but would it have been so bad to include that
option? It wouldn’t have been so out of line for Shepard to tell the Catalyst
Child that despite its belief that peace would not last, that they at least
deserved the chance to try. To have a fourth option: destroy the Reapers, but
leave their technology behind, to give humanity and all the other races a
chance to grow and prosper. Blow the Citadel, destroy the Reapers, save the
relays. Perhaps we see Shepard’s team mourning the loss of their leader, and
then we see the rubble moving. Our hero has survived, and s/he will be reunited
with the others. Maybe we wouldn’t get to know how each story ends, maybe no
fist-bumps with Garrus and hugs with Liara, but at least the journey ends on a
positive note: we will not be so easily beaten and Shepard has succeeded.

 

There is perhaps no way now to rectify the end, to undo the “damage”
as it were, but at least there should be a cogent argument as to where it went
wrong to counteract the inevitable claims of “whining” or “entitled” that will
be thrown at those dissatisfied with the ending. At the very least, I would
hope for a response from Bioware defending the endings and explaining why, in
their eyes, they are appropriate.