A lot of people have been complaining about the ending, so here's an explanation:
Smiley556 wrote...
The only thing I am suprised about is how many people in the mass effect player community did not understand the ending. My faith in this community is dwindling as I see them rage.
I dont understand how people dont see that the whole sequence after shepard gets blasted by harbinger is played out in his head. It is all extremely obvious and the game has been working up to it. The way indoctrination is explained over the game (making people think they are willingly helping the reapers, convinced that the reapers serve a greater cause, and uplifting the reapers as some godlike being in the subjects mind).Also the dream sequences, there are multiple dream sequences in the game so as to make it entirely possible that the ending sequence could be some hallucination too.
Now for the events itself, they are extremly clear. Harbinger, the one reaper who has been trying to indoctrinate shepard for so long, blasts shepard. He wakes up, hears whispers (Like every person that was being indoctrinated) and finds a pistol with unlimited ammo (the kind of inaccure detail one would find in a dream). He steps into the beam and gets teleported to the Citadel, the citadel which is horribly inaccurate (not recognisable, keepers cant be shot, dead human bodies litter the place in dramatic fashion which makes no sense except if imagined by shepards dispairing brain). Then theres Anderson, shepards father figure, who has no possiblity to be there (no survivors from the beam, cant have gotten passed shepard somehow). However it would make sense that he was there if it was a concotion of shepards brain, ofcourse shepard would imagine anderson there. They dont recognise the citadel, another thing commonly assosiated with dreams (if your in a dream everything makes sense, untill you start examining your surroundings and realise it totally unlogical and unrecognisable, you usually wake up not soon after). He gets to the console with anderson there, obviously imagined since anderson couldnt have gotten past shepard and according to the conversation he was only a couple seconds ahead yet you dont see him. Another figure of shepards imagination pops up out of nowhere, the illusive man. More dispair enters shepards brain as he imagines the illusive mans power, forcing him to shoot anderson. Through sheer will of force he overcomes his thoughts of the illusive man, either through breaking lose and shooting him, or by making him shoot himself.
Then comes the reaper who talks directly to shepard. You know, that reaper that presents itself as the ghost of the kid haunting shepards dream and as a godlike figure. If you read the indoctrination codex you will see indoctrinated people see reapers as godlike figures. You also clearly (or not so very clearly) hear harbingers voice in the background while the kid speaks and he refers to himself as 'we' everytime he talks about the reapers (ie. he's being pretty blatant about being a reaper). The reaper then comes up with an explenation which would make it (vaguely) seem as if the reapers serve a greater purpose (again, read the codex entry on indoctrination).
Shortly after shepard is presented with 3 choices. There is only one choice that is considered 'good' for it gives the possibility for shepard to survive and, interestingly, this is also the choice portrayed as being the worst choice according to the reaper. "you can control the reapers, just touch the lightning thing, you will die (ie. succumb to us) but everything will be alright. Or you can jump in the beam, you will die, but everything will be alright. Or you can shoot that thing, you will destroy the reapers, but it will destroy all synthetics, even you are part synthetic and you will kill the geth and your friend edi". Everything points out that the reapers Doesnt want you to make that choice, he wants shepard to willingly choose one of the other 2 options (thus completing the indoctrination of shepard).
Shepard keeps his mind cool and picks destroy the reapers, defying what the reapers wants him to do. He then imagines all that he expects to happen, and includes his hopes and wishes. His friends who were with him at the beam somehow got to safety. He imagines them stepping out of the normandy unharmed on a distant world, giving him some peace of mind. He wakes up back in the rubble on earth, Harbinger has failed.
Now we wait for Bioware to release the end (obviously this hallucination wasnt the end) for which I am gratefull. They made sure nobody gets spoiled cos of differing release dates around the globe and the datamining of the possible endings (the end isnt in the game yet so that it cant be datamined, its brilliant really).
I sincerely hope we can stop raging now.
