generalleo03 wrote...
Alright I need to rant. I've thought about this a bit and come to some conclusions. I'll try to address this as best I can. I largely place pro-endingers into 3 categories. This will not address them all. If you are missed sorry, I don't have the time to argue all possible points. But I should hit most of them with this. Let us start with:
1. People who misinterpreted the genre of Mass Effect. Let me state this categorically, if you are in this category, you are wrong. However, let me say up front, you are NOT an idiot. You have merely missed some important facts, and came to the wrong conclusion. Much like Lamarck during the time of Darwin, your ideas are not stupid, they do have some factual bases. I want to apologize up front if this comes across as condescending. It isn't meant to be. All my condescension is for people in category 2 
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Let's start here, Mass Effect is NOT Comsic Horror. For the uninitiated, Cosmic Horror is a fantasy/fiction concept pioneered by H. P. Lovecraft, with his recognizable villain (if he can be called a villain) Cthuhlu. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism ) So let me admit up front, the Reapers are definately a shout out to Cthuhlu. They have a similar appearance (tentacles), names (Old One vs Old Machines), and until the last 10 minutes, a similar motive (or lack there of) to Cthuhlu. But contrary to your thoughts, they are not Giant Death Robot Space Cthuhlus. How do I know this? Because you killed Soverign in Mass Effect 1. This fact alone, that the insignificant specs of the Milky Way Galaxy killed an Old One, removes Mass Effect from the realms of real Cosmic Horror.
Alright, so Mass Effect isn't pure H. P. Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror. It could still be a lighter form of it right? No, it isn't. THE key theme of Cosmic Horror is nihilism. The insignificance of human toil. The vastness of the Universe makes everything and anything we do, could do, or ever will do completely pointless. This has to be present for Cosmic Horror. If it isn't present, it isn't Cosmic Horror. Mass Effect does not have this anywhere except the last 10 minutes. Your actions continually have an effect throughout the trilogy. You killed Sovereign in 1, stopped the collectors in 2, and provided victories against the Reapers in 3. Far from insignificant, your actions have discernable and real effects in the story. The only time your actions don't matter is the end. And that is one of the key reasons the ending is bad, genre switch. There is no reason at all to expect a Cosmic Horror ending to this trilogy. I am not saying Cosmic Horror is bad, far from it, I'm saying Mass Effect isn't Cosmic Horror, and that's whay a Cosmic Horror ending doesn't work.
All that being said, I generally don't have a problem with these people. Like I said before they are not stupid. They're mistaken. Mass Effect directly follows the Hero's Journey (for the uninitiated http://en.wikipedia..../Hero's_journey ). It is a Hero's Journey set in space with an antagonist that draws from Cosmic Horror. My point here isn't to argue that it is a Hero's Journey, but merely to point out that it is NOT Cosmic Horror. So stop arguing that defeating the Reapers is impossible. In the words of Inigo Montoya "That word, I don't think that word means what he thinks it means". Impossible has a definition:
1. not possible; unable to be, exist, happen
This doesn't mean unlikely. It means it can't happen. Humans defeating Old Ones in classical H. P. Lovecraftian sense is impossible. Defeating Reapers happens multiple times. Let me place once scenario for you, the Reapers come at us one at a time. Even the most ardent pro-reaper person must admit we have a very high chance of winning that one. In fact, it's what Shepard actually does. So quit arguing that it can't happen. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.
On to the second category!
2. People who think I don't understand enough or know enough to "get" the ending. These people start with a very condescending statement. It's my lack of knowledge or aplication of knowledge that causes me to misunderstand and dislike the ending. So let me reply with the same condescnention.
These people argue that things like the Drake Equation (http://en.wikipedia..../Drake_equation), the Kardashev Scale (http://en.wikipedia....Kardashev_scale) , and the Techonological Singularity (http://en.wikipedia....cal_singularity) make perfect sense of Mass Effect. So let me start with this. One very important rule in all story telling (Movies, books, games, oral history) is "If it isn't in the story, it isn't important". Good editors don't remove important stuff from a story. I'm not going to argue that stories don't require some grounding, they do. But this is established quickly, like "does gravity work here?", "Do bullets hurt?", etc. This is usually done in the first few minutes of the story. Mass effect does this grounding in Eden Prime. However, higher level concepts, like Kardashev Scales, Drake Equations, etc. that are not commonly known, must be explicitely stated. There is absolutely no reference to either of those in the Mass Effect series. As there is no evidence other that the people who state it's important's feelings to support their importance, I can dismiss them with the same lack of evidence. If it takes no evidence to create a proposition, it takes no evidence to dismiss it. The explicit lack of reference, is even evidence of its lack of importance, or are you really arguing the Author's didn't know them even though they are so important to understanding the ending?
The Technological Singularity is different though. There is evidence of this in the story, so it will take more for me to work past it. The key points of the technological singularity are that, once created, AI will outpace humans (organics) in intelligence, strength, civilization, and wipe us all out. AI lacks empathy. Scientists have long postulated that the reason human's have morality at all is empathy. We can imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes and thus invision what it would be like. Therefore we can figure out what we don't want to happen. In fact, empathy is so important that a lack of it is considered a mental disorder (it makes one a Psycopath). Since AI doesn't care about us by some intrinsic order of its being, it will view us as just more parts of the universe, like rocks. It could wipe us out as a means to prevent natural disasters, or harvest us as resources. It could even take its main task, such as building widgets, too far and wipe us out in an attempt to optimize its goal. Those are key points that need to be explored for the technological singularity to make sense.
So let me state up front, it is not a lack of knowledge of the technological singularity that has people pissed. Do you really want to argue that the set of people playing Mass Effect and the set of people who have seen "The Matrix" are really disjoint? Come on here. There is a ton of popular references to the technological singularity in all forms of narrative. Movies like "The Matrix", "I, Robot", "The Terminator", stories like "The Evitable Conflict", "The Last Question" by Asimov, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream". And those are what I can come up with off the top of my head. People playing Mass Effect are plenty familiar with the concept of the Technological Singularity, even if they cannot tell you the name of the concept. The problem is that they were not told to care about the concept in the entire story arc of Mass Effect (even including the end). Let's start with this, there are 3 Artificial Intelligences explored in the main story Mass Effect. The Geth, EDI, and the Reapers.
The Geth start out as villains that could easily have explored the Technological Singularity. In Mass Effect 1, they are villains working for Sovereign to kill organics. Their motives are mostly unknown, and could have easily degenerated into an exploration of the Technological Singularity. However, that exploration all falls apart with one word: Legion. The Geth are not a uniform species of AI's bent on harvesting us (though the reapers are!). They are a civilization. They have internal conflicts, Geth vs. Heretic Geth. They have goals like becoming strong with their own two hands, not by taking the Reapers tech. They compromise said goals. The Geth are an exploration of the awakening of consciousness. Consciousness is considered one of the great unlikely events in Human evolution, and the Geth are a direct exploration of how that could happen. The problem is, nowhere in any of the full Geth story line do any of the main points of the Technological Singularity get explored. Where is the indifference to organics? Sure, they are isolationist, but they aren't indifferent. Even without the morning war exploration in Mass Effect 3, the Geth are not a representation of the Technological Singularity, they are directly referenced as a species that happens to be synthetic, not a representation of a species defined by the fact it is synthetic. By the end of Mass Effect 3, they Geth are fully actuallized real people who make decisions based on information, survival, and empathy. Even more so if they survive, they become full individuals. The presentation of the Geth is one of a civilization comming in its own within the galactic community, not one of an Artificial Intelligence becoming dispassionate and logical. And that doesn't even include the Morning War, which was not started by the AI attempting to wipe out its masters, but by the Quarian fear of what they Geth were and could do. The Geth are NOT an exploration of any concepts of the technological singularity.
EDI is another AI that basically comes to its own within the Mass Effect community. Granted I thought it was kind of a stretch to make EDI the AI you "defeated" at luna in Mass Effect 1, that also happened to give you an upgrade (Booh Yah!). But let's take that as a part of the story, since it was on a main quest. She starts out, like the Geth, as something that could have explored the Technological Singularity. In Mass Effect 1, she fights organics. However, in Mass Effect 2, she is a full fledged crew member. She has a sense of humor, and interacts and grows. Hell she's responsible for some of the funniest lines! "I like the sight of humans on their knees", "This is all Joker's fault. What a tool he was. I have to spend all day computing pi because he plugged in the Overlord.". Comon, you laughed. We all did. However, she wasn't fully unleashed until the end of Mass Effect 2, so she could still explore the technological singularity. But she didn't. Once unleashed she didn't because impassionate, logical, and indifferent. She became MORE human. MORE a part of the crew. A dispassionate AI wouldn't go to the collector base, wouldn't help them defeat them. Too much risk. In Mass Effect 3 EDI becomes basically human, and I don't mean she gets a body. I mean she makes decisions we all do. What's important to me, survival or my friends? Selfishness or Selflessness? Reguardless of her choices, the fact she is making them means she's becoming human. She can even start a relationship for goodness sake! She is another exploration of an AI becoming more and more human.
Notice a pattern here? The Geth and EDI both provide direct evidence that the real difference between synthetics and organics is actually pretty small. They are an exploration of awakening consciousness. Most importantly, they are NOT SCARY. They don't explore the technological singularity in any way. They don't state how AI outpaces organics, they don't show anything remotely like that. In fact, this exploration is completely contrary to the technological singularity. The Techonological Singularity requires that AI cannot coexist with organics. To explore AI that can for 99 hours, then say, whoops can't work is a conflicting theme that makes a bad ending.
The last AI explored are the Reapers themselves. Only they aren't. The motives of the Reapers are not explored until the last 10 minutes. And these people argue that the 14 lines of dialogue at the end completely put the Reapers as preventing the technological singularity? wait, scratch that, a lot of those lines are explaining what the "crucible could do", so its not even 14 lines. If you are telling me you can completely explain the motives of the Reapers in 7 lines or fewer of dialogue, then let me tell you that you are a moron. Also, it takes BALLS to argue that the Reapers are preventing the technological singularity, when they are literally the only AI in the story that could even be argued to explore the concept of the technological singularity at all! They could be argued to represent the eventuallity of that very concept!
Now, I do feel it necessary to address a point here. There are definately side quests that explore the Technological Singularity. The rogue citadel AI in Mass Effect 1, the loki mech saga in Mass Effect 2. However, these side quests don't affect the main plot, and can be completely skipped without any hinderance to the story. If the technological singularity was really an important concept to understand the Reapers, then it should NOT be skippable, and should be forced. If the writer's don't force you to care about it, IE it doesn't affect the main plot, then it is de facto evidence it isn't really important.
The problem here isn't that the technological singularity couldn't explain some of this, the problem is that the story doesn't explore that concept. You are literally telling the writer's of Mass Effect that it is okay to NOT tell you the story, that you will fill in the blanks that are missing to force it to make sence, and they call them geniuses for it. You are a sucker, and I don't care if you take offense to that or not. The narrative of the main plot of Mass Effect and missions that effect the main plot don't care about the Technological Singularity, and if you have to add external information into the narrative to force the motive of the main antagonist to make sense, that is a definition of narrative failure.
Let me also say this, it doesn't matter if the catalyst is a billion years old, and spent two hours recanting all the time's AI attacked organics. The point is NARRATIVE! The story doesn't explore those concepts. It doesn't matter if he *could* know everything, what matters is the story being told. The technological singularity does not belong as a part of the ending to Mass Effect. This is why the Extended Cut will suck. There needs to be complete thematic rewrite to the end to force it to make sense. Either that, or a complete rewrite of the other 99 hours of Mass Effect.
on to !
3. People who enjoyed the emotional experience. I actually don't have much of a problem with these people. They are reveling in the fact that they had an emotional experience with the game. I might jokingly call them robots, because games have been evoking emotional experiences for a while now, but they may not play many games. However, I do feel in necessary to make a point, or rather to explain the point of the ending. The only constant among all endings is the death of Shepard. The ending is a direct appeal to the player. It is going after the collateral emotion of killing off the player's representative in the universe. I'm not saying this is bad in of itself, it is just a bad narrative device if that is the only point of the ending. Which given how little sense the rest of the ending actually makes, it becomes the only point of the ending. That said, an ending can be both bad from a narrative point of view AND a satisfying emotional experience. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. Which is why these people typically don't argue that the ending is good, just that they enjoyed it. However, I do want to point out that if you actively argue against us anti-endingers you are explicitely telling me your emotional experience is the "correct" emotional response to the ending. I hope that you agree that it is just as wrong for me to argue that your emotional experience is wrong as it is for you to argue ours is.
And on to my last point. On narrative devices, because many people are talking about deus ex machina and macguffins. I'm not going to argue about whether these are literary devices or not. However, I will state they they have both been considered weak narrative tools for over a thousand real years. If you are going to argue that the ending is good, you cannot just gloss over this fact. You must address it head on. Why does it work in Mass Effect? What makes it work? Why shouldn't I consider it weak? There have been plenty of explations for why thse plot devices are weak, I won't recant them here. The default position is that it is weak until proven otherwise.
Good read. QFT.
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