First off, I have no intention of hating on Thane, or his many fans. Thane is a great character, but part of what makes him great is the pathos of his rapidly approaching death. He reminds me of John Wayne in the Shootist, or Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, a dying tough guy who wants to go out with his boots on in a good cause.
Thane's death is epic, and far better than wasting away over months and months as he coughs his life out. The man saves a councillor and holds off a cyborg assassin bare-handed while dying of a degenerative respiratory condition. I mean, how much better an end could he have? It seems to me that Thane's end is a fantastic one - why are people upset? Were his fans pulling for a miracle cure?
I didn't realize a lot of people were angry.. Thane is one of my favorite characters in the entire trilogy. I honestly shed some man-tears when he died. I think they pulled of his story arc to perfection.
EDIT: If BW wanted to pull off the whole 'the hero has to die at the end of an epic' thing, they should have made the ending more like Thane's and less like.. what we got. I would be sad at the ending, but it was (in my opinion) pulled off with such awesome-tacularness, that I would have been satisfied I think.
No one is asking for the death scene to be removed, we just wanted a choice. What I would have wanted was for a romanced Thane to have sought all the treatments avaialable to him (lung transplant) to prolong his life. I actually find the attitude of those who think there should have been no choice to be very selfish, unavoidable deaths of non LI characters is really very cruel.
No one is asking for the death scene to be removed, we just wanted a choice. What I would have wanted was for a romanced Thane to have sought all the treatments avaialable to him (lung transplant) to prolong his life. I actually find the attitude of those who think there should have been no choice to be very selfish, unavoidable deaths of non LI characters is really very cruel.
But wasn't he already living on borrowed time? plus it was his personal choice not to get transplants if I'm correct (probably due to his religion).
He had a good death, so did Mordin assuming you dont renegade him, their deaths had meaning and where relevant, well, at least until the last 10 minutes of the game made everything you did prior irrelevant.
I agree OP. Personally I was never a huge Thane fan (I didn't dislike him or anything, I just wasn't a giant fan like some people are) but his death was epic. A sick, dying man fending off an assasination attempt by a highly trained cyborg? Awesome.
No one is asking for the death scene to be removed, we just wanted a choice. What I would have wanted was for a romanced Thane to have sought all the treatments avaialable to him (lung transplant) to prolong his life. I actually find the attitude of those who think there should have been no choice to be very selfish, unavoidable deaths of non LI characters is really very cruel.
But wasn't he already living on borrowed time? plus it was his personal choice not to get transplants if I'm correct (probably due to his religion).
I think the main issue here that maybe someone should be mentioning is that in the ME2 bedroom scene with Thane, he comes in and cries and punches the table in anger, and is pissed at himself, ashamed because while he USED TO BE at peace with dying, now that he is in a relationship with Shepard, he's afraid to die and wants to live for her. (He says in previous scenes that she woke him from his battle sleep, and he's better for it.)
Having Thane be conflicted about his death doesn't make him less interesting. In fact, I find it even more tragic that he's dying but isn't at peace with it because of his love for Shepard.
(Not to mention, if his character is only interesting because he's dying, then he must have been real boring before he got diagnosed with Kepral's, according to that logic.)
Russell T Davies, ex-head writer for Doctor Who was known for writing good characters. He described how he wrote the companions on Doctor Who. He essentially said that if a character is selfish, their greatest moment will be when they are selfless. When a character is always quiet, their greatest moment will be when they speak out.
In ME2, Thane is at peace with dying, so it's a great character moment when we discover now he's actually afraid to die. That's why this is a great scene, and one of the most important ones for people who romanced him. Now he has something to live for. He says as much in his letter to Shepard.
Six months later (in the timeline), his character development is deleted and reset back to ME2 factory settings. If you didn't romance him, you'd never notice anything was wrong. But if you did, it's massive plot hole.
For a game series that made a name for itself for having your choices matter and carry over from game to game, it's simply a huge oversight to let a player romance a character in one game, and in the next one just act like "that relationship didn't mean much to her." Excuse me? Says who? I played the character and I know, my Shepard loved Thane, not Kaidan, not Garrus and not Liara.
All that said, BEFORE I played ME3, I actually was ready for Thane to die. I thought I'd probably have some epically sad, sweet, romantic death I could cry about. But I didn't even get that. What I got literally didn't make narrative sense. The characters were out of character.
And worst of all, I couldn't even enjoy the death sequence I got, because I kept waiting for ANY reference at all to the fact that I'd romanced this character, but I got nothing. (Except what, the "meet you across the sea" line? That's pretty vague. Even the cut line added to this part was an improvement to what we got: "You won't be alone long.")
This would probably be better addressed in the Protest Romanced Thane's treatment in ME3 thread. Anyway, my wife romanced Thane in ME2, and I've been closely following her dismay at what happened and what is going on with the Thanemancers, and I guess I'll chip in with what seems to be the main problems here:
1) A romanced Thane is 95% the same as a friend or bromance Thane. There is one or two extra dialogue options for him, the rest is exactly the same as if he was not romanced.
2) His death may look cool and have weight in the circumstances, but his death makes no impact on anyone after the fact. When Mordin, Legion, or anyone else dies, everyone has something to say about it. When Thane dies, everyone is talking about how nice it is to have Kaiden/Ashley back on board. Thane is never mentioned or shown again for the rest of the game except when you kill Kai-Leng, which prompts the same response whether romanced or not.
3) Thane is the only character not to get a Codex entry at all.
4) Thane's character when romanced in ME2 is a very different character from a non-romanced Thane. He goes from being prepared for death without regrets, to genuine fear of dying because of the life he has found with Femshep and the life he wants to have with her. In ME3, no matter what you did, Thane is once again reserved to dying and your decisions have made no impact on his character.
EDIT: 5) Your continued romance with Thane does also not trigger the Paramour achievement, which is in itself a huge disservice to the Thanemancers.
There are other reasons as well, but like the Retake Mass Effect movement, I think Thane's "Better Romance" movement along with Jacob's same effort is often being thrown aside as "They just want a happy ending" when that's really not what the core issue is at all. It's again the same neglect and poor writing the ending suffers from, and one of the writers have admitted to the fact that romanced Thane got lost somewhere in the process.
I agree with this
It's not that Thane died, I for one am happy that they didn't have him die off screen between 2 and 3. BUT! If you, like me, romanced Thane in 2 the death scene was completely unsatisfying. I agree that for a friendship Thane it might be alright, but for a romanced Thane there should've been some more emotion involved. And off course, the lack of acknowledgement afterwards... I don't want to hear about how happy everyone is that the VS is back, I want them to support Shepard after she went through such a heavy loss...
I didn't know people are complaining. I thought Thanes entire story and ending in ME3 were perfect. When Shepard killed Kai Leng and responded with "That was for Thane, you son of a ****!" I was practically saying the same thing.
Daicotje wrote... It's not that Thane died, I for one am happy that they didn't have him die off screen between 2 and 3. BUT! If you, like me, romanced Thane in 2 the death scene was completely unsatisfying. I agree that for a friendship Thane it might be alright, but for a romanced Thane there should've been some more emotion involved. And off course, the lack of acknowledgement afterwards... I don't want to hear about how happy everyone is that the VS is back, I want them to support Shepard after she went through such a heavy loss...
I see. I'm sorry to see that it seems like Fem Sheps really got the short end of the stick with it comes to romances. I still think that Thane's death was well done, but I fully agree that there should have been more time devoted to people who had romanced Thane.
I think Thane's death is a good example of a well executed sacrifice and a satisfying end to a character's arc. Unlike the real ending and Shepard's death...
If you had an LI with a dieing drell, what did you expect? I'm sure they did not add enough dialog for those that do have a LI with him though. I know there wasn't enough dialog with Miranda for me, so I'd be really mad about the lack of conversation time you could have had with Thane.
Also, all cameo LIs should have dlc increased conversations or missions if possible.
I thought that Thane had the best cameo in ME3, but I can understand why the Thanemancers would be upset. I'm all for the Garrus and Kaidan romances and I was spoiled beyond belief.
His death was heroic and fitting (and I wasn't expecting him to just jump out of nowhere and attack Kai Leng which I thought was cool), but there was an overall lack of content for him in his three appearances. I especially feel bad for the Jacobmancers. Man, that was just cold...
I also was surprised that NO ONE cared that Thane died when you returned to the ship, and my Shepard wasn't even in a romance with him. No one talked about Thane's ultimate sacrifice, just talked about the VS and how you two almost had to shoot each other. I mean, Joker and the squad talk about the other old squadmates who make a cameo. But not Thane? That was odd at best. At least Bailey cared.
If you had an LI with a dieing drell, what did you expect? I'm sure they did not add enough dialog for those that do have a LI with him though. I know there wasn't enough dialog with Miranda for me, so I'd be really mad about the lack of conversation time you could have had with Thane.
Also, all cameo LIs should have dlc increased conversations or missions if possible.
I expected him to die, until they started dropping what seemed like hints that they would cure him. (Lung transplant, hanar working on a cure, special lung Medi-gel, BioWare supporting the Cure for Thane movement on their Facebook, etc.) I also thought it was possible he might die off-screen before or after Mass Effect 3.
I certainly thought if he died on screen it would be a great, romantic and satisfying death, or else why bother making him a romanceable character?
I even would have been thrilled if, for instance, Garrus could have talked to me about Thane's death in Life Support after it happened, but no one said a word. Yet I get a great scene between me and Garrus when Mordin dies, even though he isn't romanceable. And everyone thinks I somehow care that I let Ashley die on Virmire 3 years ago? That makes no sense.
The fact of the matter is, if you romanced Thane, his character development moved him from "at peace with his illness" to "ashamed of being afraid of death." There was no reason for a romanced Thane to be at peace with dying in ME3, and that, combined with hardly any reference to us even being in love, and no one talking about it after he died, is why us Thane fans are so upset.
Everyone should have known there would be no cure to his disease. From the beginning when he tells you he has it, he had already accepted there is no cure and it will kill him. The big thing he talks about the whole time is making the galaxy a better place by good actions. That's why he joins you. Going down the way he did was exactly how it should have been. He went down a hero, protecting the peace. He died next to the two figures in his life that he had to care about. Shepard and Koliat. Thanes death was one of the most well written parts of the series.
I love how people keep repeating: well, what did you expect, he was dying, it was well done. Please, take a minute and 15 seconds of your lives to watch what was already posted: www.youtube.com/watch Then consider the fact that there is basically no difference between a romanced and not-romanced Thane in the third game. Tell me how is that what we expected?
Again, it's not that he died (though it would be awesome if there was a chance for him not to...), it's the way it was handled, or rather, the way it wasn't touched on at all.
I actually wasn't a fan of his in 2...it's not that I didn't like him, I just really didn't use him.
What he did, though, was awesome. The fact he was able to even fight as well as he did was fantastic, and then, of course, it gave rise to one of the best lines in the game at the end.
(Also, iirc, they mentioned a possible cure for him in his LotSB dossier...but I guess that got tossed aside like dark energy )
*edit* Actually, I didn't take into consideration the Thanemancers....that sucks
No I was not hoping for some miracle cure...Having Kai Leng take out two of my squad members who I worked my ass off to save and keep alive in me2 really frosted my cookies though
SO annoyed Thane didn't survive ME2 for me. I mean I wasn't all that keen on him in ME2 (his philosophies seemed internally contradictory to me), but I've heard a lot about his brilliant death scene.
For me he died getting the kidnapped Normandy crew safely off the Collector base. Oh well, c'est la vie.
First off, I have no intention of hating on Thane, or his many fans. Thane is a great character, but part of what makes him great is the pathos of his rapidly approaching death. He reminds me of John Wayne in the Shootist, or Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, a dying tough guy who wants to go out with his boots on in a good cause.
Thane's death is epic, and far better than wasting away over months and months as he coughs his life out. The man saves a councillor and holds off a cyborg assassin bare-handed while dying of a degenerative respiratory condition. I mean, how much better an end could he have? It seems to me that Thane's end is a fantastic one - why are people upset? Were his fans pulling for a miracle cure?
Only problem I had with it was actually nothing to do with the points you mentioned. When Shepard motions to close thane's eyelids, he keeps moving, and im pretty sure I saw his eyes moving too
it was probably just a glitch, but I experienced the same thing with that "Batarian Terrorist" that's in the holding area. Glitchy animations mostly.
Anyway, my game, Thane, Mordin, Legion and Miranda had all died.I was OK with all of them, well, maybe not Miranda, because I learned theres a way to save her even if she isn't your LI. But I still haven't found it yet.
In any event, Appropriate and touching "hero's deaths"
I agree with the OP. I think Thane's ending is appropriate.
And to all who say Kai Leng is just another one of the bad guys, I say "no."
If you combine the books and his appearances in game, he is portrayed as quite the adversary who even bests Shepard on occasion. Not in the end of course but at least he can achieve some temporary victories before we take him out, no matter that it happens in cut-scenes.
For me, I genuinely had a personal hatred of him by the time I got to take him down. A good adversary IMO and a worthy opponent for Thane's final fight, especially given the choreography of that cut scene.
Retour en haut
)
