chemiclord wrote...
Friends, Internet Dwellers, Trolls, lend me your ears.
I come not to defend the endings of Mass Effect 3, but to defend a method of storytelling under attack.
These are not the words of a “pro-ender”; in truth, even with the Extended Cut, they are a logical nightmare, with each attempted plug of a hole often creating an entirely different one. There is no defending the execution that requires a half ton of self-rationalization that should have been explained in game no matter how obvious the writers may have thought it was.
There is no excuse that makes the poorly written logic of the Catalyst any less poor, even if the intent becomes clear with some educated guessing, or that the barest shards of its foreshadowing was not nearly enough to remove the Deus Ex Machina feel it had upon its appearance (even if it does not fit the technical definition of the term).
I do want to thank Drayfish for his/her very well composed piece reflecting his/her disappointment. There is validity to them, especially for a player expecting and anticipating a certain environment and a certain outcome that had been supported through two other games. This rebuttal is not meant as a dismissal of those feelings specifically. However...
Simply put... stories are under no requirement whatsoever to be happy or hopeful or particularly pleasant. Literature is just as valid reflecting reality as it is escaping from it. Whichever one you prefer is a matter of opinion, of course, but a preference for one does not excuse a dismissal of the other.
Nor is their any requirement in the slightest that one installment of a story maintain the same feel as its predecessors, nor does any further sequel need to continue to follow the dark road those previous had taken.
In fact, some of the most heralded of science-fiction tales took such thematic shifts. Star Wars saw “A New Hope” become “The Empire Strikes Back.” Star Trek saw Captain Kirk's boast of never believing in a no-win scenario get mauled and spit back at him with the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.
In this case, Mass Effect decides to take its environmental shift at the end of the trilogy; a reasonably unprecedented move for such a major title. While perhaps ill-advised for the emotions of their players, that in and of itself would not have been the death knell had it been executed properly.
Sometimes, there IS no “perfect” solution. Sometimes tough choices have to be made, and there is no way to come through clean. That is reality. In perhaps that (only) instance, Mass Effect 3 executes a realist story well. No option you have is a particularly “happy” one. It's a value exercise; intended for the player to think and engage their own values as what is most important to them. When pressed, what choice would you make and why? It's meant for the player to get a look at themselves as much as the world they are in.
A “golden ending” would inherently defeat the moral question. There'd be no logical reason to take any other solution. To do otherwise would be doing it “wrong.”
The Extended Cut adds a refuse option, which while obviously the equivalent of a rude gesture from the writers to the fans, is also a remarkably well done Realist perspective. You can certainly choose not to betray your ideals, and you can certainly stand for what you believe in... but those that do so in the face of the reality of the situation inevitably lose. It's one thing to have hope and faith; it's entirely another to expect those alone to carry you. Fortune favors the bold, and survival favors the fittest.
Video Games are seeing a push to become a widely accepted form of story-telling. That requires that they push beyond the obviously emotionally satisfying conclusion. Books, movies, plays... they all accept and embrace reality as often and as readily as they escape in flights of fancy. Both have their place.
Mass Effect 3 is a truly disastrous conclusion, but not because of it's attempt. One of the marks that separates a good writer from a great writer is that a good writer gives the reader what he/she wants; while a great writer gives the reader what the writer wants and convinces the reader that it's what he/she wanted as well.
Mass Effect 3 abjectly does not succeed at doing this. It is a narrative mess that is as much a travesty to Realists as it is to Romantics. It violates many basic axioms of good writing for seemingly little reason, and leaves so many things open to interpretation that no sound interpretation is possible. The potential value discussion is lost because there's next to nothing provided by the endings to formulate a logical defense for or against any path taken.
And that is where the game fails... not in its attempt, but in its composition.
Thank you for the very, very fine post chemiclord, and for such a reasoned, intelligent, cogent analysis.
There is much within your comments with which I agree, but I think we fundamentally differ on our notions of 'thematic shift' in general, and certainly in how it applies to the examples you mentioned, and the conclusion of
Mass Effect 3.
Firstly, though, I should point out that
at no point did I argue that the game (or fiction in general) had an obligation to end happily. In fact this is a common, completely unjust accusation that frequently gets lobbed at anyone who despairs – for whatever reason – at the ending. I was fully expecting an ending dripping in sorrow and pathos (the universe is ending – there has to be a price to earn our way back from such dire circumstances) – but I would argue that there is a distinct difference between death and loss and compromise, and having the death of the characters who sacrificed all undermined by completely betraying the values those characters died to protect.
Fundamentally, what I was talking about in that article was the underlying nihilism that the ending advocates, the hopelessness that it promotes: You can't win by believing in your fellow allies, fighting for unity, or working together, so you may as well give up and embrace the beliefs of your enemy. At least then you get to kill him.
Sure you fought for three games to stop the genocide of species in order to serve a 'greater purpose' – but that doesn't matter, because in the end you are compelled to do precisely that yourself and decide the Geth are a necessary cost for victory. Sure, you were revolted by the arrogance and presumption of anyone who would seek to stand above all others and dictate to them how they should live – but in the end you have to put on the uber-Shepard robes, becoming the most powerful, unstoppable god that ever lived. Sure, the grotesquery of Reaper huskification disgusted you, and the atrocities of the Genophage showed the ugliness and egotism of those who would genetically alter autonomous species against their will – but then you get to press that button yourself. Because it's
totally different if
you do it.
Shepard is made a hypocrite and coward in her final moments – proving valid the world view of an enemy who represents every intolerant, hopeless, conceited vision of existence in human history, endorsing the vision of a cold, calculating lunatic that would presume to remake the universe to its specifications. As I mentioned before, the only people who
do not have to wholly betray their beliefs in that last decision are those who think that it is completely acceptable to employ such vile tactics in the first place. Instead, they get told repeatedly by the game that their nihilism and intolerance are the only 'correct' way to survive and thrive.
Probably the best way to explain where I am coming from is to use the examples that you offered as evidence of such narrative shifts working – because I think in truth you might be confusing the ideas of melancholy and total thematic contradiction. Even in your examples, each film evolves into a more sombre, mournful tone, but they never embrace such an absolute reversal of the narrative's moral undercurrent as is evidenced in
Mass Effect 3:
The Empire Strikes Back affects a darker tone in its narrative (as, I might add, the knowingly darker
midpoint of the tale before the happier resolve of
Jedi), but at no point in Luke's grieving at the revelations that he has suffered does he then embrace the dark side, giving over to it utterly. The film does not thereby advocate hopelessness and surrender as an appropriate reaction that should be celebrated. Indeed, ignore the horrid Ewoks, and redemption, and holding firm to one's faith in others is the entire point of the sequel that
Empire directly sets up.
Similarly, in
Wrath of Khan (again only
temporarily a darker journey before the happier resolve of
The Search for Spock), the lesson learned is that Kirk is not immortal, and he can't win every time. The point is not that he may as well give over to Khan's arrogant, egomaniacal style of merciless vengeance. Kirk does not kick Spock into the reactor and shake his head mournfully that as Captain he had to make the tough choice. He retains his humanity, believes in the rights and autonomy of his crew, and fights
for something, not just to stay alive.
Actually, Spock's actions are a perfect example of what is
wrong with
ME's ending. Spock sacrifices
himself;Shepard is instead forced (in one way or another, no matter what you choose) to sacrifice
others, to arrogantly presumes that
her beliefs trump those of everyone else in the universe. At the end of
Mass Effect Shepard is compelled to employ one of three atrocities that she has expressly, repeatedly stopped others employing to achieve their own ends. She either robs people of their most basic autonomy; judges one form of life more valid than another; or believes that peace can only be achieved by policing the universe herself. Just like a Reaper.
The three games were based upon the conceit that it was
you the player's morality that was being explored. Which
do you think is the bigger threat: curing the Genophage, or not trusting a species like the Krogan with self-determination; taking a gamble on the Racchni, or exterminating them; siding with Geth or Quarian; letting Garrus exact revenge, or trying to help him on a new path. But that is utterly undermined by the endpoint.
I would be more willing to embrace the notion of value testing that you nicely describe, were it not for the fact that the game so artlessly weighs three war crimes against each other for cheap effect. Were the price of Destroy non-discriminate death (Reapers blow up and kill whoever is nearby, for example), rather than a targeted extermination of a specific race in order to stop the targeted extermination of races, I would find it had genuine gravitas. Were Synthesis about the proposed voluntary alteration of species (Shepard becoming an advocate for the evolutionary future that all could embrace rather than have her force it upon them), it could be a beautiful, potentially mournful vision of the need to adapt and change together, to become something greater. Were Control about freeing the Reapers from their servitude, sacrificing Shepard to break the hold the Catalyst had upon these brutalised civilisations, innocents mutilated to become the tools of further devastation. Were this tale genuinely about the price of these actions, not simply 'Which one do you like better because it all shakes out okay anyway', I would have celebrated the attempt that I think you rightly point out was Bioware's misguided goal. As it stands, however, all it poses is a kind of tedious hypothetical:
'Hey, if you had to be blind or deaf, which would you be?'
'Well, obviously I'd genetically mutate everyone to be the same. Then no one has to learn to appreciate the difference anyway...'
Modifié par drayfish, 15 janvier 2013 - 10:57 .
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