Now originally this was in a message to one of the people I frequently chat with on FF.net. He asked me a simple yes/no question and got the verbal equivalent of a bazooka to the face. Be warned- don't ask me questions when I'm ruminating. The answer may be a long one, and not entirely related to the question. I've adjusted it for a forum post, slightly.
First off, the main theme I got from Jack. A lot of people look at Jack, and they see a messed-up, broken, unappealing woman who needs some of Shepard's magical Wang-fu to make everything bright and sparkly and brilliant. I find this to be a very poor way to look at the character and, frankly, a disservice to such a complex creation. When i look at Jack and her story arc in ME2, I see one theme now: Acceptance. When we meet Jack, she has no peace because there is no acceptance in her life. Those around her look down on her or openly cast her out because of her origins, her appearance or her attitude. The only time she finds this acceptance, something goes wrong (Murtock dies, the outcast camp gets torched by the Turians, Manara turns out to be a greedy little so-and-so). This leads Jack to the point where she cannot even accept herself. She's convinced that she's a messed-up, psychotic (word for a female dog) whose life is always going to be the same as it has been: struggle and heartache. That's why she seems to have given up on getting attached to things, concluding they'll always end badly for her, and pushes away anybody who ever tries to get close to her.
And then in steps Shepard, and (s)he helps her to face the demons that she stores in her own head, to leave behind what Cerberus did to her and to accept who she is now. She's not the Cerberus creation, she's not Subject Zero, she's Jack. The best line that deals with this is when she says: "F**ked up or not, the rest of the Galaxy's gotta deal." It tells the player that she can accept who she is, what has made her into the woman that she is today, and now she's no longer bound by the perceptions of those around her.
This arc is made even more powerful with a Paramance Shepard, as is shown by her continual shying away from the relationship. Throughout the arc, we see her reluctant to get into a relationship because of many reasons: "I'm not interested in some dumb sh*t love affair! Never goes right…", "You want out alive, you goddamn run.", "You think I did this to myself?- -So why put up with it?", "It's just gonna hurt, or you'll mess around, or I'll end up killing you or something!- And?- And… that sucks!". She's CONVINCED that any relationship with her is doomed to failure, that there's nobody in the Galaxy who has the patience to put up with her. And then look at the words Shepard uses to pursue the romance: I said I couldn't fix it. I didn't say you weren't worth staying for anyway.", "So you're crazy, so what?", "So it'll suck, but how much fun is it gonna be on the way?"
The romance arc is not about 'fixing' Jack. Its about committing to sticking with her, regardless of what trials lie ahead. The whole arc is one big promise to the character that she's worth everything you go through, that you're not about to give up on her, and then convincing her that that promise is sincere. With a non-romance Jack, she finds a place in the squad. With a romance Jack, she finds a place in life. That's why I always choose the psychotic biotic (all 15 playthroughs).
The second thought that came to me over the weekend was how much less I liked Jack's character in ME3. In ME2, Jack was pretty much my favorite video game character ever (jockeying for top spot with Legion and Mordin, mind you). In fact, as embarrassing as it is to admit it, I think in my first playthrough of ME2 I genuinely crushed on the character, so powerful was the writing there. And yet, when Shepard found her in ME3, I just felt… nothing. There was no appeal to the character for me, in spite of how much I cared for her in ME2, and I've tried to understand how that came about. The only conclusion I can come to is this: The writer for her in ME3 didn't understand Jack.
Now before you think that I'm criticizing him for what he did or anything, please understand this: I think it was a sufficient storyline, it told a good story and was frankly one of the better parts of ME3 (tying in Overlord was very well done). But Jack didn't belong there, and forcing her into the narrative was more damaging than helpful.
There's a big difference between knowing a character and understanding it. The best parallel I can make between Jack's personality and a real life example is that of someone who is depressed. Speaking as someone who has a family member that suffers from depression, I can tell you that there's a big difference between knowing about it and understanding it. Those who know about it may try to cheer a depressed person up, figuring that laughter is the best medicine and so on, and then be surprised that this doesn't work. Those who understand it will realize that most of the time there is no 'fixing' a deep seated mental and emotional issue like this. Most times you just have to commit to getting through the bad times, recognizing that the good times might always be 'just round the corner', never getting any closer.
A character like Jack, who has equally deep-seated emotional, mental and physical trauma, is in a similar position. Its not a case of cheering up, looking more normal and finding a place to belong, it's a case of bearing the burden of who you are and accepting it willingly, finding your satisfaction in life from doing so, from being able to say 'I am who I want to be, and nobody can do anything about that'. And THAT'S where Jack's character goes wrong in ME3. Her being content with the emotional and psychological place she'd got to in ME2 is nullified, removed completely. The writer spent a lot of his time 'fixing' her: giving her a more conventional appearance, adjusting her attitude to make her 'more normal, more mature', and 'giving her a place to belong'. In the end what made the character so powerful and satisfying just isn't there anymore. Jack is acting as though her past no longer exists, and the power of a relationship where Shepard will stay with her no matter the trials loses its compelling nature when there are no trials for him to stick by her side through. All the storyline in ME3 does with her is further reinforce that there was something wrong with her in ME2 and that finding your happy place can make all of that go away with a snap of the fingers.
This ties in a lot with the themes I perceived in the franchise of diversity and how we should cherish our individual uniqueness. Jack in ME2 was pretty damn unique, and her arc helps her to come to terms with that. ME3's arc tells us that she's better off being the same as everyone else, accepting a bullsh*t standard of normality.
So those are my thoughts for today. Anybody got a counterpoint they wish to raise?
Fainmaca
Modifié par fainmaca, 11 décembre 2012 - 03:52 .
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