I'll begin with saying that I don't think that Shepherd was indoctrinated. The Reapers symbolize lack of choice. This is evident in the Illusive Man and Saren. They both believed they had made a choice when, in reality, they had been forced down that path without their awareness of it. When confronted with this, they still couldn't change and clung to their belief until the bitter end. Shepherd never displayed any of these symptoms of indoctrination, and I think it was quite clear the Reapers did not wish for him/her to succeed. Considering these facts, I find it highly unlikely that they'd indoctrinate Shepherd and then suddenly offer him a choice as to what he/she wanted to do in the end. What I believe is more likely is that the Crucible altered the programming and/or the capabilities of the Catalyst so that it was able to consider new alternatives. I see evidence of this in the, obviously, phallic symbol of the catalyst merging with the Citadel to produce a new form of consciousness. I also think that this is why the Catalyst's avatar was depicted as a child -- to indicate that this was the progeny of the merging of the Crucible and Catalyst and not entirely a Reaper. Consequently, the Catalyst was able to interface with Shepherd's mind -- judging, again, by the chosen avatar -- but was either unable or unwilling to force him to conform to its desires. I believe that this was the Crucible's purpose. To give organics the choice that the Reapers never left them.
This is why I loved this ending. The fact that I was able to put so much thought into my analysis of the ending was what made it great, in my opinion. Contrary to what many claim, I do believe that the ending allows a fair bit of customization because of its interpretive nature. The ending one experiences will correllate to the amount of thought contributed to analyzing it. It seems to me most people would rather not think of their own ending, but would have it dictated to them so that they don't have make their own conclusions. I am not saying it is perfect, but I am of the opinion that the concept is very thought-provoking -- which is the hallmark of a good ending.
Lastly, I'd like to addresss the problems I found with how things ended. Clearly, it seemed rushed in its implementation. The alternate choices should have received individual animations to indicate the differing paths chosen. It is an unfair simplification to merely change the color of the explosion to demonstrate the variability of the final choice. I do like the fact that the ending doesn't extend beyond the immediate "end" of Shepherd because that is the point: one never knows the consequences of their choices until later and it leaves room for individual interpretation. Yet that doesn't mean that all surrounding details should be neglected. Even though most ships are capable of FTL travel, it is extremely slow compared to the Mass Relays, and I would think they'd run out of fuel before reaching their homes; although, I suppose it's feasible they found fuel-sources along the way, but some clarification would have been appreciated. What became of these ships? Did they flee before the Crucible exploded? I would have liked to have known that as well. Another thing I found confusing was the insinuation that some crew survived arbitrarily while others did not. Why did someone who appeared like Liara leave the ship when she was with Shepherd during the Reaper blast? I have no idea, and that frustrates me the most because there is no reasonable explanation for why she would be there. Looking back on all of these issues, I have a strong suspicion EA -- real Reapers of good games and business practices -- had a hand in rushing the game out before it should have been released, leading to these problems. If people were more forward-thinking, they would be making efforts to make a collective fund that could buy Bioware away from EA and let it be free to make games the way it wants in the amount of time it needs rather than knee-jerk reactions to sue it for false advertising or charity drives to change the ending.
My conclusion is that the concept was amazing but it suffered from imperfect execution due to being rushed out before it should have been. The ending wasn't perfect, but it provided a satisfying conclusion (to me) when I thought about it more thoroughly. In any case, those that say the last 15 minutes invalidated the entire trilogy or even the preceeding moments of ME3 I don't think have any grounds for those claims. There are some glaring problems with the ending, but it was still satisfying if one takes the time to think about it rather than base their ideas on superficial assessment.
Modifié par Darth Tardness, 21 mars 2012 - 08:32 .
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