optimistickied wrote...
Seryl wrote...
optimistickied wrote...
Seryl wrote...
optimistickied wrote...
The 3-act structure used in Mass Effect expresses plot slightly differently than the classic narrative arc. The climax occurs when the central conflict causes the main character or characters to undergo a violent change or transformation, effectively resolving the outstanding conflict. It is also referred to as the second turning point. This structure is expressed through character development.
People may not like it or desire more clarity or even dispute its logic, but it isn't a writing violation, if such a thing even exists in 2012.
Does 2012 have different rules and structure for writing than every other year that preceded it?
Even if the 3-act structure expresses plot differently than the classic arc does, the point is that denouement doesn't ever come before climax. You can have the "If we don't make it through this, ..." conversations, but that isn't denouement. It's actually building MORE suspense. If it's done right, you feel the attachment that the main character has to the one he's speaking to. Shepard speaking to Liara, and being given her gift, was intended to show the closeness those two had and what would be lost should he fail. Shepard speaking to Javik is intended to show how far he's come and how, literally, the weight of the galaxy, both past, present and future, is riding on him. Every single one of those conversations is intended to build up more suspense and tension. It isn't the denouement.
I genuinely don't blame the entire writing team for this debacle because I doubt they had anything to do with it. I don't believe that Mac is as good a writer as Drew is, but he's not stupid. Yes, ME3 had more plotholes than the other two did, but it was still competently done, right up until Harbinger's beam. I tend to believe that Casey Hudson pulled rank to do that ending because the tonal shift of the game was so large it felt like it was written by somebody else.
That is why Bioware failed. What people that are defending this ending don't realize, with the constant refrain of "Artistic Integrity", is that you have to learn the rules of your craft before you can bend or break them. The writing before the end was good enough that I'm inclined to think that the writing team knows how to write. Casey, on the other hand, either had such a legendary amount of hubris that he didn't realize this, or nobody had the stones to tell him "No, that ending sucks".
A lot of the restrictions imposed on storytelling have been lifted. This is a postmodern world. Things have changed since Aristotle. That's what I meant.
What, in your opinion, is the denouement and what is the climax? Is it an anticlimax? Is the reaper conflict resolved or no?
No offense, but the rules of storytelling don't change just because we're in this "postmodern world". I find it odd that people always believe that we're so much more intelligent or enlightened than those that came before us. Human nature and human responses don't change that much, even if the background does.
Experiencing any piece of art (if that's the way we're viewing games) is the same as listening to a piece of music. You don't need to be trained in music theory to know when somebody goes terribly out of key. That problem doesn't suddenly become alright just because we have new forms of music. The basics of music stay the same, regardless of form. Same follows for any artistic medium. Again, there are certain rules that can be bent, others that can be broken, and others that are not negotiable. The need for a proper epilogue/denouement is one that can't be broken without running a large risk of alienating your audience.
If the rules don't apply anymore, why are so many people so irritated? They should accept that this new form of storytelling is equally valid to the normal, tested method and it should provide the same satisfaction as the one it has supposedly replaced. Since it doesn't, that would give strong support to the idea that this new method sucks and the old one was correct.
The climax for ME3 should have started during the final run on the Citadel beam, and lasted until either Shepard emerged triumphant from firing the crucible, or was killed. It should have been a battle similar to the Citadel run in ME1. This game didn't have a complete climax. It started on the beam run, then ... stopped. The game didn't finish, it just stopped.
Given that the ending of the game showed so little (and what it did show was such a disjointed mess), no, I'd argue the Reaper situation wasn't resolved. The starkid, by his own admittance, created the Reapers. He can't be trusted to give correct information. If he can't be trusted, than I can't take on good faith anything that resulted from a decision I made after being provided with only his information. Which is why the ending of the game is so unsatisfying. It doesn't tie up the story, it makes it impossible to actually accept what was shown and it raises more questions than it answers. None of which a good ending should do.
Just as poets broke form, storytellers are constantly deconstructing these rules. In a sense, we are more enlightened, because of cultural progress, because of literacy, because of social development.
These days, you can wrap a plank of wood in chicken wire and call it art, and it will be as critically examined as the lavish Greek statues in the opposite wing of the same museum. That said, I don't consider video games art, but I don't consider them literature.
I consider them video games.
I feel like the story of the game I played had a proper denouement. I ended the trilogy satisfied with what happened to Earth and what happened to the Reapers. I watched Shepard's story resolve. I didn't think it was brilliant, but it concluded.
Why are people irritated? I don't know. It wasn't what they wanted? It wasn't thorough? It demanded they suspend their disbelief? Shepard didn't reject the Catalyst because it wasn't in the script... but uh, it didn't need to be, did it? The Catalyst stated his position quite clearly. Shepard accepted this, and we were given our options. There are limits to our interactivity with the story.
Also, plenty of "good" endings are ambigious or raise new questions. I just read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, for example. What happens to Chief? We don't know.
The problem isn't ambiguous endings, the problem is that this one
violates its internal consistency by opening more plotholes than were
needed and railroading the logic of the universe that had been built up
since ME1. The form of the story went off the rails around Thessia, and
came completely unglued as soon as Harbinger's beam hit Shepard.
Asking questions at the end of a story is ok as long as you don't change what the story was about by doing so. Inception did it and
people love that film. The Usual Suspects had a massive twist that asked
a lot of questions right at the end of the movie, and again, everyone
loved that movie. The number of stories that do this are many and are
well appreciated by most.
ME3 doesn't do this well. I fully expected a final dialogue with Harbinger about why the Reapers were doing what they did. I expected it to be as cryptic, foreboding and open ended as the one I had with Sovereign. (Seriously, "You exist because we allow it; you will end because we demand it" may be one of the best lines I've ever seen). That would have been a denouement, moreso if it happened either while Shepard was dying as failing or while he was standing victorious (depending on EMS). Instead, I get a glowy, LSD induced starkid; a character that had no foreshadowing whatsoever, who then fed me a line of crap that was so full of plotholes and logical consistency issues that I actually had to watch it again on YouTube just to make sure it was real. That's not good storytelling, regardless of the form being used.
These days, you can wrap a plank of wood in chicken wire and call it
art, and it will be as critically examined as the lavish Greek statues
in the opposite wing of the same museum.
This is not necessarily indicative of a reimagining of art. It's could also indicate an unwillingness or inability of people to say:
"This smells like crap, looks like crap, feels like crap ....... By jove I think this might be crap!"
I might be biased though since I consider PostModernism to be extremely stupid. It always struck me as an excuse to do whatever you want without allowing anyone else to call you on it.
If I knew who you were, I'd debate this back
and forth over a beer with you for a couple hours. As it stands though, I
think we're going to disagree and I'll leave it at that.
Modifié par Seryl, 17 avril 2012 - 03:29 .
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