@Ithurael, glad to hear that! I'm very sorry, this time it's me who is very busy and don't have enough time to come on the forum. So I will write little by little, piece by piece my answer. Sorry for that.
You have ordered Le Cid and Turmoil in the Swaths. If you have any question about it, don't hesitate.
Don't worry here Angol. You and I will be extremely busy. As for Le Cid and Turmoil, I already have them and read them - loved both.
Add what you can and don't forget to do the #End# thing (it is just easier).
So just like I've said, a text is a very complex object.
Actually a "bad writing" would be a writing that would be uninteresting through every approach.
To be bad,at least the content and the form has to be opposed, it has to be incoherent (problem between form and content), not possible to justify it.
The problem is that for Mass Effect 3 ending, it doesn't work. People can dislike it but the writing of the ending is justified.
Some talk about incoherence, that's wrong : the form and the content are tied together, there is no incoherence. The high level of the ending is exposed as high level (only what is necerssary is said, there are paradox and implicit).
It has nothing to do with "making sense", just like I've said "La jetée" doesn't make sense, and it's a masterpiece.
Problem of reception here.
Some talk about change of tone, but if we listen to what Sovereign said, to what Harbinger said, what the catalyst says is in the same direction, in the same line. The perception of the catalyst , the high level is here since Mass Effect 1.
Problem oof reception here.
Some talk about how rushed is the ending, there's no proof of the ending being rushed, and just before the release of the original game, there was that message which shows that they intended to do it this way. The "rush" thing is just an interpretation. The ending is supposed to be faster and faster from Thessia till the end. The structure is made to make the player feel it. The open ending is just like I've said, just like Snowpiercer and Bloodborne (other stories about cycles, fate and higher perception) is necessary because the whole writing is about cycles. That kind of stories has to end this way. From the writing point of view the extended cut is incoherent although it was needed by some player (but not the writing itself).
Problem of reception here.
Some talk about how Shepard change, while in the beginning of Mass Effect 3 Shepard is running from Earth, in a DLC of Mass Effect 2, he says that he is tired of fighting the reapers, etc... Shepard could delay the reapers, he never has the possibility of stopping them. In the ending, he take responsabilities but people felt like he wasn't active enough (once again people selected the informations they wanted and ignored some important part of the writing).
Problem of reception here.
Some dislike the representation of the catalyst (a kid) because they are used to have a evil bad guy to face them. Here it's a problem of representation, they can't stand the catalyst just because they want some basic, hollywood representation of things. The problem isn't about the writing, it's the reception here. If you can't change your perception in a game that did change your perception since Mass Effect 2, the problem isn't the writing.
Problem of reception here.
Actually to be bad, there should be a real problem of writing not a problem of reception. I mean if some people could understand the writing without the extended cut and the interviews, like I did and many other people I know did, the problem doesn't come from the writing. At least it's impossible to say that the ending is bad. People can dislike it, that's totally different.
An example of a problem of content and form : Josh Trank's the fantastic four. It's obvious that the ideas Trank wanted are quite dark and interesting, but we also clearly see the some scene has been cut, we clearly see that it's not done the way it should be, it's not as dark as the director wanted. Here we have a problem of form and content. But we all know why : conflict opposing Trank and the studio (Trank could not do what he wanted to do so it's incoherent).
So the text is a complex form (and there are missing approach, things that I forgot to say).
But now what about the reception?
A text without a reader is just a potential. The reception actualize the meaning of the text. So now there's a problem : subjective or objective? If that was so simple, life would be as simple as people want it to be (binary : good vs evil, subjective vs objective, author vs commercial etc...).
Actually it's not subjective or objective, it's supposed to be between.
Some people here talked about art as if it was all subjective, we like or not and that's all. But if it's only subjective then there is no masterpiece. There is no value. How can we say that something is a masterpiece if there are people who say the opposite? People who say that art is subjective and not objective only say that because they don't want to change their opinion.
Actually, it's between subjectivity and objectivity. How can we do that? that's simple : our emotion in the reception is just one that helps us to read. And it can't be really objective (but we all know that) because it's a reception by a reader.
Someone whose reception is based on his emotions is someone egocentric. He is acting as if the writer was writing just for him. The problem is that our reception is developed by our knowledge, our habits of reading. Our emotions only valid what we already know. We like what we understand, we dislike what we don't understand. (Gaston Bachelard who is an impressive french philosopher said something like the recognition/identification is before the knowledge.)
(about "understand" : I like that word in english because we clearly see the position of the reception through it "under-stand", that's supposed to be humble toward the text, in french we say "comprendre", "com-prendre" which means to take with something/someone, in spanish "entender" has in french a similar word : "entendre" which means "to listen", in all that languages we see the relation between the word and the way we're supposed to act).
Most of the time, we like what we already know. (Hollywood knows that, and some people try to justify Hollywood by some kind of universality)
Roland Barthes said something very interesting : we have to read several times because if we don't do it we're condamned to read the same story forever. So what does he means? To read again and again? For what purpose? What he means is just that reading is to actualize the meaning of the text. We're not supposed to read the same way something we have already read. We're supposed to go deeper in the text as an object. the movement is the exact opposite of what most people here are doing :
-here most people talk about their feeling and try to justify their feeling, so the movement is to go from the text to the reception. The reception is the center of the reading.
-we're supposed to read and to go from our reception to the text.
Our emotions is just one way to enter the text, it's not the only one. And our emotion is probably the less solid criterion because our feelings change, we don't laugh for the same things, we don't cry for the same things when we get older. And from the XIXth century the "beauty" has been a notion that artists have been criticizing, or questionning.
So to sum up, the reception of many people here (=trying to justify their feeling) goes against the concept of "comprehension" (=like following the stream of a river).
When OP ask for that ending against what the writer did, he actually want to see what he was expecting. He has read in a way ignoring parts of the writing (I'm not saying it's a bad thing because it was intended this way by Bioware to surprise the player), but where he is wrong is when he wants to stay on his first reading, he never do that movement from him to the text, he wants the text to come to him.
His emotions are the beginning and the end (he is looking for satisfaction of his first reading), when it's supposed to be the beginning but the end is supposed to be the text (and we saw that there were many different approaches that can valid the quality of a text).
@angol fear: all very fascinating, I hope I don't interrupt your musings, just two comments:
When OP ask for that ending against what the writer did, he actually want to see what he was expecting. He has read in a way ignoring parts of the writing (I'm not saying it's a bad thing because it was intended this way by Bioware to surprise the player), but where he is wrong is when he wants to stay on his first reading, he never do that movement from him to the text, he wants the text to come to him.
If you apply your own reasoning to your reading of the OP, you may discover more. Maybe some irony? Maybe that the OP did do a second and third reading of the ending and still thought that it, well, was still worse than the cliché he proposed instead?
A text without a reader is just a potential. The reception actualize the meaning of the text. So now there's a problem : subjective or objective? If that was so simple, life would be as simple as people want it to be (binary : good vs evil, subjective vs objective, author vs commercial etc...).
Actually it's not subjective or objective, it's supposed to be between.
Yes, it is.
I'll pick an extreme example of why I think the writing is bad, and why that assessment is very much over on the objective side of the board, the mission briefing for Priority Earth.
Hackett says "Conventionally, we cannot defeat the Reapers without the crucible".
1. Mac mangled the meaning of that sentence. What Hackett is supposed to say is "We need the crucible, because we cannot defeat the Reapers conventionally." What he actually says is "The crucible will help us defeat the Reapers conventionally". This does not have a deeper meaning. All it means is that Mac did not proofread his dialogs, and the editors were either asleep or nonexistent.
2. So you are a writer and have a problem: There is some information that the audience needs in order to understand the scene. What to do about it? Make a character say it. Problem solved. Only that that character would never ever say this in the given scene! This is a classical beginner's mistake. You can learn how to avoid that in a creative writing class or workshop at your local university.
If the writers had always worked like that we would have, for example,
1. Souvereign say stuff like "you are fondling my mind in ignorance" instead of "fumbling in ignorance" (whoopsie, hit the wrong recommendation of my word processor) and
2. we would have dialogs between Shepard, Hackett and Anderson like Hackett: "Shepard, this is Admiral Anderson!", Shepard: "Yes, I have known him for years! And you are Admiral Hackett", Anderson: "Yes Shepard, We have known him for years!".
This is bad writing. And this reception of mine does not change no matter how often I watch that scene.
I usually let him finish his thoughts with an #--END--# before I respond otherwise he is trapped in a kind of infinite response loop as he responds gradually while I do an all-at-once approach.
I know this is a danger and inevitability of posting in a public forum, and you raise a valid point to his statements, I just wanted to let you know what Angol was responding to and that he may not have -immediate - time to respond. as he is still focused on responding to my points first.
I am already taking notes and prepping my feedback on his points though.
So a text is a complex form with many approaches from the reception to be understood.
The quality of the text is about how the form and the content will be tied together, how it is coherent. The reception has to "understand" to estimate the quality. But it's really hard to estimate how good or how bad is a text with just an immediate approach, that's why time will tell (though it's not "time" who tells but people who analyze it and show different approaches that work, with time, people can show how interesting and complex a text can be, or not).
Anyway, some people use "rules" to see the quality of a text. But let's see one of the most impressive film ever made " The Night of the hunter" ( https://en.wikipedia...Hunter_(film) )one of my favorite films. It's a masterpiece that follow no rule of filming or writing. When the film was criticized in France, François Truffaut who worked in "les cahiers du cinéma" asked a colleague to defend the film while he would criticize it. From a "technical" point of view the film was "bad", but now it's one of the best film ever made. But since the beginning the film was coherent though the rules were not followed so it seemed to be an awkward film.
The quality of a text rely on the relation between form and content. And first of all it's global. I mean it's not details that make something becoming bad. Details can lower the quality but that's not what will make something bad. If I take Metropolis as example, we can see that the immediate reading isn't what make something good. The message of the film is stupid and Fritz Lang himself did know that. Metropolis is at the same time a stupid film (the last words which make explicit the message are ridiculous) and a masterpiece. Strange! Thats because the immediate message isn't what can explain why it's a masterpiece. We can say that it's because the visual of the film influenced science-fiction in cinema, that's right (but for "the night of the hunter" which is a film that didn't and couldn't influence the cinema, this criterion doesn't work). But actually it's more because Fritz Lang created other meanings more interesting deeper in the film.
Sorry I don't have enough time to read your 100 pages (I will do when I will have time) but my purpose isn't to prove you're wrong everytime, I'm pretty sure many are valid. My point is just to say that even masterpieces are not "perfect" because it depends on the point of view, the approach.
But now we have to take a look at Mass Effect to see how the ending is coherent because my point is to say that if it's coherent, it can't be bad.
Sovereign speech is a very important moment in Mass Effect 1. Some people take what he says as provocation, but I don't think it has to be taken this way.
Sovereign speech is here to introduce the high level of perception :
- "Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."
the first words of Sovereign create a distance ("rudimentary", "you touch", "fumbling", "incapable"), an opposition between organics and synthetics ("creatures of blood and flesh"). Since that first line from Sovereign Reapers are at a higher level than we are. Then Sovereign will insist on it ("There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.", "We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence", "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.").
-"Reaper? A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they chose to call us is irrelevant. We simply... are."
That line is very interesting. The name of the reapers was given by the protheans, they don't have name. But the most interesting (though the fact that they don't have name can be interepreted) is that they simply are. What does that mean? That's where the high level seems to be linked with nature : their existence is just a fact.
As part of nature, Sovereign says : "We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure.". Here we have problems : no beginning? no end? How is it possible? Machines are created so they have beginning and end (Shepard asked who built the reapers). That's why it can't be taken literally. We are here in perception of time that is ignoring past and futur. And Sovereign uses "we", he talks about the reapers as a whole. These two things are important because they are opposed to our perception, and to our vision of existence as human. This perception is closer to a "cosmic" perception of things that transcends time and individuality because they are part of the nature.
Their existence is not inherently bad, sovereign explains us the high level of perception through abstraction : "We impose order on the chaos of organic life."
The problem of balance of order and chaos is here. Their purpose is based on abstraction (order and chaos). So just like nature wants, the existence of the reapers is to create the balance of things.
-Though they do the cycles, there are two lines that interested me since the first time I played Mass Effect 1 (I'm not telling lies!) :
"The cycle cannot be broken."
"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. "
When I first heard that it made me feels like Sovereign was part of that cycle (but I couldn't imagine that there were an A.I. behind all that).
(-"The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom."
That line makes explicit the notion of fate. In the beginning of Mass Effect 1 we had that guy who said that he saw our destruction, and now it has been repeated that reapers will come. There is no relation with the high perception but I think it's an important line for the writing.)
PS : I am not saying that they had in their mind the ending when they where writing Sovereign speech, I'm just saying that they used things that were here since Sovereign speech. There is a coherence. I think that some points in my post are not developed and need to be discussed and nuanced but I have to stop here for today.
And for Sovereign speech, we can notice two things :
-when he says : "We impose order on the chaos of organic life" he gives the purpose of the reapers. So those who think that the reapers didn't need a purpose they were evil Cthulhu misread the conversation. We obviously aren't in Lovecraft's atmosphere with this scene (no fear from Shepard), the antagonist isn't like Cthulu (the reapers are "just machines" unlike the ancient god Cthulhu) and their purpose isn't the same (the reapers have a purpose which is lied to the balance of the universe, they clearly aren't evil).
-the second thing is as interesting. If we take a look at how this conversation is written we can notice that the purpose is kinda hidden. It's easier to take a look on paper :
When you look at it, there's only one line about the purpose and this line is in the middle of what Sovereign says. Why is it interesting? First, because just like Hitchcock says if you want people to understand something you have to say it twice. Here they didn't do it, they didn't insist on the importance of that line. It's just the contrary. That's the second point : if you want someone to remember something you put it in the beginning or the end, not in the middle! You always finish with the most important thing if you want someone to remember it.
Here we have :
Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your civilization develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic life. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.
So instead of remembering the purpose people will remember the threat, because that's how Sovereign ended what he said. And if we take a look at the entire dialogue, this line is almost in the middle of it! This conversation insists on the threat intead of the purpose. The writer intentionnaly put it this way, the make the player feel the threat, and not make them think about the reapers not being evil. But we see that since Mass Effect 1 the reapers are supposed to have a purpose and this one isn't evil (that was their intention since the beginning that is confirmed with the "dark energy" possibility or the ending we have).
Then we have Mass Effect with Harbinger who uses the basis Sovereign gave us :
A lot are about the superiority of the reapers, some are about evolution ("We are your genetic destiny." just like sovereign said "We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence.") and there is one very interesting quotation:
"That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction. "
Here we have a paradox, destruction can't lead to salvation. This means that we have to overpass the contradiction to understand what he means.
In Mass Effect 3, the reaper on Rannoch uses the elements given by both Sovereign and Harbinger :
That's how there's a continuity through the entire trilogy about the high level in the end. Each reaper make it clear that it's something based on abstraction, and paradox. The conversation on Rannoch makes it also obvious that the presence of the reapers is about the opposition organics-synthetics and Shepard makes it clear ("Organics and synthetics don't have to destroy each other!").
The first lines that are problem for many people are :
Shepard: I need to stop the Reapers, do you know how I can do that?
Catalyst: Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution.
For many people, just because the catalyst says that he controls the reapers, the reapers turns into puppets. For them there's a contradiction between what Sovereign said and what the catalyst says :"We are each a nation - independent, free of all weakness"
So how can the reapers be independant and controlled? it seems that it doesn't work. But when we read properly, the catalyst says : "perhaps". That's the first thing that has to be interpreted. He didn't say he knows or he doesn't know how to stop the reapers. then the "I control the reapers" was interpreted by many as a full control, as if the reapers were empty. The problem is isn't the meaning of "control" because the text doesn't give us the real meaning. When people see a contradiction here, they actually impose a meaning which isn't the one from the text because they don't use the co-text to understand. That "perhaps" is really important. Then we've got "they are my solution". That's very important too : the solution can't be confused with the one who creates the solution. "They" doesn't include the catalyst. In the way he presents the things, the catalyst isn't the reapers and the reapers aren't the catalyst. that's why I think that both Sovereign and the catalyst tell the truth, the first saying that each reaper is a nation - independant (from the other reapers only? from the catalyst? Sovereign doesn't say) and the second saying that he controls them. Indeed we can't see that each reaper has his personality (independence) but they consider the reapers to be a unity (sovereign and harbinger always saying, repeating "we...", all the reapers having the same purpose). So here we have a paradox with the "independence" and "control", the contradiction disappears when we analyze things.
(And it's interesting to see that the catalyst says that the Illusive man couldn't control them because they already controlled him. Sure the Illusive man was indoctrinated, but the catalyst says that they "controlled" him not that he was indoctrinated.)
Then we've got :
Shepard: The solution to what?
Catalyst: Chaos. The created will always rebel against their creators, but we found a way to stop that from happening. A way to restore order.
"Chaos" and "order", those words were used by Sovereign and the reaper on rannoch. Just like it was said in Mass Effect 1, the organics are chaos and the reapers are here to create order. And here we can notice that the catalyst uses "we" (the catalyst and the reapers). he includes himself in the process of the cycles. And here we have the theme organics/synthetics that was made explicit on Rannoch. the relation between the reapers and that problem was said on Rannoch. But here we have another contradiction : the created rebelling against their creators while we saw on Rannoch that the organics (quarians) were trying to destroy all synthetics (geths). Here we have to interpret it, to understand the point of view. If we don't change our point of view, if we stay on the human scale, we can't understand what the catalyst is talking about, and we think that he is wrong. Here we have to analyze the entire game (Mass Effect 3) to understand the logic. We already have discussed about the fact that to understand this part, we need to understand the structure and the logic of the form.
Then :
Shepard: But you killed the rest?
Catalyst: We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life. Storing the old life in Reaper form.
that ascension was said by Sovereign and harbinger. Becoming a reaper is getting to a higher form of life (pinnacle of evolution, said Sovereign).
So here, I think that there is a coherence from Mass Effect 1 till the ending of Mass Effect 3 when we talk about the reaper level, that high level.
And for the philosophical aspect, it started with the abstraction Sovereign said but it became explicit with the word "essence".
I'll open a parenthesis and maybe I'm wrong (so don't hesitate to correct me) but in Mass Effect 2 we started to learn that the reapers were synthetics and organic. We were thinking in Mass Effect 1 that they were synthetics (while there was clues to understand that they were something else). but With Mass Effect 2, there was a problem of realism (I never really care about realism so that wasn't a real problem, but what I mean here is that it gave me a direction to read the writing). The reapers are synthetics with an organic part. I didn't play that much Mass Effect 2 btu is there anything that explains how the reapers can, from a realistic point of view, from a scientific point of view, how they can incorporate organic part in a synthetic form (synthetics parts in organics I understand, but the opposite is harder to imagine). Moreover, that organic part is supposed to be the essence of a civilisation. The problem is that the essence is philosophical concept. When we press someone, we don't see his "essence". Stewed fruit isn't the essence of the fruit. So for me, from Mass Effect 2 we couldn't talk about hard science-fiction (even for Mass Effect 1 it was not that right). So people who talk about space magic for the synthesis ending, well... for me Mass Effect 2 is based on that (Mass Effect 2 was written to reveal what the reapers are). But just like I said maybe there's a scientific explanation in game for how to create the synthesis of synthetics and organics to create a reaper form. As long as I have no one, the creation of the reapers is "space magic" just like the synthesis ending. I use the "space magic" words but that's not what I think at all, I used it that's because it's how people try to say that the ending is bad, for me the synthesis concept was symbolic from Mass Effect 2 (and it's not a bad thing for me).
Well, let's say I finished because I don't know what else I should explain about my point of view of the writing.
But to sum up my posts, if it's coherent, it's not bad, we can dislike it but it's not bad.
PS : for me the problem is more a problem of reading, the form used by the ending of Mass Effect 3 is based on a writing quite close to Nietzsche ( I'm not saying that Mass Effect is philosophy or pure application of Nietzsche but it's nietzschean). So about that form Nietzsche said something interesting (the art of interpretation), if you're interested, you can read the 8th part :
Thank you Angol! Interesting points and perspective.
I hope to have my response (at least in a more comprehensible representation than it is now - as it is just cryptic notes, scribbles, and a few doodles) distributed in time.
Time, however, is the big issue here. I am happy to say I am working out and boxing again - however this leaves me about an hour of personal time when I get home (and I usually spend that eating dinner, reading to my cat, and decompressing). But I do promise - I will get to you when I can.
What a wild few days/weeks/months it has been! Won't lie, StarCraft II:Legacy of the Void has devoured my little time, that and legal/work obligations.
A few housekeeping things:
First, when it comes to articles or links in French or German you don’t need to worry. I recently learned French to read Turmoil in the Swaths and my German has always been a bit keen . You don’t need to worry about translating – I can do that – so please feel free to cite away with as many journals, articles, etc that you wish. Constant exposure to something keeps you sharp in the subject. In addition, grounding your position with citiation allows us to track back your line of thought. This will help others and it keeps us from being intellectually dishonest.
Secondly:
[Sorry I don't have enough time to read your 100 pages (I will do when I will have time) but my purpose isn't to prove you're wrong everytime, I'm pretty sure many are valid. My point is just to say that even masterpieces are not "perfect" because it depends on the point of view, the approach]
It wasn’t 100 pages, it was like…70ish…(46 by my original count – though the google docs spacing increased the size). Though I do wish you would have read it, or at the very least scrolled through the sources. If you constantly ignore what is being presented to you in favor of your own ideals and opinions you are missing out. No one knows 100% of any one subject. In addition, not that many people may take you seriously both here and elsewhere in life. Your love of ME3 is self evident and very rational from a psychological standpoint, your position that it is coherent is not so much. As such, since you responded only to the preface of my last post I will keep this one very short.
Please read my prior post as well and MAKE SURE to check all the books, interviews, and other citations showing what and how I arrived at my conclusions:
Narrative Coherence is not really defined as “coherence between form and content”. If you could cite where you leared this I would be much obliged. Currently, it seems a bit recursive and – in using the word coherence to define coherence it comes off a bit circular. ME3 ‘s ending is both incoherent to itself and the series…read more to find out
High Level is not what you keep saying it is…read more to find out
The catalyst is not really giving a paradox…read more to find out
Mass Effect 3 was rushed…read more to find out
You continue to present your interpretation of the material to derive the ‘meaning’, when I have said again and again that this has nothing to do with the meaning or aesthetic values in the ending. The issue is with the transmission - not the interpretation. In addition, postulating your interpretation as Authorial Intent is committing the dread Intentional Fallacy…read more to find out.
You really need to leverage more citations in your arguments…read more to see
I know it is a lot of pages, if you would like, i can PM you all of my citations (and more citations I did not use) to represent the point of where how and why ME3 breaks Narrative Coherence and thus breaks it believability. If you cannot access any of these links, please let me know and I will try to PM you the info. But please, read through both posts - in entirety - before responding. There are many parts that could contradict you at a later point and I want to make sure you do what I do and read through the entirety before responding.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn: "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"
Retour en haut
. You don’t need to worry about translating – I can do that – so please feel free to cite away with as many journals, articles, etc that you wish. Constant exposure to something keeps you sharp in the subject. In addition, grounding your position with citiation allows us to track back your line of thought. This will help others and it keeps us from being intellectually dishonest.
