Author: KA Byrnes

XIALING, NULL

The sister has a lot going on as a character, and seems placed to contribute more in further sequels.

She’s self-taught. While Shaun was trained abusively, Xialing was ignored. On the quiet, she watched and learned.

She’s self-made. After leaving home as a teenager she built a fighting arena in Macau that becomes hugely successful. At the end of the movie, she’s taking over her father’s crime business.

It’s actually a bit awkward. She’s brave, strong, smart — a hero — yet no one ever suggests that she wear the Ten Rings. Even she never questions why Shaun gets the power. It’s canon, or it’s a father/son inheritance, or both. Shaun never even offers her the Rings. I mean, yes, that’s the story — abused boy becomes resolved man — but if sister is going to be worthy of power, then we need to see that discussion.

Oh, dear. She’s much more developed than mom and auntie, but is she just an archetype, too? What does she want? What is her arc and what are her goals? She gets a lot of screen time and is integrated into the main plot. She saves them on the skyscraper scaffolding and in the final dragon battle, but her actions could’ve been performed by anybody. Besides being Sister, she brings nothing specific to these moments. Yikes.

Ilos

We sneak through the Mu Relay to stop Saren in his quest for the Conduit. After fighting his Geth we follow him into an ancient Prothean facility. Although the battles are juicy, the main purpose of this mission is for exposition. We encounter a VI, Vigil, who tells us much.

The Reapers spend their down time in Dark Space until a civilization is ripe. Then they activate a mass relay hidden in plain sight on the Citadel — it’s that silly statue that hums in the water feature — and enter the governing heart of the galaxy. From their they control everything and decimate at their leisure.

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YING NAN, NULL

This is the aunt who lives in the magical realm. If you want a character to enter at the Third Act and dominate with ease, of course you cast Michelle Yeoh. Does she have a number, though, or is she an archetype like her dead sister?

She has a compassion for her niece and nephew, and no flexibility toward her brother-in-law. She reveres her sister’s memory. These are all predictable emotions and reactions. As with Li, the portrayal is so compelling I want to find more than the writers gave these characters. This film is not their story, so great actors are given only a sketch to inhabit.

You know what movie gets this right? Moana. The grandma is like these women, really only an archetype of a wise woman mentor, yet the writers also gave her a specific character, nailed in one or two scenes. I’ll have to take a closer look! I love that movie.

Meanwhile, I’m sorry to say, we have no Enneagram here. The showrunners cast Yeoh, who brings a certain charismatic identity imbued from her other films, and calls that her character.

Virmire

It’s the mission where you decide whether or not to shoot Wrex! I’d forgotten!

Obviously more happens than that, but what a moment. In my first playthrough, and I was a huge Wrex fan, the tension was devastating. Luckily I had enough paragon points to save him.

So, why is this even in contention? The research facility at Virmire, now run by Saren, has developed a cure for the Krogan genophage. This challenges Wrex’s loyalties.

This is also the mission where I must choose whether Kaidan or Ashley dies. Dang! So huge! The stakes are critical and the role-playing is intense.

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XU WENWU, FOUR

The Ringbearer, the patriarch, the villain. Tony Leung’s portrayal is so complex and nuanced, I kept wanting him to be the hero and future Marvel addition! He went from conqueror and crime lord to husband in the blink of a scene, and I believed every moment of it. When his wife Li dies he switches back, becoming even harsher, and again I believed it. At the end when he releases the evil dragon, he thinks he’s releasing his trapped wife. He’s hearing suspicious voices, and again I believe. He breaks my heart with his desire to see his wife.

A Four. Who else could hit emotions on such a spectrum? Who else would find revenge as palatable as bliss?

Cerberus

Our first mention of the mysterious Cerberus — a corporation? a research laboratory? — comes from an odd report included in a data dump at Feros. Cerberus has requested and received samples of the Thorian, it appears. When we check out the clue, an entire small colony has been turned into husks. Zombies, basically. They’re not much different from the Thorian Creepers that ExoGeni made.

Then Admiral Kahoku sends us to look for his missing soldiers. We find them dead on a planet. Someone set a beacon as a trap on top of a Thresher Maw nest. The giant sand worm, spitting acid, almost kills us in the Mako as we try to investigate the site. Cerberus, Kahoku angrily informs us, is an Alliance black ops organization. Did the soldiers get too close? Did Cerberus try to use them as experiments? It’s hard to tell. No one is held accountable, but Kahoku will pursue them anyway. 

After a desperate message from Kahoku, we go looking for him throughout three Cerberus research facilities on an isolated planet. The first holds Thorian Creepers. The second holds a swarm of just-hatched small Rachni. The third holds an adult Rachni standing over the dead body of Kahoku. When we kill it and attend to Kahoku’s corpse, we see that he hasn’t been mauled. Needle tracks line his arms. Because of his investigation they turned him into another Cerberus experiment, an attempt to fuse alien DNA with a human to create a super soldier. What a way to go.

Eventually we end up at a Cerberus facility with a data terminal. After we clear the bunker and leave, I’m contacted by an agent for the Shadow Broker, an information dealer. Kahoku had a deal with them; that’s how he found the Cerberus research base. Now the Shadow Broker would like the information I discovered. At this point there seems to be nothing in it for me. Maybe there will be a turnaround later. I give them the data, though, because Kahoku was a very sympathetic story.

(By the way, this is Ace Shepard. I created another biotic for a better run-n-gun style. Like Athena, she’s also a paragon.)

SEAN THORNTON, NINE

A professional boxer retired due to tragedy, Sean seeks retreat and peace. He’s an easy Nine.

The Quiet Man’s story is simple: Irish-American comes to the Old Country to settle and make a new life in his ancestral home. When he sees a lass tending sheep, he falls for her, makes “pattyfingers in the holy water” with her, and arranges to court her. Her belligerent brother keeps them apart over spite about the property, until he consents and later regrets it, holding his sister’s dowry after the marriage. Sean must eventually demand the money and make peace with his brother-in-law, which leads to a town-consuming brawl between the two of them. In the end they live happily ever after.

We hit a wall, though, when we get to the scene of him dragging his wife by the nape of her neck. Is something about this moment particularly Nine-ish? His avoidance of conflict — taking the brother’s verbal ridicule, watching his volatile wife demand her things about her — might lead to a man who’s had enough and overreacts as a result. If he’s driven to take action, though, just give him a different action to take. The key to this whole movie is the moment when Sean pursues his wife to the train station and returns with her to town.

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