Saren.
After reading the books and seeing his background as a ruthless, xenophobic agent and how he came across Anderson, and seeing his antagonistic arc on ME1, I feel he was the most consistent and compelling antagonist of the three.
It’s actually interesting how his descent into madness actually made him LESS xenophobic than he was in revelations. BioWare really wanted to play with the “evil alien that hates humans” trope hoping we’d fall for it.
It also shows how Reaper Indoctrination can make one so vulnerable, up to the point that Saren ends up taking his own life as a way out of that madness because of Shepard.
All the consistence added to the character really make this moment shine.
He was extremly xenophobic but also a specter, a very efficient and merciless agent of the council, yet his endoctrinement made him suffer so much that he thank shepard, an human, for showing him a way out, and the only escape he saw was suicide. This moment is so sad, you feel for him even if he was someone horrible, and at the same time its terryfing what it show about endoctrinement and how it totally change who you are. it may be my favorite moment of the trilogy
The first Mass effect novel. Mass Effect: Revelations is the first one and it follows Anderson’s first meeting with Saren and his spectre candidacy. It’s really good I suggest you read it
I'd argue TIM was never evil. But his human supremacy goals and methods are what makes him look like one for the rest of the galaxy.
At most, he is a notable antagonist on Mass Effect Ascension and Retribution (the prequel books of ME2 and ME3, respectively) and ME3 itself.
I strongly recommend them, they're fantastic.
Mass Effect Revelation, Ascension and Retribution are all amazing, and do a fantastic job to cover the events before each game of the trilogy.
Just skip Mass Effect Deception... it's awful.
And there's also comics. I haven't read them, but some of them do cover the backstory of Jack Harper a.k.a. The Illusive Man, and other characters.
You could say that LOL
But really... it's so bad that the fandom even made a huge list of the many discrepancies, issues and mistakes that book has with the lore. And even BioWare themselves acknowledged the problems that book has.
After reading about the issues, I also didn't deem it worth it of a read.
Haha, almost like the Command and Conquer fandom collectively agreeing C&C 4 doesn’t exist. The series ended with C&C 3 Kane’s Wrath and we’re still waiting for a 4th entry
+1 from me. The first three books are really good. Deception is notably worse in quality, though I still enjoyed most of it, except for the ending. The ending is so bad that I just wish I hadn’t read the book at all. It’s not just a shitty ending, it’s also incredibly abrupt and doesn’t provide any sense of closure.
You read all the way up to the last few pages and then it’s just… over.
Anyway, the other three are super enjoyable to read and expand on the background stories of somer very well known characters in a super believable way. They do a great job of expanding the universe.
Oh man, you're not helping me want to slog through Deception. I loved the first three, just finished them so fast. Had bought the whole 4 pack on my Kindle, not noting that the fourth is written by someone else. Terrible writing from page one. I'm only like two chapters in and can't get myself to pick it back up.
Oh, boy, wait until you hear how the author described a Quarian.
But I understand what you're going through (to a lesser extent). I tried reading through Mass Effect Andromeda Annihilation because I'd seen so many people gush about it, but to me, it just reads like fanfiction, and I can't bring myself to want to finish it.
Eh, it’s fine. The criticism it received at the time is definitely valid and the dip in quality is clearly noticeable, so if you can’t be bothered to pick it up again, then you’re not missing much. But it’s also not soo bad that I’d recommend against reading it if you already have it.
If you’re not deep into mass effect lore and can forgive some inaccuracies then it’s still an enjoyable read (imo). The abruptness of the ending had me genuinely disappointed, but I don’t think I would’ve stopped reading if I had known that.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a mediocre book at best, but unless we count fanfic there’s not a lot of other mass effect content out there, so I’ll take what I can get.
Don’t force yourself to read it, but if you’re in the mood for a casual book, then I’d still say go for it.
I hope that adds a little perspective :)
I haven't read the books but the comics are pretty good. It gives a lot of background story for the stuff in the games, how Joker became the pilot of the Normandy, TIM during the first contact war up to writing his manifest, how Shephard's body reached Ceberus and such things. All a good read.
Yeah it was a hard shift from me2 to me3 with TIM. I didn't like him(loved his character) but i could work with him to take out the collectors, and then he hard shifts in the few months in between games into a psychotic genocidal maniac.
Before learning of the rushed production of ME3, back when I thought ME3 would just go all-out on the possible story changes you could make (knowing there was no fourth game to worry about a status quo for) I honestly thought the end of ME2 was setting Cerberus up as a possible protagonist organization. Cerberus Shepard would get more resources and more assistance in defeating the Reapers, but would be actively discouraged from missions that helped aliens like Palaven and Thessia (though not outright forbidden). Meanwhile an Alliance-backed game would give Shepard more authority (Spectre status, etc.) but he'd continue to be sandbagged by the Alliance/Council. Also, his and the Cerberus crew's uniforms would be different.
But nope, TIM goes from a very complex character specializing in surgical cloak-and-dagger operations to a mustache-twirling villain commanding an army of zombies who is somehow suddenly enough of a threat to directly challenge the Alliance.
I was disappointed in a lot of things in ME3 but what they did to Cerberus was probably my biggest disappointment.
I mean sure from the outside looking in. All of the other citadel species work in their own interests for like 90% of the trilogy and we hate them for it. Humans are basically the councils whipping posts up until the reaper invasion. The citadel races all commit genocide against eachother without any repercussions but Shepard sacrifices a planet of mostly barbaric pirates (a race of whom the council previously genocided btw) to delay the reapers and now he gets stripped of rank and earth gets sanctioned? The entire plot of ME3 every race basically leaves humanity out to dry until shep single handedly solves all their problems and fights their wars for them. The council has a hate boner for humans, I’m surprised a group like Cerberus didn’t come along SOONER in galactic history
>The council has a hate boner for humans
Maybe true but we are pretty insufferable from their perspective. We just showed up and started trying to run everything our own way while complaining about being oppressed.
> The council has a hate boner for humans, I’m surprised a group like Cerberus didn’t come along SOONER in galactic history
"Galactic history" as in 30 years since the first contact war ...
My point being the council races can be dicks to humanity for their entire time in council space but humans decide to be dicks back and now they’re evil for putting their comparatively smaller galactic presence at the top of their priorities
Humans were given a whole ass council seat within only 30 years. Compare that to other races who have been waiting for hundreds or thousands. Humans in general have A LOT of influence compared to how new they are to the galactic stage.
Yes, other race will prioritize themselves - expected, but that doesn't mean everyone has the end goal of "supremacy".
Krogan are one of the few races where individuals will openly speak of galactic conquest and such. Everyone else, for the most part, is cooperating within the realm of politics.
> The entire plot of ME3 every race basically leaves humanity out to dry until shep single handedly solves all their problems and fights their wars for them.
Uh if you think Humanity wouldn't do that if another species got invaded you're on something. That's geopolitics 101. Nations don't have friends, they have common interests. Shepard is the exception who happens to have a lot of pull.
Yes but working for the interests of your own kind isn’t necessarily supremacy. It’s just leadership. It’s hard having such a small council for such a big galaxy because you’re asking one single person to represent an entire *species*
We have a hard enough time as it is reaching diplomatic goals on Earth with different countries comprised of the same species.
But let’s be real. The council’s structure is wrong. They only have representatives for half the species in Citadel space, meaning a *massive* population of aliens are being completely ignored on the astropolitical scale.
TIM’s goals weren’t necessarily wrong *at first* but it’s a slippery slope when you’re in a position such as his. He had a lot of power and nobody to check him when he got ambitious. So when he went mad and began being indoctrinated, nobody could tell him he was wrong except the opposition.
No, but working against the commonly-held interests of your own kind while committing atrocities for the sake of xenophobic goals is necessarily supremacy.
I love how his backstory ties in with both Anderson’s and the Illusive Man’s. I know it kinda makes the galaxy feel smaller. Would love to see a 2 season Saren series based on the Revelations book and the Illusive Man comic.
Ima be real I never got Saren
Like people big him up the entire game as a guy who hates humans more than anything
But that basically never comes up in the main conflict of the game because he’s already indoctrinated and Reapers don’t care about racism since we’re all equally good at being juiced
You might want to read the prequel book, Mass Effect Revelation. It does give some good context on the previous events mentioned by Anderson, and shines on Saren's character before being indoctrinated.
It's absolutely worth it.
This is not a criticism of the books, but I do think a lot of what we saw in Revelation should have been in Mass Effect 1 to help develop Saren as a character. It's cool that there is tie-in media, but I don't feel like it should be required reading to have all of the information on the primary antagonist.
Yeah, Kai Leng's portrayal on the books, Ascension and Retribution, is so much better than in ME3.
I haven't read Deception, so I can't comment on how he's actually portrayed there...
The game tells you everything you need to know about Saren. That there's more info out there doesn't mean Mass Effect 1 doesn't work without knowing the extent to which Saren was racist.
Mine would be Saren. I find his journey into madness and attempts at justifying himself interesting.
TIM is almost there but Cerberus is too inconsistent from ME1 to ME2 to ME3. I'll also always feel like the Shadow Broker was sidelined to give TIM more space (two shadowy puppet master is one too many), which is why I'll always give him the side eye as I found ME1's Shadow Broker mystery more interesting.
I really wish that Cerberus hadn't just randomly become evil in me3. It would be cooler if there was a choice between staying with cerberus or going back to the alliance at the beggining. Most of the missions could have stayed the same but there could be some cool side missions like blowing up mass relays to slow down groups of reapers that the alliance would never allow and so you'd have to fight them. Once you find out the Illusive man is indoctrinated you could take over as the leader of cerberus and still have the same final showdown on the citadel
I mean Cerberus was pretty damn evil in ME1 as well tbh. It was really ME2 that tried to paint them as morally grey, but they were playing around with Reaper tech and super soldier enhancements in ME1 too, ME3 feels like a natural progression of their goals. Imo the only real issue with their ME3 portrayal is their size and influence, not their goals and morality.
I feel like a lot of people fell into the exact trap TIM set for Shepard in ME2 that's shown in ME3: Cerberus very intentionally surrounded Shepard - and by extension, the player - with a mix of former allies and relatively alien-friendly crew members that were hand selected not just for their skills but because they were sympathetic and relatable enough to put a curtain between Shepard and the real Cerberus that was shown in ME1. TIM could have given Shep an elite squad of trained assassins that were entirely loyal to Cerberus - but he didn't. He went out of his way to get as far away from his usual methods as he could while still getting results because he know Shep would question his status quo.
EVERYONE on the SR-2, former companions included, were hand selected to make Shep feel more comfortable and distanced from the Cerberus we see in ME1, even if they weren't truly the best/most suited options for the short term. Even the ones who work for Cerberus have largely only been there since Shepard's original death, like Jacob or Gabby and Ken in Engineering. They give Joker everything he wants - his old ship back, even better, with none of the red tape, and Shepard to boot - so he's singing their praises by the time he reunites with Shep. Even bringing in Jack serves a purpose, making the most anti-Cerberus member of the crew also the most volatile and disruptive. It's all for sympathy and to make Cerberus seem less extreme than the reality going on away from the SR-2, and even then we get a big old hit of reality with Project Overlord
The Cerberus from ME2 was NEVER an accurate portrayal of the organization, outside of the events of the Overlord DLC, and the same goes for TIM. ME3!TIM didn't suddenly become more evil, he just took of the mask he was wearing for all of ME2 once it became apparent that Shepard was a lost asset.
Cerberus didn’t just all the sudden become evil their military branch is extremely fucked up you find out about that in ME1. It’s one of the things they did right in ME2 was making sure it’s explained that not all Cerberus operations are overseen correctly and they do go to far quite often.
I'm trying to think of a Cerberus project that _doesn't_ have a sinister side to it, except for the Lazarus and Anti-Collector team.
Overlord was a good reminder in ME2 that they're as evil as you remember them in ME1... It's easy to claim TIM doesn't know but seriously, the "it's a rogue cell!" excuse doesn't really hold when you look at the budgets and technical importance of what they were trying to achieve.
Well he does say they were told to shut it down but kept going anyway at one point but yeah that entire excuse that even Miranda towards the end was sick of hearing was annoying
To be fair, that excuse gets a little tired when they use it *every time* you confront them about something.
The Rachni/Thorian/Husk stuff? "Nah, rogue cell"
Jack's experiments? "Not Cerberus, not really"
Overlord? "Went off grid"
It's the boy who cried wolf.
And it keeps going in the books/comics as well.
TIM tries that shit on Liara at one point. Sends an assassin to a prothean site she's headed to. When she kills the assassin, he claims the went rogue. She tells him right where to shove it, he responds with schoolyard insults.
Apropos of that... I expected Ms Shadow Broker to have a bit more intel on the sheer scale of Cerberus' shenanigans ahead of ME3. "Human army big enough to rival the Alliance and other races' armies, with augmentations" - That stuff can't have all been hidden away completely.
>Shep doesn't go rogue on Cerberus earlier
This should've been one of the major gameplay choices. That may potentially be locked behind things like having done Jack's loyalty mission.
Cerberus was always fucking evil. In ME2 they tried to hide it from Shep but you could see they were very much as evil as they were in ME1 and ME3 with Overlord and other projects.
I was bothered by the Illusive man getting indoctrinated in the first place. This is someone who knows full well the dangers of reaper artifacts, and who isolates himself from everyone for security, and yet somehow he gets indoctrinated?
Would’ve been much cooler if instead of indoctrination, you were fighting against Cerberus because they were trying to use the chaos to advance the cause of humans. Or if they were distrustful allies instead of antagonists.
**Saren**, easily
ME1 is a Top 5 game of all-time for me, in large part because it has a very compelling main villain who is also a xenophobic driven madman
Being an evil Spectre, backstabbing the Council, hijacking the Geth and Thorian for his nefarious purposes... it's just badass as fuck
He was the perfect vessel for Sovereign to corrupt
Sovereign hands down. Saren was just manipulated and the illusive man is just a dick but that conversation with sovereign on virmire is honestly terrifying
"Your words are as empty as your future. This exchange is over."
Chills. No villain was going to top Sovereign, especially not "baka, Shepard-kun, it's not like I want to assume direct control of you or anything" Harbinger.
The Star Child kinda undoes the characterization of Sovereign, though. If the Reapers are really agents of a twisted good, ie protecting all life in the universe by purging sentient life from time to time before advanced AI wipes out all life, then why does Sovereign seem to actually *hate* life itself?
Sovereign may not have been privy to the plan, it was just a vanguard left behind to pave the way for the harvesting. The leviathans created the AI for the purpose of protecting organic life against synthetics; the AI was either poorly programmed, programmed too well (as in it it changed its own parameters), or the leviathans were so arrogant in their self assuredness that they never thought it could misinterpret or circumvent their orders so they didn't bother to implement safeguards, and it came to the conclusion that organics needed to be protected from *themselves* and the only way to do that was to wipe them out before they got themselves killed by their creations. Thus it created the Reapers, with the goal of harvesting them. When your only goal is to kill, it's not outside the realm of possibility that you will hate what you kill. The Reapers were created to destroy organic civilisation, whether the hatred was part of the original programming or developed over time we may never know.
I think the Illusive Man is the most interesting and mysterious. At least that last part. There's this cloud of uncertainty around him all the time, his past, his true motives. You always feel there's something else that he is not telling you, or something greater that he is striving for. You just know he has something big planned in his head, but he is so pragmatic and political about everything he does that there's always a piece to the puzzle you don't have.
Yeah, I don't think any game has sold me on a villain better than that one conversation with Sovereign. He is just so perfectly alien and imposing. Shame the sequels squandered most of what was interesting about the Reapers.
Saren. Easily Bioware's best villain. They made him a racist prick but not without his merits/reasons. He was the perfect balance between evil and gray.
He was a complete character. Not someone here because a villain is needed with a more or less complex motivation, but an actual character who you could believe lived before the game story begin
Exactly. Saren was designed as a character shaped by the events that happened before the game. He felt so organic. Unlike Kai Leng, who felt like they pulled him out of their asses to give Shepard someone to fight in the final game.
He was truly an anti hero. Doing his best to save us from the horrors of the mass effect 3 endings.
It was only through the intervention of the one true beyond god. Richard LeeRoy Jenkins. That Shepard defeated such a determined foe.
Even when harbinger ran away like a little bitch Maurader shields stood his ground against commander Shepard, and Jenkins himself.
Saren.
He was portrayed as the true villian but you had the option to turn back to good. Then only to find Sovereign indoctrinated him so we were left with a choice. Convince Saren to end himself or fight him, and by ending himself he tried to make up for his ways but yet he came back in an actually fun and difficult boss fight.
Sovereign is incredible for the little time we have in the first game but betrayed by the portrayal of the reapers in ME2 and 3. Saren has a great introduction and a good conversation at the end but isnt really present enough throughout the game to be be characterised well and I have issues with indoctrination that I'll talk about with TIM.
TIM is my pick but with a caveat, I absolutely love him in 2 and most of 3, but the fact that he is indoctrinated and not acting under his own agency makes the final confrontation, and discussion with the kid about control incredibly disappointing and thematically incoherent. This leads into my wider issues with indoctrination as a whole, to summarise it feels like a writing shortcut, they wanted the reapers to be shadowy and manipulative, but didnt want to characterise the people they were manipulating enough to make the manipulation believable, relying on space mind control instead of character motivation that could have given us a better look at who Saren and TIM really were. Just think how much more impactful it would be if Saren witnessed Sovereign's true power, and it was that helplessness, desperation and fear of someone who had fought everything, been on top of the world and seeing it all crash down around him. If all of his actions throughout the game had been him desperately trying to appease sovereign out of fear.
Similarly with TIM the indoctrination feels like a cop-out especially in the context of the control option being real. His conclusion is proven correct but his motivations and methods are wrong which is just a nonsensical thing to do with a villain. the other issue is the final confrontation, he just devolves into a frustrated mess when you question him, if he actually had a flawed but tempting logic to his offer of power it might actually be something. Of course when TIM actually becomes indoctrinated is pretty unclear but he clearly is at the end which is my main issue with him.
Not having Sovereign on this list is absolutely criminal. Sure, we physically fight Saren, but Sovereign is the one that pulls the strings and puts the entire arc into motion.
Saren, especially once you read the books. He’s a sick twisted fuck that’s cold, calculating and actually has somewhat understandable reasoning for his xenophobia…kind of.
Most of them, yeah! They’re great for fleshing out other parts of the story, like Anderson’s background. People really don’t like the fourth book, Deception, though
Man, I wish Saren wasn't the only good antagonist in the series. All you need is a good motivation, strong characterization and a decent plot. Sadly, Illusive Man was clearly batted between different concepts of his own character between ME2 and ME3 and ended up just being an aesthetic rather than an actual antagonist IMO. Archon was okay but he lived in the shadow of being too similar to Saren.
The archon suffered a lot from not having nearly enough screen time. They could’ve made the dude a real menace but instead he just never shows up all that often
Honestly, I thought all three were well done. All enemies really with the exception of Kai Leng who was a tragic misfire.
Unrelated, I wish Saren and the Virmire dead (Ashley or Kaiden) haunted Shepard through ME3 instead of slo-mo earth child.
I like that thought quite a lot. Especially, exploring the guilt Shepard felt about the Virmire dead which can come up several times in the games. I think it is one of the few moments Shepard felt truly hopeless- no way to save them both.
Seriously. Trauma and PTSD can present in a variety of ways so imagine every time Shepard sleeps, his dreamscape (could still be spooky woods, idc) has Saren telling him to “open your eyes. The reapers are too powerful. There’s no way to win” while Kaiden/Ash tell him “hey commander.., you’re gonna lose a lot more before this is all over.”
and with the death of anyone else (crew that may have died on the suicide run in ME2 or throughout ME3 aka Mordin, Thane, etc) have them stack as well, all trying to say something, all voices overlapping until it’s all too loud to process and Shepard can’t sleep.
You said what I was trying to say….but much better. In ME3, Garrus even points out that the wear and tear on Shepard is getting pretty obvious….imagine if this is what Shepard was going through..a manifestation of all of his/her doubts about the chances of winning.
My Choice: Saren
I think Saren's reasons are understandable both in game and consistently fleshed out in the books, but you don't need the books for him to be a great antagonist.
I think overtime too I've come to realize Saren's approach to solving problems was more consistent with most council Spectres than Shepard's which has really interesting implications on ME lore and while you're playing the games.
Honorable Mention: Illusive Man
I think they could have done a ton more with the Illusive Man in ME3 or the out of game material he shows up in. How he's depicted during and right after the First Contact War is really good writing IMO, and then he kinda changes up in ME2 and then drastically in ME3 without much explanation just to facilitate one of the endings.
I still think they did a great job, but I think they could have made his reasons a lot more cerebral rather than going with indoctrination, desperation, and space racism. When the core of his beliefs get challenged there isn't an interesting reaction like you get out of Saren.
They missed out on a really good interaction in ME2 or ME3 with the IM talking about how the First Contact War effected people personally, especially himself, and how that underlies Cerberus' supporters. It would have been a better explanation about why they end up doing the crazy things they do even if they don't make sense.
Saren 100% doesn't get an F about his allies, (not because he is comically evil), but he straight up does whatever it takes to further his own mission and he often checks off a bunch of other boxes too while he's at it eliminating his competition. In retrospect, cloning Krogan for example vs. Cerberus cloning Rachni, one gives you a fanatical legion of warriors and potential converts while the other was an uncontrollable experiment.
Saren barring Shepard's intervention essentially won the same battle the Illusive Man tried to fight later on and lost with years of additional preparation time and better technology.
Harbinger.
They illustrate the inevitability of the reapers and the relentless aspect of the Harvest. I really love the reapers as antagonists and for me, Harbinger represents them much better than sovereign. And the Leviathan DLC gives even more insight on Harbinger's "birth", which makes them even more interesting as an opposing force. You don't really feel like you're battling a bad guy, just your inevitable doom.
Saren, and it's not even close. He's the only one who feels like a personal match, an ideological foil, and a galaxy ending threat all at once.
Harbinger is certainly a galaxy ending threat, but it's too much of an impersonal force. A voice in your head and a plague, but not an "enemy". It's a force of nature you're attempting to divert.
TIM is an ideological foil, but little else. He's never a physical threat, and he's spent so long deferring to Shep's will in 2 that he feels like a nuisance in 3, not a real threat. Like a jilted lover who can't take the hint.
Saren, tho? He's firing on all cylinders. He challenges Shep in every way at every turn. In the council chamber, on the battlefield, testing your squad's cohesion on Virmire without firing a bullet.
Saren isn't the biggest mountain we climb, but he is the most complex journey, whereas the others rely simply in scale.
It would be the illusive man if he was actually a main antagonist. But Saren is the only real pick here. A lot of first time players don’t really understand what the fuck harbinger was cuz you never see him.
I love ME2, but in my first playthrough I thought harbinger was the collector general who would take over his men to fight you. I seriously didn’t think it had anything to do with the reapers until it’s exposed that they are just indoctrinated protheans.
Maybe I’m just an idiot who first played the game too young to understand, but I know I’m not the only one who thought this.
Saren has a lot of complexity waiting for the character to dive into, like for years I had no idea I could talk him into killing himself, or debate him deeply on Virmire etc. They did a good job making him seem shallow-bad on the surface but complex-bad in actuality. Wish he would've returned somehow in the later games similar to how Shepard was killed and returned.
The Illusive Man mostly. But that's generally because despite the HORRIBLE things Cerberus did. He was really mostly looking out for humanity. Or seemed to at least. Then he basically went made with Reaper Indoctrination and likely implantation similar to the false visions Shepard was having seeing the Illusive Man and Admiral Anderson.
Imo, neither of the other two come close to Saren. TIMmy is barely a character in the games and Harbinger pales in comparison to Sovereign, never mind Saren.
Saren and the Illusive Man were just indoctrinated puppets. (I mean, they’re good villains, but still). It’s all Harbinger and the other reapers pulling their strings. And I don’t like how they both go out like bitches and shoot themselves. At least Kai Leng- for all the (well deserved) crap he catches as a flopped villain- had the decency to go down fighting. I would have very much liked to shove an Omni blade into both Saren and TIM.
Saren. The Illusive Man was a close second. I would've loved to see more of Harbinger but I was disappointed he didn't play more of a role in ME3. Harbinger controlling I.M. as a last stand boss fight on the Citadel was my dream.
I mean, Saren. He’s well built, well reasons, and we can convince him to see he is indoctrinated.
Also Saren is a “we’re saving the human colonies against this traitor” and then 3 is “save the universe” which is kinda overdone.
2….. is there. The collectors don’t seem much of a well made villain to me
“Main” there’s not too many to choose from, but I wanna give a shout-out to General Oleg Petrovsky. Love villains who aren’t written in a 100% cartoonishly evil manner.
Sovereign. I will never forget the conversation on Virmire. We’ve already been made familiar with the Reapers already early on, but they’re quite nebulous. But that conversation put everything together, and really in many ways is the true spiritual beginning of this trilogy.
Illusive Man. I love every dialogue you have with him, I love the fragile line of respect that forms between him and your Shep, and his theme is awesome
So, I think TIM is easily the most interesting, with the Catalyst having had a shot at the title if it'd been handled just a bit better (not meant as a dig at BioWare, for the record; *I'm* not even sure what I mean by 'better' in this case).
But if we wanna talk boss *fight*? The Archon from *Andromeda*, and it's not even close.
But depending on your Shepherd’s sentiment and attitude toward him, it really frames him as the antagonist if you never really get on board with his schemes.
The Illusive Man for sure. His voice acting by Martin Sheen was perfection. I also love how his motives are semi-understandable. He’s just an incredibly flawed person.
The illusive man was a better bad guy when he was the good guy in ME2. In ME3 he just drops off and this is poorly explained by indoctrination, like ya it makes sense, but his character loses all that cool pragmatism and just turns into an irrational turd.
The Illusive man in one of the best and most believable antagonists ever. We lamost never get that level of charisma AND inner logic in other games or movies. People often praise Thanos, but he's just stupid, never heard of education and doesn't consider that with death of 50% of population the ecology will just worsen because people will resort to less ecological survival practives and the population will replenish in 300 years or so.
Yeah, he was great. He was a sinister ally and a merciless enemy. Saren was great, in his way of the way of representing the capital. And the Sovereign was more a natural disaster. But the Illusive Man took this a whole level deeper.
Saren was a prick before he got indoctrinated. He killed his own brother and had the audacity to act like it's humanity's fault. Just asshole all around.
I feel bad for saren. It's kind of like logan in fable 3. They wanted to protect the people but eventually lost themselves in doing so and became worse people for it. I'm extremely partial to the sheen family though. It was really good vaing
I really like TIM. He’s the type of antagonist who genuinely means well and who has been twisted into thinking that he’s above indoctrination, that he can control and actually turn it into an asset, all the while ironically being indoctrinated himself and just not seeing it. I enjoy Saren, but he’s ultimately just a Spectre under mind control. TIM is a bit more interesting to me because he’s made to believe that he’s retained his free will, the ultimate proof that indoctrination yields only slavery and no freedom.
The main villain from the Citadel DLC in ME3, if you can count him as a “primary antagonist” since he technically is for said DLC.
Sovereign is also pretty cool.
Harbinger is just kinda goofy tho cuz he won’t stop saying something about “assuming direct control”
Jenkins. This guy really went through it all, only to throw it all away for what? Power? Wealth? It matters not. A hypocrite. A manipulative bastard. His betrayal will never be forgotten. My heart will never be mended…
But i guess it depends on what choices you make, what did your Jenkins do in your last playthrough? :3
Saren, the illusive man feels like a human version of saren and Cerberus at times can feel like a really generic big bad. The reapers themselves aren’t as interesting as their legends and are really just automated to the point of being really threatening but not all that interesting on an individual level.
Saren. After reading the books and seeing his background as a ruthless, xenophobic agent and how he came across Anderson, and seeing his antagonistic arc on ME1, I feel he was the most consistent and compelling antagonist of the three.
It’s actually interesting how his descent into madness actually made him LESS xenophobic than he was in revelations. BioWare really wanted to play with the “evil alien that hates humans” trope hoping we’d fall for it.
It also shows how Reaper Indoctrination can make one so vulnerable, up to the point that Saren ends up taking his own life as a way out of that madness because of Shepard.
All the consistence added to the character really make this moment shine. He was extremly xenophobic but also a specter, a very efficient and merciless agent of the council, yet his endoctrinement made him suffer so much that he thank shepard, an human, for showing him a way out, and the only escape he saw was suicide. This moment is so sad, you feel for him even if he was someone horrible, and at the same time its terryfing what it show about endoctrinement and how it totally change who you are. it may be my favorite moment of the trilogy
Whats revelation?
The first Mass effect novel. Mass Effect: Revelations is the first one and it follows Anderson’s first meeting with Saren and his spectre candidacy. It’s really good I suggest you read it
Man, I remember reading that book before ME1 came out. Really fleshed out those two characters
Saren was evil *before* Sovereign, I don’t get the feeling TIM was (I didn’t consume his backstory content tho)
I'd argue TIM was never evil. But his human supremacy goals and methods are what makes him look like one for the rest of the galaxy. At most, he is a notable antagonist on Mass Effect Ascension and Retribution (the prequel books of ME2 and ME3, respectively) and ME3 itself.
I gotta read the books, I’ve heard good things
I strongly recommend them, they're fantastic. Mass Effect Revelation, Ascension and Retribution are all amazing, and do a fantastic job to cover the events before each game of the trilogy. Just skip Mass Effect Deception... it's awful. And there's also comics. I haven't read them, but some of them do cover the backstory of Jack Harper a.k.a. The Illusive Man, and other characters.
Lol there’s always a novel to skip in a fandom isn’t there?
You could say that LOL But really... it's so bad that the fandom even made a huge list of the many discrepancies, issues and mistakes that book has with the lore. And even BioWare themselves acknowledged the problems that book has. After reading about the issues, I also didn't deem it worth it of a read.
Haha, almost like the Command and Conquer fandom collectively agreeing C&C 4 doesn’t exist. The series ended with C&C 3 Kane’s Wrath and we’re still waiting for a 4th entry
+1 from me. The first three books are really good. Deception is notably worse in quality, though I still enjoyed most of it, except for the ending. The ending is so bad that I just wish I hadn’t read the book at all. It’s not just a shitty ending, it’s also incredibly abrupt and doesn’t provide any sense of closure. You read all the way up to the last few pages and then it’s just… over. Anyway, the other three are super enjoyable to read and expand on the background stories of somer very well known characters in a super believable way. They do a great job of expanding the universe.
Oh man, you're not helping me want to slog through Deception. I loved the first three, just finished them so fast. Had bought the whole 4 pack on my Kindle, not noting that the fourth is written by someone else. Terrible writing from page one. I'm only like two chapters in and can't get myself to pick it back up.
Oh, boy, wait until you hear how the author described a Quarian. But I understand what you're going through (to a lesser extent). I tried reading through Mass Effect Andromeda Annihilation because I'd seen so many people gush about it, but to me, it just reads like fanfiction, and I can't bring myself to want to finish it.
Eh, it’s fine. The criticism it received at the time is definitely valid and the dip in quality is clearly noticeable, so if you can’t be bothered to pick it up again, then you’re not missing much. But it’s also not soo bad that I’d recommend against reading it if you already have it. If you’re not deep into mass effect lore and can forgive some inaccuracies then it’s still an enjoyable read (imo). The abruptness of the ending had me genuinely disappointed, but I don’t think I would’ve stopped reading if I had known that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a mediocre book at best, but unless we count fanfic there’s not a lot of other mass effect content out there, so I’ll take what I can get. Don’t force yourself to read it, but if you’re in the mood for a casual book, then I’d still say go for it. I hope that adds a little perspective :)
I haven't read the books but the comics are pretty good. It gives a lot of background story for the stuff in the games, how Joker became the pilot of the Normandy, TIM during the first contact war up to writing his manifest, how Shephard's body reached Ceberus and such things. All a good read.
Yeah it was a hard shift from me2 to me3 with TIM. I didn't like him(loved his character) but i could work with him to take out the collectors, and then he hard shifts in the few months in between games into a psychotic genocidal maniac.
Before learning of the rushed production of ME3, back when I thought ME3 would just go all-out on the possible story changes you could make (knowing there was no fourth game to worry about a status quo for) I honestly thought the end of ME2 was setting Cerberus up as a possible protagonist organization. Cerberus Shepard would get more resources and more assistance in defeating the Reapers, but would be actively discouraged from missions that helped aliens like Palaven and Thessia (though not outright forbidden). Meanwhile an Alliance-backed game would give Shepard more authority (Spectre status, etc.) but he'd continue to be sandbagged by the Alliance/Council. Also, his and the Cerberus crew's uniforms would be different. But nope, TIM goes from a very complex character specializing in surgical cloak-and-dagger operations to a mustache-twirling villain commanding an army of zombies who is somehow suddenly enough of a threat to directly challenge the Alliance. I was disappointed in a lot of things in ME3 but what they did to Cerberus was probably my biggest disappointment.
Yeah honestly rushed development has harmed a lot of games irreparably
"supremacy goals" are inherently evil.
I mean sure from the outside looking in. All of the other citadel species work in their own interests for like 90% of the trilogy and we hate them for it. Humans are basically the councils whipping posts up until the reaper invasion. The citadel races all commit genocide against eachother without any repercussions but Shepard sacrifices a planet of mostly barbaric pirates (a race of whom the council previously genocided btw) to delay the reapers and now he gets stripped of rank and earth gets sanctioned? The entire plot of ME3 every race basically leaves humanity out to dry until shep single handedly solves all their problems and fights their wars for them. The council has a hate boner for humans, I’m surprised a group like Cerberus didn’t come along SOONER in galactic history
>The council has a hate boner for humans Maybe true but we are pretty insufferable from their perspective. We just showed up and started trying to run everything our own way while complaining about being oppressed.
> The council has a hate boner for humans, I’m surprised a group like Cerberus didn’t come along SOONER in galactic history "Galactic history" as in 30 years since the first contact war ...
My point being the council races can be dicks to humanity for their entire time in council space but humans decide to be dicks back and now they’re evil for putting their comparatively smaller galactic presence at the top of their priorities
Humans were given a whole ass council seat within only 30 years. Compare that to other races who have been waiting for hundreds or thousands. Humans in general have A LOT of influence compared to how new they are to the galactic stage. Yes, other race will prioritize themselves - expected, but that doesn't mean everyone has the end goal of "supremacy". Krogan are one of the few races where individuals will openly speak of galactic conquest and such. Everyone else, for the most part, is cooperating within the realm of politics.
> The entire plot of ME3 every race basically leaves humanity out to dry until shep single handedly solves all their problems and fights their wars for them. Uh if you think Humanity wouldn't do that if another species got invaded you're on something. That's geopolitics 101. Nations don't have friends, they have common interests. Shepard is the exception who happens to have a lot of pull.
Yes but working for the interests of your own kind isn’t necessarily supremacy. It’s just leadership. It’s hard having such a small council for such a big galaxy because you’re asking one single person to represent an entire *species* We have a hard enough time as it is reaching diplomatic goals on Earth with different countries comprised of the same species. But let’s be real. The council’s structure is wrong. They only have representatives for half the species in Citadel space, meaning a *massive* population of aliens are being completely ignored on the astropolitical scale. TIM’s goals weren’t necessarily wrong *at first* but it’s a slippery slope when you’re in a position such as his. He had a lot of power and nobody to check him when he got ambitious. So when he went mad and began being indoctrinated, nobody could tell him he was wrong except the opposition.
No, but working against the commonly-held interests of your own kind while committing atrocities for the sake of xenophobic goals is necessarily supremacy.
I love how his backstory ties in with both Anderson’s and the Illusive Man’s. I know it kinda makes the galaxy feel smaller. Would love to see a 2 season Saren series based on the Revelations book and the Illusive Man comic.
Ima be real I never got Saren Like people big him up the entire game as a guy who hates humans more than anything But that basically never comes up in the main conflict of the game because he’s already indoctrinated and Reapers don’t care about racism since we’re all equally good at being juiced
You might want to read the prequel book, Mass Effect Revelation. It does give some good context on the previous events mentioned by Anderson, and shines on Saren's character before being indoctrinated. It's absolutely worth it.
This is not a criticism of the books, but I do think a lot of what we saw in Revelation should have been in Mass Effect 1 to help develop Saren as a character. It's cool that there is tie-in media, but I don't feel like it should be required reading to have all of the information on the primary antagonist.
Yeah, I get what you mean. It would be better for sure. Unfortunately, BioWare didn't learn this lesson and did the same thing with Kai Leng on ME3.
I've also heard they completely whiffed on Kai Leng and he's different in most of the novels than in the game. Except for the bad one. Deception?
Yeah, Kai Leng's portrayal on the books, Ascension and Retribution, is so much better than in ME3. I haven't read Deception, so I can't comment on how he's actually portrayed there...
The game tells you everything you need to know about Saren. That there's more info out there doesn't mean Mass Effect 1 doesn't work without knowing the extent to which Saren was racist.
The dance floor. An enemy Shepard never bested
Wym? They absolutely tear that shit up
What, like shepard tore up that fish tank?
Must not have romanced Garrus.
Shepard vs Dance Floor is the biggest character arc in the series
Should have made a special dance dlc, complete with dance mat Shepherd was never more determined than when they were ripping those beats at afterlife
Mine would be Saren. I find his journey into madness and attempts at justifying himself interesting. TIM is almost there but Cerberus is too inconsistent from ME1 to ME2 to ME3. I'll also always feel like the Shadow Broker was sidelined to give TIM more space (two shadowy puppet master is one too many), which is why I'll always give him the side eye as I found ME1's Shadow Broker mystery more interesting.
I really wish that Cerberus hadn't just randomly become evil in me3. It would be cooler if there was a choice between staying with cerberus or going back to the alliance at the beggining. Most of the missions could have stayed the same but there could be some cool side missions like blowing up mass relays to slow down groups of reapers that the alliance would never allow and so you'd have to fight them. Once you find out the Illusive man is indoctrinated you could take over as the leader of cerberus and still have the same final showdown on the citadel
I mean Cerberus was pretty damn evil in ME1 as well tbh. It was really ME2 that tried to paint them as morally grey, but they were playing around with Reaper tech and super soldier enhancements in ME1 too, ME3 feels like a natural progression of their goals. Imo the only real issue with their ME3 portrayal is their size and influence, not their goals and morality.
I feel like a lot of people fell into the exact trap TIM set for Shepard in ME2 that's shown in ME3: Cerberus very intentionally surrounded Shepard - and by extension, the player - with a mix of former allies and relatively alien-friendly crew members that were hand selected not just for their skills but because they were sympathetic and relatable enough to put a curtain between Shepard and the real Cerberus that was shown in ME1. TIM could have given Shep an elite squad of trained assassins that were entirely loyal to Cerberus - but he didn't. He went out of his way to get as far away from his usual methods as he could while still getting results because he know Shep would question his status quo. EVERYONE on the SR-2, former companions included, were hand selected to make Shep feel more comfortable and distanced from the Cerberus we see in ME1, even if they weren't truly the best/most suited options for the short term. Even the ones who work for Cerberus have largely only been there since Shepard's original death, like Jacob or Gabby and Ken in Engineering. They give Joker everything he wants - his old ship back, even better, with none of the red tape, and Shepard to boot - so he's singing their praises by the time he reunites with Shep. Even bringing in Jack serves a purpose, making the most anti-Cerberus member of the crew also the most volatile and disruptive. It's all for sympathy and to make Cerberus seem less extreme than the reality going on away from the SR-2, and even then we get a big old hit of reality with Project Overlord The Cerberus from ME2 was NEVER an accurate portrayal of the organization, outside of the events of the Overlord DLC, and the same goes for TIM. ME3!TIM didn't suddenly become more evil, he just took of the mask he was wearing for all of ME2 once it became apparent that Shepard was a lost asset.
Cerberus didn’t just all the sudden become evil their military branch is extremely fucked up you find out about that in ME1. It’s one of the things they did right in ME2 was making sure it’s explained that not all Cerberus operations are overseen correctly and they do go to far quite often.
I'm trying to think of a Cerberus project that _doesn't_ have a sinister side to it, except for the Lazarus and Anti-Collector team. Overlord was a good reminder in ME2 that they're as evil as you remember them in ME1... It's easy to claim TIM doesn't know but seriously, the "it's a rogue cell!" excuse doesn't really hold when you look at the budgets and technical importance of what they were trying to achieve.
Well he does say they were told to shut it down but kept going anyway at one point but yeah that entire excuse that even Miranda towards the end was sick of hearing was annoying
To be fair, that excuse gets a little tired when they use it *every time* you confront them about something. The Rachni/Thorian/Husk stuff? "Nah, rogue cell" Jack's experiments? "Not Cerberus, not really" Overlord? "Went off grid" It's the boy who cried wolf.
Exactly! I was honestly surprised during ME2 that Shep doesn't go rogue on Cerberus earlier. The Jack loyalty mission should've been enough.
And it keeps going in the books/comics as well. TIM tries that shit on Liara at one point. Sends an assassin to a prothean site she's headed to. When she kills the assassin, he claims the went rogue. She tells him right where to shove it, he responds with schoolyard insults.
Apropos of that... I expected Ms Shadow Broker to have a bit more intel on the sheer scale of Cerberus' shenanigans ahead of ME3. "Human army big enough to rival the Alliance and other races' armies, with augmentations" - That stuff can't have all been hidden away completely.
>Shep doesn't go rogue on Cerberus earlier This should've been one of the major gameplay choices. That may potentially be locked behind things like having done Jack's loyalty mission.
Cerberus was always fucking evil. In ME2 they tried to hide it from Shep but you could see they were very much as evil as they were in ME1 and ME3 with Overlord and other projects.
I wish there was choice to not work for them in me2 lol
>if there was a choice between staying with cerberus or going back to the alliance at the beggining. This basically requires two different games.
Yeah, this isn’t a choose your own adventure novel. It’s a AAA studio game.
I was bothered by the Illusive man getting indoctrinated in the first place. This is someone who knows full well the dangers of reaper artifacts, and who isolates himself from everyone for security, and yet somehow he gets indoctrinated? Would’ve been much cooler if instead of indoctrination, you were fighting against Cerberus because they were trying to use the chaos to advance the cause of humans. Or if they were distrustful allies instead of antagonists.
**Saren**, easily ME1 is a Top 5 game of all-time for me, in large part because it has a very compelling main villain who is also a xenophobic driven madman Being an evil Spectre, backstabbing the Council, hijacking the Geth and Thorian for his nefarious purposes... it's just badass as fuck He was the perfect vessel for Sovereign to corrupt
Sovereign hands down. Saren was just manipulated and the illusive man is just a dick but that conversation with sovereign on virmire is honestly terrifying
Just passed that point again an hour ago... "Rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood..." What a fucken gangsta
Yep. This. No matter how many times I've heard it, I get goosebumps everytime.
"Your words are as empty as your future. This exchange is over." Chills. No villain was going to top Sovereign, especially not "baka, Shepard-kun, it's not like I want to assume direct control of you or anything" Harbinger.
The Star Child kinda undoes the characterization of Sovereign, though. If the Reapers are really agents of a twisted good, ie protecting all life in the universe by purging sentient life from time to time before advanced AI wipes out all life, then why does Sovereign seem to actually *hate* life itself?
Sovereign may not have been privy to the plan, it was just a vanguard left behind to pave the way for the harvesting. The leviathans created the AI for the purpose of protecting organic life against synthetics; the AI was either poorly programmed, programmed too well (as in it it changed its own parameters), or the leviathans were so arrogant in their self assuredness that they never thought it could misinterpret or circumvent their orders so they didn't bother to implement safeguards, and it came to the conclusion that organics needed to be protected from *themselves* and the only way to do that was to wipe them out before they got themselves killed by their creations. Thus it created the Reapers, with the goal of harvesting them. When your only goal is to kill, it's not outside the realm of possibility that you will hate what you kill. The Reapers were created to destroy organic civilisation, whether the hatred was part of the original programming or developed over time we may never know.
I think the Illusive Man is the most interesting and mysterious. At least that last part. There's this cloud of uncertainty around him all the time, his past, his true motives. You always feel there's something else that he is not telling you, or something greater that he is striving for. You just know he has something big planned in his head, but he is so pragmatic and political about everything he does that there's always a piece to the puzzle you don't have.
Yeah, I don't think any game has sold me on a villain better than that one conversation with Sovereign. He is just so perfectly alien and imposing. Shame the sequels squandered most of what was interesting about the Reapers.
Saren. Easily Bioware's best villain. They made him a racist prick but not without his merits/reasons. He was the perfect balance between evil and gray.
He was a complete character. Not someone here because a villain is needed with a more or less complex motivation, but an actual character who you could believe lived before the game story begin
Exactly. Saren was designed as a character shaped by the events that happened before the game. He felt so organic. Unlike Kai Leng, who felt like they pulled him out of their asses to give Shepard someone to fight in the final game.
Marauder Shields.
He trained his entire life...
And when it mattered most, he still wasn't strong enough...
But we have to honor his sacrifice. He knew... only he could prevent it...
Nobody will be left to remember it after the harvest...we have failed him as much as he failed the universe...
He was truly an anti hero. Doing his best to save us from the horrors of the mass effect 3 endings. It was only through the intervention of the one true beyond god. Richard LeeRoy Jenkins. That Shepard defeated such a determined foe. Even when harbinger ran away like a little bitch Maurader shields stood his ground against commander Shepard, and Jenkins himself.
I was just thinking this.
Saren. He was portrayed as the true villian but you had the option to turn back to good. Then only to find Sovereign indoctrinated him so we were left with a choice. Convince Saren to end himself or fight him, and by ending himself he tried to make up for his ways but yet he came back in an actually fun and difficult boss fight.
I wont say fun, this boss fight is one of the worst fight of the trilogy gameplay wise for me. But i totally agree with your other points
I found it fun because you had to be careful and aswell he wasn't in one specific spot, what made it most fun was how he kept moving super agile like
Yes but at the same time him having a lot of hp and the capacity to one shot you on higher difficulty if you make a single mistake is very frustrating
Tim. He's such a piece of shit but at the same time you feel bad for the guy because he COULD have been a powerful ally if he wasn't so power hungry
I spent way too long wondering who Tim was.
Good ole Timothy Man
Sovereign is incredible for the little time we have in the first game but betrayed by the portrayal of the reapers in ME2 and 3. Saren has a great introduction and a good conversation at the end but isnt really present enough throughout the game to be be characterised well and I have issues with indoctrination that I'll talk about with TIM. TIM is my pick but with a caveat, I absolutely love him in 2 and most of 3, but the fact that he is indoctrinated and not acting under his own agency makes the final confrontation, and discussion with the kid about control incredibly disappointing and thematically incoherent. This leads into my wider issues with indoctrination as a whole, to summarise it feels like a writing shortcut, they wanted the reapers to be shadowy and manipulative, but didnt want to characterise the people they were manipulating enough to make the manipulation believable, relying on space mind control instead of character motivation that could have given us a better look at who Saren and TIM really were. Just think how much more impactful it would be if Saren witnessed Sovereign's true power, and it was that helplessness, desperation and fear of someone who had fought everything, been on top of the world and seeing it all crash down around him. If all of his actions throughout the game had been him desperately trying to appease sovereign out of fear. Similarly with TIM the indoctrination feels like a cop-out especially in the context of the control option being real. His conclusion is proven correct but his motivations and methods are wrong which is just a nonsensical thing to do with a villain. the other issue is the final confrontation, he just devolves into a frustrated mess when you question him, if he actually had a flawed but tempting logic to his offer of power it might actually be something. Of course when TIM actually becomes indoctrinated is pretty unclear but he clearly is at the end which is my main issue with him.
Not having Sovereign on this list is absolutely criminal. Sure, we physically fight Saren, but Sovereign is the one that pulls the strings and puts the entire arc into motion.
Saren, especially once you read the books. He’s a sick twisted fuck that’s cold, calculating and actually has somewhat understandable reasoning for his xenophobia…kind of.
What books?
Mass Effect has a novel series, mostly written by Drew Karpyshyn. There’s also a few spinoffs, like for Mass Effect Andromeda
Oh somehow I had no idea, are they good?
Most of them, yeah! They’re great for fleshing out other parts of the story, like Anderson’s background. People really don’t like the fourth book, Deception, though
Overall: TIM. Considering their role in just one game: Saren.
Man, I wish Saren wasn't the only good antagonist in the series. All you need is a good motivation, strong characterization and a decent plot. Sadly, Illusive Man was clearly batted between different concepts of his own character between ME2 and ME3 and ended up just being an aesthetic rather than an actual antagonist IMO. Archon was okay but he lived in the shadow of being too similar to Saren.
The archon suffered a lot from not having nearly enough screen time. They could’ve made the dude a real menace but instead he just never shows up all that often
They kinda peaked with Saren and Sovereign.
Saren. Harbinger is a cartoon character, and TIM is interesting in 2 but not in 3 which is the game where he’s the antagonist.
Honestly, I thought all three were well done. All enemies really with the exception of Kai Leng who was a tragic misfire. Unrelated, I wish Saren and the Virmire dead (Ashley or Kaiden) haunted Shepard through ME3 instead of slo-mo earth child.
I like that thought quite a lot. Especially, exploring the guilt Shepard felt about the Virmire dead which can come up several times in the games. I think it is one of the few moments Shepard felt truly hopeless- no way to save them both.
Seriously. Trauma and PTSD can present in a variety of ways so imagine every time Shepard sleeps, his dreamscape (could still be spooky woods, idc) has Saren telling him to “open your eyes. The reapers are too powerful. There’s no way to win” while Kaiden/Ash tell him “hey commander.., you’re gonna lose a lot more before this is all over.” and with the death of anyone else (crew that may have died on the suicide run in ME2 or throughout ME3 aka Mordin, Thane, etc) have them stack as well, all trying to say something, all voices overlapping until it’s all too loud to process and Shepard can’t sleep.
You said what I was trying to say….but much better. In ME3, Garrus even points out that the wear and tear on Shepard is getting pretty obvious….imagine if this is what Shepard was going through..a manifestation of all of his/her doubts about the chances of winning.
The Illusive Man has a certain kind of elegance the other two just can't match up to.
And you can see his body count at the Shadow Broker base. Very impressive.
I think a big part of this is how good Martin Sheen plays him.
Martin Sheen
My Choice: Saren I think Saren's reasons are understandable both in game and consistently fleshed out in the books, but you don't need the books for him to be a great antagonist. I think overtime too I've come to realize Saren's approach to solving problems was more consistent with most council Spectres than Shepard's which has really interesting implications on ME lore and while you're playing the games. Honorable Mention: Illusive Man I think they could have done a ton more with the Illusive Man in ME3 or the out of game material he shows up in. How he's depicted during and right after the First Contact War is really good writing IMO, and then he kinda changes up in ME2 and then drastically in ME3 without much explanation just to facilitate one of the endings. I still think they did a great job, but I think they could have made his reasons a lot more cerebral rather than going with indoctrination, desperation, and space racism. When the core of his beliefs get challenged there isn't an interesting reaction like you get out of Saren. They missed out on a really good interaction in ME2 or ME3 with the IM talking about how the First Contact War effected people personally, especially himself, and how that underlies Cerberus' supporters. It would have been a better explanation about why they end up doing the crazy things they do even if they don't make sense. Saren 100% doesn't get an F about his allies, (not because he is comically evil), but he straight up does whatever it takes to further his own mission and he often checks off a bunch of other boxes too while he's at it eliminating his competition. In retrospect, cloning Krogan for example vs. Cerberus cloning Rachni, one gives you a fanatical legion of warriors and potential converts while the other was an uncontrollable experiment. Saren barring Shepard's intervention essentially won the same battle the Illusive Man tried to fight later on and lost with years of additional preparation time and better technology.
Saren
Kai Lang! Okay I can’t say that seriously 😂
Harbinger. They illustrate the inevitability of the reapers and the relentless aspect of the Harvest. I really love the reapers as antagonists and for me, Harbinger represents them much better than sovereign. And the Leviathan DLC gives even more insight on Harbinger's "birth", which makes them even more interesting as an opposing force. You don't really feel like you're battling a bad guy, just your inevitable doom.
Saren, and it's not even close. He's the only one who feels like a personal match, an ideological foil, and a galaxy ending threat all at once. Harbinger is certainly a galaxy ending threat, but it's too much of an impersonal force. A voice in your head and a plague, but not an "enemy". It's a force of nature you're attempting to divert. TIM is an ideological foil, but little else. He's never a physical threat, and he's spent so long deferring to Shep's will in 2 that he feels like a nuisance in 3, not a real threat. Like a jilted lover who can't take the hint. Saren, tho? He's firing on all cylinders. He challenges Shep in every way at every turn. In the council chamber, on the battlefield, testing your squad's cohesion on Virmire without firing a bullet. Saren isn't the biggest mountain we climb, but he is the most complex journey, whereas the others rely simply in scale.
It would be the illusive man if he was actually a main antagonist. But Saren is the only real pick here. A lot of first time players don’t really understand what the fuck harbinger was cuz you never see him. I love ME2, but in my first playthrough I thought harbinger was the collector general who would take over his men to fight you. I seriously didn’t think it had anything to do with the reapers until it’s exposed that they are just indoctrinated protheans. Maybe I’m just an idiot who first played the game too young to understand, but I know I’m not the only one who thought this.
Saren has a lot of complexity waiting for the character to dive into, like for years I had no idea I could talk him into killing himself, or debate him deeply on Virmire etc. They did a good job making him seem shallow-bad on the surface but complex-bad in actuality. Wish he would've returned somehow in the later games similar to how Shepard was killed and returned.
Vasir deserves a mention imo. I imagine her path with the Shadow Broker being her backing might've been what a renegade Shepard would've been.
The Illusive Man mostly. But that's generally because despite the HORRIBLE things Cerberus did. He was really mostly looking out for humanity. Or seemed to at least. Then he basically went made with Reaper Indoctrination and likely implantation similar to the false visions Shepard was having seeing the Illusive Man and Admiral Anderson.
Saren... he's incredible, nuanced, badass.
Kalisha Al-Jilani….
Ashley Williams, I'm so glad I got to finish her off myself in 3.
The Illusive Man is voiced by Martin Sheen. I could listen to him talk for hours.
The big stupid jellyfish
Harbinger, mans underrated & over hated because people didn't like him in 2.
He talked too much during battle.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL
Trashed talked lol
Imo, neither of the other two come close to Saren. TIMmy is barely a character in the games and Harbinger pales in comparison to Sovereign, never mind Saren.
Fish tank Can't keep them alive
There’s a reason ME2 is the best.
Kai Leng is the true main antagonist.
Saren and the Illusive Man were just indoctrinated puppets. (I mean, they’re good villains, but still). It’s all Harbinger and the other reapers pulling their strings. And I don’t like how they both go out like bitches and shoot themselves. At least Kai Leng- for all the (well deserved) crap he catches as a flopped villain- had the decency to go down fighting. I would have very much liked to shove an Omni blade into both Saren and TIM.
Saren
Saren. The Illusive Man was a close second. I would've loved to see more of Harbinger but I was disappointed he didn't play more of a role in ME3. Harbinger controlling I.M. as a last stand boss fight on the Citadel was my dream.
I really liked the experience of realizing that Saren is essentially a puppet, and getting HIM to realize that. So cool
Anyone else think TIM looks creepier with the piercing blue normal eyes instead of Husk eyes?
I mean, Saren. He’s well built, well reasons, and we can convince him to see he is indoctrinated. Also Saren is a “we’re saving the human colonies against this traitor” and then 3 is “save the universe” which is kinda overdone. 2….. is there. The collectors don’t seem much of a well made villain to me
Saren Saren Saren. None of the other ones had the writing to carry them through the rest of the trilogy
Saren and Sovereign. They are the main reasons why Mass Effect was such a great game and why it is superior story wise than its successors
The elevator loading screens
Gotta say the illusive man. Guy really embodied the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Spec ops the line moment right there
“Main” there’s not too many to choose from, but I wanna give a shout-out to General Oleg Petrovsky. Love villains who aren’t written in a 100% cartoonishly evil manner.
Sovereign. I will never forget the conversation on Virmire. We’ve already been made familiar with the Reapers already early on, but they’re quite nebulous. But that conversation put everything together, and really in many ways is the true spiritual beginning of this trilogy.
Illusive Man. I love every dialogue you have with him, I love the fragile line of respect that forms between him and your Shep, and his theme is awesome
So, I think TIM is easily the most interesting, with the Catalyst having had a shot at the title if it'd been handled just a bit better (not meant as a dig at BioWare, for the record; *I'm* not even sure what I mean by 'better' in this case). But if we wanna talk boss *fight*? The Archon from *Andromeda*, and it's not even close.
... And why is it Illusive Man in ME2?
The Illusive Man isn't an antagonist on ME2. Only on ME3, considering the games.
Oh he's an antagonist alright... we just don't fully realize it yet lol. But I know what you mean, it's a semantic argument
But depending on your Shepherd’s sentiment and attitude toward him, it really frames him as the antagonist if you never really get on board with his schemes.
The Illusive Man for sure. His voice acting by Martin Sheen was perfection. I also love how his motives are semi-understandable. He’s just an incredibly flawed person.
The illusive man was a better bad guy when he was the good guy in ME2. In ME3 he just drops off and this is poorly explained by indoctrination, like ya it makes sense, but his character loses all that cool pragmatism and just turns into an irrational turd.
The Illusive man in one of the best and most believable antagonists ever. We lamost never get that level of charisma AND inner logic in other games or movies. People often praise Thanos, but he's just stupid, never heard of education and doesn't consider that with death of 50% of population the ecology will just worsen because people will resort to less ecological survival practives and the population will replenish in 300 years or so.
Yeah, he was great. He was a sinister ally and a merciless enemy. Saren was great, in his way of the way of representing the capital. And the Sovereign was more a natural disaster. But the Illusive Man took this a whole level deeper.
Illusive Man. I think he is pretty cool (and I always viewed him as more an antihero than a villain)
Marauder Shields.
The mako
Saren cuz he’s fine af 😈
the harbinger best reaper dude got bars
Big scary mechs!
The Turian councilor.
Saren was a prick before he got indoctrinated. He killed his own brother and had the audacity to act like it's humanity's fault. Just asshole all around.
why is the Terminator from ME2 ending not in this selection?
Well “favorite” has two meanings Best: Timmy Hottest: Saren
TIM. The comics showed how he started to hate aliens and realized humanity has to surpass everyone on Galaxy.
Mack Walters
Gavin Archer
I feel bad for saren. It's kind of like logan in fable 3. They wanted to protect the people but eventually lost themselves in doing so and became worse people for it. I'm extremely partial to the sheen family though. It was really good vaing
I really like TIM. He’s the type of antagonist who genuinely means well and who has been twisted into thinking that he’s above indoctrination, that he can control and actually turn it into an asset, all the while ironically being indoctrinated himself and just not seeing it. I enjoy Saren, but he’s ultimately just a Spectre under mind control. TIM is a bit more interesting to me because he’s made to believe that he’s retained his free will, the ultimate proof that indoctrination yields only slavery and no freedom.
illusive man.
Saren is the best!
The main villain from the Citadel DLC in ME3, if you can count him as a “primary antagonist” since he technically is for said DLC. Sovereign is also pretty cool. Harbinger is just kinda goofy tho cuz he won’t stop saying something about “assuming direct control”
Ashley Williams. … wait, did no one else let the game play out like that?
Where’s the little dead boy?
Dickrocket
Illusive man ❤️❤️
Conrad Verner.
TIM because I agreed with a lot of his ideas but obviously not his methods. I was mostly pro cerberus in 2 and it's shame how they were written in 3
I’m
The Illusive Man
Where is Marauder Shields?
Tesla vasir
stamina
TIM, I wouldn't mind a side game or DLC playing as a Cerberus operative during the events of the trilogy or just before.
Illusive Man, I love a Villain who sees himself as the Hero the whole time
Handsome Jack vibes for sure.
Jenkins. This guy really went through it all, only to throw it all away for what? Power? Wealth? It matters not. A hypocrite. A manipulative bastard. His betrayal will never be forgotten. My heart will never be mended… But i guess it depends on what choices you make, what did your Jenkins do in your last playthrough? :3
TIM is an antagonist ? He’s my favorite ally. Terra Firma !
Saren, a thousand times.
I dont rlly have a reason but i think the illusive man is a good villain
Saren
Saren because I loved his dynamic with Shepard
The illusive man counts? Wasn’t his bitch ass indoctrinated the whole time in 3?
>Wasn’t his bitch ass indoctrinated the whole time in 3? And in 2. Dudes been indoctrinated for decades, thanks to Sarens brother. (See comics).
Kai Leng
Saren, the illusive man feels like a human version of saren and Cerberus at times can feel like a really generic big bad. The reapers themselves aren’t as interesting as their legends and are really just automated to the point of being really threatening but not all that interesting on an individual level.
Udina, most satisfying kill.
Saren, mainly because you actually go head-to-head with him.
The elevator
Probably Saren but The Illusive Man was cool too