5087 réponses à ce sujet

[KitaSaturnyne]

It's strange. While the endings as they are don't really cause much of an emotional reaction to me, Indoctrination Theory does. A very negative reaction.

It's evidence is, nine times out of ten, circumstancial at best, and it seems like a great deal of it involves taking dialogue and situations out of context of the overall narrative. Even if you go back from the end of ME3, Shepard being indoctrinated at all isn't even expressed until the END of the game. And that doesn't even address the MAJOR plothole that I've already touched upon in this thread.

According to IT, during the Citadelevator run, Shepard gets blasted by Harbinger's ship-killing beam, and is lying there, bleeding and unconscious. Harbinger, however, appears to see a broken and bleeding, near death soldier as a valuable asset, and continues its indoctrination attempts. Then, to top it all off, after the talk with the Non-Catalyst, Shepard is given a choice as to whether or not to accept indoctrination. Really?

Indoctrination is not a choice. You don't get to say "yes", or "no". You are told what to believe, and over time, you believe it. Simple as that. At best, it gives you the illusion of choice. Harbinger would not simply say "so that's that, Shepard. Ya in?"

Replacing the current ending with Indoctrination Theory wouldn't solve anything. It would just be a different type of slap in the face for most people.

[TheMarshal]

Seijin8 wrote...

Before going into this discussion, define first whether it is your goal to define indoctrination within the game world, or try to infer it through author intent.

Any time we have something like this, we can always exit the narrative, but just because it doesn't fit the common, current -- and necessarily incomplete -- understanding us players have of indoc, doesn't mean that it isn't indoc.

For me, the more interesting question about indoctrination is whether it is a primary effect or side-effect.  The fact that it is still working millions of years after the Reaper died says that it is a side-effect of some other force.  Is indoctrination a side-effect of the way a Reaper's billions of minds (independent nation) communicate?  If so, then shared memories seems wholly consistent.

There is way too much we don't know about the concept of Reaper indoctrination to say what is or isn't indoc.

I suppose I was hoping to divine author's intent, if there was one.  If there wasn't one, and indoctrination gets treated like the deflector dish ("Can it do that?" "Sure, why not?") then... I don't even want to travel down that road.  But honestly, I don't care if I ever find out the author's true intent for indoctrination so long as there is some semblance of consistency.  Which there is for the most part, except for a few outliers (the Cerberus crew).

[delta_vee]

MrFob wrote...

The problem is that whatever the author wants to do in the end, there has to be a decision: Make it all about heroism (or even tragic defeat if you want) in which case the mysterious enemy is fine or, after victory is achieved, call the players decisions into question.
What we got was a weird mix of both and that certainly didn't work.

And on this point we most certainly agree.

Seijin8 wrote...

There is way too much we don't know about the concept of Reaper indoctrination to say what is or isn't indoc.

This right here is why I cannot buy into IT. Gameplay is a matter of establishing rules, of setting limits and allowing actions and otherwise defining the system. Indoc, as a gamplay mechanism, doesn't do that properly - and so even if it were intended I'd still say it fails on that accord.

[edisnooM]

I haven't read any of the Mass Effect books so I can't say for certain, but I have heard it mentioned that they go into more detail on the topic of Reaper Indoctrination. Whether the info would be helpful or not I don't know.

I do think that requiring players to read the books to comprehend plot points would be a bad choice though. For example: Grayson, Kahlee Sanders, Kai Leng, non-councillor Anderson, and the Quarian's dislike of Cerberus in ME2. All of these felt like I was missing something because I hadn't bought more BioWare products, and I for one found it annoying.

[Jorji Costava]

@Hawk227

Some of Patrick Weekes' comments in the unofficial interview indicate to me that perhaps such oversights as you describe were entirely possible. I want to emphasize that I don't know how accurate the paraphrases are, but the text of the interview seems to indicate that the developers didn't anticipate that fans would see the mass relays blowing up and think that, because of what happened in arrival, the whole galaxy was being destroyed. If they're capable of making that oversight, then it's not out of the realm of possibility ("Is such a thing even possible? Yes it is!") that they failed to anticipate the reaction to the catalyst. If accurate, these comments by Weekes would tend to make me skeptical of IT; so they didn't anticipate fans making a connection between the mass relays and Arrival, but they did expect us to make connection to Object Rho, the rachni queen's description of indoctrination, etc.? That strikes me as unlikely.

Also, incompetence need not be the only source of the shortcomings of the ending. Perhaps a lot of it can be attributed to pressure/deadlines and/or creative fatigue. Martin Sheen's recording sessions for TIM were pushed back to November, and I sometimes imagine that the creative environment was a little like that of Apocalypse Now, where Coppola had no idea what the ending would be very late into the shooting schedule (I'm pretty sure Bioware didn't have to deal with heart attacks and typhoons, though).

If I may be so bold, I'll go back to an earlier topic on this thread, if for no other reason than to make sure this thread doesn't get turned into another IT thread. Concerning whether or not the reapers should be given motivations that the protagonist can agree with or at least sympathize with, does anyone find this similar to the case of Saren? Until Virmire, we are led to believe that Saren is pretty much a ruthless S.O.B. with few or no redeeming traits, and then we find out that what he really wants is to save us all from certain death. Indoctrination has turned him from a complete monster into a well-intentioned extremist; he has actually become a 'nicer' person as a result of being indoctrinated.

Saren is a very well-received character, so a lot of people probably disagree with me about this, but this always seemed to me to be a forced way of generating pathos for the character, and I suspect it would be pretty much the same for whatever motivation one would like to give the reapers. So the guys who told me "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it" are actually looking out for our best interests?

[edisnooM]

osbornep wrote...

[Snip]

If I may be so bold, I'll go back to an earlier topic on this thread, if for no other reason than to make sure this thread doesn't get turned into another IT thread. Concerning whether or not the reapers should be given motivations that the protagonist can agree with or at least sympathize with, does anyone find this similar to the case of Saren? Until Virmire, we are led to believe that Saren is pretty much a ruthless S.O.B. with few or no redeeming traits, and then we find out that what he really wants is to save us all from certain death. Indoctrination has turned him from a complete monster into a well-intentioned extremist; he has actually become a 'nicer' person as a result of being indoctrinated.

Saren is a very well-received character, so a lot of people probably disagree with me about this, but this always seemed to me to be a forced way of generating pathos for the character, and I suspect it would be pretty much the same for whatever motivation one would like to give the reapers. So the guys who told me "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it" are actually looking out for our best interests?

The Catalyst really drained away a lot of the intimidation, menace, and all round enjoyability of Sovereigns character. And in only 14 lines of dialogue. 

If the Catalyst is to be believed, Sovereign now comes off as some sort of retail employee with delusions of grandeur.

Modifié par edisnooM, 15 mai 2012 - 06:03 .

[Hawk227]

delta_vee wrote...

If you play through the game with the Incompetent Author theory (IA for short), you get much the same result. You get an anvilicious dead kid, ham-fisted dreams, a conveniently-overlooked superweapon, autodialogue, fedex quests, a moment of glory (Tuchanka), a decent sequence (Rannoch), braindead Reaper war strategy, singleplayer horde mode, and the thrice-damned Kai Leng. And most importantly, you get an ending that attempts to be 2001 instead of Return of the Jedi, and fails hard, because it's predicated on a synthetic-organic conflict which was the genesis of the franchise* but long since overruled by other, better writers.

* According to Final Hours, Mass Effect was conceived as a synthetic-organic war. Saren was brought in to humanize (turianize?) the enemy, and the Reapers were brought in after that.

I've actually played through it in the last week (since you've started pointing out all its failures), and aside from the anvilicious dead kid/ham-fisted dreams (I think they are one and the same), and the conveniently overlooked superweapon, it plays out pretty well until the ITM. The Crucible moment on Mars is definitely a "wha?" moment, but then it fades into the background as you find yourself on Palaven's moon, looking at Garrus's burning homeworld. Story wise, you're describing 10 minutes of a 30 hour journey. That extra 29:50 papers over the genuine failures, and they get forgotten.

To your other complaints... I think the fedex quests and autodialogue were unfortunate consequences of any budgetary/deadline constraints BW was under. I also think the braindead Reaper war strategy was required to make the game last more than 1 act. If they were as smart as they are powerful, it would have been a short and grim tale of humanity (organicity?) being pummelled. And aside from the "combat" moment on Thessia, I didn't mind Kai Leng. I didn't like him, but I didn't rue his existence. I don't see any of these as failures resulting from incompetence, the way I view the ending.

For me, the strongest evidence in favor of IA and against IT is Patrick Weekes's alleged post on the Penny Arcade Forum. I don't have much sense of Hudson and Walters, but the rest of the writing team is almost certainly above the drivel we got. So if it's true that Hudson and Walters wrote the ending in a vacuum and without peer review, it instantly gives credibility to IA.

[CARL_DF90]

Please listen to the codex explaination of indoctrination once more here:



I will freely admit that most of what I am about to say has been pieced together from watching the games and reading about indoctrination in the codex and the book Retribution and using a small dose of common sense gleened from what info we have so far. Trying to avoid walls of text so I'll be brief.

As someone who has played through all three games you probably noticed how Saren's little ideology was slowly twisted into something you would probably hear from a Reaper. Example, in Retribution one of the main characters who is suffering it's effects was going to commit suicide, but the Reapers were able to manipulate the self-preservation instinct and make HIM think that killing himself would be a bad idea. Knowing that the Reapers could do that can infer a lot about what the indoctrination process can do, especially if your own feelings, emotions, and instincts can be used against you. As another poster pointed out, in ME2 on the dead Reaper, memories were shared among the victims of indoctrination. Again, from this we can infer that memories are also open to manipulation.


NOTE: I support the IA theory as the dev teams have acted sooo out of touch it's not even funny.

Modifié par CARL_DF90, 15 mai 2012 - 06:19 .

[Seijin8]

This thread has flirted with Indoc Theory on many occassions, and I do not fear derailing it in any way.  The thread and community within it have a will of their own, and take it where they will.

osbornep wrote...

Until Virmire, we are led to believe that Saren is pretty much a ruthless S.O.B. with few or no redeeming traits, and then we find out that what he really wants is to save us all from certain death. Indoctrination has turned him from a complete monster into a well-intentioned extremist; he has actually become a 'nicer' person as a result of being indoctrinated.

I had a very different "reading" of that situation.  One of the things that attracted me to ME was that the primary characters were multilayered.  I never thought Saren whiled away the hours practicing his "mwahahahah!" in front of the mirror.  He was *never* a complete monster.  Racist against humans, sure.  Ruthless to a fault, absolutely.  If a mission required sacrificing people, so be it, and if those people were humans, then he didn't lose any sleep over it.

We have repeatedly seen that indoctrination either turns someone into a willing tool, or (probably if their will is strong), acts like a mental "plug-your-ears-and-lalalalala" when inner thoughts transition from cause-effect.  In the narrative of ME, it has always taken an outside force to point out the mental gap, and once seen, the character's own personality sees the thought-hole for what it is.  They often then commit suicide, knowing they have been manipulated and not trusting their own sense of control.

To me, Saren was *always* a well-intentioned extremist who didn't like humans at all.  It wasn't until Virmire that he considered Shepard worth having a discussion with.  In most ways, Saren (pre-indoc) was simply a renegade, where the ends justified the means.  Indoctrination didn't change that.

But that's just my opinion, no need to go spreading it around

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I disagree that making antagonists sympathetic or understandable automatically makes the story unheroic. That's just something we think because most of the examples we have are doin' it wrong.

And by doin' it wrong, I mean they are doin' it in a way that is expedient to evoke emotions. Having the hero be obviously in the right vs. having the hero be clearly in the wrong are easy ways to pull readily accessible emotional levers. They're the levers marked "I'm awesome, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah" and "ugh, I suck." They don't require much thought.

What I prefer, and what is done more rarely, is having the hero think "maybe I'm wrong but you know what... I still think I'm right. I see the other side. They're not monstrously wrong, and I'm not perfectly right. But I do think that I'm a little bit more right than they are, so I'm still going to fight. I'll work some of their ideas into the resulting peace, but I still have to win, because them winning will be worse. I have to win, and then act reasonably after that victory."

This is what I call "The American Civil War, you guys." Ok, I don't really call it that. I just typed that for the first time, ever, in this post. But you get the idea: most people who were fighting for the south in the American Civil war weren't monsters who were cackling to themselves and thinking "slaves! More slaves for me!" They were fighting to protect their personal land, or for some principle they deeply believed in. Still, they were on the wrong side, and it's good that the North won and ended slavery.

After they won, now that's where it gets really complicated. The North did some pretty messed up things at that point. That does not change the fact that it's good that they won, but the fact that they were on "the right side of history" doesn't mean that they could do no wrong. And realizing that the other side isn't cackling monsters to be stomped on is the first step from stopping your side from doing some thoroughly unjust stomping.

A villain can be sympathetic and understandable and still be wrong. The problem is, we're too used to stories that are either "paragon of virtue" or "good job breaking it, hero" that we see those extremes as the only functional possibilities.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 15 mai 2012 - 06:20 .

[CARL_DF90]

Seijin8 wrote...

This thread has flirted with Indoc Theory on many occassions, and I do not fear derailing it in any way.  The thread and community within it have a will of their own, and take it where they will.

osbornep wrote...

Until Virmire, we are led to believe that Saren is pretty much a ruthless S.O.B. with few or no redeeming traits, and then we find out that what he really wants is to save us all from certain death. Indoctrination has turned him from a complete monster into a well-intentioned extremist; he has actually become a 'nicer' person as a result of being indoctrinated.

I had a very different "reading" of that situation.  One of the things that attracted me to ME was that the primary characters were multilayered.  I never thought Saren whiled away the hours practicing his "mwahahahah!" in front of the mirror.  He was *never* a complete monster.  Racist against humans, sure.  Ruthless to a fault, absolutely.  If a mission required sacrificing people, so be it, and if those people were humans, then he didn't lose any sleep over it.

We have repeatedly seen that indoctrination either turns someone into a willing tool, or (probably if their will is strong), acts like a mental "plug-your-ears-and-lalalalala" when inner thoughts transition from cause-effect.  In the narrative of ME, it has always taken an outside force to point out the mental gap, and once seen, the character's own personality sees the thought-hole for what it is.  They often then commit suicide, knowing they have been manipulated and not trusting their own sense of control.

To me, Saren was *always* a well-intentioned extremist who didn't like humans at all.  It wasn't until Virmire that he considered Shepard worth having a discussion with.  In most ways, Saren (pre-indoc) was simply a renegade, where the ends justified the means.  Indoctrination didn't change that.

But that's just my opinion, no need to go spreading it around

Nail on the head. I like you!

[Seijin8]

@CulturalGeekGirl: Well-articulated as always! Unfortunately, few stories in gaming have the maturity and trust in the player to attempt that sort of villainy. Titles from East-European and Russian developers are the only ones that frequently toss about that kind of moral abstraction layer (and many of those suffer from poor translation).

The Witcher series and The Void are the only games I can think of in recent memory that played with those sort of "choose the shade of semi-villain you wish to represent" ideas without ever turning the main character into a monster. There was always a point of view that was heroic among the differing sides.

It is an extreme rarity in western gaming, and thats a damn shame.

Modifié par Seijin8, 15 mai 2012 - 06:33 .

[MrFob]

I agree with Seijin8 in a way.
I think Saren was never a nice guy. he was a racist, a sadist and cold killer (becomes especially apparent if you read Revelation). However, at the same time he never had an evil agenda. He was genuinely working for the council's and the Turian's best interest. He may have enjoyed it if his actions to this end coincided with allowing him to harm humanity or be violent but it never is his primary goal.
Just like Tela Vasir and Shepard him/herself to some extend, he may committed some atrocious deeds but was not evil as such (maybe that is a SPECTRE thing ).
That is until Sovereign indoctrinated him.At that point, when he becomes a puppet without realizing it, the character and especially my (the players) relation to him becomes really complex.
On the one hand, I hated the guy even before he got indoctrinated but then I also had a grudging respect for him. Now, I don't really know if I should pity him or say that he deserved what he got. Liara expresses this in one of her Normandy conversation I think.
This complexity and the fact that you can actually let the guy redeem himself somewhat by talking him into suicide make for a wonderful antagonist, IMO by far the best in the ME series so far.

[Hawk227]

osbornep wrote...

@Hawk227

Some of Patrick Weekes' comments in the unofficial interview indicate to me that perhaps such oversights as you describe were entirely possible. I want to emphasize that I don't know how accurate the paraphrases are, but the text of the interview seems to indicate that the developers didn't anticipate that fans would see the mass relays blowing up and think that, because of what happened in arrival, the whole galaxy was being destroyed. If they're capable of making that oversight, then it's not out of the realm of possibility ("Is such a thing even possible? Yes it is!") that they failed to anticipate the reaction to the catalyst. If accurate, these comments by Weekes would tend to make me skeptical of IT; so they didn't anticipate fans making a connection between the mass relays and Arrival, but they did expect us to make connection to Object Rho, the rachni queen's description of indoctrination, etc.? That strikes me as unlikely.

The two exploding relay cinematics were largely different, and they may have thought that was a sufficient cue to show that the galaxy was not in fact destroyed. I think that is a forgivable miscalculation. I also think that the failures of the ending were so ridiculously obvious, that they pale in comparison to every other short-coming in the game. If they genuinely thought we would be wowed by those last 10 minutes, incompetence is overly generous.

As for Arrival, that's an interesting thing. It was made concurrently with ME3 and billed as a sort of prologue to the game, but if we take the endings at face value than Arrival becomes completely irrelevant. Shepard was exposed to a Reaper indoctrination device (that says "your mind will be ours") for two full days, but nothing comes of it? Really? Then they disregarded the exploding relay creates a supernova thing. If you don't play Arrival, Shepard is in custody for working with Cerberus, so Arrival wasn't even needed as an excuse to stick him on Earth for 6 months. So what was the point? To make an extra $10 of me?

If I may be so bold, I'll go back to an earlier topic on this thread, if for no other reason than to make sure this thread doesn't get turned into another IT thread.

Chris Priestly used his thread locking button rather liberally this morning, so this is a big fear of mine as well. I'm trying to keep my IT comments within the realm of narrative interpration rather than arguing over the details. I'm not sure I've been successful. The IT thread is where that should stay.

Concerning whether or not the reapers should be given motivations that the protagonist can agree with or at least sympathize with, does anyone find this similar to the case of Saren? Until Virmire, we are led to believe that Saren is pretty much a ruthless S.O.B. with few or no redeeming traits, and then we find out that what he really wants is to save us all from certain death. Indoctrination has turned him from a complete monster into a well-intentioned extremist; he has actually become a 'nicer' person as a result of being indoctrinated.

Saren is a very well-received character, so a lot of people probably disagree with me about this, but this always seemed to me to be a forced way of generating pathos for the character, and I suspect it would be pretty much the same for whatever motivation one would like to give the reapers. So the guys who told me "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it" are actually looking out for our best interests?

I think there is room for sympathetic villains. Saren and Tim filled this "need" really well. They betrayed the galaxy not because they were evil, but because their minds had been corrupted. That's cool...erm... poetic? The problem with making the Reapers sympathetic (as we've covered in depth) is that they are irredeemable. Not only that, but their status as pure evil stands as justification for Shepard's more questionable decisions. By making them some well-meaning autobots, in undermines Shepard's role in the narrative. S/he changes from the hero striving against all odds to halt the unstoppable force into something that straddles the line between nuisance and war hero criminal*.

*That might be a little dramatic.

EDIT: Cra*, didn't see my mistake until I'd already been quoted. Maybe I need CGGirl's draft process.

Modifié par Hawk227, 15 mai 2012 - 06:49 .

[CARL_DF90]

Not at all. What you just said is completely valid. I'm filing it under bad writing. The Reapers don't need to be explained and they are irredeemable. How many trillions have they killed in the past 50 million years? I don't even want to try at a number.

Modifié par CARL_DF90, 15 mai 2012 - 06:42 .

[TheMarshal]

Hawk227 wrote...

I think there is room for sympathetic villains. Saren and Tim filled this "need" really well. They betrayed the galaxy not because they were evil, but because their minds had been corrupted. That's cool...erm... poetic? The problem with making the Reapers sympathetic (as we've covered in depth) is that they are irredeemable. Not only that, but their status as pure evil stands as justification for Shepard's more questionable decisions. By making them some well-meaning autobots, in undermines Shepard's role in the narrative. S/he changes from the hero striving against all odds to halt the unstoppable force into something that straddles the line between nuisance and war hero*.

*That might be a little dramatic.

And with both Saren and TIM, you have the ability to get them to "redeem" themselves with a bullet to the head.  I would be MORE than happy with the Reapers being sympathetic if we got that option with StarChild.

[delta_vee]

osbornep wrote...

Saren is a very well-received character, so a lot of people probably disagree with me about this, but this always seemed to me to be a forced way of generating pathos for the character, and I suspect it would be pretty much the same for whatever motivation one would like to give the reapers. So the guys who told me "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it" are actually looking out for our best interests?

I'm not one of those who would disagree in your opinion of Saren. Then again, I kind of cringe when Shepard is so fired up about him at the first Council meeting, so determined to pursue him to the ends of the galaxy, when all we really know about Saren is that he's the Designated Villain and he killed another turian Spectre. Not that I liked the guy or anything, but Shep's reaction seemed a little...forced.

And I get the appeal of Saren as well-intentioned-extremist, but so much of his behavior is cackling villainy, giving him semi-sympathetic motivations isn't going to reliably dent that persona in my mind. I never felt bad for Saren. I barely even pitied him. TIM, on the other hand, fell much more cleanly into this category (at least in ME2, and even then we had that baseline with which to judge his actions in ME3). We were given much more scope to agree with his aims, and he made enough concessions to his own humanity that we could believe much more easily that he capable of redemption.

So yes, I'd agree with you, both about Saren and the Reapers. I understand why they did it, but can't believe it's a good thing.

@ Hawk227:

I've actually played through it in the last week (since you've started pointing out all its failures), and aside from the anvilicious dead kid/ham-fisted dreams (I think they are one and the same), and the conveniently overlooked superweapon, it plays out pretty well until the ITM. The Crucible moment on Mars is definitely a "wha?" moment, but then it fades into the background as you find yourself on Palaven's moon, looking at Garrus's burning homeworld. Story wise, you're describing 10 minutes of a 30 hour journey. That extra 29:50 papers over the genuine failures, and they get forgotten.

I'll grant the game does a fair amount of competent papering over. Aside from the dreams, I was quite willing to overlook the problems at the time. There's that forward impetus which is enthralling when you're in it, regardless of the disbelief which ebbs and flows. I did get the impression, though, that much of it was better writers lower on the totem pole covering up the problems caused above them. This guy did a (sufficiently snarky) breakdown here, which I largely agree with:
http://social.biowar...8692/3#11930293

That said, the only good thing about the Palaven mission was looking up at the burning planet. The rest was tedious and grey.

To your other complaints... I think the fedex quests and autodialogue were unfortunate consequences of any budgetary/deadline constraints BW was under. I also think the braindead Reaper war strategy was required to make the game last more than 1 act. If they were as smart as they are powerful, it would have been a short and grim tale of humanity (organicity?) being pummelled. And aside from the "combat" moment on Thessia, I didn't mind Kai Leng. I didn't like him, but I didn't rue his existence. I don't see any of these as failures resulting from incompetence, the way I view the ending.

Perhaps it's another taste issue, but I found Leng insufferable and infuriating for all the wrong reasons. He's an exemplar of ludonarrative dissonance, because of his cutscene/gameplay power differential, and he's aesthetically divorced from much of the rest of the world. He wouldn't pass muster in Metal Gear Solid, much less Neruomancer.

As for the rest - I understand design, budgetary and deadline constraints. The way to work around those, though, falls into the dreaded Phantom Menace Screenplay abyss, so it's hard for me in good conscience to go on about them any more than I already have.

For me, the strongest evidence in favor of IA and against IT is Patrick Weekes's alleged post on the Penny Arcade Forum. I don't have much sense of Hudson and Walters, but the rest of the writing team is almost certainly above the drivel we got. So if it's true that Hudson and Walters wrote the ending in a vacuum and without peer review, it instantly gives credibility to IA.

On this matter I'm going to agree with KitaSaturnyne's estimation of Mac Walters as a writer, and state that both the overall structure of the game and the ending which has caused so much furore are both consistent with both Walters' style and competence level.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I disagree that making antagonists sympathetic or understandable automatically makes the story unheroic. That's just something we think because most of the examples we have are doin' it wrong.

I don't think sympathetic antagonists make a story unheroic by default, either. I just have a hard time accepting your Crow as any kind of hero without the Reapers as the threat she's unleashed upon. For those who don't play paragon by default, the actual heroics may be few and far between. And as your Crow shows, it's entirely possible to play the game in a fashion whereby you are the lesser evil. It's not the heroics per se that require an unsympathetic antagonist so much as the depths of unheroic actions available to the protagonist within a larger vaguely-heroic arc.

Modifié par delta_vee, 15 mai 2012 - 06:50 .

[Jorji Costava]

Don't mean to be trying to "set the agenda" for this thread; I just know that IT tends to be a pretty incendiary topic, so I wanted to throw in some other stuff to counterbalance it.

Anyhow, I first want to emphasize that I have no problem with sympathetic villains; what I object to is artificial ways of generating sympathy, and I think this is exactly what happened with both the Reapers and Saren. What specifically bothered me about the characterization of Saren is that all of his sympathetic qualities are solely the result of external processes; his desire to save organics from the Reapers isn't a reflection of his own goals or desires but simply a result of indoctrination. If a psychotic murderer were mind-controlled into believing that he had to kill me in order to prevent the spread of a horrific disease, I don't know how much sympathy I'd feel for him, given that absent the mind control, he might very well want to kill me for far less noble motives. An example from Watchmen: What if it turned out that the Comedian's breakdown in front of Moloch was simply the result of someone else manipulating him? I think that would deprive the scene of its effectiveness.

I will stick by my interpretation of Saren pre-Virmire as a ruthless dude; I think the writers were pretty eager to establish him as a dangerous badass, and this is the route they went. Until Virmire, most of our information comes from Anderson ("If he gets the beacon, he'll wipe out humanity!"), and the council meeting. Perhaps Anderson isn't wholly reliable, but we have no other source of information. Also, the cutscene on Sovereign after Eden Prime seems to strike me as classic villainous imagery ("AAARRRGHH!!!! The human . . . must be eliminated.") I'd suggest this actually isn't a million miles away from practicing one's "Muahaha!" in front of the mirror.

[delta_vee]

Gah.

Modifié par delta_vee, 15 mai 2012 - 06:50 .

[delta_vee]

Hawk227 wrote...

I'm trying to keep my IT comments within the realm of narrative interpration rather than arguing over the details. I'm not sure I've been successful. The IT thread is where that should stay.

As a narrative interpretation, I don't have a problem with its existence. I don't buy it, but I won't campaign for its heretical status. When it crosses from interpretation of the existing text into expectation of an inevitable continuation, however, it moves from valid to really fscking annoying.

[KitaSaturnyne]

I've only experienced ME3 twice, so I may have missed something in the conversation with Vendetta. Does it actually state that the Crucible was designed by the Reapers? I always had the impression that it was passed down by the various advanced species of each cycle, in the hopes that the "rulers" of the next cycle would be able to complete it and end the threat of the Reapers once and for all.

What did I miss?

[edisnooM]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

I've only experienced ME3 twice, so I may have missed something in the conversation with Vendetta. Does it actually state that the Crucible was designed by the Reapers? I always had the impression that it was passed down by the various advanced species of each cycle, in the hopes that the "rulers" of the next cycle would be able to complete it and end the threat of the Reapers once and for all.

What did I miss?

I don't think you missed anything. I think the whole Crucible is a Reaper trap thing is another "speculation".

Though this reminds me of an issue I thought of a little while ago, according to what Vendetta tells us the Citadel should already have been in the blueprints on Mars.
Speculation! 

Modifié par edisnooM, 15 mai 2012 - 07:13 .

[Seijin8]

@osbornep: Fair enough on your assessment. I suppose the key difference is that it was clear Anderson's own perspective was skewed (could've been the first human Spectre if not for Saren!), and while I trusted him (the narrative pretty much insisted on it), my recollection of the character-creation backgrounds gave me a very "dark choices in a dangerous world" feel for both Shepard and Saren.

As far as the "Arrrgh!" scene, I can see where you are coming from. Given that I (me, not Shepard) have had moments like that which did not lead to murdering anyone (yet), I took it to be an uncontrolled outburst of a character who had made a (mostly successful) career of acting before he thought.

I understood Saren being the antagonist, and therefore my enemy, but never as the bottomless well of evil that Anderson made him out to be. And for me, the dialog on Virmire revealed his underpinnings, and his final moments sealed that part of the character arc for me.

[Hawk227]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

I've only experienced ME3 twice, so I may have missed something in the conversation with Vendetta. Does it actually state that the Crucible was designed by the Reapers? I always had the impression that it was passed down by the various advanced species of each cycle, in the hopes that the "rulers" of the next cycle would be able to complete it and end the threat of the Reapers once and for all.

What did I miss?

No, he doesn't say that. He says that the Crucible is not of Prothean design and has been passed down from countless cycles. Some people have speculated that it's a Reaper designed trap, but the game does not say so.

delta_vee wrote....

As a narrative interpretation, I don't have a problem with its existence. I don't buy it, but I won't campaign for its heretical status. When it crosses from interpretation of the existing text into expectation of an inevitable continuation, however, it moves from valid to really fscking annoying.

I'm not sure what you mean.

In so much as some of its advocates are absolutely certain that it is correct, to the point of being rather obnoxious? Or in the sense that people still think that the EC can play out as a continuation?

Obviously IT requires a continuation, as there is no end in the game if so. If/when it is ultimately refuted, it may satisfy simply as "headcannon", but until then the appeal of IT is that it was intended. Consequently fans of it think/hope that there will be a continuation.

edisnoom wrote...

Though this reminds me of an issue I thought of a little while ago, according to what Vendetta tells us the Citadel should already have been in the blueprints on Mars.

I don't think he says that. He says that the Catalyst was to remain secret for as long as possible to keep the Reapers from learning of its importance. Either way, Shepard didn't get all of the data because Dr. Eva interfered.

Modifié par Hawk227, 15 mai 2012 - 07:22 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

[quote]Hawk227 wrote...

[quote]KitaSaturnyne wrote...

I've only experienced ME3 twice, so I may have missed something in the conversation with Vendetta. Does it actually state that the Crucible was designed by the Reapers? I always had the impression that it was passed down by the various advanced species of each cycle, in the hopes that the "rulers" of the next cycle would be able to complete it and end the threat of the Reapers once and for all.

What did I miss?[/quote]

No, he doesn't say that. He says that the Crucible is not of Prothean design and has been passed down from countless cycles. Some people have speculated that it's a Reaper designed trap, but the game does not say so.

[quote] delta_vee wrote....

As a narrative interpretation, I don't have a problem with its existence. I don't buy it, but I won't campaign for its heretical status. When it crosses from interpretation of the existing text into expectation of an inevitable continuation, however, it moves from valid to really fscking annoying.
[/quote]

I'm not sure what you mean.

In so much as some of its advocates are absolutely certain that it is correct, to the point of being rather obnoxious? Or in the sense that people still think that the EC can play out as a continuation?

Obviously IT requires a continuation, as there is no end in the game if so. If/when it is ultimately refuted, it may satisfy simply as "headcannon", but until then the appeal of IT is that it was intended. Consequently fans of it think/hope that there will be a continuation.[/quote][/quote]


What will you do if IT is never refuted, but there is never a continuation?

I think that this is the most likely result: the writers will structure the EC in such a way that IT adherents can still believe in IT if they wish, but there will never be a continuation that explicitly establishes it and has gameplay after the decision if (and only if) you pick destroy.