Games where neither character is right

[Zhukov]

No, because they chose to flee instead. A reasonable enough course of action.

They fled because the geth had shown no signs of ceasing their extermination.

When the geth had the upper hand (very early on) they had the power to make a diplomatic settlement.

You mean the extermination that they resorted to when the Quarians showed no signs of ceasing their extermination of the Geth?

You mean the extermination that they did promptly cease once the Quarians quit the field?

...

Also, wait one second, I smell speculation.

As far as I'm aware, we don't know the exact course of the Morning War. We don't know that the Geth got the upper hand early on. We don't know what kind of state the Geth were in by the end of the war. They may have been drastically depleted as well. You're assuming that they gained the upper hand early on and then set about wiping out the poor, helpless genocidal Quarians because it makes your argument look better.

The vast majority of them. Those that gave the orders. Those that followed them. Those that bore arms. Those that produced arms. Those that produced food to be eaten by those that bore arms. Those that supported those that gave orders, followed orders, bore arms etc etc.

You support not suppression but extermination of civilians who incidentally are benefiting "the enemy".

This explains a lot.

In a war of total annihilation that you did not want or start against an enemy seeking to erase your entire species from existence?

Yeah. Unfortunate, but necessary.

Unless of course that enemy gives up and flees, apparently broken. I suppose then you can let them go.

Oh wait.

 

[NerAnima]

This thread seems to have gone from the topic of grey characters and factions, to an argument over who should have been exterminated in the Mass Effect universe. On the topic of grey characters, I would have to repeat the answer of Skyrim, since both sides have a few good points, while both have faults.

A smaller example I can think of is Summon Night: Swordcraft for the GBA. I'm not talking about the main enemy you fight, they're the usual boring military invading nation, but the people aligned with them, like Ureksa, who is only aligned with them because the guardian spirit of your city, Parista, afflicted his only living relative, his sister, with an illness. He hates the Deiglyans (the military invading nation), but for him, they are a necessary evil.

While I'm here, may as well throw my two cents into this Geth vs. Quarian debacle; both have reasons behind their actions, does that make it right? Certainly not, but to demonize either side is to forget the crimes they have committed, or would have committed. The Geth aren't in the right, even if they left 1% alive, but the Quarians were also dedicated to wiping the Geth out entirely, so they are far from blameless.

 

[NerAnima]

No, because they chose to flee instead. A reasonable enough course of action.

They fled because the geth had shown no signs of ceasing their extermination.

When the geth had the upper hand (very early on) they had the power to make a diplomatic settlement.

You mean the extermination that they resorted to when the Quarians showed no signs of ceasing their extermination of the Geth?

You mean the extermination that they did promptly cease once the Quarians quit the field?

You speak as if when the quarians fled this was still a simple war scenario.

I don't know why this is apparently difficult to understand but way before fleeing the quarians were in no shape or form a substantial threat to the geth. When half the quarian population was dead it's most probable that most if not all organized military was gone; they'd be outnumbered by an absurd degree because the opposing force can replicate itself very quickly and all that'd be left of the quarians is merely an unorganized population of war-stricken civilians desperately trying to stay alive.

It's absolutely ridiculous that they wouldn't accept some diplomatic settlement and it's absolutely ridiculous to assume this was in any way an equal war between equal forces right up to the last shot.

As I've said, under these conditions the quarian populace was not a threat, was likely made up those not responsible for the war and was merely trying to survive. At this point the geth were not "continuing a war" they were leading a racially driven extermination.

Perhaps you'd understand better if you simply imagined humans in the quarian position. It wouldn't be that different.

Also, wait one second, I smell speculation.

As far as I'm aware, we don't know the exact course of the Morning War. We don't know that the Geth got the upper hand early on.

By early on I meant "Early on during their eventual upper hand they should have began seeking for a type of peace".

We don't know what kind of state the Geth were in by the end of the war. They may have been drastically depleted as well.

Unlikely because they're machines and don't share the same weaknesses as organics.

No need for food, sleep, shelter; no 9 month gestation period. When it comes to war machines have the obvious advantage.

Certainly not, but to demonize either side is to forget the crimes they have committed, or would have committed. The Geth aren't in the right, even if they left 1% alive, but the Quarians were also dedicated to wiping the Geth out entirely, so they are far from blameless.

Except the majority of the quarians at the time of the morning war were merely reacting in retaliation to the attack from the geth who were retaliating against the attack from the few quarians who initiated the shutdown.

To say "The quarians are equal to blame" is an inaccurate statement because most quarians had little to no involvement in the actual decision to go to war. They merely had to suffer the consequences of their leaders and their leaders enemies (the geth).

I need to learn how to just snip the quote like everyone else does... -_-"
Anyways, I will say that I don't know how many Quarians ordered the shutdown, but then again, none of us do, but the thing is that the leaders of the Quarians had made a decision and their people had to suffer for it. It didn't matter if they were tied to the conflict, or if they were sympathetic to their cause, or even if they didn't care and just wanted to live in peace, they were affiliated with them, and during war times, that made them a liability and a threat.

Is that unreasonable? Yes. Is that justifiable? No.

But it's almost the exact same thing that Canada and America did to people that either had connections in Japan, or had a Japanese background. Does that justify it? Absolutely not, but during times of war, this was seen as acceptable. The same thing can be said for this.

Does that make what the Geth did acceptable? No, but they saw it as a necessity, to prevent this from happening again.

 

[The Night Shade]

In Deus Ex JC is a good person with good intentions, but in the end you have 3 choices none of them is better than the other and all of them have their ups and downs, there isn't a "right" choice. And depending on the one you choose you can become exactly like the antagonist.

 

[aozgolo]

Say what you want about Skyrim's civil war questline, I enjoyed how, in the end, neither side was rigth and it was just a matter of personal belief. Both sides were kind of rigth and a dick at the same time. After the disappointment on how Fallout: New Vegas failed to deliver their promise of grey & grey, it was quite refreshing.

Skyrim did a pretty good job of making it easy to like or dislike both factions at given intervals, from the get-go you're made more sympathetic towards the Stormcloaks since you're already thrown in with their lot, but by the time you get to Windhelm you begin to question whether or not the Stormcloak Uprising will be good for the other races in Skyrim.

As for New Vegas, I'd say you did have grey morality in there, but most people tend to overlook that you actually had 4 possible factions to side with over the main plot: NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, or Yes Man. Which respectively depending on how you looked at it was three varying shades of gray morality masking themselves as something else, NCR tried to act the benevolent benefactor while putting their nose where it wasn't wanted. Caesar's Legion tried to play up the necessity of their moral absolutism, and Mr. House was more of an isolationist "damn the rest of the world, just protect my own". Yes Man on the other hand would be more a case of Blue & Orange morality, he simply had no concept at all of ultimate consequence or grand design, he was simply an enabler of change.

It just didn't seem like much of a choice in New Vegas since most people can't quite separate the atrocities of Caesar's Legion from their more favorable traits, Roman Empire morality is somewhat alien to most people nowadays.

 

[waj9876]

I kind of like what they did in Skyrim. With the whole Empire vs. Stormcloak war.

Both advocated that they were right, and everyone had an opinion on it. But when you got right down to it, both sides were wrong.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Killzone springs immediately to mind. Neither the ISA nor the Helghast are good guys, they're all just a bunch of racist assholes fighting a futile and never-ending war. Sure, one side or another may have had semi-legitimate or even understandable motives at the beginning, but by now that's all undermined by numerous atrocities committed by both sides.

Kinda like real wars, really.

It's such a shame that the Killzone single-players suck, because they really have crafted what potentially could have been a fascinating universe. More and more though I'm thinking they did that by accident.

I'd agree with you completely on this point, but it would mean snapping out of my fanatical and unconditional support for the Helghast. Hail Visari! Death to the ISA!

EDIT

Actually come to think of it, I don't agree completely with your point, considering everything the Helghast have suffered (crushed in a surprise and completely one-sided war, oppressed on their own home-planet to the point where most consider the best chance for a decent life to leave and settle on the toxic death world, given official status as a sovereign nation only so their enemies wouldn't have to give them food or aid - but would still keep them under blockade while they starved to death or were poisoned by the new environment - then having their new home completely destroyed with the loss of millions of innocent lives by enemy soldiers who refused to accept the war was over and kept fighting illegally).

Now this hardly excuses the actions of extremists like Stahl or (presumably, since I haven't managed to get Shadow Fall yet) the Black Hand but can you really blame them?

Or perhaps I simply can't let go of my bias towards the Helghast and my argument is simply another of history's cases where the apologists brush aside their side's crimes while demonizing the other's....

 

[Alorxico]

Say what you want about Skyrim's civil war questline, I enjoyed how, in the end, neither side was rigth and it was just a matter of personal belief. Both sides were kind of rigth and a dick at the same time. After the disappointment on how Fallout: New Vegas failed to deliver their promise of grey & grey, it was quite refreshing.

Agreed. Both sides have their points, some of their desires are not that unreasonable, and you can sympathize with their cause; but then you actually get further into the quest line and you suddenly realize they all deserve a boot to the head for being SO STUPID.

 

[JamesStone]

Snip.

As I said, go ahead and think what you want, I quite honestly couldn't care less at this point. Have a merry Christmas.

You could have simply said "I don't have the time or effort for an internet debate".

Far more respectful than the "I don't want to have my opinions challenged" position.

Allow me to continue from the debate, because I honestly believe this is a topic worth discussing.

So tell me, what exactly was whitewashed? Let's get a look at the information we got.

First, chronology:

The Quarians create the Geth, what's essentially a race of robotic slaves.

After much time passed, the Geth started achieved consciousness and independent thought.

The Quarians seeked to shut down what were, at this point, sentient beings, IE Genocide.

Most of the Quarians which tried to defend the Geth were killed or captured by the Quarian Army (See the Rannoch section of ME3).

The Geth rebelled hardcore, and waged war against the Quarians. As one would expect, the Quarian weapons are very developed, and the war escalated, and finally only a small population of Quarians remained. They had been essentially rendered non-aggressive.

Instead of ending all potential threats and killing these Quarians, they allowed them to flee, knowing the Citadel Forces would hunt them at every turn.

In undisclosed time, before ME1, some geth, the "heretics", split up from the main geth forces, who were peacefully doin' their thing on their sector (notice that there were little to no geth contacts before the "heretics"), and joined with Sovereign. All Geth on ME1 were "heretics".




Ok, that we got settled. Now, tell me, what exactly did the Geth do that was so wrong? This is freaking Mass Effect. Isaac Newton is the deadliest sonofabitch in space and some weapons can wipe entire cities in seconds. Of course ground based "civil war" around this will cause massive casualties.

Second, the Quarians attacked the Geth at every chance they got. Every time they believed they had the chance, they attacked, and obviously they lost more with each attack than the Geth, with that whole platform transfer thingy and all.

Third, the Geth were willing to make peace. Notice that the first thing Legion does when he finds Shepard is save him. But it's a little hard to make peace when you're shot on sight by almost everyone. In fact, the only reason Legion was not shot on sight was thanks to a very special situation IE "I was about to get mauled to death but a one of a kind Geth blew its head right off then talked to me". Believe me, if I had the command, the first thing I would have done was shoot the bastard. Because almost everyone in the galaxy was instructed with a "flee-or-shoot on sight" instinct against the Geth.

Finishing off, I'm eager to hear your argument, and I assure you I won't bail out.

 

[Ghostface2206]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. All that Ganon really wants is to see his beloved Hyrule again, and his speech about the harsh winds of Gerudo Desert that he misses for unknown reasons are pretty heartfelt. Of course, Link is in the right to stop him from using the Triforce for evil, but after all of Ganons hopes are dashed, you can clearly see that he doesn't care about anything anymore, and just wants to kill Link before he dies. He kind of reminds me of the people that complained about the cartoony art style in WW and wanted a return to the previous Zelda styles...

 

[Johnny Impact]

God of War. Kratos fights monsters, but he's an uncompromising, impossibly violent, hate-filled bastard who kills anything and everything without mercy or hesitation. His only regret is that he can't kill faster.

Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, for pretty much the same reason.

Batman: Arkham series. The arguments are many and varied for how Batman makes things worse. Criminals break the law, then Batman breaks the law to stop the criminals? Crime is high, but rather than use his billions to prop up law enforcement, provide better schools or whatever, Batman uses the money to prototype a personal arsenal? Makes perfect sense!

 

[Diablo2000]

God of War. Kratos fights monsters, but he's an uncompromising, impossibly violent, hate-filled bastard who kills anything and everything without mercy or hesitation. His only regret is that he can't kill faster.

Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, for pretty much the same reason.

Batman: Arkham series. The arguments are many and varied for how Batman makes things worse. Criminals break the law, then Batman breaks the law to stop the criminals? Crime is high, but rather than use his billions to prop up law enforcement, provide better schools or whatever, Batman uses the money to prototype a personal arsenal? Makes perfect sense!

But Batman does inject lots of money to Gotham in order to make it better, he does so as Bruce Wayne and not Batman.
There's a comic who shows that the Wayne Industries (Can't for the light of me remember the name of the story) have several charity funds for several differents things, so yeah, Batman is not a guy who "simply" punches things in the night.