Another case against "artistic integrity." (very well done)
jmstevenson.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/all-that...
jmstevenson.wordpress.comPosted Mar 25, 2012, 3:12 AM UTC
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jmstevenson.wordpress.comHoly mother of ducksauce shitballs. Drop everything and spam the fuck out of the BioWare social media outlets with links to this. Now.
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HODOR
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By the goddess of Krogan testicles!
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I wanted to applaud at my screen when I read "No one with any artistic integrity would have let that absolute debacle of an ending be released. No one. The ending was so inexcusable on so many levels, that I can’t help but laugh at people’s attempts to defend it by calling it art. As if Art were not subject to ridicule and criticism."
Good game, Bioware.
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I am a teacher and I've been accused by my students for being a Nazi because I hold them to strict guidelines when they write papers, apparently no one at Bioware was given that lesson. This article explains it beautifully on how they fubar'ed the ending.
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Please, please, please, by all means keep being a Nazi about it. Maybe hold up this whole awful mess as a shining example of why it's important to know these things. Protect future generations from this kind of soul-crushing disappointment!
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Could give them an assignment to play ME3 and then write a paper on how fucked up the ending is and have them create a better ending. Could get a grant from the school to buy Xboxs and copies of the game and encourage creative writing. Kill two birds with one stone and have a lot of extra Xboxs in case mine break.
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Why would you want to put any child through this? To watch a master piece of video game story telling transmogrify into utter crap right in front of your eyes is almost traumatizing.
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Well, I always believe in preparing my students for the real world after they leave high school, making them suffer through the ending of ME3 will prepare them for any disappointment they encounter.
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OMG! You just don't know... actually, I'm sure you do know! There are rules and patterns in storytelling. And the most fundamental ones involving arc cannot be broken if a story is to be enjoyed (at least I have never, ever encountered a story that broke the rules of arc and was also enjoyable.)
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I haven't been called a nazi, but I was given the title "the hard professor" last semester, simply because I made students do work, and expected good grammar, spelling, citation and writing construction. I teach history FYI
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My undergrad was in history and all my history profs taught me more about writing than any of my English profs taughht me. Drove them nuts because I had a bad habit of always jumping from past to present tense when I wrote.
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10/10. Would upvote again.
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I am completely at a loss for words. Mainly because he used all of the ones I've been using and used them far more effectively than I ever could. I was downright cheering by the end.
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I love this part:
I think the absolute worst part of the Catalyst is that it completely destroys the menace of the Reapers.
“You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.”
That is such a perfect line. It delivers so much menace in just 14 words…a single sentence. It sets the stakes for the protagonist, grants the villain a perfectly ominous entrance, and delivers real emotional weight to the situation. That is the kind of beautifully simplistic, yet artfully delivered line I hope I can come up with in one of my own stories someday. But enough fawning over that, the point is, the Reapers were damn good villains. In Mass Effect 1, Sovereign says “Each of us is a nation.” They are so far above us that it was frightening, the fact we didn’t know why the Reapers were exterminating advanced organic life every 50,000 years is what made it so scary. That was what made them a good villain. They were unknowable. And nobody was asking to know them. That was a question we absolutely didn’t need to know the answer to.
But then the AI God comes along and basically reveals they are the Terminators to his Skynet.
This really shows that the criticism of the ending is justified, because it's convergent. Again and again people find the same flaws; this is what I wrote 8 days ago:
That's one of the problems: they reveal too much. They say all the wrong things when they pull a Deus Ex Machina on the player right at the end. For three games Shepard has been fighting the mysterious Reapers, only to find out the Reapers are just puppets to an entirely new foe. While the Reapers were defined as far beyond the comprehension of humans in ME1 ( see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvrIFIjTGt0 ), here we have received an explanation. A simplistic, cheesy one, riddled with contradictions and bad, non-interactive dialog.
http://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/qz6lq/scumbag_casey_hudson/c41p1fm
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I've thought the same myself a few times and voiced as much in this subreddit. The Reapers were portrayed as unknowable, their goals and history impossible to comprehend for organics. And then the little space kid goes ahead and explains it in a few sentences. It makes Sovereign look like he was talking out of his giant space-metal ass.
Although I guess they were right - I am having difficulty wrapping my feeble human mind around the stupidity of their circular logic for cleansing the galaxy of organic life. ಠ_ಠ
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Indeed, pretty much the only way to keep the story consistent is to decide that Sovereign was just a massive idiot douchebag.
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I really, really hope that someone important at Bioware reads this. If the Mass Effect team could just understand that this is what's wrong with the ending, we would get much better content that fixes it.
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He killed it! That was hands down, the best deconstruction of the bullshit I have yet read.
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I know I'm replying again, but fuck. This deserves to be quoted to everyone in the Movement and everyone that stands up for the ending:
No one with any artistic integrity would have let that absolute debacle of an ending be released. No one. The ending was so inexcusable on so many levels, that I can’t help but laugh at people’s attempts to defend it by calling it art. As if Art were not subject to ridicule and criticism.
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Good article, but I completely disagree on the Indoctrination being in any way intentional.
The videos seem very, very convincing at first glance, but they are an extreme example of confirmation bias. The idea of indoctrination is such a perfect framework, because anything weird or plot-holey is automatically explained as intentional. It functions just like conspiracy theories do - anything unexplained or odd is proof of a conspiracy. Anything that speaks against the conspiracy is doctored evidence, and that is just further proof of a conspiracy.
The videos are very well made, but the vast majority of the so-called evidence is completely dubious, if not outright silly, like the Star Child's voice having both femshep and male shep in the background. How on earth would a male shep hear the voice of a person who doesn't exist in his universe (femshep) or vice versa?
Other subtle untruths are also used to support specific points. Like claiming Anderson was in the same room as Shepard when he/she was talking to the supposedly imagined Kid in the ventilation duct. He actually wasn't, Shepard forces the door open, and Anderson goes through into the next room.
Even reused art assets, the quintessential mark of rushed development, are pointed out as evidence for indoctrination. Huge symbolism is ascribed to TIM and Anderson demonstrating the Red and Blue endings, when in fact they are previously present on the map and don't require handwaving to explain their presence.
Believe what you will, but I think a far better explanation for the unifying plotholes and ominous events in the intro and the ending is that they were both penned by Walters, who is simply a sad hack who made Lead Writer because he's far better at corporate politics than he is at writing plots.
Because honestly, as great as the individual stories during the bulk of the game are, the overall plot (surely the work of the lead) is abysmally bad. Reapers attack Earth, Shepard runs off only to find Amazing Superweapon Plans five minutes away, and now has to forge alliances. Superweapon turns out to be a Monolith that saves the day with Space Magic.
All the great storylines (Tuchanka, Rannoch, EDI) were continuations from earlier games, helmed by specific writers who handle those storylines. But most of the major storylines introduced in ME3 were pretty crap. Udina magically turns evil, with zero foreshadowing? Kai Leng, a cliched anime space ninja with absolutely no motivation except some odd inferiority complex/sibling rivalry aimed at Shep? Those all seem like the kind of junk Walters would put out.
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Yeah, I completely agree. I was really convinced when I first watched the indoctrination video and as soon as I finished watching it, pretty much, ALL of my conviction drained away because I couldn't stop thinking up counterpoints. It really is a case of confirmation bias, helped along by the fact that it's difficult to accept how much CRAP there is. You believe because you really want to believe. I've since had to watch it again, sometimes like twice a day, to try to convince myself it's true again, but every time I do, I get depressed over it even faster...so I stopped that. I guess I'd be happy if they decided to use the theory as a way out, but I'd rather they put together something else. Not that they will.
I was willing to overlook the stupid superweapon plans. I was even willing to overlook Kai Leng since he wasn't really in the game that much. But I agree with you, the major storylines were ALL incredibly stupid and the audience as a whole was probably too drunk on hype to really notice. And I still love the characters too much to be really pissed off about all of that, but the ending...I just can't accept the ending.
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The videos are very well made, but the vast majority of the so-called evidence is completely dubious, if not outright silly, like the Star Child's voice having both femshep and male shep in the background. How on earth would a male shep hear the voice of a person who doesn't exist in his universe (femshep) or vice versa?
Because it's aimed at the player not the character? Bioware would be playing the gamer not Shepard him/her self. But still, anything inconsistent is indeed presented as evidence which confirms your point. Just like what I stated above, just because that's possible doesn't mean it's fact.
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Don't forget there is that quote from the Final Hours book thing that explains that they wanted to include something so obviously indoctrination that Shep loses bodily control, but they couldn't figure out the mechanics. I think it was at least in play for a while.
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Agreed with the others here telling you to spam the shit out of the Bioware Forum with this article.
STAT!!!
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Crossposting another good article:
http://www.themetagames.com/2012/03/why-you-enjoy-art-and-one-problem-with.html
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We could all flock to twitter? xD
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Also, if you can, mail it directly to Ray Muzyka and...the other founder guy.
They should read this shit before Hudson has a chance to prepare some defense.
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I have no idea how to get in touch with them, but maybe this is something the author of the post should look into. Maybe he could get some media attention with it, too. I'd feel bad about emailing this guy's work around, though, without his permission. Sharing on reddit's one thing, but that's another, I think...
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I just posted it on Twitter with the #RetakeME3 and #RetakeMassEffect3 tags.
At the very least, we can arm everyone in the Movement with it.
From there, take it to Bioware and it will get to the people inside, if only Jessica Merizan or the PR people.
But I'm also willing to bet if we spread this far and wide, writers and other elements inside will get a hold of it.
Plus, the Bioware founders are doctors. Research is a part of who they are. This is something they should see and likely would be willing to see.
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"They were unknowable. And nobody was asking to know them. That was a question we absolutely didn’t need to know the answer to."
This can't be stated enough. The purpose behind the Reapers is the one thing that should have remained unknown. Instead we get an absurd answer to that and "lots of speculation" about everything else.
Urg.
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Exactly, they even said there is no way a human could comprehend their reasoning, that's what made them so cool!
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Yeah, that's what pissed me off most about the ending. =/
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I really enjoyed his views on the story, and it just brings up so many good points. I think anyone defending the endings on artisitic reasons should read this.
It also made me really think what I wanted from the ending, what I would have been most satisfied with, and I, surprisingly, come back to wanting to fail. I wish the reapers had won, I want to see all of the characters fighting together but slowly getting overwhelmed, but then 30,000 years later some alien race discovers a time capsule left behind by Liara. I would have loved that as an ending.
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Y'know what would've been really cool?
If the species that discovered it was the Yahg, less insane and ahead of schedule for their cycle.
Scene:
Fade In
All that's visible is a large alien hand holding one of Liara's time capsules. It snaps on and Glyph greets the still unseen alien.
Liara's figure appears and delivers her own greeting.
Cut to view from behind the time capsule, looking up at the alien, revealing it to be a Yahg, clothed, in a cave. He appears to be a scientist, yet still has the hulking build of the Yahg with some minor changes to reflect the passage of time.
He turns and says to another Yahg behind him, wearing something like an officer's field uniform, and says "We've finally found one intact. We need to get this to the Citadel immediately."
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That would have been awesome.
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And you only get that ending epilogue if your EMS score is too low.
Shepherd dies at Harbinger's hands because the fleet was too small to keep them busy and the ground forces suffered too much attrition to escort Shep to the transport beam.
Illusive Man attempts to control the Reapers and is shown becoming Harby's bitch.
Mid EMS: Shepard dies at Harby's hand, and the battle for Earth is lost, but the Reapers are weakened and slowed enough that the Krogan-Turian alliance is able to force them to retreat back to Dark Space after ~ten years of war (only if you cured the Genophage and disarmed the bomb).
Harby is one of the eventual casualties with what is left of the Illusive Man found within him.
Shepard is remembered as the one that made it all possible and a true hero to all races thereafter.
Stargazer epilogue.
High EMS: Shepard's fleet keeps the Reapers occupied. Harby lands alone to deal with Shepard, but is kept busy enough by ground forces screening Shepard's squad that they are able to make it to the beam.
I'm not a good enough writer to figure out what happens next, but ideally, a kill signal is pulsed through the Crucible, rendering the Reapers non-functional, like the one in ME2.
Illusive Man becomes free of Reaper direct influence, but is still corrupted. Encourages Shepard to use the newly neutered Reapers to ensure humankind's dominance over the galaxy. Dies and leaves choice to Shepard.
Options are to lead the Last Cycle to a new golden age, or a human empire that will attempt to subjugate the remaining races.
First, is left ambiguous but strongly hinted at, like end of ME2 with Shepard shown together on the Normandy at some point in their future.
Stargazer epilogue.
Second depicts Shepard at the head of a fleet of Reapers, clearly indoctrinated and corrupted, facing off against the combined fleets of the Citadel races, including all his former non-human squadmates.
Stargazer epilogue in middle of blasted wasteland, with moons shattered and crated above.
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Incredibly wonderful read. Thanks! Keep up the awesome writing.
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It's not my writing (man, I wish!), but thanks all the same. You should go leave a comment on his post. :)
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During my entire first play through I was watching for the cues, figuring out at witch point in the heroes story as charted by Campbell Shepard was. Just like the author I was confused when the game stopped cold before the end, where as the other two finished the cycle.
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A great article, but he's actually wrong on several points:
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Some of the writers HAVE come out and defended the ending (at least the lead writer did), even going so far as to be condescending to the detractors.
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Shepard never "Refuses the Call" or even anything close to that. In fact, Shepard JUMPS at the call in ME1 and ME2 (the only hesitation being trusting the Illusive Man), Shepard is also the one ordering the Virmire Survivor and James Vega to come with him to rally help for Earth rather than stay there and fight in ME3.
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I would disagree that the ending actually resolves the plot (even in the horrible, illogical way that the author clarifies it did). It changed the entire 'verse IMMENSELY in the last second and never hints, implies, or explains any of what happens as a result or how anyone deals with the changes (which are so serious as to leave gaping questions and horrifying realizations that various groups and races will die).
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also read it all. just brilliant !
besides one little fact. in my opinion the reason why reapers kill everybody is logical. he said its paradox that to prevent synthetics kill all organics the catalysator created synthetics to kill organics. its not unlogical. reapers kill only those organic lifeforms who are highly evolved beings and leave the others alone. if those organics created synthetics themselves these synthetics eventually kill all organic life everywhere in the universe so there wont be any organical life anymore ever. seems reasonable for me
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If one Reaper was enough to take control of a whole synthetic species, like the Geth, then why the species who had turned themselves into the first Reaper (I assume the Harbringer), didn't thought about an idea of taking control of an AI endangering the organics and destroying it?
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I agree except for one thing. If the reapers can come in and kill all organic life, why can't they just monitor events and kill all synthetic life when it arises?
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This looks great - looking forward to reading it thoroughly. We should be linking this on BSN if possible. This is great.
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Nailed it. Should be required reading for all at Bioware and other designers of narrative games. (Also - according to the diagram, the HL2 storyline has been paused at stage 8 (Ordeal, Death and Rebirth - the death of Eli) for 5 years.)
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Read it all.
Fantastic read, would like to see him comment on the evidence that surfaced regarding Hudson effectively taking over the ending and not allowing anyone to see it until after it was done.
Yeah, it would be interesting to see his comments, though I doubt he'd be terribly surprised. Maybe he'll address it in the comments section, I think it got brought up.
You know... Maybe Casey Hudson is being a martyre. Maybe he was sabotaged and is trying not to let the ending tarnish bioware? Maybe he knew the unavoidable EA ending was garbage so he didn't give people a say....
"I killed that story. That's what i can be."
"No, NO! You can't! You're not...! "
"...I'm what ever bioware needs me to be. Call it in."
"They'll hunt you.." -- "You'll hunt me. You'll Condemn me. Set the dogs on me; because that's what needs to happen. Because some times the truth isn't good enough. Some times people deserve more."
He's the hero bioware deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
Oh jesus... did i quote batman again? After that crappy ending, i must have been reaching for a good story to wipe the shit out of my eyes.
Fuck me with that quote. It's everywhere. I say it casually to myself in my head during everyday tasks. "This coffee is not the hero I deserve, but it is the hero I need right now...."
i read that while listening to 'I'm proud of you' from the ME3 OST.
wipes away tear
God speed Hudson
That was the funniest use of that speach I've ever seen
It is the best description of what is wrong with the ending that I have ever read. No whining, no bitching, just reason and the facts. The article goes full retard for a bit when it discusses the options (they have been analyzed better a thousand times by now and he mentions nothing about exposition, instead mocking the options themselves in order to generate sypmathetic comments (dude's got to get paid). Apart from that - which honestly doesn't matter as we all have our own opinion of the choices - it is a spot-on, in-depth analysis that everyone should read.