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[7Makaveli]

****s about to get real...

[Flamewielder]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

@Flamewielder
Those are some great points about Liara. I never had an issue with her anger and quest for revenge and kind of like it. Given who her mother was, and also what she has been through the last two years. It is obvious that she is trying to emulate her mother whenever you first walk into her office and she is threatening someone. I get the feeling that even though she is ~100yrs old, she still comes across to me as a young human female in her 20s-30s that has matured a lot in the last few years, but has a ways to go before I would consider her to be a wise individual.

I agree. Youth will act its age, and Liara is still a young adult. She's bright, socially awkward, strong willed (which seems to be a common/required trait for strong biotics), and she's suffered the loss of her parent in rather difficult circumstances. That would be enough to leave scars...

To me, hearing her use the same threat her mother used on Shepard made me think of a child using a stock threathening phrase she has heard adults use on TV or film. Again, makes sense when you remember she's too awkward socially to formulate a threat more specific to the individual she's talking to. I thought it was in character, only in a subtler way. But hey, I might be overestimating the subtlety of BW's writers...

Anyway, Liara provides a nice contrast with Samara. It makes us appreciate differences we tend to overlook when we... stare... at... blue... hypnotic... eyes...

[Flamewielder]

yorkj86 wrote...
In any case, Flamewielder, you should post all of that in the Liara thread, to see what other people think about what you said.

Done!

[Kudara]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

yorkj86 wrote...

To change the topic, who else felt disappointed at finding that the entrance to Diana's house was locked after Samara's loyalty mission? I wanted to walk in to her home to console her, only to find that the
place was locked up.  It feel completely mechanical that Nef's mother would instantly leave Omega seconds after her daughter was avenged, How the heck did the news get to her so fast?

At least the e-mail Diana sent me afterward broke my heart.

I did go back to the apartment thinking I should tell her mother about finding and dealing with Nef's murderer.  So yes, normally I would think that Bioware would have added that scene to the mission and it would have felt more fulfilling.

Honestly I don't know if Samara could have dealt with that well right then given how emotional she was in asking to leave.

[Kudara]

AKFTF wrote...

Flamewielder wrote...

yorkj86 wrote...
Well, if Bioware is looking for another way to take a dump on poor Liara's character, they might as well keep going, amirite?
I can't stand what they did to Liara in ME2.

To temporise, I would argue that Liara's character was not elaborated much on in ME1. We DO know that she's ackward around people, she's considered a young adult among the asari, she's been alone on archeological digs and dealt with the odd bandit/pirate/slaver/wildlife with her biotics.

We know she admired her mother who, even endoctrinated, showed a very pragmatic and willfull personality (remember the way remained unimpressed by Saren's angry tantrum after Eden Prime). Liara probably has more in common with her mother than what was apparent in ME1. After all, she had limited prior contact with humans before and her ackwardness around Shepard did not allow any of the inner steel to shine through...

I think we (human players) have kind of let the curvy feminine appearance of asari mislead us as to their real personality. In a mono-gendered species, we cannot expect all asari to act "feminine". The asari no doubt have become adept at taking advantage of this popular misconception (no mind control required here...). Samara is a great reminder that asari may look feminine but behave in a "gender-neutral" or even "masculine" way.

Males look at asari and see a (pleasant-looking) female. Their common first reflex is to treat them as such. The stronger the gender bias is in the mind of the male, the more effect it will have on his attitude towards asari. In return, asari having been in contact with males from other species for centuries, have learned to adjust their attitude/posture/body language to "fit" and take advantage of this state of affairs.

Consider:
1) a tall burly human policeman/constable looks and acts like a tall burly policeman/constable.
2) an tall burly asari police officer/constable acts like a tall burly police officer/constable BUT looks like this hot blue babe to a human...

We (as humans) expect the asari to act like whatever female stereotype our culture has programmed us with. Asari have no such gender-based stereotypes. Some asari will think and act like rough sailors, soldiers, samurai, knight or any other "macho" archetype you can imagine (Matriarch Aethyta illustrates what I'm talking about, she's got a very "male" attitude towards sex, for instance; human females are not often THAT casual on that topic).

If you're a male player playing a maleShep and thought Aethyta attractive, consider for a moment that Aethyta might see herself as the "male" when she's checking out Shepard's glutes... Unsettling, isn't it? I bet it would probably spoil it for a few guys out there...

So, keeping all this in mind, I would argue that Liara's character may not have changed that much between ME1 and ME2 but that we are only discovering aspects of her personality we did not bother exploring in ME1. Her character in ME2 does appear compatible with the persona displayed in the comics, although that could be considered "meta-gaming" by some.

When I first played ME1 a couple years back, Liara struck me as an under-written character. I felt too many of her lines delved into the asari species info and not enough into herself. By contrast, Ashley talked about her family, her relationship with her dad, her shared training experience with the same drill sergeant as Shepard's, etc... Ashley is human, so the writers didn't feel like they had to describe human mating practices or other cultural trivia. It kinda gave a bit of an unfair advantage to Ashley, as a potential LI for maleShep.

I'm eager to see what direction Liara will take in ME3, now that her dialog can focus on herself instead of serving as an encyclopedia on asari customs...

Your posts are always so informative, knowledgeable, and well-written. I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Edit: You bring up an interesting aspect of the Asari. We, or at least I, do look at them in the way you mentioned, but it may not be how they see themselves. Fascinating. You have given me a new outlook on them, thanks!

Good point, that is an important point to remember about the asari.  They don't have gender sterotypes.

[Kudara]

By the way, if anyone's interested I've got a FemShep/Samara story I'm writing over on fanfic. I'm about to bring Samara into the story after bringing the Liara encounter to what I feel is a...well i won't say satisfactory ending but an ending.



It's already at 12 chapters and 60k words of Shepard character development, so even though Samara isn't quite there yet there is enough to read to get an idea how it's going.



http://www.fanfictio..._Saves_the_Hero

[AKFTF]

I'm curious to know if anyone has a screen of when Samara touches Shepard at the end of the romance scene. That was a very touching moment.

[AKFTF]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

You talking about the bottom one AKFTF?

Um, you know right before she leaves she either touches your shoulder or face (I can't remeber)? That one.

[Zulu_DFA]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

My God! Her eyes are really huge!!!

[AKFTF]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

AKFTF wrote...

JohnnyDollar wrote...

You talking about the bottom one AKFTF?

Um, you know right before she leaves she either touches your shoulder or face (I can't remeber)? That one.

This is the best frame I can get with a pretty face of her before she leaves Shep.

Ok. Thanks!  They look great by the way.