54 réponses à ce sujet

[radishson]

DWH1982 wrote...

I think the Reapers figure that someone is going to figure out that control is a viable option anyway. So, why not indoctrinate the leadership of the control faction and pit them against the destroy faction? That way, you keep your enemy divided instead of working together.

They have to allow the control faction to do legitimate research, otherwise people would start to catch on that it's all a sham (not all control followers are indoctrinated, after all). If the research starts to become too dangerous, the Reapers can always attack - which only makes the indoctrinated leadership of the control faction seem all the more legitimate, since now they were "attacked" by the Reapers.

Also, honestly, to a certain extent, I think we have to look at TIM as someone who's not fully indoctrinated, but rather fighting it off for all of ME2 and most of ME3. He's in control of some of his decisions, but other decisions the Reapers manage to subtly influence. A lot of the progress of the control faction in ME3 may very well be due to the Reapers not having full control over him until towards the end of the game.

This is a pretty adeqate explanation to minimize the plot issues within TIM's indoctrination, but the indoctrination itself still isn't justified.  Everything you mentioned could've easily happened regardless.  At this point I don't expect anyone to have the answers aside whats already been said - TIM's dialogue was written late in development, they needed an easy way to get you fighting Cerberus, etc, but I'm still disappointed.

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Okay, now look back at Illusive Man. Indoctrination actually weakens the appeal of his character, because everything twisted and wrong in his character can now be attributed to a voice the color of oily shadows from the dark corner of space. Where's the fun in that? Aren't there any real villains out there anymore? Who choose vile criminality for their own reasons, and not because it was forced on them?

That's exactly what I'm trying to argue here.  I don't see why TIM's indoctrination was necessary to the plot.  I don't think it was good for his character.  Therefore, I don't understand why TIM had to be indoctrinated at all.  This is part of the reason the final confrontation with him feels so anti-climactic - he's not the enigmatic, manipulative person from ME2 anymore.  He's just one more Reaper puppet you can either push to suicide with a three minute pep-talk, or shoot in the gut.

Modifié par radishson, 23 avril 2013 - 02:55 .

[o Ventus]

Because if he wasn't indoctrinated, he probably wouldn't have been an enemy in the game.

[Ravensword]

o Ventus wrote...

Because if he wasn't indoctrinated, he probably wouldn't have been an enemy in the game.

InstaVillain [Patent pending].

[The Twilight God]

radishson wrote...

I have my own theories as to the specifics of the Indoctrination process, but I suppose we can figure TIM's close proximity to the human reaper husk throughout ME3 is what really jump-started the process.  But WHY did the devs choose to do this in the first place?

Everything TIM says up until the final confrontation post-Crucible beam is pretty in-character for him.  There were definitely holes in his arguments that can be blamed on indoctrination, but why was that necessary?  They made him sound less competent on PURPOSE, to fit the indoctrination idea.  And TIM was completely right about controlling the reapers, anyways! Why indoctrinate him with a completely valid idea?

The only part in the entire plot that required TIM to be indoctrinated is when he alerted the reapers to the Citadel plot.  And even that was handled very poorly - right after you finish a relatively sensical argument with him, he's suddenly run off and given the reapers valuable intel?  And again, I would not call TIM's arguments sensical if the crucible didn't end up 100% confirming everything he had been saying all along.  Surely there was a better way for the devs to handle that plot progression.

I really don't understand any of it, not from a developmental perspective or even a thematic one.  It essentially erodes a dynamic character with compex motives and morals down into a Reaper plaything, as if every single enemy Shepard faces is always inevitably revealed to be under reaper control.  The devs could've easily shown TIM to be one of the few characters mentally stable enough to resist reaper temptation, and almost nothing would even have to be changed - except for the post-beam stuff, which everyone hates anyways.

Think about it:  TIM goes "mad with power", not because of some indoctrination cop-out but because of a genuine character flaw.  You kill him thinking destroy is the only option, only to reach the crucible and realise he was right all along.  This leaves the player to wonder how things might've ended differently if only TIM hadn't been so obsessed with his own control and dominance.  That conclusion seems much more fulfilling to me.

I don't think he was indoctrinated the whole time. There may have been a some cracks in the windshield, but he didn't reach critical mass until he decided to implant the reaper nanites into his body. That in itself demonstrated his lapsing willpower After that they pretty had their hooks literally in him. So he was relatively unindoctrinated prior to Sanctuary.

I had more of a problem with Udina's betrayal. They could have really done something special with Udina by showing him to be a good guy underneath when the cards were on the line. Instead they killed him off as fan service. Totally cheap move by Bioware.

[Wolfva2]

The man was trying to control reapers, he had reaper tech installed in him. Reapers indoctrinate automatically; they don't have to do it consciously. It's just what they do. As far as WHY, simplest answer is because that was the direction the authors decided to go. Feel free to write a novel sometime, you'll be beset by the same inane questions by people who didn't like the direction you went. Heck, it's why I stopped writing poetry. I'm an actual published poet. But I got tired of people trying to tell me what I REALLY meant and thinking they knew my mind better then I did, so I quit. I have a lot of respect for professional writers who don't let the peanut gallery get them down. I couldn't do it.

He was always a villain, because he felt so strongly that HIS way was the only way he would do anything to achieve his goals. In his mind, only HE could protect humanity, and thus he was justified to use any means necessary. Including the torture and death of innocent people.

As far as why the writers decided to go in that direction, apparently in every cycle there were those who were indoctrinated to splinter the forces arrayed against the Reapers. It makes sense. The more splintered your enemy, the easier they are to conquer. It's called 'divide and conquer'. So, those who think they can control the reapers start studying the reapers to learn how to control them, on the way they become indoctrinated. They end up doing more damage to the anti-reaper forces by fighting against them then they do against the Reapers.

[Megaton_Hope]

I didn't realize until this thread that BSN bleeps references to the NSDAP as profanity. That's...odd.

I bet it doesn't bleep NSDAP, and there's a good chance it doesn't bleep national socialist, though.

[radishson]

I don't understand why the devs would make a totally voluntary choice to reduce an important villain down to reaper stock, though. That's the epitome of lazy writing.

TIM had complex, fascinating motives and acted as a perfect foil to the idealism of the Alliance/intergalactic politics in general. They could've really developed his ruthlessness and intrigue but instead chose to make him Saren 2.0. It almost feels as if they were too afraid to really push TIM as a villain without falling on the indoctrination crutch. And I accept the split between non-indoctrinated destroyers and indoctrinated controllers, but that is totally invalidated by the catalyst itself. If destroy had been the only option, then I could accept TIM as he was. But TIM was right the entire time. The game paints him as a crazy guy under heavy indoctrination and yet everything he says ends up being correct. So whats the point? There was no reason for him to be indoctrinated in the first place, aside from giving us Cerberus goons to fight. That was not worth invalidating him as a character.

And I do understand what you've said about respecting the decisions of writers. But that does not exempt them from criticism.

[Ieldra]

I agree, radishson. The indoctrination cheapened TIM, just as the lyrium idol cheapened Meredith in DA2. This whole thing of "people become more evil and insanely evil because of an evil influence" has been way overused in Bioware games lately. The reason? I think there is no plausible, human-sized evil that some people might not agree with given the circumstances of the Reaper War, and the writers didn't want anyone to be able to agree with TIM in any way, they wanted to hammer into people's brains that this is the bad guy with their Bioware-typical sledgehammer-like subtlety. Also, it's a way to dehumanize him so he can more easily be killed.

I would've found it much more interesting if the point of contention in the encounter with TIM was about "what kind of Reaper controller would TIM make" instead of his indoctrination. That would've also served the additional purpose of giving Control its much-needed narrative support.

[David7204]

The gameplay needs some kind of human enemy on par or stronger than the mercs in ME 2. I don't see a whole lot of alternatives other than Cerberus. And it sounds pretty tough to make Cerberus morally ambiguous when they're shooting at Shepard.

An apt demonstration of one of the weaknesses of video games as a medium - there needs to be enemies, and there needs to be lots and lots of them.

Modifié par David7204, 23 avril 2013 - 10:52 .

[shodiswe]

Xilizhra wrote...

The Reapers didn't give TIM the idea, he always wanted to do that. He just slipped into steadily less helpful means of going about it, up until the Citadel thing, where he was basically completely on their side and just in denial about it. But I agree... while I hate human supremacism, Cerberus dropped that in ME3 to focus on Reaper control, and I don't think it was a good idea to vilify them for that at all.

What Vilified them for their quest for Control was their lust for Power. They wanted to rule the galaxy, all any of the Shepard, paragon or renegade want is to put an end to the cycle, even if the Renegade one seems to have some interest in using that Power to exert itself.
Shepard becomes a Guardian and in essense keeps beign a Spectre.

TIM wanted to create a human empire with him as the eternal emperor, with the others as subservient races like the protean empire.  Like the Divineshadow in Lexx, only the divineshadow wasn't really human.

Tbh, I don't even know what relevance TIM's opinions have, they are mostly there to give us sometihng else to fight besides husks. Since Shepard isn't TIM, and the reason are completely different. TIM craved the pwoer, while Sheaprd only wanted to put a stop to the harvest cycles and save the galaxy. Shepards mission statemetn is nothign like what TIM's was. So, I guess one can question what the Point was besides giving us additional indocrinated humans to shoot at.

Modifié par shodiswe, 23 avril 2013 - 08:14 .

[radishson]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I agree, radishson. The indoctrination cheapened TIM, just as the lyrium idol cheapened Meredith in DA2. This whole thing of "people become more evil and insanely evil because of an evil influence" has been way overused in Bioware games lately. The reason? I think there is no plausible, human-sized evil that some people might not agree with given the circumstances of the Reaper War, and the writers didn't want anyone to be able to agree with TIM in any way, they wanted to hammer into people's brains that this is the bad guy with their Bioware-typical sledgehammer-like subtlety. Also, it's a way to dehumanize him so he can more easily be killed.

The bolded is spot-on.  I just think it's a shame TIM had to end as a poor contrivance for the purpose of giving us more things to shoot at.  So many people applaud Bioware for the "morally grey" their games have, but more often than not it seems they're unwilling to actually see that coincide with the RPG aspect.  They wanted Cerberus goons, so they find a reason to make Cerberus undoubtedly evil despite the fact that a) TIM ends up being completely correct, and a Renegade Shep. actually agrees with him on a lot of things.

[Megaton_Hope]

David7204 wrote...
An apt demonstration of one of the weaknesses of video games as a medium - their needs to be enemies, and there needs to be lots and lots of them.

I don't see why the Illusive Man needs to be under mind control for his foot soldiers to shoot at Shepard. His use of indoctrination to acquire new soldiers is a good reason for his small splinter group to have lots and lots of soldiers, but they can shoot at Shepard because Shepard wants what they're after and he's shooting back.

[Argolas]

The groups who wanted to control the reapers were always indoctrinated. It's part of the cycle pattern.

[George Costanza]

Cerberus and The Illusive Man were really badly handled in ME3. A lot of their actions didn't really seem to make sense, and it did start to seem like they existed just to give Shepard things to shoot at.

I always thought less would have been more. We should have barely dealt with Cerberus in the game, but The Illusive Man could have pulled something late in the game for a bit of a twist. With the game as it is, he shows up pretty much straight away, and most of the moral ambiguity of his character goes out of the window while he turns into a Bond villain.

I never understood why he was indoctrinated, or what that development actually achieved. I think he would have been a much stronger villain if he hadn't been indoctrinated, and just had his own agenda.

[Steelcan]

Argolas wrote...

The groups who wanted to control the reapers were always indoctrinated. It's part of the cycle pattern.

. Nd yet that same group managed to learn how to Control the Reapers, and stopped the Collectors.

[Seboist]

Because they wanted mindless human mooks to shoot at and to linearize the game.

[Argentoid]

Didn't Reapers "used" him to slow Shepard down?

You know... with his delusional ideas of "mind controlling" Ceberus forces yadda yadda

[Phatose]

He was indoctrinated the same reason the Geth got magic reaper code to make them into individuals.

It allowed Bioware an easy way out of the difficulty philosophical questions raised without actually having to resolve them.

[DecCylonus]

radishson wrote...

I don't understand why the devs would make a totally voluntary choice to reduce an important villain down to reaper stock, though. That's the epitome of lazy writing.

TIM had complex, fascinating motives and acted as a perfect foil to the idealism of the Alliance/intergalactic politics in general. They could've really developed his ruthlessness and intrigue but instead chose to make him Saren 2.0. It almost feels as if they were too afraid to really push TIM as a villain without falling on the indoctrination crutch. And I accept the split between non-indoctrinated destroyers and indoctrinated controllers, but that is totally invalidated by the catalyst itself. If destroy had been the only option, then I could accept TIM as he was. But TIM was right the entire time. The game paints him as a crazy guy under heavy indoctrination and yet everything he says ends up being correct. So whats the point? There was no reason for him to be indoctrinated in the first place, aside from giving us Cerberus goons to fight. That was not worth invalidating him as a character.

And I do understand what you've said about respecting the decisions of writers. But that does not exempt them from criticism.

Don't forget that indoctrination is the logical consequence of TIM's methods though. TIM was studying Reaper tech. In ME1 and 2 we saw over and over that those who are exposed to Reaper tech get indoctrinated. Beyond that, TIM was actually trying to use Reaper tech, including the reverse engineering of the indoctrination  and control signals. We have seen examples throughout the game that TIM / Cerberus prefer rapid advancement and pursue it without much regard for safety. It isn't hard to believe that they didn't take precautions with the Reaper tech they were studying. If TIM hadn't been indoctrinated in ME3, then people would have been screaming about a plot hole.

In order for TIM not to be indoctrinated, he either would have had to pursue a completely different course in ME3, or else there would have to be some explanation of how he avoided indoctrination while studying Reaper tech. If it was the latter, people would be complaining about the inconsistency with Cerberus / TIM's wreckless methods.

[Dubozz]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

For teh dramaz.
.
I just found it was lame way out that Bioware took and they didn't even do it properly

[JamesFaith]

One of the oldest strategies in world - Divide at impera. When your enemies are fighting between them, it is always good news for invaders.

[Display Name Owner]

What I also don't get is that the Reaper carcass hanging outside his office explains his indoctrination, but nothing but indoctrination explains him putting it there in the first place.

[JamesFaith]

isnudo wrote...

What I also don't get is that the Reaper carcass hanging outside his office explains his indoctrination, but nothing but indoctrination explains him putting it there in the first place.

It is trophy of man with big ego.

Easy and simple.

And his indoctrination was only fastened by it, true source was in one comic.

[Ecrulis]

I hated what they did to Cerberus in 3, there was so much potential, hell just go read the marauder shields comic, it's looking like he's managed to keep the mindset, motivations and general feel of the organization the same as it was in 2 while making it make sense in the context of what we see in three.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I think it's at least a bit of a strain to explain most of TIM's behavior in ME3 without indoctrination. I could see the TIM of ME2 sitting back and refusing to *help* the war effort because he has his own plans, but actively sabotaging it? That's a huge risk if his plans don't work out in the end, and it's not like he's never had his plans fail in the past - Shepard shuts down a lot of their operations in ME1, and he's certainly outmaneuvered at the end of ME2 if you blow up the Collector Base. While I wouldn't necessarily put this sort of all-or-nothing gamble past him, I would have expected him to concentrate on the control experiments and on infiltrating the Crucible project (or even trying to build his own version of it) rather than engaging in open hostilities against Shepard, the Alliance, and the Council.

As it is, he draws a lot of hostility and suspicion that may not be worth the trouble - the turian/krogan alliance and genophage cure wouldn't directly interfere with his operations, and even if the Citadel coup had succeeded, he and Udina would have likely faced massive defections from Council-aligned forces.

As for *why* Bioware did it, I wonder if it had to do with the decision that Shepard would be in the employ of the Alliance/Council in ME3, which meant that even a Shepard who was relatively cooperative and sympathetic to Cerberus in ME2 would need a reason to part ways with them.