What did you think of the portrayal of Illusive Man in 3?

I hated him in 3. He never ever would have been stupid enough to get himself indoctrinated but they did it anyway to make Cerberus even more evil.

I think TIM was always a bad guy. If you played ME1 it's really hard to see him as "morally grey". He's a bad guy who will easily kill a million people, for the betterment of humanity, and not even think he's done anything wrong. TIM turned people into husks. He lured Alliance marines into traps to be attacked by thresher maws. He had his people experiment on said marines by injecting thresher maw venom into their veins. There's no grey. He's a bad person.

What we learned in ME3 just makes things fall into place. Shepard was shielded from the worst things with a crew and squad who also didn't really know what was going on. As soon as they did, they all left him. Remember, TIM wanted to save the human Reaper - a thing whose sole purpose was to convert the liquefied remains of humans into "fuel" to make that thing run. It's horrifying and the only way to actually study it would be to use it. As I said above, TIM is not above killing a million people and I'm sure he'd gleefully liquefy millions to figure out how it worked.

He was morally grey because he revived Shepard to save human colonists and in the long run Earth's population from being taken by the Reapers' B-plan. He actually does something good and he does care about humans albeit about their advancement and ultimately a scheme to acquire collector data. If he was morally evil he'd have inserted the control chip in Shepard, and built his army divisions to do the job. If you imagine 3 doesn't exist he can be seen as a character that is more aware of how dire the situation is than those who are in the government and decides to deal with it his way, because humanity is at stake. If there is no humanity his grandiose ambitions for them won't be available either.

However, regarding consistency of Cerberus there is baeically none. I understand the conclusions of "What Cerberus was in 1 is consistent to what they are in 3 therefore they must've always been bad" but what i see here is just a changing direction of the plot with Mass Effect 2 whwre they decided to subvert Cerberus and then in 3 they changed direction again and tried to handwave things to make it seem like it was meant to be. By all means i believe the intent of ME2 was to show Cerberus as an actually morally grey faction and then they tried to handwave the unexplainable things from ME1 like the experiments and violence but kept things purposefully elusive or "illusive" so they could decide what to do with this ongoing plot in ME3. Instead of staying on course where the galactic governmental forces are blind and foolish and Shepard had to work his way under the red tape to find out how to stop the Reapers, they decided to go grand scale in ME3 and revert it so Cerberus is bad and Citadel Government is good again.

I never read any of the extra stuff but even still, I hate the idea of him personally letting himself be exposed to Reaper shit. He was always billed as someone who knew exactly what we were facing and how to deal with it. Hell, he may have beaten the Reapers on his own if left to his own devices. Reducing him to just another indoctrinated pawn seemed like just a cheap way to make him even more evil.

Never really cared much for TIM, even in ME2. He represented the first Cerberus retcon and was kind of the face of the very forced restart in ME2 as well as the forced (and badly executed) lack of choice that the davs gave the player there.
That said, at least in ME2, TIM had some very engaging dialogue and he did come through as the charismatic evil genius character, a bit like like an evil Elon Musk kinda guy. That cas cool.

However, ME3 managed to finally slaughter what was left of Cerberus' and TIM's credibility in the narrative, when they changed a clandestine terrorist group to a cartoon evil empire that was able to do whatever the hell the plot or gameplay required without any elegant implementation or truly thought out idea behind it.
In ME3, TIM's motives are scrambled with the lame explanation of "indoctrination" but also only sometimes. His actions don't make sense half of the time and are either stupid, or unbelievable or both the other times. His dialogue is either cliched, cringe-worthy, useless or all of the above and his chief goon Kai Leng is a failure in its own right.
IMO, TIM and Cerberus are the biggest writing disasters of ME3, possibly the series and while everyone hates on the ending (whether that's deserved or not is a different discussion) I think TIM/Cerberus at least rival if not surpass it as a writing failure.


... so yea, that's what I think of TIM in ME3.

Pretty consistent for an egomaniac with delusions of glory trying to master technology and gain control of being far more advanced then he. Who have taking out countless other races in their time.

i didn't forget but the game fails to address these connections. It fails to tell me how TIM goes from helpful but mysterious and slightly untrustworthy in 2 to being a reaper puppet in 3. With Saren they showed and convinced you of his actions not completely being his own using Benezia to show what indoctrination is and how Saren is affected by his ship and Shiala to informs you of how he saw the same visions as Shepard. Saren's first confrontation then makes it known how Saren has deluded himself to aid Sovereign and go against everyone in citadel space. We know nothing about TIM at all in ME2. There are no firm assumptions to make about what he really wants.
For TIM step 2 and 3 are mostly, or vaguely covered but the first step is neither specualted upon or stated directly by anyone. That is ME3's problem with indoctrination in general - it isn't shown, just specualative - like Ashley asking if Cerberus and Reapers have become allies on Mars and Shepard actually giving that idea the benefit of doubt, or spevulative but unconfirmed ponderings of Udina's coup being due to indoctrination. There is no common sense. Reapers may be many places now, but in 1 they make it clear that indoctrinated people are actually aboard it, and in 2 they show how being aboard a Reaper causes indoctrination and then they show us how reaper artifacts also affect the mind in Arrival DLC.... But unless you've read the comic Evolution you will have no idea why TIM is suddenly indoctrinated, or if you gave him the Collector Base but not everyone did this and the game does never address any of it.

So, excuse me if I'm a little skeptical and find it hard to swallow that Cerberus were suddenly the biggest rogue might in the galaxy with everyone not Cerberus being their enemies and character's assuming they must be reaper allies with zero basis in fact or even theories. They could've used the 6-month gap between Arrival and 3 to elaborate on what Cerberus did to convince the audience they've gone beyond greedy and opportunist which was really all they were when Shepard cuts off TIM at the end of 2, not indoctrinated agents unless you rrad all the external material and realize this was actually what Mac Walters was building towards (in a hackneyed and hamfisted fashion, mind you).

Hahahahahaha! Good one. Casey truly was a genius.

And this would be the codex entry for Shepard then:

“The Shepard” is a socio-religious entity, worshiped in several belief systems with various degrees of popularity throughout the galaxy. While the fact that “The Shepard” represents an actual historical figure is widely accepted among the archaeological and historical community, some of the more miraculous deeds, ascribed to the figure (such as resurrection, the curing of entire races from sickness or “The Shepard’s” alleged death to atone for the galaxy’s sin of creating AIs) are disputed by scientists. A number of more radical critics have dismissed claims that “The Shepard” existed entirely, based on the fact that it cannot even be established if it was a man or a woman.
Interestingly, descriptions of “The Shepard’s” achievements are mostly consistent throughout the different religions that focus on this persona. However, the various interpretations differ when it comes to specifics, such as details in certain actions, exact words spoken and most importantly the general demeanor of “The Shepard”. While some ascribe a benevolent and compassionate stance to the figure, others uphold the view of an uncompromising and unscrupulous pragmatist. Frequently, these disputes escalate into violence between the different sects, the most notable occurrences being the Paragonian Crusades in the 31st century (Shepardian calendar) and the Renegade terror campaigns in the 3350s.
However, despite these schisms, most of the various clergies view “The Shepard” and the 19 apostles as messianic saviours and many await the return of a new incarnation of this mysterious entity.




Seriously though, the Stargazer scene doesn't give them a free path for failures in the narrative. It's a story regardless, whether the story teller is BioWare directly or the Stargazer, causalities should be properly explained by either one.

Especially since she's not around Shepard the whole time to give an accurate version of what really happened.

I think "nuance" and "Mass Effect 3" are mutually exclusive