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I wonder if people hate Liara so much because she reminds them of a girl who rejected them
She's a fairly inoffensive character really, no more forced on the PC than anyone else.
And to forestall all the 'comes up to my cabin uninvited' I give you traynor; best buddy I give you garrus, and unkillable I give you her 5min cameo in me2 - yes that's pretty much ignored fora third of the trilogy.
I think a lot of it is due to the massive character shift without an arc, the useless Shadow Broker status, and strange goodbye scene at Hammer FOB. I had Tali as LI in my one and only ME3 playthrough, so I don't know about Liara's romance.
As for "best buddy," it's more forced (narratively, not on the player) than Garrus' is. Garrus has been there for all three games and you can see the relationship between the two develop. This is not the case with Liara. However, I really didn't feel she was too intrusive there. I did laugh at how she couldn't get over how war focused Javik was.
I think a lot of it is due to the massive character shift without an arc, the useless Shadow Broker status, and strange goodbye scene at Hammer FOB.
Add to this the whole "Tessia is lost, OMG! It was the most important planet in the Universe, now I want to kill myself" while your Shepard could (and for many of us would) feel nothing special about it.
It was loosing player agency here - you were supposed to love Liara whether you felt this way or not, and choosing between different degree of admiration in dialogs was a pain. Same as with Traynor, true. God, I hated that constant "Oh, Traynor, you are amazing, you are so gifted, you always do the right thing, you truly know how to brighten the day, YOU ARE THE BEST!". In every bloody conversation!
Forced emotions is a bad thing, probably worse than forced lost battles (a la Kay Leng).
Thing is though this argument can be applied to all characters - but for some reason liara is always singled out. Hence my postulating other reasons
I just don't like her voice.
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Thing is though this argument can be applied to all characters - but for some reason liara is always singled out. Hence my postulating other reasons
Not to all characters, no, but to some of them. And Liara indeed got the most attention - special DLC dedicated to her alone! Hence, more hate than for others.
Not to mention, different people hate different things. Traynor irritates me more then Allers or Liara, yet, she is generally loved character.
The difference is that while Garrus and Tali were fan favorites, the complaint is that Liara is an author favorite. While anecdotal to my own experience, I don't see the level of love for Liara that I see for the other two or the reverse when it comes to disliking them.
Liara is one of the fan favorites as well, both according to Bioware's own metrics (she was the most used squadmate) and the largest fan survey. The difference between Liara and Garrus and Tali is that she's a more polarizing character than the other two. Fans tend to either love or hate her, and those that don't have any strong opinions on her one way or the other appear to be a minority.
To some extent that's also true of Tali, but not to the same extent as Liara. Garrus is a bit odd in that it seems no one ever hates the character for getting a lot of love from the writers, whereas both Tali (ME2) and Liara (ME3) got complaints about the amount of content or dialogue they received.
One other thing I noticed...
Both Liara and Tali were criticized for getting the canon friend treatment, whereas Wrex, Garrus, and Grunt are not. It seems fans object to the player not being given a choice on whether or not their character is close to a squadmate only if the squadmate in question is female.
I don't like Liara's ME2/ME3 voice acting. It's too tryhard, and I have never used that term before.I just don't like her voice.
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Have to be Shepard. Dying in the end like that. Pfft.
One other thing I noticed...
Both Liara and Tali were criticized for getting the canon friend treatment, whereas Wrex, Garrus, and Grunt are not. It seems fans object to the player not being given a choice on whether or not their character is close to a squadmate only if the squadmate in question is female.
Garrus is sometimes criticized for the perma bro thing, not as often as Liara, but I do see it.
Tali though? ME1 you can agressively tell her to hand over her evidence of Saren, whine when Udina makes you take her in, accuse her of espionage, call her and the quarians idiots who got/are getting what they deserve (indeed this is required to advance one conversation), deny her Pilgrimage gift and are never forced to treat her like a friend. ME2 you can threaten to shoot her on site on Freedom's Progress, tell her and her squad to sod off (to which even the Cerberus squadmates have to reign you in) and then send Veetor to be tortured. Assuming you even choose to recruit her (if not she dies and is never heard from again) later, you can deliberately out her father as a traitor just to spite her as a "successful" outcome of her loyalty mission, then go down to engineering and rub it in. Then comes ME3 where you can tell her you only bothered to help because the Fleet's useful/ Hackett ordered you, then intentionally betray and deliberately kill millions of people she essentially considers family (after not showing a shred of empathy even if you optionally talked to her), shrug your shoulders while she ends her own suffering as a result, and then call her and her people idiots who got what they deserved again (to Joker/EDI).
It's obvious she looks up to and wants to be Shepard's friend (which is still a problem of reactivity if you've treated her like dirt), but the latter is at least under no obligation to reciprocate. There's no forced hugs or bro moments or whatever. It's mostly if not entirety optional how you approach her as a friend, just business or even a nuisance.
One other thing I noticed...
Both Liara and Tali were criticized for getting the canon friend treatment, whereas Wrex, Garrus, and Grunt are not. It seems fans object to the player not being given a choice on whether or not their character is close to a squadmate only if the squadmate in question is female.
I disagree: I've seen Garrus gettting criticized for it plenty of times. Wrex and Grunt significantly less, though, which I think may be because they can both die in the earlier games as can Garrus and Tali whereas Liara can only die at the end of the third game as far as I know.
This may be why Liara is the one criticized the most as the others can be removed from the games through dying if the player is too bothered by the percieved canon friendship while Liara cannot. I do think, however, that it also has something to do with Liara that is unrelated to her gender.
Liara is one of the fan favorites as well, both according to Bioware's own metrics
According to themikefest's owm metrics, she's not a fan favorite
(she was the most used squadmate)
In ME3? Would she of been if she showed up after the coup like Tali and Ashley/Kaidan? Would she of been the most used if everyone was available at the beginning like she was?
Garrus is a bit odd in that it seems no one ever hates the character for getting a lot of love from the writers,
He got no love from me. He ended up dead in ME2 in most of my playthroughs
whereas both Tali (ME2) and Liara (ME3) got complaints about the amount of content or dialogue they received.
I never complained about the dialogue Tali got. But then again, she's either dead in ME2 or I never recruited her. Of course she provides one of the funniest scenes in the game by not making any effort to stop the upload and then showing her skill at doing a backwards swan dive to the ground below. excellent
The content for Liara in ME3 was, why was it there? After the first dream. What was the purpose of her being there? Shepard already knew the turians weren't going to budge until their Primarch was rescued. After the second dream, what purpose was there for her to be in that scene? Is she just that stupid not to use the intercom to tell Shepard the salarian councilor wants to talk? That would explain it.
I didn't see any relationship development with Garrus. In ME2, he's suddenly Shepards best friend, no matter how you treated him. "There's no Shepard without Vakarian" is one of the worst lines in the series for me.
I also disagree that Liara has a massive character shift without an arc. ME1 Liara was a smart, but inexperienced, a young asari who had spent her life mostly out of touch with the world because she was too busy with her studies. Enter Shepard, the experienced, battle-hardened warrior, who first rescues her and then turns out to have a connection to the Protheans, who Liara has always been fascinated by. It makes perfect sense that she would fall for Shepard, male or female.
Then he/she goes and dies on her. For a sensitive and vulnerable person like Liara, her first love dying a violent death practically right before her eyes would be incredibly difficult to cope with. So what does she do? She finds a new obsession with the Shadow Broker (obsessive behavior being a typical trait of hers, see her previous obsession with the Protheans) and completely buries herself in it to drown out the pain. And between devoting her life to hunting down the Shadow Broker and having lost the only person she's ever loved the way she did, of course she becomes somewhat jaded and cynical.
The big change is between the first and second game. In the first, the relationship is definitely mentor/student. it's why I love the paragon option on the Dr. Saleon mission. In the second, they are more friendly, though I don't get the "best friend" vibe until the third game. I really like that Garrus talks with Shepard about the missions. It makes Shepard feel more like a person.
For Liara, the problem isn't that she is cynical; it's that she is a violent rage machine. The connection to Shepard for this shift isn't well explained. That's part why the LotSB DLC was so good. That change in Liara needed to be explored.
Add to this the whole "Tessia is lost, OMG! It was the most important planet in the Universe, now I want to kill myself" while your Shepard could (and for many of us would) feel nothing special about it.
Forced emotions is a bad thing, probably worse than forced lost battles (a la Kay Leng).
Well, if I recall, Shepard always feels bad about Thessia whether or not you care.
As to the second part, that's the problem with the intro. "Oh, some kid died.You should feel bad"
Not to all characters, no, but to some of them. And Liara indeed got the most attention - special DLC dedicated to her alone! Hence, more hate than for others.
Not to mention, different people hate different things. Traynor irritates me more then Allers or Liara, yet, she is generally loved character.
I think that DLC was needed to explain the character shift. It does fit best if Liara was the LI from the first game.
Liara is one of the fan favorites as well, both according to Bioware's own metrics (she was the most used squadmate) and the largest fan survey. The difference between Liara and Garrus and Tali is that she's a more polarizing character than the other two. Fans tend to either love or hate her, and those that don't have any strong opinions on her one way or the other appear to be a minority.
To some extent that's also true of Tali, but not to the same extent as Liara. Garrus is a bit odd in that it seems no one ever hates the character for getting a lot of love from the writers, whereas both Tali (ME2) and Liara (ME3) got complaints about the amount of content or dialogue they received.
One other thing I noticed...
Both Liara and Tali were criticized for getting the canon friend treatment, whereas Wrex, Garrus, and Grunt are not. It seems fans object to the player not being given a choice on whether or not their character is close to a squadmate only if the squadmate in question is female.
Oh yeah? I hadn't seen that and was going off what I'd read from people's personal opinions. As for why Liara and Tali get it more, I'm guessing there are two reasons.
1) Shipping. Fans of one hate the other. Particularly with (I assume) most players being male and male Shepard being played 4:1 (last I knew) over Femshep.
2) They are similar in character in the first game. Both are young, naive, non-military, and impressed by Shepard.
I hear many complaints about the "forced friendship" between Shepard and Garrus. Vilio01 doesn't like it. As for Wrex, that develops over the first game if you want it to. Wrex can also die. After that, he's not in the squad. His attitude toward you will actually be based on what Shepard does. Grunt can stay in his tank.
Add to this the whole "Tessia is lost, OMG! It was the most important planet in the Universe, now I want to kill myself" while your Shepard could (and for many of us would) feel nothing special about it.
It was loosing player agency here - you were supposed to love Liara whether you felt this way or not, and choosing between different degree of admiration in dialogs was a pain. Same as with Traynor, true. God, I hated that constant "Oh, Traynor, you are amazing, you are so gifted, you always do the right thing, you truly know how to brighten the day, YOU ARE THE BEST!". In every bloody conversation!
Forced emotions is a bad thing, probably worse than forced lost battles (a la Kay Leng).
I hate the Thessia mission so much! While I have mostly gotten over how much I dislike Liara by that point in the series.
I hate having to haul her along on this mission. It's the reason why I bring James along every single time, so he can totally troll her and tell her to suck it up when she whines after having invited herself along. Every single one of my Shep's are of the opinion that if it's hard enough for the battle hardened soldiers of the group (Shepard, James, Garrus) to fight and leave their Reaper occupied homeworlds, then what business does a non-soldier have going down to hers during the initial attack and what kind of commander am I to put her, myself and our third at risk just to satisfy her emotional desire?
Of course she provides one of the funniest scenes in the game by not making any effort to stop the upload and then showing her skill at doing a backwards swan dive to the ground below. excellent
You jerk. 
I like Tali but you do bring up a good idea. For all her character growth in being more mature, forceful, and combat capable after the first game, she lets Shepard decide the fate of her people and stands passively by if Shepard doesn't listen. It would have been way more interesting, as well as jarring, to see her attack Legion and either have him kill her out of self-defense, or in my personal preference from when I have thought about this before, make Shepard stop her, possibly lethally, from stopping Legion. That would really tie into the whole theme of the weight on Shepard and his mental breakdown from that.
You jerk.
I like Tali but you do bring up a good idea. For all her character growth in being more mature, forceful, and combat capable after the first game, she lets Shepard decide the fate of her people and stands passively by if Shepard doesn't listen. It would have been way more interesting, as well as jarring, to see her attack Legion and either have him kill her out of self-defense, or in my personal preference from when I have thought about this before, make Shepard stop her, possibly lethally, from stopping Legion. That would really tie into the whole theme of the weight on Shepard and his mental breakdown from that.
Similarly, I am of the opinion that the final beam run mission would have had more bite if one of Shep's two squaddies had been vaporized in the run up to the beam while the other had actually made it up with him/her only to take Anderson's place at that segment.
In everyone's first run, they likely would have had along their favorite two squaddies and been totally emotionally eviscerated. Later runs would have had them taking along squaddies they are less practiced at using but less attached to.
And Liara indeed got the most attention - special DLC dedicated to her alone! Hence, more hate than for others.
Yeah, that's why she was pretty much not in ME2 - you can pretty much have one conversation with her.
However you raise an interesting point - LotSB is seen as one of the best DLC's and of course is entirely optional - you actively have to pay for more Liara content.
There's no real getting around it - you can't complain about Liara being featured in a DLC that is basically about her, especially if you have bought it
I guess I don't mind her because being a femshep player Liara represents the best romance content for her, in my opinion (which doesn't say much given the alternatives - pile of radioactive ash, birdman, fish or dodgy racial stereotype). The relationship built up between Hale and Hills - especially in LotSB - really works.
Yeah, that's why she was pretty much not in ME2 - you can pretty much have one conversation with her.
However you raise an interesting point - LotSB is seen as one of the best DLC's and of course is entirely optional - you actively have to pay for more Liara content.
There's no real getting around it - you can't complain about Liara being featured in a DLC that is basically about her, especially if you have bought it
I guess I don't mind her because being a femshep player Liara represents the best romance content for her, in my opinion (which doesn't say much given the alternatives - pile of radioactive ash, birdman, fish or dodgy racial stereotype). The relationship built up between Hale and Hills - especially in LotSB - really works.
Nope, does not work! First of all, you could get ME2 with all DLC as a whole package and do not even realize SB was a DLC (my case). Btw, that, otherwise, "one line" contributes to the feeling (only a feeling!) it's not a DLC but rather restored content (cut off, polished and sold separately). Second, whether you had that DLC or not - it was Liara who saved your body and she will tell you about it (feel thankful, you jerk!). Third, "hate" is cumulative - for all games taken together.
Liara did get a lot of author's attention. She is invincible, she is everywhere and has something to say or to do in most important plot twists, you are supposed to care about her (without ability to even be rude) and you are forced to share her emotions. It's like the game pushes you in that direction - play a BroShep (for other reasons) and get Liara as your LI, then everything falls in right places, all dialogs feel natural and you get the most out of game-content. And people don't like to be pushed.
Everyone's Bro Garrus can be killed or turned down at every corner, about Tali - read several post above, but with Liara you are stack in a permanent admiration mod and can do nothing about it.
Again, have to say my pet peeve is Traynor and I look at Liara as at a special device, tool, information machine attached to Shepard for a plot-guidance - it's ok, many games do so. But I do understand why someone might not like it.
You jerk.
I like Tali but you do bring up a good idea. For all her character growth in being more mature, forceful, and combat capable after the first game, she lets Shepard decide the fate of her people and stands passively by if Shepard doesn't listen. It would have been way more interesting, as well as jarring, to see her attack Legion and either have him kill her out of self-defense, or in my personal preference from when I have thought about this before, make Shepard stop her, possibly lethally, from stopping Legion. That would really tie into the whole theme of the weight on Shepard and his mental breakdown from that.
I can't remember the last time I chose the geth to have her take the plunge. The first time I had to scratch my head as to why she wouldn't make an attempt to stop the upload. On the dreadnought, she mentions her people are dying. You can hear the concern in her voice. What happened to that concern when Commander dumba** chose the geth? She is quick with her knife when the geth grabs Shepard. I would be curious to hear from BioWare why they had her stand there like a pathetic little wimp not doing anything about stopping the upload.
If I was to do it, have Tali make a move on the geth at which point an interrupt appears for the player to use to stop Tali. If the interrupt is ignored, Tali either knife's the geth or pushes it over the edge. Quarians live. Geth destroyed. If the interrupt is used, Shepard shoots Tali in the leg wounding her. At that point she struggles to use her weapon when Shepard or squadmate kills her. Or instead of killing her, kick her weapon away. While the scene shows remains of the quarian ships falling to the ground, Shepard turns to see Tali crawled to the ledge. Tali turns to face Shepard to make a comment and then falls over the edge.
eh, I don't hate any of them. Not even Catalyst or Kai Leng. Kai Leng I was actually looking forward to hating in that great love to hate way. Instead I found him to be extremely Meh--that's why I don't like him. I was disappointed with the character. And the Catalyst was just some ...thing BW put in the game that I played along with. It never roused anything in me. Tbh, my actual thought during the whole thing with Catalyst was, "Okay, kid, what button do I push to get back to the game," 
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Liara, I like Lliara just fine. But seriously, she's the only one with any good biotics..Singularity. Stasis. I wanted to take a different biotic with me sometimes, but there really weren't any other options.
But I don't hate any of the ME characters. Mind you, I have played games where I end up absolutely hating characters. Just curse words everywhere!
Sooo, now that I think about it, Idk if me not hating any of the ME characters is actually a good thing.....?
eh, I don't hate any of them. Not even Catalyst or Kai Leng. Kai Leng I was actually looking forward to hating in that great love to hate way. Instead I found him to be extremely Meh--that's why I don't like him. I was disappointed with the character. And the Catalyst was just some ...thing BW put in the game that I played along with. It never roused anything in me. Tbh, my actual thought during the whole thing with Catalyst was, "Okay, kid, what button do I push to get back to the game,"
Liara, I like Lliara just fine. But seriously, she's the only one with any good biotics..Singularity. Stasis. I wanted to take a different biotic with me sometimes, but there really weren't any other options.
But I don't hate any of the ME characters. Mind you, I have played games where I end up absolutely hating characters. Just curse words everywhere!
Sooo, now that I think about it, Idk if me not hating any of the ME characters is actually a good thing.....?
Same thing for me. I do not hate any of the characters. Obviously some of the companions are better then others, but I can't think of anyone I hate. Udina maybe the biggest a-hole in the games, but even I do not hate him.
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