reading for a few hours on this mass effect ending.  tired and dont feel good, gotta stay awake a bit longer.

anyway, a few thoughts:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/edit?pli=1 the best summary of why teh ending sucks.  pretty thorough.

two) Bioware totally botched the ending.  all that hallucination theorems goin around.  No fuckin way Bioware intended that, nor is anything in the ending a hallucination.  There's simply no way for this reason: the very last part of the ending MUST be true.   you defeat indoctrination BEFORE the "culminating" "ending", but the last section is presented in a dramatic fashion...it must be real, because there's no otehr purpose for it to exist than to be real.  the hallucinations are victorious, then you're brought up to meet a BRAND NEW CHARACTER a few minutes before the credits roll.  how would you hallucinate what that character is, what it represents, how ti acts, what its motives are, how it talks, what it knows....you "win" the indoctrination attempt by beating it, so you get to hallucinate new characters who give you ridiculous options that make no sense and present clearly false pieces of critical information inherent in the centrality of the universe and its conflicts..

that ending was the real ending.   a lot of people speculate EA and bioware had DLC content in the works (they did and do) for a new ending (there's no way, i dont buy that, not with how this ending is rpesented).  im not even done reading a lot of stuff I have open, and I know for a fact that ending was supposed to be the real ending.

the hallucination theory works up until you meet that new character, then at that point ...well i guess you could argue the entity trying to indoc you realizes its impossible to do so, so they try to trick you into giving them what they want?  but the character isn't a reaper and really shouldnt even care anyway...but more importantly, your decision at that point would have no effect on anything because its not real and doesnt change the fact that in reality factions are still warring. and so many loopholes too, nothing adds up.

no wonder people are pissed off.  and bioware promised many different endings based on your decisions, hilarious they said "there's no ending A, B, or C" but people made a picture from in-game with the three options labeled A, B, and C.     they said no Lost like ending.  then they introduce a character in the waning moments who contradicts lore from all three games and makes you destroy the universe...The Mass Relays which when they explode take out its corresponding solar system, which is far more deadly than what the reapers could accomplish and much more efficient (quicker).   and Shepard doesn't argue or fight...if its a hallucination (which its not) it doesnt matter either way...but since its not it completely ruins your character's history of going against the odds and fighting for truth.

man, this ending sucks.

makes no sense. at all.