So you're saying that the first installment has free reign to introduce as much bullcrap as it wants, so long as the following installments don't introduce any other bullcrap?
Where's the line between exposition and ass-pulls?
Well these concepts apply to both to individual games and the trilogy as a whole. So no, the first game can't get away with any old thing. It's end should line up well with the beginning and the middle, just as ME3 should line up with ME1 and ME2. There will almost always be places where a story slips up, but those slip ups will have different weight depending on how important they are to the overall story.
The introduction of the Mass Relays is part of the world building. If you get hung up on them, then this story isn't for you from the start. There's no comparison between that and dropping the Catalyst in at the very end.
Exposition and Asspulls are different things. Exposition just means an info dump. There are different ways to do this. I really like the Wikipedia page on it, especially the part about "Incluing."
..."the process of scattering information seamlessly through the text, as opposed to stopping the story to impart the information."
An asspull is something dropped or shoved into a narrative without proper development. Deus ex Machina, is one type.
Considering what ME2 did to this series' forward-moving narrative, and considering this cycle's trust and reverence for the Protheans, the Crucible works a lot better than I was expecting.
Mass Effect 2 did nothing for the series narrative, which is why the Crucible had to be just dropped into our lap at the start of ME3. Having them find some Prothean device isn't the worst idea, though we'd still question why VIgil never mentioned it, but it would at least involve Shepard finding a way to stop the Reapers as he promised to at the end of ME and could involve his now Prothean brain, which is what made Shepard special in the first game before ME2 reduced him to just a badass space marine that's good at shooting things.
Except nothing at all like this happens in ME3. The galaxy works its ass off to build the Crucible and learns the basics of what's going on underneath the hood, and it functions as expected by ending the cycle and stopping the Reapers.
Where is that shown? It happens entirely off screen and without Shepard's involvement. They don't learn anything about it. They just follow the building instructions but have no idea what it actually does. Sure, it's supposed to beat the Reapers. They don't know how or if it will even work. They just hope it does because they have literally nothing else to do.
It's the opposite of the conversation on Carl's solar bomb from Van Helsing.
VH: What's it for?
Carl: Oh, well I don't know but I'm sure it will come in handy.
VH: After twelve years, you don't know what it does?
Carl: I didn't say that. I said I don't know what it's for.
Although, the first line from Carl there is awfully like the Crucible. For all they know, it's a Halo situation, where it will defeat the enemy, but kill everyone else in the process.
You mean like the voices of the other squad members? Check.
No, the visualization of the kid as a representation of innocents lost during the Reaper was is actually quite appropriate.
You're right, that was a nice touch. I like it a lot. Yet the focus is on the child.
It was ok, but the memorial wall on the Citadel was a better representation. The focus on humans and Earth was inappropriate for the setting as laid out in the first game.
That's my entire point, though. If you look past the time frame, past whether or not the player is exposed enough to a fantastical concept in the narrative to take it's believability for granted, what makes the fantastical abilities of magic portals more or less legitimate than a giant magical wand?
Their location in the story is important to how appropriate their presence is and how well we can accept them in the story. Why would I look past those things? I don't know what you mean by "legitimate." This is like asking why it's stranger to see a fully grown tree in the middle of someone's house than in the middle of a forest because they are both trees. It makes sense in the latter but is questionable in the former.
There's plenty to criticize about the ending, but it doesn't actually fit the definition of Deus ex Machina as precisely as people often suggest. The illustration you sourced actually demonstrates that. They key part of DeM is that it is unreferenced before it occurs, which isn't the case with ME3.
DeM originally was a term to describe a device used in greek theater for the bringing the "god" character onto the stage to save the hero. That's the most important element in the device. The god must come to you, unannounced, unprecedented.
If instead, the hero had travelled to the site of a mysterious entity or constructed a magical item in search of hope against a major antagonist like Shepard did, and a god was revealed to be waiting with all the answers, that wouldn't fit the definition.
ME3 involved a twist ending, one that I agree was deeply unsatisfying. You can still call it lazy, inelegant writing. You can accuse it of a lot of things. But you cannot accurately accuse it of being DeM.
You're right that it's often misused but the context matters in this case. The Crucible is not a DEM in ME3, but it is for the series as a whole. When looking at ME3 by itself, the Crucible is introduced early and you know it stops the Reapers somehow. There is where it fails to meet the definition. However, within the series as a whole it comes out of nowhere after a useless second chapter. It doesn't have to be a literal god or superior being.
The closest thing to a DEM in the Mass Effect series is actually in ME1, in the form of the data drive that Vigil gives to Shepard that hacks the Citadel.
No it isn't. That doesn't solve a plot obstacle that was known before talking to Vigil. Both the problem and the solution are presented at the same time.
It functioned. Some planning, innovation, and intelligence had to have occurred behind the scenes for it to function at all.
Yeah, insert plug A into slot B.
Please. ME1 wasn't even consistent within itself.
There are imperfections to be sure, but nothing on the level of later errors. This vague, blanket statement is not a good retort.
Retour en haut
