Hey everybody, Daniel from Spacedock here.
If there’s one kind of character arc that I always become invested in, it’s somebody
struggling with the pressures of command, dealing with enormous responsibility and emotional
stress and learning to endure and press on, that to me is the most convincing display
of heroism and strength of character a writer can create, and it’s why I’m so attached
to characters like Captain Benjamin Sisko, Admiral William Adama, and above all, Commander
Shepard.
Now it’s true that the details of Shepard’s story can vary drastically based on player
choice, but I feel that the specific struggle of command and responsibility remains the
same in most playthroughs, for the purpose of this video I’m going to refer to a Female
mostly-Paragon Shepard, mostly because I think Jennifer Hale’s voice performance in the
role was nothing short of astounding, and after playing the trilogy through every path
imaginable a dozen times over, this story and performance is the one that means the
most to me.
Now the first seriously major decision Shepard has to make is on Vermire, where she’s forced
to choose between saving Ashley or Kaiden from certain death.
Now this decision is such a well-known and famous part of Mass Effect that I think a
lot of its power is lost on players who have not played the first game in a long while,
but if you really look at the situation, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Ashley and especially Kaiden have been with Shepard a good while now, and they’ve been
relying on eachother in life-threatening situations on a daily basis throughout the entire hunt
for Saren.
These characters have a powerful bond by now, and perhaps most importantly, their exact
placement and duties in the Vermire mission were decided by Shepard, she chose who went
to arm the bomb, and who went to support the Salarians.
Now what would you do, if you were placed in that situation.
A radio call comes in and it becomes immediately apparent that one of these people that you
have become so close to is going to die imminently, and you have to choose who to save right now
or they’ll both die.
Imagine if Captain Kirk received that call and had to choose between Bones and Spock
on the spot, what do you imagine he’d do?
I think he’d do exactly what I’d do, and exactly what almost everyone watching this
video would do, he’d completely freeze up, and neither of them would get saved, with
one of those deaths being his fault.
And that’s not a flaw, that’s just a completely human outcome, it takes an unimaginable strength
of character to make that call, not to mention continuing to function and fight afterward.
At that moment, we know exactly the kind of character we’re following, the effect of
this decision stays with Shepard throughout the whole trilogy, and informs her whole arc,
she makes the kind of decisions that would emotionally decimate anyone else, and then
lives with the consequences.
By the third game the choice between Ashley and Kaiden seems almost quaint compared to
the responsibility Shepard has taken on.
She’s now responsible for the lives of trillions of beings across the galaxy, the lynchpin
in a plan that is ostensibly the only hope for galactic civilisation.
Across the course of Mass Effect 3 we see the incredible pressure of this role slowly
overwhelming Shepard, and if you play the game a certain way, this can lead to one of
my very favourite pieces of dialogue ever.
If you’ve been going through the Samantha Traynor Romance Subplot, you get a scene in
Shepard’s cabin on the journey to Cronus Station, where the final sequence of Battles
to defeat the Reapers will begin.
Shepard wakes from another of the dreams she’s had for the whole game, this one underlining
all the deaths that have been caused by every decision she has made, Ashley or Kaiden, Legion,
Mordin, the people of Thessia.
Traynor innocently asks if she’s ok and Jennifer Hale delivers what might be the single
best line of voice acting I’ve ever heard.
She just says “Everyone’s looking at me like I know what I’m doing” and you can
tell that Traynor realises immediately, Shepard is on the Razor’s Edge, on the very precipice
of finally breaking under the stress, and in a way you completely believe after hours
of following the Traynor subplot, she supports Shepard, and puts her back into the frame
of mind to go into the final conflict, leaving you with the unshakable impression that Shepard
might have understandably lost the will to go on if Sam hadn’t been there at that moment.
This is exactly the kind of scene that I can’t get enough of, Shepard’s bravery and heroism
is made so much more potent by her humanity and vulnerability, and the clearly outlined
fact that in spite of her incredible leadership, she’s only as good as the crew she commands.
If you’ve never seen the scene I laid out a moment ago, then don’t go and watch it
on YouTube, go and get Mass Effect 3, with the Citadel DLC and all that good stuff, and
play a Femshep/Traynor run, the scene won’t have anything like the emotional power behind
it without the context.
I hope you’ll forgive my huge ramble about my total adoration for Mass Effect and Shepard,
I can assure you I’ll be right back to spaceships on Tuesday, but hopefully I’ve convinced
some of you to try out that particular playthrough I talked about, after thousands of hours of
Mass Effect, that one was the one that had easily the biggest effect on me, and whenever
I’m working on my own science fiction stories, I constantly keep it in mind as one of the
most powerful pieces of writing I’ve seen in the genre.
This is Daniel from Spacedock, signing off.