The Character Romance thread (Official)

I find it funny how people rag on the more unfriendly angara, like Evfra and at times the Moshae, as if they have 0.01 reasons to be nice to you from the get-go. Evfra is an ass to you because why shouldn't he be? The Nexus people came to settle angara planets, that's what they say they're here to do, and it's not like they ever asked the angara how they felt about their galaxy being infested by yet another bunch of aliens. You're here now, and you'll need somewhere to live, so there's nothing the angara can really do about it because even if they don't want it their military is shot to pieces. But the last first contact situation didn't go so well for the angara, as I'm sure you noticed. Then there is the fact that Sloane Kelly has already made a case for the Nexus people as untrustworthy because at first she helped the angara on Kadara, but then she installed herself as the leader and kicked out the people who couldn't pay protection fees into the badlands. So if the angara generally seem leery of you, there's one person to thank.

There's reasons enough to like Evfra, if you'd like me to list some. They don't have to be your reasons, but you did ask what people see in him, so here goes: If you choose to keep the angara AI, he's actually the one who convinces the Aya mayor to keep the embassies open and trust you. You can talk to him after missions and have relatively civil and interesting conversations, and he'll even compliment you sometimes. At the end of the game, via Jaal, he says that the angara and Nexus species are lucky to have each other. If you meet that angara woman who was assaulted by Nexus people on Elaaden, she says he's talked to her and told her she's a warrior, obviously trying to help her feel worthy again, and Jaal also says one of his strengths is that he understands "a fighter's heart", so he's not just a general, but also someone who tries to keep people motivated and hopeful, even though he himself had every reason to give up hope, losing his family to the kett. If you are honest with him (for example about SAM), he will rightly commend you for that. He's the epitome of the truth that a decent person doesn't have to be a nice person, and some people don't mind that he's grumpy (also, if you like that kind of dry humour, he's arguably funny; I find sarcastic cynics on a whole much more entertaining than friendly lovely people, maybe because I am also one of the former).

Now, it's completely fair to dislike him for being an asshole, but he's not an idealistic racist like Akksul, which makes him interesting to me. In fact, the game pretty much builds them up as parallels: They are both men who have suffered badly at the hands of the kett and, in response, became leaders of a paramilitary faction inside the angara. Both are described by others as inspiring leaders. Both are wary of and hostile to outsiders at first, but if you work to win Evfra's favour, he will be practical and bit by bit put more trust in the Nexus people, whereas the one thing that should win Akksul's favour (rescuing his former teacher, the Moshae) completely fails to sway him because he's way too far down his road. Evfra realises early enough that not working with the new aliens will hurt the people he's trying to protect in the long run, whether he thinks it's a risky thing to do or not; whereas Akksul blindly rushes on until he's at a point where he himself is hurting his people in some misguided effort to protect them (both literally by shooting Jaal, and figuratively by blowing up the Forge).

I'm sorry, I just had to reiterate that, because the narrative mirroring of Evfra and Akksul is one of the pieces of writing in this game that actually works, in my opinion.