623 réponses à ce sujet

[Ryriena]

Slam is also sure kill if it's done right.

[themikefest]

The mikefest you find everything easy haha.

When playing the game yes especially if you played it as many times as I have no matter what the difficulty is.

[Ryriena]

Haha, funny thing is I get more glitchy items where I stay in one spot than most do with the newer items. However, I need too get ME3 with a new one as ME3 is acting up on my xbox. It will not even let me open the menu.

[Battlebloodmage]

I still don't see why we should argue about gameplay mechanic in relation to story. It sometimes requires a suspension of disbelief. Maybe out of gameplay, she was mostly just support Shepard from afar instead of taking active role during battles. 

[Mad180]

In my play through of the Mass Effect Trilogy Liara was my LI. She was the second most important person in my game, my story sidekick by choice but any of the other characters could have filled this role because the game is an RPG.  I know not everybody found Liara’s character important to their story and the way they played the game, some other character filled that role for them and that character was the second most important person for them. So in the argument of Liara being the deuteragonist of the series I’m going to say yes. Let me explain…  if we keep it simple and talk about the plot and keeping the story moving Liara is easily the most important person in that regard. In each game Liara is involved in something that is critical to the plot moving forward. No other person in the game not even Shepard can be said to have the same importance. In the first game Shepard would not have known about Ilos without Liara. In the second game Shepard would be dead or worse if the Shadow Broker would have been able to keep Shepard’s body.  In the third game Liara finds the blue prints for the conduit. So regardless of if you like Liara or not she is the most important person to the plot moving forward, therefore making her the second most important person in the game. We could argue the “could’ve would’ve should’ve” all day but Liara was given a very important role in the story. Why Bioware gave her so much importance? Now that I don't know.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

In my play through of the Mass Effect Trilogy Liara was my LI. She was the second most important person in my game, my story sidekick by choice but any of the other characters could have filled this role because the game is an RPG.  I know not everybody found Liara’s character important to their story and the way they played the game, some other character filled that role for them and that character was the second most important person for them. So in the argument of Liara being the deuteragonist of the series I’m going to say yes. Let me explain…  if we keep it simple and talk about the plot and keeping the story moving Liara is easily the most important person in that regard. In each game Liara is involved in something that is critical to the plot moving forward. No other person in the game not even Shepard can be said to have the same importance. In the first game Shepard would not have known about Ilos without Liara. In the second game Shepard would be dead or worse if the Shadow Broker would have been able to keep Shepard’s body.  In the third game Liara finds the blue prints for the conduit. So regardless of if you like Liara or not she is the most important person to the plot moving forward, therefore making her the second most important person in the game. We could argue the “could’ve would’ve should’ve” all day but Liara was given a very important role in the story. Why Bioware gave her so much importance? Now that I don't know.

 

That's the million dollar question now, isn't it? There really is no question to Liara's importance in the games. That said, the question is this;

 

Why was she so important in the first place?

 

Before I delve into the answers, I'll just say what I think it was: BW got really attached to her character and made her the go-to queen of narrative. They played favorites.

 

There have been practical answers before from people like jtav, and more ideological driven ones from people like myself. Looking at her role in ME1, she's nobody. She really is the alien space babe that goes with sci-fi that was meant to be the innocent civilian damsel-in-distress that you go save. Her entire importance to the story hinges on the ideal that she does 'something' while mind-melding with Shepard that is of importance to the plot: since you can play the game to find out about everything you need to know (Reapers, Saren's plans, location of Ilos, importance of Ilos, etc.) prior to going to Therum, it brings into question her actual relevance to the story; Liara in ME 1 is a plot device as much as  she is a character. The only thing she's really of any use for is as a potential lead to her mother, Saren's dragon and lieutenant, for whom it is thought she is tangentially related to in terms of ideology. Even then, you can still hold off on saving her until after Virmire, well after you've already taken her mother out of the picture. I know Mike does this. 

 

On a practical level, we've all analyzed why she's even a useful squadmate in the narrative; I know it's a game and not meant to be taken seriously on this level due to the sake of drama and gameplay, but really, look at what she brings to the table. Beyond knowledge of the Protheans that truly isn't used or taken advantage of in ME1 in any meaningful way at all, she has nothing (except of course being the hot alien blue chick that is a staple of sci-fi/space opera/space fantasy that Shepard gets to be bed-buddies with). She's an untrained civilian archaeologist. No military experience, no law enforcement experience, no training of any kind. She has biotic skills, but they're no more than average for an Asari. She has no experience dealing with people, being hopelessly socially awkward and anxious. She is completely naive, innocent, and heart-bleedingly idealistic, and completely out of her depth in just about every facet of life not involving what the Protheans used for toilets.

 

This is how the game characterized her in ME1. And there was no development for her (or for any of the crew to be honest; Kaidan could adopt more cynical views, Garrus' ideology on the actions committed in the name of justice could be validated or denied, and Wrex could become personally trusting of Shepard, but beyond that nothing). Then comes the ME2 Redemption comic (and ME2 itself, and into Paragon Lost) where her characterization is completely overhauled. She's now very attached to Shepard. This is irrespective of how you treat her in ME1 or how you let her develop or of course how she was characterized. She has developed an intense connection to him and cannot accept his death. She feels as if her entire world has ended. And despite it being somewhat true, being that you can throw in her face the death of her mother, the revelation of the Protheans true fate, the knowledge about the Reapers, and the statements about how you have learned more relevant facts about the Protheans from having things happen to you over the span of a few weeks/months (where you're also little more than a passive observer) than she has from studying the Protheans for her (admittedly short for an Asari) entire academic and professional career, the reason that she is so upset and lost isn't because of anything I just mentioned; It's because she's lost the human Commander that she's fallen in love with. And it's only been about a month since Shepard died. Hell, you could argue that before that, it was only a month or so since Shepard found her on Therum (after accomplishing everything else). I'd call that attraction on that level after literally being in love for a matter of a few months to a point where she feels emotionally dependent on the man extremely unhealthy. I'd call the fact that it's written to be in place irrespective to how negatively the player can treat her, and for how sympathetically her mindset is portrayed bad writing with a hint of a following on character shilling, diced with just a smidge of plot armor. Her character has changed now, her capabilities have inexplicably grown, and her narrative importance has taken a 90 degree upward shoot. Suffice to say, it's completely unrealistic. You can go back further in the thread to read opinions on it, including my own (and I'm totally not shilling my opinion.)

 

To be honest, in my opinion, which I like to think is not completely full of **** all the time, her entire narrative purpose ended in ME1 (it's existence is questionable to an extent as well.) They had to change her character to make her relevant again. And they kept making her the center of all the big things in the story. They keep attaching her to the story. She served no purpose in her cameo in Paragon Lost than to be just that. A Liara cameo for people to get excited about. Then look at her importance and outright maneuvering in ME3 to get her and keep her on the ship. As far as the Normandy is concerned, Liara's relevance to the plot disappears after you leave Mars. It really does. Beyond finding out about the Crucible, she has no necessity in involvement. Not even on Thessia. Hell, on Thessia, her only role was to get traumatized and sad at how her people were getting squished. And she's treated with the utmost sympathy for it. She's there to be the emotional center getting her heart broken to show how bad the Reapers are, because, until that point, they aren't portrayed as truly breaking and terrible (they really aren't) until it affects Liara personally.

 

Now, I'm not opposed to her staying on the ship ala the VS to perform the role of a squadmate. But we should've had the ability to send her off to Hacket to run her Network and to be of further help on the Crucible. There's no reason for her to have to stay on the Normandy. Hell, there's no reason to make her the Shadow Broker in the first place. But I've already logically gone past that point in the progression of my statement, and there's no point to going into it rehashing it. Suffice to say, it ties in with the unrealistic evolution of Liara's development and becomes an arbitrary boost to her character for the sake of giving her something to make her important when the previous growth of her character basically showed that she was nothing more than a civilian in over her head with no real plot potential than to be the adorkable alien love interest and damsel in distress. When they have to resort to an emotional appeal to make you feel sympathy for the character, you know they screwed up somewhere in the writing of it.

 

Liara suffers from a terrible affliction: Writers Discretion Disease. And god help whoever you try to romance instead of her.

[von uber]

Just out of interest, if it had been miranda instead I assume we wouldn't have had this wall-of-text?

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

Just out of interest, if it had been miranda instead I assume we wouldn't have had this wall-of-text?

Seems likely. 

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Just out of interest, if it had been miranda instead I assume we wouldn't have had this wall-of-text?

 

 

Seems likely. 

 

Yes, you would still have gotten that wall of text.

 

Because if this was Miranda's role in the game, she'd be Liara. And it was a bad role. Unless you are implying that they kept her character and history intact. In which case, no, probably not. Because it would have been a pretty realistic growth and progression of Miranda's character. Not the arbitrary change to keep her relevant as Liara got.

 

Who knows, maybe I might've liked Liara if her character didn't suffer from Writer Discretion Disease.

 

The matter is that Miranda had an entirely different role to fulfill in the plot than Liara. And her character was completely different.

[TheTurtle]

[Snip]

Well said.

[Supreme6789]

That's the million dollar question, isn't it. There really is no question to Liara's importance in the games. That said, the question is this;

 

Why was she so important?

 

Before I delve into the answers, I'll just say what I think it was: BW got really attached to her character and made her the go-to queen of narrative. They played favorites.

 

There have been practical answers before from people like jtav, and more ideological driven ones from people like myself. Looking at her role in ME1, she's nobody. She really is the alien space babe that goes with sci-fi that was meant to be the innocent civilian damsel-in-distress that you go save. Her entire importance to the story hinges on the ideal that she does 'something' while mind-melding with Shepard that is of importance to the plot: since you can play the game to find out about everything you need to know (Reapers, Saren's plans, location of Ilos, importance of Ilos, etc.) prior to going to Therum, it brings into question her actual relevance to the story; Liara in ME 1 is meant to also be a plot device. The only thing she's really of any use for is as a potential lead to her mother, Saren's dragon and lieutenant, for whom it is thought she is tangentially related to in terms of ideology. Even then, you can still hold off on saving her until after Virmire. I know Mike does this. 

 

On a practical level, we've all analyzed why she's even a useful squadmate in the narrative; I know it's a game and not meant to be taken seriously on this level due to the sake of drama and gameplay, but really, look at what she brings to the table. Beyond knowledge of the Protheans that truly isn't used or taken advantage of in ME1 in any meaningful way at all, she has nothing (except of course being the hot alien blue chick that is a staple of sci-fi/space opera/space fantasy that Shepard gets to be bed-buddies with). She's an untrained civilian archaeologist. No military experience, no law enforcement experience, no training of any kind. She has biotic skills, but they're no more than average for an Asari. She has no experience dealing with people, being hopelessly socially awkward and anxious. She is completely naive, innocent, and heart-bleedingly idealistic, and completely out of her depth in just about every facet of life not involving what the Protheans used for toilets.

 

This is how the game characterized her in ME1. And there was no development for her (or for any of the crew to be honest; Kaidan could adopt more cynical views, Garrus' ideology on the actions committed in the name of justice could be validated or denied, and Wrex could become personally trusting of Shepard, but beyond that nothing). Then comes the ME2 Redemption comic (and ME2 itself, and into Paragon Lost) where her characterization is completely overhauled. She's now very attached to Shepard. This is irrespective of how you treat her in ME1 or how you let her develop or of course how she was characterized. She has developed an intense connection to him and cannot accept his death. She feels as if her entire world has ended. And despite it being somewhat true, being that you can throw in her face the death of her mother, the revelation of the Protheans true fate, the knowledge about the Reapers, and the statements about how you have learned more relevant facts about the Protheans from having things happen to you over the span of a few weeks/months (where you're also little more than a passive observer) than she has from studying the Protheans for her (admittedly short for an Asari) entire academic and professional career, the reason that she is so upset and lost isn't because of anything I just mentioned; It's because she's lost the human Commander that she's fallen in love with. And it's only been about a month since Shepard died. Hell, you could argue that before that, it was only a month or so since Shepard found her on Therum (after accomplishing everything else). I'd call that attraction on that level after literally being in love for a matter of a few months to a point where she feels emotionally dependent on the man extremely unhealthy. I'd call the fact that it's written to be in place irrespective to how negatively the player can treat her, and for how sympathetically her mindset is portrayed bad writing with a hint of following on character shilling. Her character has changed now, her capabilities have inexplicably grown, and her narrative importance has taken a 90 degree upward shoot. Suffice to say, it's completely unrealistic. You can go back further in the thread to read opinions on it. 

 

To be honest, in my opinion, which I like to think is occasionally not completely full of ****, her entire narrative purpose died in ME1. They had to change her character to make her relevant again. And they kept making her the center of all the big things in the story. They keep attaching her to the story. She served no purpose in her cameo in Paragon Lost than to be just that. A Liara cameo for people to get excited about. Then look at her importance and outright maneuvering in ME3 to get her and keep her on the ship. As far as the Normandy is concerned, Liara's relevance to the plot disappears after you leave Mars. Now, I'm not opposed to her staying on the ship ala the VS to perform the role of a squadmate. But we should've had the ability to send her off to Hacket to run her Network and to be of further help on the Crucible. There's no reason for her to have to stay on the Normandy. Hell, there's no reason to make her the Shadow Broker in the first place. 

 

Liara suffers from a terrible affliction: Writers Discretion Disease.

The truth has been written

[Sirzechs_Krios]

Yes, you would still have gotten that wall of text.

 

Because if this was Miranda's role in the game, she'd be Liara. And it was a bad role. Unless you are implying that they kept her character and history intact. In which case, no, probably not. Because it would have been a pretty realistic growth and progression of Miranda's character. Not the arbitrary change to keep her relevant as Liara got.

 

Who knows, maybe I might've liked Liara if her character didn't suffer from Writer Discretion Disease.

 

The matter is that Miranda had an entirely different role to fulfill in the plot than Liara. And her character was completely different.

@bold right because her growth and development was so great in the games  . 

[DeinonSlayer]

@bold right because her growth and development was so great in the games .

Donnelly could tell you who "grew" the most.

Spoiler

(c'mon, you really had to look?)

[KaiserShep]

Slam is also sure kill if it's done right.

I have a new appreciation for Slam. It's basically Fist of the Maker in Mass Effect.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Massively, 

 

I'll divorce myself from the "I simply like the character" and address the issue at hand. You're bringing up stuff like Paragon Lost, and stuff like that. That stuff is bull**** as far as character development because it was written AFTER Mass Effect 3. When you're developing a character you have to consider development as the reader sees things. You can't retroactively develop the character. That's horrible writing. We simply have to face the fact that the series, and our beloved writers didn't have a clue where they were going to go with the series. Mass Effect Revelations was originally written as a teaser for the video game Mass Effect.

 

I don't think there was any plan for any game after that. It was a one shot, but the ending left it open for a sequel just in case. Drew K wrote a novel having nothing to do with Liara, Shepard or anyone in Mass Effect the game. Then out trots Mass Effect 2 which was a series of short stories about different characters in the Mass Effect Universe featuring Commander Shepard and Cerberus. Liara had a cameo appearance in the game. The whole premise of killing Shepard in the beginning of ME2, having Liara get Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker, and give it to Cerberus was stupid. What purpose did it serve to advance the plot of the story? None. It just introduced a bunch of new characters. It could have been done via a new assignment by the Council. But they had to make everyone look like a bunch of asses and have you work for the one who was going to be the villain in ME3.

 

The premise was stupid, and when you have a bad premise you have a bad story. This is why ME3 was bad regardless of whether it a plot. In ME2, because of the bad premise of ME2 which should have been the guts of the story where everything gets fleshed out, and each of the characters' story arcs start taking off the entire thing came to a stand still. But the situation wasn't lost, but wait. All the characters from ME1 could be dead except for Liara, and none of the characters from ME2 are essential because ME2 added almost nothing to the story. So now they have to go back and retroactively give her purpose and try to fill in the blanks. Hence the ME2 DLC LotSB which was added while they were developing ME3.

 

This is why Liara got the spotlight. It's the fault of the writers. It was very bad planning for the entire story. The story premise got broken. And that left the writers with just trying to end it in the third installment. That meant forcing things. The forcing worked if and only if a player chose Liara as their LI. If they did, they wouldn't notice. If they didn't, it would break a suspension of disbelief. Liara was the most popular LI, so they played the numbers game with it. That is obvious. I'm blaming Mass Effect 2, and the premise of using the death of Shepard as a necessary plot device at the root of the breakdown of the story. It was forced. It was stupid. It did nothing but hurt the story.

[KaiserShep]

The whole premise of killing Shepard in the beginning of ME2, having Liara get Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker, and give it to Cerberus was stupid. What purpose did it serve to advance the plot of the story? None. It just introduced a bunch of new characters. It could have been done via a new assignment by the Council. But they had to make everyone look like a bunch of asses and have you work for the one who was going to be the villain in ME3.

 

This right here is the core of what really went wrong with the ME trilogy. No matter who or what brings Shepard back, it was doomed. The geth, Cerberus, midichlorians. It doesn't matter. The part that made it the most troublesome was that it required the Council to be an incompetent gaggle of ingrates, and the Alliance to be an uncooperative cripple. I think ME3 doesn't get enough credit for mopping up a lot of the narrative missteps that ME2 introduces.

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

Killing Shepard off, not only in the beginning of a game, but in the second part of a trilogy, was quite possibly one of the stupidest ideas ever had. 

Do you know why? It served absolutely no purpose whatsoever to either flesh out any character, provide any depth into the universe, or provide any twist on the story. 

Shepard died. Got spaced, Had a suit breach. Her body should have bloated and her brain should have popped due to the gasses and liquids attempting to diffuse out into a vaccum. Haven't seen Paragon Lost or anything like that, but either A. the frozen remains of her body are in space for days, making any sort of recovery impossible or B. the frozen remains of her body go through atmospheric reentry and burn up, making any sort of recovery impossible. All of this, of course, leads to Lazarus project, which is never explained really how it happened. Her brain was preserved, somehow, and they regrew the rest of her body. And nope, there was no twist. Wasn't a clone with memories, wasn't an AI, nothing. Completely pointless. 

Then, since we know it's actually Shepard, somehow, who clearly was writhing with tremendous amounts of pain as she felt her body being torn apart from vacuum exposure, comes out of a two-year long nap and isn't traumatized whatsoever. She makes jokes about it. It has no effect on anything about her. Everyone else is just like:

"I though you were dead."
"I was."
"Okay. That's not weird or suspicious at all. I'm going to put my life on the line with you behind me now."

Now, I have no personal experience in being spaced, but I can imagine that someone going through that might be a tiny bit traumatized. A little bit of PTSD, maybe some panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks, astrophobia. I almost drowned once, and I haven't been able to be in water since. But nope, she literally sleeps under an open window, looking at space. With no issue. Does she not remember what happened? Did Timmy not want to have her back "exactly as she was?" I'd just expect some reaction other than "I was only nearly dead."

All it did was to provide what seems like some excuse to shoe-horn Shepard into Cerberus and be able to dismiss the council saying that they were wrong and that the Reapers will be prepared for. 

[DeinonSlayer]

@1TBG
Good point about the window. I'd actually never considered that.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Massively, 

 

I'll divorce myself from the "I simply like the character" and address the issue at hand. You're bringing up stuff like Paragon Lost, and stuff like that. That stuff is bull**** as far as character development because it was written AFTER Mass Effect 3. When you're developing a character you have to consider development as the reader sees things. You can't retroactively develop the character. That's horrible writing. We simply have to face the fact that the series, and our beloved writers didn't have a clue where they were going to go with the series. Mass Effect Revelations was originally written as a teaser for the video game Mass Effect.

 

I don't think there was any plan for any game after that. It was a one shot, but the ending left it open for a sequel just in case. Drew K wrote a novel having nothing to do with Liara, Shepard or anyone in Mass Effect the game. Then out trots Mass Effect 2 which was a series of short stories about different characters in the Mass Effect Universe featuring Commander Shepard and Cerberus. Liara had a cameo appearance in the game. The whole premise of killing Shepard in the beginning of ME2, having Liara get Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker, and give it to Cerberus was stupid. What purpose did it serve to advance the plot of the story? None. It just introduced a bunch of new characters. It could have been done via a new assignment by the Council. But they had to make everyone look like a bunch of asses and have you work for the one who was going to be the villain in ME3.

 

The premise was stupid, and when you have a bad premise you have a bad story. This is why ME3 was bad regardless of whether it a plot. In ME2, because of the bad premise of ME2 which should have been the guts of the story where everything gets fleshed out, and each of the characters' story arcs start taking off the entire thing came to a stand still. But the situation wasn't lost, but wait. All the characters from ME1 could be dead except for Liara, and none of the characters from ME2 are essential because ME2 added almost nothing to the story. So now they have to go back and retroactively give her purpose and try to fill in the blanks. Hence the ME2 DLC LotSB which was added while they were developing ME3.

 

This is why Liara got the spotlight. It's the fault of the writers. It was very bad planning for the entire story. The story premise got broken. And that left the writers with just trying to end it in the third installment. That meant forcing things. The forcing worked if and only if a player chose Liara as their LI. If they did, they wouldn't notice. If they didn't, it would break a suspension of disbelief. Liara was the most popular LI, so they played the numbers game with it. That is obvious. I'm blaming Mass Effect 2, and the premise of using the death of Shepard as a necessary plot device at the root of the breakdown of the story. It was forced. It was stupid. It did nothing but hurt the story.

 

I would tend disagree on retroactive characterization, especially if it's ill-defined from one installment to another and you're adding some meat so to speak to the story. That said, Liara didn't necessarily have characterization in Paragon Lost (and I recognize where I accidentally inferred she had characterization and that was a grammatical error.) That one I should say was just plain shoehorning. She had no purpose in that movie. Notionally, she was put in as a connection to the story, but I think her actual inclusion was one of getting her in there to get her in there.

 

I won't deny these as factors that went into my conclusion of Liara. If anything, you just addressed more reasons to add to my point. Thanks! (and I legitimately mean that).

 

At the core of the statement, you ask why BW made Liara so popular again in some of the extraneous material (comics). I can't answer that, and I believe it is a core issue. I do think that regardless of how their inept planning and writing took them in the series, they did make some downright bad decisions founded on legitimate bad ideas. That said, as I stated this all goes into how Liara was a crappy character. To be frank, fan of hers or no, you admitted that she did suffer from the discretion of the writers, making her whatever the plot called for her to be irrespective of prior characterization and history. And again, along with that, they did go out of their way (even more than you'd think in this matter, because despite the other flaws that understandably catapulted Liara to the spotlight) to give Liara a lot of emotional content and heavy favoring of her character. She's never portrayed unsympathetically. Everyone is tender and worrying about Liara. It's as if she's adopted the role of Kaylee from Firefly (albeit with much more screentime). And I feel the same about it as I did with Kaylee. She's a plot device meant to make the characters and audience feel sad. The character is an appeal to emotion. 

[ImaginaryMatter]

This right here is the core of what really went wrong with the ME trilogy. No matter who or what brings Shepard back, it was doomed. The geth, Cerberus, midichlorians. It doesn't matter. The part that made it the most troublesome was that it required the Council to be an incompetent gaggle of ingrates, and the Alliance to be an uncooperative cripple. I think ME3 doesn't get enough credit for mopping up a lot of the narrative missteps that ME2 introduces.

 

I think the way characters react to it throughout ME2 shows how awkward and ill-considered the move was. No one is interested in what amounts to the cure for death, no one grills Shepard's legitimacy, everyone can instantly recognize him, etc. And while I think the opening gameplay of walking through the blasted out and dying Normandy is a great bit of cinematic, that alone isn't enough to excuse the galactic reset and time skip. Where as a second installment should build off of what came before, ME2 wiped the board clean.

 

Because of this I was willing to give ME3 some slack... up to a certain extent. Unfortunately, ME3 did the same thing ME2 did.

[DuskWanderer]

Massively, that is so true in what you said. Perhaps, though, I might have more to add. (For the sake of grammar, I'm referring to Shepard as a "he", but there's no gender difference)

 

To build on a point that Massively brought up, we have to deal with the fact, on Shepard's end, Liara is treated as his best friend, if not his lover. This is completely irrespective of both when she's recruited (and honestly, the fact that she's even brought onto the ship is pretty tenuous. Finding Ilos is all she does for the plot in ME1, and she could have been put on the next shuttle to Thessia once she did that) and how you treat her during it. Shepard has the ability in ME1 to treat her with quite a healthy amount of distrust at first introduction, and then ignore her after that. 

 

Now, if from all of this, Liara got a massive obsession with Shepard, that's really her business. I don't control Liara. I do, however, control Shepard. What doesn't make sense is, given Shepard's interaction, come ME2, it's defaulted to be friendly (in fact, very friendly). And honestly, there is no need for it. All Liara does in vanilla ME2 is waive docking fees on Illium and mention where Samara and Thane are (honestly, all of these things are easily handled by EDI, that's what she freaking does on Omega and the Citadel already).

 

Why? What is the purpose of Shepard forcing himself to be Liara's friend? Is there something that needs to be done that wouldn't happen otherwise if Shepard isn't besties with Liara? I honestly can't think of anything. 

 

LotSB came along, and just made it worse. Shoehorning doesn't even begin to describe it. I can't think of a reason how Liara controlling the SB's resources (as opposed to the guy giving it to you himself, after all, someone with enough knowledge knows the Reapers are big trouble, and even if not, the price the SB might request could be a good story on it's own.) The Mary Sue aspects of Liara, though, just got worse, mostly because there was nothing to dilute: The third squadmate was next to superfluous, so Shepard and Liara's relationship, and the forced friendship, took center stage.

 

ME3 continued this. There was no need for Shepard to have Liara as a bestie, nothing in the story is served by having her in that position. In fact, part of me thinks Liara only got shoehorned in the first place due to that glitch that causes A/K to think you're interested in her.

 

Massively hit the nail on the head when it was said that Liara lacked a narrative purpose. However, I'd take it a step further and said she lacked a personal one as well. Her characterization outside of Shepard is nonexistent, and Shepard's best friend (whoever it might be) doesn't change the story. The Mary Sue aspects (and the "how awful Thessia is because lovey-Liara is so upset") are a symptom of forcing this character down our throats.

[AlanC9]

Why? What is the purpose of Shepard forcing himself to be Liara's friend? Is there something that needs to be done that wouldn't happen otherwise if Shepard isn't besties with Liara? I honestly can't think of anything.

Don't overthink it. There's no purpose beyond Bio not wanting to burn any wordcount on cases where Shepard doesn't like Liara.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I would tend disagree on retroactive characterization, especially if it's ill-defined from one installment to another and you're adding some meat so to speak to the story. That said, Liara didn't necessarily have characterization in Paragon Lost (and I recognize where I accidentally inferred she had characterization and that was a grammatical error.) That one I should say was just plain shoehorning. She had no purpose in that movie. Notionally, she was put in as a connection to the story, but I think her actual inclusion was one of getting her in there to get her in there.

 

I won't deny these as factors that went into my conclusion of Liara. If anything, you just addressed more reasons to add to my point. Thanks! (and I legitimately mean that).

 

At the core of the statement, you ask why BW made Liara so popular again in some of the extraneous material (comics). I can't answer that, and I believe it is a core issue. I do think that regardless of how their inept planning and writing took them in the series, they did make some downright bad decisions founded on legitimate bad ideas. That said, as I stated this all goes into how Liara was a crappy character. To be frank, fan of hers or no, you admitted that she did suffer from the discretion of the writers, making her whatever the plot called for her to be irrespective of prior characterization and history. And again, along with that, they did go out of their way (even more than you'd think in this matter, because despite the other flaws that understandably catapulted Liara to the spotlight) to give Liara a lot of emotional content and heavy favoring of her character. She's never portrayed unsympathetically. Everyone is tender and worrying about Liara. It's as if she's adopted the role of Kaylee from Firefly (albeit with much more screentime). And I feel the same about it as I did with Kaylee. She's a plot device meant to make the characters and audience feel sad. The character is an appeal to emotion. 

 

Trust me, me in my writing group I've picked the Mass Effect characters apart. Liara was no exception.

 

She's an emotion character because Shepard has been a schizoid brick with no emotions. The writers wanted to make Shepard feel some emotion but couldn't do directly so Liara expressed the emotions that Shepard was supposed to feel. Shepard could show emotion by providing her with comfort. Bioware does not know how to do things with subtlety. Hamfisted is more like it. Tali was the other emotion character. Garrus showed virtually no emotions. Javik was a troll. James and the VS showed anger. EDI was a computer. Legion was supposed to tug at your heartstrings.

 

In actuality, the core problems go back into ME1. Bioware was used to building a party of rag tag adventurers to go on a quest and level up to save the land (of ____) from whatever evil and show the incompetent idiots running the place that the player characters and their rag tag band of followers knew better. Well, in this genre given the fact they were on a military ship that formula doesn't work. You need characters who are competent in a military sense. Not a rag tag team of adventurers.

 

There was a disconnect between ME1 Liara and ME2 Liara. We know that. It is very obvious. There is also a disconnect between act 1 ME3 Liara and the rest of ME3 Liara. We do need to remember that Liara never saw how bad Earth was hit. The first planet she saw was Palaven. Earth looks like a little speck in the sky from Mars. Shepard also doesn't know if Earth was hit worse than Palaven. Shepard assumes it was. I would say so from the cover picture on the box, but people on BSN say that's just a publicity picture. You know the one showing North America ablaze.

 

Not to diss Liara, but I think Liara should have been perhaps a former commando huntress on a Prothean research project, and not the damsel in distress. Show some dead geth units around her. She should have been older, say around 200 years old. This would have put her on Shiala's level of training, and there would have been a military reason for her to be on the ship. Shepard could pick her up as a science officer. She would be proficient in probably an assault rifle and pistol aside from having the other skills of an adept. Now provide her with something other than just the ability to meld with Shepard and reveal Ilos and be a waifu. How about that facility on Virmire? Rana Thanoptis' data on indoctrination? Perhaps she could make some sense out of it? Perhaps the Krogan cloning facility? Perhaps there was some data in there she could make sense out of. Not just only things Prothean, but a science officer.

 

Tali? Found on Eden Prime just prior to activating the beacon, standing over a dead geth platform holding a data core. Have her on pilgrimage on Eden Prime. This eliminates the need for Shepard to look like an idiot in front of the Council, and since Saren is using geth you'll probably take her along. She's shown herself competent enough to kill a geth and get its data core. 

 

Garrus at least was C-sec but he stood on the ship most of the time because I took Ashley. Wrex was a Krogan battlemaster. Ashley and Kaidan were marines. 

 

But now I've given you a Liara who is worth something more than reading Shepard's mind and being a waifu. Granted she did provide some serious biotic power in ME1 if you used her on Noveria. But the way she was written with her extremely quick recovery after her mother was killed was horrible. 

 

At this point her transition to a more hardened character in ME2 would have not been such a stretch. As it was it was a horrible stretch. As much as I liked the less innocent Liara, she seemed to be a sociopath in ME2. Nyxeris... The observer is female. Nyxeris gave me the information. Nyxeris would you come into my office. *kills Nyxeris* *dumps body down the trash chute and cleans office in time for Shepard to return then acts happy like nothing happened* 

 

"How was the fight?"

".... but her barriers needed work. Had she been sent to kill me I'd never had seen it coming." 

 

I don't think Nyxeris attacked Liara. This is not the same Liara that was in ME1. 

 

I like the character, but she is not perfect. She has a lot of flaws due to lazy writing. But like I said they're not as noticeable if she's your character's LI. If she's not your character's LI, they're very noticeable. Unfortunately for a lot of us who play femShep, Kaidan was boring as watching paint dry, and that left Liara for LI, and then there was ME2: Thane who dies in ME3 or who in my case died in the SM because of a disloyal character and random throw of the numbers by seeker swarm. And that left Liara in LotSB, so "do you want to pick up where we left off?" Okay. You guys who played manShep had far more options. Bioware went out of their way to limit femShep's romance options. That also affected how one treated Liara.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Not to diss Liara, but I think Liara should have been perhaps a former commando huntress on a Prothean research project, and not the damsel in distress. Show some dead geth units around her. She should have been older, say around 200 years old. This would have put her on Shiala's level of training, and there would have been a military reason for her to be on the ship. Shepard could pick her up as a science officer. She would be proficient in probably an assault rifle and pistol aside from having the other skills of an adept. Now provide her with something other than just the ability to meld with Shepard and reveal Ilos and be a waifu. How about that facility on Virmire? Rana Thanoptis' data on indoctrination? Perhaps she could make some sense out of it? Perhaps the Krogan cloning facility? Perhaps there was some data in there she could make sense out of. Not just only things Prothean, but a science officer.

 

Tali? Found on Eden Prime just prior to activating the beacon, standing over a dead geth platform holding a data core. Have her on pilgrimage on Eden Prime. This eliminates the need for Shepard to look like an idiot in front of the Council, and since Saren is using geth you'll probably take her along. She's shown herself competent enough to kill a geth and get its data core. 

 

Garrus at least was C-sec but he stood on the ship most of the time because I took Ashley. Wrex was a Krogan battlemaster. Ashley and Kaidan were marines. 

 

I had a similar idea to Liara that involved merging her character with that of Shiala to form a new Liara, who would be recruited during Feros. Benezia raised this Liara up to be a prominent figure among Asari, with the plan for Liara to become something like a soldier (so she has combat experience) instead of something like a dancer or working for a mercenary company. Liara then got into Prothean archeology, like before, which caused the schism between her and Benezia, as it wasn't a field with much prospect -- or something like that.

 

Slightly, before the events of the game Liara lands on Feros to investigate the ruins there (later on one of her discussions is how the ruins weren't Prothean architecture and her multiple cycle theory). This is the part I'm unsure about, but perhaps during her time there she discovers what Exo Geni is doing with the colonists and the Thorian. Unsure of what she should do she about such a difficult ethical situation she calls her mother to ask for help. By this time Benezia is already under Sovereign's influence and she goes to the planet under the guise of lending a helping hand. At this point Benezia would betray Liara (instant drama!) trapping her with the Thorian and leading to the events originally involving Shiala and the colonists, so she could get the Cipher information. Later, Shepard kicks in the door, shoots some Liara clones (I figured people might get a kick out of that), and cuts the original Liara out of a sac (or for more drama perhaps the original Liara body died and this one is an uncontrolled clone, but otherwise the same only with the Prothean collective unconscious). At this point Liara wouldn't give Shepard the Cipher, instead the concept would be scratched and replaced with no Cipher and Liara going on the Normandy to help sort through the beacon images; or Liara would instead become the Cipher herself, necessitating her importance.

 

On the ship Liara has to mind meld with Shepard repeatedly and regularly, as the (techno babble...) Prothean beacon was more compatible with Asari physiology and my mind melding she can help Shepard process the information... or something like that. Going through a some what intimate process repeatedly kicks off the romance, where Shepard can dismiss it as business only or perhaps something more, as Liara is young, inexperienced, and confused about such things. Liara being socially awkward and young by Asari standards is unsure of what to do, which leads to her bumbling, not understanding jokes, humans, etc, etc the old Liara stuff only with a continued importance and combat experience.

[grey_wind]

The part that made it the most troublesome was that it required the Council to be an incompetent gaggle of ingrates, and the Alliance to be an uncooperative cripple.

I'm not so sure. I personally think that the Council and Alliance's incompetence was just a product of lazy handwaving. They could have given a decent reason for why they weren't helping. Of course that would require Shepard to be less "special" and would undermine his heroism the power fantasy.