Liara being horrified about the Banshees is not wholly out of character. I will grant that. Nor is her feelings about the fall of Thessia.
BUT. The big problem, the reason all of this bugs the shit out me, is that it happening on Thessia is THE LATEST horror. Husks have been enemies since the first game. Marauders and Brutes have been enemies since the start of this game. Javik dealt with what would be known as Collectors during his cycle. Everyone she is fighting alongside has been facing similar horrors for a while now. Same with Thessia - Shepard and Garrus both are picked up from their home worlds mid-invasion. But her inability to accept that this is happening on Thessia…? And HERE is where the kid gloves aren’t optional for her?
It speaks to this sense of arrogance from the asari - “it could never happen TO US.” An attitude that permeates the game from the asari - they refuse to come to the summit with the krogan, despite their reputation as renowned diplomats, and how Shepard has already been repeating the line of, effectively, “we ARE struggling together!” Then the asari councilor brings this mission to Shepard with the line of “things are becoming desperate for the asari republics.” As if the desperation everyone else has been experiencing, well, that was expected, but when it’s THE ASARI…
And, of course, we have the fact that the beacon being revealed at ANY. prior point in the series would have changed the entire course of this fight, AND that hoarding away prothean tech like this is something that the asari themselves outlawed. So, y’know, a MASSIVE case of hypocrisy that is NEVER really addressed or acknowledged - sure, EDI consoles Liara about her mother hiding this from her with the legal punishment that could have fallen on her had she known before, but in terms of actually responding to all of this in the game directly? Nothing.
All that saying nothing of how Shepard is forced into taking this all personally, even though NOTHING about the possibility of the beacon revealing the Catalyst said that it would be any kind of instant “I win” bomb against the Reapers - Thessia was lost before Shepard landed, and even had Vendetta handed over the reveal of what the Catalyst is right off instead of having to be coaxed into it and then captured by Cerberus, then there would have to be the work of GETTING the Citadel and the Crucible connected, while Thessia is still held by Reaper forces.
The writing tries to frame Thessia falling as Shepard dealing with their first major failure, but they are like the… sixth or so link in the chain of responsibility, going from the Leviathans for starting the cycles, the Reapers for continuing it, the protheans for not apocalypse-proofing Vendetta’s programming to the point that he has to be persuaded to do what he was originally designed to do, the asari for hiding the beacon as long as they did, Cerberus for interrupting and taking Vendetta, and THEN Shepard for not being able to beat Kai Leng in a fight that the writing mandates they lose by way of a cheat (oh no, a gunship with a spotlight, JJ Abrams-style lens flares are the true enemy of Commander Shepard).
Like the fight against him isn’t even the hardest fight Shepard faces on Thessia, but we’re still forced to lose.
So Shepard feeling defeated? That isn’t an earned emotion, and the only option is to feel bad for the asari hits up against the fact that emotionally? My response is “I don’t care about what happened to these people,” a sentiment that ANY writer should consider the kiss of death for how they presented things, a DEMAND to go back to the drawing board and start over - I’m seriously tempted to say I’d trade the Extended Cut for a rewrite of Thessia entirely.
As I have said repeatedly, it’s not the what of things. It’s the how, the presentation, the way these pieces are put together, and the way we are forced to respond in the aftermath.
