I recently finished Spec Ops THE LINE, and as a student of Literature and military versed (not in the military myself, but most of my family is) person I can tell you it is the most intense game I have ever played in my twenty four years of gaming. I've never felt sick to my stomach in a game until now, I've never questioned who I was as a person for a good three hours and I've never had an such a visceral and horrific reaction as I did to that game. It's a choice driven game like ME, and all the choices you make, no matter how moral you think they are, are always bad choices. There are no moralities which are right and even though I went back and played the game three times each choice I made no matter how different was horrific and made me cross a moral line. It's not that I never crossed the line, it's to what degree I crossed it.
*SPOILERS*
During the final segment of the game, it is revealed that all your choices were a culmination of fear, PTSD and you being so oblivious to the reality of the situation that you made up all these choices in your mind. You did all these horrible things for no reason, and you have to live with it. The final scene is you looking youself in the mirror with a gun pointed at your other self, and it's up to you to pull the trigger or not. Honestly, it makes the IT theory look like child's play, but you'll have to experience it for yourself to get the full effect.
*END SPOILERS*
And then I started thinking, and all of a sudden ME3 made a lot more sense.
During ME3's ending, you had to choose between three horrible choices, yes? How many of us compalined that all these choices were morally wrong and that they violated everything Shepard stood for as a person? Most of us did, and most of us called for different endings, myself included. But looking back, and having this visceral experience as a background I can now say I would not change the endings one little bit and here's why.
In war, there is no morality, no right or wrong choice. There are no clear cut ways to win, loose or tactics to secure victory. In war, there is only the will to survive and the will to carry on your ideals. The problem is that in war, ideals take a back seat to survival.
I'm going to put this into ME terms so that it's relevant to this forum.
Stand on the ashes of a hundred billion dead souls and ask their dead souls if morality or your personal stance ever mattered to them? Ask the family on Palaven if what your Shepard believed mattered more to them than their child's life, ask the Asari on Thessia if Shepards uncompromising stance is worth more in her eyes than her world, ask the Quarian orphan who lost both parents in the war if your Shepard's beliefs matter if it could never bring back or save his parents. Either the look of horror or utter silence would probably be your answer.
Up until the Reaper war, everything you knew, your moral stances, your beliefs, and your entire view on galactic life was unchallenged. Then, in the final sequence of ME3 everything above was stripped away from you. None of your morals mattered, none of your beliefes were revevant and the only thing you had left was the line. It was up to you how much, or how little you crossed that very, very fine line. Did you destroy the Geth and cross over the line of genocide? Did you enslave the Reapers and cross the line of morality? Did you choose to re-write everyone's DNA and cross the line into forced, unwillful change? This is war, and in war there are no moralities, there are no judements and there are no belief systems that can ever be justifyable in the context of said war. To win you have to cross a line, to save everything and everyone you have to lay down your moral values and cross over into something you said you would never walk into.
The truth is, you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not, a hero. You're upset and angry because you can't accept what you've done, it broke you. It takes a strong man to admit what he's done, but it takes a stronger man to deny what's right in front of him...
Did you play ME because you felt like you were the hero? You were, but the moment the end came to bear down on you, you were no longer a hero and you had to cross a line. Did you stand to your morals then? Did you reject everything that was laid out in front of you and deny everything that would have made this end? Did you keep telling yourself that winning the war conventionally at the cost of everything would uphold your moral values? What about everyone else's will to survive? When you chose one of those three choices did you tell yourself that "you didn't mean to hurt anyone."?
No one ever does. What ever happends next, don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure the galaxy will forgive you for sticking to your morals as it burned around you.
There was never a good choice, and there was never a bad choice. It was just how far you were willing to cross over your self imposed boundries to do what was nessasary. In war, you do what you must to survive...And that usually means your morals are irrelevant.
There a line men like Shepard have to cross. If they're lucky, they do what's nessasary and die. You know, all they really want is peace. But peace always has a cost, are you willing to pay with your morals and if nessasary your life?
I'll hate the Catalyst until the day I die, for what he is, for what he did and for everything he stands for. But I will never let my moralities and beliefes get in the way of doing what needs to be done so that others may live. If that means the genocide of an entire race so that the majority can live, so be it. If that means enslaving an entire race so that who I set out to protect and save will survive? So be it. If that means forcing an entire genetic re-write on those I care about so that they can continue to survive, even as a new form of life (even if the concept in flawed and hardly makes sense)? So be it.
I'll do what is nessarsay so that they can survive, I'll cross any and all lines. Because my moralities mean nothing more than personal beliefes written down on paper when it comes to the collective weight of the galaxy.
It takes a strong man to admit what he's done...It takes a stronger man to deny what's right in front of him...
Modifié par Reptilian Rob, 29 juin 2012 - 09:33 .
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