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What's your favorite Mass Effect game and do you prefer Paragon or Renegade Shepard?
Mass Effect 1 / Paragon
Mass Effect 2 / Paragon
Mass Effect 3 / Paragon
Mass Effect 1 / Renegade
Mass Effect 2 / Renegade
Mass Effect 3 / Renegade
testing a theory. no middle ground options. data is cleaner without them. please consider re-blogging to help me increase my sample size.
There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.
Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.
Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.
Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.
Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.
So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)
When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)
Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.
Scrolling through the film grab thing was dangerous and nostalgic. However, it landed on this one from Batman Returns.
You know I had to do a Shepard version. Or should I say...two for the Mass Effect Cinematic Art Challenge.
@masseffectfanwork @continuous-spec
I’ve been a pain about transcripts lately, so thank you for bearing with me. One of the last transcripts published was Garrus’ loyalty mission - available here. I feel a bit differently than I used to do about the mission and I'm going to be a pain talking about it. Sorry.
So. Paragon!Shepard means the world to me. They represent hope in a sea of despair. After all, Paragon!Shepard is the one who tells Khalisah “keep asking the hard questions” and I feel like they’re talking to me in a way. I cherish them so so much. And it’s hard for me to understand Renegade!Shepard.
At the same time, I enjoy Paragon!Shepard/Garrus a lot because I like the tension, the questions of morals and ethics, the idea that you can disagree with each other but learn from each other, and eventually grow together. But I also think the danger with this pairing is Paragon!Shepard trying to shape Garrus into who they want him to be. And to be honest, I’ve spent little time wondering about Renegade!Shepard/Garrus, almost as if it’s an afterthought... But now I’m thinking about it.
I think it's because the world can feel so wrong sometimes, it feels like it's upside down. And when you work so hard to make things right but it doesn't work - justice doesn't come when you desperately need it - you can feel this anger. It grows and it grows, and it's so hard to let it go.
Perhaps it's laughable but I thought a lot about the Furies/Erinyes while transcribing because there’s a part of Garrus that reminds me of them.
And while I still believe the loyalty mission can be about Paragon!Shepard appealing to Garrus' best side, trying to show them the light in the dark tunnel he's in, I also think it's not just about that. That vision feels a bit simplistic now.
This exchange appeals to me because of the brutal honesty, the hard look Garrus is taking at himself:
SHEPARD: I understand what you're going through – but do you really want to kill him? GARRUS: I appreciate your concern… but I'm not you. SHEPARD: This isn't you either. GARRUS: Really? I've always hated injustice. The thought that Sidonis could get away with this... Why should he go on living while ten good men lie in unmarked graves? I'm sorry, Shepard. Words aren't going to solve this problem.
"Really? I've always hated injustice". He's subtly calling out Paragon!Shepard and it seems legitimate to me that he does because nothing is new here. He's always been like this. And he's very clear that he wants to kill Sidonis: "This is what I have to do. You don't have to understand, but please don't prevent me from doing this."
Understanding - the word matters a lot in this loyalty mission. Garrus doesn't feel a Paragon!Shepard understands him, but it's the opposite with Renegade!Shepard:
SHEPARD: Whatever it takes. GARRUS: Exactly. I knew you’d understand.
But going back to that first exchange, it starts with Paragon!Shepard saying “I understand what you’re going through”. It’s the “but” that follows that makes all the difference.
And ultimately a Paragon!Shepard will prevent Garrus from killing Sidonis, telling Garrus it's for the best. And a lot of the discussions we had over the years have been centered around the idea that Renegade!Shepard respects Garrus’ wishes a lot more than Paragon!Shepard. I understand the reasoning just like before.
I think, and still believe, that sometimes your anger and your sense of justice make you go to such a dark place that you need someone to pull you back. So in a way, I still appreciate what Paragon!Shepard is trying to do. But I also now appreciate what Renegade!Shepard does in this mission.
It's very much my own feelings, perhaps a bit twisted, that follow here:
It's not just about respecting Garrus' wishes - though I obviously care about it - it's about not dismissing the anger as "other". What I mean by this - because again, nuances Deb - obviously being angry and even enraged at one point does not define you for the rest of your life or at all. But if you know that anger, you have experienced it, you know how it feels inside. You just know.
So it brings a lot of questions, really, about love, when the anger is there. Does understanding brings love automatically? I don’t think it does. But can you have love without a clear idea of what is in front of you? To be more blunt: to me, being loved in this instance has to include not dismissing the anger. Not putting it as "other". If the anger doesn't define you, it's still - even if it's a small part - a part of you. At least, it's around you, it's alongside you. It's there.
And Garrus' anger? It's there. It's not "not Garrus", it's not all that he is but it is very much included in the character that is Garrus.
So Paragon!Shepard saying "this isn't you" to Garrus doesn't strike me as true (EVEN if he does not feel like killing Sidonis in the end), and this is why I wish a Paragon!Shepard had a longer conversation with Garrus after the mission. So it's not just about Garrus learning shades of grey, it's about Paragon!Shepard learning from this as well.
I told you I was going to be a pain. I might have to write a fic about this to feel better.
What kind of Shepard is canon to you?
Full Paragon Shepard
Half Paragon, Half Renegade Shepard
Full Renegade Shepard
Personally, half and half Shepard is canon to me. She's a paragon for innocents and people who are good to her and hers, but is a renegade to those who fuck with her or do her and hers wrong. (Aka, I let Garrus kill Sidonis every time. Gotta let my dino hubby have his catharsis.)
Mass Effect Portrait of an OC named Desolas Arterius II, son of General Desolas Arterius for @dreamsleever (Private Commission - 2013)
i am not the commander
(info about my combined shepards canon under the cut)
Never be better than commander Shepard ❤️🔥
If you like my art, you can buy me a cup of coffe - https://ko-fi.com/its_mzz_hyde
