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[DoctorCrowtgamer]

MrNighttime wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

So, my lit professor and I are nerds. I throw in 'but the prize' references on my essays about Odysseus and Achilles, he throws in Firefly references in his lectures, we get on great. Now, I've previously mentioned that he disliked the endings, but today he gave me a full rundown on what exactly he found displeasing about the endgame:

"I don't get it. You get a choice between control. I just shot The Illusive Man five minutes ago because I said that we weren't ready for that power. Why on Earth isn't there an option to express how faulty that choice is? And then Destroy? Dammit, I just saved the geth and quarians, they're working together as a re-united race. Why is genocide an option? WHY? And then Synthesis just completely mistakes everything about evolution. There is no apex of evolution, we continue to adapt and move forward or we die. Aside from that, I'm forcing a choice on the entire galaxy, without the option to tell the damn thing to go to hell! All three endings were so entirely removed from the themes of the whole series that they were completely unrecognisable! It's like Casey had just finished playing Deus Ex and Mac had just watcched teh season finale of BSG."

"If I'm going to speak about 'artistic integrity', I will be compelled to point out that the ending was in no way the artistic vision of the team. BW has already stated that the ending was thought up between Casey and Mac, without any part of the peer review process being consulted. It was not a product of the team, but individuals. Aside from that, saying that artistic integrity forbids them from changing the ending is ridiculous. Many novelists have re-written entire works because of negative feedback on them. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in chapters, publishing each one as they went, and each chapter would be based on the feedback that he got for that chapter. Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead. Those are just wo examples, there are many more. BW broke their own artistic integrity when they allowed EA to set their deadline. Now there are many things that you can say about ME1, but you can never say that it was rushed. The graphics were glitchy, sure, but the characters and dialogue were finely polished."

"In conclusion, I must say again that all the endings were thematically revolting. It is absolutely critical in the name of good writing that the ending of a story must match the journey. Mass Effect has never been a story about the disparity between synthetics and organics. As a matter of fact, it has been quite the obvious. For three games, BW has hinted and pointed out that life could be so much more greater and mysterious than the organic perception. It's driven the point home, time and time again, that unity is possible. So why, then, at the very end of a series that has clearly been about unity and co-existence, would they end it with the point that different forms of life simply cannot co-exist unless their diversity is totally stripped away? It makes no sense. Furthermore, it is emotionally crushing that all this hope of co-existence that has been built up from the quarian-geth storyline  (Geth Prime:...and then we will help you rebuild your world.) is suddenly yanked away at the last second. Good day."

Dr. C. Dray.

(Lit professor dropped in on P.13 to add onto my paraphrasing)

Nail------->head

Shepard was supposed to to one of the first Iconic Heros of the 21st Century---IMO  not some punk who got whipped.

Yeah i mean how much of a wuss do you have to be to just kill a bunch of your friends because some computer who you have never met before tells you too?!

[pistolols]

Kunari801 wrote...

pistolols wrote...

drayfish wrote...

for me it felt emotionally cheap, because my Shepard was being compelled to make a decision that flew in the face of everything her experience had lead her to believe. 
 

Interesting and did your shepard rewrite or destroy the geth heretics?  Which one was the "right" choice, in your opinion?  Were you equally enraged that Legion had compelled you to make that difficult decision instead of say.. proposing a peace plan between the geth and geth heretics?

That was answered by Strange Aeons on page 11

The decision in Legion’s loyalty mission is nothing like the ending of ME3 except in the most superficial sense that both involve some sort of choice. The context of the situations, the nature of the revelation involved, the significance of the “choice” are all completely different.

At the time we met Legion, we had just spent a game and a half fighting the Geth, who were actively waging a war against the Citadel races in conjunction with the Reapers. There was no question that at some level they were a destructive and dangerous enemy. Then we learned that this was only part of the story. This information challenged our assumption that the Geth were a homogeneous society, but it didn’t contradict the clearly-established lessons of the story that preceded it. It expanded our knowledge of the situation without asking us to ignore the significance of what we had witnessed previously. 

Well i disagree that it's superficial.  Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ. Keeping in mind that the heretics chose to follow sovereign out of their own free will... so rewriting them is stomping all over their free will.. which is what people are complaining about with the reaper control choice.   

it's also the paragon choice in both situations. Wow, Bioware, maybe next time take it easy on us when you decide to make such a dramatic "shift in tone". I mean geez louise all we're asking for is some "narrative cohesion" for cryin' out loud.

Modifié par pistolols, 17 avril 2012 - 10:43 .

[MrNighttime]

Made Nightwing wrote...

So, my lit professor and I are nerds. I throw in 'but the prize' references on my essays about Odysseus and Achilles, he throws in Firefly references in his lectures, we get on great. Now, I've previously mentioned that he disliked the endings, but today he gave me a full rundown on what exactly he found displeasing about the endgame:

"I don't get it. You get a choice between control. I just shot The Illusive Man five minutes ago because I said that we weren't ready for that power. Why on Earth isn't there an option to express how faulty that choice is? And then Destroy? Dammit, I just saved the geth and quarians, they're working together as a re-united race. Why is genocide an option? WHY? And then Synthesis just completely mistakes everything about evolution. There is no apex of evolution, we continue to adapt and move forward or we die. Aside from that, I'm forcing a choice on the entire galaxy, without the option to tell the damn thing to go to hell! All three endings were so entirely removed from the themes of the whole series that they were completely unrecognisable! It's like Casey had just finished playing Deus Ex and Mac had just watcched teh season finale of BSG."

"If I'm going to speak about 'artistic integrity', I will be compelled to point out that the ending was in no way the artistic vision of the team. BW has already stated that the ending was thought up between Casey and Mac, without any part of the peer review process being consulted. It was not a product of the team, but individuals. Aside from that, saying that artistic integrity forbids them from changing the ending is ridiculous. Many novelists have re-written entire works because of negative feedback on them. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in chapters, publishing each one as they went, and each chapter would be based on the feedback that he got for that chapter. Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead. Those are just wo examples, there are many more. BW broke their own artistic integrity when they allowed EA to set their deadline. Now there are many things that you can say about ME1, but you can never say that it was rushed. The graphics were glitchy, sure, but the characters and dialogue were finely polished."

"In conclusion, I must say again that all the endings were thematically revolting. It is absolutely critical in the name of good writing that the ending of a story must match the journey. Mass Effect has never been a story about the disparity between synthetics and organics. As a matter of fact, it has been quite the obvious. For three games, BW has hinted and pointed out that life could be so much more greater and mysterious than the organic perception. It's driven the point home, time and time again, that unity is possible. So why, then, at the very end of a series that has clearly been about unity and co-existence, would they end it with the point that different forms of life simply cannot co-exist unless their diversity is totally stripped away? It makes no sense. Furthermore, it is emotionally crushing that all this hope of co-existence that has been built up from the quarian-geth storyline  (Geth Prime:...and then we will help you rebuild your world.) is suddenly yanked away at the last second. Good day."

Dr. C. Dray.

(Lit professor dropped in on P.13 to add onto my paraphrasing)

Well put!!!! I love the part about Dickens and Doyle. It's like we have never had test screenings of finishd films that were changed after bad reactions.

Modifié par MrNighttime, 17 avril 2012 - 10:33 .

[Kloreep]

pistolols wrote...

Well i disagree that it's superficial.

pistolols wrote...

Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ.

Could you perhaps release an extended post to explain how those two quotes reconcile?

[parrmi22]

Your professor sounds like an awesome guy to chill and get high with.

[Trojan_33]

Tleining wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Personally i feel this is a major misconception you idiots (just kidding) people are having.  I don't see how the starchild can be a deus ex machina.  Afterall the 3 ending choices come from the crucible, not from him.  If anything is a deus ex machina, it is the crucible because of the way it was introduced in the eleventh hour of the series.  The starchild is nothing more than a defeated AI lamenting over the glory of his old solution before providing us with some information about our desired course of victory.

Without the Catalyst, you would never have reached that last area. Shepard didn't activate the Elevator. Godchild did.
Without the Catalyst, you wouldn't have known what to do. Shepard would have bled out.

According to the Catalyst, Shepard is the first Organic ever to reach it. So how could anyone other than Godchild/Reapers have designed the Crucible?

All the Godchild had to do was wait 20-30 Minutes and then the Crucible would have gotten destroyed. Instead it led Shepard to a new Solution. It's Solution.

Also: The Devices for Control and Destroy are ON the Citadel. The Crucible didn't add those. Only the available Energy could influence the available Options. But it's still something the Reapers had thought of.

Have you ever thought for one second that (if the starchild was real, yes I cling to IT for hope) Starchild's Reapers had never faced a fully mobilized galaxy before? He needed Shepherd to do something or they might have lost. The admiral said that "they could never win a conventional war" but when he said it, wasn't he really thinking that only a few races might come at most? He said numerous times that Shep had done amazing things bringing races together, far more than he expected.

[PrimeOfValor]

Finally, a professor's take on this, I mean what author would contradicts their own theme of the story at the end of a trilogy.

[Deklan_Caine]

@ drayfish 

Many have said it, but I must echo: well said!

Someone should print out your post and nail it on Bioware's front door just like Martin Luther did with his 95 theses at Wittenberg a few centuries ago...

drayfish wrote...

I've never posted on this forum before, so I hope I don't embarrass myself or this discussion entirely – and I apologise for the wall of text that is to follow, but I'm an academic, and tedious tracts of self-important linguistic gymnastics is what we do.

My name is Dr. Dray, and I should start by saying: oh, dear, I've been cited for my nerd indignation. I'm surprised Made Nightwing didn't mention that my little fists were shaking with rage. But they were. They did. With feeble, pointless nerd rage.

I must point out though, that as flattered as I am to be referenced, were I still marking Made Nightwing's work I would have to circle this passage and remind him that these words are not in fact directly attributable to me: his phrasing is a paraphrase of our conversation rather than a quotation. ...However, he has an attentive mind, and I must admit that he has captured the majority of my issues with the ending, my penchant for hyperbole, and the general dislocation of the thematic threads that I felt violated the larger narrative arc of the trilogy. And I'm sad to say I did use the words 'thematically revolting' – although I've watched both the Matrix sequels and Godfather 3, so I've probably said that phrase quite a lot.  

If you'll permit me then, I did just want to write quickly in my own words to clarify some of my issues with these endings, and why I thought that they erode the themes heretofore at the core of their series. Of course, all of these arguments have no doubt been stated numerous times by voices far more worthy than mine over the past few weeks, but as someone intrigued by the production and reception of literature in all its forms this has been a fascinating – if disheartening – time to be an enormous fan of this fiction. I'd also like to particularly commend Strange Aeons for the fantastic post.  And that analogy: 'It’s like ending Pinocchio with Geppetto stuffing him into a wood chipper'. What an exquisite image!

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why, when I was offered those three repellent choices, I turned and tried to unload my now infinite pistol into the whispy-space-ghost's face. It was not because I was unhappy that my Shepard would not get to drink Garrus under the table one last time, or get to help Tali build a back-porch on her new homestead, nor that I was pretty sure no one was going to remember to feed my space fish – it was because those three ideological options were so structurally indefensible that they broke the suspension of disbelief that Bioware had (up until that point) so spectacularly crafted for over a hundred hours of narrative. Suddenly Shepard was not simply being asked to sacrifice a race or a friend or him/herself for the greater good (all of which was no doubt expected by any player paying attention to the tone of the series), Shepard was being compelled, without even the chance to offer a counterpoint, to perform one of three actions that to my reading each fundamentally undermined the narrative foundations upon which the series seemed to rest.

In the Control ending, Shepard is invited to pursue the previously impossible path of attempting to dominate the reapers and bend them to his will. Momentarily putting aside the vulgarity of dominating a species to achieve one's own ends (and I will get to complaining about that premise soon enough), this has proved to be the failed modus operandi of every antagonist in this fiction up until this point – including the Illusive Man and Saren – all of whom have been chewed up and destroyed by their blind ambition, incapable of controlling forces beyond their comprehension. Nothing in the vague prognostication of the exposition-ghost offers any tangible justification for why Shepard's plunge into Reaper-control should play out any differently. In fact, as many people have already pointed out, Shepard has literally not five minutes before this moment watched the Illusive Man die as a consequence of this arrogant misconception.

The Destroy ending, however, seems even more perverse. One of the constants of the Mass Effect universe (and indeed much quality science fiction) has been an exploration of the notion that life is not simplistically bound to biology, that existence expands beyond the narrow parameters of blood and bone. That is why synthetic characters like Legion and EDI are so compelling in this context, why their quests to understand self-awareness – not simply to ape human behaviours – is so dramatic and compelling. Indeed, we even get glimpses of the Reapers having more sprawling and unknowable motivations that we puny mortals can comprehend... 

To then end the tale by forcing the player to obliterate several now-proven-legitimate forms of life in order to 'save' the traditional definition of fleshy existence is not only genocidal, it actually devolves Shephard's ideological growth, undermining his ascent toward a more enlightened conception of existence, something that the fiction has been steadily advancing no matter how Renegadishably you wanted to play.  This is particularly evident when the preceding actions of all three games entirely disprove the premise that synthetic will inevitably destroy organic: the Geth were the persecuted victims, trying their best to save the Quarians from themselves; EDI, given autonomy, immediately sought to aid her crew, even taking physical form in order to experience life from their perspective and finally learning that she too feared the implications of death.

And finally Synthesis, the ending that I suspect (unless we are to believe the Indoctrination Theory) is the 'good' option, proves to be the most distasteful of all. Shepard, up until this point has been an instrument though which change is achieved in this universe, and dependent upon your individual Renegade or Paragon choices, this may have resulted in siding with one species or another, letting this person live or that person die, even condemning races to extinction through your actions. But these decisions were always the result of a mediation of disparate opinions, and a consequence of the natural escalation of these disputes – Shepard was merely the fork in the path that decided which way the lava would run. His/her actions had an impact, but was responding to events in the universe that were already in motion before he/she arrived. 

To belabour the point: Shepard is an agent for arbitration, the tipping point of dialogues that have, at times, root causes that reach back across generations. Up until this moment in the game the narrative, and Shepard's role within it, has been about the negotiation of diversity, testing the validity of opposing viewpoints and selecting a path through which to evolve on to another layer of questioning. Suddenly with the Synthesis ending, Shepard's capacity to make decisions elevates from offering a moral tipping point to arbitrarily wiping such disparity from the world. Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.

(And lest we forget that the entire character arc of Javik (the 'bonus' paid-DLC character that gives unique context to the entire cycle of destruction upon which this fiction is based) is utilised to reveal that a lack of diversity, the failure to continue adapting to new circumstances, was the primary reason that his race was decimated. ...So I guess we have that to look forward to.)

And this was the analogy I made to Made Nightwing in our discussion (and which I have bored people with elsewhere): this bewildering finale felt as if you had been listening to a soaring orchestral movement that ended in a cacophonous blast, the musicians tossing down their instruments and walking away.  I find it hard to conceive how the creators of such a magnificent franchise could have made such a mess of their own universe. The plot holes, thematic inconsistencies and a deus ex machina that was unforgivable in ancient Greek theatre, let alone in any modern narrative, all combine to erode the foundations upon which the rest of the experience resides. (It's a disturbing sign when apologists for such an ending have to literally hope that what they witnessed was just a bad dream in the central character's head.)

I'm sure in my diatribe with Made Nightwing I would have cited Charles Dickens being alert to, and adapting his writing in response to the floods of letters he received from his fans in the serialised delivery of stories such as The Old Curiosity Shop. And I know I mentioned F.Scott Fitzgerald extensively redrafting Tender is the Night for a second publishing after receiving negative critical feedback.  Indeed, whatever you think of the final result, Ridley Scott was able to reassert a definitive vision of Blade Runner in spite of its original theatrical release.  Despite what critics might burble about artistic vision there is innumerable precedent for such reshaping, even beyond fundamental industry practices such as play-testings and film test-screenings.  If a work of art has failed in its communicative purpose (and unless angering and bewildering its most invested fans was the goal, then Mass Effect 3 has done so), then it cannot be considered a success, and is not worthy of regard.

And for those who would respond that I, and fans like myself, are simply upset because the endings do not offer some irrefutable 'clarity' that would mar the poetic mysteries of the ending, I would point out that I am in no way against obscure or bewildering endings: if they are earned. In contrast to a majority of viewers, I happen to love the ending of The Sopranos for precisely this reason – because, despite the momentary jolt of surprise it engendered, that audacious blank screen was wholly thematically supportable. The driving premise of that program was a man seeking therapy (a mobster, yes, but a psychologically damaged man) – indeed, the very first beat in that narrative was Tony Soprano walking into a psychiatrist's office.  The principle thematic tie of the entire series was therefore revealed to be a mediation upon the underlying psychological stimuli that produces identity: whether the capacity to interpret and understand one's impulses can impact upon the experience of one's life; whether one can attain agency over one's life. 

That ending might have been agonising, but it was entirely fitting that the series ended with a loaded ambiguity, inviting a myriad of interpretations in which we the audience were now placed into the role of the psychiatrist, suddenly compelled to reason out the ending of those final thirty seconds with the cumulative experience of the preceding six years of imagery. Did Tony die? Did he have a second plate of onion rings and enjoy his family's company? Did Meadow ever park that car? In its final act The Sopranos gives over the interpretive, descriptive function of its narrative to its audience, intimately binding the viewer to Tony Soprano's own (perhaps failed) attempts to comprehend himself and attain authorship over his life. ...But the only reason that they could even try this is because every minute of every episode to this point has been propagated upon the notion that Tony Soprano was a man with a subconscious that could be explored, and that motivated his actions whether as a loving father or brutal criminal.

The obscurities in the ending of Mass Effect 3 have not been similarly earned by its prior narrative. This narrative has not until this point been about dominance, extermination, and the imposition of uniformity – indeed, Shepard has spent over a hundred hours of narrative fighting against precisely these three themes. And if one of these three (and only these three) options must be selected in order to sustain life in the universe, then that life has been so devalued by that act as to make the sacrifice meaningless.

And that is why I shall continue to go on shooting Haley-Joel-Osment-ghost in the face.

...Sorry again for the length of this post.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

bigmass41 wrote...

Finally, a professor's take on this, I mean what author would contradicts their own theme of the story at the end of a trilogy.

A bad one who if he wasn't working for himself would have trouble finding work again.  I used to think Enterprise had the worst ending of any Sci-Fi series but then Mass Effect 3 proved me wrong.

[Spectre_Shepard]

prof = badass.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

Trojan_33 wrote...

Tleining wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Personally i feel this is a major misconception you idiots (just kidding) people are having.  I don't see how the starchild can be a deus ex machina.  Afterall the 3 ending choices come from the crucible, not from him.  If anything is a deus ex machina, it is the crucible because of the way it was introduced in the eleventh hour of the series.  The starchild is nothing more than a defeated AI lamenting over the glory of his old solution before providing us with some information about our desired course of victory.

Without the Catalyst, you would never have reached that last area. Shepard didn't activate the Elevator. Godchild did.
Without the Catalyst, you wouldn't have known what to do. Shepard would have bled out.

According to the Catalyst, Shepard is the first Organic ever to reach it. So how could anyone other than Godchild/Reapers have designed the Crucible?

All the Godchild had to do was wait 20-30 Minutes and then the Crucible would have gotten destroyed. Instead it led Shepard to a new Solution. It's Solution.

Also: The Devices for Control and Destroy are ON the Citadel. The Crucible didn't add those. Only the available Energy could influence the available Options. But it's still something the Reapers had thought of.

Have you ever thought for one second that (if the starchild was real, yes I cling to IT for hope) Starchild's Reapers had never faced a fully mobilized galaxy before? He needed Shepherd to do something or they might have lost. The admiral said that "they could never win a conventional war" but when he said it, wasn't he really thinking that only a few races might come at most? He said numerous times that Shep had done amazing things bringing races together, far more than he expected.

yeah not to mention that from what I saw iin the game it seems like there are only a couple of thousand reapers at most against the whole galaxy and you have at least 100 years to find a way to beat them,and that is assuming nothing you do sets them back and makes it take longer then 100 years.

Why does Shepard seem to have more faith in starhitler who he just met then he does in his friends and the races he is working with.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

pistolols wrote...

Kunari801 wrote...

pistolols wrote...

drayfish wrote...

for me it felt emotionally cheap, because my Shepard was being compelled to make a decision that flew in the face of everything her experience had lead her to believe. 
 

Interesting and did your shepard rewrite or destroy the geth heretics?  Which one was the "right" choice, in your opinion?  Were you equally enraged that Legion had compelled you to make that difficult decision instead of say.. proposing a peace plan between the geth and geth heretics?

That was answered by Strange Aeons on page 11

The decision in Legion’s loyalty mission is nothing like the ending of ME3 except in the most superficial sense that both involve some sort of choice. The context of the situations, the nature of the revelation involved, the significance of the “choice” are all completely different.

At the time we met Legion, we had just spent a game and a half fighting the Geth, who were actively waging a war against the Citadel races in conjunction with the Reapers. There was no question that at some level they were a destructive and dangerous enemy. Then we learned that this was only part of the story. This information challenged our assumption that the Geth were a homogeneous society, but it didn’t contradict the clearly-established lessons of the story that preceded it. It expanded our knowledge of the situation without asking us to ignore the significance of what we had witnessed previously. 

Well i disagree that it's superficial.  Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ. Keeping in mind that the heretics chose to follow sovereign out of their own free will... so rewriting them is stomping all over their free will.. which is what people are complaining about with the reaper control choice.   

it's also the paragon choice in both situations. Wow, Bioware, maybe next time take it easy on us when you decide to make such a dramatic "shift in tone". I mean geez louise all we're asking for is some "narrative cohesion" for cryin' out loud.

Tone is not solely made up of the choices offered, it is how they are presented, how the protagonist reacts to them, how they interact with them, and many other nuances that you have completely disregarded, or that you fail to notice. The nature and quality of the character's interaction with the world is also a part of the theme and narrative, and it is this that has been utterly discarded.

We meet a character and we have no information about him beyond that he claims to be the person who has caused thousands of mass genocides, and you are arguing that it is not a thematic or narrative disconnect for Shepard to immediately believe everything he says, even if what he says contradicts significant amounts of evidence Shepard has previously encountered.

This is in stark contrast with how you react the other time you encounter anyone even marginally suspect: when you meet Mordin in ME2,  you can grill him seven ways to sunday about the Genophage, and develop a nuanced view. You can gather information throughout the first two games that helps you  make an informed decision. With the Control option and the Starkid, you are given a statement that directly contradicts all evidence in the game, absolutely no way to confirm its veracity, and you're expected to swallow it without question.

To take the Control or Synthesis endings at face value given their source requires Shepard to discard all nuance and abandon critical thinking. Shepard must trust the options presented him by an outside force and make no move to understand them better. He offers no alternatives, seeks no compromise, makes no move to investigate wha the is being told.  In part, it is this unquestioning surrender to fate that is so violently discordant with the central themes of the series.

But you say that portraying Shepard as a credulous, uninquisitive moron does not cause narrative incongruity with your perception of Shepard. That's up to you.

I see such a character as a significan thematic disconnect from my Shepard.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2012 - 10:53 .

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Kunari801 wrote...

pistolols wrote...

drayfish wrote...

for me it felt emotionally cheap, because my Shepard was being compelled to make a decision that flew in the face of everything her experience had lead her to believe. 
 

Interesting and did your shepard rewrite or destroy the geth heretics?  Which one was the "right" choice, in your opinion?  Were you equally enraged that Legion had compelled you to make that difficult decision instead of say.. proposing a peace plan between the geth and geth heretics?

That was answered by Strange Aeons on page 11

The decision in Legion’s loyalty mission is nothing like the ending of ME3 except in the most superficial sense that both involve some sort of choice. The context of the situations, the nature of the revelation involved, the significance of the “choice” are all completely different.

At the time we met Legion, we had just spent a game and a half fighting the Geth, who were actively waging a war against the Citadel races in conjunction with the Reapers. There was no question that at some level they were a destructive and dangerous enemy. Then we learned that this was only part of the story. This information challenged our assumption that the Geth were a homogeneous society, but it didn’t contradict the clearly-established lessons of the story that preceded it. It expanded our knowledge of the situation without asking us to ignore the significance of what we had witnessed previously. 

Well i disagree that it's superficial.  Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ. Keeping in mind that the heretics chose to follow sovereign out of their own free will... so rewriting them is stomping all over their free will.. which is what people are complaining about with the reaper control choice.   

it's also the paragon choice in both situations. Wow, Bioware, maybe next time take it easy on us when you decide to make such a dramatic "shift in tone". I mean geez louise all we're asking for is some "narrative cohesion" for cryin' out loud.

You either don't know what the word tone means, or you're being deliberately obtuse. I hope it is the latter.

Tone is not solely made up of the choices offered, it is how they are presented, how the protagonist reacts to them, how they interact with them, and many other nuances that you have completely disregarded, or that you fail to notice.

One of the consistent themes o

We meet a character and we have no information about him beyond that he
claims to be the person who has caused thousands of mass genocides,
and you are arguing that it is not a thematic or narrative disconnect for Shepard to immediately believe everything he says, even if what he says contradicts significant amounts of evidence Shepard has previously encountered.

This is in stark contrast with how you react the other time you encounter anyone even marginally suspect: when you meet Mordin in ME2,  you can grill him seven ways to sunday about the Genophage, and develop a nuanced view. You
can gather information throughout the first two games that helps you
make an informed decision. With the Control option and the Starkid, you
are given a statement that directly contradicts all evidence in the
game, absolutely no way to confirm its veracity, and you're expected to
swallow it without question.

To
take the Control or Synthesis endings at face value given their source
requires Shepard to discard all nuance and abandon critical thinking.
Shepard must trust the options presented him by an outside force and
make no move to understand them better. He offers no alternatives, seeks
no compromise, makes no move to investigate wha the is being told.  In
part, it is this unquestioning surrender to fate that is so violently
discordant with the central themes of the series.


But you say that portraying Shepard as a credulous, uninquisitive moron does not cause narrative incongruity with your perception of Shepard. That's up to you.

I see such a character as a significan thematic disconnect from my Shepard.

YEAH!  I like my heroes to think and care about the people they work with.

[optimistickied]

Kloreep wrote...

I can only read that as a "technology" theme if I ignore the personhood of the Geth, EDI, etc. and view them as somehow analogous to all those other things like Lazarus Project, Mass Relays, etc. To me, that's a repugnant way of looking at sapient life. It was specifically organic life vs. synthetic life that was called out by the Catalyst, not just technology in general, that itself and the Reapers are supposed to be some kind of "solution" to. Technological innovation was only referenced as the source of AI's inevitable creation. And so that "solution" is to a "problem" that sounded straight out of ME1. As others have said, any grounding that theme might have had in ME1's more alarmist take on AIs was very well eroded by the way the writers chose to handle characters like EDI and Legion in the next two games.

Now, certainly the theme was foreshadowed, insofar as it has certainly been brought up plenty. The discussion of AI does indeed predate Javik and goes back to the beginning of ME1 with the Quarians & Geth being introduced, plus the discussion of AI research being banned if you dig into some of the exposition. However, since then, ME2 and 3 have provided huge amounts of evidence that Javik, the Catalyst, and others are incorrect, and that EDI, the Geth, Cerberus, and other pro-AI groups are very much correct in viewing synthetic life is simply another form of life. Heck, after completing the trilogy, I remain far more concerned about the Krogan are a threat to other races and galactic peace than that AI automatically is a threat. As far as I can tell, the argument for AI being so gorram dangerous basically boils down to "it's different, therefore we can't get along." Applies as much or more to the Krogan as anyone else. And indeed, we see very similar arguments with the Krogan. "It will always be control-or-be-controlled with them, so we have to keep them under wraps, no matter how inhumane that can seem." How is synthetic life some sort of special focus? So, yeah, I suppose you can say that it was foreshadowed, sure. I would say an ending in which the issue of aggressive species like Krogan suddenly take front-and-center, and the question of what to do with them and the Yahg is strangely tied into the Catalyst and into the Reaper's very motivations, would have been just as "foreshadowed."

I agree with drey and others that what makes those last fifteen minutes especially nerd-enraging is that Shepard was forced to go along with the three choices. I had the Javik DLC, so I had him giving me warnings against AIs throughout the game, in language that the Catalyst called back at the end. Javik had an interesting perspective to have onboard, and it was cool to hear such a throwback to ME1. I dismissed it readily from experience, but it was a nice addition to have that perspective there for me to dismiss - I was never forced to do anything but disagree with it. In those last fifteen minutes with the Catalyst, on the other hand, Shepard is forced. There's no Sheridan-style "we refuse to be part of this argument anymore!" option. (<-- To be a bit less obscure: that was a Babylon 5 reference.) It's one thing for the Catalyst to present me with a view of the universe that makes me laugh. It's not at all laugh-worthy for me and Shepard to be forced to go along with it.

Kloreep, duuuude, thanks for your response.

We had many choices where we could assert the idea of organic supremacy. We could victimize the Geth, we could support the Quarian war effort, we could treat EDI disdainfully. We could reject these alien new lifeforms as impersonal tools, as rogue weaponry. We could use technology indiscriminately. The polarization between organics and synthetics, between nature and technology (Krogan uplifting, Project Overlord, etc. etc.), provided a constant tension that was always permeating beneath our interactions with the characters and settings. In this new intergalactic citizenship, technology is freely available and applied in every aspect of society, yet artificial life is deemed undesirable, dangerous, unconscionable and reckless. I kept asking throughout the trilogy, when do we become more machine than man? Do we need machines? Do machines need us? Will innovation result in destruction? Who will arbite between the dual forces of industry and agency when such technologies are made available? How reliant will we become on it in the future? What are the implications? Will synthetic life always destroy, physically, culturally, or socially, organic life? Will it always irrevocably alter nature? Are we, as living things, subordinate to nature? Is there a compromise? What is the salvation the Reapers are imposing on life? Can there be coexistence? Why does Legion's humanity make the Illusive Man's inhumanity so creepy by comparison? Etc. etc.

Because these were the questions I felt were being raised, the Catalyst doesn't seem completely out of left field. Legion's affirmation of self-awareness only made me consider my choices more closely. Could I destroy synthetic life knowing what I know about it? Am I willing to forgo perfect humanity and accept hybridization? Should I simply get rid of the Reapers and let life run its course?

That said (I'm tired, so this entire response may seem really stupid), I can appreciate your desire for more options, and can accept the faults of the endings while simultaneously reflecting on them. The ending may appear somewhat shoehorned in, and the Catalyst's infodump may not really provide a lot of satisfying material to base our decisions on, but in a weird way, I kind of enjoyed it.

[Kunari801]

optimistickied wrote...

... Because these were the questions I felt were being raised, the Catalyst doesn't seem completely out of left field. Legion's affirmation of self-awareness only made me consider my choices more closely. Could I destroy synthetic life knowing what I know about it? Am I willing to forgo perfect humanity and accept hybridization? Should I simply get rid of the Reapers and let life run its course?...

I can appreciate you liked the ending more than I and I can see where you approached it from. I didn't feel any of the three options were very palatable to my Shepard.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

Yeah the problem is my shepard would have never gone for any of those options and the "logic" behind starhitler's reasoning was flawed and yet I never got a chance to call him on it.

[pistolols]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Kunari801 wrote...

pistolols wrote...

drayfish wrote...

for me it felt emotionally cheap, because my Shepard was being compelled to make a decision that flew in the face of everything her experience had lead her to believe. 
 

Interesting and did your shepard rewrite or destroy the geth heretics?  Which one was the "right" choice, in your opinion?  Were you equally enraged that Legion had compelled you to make that difficult decision instead of say.. proposing a peace plan between the geth and geth heretics?

That was answered by Strange Aeons on page 11

The decision in Legion’s loyalty mission is nothing like the ending of ME3 except in the most superficial sense that both involve some sort of choice. The context of the situations, the nature of the revelation involved, the significance of the “choice” are all completely different.

At the time we met Legion, we had just spent a game and a half fighting the Geth, who were actively waging a war against the Citadel races in conjunction with the Reapers. There was no question that at some level they were a destructive and dangerous enemy. Then we learned that this was only part of the story. This information challenged our assumption that the Geth were a homogeneous society, but it didn’t contradict the clearly-established lessons of the story that preceded it. It expanded our knowledge of the situation without asking us to ignore the significance of what we had witnessed previously. 

Well i disagree that it's superficial.  Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ. Keeping in mind that the heretics chose to follow sovereign out of their own free will... so rewriting them is stomping all over their free will.. which is what people are complaining about with the reaper control choice.   

it's also the paragon choice in both situations. Wow, Bioware, maybe next time take it easy on us when you decide to make such a dramatic "shift in tone". I mean geez louise all we're asking for is some "narrative cohesion" for cryin' out loud.

Tone is not solely made up of the choices offered, it is how they are presented, how the protagonist reacts to them, how they interact with them, and many other nuances that you have completely disregarded, or that you fail to notice. The nature and quality of the character's interaction with the world is also a part of the theme and narrative, and it is this that has been utterly discarded.

We meet a character and we have no information about him beyond that he claims to be the person who has caused thousands of mass genocides, and you are arguing that it is not a thematic or narrative disconnect for Shepard to immediately believe everything he says, even if what he says contradicts significant amounts of evidence Shepard has previously encountered.

This is in stark contrast with how you react the other time you encounter anyone even marginally suspect: when you meet Mordin in ME2,  you can grill him seven ways to sunday about the Genophage, and develop a nuanced view. You can gather information throughout the first two games that helps you  make an informed decision. With the Control option and the Starkid, you are given a statement that directly contradicts all evidence in the game, absolutely no way to confirm its veracity, and you're expected to swallow it without question.

To take the Control or Synthesis endings at face value given their source requires Shepard to discard all nuance and abandon critical thinking. Shepard must trust the options presented him by an outside force and make no move to understand them better. He offers no alternatives, seeks no compromise, makes no move to investigate wha the is being told.  In part, it is this unquestioning surrender to fate that is so violently discordant with the central themes of the series.

But you say that portraying Shepard as a credulous, uninquisitive moron does not cause narrative incongruity with your perception of Shepard. That's up to you.

I see such a character as a significan thematic disconnect from my Shepard.

Yeah the presentation is rushed and more dialogue with the catalyst would be nice (crossing fingers for extended cut), but the concepts behind what is happening in the end itself i feel are solid.  Synthesis.. obviously i have to admit that one is pretty weird, but the choice between whether to control or destroy the reapers is something that looking back seems like the entire series was leading up to.  Control especially being a theme that has been thoroughly investigated in all 3 games.  We have plenty of narrative experience to draw from.  And ultimately it's simply dishonest to ignore the similarities between rewriting the heretic geth and taking control of the reapers.

And even with synthesis.. people are being a little over dramatic.  The galaxy is not "homogenized".  The species are still unique, just upgraded.  I mean Joker is still hobbling off the ship... how extreme of an alteration could it have been if he's still suffering from his disease?

Modifié par pistolols, 17 avril 2012 - 11:11 .

[Kenshen]

Well this thread just went over my head. No fun when I have to look up so many words just to understand a point that is being made. No problem I know why I don't like the ending.

[Kloreep]

optimistickied wrote...

Kloreep, duuuude, thanks for your response.

Likewise.

optimistickied wrote...

We had many choices where we could assert the idea of organic supremacy.

Fair enough. I guess this points to one of the issues with discussing a game as opposed to a different story: I activated Legion, I treated EDI as an equal lifeform, I went and did the virtual tour of the Geth "city" with Legion. But you may have done none of those things, and the tone of the trilogy would shift rather significantly as a result.

That said, I still have trouble seeing it as the logical topic for the ending. Again, the Krogan were as much of a problem for the galaxy as the Geth. Moreso, even: You don't see anyone but the Quarians worried about the Geth during ME3, but some segments of the council races are worried about uncorking the Krogan again even in the face of the Reapers. Where intergalactic civilization is going has always been a big question in ME, and I think it had as much or more to do with matters besides organic vs. synthetic. It's a big deal for the Quarians, but most of the rest of galactic civilization has successfully been ignoring/suppressing it, it seems to me.

End of the day, it's pretty much impossible for me to say that the use and characterization of the Catalyst is wrong, because who am I to say that the writers are outright wrong about a character I knew nothing about until minutes ago? However, I go back to the thread title: thematically, it just feels like a misfit to me.

optimistickied wrote...

The polarization between organics and synthetics, between nature and technology (Krogan uplifting, Project Overlord, etc. etc.), provided a constant tension that was always permeating beneath our interactions with the characters and settings.

Certainly. Though I again have trouble seeing a strong link between organic vs. synthetic life, and nature and technology. Due to AI bans, synthetic life - AKA the Geth, for the most part - largely lives off on its own in our cycle. The technology the organics are using, on the other hand, is largely unaware, and so most nature vs. technology questions come down to technology that is controlled by organics.

optimistickied wrote...

Because these were the questions I felt were being raised, the Catalyst doesn't seem completely out of left field.

And I wouldn't say it was out of left field, exactly. "Misfit" is a much better term than "left field" for my views, I think. In a way, it's worse than left field: frankly, I think I have a weird sort of agreement with pistolols here. It was completely parallel in that it continued to deal with the broad category of sentient death robots. And I have trouble seeing much of a deeper fit between the ending and the series, which is why it upset me.

optimistickied wrote...

The ending may appear somewhat shoehorned in, and the Catalyst's infodump may not really provide a lot of satisfying material to base our decisions on, but in a weird way, I kind of enjoyed it.

And that's completely fair. It would be weird and impossible for me to deny your own reaction. Just trying to compare and discuss reactions. It helps me to understand my own, yours, and others.

Modifié par Kloreep, 17 avril 2012 - 11:15 .

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

pistolols wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

pistolols wrote...

Kunari801 wrote...

pistolols wrote...

drayfish wrote...

for me it felt emotionally cheap, because my Shepard was being compelled to make a decision that flew in the face of everything her experience had lead her to believe. 
 

Interesting and did your shepard rewrite or destroy the geth heretics?  Which one was the "right" choice, in your opinion?  Were you equally enraged that Legion had compelled you to make that difficult decision instead of say.. proposing a peace plan between the geth and geth heretics?

That was answered by Strange Aeons on page 11

The decision in Legion’s loyalty mission is nothing like the ending of ME3 except in the most superficial sense that both involve some sort of choice. The context of the situations, the nature of the revelation involved, the significance of the “choice” are all completely different.

At the time we met Legion, we had just spent a game and a half fighting the Geth, who were actively waging a war against the Citadel races in conjunction with the Reapers. There was no question that at some level they were a destructive and dangerous enemy. Then we learned that this was only part of the story. This information challenged our assumption that the Geth were a homogeneous society, but it didn’t contradict the clearly-established lessons of the story that preceded it. It expanded our knowledge of the situation without asking us to ignore the significance of what we had witnessed previously. 

Well i disagree that it's superficial.  Seems like a pretty cut & dry parallel if you ask me. Control or Destroy some dangerous sentient RObOtZ. Keeping in mind that the heretics chose to follow sovereign out of their own free will... so rewriting them is stomping all over their free will.. which is what people are complaining about with the reaper control choice.   

it's also the paragon choice in both situations. Wow, Bioware, maybe next time take it easy on us when you decide to make such a dramatic "shift in tone". I mean geez louise all we're asking for is some "narrative cohesion" for cryin' out loud.

Tone is not solely made up of the choices offered, it is how they are presented, how the protagonist reacts to them, how they interact with them, and many other nuances that you have completely disregarded, or that you fail to notice. The nature and quality of the character's interaction with the world is also a part of the theme and narrative, and it is this that has been utterly discarded.

We meet a character and we have no information about him beyond that he claims to be the person who has caused thousands of mass genocides, and you are arguing that it is not a thematic or narrative disconnect for Shepard to immediately believe everything he says, even if what he says contradicts significant amounts of evidence Shepard has previously encountered.

This is in stark contrast with how you react the other time you encounter anyone even marginally suspect: when you meet Mordin in ME2,  you can grill him seven ways to sunday about the Genophage, and develop a nuanced view. You can gather information throughout the first two games that helps you  make an informed decision. With the Control option and the Starkid, you are given a statement that directly contradicts all evidence in the game, absolutely no way to confirm its veracity, and you're expected to swallow it without question.

To take the Control or Synthesis endings at face value given their source requires Shepard to discard all nuance and abandon critical thinking. Shepard must trust the options presented him by an outside force and make no move to understand them better. He offers no alternatives, seeks no compromise, makes no move to investigate wha the is being told.  In part, it is this unquestioning surrender to fate that is so violently discordant with the central themes of the series.

But you say that portraying Shepard as a credulous, uninquisitive moron does not cause narrative incongruity with your perception of Shepard. That's up to you.

I see such a character as a significan thematic disconnect from my Shepard.

Yeah the presentation is rushed and more dialogue with the catalyst would be nice (crossing fingers for extended cut), but the concepts behind what is happening in the end itself i feel are solid.  Synthesis.. obviously i have to admit that one is pretty weird, but the choice between whether to control or destroy the reapers is something that looking back seems like the entire series was leading up to.  Control especially being a theme that has been thoroughly investigated in all 3 games.  We have plenty of narrative experience to draw from.  And ultimately it's simply dishonest to ignore the similarities between rewriting the heretic geth and taking control of the reapers.

And even with synthesis.. people are being a little over dramatic.  The galaxy is not "homogenized".  The species are still unique, just upgraded.  I mean Joker is still hobbling off the ship... how extreme of an alteration could it have been if he's still suffering from his disease?

So if someone came up to you pointed a gun at you head and forced you to have computer chip implanted in your brain and have your legs replaced with fake ones they would not be violating your most basic human rights?

I am guess since you have no problem with this you think that all black people should be forced to have their skin changed to white because it would solve all problems of race.

Anyone who doesn't have a problem with this is either not thinking or a card carrying member of the KKK.

[Muhkida]

Hey optimistickied, I know this is off topic but why do you degrade yourself at the end of most of your posts on this topic? As an "anti-ender" myself, I really appreciated the points you've made about the Mass Effect story as a whole. At the same time, I've instilled your thoughts to my gaming experience and placed myself into a lot of deliberation.

Being modest or a bipartisan I can understand but...

YOU HAVE THE POWER! *insert the Illusive Man hand clinch*

[-Spartan]

I considered composing a long narrative about my alienated, disempowered and disenfranchised feelings about the ending of the story but after reading drayfish's commentary (p13) and one by Doyce Testerman, I decided I could not add anything substantive to those essays in full or in part as they comprehensively cover the issue at hand exceptionally well. So I'll simply add my voice of support for notions expressed in those passages in the hope that BW will change its official position. 

Modifié par -Spartan, 17 avril 2012 - 11:19 .

[Estelindis]

Just read drayfish's post on page thirteen. Bravo. Could not, in any way, have said it better.

[The Spamming Troll]

bigmass41 wrote...

Finally, a professor's take on this, I mean what author would contradicts their own theme of the story at the end of a trilogy.

the answer to that is simple: the wrong people wrote the end if ME3.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

bigmass41 wrote...

Finally, a professor's take on this, I mean what author would contradicts their own theme of the story at the end of a trilogy.

the answer to that is simple: the wrong people wrote the end if ME3.

We can only hope that they will never be allowed near an other script ever again.