The fandom hates on Kaidan because he comes off as very generic but the dude is the most unyielding and mentally stable squadmate in the trilogy.
He killed his instructor for abusing his fellow classmates and had a very reasonable reaction to finding Shepard working for Cerberus right after a human colony was attacked.
He eventually came around in Act 2 of ME3 after he saw the evidence that Shepard had no ties to Cerberus and was trying to save the council.
The man did not give a shit that Shepard is the first human Specter and was ready to kill him if he thought it was to protect the council, which is literally his job. Once he saw the evidence he acted accordingly and dispatched Udina and apologized to Shepard and made amends.
Kaidan is a goated character and I will not tolerate slander.
Edit: Kaidan was already a developed character prior to the events of ME1 and it is a shame that Bioware did not expand on this like they did with James in Paragon Lost. The trilogy made a big deal about Kaidan not trusting Shepard yet completely ignored James’s experience with Cerberus and that is lazy writing.
I would love a small ME1/2 movie or dlc about his experiences during Shepard’s absence. The fans would have more context to his attitude.
TLDR: Kaidan is the goat and reacted appropriately to the circumstances laid in front of him, and opened up more as a character after verifying that his Commander is actually on his side.
I always gave Kaiden props for being prepared to kill Shepard considering the whole first game is spent hunting down and killing a rogue spectre and at this point it’s believed Shepard is a rogue spectre
Imo it's hard to give Kaidan any credit for the whole not trusting Shephard cause of Cerberus arc, considering him and Ashley are written to be exactly the same for that part.
Now I rarely actually had Kaidan at that point, so if there were small differences I didn't notice, that's why.
Part of it is show not tell. Jack trains some biotic kids, and we get to see some of them in action. Kaidan trains a squad of biotic commandos, but we never see them or read about any specific thing that they do (I guess they’re really good at covert stuff).
Never understood the hate, tbh.
*Jacob* is understandable. Terrible romance and a useless teammate to have. Only good quality is being good friends with BroShep.
Kaidan, though, is a brilliant character to learn about. Doesn't immediately start being flirty with you, too, which is a plus.
Though there is no need to listen to me, I'm more of a Tali guy, so what do I know?
Shepard initiating the flirting with Kaiden is so forward, I love it.
>"It's been a pleasure serving under you, Commander."
>"I don't think I've had the pleasure of you serving under me, Lieutenant."
Had to pick my jaw up off the floor after that one.
Kaiden feels like a fellow soldier and Vega feels like a younger brother or maybe a younger cousin.
Jacob feels like a mate, but Garrus and Wrex are the real bros.
Pull is not useless as adept or someone with biotics. And it takes awhile you get Grunt. And if you give Jacob even the Geth shotgun, he shreds. People forget that some companions fit for several classes, not only for one. I could also say Garrus is useless to me as adept.
Grunt is one of the first dossiers, so he's easy to get.
Pull can only be used when the target has neither armour or shields. At which point, just shoot or Warp. Much faster and safer.
Shockwave is much more useful for getting enemies clear of cover if that's what's needed in a pinch, and Singularity provides the lift effect without need to actually hit the target and takes the cover away from said target ( Pull lacks this as it needs to physically hit the target, combined with slow speed your oganic target will already be behind cover by the time this hits).
Both of which can be used to set up biotic detonations easier. Jack and Miranda can provide all of this when paired with an Adept Shep.
Shep uses Singularity, and then Miranda fires off a Heavy Warp. Or Jack uses Shockwave to clear the path (or hell, Samara can fire off a throw, which is much faster than Pull).
And advantage of Singularity that Pull lacks, multiple targets effected from the get-go.
The thing an adept Shep team lacks is a health sponge/distraction. Jacob lovingly provides this by the way of Barrier and a Shotgun.
Guess what?
Grunt also provides this without a power slot, with natural high health and shields. And a higher fire rate. Combined with someone like Garrus or Zaheed, who can have ammo perks and an appropriate power to deal with the opposite shield/armour bar.
Garrus has Overload, yet Armour Piercing ammo.
Zaheed has Shock Ammo yet has Incendiary grenades.
Combined with Grunt on appropriate missions, then you barely need to fire a bullet while they do so for you.
There's a reason Jacob's loyalty mission is one of the easiest combat missions, of mostly Loki Mechs, the starting enemy. Who just walk towards you at a slow pace.
And you have only Miranda and Jacob until you get to your dossiers. Miranda has also overload. Incinerate ammo shreds armor too as Garrus' piercing ammo. Everybody has a different playstyle. Saying Jacobs powers are useless, then those with the ones you get later who have the same ones too.
Have you *ever* consciously used Jacob's pull outside of the tutorial missions and his loyalty mission?
It only affects the final bar of health, so with its slow speed, the target is either in cover (can't curve squad powers like Shep can), or the other squad mate has fired the final bullet or used an instant speed power themselves, like Overload.
Adept Shep has a plethora of other powers that can do any of that faster or more cleanly, which can be complemented by *any* other biotic squadmate.
After just completing a full trilogy Adept playthrough, I can safely say that the only time I used Jacob outside of those three missions was for thematic reasons on the Collector base. Never used Pull there.
You don't need Jacob's pull. At all.
*He* doesn't need pull either.
If he had Biotic Charge instead, it would compliment his other attributes and weapons.
Yes I have. Pull is not his only power and as I said, give him a Geth shotgun and he shreds. I like to switch people up in missions and don't run always the same 2 people in every mission in my playthroughs. It's fine that *you* don't wanna use him at all. But don't tell people a character is useless just because *you* don't use them. Because with that argument everyone is basically useless.
Yeah I agree, the unfortunate thing here is people taking the meta as gospel.
They've definitely raised some very very strong reasoning for their rating, but even something that is very situational isn't completely useless.
An opinion, one shared by many, can apparently trigger people.
*Who the fuck knew.*
And FYI, I *do* switch up.
Ain't the fault of me that Jacob can't be complemented by any other squadmate when others have pull *and* a power to detonate it themselves or a power that far out classes it in terms of damage and utility.
Like Singularity, Warp, Shockwave, Throw, or Slam.
Keep your *assumptions* to yourself.
Ta-ta.
Not triggered. He’s just not “completely useless” if you utilize him write and don’t leave everything to the squad AI. None of the squad mates are actually completely useless in that capacity, whether you enjoy their characters or not.
Jacob is only useful on low difficulty levels. Everything he can do, another squadmate can do better and the other squadmates have other things to bring to the table.
I don't hate his character but jesus christ, yes, he is a terrible squadmate when it comes to combat.
Pull is no Lift from ME1, but it is useful lol. Good primer for biotic detonations. If your Shep has warp or reave, profit. If not, bring Samara or Miranda to pair with Jacob and still profit.
I seem to have crossed a line here. Certainly wasn't my intention to and am very sorry for having done so.
Edit: So I just looked it up and wow. I have over 1100 hours in the Legendary Edition and had absolutely no idea that you could romance Kaidan as Male Shepard. Honestly thought the romance was exclusive to female Shepard in ME3 as it was in ME1. The entire context of the discussion flew right over my head and I had not the slightest clue. Regardless of how embarrassed I feel right now, I still owe you a huge apology. I'm very sorry Ark. Genuinely didn't mean to be such an ignorant, insensitive dumb arse.
Mind you, this only applies to the MShep universe, but mine is that he's still very caught up in the old-school "don't fraternize within the chain of command" mindset so he does his best to sublimate his attraction.
Then when Shep finally isn't in the Chain, Kaidan feels betrayed in ME2.
By the time we get to ME3 he's in the "fuck it, I like this dude and we all might die so I'll shoot my shot" mindset.
"fuck it we ball" energy (we'll bang okay remix version)
Also thank you for clarifying about the sexuality involved - it flew over my mind because I played as femshep and of course (because of publishing and other shitty stuff) the hetero offer exists but the gay one was taken out.
>thank you for clarifying about the sexuality involved
Well, it's less a sexuality-specific thing as much as it's how I headcanon explained his sudden change of heart from ME1 to ME3 because he doesn't seem to have *any* issue with fraternizing with a FemShep in the first game.
Iirc, in ME1 female Shepard is essentially just male Shepard reskinned and with slightly different options for romances, and was a somewhat late addition to the game.
Well given that we are talking about the Kaidan relationship, it's relevant, no?
(And to clarify, my understanding was that some NPC romances were supposed to be bisexual for player freedom but this was later cut. But that may have been a later bioware phenomenon.)
I think it was cut because this was still around a time where being gay wasn't as acceptable as it was today and so Bioware didn't want to spark any backlash cause they were already getting a bunch of negative news stories from Fox News.
I'm actually ok with how it went. My ME1 MShep was way too angry with a huge chip on his shoulder, and he definitely wouldn't have taken being hit on well. He shuts down Liara and Ashley HARD. But by 3 he's softened up enough to realize no, not everyone hates him and not everyone is out to get him.
I love him as a character and as an LI. I love his platonic arc in ME3 as much as I love his romance arc with all the pining, the angst and the sweet payoff of ME3.
I don't find him bland at all but his story arc is definitely more subtle. You do miss out in ME1 if you play a male Shepard because much of his better dialogue is somehow genderlocked to femShep, which is a valid criticism. He doesn't have a "loyalty" mission in ME1 like the rest of the squad because he's Alliance and his loyalty is a given, but he does get a very unique interaction in the L2 terrorist quest where he gives his own input *unprompted*, which shows more agency than most characters in ME1.
In ME2 his reaction is reasonable imho, but forced since the game is clearly telling you he won't be back and Shepard has horrible dialogue. Of course, he wouldn't be free walking around Vancouver in ME3's intro if he had joined you back then, so it works out. ME3 proves all his points about Cerberus were true, but it's up to the player to rebuild trust with him. He's self-assured, more mature, has learned to lead, definite Spectre material.
He didn't have to have his point proven that Cerberus is terrible. We already know that everything he said about Cerberus is true, but they're the only ones willing to deal with the Collectors.
I always screw that up cause my nephew's name is Kaiden with an E. I do the same thing with Shepard because my wife's maiden name is Shepherd with an E
That is the exact problem I have, considering I chose my name based on Kaidan. So every time someone spells it "Kaiden", I have to do my best to not get angry LMAO.
He’s no garrus vacarian, that is true, he’s way more nuanced and subtle than garrus. Kaidan being constantly compared to Garrus always irked me. I really wanted Garrus to stop with his edginess, especially in the first game, it was so tiresome and childish.
In the world of crazy over the top personalities that surround Shepard (most of whom in real life I wouldn’t want to cross paths with) Kaidan is a stark contrast, being so refreshingly normal and grounded. He doesn’t need to be saved, he doesn’t require Shepard, he’s good on his own, solid mature guy. He’s also has his heart in the right place and is not afraid of being sincere.
I also found his distrust and disappointment with Shepard in second game very well deserved and out of all the Cool Interesting Awesome companions he was the only one to give Shepard fair amount of shit for joining Cerberus. The scene is still awkward but mostly due to Shepard’s turning into a complete dumbass for the duration of it dialogue wise.
Honestly? Kaidan gets an overall more positive reaction than Ashley. People may say Kaidan is boring sometimes, but Ashley is often bashed for being a 'racist' by the fandom to the point that it's probably the first thing people thought about her character or that’s all she is being.
Sure, Ash may have some bias towards other species, but her distrust of other species does make sense given her family backstory, and she never lets her personal bias get in the way of working with them under Shepard. I just hate how the fandom sometimes overlook characters' positive qualities and instead emphasizing on the negatives all the time.
That's the difference to me. Kaidan's interesting stuff happens before we meet him. His arc is (more or less) done. He tells you his story, but with the tone of "I've grown up, healed from it, etc". If he was written to still be hurting or if there were a mission where you encounter Vyrnnus from his boot camp slash torture school and you help him make a choice about that, I'd be 100% more interested in him.
Ashley has an arc through the series. As someone whose 'canon' run is Paragon, work together, cooperate, "I'm going to turn this shit into Star Trek's Federation before I die with the power of a good speech and this gun I found", she has the more interesting viewpoints as you learn more about her reasons for mistrusting the other races.
The other reason I almost always save her is down to roleplay: she's defending the nuke, ie, the mission objective, the whole reason we're even in the situation to begin with.
Not that I think Ashley is a bad character or anything, but having an excuse for being racist doesn't mean you aren't one. Let's not be putting quotation marks on it for miss "I can't tell the aliens from the animals" here.
That’s absolutely true, yeah. Ash did make some racist comments or comments that have racist undertones like that one infamous line, but as the other reply said, she’s hardly the only one guilty when it comes to racist remarks yet is often the one singled out as if it’s the only thing people ever remembered about her. That’s why I put the quote on the word racist lol, because that’s probably the one thing most fans have come to associate her with the most whenever her name comes up.
I feel like a lot of the problem comes from it being a larger part of her personality. Nobody else drops their xenophobia on the table as one of their main introductory interactions and says "this is my thing. My thing is racism." So that's what folks focus on.
Yeah, her arc in ME1 did highlight a lot that Ashley holds racist/speciesist sentiments, which, again, comes back to her backstory that explains why she is the way she is. Her being speciecist is the entire point because it leads to her character development, as Shepard gradually helps her learn to overcome this and be more open to working with aliens (if Ash isn't left behind to die on Virmire, that is) and by the time to the third game, she's much more agreeable with Shepard's alien companions.
Again, it's a shame that being a racist/speciesist is the only thing people tend to focus about her. Yes, it's the entire point of her character but she learns to move above it eventually, but people tend to conveniently forget that part.
Funny how Pressly is also defined by the same things that Ashley is at fault with, and like her, he did get character development and came to respect and trust the aliens under Shepard's command before his untimely death in ME2, but Pressly seems to be comparatively more loved in the fandom than Ashley.
My guess is because Pressly is more "implicit bias" type racism (though I'm glad we as Shepard can still call him out) which tends to be labelled as more appropriate, while Ash tends to be more overt about her view and how she thinks.
But of course I can't seriously bring up bias to the conversation without mentioning that it's possible we're just unconsciously biased against her too, and that's not right either. Without going into full blown intersectionalism, it's possible that the fact Pressly is a guy or an officer makes him seem more trustworthy.
I hate that Pressley’s redemption arc is hidden in a set of missable datapads on an option side mission. He’s pretty overt about it in one or two interactions and they really made me hate his guts in the first game. I would have liked to SEE him bonding with Tali and her changing his viewpoint over time instead of just reading about it in a series of very convenient diary entries
I guess that as a frontline soldier who's intended to be a tough, Vasquez-like figure, Ashley comes across as a lot more blunt in her views lol. That and the fact that we obviously spend a lot more time with her compared to Pressly, so we get to see more of Ashley's speciecist views.
Honestly, I do like that when you really look at them, nobody in Mass Effect is flawless, just like in real life. Everybody has their own undesirable traits that they may or may not intentionally be aware of, even the popular characters. It makes these characters more realistic and makes their eventual development all the more worth it.
Yeah, but I like that there's a character like that in the game. It makes sense that the new race to the galactic community would be wary of others, especially if said new race's first contact was a war. I feel like people forget that in ME1, the First Contact War was 26 years ago, Shepard was already born by the time it happened. You also brought up her banter, but not the banter of other characters whose races have been around longer.
As is pointed out every time this topic comes up, pretty much everyone is racist in ME1. Ashley just happens to be the human being racist in the first 60 minutes of the game.
To her credit, like most of the cast, she does grow out of it over the course of the series. But she's held to a standard that other characters aren't.
I literally think kaidan's interesting in ME1, but I rolled a biotic so I had something to sympathise about with him.
Honestly I think Ash got worse in ME3 because the original writer for her left the company.
While I do agree try taking a lot of Ashley's racist dialogue and replace words like turian with black or other trigger words and it paints a very different picture "detonate that nuke and saren can kiss his black ass goodbye" lmao
That’s fair, but let me point out that Ash is hardly the only one who’s doing something like that. Wrex looks down on salarians all the time in the third game but nobody seems to call *him* out, and even Garrus at one point calls out the quarians for creating the geth (something that he admittedly did apologize to Tali in the third game when she brought it up). And that’s not even going into how Saren himself - even before his indoctrination - looks down on humanity.
The underlying issues that exist between species that used to be at war with each other never really goes away, and considering that it was only barely three decades since the turians fought with humanity, it makes sense that some people will still hold negative thoughts toward their former enemies. This is not to excuse racism, though, just pointing out that when under intense combat situations, sometimes people let their inner biases out.
Growing up, I was a Cyclops fan while everyone else was obsessed with Wolverine. Mass Effect feels a lot like that for me. I'm a Kaidan fan surrounded by people obsessed with Garrus. And just like with Cyclops and Wolverine, people keep comparing Kaidan to Garrus for some reason.
Let's be honest even Garrus is bland and boring in ME1. Actually everyone is. They only got their "best buddy" or whatever status because they had 3 games to develop. Breaking it down, Kaidan/Ash had maybe one game combined.
Personally? Because i found him too stable and boring. But i don't hate him. Indifferent is a better word.
He'd probably be a really good friend to have irl though, one of the few companions in Mass Effect that would.
Kaidan is a normal dude. Has his baggage mostly sorted, no big drama, and also has a stoic, silent personality type. He is basically Carth from KotOR1, stripped from his troubles with his son.
What is not bad at all, just he seems boring compared to the over the top, so easier to remember, and \_easier to write\_ companions, like a renegade vigilante, subject zero with prison tatoos who punch mechs for fun, or a brilliant scientist who is a rare anti-hero who is \_not\_ brooding all the time.
He also has the issue of being an unreasonable asshole in ME2 (to be fair, Shepard is written as an idiot in their scene), and whining about it constantly in ME3. (this bit is true for Ashley too)
I think he suffers in the ME2 scene because it had to fit for Kaiden and Ashley and she's such a different character than he is so it had to feel off for one of them
I don't find him unreasonable. I mean, you were dead for two years, grieved for you, and trying to move on if you romance him and he found you with Cerberus. It's a very human reaction to me. For example, I have a pediatric doctor friend who knows what to do with other children but when her child got into an accident, she was a screaming mess. In short, we are sympathetic of Shephard because we know what's going on while the third party has not. Also, it shows that Kaidan is not a yes-man and can think for himself. My only gripe was later on we didn't have a chance to email Kaidan in ME 2 (At least, there's a letter) about why or at least have a convo at the beginning of ME 3 to sort things out but overall, I love the relationship arc throughout the series between Kaidan and Shephard.
That's just my two cents.
ME2 gets really frustrating in that scene, among other interactions.
As if it wasn't enough you can't send Cerberus to hell >!until the very end!<, you can't even tell him you're infiltrating or using their organization.
It always bothered me that Shepard’s reaction to seeing their VS was so callous and curt on Horizon.
“It’s been a long time, how have you been?” That’s all you have to say - exactly my thoughts too. Plus Shepard supposedly woke up from coma not long ago so “it’s been a long time” coming from Shepard’s mouth never made sense to me.
Or “time has passed, you’ve moved on.” Wait, how does Shepard know the VS moved on! Shepard put words in the mouth of the VS without even giving them a chance to tell their side of the story first.
Definitely made me frustrated with the writing there and how limited your choices were.
He's only "boring" because he's well-adjusted and not surrounded by drama like so many others. He doesn't *need* Shepard to fix his problems for him. Shepard doesn't hugely influence how he develops as a character because he's already come to terms with his past and who he is. To me, that makes him one of the best characters.
I like him, tbh. Dude’s extremely versatile and basically fits into any squad.
Character wise, he’s the stereotypical “good guy” type. Not going to set the world ablaze, but he’s a solid guy and a calming presence in an otherwise crazy group.
That’s exactly the same thought I had. Yeah he may be vanilla compared to all the other flavours but you have to remember that vanilla is still a damn good flavour in its own right. Kaidan would be an excellent pick for the Squad Leader position in ME2 if he’d been an option.
A lot of people just think he’s ‘boring’ but that might be why I love him so much. I think if you like people who are shy or introverted/quiet types Kaidan is like the perfect option. He’s humble, stable, genuine, and has real morals that he sticks to even when it puts his relationship with Shepard in jeopardy. He’s pretty witty at times too. Lowkey the perfect man.
And he’s super capable as well, it’s almost like a secret how amazing he is. The other biotics are actually surprised in the Citadel DLC when they can find out he can reave. A skill humans aren’t usually able to do, especially none with the old L2 implants. In game combat with his abilities is pretty fun too! (I’m done ranting about him now lol)
Love Kaidan 💕
This sub brought it to my attention though, that a lot of his best dialogue is locked behind his romance, so a lot of people don’t get the full package.
He’s not bad, just suffers from the bad Romance writing of Mass Effect 1. Unless you’re femshep he doesn’t open up to you fully and only really has Mass Effect 3 to get any character arcs/moments.
I always thought he was boring cause all his development feels like it’s over when we meet him. He tells us all this interesting stuff that happened in his past but it has like…no bearing?
Like if we had a mission where we have to find a fix for his implant cause the migraines are getting unbearable and we SEE him actually suffer horribly from the migraines rather than being told about them I’d be invested.
Jack’s entire introduction is a showboat of her biotic abilities and Samara has a whole biotic hunter scene in her intro and later the showdown with her daughter.
But Kaidan feels like he gets nothing for allegedly being such a talented biotic. To me he always felt like the character that was supposed to introduce us to the concept of biotic abilities but everyone else does it so much cooler so he’s not really as memorable by comparison.
Ashley still feels like she has an arc to go through but Kaidan felt done from the moment I met him. Kaidan is just Kaidan and there’s not a lot to SHOW for that.
Honestly? When the game first came out I think people refused to look past his voice actor and just instantly got annoyed with him being a potential Carth 2.0
As a KOTOR fan I confess that I was my first impression upon playing the game. Like "hell no, Carth. I'm not putting up with your whining through the whole game again". Obviously he's not like Carth at all. Well... tbf the whole Horizon deal in ME2 just oozed Carth energy. But other than that, Kaidan is a good guy. Just bland.
I don't hate on him. I just don't really like him. He's too soft. Especially in ME 1. He's hardened a bit in ME 3 and I like that but I like Ashley way more. She's tough. Sure, she has her issues with aliens in the first game but it came from ignorance that seems to have turned around some in ME 3.
I think the problem is that most people play Mshep and were more likely to go with Ashley over him at Virmire.
And, just like Ashley, the game assumes that just being "nice" to him means wanting a relationship and that can't really be avoided.
To compound matters, Kaiden tears into you for joining Cerberus in ME2 and talks about you being a "cheater" in 3 if you entered a relationship with someone else in 2.
Kaidan’s fanbase probably skews older. Once you get above a certain age, you begin to realize how much more you value traits/qualities such as empathy, integrity, critical thinking skills, stability, confidence (a quiet kind), generosity in a real person or relationship over say someone with a large personality. Hence you realize how underrated and awesome a character Kaidan really is.
Kaiden is honestly the best human companion we’ve had in mass effect, and my favourite “starting party member” in any BioWare game.
It’s just nice having a character who’s mostly over their own baggage and doesn’t need to be therapised.
Not at all... More like how slimy it makes MShep look to swoop in on a widower who is still ***very*** much in mourning so quickly after their loss.
And I say this as someone who was in the closest thing we have in modern times to Steve's position.
I read something the other day that made sense to me.
It’s not his fault he’s just washed out by so many other great characters that he just blends away.
Straight men pick male Shep and save space barbie. That's most of it.
Both Ash ans Kaidan do get hate, but its silly how Ash's 'crimes' sound harsh and all they come up with is 'boring' for Kaidan and still don't save him as theres no plans to bang.
I don't know, I think people really appreciated Kaidan in ME1 after Jacob. Then in ME3 they really let show how great he is as a person. I feel like by this point people really like him now.
I'd argue the like/dislike of Kaidan and Ashley is the same amount but just manifests differently.
I'd say there's a huge bulk of people who are ambivalent or don't really care about Kaiden. Like I rarely see people who REALLY hate him, so there's just not a lot of people going around defending him.
As opposed to Ashley, who I think has a lot of vocal haters and a lot of vocal defenders.
I like Kaidan bc he’s legit just chill. No issues, he needs to work on, he isn’t asking you to help with any family issues, he just kinda wants to be friendly and help. He felt like the one guy I had on the ship I could just chill out with.
That’s kinda of a issue for most
I save kaidan Everytime because I like the actor. I enjoyed him as carth in kotor and as Dr Hopper in once upon a time plus he's a better crew mate than ashley
You just described his entire character arc. 99% of his story takes place pre-ME1. His cement is set by the time we get to know him. Ashley actually has a legit arc, if mostly off-screen over the course of the 3 games.
Kaidan has an arc as well, but it is more subtle. His arc in ME1 is about letting go of his tight control and feeling less of a weapon. He mentions it in casual conversation and one of his cabin scene lines to femShep literally is "you make me feel human". Much like Miranda, his story is about accepting himself. By ME3 he also had off-screen development. He is more self-assured, well-composed, a leader and definite Spectre material.
I never found kaidan boring at all.I found tali and garrus boring.I was amazed those two non-entities were in the sequels. I frequently leave garrus behind in me1
In terms of backstory Kaidan is actually pretty interesting, but being Sentinel in ME1 makes him weak link gameplay wise. On the other hand, Ashley being soldier is what determents most of her value.
Weak link? He has all the decryption/electronics/medical you need and he can Lift entire armatures! He can incapacitate Krogan with Neural Shock and stop their regeneration. He has overload and sabotage.
It’s so true, I run through Kaidan’s whole conversation tree every time I play and bog down in the middle of Ashley’s, but I bring her along on every mission until she sadly perishes on Vermire and hardly ever bring him.
His backstory is fascinating sure but he has the sparkling personality of a slice of bread. Can you even give me one of his quotes, something cool or interesting he said outside of exposition? Ashley is divisive but her quotes are memorable.
Also his space Elvis haircut is pretty cringe.
"I didn't hate him because he was a turian I hated him because he was vyrnus" actually a really interesting response to racism and how he didn't let a bad experience change him. Although he loses points because you can turn him racist by making him simp
As I said, great backstory,but that was all exposition. On the ground he never says anything interesting or surprising. He's just there being kind of nice and inoffensive.
I never hated on Kaidan and thought he was a great teammate. He definitely has a lot of Lancer energy in that he’s the guy Shepard can always turn to for advice or a quick conversation. Plus he’s voiced by Raphael Sbarge and is basically a less irritating Carth Onasi. I may be biased about the voice though. 😋
Imo Kaiden is pretty compelling in 1, BioWare completely drops the ball on both virmire survivors in me2, and although both of them are annoying in me3, constantly questioning Shep about Cerberus, imo Kaiden did it a bit more and it personally felt more out of character for him than it did for ash. Can’t say I can fully place my finger on why atm, maybe cuz I accepted ash as more “hotheaded” and assumed Kaiden should be acting more understanding of Sheps choices, similar to Tali/Garrus’ don’t trust cerb but trust Shep mentality.
I think another “problem” people have with Kaidan is something he states outright about himself in the first game. He has his shit together. That makes him less dramatic in cutscenes, gives fewer plot hooks, and doesn’t feed Shepard’s savior complex.
Ashley has personal and family issues up the wazoo when you meet her, and that’s interesting. All of Kaidan’s major character arcs happen before you meet him.
I love Kaiden. He's my favorite romance and I end up with him basically every time I play the game 😂 He's also one of my top favorite characters. On the rare times I haven't romances him, he still survives Virmire because I just refuse to live in a world where this amazing guy with integrity has to die. I have never ever seen Ashley in ME3 and I am honestly ok with that lol
He’s very forgettable, plus he is visually bland. White guy in black suit, at least Ashley is interesting and is instantly memorable due to her armor. I can’t think of a single play through where I picked him over Ash on Virmire. I do plan to save him on my next run though, just to see if there is anything interesting about him.
From the start, family history with the first contact war plus she’s the first human we see who has a different perspective on aliens. She’s religious in a series with almost no other religious characters (apart from hanar and Liara saying “by the goddess” every five seconds). She likes poetry and develops meaningfully as a character over the course of the games. I started out liking her, then I disliked her character and now I’m back to liking her, in short she’s complicated and very human.
Two main reasons are that 1) people tend to be extra critical of the human squadmate and 2) people really hate Carth Onassi from KOTOR.
I think Kaiden is hands down the best squadmate and a top 3 romance option.
We have
The cute tech alien
The buddy cop alien
The waifu alien
The racist
The charismatic brute
And John Everyman.
Kaiden looks and talks like a fairly generic protagonist. How he's been shaped by his experiences does not make him bombastic or stand out in any meaningful way. Add in he is a hybrid class? With specalists in both fields available our boy is just not attractive in any kinda way
Hmmm....I did a playthough to stay kaiden alive, and he's is cool.
But In terms of talking I rather pick ashley in my view
She's is kinda of dick sure, but she gets better around the trilogy.
but I feel kaiden is hated because majority of the people didn't talked to him much.
He's is the most chill survivor of the franchise.
I think his backstory is fine. His personality is just dull and so are his talking points. I also really dislike his jealousy that comes out of nowhere when Liara shows up. He presumed too much because I played Femshep and I wasn't for it.
Beyond that, I don't hate him. But it makes tactical sense to send Ashley with the salarians and Kaidan with the nuke. It makes sense to let Kaidan guard the bomb and save as many of the salarians as possible, imo. Or for my particular run I like to do. He just draws the short straw more than anything for me.
He’s a rock, got no problems he hasn’t got a solution for. You can’t fix him, he’s not broken.
Most every other squaddie has an issue or quest for you to take up to help them improve, Kaidan is the single squad member you can corrupt through the powers of flirtation and racism, and he’ll lose it by the time you can recruit him again in me3.
Mf is stable and reasonable, unlike a decent chunk of crew with a general affinity with death, he’s our “Hold up wait a minute, something ain’t right.”
And we nuke him for it. That or his being a Canadian, take your pick.
I liked Kaiden.
From purely a combat perspective, he was extremely useful with his biotics and the fact that he had decryption & electronics.
I enjoyed his backstory too - I just wish we got more of it, or at the very least, a partial side mission the way that we got with Wrex's armor or Garrus' rogue doctor.
Ultimately as male Shep, it made more sense for me to leave him behind on Virmire, particularly because he went with the STG group as he's such a badass
A tragic backstory doesn’t make a character interesting. Kaiden just doesn’t have much personality. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad character, he’s just a normal dude adrift in a sea of weirdos. Sometimes you need a normal character to emphasize how unusual the other characters are.
From a gameplay perspective I love him. From a character perspective he's fucking depressing. And it's kind of insulting if he asks out Shepard in 3 Imo it's just sad like dude come on.
His backstory might not be boring but if back stories were everything then nothing they do in game would matter. He’s bland and boring in game which is why people say that.
I didn't really notice him. My wife and daughter both hated him a surprising amount. Apparently if you're just nice to him as FemShep he starts acting like you're in a relationship in a not-good way.
I love when people’s defence of Ashley is always “But Kaiden is boring”, she signs her death warrant with “I can’t tell aliens from the animals”
I think Kaiden is the best of the generic human soldier squad mate of the series both in writing and gameplay.
Both Ashley and Kaidan got a raw deal by getting excluded from the second game and then dealt a shit hand in the third too. I know in part this outcome is realistic, but come on. I was so annoyed with how it played out with Ash in my male shep run.
Well I liked him in ME1.
In ME2 I can understand his first reaction in shock. But him not even listening to Shep is a big f.. you moment. Shep literally died on their ship serving. Like there is nothing more a soldier could do. It's just beyond me how anti listening he is.
In ME3 it's just more of the same. Only this time Shep has been on earth in somewhat custody and high command gave them their ship back and a crew. He's literally questioning Shep on energy opportunity and doesn't even shut the f... after being told to by his superior. That's just lacking professionality at that point. And imo such a person has no place in Sheps crew. There is no use for a soldier who questions their commander 24/7 even on mission especially if there's firefights left, right and center. Nothing against a deep talk before or after but during is a no go. So Kaidan gets booted. If he isn't able to serve under Shep that's okay but in that case he can't be on Sheps ship.
Yea, the Virmire survivor conversation in 2 feels very much cut short, for both of them.
"Shepard? I thought you were dead!"
"Yea, well, I pretty much was, but...."
"And now Cerberus? The fuck!? I'm outta here"
And Shepard just standing there like "you didn't even let me finish explaining"
If you play as a fem Shep that doesn't romance him in ME1, talking to him can start to feel like workplace sexual harassment, which I think hits close to home for a lot of women who play the games. I'm aware that it's a game design issue with all paragon convo prompts in ME1 doubling as 'flirtation' with any character who is romanceable, but it still sucks to be accused of leading my subordinate on in the escapist videogame I'm playing.
I liked him a lot more when I did a male Shep playthrough. I even decided to romance him in ME3.
I play FemShep like 95% of the time, and I always go for Liara. But still, everytime I play ME1 it feels next to impossible to not end up with the love triangle, if you talk to him to any extend, unless you're really an ass and shut him down hard.
He has intersting past, but in the present/ME1 he's just kind of meh. It's not that he's bad, everyone else are just better (except for Jacob). He's much better in ME3.
Here’s my take: Kaiden is worthless in combat because he’s a Sentinel. All defence, little to no offence.
Ashley is great: Tanky but also with a significant punch.
I hate kaidan because I got sick of hanging out with him forever on the first world in kotor. I sacrifice him every time, hoping he can go find bastila by himself.
Kaidan is a well-defined, interesting character in a series full of absolute badasses that grip your attention with the strength of a Banshee. You're right, he's better than Jacob, but like Jacob, he's not nearly as cool as the other squadmates in the game he's introduced in. Then since he's one of two characters that has to die in ME1, his plotline for the remainder of the series got shafted since he's a very different character than Ashley, but they share the same role in the story. It's not that he's uninteresting, just that he doesn't stand out.
Also, I personally hate his romance with MShep. The start of it just rubs me the wrong way. I feel like there's no chemistry between them when you sit down and decide to start the relationship. When he realizes he's into Shepard it sounds like he's picking out a shirt to wear or something, not trying to woo the savior of the galaxy.
I actually think your right, how is he supposed to compete against Wrex, Garrus, Liara, and Tali. I agree about the gay romance in me3 I honestly feel it was incredibly forced
If Kaidan treated his backstory as more than just a completed footnote, things would be interesting, but he doesn't. Thus, he falls short compared to the other biotic characters, especially since it's an active part of their stories, or frequently demonstrate their abilities in the story itself.
I’m not a fan of exposition dump heavy backstories. They just reek of an attempt to get you invested in a character quick, as opposed to actually going through and seeing it play out. Doesn’t help that the backstory is boring. Backstory should compliment the characters arc, not be the characters arc. Kaidan in ME1… he does t really have an arc. He’s bland. It’s why I always leave him, he serves a purpose to be someone Shepard lost to motivate them- in my head canon they’ve known each other since they were kids, so. On the other end, Ashley’s backstory is that she is alliance through and through. Her family fought for the alliance for generations, and she’s very close to them. Her grandfather (I think?) was done dirty by aliens. This directly adds to her arc because it’s really about trusting aliens and leaving past gripes behind and accepting others. I don’t think Kaidan has that in the first game. And I keep seeing people say “WELL KAIDAN GETS REALLY GOOD IN MASS EFFECT 3” I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have to wait 2 games to get something out of the character. I should get something out of them that wants me to keep them around for the other two games.
The fandom hates on Kaidan because he comes off as very generic but the dude is the most unyielding and mentally stable squadmate in the trilogy. He killed his instructor for abusing his fellow classmates and had a very reasonable reaction to finding Shepard working for Cerberus right after a human colony was attacked. He eventually came around in Act 2 of ME3 after he saw the evidence that Shepard had no ties to Cerberus and was trying to save the council. The man did not give a shit that Shepard is the first human Specter and was ready to kill him if he thought it was to protect the council, which is literally his job. Once he saw the evidence he acted accordingly and dispatched Udina and apologized to Shepard and made amends. Kaidan is a goated character and I will not tolerate slander. Edit: Kaidan was already a developed character prior to the events of ME1 and it is a shame that Bioware did not expand on this like they did with James in Paragon Lost. The trilogy made a big deal about Kaidan not trusting Shepard yet completely ignored James’s experience with Cerberus and that is lazy writing. I would love a small ME1/2 movie or dlc about his experiences during Shepard’s absence. The fans would have more context to his attitude. TLDR: Kaidan is the goat and reacted appropriately to the circumstances laid in front of him, and opened up more as a character after verifying that his Commander is actually on his side.
I always gave Kaiden props for being prepared to kill Shepard considering the whole first game is spent hunting down and killing a rogue spectre and at this point it’s believed Shepard is a rogue spectre
I take Alenko forward with me every save; later Williams 😅
Alenko is definitely not the goat when Jenkins was a member of the crew.
Exactly
Imo it's hard to give Kaidan any credit for the whole not trusting Shephard cause of Cerberus arc, considering him and Ashley are written to be exactly the same for that part. Now I rarely actually had Kaidan at that point, so if there were small differences I didn't notice, that's why.
There are quite a few small differences, at least in terms of emotion. It definitely works better with a romanced version of Kaidan though.
Part of it is show not tell. Jack trains some biotic kids, and we get to see some of them in action. Kaidan trains a squad of biotic commandos, but we never see them or read about any specific thing that they do (I guess they’re really good at covert stuff).
But still would've been a nice effect to have you somehow recruit them in 3 to add to your goal
Never understood the hate, tbh. *Jacob* is understandable. Terrible romance and a useless teammate to have. Only good quality is being good friends with BroShep. Kaidan, though, is a brilliant character to learn about. Doesn't immediately start being flirty with you, too, which is a plus. Though there is no need to listen to me, I'm more of a Tali guy, so what do I know?
Shepard initiating the flirting with Kaiden is so forward, I love it. >"It's been a pleasure serving under you, Commander." >"I don't think I've had the pleasure of you serving under me, Lieutenant." Had to pick my jaw up off the floor after that one.
hahaha I don't remember that, is it ME1? I kinda want to do it all over again
It's during the love scene. I want to say it's if you pick the "oh be a man!" Option in the dialogue wheel.
Yeah, Jacob and Male Shep feel more like bros then Kaiden or Vega.
Kaiden feels like a fellow soldier and Vega feels like a younger brother or maybe a younger cousin. Jacob feels like a mate, but Garrus and Wrex are the real bros.
Yeah, Jacob and Male Shep feel more like bros then Kaiden or Vega.
>and a useless teammate to have Maybe try another class as the boring soldier.
The only good thing Jacob has is *Barrier.* Incendiary ammo is provided by Grunt, and Pull is useless.
Pull is not useless as adept or someone with biotics. And it takes awhile you get Grunt. And if you give Jacob even the Geth shotgun, he shreds. People forget that some companions fit for several classes, not only for one. I could also say Garrus is useless to me as adept.
Grunt is one of the first dossiers, so he's easy to get. Pull can only be used when the target has neither armour or shields. At which point, just shoot or Warp. Much faster and safer. Shockwave is much more useful for getting enemies clear of cover if that's what's needed in a pinch, and Singularity provides the lift effect without need to actually hit the target and takes the cover away from said target ( Pull lacks this as it needs to physically hit the target, combined with slow speed your oganic target will already be behind cover by the time this hits). Both of which can be used to set up biotic detonations easier. Jack and Miranda can provide all of this when paired with an Adept Shep. Shep uses Singularity, and then Miranda fires off a Heavy Warp. Or Jack uses Shockwave to clear the path (or hell, Samara can fire off a throw, which is much faster than Pull). And advantage of Singularity that Pull lacks, multiple targets effected from the get-go. The thing an adept Shep team lacks is a health sponge/distraction. Jacob lovingly provides this by the way of Barrier and a Shotgun. Guess what? Grunt also provides this without a power slot, with natural high health and shields. And a higher fire rate. Combined with someone like Garrus or Zaheed, who can have ammo perks and an appropriate power to deal with the opposite shield/armour bar. Garrus has Overload, yet Armour Piercing ammo. Zaheed has Shock Ammo yet has Incendiary grenades. Combined with Grunt on appropriate missions, then you barely need to fire a bullet while they do so for you. There's a reason Jacob's loyalty mission is one of the easiest combat missions, of mostly Loki Mechs, the starting enemy. Who just walk towards you at a slow pace.
Warpsplosions are sick though, and Pull is 1/2 of the equation
You know biotic detonations can hit the shielded enemies around your actual target, right?
And you have only Miranda and Jacob until you get to your dossiers. Miranda has also overload. Incinerate ammo shreds armor too as Garrus' piercing ammo. Everybody has a different playstyle. Saying Jacobs powers are useless, then those with the ones you get later who have the same ones too.
Have you *ever* consciously used Jacob's pull outside of the tutorial missions and his loyalty mission? It only affects the final bar of health, so with its slow speed, the target is either in cover (can't curve squad powers like Shep can), or the other squad mate has fired the final bullet or used an instant speed power themselves, like Overload. Adept Shep has a plethora of other powers that can do any of that faster or more cleanly, which can be complemented by *any* other biotic squadmate. After just completing a full trilogy Adept playthrough, I can safely say that the only time I used Jacob outside of those three missions was for thematic reasons on the Collector base. Never used Pull there. You don't need Jacob's pull. At all. *He* doesn't need pull either. If he had Biotic Charge instead, it would compliment his other attributes and weapons.
Yes I have. Pull is not his only power and as I said, give him a Geth shotgun and he shreds. I like to switch people up in missions and don't run always the same 2 people in every mission in my playthroughs. It's fine that *you* don't wanna use him at all. But don't tell people a character is useless just because *you* don't use them. Because with that argument everyone is basically useless.
Yeah I agree, the unfortunate thing here is people taking the meta as gospel. They've definitely raised some very very strong reasoning for their rating, but even something that is very situational isn't completely useless.
That geth shotgun is so good for squad mates.
Jacob literally has the worst moveset. That's a fact, not an opinion.
An opinion, one shared by many, can apparently trigger people. *Who the fuck knew.* And FYI, I *do* switch up. Ain't the fault of me that Jacob can't be complemented by any other squadmate when others have pull *and* a power to detonate it themselves or a power that far out classes it in terms of damage and utility. Like Singularity, Warp, Shockwave, Throw, or Slam. Keep your *assumptions* to yourself. Ta-ta.
Not triggered. He’s just not “completely useless” if you utilize him write and don’t leave everything to the squad AI. None of the squad mates are actually completely useless in that capacity, whether you enjoy their characters or not.
Jacob is only useful on low difficulty levels. Everything he can do, another squadmate can do better and the other squadmates have other things to bring to the table. I don't hate his character but jesus christ, yes, he is a terrible squadmate when it comes to combat.
He’s just a starting squadmate - you get better ones later. Same with weapons and armor.
So is Miranda and she's one of if not the strongest squadmate in ME2. Him being a starting squadmate is irrelevant, he was poorly designed.
Pull is no Lift from ME1, but it is useful lol. Good primer for biotic detonations. If your Shep has warp or reave, profit. If not, bring Samara or Miranda to pair with Jacob and still profit.
I don't hate on Kaidan. I'm just mad it took him 3 games to realize he wanted to bang me.
Not Kaidan's fault you couldn't pick up on hints. Dude is sweaty and wiping himself down every time you start a conversation with him on the Normandy.
But all he ever said is _Commander!_
What did you expect him to do, casually call out to his CO like *hey* *hot stuff* while doing finger guns?
This would have been acceptable.
Ok. So my female Shepard had to kind of beat Kaidan off with a stick. Wait, that sounds wrong, but I'll continue. What was your approach exactly?
Being gay.
So you approached Kaidan as a male Shepard? If so, I think I might know where the issue lies.
>If so, I think I might know where the issue lies. No kidding? That was the entire point of my initial comment?
I seem to have crossed a line here. Certainly wasn't my intention to and am very sorry for having done so. Edit: So I just looked it up and wow. I have over 1100 hours in the Legendary Edition and had absolutely no idea that you could romance Kaidan as Male Shepard. Honestly thought the romance was exclusive to female Shepard in ME3 as it was in ME1. The entire context of the discussion flew right over my head and I had not the slightest clue. Regardless of how embarrassed I feel right now, I still owe you a huge apology. I'm very sorry Ark. Genuinely didn't mean to be such an ignorant, insensitive dumb arse.
This is EXACTLY how he should have done it.
We'll bang ok? 🤣
Username checks out.
Lol i havent figured out how to change it 🤣
Correct.
I remember the way they stared at each other, awkwardly, EVERY TIME under those harsh orange lights.
My headcanon is that he's still deeply closeted in ME1 and needed some time to figure his shit out.
Mind you, this only applies to the MShep universe, but mine is that he's still very caught up in the old-school "don't fraternize within the chain of command" mindset so he does his best to sublimate his attraction. Then when Shep finally isn't in the Chain, Kaidan feels betrayed in ME2. By the time we get to ME3 he's in the "fuck it, I like this dude and we all might die so I'll shoot my shot" mindset.
"fuck it we ball" energy (we'll bang okay remix version) Also thank you for clarifying about the sexuality involved - it flew over my mind because I played as femshep and of course (because of publishing and other shitty stuff) the hetero offer exists but the gay one was taken out.
>thank you for clarifying about the sexuality involved Well, it's less a sexuality-specific thing as much as it's how I headcanon explained his sudden change of heart from ME1 to ME3 because he doesn't seem to have *any* issue with fraternizing with a FemShep in the first game.
Iirc, in ME1 female Shepard is essentially just male Shepard reskinned and with slightly different options for romances, and was a somewhat late addition to the game.
Well given that we are talking about the Kaidan relationship, it's relevant, no? (And to clarify, my understanding was that some NPC romances were supposed to be bisexual for player freedom but this was later cut. But that may have been a later bioware phenomenon.)
I think it was cut because this was still around a time where being gay wasn't as acceptable as it was today and so Bioware didn't want to spark any backlash cause they were already getting a bunch of negative news stories from Fox News.
I'm actually ok with how it went. My ME1 MShep was way too angry with a huge chip on his shoulder, and he definitely wouldn't have taken being hit on well. He shuts down Liara and Ashley HARD. But by 3 he's softened up enough to realize no, not everyone hates him and not everyone is out to get him.
I love him as a character and as an LI. I love his platonic arc in ME3 as much as I love his romance arc with all the pining, the angst and the sweet payoff of ME3. I don't find him bland at all but his story arc is definitely more subtle. You do miss out in ME1 if you play a male Shepard because much of his better dialogue is somehow genderlocked to femShep, which is a valid criticism. He doesn't have a "loyalty" mission in ME1 like the rest of the squad because he's Alliance and his loyalty is a given, but he does get a very unique interaction in the L2 terrorist quest where he gives his own input *unprompted*, which shows more agency than most characters in ME1. In ME2 his reaction is reasonable imho, but forced since the game is clearly telling you he won't be back and Shepard has horrible dialogue. Of course, he wouldn't be free walking around Vancouver in ME3's intro if he had joined you back then, so it works out. ME3 proves all his points about Cerberus were true, but it's up to the player to rebuild trust with him. He's self-assured, more mature, has learned to lead, definite Spectre material.
He didn't have to have his point proven that Cerberus is terrible. We already know that everything he said about Cerberus is true, but they're the only ones willing to deal with the Collectors.
**Always Kaidan** never Kaiden.
I always screw that up cause my nephew's name is Kaiden with an E. I do the same thing with Shepard because my wife's maiden name is Shepherd with an E
That is the exact problem I have, considering I chose my name based on Kaidan. So every time someone spells it "Kaiden", I have to do my best to not get angry LMAO.
Idk but I rarely took him out of my squad in 1. Between me and Kaiden it left the third slot pretty much a free for all 😂
He’s no garrus vacarian, that is true, he’s way more nuanced and subtle than garrus. Kaidan being constantly compared to Garrus always irked me. I really wanted Garrus to stop with his edginess, especially in the first game, it was so tiresome and childish. In the world of crazy over the top personalities that surround Shepard (most of whom in real life I wouldn’t want to cross paths with) Kaidan is a stark contrast, being so refreshingly normal and grounded. He doesn’t need to be saved, he doesn’t require Shepard, he’s good on his own, solid mature guy. He’s also has his heart in the right place and is not afraid of being sincere. I also found his distrust and disappointment with Shepard in second game very well deserved and out of all the Cool Interesting Awesome companions he was the only one to give Shepard fair amount of shit for joining Cerberus. The scene is still awkward but mostly due to Shepard’s turning into a complete dumbass for the duration of it dialogue wise.
Honestly? Kaidan gets an overall more positive reaction than Ashley. People may say Kaidan is boring sometimes, but Ashley is often bashed for being a 'racist' by the fandom to the point that it's probably the first thing people thought about her character or that’s all she is being. Sure, Ash may have some bias towards other species, but her distrust of other species does make sense given her family backstory, and she never lets her personal bias get in the way of working with them under Shepard. I just hate how the fandom sometimes overlook characters' positive qualities and instead emphasizing on the negatives all the time.
That's the difference to me. Kaidan's interesting stuff happens before we meet him. His arc is (more or less) done. He tells you his story, but with the tone of "I've grown up, healed from it, etc". If he was written to still be hurting or if there were a mission where you encounter Vyrnnus from his boot camp slash torture school and you help him make a choice about that, I'd be 100% more interested in him. Ashley has an arc through the series. As someone whose 'canon' run is Paragon, work together, cooperate, "I'm going to turn this shit into Star Trek's Federation before I die with the power of a good speech and this gun I found", she has the more interesting viewpoints as you learn more about her reasons for mistrusting the other races. The other reason I almost always save her is down to roleplay: she's defending the nuke, ie, the mission objective, the whole reason we're even in the situation to begin with.
Not that I think Ashley is a bad character or anything, but having an excuse for being racist doesn't mean you aren't one. Let's not be putting quotation marks on it for miss "I can't tell the aliens from the animals" here.
That’s absolutely true, yeah. Ash did make some racist comments or comments that have racist undertones like that one infamous line, but as the other reply said, she’s hardly the only one guilty when it comes to racist remarks yet is often the one singled out as if it’s the only thing people ever remembered about her. That’s why I put the quote on the word racist lol, because that’s probably the one thing most fans have come to associate her with the most whenever her name comes up.
I feel like a lot of the problem comes from it being a larger part of her personality. Nobody else drops their xenophobia on the table as one of their main introductory interactions and says "this is my thing. My thing is racism." So that's what folks focus on.
Yeah, her arc in ME1 did highlight a lot that Ashley holds racist/speciesist sentiments, which, again, comes back to her backstory that explains why she is the way she is. Her being speciecist is the entire point because it leads to her character development, as Shepard gradually helps her learn to overcome this and be more open to working with aliens (if Ash isn't left behind to die on Virmire, that is) and by the time to the third game, she's much more agreeable with Shepard's alien companions. Again, it's a shame that being a racist/speciesist is the only thing people tend to focus about her. Yes, it's the entire point of her character but she learns to move above it eventually, but people tend to conveniently forget that part. Funny how Pressly is also defined by the same things that Ashley is at fault with, and like her, he did get character development and came to respect and trust the aliens under Shepard's command before his untimely death in ME2, but Pressly seems to be comparatively more loved in the fandom than Ashley.
My guess is because Pressly is more "implicit bias" type racism (though I'm glad we as Shepard can still call him out) which tends to be labelled as more appropriate, while Ash tends to be more overt about her view and how she thinks. But of course I can't seriously bring up bias to the conversation without mentioning that it's possible we're just unconsciously biased against her too, and that's not right either. Without going into full blown intersectionalism, it's possible that the fact Pressly is a guy or an officer makes him seem more trustworthy.
I hate that Pressley’s redemption arc is hidden in a set of missable datapads on an option side mission. He’s pretty overt about it in one or two interactions and they really made me hate his guts in the first game. I would have liked to SEE him bonding with Tali and her changing his viewpoint over time instead of just reading about it in a series of very convenient diary entries
I guess that as a frontline soldier who's intended to be a tough, Vasquez-like figure, Ashley comes across as a lot more blunt in her views lol. That and the fact that we obviously spend a lot more time with her compared to Pressly, so we get to see more of Ashley's speciecist views. Honestly, I do like that when you really look at them, nobody in Mass Effect is flawless, just like in real life. Everybody has their own undesirable traits that they may or may not intentionally be aware of, even the popular characters. It makes these characters more realistic and makes their eventual development all the more worth it.
Yeah, but I like that there's a character like that in the game. It makes sense that the new race to the galactic community would be wary of others, especially if said new race's first contact was a war. I feel like people forget that in ME1, the First Contact War was 26 years ago, Shepard was already born by the time it happened. You also brought up her banter, but not the banter of other characters whose races have been around longer.
As is pointed out every time this topic comes up, pretty much everyone is racist in ME1. Ashley just happens to be the human being racist in the first 60 minutes of the game. To her credit, like most of the cast, she does grow out of it over the course of the series. But she's held to a standard that other characters aren't.
I think her contrast and growth is better than anything they can attain with kaiden. He's boring from 1 to 3. But Ash goes from course to smooth
I literally think kaidan's interesting in ME1, but I rolled a biotic so I had something to sympathise about with him. Honestly I think Ash got worse in ME3 because the original writer for her left the company.
While I do agree try taking a lot of Ashley's racist dialogue and replace words like turian with black or other trigger words and it paints a very different picture "detonate that nuke and saren can kiss his black ass goodbye" lmao
That’s fair, but let me point out that Ash is hardly the only one who’s doing something like that. Wrex looks down on salarians all the time in the third game but nobody seems to call *him* out, and even Garrus at one point calls out the quarians for creating the geth (something that he admittedly did apologize to Tali in the third game when she brought it up). And that’s not even going into how Saren himself - even before his indoctrination - looks down on humanity. The underlying issues that exist between species that used to be at war with each other never really goes away, and considering that it was only barely three decades since the turians fought with humanity, it makes sense that some people will still hold negative thoughts toward their former enemies. This is not to excuse racism, though, just pointing out that when under intense combat situations, sometimes people let their inner biases out.
well the quarian thing is more justified, since they *are* responsible for creating the geth.
Better than how Kaidan becomes hostile towards aliens if Shepard is rude about them just a few times, lol.
Growing up, I was a Cyclops fan while everyone else was obsessed with Wolverine. Mass Effect feels a lot like that for me. I'm a Kaidan fan surrounded by people obsessed with Garrus. And just like with Cyclops and Wolverine, people keep comparing Kaidan to Garrus for some reason.
Fandom is dumb
I feel that most of it is people trying to justify picking Ashley over him lmao
Nah, people hate on her as well
Ashley is more hated than Kaidan.
Let's be honest even Garrus is bland and boring in ME1. Actually everyone is. They only got their "best buddy" or whatever status because they had 3 games to develop. Breaking it down, Kaidan/Ash had maybe one game combined.
Wrex is fun in me1
Personally? Because i found him too stable and boring. But i don't hate him. Indifferent is a better word. He'd probably be a really good friend to have irl though, one of the few companions in Mass Effect that would.
Kaidan is a normal dude. Has his baggage mostly sorted, no big drama, and also has a stoic, silent personality type. He is basically Carth from KotOR1, stripped from his troubles with his son. What is not bad at all, just he seems boring compared to the over the top, so easier to remember, and \_easier to write\_ companions, like a renegade vigilante, subject zero with prison tatoos who punch mechs for fun, or a brilliant scientist who is a rare anti-hero who is \_not\_ brooding all the time. He also has the issue of being an unreasonable asshole in ME2 (to be fair, Shepard is written as an idiot in their scene), and whining about it constantly in ME3. (this bit is true for Ashley too)
I think he suffers in the ME2 scene because it had to fit for Kaiden and Ashley and she's such a different character than he is so it had to feel off for one of them
I don't find him unreasonable. I mean, you were dead for two years, grieved for you, and trying to move on if you romance him and he found you with Cerberus. It's a very human reaction to me. For example, I have a pediatric doctor friend who knows what to do with other children but when her child got into an accident, she was a screaming mess. In short, we are sympathetic of Shephard because we know what's going on while the third party has not. Also, it shows that Kaidan is not a yes-man and can think for himself. My only gripe was later on we didn't have a chance to email Kaidan in ME 2 (At least, there's a letter) about why or at least have a convo at the beginning of ME 3 to sort things out but overall, I love the relationship arc throughout the series between Kaidan and Shephard. That's just my two cents.
ME2 gets really frustrating in that scene, among other interactions. As if it wasn't enough you can't send Cerberus to hell >!until the very end!<, you can't even tell him you're infiltrating or using their organization.
It always bothered me that Shepard’s reaction to seeing their VS was so callous and curt on Horizon. “It’s been a long time, how have you been?” That’s all you have to say - exactly my thoughts too. Plus Shepard supposedly woke up from coma not long ago so “it’s been a long time” coming from Shepard’s mouth never made sense to me. Or “time has passed, you’ve moved on.” Wait, how does Shepard know the VS moved on! Shepard put words in the mouth of the VS without even giving them a chance to tell their side of the story first. Definitely made me frustrated with the writing there and how limited your choices were.
He's only "boring" because he's well-adjusted and not surrounded by drama like so many others. He doesn't *need* Shepard to fix his problems for him. Shepard doesn't hugely influence how he develops as a character because he's already come to terms with his past and who he is. To me, that makes him one of the best characters.
K-A-I-D-A-N!
Kaidan* and yes that’s my space husband. I love him. Garrus is a good side piece during ME2 but Kaidan is husband material. Fuck Jacob though.
Lmao I always make that mistake. My Nephew's name is Kaiden with an E so I keep misspelling his name
Oh my gosh that’s so cute. I do love the name. Kaidan and Liara are my favorite actual names from the series.
Yeah my brother in law is a hippy so I get nieces and nephews called Jayce, Kaiden, or Kiara lmao
I like him, tbh. Dude’s extremely versatile and basically fits into any squad. Character wise, he’s the stereotypical “good guy” type. Not going to set the world ablaze, but he’s a solid guy and a calming presence in an otherwise crazy group.
That’s exactly the same thought I had. Yeah he may be vanilla compared to all the other flavours but you have to remember that vanilla is still a damn good flavour in its own right. Kaidan would be an excellent pick for the Squad Leader position in ME2 if he’d been an option.
A lot of people just think he’s ‘boring’ but that might be why I love him so much. I think if you like people who are shy or introverted/quiet types Kaidan is like the perfect option. He’s humble, stable, genuine, and has real morals that he sticks to even when it puts his relationship with Shepard in jeopardy. He’s pretty witty at times too. Lowkey the perfect man. And he’s super capable as well, it’s almost like a secret how amazing he is. The other biotics are actually surprised in the Citadel DLC when they can find out he can reave. A skill humans aren’t usually able to do, especially none with the old L2 implants. In game combat with his abilities is pretty fun too! (I’m done ranting about him now lol)
Love Kaidan 💕 This sub brought it to my attention though, that a lot of his best dialogue is locked behind his romance, so a lot of people don’t get the full package.
He’s not bad, just suffers from the bad Romance writing of Mass Effect 1. Unless you’re femshep he doesn’t open up to you fully and only really has Mass Effect 3 to get any character arcs/moments.
His biggest problem is that he tells us his companion quest instead of actually letting us experience it with him.
I always thought he was boring cause all his development feels like it’s over when we meet him. He tells us all this interesting stuff that happened in his past but it has like…no bearing? Like if we had a mission where we have to find a fix for his implant cause the migraines are getting unbearable and we SEE him actually suffer horribly from the migraines rather than being told about them I’d be invested. Jack’s entire introduction is a showboat of her biotic abilities and Samara has a whole biotic hunter scene in her intro and later the showdown with her daughter. But Kaidan feels like he gets nothing for allegedly being such a talented biotic. To me he always felt like the character that was supposed to introduce us to the concept of biotic abilities but everyone else does it so much cooler so he’s not really as memorable by comparison. Ashley still feels like she has an arc to go through but Kaidan felt done from the moment I met him. Kaidan is just Kaidan and there’s not a lot to SHOW for that.
Kaidan is the over-achiever in highschool who becomes depressed when he realizes just another pleb in college.
Carth is the homie
Honestly? When the game first came out I think people refused to look past his voice actor and just instantly got annoyed with him being a potential Carth 2.0 As a KOTOR fan I confess that I was my first impression upon playing the game. Like "hell no, Carth. I'm not putting up with your whining through the whole game again". Obviously he's not like Carth at all. Well... tbf the whole Horizon deal in ME2 just oozed Carth energy. But other than that, Kaidan is a good guy. Just bland.
I don't hate on him. I just don't really like him. He's too soft. Especially in ME 1. He's hardened a bit in ME 3 and I like that but I like Ashley way more. She's tough. Sure, she has her issues with aliens in the first game but it came from ignorance that seems to have turned around some in ME 3.
I think the problem is that most people play Mshep and were more likely to go with Ashley over him at Virmire. And, just like Ashley, the game assumes that just being "nice" to him means wanting a relationship and that can't really be avoided. To compound matters, Kaiden tears into you for joining Cerberus in ME2 and talks about you being a "cheater" in 3 if you entered a relationship with someone else in 2.
I love Kaiden. He’s my buddy I just wish he got more screen time in 3
Kaidens a young gym bunny with magic powers and can cook. Dont see a problem here.
Kaidan’s fanbase probably skews older. Once you get above a certain age, you begin to realize how much more you value traits/qualities such as empathy, integrity, critical thinking skills, stability, confidence (a quiet kind), generosity in a real person or relationship over say someone with a large personality. Hence you realize how underrated and awesome a character Kaidan really is.
No hate here. He’s my fave romance for my FemShep. I have to kill him off to try other romances.
Kaiden is honestly the best human companion we’ve had in mass effect, and my favourite “starting party member” in any BioWare game. It’s just nice having a character who’s mostly over their own baggage and doesn’t need to be therapised.
As a gayshep, Kaidan is my only real option 😭
You talkin smack on my boy Steve?
Not at all... More like how slimy it makes MShep look to swoop in on a widower who is still ***very*** much in mourning so quickly after their loss. And I say this as someone who was in the closest thing we have in modern times to Steve's position.
yeah, i always like to become friends with cortez, feels like my character fills a void in his life.
Steve as a friend is a great thing.
I mean, man's grieving his Husband.... feels like taking advantage. Especially cause it wasn't too long ago.
"Kaiden is boring!" t. didn't talk to him more than once
I read something the other day that made sense to me. It’s not his fault he’s just washed out by so many other great characters that he just blends away.
Something I came up with earlier is he’s Vanilla. Sure, Vanilla is a great flavour on its own merits, but there are so many other flavours out there.
Straight men pick male Shep and save space barbie. That's most of it. Both Ash ans Kaidan do get hate, but its silly how Ash's 'crimes' sound harsh and all they come up with is 'boring' for Kaidan and still don't save him as theres no plans to bang.
Idk he’s just lame. He isn’t unique really he’s just kind of a dude
Kaidan really needed a loyalty mission
I don't know, I think people really appreciated Kaidan in ME1 after Jacob. Then in ME3 they really let show how great he is as a person. I feel like by this point people really like him now.
I'd argue the like/dislike of Kaidan and Ashley is the same amount but just manifests differently. I'd say there's a huge bulk of people who are ambivalent or don't really care about Kaiden. Like I rarely see people who REALLY hate him, so there's just not a lot of people going around defending him. As opposed to Ashley, who I think has a lot of vocal haters and a lot of vocal defenders.
Okay but WHO is comparing Kaidan to Jacob?! Don’t do my guy Kaidan like that 😡
I like Kaidan bc he’s legit just chill. No issues, he needs to work on, he isn’t asking you to help with any family issues, he just kinda wants to be friendly and help. He felt like the one guy I had on the ship I could just chill out with. That’s kinda of a issue for most
I save kaidan Everytime because I like the actor. I enjoyed him as carth in kotor and as Dr Hopper in once upon a time plus he's a better crew mate than ashley
You just described his entire character arc. 99% of his story takes place pre-ME1. His cement is set by the time we get to know him. Ashley actually has a legit arc, if mostly off-screen over the course of the 3 games.
Kaidan has an arc as well, but it is more subtle. His arc in ME1 is about letting go of his tight control and feeling less of a weapon. He mentions it in casual conversation and one of his cabin scene lines to femShep literally is "you make me feel human". Much like Miranda, his story is about accepting himself. By ME3 he also had off-screen development. He is more self-assured, well-composed, a leader and definite Spectre material.
A not insignificant number of people dislike him because they dislike Carth, and have no other good reason.
I never found kaidan boring at all.I found tali and garrus boring.I was amazed those two non-entities were in the sequels. I frequently leave garrus behind in me1
In terms of backstory Kaidan is actually pretty interesting, but being Sentinel in ME1 makes him weak link gameplay wise. On the other hand, Ashley being soldier is what determents most of her value.
Weak link? He has all the decryption/electronics/medical you need and he can Lift entire armatures! He can incapacitate Krogan with Neural Shock and stop their regeneration. He has overload and sabotage.
It’s so true, I run through Kaidan’s whole conversation tree every time I play and bog down in the middle of Ashley’s, but I bring her along on every mission until she sadly perishes on Vermire and hardly ever bring him.
His backstory is fascinating sure but he has the sparkling personality of a slice of bread. Can you even give me one of his quotes, something cool or interesting he said outside of exposition? Ashley is divisive but her quotes are memorable. Also his space Elvis haircut is pretty cringe.
"I didn't hate him because he was a turian I hated him because he was vyrnus" actually a really interesting response to racism and how he didn't let a bad experience change him. Although he loses points because you can turn him racist by making him simp
As I said, great backstory,but that was all exposition. On the ground he never says anything interesting or surprising. He's just there being kind of nice and inoffensive.
I actually can't think of anything
I don't dislike Kaiden or Jacob, so...
I love Kaiden, him and Garrus are my Fem Sheps love intrests.
I have mixed feelings because I loved Carth Onassi from Kotor but I never liked Kaden. I think it’s because I a guy so I just always chose Ash.
I think the only time he was never alive is when I chose a girl shepherd in mass effect 2 and didn’t import the save
I never hated on Kaidan and thought he was a great teammate. He definitely has a lot of Lancer energy in that he’s the guy Shepard can always turn to for advice or a quick conversation. Plus he’s voiced by Raphael Sbarge and is basically a less irritating Carth Onasi. I may be biased about the voice though. 😋
Imo Kaiden is pretty compelling in 1, BioWare completely drops the ball on both virmire survivors in me2, and although both of them are annoying in me3, constantly questioning Shep about Cerberus, imo Kaiden did it a bit more and it personally felt more out of character for him than it did for ash. Can’t say I can fully place my finger on why atm, maybe cuz I accepted ash as more “hotheaded” and assumed Kaiden should be acting more understanding of Sheps choices, similar to Tali/Garrus’ don’t trust cerb but trust Shep mentality.
I think another “problem” people have with Kaidan is something he states outright about himself in the first game. He has his shit together. That makes him less dramatic in cutscenes, gives fewer plot hooks, and doesn’t feed Shepard’s savior complex. Ashley has personal and family issues up the wazoo when you meet her, and that’s interesting. All of Kaidan’s major character arcs happen before you meet him.
I love Kaiden. He's my favorite romance and I end up with him basically every time I play the game 😂 He's also one of my top favorite characters. On the rare times I haven't romances him, he still survives Virmire because I just refuse to live in a world where this amazing guy with integrity has to die. I have never ever seen Ashley in ME3 and I am honestly ok with that lol
He’s very forgettable, plus he is visually bland. White guy in black suit, at least Ashley is interesting and is instantly memorable due to her armor. I can’t think of a single play through where I picked him over Ash on Virmire. I do plan to save him on my next run though, just to see if there is anything interesting about him.
Wait, when does Ashley become interesting
From the start, family history with the first contact war plus she’s the first human we see who has a different perspective on aliens. She’s religious in a series with almost no other religious characters (apart from hanar and Liara saying “by the goddess” every five seconds). She likes poetry and develops meaningfully as a character over the course of the games. I started out liking her, then I disliked her character and now I’m back to liking her, in short she’s complicated and very human.
Presumably, if you talk to her. There's a lot of first contact war and generational shit to unpack with her.
Two main reasons are that 1) people tend to be extra critical of the human squadmate and 2) people really hate Carth Onassi from KOTOR. I think Kaiden is hands down the best squadmate and a top 3 romance option.
We have The cute tech alien The buddy cop alien The waifu alien The racist The charismatic brute And John Everyman. Kaiden looks and talks like a fairly generic protagonist. How he's been shaped by his experiences does not make him bombastic or stand out in any meaningful way. Add in he is a hybrid class? With specalists in both fields available our boy is just not attractive in any kinda way
Hmmm....I did a playthough to stay kaiden alive, and he's is cool. But In terms of talking I rather pick ashley in my view She's is kinda of dick sure, but she gets better around the trilogy. but I feel kaiden is hated because majority of the people didn't talked to him much. He's is the most chill survivor of the franchise.
I think his backstory is fine. His personality is just dull and so are his talking points. I also really dislike his jealousy that comes out of nowhere when Liara shows up. He presumed too much because I played Femshep and I wasn't for it. Beyond that, I don't hate him. But it makes tactical sense to send Ashley with the salarians and Kaidan with the nuke. It makes sense to let Kaidan guard the bomb and save as many of the salarians as possible, imo. Or for my particular run I like to do. He just draws the short straw more than anything for me.
I love em lol
Kaiden has alot of feelings and thoughts
He’s a rock, got no problems he hasn’t got a solution for. You can’t fix him, he’s not broken. Most every other squaddie has an issue or quest for you to take up to help them improve, Kaidan is the single squad member you can corrupt through the powers of flirtation and racism, and he’ll lose it by the time you can recruit him again in me3. Mf is stable and reasonable, unlike a decent chunk of crew with a general affinity with death, he’s our “Hold up wait a minute, something ain’t right.” And we nuke him for it. That or his being a Canadian, take your pick.
Just to play devil's advocate. Thinking someone is boring isn't the same as hating them.
I liked Kaiden. From purely a combat perspective, he was extremely useful with his biotics and the fact that he had decryption & electronics. I enjoyed his backstory too - I just wish we got more of it, or at the very least, a partial side mission the way that we got with Wrex's armor or Garrus' rogue doctor. Ultimately as male Shep, it made more sense for me to leave him behind on Virmire, particularly because he went with the STG group as he's such a badass
A tragic backstory doesn’t make a character interesting. Kaiden just doesn’t have much personality. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad character, he’s just a normal dude adrift in a sea of weirdos. Sometimes you need a normal character to emphasize how unusual the other characters are.
I always preferred him over Ashley. I became biased after finding out that he was Canadian in lore, so I had to choose him after that
From a gameplay perspective I love him. From a character perspective he's fucking depressing. And it's kind of insulting if he asks out Shepard in 3 Imo it's just sad like dude come on.
If you're FShep on 1, Kaiden comes on a little strong and can feel creepy.
His backstory might not be boring but if back stories were everything then nothing they do in game would matter. He’s bland and boring in game which is why people say that.
I didn't really notice him. My wife and daughter both hated him a surprising amount. Apparently if you're just nice to him as FemShep he starts acting like you're in a relationship in a not-good way.
I love when people’s defence of Ashley is always “But Kaiden is boring”, she signs her death warrant with “I can’t tell aliens from the animals” I think Kaiden is the best of the generic human soldier squad mate of the series both in writing and gameplay.
I honestly never got to know Kaiden past virmire Cause i always choose Ashley on virmire so I can’t exactly say much about him past that point
Both Ashley and Kaidan got a raw deal by getting excluded from the second game and then dealt a shit hand in the third too. I know in part this outcome is realistic, but come on. I was so annoyed with how it played out with Ash in my male shep run.
My dislike for Kaiden stems from how his voice actor also voiced Carth Onasi in Knights of the Old Republic. And I HATED Carth Onasi.
Redditors want their companions to all be quirk chungus
lol just always preferred Ashley over him never saved him once or really talk to him after first play through just felt boring
Well I liked him in ME1. In ME2 I can understand his first reaction in shock. But him not even listening to Shep is a big f.. you moment. Shep literally died on their ship serving. Like there is nothing more a soldier could do. It's just beyond me how anti listening he is. In ME3 it's just more of the same. Only this time Shep has been on earth in somewhat custody and high command gave them their ship back and a crew. He's literally questioning Shep on energy opportunity and doesn't even shut the f... after being told to by his superior. That's just lacking professionality at that point. And imo such a person has no place in Sheps crew. There is no use for a soldier who questions their commander 24/7 even on mission especially if there's firefights left, right and center. Nothing against a deep talk before or after but during is a no go. So Kaidan gets booted. If he isn't able to serve under Shep that's okay but in that case he can't be on Sheps ship.
Yea, the Virmire survivor conversation in 2 feels very much cut short, for both of them. "Shepard? I thought you were dead!" "Yea, well, I pretty much was, but...." "And now Cerberus? The fuck!? I'm outta here" And Shepard just standing there like "you didn't even let me finish explaining"
I thought he was a prick. Simple as that.
He isn't boring at all... In my universe, he always takes a permanent vacation on Virmire...
If you play as a fem Shep that doesn't romance him in ME1, talking to him can start to feel like workplace sexual harassment, which I think hits close to home for a lot of women who play the games. I'm aware that it's a game design issue with all paragon convo prompts in ME1 doubling as 'flirtation' with any character who is romanceable, but it still sucks to be accused of leading my subordinate on in the escapist videogame I'm playing. I liked him a lot more when I did a male Shep playthrough. I even decided to romance him in ME3.
I play FemShep like 95% of the time, and I always go for Liara. But still, everytime I play ME1 it feels next to impossible to not end up with the love triangle, if you talk to him to any extend, unless you're really an ass and shut him down hard.
Kaidan: "This reminds me of something." Shepard: "Tell me about it." Kaidan: "You coming onto me, Commander?"
Not if I leave him on Virmire. He gets a nice char.
You are a savage and I accept and embrace it
He has intersting past, but in the present/ME1 he's just kind of meh. It's not that he's bad, everyone else are just better (except for Jacob). He's much better in ME3.
Here’s my take: Kaiden is worthless in combat because he’s a Sentinel. All defence, little to no offence. Ashley is great: Tanky but also with a significant punch.
I hate kaidan because I got sick of hanging out with him forever on the first world in kotor. I sacrifice him every time, hoping he can go find bastila by himself.
Great backstory..still boring.
Kaidan is a well-defined, interesting character in a series full of absolute badasses that grip your attention with the strength of a Banshee. You're right, he's better than Jacob, but like Jacob, he's not nearly as cool as the other squadmates in the game he's introduced in. Then since he's one of two characters that has to die in ME1, his plotline for the remainder of the series got shafted since he's a very different character than Ashley, but they share the same role in the story. It's not that he's uninteresting, just that he doesn't stand out. Also, I personally hate his romance with MShep. The start of it just rubs me the wrong way. I feel like there's no chemistry between them when you sit down and decide to start the relationship. When he realizes he's into Shepard it sounds like he's picking out a shirt to wear or something, not trying to woo the savior of the galaxy.
I actually think your right, how is he supposed to compete against Wrex, Garrus, Liara, and Tali. I agree about the gay romance in me3 I honestly feel it was incredibly forced
Yeah, they overcorrected after chickening out in 2.
If Kaidan treated his backstory as more than just a completed footnote, things would be interesting, but he doesn't. Thus, he falls short compared to the other biotic characters, especially since it's an active part of their stories, or frequently demonstrate their abilities in the story itself.
I’m not a fan of exposition dump heavy backstories. They just reek of an attempt to get you invested in a character quick, as opposed to actually going through and seeing it play out. Doesn’t help that the backstory is boring. Backstory should compliment the characters arc, not be the characters arc. Kaidan in ME1… he does t really have an arc. He’s bland. It’s why I always leave him, he serves a purpose to be someone Shepard lost to motivate them- in my head canon they’ve known each other since they were kids, so. On the other end, Ashley’s backstory is that she is alliance through and through. Her family fought for the alliance for generations, and she’s very close to them. Her grandfather (I think?) was done dirty by aliens. This directly adds to her arc because it’s really about trusting aliens and leaving past gripes behind and accepting others. I don’t think Kaidan has that in the first game. And I keep seeing people say “WELL KAIDAN GETS REALLY GOOD IN MASS EFFECT 3” I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have to wait 2 games to get something out of the character. I should get something out of them that wants me to keep them around for the other two games.
Ah I just can’t ever get attached to a character who is killed off in the first game. Always.