How does ME3's ending make sense at all? (Long rant)

[A Pebble]

Spoilers... Obviously...
TL:DR So many obvious mistakes and things that make no sense that I am more inclined to believe the entire ending was a dream than something that actually happened.

Everything from charging down the hill to the beam onwards just makes no sense at all from a logical point of view.

1. Normandy extracting your 2 squadmates mid-charge down the hill:
The most glaring question is why the hell would Harbinger NOT shoot the Normandy out of the sky? The entire charge you watch him shoot gunships out of the air left and right, but the Normandy gets to just plop right in the middle of the field and sit there for nearly an entire minute and fly away with no issue? Was Harbinger taking a power nap during this specific time frame? Makes no sense at all and surely someone at Bioware noticed how ridiculous that is?

2. Shepard not getting vaporized instantly upon being hit by the laser:
Several times ME3 there are instances where you can get hit by a Reaper beam during gameplay and die. Even if you aren't right on top of the beam it still kills you if you are near it. Even during the charge down the hill scene you can watch the other foot soldiers get vaporized instantly upon being hit by Harbinger's beam... So explain to me how Shepard survives a direct hit from a Reaper beam this time? And pretending the beam actually does follow the laws of physics, how did he get knocked nearly 50 feet FORWARD after being hit from the FRONT? If it didn't vaporize him instantly he should have been knocked on his ass BACKWARDS.

3. Anderson being on the Citadel:
At no point does Anderson join you during the charge down the hill scene. At no point does Anderson appear anywhere after you get back up after being hit by Harbinger's laser. So why does Anderson claim he "followed you up" after you get to the Citadel? If he was following Shep during his entire limp to the beam he's kind of a ♥♥♥♥ for not helping shoot the husks and marauder.. And if he DID somehow avoid being seen the entire time and DID actually follow you up the beam...why did he "come out somewhere else"? It was clearly one of those direct teleport beams similar to the end of ME1 where it takes you to point A to point B. Also something else I just thought of how does Shepards radio even work after being hit by Harbinger's laser? It clearly fried is armor completely.

4. Citadel itself:
I've never seen any part of the Citadel that looks anything like where you appear in the ending. A long straight hallway leading to a lone control panel in a huge room? How did Anderson even get there before us if he "came out somewhere else" like he claims? Why does that control panel control the arms of the Citadel to begin with? Anyone who played ME1 saw that the arms can be opened/closed in the Council chamber, not this random magical room that can't be accessed from anywhere on the Citadel itself?

5. TIM standoff:
Probably nit-picking on my part but why do Anderson and TIM's shadows constantly point different directions? Presumably there is only 1 light source coming from outside the window, yet their shadows never change direction.. There is even a point where TIM is standing right next to Anderson and their shadows overlap each other... The whole mind control scenario is just weird in itself because we never see anything like that happen at any time during the trilogy, Indoctrination happens gradually over time to people yes, but never direct mind control like TIM does in this scene.

6. Citadel Child/Decision Room:
Everything the Child says is half truths and contradictions... It claims that it "is the citadel" and at first claims that it is not a Reaper, yet further on in conversation the Child constantly refers to the Reapers as "us" and "we" basically admitting that he is a Reaper or is at least aligned with the Reapers. Obviously in that case it has a Reaper agenda which is made even more obvious by it's clear distaste of the Destroy ending when talking about it and it's preference of the Control and Synthesis ending. Not to mention the glaringly obvious irony of the Child talking about how the Reaper's prevent the "never ending cycle of Synthetics killing Organics" is completely missed by both Shepard and the Child. The Child being a Reaper makes the decisions make even less sense because why would it even allow Shepard the option of destroying the Reapers? It wouldn't. It would throw his ass off the platform and into space in a second.
The room itself is even more of a mystery. There is no entrance to it besides the weird magical floor platform that just so happened to appear after Shepard went unconcious for the like 3rd time so far... And has nobody on the Citadel ever wondered what this whole room is even for? It would be pretty hard NOT to notice it. And how about the methods towards the endings to begin with? How does shooting a random tube cause the Crucible to activate in "Destroy" mode? How does Shepard throwing himself into the beam cause the "Synthesis" mode? How does Shepard literally electrocuting himself cause "Control"? If going to this weird room on the Citadel and shocking yourself to death lets you control an entire race of synthetics how has some random construction worker or something not used it or touched it accidentally? Again it makes no sense.

There is a ton of other things I have found confusing about the ending but I really don't want to spend my entire day typing all of my complaints into a Steam discussion rant. I mostly just want some clarification from the more "lore knowledgeable" people who might be able to make sense of this nonsensical ending.
This ending has so many dreamlike and fake qualities to it I honestly believe this whole ending was in Shepard's mind while he was dying after being hit by Harbinger's laser on Earth.

[Jon_Smith]

İlk olarak puppet74 tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Slick tarafından gönderildi:

@Jon_Smith
@Replicant
You guys really have nothing better to do than argue with eachother on steam discussions? Just stop. Fan Fic or not if someone wants to believe that's the ending to cope about how bad the ending was then so be it. Whenever ME4 comes out we'll see what Bioware decides to make canon.

from the looks of me4 the ending looks ilike its destroy. which imbh is the best option

Fair point, the guy was just making out anyone who disagreed knew nothing and his fanfic was a real ending. I took the bait.

As said ME4 shows the destroy, hopefully it'll put to bed once and for all the ME3 ending is just what you see and Destroy was the canon choice.

[benwaggoner]

İlk olarak WetNose tarafından gönderildi:

If they had just gone with a generic happy ending everything would have been fine but no, they had to go all weird and different resulting in the cluster whack ending we now have.

There is no satisfying way to end the story of a billions-year old cycle of galactic genocide with a "generic happy ending!"

Lots of games have a status quo to return to in order to have a straightforward happy ending. But the status quo of the Milky Way galaxy is that all advanced civilizations will be drive to extinction every ~50K years, forever. Uncounted billions more died during ME3. The LUCKY species only saw their home planets horribly ravaged and depopulated.

The ME trilogy's story has stakes orders of magnitude higher than in typical Sci Fi. Reapers have murdered QUINTILLIONS of sentients, despite the best efforts of much more united and technically advanced species than in Shepard's era.

Defeating that extreme a galactic-scale threat is going to require galactic-scale changes. Every sentient being who survived without indoctrination would be horribly traumatized.

We needed endings proportional to that, which is what we got.

It was certainly unconventional storytelling for a blockbuster trilogy, but compare that to the ends of Star Wars 4-6 and 7-9. Did it ever make SENSE or satisfying narrative that after all that people would have a generic happy ending to go back to?

One way or another, Shepard got to make the sacrifice they were always willing to make and ended the threat only they could see a way to defeat.

[benwaggoner]

İlk olarak Replicant tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak 🐺 PrydZen 🌱 tarafından gönderildi:

Also the end boss was "marauder shields". Lets revive that meme.

Hot take, but what if the end boss wasn't marauder shields, nor star child, but ourselves?

It was a bold storytelling choice to make the end of the game non-combat entirely, but the previously mysterious antagonist offering you the choice of the big solution to the big problem.

All the ME games have big forced choices of ambiguous morality and impact at the end. Save the council or the human fleet? Destroy or give Cerberus the base. And throughout. What to do about the genophage or Rachni didn't have clear-cut answers in-game.

The ending of ME3 was the final stage of the increasing scope and stakes of difficult choices across the whole trilogy.

[Sash13]

Never forget the sacrifice of Marauder shields, the true hero of the series.

[Captain_Emeritus]

The indoctrination theory is the best explanation. But, since the devs haven't seemed to confirm it. It's likely just a bunch of plot holes and dodgy writing.