blorbo rant incoming but I'm forever thinking about Yael getting her face almost cut in half at Midnoir and it becoming this symbol of how she will never be anyone's slave only for Cerberus to erase it when they bring her back and hold humanity's fate hostage to force her to do their bidding
the year is 2035. the new beauty standard is for women to cut their ears off, as ears are a masculine trait which make the face look too big and hearing isnt necessary as it doesnt align with being demure. evil feminists say perhaps this is unnecessary and ears are natural. women are agressively proclaiming they are cutting their ears off due to sensory issues
OKAY, SO. This whole thing came about because I was trying to figure out where he might have been from for some backstory shenanigans and found out the origin of Zaeed is Arabic. And look, I was a religion minor in college, I think it's very fun to zap blorbos with religion beams, whether it be real world religions, or religions that are unique to a world setting, so bam, Muslim Zaeed.
Under a cut cause the rest gets rambly
Now idk what it is about that man, but he has the vibes of someone with an absent and/or shit father in every universe. HOWEVER, I can see him having had a good mom and been close to her. So out of his parents, his mom is the religious one. And yeah, both his parents went to the mosque when he was younger, but as he got older, his dad would go less and less, be out late at work more and more, so it was just him and his mom.
At some point in his early teens, I think his mom gets sick, with what, idk, but it's something they still haven't figured out by Mass Effect time. Watching his mom whither away, getting worse and weaker, it's hard for Zaeed to really want to believe in a god that would let this happen to her, the parent who cares and loves him and is devout, versus his father who is never around even when he's home. His faith had already been rocky, but this kinda severs it completely.
He still goes with his mom to the mosque, helps her with her hijab when she can't manage to lift her arms high enough to wrap it properly. Zaeed never tells his mom about his wavering faith, couldn't stand to do that to her, and at this point, he's soaking up every single second he possibly can.
She dies probably right around his 18th birthday, and as soon as he can, he enlists in the military just to get OUT and away from his dad. But he packs his mom's favorite hijab, the one that still smells like her, he puts Muslim on his enlistment forms, cause it means he can have access to more Halal rations, and the thought of eating any kind of pig feels deeply, fundamentally wrong to him.
Over the years though, I think he mellows out a bit with how strictly he watches his dietary habits, especially when it becomes a luxury he can't afford at some point. He never quite manages to shake that internal clock for when prayers should be and dividing his days up around them. Even if he wanted to, I don't think he could ever bring himself to abandon all of the beliefs and traditions, cause they're so intrinsically tied to his mother, and leaving them behind would be like leaving her behind him as well.
And honestly, it doesn't seem all that outlandish to him that there is some kind of god, or higher power, if pressed, he'd tell you sure he believes in a god of some kind. Whenever his back is up against the wall, he finds himself praying on instinct before he even realizes that's what he's doing.
I'm sure this is wildly incoherent, cause it was very much as I thought of things, but yeah :)
and then he and Ash somehow get on the topic of kosher and halal foods and play a game of sending each other the wildest meals they can find and debate with each other why something would or wouldn't be kosher and/or halal, but that's for another time and the occasions i decide to ship them just to see what shakes out
Okay so I have two Shepherds, my canon Shep and my current one, and they both have pretty different relationships to their faith. I'll add more under the cut to avoid annoying my non-mass-effect moots.
My canon Shep is Yael. She's a colony kid. Her parents were farmers, and her mother was a rabbi. I think Mindoir probably had a lot of people from different backgrounds, so her mother stepped in as kind of a general religious teacher. In my mind, Mindoir wasn't the easiest colony to live in, and I don't think she ever really had a use for believing in God. No time for torah study, its time to harvest Space Crops. Besides, its a small, diverse colony - there's not enough Jews for a shul.
Yael turns to Judaism as her moral guide after the Batarians hit. She doesn't believe in God, but she does profoundly believe that all life is sacred and that she has a duty to make the world better. She's a pure paragon - not necessarily because she believes everyone will do the right thing or make the right choice, but because she believes in giving them the chance to. She believes that you can stray from the path without being irredeemable (in most cases), and she is willing to show you the way back.
That being said, she isn't all lovingkindness. She is named after Yael (and she is still Shepherd). She understands there is a place for violence and she isn't shy to use it - but only when its necessary. She will explore all other options first. But if there truly aren't any, well, she's a vanguard with a shotgun.
She probably isn't very public with her faith. Like I said, she doesn't have much use for God, and I don't think she observes shabbat or anything on the Normandy. But I do think there's certain people she would talk to about it. Thane and Samara, for one. They discuss philosophy and morality all the time. In a way, it actually kind of makes her feel like she's close to her mom, doing the same thing she did. Maybe she answers a few questions from Liara, maybe makes a comment here or there to Tali. I think when she and Garrus get together, she would start talking more about why she believes what she does, where her trust in her moral code comes from. When they adopt kids post-ending, I think they settle on hebrew names, since they kind of work with turian name sounds.
Fun unrelated fact - I didn't know you could convince Saren to kill himself! I genuinely thought I could maybe just like, inspire him out of being indoctrinated. So, that moment really stuck with me my entire playthrough, so it sticks with Yael too. She carries a lot of conflicted feelings about that moment. She tries to remember saving Tabitha or Samara from the same fate, but every time someone puts a gun to their head, she sees Saren.
Mara Shepherd is my current playthrough. I tried sooooo hard to make her a full renegade but I just can't be that mean. She's an earthborn street rat. She has vague memories of celebrating shabbat in their family's hovel, and she has her father's magen David, but little else. Still, as she grows up in such a harsh, dark environment and does some pretty gnarly things to survive, I think she turns more and more to her faith as a kind of light in the darkness. She kind of drifts in and out of a local synagogue, picking up snippets of traditions and prayers as she goes and frankensteining it together with nearly-forgotten memories into something barely recognizable, but hers.
When she's 17, someone in her gang finds out she's been going to synagogue, and wants her to prove her loyalty by stealing something from it. Yknow, a real "if you're with us, you're not with anyone else" situation. It ends... badly. She camps outside the Alliance enlistment office for a couple days before her birthday so she can enroll the second she turns 18. From there, Anderson notices her necklace, and gently points her towards some Jewish Alliance programs.
It's what she needs. It isn't just structure, but a way forward. It's a memory, a light, an encouragement. She dives in head-first and becomes quite religious. Then, the Skyllian Blitz happens. She doesn't just lose soldiers, she has to tactically sacrifice them for a victory. And she doesn't know how to square that with a faith whose number one rule, above all else, is not to take a life.
That creates the basis of her internal struggle. She wants to be a good person, but she's good at making the ruthless calls that no one else will make. She is good at being a commander. She's good at sacrifice because its all she's done her entire life. And if she were honest with herself... she likes the violence. But no amount of hand-washing makes her bread taste less like blood.
She falls hard for Thane because of it. He knows what it is to have blood on your hands. What it means to want to be good, but to be unable to stop. To take pride in a job well done. She's comforted by the idea of battle sleep. Not enough to ever truly believe it, but enough to convince herself she does.
A fun fact: I decided she was going to be Jewish after that conversation with Ashley! I decided they were going to be best friends, and now I'm thinking they spend a lot of late nights talking about morality and faith and the differences in their traditions.
Other Mara facts. She wears her magen David bright and visible in her military formal wear. She does shabbat on the Normandy; she and Ash (when Ash is there) make the meal together and always end up having just a bit too much wine (and if she thinks about kissing Ash in the kitchen when they're cleaning up afterwards, pink-cheeked and laughing so hard they lean into each other for support, she'll lie to herself and pretend she doesn't remember it). Also EDI learns Shep is Jewish and puts a mezuzah on the Normandy airlock. Joker tried to make one (1) jew joke and EDI shut that shit down immediately. "That joke relies on the stereotype that Jewish people are both weak and effeminate, and at the same time, tricky and violent." "EDI we've been through this -" "Did you know that stereotype originated in 14th century Germany to justify the slaughter of entire Jewish communities?" "...well, no-" "Would you classify the Commander as weak because of her ethnic background?" "okay, EDI, I get it. Please don't tell Shepherd." "I was standing here the whooole time."
This render was inspired by @afraidofchange's post about Ashley observing shiva for Kaidan. I've really enjoyed exploring the idea of Ashley being Jewish, her belief in God being something other than Christianity.
Rendered in Blender 4.1, cycles, map from here (x)
So Ashley Williams never specifies what she means when she says she believes in God, any thoughts on a potentially Jewish Ashley Williams? It's a headcanon I've been toying with, especially in conjunction with the idea of her being Latina (per one of the games creators) and how much Catholic culture is tied into that and how it might intersect with her Jewish heritage
omg!! jewish mass effect ask!! yay!!!
Okay so I have a real answer, and I have a 'fun' answer here. The real answer is, bitterly: I don't think the devs intended Ashley to be Jewish because there's like 5 Jewish video game characters. We just aren't written about or for, and unfortunately, Christianity is kind of seen as the "default" faith.
Fun answer? LOVE Jewish Ashley Williams. Jewish Ashley Williams who looks at space and sees it, not as a contradiction to her faith, but a reinforcement of it. Because our traditions encourage us to reconcile science with faith, to constantly be in conversation with modernity, whatever that may look like. Jewish Ashley Williams who sees the face of God in nebula clouds and alien flowers and volcanoes on worlds no one can colonize.
Rambling under the cut because this gets progressively stream-of-consciousness and wow this got WAY too long I'm so sorry.
I wonder how this plays into her family history, too. Imagine the first human general who concedes a defeat to aliens is Jewish? Not to make everything about antisemitism but I think it could be fun to imagine her eagerness to throw herself recklessly into every fight they get into is not just because she's always had to prove herself to her superiors, but also to prove to herself that what they say about her family isn't about their heritage. Actually, I think there's something there about the feeling that you have to be the 'model Jew' mirroring or reinforcing her need to be a 'model soldier.' Those two things could be very tied together for the Williams clan.
It can also reinforce her hatred of Terra Firma and Cerberus! She called Terra Firma a bunch of jackals who turned good ideas of self-reliance into hatred. She says in the me2 interaction that "I'm not the biggest fan of aliens, but Cerberus goes too far." Which makes sense just from like, a moral standpoint - not liking or understanding others =/= wanting them to be horribly experimented on and killed by scientists operating outside of galactic law, fueled by a noble ideal of protecting and advancing humanity. But also read it like that and tbh, I'd think they were nazis too. Like, she's kinda right to be fuckin mad at Shepherd.
Other fun things: Jewish astronauts have a little tradition of bringing mezuzahs for their sleeping pods, so I like to imagine Ash has a little mezuzah on hers.
Do we think she keeps kosher? Because I cannot imagine finding kosher, latino food is easy in space. But omg... imagine the cross-cultural exchange! Using wheats and seeds from colonized worlds to bake into challah, finding fruits from Thessia to bake into hamantaschen, discovering stubborn plants that still grow on Tuchanka and using them to replace the bitter herbs on the seder plate cause they're easier to find on the Citadel. Checking if certain alien animals are kosher or not because their biology is so different and then, after spending an hour reading arguments on the extranet, eventually just giving up and replacing whatever protein with beans.
How do holidays go on the Normandy? It's a military vessel so I imagine there's very little emphasis on religious ceremony, but... imagine a little seder with the ME1 crew.
What about her relationship with grief? To be Jewish is to be haunted, I think, a little bit. We are always reminded of those we have lost. I wonder if it helps comfort her when she thinks of 212. I wonder if she ever said a mourner's kaddish for them.
Do we think maybe she kind of sympathizes with the Quarians more than other races? Is that maybe why its so easy for her to bond with Tali, even considering her a little sister - big words from someone who loves her own sisters so much. Circle back to the seder idea and I think Tali would be WAY about it. Omg... having two different seder plates so dextros can join in....
Now, I'll admit, I don't actually know that much about Catholic-Jewish interactions in latino countries because... well, I'm Canadian. I didn't even meet a latino person until I moved to the capital and none that I've met have been religious or care very much about Catholicism. I've never met a non-Ashkenazi Jew (there's only 80 000 Jews across the entire country). I live in a very different cultural context than those in the US, which I feel the need to emphasize because US-specific discourse dominates the internet (and global politics and the global economy and media and and and). I would ask a Jew who lives in Central or South America about Catholic-Jewish interactions in a latino context to grow your headcanon.
I do know that many Spanish Jews had to 'convert' in order to escape the Inquisition, and that many of those families further escaped to South America during the 15th/16th ce. Furthermore, a lot of nazis also fled to South America. So, I would imagine that being secretive or vague about being Jewish is probably common (or was probably common?). I also imagine that centuries of pretending to be catholic converts means a lot of Catholic culture and folk traditions are genuinely carried over and integrated into daily life. But, that's conjecture.
This was a super fun ask. I have actually a LOT of ideas about Jews in the mass effect universe.
ok so like, I know everyone is like "ahh shepherd was dead for two years" but tbf to a romanced vs... they gotta know from Shep's perspective its been like two weeks from making out with them to making out with someone else like that's gotta hurt. Its been a month TOPS, you should be under the impression we're still together. Like imagine staying loyal to a dead person for like two years, and then find out they woke up from what was essentially a nap and immediately screwed someone else. because you had one fight. I'd commit crimes.
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