Why the Archon 'failed' as an enemy.

Does it really matter what the Geth feel when they commit mass murder against non-Geth intruders, launch attacks against non-Geth far beyond the reaches of their space? Don't open diplomatic relations with outsiders? And only speak in a language outsiders can't understand?

Also, here's something from the Haestrom Codex entry in ME2:



Traveling to Geth space is a big no-no. In a galaxy of billions (trillions?) of people, it's not a stretch to infer that such a warning exists because more than one ship got hijacked by Geth forces.

I didnt like him to be honest... there are a few reasons why

1. No threat. In the earlier mass effect games, you had them build up the presence of the Reapers, with the knowledge that they wiped out many species before. With dragon age origins, you had visions of the archdemon, Loghain sending assassins, battles and the dark stain spreading over the map, in a sense both villains were escalated as you progressed. In dragon age 2 you had the arishok and rising conflicts between various factions that you could see... and in DAI... well, demons, darkspawn, red Templars and everything in between, a visit to the future where he wins, and towards the start of the game he basically destroys your entire base of operations. Theres a threat there. With Andromeda, the Archon never had much presence. You barely saw him, and he never actually accomplished a great deal if you think about it. Even towards the end of the game his plan is made possible by one of the Ryders, using technology which wasnt his. You never really saw him do anything noteworthy, most of the time he was several steps behind Ryder in terms of remnant technology. And you never actually got to fight him either iirc.

2. Game design, like Skyrim you can spend how long you want doing anything other than fighting the kett and nothing will change, the same goes for DAI and Skyrim too I suppose, but the remnant felt to have more of an enemy presence than the kett in the worlds themselves.

3. The Kett feel to just be an obstacle, an enemy the player wont mind killing. Generally pretty bad enemy design. And speaking of enemy design, the Archon is cute. He has big eyes and a round face. If it wasnt for his creepy voice he wouldnt be intimidating

My point has always been that "in ME1, the geth are presented as Saren's lackeys... not some terrifying unknowable species... which is how the Reapers are presented.  In ME2, they are given more of an independent identity... but that doesn't happen until ME2.  The Kett in ME:A are presented in a more detailed way.  For example, we know from the Moshae that they retain their memories of being angaran, but seemed to disconnect emotionally from those memories.  We can read the various datapads at the various kett facilities on Eos and Voeld to discover about the processes used to brainwash them... explaining why they don't resist becoming Kett.  We learn from the Cardinal the religious reasons why they undertake transforming angara into Kett.

The underlying theme of ME:A, though, is not about there being a "unknowable" scary villain.  The premise being used in ME:A's story is that the real villain is us... we destroy our own worlds, we divide ourselves into factions and we fight against each other for, sometimes, the slimmest of reasons.  It's not the sort of story that is for everyone; and where Bioware may take this premise in future installments of this franchise, I haven't a clue... but I am interested to find out.  I think it's a far more sophisticated "villain" premise than anything Bioware has put in a previous Mass Effect game.

Is this premise part of the reason the Archon failed to "impress" as an enemy... I think so, yes.  Most people went into ME:A expecting another huge unknowable Reaper-type villain not a villain who is portrayed ultimately as being not much different than their new allies in the game and a game full of other enemies that could  also easily be allies - Sloane or Reyes, Aksuul, Morda, Primus and the Krogran, and even the Remnant (who we can program sometimes to be allies and who ultimately make all the difference as our allies).  Even the mysterious scourge is turned into a useful ally in the final battle.

Saren probably has less screen time than the Archon and his in-game backstory is vague and generic to say the least. He is a glorified henchman, if you couldn't talk him into blowing his brains out Saren wouldn't be memorable at all.

The Arishok I never understood why everyone thinks he's a great villain he talks in circles and NEVER explains what the Qun is, I got more understanding of the Qun from Talis and the Iron Bull than that blithering idiot.

Agreed. I think if we saw more of what was going on with him, why he was so desperate that he would blow up planets it would have made more sense as far as character development, which otherwise was nil. 

I think of loghain and how in just a few scenes we get so much more insight into him. Ostagar scenes and at the meet he holds. He brings up the orlesians. We know he's got history there and he makes his concerns quite clear. He has those issues with the king. He's a brilliant villain. And Saren? We have conversations with him which we never even have with archon. He talks at us and treats us like we are irrelevant, which on one level makes sense as that is how Kett see all that are not kett. But on the other hand, we really don't get any real answers about anything. I think there is where they faltered. Even if they had him respond to us with an actual answer or two in a condescending tone would have given us more insight into him than what we had. What we get is paltry. A few sentences on Eos when you are driving around. A sentence or  two when we meet him on the way to aya. A couple of sentences on his ship. But all of them are very dismissive and not really character building other than seeing him as an arrogant dick. That's not really character building. It's very one dimensional.

I couldn't take the Archon seriously simply because to me he looks like a grumpy teddy bear. Seriously, his face. Grumpy bear.

The Archon was a complete failure, I did not fear him, I actually laughed at how pathetic he was, his design was generic and boring.

To me the Archon was a filler villain like Inquisition's Corypheus. Hopefully DLC will reveal the true antagonist.

Like others have mentioned, the Archon had no depth....i was reading a few pages back about the debate of the Collectors....yes they was basically henchmen of the Reapers, but later on in the game you find out that they was originally the protheans who was a powerful and intelligent race in their own respect.

It added another layer to the Reaper threat in that they was taking down power players in the universe and transforming them into brutal killers...and the build up to the Collectors was handled perfectly within the first few minutes of ME2...mysterious, powerful and now we are going to kidnap humans at their colonies with basically no opposition. They was a force to be reckoned with and the game again, made it so within the first few minutes.

People on those colonies was running and HIDING from the Collectors whereas our interaction with the Kett?.....we mopped the floor with them in our initial fight with them and as others have mentioned, a lowly fire-armed crew ran them off a planet and held it.....who is going to fear these clowns?

It's really interesting to see how many see him as a failure yet loved Saren who had just as much if not less screen time. IMO the Archon whims not necessarily scary was more interesting and mysterious.

While the archon was not the most interesting or compelling villain I ever faced in a game he was far from a bad villain as well. He was basically a generic alien bad guy to me. He did the job of making me want to beat him in game but he never really got under my skin.

Saren had a lot of depth as a character. He was both sympathetic and unsympathetic. He hated humans and was insulting when dealing with him initially. Later, as the story progresses, you see him as some sort of leader that the geth and krogan follow, that he has promised the krogan a cure but is using them as fodder. As you continue, you find that he himself has been a victim of indoctrination. It's even difficult to be sure how much of it was him trying to save himself or save others as well. You understand that he was terrified of Sovereign and the reaper invasion. He was a scared pawn of sorts. But he was never a good guy. He stuck it to Anderson. Would stick it to shepard or any other human in his way no doubt. But still, he's just some above the law jerk that is caught up in something way beyond him and in the end he is fully capable of some small level of redemption. 

Personally I found nothing about archon mysterious or interesting. The jist I got was that he was a burned out arrogant dick. I feel like there are so many missed opportunities here. We hear from kett themselves how they were wretched before exaltation and how they see others as inferior but we get no insight into why they feel this. There is simply no real insight gained into the kett or the archon. Everything we learn about them is from random comments made that doesn't amount to much. Even backstory that you get from angarans is basically the archon showed up, lied, manipulated and here we are. Contrasting that to Saren and we see more of the driving force behind Saren's motivations. We have no comprehension of Archon's motivations other than burnout I guess.

Loghain is another well written villain. He is so well written and so complex that many people don't even see him as a villain. That is some brilliant writing, where you have a villain's side and story so clear that others can agree with it and take their side. I feel like that is what they tried to accomplish with the ME3 endings. They wanted to give people a chance to side with them or choose to not destroy them. The main problem there though was that they chose to make this an option with a race of AI that had some kind or logic error and had committed genocide more times than we can fathom. Loghain did no such thing. 

The sad part is we know they are capable of better writing and I don't think it was a time factor. It wouldn't have taken much to give the archon more depth. I feel like his motivations were hidden because they wrote a story about an enemy that even they had fleshed out or decided what they would do with them, so they had to make the archon as basic and simple as possible because they really didn't think anything through about the kett other than what we got which is pretty much how we ended up with the endings of ME3. I would have hoped they would have tried to avoid doing that again, but it is very clear that they have gone in without any clear vision of who these races are.