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"All Were Thematically Revolting". My Lit Professor's take on the Endings. (UPDATED)


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#276
nickkcin11

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Your professor is amazing... wow. Though it doesn't take an English professor to point out how bad the endings were, it sure doesn't hurt.

#277
ThatGuy39

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Made Nightwing wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.


He also had something to say about that.

"If I go to a concert, and pay top dollar to be entertained by the beautiful music of the orchestra therein, why would I be called a whiner when at the very end the musicians throw away their instruments and start playing death metal? Am I not entitled to expect the end to the concert to be what I have paid for?"

 
 
Bad analogy. Death Metal from an orchestra would still be better than the ending we got.

#278
Ericus

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Great post Strange Aeons. Your identification of the core theme (indoctrination and subjugation vs. freedom and self-determination) is spot on - which is probably why IT seemed like such a good solution when it was first presented! I also really liked your observation that the Normandy, not Earth, is Shepard's true home.

#279
kalasaurus

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I wish I had a geeky English professor like that. I'm jealous!

Modifié par GlassElephant, 17 avril 2012 - 04:18 .


#280
Delta_V2

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@Strange Aeons: Great post!  Agree with every word

ThatGuy39 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.


He also had something to say about that.

"If I go to a concert, and pay top dollar to be entertained by the beautiful music of the orchestra therein, why would I be called a whiner when at the very end the musicians throw away their instruments and start playing death metal? Am I not entitled to expect the end to the concert to be what I have paid for?"

 
 
Bad analogy. Death Metal from an orchestra would still be better than the ending we got.



Meh.  I've had stranger things happen on Pandora.

#281
The RPGenius

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ThatGuy39 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.


He also had something to say about that.

"If I go to a concert, and pay top dollar to be entertained by the beautiful music of the orchestra therein, why would I be called a whiner when at the very end the musicians throw away their instruments and start playing death metal? Am I not entitled to expect the end to the concert to be what I have paid for?"

 
 
Bad analogy. Death Metal from an orchestra would still be better than the ending we got.



Be fair.  There aren't a lot of feasible scenarios that could compare accurately to the wretchedness of the current situation.  He did the best he could under these extreme circumstances.

#282
nickkcin11

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ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.

Oh, so you get it? That's great, you must be so smart and brilliant and insightful. Oh, well please kindly explain your way through all the plotholes and try to make the ending seem meaningful. Please. Show us what we all missed.

#283
Quietness

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nickkcin11 wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.

Oh, so you get it? That's great, you must be so smart and brilliant and insightful. Oh, well please kindly explain your way through all the plotholes and try to make the ending seem meaningful. Please. Show us what we all missed.


Judging by their posts elsewhere there is a level of sarcasm that just does not get through well on the typed word.

#284
Balmung31

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Damned good post, Strange Aeons. Better than I could ever have put it myself.

#285
kyban

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This post wins, everyone should read it.


You touched lightly on something that ran through my head as I was trying to choose one of the colors.
I am about to make a HUGE decision. What is the rest of the galaxy going to think? How will they react? What if they don't like it and go to war? How can I possibly decide anything without consulting my crew? I was able to do it before, or at least I had dialogue options.... They took it all away, and it sucks.

#286
Zix13

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ThatGuy39 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.


He also had something to say about that.

"If I go to a concert, and pay top dollar to be entertained by the beautiful music of the orchestra therein, why would I be called a whiner when at the very end the musicians throw away their instruments and start playing death metal? Am I not entitled to expect the end to the concert to be what I have paid for?"

 
 
Bad analogy. Death Metal from an orchestra would still be better than the ending we got.



Jbeibs from an orchestra would be more to the point. With death metal, you can always choose one of the sub-genres that aren't american and bad. 

Modifié par Zix13, 17 avril 2012 - 04:35 .


#287
Balmung31

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ThatGuy39 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

ShepnTali wrote...

He's an entitled whiner who doesn't get it.


He also had something to say about that.

"If I go to a concert, and pay top dollar to be entertained by the beautiful music of the orchestra therein, why would I be called a whiner when at the very end the musicians throw away their instruments and start playing death metal? Am I not entitled to expect the end to the concert to be what I have paid for?"

 
 
Bad analogy. Death Metal from an orchestra would still be better than the ending we got.



What about Yoko Ono?  :devil:

#288
AwesomeDudex64

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Wise words.

#289
Isichar

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@Strange Aeons
TYVM for the good read.

#290
Cobra's_back

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Bump good read

#291
AnsinJung

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Asari, Quarians, Turians, Salarians, Krogan--that's all boring. Get with the times, get Borg. They even kept a little bit of Turian, with those monocle-scope thingies. Happy?

#292
Stonesoundjam

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This hurts Lit.

#293
Narsilsword

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The ending seems like it's written by someone who watches too many holywood movies and think he knows something about science and has too many high school dreams that never properly evolved into aldulthood.

#294
OH-UP-THIS!

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zarnk567 wrote...

Mesmurae wrote...

All of you who are complaining about the ending just need to shut up. How dare you be dissatisfied with a product you paid for. How dare you point out what BioWare advertised the product would be. They're artists, they don't have to answer questions or keep their promises!

Just shut up and respect their artistic integrity!


I see what you did thar. 



Big stupid jellyfishes everywhere!!!!

Image IPBJ/K

Op great piece of articulation, thank you.

I've wondered for these many weeks, why it all fell apart at the end, now thanks to this thread and yourself, I have a much better handle on it.

As for the dissenters, one day you'll wake up, and it will all make sense.

Modifié par ohupthis, 17 avril 2012 - 06:15 .


#295
Kloreep

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Excellent post Strange Aeons.

Strange Aeons wrote...

We’re also implicitly asked to forget that this was never even the central conflict of the game. The Reapers—and the heretic Geth, for that matter--were not our enemy because they were synthetic. That they were synthetic was incidental; it would have been the same had they been oozing, fleshy space-shoggoths. No, they were our enemy because they were trying to destroy and/or subjugate us. The battle of ideas at the core of the ME series was never organic vs. synthetic life, but rather indoctrination and subjugation vs. freedom and self-determination. Appropriately, this theme was even paralleled in the gameplay itself through its unprecedented emphasis on meaningful player interactivity vs. being forced down a predetermined path. Then they reached the end and inexplicably threw it all out the window.


You've outlined my biggest problem with the ending far better than I've ever been able to.

#296
Bill Casey

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The Heretic conflict would have been like the final choice if it was...

Become David Archer from the Overlord DLC, and you can Control all of the Heretic Geth maybe

or

Destroy all of the Heretic Geth, which for some reason also kills off all of the Krogan, even though they're kind of a completely separate issue

Modifié par Bill Casey, 17 avril 2012 - 06:02 .


#297
FlamingBoy

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smart, i like people who can describe my opinion in words that i struggle to express with out sounding stupid

#298
optimistickied

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Kloreep wrote...

Excellent post Strange Aeons.

Strange Aeons wrote...

We’re also implicitly asked to forget that this was never even the central conflict of the game. The Reapers—and the heretic Geth, for that matter--were not our enemy because they were synthetic. That they were synthetic was incidental; it would have been the same had they been oozing, fleshy space-shoggoths. No, they were our enemy because they were trying to destroy and/or subjugate us. The battle of ideas at the core of the ME series was never organic vs. synthetic life, but rather indoctrination and subjugation vs. freedom and self-determination. Appropriately, this theme was even paralleled in the gameplay itself through its unprecedented emphasis on meaningful player interactivity vs. being forced down a predetermined path. Then they reached the end and inexplicably threw it all out the window.


You've outlined my biggest problem with the ending far better than I've ever been able to.


But technology's role in the Mass Effect universe is undeniable. I think that whoever was responsible for the endings must have thought the concept of technological progress vs. the evolutionary process was more relevant to us than another good vs. evil story. The conflict may have abruptly delineated from what was expected, but I thought there was something attractive about trying to reconcile our ability to create destruction with our ability to sustain life.

I don't think the Geth being synthetic is incidental; they are referred to throughout the series as physical disclaimers, as warnings against technological abuse. The Lazarus Project, the Mass Relays, the Citadel... the Reaper Invasion... the Genophage... Cerberus... Indoctrination... There is a clear connection.

#299
Hawk227

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Strange Aeons wrote...

[...]
After all the effort Bioware put into developing the cast of the series, letting us talk with them and learn about their problems and build friendships with them and even romance them, what were we really fighting for?

“The galaxy?”

A vague resolution to an esoteric, eons-old conundrum we didn’t even know existed?

I sure as hell wasn’t. I was fighting for the characters that I cared about.

And at the finale of a game built around an emotional center of relationships established over the course of an entire trilogy, it’s all for naught. Shepard faces the Catalyst alone. He dies alone. He never learns what happens to his friends or LI—we don’t even really learn what happens to them—and he takes the events of the Crucible to the grave. There is no way to save them, let alone reunite with them, any more than there is a way to save yourself.

You reach the Catalyst, you do something (I’m not really sure what), and then random stuff happens. Have a nice day.

It’s inconceivable to me that the writers could possibly have been that tone deaf about their own creation. There is a forum called “Character and Romance Discussion” on this very site with almost 450,000 posts in it, and they thought this stuff wasn’t important to people? It’s like they failed to see the trees for the high-concept, "artistic" forest.

The ending betrays its own design philosophy of meaningful interactivity; it betrays the values and principles of Shepard’s character; and it betrays the emotional investment of players who devoted their time thinking that they could shape the outcome by playing well—you know, the sort of thing you expect from a video game.

It’s a disgrace, and everyone who had a hand in producing it ought to be ashamed.


This entire post is pure brilliance. I've not seen a more eloquent and thorough critique of the end anywhere. Not even close. Amazing.

#300
OhManTFE

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Uhh, that's crazy I am also C Dray. Hopefully will have my Dr. title sometime down the line. XD

Casey and Mac made the ending? Can anybody source this??