The main culprit seems to be 'Realism'.
Realism is a loose term, one that is so often these days used out of context to describe something that is more akin to realistic. Realism can be philosophical, it can be literary. It has evolved in many ways in many fields of study. The catch all term, however, is to apply it to anything that 'Invites emotional investment from the reader' or something that gives 'catharsis'. This is wrong. Wrong.
The Realism that is probably most applicable to something like Mass Effect, or a videogame, is Philosophical Realism. 'Realism' alone tends to describe:
'an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or
romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one
century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the
literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French
novelists Flaubert and Balzac. George Eliot introduced realism into
England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States.
Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday
life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of
social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic
complication.'
If one were to apply any literary theory to Mass Effect, then the ideas Structuralism and Post-structuralism discuss would be a place to start - read up on some Roland Barthes, some Kristeva, some Claude Levi-Strauss and some Northrop Frye. However, the flaw in this discussion is that there is a problem with genre. Genre, in this instance, being the form, categorisation, and interpretation of a text, not only its 'shelf space'. Mass Effect is close in my eyes to an Epic narrative, save for the current ending of the third installment (which in no way makes it a tragedy). The problem with genre is that it is determined by the reader as well as the author - if people want to view Mass Effect as art then they will. Here I suggest reading Theodor Adorno's 'Culture Industry' as a way to understand how in many ways videogames will never be art, and are unable to be analysed critically on many levels.
It is here that Roland Barthes' Death of the Author is applicable - not, as many suggest, in interpreting the ending the way you want to - you don't need theory to do that. A Post-Structuralist approach is perhaps the only way to give Mass Effect any credence as art.
If anybody wants to jump in and critique my thoughts please do so. Or, if you have something to add to the discussion, please do so.
I just wanted people to stop getting ahead of themselves with things they don't quite understand.
Mass Effect isn't Realism, or Tragedy.
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