dunstan1993 wrote...
I'm fine with the "no victory without sacrifice theme, but near the end that theme became "no victory without a deax ex machina".
To be quite honest, the seeds for deus ex machina were laid in ME1. Why, you might ask?
Lovecraftian horror.
There are two key elements in Lovecraftian horror. One is the antagonists are on such an alien level of existence they are not, and cannot, be exposited. They can't or don't engage the protagonists,
ever. The only point of engagement is by proxy. The second is
protagonists never win; "success" in Lovecraftian horror is completely reframed as "not a total, apocalyptic, failure".
For obvious reasons, that makes for a ****ty video game. The only franchise I can name offhand that does it with any sense of aplomb, decency, and fidelity is the Silent Hill series (which is, I'll note, merely "psychological horror" opposed to full-stop Lovecraftian horror though the similarities are staggering). When's the last time one of
those games made waves in the industry or could be said to be anything beyond a "moderate success"?
And, Mass Effect is at its heart a
space opera. As a genre, space operas demand engagement between protagonist and antagonist, to elevate tension, create drama and to further development between both. To serve that goal, antagonists must be exposited and accessible to the audience. And, the most damning thing in this case is that in space opera,
protagonists win.
Those are two genres that in terms of characterization of antagonist and plot resolution, could not contrast more. That's especially true in the medium of video games, when the audience is an active participant and when the game exists for a final cause, whether that's for the players' enjoyment or for the game's ending. Since Mass Effect is a multimedia trilogy, special attention must be paid to the latter category given the immense investment on the part of the player(s) to achieve a conclusion to the story.
What it all boils down to is that one of those two genres had to fall by the wayside by the end of Mass Effect 3. The game either had to go full Lovecraft, or full space opera. Right up until ME3 the game had been eschewing Lovecraftian elements left and right. Sovereign engaged Shepard in dialog (strike 1), Sovereign died (strike 2) as the result of hubris (a humanizing trait, strike 3). Harbinger was a true-to-formula space opera and video game villain, and the Reapers were exposited further. Mass Effect 3 for some reason slid back into Lovecraft territory when it really shouldn't have given the development and exposition of the previous two games, and
especially did so at the end of the game.
Then you had the starbrat, which was so far out of left field especially in terms of Lovecraftian horror it absolutely boggles the mind. But he was necessary -- because, remember what I said about Lovecraftian plot resolution?
Protagonists do not win, in any conventional sense. The only way to reconcile that is through deus ex machina, especially to deliver the ending that is at the very least bittersweet let alone eucatastrophic or even happy the space opera genre -- and video games as an interactive medium as a whole -- dictates.
Now, coming back full circle to the Tolkein commentary: the eucatastrophe. It was Tolkein's plot device for ensuring a good outcome for the protagonist(s) --
in the falling action, opposed to during the climax which makes it distinct from deus ex machina -- regardless of previous events.
A Tolkeinesque, eucatastrophic resolution for a singular event in ME3 would be, say, for a space eagle to shatter the Shroud's window, rescue Mordin and carry him to safety before the tower blew up. Or, for a space eagle to catch Grunt after he jumped off the ravine and carry him to the Normandy's shuttle. Or, a space eagle showing up and rebooting Legion after disseminating his personality into the geth. Or, after talking to the Catalyst a space eagle shows up and at Shepard's behest blows the power conduit, flies into the merge beam (hilariously turning everyone into space eagle-people, I imagine), or disintengrates itself controlling the Reapers. Or a flock of space eagles catching the Normandy as the mass-free corridor collapses and carrying it back to Earth.
Eagle snark aside (it's always eagles in Tolkein's work), need I point out how mind-****ingly stupid any of this would be? Especially in the case of undermining the very theme and meaning of sacrifice to the greater story.
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