(NOTE: of course, spoilers ahead, if you haven't played this already really old game.)
I have just completed a replay of the Mass Effect series, and like many before stood agonizing over the "Final Choice." I made my choice. I then decided to look up what others have said, their interpretation of the meanings. It would seem that the Indoctrination Theory has gained quite a foothold (it's been a long time since I previously played the games).
I started thinking about the Indoctrination Theory, and while it's very compelling, I don't buy it. And the reason I don't buy it comes down to a single question. If the Indoctrination Theory is to be believed, the whole Citadel section was a charade, placed into our minds by Harbinger/Reapers as they solidify our indoctrination. The "correct" solution then, according to these theorists, is the "Destroy" option, and all other options are wrong and imply Shepherd succumbing to indoctrination. To prove this out, the theorists point out that the color of the Destroy option is Red, thus Renegade, thus Harbinger trying to trick Shepherd into picking something else.
Question: does the color of the Destroy option change if you are playing a Paragon Shepherd vs a Renegade Shepherd? No? Okay, the Indoctrination Theory is bunk. Because: if the whole point is to trick Shepherd with the opposite, and if you have been playing a Renegade Shepherd, well guess what: you have been picking red the WHOLE GAME. So making the Destroy option, in this case, Red is simply affirming what your character should do, exactly the opposite of what the theorists are saying (and supposedly what the Reapers want you to do. Catalyst: "Oh crap, it's a Renegade Shepherd. Sorry Reaper buds, but he's going to pick the Red. If only he was Paragon!"). If Shepherd was indeed indoctrinated, and indeed Renegade, then the Destroy option would be BLUE - because that is counter to how Shepherd has been the whole game. But it's not. It's Red. Oops.
Here's what I think happened, and at the end what my choice was and why I chose it.
The Citadel: Shepherd really did make it to the beam and up to the Citadel. You hear on the radio chatter that no one made it - that's because as far as they know, everyone *is* dead. I mean, on the battle field, everyone always know the exact state of every soldier? No? Oh, then why are we putting so much faith into this one radio message? I think it's there for drama for the player. Player: "Holy crap did I just die...? Now what???? Oh! Shep! You *did* make it to the Citadel! You are a BEAST!"
Shepherd did meet TIM and Anderson. And so what if the Citadel is shifting? It's a frickin' floating uber space city that can travel and have Mass Effect Relays inside of it and has been around since before the Reapers - and you accept all that but then get freaked out because of some moving walls??? It must be a hallucination! Walls just don't disappear!! Doesn't make sense. More likely, Shepherd made to a part of the Citadel he had never been to before, and the walls here for whatever reason do in fact move. Before the events of the first game, if I told you there was a Mass Effect Relay there, would you have shouted "Hallucination!" at me? So moving walls does not a hallucination make.
TIM: I don't think TIM was in fact indoctrinated. I think he was bat$hit crazy, and finally figured out a form of indoctrination and was able to apply to Shepherd and Anderson. From the beginning, TIM wanted to control Reapers. That didn't all of a sudden come out at the end. He was like that the whole time. And when would he have been indoctrinated anyway? He hid away on his space station the whole time. He wasn't near any Reaper stuff until the very end, after he let *other* people figure out how to make it work. No, I think he was just nuts, and took the whole "save the human" race thing too far. (He was essentially the antithesis to the Catalyst - where the Catalyst took saving life to one extreme, TIM took saving humans to a different extreme - but just as extreme). Shepherd convinced him he was indoctrinated to get rid of him as an obstacle (he was about to kill Shepherd). Now, Kei Leng was indoctrinated - but by whom? All we know is the Prothean VI detected indoctrination. Was it Reaper? Or was it TIM? It could be either way, though I think it was TIM - once he figured out how, he did over Kei Leng so he wouldn't get another Miranda situation.
Anderson: Why is it so hard to believe Anderson made it there? He's a tough SOB. He survived 3 games of ME - not even some of Shepherd's squad mates can claim that. And he spent most of the last game surviving the Reapers decimating Earth. Anderson was bad a$$. Not so hard to think he wouldn't make it as well.
The Boy: It's not hard to believe that no one, in a war zone as bad as Earth being razed, would take notice of one little boy. How many children have died in wars? Do you remember them all? While a sad thing, it's also very true. So the fact that no one pays much attention to him is not sufficient justification that he wasn't in fact there. I think he's a real boy, and he really dies. And it really affects Shepherd (what reasonable person wouldn't be affected by watching a child they tried to save, albeit briefly, die in front of them?). The dream sequences are indeed used to foreshadow something, but I don't think it's Shepherd's indoctrination - it's his death. We are seeing that Shepherd is going to die. The fate of that child is in fact our fate. As evidenced by the end when they are together, and both go up in flames. Shepherd, like the boy, will die.
Dream State Running: The theorists claim that Shepherd "running" towards the beam is just like the Dream Sequences, thus they are fake. Orrrrrr....he just almost got killed by a big laser beam, is in fact dying, and just can't run fast. I think it's the latter. I think he survived the beam (why not, all that armor has to be good for *something* - it's not like he was naked), but it really took the Micky out of him. Thus he runs like he's dying - because he his. The damage we see on the armor is in fact real.
The Catalyst/Boy: So why the boy again? Because the Catalyst is a construct, and picked something out of Shepherd's mind that he can relate to. He watched this kid die, and has been having nightmares about it (in fact, the only nightmares we see in any game, so he must have been strongly affected) - so it's not unreasonable for the Catalyst to latch on to that image. Plus, it's poetic license from a Story Telling POV - I think people tend to forget that there are IRL people trying to tell a poignant story here, so there's not necessarily hidden meaning in everything. Some things are done purely to illicit an emotional response from the viewer.
The Choices: Destruction is Red because it is a Destroy Choice. Control is Blue because it is a Build Choice. Synergy is Green because it couldn't be Red or Blue. That's all there is to it. The colors don't change depending on what Shepherd you play, because you are not indoctrinated. You are really there, and you really have a choice. And it's a way for game devs to identify the different choices to prevent gameplay being confusing - after all, if they were all the same color that wouldn't really make sense. Now, we as players might not like any of the choices, but then again, if it were IRL, sometimes the choices we have to make are all bad choices. That's called life.
The Catalyst/Reapers: I think they are exactly what they seem to be. The Catalyst is a construct that controls the Reapers. It's got a single program to follow, Preserve Life. It has read too much into this directive (much as I think the Indoctrination Theory has read too much into the ending) and took it to extremes. The Catalyst/Reapers are not inherently evil. They are just following their programming. If I programmed a robot to kill people, is it the robot's fault? We will hate on the robot, want to destroy it, but it will be confused, and not want to be destroyed, because it was just doing what it was told. It doesn't know any better. Humans know better. Robots don't. The Catalyst is a robot. Of course it doesn't want to be destroyed, it's just doing what it's told. That does not make it evil (even though it has done atrocious and evil things). So because it does not want to be destroyed is not justification that Shepherd is being tricked.
The End is Not Real..?: the whole ending being a dream doesn't make sense if Shepherd wasn't really there. How did the Citadel arms open? How did the Crucible work? What was the Catalyst then? How can we say Shepherd couldn't survive the laser and walk to the beam when at the end we see Shepherd survive the very laser we just said he couldn't (if we accept the theorists statement that the Destroy is the "correct" option and our score is high enough)? We are prepared to accept aliens and space flight and inter-species sex and Mass Effect magic but as soon as he is beamed up to the Citadel near where he needs to be we apply 2012 Science Logic and call shenanigans? No way could *that* have happened!
So I chose BLUE. Here's why:
1) Shepherd's goal from the very beginning was to STOP the Reapers, not kill them. Over and over he's said "don't worry, we'll stop them." Controlling the Reapers *is* stopping them.
2) Through all 3 games, Shepherd has demonstrated his will power. He has the ability to stay true to himself. Killing the Reapers is not staying true to himself, STOPPING them is (killing them is a way of stopping them, but not the only way - we have choices, the point of the game). Furthermore, he has the willpower to be the Catalyst. Shepherd has been making sacrifices since the beginning. He has been putting EVERYONE else before him, regardless of race, color or species. He has done for the Geth, the Quarians, the Krogan, the Rachni, all of the races. He has defended all forms of life, newly self-aware/sentient Geth not-with-standing. If there was a single individual better suited to be a Catalyst I don't know who it would be. Who better to introduce the Human aspect to the blind robot programming. Who better to correct that mistake? Hell, he's been fixing every other mistake in the universe, why not this one too. And he does it like a hero, by sacrificing himself. The easier solution, the easy way out, is to just to Destroy everything and oh look, I get to live afterwards. So selfish and self-serving - everything my Shepherd has NOT been up to this point.
3) Earlier, Hackett ordered Shepherd to Kill the Reapers - it's a mistake to think this is what Shepherd has been groomed to do. No, Shepherd has been groomed to do what is *right.* If all he did was follow orders, there wouldn't have been a 2nd game. He would have immediately turned himself into the Alliance at the start, RATHER THAN GOING AGAINST THEM WITH CERBERUS. Why did he do that? Because it was the right thing to do. NOT because he was following orders.
4) At The End, we get to watch the Reapers help rebuild the civilization they were bent on destroying. The Geth were redeemed. Why not the Reapers? Plus, what better way to just so convincingly and undoubtedly defeat your enemy them to bring them to your side. The Indoctrination Theory says the Reapers were working Shepherd over - with the BLUE option I maintain that Shepherd indoctrinated the Reapers. *That's* the Shepherd I know. Isn't that EXACTLY what control is? Look at them. Reapers are rebuilding Relays. Helping everyone out. What, are they faking it? Why? They could have just as easily continued killing everyone. They were doing what they were doing because their programming told them to. Shepherd introduces a new programming, a new way to look at the world. One can liken it to Reapers as children who don't know any better, and Shepherd as the parent burdened with the responsibility (but very able and capable) of rearing them into something better. After all, he's been doing this very thing with every single squad member. And this is no different than the Geth - were the Geth really evil the whole time? Or were they just robots doing what their programming told them to do. Which we find out was Reaper control. Hmm. And then, through Shepherd's intervention/efforts, they attain heightened awareness (thanks to Reaper code none-the-less). In fact, they *help* the Quarians, the very entities they have been at war with for 300 years! The Reapers are no different fundamentally. They are just different on scale - they are much more powerful than the Geth. If the Geth can be brought around, as we see for a fact, we have every reason to think the Reapers can be too. If the Reapers were independent life, not a mechanism controlled and programmed via the Catalyst, then it would have been a very different situation - Destroy would have been a much more plausible solution, because controlling people never works well. But Reapers aren't people. Which leads to:
5) My Shepherd does not spend a good portion of the game setting a Peace with Quarians and Geth just to throw it away on mass genocide of the Geth. My Shepherd doesn't do that. He spends valuable time WHILE EARTH IS BURNING on making sure Joker and EDI hit it off. Because it's the little things that matter. It's what we fight for. If we ignore those base emotions, forsake them for something we claim is bigger, more important, then we are no better than the Reapers. As ridiculous as it may sound, I fought through 3 games so that Joker and EDI can have a first date. And for it to mean something. I am NOT going to just throw that away because it's easier to Destroy everything. Which also leads to:
6) All of a sudden, the population of Earth just exploded. By A LOT. Like, by every single alien orbiting Earth. And Shepherd amassed a LARGE number of people around Earth, for all intents and purposes the largest number of beings together ever seen up to that point. Even larger than the Protheans. LOTS of beings. The Relays are down, they are not getting home anytime soon. Earth will be way overpopulated, resources will become very scarce, and the Earth will be no better off. The Reapers might as well have destroyed it. Think about the shear number of lives floating in orbit. Earth cannot possibly accommodate them. Where does food come from? Medicine? What happens when they all start having babies? Wait, you mean I can make the Reapers help rebuild the Relays which means they get done way faster? Why would I *not* do that? Destroying the Reapers seals Earth's fate almost as soundly as Refusing to Choose. Except that everyone gets to die slowly of starvation, poor sanitation, illness, riots and overcrowding, rather than being atomized into Reaper goo almost immediately.
I think TIM was on to something - meaning a potential solution to stopping the Reapers is controlling them. We are appalled at this idea because of the means TIM goes about doing it - which is evil, he (unlike the Catalyst) should know better. But, that doesn't mean he isn't on to something. I think the end of the game is exactly what we see. There's no mirrors. There's no tricks. Everything goes down just as we see it. And the choices are exactly as we see them: Destroy or Control. (I don't really consider Synergy as a choice because that's anti-Shepherd and the Refusal is just a joke, what did I play 3 games for, so that's not really an option either.)
I think people got upset that Shepherd dies in all but the "Perfect Ending" (I don't blame them, I was upset too. I invested a lot into him just to have it taken away. It hurt. But it also makes for a good story. And hero's die. That's what they do, that's part of what makes them a hero, they are willing to go above and beyond what a normal person would - and unfortunately a lot of the time that means putting their life on the line, and IRL it's not always rainbows and kittens).
Anyway, that's my thoughts on it. I could be wrong, and it's open-ended enough such that the ending can be written however the devs want in the next installment, if there is one. The Destroy ending just doesn't sit well with me. And I can see how one might agree with the Indoctrination Theory, but it can be just as easily spun a different way too. In addition to that, the Indoctrination Theory just tastes too much like Paranoia. Black helicopters and everything. Sometimes, things really are as they seem.
But because the colors for the Choices do not change despite the Shepherd standing there (Renegade or Paragon), there is no trick. If there is no trick there, it calls into question all the "conclusions" claimed by the Indoctrination Theory.
Retour en haut
):
