257 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

The concept of 'Mary Sue' is a lot more complicated and subtle than it might seem at first glance. It's not just a 'perfect' character or race or whatever.

[Xilizhra]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I don't think people dislike the asari because of sexism or anti-feminism. They probably dislike the asari because they regard them as a Mary Sue race, or sex fanservice, or the writer's pet race, or a mix of all three. I doubt people would feel the same way about an all female race that looked exactly like the elcor, for instance. It isn't gender.

All the same, I've never disliked the asari, or understood the hate. Only time I even came close to it was when I saw Liara's love scene and compared it to the one I got, and that was just an irrational surge of envy and despair that hit me while I was doing this.

People wouldn't see them as feminine in the same way if they looked like elcor. It wouldn't count. But because they resemble human women, it does count, and the calls of "mary sue" are merely covering for something uglier in many cases, I'm certain. Many "fanservice" lines are similar.

This reminds me of the times I've been called a "racist" because I take issue with Barack Obama's policies.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what this argument looks like is "if you dislike Asari, the only explanation is that you're a closet sexist."

"If you dislike asari, an explanation more common than admitted is that you're a closet sexist." Especially if you just dislike the whole race as opposed to some of their policies.

[Foolsfolly]

Nightwriter wrote...

I don't think people dislike the asari because of sexism or anti-feminism. They probably dislike the asari because they regard them as a Mary Sue race, or sex fanservice, or the writer's pet race, or a mix of all three. I doubt people would feel the same way about an all female race that looked exactly like the elcor, for instance. It isn't gender.

All the same, I've never disliked the asari, or understood the hate. Only time I even came close to it was when I saw Liara's love scene and compared it to the one I got, and that was just an irrational surge of envy and despair that hit me while I was doing this.

I don't think they're a Mary Sue race. Yes they are a fanservice race. I mean look at them. And yeah it gets annoying that they're always described as the most superior race in the galaxy and yet we never see any reason for this.

But the thing I dislike about them in that moment in Thessia was the fact that that story is happening everywhere. The elcor homeworld, batarians, turians, humans.... why does Thessia matter?

It gets worse when the asari have hidden the plot device on their world for no reason. They covered it in a statue... which says to me they're not really studying the thing. That can't be the source of their superiority. It's a forgotten secret for no reason. The VI speaks as though it never woke up during this cycle before so it's not like the asari got it working.

So why ever hide that?

It just makes the asari come off as idiot victims that we're supposed to feel sorry for. Unlike all those other worlds burning that didn't hide a valuable war asset that could have saved billions of lives.

[Ticonderoga117]

Xilizhra wrote...
This is absurd. Even if the asari could tap the beacon for information, even the ones in the know had no idea that the VI was there. Tevos just mentioned that there might be something in it that might, in theory, be of use. The matriarchs probably thought it was just another information cache like the ones other races found, albeit a more complete one, and didn't think of using it for the Crucible until things got really desperate and they were digging around through all possible resources.

Hardly. You mean to say that after a VERY long period of studying this beacon, the Asari didn't notice the large file that rather looks like a VI program? Or, even before creating VI's, you can easily tell that something big was in there.

Or, if the Asari didn't look hard enough, you're telling me the Asari didn't look hard enough at an alien device?! Those scientists are as bad as the ones on Mars. "Oh hey, alien device here with tons of information, let's ignore some of the really interesting entries, like this one about a massive power generator, and just worry about what we are going to do for ten years."

[DrAbysmal]

Xilizhra wrote...
And that could be done with something like "Don't be sad, be angry; harness your rage and channel it into striking back and ultimately obliterating the Reapers; let the memories of the fallen be what spurs you to victory," or something negatively inspirational along those lines. But it has to acknowledge the badness of what happened on Thessia; trying to downplay it should only ever lead to the "crying-into-the-pillow" response.

The squad already tries to advise Liara to do that on the shuttle at the beginning of the mission. When she starts freaking out, Javik and Vega (I'm assuming the others do as well) will both tell her that she needs to block out the loss of life and use her anger to fuel her will to fight. She just says that she can't be that callous. That type of psychology doesn't really work on her.

[Nightwriter]

Xilizhra wrote...

I don't think people dislike the asari because of sexism or anti-feminism. They probably dislike the asari because they regard them as a Mary Sue race, or sex fanservice, or the writer's pet race, or a mix of all three. I doubt people would feel the same way about an all female race that looked exactly like the elcor, for instance. It isn't gender.

All the same, I've never disliked the asari, or understood the hate. Only time I even came close to it was when I saw Liara's love scene and compared it to the one I got, and that was just an irrational surge of envy and despair that hit me while I was doing this.

People wouldn't see them as feminine in the same way if they looked like elcor. It wouldn't count. But because they resemble human women, it does count, and the calls of "mary sue" are merely covering for something uglier in many cases, I'm certain. Many "fanservice" lines are similar.

Then picture the quarians as an all female race -- they're humanoid enough. Yet their culture is looked down upon and their sexual desirability isn't treated as a universal given. I doubt they'd be accused of Mary Sue-ness. They might be accused of sexual fanservice to some extent due to the way their models are shaped, but because sexuality isn't a focal point in their culture and isn't given much attention, the fanservice accusations would probably be somewhat weaker.

[DeinonSlayer]

Xilizhra wrote...

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I don't think people dislike the asari because of sexism or anti-feminism. They probably dislike the asari because they regard them as a Mary Sue race, or sex fanservice, or the writer's pet race, or a mix of all three. I doubt people would feel the same way about an all female race that looked exactly like the elcor, for instance. It isn't gender.

All the same, I've never disliked the asari, or understood the hate. Only time I even came close to it was when I saw Liara's love scene and compared it to the one I got, and that was just an irrational surge of envy and despair that hit me while I was doing this.

People wouldn't see them as feminine in the same way if they looked like elcor. It wouldn't count. But because they resemble human women, it does count, and the calls of "mary sue" are merely covering for something uglier in many cases, I'm certain. Many "fanservice" lines are similar.

This reminds me of the times I've been called a "racist" because I take issue with Barack Obama's policies.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what this argument looks like is "if you dislike Asari, the only explanation is that you're a closet sexist."

"If you dislike asari, an explanation more common than admitted is that you're a closet sexist." Especially if you just dislike the whole race as opposed to some of their policies.

OK. To be clear:

I take issue with the decision of the Asari government to keep the Beacon secret. Their people are now paying for it. That is not Shepard's fault. I wish the game had permitted me to assign blame where I believe it belongs, but autodialogue forces the issue. A dialogue choice permitting this would have defused the issue.

One can argue where blame rightly lies, but that's my stance in a nutshell - people have different opinions here, and the game should have allowed those to be expressed.

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 11 novembre 2012 - 07:29 .

[Xilizhra]

It just makes the asari come off as idiot victims that we're supposed to feel sorry for. Unlike all those other worlds burning that didn't hide a valuable war asset that could have saved billions of lives.

You're blaming a species of trillions for the actions of what I suspect is at most 15 people. Why?

Hardly. You mean to say that after a VERY long period of studying this beacon, the Asari didn't notice the large file that rather looks like a VI program? Or, even before creating VI's, you can easily tell that something big was in there.

Non-Protheans aren't supposed to be able to use the beacons at all without the Cipher, and I have no idea how the asari could extract anything from it. But it has to have taken ages to get anything from it, they couldn't count on finding specific information from it, and the decoding process itself is likely highly dangerous... if they could get anything from it without the Cipher.

[Xilizhra]

The squad already tries to advise Liara to do that on the shuttle at the beginning of the mission. When she starts freaking out, Javik and Vega (I'm assuming the others do as well) will both tell her that she needs to block out the loss of life and use her anger to fuel her will to fight. She just says that she can't be that callous. That type of psychology doesn't really work on her.

If that doesn't, the "suck it up" one sure as hell won't.

Then picture the quarians as an all female race -- they're humanoid enough. Yet their culture is looked down upon and their sexual desirability isn't treated as a universal given. I doubt they'd be accused of Mary Sue-ness. They might be accused of sexual fanservice to some extent due to the way their models are shaped, but because sexuality isn't a focal point in their culture and isn't given much attention, the fanservice accusations would probably be somewhat weaker.

An all-female race will by nature have unusual reproductive patterns which will logically make for some sizable cultural differences if it's explored properly, which it would have to be in this case.

I take issue with the decision of the Asari government to keep the Beacon secret. Their people are now paying for it. That is not Shepard's fault. I wish the game had permitted me to assign blame where I believe it belongs, but autodialogue forces the issue. A dialogue choice permitting this would have defused the issue.

With the Reapers?

[Foolsfolly]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
This is absurd. Even if the asari could tap the beacon for information, even the ones in the know had no idea that the VI was there. Tevos just mentioned that there might be something in it that might, in theory, be of use. The matriarchs probably thought it was just another information cache like the ones other races found, albeit a more complete one, and didn't think of using it for the Crucible until things got really desperate and they were digging around through all possible resources.

Hardly. You mean to say that after a VERY long period of studying this beacon, the Asari didn't notice the large file that rather looks like a VI program? Or, even before creating VI's, you can easily tell that something big was in there.

Or, if the Asari didn't look hard enough, you're telling me the Asari didn't look hard enough at an alien device?! Those scientists are as bad as the ones on Mars. "Oh hey, alien device here with tons of information, let's ignore some of the really interesting entries, like this one about a massive power generator, and just worry about what we are going to do for ten years."

Plus we know for a fact the Protheans were on the planet doing experiments on the asari and teaching them about the stars and math and whatnot. With the asari vulcan mindmeld thing there's no reason why a few of them wouldn't have Prothean.... whatever the science explanation for the Cipher was.

Hell through the course of the series Saren, Shepard, Liara, and green asari all had the Cipher in their minds. You're telling a teaching/priest/ruling class wouldn't have been given a Prothean imprint? They left that VI on the planet to WARN AND PREPARE THEM FOR THE REAPERS!

[Nightwriter]

David7204 wrote...

The concept of 'Mary Sue' is a lot more complicated and subtle than it might seem at first glance. It's not just a 'perfect' character or race or whatever.

It's an arbitrary term that has become almost meaningless to me. It gets slung around too often, and a lot of times it seems to attempt to reduce characters to a list of strengths and flaws, both columns of which must be even.

[Xilizhra]

Plus we know for a fact the Protheans were on the planet doing experiments on the asari and teaching them about the stars and math and whatnot. With the asari vulcan mindmeld thing there's no reason why a few of them wouldn't have Prothean.... whatever the science explanation for the Cipher was.

Then Saren could have used Benezia's resources to find and snatch an asari who had the Cipher instead of needing to dig around for the Thorian. With Benezia being in the know about the asari's beacon project, there's no logical way that the Cipher could have been in asari hands before ME1 and Shiala.

Hell through the course of the series Saren, Shepard, Liara, and green
asari all had the Cipher in their minds. You're telling a
teaching/priest/ruling class wouldn't have been given a Prothean
imprint? They left that VI on the planet to WARN AND PREPARE THEM FOR
THE REAPERS!

The Protheans didn't realize that other species wouldn't be able to read the beacons.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 11 novembre 2012 - 07:35 .

[DeinonSlayer]

Xilizhra wrote...

I take issue with the decision of the Asari government to keep the Beacon secret. Their people are now paying for it. That is not Shepard's fault. I wish the game had permitted me to assign blame where I believe it belongs, but autodialogue forces the issue. A dialogue choice permitting this would have defused the issue.

With the Reapers?

Even that would be an improvement, though I would have appreciated the opportunity to challenge Tevos about what was found in the temple. My Shepard would NOT be apologizing to her.

You can tell Liara that she isn't responsible for Thessia, but Shepard can't not assume responsibility. This is a problem.

[Ticonderoga117]

Xilizhra wrote...
Non-Protheans aren't supposed to be able to use the beacons at all without the Cipher, and I have no idea how the asari could extract anything from it. But it has to have taken ages to get anything from it, they couldn't count on finding specific information from it, and the decoding process itself is likely highly dangerous... if they could get anything from it without the Cipher.

Two things:

One, we learn that the Protheans were "grooming" the Asari to be the ones to basically deal with the Reapers this cycle. Since it wouldn't make sense to have your "pet" race not be able to benefit from your gifts, I would think the Asari wouldn't exactly have too many difficulties in accessing the beacon.

Two, humans managed to interact with the ruins on Mars and learn things. It's not impossible, just difficult. Plus, having a rather beefy headstart (This involves a bit of speculation. Since the Salarians were able to uplift and provide technology to the Krogan 300 years ago, and the Asari have always been the ones "on top" tech level wise, it would be safe to assume that they've been able to use the beacon for at least a good portion of that if not longer.)

Take this all with a helping of salt, but it would seem odd which is nothing new, granted.

[Xilizhra]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I take issue with the decision of the Asari government to keep the Beacon secret. Their people are now paying for it. That is not Shepard's fault. I wish the game had permitted me to assign blame where I believe it belongs, but autodialogue forces the issue. A dialogue choice permitting this would have defused the issue.

With the Reapers?

Even that would be an improvement, though I would have appreciated the opportunity to challenge Tevos about what was found in the temple. My Shepard would NOT be apologizing to her.

You can tell Liara that she isn't responsible for Thessia, but Shepard can't not assume responsibility. This is a problem.

If there would be a way to make it fit together without autodialogue and be as good for me as the current one is, then fine. But I'll take the quality of the current one for my own choices over a watered-down version allowing Shepard to be more of a jerk.

One, we learn that the Protheans were "grooming" the Asari to be the
ones to basically deal with the Reapers this cycle. Since it wouldn't
make sense to have your "pet" race not be able to benefit from your
gifts, I would think the Asari wouldn't exactly have too many
difficulties in accessing the beacon.

See above. The Protheans didn't know that other species couldn't use the beacons. Probably a cultural blind spot left over by their empire.

Two, humans managed to interact with the ruins on Mars and learn things.
It's not impossible, just difficult. Plus, having a rather beefy
headstart (This involves a bit of speculation. Since the Salarians were
able to uplift and provide technology to the Krogan 300 years ago, and
the Asari have always been the ones "on top" tech level wise, it would
be safe to assume that they've been able to use the beacon for at least a
good portion of that if not longer.)

The Mars archives didn't use that particular beacon format; we can see there aren't any there, and Anderson presents the Eden Prime beacon in ME1 as being new, not something that had been found on Mars. The beacons are far harder to work with.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 11 novembre 2012 - 07:38 .

[Foolsfolly]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
Non-Protheans aren't supposed to be able to use the beacons at all without the Cipher, and I have no idea how the asari could extract anything from it. But it has to have taken ages to get anything from it, they couldn't count on finding specific information from it, and the decoding process itself is likely highly dangerous... if they could get anything from it without the Cipher.

Two things:

One, we learn that the Protheans were "grooming" the Asari to be the ones to basically deal with the Reapers this cycle. Since it wouldn't make sense to have your "pet" race not be able to benefit from your gifts, I would think the Asari wouldn't exactly have too many difficulties in accessing the beacon.

Two, humans managed to interact with the ruins on Mars and learn things. It's not impossible, just difficult. Plus, having a rather beefy headstart (This involves a bit of speculation. Since the Salarians were able to uplift and provide technology to the Krogan 300 years ago, and the Asari have always been the ones "on top" tech level wise, it would be safe to assume that they've been able to use the beacon for at least a good portion of that if not longer.)

Take this all with a helping of salt, but it would seem odd which is nothing new, granted.

I totally forgot about that. Yet another case of 'In ME Humanity is the best at everything.'

We don't need a cipher to figure out what the protheans data is. We just data-mine it and... that's enough of an explantion! Now, to figure out how the asari never learned one thing from the the Beacon.... despite it being there on their planet for over 50,000 years.

[DeinonSlayer]

Xilizhra wrote...

DeinonSlayer wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I take issue with the decision of the Asari government to keep the Beacon secret. Their people are now paying for it. That is not Shepard's fault. I wish the game had permitted me to assign blame where I believe it belongs, but autodialogue forces the issue. A dialogue choice permitting this would have defused the issue.

With the Reapers?

Even that would be an improvement, though I would have appreciated the opportunity to challenge Tevos about what was found in the temple. My Shepard would NOT be apologizing to her.

You can tell Liara that she isn't responsible for Thessia, but Shepard can't not assume responsibility. This is a problem.

If there would be a way to make it fit together without autodialogue and be as good for me as the current one is, then fine. But I'll take the quality of the current one for my own choices over a watered-down version allowing Shepard to be more of a jerk.

I agree "watered-down" would be bad - we got more than enough of that in-game already. Still, Shepard could arbitrarily defenestrate mercs and gun down unarmed researchers in previous titles. Your mileage may vary, but being a jerk is part of the roleplaying experience.

The Asari (here, meaning their government) hoarded Prothean technology while at the same time enforcing laws forbidding others to do so. The game gives us an opportunity to call out the Quarians for violating a treaty (Farixen) that doesn't even apply to them; we should have been able to call out the Asari for this.

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 11 novembre 2012 - 07:42 .

[David7204]

Nightwriter wrote...

David7204 wrote...

The concept of 'Mary Sue' is a lot more complicated and subtle than it might seem at first glance. It's not just a 'perfect' character or race or whatever.

It's an arbitrary term that has become almost meaningless to me. It gets slung around too often, and a lot of times it seems to attempt to reduce characters to a list of strengths and flaws, both columns of which must be even.

Heh, that's very true. All too often what happens is people try to come up with flaws for their character to justify them as realistic and therefore well-written. Of course, as you said, that's really not quite it.

I hear the word 'stubborn' come up a lot.

Like, a whole lot.

[Ticonderoga117]

Xilizhra wrote...
See above. The Protheans didn't know that other species couldn't use the beacons. Probably a cultural blind spot left over by their empire.

How does that effect not prepping the Asari?

The Mars archives didn't use that particular beacon format; we can see there aren't any there, and Anderson presents the Eden Prime beacon in ME1 as being new, not something that had been found on Mars. The beacons are far harder to work with.

True, but since the Protheans were preparing the Asari, this wouldn't be an issue. If it was, then the Protheans aren't all the smart.

[Ticonderoga117]

Foolsfolly wrote...
I totally forgot about that. Yet another case of 'In ME Humanity is the best at everything.'

We don't need a cipher to figure out what the protheans data is. We just data-mine it and... that's enough of an explantion! Now, to figure out how the asari never learned one thing from the the Beacon.... despite it being there on their planet for over 50,000 years.

Well the Asari did learn from the beacon. They learned how to make better ships and probably better eezo cores and weapons aswell.

However, the issue is how did they miss a VI?

[Xilizhra]

True, but since the Protheans were preparing the Asari, this wouldn't be an issue. If it was, then the Protheans aren't all the smart.

And that is the case. The Protheans aren't all that smart.

[l7986]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

However, the issue is how did they miss a VI?

That apparently jumps out at you the second you turn it on...

[Foolsfolly]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
See above. The Protheans didn't know that other species couldn't use the beacons. Probably a cultural blind spot left over by their empire.

How does that effect not prepping the Asari?

The Mars archives didn't use that particular beacon format; we can see there aren't any there, and Anderson presents the Eden Prime beacon in ME1 as being new, not something that had been found on Mars. The beacons are far harder to work with.

True, but since the Protheans were preparing the Asari, this wouldn't be an issue. If it was, then the Protheans aren't all the smart.

The real answer of course being BioWare screwed the pooch again. And all Thessia's supposed to be is a sad moment for the player. But it's not particularly sad and they force your Shepard to be all mopey for no damned reason instead of pissed that the asari sat on their asses for 50,000 years and didn't even bother to use the beacon until it was too late.

[Ticonderoga117]

Xilizhra wrote...

True, but since the Protheans were preparing the Asari, this wouldn't be an issue. If it was, then the Protheans aren't all the smart.

And that is the case. The Protheans aren't all that smart.

There's only so much use of the idiot ball I can take. ME3 more then used up my quota. Idiot plot comes no where close to describing the amount of stupid needed to occur to make the game go the way it goes. It's like building the Trojan Horse, and then forgetting to put soldiers INSIDE the horse.

[David7204]

It really didn't make any difference. Shepard gets the VI back two missions later. Knowing the Citadel was the Catalyst slightly ahead of time wouldn't have changed anything in the battle for Earth.