Now that Andromeda made the last trilogy irrelevant

Wait, Shepard died in ME 3? Says who. My Shepard lived a perfectly long and happy life after the events of ME 3, married James Vega and had three children with him.

...

In all seriousness though there was the breath scene. Which granted was kind of a crappy way to do this but that is all the proof I need that Shepard did survive at least one of the endings. Which is good enough for me.

Having Shepard walk towards the tube while shooting it is not a sacrifice. Its stupid. Shepard has been in the military for over ten years and would most likely know the effective range of the pistol. Shepard would've fired at the tube from a distance. But it wasn't my Shepard that did that, it was her/his stunt double. In other words it was Bioware's Shepard. I would like to hear the explanation of why they had Shepard do that. If I was to give Bioware a handgun for them to fire at some explosives while walking towards them, they would look at me like I'm crazy.

Does Shepard know those tubes are going to explode? Shepard has heard from the Catalyst that death is pretty much certain for doing so but with no understanding of how it happens.

Shepard gets a vision of Anderson firing at the thing showing explosions

I don't think the player should have been able to talk Saren into committing suicide either... allowing the to weasel out of the first battle with him.  I think his suicide foreshadowed the circumstances with Shepard as Shepard essentially replaced him.  I'm drawn back to Pallin's words when Shepard told him that not every spectre was like Saren... "but the potential is always there" and Shepard's word to Liara "don't turn into the thing you're hunting."  I think there was a lot of foreshadowing throughout the game as to what sort of shape the ending might take.  When it happened that way, I can't honestly say I was all that surprised... I had long resigned myself to the idea that the Trilogy was most likely going to end as a tragedy (in the sense that the hero dies, etc.)

Technically, Shepard never talked Saren (or TIM) into killing themselves.  Shep was telling them to fight against the indoctrination.  Which they can do, momentarily.  But knowing their respite is temporary, they kill themselves before they can become a threat again.

And the trilogy never foreshadowed tragedy.  Tragedy was always a possible outcome.  But the whole trilogy was about fighting inevitability and breaking cycles.  Not about everyone's Shepards being shoved to one side in favor of Mac Walters' Shep.

I disagree with everything here.
The writers are entitled to do what they want to complete their story including kill the protagonist if the story require their death,like it was done in God of War for Kratos which is probably an even more popular character than all BioWare characters yet they had no problems to kill him.

The DAO ending is one of the most stupid thing I have ever seen in a videogame,and not just because the whole thing was so forced to the point of creating massive plot holes in the story to justify those endings choices but also because decide to reward some players and punish others (in this case with a virtual death that create issues for the expansion) for their choices is unfair.

They should never again create paths for survival and one for death at the same time because it create a "Schroodinger" casuality in the core of the protagonist to the point where even those who are not dead have to be considered as such since they cannot be reused or apppear ever again.

As we've argued before, time and again... I believe the story isn't "all about" one side or the other... It presents a bunch of vague "leading" indicators in both directions... It's asking a whole host of different "questions" about human societies.  How the player interprets the Catalyst (deceptive or not deceptive) plays a role in how differently they are able to interpret the endings.  I understand that several BSNers interpret the Catalyst as being deceptive... a Reaper "con." but (and I've laid it all out before), I can ALSO interpret the Catalyst as being honest and take what he says at face value.  That changes how I can interpret the ending.  I can also use the "death" imagery and "ascension" imagery in the ending to suggest that Shepard dies before he is able to do anything.  Regardless of how I interpret the ending... I can go back and attach different levels of importance to different little lines that "foreshadow" that interpretation as being a possible one... each different interpretation "requires" paying attention to different little lines and ignoring others.  In the end, each individual interpretation is just speculation... and that's where Bioware intended the ending to be "Speculation for everyone" - isn't that was Walters said?

So, getting back to Saren - Shepard tells him, Saren "there's still one way to stop this if you've got the guts."  I interpret as "yeah, you're implanted, he's got control of your head, but you can stop him if you've got the guts... to kill yourself."  Shepard recognized that Saren was weakening... and just decided to push him over the edge.  It's easier than killing him... (and for the record, I usually avoid using the P/R lines with Saren... I told I'd kill him... and I do.  "Enough talk" - "You're dead." are the lines I use with him.

DAO ending was nonsense full of plot holes if you can't realize that is not my fault.
As i said a character fate is ultimately on the writers hands.

Yes, it can.

People are still writing BRAND NEW fanfic about Mass Effect.  Obviously, people are emotionally invested in this.  It was designed that way.

Yeah, that never made sense to me.

See, aiming for the tube actually made sense to me. It's not quite the first time that Shep had done something like this to big Reaper tech. Shep aimed for the tubes on the Reaper-Larva, so s/he probably figured that it would work for the main device as well. Walking towards the tube while shooting it? Not so much, unless they were wanting and/or planning to die in the ensuing explosion.