GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO. ALSO, SPOILERS FOR MOVIES THAT ARE AT LEAST FIVE YEARS OLD!
Introduction
I, like many other people, greatly disliked the original ending to ME3. One of the things I found most disagreeable was the death of Commander Shepard, and I know many of you shared this viewpoint. Others were critical of those that thought that way, claiming that we just wanted a “Disney ending” and couldn’t handle an emotionally powerful sacrifice.
I maintain that this is not the case, however. Rather it is my contention that there is a way for a work of fiction to portray the death of the main character in an emotionally satisfying manner, but the writers of ME3 failed to do so, leading to a feeling of discontent in many of the players.
I decided to analysis equivalent stories – movies – that also featured the death of the main character at the end, in order to see if I find “rules” or trends that were required for a satisfying death of the main character, and then see if ME3’s story met those rules or not.
Selection Criteria
In selecting which movies I would analyze, I used the following criteria:
1. The movie must be an “action/adventure” film in which the hero undergoes a great quest to defeat a more powerful opponent. I wasn’t looking for psychological thrillers, romantic comedies, or other dissimilar stories. I’m trying to compare apples to apples.
2. The movie must have a single, clear-cut main character that dies near the end of the film. No ensemble pieces in which several different characters are all equally important – the death of one of a group has an entirely different emotional impact.
3. The movie must be considered a good or great film. If I’m trying to argue “these are the qualities of a hero’s death that make for a good film”, there’s no point in analyzing a bad film. I’m talking about you, Matrix: Revolutions.
4. I have to have seen the film. I’m not going to analyze a film based on its Wikipedia summary.
Films
Based on those rules, I found five films to analyze:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Braveheart (1995)
Gladiator (2000)
300 (2007)
I Am Legend (2007)
And of course, our object of comparison:
Mass Effect 3 (2012)
Rules for a successful main character death, and how ME3 relates to these rules.
By considering the five films listed above, I noted three particular trends that stood out. The following three “rules” dictate how a good film portrays the death of its main character in a way that leaves the audience emotionally moved, but not crushed and dissatisfied.
The hero’s quest is a great and total success.
“In the Year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland - starving and outnumbered - charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets; they fought like Scotsmen, and won their freedom”.
– Ending narration of Braveheart
What was the overriding quest of the hero, and how well did he complete it, even in death? All of our heroes have a great quest, a great overriding goal. Sometimes the quest takes on additional objectives along the way but the original goal is always there. And, even as the hero dies, the quest is completed, the goals realized.
Terminator 2: The Terminator’s goal is to protect John Conner from the more advanced T-1000. As the plot progresses he takes on the additional objective of preventing Judgment Day from ever occurring at all. He accomplishes both, by defeating the T-1000 and destroying the technology that will allow the creation of Skynet. (Here we should note that future films in the franchise reveal that Judgment Day was actually NOT prevented, but this is not
what we are told at the conclusion of the film).
Braveheart: William Wallace’s goal is simple: “FREEEEEEEEEDOM”. Though he is betrayed, captured, tortured,
and executed by the English, his refusal to submit inspires the surviving Scottish leaders to unite, and finally defeat the hated English.
Gladiator: Initially, Maximus’ goal is simple: kill Commodus, the man who ordered the murder of his wife and son. As the film progresses he is reminded of Marcus Aurelius’ dying request that he return Rome to a republic. He accomplishes both goals by killing Commodus in the arena.
300: Like William Wallace, King Leonidas’ goal is freedom for his people, but he is killed by the enemy (the Persian horde in this case) before this goal is realized. Nevertheless, his death buys time and inspires Greek city-states to unite and utterly defeat the invading Persians.
I Am Legend: Robert Neville’s goal is to find a cure for the virus that has killed the majority of the human race and reduced almost all the survivors to zombie-like monsters. He dies, but not before developing a cure that is brought to a survivor’s settlement.
Why is this important? The death of the main character is an emotional blow to the audience. We can handle it, but require a positive to balance it out. The knowledge that that though he died, the hero’s goals were completely accomplished through his sacrifice softens that blow and gives his death meaning. So does Mass Effect 3 follow this rule? Yes and no. Shepard’s goal, to save the galaxy from the reapers, is essentially accomplished in any of the
endings as in any case the reapers will no longer be a threat. However, he does not truly DEFEAT them as he
set out to do. He was merely granted an audience by their leader and given choices, any of which ends the reaper threat one way or another. This was not his goal. This sudden change is emotionally jarring and unsatisfying. In Gladiator, does Maximus meet with Commodus and get him to agree to stop being such a jerk and give democracy a try? No. Imagine how unsatisfying that would have been. Maximus stabs Commodus through the throat with his own dagger. He set out on a quest for vengeance, and vengeance is what he achieved. 300’s Xerxes is a close analogy to ME3’s Catalyst. They are both god-like figures in control of terribly powerful armies, but they’re both willing, after the
hero has proved his worth, to sit down for a talk. They’d both prefer it if the hero would stop the pesky fighting and see things their way. The difference is Leonidas rebukes the god-king, and does the unthinkable – he makes him bleed.
Shepard either meekly accepts one of the choices given by the Catalyst, or refuses the choices and perishes in failure (mostly) as the Catalyst reveals his true nature and his power. Shepard’s death is not nearly as triumphant as the other heroes, and this hampers our ability to accept it.
The hero does NOT leave behind a grieving lover.
"You see, my wife... and my son... are already waiting for me."
"You will meet them again, but not yet".
"Not yet."
- Maximus and Juba discussing the idea of waiting in the afterlife, Gladiator
Often the hero has a great, true love. This pleases us, but the thought of that love being left alone, abandoned by the hero in death, is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, threatening to negate even the triumph of the hero’s victory in his
quest. How do good films handle this? By ensuring that there is no grieving lover left behind at all.
Terminator 2: The Terminator is an emotionless robot from the future. He certainly does not have a lover.
Braveheart: William Wallace’s wife Murron is killed by a magistrate near the beginning of the film because she fought off an attempted rapist. This serves as the catalyst for Wallace’s assault on the English establishment. He does later have romantic encounter with Princess Isabelle, but this is not portrayed as a chance for true love should the hero
survive his quest. He even sees a vision of his dead wife smiling at him just before he is executed.
Gladiator: Maximus’ wife and son are killed on Commodus’ orders. His only desire is vengeance for them before he meets them again in the afterlife. One of the last scenes is his dying dream of being reunited with them. This theme is
so significant that it makes his death seem welcoming rather than tragic.
300: At first glance 300 does not follow this rule, as Queen Gorgo survives her husband’s death at the end of the film. However, as a Spartan she is uniquely emotionally prepared for the death of her husband in battle. “Come back with your shield [victorious] or on it [dead]”, she tells him. The real Leonidas was said to have told his queen “marry a good man who will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life” as he left for the battle. Though that particular line is not included in the film, the sentiment remains.
I Am Legend: Robert Neville’s wife and daughter are killed prior to the events of the film, in an accident during the chaos of the virus outbreak. This is later shown as a flashback.
The trend is clear: These films spare us from the pain of a weeping widow(er) mourning his or her lover’s death. We are not made to contemplate the life they could have lived together if the hero had only survived his ordeal. We are shown that the hero is a good person capable of love (or a robot from the future) but that love is used as early tragedy to provide the character motivation and to help create the idea that death for the hero is not really so bad. Does Mass Effect 3 grant us the same mercy? It’s a more complicated question since the player dictates Shepard’s romantic involvements, but in almost all cases, no. If Shepard has romanced Thane, or romanced Miranda but still gotten her killed (an unusual but possible situation), or chosen not to become romantically involved with anyone, then the player is spared the pain of the grieving widow, but in all other cases this is not the case. To make matters worse, most of the available relationships start from the ground up at the start of the game (even previous relationships carried over from the earlier games are cooled off at the start and then given the chance to be abandoned or renewed), only progressing and blooming into full love on the eve of Shepard’s death. The writers even allow the lovers to discuss the future they hope to have together. Babies -blue for Liara, adopted for Garrus - or a life together on the newly claimed homeworld for Tali. A romanced Ashley tells us how emotionally devastated she was when Shepard was killed before, just to remind us how terrible it will be if it happens again. Whereas the films above use the hero’s love as a way to soften the blow of his death, Mass Effect uses it to increase the tragedy. To paraphrase our favorite reaper, THIS HURTS US.
Some of the hero’s friends die, but others survive to enjoy the results of the hero’s victory.
“The unknown future rolls towards us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.”
- Sarah Connor, ending narration of Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The hero has completed his mission at the cost of his own life. He has saved society as he knows it. This is a good thing, but the audience does not have a particular emotional attachment to “society”. Instead, we have an emotional attachment to the characters we have come to know. Some of those characters have died along the way to lend gravity to the situation. However, if the main hero must die, we need to know that at least some of the characters were able to survive, to live a happy life, reaping the benefits of the hero’s victory.
·
Terminator 2: Miles Dyson is killed ensuring the data that will allow Skynet to be created is destroyed. John and Sarah Connor survive, facing for the first time a future with hope rather than the certainty of death and destruction. An extended addition of the film includes an ending scene with a happy, elderly Sarah Connor playing with her grandchildren (again, later sequels retcon this considerably, but that is not relevant to our analysis of this film).
·
Braveheart: several of William Wallace’s friends are killed in battle, but there are survivors, notably his best friend Hamish and Stephen the crazy Irishman. We are not explicitly shown these characters living in peace, but the last image of the film is of them charging triumphantly into battle as the narration tells us they won their freedom.
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Gladiator: notable casualties among Maximus’ friends are his gladiator mentor Proximo and servant Cicero, but there are survivors as well. Juba the hunter is alive, freed from gladiator slavery on Maximus’ dying orders, and appears to be returning to his homeland at the end of the film. Lucilla and her son are freed from Commodus’ tyranny and incestuous desires.
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300: 300 is a bloodbath to be sure, with 299 of the 300 Spartans perishing in battle. However, even this film gives us one surviving comrade of Leonidas: Dilios, who serves as both a soldier and the film’s narrator. Like Braveheart, 300 ends with Dilios charging into battle we are told the Greeks will win, so his fate is ambiguous but uplifting.
I Am Legend: by the time the film begins, Robert Neville has only one companion – his dog Samantha – who he is forced to put down when she is infected by the virus. Later he meets human survivors Anna and Ethan, who survive the events of the film and arrive at a fortified survivor’s colony, cure in hand.
How does Mass Effect 3 treat Shepard’s friends? Some are killed along the way – some unavoidably, others depending on the choices the player makes – but what of the survivors? Here for the first time we must distinguish between the original game and the extended cut. In the original game, the Normandy is heavily damaged in a crash landing on an unknown world. Assuming the player has done well enough to warrant one of the “good” endings, we are shown that at least some of the crew survived the landing. And that is all we are shown. The rest is left up to the speculation of the players. Many of us, in thinking logically about what we’ve been told about the Mass Effect universe and what we observed in the ending sequences, came to the conclusion that Shepard’s companions on the Normandy were hopelessly marooned. At best it seemed they would be stuck on the unknown planet indefinitely, and at worse starvation seemed like a definite possibility. It did not appear to us that they would be able to return to their homeworlds or otherwise enjoy the freedom from the threat of the reapers that Shepard’s sacrifice had brought them.
The extended cut did “clarify” this, however, reducing the damage done to both galactic infrastructure and the Normandy itself. Mass relays are shown being rebuilt, and the Normandy is shown able to fly again. The thought that Shepard’s comrades will be able to live happy and free lives now seems like a reasonable conclusion rather than a stretch of logic.
Conclusion
There are right ways and wrong ways to kill the main character at the end of a story. Good films follow rules to mitigate the emotional distress of watching the hero die, allowing the audience to feel emotionally satisfied in spite of the inherent tragedy of his death. The original cut of Mass Effect 3 followed none of these rules and the extended cut fixed only one of them. It is little wonder that many people cling to the one scenario in which Shepard’s survival is implied, or search for a way that Shepard could survive the others. It’s not because Mass Effect fans are “spoiled”
or “shallow”. It’s because the writers failed to create an emotionally satisfying death for Command Shepard.
Modifié par Brhino, 18 octobre 2012 - 06:29 .
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