Internet Culture is no stranger to debates, whether it be political, cultural or media related we all tend to enter a debate sometime in our lives. One debate I see in almost any Media is on who’s right in a story. Now this can start for numerous reasons, most of the time it’s because the enemy is left ambiguous for us as the audience to decide, such as in a few choice based games. Other times it is because of how gray the world the universe is set in along with a long distance of time between when the installment with the moral question comes out until the next installment which will usually pick on who was right with that being the canon answer. Now I decided to look into a few examples of these debates I looked into and how they are similar to each other,
Spoiler warning for the following (Attack on Titan, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, Mass Effect Trilogy)
Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin
Now I really only know about this one from the storm that raged online because of the ending, however it did make it more interesting because of the rage of said debates. Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin climax begins with the main character, Eren Yeager, seemingly deciding to end the rest of the world to save his home nation of Paradis Island and his friends after years of suffering from the outside world’s hatred. The question is whether this can be seen as justified as it would save them. The rest of the world wants to kill them so why not kill them first?
Now Major spoilers for the final chapter in both manga and anime. It’s revealed that Eren planned for his friends to kill him and take credit so that peace can be restored and forged between the groups. Online debate about this was massive, I remember hearing people complain when the manga finished in early 2021 and how people hoped the Anime would have a better ending when it caught up as a lot of people felt this change in character was too sudden.
Now when it came to how this debate happened, some forms I saw this done were with memes or long posts criticizing the sudden character change and how the ending shows that in the end Paradis island was indeed destroyed many years in the future, however some would argue that this was the overall point of the later series with conflict being inevitable for us humans.
Fallout New Vegas
Released in 2010 as a movie by Bethesda Game Studios to keep the Fallout hype going after the success of Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas developed by Obsidian Softworks and published by Bethesda has 4 main endings that decide the fate of the Mojave Wasteland. Three endings have you push back against a Roman inspired group called Caesar’s Legion with one of the three factions while the fourth and most unique is where the Legion wins Hoover Dam with your help. These endings also have a bunch of sub opinions such as which minor factions survive or who is in charge, such as with the Brotherhood of Steel who are a minor faction in this game compared to other roles.
Now most people agree that the Legion is a terrible option. Slavery, sexist attitudes, and brutality are just a few things the Legion is seen to have within the game, they are second to the Mr House option. Now the argument has been made that the Legion’s brutality is what the Wastelands need to survive as detailed in conversation about it in the game with some characters such as the leader Caesar himself if asked or a trader who is set up at the Legion’s main base. The New California Republic is supposed to be more representative of the old world with laws and a system just like the modern United States but also a lot of corruption and much improvement needed to work well for the people it controls. The other faction is siding with Mr House, an autocrat who survived the nuclear war via a preservation chamber and is looking to grow New Vegas to continue his goal of furthering mankind with future plans including space travel. Another option is to pick yourself to lead New Vegas with the help of an AI named Yes Man who can’t be permanently killed to prevent a fail state so players can finish the game. Debates ranged from memes making fun of each faction to full video essays by popular Fallout lore channels about who would win. Arguments such as that the Legion will collapse the moment its leader, Caesar, dies and his replacement, Legate Lanius won’t be able to lead correctly while the NCR could survive the death of its Leader, President Kimball with its own congress set in place and Fallout 2 establishing that the NCR also has a Vice President. Mr House is also considered a negative option because most people don’t like how controlling Mr House could be. Some of his requests include the non negotiable of destroying the New Vegas Brotherhood of Steel, who because of their past involvement in the series along with one of the companions being a member of them and you will be forced to kill. The one where you take control is explained as you freeing the Mojave from any of the other faction’s control with not much in an explanation on what happened in the long term. This was likely done so people can imagine what happened next or would be been showcased better if more time was allowed for development (New Vegas only had 18 months of development and there’s a lot more the developers wanted to do including making the Legion more sympathetic)
Fallout 4
Released 5 years later, Fallout 4 also has four factions that people debate the moral superiority of. Like New Vegas, Three endings where you destroy the least moral faction, and one where you side with them but unlike New Vegas, you’re left in control of the least moral faction known as The Institute .
The first three endings involve a few other factions. The Minutemen, an army of people dedicated to protecting the Commonwealth (Boston Wasteland). The Railroad, a secretive group who, similar to the real life version, work to free enslaved individuals who in this universe are synths or robots who are scared like humans. The final faction is the Brotherhood of Steel, back to a main character role with a new seemingly fascist makeover. They seek to destroy The Institute along with synths as part of their goals of stopping technology gone amuck. The Institute is this game’s main antagonistic faction and are a group of scientists living under the Fallout’s universe version of MIT who seek further scientific advancement with their army of synths both robotic and human-like.
Similarly, the discussion was also via memes or video essays, with most agreeing that the Minutemen are indeed the best choice however a lot not liking them because of a meme from the design of Fallout 4 and how they are too good. The first Minutemen (and at this point the last currently still active) you meet within the game promotes you to the Leader but for then on out gives you a constant stream of repeating quests to help secure the different settlements around the Commonwealth. This turns the Minutemen off for a lot of players, however like the AI Yes man in New vegas, they are meant to prevent a fail state where players can finish the main story without worrying about the other factions being hostile towards you. When it comes to the synth situation most would agree that they count because of numerous examples of synths in the game being human-like, especially the companions whose problem would grow attached to one, Nick Valentine, being one of the best characters of the game. Most would agree with the brotherhood, even with siding with them as a key moment of their storyline is with the fate of one synth. Thankfully when it comes to choosing the Brotherhood, the game doesn’t actually go through with some sort of mass genocide of the synths we care fir which helps people to continue to side with them.
Now the upcoming Fallout TV show by Amazon will seemingly answer who ultimately won New Vegas and 4 with it taking place in California and taking place in 2296 while New Vegas takes place in 2281 and 4 in 2287, These arguments seem to stem from the many years of unanswered waiting from between games.
Mass Effect Trilogy Finale
A final one I like to look at is the ever controversial ending of the Mass Effect trilogy. Now this ending got a lot of hatred when released in 2012 for seemingly dedicating a trilogy of choices into three choices that only seem to affect what color is shot around the Galaxy with little to no sense within the ending. This resulted in the dialogue where the player character of Commander Shepard and the AI controlling the villain known as the Reapers discuss the endings expanded to properly explain what was going to happen depending on the choice along with showcasing the galaxy post choice (something the original cut never showed)
Now the choices of the endings are the following…
Destroy (Red), Destroy the Reapers along with damaging galactic tech for a brief time, however, any synthetics such as the Geth species and your AI companion aboard your ship the Normandy are completely destroyed. This ending also leads to a possible outcome where Your character survived if enough war assets were secured prior to the final mission.
Control (Blue), Control the Reapers by letting yourself die and letting an AI copy of you control the Reapers. This AI will match your shepherd’s views via your choices.
Synthesis (Green), The ending where you merge your DNA with all beings in the galaxy both organic and synthetic, and create a perfect union in which both have a complete understanding of each other.
Now the debate for this ending usually comes down to people not wanting to exterminate the Geth Species and EDI vs wanting to exterminate the Reapers. The Geth are a species of robots who were shown to be victims after becoming sentient and had to wage a war on their creators to survive. Now depending on your choices, in Mass Effect 2 and 3, you can forge peace between the Geth and Quarians (Both species that have their own companions that follow and adapt to each other to forge peace) to work together to stop the Reapers which keeps a lot of people from choosing Destroy. EDI is an AI that through Mass Effect 2 and 3 also worked with the player and the cast to become more human in personality. However Control and Synthesis on the other hand would keep the Reapers around, something that Destroy fans would argue negates the entire point of the trilogy, that being stopping the Reapers. Arguments range from mentioning that the AI that controls the Reapers and that AI always turns on their creator so why can’t the shepherd AI do the same along with Synthesis being similar to what the main villain of the first game wanted along with control being what the sub villain wanted and also that sacrifices have to be made to win. A big negative for Synthesis and Control is the removal of free will. Your AI Shepard imposed their will on the galaxy while in Synthesis people are forcefully merged biologically with synthetics.
This is the one I decided on during my first playthrough. I picked Control because of the Geth and the damage that will be done from the Destroy option, however over time I warmed up to Destroy for just stopping the Reapers but also risking the Reapers going back to genociding. Destroy also seems to be the most popular with a poll released following the Mass Effect legendary edition in 2021, showcasing people picking it a lot more than the others.
It’s also worth briefly mentioning that following the original version of the ending, most people thought that the entire ending following you getting blasted by the main Reaper harbinger was a dream via Indoctrination (The power the Reapers can use to control people to their will) and that following Synthesis and Control, you’re letting the Reapers win while Destroy is you pushing back to allow you to continue to fight on which is while in the ending you live, your seen waking up in rubble.
Similar to the Fallout ones, this debate also came from how no official answers have come, however similar to Fallout with Mass Effect seemingly continuing within the Milky Way Galaxy it seems we would get the answer soon enough. Now It would also seem that a good portion of decision making is on whose right in media comes from the characters we connect with the most. People followed Eren for years and saw him lose loved ones and for the games people connect to the characters that designers made to represent certain aspects of the world they help create.
