That is when the Reapers are at their best. (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, February 10, 2016, 08:55 (2998 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Funny how that game so clearly communicates that message, and yet we still get an outcry at the end of the trilogy that the universe didn't properly take into account all the protagonist's choices.

For some reason what you said here rubbed me wrong. The implication I got was something along the line of "people complaining about the ending shouldn't have because the bad guy already told us what was coming."

I just don't think the two have anything to do with each other.

So, you think Sovereign is an actual entity separate from the fiction created to house him?

I think most people's expectation, even with Sovereign's original speech being as good and chilling as it was, was that the Reapers were somehow wrong, were somehow fallible, were somehow defeatable. Just neither they or we knew how yet. I'd wager that most people figured that we'd eventually get to be the clever and competent hero who would defy the impossible odds and find the weakness or flaw that nobody in millions of years had found.

I'm not implying the above, I'm flat out stating it. People get used to discounting what villains in fiction say because they assume that they're always wrong about everything, or at least wrong about enough. And while Sovereign turned out to be wrong about some things, the player is also wrong about some things-- namely that they are big, important, and bulletproof enough to change the universe to a great extent AND come out unscathed. Or that the changes would be entirely palatable.

For me at least, the outcry wasn't because the game didn't respect my choices.

Then my message was not addressed at you, nor were you lumped in by me with the rest of the complaints, most of which were about exactly that issue, phrased in exactly that manner.

It was because none of the original three outcomes were satisfying. In the end I didn't so much get to be that clever hero as I was forced to choose which way I would die while solving the problem of the Reapers with solutions that had very little backing with the rest of the series.

Which means, in a sense, Sovereign was right. The forces at play are too big for one person, or even one species, to simply dictate that they go away for their own comfort, and all the solutions acknowledge those forces in some way. The ending(s) were quite intentionally designed to be less than fully satisfying. Nothing is gained for free. There is no change without real compromise, and seemingly getting everything you want can be looked at as becoming your enemy.

Ultimately, I think Sovereign's original speech can stand as one of the greatest "you have no chance" villain speeches of all time and players can have legitimate complaints about the series screwing up its ending without it being "funny."

I would suggest that both the speech and the ending were intended to get you to look past your own usual narrative expectations, and you would instead like to reinforce them by liking one aspect of it, and disliking the other.

It sort of strikes me like criticizing The Stanley Parable for not having a clearer win state, for instance. The difference is that The Stanley Parable is more clearly signposted as a little indie novelty sort of game, whereas Mass Effect is a bit action RPG tentpole that people expect to behave according to-- well, to expectations, I suppose.

(All that said, I really liked the "everyone loses and the cycle continues" ending they added in later because while it still didn't satisfy that "being the clever hero" itch, it was at least consistent with the rest of the series and Sovereign's original speech.)

You can also read that as a big middle finger to the complainers-- saying to them that if they considered the previous options limiting because they didn't take into account player freedom, how do you like this-- NOTHING has changed!