5087 réponses à ce sujet

[nitefyre410]

[quote]Sable Phoenix wrote...

[quote]SkaldFish wrote...

[quote]fle6isnow wrote...

[quote]Sajuro wrote...

If his analysis had gone the other way, if he found it to be post modern, then you would never hear about his arguement because it does not fit into the overall narrative on  BSN that ME3's ending was horrible and vile, even though as a lit professor he would be qualified to analyze it and offer his opinion that the ending was appropriate following under the trope "end of an era" in which to save the world (galaxy) the hero must sacrifice something that has always been in the setting (Magic in FF6 and Mass Relays in ME3)

[/quote]

You know, I've been waiting for the "end of era" sacrifice since ME1. That's why I was so glad that the mass relays blew up in the end.
[/quote]
Well, there were plenty of other tropes to compensate. In fact, in this case, the "trope density" was off the charts:

[...stuff happens and...]
Shepard is, for the first time, introduced to a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, an Energy Being who, to take A Form You Are Comfortable With appears as an Adorably Precocious Child. This being, an ancient Artificial Intelligence, explains that he has seen so many Robot Wars across the millennia that, in an attempt to resolve the situation, he developed a Reset Button solution. In doing so, however, he has become a Well-Intentioned Extremist who sees the struggle between organics and synthetics as an Order vs Chaos problem in which his role is to restore order. His solution, creation of the Reapers, required him to Jump Off the Slippery Slope and accept that The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized; the most advanced civilzations will be periodically "processed" by this Horde of Alien Locusts to short-circuit the Robot War cycle.

After explaining I Did What I Had To Do (which may qualify as a bizarre twist on the Hannibal Lecture), the being claims (in a lightning-fast E = MC Hammer moment) that Shepard's presence "changes things," and presents him/her with a set of Final Solution choices. Each of these choices casually demands that Shepard cross his/her own Moral Event Horizon by presenting catastrophic variations on an End of the World As We Know It solution initiated via a Big Red Button Self-Destruct Mechanism.

In an act of Heroic Sacrifice, without a word of questioning, objection, or realization that "I Forgot I Could Change the Rules," Shepard selects an option and ends the trilogy with a Dying Moment of Awesome.
[/quote]

[/quote]

I've never ever seen such a forest of TVTropes links.

I knew there was a reason I liked you, Skald.

I disagree, though, on the Dying Moment of Awesome.  Shepard had other moments in the series that were Crowning Moments of Awesome.  The ending was too contrived to be a Moment of anything.

[/quote]  

OH there is more-  that can be added to that list and the problem is they are all used in a terrible manner.   

The ending would be a subverison  of a dyning moment of awesome. 

[Scyldemort]

Keyrlis wrote...

Actually, all that sexual symbolism you brought up would be more appropriate from a pychology professor.

Actually, no. The only place where Freud is really still held in high regard is the Humanities. Psychology has moved on. Freud may have been an important figure, and certainly the idea he introduced of 'developmental stages' has turned out to be valuable in the abstract, but as it turns out, he was wrong about almost everything when you look at the specifics.

[b23h]

Scyldemort wrote...

<cut>

...right up until the ghost-boy conversation abruptly ended without giving me any chance to challenge the thing's reasoning, and just left me with the choice of which particular method I preferred for utterly destroying everything I had stood for up until that point.

 yes, that's it.  It feels like a bum's rush. 

[Mr. Gogeta34]

+1 for professors and academia

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Scyldemort wrote...

Keyrlis wrote...

Actually, all that sexual symbolism you brought up would be more appropriate from a pychology professor.

Actually, no. The only place where Freud is really still held in high regard is the Humanities. Psychology has moved on. Freud may have been an important figure, and certainly the idea he introduced of 'developmental stages' has turned out to be valuable in the abstract, but as it turns out, he was wrong about almost everything when you look at the specifics.

Yeah. No offense to all our esteemed literary scholars, but in the psych field we used to joke that literary criticism is where disgraced psychological theory goes to die.

Some of the psyc theory about games is relevant here, however. I can't find the exact study that Jane McGonigal cited in her book and PAX keynote, but there has been a slowly accumulating store of research that suggests that playing an avatar that had positive qualities - a healer, a hero, someone helpful - made the players feel better about themselves. Here's a very basic review of some of the relevant literature that may give you some idea what I'm talking about. It's mostly been done in MMOs, rather than in single-player RPGs, but that would be an interesting area to expand research to.

I'm just theorizing here, but the reason that defeat, loss of idealism, and self-harm are more distressing in games than in film or books is how deeply the player is encouraged to project themselves on the avatar. It's not just the death of a beloved character, it is the death of a tool that the player was using to form a better connection with the positive aspects of their own personality.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 29 avril 2012 - 07:26 .

[SkaldFish]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

SkaldFish wrote...

fle6isnow wrote...

Sajuro wrote...

If his analysis had gone the other way, if he found it to be post modern, then you would never hear about his arguement because it does not fit into the overall narrative on  BSN that ME3's ending was horrible and vile, even though as a lit professor he would be qualified to analyze it and offer his opinion that the ending was appropriate following under the trope "end of an era" in which to save the world (galaxy) the hero must sacrifice something that has always been in the setting (Magic in FF6 and Mass Relays in ME3)

You know, I've been waiting for the "end of era" sacrifice since ME1. That's why I was so glad that the mass relays blew up in the end.

Well, there were plenty of other tropes to compensate. In fact, in this case, the "trope density" was off the charts:

[...stuff happens and...]
Shepard is, for the first time, introduced to a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, an Energy Being who, to take A Form You Are Comfortable With appears as an Adorably Precocious Child. This being, an ancient Artificial Intelligence, explains that he has seen so many Robot Wars across the millennia that, in an attempt to resolve the situation, he developed a Reset Button solution. In doing so, however, he has become a Well-Intentioned Extremist who sees the struggle between organics and synthetics as an Order vs Chaos problem in which his role is to restore order. His solution, creation of the Reapers, required him to Jump Off the Slippery Slope and accept that The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized; the most advanced civilzations will be periodically "processed" by this Horde of Alien Locusts to short-circuit the Robot War cycle.

After explaining I Did What I Had To Do (which may qualify as a bizarre twist on the Hannibal Lecture), the being claims (in a lightning-fast E = MC Hammer moment) that Shepard's presence "changes things," and presents him/her with a set of Final Solution choices. Each of these choices casually demands that Shepard cross his/her own Moral Event Horizon by presenting catastrophic variations on an End of the World As We Know It solution initiated via a Big Red Button Self-Destruct Mechanism.

In an act of Heroic Sacrifice, without a word of questioning, objection, or realization that "I Forgot I Could Change the Rules," Shepard is forced to select an option and the trilogy ends with a case of Writer On Board.

I've never ever seen such a forest of TVTropes links.

I knew there was a reason I liked you, Skald.

I disagree, though, on the Dying Moment of Awesome.  Shepard had other moments in the series that were Crowning Moments of Awesome.  The ending was too contrived to be a Moment of anything.

Point well taken. It was a quick & dirty runthrough. I'm sure there's plenty of room for revisions / additions / deletions. I was just amazed at how easy it was to chain from one trope to another. Would be interesting to do a "tropanalysis" at various levels of narrative as well, since some tropes are more related to theme, while others are associated with characterization, plot device, etc.

EDIT: I'm going to go with Writer On Board for the ending instead of Dying Moment of Awesome. Corrected here and in the original post. Seems appropriate, as the definition is

"Obvious authorial intrusion. When the characters start behaving like idiots or against their previously established characterization because the writer damn well needs them to in order to tell their story."

Modifié par SkaldFish, 29 avril 2012 - 08:24 .

[fle6isnow]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Scyldemort wrote...

Keyrlis wrote...

Actually, all that sexual symbolism you brought up would be more appropriate from a pychology professor.

Actually, no. The only place where Freud is really still held in high regard is the Humanities. Psychology has moved on. Freud may have been an important figure, and certainly the idea he introduced of 'developmental stages' has turned out to be valuable in the abstract, but as it turns out, he was wrong about almost everything when you look at the specifics.

Yeah. No offense to all our esteemed literary scholars, but in the psych field we used to joke that literary criticism is where disgraced psychological theory goes to die.

Some of the psyc theory about games is relevant here, however. I can't find the exact study that Jane McGonigal cited in her book and PAX keynote, but there has been a slowly accumulating store of research that suggests that playing an avatar that had positive qualities - a healer, a hero, someone helpful - made the players feel better about themselves. Here's a very basic review of some of the relevant literature that may give you some idea what I'm talking about. It's mostly been done in MMOs, rather than in single-player RPGs, but that would be an interesting area to expand research to.

I'm just theorizing here, but the reason that defeat, loss of idealism, and self-harm are more distressing in games than in film or books is how deeply the player is encouraged to project themselves on the avatar. It's not just the death of a beloved character, it is the death of a tool that the player was using to form a better connection with the positive aspects of their own personality.

I think that's partially true. In my pro-ending thread we had a little discussion about this topic. Let me go digging through my thread to find it...

Ah, here it is.

[Sajuro]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

-snip of glory, glory I tell you!-

You should make a thread for this instead of burying it in this thread, that was awesome, and it didn't even insult Bioware or having any all caps words
you are a true fan.

[SkaldFish]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Yeah. No offense to all our esteemed literary scholars, but in the psych field we used to joke that literary criticism is where disgraced psychological theory goes to die.

I think this is tempting in any field of criticism, because it enables the application of a template or framework within which the critic can draw lines of association. Used honestly, appropriately, and knowledgeably, such templates are valuable analytical tools. Unfortunately, they're sometimes used inappropriately, and all too often to lend false credibility to otherwise flimsy positions. I suppose it's a more sophisticated form of name-dropping.

[fle6isnow]

Also, some of you may find this interesting--a poster analyzes the themes of Mass Effect WRT some classical Greek themes.

http://social.biowar...7106/8#11753552

[Flextt]

I don't see how applying Greek themes salvages the ending. It shows at least some basic framework Bioware adhered to, but it still fell apart quickly. Besides, the Deus Ex Machina was something in Greek theatre, that was absolutely ABSOLUTELY frowned upon.

[sagefic]

This was a fascinating read. Thank you.

[CaptainCalico]

I'm looking for a story that leaves me laughing with a feeling of exhilaration and joy, because video games can do things no other form of storytelling yet invented can do. I'm looking for something that will make me pump my fist in defiance at the tired old narrative devices of yesteryear. I'm looking for something that will prove me right, that will illustrate that all the angst and grimdark and rote misunderstandings are not what make great art; that great art can come from a place of delight, and victory, and friendship and unity.

If I want to experience a piece of art that reminds me what it feels like to lose your sense of hope, compromise your ideals, and sink into a world of ruin and despair, I've got some Dostoyevsky on the shelf. If I want to read about how mankind is a doomed, foolish race in an unfeeling universe, I'd make myself re-read Mostly Harmless; at least I'd get a few laughs out of it. If I want to see a hero sacrifice everything he is to achieve a goal he is not even certain he cares about, Elric of Melinbone is standing just off screen, looking at me with those creepy eyes, silently judging me for only reading like seven of his books. I know that feel, bro. I can get it anywhere. I can get it wholesale from a thousand dead geniuses.

What I can't get in unlimited quantities while wandering through the classics section is self-actualization and joy. If I want to experience a piece of art that evokes the feeling of falling in love with your best friend while punching your worst enemy in the face in the ultimate triumph of free will over fate, that piece of art doesn't exist yet.

It almost did. Mass Effect was so close to creating a piece of art that culminated in the ultimate expression of everything that is good about existence... and then it didn't.

That's what I'm mourning the loss of.

Thank you so much for articulating this!

Amidst my anger and indignation at how Bioware messed up I at least have tis thread to remind me of what video games, and gamers, can be whan people actually give a damn.

[Cobra's_back]

Bump really good thread

[my Aim is True]

Bump for a great thread

[SkaldFish]

I've finally gotten more time to add to the Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye series of blog posts. Did the concept of the Reapers change as the Mass Effect trilogy progressed? If so, why?

Part 1: The Groundwork
Part 2: The Reapers in Mass Effect 1: Extragalactic Machines of Mystery
Part 3: The Story So Far...
Part 4: The Reapers in Mass Effect 2: "We have dismissed that claim"

Coming "real soon now":
Part 5: Reaper Motivation: Why do they do me like they do, do, do?
Part 6: Mass Effect 3: Pay no attention to the boy behind the curtain

[-Spartan]

This thread is really developing nicely despite the trolls.

[edisnooM]

SkaldFish wrote...

I've finally gotten more time to add to the Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye series of blog posts. Did the concept of the Reapers change as the Mass Effect trilogy progressed? If so, why?

Part 1: The Groundwork
Part 2: The Reapers in Mass Effect 1: Extragalactic Machines of Mystery
Part 3: The Story So Far...
Part 4: The Reapers in Mass Effect 2: "We have dismissed that claim"

Coming "real soon now":
Part 5: Reaper Motivation: Why do they do me like they do, do, do?
Part 6: Mass Effect 3: Pay no attention to the boy behind the curtain

Very interesting read.

I had actually been thinking the other day whether or not ME2 mattered anymore given the change from the Dark Energy plot. 

Granted things happened to expand the ME universe, but without the central plot to support it it feels a bit hollow.

Edit: Also I enjoyed ME2, I was just wondering if the events of the plot still matter to the series as a whole.

Modifié par edisnooM, 30 avril 2012 - 07:18 .

[Sable Phoenix]

edisnooM wrote...

SkaldFish wrote...

I've finally gotten more time to add to the Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye series of blog posts. Did the concept of the Reapers change as the Mass Effect trilogy progressed? If so, why?

Part 1: The Groundwork
Part 2: The Reapers in Mass Effect 1: Extragalactic Machines of Mystery
Part 3: The Story So Far...
Part 4: The Reapers in Mass Effect 2: "We have dismissed that claim"

Coming "real soon now":
Part 5: Reaper Motivation: Why do they do me like they do, do, do?
Part 6: Mass Effect 3: Pay no attention to the boy behind the curtain

Very interesting read.

I had actually been thinking the other day whether or not ME2 mattered anymore given the change from the Dark Energy plot. 

Granted things happened to expand the ME universe, but without the central plot to support it it feels a bit hollow.

Edit: Also I enjoyed ME2, I was just wondering if the events of the plot still matter to the series as a whole.

Basically?  No.  Only three things from Mass Effect 2 significantly altered the progression of Mass Effect 3: your choice with Maelon's Genophage cure, and your decisions in Legion's and Tali's loyalty missions.  Of course, once we get to the end of the game even those don't matter, so I suppose it's moot.  But almost everything in Mass Effect 2 could not have happened and we would've started Mass Effect 3 in almost the exact same place and seen the exact same events unfold.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 30 avril 2012 - 07:34 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Honestly, I feel like the Reaper motivation presented in this game was almost interesting and plausible, and needed only be shifted a few inches sideways to make it work.

Just remove the inevitable war of synthetics, and replace it with the inevitable dominance of the galaxy by a single race of any type. This seems much more tragically inevitable than the other, especially given the Rachni, the Krogan, the Prothean's synthetic enemies, and hell, the Protheans themselves.

This is a cycle that we can more easily believe is likely, especially considering what the Protheans were and did in their time. Either a race of superior jerks comes around and incorporates everyone into their empire (stifling diversity), or some synthetics go off into their little corner, hyperevolve, and sweep through.

Think of it this way: if the Reapers have been reaping for over a billion years, as the Leviathan of Dis suggests, then what if some aliens had shown up on earth 100 million years ago? They woulda found a planet full of rad dinosaurs, and they might have either conserved it as a playground (preventing the extinction that allowed for the rise of the mammals) or just strip mined it, eating everything, taking the resources, and making it so polluted no life could survive there. Hell, what about 700 million years ago, still within the Reaper's known active phase: an alien race might have shown up during the precambrian and found only microscopic life. Easy as pie to terraform, and nothing of value was lost... except for the potential for humans to ever exist.  With a powerful enough galactic empire, eventually every remotely habitable world will be terraformed by some spacefaring race, and independent civilizations will no longer ever have a chance to arise.

If the purpose of the Reapers were to create and preserve diversity: the genetic heritage and memory of a million civilizations preserved in these machines, paving the way for new civilizations to rise up... they become almost sympathetic.

Then, the final decision actually becomes interesting and meaningful. It's the choice between

"Nah bro, let's just let this play out. I'm sure nobody will completely dominate the universe."
"Well if anyone's going to dominate the universe, it's going to be humans. Yeehaa, let's ride this train to humansville, population everybody."
and
"Hmm. Is there any way to put everyone on more of an equal playing field, so that complete dominance is less likely? What's this button do?"

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 avril 2012 - 08:23 .

[edisnooM]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Honestly, I feel like the Reaper motivation presented in this game was almost interesting and plausible, and needed only be shifted a few inches sideways to make it work.

Just remove the inevitable war of synthetics, and replace it with the inevitable dominance of the galaxy by a single race of any type. This seems much more tragically inevitable than the other, especially given the Rachni, the Krogan, the Prothean's synthetic enemies, and hell, the Protheans themselves.

This is a cycle that we can more easily believe is likely, especially considering what the Protheans were and did in their time. Either a race of superior jerks comes around and incorporates everyone into their empire (stifling diversity), or some synthetics go off into their little corner, hyperevolve, and sweep through.

If the purpose of the Reapers were to create and preserve diversity: the genetic heritage and memory of a million civilizations preserved in these machines, paving the way for new civilizations to rise up... they become almost sympathetic.

Then, the final decision actually becomes interesting and meaningful. It's the choice between

"Nah bro, let's just let this play out. I'm sure nobody will completely dominate the universe."
"Well if anyone's going to dominate the universe, it's going to be humans. Yeehaa, let's ride this train to humansville, population everybody."
and
"Hmm. Is there any way to put everyone on more of an equal playing field, so that complete dominance is less likely? What's this button do?"

That would have eliminated a lot of the annoyance I felt at being told synthetics will wipe out organics after I had just ended a three hundred year long war.

I think that I would have preferred they kept them as some sort of unknowable Lovecraftian horror, as Javik said "There are monsters in the dark spaces, and we are their prey" (possibly a paraphrase).

Or maybe go with ME2s revelation that organic life is just a tool for their Reaperduction (Ha), and that they see us merely crops to be harvested every 50,000 years.

But their purpose as presented leads to silly videos like this: www.youtube.com/watch

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Whoops, slightly modified my post for more exposition while you were responding. See above.

I agree that the idea that organics are just the way for Reapers to reproduce is interesting. It would also have been acceptable, but it doesn't add as much nuance to them, or create any reason not to destroy them.

With regard to the "Organic life exists to make more reapers" theory, I also kind of liked how that tied into another old theory. It posited that the Reapers are what's left of the first spacefaring race, but that they hit a wall: the edge of the galaxy. How could they reach other galaxies? How could anyone ever traverse that vast emptiness and unite the universe? How could they progress science any further, when the limits of their intelligence had seemingly been reached?

The only hope was to create a giant hive mind that contained the wisdom of all civilizations, and have that hivemind do R&D forever. Then, when new civilizations evolve, add their minds to the chorus, and incorporate any new or interesting tech they might have created. That's what the Reapers are doing out there in Dark Space the entire time: they're trying to get to the next Galaxy over, but it's still impossible. Destroying the Reapers is destroying hope of ever reaching beyond our own galaxy.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 avril 2012 - 08:33 .

[edisnooM]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Whoops, slightly modified my post for more exposition while you were responding. See above.

I agree that the idea that organics are just the way for Reapers to reproduce is interesting. It would also have been acceptable, but it doesn't add as much nuance to them, or create any reason not to destroy them.

With regard to the "Organic life exists to make more reapers" theory, I also kind of liked how that tied into another old theory. It posited that the Reapers are what's left of the first spacefaring race, but that they hit a wall: the edge of the galaxy. How could they reach other galaxies? How could anyone ever traverse that vast emptiness and unite the universe? How could they progress science any further, when the limits of their intelligence had seemingly been reached?

The only hope was to create a giant hive mind that contained the wisdom of all civilizations, and have that hivemind do R&D forever. Then, when new civilizations evolve, add their minds to the chorus, and incorporate any new or interesting tech they might have created. That's what the Reapers are doing out there in Dark Space the entire time: they're trying to get to the next Galaxy over, but it's still impossible. Destroying the Reapers is destroying hope of ever reaching beyond our own galaxy.

That is an interesting theory and it would have been cool to see how it might have played out especially with the Control choice.

Also I can see your point in giving the Reapers a more sympathetic aspect which could give players a reason to actually want the fabled "Reapers Win" ending.

One thing about the Reapers preserving the galaxy for future races though is that two characters talk about letting evolution take its course in the ME universe. Firstly Javik and his discussion of the Evolutionary Imperative (though I grant you I found it rather extreme). Secondly is Padok Wiks and how he believes that interferring in the natural course of a species is a mistake.

My thought would be while the Reapers are protecting potential future races from dominant ones now, their very presence upsets any sort of natural progression within the galaxy.

Also it is possible that natural cause would eliminate any dominant race that took over. To use an example from another SciFi story: in Stargate, the Ancients who I believe were the dominant species in the Milky Way at the time ascended to pure energy, or fled to another galaxy to escape from a plague that was wiping out their civilization. I'm not an expert on Stargate though and I could be missing something here though.

[Hawk227]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Whoops, slightly modified my post for more exposition while you were responding. See above.

I agree that the idea that organics are just the way for Reapers to reproduce is interesting. It would also have been acceptable, but it doesn't add as much nuance to them, or create any reason not to destroy them.

With regard to the "Organic life exists to make more reapers" theory, I also kind of liked how that tied into another old theory. It posited that the Reapers are what's left of the first spacefaring race, but that they hit a wall: the edge of the galaxy. How could they reach other galaxies? How could anyone ever traverse that vast emptiness and unite the universe? How could they progress science any further, when the limits of their intelligence had seemingly been reached?

The only hope was to create a giant hive mind that contained the wisdom of all civilizations, and have that hivemind do R&D forever. Then, when new civilizations evolve, add their minds to the chorus, and incorporate any new or interesting tech they might have created. That's what the Reapers are doing out there in Dark Space the entire time: they're trying to get to the next Galaxy over, but it's still impossible. Destroying the Reapers is destroying hope of ever reaching beyond our own galaxy.

I think your previous post (about preventing a dominant race from spoiling the galaxy) is interesting and would be better. One issue for me though is that a planet like earth has the ability to reset itself. 65 million years ago an asteroid impacted earth in a way that did far more damage than we can imagine doing ourselves. That impact was 2 million times more powerful than the biggest nuke ever detonated (which in turn was 3333x bigger than hiroshima). Over a period of millions of years earth recovered. Also, the Mass relays are what allow wide exploration anyway. A single dominant race would have a lot of trouble touching every possible garden world without them (and with them too, really). But, from a narrative perspective it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Personally, I also like the idea mentioned by edisnooM (and hinted in skald's blog) that the reapers were the post singularity menace coming back to torment the galaxy and maybe reproduce. Their actions are so unconscionably awful (Javik has some awful stories, on top of everything else) that it's hard for me to reconcile them as somehow being for a greater good. I liked them better as the unstoppable force that obliterates the galaxy simply because it can. I never wanted a reason to consider not destroying them. With how unbeatable they've always been portrayed, I was more invested in the question of whether it could even be done. For me, the compelling story arc was the question of "Can we be the first to defeat the Reapers?". In a weird way, I would have been happier if the game had just ended with total defeat. It would have been really nihilistic, but it wouldn't have been so contrived, and it would have sort of fit within the story. Really, I'm pretty annoyed that the Reapers can't win. You can botch every decision, unite nobody, and the cycle still ends and the Reapers are defeated.

Okay, so I feel like the jerk that missed the point.... but I did some math and at the 30ly/day that Reapers can travel, they could reach the Andromeda galaxy in a measly 238 years.

Modifié par Hawk227, 30 avril 2012 - 09:51 .

[Sable Phoenix]

I actually think the idea of making the Reapers sympathetic in any form is doomed to failure.  This is simply because, as presented, they are running up against the biological imperative for survival.  Life will, as a whole, do anything necessary to ensure its own existence in the short term.  It's hard-wired.  No matter what the Reapers' "job" is, or might have been if the storyline had gone another way, it would always be far too intellectual, far too long term, far too broad in perspective for it to resonate more powerfully than "I need to keep breathing".  We could not identify with it; we definitely could not weigh it as exceeding the value of our species', and more importantly our friends', survival.  Nobody will willingly send their children and spouses off to be agonizingly melted into soup and molded into a giant mechanical cuttlefish, no matter how many machine apocalypse singularities or dark-energy big rips or far-flung galaxies unreachable there may be.

Because of this, I'm of the firm belief that the Reapers should have remained as inscrutable and as terrible as Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, to which they are an obvious homage (hell, one of the apocalypse logs in the Derelict Reaper mission in ME2 outright says "even a dead god can dream", a blatant--but very cool--reference to Lovecraft's famous doggerel "In sunken R'lyeh dead Cthulhu lies dreaming").  Harbinger, and the Reapers as a whole, should have been treated exactly as Sovereign was... implacable, unknowable, infinitely superior, with only the briefest interactions via a single, cryptic, ominous conversation in each game, just to reinforce the chill-inducing nature of their thought processes.

The only way that the purpose of the Reapers could have been successfully revealed would have been in small bits and pieces that were sleuthed out by the characters themselves, never through an infodump delivered by Mr. Exposition the way the Catalyst did.  That way, we would experience a slowly dawning horror of the knowledge of what the Reapers are actually trying to accomplish, and the realization, "my god, we have to make the same decision."  The key is not to try to "humanize" the Reapers, not to make them sympathetic at all, but rather to contrast their horror against a fate that is even more horrific.

In that perspective, the dark energy plot, as silly as it may sound in summary, would have been far superior to what we actually got.  We can at least visualize the destruction of all stars in the galaxy.  We've seen supernovae.  A technological singularity, though?  Far too cerebral and theoretical to be emotionally resonant.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 30 avril 2012 - 11:53 .