Mica
revenge guac
YEAH...
World
Yep
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THE CLOWN HOLDING THE THANE PHOTO.... 😂
Mica
that's me, I'm the clown
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honks ur nose 🤡
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No but fr, I was contemplating this because my wife killed Thane during the suicide mission, and I was like “she’s actually the smart one here, because his shit in 3 is BULLSHIT”
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I mean she’s. Not at all the smart one because she got lost during his loyalty mission and didn’t have a backup save, but- you learn lessons hard sometimes
Mica
I'm of many opinions which I will give at length
Mica
if you like
revenge guac
thane died without having to witness me3's ending so it's ok probably
revenge guac
(no im still kinda bitter c'mon)
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^^^ LMAO fair enough, he ducked out of the ending like a pro
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also Mica, you know I love hearing your ME opinions any time
Mica
Okay look, so.
Mica
ME3 has some of my favorite Thane tidbits but also shit that makes me froth at the mouth.
Mica
On one hand, I desperately want there to be a way to have a happily ever after with this character, but he literally introduces himself as "I'm dying" so like. I didn't expect it.
Mica
I did expect to have my guts ripped out properly, which was the main disappointment so like
Mica
The answer to the question of "Mica, don't you want them to get married and live happily ever after" is
Mica
Mica
(ID: Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec, looking posessed, saying "Yes, but the drama")
Mica
That said, Cerberus is a black hole of plot contrivances that sucks every other narrative element down into its event horizon and destroys them utterly
Mica
so Kai Leng being involved is a problem from a narrative standpoint
Mica
him killing a romanceable character, particularly in that manner..... feels unearned. At no point in the game is he a particularly challenging fighter, and at several points the game has to openly cheat his HP just to let him finish his voice lines before (particularly a Vanguard or Engineer) destroys his health bar in a single hit.
Mica
Thane's entire character is built around the idea that, at least in the realm of his specialties, that he is unparalleled, and that his primary strength is his knowledge and technique, not stamina. Yes, he's sick, yes it makes it hard for him to breathe, but like.... c'mon.
Mica
Like so many things to do with Cerberus and Kai Leng, it's Oops! All Plot Holes!
Mica
And that's frustrating
Mica
If Leng had to kill Thane, it would have been both more in-character and more satisfying to have him just cheat or something
Mica
like, maybe he realizes that he can't win and blows an explosive charge in the ceiling that brings a support beam crashing down
Mica
and Shepard has to pull the VIP to safety while Thane is half-crushed under a girder or something
Mica
And you have to choose between letting him die there, or getting the hospital scene later where he dies
Mica
AND SPEAKING OF THAT HOSPITAL SCENE jeez I am not a fan of the way the religious overtones are handled in that. Thane's religious views are never once before that moment or after ever put forth as having some kind of heirarchical structure with priests and temples and bibles, which makes perfect sense in context of the drell because
Mica
like
Mica
shit, man, they can't forget anything
Mica
why would they need to write things down when oral histories are so nearly flawless
Mica
The reason to write things down in a Drell context is because you want people to have the knowledge even when you can't speak to them directly, and in a world with FTL galaxy-wide internet youtube.........
Mica
c'mon
Mica
c'mon, bioware, use the worldbuilding
Mica
so much of mass effect three's problem is the same problems begun in mass effect 2
Mica
and they boil down to "You already did the hard part of making us care. You already wrote the detailed world. You already walked the uphill mile. All you have to do now is follow the downhill path."
Mica
and they didn't
Mica
but the worst
Mica
THE FUCKING WORSE
Mica
the fucking worst thing
Mica
the thing that makes me actually angery
Mica
is that after the coup section is over and you go back to Normandy
Mica
Garrus (assuming he's alive) is there at the memory wall like "sorry it went down like that with Kaidan/Ashley"
Mica
Like, you can literally have just come from the hospital at that point
Mica
having held your boyfriends hand while he breathed his last
Mica
with the words of his dying wish still ashen on your tongue
Mica
and nothing else in the entire game will ever mention him again until Kai Leng's death; and even then
Mica
EVEN THEN
Mica
he can quite easily share that spotlight with miranda
Mica
Me, yelling at my TV: "AND THANE, GARRUS."
Mica
and that's the shit i hate about Thane's part of ME3
Mica
ask me now about the good stuff
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You are so 100% right and you should say all of it
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So much of ME3 was very frustrating
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For... the Cerberus black hole reasons
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so yeah gimme the goods
Mica
Alright, so
Mica
I like the way that you can immediately jump thane's bones in ME3, no lead-up, no messing around
Mica
Just like "holy shit I missed you let's fuck"
Mica
and he's down for it
Mica
It's a bit silly, of course, and it gets a laugh when you go for the repeat only for him to be like "Okay but like... I have space asthma so maybe gimme a minute" and turn you down.
Mica
But it's so rare in most fiction, let alone video games, to give you that delicious established romantic partner juice. Like, yeah, of course that's their first impulse after being desperately in love and then rudely separated and not knowing if the other is alive or dead.
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LMAO
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That is amazing
Mica
This isn't the same as the Shepard/Garrus dynamic, where it doesn't really become "Love" until about halfway through ME3
Mica
Thane and Shepard are throwing the L-word around in ME2
Mica
It's a lot more madly-deeply-truly. You get a soul mates vibe.
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Yeah thane is definitely more uhhhhhh I’m gonna say emotionally intelligent as shorthand
Mica
lmao
Mica
that's one way to think of it
Mica
Another thing is
Mica
Say you romance Kaidan in the first game, alright?
Mica
And then in the second game, Kaidan will bitch you out on Horizon, like always
Mica
but he'll also send you an email afterwards, sort of half apologizing, half explaining, half underlining how upset he is and how he isn't sure of you anymore
Mica
in which he mentions having had a girlfriend in the interim, although they didn't work out.
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Like the guy seems more in touch with like. How to love? Garrus, to borrow Joker’s verbiage, is too busy taking the stick out of his ass to beat people with it in ME2 to like. Not be absorbed in that
Mica
Garrus is also a lot younger than Thane
Mica
both in terms of time, and in terms of life experience.
Mica
Thane's raised a child, he's lived an assassin's life for decades, he's been killing since he was fifteen. He's a child soldier.
Mica
Garrus, on the other hand, had a family that loved and kept him, and a much more normal education. He's naturally developed along a different curve.
Mica
but I digress
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Yea, true, I am the same age as ME3 Garrus right now and that horrifies me - and thane is, yeah that
Mica
If you've romanced Kaidan in ME1 and want to patch things up with hum for ME3, but also romanced Thane in ME2
Mica
you can tell Thane as much in conversation
Mica
Thane promises that he'll guard Kaidan with his life, and that he has no particular desire to express jealousy towards Kaidan or to even hint that he would rather Shepard's interests in him weren't romantic
Mica
Literally he's like I would never ask you to be different than you are, Siha. If you want to go for that human, I support you and will guard him with all my skill
Mica
and it's not like, an actual polyamory thing. That would require more dialogue, for starters
Mica
but I love??? That??
Mica
I love the idea of Thane just not even caring about Shepard's other lovers, or even being like "Shit yeah, let's do a polycule with that booty"
Mica
I don't think Kaidan could handle it, he's weirdly fragile about monogamy
Mica
but that Thane isn't, is really charming to me
Mica
and I love that little crumb we get in ME3, the might-have-been window into Thane's thoughts and priorities
Mica
And he's not even like "Well since I'm dying it would be selfish to keep you to myself" this doesn't really seem to be, for once, about the dying thing.
Mica
I also love the extremely upsetting message Thane leaves for Shepard in the Citadel DLC
Mica
that's the only time any Shepard, regardless of context, ever cries.
Mica
That's the drama
Mica
like, okay you kill Thane off. Fair enough, I knew that was coming.
Mica
But don't begrudge me my delicious angst
Mica
that's like decorating a brick up with frosting and then telling people it's a cake
Mica
don't make me buy DLC just to be gutted properly bioware
Mica
it's in poor taste
Mica
ALL THIS SAID
Mica
you ever notice how, of all the crew, Thane has no purpose in the suicide mission?
Mica
He can't successfully lead a fire team, can't succeed as a biotic shield, can't even do the vent section which is particularly weird given that vent sections are kind of his whole thing....
Mica
he's just kinda there to look pretty
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THATS HOW MY WIFE KILLED HIM
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She sent him through the vent
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Because she was like “this guy literally met me running through vents”
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He literally is just there to look pretty smdh