Canadian Delicacy - The Kaidan Alenko Thread

Yeeeeeeeeeah. The way Liara acts about Kaidan (and Ashley) is REALLY unpleasant. Like bad enough that it's clearly rooted in jealousy (over someone who, in three games, may never make any kind of overtures towards her, meaning her jealousy is over a relationship ENTIRELY IN HER OWN HEAD), but...

Like, first of all, Kaidan/Ashley don't believe Shepard on Horizon? Well, maybe they'd have been more receptive if Liara had made them at all aware of her one-woman crusade to recover Shepard's body, or how she'd handed them over to Cerberus for them to perform their Frankensteinian mad science. Lock someone out of the loop, it's not surprising they have a bad reaction when they stumble across things. So if you want to call them short-sighted for being BLINDSIDED, maybe let them in on the secret, instead of literally keeping it solely to yourself in the name of... Honestly? It comes across as her keeping it silent so that she can get her place cemented in Shepard's life, in that literally, they would not be alive without her. It's gross and manipulative, and yet the game clearly wants to frame it as 'she's so loving and loyal, do you love Liara yet, player? We'll give you five more chances to love her, just to be sure!'

Then there's her remark on Mars about how they've 'become' capable. I'm sorry, who was it, again, that flared blue for like three seconds before ducking under a console, while Kaidan/Ashley were fighting a krogan battlemaster? They were already 'capable' in ME1. LIARA is the one who turned from an archeologist to a wanna-be asari commando. That line doesn't even SOUND like Liara, who SHOULD be commenting about how they're holding together considering Earth, but NOOOOOOOO... The writing just HAS to tear down Kaidan/Ashley in order to prop up Liara.

Seriously, I find so much more meaning in Ashley/Kaidan coming to trust Shepard again, Shepard trying to earn their trust, than in Liara's eternal devotion to Shepard.

While I wouldn't mind having to choose between Kaidan and Liara per se, I'm glad that choice was removed from the game because of how stupid everyone on Shepard's side had to be for it to get to that point.

I would always save Kaidan, obviously, but I wouldn't be able to get past the stupidity of Shepard's squad still not thinking to sit Kaidan down and explain what's going on, or the fact that apparently no one would have thought to look into that mysterious Alliance rep who missed the memo about Hackett giving Shepard the power to make treaties.

Many people never let Kaidan alive past Virmire to think otherwise... especially when majority in the fandom determined that its acceptable to hate A/K because "I couldn't understand why anyone would like them and not my favourite space waifu/batman".

While I do think what happened in ME2 is cruel and unfair.. but that's the story of their lives.. they're both hardened by battle and war and fate aren't kind to them. They're never meant to have a clean conventional romantic romance.

For most part, ME2 is the turning point of their relationship. A space for their characters to grow especially when they're apart. Neither characters are dependent on one another; Shepard was dealing with Cerberus throughout the Collector's campaign and it will destroy Kaidan/Ashley's credibility if they drop everything for Shepard. They're already nearly killed several times by Cerberus throughout the game for the supposedly disagreement between them and Shepard. Even if they did part on good terms, Illusive Man would use that as an opening to tarnish Kaidan/Ashley reputation by association with his Cerberus-aligned Shepard.

And I don't understand why it matters so much for certain people to expect Kaidan/Ashley to have blind loyalty. Just because some characters have it, doesn't mean all of them have to.

CrutchCricket : any way around my "b )" being turned into an emoji?