Who is the Real Villain?

In the far forgotten mists of time of the year 1998, I was at a movie theater reaping the benefits of being a "fringe-friend". You know what I mean. One of those kids who were filler at a birthday party. You can't have a birthday party of only 3 kids, or mom and dad would get depressed that their little Tyson isn't as cool as he should be. I can't really remember the kid's name, what my relation was to him (I think Cub Scouts...? Maybe?), or how old he was turning. But I do remember that we were all given promotional Pokemon Cards (Mine was a Promo Mew) and were told that we'd be going to go see the Pokemon Movie that night.

That was bitchin'.

Well, about 15 years have passed since then. And in that 15 years I only got worked up to see Pokemon Movie 2000 (which wasn't, in fact, the 2000th movie, but was actually the second.) for which I got a promotional Ancient Mew card (which is still unopened somewhere in my room for reasons I can no longer remember.) The movie in question sucked a bit more than I could bear and so it saved me from going down the long and depressing road of the endless Pokemon movies. As of now there are 14, with one slated for this summer, not counting all the non-movie specials like Mewtwo Returns.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity of rewatching the first three and I was surprised at how much I still loved the original, how much I disliked the second, and how much I just didn't care about the third. (Why Entei? Raikou is way cooler!) But, more importantly, I came to understand something about the Pokemon universe and how it ties in with us: We are the worst of all the villains in the Pokeverse.

We break it down like this. By the year 2000, there were two main motivations to play the Pokemon games. To "Catch Em All" (Which is something that we "Gotta" do.) And to "Battle Em All", which being an RPG is something that we avoided at all costs only to find ourselves ridiculously under-leveled to fight the next gym leader. And then we take a look at the villains of the first pokemon movies.

Not technically a villain.

The first Pokemon villain.

Not the 2nd Pokemon villain.

Mewtwo is the first Pokemon villain in any movie and he was genetically created in a lab. He kind of had a hang-up about not knowing what he was created for, which probably means that blowing up his creators a few minutes after being born was a bad idea in retrospect.

Doctor Tenma creates yet another sin against god.

Giovanni arrives and tells Mewtwo that his purpose was to help him. So he does for a bit, until Giovanni goes all jerk-face and tells the unstoppable, psychic powerhouse that he was just using Mewtwo to gain power. It turns out that Mewtwo didn't like being told that he was a total tool and he level's Giovanni's place as well, taking with it a bitter view of how humans treat Pokemon. As it turns out, his skewed view is probably pretty true.

The crux of the film is that Mewtwo creates an unstoppable clone army and plans to eliminate all life on the planet and replace it with his superior clones. One thing leads to another when all the best trainers are invited to visit Mewtwo's island getaway to prove his point. Ash is somehow invited, despite him getting to the fifth round of the Indigo League Championships and losing. The best trainers (plus Ash) are then pitted against the clones. In the climax, Mew faces off with Mewtwo while all the clones fight their originals in what would be considered the most epic Pokemon battle ever... Except that it's not.

Oh the humani- Holy crap! Are those Charizards fighting?! SWEET!

While it should be pointed out that Mewtwo's ideal of Pokemon shouldn't be the tools of personal power struggles while creating a clone army to prove the his own power is highly hypocritical, it still gives us the idea that having Pokemon fight to build up your self-esteem is amoral. Which is interesting, since the first time you see our hero, Ash Ketchum, he pits his Pokemon in a fight for no other reason than, "Hey, you! Let's battle!"

This is where we're even worse. Effectively half of the games is battling. You catch Pokemon to battle other Pokemon. You get experience points to level up, evolve, and gain power to battle even more Pokemon. Mewtwo was battling because he needed to feel like his life had purpose. Ash was battling because of rank advancement in whatever League he happened to be strutting around in. Almost all of your battles were either with the computer, or to prove to your friends that your army of level 100 Mewtwos could wipe his army of level 100 Mewtwos. (If you never knew the Missingno glitch in grade school, you were about as potent a threat as Canada was in the Cold War.) All of your battles were for self-gratification and to smash some other kid's face in the dirt because you probably couldn't do it in real life.

So, if we compare the possible reasons to force other creatures to fight until one lost consciousness, Mewtwo had a pretty legitimate reason compared to us. Even Ash knew when to call it quits. But how many of us threw our little 6-'mon army at the same gym leader over and over until a combination of luck and shoddy AI programming let us finally scrape by that victory?

But, that's only half of the game, argumentatively. The other half, catching them, is brought up in Pokemon Movie 2000.

Lawrence III is your typical rich kid. He's got cash, a hobby, and a giant floating castle made out of wonder and defiance of physics.

I  couldn't find a picture of the real thing, so here's one a bear and a bird made instead.

His purpose in life is to collect. He has quite the extensive collection, we're told. And what he wants more than anything is a Lugia. A rare Pokemon that only appears when the balance of harmony is disrupted by a mystical creature named Discord... Wait. I might have blurred lines into a different show for a minute there.

This is accomplished by capturing the three legendary bird Pokemon. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. So, Lawrence III floats around a couple of islands and starts firing cannon shots at random mountains for the birds to show up. He then throws a gigantic electric cage to capture them in and puts them in his trophy room.

I feel that this is as good as any point to ask what Lawrence's collection really is. It starts with an Ancient Mew card and leads to him wanting a live Pokemon. He's also got a lot of other crap in there, including a boat which Ash and the gang escape on later.

He also collects Cow Tools apparently.

There isn't much more to be said about the plot, other than the way that Ash can restore balance to the world is to place three colored stones on an altar and then play a song on an ocarina... Seriously.

Lawrence is brought to his senses only after his ship has wrecked, his collection is strewn across the sea and the only thing he has left to his name is his Ancient Mew card. Which means that his new net worth hovers between $0.99 and $5 (plus shipping and handling.) He's basically told that he shouldn't think of living creatures as simple things to collect.

And then the movie ended and you went home and tried to catch 'em all...

It isn't necessarily the amount that you catch that makes you worse, but rather the method and treatment afterwards. Let me give you an example.

In the movie, Moltres is scared out of hiding with a canon and then placed into a rotating electric cage. He sits on a pedestal in the collection room looking out the window to the world below. He's given the temporary company of Zapdos (and for a brief time, Ash n the gang).

Enter my pokemon adventure. Moltres is chilling in his ice cave when suddenly a 10 year old kid comes out of nowhere and hurls a ball at him. The ball opens and Moltres is now trapped in a small sphere about the size of my fist. It's dark, it's scary, and he sure as hell has no idea of what's going to happen to him.

Lawrence is likely going to check on Moltres once in a while. Feed it, take care of it, talk to it. Meanwhile, my Moltres is never going to leave Box 4 because with my level 100 Mewtwo and a Blastoise that knows both Blizzard AND Earthquake, I'm already an unstoppable force. That Moltres will perpetually be in a state of uncertainty and fear, while Lawrence's Moltres is likely going to adapt to its environment and might even come down with Stockholm Syndrome.

Birds dig crazy cow-licks.

That covers the other half of the Pokemon spectrum. Between battling and catching, we've put ourselves in a position where we're far worse than the villains of the Pokemon movies. But it could always be worse. We could be like Entei in the third movie and say to an unprotected little girl, "Yeah, I could be your daddy."

"I'll make all your dreams come true."

Mass Effect 3 Spoilers Ahead

Alright, so I'm late in updating the second installment in my Self-Inflicted Blog. I plan on updating Mondays, if it's at all possible.

This weekend, I finished Mass Effect 3. This was an interesting experience since up until I arrived at Earth again, I had been deeply entrenched in the narrative. Caring about the characters and what will happen and what not. Then, my good friend Jack West showed up. He said that it was perfect timing because he wanted to see my reaction to the ending.

This intrigued me.

Throughout the game, I had foreseen many of the possible endings. The underdog ending where Shepard is able to destroy an indestructible enemy and saves Earth. The heroic sacrifice where Shepard dies because he is the Catalyst or some nonsense like that so he dies to kill the Reapers. I had decided that I'd be okay with almost any eventuality, because I knew that Bioware would treat it as a culminating experience and cover the repercussions in detail, as they cover EVERYTHING in detail. I even decided, since I was the ultimate Paragon (except when I punched a Quarian admiral in the stomach for being a complete dick) that the loss of Earth was acceptable if the entire rest of the galaxy could survive. I had cured the genophage, ended a 300 year long war between the Geth and the Quarians, and had even sexed two different aliens over the space of three games. I was feeling pretty damn good about the survival of ALL species, not just humanity at this point.

I, however, like much of the fanbase was disappointed by the ending. Once the initial shock of, "What the hell just happened" wore off, I started analyzing my feelings towards the ending.

Before I continue, I feel that I need to make a couple of points before we get to the ending.

First of all, I found the lack of climactic battle highly disappointing. I get it that really, the biggest confrontations we will face won't be ended with fighting. I get that. But I'm playing an ACTION-RPG. It's a video game. There is some leeway to the suspension of disbelief when you're playing a video game.

After wading through several battlefields and getting a chance to say farewell to most people that I cared about in the game, I found myself rushing towards a beam of light. I was getting excited because, to me, at the end of that light is the biggest fight I'll ever have. I came to realize more and more rapidly that this would not be the case when my climactic fight (or, rather the last fight that I would have) was after I'd taken a direct hit from a Reaper cannon (Which I'm sure I should've died in) and I suddenly only had my pistol (which wasn't in my possession at all) and charred armor. As I slowly staggered towards the light, and by the Halls of Asgard, I mean slowly, a single enemy appeared and took two shots to the head (I was playing on the Narrative mode) before he crumpled.

I cross the threshold and now I'm on the Citadel. As of this point, my suspension of disbelief was still in active mode. I've had pointed out to me that there is a huge logistical nightmare as to how the hell the Reapers suddenly moved the entire Citadel in a matter of hours. I'm okay with that. Sure, it might be a plot hole, but the Reapers could basically be magic for all I know. What do I care?

I find Anderson already at the bridge of the Citadel after what seemed like an eternity of mindless staggering through hallways. Then the endgame begins. Though, at this point, I'm getting the sinking feeling that I won't be having a cool climactic fight, since my Shepard isn't shaking off his near-death state. Instead, it's a verbal conflict with the Illusive Man, who went from well-meaning, factual dick in Mass Effect 2, to a completely retarded dick in Mass Effect 3. (Hurr, I kill da humans to save humanity, derp derp)

I really didn't pay too much attention to the dialogue here, since I'd already realized that no matter what happened, I wasn't going to be fighting anyone. And it was basically just like talking to Saren waaay back when.


"Dude, you're under Reaper control!"
"No, dude, I'm totally in control."
"You're eyes are glowing and you look like a Husk. Dude, really, you're under their control."
"Man, you really don't get it, I'm in control."
"No way!"
"Yes way!"
And so on.

The only point I'd like to make with this is: since when is talking someone into killing themselves a "Paragon" action?

The real infuriating thing comes from the actual endings. For the first time, I've been given a genuine choice in a game where there is no "Happy Ending". Honestly, I was probably more prepared than most, since I would even have accepted a "Reapers Win" ending. That would've been admirable, if not disappointing. (No one else could stop them, why would our cycle be any different?)

With so much innovation going on, I was kind of disappointed to see that in the end, the whole crux of the conflict boiled down to the old, "Synthetic life kills organic life to preserve organic life." (It might also be noted as the Spiral/Anti-Spiral conflict, if you happen to watch Gurren Laggan.) The Reapers (now being voiced through a child-VI which I thought was unnecessary) say that organic life would make synthetic life that would eventually rise up and destroy all of organic life. Considering that I had just ended (diplomatically, I might add) a 300 year long war between synthetics and organics, I felt like he was just talking out of his ass. But, who am I to question the Reapers?

So, in the end, Shepard is given three choices. Control all the Synthetics (i.e. The Reapers) to save organic life. Destroy all synthetic life (including the Geth, who are on are side now) to preserve organic life. Or, I could assimilate the two and create a new life-form that is part organic and part synthetic (which, if I understand, is what the Reapers were trying to do in the very beginning) The bonus to all of these is that Shepard is told that he will die one way or another. This is a red-flag for me when it comes to a Bioware game. Sure, in the end, it's the illusion of free will. No matter what I chose, paragon or renegade, I'd be doing basically the same things. But for such a high stake, despite Shepard's heroism, I would've loved a "STFU" option and have Shepard basically say, "We don't need you to hand us our salvation, we'll get it on our own." Then walk away. Cowardly, if he so wishes. There was no option to survive as a coward, or even to die on your own terms. It was, Shepard is going to die a hero no matter what.

I liked the choices, though. For the first time, I felt like I had a hard decision. It wasn't like any decision I'd made before in Mass Effect. It wasn't Ashly or Liara. It wasn't kill or save Wrex. Both either had a clear, right and wrong polarity, or didn't really matter in the long run anyways. This time there was more or less the same outcome, but with different ends to the means. I was actually torn and weighed the options for a good while instead of instinctively going with whatever would net me a paragon point. There was no good or bad solution here, and therefore I thought that the choices were novel.

I chose to assimilate the species, since that seemed like the safest and best hope for life to continue. How this necessitated the death of Shepard, I still don't really understand. But, that's not my problem with the ending.

My problem with the ending is that all of my time working with Liara, romancing Tali, bro-mancing Garrus, avoiding Jack at all costs, and all around wanting to be like Grunt or Wrex was never really hinted at. I got to see Joker and EDI, faintly glowing, disembark the Normandy on a jungle planet and smile happily at the future they now have, thanks to me. After that, I get to hear an old man talk about me as if I were an epic god who bestowed life on all the species. Why I wasn't given a scene of whoever survived the assault counting the dead or having Grunt or Wrex or literally any of the dozens of people I'd affected in their lives say a few words about me was the most disappointing moment in the game. For a game that focuses on relationships between you and your teammates, there was no closure on what my sacrifice meant for them. I had romanced Tali. I would've loved to see her on her own planet talking to someone about how she wished that I could've seen the house that she was building. I needed to know that my death meant something. What do I care if millions of years later I'm heralded as a hero by nameless strangers?

That's where BioWare dropped the ball for me. For as much as they showed me of the universe after my victory over the Reapers, the Reapers could've won for all I knew. I knew that a select few of my friends survived. That was it. I needed an epilogue at the very least. The universe that I'd come to love and was getting excited for by reading the books might very well no longer exist. I might as well have created a massive black hole and destroyed the entire galaxy for as much as I know that I saved.

This doesn't even bring up the logistical problems of the Mass Relays being destroyed. I let them wave that they had to be destroyed. I figure that they were carriers to the signal that the Crucible emitted and the power going through them destroyed them. I'm fine with that. The logistical problem is that practically all of the different species' populations were in the Sol System, literally light-years away from their respective systems. I saved the Quarian homeworld only to have Tali die stranded in the Sol System while her home planet gets developed by who? The Quarians and Turians need different amino acids to survive. Amino acids that aren't found on Earth. They're screwed unless the assimilation allows them to live much longer on much less so they can travel via normal faster-than-light travel back to their own homes (which could take years).

Now, I'm invested in the Mass Effect universe, since I've discovered that I love it deeply. I'm also enough of a pushover that if BioWare releases a DLC to give more info on what happened after the Crucible happened, I'd buy it in a heart beat. But as it stands, I'm getting the same empty feeling that I got when I beat Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2. I know that I saved the day, but you can't just show me happy and roll credits when there was SO much story being built to that point.

So, that's my rant. I would take the trouble to write someone at BioWare, but I wouldn't know who, and they'd probably delete my email as soon as they got it anyways. I was wondering where I could write about this at, and then I remembered, "Didn't a start a blog last week?" So now I can yell on my soapbox in my little corner of the internet and pretend like the echoes of the empty halls are actually people agreeing with me.