The Character Romance thread (Official)

Miranda was plot relevant because she was in charge of Project Lazarus which brought Shepard back to life. 

I believe all of the crew of MEA is plot related. They all contribute something to the plot and helped Ryder get to the finish line. I'm sorry, but Cora was just as important as Suvi. Now with that said, Jaal was more involved with the plot than others, but the whole crew worked together to stop the Kett. And besides, I bring Liam and Vetra all the time, so they are more involved with the plot since they occasionally offers insight on the task at him.

But I believe all companion/crew members are plot related,they are all on this journey together and offers they views on the situations at hand. I know others won't share my view.

As for all bisexual, no no no. 2/2/2 is better.

Well when I am talking about plot stuff, personally, I don't necessarily mean that they are irreplaceable in the plot as much as I mean they have more plot-related content. Like how the game wants you to bring Jaal along for his commentary and prioritizes his romance by way of his romance having the most content. Like yeah I am not arguing that Jaal is the MEA equivalent to Solas or anything like that, just that the game kind of pushes you to romance him and you are getting less content, therefore learning less about other things, in the game overall. Also if you don't want to have Jaal with you, you miss out on a lot of commentary. But I was also mostly thinking of Bioware games going forward in general and not just MEA, either. But I do think bi!Jaal would probably solve this problem for MEA as best as it can be solved at this point.

I think the main reason it's hard to illustrate with MEA, as most of you have mentioned, is that MEA's characters weren't written as well...but you can see what the game is trying to do by highlighting the important characters TO ROMANCE being Cora and Jaal. Whether or not they need to be in the game isn't exactly what I was trying to say. Like, did it have to be Jaal? I suppose not, but it's fiction so of course they could have done what they wanted to, but it is Jaal and they made him be important by way of him being the path to Evfra trusting you.

I'm not very eloquent so sorry if that reply made things worse :dumb:

Again though I am mostly talking about future Bioware games, not so much MEA since what's done is done and it has other story issues that feed into the plot importance of various LIs. 

Yes, but like I said its just prologue material.  It doesn't feed into the main narrative in a significant way.  Shepard has to wait until ME3 to even really articulate thoughts on being resurrected

I just explained that they are all on this journey with you, and if you bring him with you on all of the missions, he will intervene. Plus, we probably wouldn't be able to get into New Tuchanka, if he wasn't on the Tempest. We need the Krogans help.

The way people want the companions to be involved in every single plotline is impossible. The way I view companions to be related to the plot is possible. If they are on the planets with me, they are involved in the situations at hand and even tries to help Ryder solve the issue.

I mean, how far are we going with this useful to the plot thing though lol...you can take it even farther and be like "What plot relevance does Shepard even have? What if Kaidan was the one who touched the beacon? Or Commander Blepard?"

I'm just messing around at this point, but it's kind of tough to discuss these things when it comes to fiction...it's not like there was an oracle who came down from the Leviathans and told the people of the Milky Way that Commander Shepard would be the one to deliver them from the threat of the Reapers either...and obviously it didn't have to be Ryder, if they didn't have the Special!SAM from their father there could have been an option to be like "I don't want this." and give the job to Cora. 

What I'm talking about are things that only certain characters can do.  For example, only Morrigan can perform the Dark Ritual at the end of DA:O, only Shepard can unite the galaxy against the Reapers, only Solas can lead you to Skyhold, and so on.

If you changed that, you'd be changing the plot to a significant degree, and that's what I'm talking about.  Romances that feed into these vital plot points. 

Well by this time in the game, I've become friends with Drack, so I feel obligated to help my friend out.

I think this debate is we are comparing green apples to gala apples here, I am not disagreeing with your point about the essential plot importance of these characters, but how there are LIs that the game prioritizes as romances that everybody should get the opportunity to enjoy. Like, you get MORE plot and not necessarily that you get to be in on the endgame plot.

EDIT: Does Mass Effect even have any LIs or crew members that are like this though? It seems like DA seems to be the series that lets you have these end game essential characters in your party...which might be another thing that makes this debate tough tbh. 

My face is tired, I only do gifs now 

But you can progress your game without Morrigan or Isabela, and Cora second on command means nothing and Jaal is a Twi'lek in disguised, how you even dare to say that plot relevance is attached to more content with LIs!!!!!!!!!!!!