#mass effect 3 ending anaylsis

[critmedia]

My second review will, without a doubt, make some people mad; not just because what I’m going to say about this piece will fiercely disagree with what many people had to say about it, but because Mass Effect 3 had such a large and passionate following, that it would be impossible not to offend someone.

So without further ado, here’s:

Why Mass Effect 3′s Ending Was Actually Good and Those Who Complained About It Are Being Babies (Spoilers)

(People are allowed their opinions, I don’t think they are actually babies, just that they expected too much and they had a huge overreaction to what essentially ends up being about 10-20 minutes of a 30 hour game. I want to acknowledge I’ve seen some arguments saying that the ending isn’t what people wanted. People wanted Shepard to win and to live happily ever after with his love interest with a happy family. The end. And I will admit, I wanted that for my Shepard too, but I can accept that it didn’t happen. Because what we want, isn’t always what we get. And even if you do everything right, things may not turn out the way we had wanted or expected. That’s were the emotion comes in. When Shepard fails to survive even when he made all the right calls. That’s just how it happens/happened. So if you say the ending is bad for this reason, I have no sympathy for you, and you are, in fact, a baby.)

I’m going to start by saying this is not a review of Mass Effect 3. I will review Mass Effect as a series later, but for now let’s focus on the point of contention that most people had with the game: The ending.

So being a huge Mass Effect nerd I’ve spend a lot of time in this universe (I counted it up the other day, I’ve played over 2000 hours of the Mass Effect series) which has allowed me to fully grasp and understand what goes on in these games. This also gives me a huge bias towards the game that I will fully acknowledge. However, I propose that from a writing and programing standpoint, this game (and the ending) is pretty good, not perfect, but good.

Alright legitimacy established, hypothesis stated, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. So we have 2 characters, the Illusive Man and Admiral Anderson plus a Shepard (your male/female projection of yourself that allows you to interact with the world, i.e. not actually a character). The Illusive Man is a master manipulator running a splinter military organization in order to further humanity’s status in the galaxy, at any cost necessary. He has been implanted and indoctrinated by the Reapers, but not directly controlled by them, just influenced. Opposing him, you and Anderson stand, in a trance induced by the Illusive Man via Reaper tech. Anderson is a leader of the Alliance forces, proud and humble all a the same time. He’s been friends with/mentor to Shepard for years, and has been a large part of stopping the Reapers thus far. These two characters are foils, exact opposites that highlight each others strengths and weaknesses. However this scene plays out, Anderson and the Illusive Man end up dead and Shep near death. BUT not before each character has had a chance to make an appeal to you. Illusive Man wants to control the Reapers and use their tech to make the galaxy a better place, great idea, but how is one supposed to control the Reapers? Anderson says to destroy the Reapers, anything less will be damnation of the sapient races of the galaxy, and he has a point, the Reapers are the antagonists after all. But how do we do that? They are just so powerful it has been impossible up to this point.

That’s where the MacGuffin comes in. That’s right, the Crucible, a giant space device passed down throughout millions of years of development has just been activated and Shep can die in peace knowing he kills the Reapers. But wait,  what through yonder window breaks, tis a message that it doesn’t work. Shep passes out and then we see him ascend via unknown force into the Crucible.

This is the point in which I see people getting mad.

Shepard wakes inside the Crucible approached by a semi translucent little boy, that has all the answers in the universe. He says, I offer 3 different color solutions to the problem, and because you are space Jesus you get to pick which one happens by sacrificing yourself, the end. Okay, I understand that sounds dumb, and that’s why people don’t like it. There is an out of left field, totally unexpected thing happening, that boils down to a color-coded trinary choice that ends the magnificent series about the consequences of choice, right?

Wrong. Let’s unpack everything we know, and make an effort to understand before we start to judge.

First the child. Everyone seems to criticize Bioware for making the “Star Child”, as the community refers to him, a significant part of the story. The “Star Child” is based off of a child in the intro of the game. Shepard looks out of his office on Earth (that’s important) down on the child (the first young child we’ve seen in the games to this point, i.e. important), who is playing with a toy in the garden. The Reapers then launch the invasion of Earth and Shepard soon after encounters the boy in a small vent that Shep can’t fit into (also important) and tries to help him. The boy replies, “You can’t help me” (IMPORTANT!). He then disappears. Later, Shepard is about to leave Earth to unite the rest of the galaxy and beat the Reapers. There is a touching scene where Anderson gives his spiel about staying at home and fighting the good fight for the citizens of Earth. I can’t do it justice in this review, but it’s been decided that Shep will leave despite not wanting to. As his ship begins to take off, he spots the boy get into an evac shuttle. And the ship is destroyed. The boy then haunts Shep in his dreams after every major mission in the game hence forth. In each dream sequence, we an extended look at the end of the dream, where the boy sits in flames, then in the last Shepard sees himself and the boy burning. These dream sequences got labeled by fans as out-of-place, unnecessary, and stupid. These are ignorant claims, because almost everyone making these claims do not understand why the child should be important enough to haunt Shepard. They say, “Shep is a grizzled war vet who has seen atrocity after atrocity, why would one child dying haunt his dreams? Shouldn’t it be the friends he’s lost?” Now already, these people can’t understand the ending, because they’ve missed a huge themeing device, because they can only take things literally. Going back to the beginning, we start on Earth. Home. Home is associated with safety, comfort, our childhoods. Then we see the first child in the series ever, hinting that this child will be important. More than that children are considered innocent and the future. Then seeing the child in danger again in the vent, we are supposed to see that Shepard cannot reach this innocence, his future. And finally the giant walking metaphor says, “Player, you cannot help me. You cannot keep your innocence. You may never reach your future. Saving everyone is not a possibility, even thought it is your goal to save as many people as possible. Don’t expect every battle to be a victory.”

And if it wasn’t blatant enough for you, the writers decide that the child should die, AND constantly remind you of the themes via dream sequences at appropriate intervals through the story. This also builds up to a climax, in the last dream sequence when Shep and the boy perish in flames together, both foreshadowing some of the possible endings, and implying that Shepard will not see the future.

“But then how/why did the “Star Child” appear to Shepard as the boy?”

One, it’s the most ancient and advanced piece of technology in the universe with mind altering power, and you just plugged the biggest battery ever created into it. I’m sure it could have appeared as anything it wanted to. Two, themeing is important. Three, suspension of disbelief. This is sci-fi, get used to it.

Okay, so first point of contention, gone. The “Star Child” is important and now you know why. Now the Blue/Green/Red ending. I feel this was what the majority of people were mad about.

First off, I’m throwing the argument "it didn’t incorporate any of the decisions that I made previously and that’s why it’s bad” in the trash. Why? It’s not a good argument. There is no way to make a branching code that would have incorporated decisions made over the course of 3 very long games into the ending AND made it a coherent and satisfying ending to the trilogy. That’s unrealistic. Second, the decisions made did/do matter, they are what led Shepard to be in that situation. The “Star Child” literally says that in his speech. Plus the decisions matter in the much larger scale of each person’s own personal game; who lived and died, what races survive the apocalypse, the relationships forged, people affected, and everything that is and was. If you think the ending negates those decisions, you’re wrong.

Getting into each ending specifically Control, Destroy, and Synthesis; each has their own merits and affect the galaxy after Shepard. (There is also a secret fourth ending, but it isn’t quite as satisfying.) This also matters. It is a metaphor of choosing the legacy you want to leave behind. Each has its own consequences: Control is the proposition of one of your enemies, the Illusive Man. What seemed impossible is now a possibility. Can you see past the bad things that he had done and see the logic in the solution he was seeking? Or do you go with what his foil and your friend, Anderson, would have done and destroy the Reapers? It has always been your goal, but the cost is the deaths of some of your friends and allies. Or do you ignore both extremes and come to a solution never available to you before, blurring the lines between synthetic and organic. This is the most mysterious of the options, and you may not fully grasp the concept as it is foreign, but it would seem like a paradise. And yes each one had their own color, but to boil down those decisions to just the  colors, is showing your own ignorance of said consequences. And with the addition of the FREE Extended Cut ending, it fills in all of the gaps that the previous iteration neglected to mention.

The decision is up to you/Shepard, but only you have to live with the consequences of your decision. And you get to see some of those consequences, as each ending has it’s own unique narration, showing outcomes of decisions made previous to the ending and what the galaxy does with the opportunity given to them.

That is a fucking great ending.