What is your opinion of Ashley Williams? *SPOILERS*

[Burnouts3s3]

I'm just curious.

A lot of people dislike her because of her remarks in ME1 about picking humanity and her religion so a lot of people leave her to die on Virmire.

What do you think?

[Arkham99]

the whole Bigotry profile of Ashley Williams has always been overplayed, in my opinion... my question is... how come Wrex, one of The Most Popular Characters in the game, gets a free pass when he poses the same concerns towards Salarians?... he constantly refers to Padok Wiks in the third game as a "Pyjak"...:-)

[Dethlane]

Hella dislike her because of her beatchy nature. As for Virmire, I leave her to die if I'm playing MShep (so that game doesn't force-trigger her romance even though I didn't make a move on her at all) or FShep who is romancing Kaidan.

[StreamWhenGuy]

She sux.

[Emi-Didact]

Well she's racist, doesn't like working with aliens at all and I love aliens so there.

[Njorl]

I never cared one way or another about her but I always hated the idea of the romance with her. Shep is a commanding officer and she is a chief. It's a career ending violation of UCMJ. I know they aren't operating under our current rules, but but so much of their culture is clearly adopted from the US military that it is jarring.

[YoloMeister]

Lmao, i rly like that racist thing ashley has..., IF you play as renegade, aka complete motherf@#$, and killinkg all the aliens in all 3 games, ashley is the best romance option for that...

[Codo]

The one rule on my Normandy:

Be a religious space racist, get yeeted into the nuclear fire of Virmire

It's that simple.

cheers

[Codo]

Though I've chosen her to survive on my current playthrough because I never did before and want to see what happens

[MrMalzel]

Ashley Williams is great target practice in Mass Effect 3.

[temps]

Originally posted by Njorl:

I never cared one way or another about her but I always hated the idea of the romance with her. Shep is a commanding officer and she is a chief. It's a career ending violation of UCMJ. I know they aren't operating under our current rules, but but so much of their culture is clearly adopted from the US military that it is jarring.

Shepard is a specter or whatever they call it so he isn't subject to the normal rules, remember? He's pretty much free to do whatever he wants. So the UCMJ doesn't apply.

Anyway, I always chose Ashley over Kaiden just because Ashley is attractive and I wanted a relationship with her and to have her in my squad because of that. And while I like to talk with aliens as well, Ashley is probably correct to be suspicious of them in a lot of cases because they likely would have different interests than humans would -- even if that isn't true in this particular story.

[Awaken]

It appears she leaves no one indifferent, people either love her or hate her.

[Black Hole]

She is fine from a story stand point but lame in terms of abilities on missions. Just a rather boring squad mate to have.

[Groogo]

Ashley is a Babe and hardly a racist (*if that even exist), I see no reason to put today's politics (boring) into my SciFi adventure.

[Mysti_Fogg]

People overreact to the racist thing and don't really pay close attention to that story.

Yes, Ashley has issues, mainly with turians. During the First Contact War, her grandfather surrendered to the turians IN ORDER TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THE ENTIRE COLONY. If he hadn't surrendered, the turians would have just bombed the ♥♥♥♥ out of the civilians/shot them down in the streets/etc. Turians don't classify or treat civilians in the same way that most human cultures do, and even human cultures are going to continue the attack until someone surrenders. I'd even make the argument that what he did was brave and wise.

But in the aftermath of humanity's win, he's labeled a coward and a traitor by other humans, and his family suffers for it as well. Ashley has basically grown up seeing her father, grandfather, sisters, and herself bullied by other humans for the choice to value human life and hope of rescue over stubbornly standing your ground at the cost of thousands of innocents who didn't ask for this and aren't prepared to fight.

And she internalized that bullying by trying to be the opposite of her grandfather as a fighter and hating all aliens because it's somehow the turians' fault that humans have been jerks to her family.

So I find the "space racist" thing rather ridiculous.

[Shinigami Miroku]

It's funny how so many see Ash as the racist when it's her that clearly points out the racism of the Council (which gets played straight throughout pretty much the entire trilogy; the only reason it doesn't backfire on them completely is because Shepard is a badass - and it just makes more sense to save the Council in the end). All you have to do is look at the many "minor" alien species that are not part of the main Council; the only ones who tend to get a 'pass' are the really short ones in the full body-suits (I forget what they're called because it's been ages since I last played). It would only be a matter of time before humanity got thrown under the bus like the others did because of one thing or another, and without Shepard the Council wouldn't have lived long enough to regret doing so (what with the whole 'cleansing' bit that the Reapers are devoted to).

If you want to make an issue of her treatment of Liara, Wrex, and Tali, her objections are not only sensible, but only come out wrong because they are our teammates and are thus automatically loyal. The Normandy was a top-secret project between the human and Turian military, including a lot of tech that, were it to get out (accidentally or otherwise), would potentially destabilize the balance of power in the galaxy (imagine pirate fleets being able to quickly warp in and out of a system without so much of a peep, opening up defenses for larger ships to take advantage of - or a full-scale war as the minor powers seize their chance to overthrow the major three and establish their own galactic government.

Getting back to our teammates, a quick breakdown would suffice. With Wrex, a long-lived Battlemaster who would be expected to want access to the latest tech in order to strengthen their people's military power, wanting to keep him away from critical systems is sensible. While Tali would not be expected to have the same mindset, as a tech genius she's almost more dangerous with the tech of the Normandy in her hands (and, by extension, the Quarian fleet). Liara is a personal risk, from her perspective, because of her own mother being the second-in-command of the very foe they're fighting, so were she a double-agent she would be in prime position to cripple the Normandy at any time were she given unrestricted access. Now, as far as Garrus goes I cannot completely remember if she had a problem with him, but while the source of her being sidelined is due to her grandfather's actions in the First Contact War, between the Normandy being a joint project between humanity and Garrus being a member of the Citadel's police force, she'd likely have less issues with him overall.

I also must point out that as they prove themselves, Ashley lets up quite a bit and ends up trusting them in combat (the hardest place to trust anyone, mind you) as much as she trusts Shepard and Kaiden. She's military through and through - trust is earned, not freely handed out.

Granted that these points have all been repeated ad nauseum, and the people who will remain unconvinced will continue to remain so because of their preconceived notions and biases - either against her for her religious beliefs, against her seemingly contradictory attitude toward life (which, unlike the other two issues is fair because not every personality will jibe with others), or for the aliens that she seems set against (at first).