That's where you're wrong, and that's something you should have learnt at school. Even with ambiguous things you have limits, you can't make Mass effect say everthing you want. So yes, there are interpretations that fit overall. The problem is that as long as you ignore the writing, sure you'll think that you can make it say whatever you want. There are good readers and bad readers : good readers understand the three level that are poïesis, neutral and esthesis level. These three level aren't separated for good readers.
I don't think what you said would hold water with any credible literary analyst or writer with common sense. I tend to agree on said point (which is kind of what I was making to begin with), you can't make a series say whatever you want it to say without a good argument for it.
And that goes both ways.
txgoldrush's interpretation (and likely by extension, your interpretation) doesn't fall within the limitations of what is presented by the rather jumbled and inconsistent depiction in Mass Effect.
This is exactly what txgoldrush has done since ME3 came out. He routinely creates arguments based around obscure and ambiguous evidence to pass off his fantasy and headcanon as evidence, primarily for the purpose of 'proving' how much greater of a Mass Effect fan he is than anyone else, and thus more worthy of being listened to by BW. At best, its a massive ego problem, at worst its a mental disorder caked around a serious brown-nosing issue.
Agree, this is the internal logic and that's more important than common sense. When someone start a science-fiction story he has to start with, in mind, the idea that it's a fiction and a fiction that isn't not supposed to be realistic (it can be but doesn't mean that it has to be). It's anticipation. Mass Effect has developed enough things to make the player understand that. When you've got the concept of essence, when you've got memory of space etc... you are in the rules of Mass Effect's logic. To ignore the internal logic of a story is like playing a game without following the rules.
This wasn't in response to me, but I feel I should address it anyway:
Any writer who tells me to 'roll with it' in regards to questions, critique, or awareness of a fault or hole or inconsistency in a story is not a good writer.
I know that fiction is not meant to always be realistic. And there are indeed varying levels of realism. However, fiction is always meant to be consistent (barring of course the intention of the setting was to not be consistent, in which case you're likely to end up with some truly bizarre - and occasionally brilliant - stories). Mass Effect, from the beginning, was meant to be internally consistent. Something introduced, especially something like vitalism, a philosophy stating that life can arise from non-life spontaneously (aka, mysticism and the 'life/organic essence' bit that you're putting forward here), something that is introduced at the eleventh hour and given no projected information in the preceding narrative is not internal logic or consistency.
To be blunt, Mass Effect, at that point, broke the single, golden rule of storytelling. It jumped from one level of fictional reality to another. And it did it without explanation, and it did it without any effort (real or feigned) to even show what was happening at all. It broke the suspension of disbelief. I'll get onto it more in the next paragraph, which I feel I must respond to as well.
I'm not attacking synthesis here. I'm attacking how it was portrayed. I'm not attacking the ending here. I'm attacking how it was portrayed.
If you have to defend it with 'it's a part of the universe, just roll with it', without offering or believing in any critique or concerns with the lack of internal consistency, and complete acceptance of flagrant changes to the lore and very narrative that builds the foundation of the setting of the universe on a whim, then I would say that you have a very poor sense of narrative comprehension and judgement. So poor in fact, that I literally think you're trying to bullshit me and make a pro-argument just so that you can be different.
I like Tolkien but no. Mass Effect isn't fantasy. His vision of art is wrong. You like to use that quotation but seriously, the entire 20th century show that he is wrong. You're making him ridiculous. Sure you can apply what he said on some kind of writing but you can't use it to say that a story failed.
Given Mass Effect's occasional tendency to jump between the ropes and change its internal depictions of lore and laws, I'd say that Mass Effect jumped the boat from somewhat hard fiction to space fantasy.
Tolkein is defending narrative internal consistency. Are you denying that? Are you saying that it's alright to simply jump from one level of fantasy to another, without explanation, and have things happen that cannot happen without serious rule-breaking of the lore's internal logic and rules?
Suspension of disbelief is something everyone has for every story: each story has its own level of consistency, and we willingly take a level of SoD to accept the story. When said story makes more and more implausible, incredible, and downright impossible events and sequences happen, our SoD is stretched further and further, and our acceptance of said story wanes because the story is failing to maintain its internal rules. Now, this isn't always a bad thing. There is plenty of fiction and fantasy that do this intentionally, and if the audience is particularly aware of this, is much more capable of adapting their SoD to accept this.
Alas, Mass Effect is not one of these series where it was intentional: thus, our SoD is set at a certain level, and as the series goes on, it will be increasingly strained as more and more incredible, implausible, and impossible events (relative to its internal rules) happen. It comes to a point where the SoD in particular might even break.
When that happens, the illusion has been broken. You no longer see the story for what its trying to present, but what it is. It's lost you, and its lost its credibility since the sheer amount of changing and jumping in the lore has made the story whimsical, non-sensical by its own rules, and a self-parody. It's trying to hard to get you to accept something, that ignores the rules it set in place to show that to you.
Tolkein is talking against such a philosophy. He is talking about maintaining the illusion, so to speak. If you can't maintain the illusion, you aren't a very compelling storyteller. If the illusion in the story is broken, then the story itself is broken. The story stalls, sputters, and falls back to earth with a crash. The story has failed.
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