122 réponses à ce sujet

[o Ventus]

Suron wrote...

all his time woulda been spent training and fighting...not taking history lessons on races that don't even matter to the Protheans at that point in time.

The beacon on Thessia is there to give the asari a leg up in their cycle against the Reapers.

It would make sense that Javik, being the soldier he is, would have undergone some of these operations to get beacons placed on seedling home worlds.

[David7204]

o Ventus wrote...

I don't see how that novel making a retroactive counter argument against Javik somehow renders his opinion null.

What?

First of all, what the hell do you mean by 'retroactive'? How is 1984 'retroactive' to Javik?

Second of all, Orwell's argument 'renders Javik's opinion null' the same way any argument renders any 'opinion' null. By being right.

o Ventus wrote...

One is not inherently better or more "moral" than the other

Why? Because they're both opinions, and opinions can never be right?

Thirdly, Javik isn't just forgetting about his friends dying. He's forgetting about his friends, period. Altogether.

Modifié par David7204, 04 avril 2013 - 03:00 .

[spirosz]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

The protheans had the same treatment that knights, or samurai, or any of the ancient warriors have been given by our own modern society as time has gone on. They were brutal warriors, the best of the best at slaughter on a mass scale, and were some pretty damned evil people at times. But history usually forgets those parts and emphasizes the good parts, such as their sense of honor, their chivalry, their legends, their accomplishments. We make up tales of their exploits and use them as stories to tell our future generations, we romanticize and fictionalize them to tell whatever story we want and have them act in a way we would like, good or bad.

That was only of a civilization from a few thousand or hundreds of years ago, I imagine the same thing, happening to a civilization that is 50,000 years forgotten, would have at least some form of similar treatment, especially without most of their historical records left to examine.

[MrFob]

Responding to the OP, I got the feeling that Javik's attitude is not necessarily representative of the whole Prothean race. Yes, they were colonial and subjugated other races but we don't really know how exactly that was done. My impression was that the other races had relative freedom under Prothean rule (not great, I admit but better than enslaving them outright).
Also, All other Prothean "personalities" we meet seem somewhat gentler. Vigil is not so bad and Vendetta is actually much more cooperative than Javik as well.
As for some of Javiks remarks about harsh prothean customs, I am not sure if hw isn't pulling Shep's leg a few times there. He has been known to make up stories every now and then.

All in all, I find it hard to measure the qualities of an extinct race on the basis of one single individual without knowing the broader context of the wider social structure of the time.

[Hey]

It's tough to gauge based on meeting one elite soldier. I would be disappointed if he was anything other than how he was represented though.

[neubourn]

Javik was the Prothean Avatar of Vengeance, so of course he was bloodthirsty and ruthless.

[Kataphrut94]

I think that's what makes Javik so effective as a character: that he's throwing a curve-ball at us as well as Liara. Like her, we've thought for the longest time they were a race of advanced cosmic sages tragically cut down by the Reapers. This made it all the more shocking when we finally meet one and realise he's just a dick like everybody else. He basically humanised them.

When they first announced a Prothean DLC, everybody was angry because of all we had to go on were preconceptions; it would have been like cutting Dumbledore out of the Harry Potter books and charging extra to read his pages. You'll note that apart from a few principled fools, those complaints dried up when the game came out because in the end he turned out to be Zaeed with four eyes and a sexier accent. That may sound underwhelming for the last of an ancient race, but it's exactly what they were going for.

[RogueBot]

I was actually surprised and impressed that they included a character with such great character flaws (not to be confused with bad-writing flaws).

His willingness to speak his mind was also a welcome relief, as too many of the Normandy's crew are deeply entrenched in the Cult of Shepard.

Modifié par RogueBot, 04 avril 2013 - 07:02 .

[shodiswe]

I liked Javik and the lore, it shows what they galaxy could have been like without the current council and without humanity being able to join it.

[shodiswe]

RogueBot wrote...

I was actually surprised and impressed that they included a character with such great character flaws (not to be confused with bad-writing flaws).

His willingness to speak his mind was also a welcome relief, as too many of the Normandy's crew are deeply entrenched in the Cult of Shepard.

Yes, absolutely  

[TheEgoRaptor]

A thread like this was Inevitable In Retrospect.  

Modifié par Alaric123, 04 avril 2013 - 07:30 .

[F4H bandicoot]

David7204 wrote...


Thirdly, Javik isn't just forgetting about his friends dying. He's forgetting about his friends, period. Altogether.

Then how does he remember slitting all his friends throats??

The Shard is more than Javiks memories, why would he want to experience the pain others experienced?? We see it causes visible substantial pain to watch.

You have no substantial proof that he has forgotten about his friends.

[Bill Casey]

I love what they did with the Protheans and Javik...

Modifié par Bill Casey, 04 avril 2013 - 08:32 .

[Auld Wulf]

I'm with Taboo on this one. Javik was depressing (if I were the last of my kind, I'd be depressed too) but I really don't think he was all that cold and heartless. Towards the end of the game, he really opens up. He even gets happily drunk and touches Jack in the Citadel DLC.

The thing is is that the burden of being the last of one's kind would be enough to just completely break most people. Javik often embraces the darkest thoughts he has, as he has no reason not to. But if he were so cold and heartless, he'd never have joined the Normandy in the first place.

[Ridwan]

J. Reezy wrote...

M25105 wrote...

I doubt anyone would act like some sort of enlightened monk when all your life you've only seen death. Javik was ok, he had a voice that needed to be heard. The only blood sad thing about Javik was that he wasn't included in game from the beginning (yes yes, I snuck in a day DLC rant, deal with it).

A one sentence mention isn't a rant.

It is now.

[Linkenski]

rymajn3 wrote...

Javik was the best new character. Hands down.

I have to agree, but i only like him because of his personality, while i was very dissapointed by the fact that he was in the game. I never wanted Bioware to unmýstify the protheans, but at least they did it in a better way in comparison to when they unmystified the Reapers.

[Barquiel]

I'd have preferred the Protheans to remain a mystery as well (a batarian with a similar personality could have easily been included in the game since Khar'shan got the short end of the stick compared to the other worlds). As for Javik, he is not my cup of tea personality wise...didn't buy the DLC because I wouldn't use him anyway.

[Terraforming2154]

Gulaman wrote...

Intelligent, enlightened, a force of good for the galaxy. I wanted our Prothean squad mate to be more like the Vigil AI. Boy was I disappointed with Javik and his arrogant, bloodthirsty character. And it's not as if he's the way he is because of the Reaper slaughter of his people. By all accounts the Protheans were jerks anyway and them getting wiped out isn't the tragedy we were led to believe it was. I can't reconcile a warmongering race of idiots with the intelligent beings that helped Shepard's quest long after their death, with the beacons, the Conduit etc. That's just me though. Maybe I've watched too much Star Trek in my time.

How did you feel about the true Protheans, or at least, as represented by Javik?

I actually agree with you OP, to a point. I didn't mind his cynicism or his despair, but I didn't like his arrogance. A lot of his comments seem reflective of a person who has some sort of cultural upperhand over "lesser" species, but wasn't the Prothean empire crumbling to the Reapers when he was alive? Maybe it was all feigned bluster, but it annoyed me nonetheless.

[Fated Xtasy]

well javik was born when his people were being slaughtered by the reapers, not to mention he was a soldier not a scientist or a scholar so yeah i think he deserves to be a little bloodythirsty i mean i dont think they gave classes on the dna structure of turians or dissected salarians. i mean the come the frick on dude listen to his story then post

[Tibbur]

You can't judge an entire race based on one person. It's like the Asari studying long dead humans for centuries then all of a sudden digging up that 1930s German chap and basing judgement of humanity on him.