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[Reiella]

Ainyan42 wrote...

Reiella wrote...
Well against GOOs, yes, it does preclude a heroic ending, you have to either sacrifice the integrity of the GOOs or the heroism.  A balance of plot contrievance and grim cost.

I will say I still see your three themes through the ending though.  And I have a real hard time not seeing hope with Buzz's line at the end.

I see no problem sacrificing the integrity of the GOOs - after all, they've been proven as imperfect at numerous times throughout the series, in such a way that including a fatal flaw (including one of pride, which they have already exhibited in excess) to be exploited is not outside the realm of possibility. As much as people like to claim that Bioware wrote themselves into a corner with the overwhelming power of the Reapers, the fact is, they were not without exploitable, and deadly, flaw,  which could have been used to great effect. Could it have ever been a perfect ending? Absolutely not. People would have died - whole worlds destroyed - galactic civilization in near-apocolyptic disarray. Those are not hallmarks of a happy ending; they can, however, be hallmarks of a powerful ending.

I saw nothing of choice in the ending except the matter of 'pick your poison'. Keep in mind, my Shepard is (always) a silver-tongued paragon for whom each of those choices was soul-rending. No matter what she chose, she was damned - emotionally and mentally, if nothing else. However, considering she never had the one choice that was ALWAYS open before (to speak her mind), I feel that all that was offered was the illusion of choice. Additionally, since she was never given a chance to speak up and fight back against the Catalyst's flawed logic and flawed choices, she was never offered even the chance to overcome the impossible odds. And I'm sorry - I felt the Stargazer was nothing more and nothing less than insulting. And I understand you consider it 'hopeful', but all I saw was either the absolute destruction of galactic civilization so completely that spaceflight is nothing more than a myth, or some old man and some kid on a world where Liara seeded her time capsule thinking Shepard and everything she did is just some 'bedtime story' - the worst mockery of her sacrifice through all three games.

Except, they hadn't.  The only prior dethroning shown of the Reapers as combat entities was a fleet of comparable [pretty much, same fleet minus the Terminus fleets and tech advances, but plus the DA/Lost Earth Forces sizes] to take out one.  

Just like in ME2 you were never offered the opportunity to keep the base full of good research and provide it to a side that wasn't [as completely] morally corrupt [as Cerberus].  It's a case of not liking your choices rather than not being given one.  I still, personally, see the basis of ME2 as being the most choice-deprived view [and it stings all the more whenever the VS talks about 'how can I trust you after you worked with those guys'].  On the epilogue, you saw the costs as being too great.  I think you find the 'bedtime story' aspect demeaning more so because you're upset with the cost aspect more than anything, because that is simply showing your Shepard to be a legend.  Much like Romulus and Remus [although yes it is fairly odd from our perspective the story of three M rated games getting told to a kid :P].  But if you think that the survivors being proud of Shepard's sacrifice is mocking her sacrifice.

[tamperous]

I have serious problems with that ending....

1) Why would the pilot fly the Normandy right into the danger area instead of running away? Clearly since the death of John Wayne heroes must be introspective and flawed.
2) Why are there survivors? Can't we agree that we can't be weighty without killing off 90% of the people in the universe.
3) And where is the metatextual scene where the writers pat themselves on the back for a legendary tale through a creepy old man talking to a boy.

[Relwyn]

The Angry One wrote...

I mean really, it has an outright victory. It has triumphant music. It has the hero rising from the ashes in a completely cliche manner.
This is not what Mass Effect is about, Mass Effect is dark and grim. Happy endings have no place in this very dark and utterly not inspiring universe.

www.youtube.com/watch

And now you can see why Mass Effect cannot have happy endings ever.

I honestly do not see the point in why we should not have the option of getting such an ending? To say that the ending must be dark and grim is completely against what the entire franchise is based on - choice. They had such an ending for ME2 which was definately (and even said by Hudson in an interview) a darker second chapter, if you invested yourself in the game, you could get such an ending. 

[Ainyan42]

Reiella wrote...
Except, they hadn't.  The only prior dethroning shown of the Reapers as combat entities was a fleet of comparable [pretty much, same fleet minus the Terminus fleets and tech advances, but plus the DA/Lost Earth Forces sizes] to take out one.  

Just like in ME2 you were never offered the opportunity to keep the base full of good research and provide it to a side that wasn't [as completely] morally corrupt [as Cerberus].  It's a case of not liking your choices rather than not being given one.  I still, personally, see the basis of ME2 as being the most choice-deprived view [and it stings all the more whenever the VS talks about 'how can I trust you after you worked with those guys'].  On the epilogue, you saw the costs as being too great.  I think you find the 'bedtime story' aspect demeaning more so because you're upset with the cost aspect more than anything, because that is simply showing your Shepard to be a legend.  Much like Romulus and Remus [although yes it is fairly odd from our perspective the story of three M rated games getting told to a kid :P].  But if you think that the survivors being proud of Shepard's sacrifice is mocking her sacrifice.

Oh, they had. As I said, they exhibited a most fatal flaw: Pride. There are countless ways to use the pride of an otherwise indominable force against them to destroy them, or at least trick them into betraying themselves. After all, Pride has been used to destroy gods - and while Reapers are powerful, gods they are not. But, as you and I both pointed out, the contrived plot device [Crucible/Catalyst] helped solve the writer's corner-writing quite neatly had they employed it in any sensible role. 

And you can argue that the trend of no-choice started in ME2 - but I can argue that you are given ample opportunity over and over again to point out that you are using Cerberus, not working for them. Did you have a choice about working with them? No - but then, why would you refuse? The Alliance and the Council had made it clear that they didn't believe you, and while you know Cerberus isn't a good organization, they are very careful never to ask you to do something you feel is morally wrong (and when you do skirt the line, it gives you plenty of opportunity to yell at TIM) - until the end. And you are, indeed, given the option to destroy the base rather than let the increasingly corrupt TIM get his hands on it. (And, to ask why you couldn't salvage it for the Alliance - how would they get to it? The Omega 4 Relay was still incredibly dangerous, there's no way the Normandy could tow it back, and Reaper tech is dangerous. Why would Shepard risk exposing the Alliance to that? In fact, it's more appropriate to say that that particular choice was negated in 3 when TIM managed to salvage the human-reaper no matter what choice you made.).

As for the end - you're wrong (in so far as why I feel how I feel). I would find the bedtime story irritating and pointless even if I'd gotten what I consider a 'perfect ending'. It's trite, it's pointless, it feels incredibly tacked on, and regardless of the message it may be trying to convey, all it does is show that no matter what my Shepard went through, at the end of the day, she's just some bedtime story for some kid in the near future/on a distant planet. Furthermore, it's meant to make you feel like 'you made a difference' and 'you're a legend', but 1. Considering the kid doesn't have space flight, that tells me I clearly didn't stop the cycle, which makes all that sacrifice I went through pointless (or it means that Liara's time capsules work, which means that Shepard means less than nothing to these people, since she really IS just a story, and not even ancient history) and 2. Shepard never wanted to be a legend. So why on Earth would I care that she had been made into one? I want to know what happens in the IMMEDIATE future - not some thousands of years distant. That tells me /nothing/. I have ALWAYS hated little shorts like that - and ME3 is not the first game to make use of them.