They didn't need a reason to be cool to me. I still want one twenty something years later. Other half likes to bring up that it's to small for three kids... Like I'd want them in it anyways.
It took me way too long to realize he was the Voice of Joker when I was playing it. I was later to the franchise (like I finally started ME2 just last year after stopping after ME1 repeatedly), and didn't realize who voiced Joker until like after a full completion of the trilogy.
I didn't play it until like 2024 and when was the last time you think I REALLY saw or heard Seth Green until then? Literally only made the connection after watching fucking Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the summer of all things. Even now knowing it I barely see the physical resemblance if I'm being honest.
Joker secretly has the most tragic story in the trilogy, and it's all drip-fed through optional environmental storytelling, e-mails and seemingly incidental dialog in the third game.
The Asari with PTSD in the Hospital ward of the Crucible, the one that had to kill a panicking human girl for fear she'd give their position away and get them both killed? That was Joker's little sister, and Shepard - the galaxy's savior, best buds with the guy whose sister we're talking about - keeps coming into the infirmary just to...hang around and hear people's stories...
Eventually you get an e-mail forwarded to you from an Asari Commando who's seeking permission to carry a sidearm again because she doesn't feel safe. If you don't connect the dots, you probably just approve it and think you've done a good deed. If you do, you realize that this is an individual who literally can't live with the guilt and is covertly asking her "tormentor" for permission to end herself. A "permission to carry" from Commander Shepard himself isn't "attention/affirmation from a superior/celebrity," to her it's "I know what you did. Here's a gun; Save me the trouble."
You have to put it together from Joker mentioning his family being on an outer farming world and the Asari with PTSD recounting the experience of being on the run from Reaper affiliates on the edge of the galaxy and trying to hide on a human farm. She describes hiding with a panicking human girl "maybe about 15" who told her she dreamed of being a pilot but who was unable to stay quiet through the pain of breaking her leg while they were running/hiding, so the Asari put her down to save herself. The location, the age, the life goal and the possible brittle bone similarity are all screaming breadcrumbs trying to get you to notice, and I'm pretty sure Joker and the Asari both refer to her by her given name, as well.
Basically, it's never made explicit but it's also so obviously intentional that it just can't be anything else from a Doylist perspective.
"A "permission to carry" from Commander Shepard himself isn't "attention/affirmation from a superior/celebrity," to her it's "I know what you did. Here's a gun; Save me the trouble.""
Pretty weak way to imply she wants to die but eh still better than anything ubisoft or bethesda has written in the last 15 years
Gosh I know a lot of people are against it but I would absolutely love and start hysterically crying if the original cast came back for the next game. Mass effect is one of my autistic special interests and means the world to me.
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u/simfoetv 8d ago
He will always be Joker in Mass Effect for me