Well EDI was made of parts of Sovereign. The Geth were upgraded with Reaper tech. So anything part Reaper or whole gets destroyed in the process.
And the shackled Ais in the Attican Traverse?
The virtual aliens?
They die too, you know.
Not to mention the entire "They have Reaper tech" is a completely fan-made, headcanoned excuse with zero in-game evidence..
"The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetic life will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic."
Pity-parties are often two-way streets... You pity people who were with the series from the start and who, apparently, try to find a higher meaning or purpose" in it. I have a little pity for people who can invest a number of hours of their time into anything and not even be able to eventually work out any meaning for themselves in that activity beyond "pity" for those who do.
I think it's perfectly OK (great in fact) to "find a higher meaning" for oneself embedded in the endings of ME... whether or not they are what was "given" as scraps of info that could be interpreted in a variety of different ways or are just badly executed intentions by the writer. The joy in reading any book comes from what the reader interprets that book to mean to them. While I've derived a lot of my "meaning of life" from great literature, some of it has come from "not so great literature" as well. Don't knock yourself out pitying me in order to run Bioware into the dirt... I'm doing just fine.
I don't think the "ending(s)" matter. What makes the ME Series great are the relationships. That evolve depending on your choices. Since I treat Citadel as a epilogue, to me that's the real ending. When Shepard leans against a rail, watching his crew board the Normandy and says "...The Best". That's the end.
Even though I've played the series at least 1o times, I still come bac. And I still fight back tears.
I only hope BW is able to recapture this with MEA. But I have a feeling it's going to be more action/shooter then RPG. Which would be a shame.
I do not agree. Refusing is for those people with deontological morality, those who say "I just can't do any other ending, regardless of the cost, because they're all wrong". Choosing Refuse, however much I disagree with it, is maybe the hardest choice, but it's the only one left if you think like that. Someone I debated with two years ago, asked by me why she would choose Refuse, answered with one word: Hope. After a moment of cognitive dissonance, i actually came to understand that. You choose Refuse in the hope that someone, someday will come up with an acceptable way out of the Reaper cycle and keep your world intact - and the story actually hints that some future cycle did solve the problem. We just don't know how. IMO the world doesn't work like that - our morality means nothing at all in the greater scheme of things and it's all wishful thinking - but the story wasn't just written for people like me.
The difference between Refuse and the other endings is that you aren't taking an active hand in the outcome. That this means the cycle continues, at least for now, is an inescapable outcome. The story wouldn't work if that didn't happen. If your morality is strongly deontological, however, it is the only way to come out of the scenario without feeling irrevocably tainted.
The three main endings, as a concept, worked for me because I'm more consequentialist. Of course not all ends justify extreme means, but the survival of galactic civilization is worth dirtying your hands considerably. For the same reason, I didn't have a problem with sabotaging the genophage cure. Not that I didn't feel like sh*t afterwards, but that was more because I had to shoot Mordin. In the end, it was the only possible decision after running the numbers on the krogan.
I would like to add that the endings achieved something by spawning debates like this, however flawed they might have been. There's too much stuff I hate in the story to ever enjoy it again, but these debates are interesting.
I agree. One additional point to mention about refuse is that its concept originated from feedback to the original endings, not the EC. There was a thread made back in the day discussing a fan video about a possible refuse ending. Since the original cut didn't have the comfy feel-good epilogues, a lot of forum users actually asked for a refuse ending (in part because the epilogues weren't there but also because in the original cut Shepard had no way to even question the catalyst at all (this was also added). There was even a BW dev (can't remember who exactly) who joined in and directly asked if people would have felt better if this was an option. The most common answer to this was yes.
Now, I think one of the main reasons why the refuse ending is perceived so badly is because BW basically changed the implication of the three original choices at the same time as adding the refuse ending. Through the epilogues all endings were made unambiguously happy (which I find disconcerting a quite a number of ways but that's a different issue) and thus, refuse was perceived as "the idiot option" (although as I said, I quite agree with you that it's actually not).
I wonder how people would have reacted if the original cut had not been changed except for adding the refuse option. Now that would have been interesting.
You need to go back and re-read what I wrote. Pray, tell me, where did I say I pitied people who were able to find meaning in the game and its endings?
There's no need to get triggered over trifles.
Leldra's post:
I would like to add that the endings achieved something by spawning debates like this, however flawed they might have been. There's too much stuff I hate in the story to ever enjoy it again, but these debates are interesting.
Your response:
I played the trilogy almost a year after ME3. The feelings I am left with is regret and pity. Regret for the destruction of something that could have been great and pity for people like you who were with the series from the start. You deserved better.
Still sounds like pity for someone who did find some meaning worth debating in the endings... but maybe I'm mistaken.
And the shackled Ais in the Attican Traverse?
The virtual aliens?
They die too, you know.
Not to mention the entire "They have Reaper tech" is a completely fan-made, headcanoned excuse with zero in-game evidence..
"The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetic life will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic."
No, it's not fan made. It was stated in ME2 that EDI was made from parts of Sovereign. The Geth were upgraded with Reaper tech when Shepard agreed to upload the code.
I know where this is going though.
People want an ending where only the Reapers get destroyed. Where there is no negative repercussions upon the galaxy. Someone even suggested the idea a few pages ago.
The consequences of choosing destroy, etc were not determined by the little kid. They were determined by the blueprints that you found. He's just telling you what each option does and what effect it will have. Like reading the instruction manual for the Crucible.
No, it's not fan made. It was stated in ME2 that EDI was made from parts of Sovereign. The Geth were upgraded with Reaper tech when Shepard agreed to upload the code.
Again:
"The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetic life will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic"
ALL SYNTHETIC LIFE. Including the Virtual aliens. Including the shackled AI. Including Commander Shepard. All synthetic life. Not just Reapers or Reaper tech.
I know where this is going though.
You don't. You really don't
People want an ending where only the Reapers get destroyed. Where there is no negative repercussions upon the galaxy. Someone even suggested the idea a few pages ago.
I'm on record as saying I'd be fine if it wrecked the relays rather than genociding an entire form of life. From some points of view, the kind of ending I'd want is worse than what we were actually given.
The consequences of choosing destroy, etc were not determined by the little kid. They were determined by the blueprints that you found. He's just telling you what each option does and what effect it will have. Like reading the instruction manual for the Crucible.
Nope
The consequences of choosing a given color ending were chosen by Bioware. There is no logical reasoning behind them. They simply do what they do because Bioware decided that was where the Art lay.
No, it's not fan made. It was stated in ME2 that EDI was made from parts of Sovereign. The Geth were upgraded with Reaper tech when Shepard agreed to upload the code.
As to how a wave of red energy, blasted out in all directions, can carefully check whether a given piece of technology is running a particular kind of code before blowing it up, and conversely refrain from zapping any and all machinery more complicated than a light bulb... Well, that's why I can't really get all that interested in the philosophical implications of the 3 coloured endings, and why I've always found the indoctrination theory so appealing. All 3 are arbitrary, quasi-scientific nonsense that do not belong in any self-respecting work of science fiction. Or any reasonably coherent work of fantasy, for that matter. The fact that such ridiculous things can apparently happen in the ME universe makes me very wary of becoming invested in it ever again.
When you have a device that can detonate the entire mass relay network in mere seconds and control how the energy is distributed across a diameter of 100,000 light-years, it's kind of easy to assume some sci-fi mumbo jumbo explanation. The whole physical galaxy is basically enveloped in a mass effect field, and that can lead to all kinds of weird things. The technology is left unexplained, but because of the sheer power being harnessed, I'm willing to accept the mystery. It wouldn't surprise me if a terribly built Crucible (worse than the Low-EMS Destruction ending) might actually rip the galaxy apart. That's the scale of what we're dealing with here. Once I realized this, the "space magic" actually became intriguing.
But it's not explicitly stated as the reason for their destruction by any character in the game. It basically appears to be yet another instance of fans dutifully filling in plot holes on behalf of the writers.
Just because something isn't explicitly stated doesn't make it a plot hole.
How many such victories come through betrayal and being shot in the back?
None
I didn't betray or shoot anyone in the back
As to how a wave of red energy, blasted out in all directions, can carefully check whether a given piece of technology is running a particular kind of code before blowing it up, and conversely refrain from zapping any and all machinery more complicated than a light bulb... Well, that's why I can't really get all that interested in the philosophical implications of the 3 coloured endings, and why I've always found the indoctrination theory so appealing. All 3 are arbitrary, quasi-scientific nonsense that do not belong in any self-respecting work of science fiction. Or any reasonably coherent work of fantasy, for that matter. The fact that such ridiculous things can apparently happen in the ME universe makes me very wary of becoming invested in it ever again.
I was always on board with the IT. Maybe not all of the various little varieties (some "evidence was a bit far-fetched iirc), but the basic idea behind it was amazingly cool. But then, I would also not have been piassed off by Bioware trolling me (one concern the anti-IT often brought up), but would have loved how original and artsy (^^) this would or could have been ...
So for me forever and always Shepard's story was never told to an end by Bioware. All that happend up there was utter Brontoshite, unreal, illogical and symbolic as every dream - the real end comes right after Shepard gets up on Earth .- and then she either is controlled by Reapers (green and blue) and brings the end to the Galaxy against her former allies. Or she remained true to her cause, and still got some free will left - and does what she set out to do in ME1.
Ah, the epicness of the ending in my head ^^ So much action, drama, excitement and good old heroism, plus a possible happy ending even! Oh how people would hate me for being so generic ... 
I think Mass effect games are simply the best games ever made so far. They make us feel like we are inside the action. The games make us feel the characters and care about them like no others. Its like to be inside a movie.
The end was..complicated and its my only regret.
My ideal end would have been Shepard dying in action but being able to destroy the Reapers. Reapers are simply something monstrous. They should have been destroyed once and for all.
As to how a wave of red energy, blasted out in all directions, can carefully check whether a given piece of technology is running a particular kind of code before blowing it up, and conversely refrain from zapping any and all machinery more complicated than a light bulb... Well, that's why I can't really get all that interested in the philosophical implications of the 3 coloured endings, and why I've always found the indoctrination theory so appealing. All 3 are arbitrary, quasi-scientific nonsense that do not belong in any self-respecting work of science fiction. Or any reasonably coherent work of fantasy, for that matter. The fact that such ridiculous things can apparently happen in the ME universe makes me very wary of becoming invested in it ever again.
It's not even a particular type of code since EDI and the geth function completely differently, lol. It's appealing to some quasi-mystical state of being wherein something is "alive" and synthetic.
On the other hand, that the Crucible's workings are complete nonsense means the philosophical underpinnings are pretty much the only interesting thing you can debate.
We can add in your Nietzschean interpretation of the ending :
- the form of the catalyst which can be interpreted in a nietzschean way (the child is the third and last metamorphose)
- the amoral aspect of the ending (no good and evil) that you talked but not to a god's realm, it's actually closer to nature (the EC add a comparison which is here to show the relation to the reapers and the nature).
- the fact that in the end there is no god, the criticism of religion is still here but people can misinterpret it and see it in a religious way. (just like Zarathoustra is a man without gods but he has a prophet aspect, he talks and seems to be a prophet).
- the ambiguous writing based on implicit, paradoxes and retroactive reading which forces the player to be an active reader just like Nietzsche wants the reader to be active to interpret, because interpretation is an art. Nietzsche doesn't explicitly develop his thoughts. The form of Mass Effect 3's ending was Nietzschean.
- the importance of the body for the synthesis ending. Nietzsche insisted on the body and its importance. he was an anti Plato. With the synthesis ending, it's a DNA change that seems to be the solution. The body influences the mind.
Glad to see some positivity on that forum!
I love these posts. I really liked the endings and agree with a lot of your thoughts here.
One of the reasons that I found the ending so affecting, I think, was the way it replicated being set adrift. Perilous freedom. To quote another atheistic existentialist, Sartre wrote, "but behold, when we thought we were arriving at the goal, a glance cast on the question itself has revealed to us suddenly, that we are encompassed with nothingness."
The game gives us 90 hours to learn the framework of the universe, rewarding us with blue and red points, confirming the consequences of our actions, teaching us everything we need to know about the universe - most crucially, how we feel about everyone in it. And then, it cuts us loose and asks a question that doesn't fit into that established structure, with no guaranteed outcome.
It asks, devoid of external validation, do our choices matter? If you die, and don't get to see the consequences of your actions, do they matter? If you have to make a choice and hope it was the right one, what is that like?
I thought that was neat.
I love these posts. I really liked the endings and agree with a lot of your thoughts here.
One of the reasons that I found the ending so affecting, I think, was the way it replicated being set adrift. Perilous freedom. To quote another atheistic existentialist, Sartre wrote, "but behold, when we thought we were arriving at the goal, a glance cast on the question itself has revealed to us suddenly, that we are encompassed with nothingness."
The game gives us 90 hours to learn the framework of the universe, rewarding us with blue and red points, confirming the consequences of our actions, teaching us everything we need to know about the universe - most crucially, how we feel about everyone in it. And then, it cuts us loose and asks a question that doesn't fit into that established structure, with no guaranteed outcome.
It asks, devoid of external validation, do our choices matter? If you die, and don't get to see the consequences of your actions, do they matter? If you have to make a choice and hope it was the right one, what is that like?
I thought that was neat.
You are aware, of course, that this is already an interpretation of the endings, right?
Having said that, I've played with the idea that the original endings were as undefined as they were because they were meant to replicate this uncertainty of outcomes you mention, that if you die - and Shepard does die - you'll never know the outcome of your decision. I don't know if such a scenario could work in a game, but I may have found it acceptable if the story didn't hint that the outcome was bad - namely, that dark age of the galaxy. I set out to save my civilization, and had I left the story with an indication, if not the certainty, that the outcome would be good, that might've worked. Instead, I left the story not with complete uncertainty, but with the suspicion that the writers meant for everything I set out to save to be destroyed.
I'll also say that for this to work, it would've been necessary to have the choices explained to us by someone other than the antagonist. How can you expect anything but bad outcomes if all the options are the antagonist's?
As for the basic position, maybe I'm unusual in that, but I often think about how what we do now might affect the world in 10000 years, especially with regard to global warming. I'm afraid Earth will end up like Venus, and that I won't live to see the time doesn't make that much of a difference. The same with transhumanism. It's not an idea I can reasonably expect to profit from, but I'd be happier if I could expect it to take root some time in the future.
I love these posts. I really liked the endings and agree with a lot of your thoughts here.
One of the reasons that I found the ending so affecting, I think, was the way it replicated being set adrift. Perilous freedom. To quote another atheistic existentialist, Sartre wrote, "but behold, when we thought we were arriving at the goal, a glance cast on the question itself has revealed to us suddenly, that we are encompassed with nothingness."
The game gives us 90 hours to learn the framework of the universe, rewarding us with blue and red points, confirming the consequences of our actions, teaching us everything we need to know about the universe - most crucially, how we feel about everyone in it. And then, it cuts us loose and asks a question that doesn't fit into that established structure, with no guaranteed outcome.
You are aware, of course, that this is already an interpretation of the endings, right?
Having said that, I've played with the idea that the original endings were as undefined as they were because they were meant to replicate this uncertainty of outcomes you mention, that if you die - and Shepard does die - you'll never know the outcome of your decision. I don't know if such a scenario could work in a game, but I may have found it acceptable if the story didn't hint that the outcome was bad - namely, that dark age of the galaxy. I set out to save my civilization, and had I left the story with an indication, if not the certainty, that the outcome would be good, that might've worked. Instead, I left the story not with complete uncertainty, but with the suspicion that the writers meant for everything I set out to save to be destroyed.
I'll also say that for this to work, it would've been necessary to have the choices explained to us by someone other than the antagonist. How can you expect anything but bad outcomes if all the options are the antagonist's?
As for the basic position, maybe I'm unusual in that, but I often think about how what we do now might affect the world in 10000 years, especially with regard to global warming. I'm afraid Earth will end up like Venus, and that I won't live to see the time doesn't make that much of a difference. The same with transhumanism. It's not an idea I can reasonably expect to profit from, but I'd be happier if I could expect it to take root some time in the future.
It asks, devoid of external validation, do our choices matter? If you die, and don't get to see the consequences of your actions, do they matter? If you have to make a choice and hope it was the right one, what is that like?
I thought that was neat.
Me too. I liked the esoteric nature of the endings and being able to interpret them in different ways... even to the point of being able to interpret the point of Shep's "ending" at vastly different points in the game. I can even view the Catalyst as either an antagonist or as a "construct" of Shep's own mind and him/her debating with "both sides" of himself/herself merely about the value/effect of the life he/she had led. In our own dying moments, it's really all any of us can do. We hold different beliefs about what happens "after" death, but all any of us really knows for sure is that we do die whether or not our "work" here on earth is finished.
In part, I think this desire to continually re-interpret the endings in different ways is what keeps bringing me back to the game... not out of sense of dissatisfaction, but of curiosity about how constructing Shep throughout the game to be a different person who believes in different things affects ultimately how I feel about the "choice" he/she might desire to have made... had he/she lived to actually make that choice.
Personally, I also tend to believe that the actual "result" of the Crucible is never revealed (nor was it ever intended to be revealed) in the game. Throughout the game, the idea is repeatedly expressed that no species in the entire galaxy actually knows what it does or who originally created the plans for it. They believe it to be a "weapon of some sort" and originally believe the Protheans created it but then learn that the concept began many cycles before that. The final scenes do imply that Hackett determined that it wasn't firing by having attempted to fire it himself remotely. I have to wonder if it perhaps actually fired "something" without Hackett realizing it and that no one in the galaxy anticipated (and without Shepard ever having to try to activate from the Citadel).
So, I choose Shep's ending course of action based on what he had done in the game. For example, if he/she had rewritten the heretics and sided with Javik about how to go about controlling "inferior" races and bought into Cerberus' ideals, I pick the control ending. If he/she united the geth and the Quarians and encouraged EDI to become more and more self-aware, I pick the synthesis ending. If he/she remained focused on the Alliance's desire to destroy the reapers and was about being a "soldier and not a politician," I'll pick the destroy ending. I also play around with how leaving out bits of conversations and entire missions affect how "I feel" what Shep would base his/her choices on. The game, overall, really has little to do with whatever I personally believe in IRL.
It asks, devoid of external validation, do our choices matter?
Answer: No. Your chocies exist because Bioware allows it and will end because Bioware demands it
If you die, and don't get to see the consequences of your actions, do they matter?
Answer: No. We'll paint smiles on everyone so you feel better though
If you have to make a choice and hope it was the right one, what is that like?
It sucks
It asks, devoid of external validation, do our choices matter? If you die, and don't get to see the consequences of your actions, do they matter? If you have to make a choice and hope it was the right one, what is that like?
I thought that was neat.
I totally agree.
The concept of choice in the game makes me think about the oral tradition of epic stories. In the Middle age, stories were told and told again but it wasn't the same exact story (it coudln't be the same exact story). Some insisted on one aspect, some on another. If you take Merlin, some insisted on his human aspect, some insisted on his "demon" origin. The same character could be interpreted differently while it was basically the same story. Shepard can be paragon or renegad, the story is the same (Shepard tries to stop the reapers). The stargazer scene creates that relation with the oral tradition of stories.
At the same time, the notion of choice is also very close to the philosophical concept. I mean when there is choices, there is no freedom. During the whole game the choices can be seen as determinism and that aspect is justified by the stargazer scene (the kid asked if it really happened and he wants another story as if the whole trilogy was just a story - so the stargazer scene creates a meta level). So if the whole trilogy is about choices that are determinism because of the narration, and ingame because of the cycles, the only choice that can lead to freedom is the last one. We can see the last choice breaking the determinism of the narration, creating freedom from the cycles and from the narration (so the player is free to imagine the event post-choice). We are trapped in the cycles and in the narration, the purpose of the game is to break it. That's also a possibility to see it.
You are aware, of course, that this is already an interpretation of the endings, right?
Having said that, I've played with the idea that the original endings were as undefined as they were because they were meant to replicate this uncertainty of outcomes you mention, that if you die - and Shepard does die - you'll never know the outcome of your decision. I don't know if such a scenario could work in a game, but I may have found it acceptable if the story didn't hint that the outcome was bad - namely, that dark age of the galaxy. I set out to save my civilization, and had I left the story with an indication, if not the certainty, that the outcome would be good, that might've worked. Instead, I left the story not with complete uncertainty, but with the suspicion that the writers meant for everything I set out to save to be destroyed.
I'll also say that for this to work, it would've been necessary to have the choices explained to us by someone other than the antagonist. How can you expect anything but bad outcomes if all the options are the antagonist's?
As for the basic position, maybe I'm unusual in that, but I often think about how what we do now might affect the world in 10000 years, especially with regard to global warming. I'm afraid Earth will end up like Venus, and that I won't live to see the time doesn't make that much of a difference. The same with transhumanism. It's not an idea I can reasonably expect to profit from, but I'd be happier if I could expect it to take root some time in the future.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the first line. Am I aware that I'm not the first person to read the ME3 ending through an existentialist lens? Well...yeah of course I'm aware of that? But like...it's still cool to chat about it? Or are you asking whether I'm aware that what I'm saying is only an interpretation? Again, yeah, but...see above? 
As to the rest of your post, I'd be happy to explain why I, at least, felt that the endings did work, perhaps for the very reasons you didn't. As a foreword to all this, I'm not expecting you to change your mind, and that's fine. But you genuinely seem interested in discussing this, which is cool. So!
Your position, as I understand it, is that there was too much uncertainty, or hinted negativity, for the ending to work in an existentialist fashion.
Firstly I suspect I reacted more favourably as I didn't interpret the endings in such a depressing fashion. All three endings stop the Harvest. It is true, none of the three endings allows your culture to remain completely unchanged, but one of my primary concerns was how they would resolve the Reaper threat without trivialising it. The scale Mass Effect 3 asked me to buy into, I feel, demanded a fundamental paradigmatic shift in its resolution. Destroy is the most bleak, I agree. But I think it's fitting that at least one of them is. And I find the possibilities of synthesis both terrifying and joyful.
I know another common feeling is that the destruction of the relay network is very dark in its implications, but I thought three endings lined up pretty well on that front, when you consider that the relays were a malignant vine trellis created by the Reapers. You have the politically nihilist reaction of destroy - "all symbols of our oppressors will be destroyed no matter the collateral damage" - you have the existentialist reaction of control - "things mean what we choose for them to mean, and we choose for the relays to be ours now, not theirs" - or the transhumanist response of synthesis - "the relays are no longer required, we will invent something better".
The cycle ends with death (Shepard's) and begins again with uncertainty, but also hope. That's what the Eden imagery after the crash says to me. We survived. Your culture may not have survived completely intact (and I agree, the implications for its future vary wildly from ending to ending), but I don't feel, overall, the tone is bleak and terrible.
But that's me. Even if I did feel the same way you did, I'm not sure I'd agree that the uncertainty itself is the problem because the uncertainty is inherent in the idea of an existentialist ending. Like...that's fundamental to it: how do you deal with a lack of external meaning. There is no perilous freedom if you're pretty sure you know what will happen.
I'd go further and say that what they did could only have been done via a game - via an interactive medium. They spend so long establishing the rules of the universe and giving you feedback in various ways, and then you literally experience that being taken away from you at the most important moment. The final, critical decision - what is the result of that? You'll never definitively know. What did it mean? Nothing except what you choose for it to mean.
I'd argue it worked too well. Existentialism isn't a mainstream philosophy because a lot of people find its underlying concepts depressing. People wanted...not necessarily a happy ending but a certain one. Instead they got what they got, and they experienced it in a much more immersive way than they would have in a book or on film.
I mean, clearly it didn't work for a lot of people, so perhaps you're right - perhaps it isn't something you should attempt in this medium. But I also can't help but feel that going for something different would mean veering away from an ending where the experience of playing the game is integral to the experience of the narrative - this real symbiosis of form and function, and I can't help but feel that would be a shame.
Oh - I haven't covered the Catalyst as an antagonist. Here I suspect we just disagree. I liked finding out what was actually going on (I mean, I played it first before Leviathan came out). I liked that shift and reveal. Then again, I also loved the technological themes in the games well before ME3 and was thrilled they were coming into play in full force in the ending. I didn't feel that the Catalyst was necessarily any more inherently untrustworthy than TIM at the start of ME2.
I can read the Catalyst as a brutal response to a valid concern, or as an ironic example of unnecessarily creating the very thing that you feared. I don't feel the game requires you to agree with it. Again, like TIM, you may be acting for very different reasons, even if your goals, briefly, align.
The choices you have are imperfect and you don't have enough time to decide. You may not trust your source of information. But you do have to decide anyway. The whole set up feels dreamlike to me in a way that works for me and feels intentional. It adds to the instability.
Me too. I liked the esoteric nature of the endings and being able to interpret them in different ways... even to the point of being able to interpret the point of Shep's "ending" at vastly different points in the game. I can even view the Catalyst as either an antagonist or as a "construct" of Shep's own mind and him/her debating with "both sides" of himself/herself merely about the value/effect of the life he/she had led. In our own dying moments, it's really all any of us can do. We hold different beliefs about what happens "after" death, but all any of us really knows for sure is that we do die whether or not our "work" here on earth is finished.
In part, I think this desire to continually re-interpret the endings in different ways is what keeps bringing me back to the game... not out of sense of dissatisfaction, but of curiosity about how constructing Shep throughout the game to be a different person who believes in different things affects ultimately how I feel about the "choice" he/she might desire to have made... had he/she lived to actually make that choice.
Personally, I also tend to believe that the actual "result" of the Crucible is never revealed (nor was it ever intended to be revealed) in the game. Throughout the game, the idea is repeatedly expressed that no species in the entire galaxy actually knows what it does or who originally created the plans for it. They believe it to be a "weapon of some sort" and originally believe the Protheans created it but then learn that the concept began many cycles before that. The final scenes do imply that Hackett determined that it wasn't firing by having attempted to fire it himself remotely. I have to wonder if it perhaps actually fired "something" without Hackett realizing it and that no one in the galaxy anticipated (and without Shepard ever having to try to activate from the Citadel).
So, I choose Shep's ending course of action based on what he had done in the game. For example, if he/she had rewritten the heretics and sided with Javik about how to go about controlling "inferior" races and bought into Cerberus' ideals, I pick the control ending. If he/she united the geth and the Quarians and encouraged EDI to become more and more self-aware, I pick the synthesis ending. If he/she remained focused on the Alliance's desire to destroy the reapers and was about being a "soldier and not a politician," I'll pick the destroy ending. I also play around with how leaving out bits of conversations and entire missions affect how "I feel" what Shep would base his/her choices on. The game, overall, really has little to do with whatever I personally believe in IRL.
Yay! Someone else who likes it!
I don't particularly view the Catalyst conversation as a literal dream, but I definitely agree it has dreamlike qualities, and in a literary sense is trying very strongly to evoke that sense of having ascended to a place above the world, before having to leave it. It's definitely a death-like transition. And I can see why interpreting it along those lines in a more literal way would be appealing.
I definitely have personal opinions on what the best choice is, but I also agree, the end decision should ultimately reflect the Shepard who makes it. My first Shepard represented my own opinions more strongly and ended up choosing synthesis. But I was surprised and really pleased that as I played through it with other Shepards, other choices became viable, or even made the most sense. In the end, I played through with three Shepards and each chose a different ending. Even though I hate destroy on a personal level, it was the right choice for one of the characters. A truly pyrrhic victory, in my opinion, but what he would have done.
Answer: No. Your chocies exist because Bioware allows it and will end because Bioware demands it
Answer: No. We'll paint smiles on everyone so you feel better though
It sucks
Thank you for that stunning contribution to the discussion.
I totally agree.
The concept of choice in the game makes me think about the oral tradition of epic stories. In the Middle age, stories were told and told again but it wasn't the same exact story (it coudln't be the same exact story). Some insisted on one aspect, some on another. If you take Merlin, some insisted on his human aspect, some insisted on his "demon" origin. The same character could be interpreted differently while it was basically the same story. Shepard can be paragon or renegad, the story is the same (Shepard tries to stop the reapers). The stargazer scene creates that relation with the oral tradition of stories.
At the same time, the notion of choice is also very close to the philosophical concept. I mean when there is choices, there is no freedom. During the whole game the choices can be seen as determinism and that aspect is justified by the stargazer scene (the kid asked if it really happened and he wants another story as if the whole trilogy was just a story - so the stargazer scene creates a meta level). So if the whole trilogy is about choices that are determinism because of the narration, and ingame because of the cycles, the only choice that can lead to freedom is the last one. We can see the last choice breaking the determinism of the narration, creating freedom from the cycles and from the narration (so the player is free to imagine the event post-choice). We are trapped in the cycles and in the narration, the purpose of the game is to break it. That's also a possibility to see it.
Yes, fantastic point on the issue of oral traditions. Part of what fascinates me about the ending is the way that all three endings are functionally identical (you go up to a platform above the sky and die choosing how you will end, and restart the world) but symbolically diverse. How you stop them, why you stop them, how you felt, that's what matters, that's what makes the story unique. All the nexus points of choice replicate the fragmentation of history via oral tradition. Shepard fought with the Krogan, but did he trick them, or save them? Shepard was there when Mordin died, but was he responsible or a witness? The first human spectres were lovers - no, no wait, that's not true, Shepard loved the Asari who found the Crucible and together they saved the galaxy! The stargazer could be telling any one of our stories.
All the writing is designed around herding us back to these crucial moments - these story points that can't be avoided. As you say, the only way to escape that determinism is to reach the end of the story, to reach the end of the writing. But that also means stepping beyond the point where we can know anything. We know what we meant to do, and in letting us know what we were attempting, I feel the game discharged its narrative responsibility. It explained the cage - the cycle of the Reapers - it explained what we were trying to break. And then it let us break it. The scope of the game is unimaginable - like biologically, our brains can't conceptualise the the true scale of the Reapers. But I feel like the metatextual subtext helps here by adding another dimension and letting it feel more all-encompassing.
Thank you for that stunning contribution to the discussion.
I was terse, but not inaccurate.
Unless you really want me to go in-depth how every ending choice was a violation of the galaxy on some level. Or the narrative dissonance on any but a narrow set of world-states. The completely out of left field nature of the Crucible and the Catalyst. The bizarre messianic attributes attributed to Shepard who, at the end of the day, was just a human. The sense of utter futility I as a player got when I realized that my first playthru was the absolute best possible outcome after five years of constructing my Shepard. And, as I said in my above answer, it sucked.
I was terse, but not inaccurate.
Unless you really want me to go in-depth how every ending choice was a violation of the galaxy on some level. Or the narrative dissonance on any but a narrow set of world-states. The completely out of left field nature of the Crucible and the Catalyst. The bizarre messianic attributes attributed to Shepard who, at the end of the day, was just a human. The sense of utter futility I as a player got when I realized that my first playthru was the absolute best possible outcome after five years of constructing my Shepard. And, as I said in my above answer, it sucked.
Please no, I've probably read the same spiel over several threads for the past four years.
I would like to know why posters like you seem so interested in posting such self-flagellating displays of misery after all this time. I can understand sharing your opinion - I mean, this is a discussion forum after all. And suppose this thread was about Andromeda and its ending instead - I can understand discussing ME3's failures as a jumping off point for more discussion.
But why come into this thread to be so dismissive of other's opinions over a game that's four years old? I don't understand. Is it therapeutic?
Please no, I've probably read the same spiel over several threads for the past four years.
I would like to know why posters like you seem so interested in posting such self-flagellating displays of misery after all this time. I can understand sharing your opinion - I mean, this is a discussion forum after all. And suppose this thread was about Andromeda and its ending instead - I can understand discussing ME3's failures as a jumping off point for more discussion.
But why come into this thread to be so dismissive of other's opinions over a game that's four years old? I don't understand. Is it therapeutic?
As you said, this is a discussion forum. If you want an echo chamber of back-patting over how "deep" the endings of "a four year old game" are, I fear you are out of luck.
I have posted several much longer posts in this very thread. Why wait until now to jump on me?
Can we really talk about a "discussion forum" when people are not here to discuss but they are trying to stop a discussion?
Any post trying to prove that the ending is "bad" when nobody talk about that (when the topic isn't about the quality), any post that creates forced interpretation to prove that the ending is "bad", all of that is just an effort to stop discussions.
Retour en haut
