Professor Lupin Madblood said:
The thing that I think most people dislike about Kaiden is that he's a grounded, pretty real character. Everyone else on the USS Daddy Issues that is the Normandy is either a massive space elite (Shepard him/herself is basically a Navy SEAL, Red Beret, SAS, JTF2, etc. several times over) or an archetype in some way. Kaiden kind of subverts that, in that he's been through a lot, but he tries to keep a level head about most of it.
Naturally, I think a lot of people see him as the downer on missions, since he is the most grounded person on the Normandy, so that just morphs into more general dislike.
Personally, I much prefer Kaiden's neutrality to Ashley's not-space-racism-but-space-racism. He really comes into his own as a character in ME3, and there are a lot of touching and funny moments.
Also, if you're worried about the Geth defusing the bomb, don't be. The outcome is the same no matter who you send to get nuked.
Also, protip? Most of Zaeed's stories end with "I was the only one who got out alive" for a reason. I love the guy dearly, but he isn't the best person to put in charge of other people.
YES! THIS! *gives cookie*
LetalisK said:
I also never understood how people take moral stands on Ashley, yet I never hear anything about Wrex. He's a gun-for-hire that shows little care for the deaths of innocents, yet no moral outrage over that.
Well, for one it's because Wrex is such a cool badass bro. Second, it's because he isn't that bloodthirsty considering how the rest of his people are typically portrayed. You find out in ME1 that he was really pushing for his people to stop fighting and to focus on saving their species as well as to try to open up diplomatic channels with the Citadel again. While there were krogan that agreed with him, there were many that didn't, including his father, who tried to kill him on sacred ground during a diplomatic meeting. After that, he became a bit disheartened because so many of his people were more interested in mindless violence than their future.
Keep him alive, and he can actually save his people, returning their honor and hope, and making them more than just brutal thugs to the rest of the galaxy. As long as you aren't a total dickhead to him and his anyway.
Back on topic, I always save Kaidan. I just loved his character, whereas Ashley, I never got attached to. Besides, he's well worth saving for reasons other than that.
- As he's a lieutenant and because he has led people before, I made him the leader of one of the salarian strike teams. So, if I were to save Ash instead, I'd be condemning all of them to death, not just Kaidan, so I felt more inclined to save them over her. (of course, you may play it different where their roles are reversed, so this may not be relevant to all)
- He doesn't ***** nearly as much at you. Ash pitches a fit if you pick her over Kaidan, and in the next two games she generally is bitchier towards you (namely on Mars and the standoff during the coup) than Kaidan is.
- Her class is redundant. Chances are, you played as a soldier at some point in the Mass Effect series (about 50% of all Shepards are soldiers), so right off the bat there she's useless. Add in the fact that in the next two games you get three more soldier squadmates, her uselessness is further cemented. Kaidan however, as a sentinel is much more useful as it's one of the least popular picked classes for Shepard (thus, his talents are less likely to repeat your own), and you only get one other sentinel, and she's built very different from Kaidan (she's more built for casting whereas Kaidan is more tanky but still cast some).
- There's a chance that she'll kill Wrex. So besides being a ***** for killing one of the coolest characters in the entire series, she potentially dooms the krogan as a whole because of it (without Wrex to reign in the krogan, they don't gain any favors with any of the other races and are more prone to driving themselves towards extinction).
- Kaidan interacts way more with everyone else. Again, this could be more of a personal preference, but I'd rather have that than miss antisocial. (this is more noticeable in the Citadel DLC)
