“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds
which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be
mind.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche.
*4/10 5:34 edit - picture not appearing*
There... a rabbit. I wish you could see it like I do.... It’s so... perfect.
If you’re like me, you immediately saw a duck when you looked at this picture. Or, you may be thinking “wait, what duck?!” right now instead. The image above is, in fact, of both a rabbit and a duck. It just requires you to look at it in a different way to see them both.
This is paradigm-shift: change the way you see things, and your perspective changes just as quickly. And this is the phenomenon that occurs at the end of Mass Effect 3 when the player is faced with multiple options to stop the Reapers.
Paradigm-Shift Theory.
This theory is little more than a nod to the face-value interpretation of ME3. However, it goes a long way in understanding the ending as presented where it may otherwise be confusing, namely in misconceptions and thematic shifts.
I.)
What is Indoctrination?
The allegation is commonly made that if you don't hold seek to destroy and only destroy the Reapers, then they've got your mind. This allegation is not limited to the game, it prevails into an out-of-universe realm where it is believed that the ending of Mass Effect 3 is an attempt to indoctrinate the player by making them ultimately abandon Destroy for a different solution.
This, however, is not indoctrination.
Aside from the obvious reality that the Reapers do not exist to indoctrinate the player, the word "indoctrination" itself does not fit with the allegation being made. It behooves us, then, to learn the meaning of the word.
Indoctrination is....
"To imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle"
Source: http://www.merriam-w...ry/indoctrinate
"To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view"
Source: http://www.thefreedi.../indoctrination
"... the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine)."
Source: http://en.wikipedia..../Indoctrination
"To teach (a person or group of people) systematically to accept doctrines, esp uncritically."
Source: http://dictionary.re...octrination?s=t
Indoctrination is not ... a sudden change in opinion/perspective.
... to revisit the rabbit-duck picture above... an individual who is told/taught repeatedly something like "no rabbits exist, there are only ever ducks" and subsequently looks at the picture and denies the existence or possibility of a rabbit... *that* would be an example of an "indoctrinated" individual.
II.)
If not indoc, then what?
Is there a dominating message in this game, repeated endlessly that we are told to accept uncritically? Yes there is.
It can best be summed up by this in-game line... "We destroy them, or they destroy us."
After pounding this message firmly into the player's head, we get to the ending where we learn that destruction is not, in fact, the only option to stopping the Reaper threat. This is called a paradigm-shift, the change from one way of thinking to another. In fact, even Destroy proves the above paradigm wrong. The conflict is not about "us vs. them" any longer. The "mind" behind the Reapers actually lets us destroy or control them, against his personal preferences!
Change is a scary thing, however, and man tends to air to the side of caution by nature. Given that, the effectiveness of the ending to change the player's mindset is limited, as proven by a telling poll I've conducted here: [click]. The poll reinforces my claim: that the catalyst has no real infleunce on the player to speak of (<10% of the polled would make a different decision in his absense), much less the ability to indoctrinate them.
III.)
[Deleted - not pertinent]
IV.)
*1/23 Update*
Paradigm Shift as a Common Story-Telling Technique.
Indeed, PST would not truly be worthy of the title "theory" if this phenomenon were not observed and proven to exist elsewhere. Otherwise, it would be merely hypothesis.
Fortunately, I do have that empirical evidence.
Here's a list of examples I thought of that fit this trend I have observed...
0.) ME3 Ending (at face-value).
1.) Urdnot Wrex vs. the krogan stereotype.
2.) Garrus Vakarian vs. the turian stereotype.
3.) EDI & Legion vs. the AI (and geth) stereotype.
4a.) The Collector Base -- entrusting the base to Cerberus.
4b.) The Collector Base -- alternative solution
5.) The "Suicide" Mission.
6.) Hero/Villain perception of Han'Gerrel and Zal'Koris between ME2, ME3.
7.) Rachni Queen -- not the monsters they said they were.
8.) Councilor Udina -- your friend, or so you thought.
9.) Rachni Queen -- kill whatever's down there!! ... or not.
10.) Rannoch -- "Two, in fact."
(0) I have talked at length in this OP about the face-value ending and the common perceptions (paradigms) it shatters.
#1-3 cover three characters who buck certain stereotypes surrounding some major species in the Mass Effect galaxy. (1) The krogan are perceived as wandering criminals and thugs with no real redeeming qualities and a lust for violence; Urdnot Wrex shows us that some krogan can be reasonable and recognize that they need to move forward from their old ways. (2) In ME1, humanity's uneasy relations with the turians is very prominent, and Commander Shepard himself can often voice mistrust towards them; Garrus Vakarian's loyalty to Shepard's command, however, shows that both sides *can* work together. The Normandy itself is an example of this, if not a prominent one. (3) In ME1, Shepard does not have any good experiences with synthetics not completely bound to programming constraints on their freedom, especially not the geth. EDI (mandatory) and Legion (optional) however show us that not all synthetics are a danger/threat to organics.
(4a) See the provided link. To summarize, ME2 hammered across a point to the player that Cerberus cannot be trusted... however, the player ultimately benefits the most by choosing to give them the Collector Base at the end of the game than not. (4b) To a lesser extent, Shepard/player is under the impression that the objective is to destroy the base, but later learn that the Collectors can be wiped out while preserving the base for study with a radiation pulse (special thanks to pirate1802 for pointing this one out, page 3 of this thread).
(5) The only message repeated ad nauseum even more than "You can't trust Cerberus" is "The mission to/from the Omega-4 relay is suicide." However, casualties are not only avoidable, but very easily so. It's actually harder to lose the entire squad on the mission than it is to bring them all back alive. Even if the entire squad and crew dies, the Normandy always comes back home with Joker and EDI at the bare minimum. In truth, this example may be more of simple hype than anything, but the fact exacts that it is perceived as impossible to complete the mission with no losses.
(6) when we are first introduced to the quarian Admiralty Board in ME2, we see Admiral Zal'Koris as a bit of an antagonist, seeking to prove our squadmate Tali'Zora's guilt for political gain against an imminent geth-quarian war. A war-supporting Admiral Han'Gerrel, on the other hand, is more reasonable to us and seems to sincerely want to find Tali innocent of those charges. In this iteration, we seem to identify Koris as the bad guy, and Gerrel as our friend. Come ME3, this changes for players who wish to resolve the geth-quarian conflict peacefully. Koris is an advocate for stopping the war and coexisting with the geth. Gerrel is determined to take back the homeworld at all costs, even to the point where he endangers Commander Shepard's life.
(7) Provided you freed the Rachni Queen on Noveria, you get a "cameo" of them in ME2 through an asari messenger, whose life was saved by them. She indicates they are rebuilding and living peacefully. This, despite the fact that everyone in the galaxy remembered them as monsters who terrorized the galaxy once (a concern that is allayed by this ME2 cameo, indicating that they were under the influence of indoctrination). This, despite the fact that virtually no one supports your decision of freeing her when you do so in ME1.
(8) Ambassador/Councilor Udina was never a well-liked character in this series. Bioware was no doubt aware of that in the writing of ME3, and changed his character completely. Where he was once seeming to always stand in Shepard's way and was generally unpleasant to deal with, he becomes the lone ally of the player's on the council at the start of ME3 (minus the conditional support of the turian). He vows to do whatever the Alliance needs to help them win the war and protect/save Earth. He's coming across as a friend... just before turning around and stabbing you in the back, accusing you of Cerberus ties to turn Kaidan or Ashley against you.
There was no warning, no foreshadowing of this whatsoever. They actually reversed Udina's former personality clearly just to make you think he was on your side. But, that was the point, they made his betrayal "felt" by making you trust him beforehand. If they kept him as he always was before, a stand-offish man who will sell you out at the drop of a hat for political motive... well, it's not really a betrayal if you never trust a guy beforehand.
(9) The mission in Utukku (sp?) with Arlakh Company, lead by Urdnot Dagg or Grunt, is to go find whatever is deep down in the depths of the caves and wipe that thing out. Lo and behold, what you find deep in the depths is none other than the rachni-queen! You're given the option to free her. If this is the same queen as the one Shepard freed from Noveria in ME1, it benefits the player most to do so, even though the mission objective was initially to wipe out whatever you found there.
(10) Similar to #9, you're sent to the Perseus Veil by Hackett to recruit the quarian fleet. He says they have the biggest fleet out there, and is asking you to get it for him. As it is, however, they're tangling with the geth in a bitter war. Though Shepard's objective from the beginning of this story-arc is to recruit the quarians, he has the option to side with the geth (which is benefits the player more than recruiting the quarians, provided the player rewrote the heretics in ME2). The optimal resolution, however, is to recruit both parties by successfully negotiating a cease-fire.
It wasn't the stated mission objective to do so, only the quarians' help was requested, but I think all (Hackett included) would agree that brokering peace is for the best in this case if possible.
There's no ambiguity here, these are established plot events. The phenomenon is a very real aspect of the trilogy.
V.)
*12/19 Update*
Player Indoctrination and the Rachni Arc.
Catalyst Poll
Rachni Poll
This is embarassing. One poll shows that the catalyst's is not trusted by the player, due to strong association to the enemy. However, it should logically follow similarly for the rachni-queen's return in Mass Effect 3, who's found in Reaper custody and therefore, possibly indoctrinated. The second poll shows otherwise.
I raised the question in a thread. When it comes down to it, no sound reasoning exists to disprove the notion that the queen is indoctrinated by the time of your mission. View the thread here.
The reason why goes hand-in-hand with my theory: the player takes their cue from the game over their independent reasoning. If they've saved the ME1 rachni queen, they've already been made to think it was the right decision from a resulting cameo appearance in ME2. It is obvious, then, that the player leans on this validation when handling the decision they make in ME3 (and many responses in the above thread seem to state as much).
VI.)
tl;dr - As an RPG, decision-making plays a big part in the game of Mass Effect 3. Some people regulate their decision-making to what they see as cues and themes from within the game's narrative, and sometimes at the expense of their independent reasoning. This, at its heart, is indoctrination.
Modifié par HYR 2.0, 11 avril 2013 - 07:19 .
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