N7:
the Lord
is my Shepard.
The
Heildelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet has just released a
special issue on videogames and religion. One article immediately
draw my attention: Joshua and Ita Irizarry's The
Lord is My Shepard;
Confronting
Religion in the Mass Effect Trilogy.
I
have a strong emotional link with Mass Effect, that I should explain
before going on. Five years ago (or maybe six?) I was at my best
friend house and he proposed me to try the last video game he has
bought: Mass Effect. I've played less than an hour, but I truly loved
it and I decided that I needed it. However it was impossible: I had
not the money to buy a computer good enough to play it (my old PC was
coughing dust like a locomotive) and I was leaving my home and
country for an year of Erasmus, an year that become much longer. Long
story short this summer I at last had a new PC f(wedding present)
and, as my friend had already bought me the whole trilogy an year
before, I finally started to play my beloved Shepard. In all those
years I kept in mind her face and history in order to restore her as
she was mean to be (yes, my Shepard is a female). In two months I've
finished the series and I was in total depression because of the
ending.
Now,
about this article on ME and religion, I've to say that it is quite
enjoyable. It doesn't say anything definitive, but it is really good
at tracing any reference to religion in the trilogy, implicit and
explicit and it presents a good review of a lot of players' opinions
on different issues of the game. I will not make a resume here: even
if a bit long it is a really reader-friendly and I'm sure you will
enjoy reading it. I have although to make a “Spoiler Alert!” if
you did not play the game don't read the paper!
Spoiler
Alert! Here the link:
You
should probably also stop reading this post, because from now on we
will speak about the ending of the trilogy... Do you copy? Ok, let's
move on.
The
last part of the article, my favorite, focuses on the conclusion of
the trilogy and on the very negative response that most of the
players had towards it. The paper analyze the “Indoctrination
Theory” and wonder if, in fact, the end of the trilogy wasn't that
bad, after all, but a sum of all the issues of the game. What if
Shepard has finally been indoctrinated and can't complete her mission
anymore? What if after years of fighting for free will she will chose
to become a Reaper herself or simply to create a bionic galaxy of
enslaved peace?
This
theory is good enough to answer the criticism about the ending being
flat, but I think that it's something else that deeply bothered the
players.
Me
too, like most of the players, felt quite bad at the end of the
trilogy. And I played the better possible ending, I mean, I had the
extended cut and Shepard eventually survived! So why was I so
deceived? While depressed I was intrigued by my own emotional
response and I started to wonder a lot about it.
To
understand this deception we have to answer an other question: What's
the most involving ans enjoyable feature of ME? In my opinion it is
not the fighting, nor the story. They are both great, really great,
but that's not it.
It
is the social relationships. In Mass Effect NPCs becomes true
friends. The player spends a lot of time to talk with them, to
protect them, to help them or even to simply listen to them. After
every single mission he spends half an hour walking up and down the
Normandy, just to be sure that he didn't miss any line from none of
them. And, then, when he finally opens the galactic map, he stops and
wonder: “did I spoke with Joker?”. He curses, he closes the map
and he starts again his tour.
When
you play ME the hardest decisions to make are always
involving your friends. All the geth will die? Who cares! But wait...
you mean... Legion too? Not him, I like him! Not Legion! Let make
peace with the geth than... Maybe we can wipe out those bloody
quarians, I've never liked them. But... what will Tali think of me if
I genocide her race? Oh, bloody hell, I'll have to save the quarians
to...
That's
how the game works. Those NPCs become really
your friends. You know them, you love them. You know exactly what
Garrus would say if he was here with you. You know how Liara would
laugh at your joke or how bad Joker would dance at your party (almost
worse than you, Shepard).
My
friend told me that, even if he played the game a dozen times he was
never able to kill Wrex. Every time he thought he should, just to see
all the different possibilities, and every time he looked his friend
in the eyes and couldn't shot.
In
London, Shepard has the occasion to say goodbye to all of them,
before her last mission. But when the game ends, you
don't. You would like to be able to talk to them one last time, even
if you have to die, to tell Liara that she will live long enough to
find someone else to do blue daughters with, to tell Garrus and Tali
that you wish them the brightest future together, to hug Joker and
tell him that you are so sorry for Edi but that there was no other
way. But you can't.
After
the end I felt quite bad for a couple of days, missing my ME friends.
Than I found a solution. I'm no programmer but, hey, I have a brain
and a good imagination. I closed my eyes and saw a monitor with an
electrocardiogram beepping constantly. Liara was near the bed and Dr.
Chakwas arrived in an hurry:
<She's
waking up> Liara said.
Shepard
opened her big black eyes. She had some nasty scars, but you could
still recognize her. She immediately looked at Liara and the asari
started to cry.
My
own ending took half an hour and happened all in my mind, but, well,
after that I felt damn good.
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