Put yourself in Shepards shoes....

It's been a loooonnnng time since I blogged and I apologize to all the people who enjoy reading my rants and my nonsensical logic. The reason I haven't written in a while is because of the extended cut and I've avoided it as long as I could, kept telling myself that what's the point of playing if your choices don't matter. Then I saw this video and it gave me a sense of understanding, not of starchild, but of why Bioware insisted that Shepard sacrafice himself.



Let me just say ahead of time, before I saw this video, before I put myself in Shepards shoes, and I substituted everything I hold close and I put it inside the galaxy of Mass Effect, I thought Shepard dying was the biggest turd in recorded history. I mean I thought it was cheap, a big middle finger to everyone, but then I put myself in Shepards shoes... and now I'm at peace with Shepard dying.

Let me put you in Shepards shoes for a moment. If you're married, engaged, or have a significant other substitute yourself for Shepard and your LI in the extended cut. Your husband/wife has followed you to hell and back, you've leaned on each other for strength when the world weighed heavy on your shoulders. Now that you've done that put your closest friends on your crew.I'm not talking about the friends that you see once in a while. I'm talking about the friends that wouldn't bail you out of jail because they'd be sitting right next to you saying ,"Damn that was fun." Put those friends on the Normandy, put the person you care about most as your love interest and then put all of that in danger of being completely erased.

After I did all of the above (substituted the proper people in the proper place) I realized why Shepard tells your crew to leave, I understood why he never gave up even though he's bleeding out. It's a very very very simple reason.

Shepard's protecting everything he cares about.

Now I'm just going to ask you another simple question.

Would you not do the exact same thing as Shepard if your family, your children, and everything you hold dear to you is being threatened?

Would you not order your family, your significant other (Shepard's crew if you're Shepard) to get as far away from danger as you possibly can because you simply can't loose them.

I know if my family, my fiance, and my friends were all in danger I would order them to leave. I would sacrifice everything I have to protect them. I can tell you with 100% confidence, I would walk towards the exploding tube if it meant the safety of my family, I'd grab on to those electric conduits if it meant my fiance would survive, and I would proudly take that leap of faith if my friends safety was guaranteed.

you cant tell me that if your children were in danger you wouldn't grab on to those electric conduits to protect them. You can't tell me that you would refuse to walk towards the exploding tube to save your family. You can't say that you wouldn't take that same leap of faith to save your friends.

When I put myself in Shepards shoes I understood why Shepard had to die. He didn't have to die. He choose to die because he was protecting the people he loves. That's how I came to peace with the ending of Mass Effect 3. Is the ending poorly written? Yes it is. Does it go against everything the lore of the series? Yes, but it brings into view one very important theme.

You would give everything to protect the people that you love.

Am I defending the ending saying it's great? Hell no. I'm just giving you a different lens to look at the ending through. I know once I discovered this lens, gazed through it, it brought me peace because I knew that the people I cared about are safe. To me, that's what matters most. As long as my family, my fiance, and my friends are safe I'm at peace.

This is where I leave you to reflect. Put yourself in Shepard's shoes and ask yourself, "Would you have not done the exact same thing?"