Why you enjoy art and the one problem with Mass Effect 3

All actions have three key parts to them. The motivation, the act, and then the consequence (the order in which these things need to manifest). Nothing happens without reason first, and nothing can happened without something being affected.

For the protagonist, these things are often (but not always) revealed in this order. The antagonist however, is the component of a story that moves it. This is something to keep in mind. In any narrative, the cause of the conflict is what moves the story. The villain always moves the hero. This is often why the villains are so much more varied than our hero, because the hero only acts in response.

Usually, the antagonist has these components revealed in a flipped order. The act comes first, then the consequence, and finally the motivation. The motivation last manifests in a tremendous number of ways. Often this is the 'bond villain speech', or the 'I have already won' speech. Or sometimes it is the tragic reveal, the villain only was doing this to save his people, or his love, or his children.

This is the basic premise that almost every narration ever written has followed. The conflict is started by the villain's act, then the hero is given motivation, then the climax happens as the hero acts against, then it is resolved, as the consequences are introduced (world is saved/world is destroyed, etc), and then the resolution as the villains motivations are revealed.

This doesn't have to happen just once, it can happen several times through a narrative. Even something as short as a movie can have it happen several times. The hero starts out in Arcadia, then the villain destroys it, then the hero fights the villain and fails, then seeks training, then comes back and defeats him, then the world is saved, and the villain is revealed for its true self. (In case you weren't counting, that example just went for the hero: motivation, act, consequence, motivation, act, consequence)

I use the term hero and protagonist interchangeably, which is a mistake on my part, as the main character is just as often not the hero. But I use that language because the tale of the knight defeating the evil dragon is so ubiquitous. We all have experienced a story of basic form and direction. We often have villain protagonist or anti-heros where the conflict is from dealing with themselves, in which case this formula still holds true. Their motivation is shown upfront against something within them that is causing conflict.

Either way, it is important to note, why is this the format? Why wouldn't we say, have the hero's motivation revealed at the end? Well because that wouldn't make any sense. Or it wouldn't be satisfying. It is a simple case of understanding human's empathic ability and the goal of art.

Humans have this amazing ability to empathize with anything. We can look at something, see how it relates to its environment, and analogize it into a state of being that makes sense to a human. From other humans, to paintings, books, animals, even inanimate objects (I once heard someone say a clock looked 'sad'). This is something we do, and many psychologist think it could be a reason for the existence of morality. They suggest we act with morals because we can feel the effects of what we do on others. We feel good when helping others because we feel the joy of help, or we feel negative when we inflict pain on others because we feel the pain inflicted on ourselves.

In fact, the lack of this ability is considered a mental illness, called antisocial personality disorder. And rightfully so. The lack of empathic ability can cause someone to injure others with absolutely no regard to the consequences. It can make someone do things without morals. Often these people are dangerous because they can think and act in ways that normal people couldn't even understand. I hope this shows: empathy is one of the key aspects of being a human. For everyone reading (assuming you are human), this is key to existing.

From here then, we say, what is art? Often the text book definition is something that tries to convey the human condition. What does that even mean? Lets break it down. We already explained how it can convey something, through empathy. But the human condition? What does that entail?

Probably because you already read the above, you are thinking "feeling emotion! Thats a part of being human!" Right you are, as well! A key part of our life is understanding emotions, when they should and should not be trusted, when they are appropriate, and why all of them are good and feel good.

But the other part, and perhaps the more important part, is contemplation. "Thinking", you ask? Sure that is a big part, but can it be the biggest part? Indeed it is.

Remember before when I said all actions are preceded by motivation? Where does that motivation form? The body is not something that moves with automatic function. You will it, as a person. You form these motivations through contemplation, even if you don't know it. Even emotions are preceded by thought. You only are angry at something because you perceive injustice. You had to define to yourself what you thought was just at some point. You get sad because you feel the pain of loss of something you desired, you had to think about why you desired it at some point. You feel cheerfulness from contemplating the brightness of the present and future, you had to figure out what desires are being fulfilled to keep you up. You feel happy from being excellent, and at some point you had to decide what you thought was excellent.

So we can see, art then, conveying the human condition, is anything that tries to make you empathize with the motivations and actions and ideas being presented. Art is trying to make you feel and experience the emotions and thoughts of whatever is presented. More simply it is trying to make you think and feel. But most simply, it is trying to make you think.

Notice I said motivations and actions, and left out consequences. Why is that? The reason is because you don't empathize with the consequences of an action. In fact, you can't really do anything to it, because it does not involve your thoughts. It involves the world acting back on you.

The consequence at the end is there because, in time, it is the last thing to be brought into existence. But in intelligibility, it is actually the first. The goal must exist first for the motivation to come into existence, then the motivation brings the act into existence, and the act brings the consequence into existence. This is why the villain moves the hero. The world must be in trouble so he can save it. Desire implies poverty, you can't want something that you already have. This is how the consequence moves the story, it had to be there first for everything else to start. I won't expand too much more on this point, as we are firmly into Aristotle's Metaphysics, and going further would derail us. Maybe in the future.

Now that we understand all this, what does this mean for the story above? It is how we understand why we read the story in the first place.

We start the narrative because the idea of the ending was presented to us. The consequence(s) were presented, and it gave us motivation, which let us experience action, to see the consequences, and fulfill our desires.

This is important to note, the consequences play on our emotions. A hero is powerful because we are given the consequence of villainy; pain and suffering or triumph and elation! We see these goals, and we are motivated into act. We want the hero to win. We empathize as he acts, as he fights. Then, when he wins, the consequence is presented, and we are fulfilled. We have the happy ending, we fill strong and good and vigilant!

A tragedy is powerful for this same reason, we see the chance of goodness in the protagonist. It motivates us to start, to go along with the journey, only for the actions to bring about the downfall of the protagonist, of us. With the consequence laid bare, we feel sadness and loss, because we valued the success of the main character. And this feels great.

A great story is one that can make you feel these emotions in all their intensity for equally intense situations. The most powerful stories of triumph are the ones that place before you the most humble of means and the greatest heights of success. But to do this, it must make you care about the humble hero, and it must make you value what is at stake. The most powerful tragedies are ones in which you care most about the hero, and see the greatest future, only to see it taken away. You have to have reason to value these things, you need motivation.

From here, we can finally see the things that make us care, are the things we hope to have by the end. We want to watch the story of a hero because we want to feel strong at the end. We watch a tragedy because we want to experience sadness. We watch mysteries because we want to feel clever. We watch chick-flicks because we want to feel loved (I had to throw this in there).

We can see that all parts of the story need to carry through. The motivation needs to be clear, the actions have to be defined by those motivations, and we need to have those motivations fulfilled or inverted by the end.

This is why people say a plot needs to be "coherent", or a scene needs to carry its own 'weight'. If a narrative has an action that is not defined by a motivation, it does not belong there. It is dead weight, it is useless, only there to serve as a detraction from the motivations presented.

Finally, we have the understanding of what a story plot is, we understand why we take part in it, we even understand art, and why we want it, and a little about what it means to be human. Most importantly, we now know what makes a story excellent.

So then, how does this apply to Mass Effect? (Fair warning, there will be spoilers)

The series as a whole is perhaps the greatest example of how every single one of these things is done to perfection, except for one part (and I think you know what part I'm referring to, it's why I'm writing this whole thing). I use the word perfection here in no light matter. I have never read, watched, or felt any narrative to be its equal. I think this is because of the nature of the medium. No where else can you so actively take part in something that has so much immersion, connection, and realism. This is simply it. I would even argue that it is greater then the greatest things ever written. You simply cannot interact (empathize) with a book in the same way you can a video game. I know this is heresy to people of literature, but it is a simple fact. Books can never interact in the same way as a video game can. I would actually like to stop calling them video games, they are way past the definition of a game. I don't know what I'd call them, but many are not games anymore.

This game starts out the most simple of motivations, the desire to stop a villain. Saren steps onto the screen and moves us into action. We understand who we are, Shepard, and we take action to stop him. We are then reveled by a beacon, a light thrown into the future, that this is part of something bigger, giving us new motivation. We move forward, always one step behind him. Doing something we think will hinder him, only to see the consequence of it not, but always something is revealed to give us more motivation, the stakes are raised higher, and more motivation is given until we are brought to climax, the stakes are at the highest, the galaxy and all life could be destroyed. Finally, we defeat him and the reaper behind him. We are given what we desired at the start: the consequence of success, the triumph.

But we aren't done, Shepard is killed, and then brought back to life! the reason being that a new race is killing humans covertly, and no one is willing to help. We are presented the consequences of success, and the saving of lives, or failure, the end of something we cherish. And we go forward, with more acts (recruiting a team), more consequences, and more motivation . We are brought to climax again, this time taking the fight to the aliens base. We destroy it, and are rewarded by the delivery of emotions, we feel strong and resolved! We also feel sad from loss we suffered. Both strong and enjoyable emotions.

I'd like to take a tangent here and explain why I keep referring to sadness as a pleasurable emotion. The emotion itself is painful, in all its forms. But this is where it is important to note the different levels of your being. The reason you are drawn to a tragedy is because you want to feel the painful emotion in a context that is appropriate, so that you know you are feeling correctly. You want to feel sadness in the way it is meant to be felt, with proper loss. Many times we may feel emotions and realize they were inappropriate or of the incorrect magnitude. But a tragedy or narrative can present to us situations in which is it clear we should feel sad. Thus, when we feel sad, it feels good, not the emotion itself, but the fact that you are being as a human should be.

So here we enter the third game, and marvelous it is. The stakes are built on top of the last game, everything that was true then is true now. Reapers have hit earth, and they are hitting every other race in the galaxy.

This matters to you. This matters in ways that you may not have been aware of.

Do you know why mooks are faceless? Why the villain often has an army of identical soldiers? It's because the narrative doesn't want you to get attached. It doesn't want you to start identifying with the villain, thinking "Is the hero slaughtering people with families? Individuals with individual lives and interest?" No, the narrative wants you to understand that these people are terrible, they have no self identity, they have sold out, they are nothing that is similar enough to humans to empathize with. The goal is avoid empathy.

Many times, the fault of a story will be raising the stakes TOO high. It will put things at risk that you do not value. When the time comes for the consequence, you are given something you were not motivated for. "Yes I saved the world! A world I had no care for." Or the goal of saving a princess we don't care about, often in the form of the hero's wife or family. We call those bad stories or poor writing.

You have been traveling around a galaxy, meeting and taking part in dozens of cultures, seeing dozens of planets, and creating relationships with dozens of people. You talk to random passersby, hear their stories. This isn't a galaxy painted with faceless people and planets. These are real planets and real people, you know, you saw all of them, and you talked to all of them.

You aren't just fighting for an ambiguous galaxy with people you never met. You are fighting for everything you have grown attached to over the last 40-60 hours (at the start of ME3, but more like 60-100 hours at the end). Obviously you didn't play those hours straight. Maybe an hour a day? two hours? four? At four hours that’s a month long period of something you do every day. Heck, you don't even interact that much with some people in real life.

The stakes are high, and they only get higher. You forge new alliances, create new friendships, allow life to be breathed into new races even. By the end of the game, the stakes are higher then anything that could possibly exist. You are attached to every planet, every person, every race, every ship that sails the dark sky.

If we want to talk motivation, I don't know what else you could add.

You have committed thousands of acts, each one with powerful consequences. Each one creating more motivation. All this underlined with incredibly fun gameplay mechanics. This is also important to note. Ever watch a movie that had a great message and really made you think, but was just plain old boring? Same principle here. It is the lowest factor in terms of art, but it is pretty big in terms of motivation (even before Saren moved us to save the galaxy, why did we buy Mass Effect? Cause a bunch of people vouched that it was pretty darn fun).

Which let's us get to the ending. We are battling across earth, all our resources dumped into this. We fight through the streets, lose friends by the moment, say our final goodbyes, each of them talking about what we will do later (giving us our ultimate motivation, we want to see our friends again).

We take out a reaper on foot, with a fight so intense you don't think you can make it. then you get to the beam to take you to the citadel, another reaper shows up! It's a mad dash across open ground. If just one of you can make it, everything you have ever worked for will be yours! Your friends are being obliterated around you while you are just narrowly dodging death. Suddenly, you are hit. For a moment, your stomach drops, are you to be given a tragedy? The feeling of losing everything you wanted? But wait, you get back up, you are crawling towards the beam, and you make it. You teleport up, and yet the story continues, you meet up with your old mentor, you meet with an antagonist who has been moving the story along, you talk to him, convince him his ways were wrong. You finish this final confrontation. And you activate what is supposed to be something that ends it all.

And then...things get strange. You are teleported to a new area that you don't care at all about, to talk to something you didn't even know existed, and told new consequences that have no relationship at all to every act you have ever taken. Then you make a choice from a set of choices (that have no act, you simply choose by walking one way or the other, the only way it could have been less action is if it was chosen from the dialogue wheel). And then, the final acts are committed, you destroy the antagonist of the entire series.

That is it.

This is where the entire thing falls apart violently. There is no consequence. Even the final scenes are act (the destruction of the reapers). And the consequences we are given have no connection to the motivations and acts we empathized with. (We are instead given a scene of our crew flying away, an act we have no sense of its motivation or even how it got there, and we see a scene far in the future of interactions between two characters that did not exist whatsoever in the plot).

Many people have said that after the game ended, they felt physically ill. For good reason. Have you ever had to bottle an emotion? Felt angry at someone, like a parent or teacher, but you said nothing because they had absolute authority? Or how about feeling sad about something that others thought was worthless, so you hid it as to not appear weak or defective?

This game, this story, which I have already claimed to have no equal, must present us a level of emotional connection not seen in any other work or felt except in the realm of life. Can you imagine then, what it would be like to not have these emotions released or validated after building them for so long?

You probably can, because you played and finished ME3.

The ending in content itself was not bad. The theme is a strong one, that has its roots of explanation deep in ancient philosophical ideas (the idea of your own action moving you away from the good). The concept that you can create something that will destroy you, and the idea of the inevitability of it (that you will always destroy yourself). It wasn't even delivered poorly. The dialogue was clear in its meaning and the voice acting was great and the spectacle was amazing. Even the consequences we are given make sense (I mean, c'mon, if all that happened, I'd expect people to be talking about it as legend thousands of years later).

But we simply were not given the consequences that we originally set out for.

I mean this on the meta-level. We started this because we wanted emotional resolution. This does not mean we wanted a 'happy' ending. But we wanted to feel.

I don't want to rag on Bioware, after all and as you can clearly see, I have a level of respect for them that I have for few. But this was a serious dropping of the ball. A happy ending would have been seeing us triumph, a tragedy would have been us failing by our own hands. A bitter sweet ending would have been triumph, but at the cost of all we cared about. There are a thousand ways they could have taken this that would have been emotionally fulfilling. A thousand ways to fulfill our meta desire to experience emotions correctly.

But instead we are given no consequence. We have motivations that cause us to act, which is how we built up this emotional expectation. When our actions fail to give us ANY consequences (good or bad), we have a term for that, its called frustration. It is not an emotion, but a state of being. In fact, it is the very opposite state of being that is being human. Being frustrated is the antithesis of existing.

Let that sink in.

We do not do acts and expect no consequences. Even when we do an act at some goal, and fail, we still get a consequence. Frustration is the absence of EVEN FAILURE. The sick feeling people got was utter frustration at there not being more gameplay, more narrative, to either explain what they just saw, or to fulfill those original motivations. People are upset, not because there was no 'happy ending' as Bioware seems to think, but because there was no ending for most of the story. If we can enjoy sadness on a meta-level, this is because there is something above emotions we feel as pleasure. In this same way, there is something above emotions that we feel as pain. This is frustration.

Frustration is actually worse then simply missing out on empathy. If a narrative fails to build empathy, often time it can get by on simply being enjoyable. An interesting book, or a funny movie, or an action packed game. The story fails to build empathy, so it creates indifference (the absence of empathy). But it is still enjoyable. With frustration, it is the denial of your empathy. This is an important distinction to make.

You didn't hate the ending because it made you feel sad, or angry, or cheerful. You hate it because it frustrated you. It stopped you from feeling as a human should feel. Made even worse, because it did such a great job of making you feel as you should for the last hundred hours. It brought you in and showed you true art. Then denied you the reason you played at all.

There really is not much more to say. I originally wanted to start out to explain that it is not that the fans want a 'happy' ending, but that we wanted an ending that was related to the story we have been experiencing. I wanted people to know why they felt the way they did, what they were being denied, and what they were expecting.

But most of all, I wanted to explain it, so that this wasn't simply another rant, but a full explanation, right down to the reason we started it at all, so that people can have knowledge, and not just opinion. This is the "why" to all the "what" people have been complaining about. I know the internet is a harsh place so I fully expect people to disagree with me vocally and violently, but either way, if you got this far, thanks for reading, it means a lot.