Arashi08 wrote...
I've been thinking about the endings a bit more and have been wondering about their purpose and why they were presented to us in such an enigmatic manner. It got me thinking about how we as a culture view stories and how we determine how plots unfold based on both are ability to compose and enjoy stories.
Oftentimes we get a clear understanding of who the antagonist and protagonist in a story is because the story defines them as such. Typically both the reader as well as the characters in the story define who is who based on their actions and the character's perspectives and system of morality. When you look at it this way it does seem like a subjective viewpoint; from the point fo view of the the characters, the antagonist is seen as such based on his or her actions, but more often than not, the antagonist feels that their actions are justifyed in some way, either out of fulfillment of their own selfish desires, or their desire to help others in a kinf od "ends justify the means." kind of way.
However, in an interactive medium like video games, there is room for other possibilities, much in the same way a choose-your-own-adventure book let's you interact with the story, a video game gives you even more freedom as you are not necessarily limited by narration. A video game could in theory allow you to decide who will be the protagonist and antagonist based on how the characters see your actions. You can see that alot in games like DA:O, where your companions can see you as a villain, no better than the darkspawn, rather than a hero based on your actions, even though you "evil" character as the same goal as a "good" character. Of course, I think that despite your action you will always be considered the protagonist of the story, but that's because the story in DA:O is central and what you do and what your goal is becomes the primary focus.
What this has to do with the ME3 endings, I feel, may well go back to what a well told story is supposed to do; help you look at things from a different perspective and examine yourself. Or more simply, to teach you a life lesson. Imo this is what a story must do if it can be considered a story well told. And if you think about it these endings may well be attempting to do this. This could work with or without IT but I think IT or something similar would be better because it wil provide a real conclusion to the story and give players a sense of consequence because we can see how our choice affected Shepard as well as the galaxy.
The more I think about these enigmatic endings that don't seem to have any character support at that exact moment and kind of force you to remember what characters throughout the series said about choices like these, while at the same time putting Shepard and by extension the player in this vacuum situation could possibly be seen as an examination of the player's soul. The endings could be a way for the player to examine their convictions and beliefs and put it to the test here in this final room where your actions will affect everything. at this moment you have to examine yourself and what you've learned over the course of three games and see which choice you will make based on your interactions with the various races and their plights. the choice you make determines what kind of person your Shepard is, and possibly who you as a player are.
None of these choices are ideal and you will be forced to deal with some form of loss either of yourself or of others. The game is essentially asking you things like: "Are you the kind of person who would sacrifice of yourself to save others? And if you are, do you know what kind of consequences that will bring?" And "Are you the kind of person who would sacrifice others to secure peace? And if you are do you know if that will truly endthe threat?"
What is the right choice? Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. Or perhaps there is a correct choice but you may not see it depending on your view of the world. You have to look at yourself and ask what is right because you don't have anyone else here to tell you what they think, unlike the last two games. Here you are on your own, with only memories and your own sense of morality to guide you.
Imo the endings could also be about a psychological battle where you struggle with yourself and your own sense of morality and whether the guideline of your life that you spent years creating is actually correct for you. The sci-fi story unfolds on the surface, but it represents your own struggle with life and it's objective, amoral nature. What's truly right and what's truly wrong? it it better to enslave and preserve or destroy and liberate? Is surrender truly preferrable to extinction or is life truly worth living without freedom? These could be questions the endings force you to ask yourself, or maybe they only reinforce your convictions. IT adds another layer to this because it may well bring it into perspective for Shepard and the player. Shepard beciming indoctrinated or not could again force players to reexamine themselves because their decision may turn out to be the wrong one because they didn't think it through enough, or didn't pay enough attention to the events unfolding around them to see the truth.
I guess only time will tell whether my guess is correct or not, but if this is similar to what BioWare intended then the endings may well bring a new perspective to how we view stories (or perhaps restore them) as well as how we view out own convictions and judgments of right and wrong.
...Or i could just be overthinking it waaaaaaaaaaaay too much lol 
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I don't think you're overthinking it at all. I think you've hit upon
relevant points I've addressed consistently in this thread that CONSISTENTLY get ignored which are the genophage and the geth/quarian war. If you played all three games, in the first you learn through wrex and even krogan willing to become saren's tools what the genophage has done to them as a species. You also learn the that the geth are following saren because they see sovereign as their 'god' despite sovereign using them as tools. Both the geth and the krogan were brought to this by the actions of other species. NEITHER would be tools of sovereign/saren had they not been treated as tools by other species - the krogan by the salarians and the geth by the quarians.
In ME2, we learn through Mordin about the uplifting of the krogan, about the salarian interference and how he even disagreed with it being done but once it was done action was necessary because it was like giving cavemen missles (or whatever weapons he said). While not an OVERT point, it is a very important one that we revisit in ME3. It's also one that most people will not fully grasp because it is so well written into the story that it is easily missed as why it is so crucial. It's underplayed perfectly. Brilliantly.
In ME2 we also see the same with Legion and the heretics. We see that there are two factions of geth. The ones that choose to follow geth path and the ones that follow Nazaria (Reapers). We don't get a lot of information from Legion since he comes in at the end, but we get enough to see that geth are not what we thought. They don't stick people on spikes and turn them into husks. In fact, they are the minority who chose to follow Nazaria (which interestingly is pointed out by Kaidan in ME1 at Eden Prime that the geth haven't left the veil in ages). This is a NEW development for them, as if sovereign came along with saren reletively recently within the 300 year span and now these heretics (who may have evolved into heretics earlier) are now behaving this way - beginning to harvest humans. Without the war with the quarians, none of this would have happened, but there is this struggle for survival and free will where the quarians feared an uprising (that would clearly have never come if you save create peace in ME3).
Again, both of these points are played down in ME2 quite brilliantly so that most players miss the relevance. Yet, they carry through from ME1 to ME2 and are expanded upon to give the intelligent player new information and understanding of the big picture of what has happened and why and how. The fact that they become subplots within ME2, to me, suggests that they are extremely relevant, and while most are focused on the collectors and the protheans being turned into collectors and that the reapers are involved somehow, these key points are relevant.
To expand further on ME2 - the loyalty missions are relevant to the control and synthesis issues:
Miranda - control - escaping control of her father and even synthesis for her genetic alterations.
Jacob - control - his father wanted control and became a monster in the process.
Mordin - Synthesis - the core of it is synthesis as it relates to the genophage which is a variation of synthesis if you strip synthesis down to its most basic form - meddling with DNA
Jack - a brilliant mix of control and synthesis as she represents synthesis (meddling with DNA core aspect) while her mission is about control and taking back some element of control as she has been a victim of them (hence the feel like a powerful **** and weak girl dialogue).
Garrus - control - he needs to regain control. Most would not see his need for vengence or retribution as a control issue, but it is based in the need for resolution where he lost control. He blamed himself and sedonis. The only way out for him was to resolve that issue.
Samara - control and synthesis - Morinth represented GENETIC disease to be purged. A synthesis of sorts because her DNA was the core of why she was what she was. The answer to it was to destroy her or to kill her so Samara could have a sense of control or justice. Justice has roots in control. Morinth was a symbolic representation of synthesis minus the synthetic and deliberate meddling at her core, her genetics were the issue. Genetics are the issue in the genophage as well.
Tali - Control - destroy the geth on the ship. Take control of the situation where she is being scapegoated by the admirals in their struggle among themselves for control.
Thane - Control - change the assassin destiny of his son to one that will not be the path he has followed. Give his son freedom ironically through controlling the outcome of the situation.
Legion - Synthesis (again, at its most basic form which is meddling with the essence of what something is) - we face the choice of destroying (control) the heretics or rewriting them (synthesis). Brilliantly done from a writing aspect.
Moving past the crew we have the collectors which ARE synthesis. You are fighting synthesis and control throughout all of ME2 and unless you stop to consider the symbolic nature of each loyalty mission as well as the collectors on whole and that they are synthesis, you can miss how relevant this becomes in ME3 when your ONLY true decisions which are also the MAIN and LARGEST ways to gain your war assets which determine the outcome are how you resolve the genophage and geth/quarian issues. Genophage = synthesis and quarian/geth = control. Granted there are many variables that depend on how you will resolve these but ultimately they ARE the story since you are not fighting the reapers during the game, but rather, you are curing the genophage and resolving the quarian/geth politics, which comes up as an issue (playing politics, not involved in the war, etc) no less than half a dozen times. In fact, the ONLY reapers we take on are ones we take on by default to cure the genophage and end the control of the geth. We don't even really take on a reaper on Earth. We just move it to get to the beam. Surely, I cannot be the only person who noticed that? Surely I cannot be the only person in this thread that sees the crux of the trilogy was about control and synthesis vs destroy. Even the reapers are all about control and synthesis - they control our destiny by harvesting us and havesting us is synthesis.
Of course shepard was going to hallucinate control, synthesis and destroy as the options. They have been the crux of ME since ME1.
I read a lot of very interesting and illuminating information in this thread with regards to IT, but the more I read, the more I realize there's a lot of digging for nuggets to prove or support IT which aren't even needed when each game in the trilogy has handed you a giant hunk of gold.
Feel free to ignore my wall of text and relevant points. I've grown used to that in this thread.
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