52 réponses à ce sujet

[Lady Artifice]

"Bad" and "Evil" are, in this context, useless terms. The subjectively is too inherent in each of them, and people have debated and rationalized the degree to which the Reapers and Saren are "bad" since the beginning.

 

They're antagonists. Much simpler that way.

 

...OP, your point is weird.

 

Coming back to this. When TIM says he will pursue his goals "By Any Means Necessary", that's as strong an admission of evil as it gets in my book (his actions showing that he truly meant what he said). He was evil before Sovereign or any other reaper ever got to him. 

 

The Catalyst tries the same logic you are by comparing the Reapers to a force of nature like fire. That comparison fails though, because fire does not have self-awareness or make conscious choices, while the Reapers are and do. It doesn't matter whether a person believes they are evil or not - actions are what we judge others by.

 

Saying the Reapers are just following their programming is exactly the defense the Nazi's used at the Nuremberg Trials: "Just Following Orders".  The series clearly states that AI can go beyond their own programming and "evolve", just like any other living thing. EDI reprogramming her own self-preservation code would be a prime example.

 

Sticking even closer to the thread topic and title, a "bad guy" - ie: the antagonist, doesn't have to be evil. Misguided or even misinformed can work just as well. It would be closer to the truth to say Mass Effect has no "good guys", meaning no one is a pure paragon of virtue - they're all selfish and come with their own sets of other flaws. Legion is probably the most "good", with his willing self-sacrifice to awaken the rest of the Geth, though how dying exactly accomplished that is never really explained.

 

That's a really interesting take on it. I feel like I'm back in film studies class. 

 

Deja vu is nice sometimes.

[Solace]

I just read the headline of the post, and I agree with it. It's a trend that is commonly used by Bioware in their games, and I honestly feel it is over-used. So far, in most of their games, the "bad guy" is a bad guy by accident, they think they are helping the Universe or world, they are actually good guys, but do questionable things, or are just really ambitious. Bioware desperately needs to have a Joker kind of character in their games. A character that doesn't kill a thousand people to prevent a war, or to bring some sort of cosmic balance to the world, but just because they want to see the world and everyone in it burn. A villain that makes everything he or she does be about the joy of doing it, rather than have some goal.

 

With that said, when Mass Effect 1 first came out, and all we knew about Saren was that he was the best of the best in the Spectres, went rogue, had a grudge towards humans, and had an army, Bioware should of just stayed right there. 

 

I felt like Batman chasing Joker down in that moment.

[KaiserShep]

I just read the headline of the post, and I agree with it. It's a trend that is commonly used by Bioware in their games, and I honestly feel it is over-used. So far, in most of their games, the "bad guy" is a bad guy by accident, they think they are helping the Universe or world, they are actually good guys, but do questionable things, or are just really ambitious. Bioware desperately needs to have a Joker kind of character in their games. A character that doesn't kill a thousand people to prevent a war, or to bring some sort of cosmic balance to the world, but just because they want to see the world and everyone in it burn. A villain that makes everything he or she does be about the joy of doing it, rather than have some goal.

 

With that said, when Mass Effect 1 first came out, and all we knew about Saren was that he was the best of the best in the Spectres, went rogue, had a grudge towards humans, and had an army, Bioware should of just stayed right there. 

 

I felt like Batman chasing Joker down in that moment.

 

 

There were plenty of minor players that one could consider an out and out bad guy. Haliat, for example, was just a scumbag that orchestrated the Blitz, and his story ended with a bullet between the eyes.

 

As for Saren, BioWare couldn't just leave it at Saren's hatred for humanity, because the story frames his motivation around the prothean beacon, which starts a much different thread.