Mass Effect 3 Endings discussion
In Defense of Happy Endings (A look at the Hero Myth and Mass Effect 3)
A bit of background - I'm definitely following and actively participating in the protest against the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3. I'm not a fan of what we got and I feel that it's incomplete. There will be spoilers throughout this post. I'm also not a fan of "Disney Endings". I don't like happysappy endings and I don't like being forced into babies cavorting on screen. That being said, I know that others do like that sort of thing and feel like they should have them.
In the discussions on the Bioware Social Network (BSN), there is some amount of shaming or degrading those that want these happily ever afters (HEA) and that pisses me off. Just because I don't want and/or need it doesn't mean that others don't want and/or need it. There is nothing wrong with wanting a happy ending and this write-up is to explore why I think that way through looking at a historical and a current lens for the hero myth. I am not a scholar and I don't play one on TV. I'm just someone obsessed with video games and watching big damned heroes on my screen and in my books.
Disclaimer: when I say "hero", I mean that in a gender neutral manner. Female or male, it's the concept of the hero rather than a gender-specific, only men can be heroes, manner.
Request: If I fuck up one of these myths, please for the love of all that is holy, correct me.
And on to the post!
So. Heroes. There's a common misconception that Shepard Must Die in Mass Effect 3 to make it a good series. A lot of posts on BSN keep saying "I realize that Shepard must die and I'm all right with that but I'd like a less ambiguous ending". And those are cool and whatever but then there's the flipside - people are asking for a happy ending and receiving negative flak about their naivety. I see a common commentary from those that support the ending, especially, saying similar to: "I like the ending because Shepard dies and it feels like real life and sometimes, the world doesn't go your way. The game shows that and anyone that can't see that is being unrealistic. Welcome to the real world".
That's where I draw my line. Sure, in the real world, it's hard to overcome crazy odds. But, it's happened before and again and again and again. From defeating the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Thermopylae to the Battle of Debecka Pass in Iraq in 2003, just google "against all odds survival" and you'll see plenty of stories featuring people surviving when the odds are clearly stacked against them whether they're joeschmos or they're highly trained military forces.
We, as a culture, strive for survival, I think everyone can agree on that. We love stories of survival and we embrace these, labeling them heroics whereas the person doing the surviving just sees the surviving. It's the person who takes the lead to get people down the staircases on 9/11, it's the people who lead their comrades in arms into war against a superior number. It's what we want to consume because we want to believe that there is a happy ending, sometimes, because we all get that real life is hard and unfair and that these things might not work out but… but sometimes they do.
It's why stories like Odysseus are important. There was a man that struggled, for years and years and years, to get home and survive. He lost men along the way, at every major battle but he did it, he got home. It's why we love stories like Bruce Willis in Die Hard because he loses people but he never loses hope and he finishes the journey. It's why we like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon because he might lose people along the way but he gets the job fucking done already.
The Hero Myth has a set journey to it, to be a successful hero myth. From Joseph Campbell -
The returning hero, to complete his adventure, must survive the impact of the world. Many failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold. The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into the heavenly rock dwelling, close the door, and make it fast. But if some spiritual obstetrician has drawn the shimenawa across the retreat, then the work of representing eternity in time, and perceiving in time eternity, cannot be avoided" The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.
And that's where the ending of Mass Effect 3 fails the hero myth tale. Shepard doesn't return to the world of common day. Shepard doesn't survive the impact of the world (and, hell, we don't even see the impact of the world). We don't get to see any of this and that's, in my humble opinion, where the ending of Mass Effect 3 fails. There is no resolution to the hero myth that we have spent hundreds of hours traveling along. We are left, instead, with half-formed thoughts and possibilities.
Mass Effect 3 has been held up, side by side, with Star Wars and I think that's a justifiable comparison. Both are, in a way, space operas with plenty of drama, relationships, atrocities, wars, battles and loss. But Star Wars, mock Return of the Jedi as you wish, ends on a happy note. It ends with the hero reuniting with his friends and family, against all odds, against a galaxy arrayed against him and his overwhelmed, small number of freedom fighting compatriots, and celebrating life. Star Wars leaves an open ending for the imagination to take the story from there, especially if one were to ignore the awful Yuuzhan Vong craptacular book series, like I do (which, by the way, still adheres to the typical hero myth because the hero of the book, even when seeing Chewbacca and others die, triumphs against all odds).
We are, culturally, inclined to believe that the hero survives and, more importantly, has to survive to make it a good story. I'm not saying stories in which the hero dies are bad, because they're not. But those stories still show the impact on the world around them that is the boon of the hero's death. We do not get that in Mass Effect 3. We do not get to see what the world looks like, other than a brief and nonsensical view of people on a tropical planet that shouldn't be there in the first place let alone there together.
That is not seeing the impact on the world around them because of the sacrifice of the hero. We don't get to see what happens to the Krogan stuck on Earth. We don't get to see what happens to the Turians or the Asari or the Geth or the Quarnians or any of them. We only get nonsensical gibberish on our screens that is never explained. That's where BioWare's epic hero myth fails and that is why people are upset with the ending.
In the end, we see that Odysseus gets home, gets the girl and gets his kingdom, regardless of the odds. We get to see Theseus go up against Death Itself and come out the victor. We get to see Seal Team 6 go up against a numerically superior fighting force and come out the victor. We get to see countless stories of firefighters going into burning buildings to rescue someone and doing it, even as the building collapses around them. We see hero myths play out every day, in real life, in our books, in our movies and, yes, in our video games.
When they do not play out completely, that is when the breakdown happens.
But, regardless, for those that want to see Shepard have those little blue babies or the human/turian hybrids, they aren't wrong and they're not naïve. They simply want to see the hero myth play out to a satisfying, personal resolution of their own creating where the hero returns to the real world and shows his/her impact on the world.
We have certain expectations when we go into certain types of media. When I read a romance novel, I expect, at the very least, a "happy for now" or, more satisfyingly, a HEA. When I read a fantasy novel, I expect the hero to triumph in the end. When I read a mystery novel, I expect the mystery to be solved.
And that's why interpretations differ for Mass Effect 3. Some play it as more of a romance. They work hard to build their relationships and they want to see that come to a satisfying conclusion. Some people play it as more of an epic fantasy and they still want to see the hero triumph. Some play it as a political game, playing pieces off one another, but they still want to "win" in the end. All of them are equally valid ways of playing the game.
Fanfiction circles have a saying and I think it applies even here to the requests for endings. "Don't like, don't read". If you do not want blue babies (and I certainly don't… I don't even want real life human babies), then do not use that as your conclusion. But stop with the shaming of others that do. Their interpretation is equally as valid as yours.
A bit of background - I'm definitely following and actively participating in the protest against the ending(s) of Mass Effect 3. I'm not a fan of what we got and I feel that it's incomplete. There will be spoilers throughout this post. I'm also not a fan of "Disney Endings". I don't like happysappy endings and I don't like being forced into babies cavorting on screen. That being said, I know that others do like that sort of thing and feel like they should have them.
In the discussions on the Bioware Social Network (BSN), there is some amount of shaming or degrading those that want these happily ever afters (HEA) and that pisses me off. Just because I don't want and/or need it doesn't mean that others don't want and/or need it. There is nothing wrong with wanting a happy ending and this write-up is to explore why I think that way through looking at a historical and a current lens for the hero myth. I am not a scholar and I don't play one on TV. I'm just someone obsessed with video games and watching big damned heroes on my screen and in my books.
Disclaimer: when I say "hero", I mean that in a gender neutral manner. Female or male, it's the concept of the hero rather than a gender-specific, only men can be heroes, manner.
Request: If I fuck up one of these myths, please for the love of all that is holy, correct me.
And on to the post!
So. Heroes. There's a common misconception that Shepard Must Die in Mass Effect 3 to make it a good series. A lot of posts on BSN keep saying "I realize that Shepard must die and I'm all right with that but I'd like a less ambiguous ending". And those are cool and whatever but then there's the flipside - people are asking for a happy ending and receiving negative flak about their naivety. I see a common commentary from those that support the ending, especially, saying similar to: "I like the ending because Shepard dies and it feels like real life and sometimes, the world doesn't go your way. The game shows that and anyone that can't see that is being unrealistic. Welcome to the real world".
That's where I draw my line. Sure, in the real world, it's hard to overcome crazy odds. But, it's happened before and again and again and again. From defeating the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Thermopylae to the Battle of Debecka Pass in Iraq in 2003, just google "against all odds survival" and you'll see plenty of stories featuring people surviving when the odds are clearly stacked against them whether they're joeschmos or they're highly trained military forces.
We, as a culture, strive for survival, I think everyone can agree on that. We love stories of survival and we embrace these, labeling them heroics whereas the person doing the surviving just sees the surviving. It's the person who takes the lead to get people down the staircases on 9/11, it's the people who lead their comrades in arms into war against a superior number. It's what we want to consume because we want to believe that there is a happy ending, sometimes, because we all get that real life is hard and unfair and that these things might not work out but… but sometimes they do.
It's why stories like Odysseus are important. There was a man that struggled, for years and years and years, to get home and survive. He lost men along the way, at every major battle but he did it, he got home. It's why we love stories like Bruce Willis in Die Hard because he loses people but he never loses hope and he finishes the journey. It's why we like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon because he might lose people along the way but he gets the job fucking done already.
The Hero Myth has a set journey to it, to be a successful hero myth. From Joseph Campbell -
The returning hero, to complete his adventure, must survive the impact of the world. Many failures attest to the difficulties of this life-affirmative threshold. The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into the heavenly rock dwelling, close the door, and make it fast. But if some spiritual obstetrician has drawn the shimenawa across the retreat, then the work of representing eternity in time, and perceiving in time eternity, cannot be avoided" The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.
And that's where the ending of Mass Effect 3 fails the hero myth tale. Shepard doesn't return to the world of common day. Shepard doesn't survive the impact of the world (and, hell, we don't even see the impact of the world). We don't get to see any of this and that's, in my humble opinion, where the ending of Mass Effect 3 fails. There is no resolution to the hero myth that we have spent hundreds of hours traveling along. We are left, instead, with half-formed thoughts and possibilities.
Mass Effect 3 has been held up, side by side, with Star Wars and I think that's a justifiable comparison. Both are, in a way, space operas with plenty of drama, relationships, atrocities, wars, battles and loss. But Star Wars, mock Return of the Jedi as you wish, ends on a happy note. It ends with the hero reuniting with his friends and family, against all odds, against a galaxy arrayed against him and his overwhelmed, small number of freedom fighting compatriots, and celebrating life. Star Wars leaves an open ending for the imagination to take the story from there, especially if one were to ignore the awful Yuuzhan Vong craptacular book series, like I do (which, by the way, still adheres to the typical hero myth because the hero of the book, even when seeing Chewbacca and others die, triumphs against all odds).
We are, culturally, inclined to believe that the hero survives and, more importantly, has to survive to make it a good story. I'm not saying stories in which the hero dies are bad, because they're not. But those stories still show the impact on the world around them that is the boon of the hero's death. We do not get that in Mass Effect 3. We do not get to see what the world looks like, other than a brief and nonsensical view of people on a tropical planet that shouldn't be there in the first place let alone there together.
That is not seeing the impact on the world around them because of the sacrifice of the hero. We don't get to see what happens to the Krogan stuck on Earth. We don't get to see what happens to the Turians or the Asari or the Geth or the Quarnians or any of them. We only get nonsensical gibberish on our screens that is never explained. That's where BioWare's epic hero myth fails and that is why people are upset with the ending.
In the end, we see that Odysseus gets home, gets the girl and gets his kingdom, regardless of the odds. We get to see Theseus go up against Death Itself and come out the victor. We get to see Seal Team 6 go up against a numerically superior fighting force and come out the victor. We get to see countless stories of firefighters going into burning buildings to rescue someone and doing it, even as the building collapses around them. We see hero myths play out every day, in real life, in our books, in our movies and, yes, in our video games.
When they do not play out completely, that is when the breakdown happens.
But, regardless, for those that want to see Shepard have those little blue babies or the human/turian hybrids, they aren't wrong and they're not naïve. They simply want to see the hero myth play out to a satisfying, personal resolution of their own creating where the hero returns to the real world and shows his/her impact on the world.
We have certain expectations when we go into certain types of media. When I read a romance novel, I expect, at the very least, a "happy for now" or, more satisfyingly, a HEA. When I read a fantasy novel, I expect the hero to triumph in the end. When I read a mystery novel, I expect the mystery to be solved.
And that's why interpretations differ for Mass Effect 3. Some play it as more of a romance. They work hard to build their relationships and they want to see that come to a satisfying conclusion. Some people play it as more of an epic fantasy and they still want to see the hero triumph. Some play it as a political game, playing pieces off one another, but they still want to "win" in the end. All of them are equally valid ways of playing the game.
Fanfiction circles have a saying and I think it applies even here to the requests for endings. "Don't like, don't read". If you do not want blue babies (and I certainly don't… I don't even want real life human babies), then do not use that as your conclusion. But stop with the shaming of others that do. Their interpretation is equally as valid as yours.