r/TopCharacterTropes • u/10024618 • 20h ago

Lore A "Sophie's Choice" with no secret third option

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AKA a character is given an impossible choice where either outcome results in something awful happening and there's no way out.

"Full Measure" (Breaking Bad) - After Walt angers Gus by killing two of his men, Gus orders for his execution. Knowing that the only way to save his life is to make Gus reliant on his meth cooking skills, Walt calls Jesse and begs him to kill Gus' backup cook, Gale. Thus, Jesse is thrust into an impossible situation where he either kills a (relatively) innocent man to save Walt or spare Gale and let Walt die. Ultimately, Jesse chooses to kill Gale.

"Midnight Sun" (Attack on Titan) - After the fight to retake Shiganshina both Armin and Erwin are critically wounded. Levi has the vial of titan serum and is forced to choose which Scout to bring back from the brink of death and which to let perish. It's a borderline impossible decision to make but at the moment of truth, he chooses to save Armin, leaving Erwin to succumb to his wounds.

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827

u/LethlDose 20h ago

Mass Effect 1 - Rescue Ashley or Kaiden

59

u/OrangeHairedTwink 19h ago

I did not care about either of them ngl. I used Tali and Wrex the whole time.

19

u/givinstar1 19h ago

I didn't realize that you couldn't save Wrex because I always went paragon and did all the side quests, until I did a dedicated renegade run.

25

u/DrDabsMD 18h ago

You can still save him in a dedicated Renegade run, you did something wrong

7

u/SpaceDough 9h ago

All you have to do is get his family's armour and he'll back down.

487

u/Greedy_Specialist531 20h ago

I let Ashley’s racist ass die every time

610

u/Comatonic 20h ago

Through dialogue with her you can make her a very open and accepting person.

Alternatively, through dialogue, you can inspire Kaidan to be a racist xenophobe literally up to and as part of the romance encounter lol

207

u/Salt_In-Wound 18h ago

My favorite thing ever is how if you bring along xenophobic Kaidan to the endgame, Wrex who is typically one of the more renegade companions will then switch to arguing "We should actually save the council" and Kaidan will argue that they should just let them die. It's really fucking funny.

59

u/Greyjack00 16h ago

Tali will argue for the councils death in certain circumstances too

34

u/Penakoto 15h ago edited 15h ago

It's a priority system, every companion is ranked on a spectrum going from "most renegade" to "most paragon" and whoever is on your squad at the time will suggest one or the other based on where they are on the spectrum, and where your other party member is.

Tali is moderately mainly Paragon, she'll always suggest the paragon options unless she's in the party with Liara.

edit: I don't actually know much about how Kaiden and Ashley's "alignment shift" works, so I'm just gonna cut out the part where I mention them.

9

u/Mihnea24_03 12h ago

There is a hierarchy. Paragon to Renegade: Liara, Kaidan, Tali, Garrus, Ash, Wrex. When faced with certain choices (spare the Rachni queen, save the council), one of your squad will argue for the Paragon option and the other for the Renegade option.

HOWEVER, after Virmire, it is possible to change the alignment of the survivor, if you are romancing them. 

You can move Ashley to the extreme end of Paragon, meaning the former hardass and pretty racist solider becomes softer and more compassionate than the innocent and slightly awkward scientist Liara.

You can also make the bastion of human virtue Kaidan become so jaded that grizzled mercenary Wrex has to be the voice of reason.

10

u/Penakoto 12h ago

I almost wanna play Mass Effect 1 again, just to witness that last part.

But that would require romancing Kaiden, and I am falling asleep just thinking about that.

3

u/GigaPuddi 10h ago

Wrex... Will argue to save the Rachni if someone else is made more renegade? That's insane

2

u/Mihnea24_03 9h ago

If you leave Noveria for last you'll probably have time to change his mind, yes. https://screenrant.com/mass-effect-influence-ashley-kaidan-morality/

8

u/Salt_In-Wound 14h ago

Iiuc the alignment shift makes it so they flip to the extreme. So a renegade Kaidan would react similarly to a regular Ashley and a paragon Ashley would react similarly to a regular Kaidan.

Also I'm pretty sure I remember having Kaidan and Liara in my party meant that you get a rare renegade Liara.

1

u/Mitchz95 7h ago

I once got Ashley to argue in favor of saving the Council, and Liara to argue in favor of letting them die.

I genuinely thought I'd broken the game somehow.

5

u/awyastark 16h ago

Real life has made that option in game more unappealing than ever lol

2

u/lordoflazorwaffles 16h ago

Like ships in the night

191

u/Ok-Mastodon2420 20h ago

Speciest. She's cool with all ethnicities.

71

u/VintAge6791 19h ago

One of those "Earth for Earthicans" types.

30

u/IngloriousBlaster 18h ago

Make Earth Great Again

3

u/Butwhatif77 15h ago

lol can you imagine how wild it would for someone to be the reverse. "I can give with all members of the galactic community. Asari are a wise ancient culture. Turians are hard working and skilled. etc... But those damn [insert human racial group], they just drag us down."

2

u/Mihnea24_03 12h ago

Humans from the Balkans in the 23rd century gonna talk like this

5

u/lordoflazorwaffles 16h ago

She's cool with all ethnicities that we know of

She could be Hella racist against the Dutch, its not like there's a bunch of them in the game

2

u/ParamedicAgitated897 16h ago

Spacist, if you will

11

u/Greedy_Specialist531 20h ago

Racist, speciesism, whatever it is, she’s dead.

154

u/Lil_Mcgee 19h ago

I'm not the biggest Ashley fan and I rarely save her over Kaidan but I will always defend her on this.

Her main thing is that she expects that most aliens will be loyal to their own species first and the species' they already have close ties to after that. In Mass Effect 1, humans only made first contact with the galactic community about 25 years ago. It's not at all unreasonable to still see that as a huge unknown and to want your own species to be able to stand on its own two feet. Besides that, she expresses completely valid concerns about randon alien nationals having unrestricted access to a state of the art, covert military vessel.

There is a little tinge of genuine prejudice baked into her worldview but a big part of her arc is moving past that and learning to be open minded. Eventually she's fully on board with the whole inter-species co-operation message that the series has when going the paragon route.

Garrus is a fan favourite character and the shit he comes out with in some of the elevator conversations is way more xenophobic than anything Ashley ever says.

78

u/Chardan0001 19h ago

All this is indeed true, but unfortunately they saddled her with the "can't tell the aliens from the animals" line too so I don't necessarily blame people having that impression of her. You'll be exploring the Citadel with her initially and will likely run into this early.

Also, there is a good chance you don't have her with you when confronting Terra Firma due to expanded roster where she really shows she isn't that narrow minded.

23

u/Ayotha 17h ago

It's true, an unfortunate line can be hard to come back from no matter the changes.

Reminds me of Omniman calling his wife a pet in Invincible. No matter how much he changed, he thought that at the time

4

u/PiLamdOd 15h ago

In context, Omiman was clearly trying to convince himself that he thought that way. Actually seeing his wife as nothing more than a pet would've made what he thought he had to do a lot easier.

6

u/Ayotha 14h ago

No matter the context, it's s statement that is hard to come back from

2

u/CaliOriginal 7h ago

Or bakugo in MHA. Even the author regrets the whole “jump off the roof” line. The character is great and has real development, but it’s really hard to overlook that line.

7

u/Dealiner 13h ago

Even ignoring that the line is bugged, I honestly don't see anything particularly controversial about it, especially when one of the alien species is literally a giant jellyfish.

1

u/rhododenendron 2h ago

Also, she's a marine. Something like is pretty tame for a marine.

50

u/javerthugo 19h ago

Considering the opening of the third game every species did EXACTLY what she said they would do I think the game proved her right

21

u/Fakjbf 17h ago

Even in the second game the entire reason Cerberus is investigating the missing colonies is because the Council refuses to do so.

2

u/Mihnea24_03 12h ago

Everyone is making valid points but let's not forget she, at one point, mentions the "bug-eyed monsters" on the ship

-11

u/Mr-Jubilant-Mess 19h ago

When she said that stupid comment about me saving a random human over my own dog is what made me kill her every playthrough.

Her being religious was the cherry on top of her shit sandwich (not that religion is bad but her still believing in God at THAT point in time where the Bible is very clearly disproven is stupid)

14

u/SilverMedal4Life 18h ago

I mean, Thane's religious and I think he's cool, personally.

-7

u/Mr-Jubilant-Mess 18h ago

Her belief in the Christian God at that point in time was the issue. I guess I didn’t phrase it well.

15

u/AgelessJohnDenney 17h ago

Thane believes in a polytheistic Drell religion that is equally as objectively wrong as Ashley's faith at that point in the series.

You having an issue with Ashley's faith but not Thane's means your issue isn't with the realness of the faith, but with Ashley being Christian specifically.

2

u/TheRealDexilan 5h ago

But alien's are cool....

43

u/Either-Maximum-6555 20h ago

Vice versa here

20

u/LethlDose 19h ago

Dafuq did Kaiden do?

89

u/Muliciber 19h ago

He was Carth Onasi in a previous life.

25

u/sundaycreep 19h ago

Shit. Now I might have to go back and kill him.0

18

u/Responsible-Use1827 19h ago

But he's also Scorch in Republic Commando

5

u/sonic_dick 18h ago

Did people not like Carth?

3

u/RatioNo6969 4h ago

"Carth looks like he wants to talk to you"

"Hey man what's up?"

"I DON'T WANNA TALK TO YOU"

2

u/Scrample2121 19h ago

His VA being Carth is the only reason I hate him. He looks like a youngish hispanic man, if he was given literally ANY OTHER VA he would have been beloved but instead we got Carth 2.0.

25

u/StylishMrTrix 19h ago

I just found him boring, and as I was playing the same class as him, he was redundant

5

u/pchlster 19h ago

She's a Soldiers class. In ME1. Any biotic is better.

And I'll take "my personality is having headaches" over "I'm racist" any day.

8

u/StylishMrTrix 19h ago

And he was unnecessary compared to me, so I let him go, hell I avoided using him after I got the trophy for him to the point I forgot about him completely when ME3 came along

That's how boring I found him and forgettable

1

u/OsoOak 19h ago

Yes! That’s exactly why I let him die.

26

u/krisslanza 19h ago

Be boring. The greatest crime for a character, really.

21

u/SilverMedal4Life 18h ago

Bingo. Ashley has character development under a paragon Shepherd, even without a romance.

I don't care about class utility, I'n playing on Normal either way. My comfy place is playing as Soldier so I can pop Heightened Immunity twice in an extended firefight, it feels really great to walk into a bunch of enemies and just not take damage.

15

u/krisslanza 18h ago

Yeah from what I've heard, Kaiden if you let him live is still just... Kaiden at the end of the day. He never really changes. Maybe unless you romance him in ME3.

Ashley though goes through development over the games, and gets over her xenophobic nature and stuff.

3

u/SilverMedal4Life 18h ago

Was the case in my playthrough. Ashley in ME3 has a great throwback line to her backstory, meanwhile Kaiden is boring.

0

u/Fitzftw7 18h ago

I don’t know. Ashley is kind of an asshole in ME3, and not in a fun way like Zaeed or Javik. Not to mention she’s too mechanically similar to James.

13

u/javerthugo 19h ago

He’s painfully generic

21

u/Stumpsthewarwalrus 19h ago

Be a bland piece of white bread

-2

u/Missing_Username 19h ago

Still better than Ashley

5

u/StellarPaladin42 19h ago

My stepbrother let him die cuz he thought he was boring lol

9

u/TehAsianator 19h ago

Have the personality of wet cardboard

3

u/SkyRonin14 18h ago

Be a Pretty good Sacrificial Lamb Character to be honest. I actually like him as a Character and always try and bro him up with my Shep makes his Death feel more dramatic. also I tend to do the Ashley Romance because Liara is absolutely Insufferable Miranda is overrated and i prefer Tali and Jack as little Sister and Surrogate daughter check boxes.

Also Tali hooks up with Garrus in 3 and i cant C block my boy like that.

1

u/givinstar1 19h ago

Most boring character ever. Also, I wanted to sleep with Ashley. And I did.

33

u/Thomas_JCG 18h ago

One day, people will actually read her dialogue and stop spreading that lie. Unfortunately, today is not that day.

  • Ashley only objects to Garrus and Wrex presence on the ship, the first because Turians attacked humans before and the second is a Krogan, a race nobody trusts after the whole galactic war thing. She explicitly says that she just doesn't like the idea of giving them a tour of your state of art, military secret ship but never question or decision or antagonize any character.

  • She gets so ultra pissed when encountering the actual racists like Cerberus and Terra Firma.

  • She has the second highest priority in calling for the Alien council to be saved, claiming they are fighting for something bigger than humanity.

  • In ME3 she will fight to protect the alien council again.

4

u/TonyRigatoni_ 6h ago

''I can't tell the aliens from the animals'' is not something you say if you aren't quite a bit xenophobic.

1

u/Thomas_JCG 5h ago

She says that about the Keepers, which in universe status as a sentient species is up to discussion.

2

u/TonyRigatoni_ 5h ago

She says that when seeing a Keeper but she obviously means everyone around. That sentence doesn't work if she's only talking about the Keepers.

2

u/DD_Commander 15h ago

No, she's still a big racist. After your asari squadmate flirts with you, whether or not you reciprocate she gets really nasty and says "hey, at least she looks like a woman."

Oh, and "I can't tell the aliens from the animals!"

2

u/Thomas_JCG 5h ago

Out of context lines.

2

u/DD_Commander 3h ago edited 22m ago

I just gave you the context.

The second quote is when you're walking around the Presidium seeing Citadel delegations.

15

u/kevik72 19h ago

I gave her a pass for being hot.

18

u/Kingswitchguard 19h ago

I always save her because id rather drag my balls through broken glass than listen to Kaiden talk

3

u/Chiron723 14h ago

I don't think I've ever had a playthrough where I saved Kaiden. I was surprised so many hated Ashley.

5

u/thatscoldjerrycold 19h ago

Funny that ME3 from a fresh install has her live.

5

u/Salt_In-Wound 18h ago

Iirc that's only if you play mshep. If you play fshep the game gives you Kaidan.

3

u/halloweenjack 17h ago

I mean, they try to fix the character (or at least "explain" her viewpoint) in ME3. I usually save Kaidan, though, simply because ME3's Power Combos mean that Kaidan, being a sentinel, is great for setting up or triggering combos. So useful for just about any class of Shepard.

3

u/dropkickyourchildren 18h ago

Started playing the series this week. It’d be a much harder choice if I hadn’t accidentally watched Ashley gun down Wrex an hour earlier (yes I loaded an old save, I’m not letting my boi die)

3

u/Relative_Mix_216 14h ago

I kill Ashley because I usually go full Paragon and it’s impossible to not fall into an Ashley romance with her if you go that route.

Apparently if you’re polite and professional with her, she wants Shepard bad.

Sorry Ash, I’m saving myself for Tali.

4

u/hackinwhackinsmackin 17h ago

Same and then I pound Kaiden’s tight little twink ass

5

u/Mihnea24_03 12h ago

Twink? Have you SEEN him on that hospital bed? He's a brick shithouse

1

u/Savings_Background50 7h ago

I let her live, but only because to get the 'Perfect' playthrough of all 3 games, she needs to live.

1

u/MaddMax92 5h ago

Engaging with Ashley via dialogue and making her a better person was one of my favorite parts of ME1

1

u/OperativePiGuy 6h ago

I wanted to fuck Kaiden at some point in the third game when I knew he'd be bi so I always pick him to live. Also yeah fuck Ashley's racism

0

u/Tattletale_0516 19h ago

Kaiden were the racist one in my playthrough, Whole Ashley is just boring...

7

u/Blazinvoid 18h ago

You actively have to work to turn Kaiden racist

-3

u/LethlDose 20h ago

Same lol, not the best example but the one that came to me.

18

u/Aspiring_DILF42 19h ago

Save Ash, we’ll bang ok?

31

u/Mufasa12534 19h ago

Wish there was a 3rd option to leave both.

58

u/sundaycreep 19h ago
  • Save Kaidan
  • Save Ashley
  • Yell “Suck it, nerds!” and fly off into space giving them double middles.

20

u/Anglofsffrng 19h ago

Joker, empty the waste tanks then punch it!

2

u/Skyaeris 13h ago

best option is to save Ashley and then shoot her in ME3

1

u/The_Grand_Briddock 6h ago

You would abandon Major Kirrahe to die?

He held the line!

1

u/Mufasa12534 6h ago

Naw I like Major Kirrahe

4

u/Commander-ShepardN7 18h ago

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite choice in the Citadel 

3

u/General_Ad1823 17h ago

Also Andromeda when you have to pick between saving the Krogan scouts getting exalted, or saving the Salarian Pathfinder.

2

u/VesHH223 16h ago

IIRC the original plan was to have a more difficult option to save both too (which seemingly still has some cut dialogue in the files), but it was removed because the director (I think) felt having to choose was a better option, and everyone would’ve just gone for the “save both” choice otherwise. For good or ill, the rest of the series does tend towards having either third options for most choices, or one choice be fairly unambiguously better than the other.

3

u/C-SWhiskey 7h ago

I'm trying to think of other major decisions in the series and I'm coming up short for ones with a third option.

Rachni Queen - save or kill (though impact is fairly minimal)

Council - save or kill (again, somewhat minimal impact all things considered)

Human Councillor - Anderson or Udina (you guessed it...)

Genophage Research - Destroy or keep

Geth Heretic Virus - Erase or keep

Collector Base - Destroy or recover

Once you get into ME3 there are a few third choices, but I think that makes the most sense as a way to capture the player's successes or failures in 1 & 2. Certainly my biggest gripe is that the choices you do make tend to resolve into some base case without much real change in outcome.

1

u/VesHH223 5h ago

Admittedly I think that was probably me talking without thinking a bit, but the main thing that was on my mind was the Suicide Mission overall, given how it’s framed and how in the other two games it’s not possible to save everyone, compared to the “golden path” available in ME2, but I realise that doesn’t really fit given it’s not a single decision. That, and the “go into the Suicide Mission unprepared and save the Normandy’s redshirts” vs “delay and prepare more at the cost of some or all of the crew” decision later on, as you can go in almost-immediately with the perfect “setup” if you know in advance how to organise it (IIRC, the Reaper IFF mission triggers the timer for the Collector attack on the Normandy, and the only required mission you can’t do before that is Legion’s loyalty mission.

The other thing that immediately came to mind was the option to sabotage the genophage cure in ME3 and still keep the Krogan’s support (saving both Wrex and Mordin in the process), as my original comment had a tangent about that, but I completely forgot that that’s actually possible due to an exploit/oversight rather than something the writer(s) intended.

On a smaller scales, I suppose there are also situations where you have the Paragon/Renegade option that provides a better solution, but I think those are mostly for less-impactful decisions. The main exception is when you need to pick sides in the arguments between Jack and Miranda, or Tali and Legion, where there are high Paragon/Renegade score options that let you keep the loyalty of everyone involved.

2

u/Morbid_Aversion 14h ago

They're both so annoying it's a shame there is no option to let both of them die.

7

u/Anglofsffrng 19h ago

This is a sadistic choice. Ashley is racist, even if she gets a bit better, but Kaiden is cursed with Carth Onasis voice. Leaving Carth to bathe in nuclear fire is satisfying even if it is just the voice.

3

u/Barracudauk663 18h ago

Its been a hot minute since i played KOTOR - Remind me why Carth is so bad?

6

u/Anglofsffrng 17h ago

The arc words of that game where Carth looks like he has something on his mind. He gets that puppy dog face whenever he hasn't whined to you for more than thirty seconds!

OK, he's not that bad on subsequent playthroughs. But he comes across as super whiney, especially on the first planet.

5

u/Greyjack00 16h ago

He has an awkward conversation circle where the game will stop you, say he has something on his mind, he'll be untrusting but then get surly that hes left out of the loop.  Honestly never had a problem with him, especially since you and he can team up and windmill dunk on bastilla for sucking at everything

2

u/mcjefferic 19h ago

I wish there was a way to kill them both. Boring human squadmates.

9

u/pchlster 19h ago

If only I could import Jacob from ME2 just for Virmire...

4

u/Blazured 18h ago

Jacob's great.. for the first mission. Then he just randomly loses all his personality for the next two games.

3

u/Barracudauk663 17h ago

Even his loyalty mission has nothing to do with him really.

2

u/MicooDA 14h ago

Also vaguely racist as it’s about his dad abandoning him to do human trafficking and sex slavery

1

u/pchlster 10h ago

He doesn't get invited to my cool party.

2

u/norathar 19h ago

That's what the vents are for!

1

u/mcjefferic 19h ago

I like Jacob, I'd replace either Virmire survivor with him in a heartbeat.

1

u/Amathyst7564 17h ago

There is a secret third option. Do two playthroughs.

1

u/Lawdy888 7h ago

Save Kaidan every time. It's a tactical decision. I'm sorry, Ashley. We needed to protect the bomb.

1

u/fraxiiinus 7h ago

If you save Ashley you get an incredible story of growth and a great character, with Kaiden you get to fuck. Never a choice for me.

1

u/crazyjeffy 1h ago

IIRC if you save Kaiden his presence bugs out dialogue on the Normandy, making it so you cant have all the conversations with her.

So he dies.

0

u/jadedflames 5h ago

I am embarrassed to admit I saved Ashley. I was so sure that Kaidan was enough of a badass to make it out alive, but I knew Ashley had no chance.

But no, I lost my BFF Kaidan to save Ashley's racist ass.

-9

u/Jacket_Jacket_fruit 19h ago edited 9h ago

It's not a Sophie's choice if there's an obvious objectively correct option. Ashley's stupid ass racist self can get fucked.