kglaser wrote...
Hi. I know you all are probably used to seeing all manner of trolls in this thread, but please, believe me...I'm not one of them. I like Tali a lot, but like many others, I am having difficulties seeing what would drive even loyal fans to create a thread that is nearly 5000 pages in length. Please believe me that I am absolutely sincere in my intent here. I warmly invite anyone who wishes to respond here:
http://social.biowar...index/1993574/1
There is currently a thread started about the "Tali thread phenomenon", why it is so long. Please believe me...I'm just very curious. I've been at this internet thingie a long time, and a member of lots of boards...and until now, I think about 160 pages was the longest I've seen. What is is about Tali'Zorah that would inspire this kind of devotion? I mean no disrespect here. I am sincerely curious and eagerly await any serious replies in that thread. 
There are numerous reasons. The main one being is that her personality is extremely well received by pretty much everyone. She's caring, and extremely nice to everyone that deserves kindness, yet is still strong enough to stand up for herself when the time comes. She's a strong independent person, yet adorably melts around Shepard. She's also completely selfless.
She comes from a situation where it would be perfectly understandable for her to take her frustrations out on the people around her. Her people, and her individually, are treated like second class citizens and discriminated against because of acts of their ancestors. They live with hardships that no one else has to live with their immune systems, yet she is just as bubbly and sweet as anyone else in the galaxy. You can see the effects that the situation has had on her, she pretty much thinks its impossible for Shepard to ever have feelings for her, despite how fantastic of a person she is. She doesn't let it show, but it does seem like she thinks less of herself because of the constant hate towards her and her people.
We never get to see her face, but that just lets the player focus more on her personality. It also doesn't hurt that the concrete stuff with her body and voice are very attractive as well.
You can't underestimate the familiarity factor as well. Garrus's popularity spiked as well with him returning in ME2.
She's just a very attractive character overall, physically and personality wise. I can see where it would be surprising at first that people would pick an alien who's face you can't see over a perfect human, or others, but I think most people would love to find someone like Tali in real life. I was surprised at first as well to see how many fans she has, but she just has so many things that people love about her.