I think it's really funny that my dad, an ex pastor, made me really interested in religion growing up but not in the way he expected or wanted. like instead of being a seventh day adventist I'm just a jew-ish (elaboration: ethnically jewish and planning on converting religiously when I have 2 seconds) person with a special interest in the history of religion and specifically how it evolved and how made up by humans it all is

im a fuckin mess rn thinking abt how much i love FMA and ME at the same time, my love for both these stories could move mountains, and i remembered when i first played me3 last year, i realized that i thought ME is the second-best story i’ve seen that explores humanity for... what it is, and what it’s worth, with fma being the best. i’ve been meaning to revisit that idea for a while, because i was so busy playing in the moment i didn’t really think abt why. so anyway here’s some dumb meta. mild spoilers for ME and FMA

(this isn’t a post meant to make the argument that FMA is better, though imo since FMA is like... quite likely the closest a human being has ever come to making a perfect story, that might color some of my meta here.)

i ran into this quote the other day that really sums up my ideas abt what i think both stories are about: "If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what’s worth saving about it." — Justin Cronin

both stories involve a protagonist serving in the military. both stories involve humanity doing terrible things to itself, either to survive or in the nature of supposed “evolutionary progress.” both stories involve very tough discussions on morality and the value of human life (or in ME’s case, sentient life at all). both stories use the theme of body horror, and “swallowing” people (souls or genetic matter) to create “the next stage” of humanity under the guise of “the betterment of the world/universe.” both stress the emphasis on personal relationships being one of the strongest reason why life is worth living.

(i feel like i’ve blabbed a lot about how shepard/garrus themes remind me of mustang/hawkeye too, which may be one of the reasons i’m so attracted to it, but that’s a post for another day)

ultimately what i like abt these stories is that they line up all of the reasons why humanity can be terrible and inhumane and selfish, it lines up the very worst that we do to each other, and yet for every reason why, they give edward and shepard reasons to find double that many reasons to fight to preserve it. there is no question that for all their valid criticisms against humanity, the reapers and father must be stopped.

for example, the reapers harvest genetic matter in every cycle in order to continue their function. it’s a matter of continuation for them; every cycle is a fight for their survival as well. but there’s absolutely no question that they are in the wrong.  if peace were an option, it should be taken, but it isn’tt. the reapers don’t know the meaning of peace, however much they think they were built for it. and maybe that’s why the ME3 ending irritates and also fascinates me. the catalyst shows up and makes one last-ditch attempt at convincing shepard that synthesis is the correct path forward for all sentient life in the galaxy, because the reapers are scared of dying, too. they don’t want to be destroyed. they want to convince shepard that destroying them is against her better interest. for me, the answer is still obvious: i chose destroy because i believe any species whose very nature requires active endangerment and widespread destruction of other life forms is not a species worth saving. (maybe on earth, nature conservatists will say that says something about my bad politics, but for the sake of fictional species in scifi, that’s my stance.)

and we... kind of have a similar thing in FMA, but on a different kind of level, with the homunculi. at the end father is revealed to be a relatively simple thing that is absolutely terrified of confinement, of losing the individuality it has gained with its human origins (that it enjoys rejecting). it was extracted from the gate of truth and given the material properties of a human, including all of human’s flaws, and very human desires: knowledge, power, wealth, with the means to achieve them and absolutely no ethical code. i think what i like about father as a villain is that... he was born from humanity just as much as from the essence within the gate. he is everything that’s wrong with us spruced up with the power of a god. and he is defeated by the best of us who come together to say “humanity can and must be better than you” and decide that they’re going to make it that way.

obviously with ME it’s less of an emphasis on humanity and more of a “our differences make us stronger” story. substitute in humans for aliens and humanity for sentient life and the sentiment is much the same. one thing that actually irritated me when i first played ME was the fact that there was so little difference between humanity and most alien species. the asari and turians and salarians etc are not particularly stronger or smarter or more advanced, however they sometimes acted like it. they could be just as petty and arrogant and violent. then i realized that’s kind of the point of the story (not to mention what drives the necessity for a protagonist in story-world): what if we make it to the final frontier and... everyone else out there is just like us? within the sake of the story, it means that no one else is going to solve our problems, and when the reaper threat comes, we can’t count on someone else to save the day. we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves.

father consumes human souls to create philosopher’s stones for energy he uses to keep consuming souls. reapers convert humans into husks and break down their genetic material to create more reapers. both of them see themselves as the apex of life, the top of the food chain.

there’s this great set of lines from van hohenheim to father in the climax of the show: “you insist on treating humans like a lower life form. but don’t you see? only through them can a philosopher’s stone be created. and only through a stone can a homunculus arise. but what does a homunculus produce? what do you create? creation is all, and you’ve done nothing but destroy. you may think you’ve reached a perfect state of being, but all you are is a dead end.”

like, what kind of an awesome fucking message. a huge insult, but he’s right. what’s the point of a species that doesn’t give back? what did the homunculi ever offer to the world that humans weren’t already? and what did the reapers give back to the universe? they took and processed and recycled people but they never changed the status quo; the universe literally remained static. life had no chance to grow beyond fifty thousand years. the reapers’ programming assumed that self-destruction was an inherent trait in organic life. they considered themselves the betterment of all life for accepting this inevitability and for destroying civilizations before it became a reality. and it’s possible they were right, that it is an inherent trait and our biggest weakness, but without the chance to evolve beyond it, like, how are we ever gonna know for sure? the reapers’ are the pessimist’s solution to solving modern civilization! and shepard is the stubborn optimist’s response to the reapers! i love that.

and also, about the military aspect... god this post is so disorganized... so i’ve been thinking about how both stories tackle the fact that, by necessity their protagonists are part of the military. (i’ve been meaning to write some meta about how bioware specifically uses the military in ME/DA as, like, a prop? but i always forget.) first off, i actually love that shepard is a soldier. for me, it gives me something to latch onto about the character, and it tells me a bit about who they are. thanks largely in part to the writing and hale’s fantastic voice acting since i always play femshep anyway. but in a larger sense I just... i love how FMA talked about the military while simultaneously being wrapped up in it. it was a story about that openly discussed imperialism, genocide, warmongering, and the dangers of military states. in ME, there was none of that, because i guess nobody wants to see real life politics in a video game, people would throw fits. so they don’t want to hear criticism of the rl military within a game that features a badass commanding officer like shepard, who has devoted their life to the alliance.

again, for me... this is not a bad thing for shepard’s character. i like it. it makes sense that shepard is a marine first. we need a war hero who cannot hesitate when making tough calls. but i have to admire that FMA went further. edward is in a position to see the military’s faults more clearly; shepard is a top agent who often has to find the best possible solution to a problem with her hands tied behind her back. edward is part of an organization with a centuries-long history of abuse that he finds himself unable to defend or stand buy the more he learns about it; shepard is built by the military, rebuilt by a paramilitary terrorist group, and then used by both and forced to fight for others with no promise of help in return. god where was i going with this. anyway i like FMA just that bit more because i feel like wherever ME was going... FMA hit the high score, then kept going and going until it doubled that high score. and maybe also at FMA’s heart is a glimpse at the ME3 ending that could’ve been. i don’t know.

anyway what is the point of this post. the new point of this post is that i just remembered greed didn’t deserve to die and im gonna fucking call arakawa about it right this second