Live Blogs Playing Mass Effect 2...with Morinth

KilgoreTrout2013-06-27 20:59:06

I got everybody loyal, went on the suicide mission, saved everybody for now, and this time I let the Illusive Man have the Collector base instead of destroying it.

I'll see if that comes back to bite me in the ass in 3.

But now I'll go to "celebrate" with Morinth. I read that the scene's pretty horrifying, so I'll brace myself before I go in.

Heh, okay, I walked into her room and Morinth said to me—as Morinth, it should be emphasized, this is not some recycled Samara line—that she wonders what the Illusive Man will do with that technology. She hopes I made the right choice.

Is Morinth actually concerned for people other than herself here? Or is it more "I do live in this galaxy, and if the Illusive Man fucks it up then that affects me as much as anybody else, so I hope the Illusive Man can be trusted, for my sake"?

Before I stupidly/hornily/bothily throw my life away, I'd like to mention something. When I helped Morinth kill her mother, Samara told me that I would regret my choice. She seemed to be implying that Morinth would betray me or my friends. Well, whatever else Morinth is guilty of, she hasn't done anything of the sort. The only way I'll regret it is if I become more than friends with her now.

In other words, that's one more thing that Samara was wrong about.

Anyway, let's talk with Morinth some more now.

Okay, same conversation as before about her loneliness except now she says that she wants to give me what Nef experienced, which is every nerve in my body pulsing with pleasure.

That is not what I'm in store for, Morinth. So I have two choices here:

"Do you think I'm an idiot?"

and

"What about your condition?"

I'll be nice to her and pick the latter.

Morinth tells me that I'm different. I have the Prothean cipher in my head, I came back from dying, there's nobody like me, and that the two of us can share something so intense, so deep that it will CHANGE MY LIFE.

I suppose that ending my life is a type of change...

Okay, I'm gonna tell her "I'll risk it." Death-sex time!

LOL, it gives you the chance to TROLL her here! See, my Fem!Shep just said to Morinth that she can't deny how much she wants Morinth.

Morinth asks if I really mean it, if I'll be with her, sounding all hopeful about it.

The game lets me tell her "No thanks, I'd rather live."

I am totally going to go back afterwards and see how she reacts to that! XD

But this time, yes, let us fuck like pyjaks in heat, you sexy blue goddess you!

Hah, wow, that actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, nowhere near it!

Morinth got up off her couch, and we got close. A biotic field enveloped us both. Her eyes went black and she said "embrace eternity". For a moment, I seemed calm, at peace. Then my mouth gaped open, but no sound came out. And then everything went black, and I got the game over screen.

No pained screaming, no convulsions, no bleeding, no nothing. I just kind of...opened my mouth and fell over dead.

Is it painful? Is it pleasurable? Is it neither? Damned if I know! But here's a possibility: Morinth may actually believe that her victims felt pleasure. I mean, Shepard sure seemed to like what was happening at first.

Okay, now I'll go back and see what happens if I let Morinth down easy.

I told Morinth that she was a good member of my crew, but that I couldn't risk it and that we should keep things professional.

Morinth responds by saying that I'll never experience anything like it, and that I can have something with her I won't find anywhere else. Which is literally true, I suppose. She says I'm strong enough to embrace it, and then says she won't pressure me, but asks that I keep it in mind.

At least she didn't try to force me into it, and she didn't throw a tantrum over not getting what she wanted.

Going back again and asking her if she thinks I'm an idiot, Shepard says that she knows all about Morinth, so why is she even trying to seduce her? Morinth says she isn't trying to kill Shepard, that she really does think Shepard is the one person who can be with her and survive.

Now let's see what happens when you tell her that you want her, and then when she asks if you mean it you say "No thanks, I'd rather live."

Ah, same dialogue response as if you let her down easy.

So...that's Morinth.

I still don't know what to think of her. She's done terrible things. Maybe she's capable of understanding why those things were terrible. Maybe not. Maybe she could benefit from psychiatric help. Maybe not. Maybe Shepard could have helped her stop being a threat to innocent people if the two of them had remained in one another's lives, as teammates, the way Shepard did with Jack. Or maybe not.

I don't know. It doesn't seem as clear cut to me as it does to certain other tropers. A lot of people seem to think that Morinth's a Complete Monster and that that's all there is to it.

But a Complete Monster would not have risked her life to help me save the galaxy. And if Morinth were as bad as her detractors believe, she wouldn't have given Shepard a choice, not when she clearly wanted to be with Shepard so badly. She would have just tried to take what she wanted.

I won't say she's entirely good. She isn't. But in my opinion, based on what I've seen, saying she's entirely evil isn't right either. Could she have been steered off the path she was on, if people like my Shepard had tried to help her instead of just trying to kill her? If they'd seen her as a person instead of as a disease that needed to be purged and nothing more?

We'll never know, it seems.

Comments

Korval Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 16th 2013 at 2:29:30 AM

You seem to have a misunderstanding of the whole "Complete Monster" thing.

A "Complete Monster" can have a personality. A "Complete Monster" can want things and sometimes even do things for others. A "Complete Monster" can even be kinda tragic in some way.

A "Complete Monster" is simply what you get when you cross the Moral Event Horizon: when a character does something so terrible that you can no longer feel any sympathy for them. And Morinth did that for me the moment I watched Fel's vlogs and saw how Morinth slowly pulled her into her orbit and crushed her life like a black hole. All done solely for her own pleasure.

What Morinth does is monstrous. You can play games about what she might have been if her AY wasn't as bad or if Samara had been a better mother or that it's really her AY that's forcing her to do it or that maybe if you said the right things in the right order, she might try to stop some day. What matters is that she's willingly doing these horrible things, and she never exhibits the slightest hint of remorse. No, her desire to experience real love does not count as remorse for her actions.

This is not the tale of a tortured vampire who does evil things because it is their nature, yet ultimately desires to be good. This is the tale of a vampire who reviles in her evil ways, who enjoys slowly reeling in her prey, the naked exertion of power and control over another in the most intimate way. As she said, she enjoys letting her opponents think that they have the upper hand, then reversing it at a critical moment before making the kill.

My point is this: none of the small positive elements she may exhibit can make up for the fact that she does cruel things to people solely for her own pleasure. That she uses and abuses people as a matter not just of course, but as a way to turn herself on.

So yes, she's still a Complete Monster. Nothing she says or does makes up for that. Just because she exhibits self-control around someone who can resist her doesn't mean that she's not the cold soul of evil.

Maybe Shepard could have helped her stop being a threat to innocent people if the two of them had remained in one another's lives, as teammates, the way Shepard did with Jack.

Could she have been steered off the path she was on, if people like my Shepard had tried to help her instead of just trying to kill her? If they'd seen her as a person instead of as a disease that needed to be purged and nothing more?

No. The fundamental foundation of her problem is that she is constitutionally incapable of seeing a person as anything other than a resource to be consumed. For her, people are a collection of assets and liabilities.

There's no "helping" Morinth that wouldn't involve rewriting her brain to make her not an AY anymore. And she's made it perfectly clear that she would prefer death to that.

The difference between Morinth and Jack is best illustrated in the Firefly film Serenity:

Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. But these Reavers... last ten years they show up like the bogeyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where's that get fun?

Jack is Jayne here. Morinth is the Reavers. Jack kills people for logical reasons, even if those reasons can seem capricious to a more balanced psyche. The same goes for Samara.

Morinth does it for kicks.

And if Morinth were as bad as her detractors believe, she wouldn't have given Shepard a choice, not when she clearly wanted to be with Shepard so badly. She would have just tried to take what she wanted.

Alternatively, she has enough of a self-preservation instinct to realize the first rule of survival in the Mass Effect universe:

• Do not fuck with Shepard!

That's why Aria was as nice and helpful to Shepard as she was. And that's why Aria's still alive at the end of ME2.

Trying to rape Shepard would almost certainly be the last thing she would ever do. Morinth may be evil and crazy, but she's not stupid.

KilgoreTrout Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 2nd 2013 at 7:30:55 PM

I'm not really eager to respond to everything since I just found it and there's a lot of it and I'd rather do other stuff right now, but you seem to be contradicting something you said earlier, and I do want to respond to that.

Earlier, you said that Shepard was not capable of stopping Samara from killing Morinth, because Samara was too powerful for Shepard.

Here, you're saying that Morinth could never force herself on Shepard, because Shepard is too strong.

Which is it? Is Shepard helpless against a powerful biotic like that, or can Shepard kick that biotic's ass?

Korval Since: Dec, 1969

Aug 19th 2013 at 11:21:30 PM

Earlier, you said that Shepard was not capable of stopping Samara from killing Morinth, because Samara was too powerful for Shepard.

No I did not. Perhaps a refresher in what I actually said is in order:

Do you honestly think that [Samara] would allow some human to stop her when her quarry is right there and incapacitated?

Shepard doesn't have the option because Samara will not be talked down. The only thing that's going to stop her is applying sufficient physical force to incapacitate her. And considering her fighting prowess, that's going to mean lethal force.

I never said that Shepard couldn't kill Samara. I said that Shepard couldn't stop Samara without killing her.

You asked, "Why can't I incapacitate Morinth and then talk Samara out of it?" And that's why. Samara is going to kill Morinth, and the only thing that's going to stop this is killing Samara first. You might be able to knock her out, but that's only temporary. Once she wakes up, she'll go right back on her "kill Morinth" quest.