Poll: indoctrination theory and you

[EternallyBored]

Uh, wasn't a major part of IT the idea that the ending supplied at release was a red-herring meant to mimic indoctrination on the player by manipulating you into effectively tying the figurative noose around your own neck? That the actual ending was being temporarily withheld to facilitate that and would be released shortly after launch?


That aside, as interesting as the concept sounded, I was critical of it from Day 1. The 'support' they cited seemed far too desperate far too often and the crux of the notion required a plot twist that only the early players would ever experience.

That said, it is worth noting that the idea wasn't totally baseless (Still wrong, but it's not out of left field). Apparently the devs had planned for an indoctrination sequence in the last minutes of gameplay until late in the development cycle when the idea had to be dropped due to technical issues with making that gameplay mechanic work properly. It's therefore not surprising that some of the foreshadowing for that remained in game and was latched upon by the playerbase.

Yeah pretty much this, Indocrination theory was something that existed in force before the extended ending came out. People wouldn't have been happy if it was true and that was the actual ending, but they adopted the theory in order to either give Bioware a way to fix the ending, or that they thought IT was Bioware's plan and they were going to pull some sort of genius Gotcha! moment and release the true ending later.

Most people were in the former group, nobody actually thinks the IT ending theory would have been excellent as the ending to the game on its own. They were trying to explain the ending in a way that gave Bioware an easy excuse to continue or change the ending in later DLC.

Notice how whenever someone makes these topics, there isn't anyone rushing in to defend the indoctrination theory as an actual awesome ending that should have been the true ending to the game. It was a coping mechanism, to explain the weird shift in tone once the Catalyst showed up, people saw the jarring metaphysical shift in the game, that went from pretty straight sci-fi, to giving Shepard galaxy changing power in the last 5 minutes of the game, and they tried to explain it using the rules established by the rest of the series.

The strange dreamlike walking, multiple metaphorical angles present, the plotholes like the Normandy. People attempted to reconcile the increasingly fantastical elements introduced at the very end, with what they knew, and indoctrination was a very real thing throughout the games, so people latched on to it as a way to explain the concepts presented by the ending. The theory was never that solid, and it was never meant to be, it was a way to wiggle out of the copout that was given. At this point, the people that hold onto the indoctrination theory tend to use it as a springboard to invent their own ending after Shepard wakes up.

 

[Alarien]

The indoctrination theory is an absolutely fantastic act of fanfiction.

Of course, it's just that. Fanfiction.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

My personal theory on the ME3 ending is that EA/Bioware fucked up.

Explains everything wrong with the game.

 

[Generalissimo]

The theory doesn't hold up for me, relying almost entirely on circumstantial evidence to hold up a shaky premise. As ed130 put it, EA done goofed big time, and most of the "evidence" can be explained as sloppy game design, carelessness or just plain stupidity.

It ain't true!