Poll: What's so bad about ME3's ending?

[SecondPrize]

It was broken, it simply didn't work. MrBtongue says it best. And... I just scrolled up to see that Dreadedcandiru99 posted the videos already.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I still say subjective tastes had much more to do with the dislike of the ending, than any reasoning about narrative structure, that sprung up later along with more nitpicking to add to the problem in a somewhat snowball effect. At least it all started that way. Now reasons to hate the ME3 ending are a dime-a-dozen and I've given up on trying to justife my personal like of it. Play and let play, the haters have lost a wonderfull game from a wonderfull studio and I haven't- I can live with that

I can partially agree with your sentiment here, a lot of people began with the "the ending sucks!"-ranting before picking on the narrative failures of the ending. But for me the problem was never what the ending did, it was the complete tonal shift in both theme and mood that did it for me.

Up until that point the last 4-5 hours of my playthrough had been purely about getting enough people together to beat the reapers and to make a stand against all odds. It was a classical "we shall overcome"-story with a large focus on the characters in the fight and the consequences of the war. The last hour or so was pure combat through a ruined London with ever increasing stakes, the game was building up for some form of climactic showdown... But it never showed up. Instead I go through a portal, get dead and resurrect with the Star Child. And it strikes up a conversation about organic vs synthetic life, a side-plot that has been about 1-2 side missions in both predecessors and hasn't been mentioned since I completed Rannock. Then I am asked to make a choice that is completely disconnected from everything I've done so far in the game.

For me it was like having watched all of Battlestar Galactica season 1 but instead of being presented with the season finale I get the 2001 ending intercut. On its' own merit it is not a bad ending, but it is a terrible ending to the story the game-series had been telling up to that point.

 

[Blade1130]

Spoiler: Obvious spoilers here

My biggest gripe, it did what I believe Yahtzee called "The ending-tron-o-matic", where you just pick which ending you want. All of which were generally shit, nearly identical, and resulted in the mass relays destruction (which really should have been avoidable). Mainly, I just really hate Deus Ex Machina, and this ending wreaked of it. God child was such a cop out, his motivations and existence are poorly explained and weakly justified at best. 99% of the decisions up to that point are rendered completely meaningless (bit with Illusive Man and what's-his-face at the end a particular face slap). The extended cut at least showed the people who died and a few tidbits, which is a start but still horribly short of what that series needed. On a more personal note, in one or two of the endings EDI dies, yet the game makes no acknowledgement of this, which really disappointed me. That was my main reason for not picking the destroy option. Also, stupid galactic readiness, so what if I didn't do the multiplayer? You're going to block an ending from me for that?

I only actually played it a couple weeks ago though, so I guess I'm still in that "burn the witch!" period. It was definitely bad, but I don't think it quite deserved the level of hate it really got. Frankly I've seen much worse endings. The end of Assassin's Creed 3 nearly made me curse out the game, yet I haven't heard a thing about that. Frankly, that was a much more terrible ending than anything Mass Effect did.

 

[Amaror]

So it's been a year now, and with the release of Citadel and everyone doing their "Mass Effect Retrospectives", I'm feeling a bit nostalgic of the series overall.

Admittedly, I was attracted to the series over the complaints of the leaked ending. I picked up Mass Effect 2 (as ME3 wasn't out yet) and immediately loved it. I started playing through the series, enjoying every moment, but unfortunately, I had already spoiled myself over the ending.

I have my own personal complaints about it, but mostly I feel that my complaints about it were simply echoes of other's complaints, most of which was barely-contained "nerd rage".

My question to you is, what did you dislike (or even like) about Mass Effect 3's ending, both before and after the Extended Cut DLC? Please be articulate and don't just say the equivalent of "it sucked I want my money back". At this point, rage-hating on the ending is like beating the mangled blob that used to be a dead horse a year ago.

(Edit: I apologize for the weird wording of the poll. I guess it doesn't like apostrophes.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs
This guy explains it the best in my opinion.
Don't let the title confuse you, it's actually a very calm and well presented video about the subject.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

In mass effect the story makes it ABUNDANTLY FUCKING CLEAR that trying to "boost" up using other peoples hard work and technology gets you royally fucked pretty much 100% of the time. For example:

The krogan were exploited to kill the rachni but rebelled. The genophage was used to fix that mess.
The rachni were exploited but rebelled in ME1.
Using the relays because we were too lazy to build our own ships was a trap by the reapers.
Using the citidel was a GIANT trap because we were too lazy to build our own homes.
Trying to force the geth to stay as slaves backfired for the quarians.
Keeping the reaper base would have been a giant mistake.

Commander shepard too reinforces this theme: The ideal way is to forge our own path. We work together, not using eachother haphazardly, to forge a future we all agree and want. Unity is good. Making our own destiny is good. Dont let others dictate what we should do.

Commander shepard also has this really nice view: We dont need the reapers to mediate us and act like immortal god police. We need to solve our own inter galactic problems. We can make peace with the geth. We can forge our own destiny together and work together without a HUGE gun pointed at our heads.

The three endings all spit in the face of these themes. because what happens is shepard finishes his quest to forge our own destiny and the starchild turns up and goes "PLEASE SELECT ONE OF MY PRE DETERMINED DESTINIES. I HAVE CONTROL" which is like "wtf i wanna be able to have some say in what i choose from?". Youve handed over control AGAIN to a third power to do all the work for you, and thats before we even see what the endings are. Your options are, as given to you with NO leeway:

Destroy: Would be good if it didnt exterminate the geth. That pretty much makes you a monster. Thats genocide against innocent people rather than just destroying the reapers. At least the world is saved by the united efforts to make the catalyst. But it flies in the face of "The reapers are unnecessary to make everyone get along". The only reason theres peace between synthetics and biologicals is because you just murdered ALL synthetics. Thats not peace. Shepard was wrong. You cannot make peace with eachother. Only destroy the enemy.

Control: Using technology to boost you, against the themes of the series. You slave anothers work to your will and the world is only saved by immortal god machines. Shepard was wrong. We need that giant gun to our heads forcing us to play nice. And shepard needs to hold the gun of the immortal god machines.

Synthesis: The immortal god machine makes you all one race. You dont need to understand eachothers differences now. There are none. There is no more basis for disagreement. No understanding was forged. No bridge was made between peoples to achieve peace. We were just homogenized so theres nothing to disagree on. This is a flimsy pretence for peace. It also makes shepard wrong AGAIN. We cant solve our own problems. We need the immortal god machine to come and remove those problems entirely so we cant possibly argue in the first place. I think its better to have differences and be able to understand them than have no difference at all by force.

Refuse: My favourite ending. Fuck the starchild. He is WRONG. WRONG. We DONT need him. OR the reapers. OR ANYONE. Except ourselves. To achieve peace with eachother and agree to disagree on our differences. Fuck him. Fuck his immortal machine god police. Fuck them all to hell. We get to forge our own fate and we dont need him to come along and play daddy to the baby species all fighting in the playpen. We are better than that. But this ending is ruined anyway. Canonically the next life just uses the catalyst ANYWAY and picks one of the above shitty options. There is no victory here. Its as empty as the other 3.

You know what MY ideal ending would be? We get to argue down the starchild. We reject his options and show him examples of us making peace between races, of us mediating people by helping them understand eachother rather than using force or power. Just by using words. When we made the geth and the quarians make peace. When we cured the genophage. When mordin gave his life. When the species of the galaxy stood together to fight the reapers. You could have a dialogue tree where you could cite these events and have flashbacks. If you chose correctly during the games and DID have enough examples the starchild concedes. Youre different from the times before he accepts. He deactivates the reapers. He retreats back into dark space the untited efforts of all the races won not because they beat the reapers with arms but because it proved unity could be achieved. THATS my ending.

 

[AD-Stu]

The end of Assassin's Creed 3 nearly made me curse out the game, yet I haven't heard a thing about that. Frankly, that was a much more terrible ending than anything Mass Effect did.

I think the difference there is the expectations - Assassin's Creed games have always had lame, sequel-hook endings and idiotic stories because people play AssCreed games for the action and Ubisoft apparently doesn't employ writers or something. So when an Assassin's Creed game has a stupid ending nobody panics because one, it's what they expected and two, they know there's going to be another game coming out next year that explains what the hell just happened. Sort of.

None of that was true for Mass Effect - ME3 was very definitely billed as the end of a story, in a series where everything was all about the story. Bioware had been hyping up how awesome the end to their epic story was going to be, and how much they'd enjoyed getting input from their fans along the way and everything. That creates a very, very different expectation, which is why the ending got the backlash it did as opposed to the end of an AssCreed game which, when looked at objectively, is probably at least as bad.

 

[Megalodon]

I do think that Indoctrination still completely holds ups, Bioware never directly rejected the concept

Except flat out stating that Shepard wasn't indoctrinated when you talk to the Prothean VI from Thessia (Vendetta?), Bioware didn't need to reject the concept, the game they released had already done that.
See this video, from about eight minutes in.

Why do you think Indoctrination holds up?

 

[w9496]

snip snip

That would have been a great ending. You think we can bother Bioware for another Extended Cut?

It's keeps the older endings, but makes a new one available based on CHOICES you made. Genius!

 

[compaqdeskpro]

I do think that Indoctrination still completely holds ups, Bioware never directly rejected the concept (if anything gave more evidence in EC)and there is more than enough cookie crumbs spread throughout the trilogy to suggest this is the case.
Whether or not it is considered 'official', who cares? It honestly makes the most sense, there is nothing wrong with reading between the lines. It honestly doesn't matter.

The ending was not fully baked, full of technical issues, the crash planet was cancer and should be dumped, the hallway of bodies wasn't explained, the Illusive Man's mind control was pulled from nowhere

Illusive Man was always indoctrinated - as said by the Child. Anderson said that the beam was likely used to transfer bodies (for processing?) along with mentioning the presence of Harbinger. Whether you not you believe it was a hallucination or not, these are mentioned.

I agree that the Illusive Man was always indocitrinated, the storyline makes this explicitly clear. However never before does being indoctrinated grant powers like controlling others like puppets. It has been stated in the lore that being indoctrinated actually diminishes the subject's mental and physical capacity, depending on the speed of indoctrination. Never does even the most careful slowly paced indoctrination make the subject stronger. Unless the Reapers were able to give him special powers, which is fine, but none of this stuff is explained.

 

[Silly Hats]

I do think that Indoctrination still completely holds ups, Bioware never directly rejected the concept

Except flat out stating that Shepard wasn't indoctrinated when you talk to the Prothean VI from Thessia (Vendetta?), Bioware didn't need to reject the concept, the game they released had already done that.
See this video, from about eight minutes in.

Why do you think Indoctrination holds up?

Why would he actually be Indoctrinated by that stage? It wouldn't make any sense at all, also missing the point of the theory if that was the case. Yes, Kai Leng and Illusive Man were both Indoctrinated, that is well established. If Shepard was indoctrinated then he wouldn't have done any of the things that he's done in the game.

I've personally came to my own informed conclusion and i'm content with it. It's how (I believe that) media should be interpreted and not taking everything at face value. Yes, there are flaws with every vanilla/fan endings and whether or not it's 'technically correct' doesn't matter to me.

 

[Megalodon]

Why would he actually be Indoctrinated by that stage? It wouldn't make any sense at all, also missing the point of the theory if that was the case. Yes, Kai Leng and Illusive Man were both Indoctrinated, that is well established. If Shepard was indoctrinated then he wouldn't have done any of the things that he's done in the game.

And the series has already established that indoctrination is a sloe, gradual process. Where is the time for indoctrination to take place as the assault on Earth takes place immediately following the destruction of the Cerberus base? If the Reapers had an alternate "fast indoctrination", then was was this never mentioned at any point? I would assume the Reapers would have used it to thier advantage earlier in the war. I see no evidence in the game that suggests the indoctrination of Shepard.

 

[Silly Hats]

Why would he actually be Indoctrinated by that stage? It wouldn't make any sense at all, also missing the point of the theory if that was the case. Yes, Kai Leng and Illusive Man were both Indoctrinated, that is well established. If Shepard was indoctrinated then he wouldn't have done any of the things that he's done in the game.

And the series has already established that indoctrination is a sloe, gradual process. Where is the time for indoctrination to take place as the assault on Earth takes place immediately following the destruction of the Cerberus base? If the Reapers had an alternate "fast indoctrination", then was was this never mentioned at any point? I would assume the Reapers would have used it to thier advantage earlier in the war. I see no evidence in the game that suggests the indoctrination of Shepard.

I don't know whether or not you're familiar with the theory.

In short, it's still suggested that the Star Child is a Reaper presence (aka vision produced by Harbinger) attempting to persuade Shepard to directly control/synthesis with them thus completing the indoctrination process.
Watch the refusal:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58W1DjQRamw

Shepard refuses to comply, Starchild clearly presents itself as a child when the voice clearly suggests that it wasn't what like it appeared.

Yes, it is true that Shepard has had exposure to Reaper tech/beacons/etc for the past 3 years much like the Scientist working for Saren that you find in ME1:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Rana_Thanoptis

 

[Megalodon]

I don't know whether or not you're familiar with the theory.

In short, it's still suggested that the Star Child is a Reaper presence (aka vision produced by Harbinger) attempting to persuade Shepard to directly control/synthesis with them thus completing the indoctrination process.


Shepard refuses to comply, Starchild clearly presents itself as a child when the voice clearly suggests that it wasn't what like it appeared.

My understanding of the Indoctrination theory was that Shepard was slowly undergoing Indoctrination throughout the game, and that control/synthesis represented giving in, and destroy represented resisting the process. This suggests the process was ongoing during the game, and is undermined by both the evidence that Vendetta acknowleging the lack of Indoctrination (unless it's Indoctrination dectector is entirely binary between "no-indoctrination" and "complete Reaper slave", which would be a silly security measure), and Shepard not showing the syptoms of Indoctrination, as outlined in the Codex.

Yes, it is true that Shepard has had exposure to Reaper tech/beacons/etc for the past 3 years much like the Scientist working for Saren that you find in ME1:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Rana_Thanoptis

But did Shepard have enough indoctrination signal exposure? The only prolonged contact with Reaper stuff was the two days of unconsciousness during Arrival, compared to weeks/months of direct exposure during research that Thanoptis recieved. And if the arrival exposure was enough, why didn't vendetta detect it? Again, what happened between the Kai Leng showdown and the beam charge that left Shepard mostly indoctriated/open to indoctrination, when the resistance on Earth has managed to aviod wholesale indoctrination during the war?