“If I had a nickel for every time I charmed the main antagonist to shoot themself, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.” -Paragon Sheppard, probably
I know, I played the trilogy for the first time and as soon as I saw the illusive man looking all reaper synthetic, I was like yep, this is Saren all over again.
When the Illusive man says "The odds are not in your favour" I would have loved an interrupt where Shepard would say "When have the odds ever been in my favour!"
I wouldn’t say that it was more of the illusive man realizing he is indoctrinated and not in control so he killed himself to save humanity like he said at all costs. Plus it was clear Shepard was about to win. Thats what made him better then saren. Didn’t know this ending was hard to get. Sad Anderson still dies tho
Yupp... unfortunately they already had gone rogue by the time the events of ME1 unfolded. Although I had to work with Cerberus in ME2 to stop the Collectors, I have been more than happy to thwart them whenever I had the chance (shut down Project Overlord and sent David Archer to the Grissom Academy, sent Veetor back to the Migrant Fleet, reactivated Legion). Besides, I've even sent the intel that Cerberus had collected back to the Alliance.
I prefer how Shepard calls out The Illusive Man's BS when he says he totally isn't indoctrinated during Thessia: "The Reapers have it right? Listen to yourself, you're indoctrinated!"
@@Robidu1973 you're right, I'd love to have an option to go against Cerberus and turn to the Alliance for help in ME2. It would require two different story paths and two different backgrounds for Mass Effect 3 though.
@@beverlyarcher546 While true, I don't think that indoctrination really "kicked in" until the Reapers invaded. I think he really was sincere in ME2 and before, the indoctrination was likely dormant then.
The final paragon speech check is a good redemption for the Illusive Man. He went out on his own terms - with the last shred of humanity he had left to pull that trigger.
I always thought the last conversation with the Illusive Man was pretty convincing... Until I remembered that I had spent the entire game stopping Cerberus from ridiculously inhumane activities. If the writers had kept Cerberus more chaotic neutral like they were in ME2, I probably would have given the Control ending more thought. But nope, Destroy all the way
In 1 Cerberus is pretty bad as well. In 2 the Illusive Man goes to lengths to make Cerberus seem more sympathetic, like hiring Kelly to be nice but having her send reports on the crew, and you never interact with any others besides your crew iirc. I'd still say they're bad, just more covert.
I would argue that Cerberus is mostly indoctrinated through the events of ME3. Most chaotic-neutral actions turn straight up evil when you lose your sense of humanity. Even if you don’t except that as an excuse you gotta take into account that all life faced certain extinction. It may be that fact finally pushed Cerberus to lose that little bit of morality holding them in check. It’s been awhile but given the situation I think there are some pretty good head-cannon explanations for a lot of narrative paths that BioWare chose to take.
He was humanity's Saren. Both Saren and TIM were renegade "ends justify the means" types, and even though both their ends were good goals, the methods they both used were morally wrong, and both ended up getting indoctrinated which twisted their mindset and their tactics even more. I have a grudging respect for TIM in ME2, and in ME3 its almost tragic how much his devotion to his people has been abused by the Reapers into nearly causing the extinction of his own race. That's why I always convince him of this, so he has that one moment of clarity, that one brief flicker of conscious where he is in control, and can make his own decision, just like I give Saren. "I tried, Shepard" I believe him.
Alternatively, you can play ME3 on the 360, do all this and still have the speech check greyed out because of a stupid bug. I'm still salty. Legendary run has been better.
Interesting. I've never seen that bug on the 360. However I always wondered why I had all the renegade options in the end even though I played a paragon shepard.
I think the bug might still be there because I did full paragon play through and the speech options and still had the final paragon/renegade options greyed out and I’m playing on the Xbox series X
In my last ME3 playthrough, i had a fully filled reputation bar with paragon points but was still unable to unlock the last dialogue. I was frustrated back then, but now i understood why it didn't unlock.
Same, in a recent playthrough I used every paragon option available and filled bar as well, even with the Illusive man. Yet, the last choice was greyed.
I passed that last speech check once, the very first time I played ME3. Since then I've failed to get it again. As far as I know, I was the only one in my friends group to get it. One of my friends refused to believe that the speech check was possible to get. Not sure if he remembers that conversation.
So THAT'S what happened! Played the original ME3 twice and first time I couldn't pass it - figured I hadn't gotten enough paragon rep on my first playthrough, but then on my second - after having completed the Leviathan and Omega DLC's I still couldn't pass it, and I thought they were supposed to be unpassable, as to further represent The Illusive Man' controlling you actions. Figures it was just a stupid bug. -_-'
Same thing here. I got the paragon option on my very first playthrough and could never get it again. I was starting to think that TIM shooting himself was something I made up in my head.
That's why I always don't go for the speech check. I prefer to shoot The Illusive Man myself as payback, once the prompt is there cause I definitely don't wait once it happens. It's payback for making me shoot one of my top favorite characters, and on top of that, a good and badass man.
You can mix the paragon and renegade options in the final conversation. Back in the day my Shepard was a paragon who was going to pick Control, so I used the Renegade options in the final conversation except for the very last one. IMO it actually flows better that way. The paragon choices are all about Control being bad but it ends with TIM realizing he’s indoctrinated and killing himself. The renegade choices are all about TIM being indoctrinated but it ends with you shooting him because he never admits to being indoctrinated.
so for the final final choice you can pick either/or,right? just making sure im reading that right... cuz i would love to run full renegade in the convo only to have TIM finish it himself.
@@MrOrdosan During my playthrough years ago of ME3 I was a paragon and I had all the options available in the argument with TIM. I picked the red options in that last argument with him except that I picked the blue one for the very last bit of dialogue. I haven’t done a bunch of tests to verify how it works but that’s what happened in my playthrough.
@@Superninfreak neat. been AGES since i played. pretty sure previously I ran red all the way through,lol. but you right. it does feel better doing it that way
Indeed! To be honest, your suggestion is far more reasonable than the original one! It's impossible to think that someone would chose to do nothing in the Crucible!
I didn't even know you could fail. I always get the paragon speech check option. I clicked this video to learn how to get the Renegade death for the illusive man. The renegade death to me is the better of the two, because he reveals his entire motivations in a far more poetic way than confronting him with his failures could ever produce. "I wish you could see it the way I do shepard, it's so perfect..." Not to mention he dies seeing the Earth he was willing to sacrifice everything for, even his sanity and his life. If he shoots himself, he doesn't even get that. So to me, the renegade option is the kindest death even though he voluntarily gives up if you take the paragon route. Likewise when writing fanfiction, I'd much rather use the renegade death as the canon one.
You know, I wonder how different the series would have been if you could have gotten Javik in Mass Effect 1. Let's say the game let you do a "cleanup sweep" of Eden Prime, to make sure that you didn't miss anything that Saren could use later, and you end up finding and recruiting Javik. How do you think the ME1 Council would react? I'd love to hear how you think things would go down, Big Dan.
@@funnymanmakesvideos7580 Ah "Reapers", ancient machines who lay dormant and wiped out multiple ancient races and presumably almost wiped the entire galaxy out 5 years ago and it took all the races coming together to defeat them. The council has dismissed those claims.
You don't have to consistently do paragon or renegade speech checks, as long as you you do them, it doesn't matter which one you pick, I've just done a run in the legendary edition where I interchanged the speech checks with him as I saw fit and ultimately unlocked the last speech check with him.
If you want to pass that speech check with the Exogeni representative you have to do Feros after Noveria and Therum plus you should do all available side missions. By then you have a high enough level so that you can invest your xp to max charm or intimidate. If you pass the speech check Shepard can convince the representative that because Feros got attacked and successfully resisted there are multiple business opportunities available for the company. In a news broadcast in ME2 you can then hear that the colony on Feros is thriving and more and more people are joining the colony
@@g-susyolo6713 Or even better, complete ME1 3 times and you gain 4 charm or Intimidate points for free so you have an extra 12 points to spend elsewhere. The best way to do it and it's what I did, the 3rd run is the best run. Took me 46, 27 and 24 hours for each one to 100% it. This way, If I ever go back and play ME1, it's the best you can be besides not having a bonus power
how tf? i played the legendary edition blind and i had all the speech checks available when i finished me 3. I didn't even follow any guide just winged it for most of part
I really wish there was a way to convince him before it’s too late. I always liked the Illusive Man as a character and wish there was some way to keep him from doing all this messed up shit.
That would have been interesting and I agree I also always liked him as a character. But Bioware made it pretty clear in the comics that it was much too late to save him before you even met him. Since the most likely incident where he got indoctrinated was during the first contact war in his backstory comics. Long before shepard even knew of his existance.
@@dragonslaya6203 Yeah that’s true. That’s why his eyes were weird, from interacting with that Reaper artifact. The comics are actually really good and I like that they occasionally reference the events of the trilogy while keeping it vague. It allows everyone’s choices to be canon.
@@dextergrif1052 I haven't gotten to read them fully just know some important bits. Also fun fact I noticed in my current renegade run when your eyes start slightly turning red they start out as red dots that look very similar to the illusive man's eyes. Which is interesting considering Shepard's cybernetics were experimental reaper based stuff iirc.
@@dextergrif1052 Nah Indoctrination Theory never worked for multiple reasons. One of the main ones being the Prothean VI's detect indoctrination and the one on Thessia only mentioned an indoctrinated presence when Kai Leng entered and later on said Shepard is attempting to retrieve them from indoctrinated forces. Pretty big plot whole for indoctrination theory right there.
You know, this video has reminded me of how sad I feel for the Illusive Man. Even when he's working against you in ME3, there's plenty of times when you can hear that your words ARE getting through and it sounds like he desperately wants to agree with you but can't. "Let us go. We'll do the rest." "I...I can't do that...Commander." Then of course, the tone in his voice before his commits suicide. "I...tried, Shepard." It honestly makes me tear up a bit. I can't even imagine what that would feel like, to be so violated and controlled. On an overall note, while his methods can be horrible, I do believe he truly did want what was best for humanity. Otherwise, he never would've pulled that trigger. To quote his final words in the renegade path; "There... Earth. I wish you could see it like I do, Shepard. It's so... perfect."
Martin sheen did an incredible job. Tim is ex alliance millitary, he would have made a good final boss instead of that random asian guy... Hell dude did save humanity, bringing back Shepard is the only reason things worked out
I've always played a paragon Shepard, but I remember that I could mix paragon and renegade options in the Xbox 360 version back then as much as I want... at least in the final conversation. And if you chose the final renegade option and shot the Illusive Man then there was a final scene that isn't shown in this video where a dying Illusive Man told Shepard how beautiful the Earth is.
the legendary edition was my first time playing mass effect trilogy ( i finished ME3 at the beginning of this month ) and i think i got this scene as well, but im pretty sure the final paragon and renegade options were grayed out so i had to go with one of the regular so idk how i got this ending.
Gotta say I kinda liked the standoff with Saren better. The outcome was the same and you still made him see the light, regardless of the Renegade/Paragon choices. In ME3 with the Renegade option you will never convince him and just kill him.
I like how no one in-game makes it a point to note how Shepard and the Illusive Man only meet in the flesh right until the ending of the final game. Also, this is basically Darth Sion all over gain. The protagonist, through their own conviction, makes the antagonist doubt themselves right at the end.
My favorite check is the renegade one. Even if I play Paragon route, I always make the renegade talking choices. When the station starts reopening, the Illusive Man's comment about how perfect earth is, telling Shepard he wishes they could see it the way he does,, that made all the effort worth it
I’ve never been able to get that final speech check with him, but his dialogue about preferring control over killing, that’s the reason I never picked the Control ending. Like nah, that dude was smoking rock, he can’t be right.
Renegade: "I kill people in my way, and let people die for the greater good." Paragon: "I'm very nice and I also repeatedly talk powerfull, stronwilled people into shooting themselves. It's good deeds." Paragon players: "Are we the baddies?"
I've just played through ME3 LE and I wondered why the final blue/red dialogue options were greyed out despite having reputation maxed. I think I missed the Paragon option on Mars. I've always thought that this scene is a great culmination of the ambiguous relationship between Shep and Illusive Man with excellent writing and voice acting. It just makes the conversation with the Catalyst immediately afterwards with its lack of satisfying options more jarring.
1:13 "The only way Shepherd can break through the indoctrination is by consistently arguing the same point in every conversation with him." Like a counter indoctrination? It would be quite a twist if Shepherd had their own version of the indoctrination ability that manifested as speech checks. Not sure how it would work, though. Latent biotics?
could change the story that the prothean beacon we discovered in eden prime holds some knowledge about how the reaper's indoctrinated think thus diplomatic approach is haywiring the process and possibly release the indoctrinated.
I liked this way more then the final speach check in ME1. Here you have at least some development from start to finish. Sarrens break out and suicide happend way to sudden.
I still wish the last paragon/renegade dialog options were references to the paragon/renegade options that gets Saren to shoot himself from the first game.
It's funny and ironic when following the resolution of the final encounter with the Illusive Man and had convinced him (to the point the man kills himself) that controlling the Reapers isn't an option if Shepard just meets up with Catalyst Kid and chooses the Control ending himself.
You know his videos are going blow up again when Mass Effect 5 gets gameplay footage and/or the game releases. Let's hope all our choices and progress carrys over
I would like to have seen the IM being convinced of indoctrination, but instead of suicide, he chose to escort Anderson out while Sheppard moved on forward with the plot. Only the refusal ending would create a problem in this case.
Interesting enough.. cerberus found a way to control the reapers troops by mimicking the control signal. They were not that far to accomplish the goal... but that is the closest they got
Man I’m glad I found your channel. I’ve played me1-3 when they first came out. Just about wrapped up me3 on the legendary edition on my ps4. And I have to say your channels helped me figure out things I didn’t even know was possible. Your videos are good, your voice is relaxing. Got a follower and a subscription lol.
I got both endings. First time in my first play through where I tried playing paragon.then in my second play through when I played renagade. I always find it more fun to be renagade to him. Hes a dick.
@@TheSpyBaby only if you want to kill them all. From experience it is harder to kill everyone than trying to keep everyone alive. My first attempt of trying to kill everyone I only managed to kill 3. They primarily only die if you don't do their loyalty mission in ME2. Except Samara. She dies without that paragon interrupt when you meet her in ME3.
@@Banana_boat i first played me2 when i was a kid so i didn't know to upgrade or do all loyalty missions lol; also who to pick for specialist/team leader. lost so many people lmao
Nice buddy I never understood why is different the end cuz I finished it so many times & never thought I should keep same dialog style from mars to End of story 🎉😂
1:55 - That's not quite right. I chose a mix on my playthrough of MELE and I still got the options at the end, the only thing that matters is that you pick a blue/red option on every occasion prior to the final choice.
I just did the renegade run with checking all speech options. If you do this, you have to shoot TIM on the final renegade interrupt. If you don't, he kills you and you have to restart the entire ending conversation with him.
In one play through of ME3, I think I picked all the Paragon dialogues EXCEPT for the very last speech check where I picked Renegade. And I think that's one of the best outcomes possible. As if Shepard finally lost his/her patience trying to reason with TIM and begging him to work with him/her to end the reapers. Also love the line "you were supposed to protect us, and you FAILED!"
You can mix them, don't have to stick to only one side. I choose all Paragon options except for during the Crerbus base raid and still got both options.
The fact the final boss fight was through dialog shows the what MEs main mechanic is all about. What made the boss fight legendary is that the boss fight started at the beginning and continued all throughout the game and did not realize it.
Remember the prologue where Shepard and Anderson tank on a bunch of Husks and Cannibals? Now Anderson can't even take a single bullet but Shepard takes Harbingers blast and a Galactic blast.
I actually did do a mixture of the dialogue options just recently and still unlocked the final options. I never failed to unlocked the final options in every playthrough.
Kinda want there to have been 4 mass effect games (with the 4th being the final confrontation with the reapers) and in the first three Shepard can talk the main antagonist into suicide but in the 4th you can almost talk him/her into suicide but at the last moment they stop and say something like 'no! I won't let you talk me to death like you did the others!'
I did this the other week and had to reload a save All that happens is Shepard sits down by himself instead of with Anderson then hacket calls him like usual
If you choose Destroy, the threshold for Shepard to survive the blast is considerably higher (i. e. you have to have way more War Assets at hand). Otherwise, nothing changes except for Anderson not being around and the final dialogue not happening before Shepard meets the Star Child.
Strangely enough, I never pass this check on purpose. The Illusive Man's "Earth... I wish you could see it as I do" line is one of my favorite in the game. The speech checks just kill him and it never gave me the sense of redeemed character honor that convincing Saren gave.
If you choose Renegade as your final option, you are going to get a Renegade interrupt (you shoot the Illusive Man to prevent him from killing Anderson). Take it, and you are going to get these lines as well (I've done the Renegade check in one run back on the PS3 together with the offered interrupt).
That line said everything, the Illusive Man was not a evil character before the indoctrination, once he and Cerberus really wanted the best for mankind but TIM touched a reaper artifact and that fucked up everything
I do wish after the illusive man says, "The odds aren't in your favour." Shepherd snapped back, saying, "They never were, but look at my success." Especially if no one died attacking the collector base.
Well, there's certainly more to it then this video shows, I finished a playthrough on PC Legendary Edition with having done everything listed, and my final speech checks were greyed out :( RIP Anderson
From my point, history has not known such a profound and deep concept of a plausible future. There are a good close Runner ups. The masterpiece that is this trilogy will one day be regarded as something akin to the works of Plato and Aristotle. Edit: given that we now live in the age of computer systems like gpt-3, the mistake in the first sentence was intentional. It was intended to be "from my point of view"
You do NOT need to always choose Paragon lines or always choose Renegade lines with TIM over the entire game. Really, I checked, and I did not have any mods installed. I used a mix of Paragon and Renegade lines throughout the game and unlocked the final check with no problem. What you do need to do, however, is to use the Paragon or Renegade (blue or red) lines whenever they are available, including when they are hidden behind Investigate options - you are right about that.
