Lordmarkus said:
JacobyPAX said:
Ashley Williams from Mass Effect. Pretty much every conversation you have with her she will start spewing poetry for no damned reason.
Don't forget she's a Xenofobe too. *****...
Right, knew this would show up eventually, luckily I came prepared:
Ashley is not xenophobic, nor is she racist. Her prejudice against aliens is not based on a superiority complex or irrational fear or hatred of the unknown. Her Grandfather fought in the First Contact War and during that time he was forced to surrender to the Turians making him the first human ever to surrender to an alien race.
Thus her family name is blacklisted in Alliance military and she feels she has to redeem her family name but due to the bias against her name she is reduced to small groundside assignments and has gotten no experience with any alien races and has nothing to go on save for the history of the First Contact War.
That is why she distrusts aliens. In fact it doesn't even go that far, at most she's just cautious of relying on them as allies, believing that they are more likely to look out for themselves over helping out humanity in the upcoming disaster.
She still doesn't think humanity should turn down alien races as allies nor do they have any right to mistreat them, she just says that humanity should be able to stand on their own two feet and not rely on the Council as a crutch.
She certainly isn't filled with blind unreasoning hatred like so many angry accusations proclaim.
That said, on Virmire she still happily volunteers to work with the Salarian team and if she is picked for the job it's clear from the radio chatter that she is perfectly comfortable working with, and possibly leading, a team made up entirely of aliens.
She also mentions at one point to Tali (elevator conversation) that she heard some humans are blaming the Quarians about Eden Prime and furthermore expresses her hope that Tali helping them find Saren will help improve relations between humans and Quarians.
Also after Liara's mother dies on Noveria if you go and talk to Ashley she suggests to Shepard to go talk to Dr. T'soni because she just lost her mum and 'that's gotta hurt'.
She also despises Terra Firma passionately and refuses to have anything to do with them believing that whatever noble goals they may once have had haven now been replaced by simple racism. She dismisses them in conversation and openly responds to their protest on the citadel with hatred, especially when they bring Shanxi into it.
Also she herself announces very clearly at one point that she doesn't believe humanity is superior.
Finally, she can be convinced to move past her former trust issues with Aliens and admit to herself that it wasn't the Council or Turians who blacklisted her family name, it was the Alliance. And that while there exist alien foreign powers who do oppose humanity they also don't seem to want to destroy humanity either so this is an opportunity to learn.
Ashley is not racist, never was and hopefully never will be. Although given where things seem to be going Bioware may decide to go ahead and Flanderize her in Mass Effect 3... which I do not like.