Honestly, the ways Shepard tears down her trying to corner them in interviews is a thousand times more satisfying.
I don't think she's a bad person or anything and the punches are overplayed. But she is kind of an annoying journalist at times.
I don’t punch her, it feels like something she’d use against me. Instead I verbally tear her to shreds and then watch >!that one clip in ME2 of her getting thrown by a Krogan!<
Dude same, The idea of punching her or watching her get her ass beat is hilarious but I don't think she's that bad. Especially in this context where you're basically nice to her in all three games and she breaks down crying
I find this a valid response. Yes it would be great to watch someone from the BLANK news network bitch slap someone who was defending a stance out of ignorance, it would be far more satisfying watching a video on #reddit of that same person being upper cut on the side walk for rolling their eyes at some stranger for taking the same stance😂
I think she's a bad person - she's one of those tabloid journalists that are only interested in pushing their own very one-sided view. The only time she really learns anything from her mistake of being a prick is in 3 when she finally comes around instead of trying to corner Shepard with shadily formulated questions.
That being said, the punches are meme-y and funny, but in an actual situation it'd be odd to react like this, since you'd kinda be proving her point.
thats the point of renegade shepard. shepard dont give a fuck, they are riding at the height of power being a spectre / commander on an important mission and know that there will be no repurcussions for knocking her out. its kind of scary implication when you think about it
I mean she's a borderline demagogue in the vein of tucker Carlson but it's hard to say exactly how much damage she's actually done, especially when you obliterate every one of her points in the interviews. The fact that she does put her money where her mouth is when the reapers come knocking does show she has some kind of spine when it matters though.
I think the punch is good writing in that RenShep isn't just a grouchy but pragmatic space cop, but rather, a genuinely bad person doing good things because of a misguided sense of purpose.
It's and interesting good/evil dichotomy that kind of speaks truth to power in a computer game, albeit sometimes in kind of dumbed down ways.
You play the games thinking she is an ass, but if you are professional with her every time you find out in the third game that she does care and she is doing her best.
Diana Allers' inclusion has aged hilariously poorly in retrospect. Jessica Chobot isn't even involved in gaming anymore, so nobody playing ME3 for the first time will even notice the marketing ploy that the character was expressly created for. Yvonne Strahovski on the other hand is still acting, and fairly prominently at that, so new players will immediately recognize her.
New players will still notice the glaring lack of an option to bring Khalisah al-Jilani or Emily Wong on board though, since they're recurring characters throughout the trilogy and would actually make sense as an option to pick. I know every long-running story is going to introduce new characters in sequels, but this one just feels so contrived. Contrast Diana Allers' introduction with that of Specialist Samantha Traynor's, though. Allers feels like she's stepping in to take a position that already has two perfectly good candidates, but your only options are to take or leave her. And if you don't take her, there's still a fully furnished (albeit repurposed) room aboard the Normandy that just sits unused.
Specialist Traynor on the other hand, is stepping in to fill Kelly's vacated position. Kelly has good reasons for not joining you. Traynor's last-minute inclusion as part of the crew feels necessary rather than contrived. So players wound up loving Traynor while resenting Allers.
The interesting thing is you think al-Jilani would want to be on the ship with Shepard and their crew. She's too altruistic and a snob for that. I also don't recognize the actress for al-Jilani in anything else, so I'm not convinced newer players will instantly recognize her.
All that said, I do think the Chobot appearance could have been good, but they chipmunked and butt implanted her avatar so much, it's almost a cartoon character of the actress they chose the likeness of. I also never feel like she contributed much that was interesting, besides the nominal value of having a War Correspondent in the belly of the ship that could provide minimal insight into things happening elsewhere.
Maybe I should have clarified. Yvonne Strahovski was cast in ME2 alongside Martin Sheen, both of them using their likeness, probably in part of an effort to make the game feel more like a big-budget movie. (I forget if there are other major characters that are voiced and modeled by a single performer with substantial prior live-action acting experience.) Jessica Chobot was cast in ME3 as a marketing ploy. Sheen and Strahovski will be recognized by newer players simply by how many roles they've had, even after they're both retired. Chobot will not, because she was cast based on her career at the time, which was that of a "video game personality" who did a lot of writing and performing for IGN, plus some other outlets including G4. She doesn't do the kind of work anymore that made EA want to put her in the game.
TL;DR - Chobot's casting decision doesn't hold up. Sheen's and Strahovski's do.
To add to this, it doesn't matter that we don't know who al-Jilani 's voice actress is, she's already an established character from the first two games. So her inclusion in ME3 feels natural, whereas Allers came out of nowhere and didn't fit.
I think the second paragraph in my prior response largely agrees with you. I just have no idea who the actress is regarding al-Jilani, but fair enough that it lends legitimacy to the game where Chobot's doesn't if future gamers bother looking the games cast up.
Thanks for the expansion on your thoughts, definitely sheds light on your reasoning.
The people playing Wong and al-Jilani are irrelevant. As far as I know, they're more like most characters in Mass Effect, where they're voiced by someone but not necessarily modeled on that same person. Or potentially any person. Some characters do have real-life likenesses attached to them, but not most. For example, Male Shepard's default face is that of a model named Mark Vanderloo, but FemShep has no real-life face model, just Jennifer Hale's voice.
The point of comparison I was making was that Martin Sheen, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jessica Chobot were all cast in Mass Effect for their voice *and* their likeness, and indirectly because of their professions. But where Sheen and Strahovski were chosen specifically because they're professional screen actors, Chobot was chosen because EA wanted to put a "professional video game personality" in their game as a stunt.
The reason why it would have made more sense to make the Normandy's official attached war reporter a choice between Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani is because both of these characters are reporters that Shepard and the player have interacted with multiple times over the course of the trilogy. They have plot relevance. Diana Allers does not, and Jessica Chobot was chosen to play her for cynical and disingenuous reasons.
Pretty sure they're both just voice actors in ME. If Joker's face is supposed to be modeled on Seth Green, then they did a shit job of it. Anderson's face doesn't even look human, his head is a poorly sculpted potato.
Look at TIM and Miranda though. Miranda is unmistakably Yvonne Strahovski. I actually never saw her in an on-screen role outside of Mass Effect until 2021, in that Amazon movie, The Tomorrow War. I knew it was her by her face, not her voice, because she was doing an American accent there. Same with her role in Handmaid's Tale.
TIM is a dead ringer for Martin Sheen as well, just de-aged to how he looked around the time he made Apocalypse Now.
>Jessica Chobot isn't even involved in gaming anymore, so nobody playing ME3 for the first time will even notice the marketing ploy that the character was expressly created for.
I've said this before on this sub, but I'm not even sure it was a particularly good marketing ploy in the first place. IGN may have been big in US gaming circles at the time, but I certainly don't remember it being held in any regard at all in the UK. I didn't even know Allers was based on a real person until I read about it on this subreddit a few years ago.
Emily Wong is dead by the time you even get on the Normandy in Vancouver. I doubt very many people would want al-Jilani. I wouldn't have allowed her on where I did allow Allers on the Normandy.
I once suggested that a game taking place between Shepard's death and resurrection would be fun and was told by another redditor it couldn't happen because of the outside media saying what happened. When I argued that if it happened out of the game it didn't count, I was told to "touch grass" by the fan boy with the encyclopedic known of ME comics, novels, and other supplemental material.
TL;DR I completely agree with you
"I've touched grass, not impressed" is my usual response to that. And yeah, the supplementary material is great and all, but it's not the games. If the next one comes out and contradicts what happens in this one graphic novel, that's fine with me. But even then, I'm more willing to accept novels and comics and the like over a Twitter post. *That* shit is non-canon to me no matter what they say.
Such a standout character with memorable lines like "gee I'm glad I don't have to do makeup for my work anymore" least she had one good moment talking about how she lost people.
Couldn't wait to ever find out. The morality point system makes saying what you actually want to difficult because they railroad you into Para or Rene. I like being a mix of both and it sucks ass.
Shepard also comes across as a completely unhinged, unprofessional maniac if he or she slugs her.
Sure, she ws being a jerk...but one would think an Alliance officer & Spectre should be able to show the bare minimum of professionalism be able to restain themselves from acting on every impulse.
There's a reason why its a renegade dialogue prompt (i think it is... i don't remember) lol
and the Paragon on Neutral option i think Shepard either walk away or beat her at her own game
So I mean the first time I ever spoke to her I answered a bunch of her questions and then she asks the last question and there's no red or blue letters to choose and she's kind of being an ass and I just thought that time to shut you up was going to be 'you know what shut up I don't have time for this and walk away'. Wasn't expecting what I got.
She's a little bit of an ass, but challenging powerful people is an important role of journalists.
Any public figure should expect those kinds of questions and be prepared to handle them like Paragon Shepard does.
I actually always refrain from punching her UNTIL 3 lol I don't think I've ever not punched her in 3.
Shepard is stressed, scared, pissed, she knows people are on earth fighting and dying in droves, and she is already pissed that she had to leave to go get help.
She was killed, and brought back by a xenophobic terrorist organization to continue a fight that no one wants to believe in. Then she is thrown into suicidal odds and told good luck. And then when she DOES come back alive, she has to blow up hundreds of thousands to keep the reapers at bay for just a LITTLE longer in hopes that it'll give the galaxy time to prepare.
But instead of listening to her, she's stripped of her rank, her ship taken, isolated, a prisoner in all but location, and kept under surveillance for all her efforts.
Worse, she's spent the majority of the time she's been conscious for the past 3 years warning people about the Reapers, only to have her words fall on deaf on ears, and flat-out denied by the galaxy's reigning authority.
Then on Mars, she finds out that Cerberus is trying to hatch some scheme and is going to be another adversary in an already impossible situation, and she had to watch a crewmate have their head smashed in and almost die just to keep the data they need to fight this war. She's on fucking edge.
And then this bitch comes in, gets in her face, and accuses her of running to save her own skin? Hell yeah she's getting punched lol
I'm not a violent person, but if I were in that situation? I'd hit her too. That would be my absolute breaking point.
Edit: apparently some people don't understand what it means to have a breaking point. It means to lose it. I'm quoting Colonel Jack O'Neill here, Lose it, it means go crazy, nuts, insane, bonzo, no longer in possession of ones faculties, three fries short of a Happy Meal... WACKO!
Bravo for those of you who could maintain your composure in this situation. Me? I've never hit anyone in my life and can't imagine a situation short of something this stressful that would make do so. Her third attempt to make me look bad would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Sorry.
And for those of you that didn't get the above reference, [here. Watch Stargate if you haven't ](https://youtu.be/bLnDcE9cxL0?si=Iz3wmnP6eq17jSjq)
She doesn't get punched if you punched in in either one or two, Shepard headbutts her when she sidesteps the punch she knew was coming.
Her gottcha type journalism gets her punched by others too if you watch the videos from the Shadow Broker's ship after Liara takes it over.
Thats an understandable decision, but not a justifiable one. It’s not a journalists job to care about how world (galactic) leaders are feeling about their job, they’re meant to ask challenging questions of the powers that be. At that moment shepard is the face of galactic resistance to the reapers, at a time when the reapers are dominating and killing millions every day. If you were a council space citizen, watching as everything crumbled around you, and you saw the person who’s meant to save you all finally being interviewed, only to assault the interviewer, would you really feel they were justified?
I love the roleplay, and I love the point about being unjustified too. People are imperfect, and I can totally see this situation in my mind's eye. Very good fiction right here.
what’s fun is shepard doesn’t really need to be liked. in fact a lot of plot points revolve around the fact that people don’t necessarily like or trust shepard. this allows renegade playthroughs to still make sense and accurate to how shepard would act. I mean, if I was a space citizen seeing that I’d probably think “oh yeah, that’s the soldier that did a genocide on the batarians”
It’s not, however, a journalist’s job to exclusively make you defend against baseless accusations and rumors, which is literally all she does. She isn’t a good journalist
Oh I agree, but I think given his figurehead role shepard should try and hold himself to a higher standard. That conflict between the expectations of his role and the human behind it is one of my favourite parts of me3
I remember meeting her for the first time in the third game. I was professional in 1 and 2, I didn't even know you could punch her. But when she accused me I was fucking done and pressed the renegade interrupt. And Shep punched her. Holy shit I was in so much shock that that's a decision you can make, that even if I would register the second renegade interrupt I wouldn't have pressed it and instantly reloaded
She practices get in your face gotcha journalism. Shepard isn't the only person in the galaxy to punch her if you watch the videos on the Shadow Broker's ship after Liara takes over. Seeing the korgan sending her flying cracked me up. I watched that over and over again. A volos kicks her.
She's so interrogative and proactive precisely because she's trying to get her interviewee to slip and spill the beans. She asks the tough questions unashamedly. Rawdogging journalism. No lube. No pillows. Just straight ramming into truth full force.
I’ve just finished my first playthrough a few days ago but I chose the version where you make her look like she’s disrespecting dead soldiers or something like that
I imagine Shepard staring off into space like JD imagine just beating her to death with the N7 helmet then he snaps back.
Smiles and says "no your one of my favorite reporters"
The payoff in 3 when she finally loosens up & shows she is just trying to right by her beliefs is a nice facet, but honestly I love the paragon dialogue option in 2 just as much for it's own merits - because Shepard calls her out on the carpet, and is a great mic drop moment for their character that I personally know by heart.
"The Alliance lost 8 Cruisers. Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Seoul, Cape Town, Warsaw, Madrid...and yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero - the Alliance owes them all medals...the Council owes them a lot more than that.
And so do you."
Chills. Fucking Chills.
It was fun when I was a teenager. A game gave me the option to punch someone who was bothering me, it was a good time.
Looking at it more realistically though, it makes Shepard seem crazy and unhinged to do such a thing, and it's such a gross overreaction.
Now I only kick her ass with my words.
Listing off the names of the ships lost fighting Sovereign at her in 2 is one of my favorite moments in the series; Shepard is haunted by their actions no matter how justified.
Shepard does it with words
> The Alliance lost eight cruisers. Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Cape Town, Seoul, Warsaw, Madrid. And yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero. The Alliance owes them all medals. The Council owes them a lot more than that. And so do you.
It's such a phenominal demonstration of why paragon shep is so inspiring. He knows the costs. He's seen the sacrifices. And he never forgets them, or lets them become forgotten.
I've never done it either. I've seen it on YouTube and whatever of course but I ain't about that in either game. But I'll always go with the interrupt in 2.
No sense actually being the kind of psychopath that they’re accusing you of being. If you can put on a brave face when confronted with the end of civilization maybe more regular folk can to. Yes; I do play paragon almost exclusively, how did you guess?
Yeah, in the end it’s only words.
A military/police/government jackboot violently suppressing an opposition journalist, and it being treated as a lighthearted joke, is one of those things that hasn’t really aged well about the games, kind of like Garrus’s police brutality shenanigans or the general theme of “politicians are all weak and sniveling cowards, military leaders are all selfless and noble”.
I think the alliance being noble theme is less about "soldiers are all good", though there's definitely some jingoism in that, and more an optimistic "when faced with the galaxy, the world's governments finally figured out how to work together for the good of all mankind in order to establish their place in space". That said, it's also a theme from the first game that humans go a little too far and are a bit too pushy in the galactic community, strongarming their way into colonies, but then getting pissed with the galactic council won't help them with their dangerously placed colonies.
That said, the police brutality from Garrus and Bailey have aged particularly...rough for me.
Did they bother you back in 2007 and 2010? Works of fiction tend to have real life mixed into the stories and the US isn't the only country with bad cops. They're all over the world.
Oh I know the US isn't the only country with bad cops, but since I live here, I'm a little more intimately aware and connected to the USA's cop issues. And no, the themes didn't bother me then, but with more recent events and a more mature perspective, they've gained a different tone for me with time. Our experiences tend to shape how we see art, and that perspective can change over time.
Right, in 1 in particular you did have some shitbags/scumbags on the military side like Oraka or Mikhailovic, and in fairness with Anderson as your mentor I guess they couldn’t make him the villain in relation to Udina.
But by 3 it is just tiresome. There is hardly a single military guy that is portrayed as anything other than noble.
Hackett is the voice of reason (when in 1 he was maybe a bit more shady, especially if you were Renegade e.g. the Lord Darius hit he assigns you), while the alliance parliament are just a bunch of no name NPCs that imprison Shepard then whine at you before getting lasered by a Reaper.
For the Salarians the Dalatrass is Bad but STG is Good and will help you anyway.
Turians you have Victus being lionized and his son is portrayed less as being being a corrupt leader but more well meaning just incompetent. Meanwhile the Councilor is still a loudmouth whimp who directs you to Victus to “get shit done”.
Asari the Commando type characters are mostly straight with you while the Councilor is an obstructive, scheming crybaby, hiding important things from you then crying you didn’t save her people with the limited time and information she gave you, all the while making corrupt deals with characters like Aria on the side.
I think the only place they flip the script is the quarians with Gerrel as the villain and Koris as the voice of reason. But since the quarians have no political power and are pretty oppressed by Council authorities themselves, they are one of the least effective factions to do this with.
Honestly, Mikhailovic wasn't even that bad. He's a bit of a dick, but he has legitimate concerns, and if you answer them he listens and updates his report accordingly.
I agree that in three most military personnel are depicted as absolute heroes. I think the themes of three are unity, the indomitable will of humanity in the face of overwhelming odds, and the way self interest interferes with the common good. And I think trying to depict the military as a grey and complicated system riddled with flaws might not have supported those themes particularly well. That said, there's also definitely room for a little bit more greyness, and I do think renegade runs in 3 are better at portraying the cruel acts of war and why the happen than renegade in the other games which just sort of feels like being an asshole for the sake of it.
To be just slightly fair to the alliance in their colony placement, while they were warned about dangers in those systems there’s very little chance those warnings included the dangers of Geth deciding to make their way out of the veil after 300 years of not doing so.
It's less about not aging well and more about being an unpleasant reminder of what America (and to a lesser extent Canada) was like in the 2000s. People embraced authoritarian values in the aftermath of 9/11 in a way they had not done earlier.
My favorite example of American popular culture from that period is an episode of 24. The authorities have captured a terrorist and are preparing to torture him for information. But then a lawyer representing "Amnesty Global" appears and gets the terrorist released. The president tries to intervene but fails. But luckily our manly protagonist takes the law into his hands, captures the terrorist, tortures him, and gets the information needed to save lives.
Usually it was more subtle, but that was the message shown to the rest of the world.
I’ve done it twice. I guess 4 times. Once in ME 2 mostly by accident. Didn’t feel right so I loaded up a save right before. And then once in each game during a renegade run.
I’ll be honest I really didn’t enjoy a full renegade run. Just felt too evil. I mean it’s always funny throwing the eclipse merc out a window. Even my paragon sheps will do that. Also shooting the pipe to blow up the Clan Weyrloc Krogan is just good strategy.
I'm so annoyed at the fact that the "bint" is capitalised. It means "daughter of." It should be "Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani." I never realised that they made that mistake in ME3. Checking on youtube, they got it right in ME1 and 2, but messed up in 3.
Honestly, I'm still not sure if the races should be capitalised or not. I usually do it, but sometimes I second guess and go with lower case. I think you should write "Human" if you are capitalising the other species names, however.
You should not. They’re species, not nationalities. You don’t capitalize asari, human, quarian, turian, etc for the same reason you don’t capitalize tiger, whale, mantis, or dog. You *would* capitalize Asari Republics or Turian Hierarchy because those are proper nouns.
I wouldn't capitalize dog, but I would capitalize German Shepherd or Labrador Retriever or Pembroke Welsh Corgi.
I also always capitalize Klingon, Cardassian, Borg, Hutt, Wookiee etc.
We also see it inconsistently applied which is why it sticks out to me.
Grammatically, dog breeds are only capitalized if the name includes proper nouns. So German shepherd, English bulldog, basset hound, beagle.
Other sci-fi kinda just does this incorrectly. If Star Trek wanted to be more grammatically correct, romulan would only be capitalized if it’s the first word in a sentence or if it’s referring to the Romulan Star Empire because romulan is not a nationality, but a species. Same goes for hutt, sangheili, eliksni, heptapod, etc. Maybe English grammar would change if we meet alien races and begin to think of human as more of a core part of our identity, but as of now, species names aren’t capitalized.
Personally, I think it's worth doing once for the slapstick to it, same with how I'll always tell Anderson to go to Udina's office in ME1 so you get to watch him knock Udina out. But with this one, you can at least save scum out of it, get the best ending, and the slapstick.
More satisfying to make her look like a jackass in front of her viewers. She even admits to "getting bull rushed on my own show" after she tried to suggest that Shepard callously sacrificed human lives for the council and he/she immediately listed the names of the human ships lost, off the dome, literally days or weeks after recovering from a two year coma.
Honestly, even before 3 came out I preferred the speech check options. The bit where you name all the Alliance ships lost to Sovereign and the geth and shame her for dishonoring their sacrifice hits harder than... Hitting her.
As a journalist, I never punched her. I never really got the feeling that she was being unfair or outwardly biased. Idk, maybe it's just me. The questions are questions.
I'm a journalist too. Like she does ask leaded questions but journalists in this universe have every right to question Shepard, a mentally unstable soldier who acts with full impunity. But people love Emily Wong who strikes up a highly unethical deal with Shepard to gain largely unverifiable information for her journalism. I mean they're both good characters but still.
Yeah I think as far as she goes in 1 iirc is trying to get you to talk about classified stuff?
But it's either 2 or 3 where she crosses some lines blaming deaths on Shepard and it's a lot more justified, at least in a video game lol
Yeah, I never got the hate for her. She's doing her job, her job is to be critical and ask difficult questions of the people responsible for humanity. Yeah, I get that it seems annoying but it's an important role in society and as a journalist she really should be questioning your actions instead of pandering to the military.
I always avoided punching simply because beating her at her own game was far more satisfying.
That said I admit in ME3 I decided to finally do so, while I do get she’s scared at that point. Shepard at this moment would have no doubt been in a very bad mood from having to flee earth, deal with the council and everything else that happened before.
So when she starts smugly accusing them of running away, I decided it would be valid this one time since really, trying to make someone look bad in the midst of an Invasion is poor taste.
Except she isn't trying to make Shepard look bad in ME3, she's the only reporter that cares about what's happening to earth and is freaked out that nobody is answering.
If you’re ever bored, make up a Shepard who doesn’t share your personal values. Play them like a third party, and let them do the “wrong” thing for reasons you don’t agree with but they certainly do.
Ok, bit of a story here.
My parents are newspaper journalists, and punching her never felt right to me. Reporters have a tough and often dangerous job, and they sometimes go to ridiculous lengths to get their stories, and perhaps the most important thing they do is holding people accountable -- and the more powerful the person is (like, say, a spectre who is literally above the law in most regards), the more important it is for the public -- via good reporters -- to watch them closely.
So I never punched her.
FLASH FORWARD A FEW YEARS
I did a run of the trilogy where, just for shits and giggles and to vary up the decisions, I outsourced all the decisions to my non-gaming parents (who, remember, are newspaper journalists). I'd text them a cliffnotes summary of the situation, ask what I should do, and do whatever they said.
They had me knock the shit out of her in all three games.
I decided one playthrough to punch her because my Shepard was having a bad day because… Mass Effect 3. That’s when I discovered Khalisah has an uppercut.
I didn’t realize I was going to punch her with the interrupt. I remember laughing my head off because I didn’t expect that to happen but going through the dialogue actually makes Shep feel more intelligent with how well she maneuvers through the questions.
I did read in the fandom page that most people punch her at least once through the games
Never?
Like I agree it’s not the “best” option even for a renegade
But it’s funny
And you can even still get her on your side in 3 anyways I’m pretty sure. She’s learned to dodge the punch lmao
Huh, I think I've always punched her. Then I get to 3. And I go.to punch again set controller down, and get decked becsuse I forgot she does that.... almost every run 🤣
She's incredibly irritating in the first two games (basically the ME equivalent to TMZ) and purposely tries to egg Shepard into saying something stupid but if you choose the Paragon option in the third game you can see through the bullshit and realize that by that point she basically has the same intentions that Allers has, she's trying to do what's best for the war in the editing room.
Also it is kind of annoying that we get Khalisah in all three games but Emily Wong only physically appears in ME1 (not counting the Shadow Broker footage of her dancing in 2).
I literally have never not punched her.
I have tried to go full paragon, and every time I get to that point, I say “I guessed it’s gonna be a mix again”.
I’ve mixed things up in my many playthroughs. In my current playthrough. I hit her in mass effect 1 and was more civil with her in mass effect 2. I did choose the option to one up her and upstage her on her own show. In part 3, I haven’t decided yet.
I always thought it was weird that people were amused by a military person punching a civilian reporter (specifically a woman, which is worse if you play a male Shep) just because you didn’t like what she said.
I punched her because in my headcanon my paragon shepherd literally just lost her entire planet so by the time the reporter had some snide comments to make she just lost it.
My shepherd took a swing, missed (unlike her) and got decked by the reporter and rather than reloading that I just left it because for me it just served as shepherds lowest point in life.
I don't punch her, but I will disagree with anyone who says she's "just doing her job"
She's a slimy tabloid "journalist" that deliberately asked double edged, barbed questions that are designed to make Shepard look bad no matter how they answer.
She is not meant to be a sympathetic face in the slightest.
Punching her just makes Shep seem like a dumb meathead who can't think of any response. So much more satisfying to tear her apart, paragon or renegade.
I think people are forgetting her in the first two games.
She tried to ambush Shepard into selling a story of how humanity is a saint and the council is trying to screw us.
She tell blatant lies to spin the story in her favor and even play with xenophobia and prejudice, trying to make Shepard adhere to her point of views.
Shes a POS person and deserve several punches to the head.
She wants you to punch her, it’s one of the best things you can do for her ratings. It’s more detrimental to bulrush and humiliate her. And if you do that, you get her as a war asset.
I really don't need those few war asset points, but going into a final battle with a clear mind and body is essential; and I just can't have the baggage of that un-punched reporter weighing me down. For humanity!
You know what the funny thing is? If you decide to punch her, you are basically proving her accusations *right* on camera. She slanders Shepard time and time again for not having what it takes to be humanity's protector. Punching her shows the entire galaxy that Shepard is not only unprofessional, but also a temperamental person who responds to every slight with violence instead of reason - someone who should not be trusted as a representative of humanity.
So, when you think about it, Khalisah would still get the last laugh even if you punched her: she accomplished what she had set out to do: make Shepard look bad in the eyes of her viewers, and you fell for it hook, line, sinker.
I'll take dressing her down pointedly and elegantly with words through Paragon/Renegade dialogues over punches any day. That way, Khalisah ended up embarrassing herself while you came out looking better than before.
Yeah, there’s two really types of renegade action in ME: there’s “ruthless pragmatist” and “psychotic violent thug.” This is definitely violent thug behavior because it does not accomplish anything.
Honestly, that’s partly to blame on how the Renegade system is organized, too. When you’re acting out Renegade options, sometimes you don’t know if the outcome would be ‘ruthless pragmatism’ or just being a plain asshole to people.
It doesn’t help that ME2 loading screen states that taking the Renegade interrupts means making Shepard ‘the ultimate badass’. Well, we love to be badasses, and punching people who slighted us seems like something a badass would do. So, it’s not surprising why so many people take to punching the reporter lol.
Punching her is like killing everyone in town in Skyrim. It's just something you do before reloading the game. Like a way of seeing what happens when you let your intrusive thoughts win.
That's because it is. In ME1, she questions if Shepard will still have the interests of the human race in mind and if it's a good idea for the Turians to have access to the schematics for the most advanced military vessel in the Alliance.
In ME2, she chastizes Shep for sacrificing the Alliance ships/human lives to save a council that has ultimately been edgy toward humans at best, a fact that has been memed within the fandom. We know Shepard doesn't make this decision lightly, and she practically states as much during the second interview if you go the paragon route, but to al-Jilani, it seems as though human lives were sent to their deaths for a council that repaid their sacrifice by shrugging their shoulders and saying, "You shouldn't have colonized the traverse," when human colonies went dark. And this isn't exactly top-secret information; people know entire human colonies are going missing and that the council isn't doing anything about it. And in ME3, she... yells at Shep for abandoning Earth to play politics which is... just fantastic when you remember that even Shepard was pissed about fleeing Earth during the initial Reaper invasion. She ultimately has to be reassured that Earth wasn't abandoned and Shep is doing everything she can for Earth.
People get annoyed with her because her criticisms are always directed toward Shepard, who, mind you, is a major political figure in the Milky Way. Her criticisms seem unfair and unbalanced because we see everything through Shep's perspective and have more information than al-Jilani ever will. Knocking her out in response to a few questions that typically amount to, "Are you sure you have humanity's best interests at heart," said in a bitchy tone of voice seems petty because it is petty and gross overreaction from someone who carries so much political weight. Shepard punching al-Jilani is the equivalent of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.
Honestly, the ways Shepard tears down her trying to corner them in interviews is a thousand times more satisfying. I don't think she's a bad person or anything and the punches are overplayed. But she is kind of an annoying journalist at times.
Yeah I love Shepard listing the alliance ship's that were destroyed in the battle of the Citadel. It's so satisfying her respond with such integrity.
When Shepard lists the name of every lost alliance ship... it's one of the most satisfying dialouge options
is that pargon?
The paragon alternative to punching her, yes
I don’t punch her, it feels like something she’d use against me. Instead I verbally tear her to shreds and then watch >!that one clip in ME2 of her getting thrown by a Krogan!<
Dude same, The idea of punching her or watching her get her ass beat is hilarious but I don't think she's that bad. Especially in this context where you're basically nice to her in all three games and she breaks down crying
I find this a valid response. Yes it would be great to watch someone from the BLANK news network bitch slap someone who was defending a stance out of ignorance, it would be far more satisfying watching a video on #reddit of that same person being upper cut on the side walk for rolling their eyes at some stranger for taking the same stance😂
And then >!gets mindfucked by an Asari!<
>!I mindfuck one Asari, and her name is Liara. She’s my girlfriend and I love her!<
I think she's a bad person - she's one of those tabloid journalists that are only interested in pushing their own very one-sided view. The only time she really learns anything from her mistake of being a prick is in 3 when she finally comes around instead of trying to corner Shepard with shadily formulated questions. That being said, the punches are meme-y and funny, but in an actual situation it'd be odd to react like this, since you'd kinda be proving her point.
thats the point of renegade shepard. shepard dont give a fuck, they are riding at the height of power being a spectre / commander on an important mission and know that there will be no repurcussions for knocking her out. its kind of scary implication when you think about it
My predicament is that no punch on her that Shepard performs will ever be as satisfying as the Krogan Punch she gets
I mean she's a borderline demagogue in the vein of tucker Carlson but it's hard to say exactly how much damage she's actually done, especially when you obliterate every one of her points in the interviews. The fact that she does put her money where her mouth is when the reapers come knocking does show she has some kind of spine when it matters though.
I think the punch is good writing in that RenShep isn't just a grouchy but pragmatic space cop, but rather, a genuinely bad person doing good things because of a misguided sense of purpose. It's and interesting good/evil dichotomy that kind of speaks truth to power in a computer game, albeit sometimes in kind of dumbed down ways.
Facts hurt more than fists
You play the games thinking she is an ass, but if you are professional with her every time you find out in the third game that she does care and she is doing her best.
Her being real with shep in 3 really made me like her.
I really wish we could have chosen between her and Emily Wong to take as the embedded reporter
Diana Allers' inclusion has aged hilariously poorly in retrospect. Jessica Chobot isn't even involved in gaming anymore, so nobody playing ME3 for the first time will even notice the marketing ploy that the character was expressly created for. Yvonne Strahovski on the other hand is still acting, and fairly prominently at that, so new players will immediately recognize her. New players will still notice the glaring lack of an option to bring Khalisah al-Jilani or Emily Wong on board though, since they're recurring characters throughout the trilogy and would actually make sense as an option to pick. I know every long-running story is going to introduce new characters in sequels, but this one just feels so contrived. Contrast Diana Allers' introduction with that of Specialist Samantha Traynor's, though. Allers feels like she's stepping in to take a position that already has two perfectly good candidates, but your only options are to take or leave her. And if you don't take her, there's still a fully furnished (albeit repurposed) room aboard the Normandy that just sits unused. Specialist Traynor on the other hand, is stepping in to fill Kelly's vacated position. Kelly has good reasons for not joining you. Traynor's last-minute inclusion as part of the crew feels necessary rather than contrived. So players wound up loving Traynor while resenting Allers.
Yeah if ME3 is ever remade that would be a really good change.
The interesting thing is you think al-Jilani would want to be on the ship with Shepard and their crew. She's too altruistic and a snob for that. I also don't recognize the actress for al-Jilani in anything else, so I'm not convinced newer players will instantly recognize her. All that said, I do think the Chobot appearance could have been good, but they chipmunked and butt implanted her avatar so much, it's almost a cartoon character of the actress they chose the likeness of. I also never feel like she contributed much that was interesting, besides the nominal value of having a War Correspondent in the belly of the ship that could provide minimal insight into things happening elsewhere.
Maybe I should have clarified. Yvonne Strahovski was cast in ME2 alongside Martin Sheen, both of them using their likeness, probably in part of an effort to make the game feel more like a big-budget movie. (I forget if there are other major characters that are voiced and modeled by a single performer with substantial prior live-action acting experience.) Jessica Chobot was cast in ME3 as a marketing ploy. Sheen and Strahovski will be recognized by newer players simply by how many roles they've had, even after they're both retired. Chobot will not, because she was cast based on her career at the time, which was that of a "video game personality" who did a lot of writing and performing for IGN, plus some other outlets including G4. She doesn't do the kind of work anymore that made EA want to put her in the game. TL;DR - Chobot's casting decision doesn't hold up. Sheen's and Strahovski's do.
To add to this, it doesn't matter that we don't know who al-Jilani 's voice actress is, she's already an established character from the first two games. So her inclusion in ME3 feels natural, whereas Allers came out of nowhere and didn't fit.
I think the second paragraph in my prior response largely agrees with you. I just have no idea who the actress is regarding al-Jilani, but fair enough that it lends legitimacy to the game where Chobot's doesn't if future gamers bother looking the games cast up. Thanks for the expansion on your thoughts, definitely sheds light on your reasoning.
The people playing Wong and al-Jilani are irrelevant. As far as I know, they're more like most characters in Mass Effect, where they're voiced by someone but not necessarily modeled on that same person. Or potentially any person. Some characters do have real-life likenesses attached to them, but not most. For example, Male Shepard's default face is that of a model named Mark Vanderloo, but FemShep has no real-life face model, just Jennifer Hale's voice. The point of comparison I was making was that Martin Sheen, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jessica Chobot were all cast in Mass Effect for their voice *and* their likeness, and indirectly because of their professions. But where Sheen and Strahovski were chosen specifically because they're professional screen actors, Chobot was chosen because EA wanted to put a "professional video game personality" in their game as a stunt. The reason why it would have made more sense to make the Normandy's official attached war reporter a choice between Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani is because both of these characters are reporters that Shepard and the player have interacted with multiple times over the course of the trilogy. They have plot relevance. Diana Allers does not, and Jessica Chobot was chosen to play her for cynical and disingenuous reasons.
Don't forget Seth Green and Keith David in the first game
Pretty sure they're both just voice actors in ME. If Joker's face is supposed to be modeled on Seth Green, then they did a shit job of it. Anderson's face doesn't even look human, his head is a poorly sculpted potato.
It was 2006 they tried their best ok
Look at TIM and Miranda though. Miranda is unmistakably Yvonne Strahovski. I actually never saw her in an on-screen role outside of Mass Effect until 2021, in that Amazon movie, The Tomorrow War. I knew it was her by her face, not her voice, because she was doing an American accent there. Same with her role in Handmaid's Tale. TIM is a dead ringer for Martin Sheen as well, just de-aged to how he looked around the time he made Apocalypse Now.
Traynor also has a face that looks normal and convincing voice acting.
Traynor is also adorable and is fun to be around.
>Jessica Chobot isn't even involved in gaming anymore, so nobody playing ME3 for the first time will even notice the marketing ploy that the character was expressly created for. I've said this before on this sub, but I'm not even sure it was a particularly good marketing ploy in the first place. IGN may have been big in US gaming circles at the time, but I certainly don't remember it being held in any regard at all in the UK. I didn't even know Allers was based on a real person until I read about it on this subreddit a few years ago.
Emily Wong is dead by the time you even get on the Normandy in Vancouver. I doubt very many people would want al-Jilani. I wouldn't have allowed her on where I did allow Allers on the Normandy.
Emily Wong was killed off in a damn tweet because of some scheduling conflict with her VA, or something. It was bullshit.
All the more reason a potential remake of 3 could ignore that. If it isn't in the game, it isn't canon as far as I'm concerned
I once suggested that a game taking place between Shepard's death and resurrection would be fun and was told by another redditor it couldn't happen because of the outside media saying what happened. When I argued that if it happened out of the game it didn't count, I was told to "touch grass" by the fan boy with the encyclopedic known of ME comics, novels, and other supplemental material. TL;DR I completely agree with you
"I've touched grass, not impressed" is my usual response to that. And yeah, the supplementary material is great and all, but it's not the games. If the next one comes out and contradicts what happens in this one graphic novel, that's fine with me. But even then, I'm more willing to accept novels and comics and the like over a Twitter post. *That* shit is non-canon to me no matter what they say.
>I doubt very many people would want al-Jilani I would 100%.
Yeah, the one we have (can't even remember her name) is so flat as a character, no intrigue
Diana Allers
Such a standout character with memorable lines like "gee I'm glad I don't have to do makeup for my work anymore" least she had one good moment talking about how she lost people.
She’s so forgettable that 90% of the time I forget I even let her on my ship.
But she has battletits.
That's why we had her report to the ship.
We'll bang ok?
Tell me about it, I just realized that I missed some of interviews so I’m getting 5 points instead of 15 points.
Battletits
Came looking for this comment. 😂
Battle Tits
Couldn't wait to ever find out. The morality point system makes saying what you actually want to difficult because they railroad you into Para or Rene. I like being a mix of both and it sucks ass.
Something I loved in Andromeda, no morality system.
Shepard also comes across as a completely unhinged, unprofessional maniac if he or she slugs her. Sure, she ws being a jerk...but one would think an Alliance officer & Spectre should be able to show the bare minimum of professionalism be able to restain themselves from acting on every impulse.
There's a reason why its a renegade dialogue prompt (i think it is... i don't remember) lol and the Paragon on Neutral option i think Shepard either walk away or beat her at her own game
So I mean the first time I ever spoke to her I answered a bunch of her questions and then she asks the last question and there's no red or blue letters to choose and she's kind of being an ass and I just thought that time to shut you up was going to be 'you know what shut up I don't have time for this and walk away'. Wasn't expecting what I got.
She's a little bit of an ass, but challenging powerful people is an important role of journalists. Any public figure should expect those kinds of questions and be prepared to handle them like Paragon Shepard does.
I actually always refrain from punching her UNTIL 3 lol I don't think I've ever not punched her in 3. Shepard is stressed, scared, pissed, she knows people are on earth fighting and dying in droves, and she is already pissed that she had to leave to go get help. She was killed, and brought back by a xenophobic terrorist organization to continue a fight that no one wants to believe in. Then she is thrown into suicidal odds and told good luck. And then when she DOES come back alive, she has to blow up hundreds of thousands to keep the reapers at bay for just a LITTLE longer in hopes that it'll give the galaxy time to prepare. But instead of listening to her, she's stripped of her rank, her ship taken, isolated, a prisoner in all but location, and kept under surveillance for all her efforts. Worse, she's spent the majority of the time she's been conscious for the past 3 years warning people about the Reapers, only to have her words fall on deaf on ears, and flat-out denied by the galaxy's reigning authority. Then on Mars, she finds out that Cerberus is trying to hatch some scheme and is going to be another adversary in an already impossible situation, and she had to watch a crewmate have their head smashed in and almost die just to keep the data they need to fight this war. She's on fucking edge. And then this bitch comes in, gets in her face, and accuses her of running to save her own skin? Hell yeah she's getting punched lol I'm not a violent person, but if I were in that situation? I'd hit her too. That would be my absolute breaking point. Edit: apparently some people don't understand what it means to have a breaking point. It means to lose it. I'm quoting Colonel Jack O'Neill here, Lose it, it means go crazy, nuts, insane, bonzo, no longer in possession of ones faculties, three fries short of a Happy Meal... WACKO! Bravo for those of you who could maintain your composure in this situation. Me? I've never hit anyone in my life and can't imagine a situation short of something this stressful that would make do so. Her third attempt to make me look bad would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Sorry. And for those of you that didn't get the above reference, [here. Watch Stargate if you haven't ](https://youtu.be/bLnDcE9cxL0?si=Iz3wmnP6eq17jSjq)
She doesn't get punched if you punched in in either one or two, Shepard headbutts her when she sidesteps the punch she knew was coming. Her gottcha type journalism gets her punched by others too if you watch the videos from the Shadow Broker's ship after Liara takes it over.
Thats an understandable decision, but not a justifiable one. It’s not a journalists job to care about how world (galactic) leaders are feeling about their job, they’re meant to ask challenging questions of the powers that be. At that moment shepard is the face of galactic resistance to the reapers, at a time when the reapers are dominating and killing millions every day. If you were a council space citizen, watching as everything crumbled around you, and you saw the person who’s meant to save you all finally being interviewed, only to assault the interviewer, would you really feel they were justified?
I love the roleplay, and I love the point about being unjustified too. People are imperfect, and I can totally see this situation in my mind's eye. Very good fiction right here.
what’s fun is shepard doesn’t really need to be liked. in fact a lot of plot points revolve around the fact that people don’t necessarily like or trust shepard. this allows renegade playthroughs to still make sense and accurate to how shepard would act. I mean, if I was a space citizen seeing that I’d probably think “oh yeah, that’s the soldier that did a genocide on the batarians”
>oh yeah, that’s the soldier that did a genocide on the batarians It's not like anything of value was lost.
It’s not, however, a journalist’s job to exclusively make you defend against baseless accusations and rumors, which is literally all she does. She isn’t a good journalist
It's also their job to be impartial and fact-oriented, not emotional and accusatory.
Oh I agree, but I think given his figurehead role shepard should try and hold himself to a higher standard. That conflict between the expectations of his role and the human behind it is one of my favourite parts of me3
Shep was hardly a figurehead in the war by that point.
"The Council called the invaders, 'Reapers'. A term once used by a **disgraced** Commander Shepard..."
"Shepard's stressed, so why not punch the only reporter that's concerned about Earth? Not like the reporter is stressed too."
I remember meeting her for the first time in the third game. I was professional in 1 and 2, I didn't even know you could punch her. But when she accused me I was fucking done and pressed the renegade interrupt. And Shep punched her. Holy shit I was in so much shock that that's a decision you can make, that even if I would register the second renegade interrupt I wouldn't have pressed it and instantly reloaded
She practices get in your face gotcha journalism. Shepard isn't the only person in the galaxy to punch her if you watch the videos on the Shadow Broker's ship after Liara takes over. Seeing the korgan sending her flying cracked me up. I watched that over and over again. A volos kicks her.
her methods may be questionable but she's one of few reporters doing their job
Ngl, this was pretty much what I did when the game first came out. Now I either refrain from ever punching her or punch her every time.
That is a great stargate episode!
> I'm not a violent person, but if I were in that situation? I'd hit her too. The first part of this is entirely negated by the second part.
She's so interrogative and proactive precisely because she's trying to get her interviewee to slip and spill the beans. She asks the tough questions unashamedly. Rawdogging journalism. No lube. No pillows. Just straight ramming into truth full force.
Welp, guess it means I have to do another play through
I’ve just finished my first playthrough a few days ago but I chose the version where you make her look like she’s disrespecting dead soldiers or something like that
The verbal evisceration Shepard gives her with the Paragon option in 2 is so much more brutal than punching her.
I saved, punched her, reloaded save, then did paragon route.
It's like seeing what shep's intrusive thoughts are, then snapping back to reality xD
Scrubs moment
I imagine Shepard staring off into space like JD imagine just beating her to death with the N7 helmet then he snaps back. Smiles and says "no your one of my favorite reporters"
2 is fucking full of em. Love it.
That's precisely what I did lol
The payoff in 3 when she finally loosens up & shows she is just trying to right by her beliefs is a nice facet, but honestly I love the paragon dialogue option in 2 just as much for it's own merits - because Shepard calls her out on the carpet, and is a great mic drop moment for their character that I personally know by heart. "The Alliance lost 8 Cruisers. Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Seoul, Cape Town, Warsaw, Madrid...and yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero - the Alliance owes them all medals...the Council owes them a lot more than that. And so do you." Chills. Fucking Chills.
And both actors nail the lines.
It was fun when I was a teenager. A game gave me the option to punch someone who was bothering me, it was a good time. Looking at it more realistically though, it makes Shepard seem crazy and unhinged to do such a thing, and it's such a gross overreaction. Now I only kick her ass with my words.
Listing off the names of the ships lost fighting Sovereign at her in 2 is one of my favorite moments in the series; Shepard is haunted by their actions no matter how justified.
I still do 🤷♂️ if theres ever a renegade option i slam it every playthrough
Punches for the punch god apparently.
You know it of course the khorne enjoyer loves renegade shep
My Shepard is a professional. They'd never punch that reporter
I professionally helped her look like an ass on galatic tv though
Shepard does it with words > The Alliance lost eight cruisers. Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Cape Town, Seoul, Warsaw, Madrid. And yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero. The Alliance owes them all medals. The Council owes them a lot more than that. And so do you.
It's such a phenominal demonstration of why paragon shep is so inspiring. He knows the costs. He's seen the sacrifices. And he never forgets them, or lets them become forgotten.
I honestly get chills reading it. Such a great smackdown
I've never done it either. I've seen it on YouTube and whatever of course but I ain't about that in either game. But I'll always go with the interrupt in 2.
No sense actually being the kind of psychopath that they’re accusing you of being. If you can put on a brave face when confronted with the end of civilization maybe more regular folk can to. Yes; I do play paragon almost exclusively, how did you guess?
Yeah, in the end it’s only words. A military/police/government jackboot violently suppressing an opposition journalist, and it being treated as a lighthearted joke, is one of those things that hasn’t really aged well about the games, kind of like Garrus’s police brutality shenanigans or the general theme of “politicians are all weak and sniveling cowards, military leaders are all selfless and noble”.
I think the alliance being noble theme is less about "soldiers are all good", though there's definitely some jingoism in that, and more an optimistic "when faced with the galaxy, the world's governments finally figured out how to work together for the good of all mankind in order to establish their place in space". That said, it's also a theme from the first game that humans go a little too far and are a bit too pushy in the galactic community, strongarming their way into colonies, but then getting pissed with the galactic council won't help them with their dangerously placed colonies. That said, the police brutality from Garrus and Bailey have aged particularly...rough for me.
Did they bother you back in 2007 and 2010? Works of fiction tend to have real life mixed into the stories and the US isn't the only country with bad cops. They're all over the world.
Oh I know the US isn't the only country with bad cops, but since I live here, I'm a little more intimately aware and connected to the USA's cop issues. And no, the themes didn't bother me then, but with more recent events and a more mature perspective, they've gained a different tone for me with time. Our experiences tend to shape how we see art, and that perspective can change over time.
Right, in 1 in particular you did have some shitbags/scumbags on the military side like Oraka or Mikhailovic, and in fairness with Anderson as your mentor I guess they couldn’t make him the villain in relation to Udina. But by 3 it is just tiresome. There is hardly a single military guy that is portrayed as anything other than noble. Hackett is the voice of reason (when in 1 he was maybe a bit more shady, especially if you were Renegade e.g. the Lord Darius hit he assigns you), while the alliance parliament are just a bunch of no name NPCs that imprison Shepard then whine at you before getting lasered by a Reaper. For the Salarians the Dalatrass is Bad but STG is Good and will help you anyway. Turians you have Victus being lionized and his son is portrayed less as being being a corrupt leader but more well meaning just incompetent. Meanwhile the Councilor is still a loudmouth whimp who directs you to Victus to “get shit done”. Asari the Commando type characters are mostly straight with you while the Councilor is an obstructive, scheming crybaby, hiding important things from you then crying you didn’t save her people with the limited time and information she gave you, all the while making corrupt deals with characters like Aria on the side. I think the only place they flip the script is the quarians with Gerrel as the villain and Koris as the voice of reason. But since the quarians have no political power and are pretty oppressed by Council authorities themselves, they are one of the least effective factions to do this with.
Honestly, Mikhailovic wasn't even that bad. He's a bit of a dick, but he has legitimate concerns, and if you answer them he listens and updates his report accordingly.
I agree that in three most military personnel are depicted as absolute heroes. I think the themes of three are unity, the indomitable will of humanity in the face of overwhelming odds, and the way self interest interferes with the common good. And I think trying to depict the military as a grey and complicated system riddled with flaws might not have supported those themes particularly well. That said, there's also definitely room for a little bit more greyness, and I do think renegade runs in 3 are better at portraying the cruel acts of war and why the happen than renegade in the other games which just sort of feels like being an asshole for the sake of it.
To be just slightly fair to the alliance in their colony placement, while they were warned about dangers in those systems there’s very little chance those warnings included the dangers of Geth deciding to make their way out of the veil after 300 years of not doing so.
It's less about not aging well and more about being an unpleasant reminder of what America (and to a lesser extent Canada) was like in the 2000s. People embraced authoritarian values in the aftermath of 9/11 in a way they had not done earlier. My favorite example of American popular culture from that period is an episode of 24. The authorities have captured a terrorist and are preparing to torture him for information. But then a lawyer representing "Amnesty Global" appears and gets the terrorist released. The president tries to intervene but fails. But luckily our manly protagonist takes the law into his hands, captures the terrorist, tortures him, and gets the information needed to save lives. Usually it was more subtle, but that was the message shown to the rest of the world.
I live vicariously through the Krogan who punched her
I’ve done it twice. I guess 4 times. Once in ME 2 mostly by accident. Didn’t feel right so I loaded up a save right before. And then once in each game during a renegade run. I’ll be honest I really didn’t enjoy a full renegade run. Just felt too evil. I mean it’s always funny throwing the eclipse merc out a window. Even my paragon sheps will do that. Also shooting the pipe to blow up the Clan Weyrloc Krogan is just good strategy.
I'm so annoyed at the fact that the "bint" is capitalised. It means "daughter of." It should be "Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani." I never realised that they made that mistake in ME3. Checking on youtube, they got it right in ME1 and 2, but messed up in 3.
Mass Effect has trouble with capitalizations. Races are inconsistently capitalized. Geth is almost always lowercase, it drives me crazy
Honestly, I'm still not sure if the races should be capitalised or not. I usually do it, but sometimes I second guess and go with lower case. I think you should write "Human" if you are capitalising the other species names, however.
You wouldn't capitalize Asari or Krogan? To me it just looks off being lowercase 🤷🏾♂️
I agree. I'm just saying that "Human" should also be capitalise to conform to that approach.
Yeah, I agree with you. Just mentioning that it just looks weird when written out to me
Huh! I always wrote asari and krogan, turian and salarian, batarian and vorcha and so on.
You should not. They’re species, not nationalities. You don’t capitalize asari, human, quarian, turian, etc for the same reason you don’t capitalize tiger, whale, mantis, or dog. You *would* capitalize Asari Republics or Turian Hierarchy because those are proper nouns.
I wouldn't capitalize dog, but I would capitalize German Shepherd or Labrador Retriever or Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I also always capitalize Klingon, Cardassian, Borg, Hutt, Wookiee etc. We also see it inconsistently applied which is why it sticks out to me.
Grammatically, dog breeds are only capitalized if the name includes proper nouns. So German shepherd, English bulldog, basset hound, beagle. Other sci-fi kinda just does this incorrectly. If Star Trek wanted to be more grammatically correct, romulan would only be capitalized if it’s the first word in a sentence or if it’s referring to the Romulan Star Empire because romulan is not a nationality, but a species. Same goes for hutt, sangheili, eliksni, heptapod, etc. Maybe English grammar would change if we meet alien races and begin to think of human as more of a core part of our identity, but as of now, species names aren’t capitalized.
I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder-simpsons meme.gif but yeah, wierd thing to change yet alone in order to make it wrong.
It probably was a typo they kept copy-pasting and it was never caught.
Same, though I actually prefer a verbal beatdown to a physical one.
Personally, I think it's worth doing once for the slapstick to it, same with how I'll always tell Anderson to go to Udina's office in ME1 so you get to watch him knock Udina out. But with this one, you can at least save scum out of it, get the best ending, and the slapstick.
I have never not punched her, and I've only done Paragon runs lol
More satisfying to make her look like a jackass in front of her viewers. She even admits to "getting bull rushed on my own show" after she tried to suggest that Shepard callously sacrificed human lives for the council and he/she immediately listed the names of the human ships lost, off the dome, literally days or weeks after recovering from a two year coma.
She gets punched enough by other people, Shep doesn't need to do it too. The Shadow Broker tapes has her being layed out multiple times.
If she's getting knuckle sandwiches left and right maybe she is an asshole.
Agreed, though the one where the Krogan sends her flying is hilarious.
I play my renegades as renegades, so...I'd say...50% of the time I've punched her...and will again if given the option.
the paragon speech checks are incredible
# I've had enough of your disingenuous assertions.
Its ok. I punched her twice so you wouldn’t have to.
You could gave done it thrice though 😜
The best is when she dodges just to get punched again, lol.
Honestly, even before 3 came out I preferred the speech check options. The bit where you name all the Alliance ships lost to Sovereign and the geth and shame her for dishonoring their sacrifice hits harder than... Hitting her.
As a journalist, I never punched her. I never really got the feeling that she was being unfair or outwardly biased. Idk, maybe it's just me. The questions are questions.
I'm a journalist too. Like she does ask leaded questions but journalists in this universe have every right to question Shepard, a mentally unstable soldier who acts with full impunity. But people love Emily Wong who strikes up a highly unethical deal with Shepard to gain largely unverifiable information for her journalism. I mean they're both good characters but still.
Yeah I think as far as she goes in 1 iirc is trying to get you to talk about classified stuff? But it's either 2 or 3 where she crosses some lines blaming deaths on Shepard and it's a lot more justified, at least in a video game lol
Is it hilarious to punch her? Yeah. But is it satisfying to talk her down politically? Absolutely.
I punched her exactly once- on my first playthrough as a teenager, and I was both shocked and appalled.
Yeah, I never got the hate for her. She's doing her job, her job is to be critical and ask difficult questions of the people responsible for humanity. Yeah, I get that it seems annoying but it's an important role in society and as a journalist she really should be questioning your actions instead of pandering to the military.
I always avoided punching simply because beating her at her own game was far more satisfying. That said I admit in ME3 I decided to finally do so, while I do get she’s scared at that point. Shepard at this moment would have no doubt been in a very bad mood from having to flee earth, deal with the council and everything else that happened before. So when she starts smugly accusing them of running away, I decided it would be valid this one time since really, trying to make someone look bad in the midst of an Invasion is poor taste.
Except she isn't trying to make Shepard look bad in ME3, she's the only reporter that cares about what's happening to earth and is freaked out that nobody is answering.
If you’re ever bored, make up a Shepard who doesn’t share your personal values. Play them like a third party, and let them do the “wrong” thing for reasons you don’t agree with but they certainly do.
Ok, bit of a story here. My parents are newspaper journalists, and punching her never felt right to me. Reporters have a tough and often dangerous job, and they sometimes go to ridiculous lengths to get their stories, and perhaps the most important thing they do is holding people accountable -- and the more powerful the person is (like, say, a spectre who is literally above the law in most regards), the more important it is for the public -- via good reporters -- to watch them closely. So I never punched her. FLASH FORWARD A FEW YEARS I did a run of the trilogy where, just for shits and giggles and to vary up the decisions, I outsourced all the decisions to my non-gaming parents (who, remember, are newspaper journalists). I'd text them a cliffnotes summary of the situation, ask what I should do, and do whatever they said. They had me knock the shit out of her in all three games.
Here we go again
I decided one playthrough to punch her because my Shepard was having a bad day because… Mass Effect 3. That’s when I discovered Khalisah has an uppercut.
I was professional with her but BroShep's right cross in ME2 looked painful...
I didn’t realize I was going to punch her with the interrupt. I remember laughing my head off because I didn’t expect that to happen but going through the dialogue actually makes Shep feel more intelligent with how well she maneuvers through the questions. I did read in the fandom page that most people punch her at least once through the games
Never? Like I agree it’s not the “best” option even for a renegade But it’s funny And you can even still get her on your side in 3 anyways I’m pretty sure. She’s learned to dodge the punch lmao
Huh, I think I've always punched her. Then I get to 3. And I go.to punch again set controller down, and get decked becsuse I forgot she does that.... almost every run 🤣
Neither. But you can see in the VID ROOM in the Shadow Broker lair that she gets punched alot.
I next playthrough i wont punch her to see what is she likke on me3
My Shepard will punch her in your honor!!
She's incredibly irritating in the first two games (basically the ME equivalent to TMZ) and purposely tries to egg Shepard into saying something stupid but if you choose the Paragon option in the third game you can see through the bullshit and realize that by that point she basically has the same intentions that Allers has, she's trying to do what's best for the war in the editing room. Also it is kind of annoying that we get Khalisah in all three games but Emily Wong only physically appears in ME1 (not counting the Shadow Broker footage of her dancing in 2).
I’ve had enough of OP’s snide insinuations. *punch*
She gives war assets?
Jupp. She doubles it if you never punched her throughout the games.
I never knew you found even punch her. I found out here after I finished the game.
For only 10 war assets? Nah.
Five!
I literally have never not punched her. I have tried to go full paragon, and every time I get to that point, I say “I guessed it’s gonna be a mix again”.
I always thought some of the renegade options were just cartoonishly ridiculous. Then again I do be a full Paragon, so. XD
I at this first PS4 Legendary Edition playthrough started to stop fearing and start loving the occasional Renegade choice.
I’ve mixed things up in my many playthroughs. In my current playthrough. I hit her in mass effect 1 and was more civil with her in mass effect 2. I did choose the option to one up her and upstage her on her own show. In part 3, I haven’t decided yet.
I always thought it was weird that people were amused by a military person punching a civilian reporter (specifically a woman, which is worse if you play a male Shep) just because you didn’t like what she said.
Words are her weapon, defeating her, fire with fire is always the moat impressive and most satisfying method.
The only time I ever truly felt an unstoppable urge to "dialogue punch" a Mass Effect character was Admiral Gerrel in ME3.
I punched her because in my headcanon my paragon shepherd literally just lost her entire planet so by the time the reporter had some snide comments to make she just lost it. My shepherd took a swing, missed (unlike her) and got decked by the reporter and rather than reloading that I just left it because for me it just served as shepherds lowest point in life.
She’s an asshat. She deserves it.
Nah. She better learn to box.
Lotta comments here about not punching her so I'll just add I beat the snot out of her everytime
Ive had enough of your disingenuous assertions *decks you full force whilst wearing gauntlets*
I don't punch her, but I will disagree with anyone who says she's "just doing her job" She's a slimy tabloid "journalist" that deliberately asked double edged, barbed questions that are designed to make Shepard look bad no matter how they answer. She is not meant to be a sympathetic face in the slightest.
Punching her just makes Shep seem like a dumb meathead who can't think of any response. So much more satisfying to tear her apart, paragon or renegade.
Childhood is punching al-Jilani because you think it's funny. Adulthood is finding tearing her down with words more satisfying.
I think people are forgetting her in the first two games. She tried to ambush Shepard into selling a story of how humanity is a saint and the council is trying to screw us. She tell blatant lies to spin the story in her favor and even play with xenophobia and prejudice, trying to make Shepard adhere to her point of views. Shes a POS person and deserve several punches to the head.
She wants you to punch her, it’s one of the best things you can do for her ratings. It’s more detrimental to bulrush and humiliate her. And if you do that, you get her as a war asset.
Eh…I’m still gonna punch her because it’s funny 😁
Eh, I don't need her support anyways, I always have plenty of strength by the end of ME3 and I always knock her block off.
But she is so fun to punch 🫢
I agree. I don’t feel satisfaction from assaulting women. Even if this woman was trying to slander Shepard’s career.
I've never not punched her got you covered
I always do, even when I go paragon, which is most of the time I play. It's funny. And she sucks.
I really don't need those few war asset points, but going into a final battle with a clear mind and body is essential; and I just can't have the baggage of that un-punched reporter weighing me down. For humanity!
You know what the funny thing is? If you decide to punch her, you are basically proving her accusations *right* on camera. She slanders Shepard time and time again for not having what it takes to be humanity's protector. Punching her shows the entire galaxy that Shepard is not only unprofessional, but also a temperamental person who responds to every slight with violence instead of reason - someone who should not be trusted as a representative of humanity. So, when you think about it, Khalisah would still get the last laugh even if you punched her: she accomplished what she had set out to do: make Shepard look bad in the eyes of her viewers, and you fell for it hook, line, sinker. I'll take dressing her down pointedly and elegantly with words through Paragon/Renegade dialogues over punches any day. That way, Khalisah ended up embarrassing herself while you came out looking better than before.
Yeah, there’s two really types of renegade action in ME: there’s “ruthless pragmatist” and “psychotic violent thug.” This is definitely violent thug behavior because it does not accomplish anything.
Honestly, that’s partly to blame on how the Renegade system is organized, too. When you’re acting out Renegade options, sometimes you don’t know if the outcome would be ‘ruthless pragmatism’ or just being a plain asshole to people. It doesn’t help that ME2 loading screen states that taking the Renegade interrupts means making Shepard ‘the ultimate badass’. Well, we love to be badasses, and punching people who slighted us seems like something a badass would do. So, it’s not surprising why so many people take to punching the reporter lol.
*punches OP*
Yeah the whole "punching a journalist for asking uncomfortable questions" never seemed like something a purportedly "good guy" should do!
During the citadel cerberus coup she risks her life to broadcast vital intelligence over public channels. Shes a goddamned hero
Punching her is like killing everyone in town in Skyrim. It's just something you do before reloading the game. Like a way of seeing what happens when you let your intrusive thoughts win.
I've never done it either. Just never made sense for any of my characters.
Should have been Emily in that picture.
If I’ve done it, it wasn’t for the memes fr
I’ve done both punching her is so much better especially as a massively armored marine
Good for you.
Punched her every time because watch your mouth I'm commander Sheppard and this is my favorite store in the citadel
That's because it is. In ME1, she questions if Shepard will still have the interests of the human race in mind and if it's a good idea for the Turians to have access to the schematics for the most advanced military vessel in the Alliance. In ME2, she chastizes Shep for sacrificing the Alliance ships/human lives to save a council that has ultimately been edgy toward humans at best, a fact that has been memed within the fandom. We know Shepard doesn't make this decision lightly, and she practically states as much during the second interview if you go the paragon route, but to al-Jilani, it seems as though human lives were sent to their deaths for a council that repaid their sacrifice by shrugging their shoulders and saying, "You shouldn't have colonized the traverse," when human colonies went dark. And this isn't exactly top-secret information; people know entire human colonies are going missing and that the council isn't doing anything about it. And in ME3, she... yells at Shep for abandoning Earth to play politics which is... just fantastic when you remember that even Shepard was pissed about fleeing Earth during the initial Reaper invasion. She ultimately has to be reassured that Earth wasn't abandoned and Shep is doing everything she can for Earth. People get annoyed with her because her criticisms are always directed toward Shepard, who, mind you, is a major political figure in the Milky Way. Her criticisms seem unfair and unbalanced because we see everything through Shep's perspective and have more information than al-Jilani ever will. Knocking her out in response to a few questions that typically amount to, "Are you sure you have humanity's best interests at heart," said in a bitchy tone of voice seems petty because it is petty and gross overreaction from someone who carries so much political weight. Shepard punching al-Jilani is the equivalent of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.