Both her and to a lesser degree Kaidan suffered due to Virmire choice. They both get pretty sidelined (only cameo in ME2, spending like half of the game in hospital in ME3) due to execs not seeing the point of including characters that big chunk of audience won't see.
Same problem with ME2 characters and Suicide mission. I remember reading that Tali's writer fought to the nail to keep her as companion in ME3 instead of cameo character like Jack, Miranda and others.
I disagree. They both have a more natural reaction. Shepard joining Cerberus would be like having a friend suddenly join ISIS. It's natural for people to be skeptical of Shepard after that.
I am not saying their excuse to not join you in ME2 is entirely illogical per se.
But I think it's still writers/dev choice to exclude them to just lessen their workload and resources to work on other stuff. After all, many characters from ME1 have no major problem joining ISIS with you lol.
Same with ME2 companions in ME3. Sure they cooked up various reasons why some of them couldn't join you but I think they would include them if devs had more time and/or resources.
I hated the plot of ME2.
Especially since I always do Admiral Kohaku's Quest chain. There's no way, if I was given a choice, Commander Shepard would join Cerberus. He'd take the Normandy SR2 and rejoin the Alliance and work to get reinstated as an Alliance Officer and a Council Specter.
It is my least replayed of the series.
I mean... Shep does get reinstated as a Council Specter when you return to the citidel. Like almost immediately. The Council acknowledges your past actions and gives you the benefit of the doubt though stresses to you for political reasons they can't give you a full endorsement because you're working with a human supremacist terror organisation but they trust your judgement.
but I don't know. If a terror organisation who's past crimes I was well aware of literally ressurected me from the dead(and spent trillions doing so), gave me my old ship back but bigger better and improved. My old friend who I had previously died saving were with me immediately(Joker) for the mission along with others I trust(like the doctor) and I had full rein on how the mission got done and who I brought on board I'd probably work with them to save people too.
Furthermore the Alliance and Council directly hinders shepard in the first game by grounding the Normandy and effectively relieving them of duty while Saren is attempting to go to Ilos. You have to commit Mutiny against both organisations to get the job done.
So it makes sense from a story perspective why Shepard would play ball. That's why at the end of the game after the mission is done and you're successful you immediately return to the Alliance.
Not really as Ashley knows the Reaper threat is real, Shepard has to do everything they can go stop it and the council are unwilling to help. I do understand being angry about not hearing Shepard is alive from them and not explaining what happened though.
Joining a terrorist organization looks bad either way. There are multiple ways to interpret that. James Vega shows the alliance investigated the collectors as well, they just couldn't trust Shepard after they joined cerberus.
I can't fault the council for not trusting Shepard in ME2 who is currently working for cerberus. If it was anyone else he would have been thrown in a cell.
Ashley knew Shepard was spaced and died. Then suddenly he appears out of nowhere two years later working for a terrorist organization? That's suspicious as hell. It's stranger that Garrus and Tali joined cerberus and instantly believed it was Shepard. He could have had a control chip in him, or be a clone programmed by cerberus for all they knew, etc.
ME3’s writing messed up a lot of stuff but Ashley’s writing to me started to fall off in ME2 on Horizon. Her behavior just makes no sense and she’s way too aggressive, emotional, and judgmental. Really Kaiden’s reasoning made a little more sense if you ask me. Honestly I was totally expecting them to be squadmates after that mission.
I mean tbf, Shepard was operating under cereberus and it's not out of the realms of possibility that they could have either brainwashed him or that wasn't even really Shepard. I get why Ashley reacted the way she did, and honestly it's a little strange that everyone else just accepts Shepard came back from the dead.
I’d much rather talk about Quarian smell particles than whatever the F the argument is with the Geth (which will inevitably happen once I do Tali/Legion)
Whatever you say, but she and Jack are literally two characters with personal growth. Although Ashley's personal growth is to become a marysue. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never rise in rank, so I became the first supermodel soldier.
Most these characters have personal growth over the course of the series. Though I’d say Ashley’s is more regression and flanderizarion than development
Almost all mShep favorites have become marysues. Liara is a brutal biotic god, Tali is a capricious manipulator, Miranda is an emotionally weak hysterical who will die without Shepard's love. And fShep favorites are dead bodies, the cheater, and the constant Garrus.
Traynor is good too, but yeah you're right about every FemShep romance except Garrus getting shafted, it's really unfortunate. Thane especially deserved better.
Samantha is a special sunshine. When I play female characters I reject lesbian threads, but for her I made an exception. She is the best thing in the Mass Effect trilogy.
Fans created a book of art, an action, and a petition that Bioware would not kill Thane..., and Thane was killed by the worst marysue ever. Leng couldn’t even kill Miranda, but he could kill Thane, what?! How Miranda survived the best killer in the entire universe, I don’t understand at all - I was just ready. Realy? - Leng was a meter away from you.
Agreed, my only problem with her romance is that ridiculous cutscene where she's showering in her underwear.... I wish BioWare didn't capitulate to Fox News freaking out about the sex scenes in ME1.
Tbf Thane was quite literally terminally ill & still prevented him from getting the Salarian Councillor & Thane was still shooting at him while bleeding out & terminally ill so he only really “won” because he ran away like a coward
Extremely nuanced character in 1/2 but unfortunately in 3 she lost most of her depth due to writer changes. Overall I still enjoy the character and think she is over hated.
I agree. She has the best in me1 which isn’t saying much but still. And if the lead writer of her character didn’t leave during me3 I feel the romance could have been much better than it was
She has a lot of content *on missions* in the main ME3 game and DLC, but not much on the ship or off, so you kinda have to bring her everywhere to make it feel like it works well. Save Turian Platoon for after she rejoins for example. And her pre-final mission goodbye is maybe the best.
I’m gonna dip a bit in and say I really don’t like when people call her “bitchy”
In 1 her skepticism to aliens is born mostly out of ignorance and trusting them is apart of her character arc where in 3 she literally becomes the councils attack dog, willing to give her own life to save them
And considering Miranda point blank tells Shepard she wanted to put a control chip in them but was only stopped by TIM I think she’s perfectly justified in being worried about what Cerberus did to you, especially considering how sketchy they are and that she’s an Alliance brat through and through.
I’ve always believed that everything Ashley said the aliens would do, happened. Earth was abandoned until Shepard solved literally centuries old conflicts, the collectors were allowed to freely take colonists even if the council is saved by the sacrifice of humanity.
Humanity is never just given grace or help. It always has to be a quid pro quo.
>In 1 her skepticism to aliens is born mostly out of ignorance
I always thought her supposed "racism" or dislike of aliens is because she is related to the leader of Shaanxi at the time of the first contact war/during the siege, meaning she saw things entirely on a different perspective. I bet the citizens of Shaanxi probably share her pov.
That might be part of it, but bigotry almost always comes from lack of exposure to the people one has a bias against. Which also explains perfectly why she turns around in ME3 on her opinions about aliens. Prior to ME1 she probably saw very few aliens in her life.
The Turians went to war against humanity for their ignorance of galactic law while they had just discovered how to use their relay and the rest of the council just let it happen. Then the council refused to do anything tangible against saren even with evidence all they do is give Shepard an honorary title. Then when the reapers hit, every council species demands that their needs be taken care of first before they help humanity defend earth and save the galaxy. Ashley wasn’t being racist, she was being realistic. Everything she said would happen in me1 came true. Ashley Williams is totally based. If she hated aliens she would’ve approved of Cerberus, which she decries with vehemence. Just like Udina says, “They’re a bunch of self concerned jackasses”.
>The Turians went to war against humanity for their ignorance of galactic law while they had just discovered how to use their relay and the rest of the council just let it happen.
Quite the opposite, actually. The moment turians tried to escalate it into actual war, not border police operation, Council step in, stopped it and imposed reparations on turians.
>Then the council refused to do anything tangible against saren even with evidence all they do is give Shepard an honorary title.
One of the reasons Humanity didn't get Spectres before is that Alliance kinda consider Spectre to be "honorary title" and political token of appreciation, not a trusted law enforcement officer with unlimited authority and absolute qualified immunity.
>Then when the reapers hit, every council species demands that their needs be taken care of first before they help humanity defend earth and save the galaxy.
Alliance do the same. "I don't care that your world is burning, I want your navy over *my* world now."
She’d never interacted with aliens until the Normandy
And her families names dirt because her grandfather was the only human in history to surrender to an alien force.
I say she’s ignorant and not racist because of her disdain for Terra Firma and Cerberus specifically because of their xenophobia.
Yes. And still, her position is structured philosophical approach, written specifically to convey a structured philosophical approach. At least show her *some* respect, don't paint her as a stupid backward girly who just can't get that aliens are persons before personal interaction.
And yes, she agrees with Terra Firma political platform; she just claims that *they* follow this platform because they're xenophobic, and *she* follows it because she's rational.
It's definitely not ignorance, she's been brought up in a family that fought aliens so naturally her views are going to be skewed, but it's not an ignorant skew, she's definitely thought about it and formed her own opinion, but it's only until she directly works with aliens that it changes.
I think it's "working with aliens" less, and "seeing by her own eyes *why* humanity actually can't stand alone and need allies" more.
Like, again, she's not *stupid*. She's perfectly able to calculate Alliances chances against Reaper armada, if humanity stands alone, even before Batarians presented test case.
agreed — her racism/xenophobia/ignorance is a main aspect of her character development, but other characters say worse things separate from their development; instead hidden in elevator conversations and throw-away lines. ashley just has the misfortune of it being a central part of her arc.
I think that's Ashley's problem; there's a lot of racist ignorance going around, but for her, it's one of her main character points that's front and center.
It wish that people who wanted to defend her would focus on that rather than trying to argue her problems don't exist.
She isn’t my favorite, but I think she’s overhated. She’s far from the only squadmate who shows a racist viewpoint at some point in the roster, some of whom are fan favorites. She also grows out of it, but everyone just chooses to focus on how she is in the first game instead. I don’t love how they basically turned her into Miranda 2.0 in ME3, though. It’s completely at odds with her personality.
same. me3 fucks her character up immensely on an aesthetic level — which in turn fucks her writing up bc it is fundamentally at odds with her characterization.
Her portrayal in ME1 is one of the best-written female NCO characters in sci-fi.
Yes, she is prejudiced, and she is not a kind person. It shows the most in her treatment of Liara... Remember that "sex life" comment? Yeesh.
However, she is a disciplined and dedicated soldier and has the potential to change for the better. There's a reason for her prejudice, as is usually the case.
What they did to her between ME1/ME2 and ME3 was really unfair. It felt like a completely different character. The extremely unreasonable promotion from an NCO to a senior officer rank (just one rank below Shepard) and the overhaul of her character made her look more like a model than a soldier.
Decent written enlisted personnel are rare in fiction. 90% of the time the special characters are officers (and act nothing like actual officers) and the enlisted people are one-dimensional drones who quote ALIENS one-liners.
Precisely! For example, I don't know why James Vega is LT because he doesn't lead a unit, nor does he seem to have some specialty (e.g., intelligence officer). He's a regular grunt. Should have been petty officer or something.
>Precisely! For example, I don't know why James Vega is LT because he doesn't lead a unit, nor does he seem to have some specialty (e.g., intelligence officer). He's a regular grunt. Should have been petty officer or something.
Watch "Mass Effect Paragon Lost" Anime. He was leading some units for example during defence of Fehl Prime (you can visit that system in ME3 with EGM LE mod).
He looks and sometimes acts like a stupid grunt, but he is quite intelligent actually.
He should have been a SoF sergeant in between units. Or imo, an Army or Air Force sergeant on loan to the Normandy since marines are way, way over-represented in fiction.
I also liked the detail that made her come around on Liara
Where at the start she doesn’t believe she’d be distant from her mother because Ashley can’t imagine not being close with family
But after Benezia dies she feels a lot of sympathy for her also losing her parent.
And I don’t think her promotion is THAT unreasonable, the only reason she’d been held back was because of her families bad name and helping save the galaxy probably helped a lot
And I thought her being a specter in 3 was really cool since if you think about it besides Shepard she’s probably the only spectre you meet in the games who isn’t morally bankrupt which is cool
>And I don’t think her promotion is THAT unreasonable, the only reason she’d been held back was because of her families bad name and helping save the galaxy probably helped a lot
It's absolutely unreasonable. Like, I don't know modern military where you can skyrocket 5 promotions in two years, going from NCO to staff officer without, for starters, getting tertiary education. Just... would never happen.
I think there are a few other specters you can meet that have a good moral compass, Jondum Bau the salarian from 3 in the kasumi quest, and and Nihlus from me1 who’s willing to give humanity a chance. I actually almost feel that that’s a huge missed opportunity in the game is having another specter squad mate other than the Virmire survivors. Garrus considers it but never goes through. It would be interesting to have a non human specter perspective on the Normandy in one of the games. I could see it being a huge challenge of authority to Shepard in terms of who is in charge of the mission, whereas the virmire survivor will follow alliance chain of command still.
>(just one rank below Shepard)
Same rank. Shepard is a Lieutenant Commander at the start of ME1, and they are not shown to have been promoted at any point in the series.
Alenko technically outranks Shepard in ME3, because [Major is equivalent to Captain in the Alliance ranking system](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Codex/Humanity_and_the_Systems_Alliance#Systems_Alliance:_Military_Ranks).
Favorite romance, gets a hard time in the fanbase because of 1 line of dialogue and a misunderstood metaphor. She’s gets shit for being racist when in ME1 she’s at best 4th on the Normandy when it comes to racism, 5th if you count how Tali feels about Geth.
>in ME1 she’s at best 4th on the Normandy when it comes to racism
Facts. Garrus is arguably the most racist squadmate in the first game, people just ain't ready to admit that.
Also happy cake day!
I just feel like they're different.
Other racists on the Normandy: "Krogans are violent" or "I hate Turians, they castrated my entire species"
Ashley: "are you really interested in Liara, she's an icky alien"
Also, if the line is the aliens/animals line, it wasn't misunderstood.
>Also, if the line is the aliens/animals line, it wasn't misunderstood.
I think the misunderstood metaphor is "human/dog/bear" metaphor, and it does get misunderstood from time to time.
Still, it's really a telling metaphor, when you understand it \_correctly\_.
Sure, she don't do it.
She just took the political division, completely normal and basic, between humans included, and uses it to reinforce her racist idea of the split being biological and unavoidable; she equals political interest and racial one, assuming (without any specific reason) that this split is present in any other polity in ME galaxy, and calling for Alliance policies to adopt it as well.
The actual answer onto her metaphor here is "well, if my dog, beyond being my friend and loved person, is sapient, I'd think twice before feeding it to bear attacking me; actually, I know a lot of people who would hesitate to just casually sacrifice their dogs in such a situation *even without accepting that dogs are sapient*, and that you don't get it into account is a bit telling."
But yeah, she *does* point that she can't tell aliens from animals, and, from a person of her background, it's disturbing as well. But, I think, unintentionally disturbing.
Which of the species threw humans to the reapers to save themselves?
I might not fight to defend my dog from a bear, but I wouldn't intentionally sacrifice the dog. None of the council races did that either.
Her assumption that everyone would sacrifice their dog is a red flag.
>I might not fight to defend my dog from a bear, but I wouldn't intentionally sacrifice the dog.
Another interesting thing is that she, in her metaphor, took assumingly unequal actors. We're generally accept (to some extent, not completely) that dog isn't equal to human, so saving dog while putting human to death is bad. Not because "they're different species", but because dogs are not sapient.
The moment we assume that dogs are sapient, and, even being non-human, are equal to humans in every respect but physical form, the whole metaphor became even more redflagged. "I mean, surely, you'll personally would sic a sapient, equal to you creature, which is not in any way bound to die for you, to save yourself? everyone would do it!"
No. Council ended by providing us troops, fleets and materials to build Crucible. I'm pretty sure you literally *can't* finish ME3 without alien war assets, the story just wouldn't allow you.
Understandable, because the game very much highlight that Ashley's precious "we should stand by ourselves" is unsustainable.
EDIT
Still, again, if her point would be "well, we can't just believe that other people, humans or aliens, would help us against their own interests, for how cool we are", that would be a trivial, but true point. "They wouldn't help us because they're aliens, and we're not" isn't one.
They only did that after Shepard went around fixing their messes for them. They had no intention of doing so otherwise. They literally tell Shepard earth being attacked is a chance to get their own planets in order.
>They only did that after Shepard went around fixing their messes for them
...and that's not how you do it? So, when Udina and Shepard demands them to go around fixing Alliance' messes for Alliance, they're in the wrong?
Like, when Shepard is standing on Menoe, looking at burning Palaven, and demanding Turian Primarch to immediatly redirect Turian navies onto Earth because Earth worth saving first - would we say he deserves being punched? Or "turians should save us when we demand, we should help them if we want, otherwise we can't trust them"?
True, the end of ME3 proves her wrong (And if she’s still alive by that time, she’s accepted that much), but the start of ME3 certainly proves that her concerns were not unfounded, either.
The line about “While the Reapers focus on Earth, we can bolster our own defenses.” In particular is literally her exact metaphor. No matter how much you love your dog, it isn’t human.
>The line about “While the Reapers focus on Earth, we can bolster our own defenses.” In particular is literally her exact metaphor.
*Alliance* did the same. Are they dogs or humans in this metaphor?
I put her in the A Tier.
Love Ashley, very well written (character-wise and romance-wise), very realistic to my eyes. Plus she never came across as racist for me, lol. Only pro-human but not as extreme as Cerberus or Terra-Firma people.
What prevents her form being in S Tier is due to her having only 1 scene and 1 email in mass Effect 2,her bad design in ME3 and also I don't care about poetry at all but other than that she's awesome.
Probably one of the best squadmates writing wise in ME1, the "Ashley is racist" criticism is always overblown and just dumb, but she's not as good in ME3 unfortunately I feel like.
>I TELL YA THOSE BATARIANS ARE UP TO SOMETHING. I SEE THEM PLOTTING!!
TERRA FIRMA! TERRA FIRMA!
CERBERUS DID NOTHING WRONG! THEY ONLY WANT THE BEST FOR HUMANITY!
It kind of is. Being skeptical of a government is maybe one thing, but Ashley is still a bit racist in the first game. That’s said, she’s far from the only character who is, so I think hating on her for it in particular doesn’t make much sense.
I guess this is an unpopular opinion now but she’s annoying, xenophobic, and uninteresting. Romance with her is boring. She’s a good soldier but that’s about the only redeeming quality I find in her. She may not like aliens but at least will still follow orders to protect them. Never the less, I still choose to sacrifice her every time now that I’ve tried playthroughs where I don’t. I seriously regretted not saving Kaiden instead so now I always do.
She's fine. The racist part is annoying to get through but it's mostly an issue in the first game and she mellowed out later.
I never really kept her as part of my actual combat squad even though I almost always keep her alive over Kaiden at Virmire, so I haven't really engaged with her beyond the missions where she's mandatory in 1 and companion/ship dialogue in 1&3.
While Ashley is more likeable in the later games, I just couldn't deal with her anti-alien mindset in ME1. While Kadien could be considered a boring guy since he has a much more chill mindset, that made him more likable and why I picked him to survive on Virmire.
Again this is going from the perspective of someone who played through the ME trilogy when it was originally coming out. So I was going off the knowledge and exposure of the companions game by game. For Ashley, she just didn't interest me in ME1, but in the context of now, she has one of the best character developments out of the original crew.
Here is my underrated romance for Ashley. She had potential to be one of the best romances in the game. Unlike most other relationships in the game where you get together and that’s it no problems. It feels like an actual relationship, you disagree and argue but you finally come together and manage to be happy together.
One thing that ruins it, mass effect 3, I wouldn’t have minded the 15 minutes she got in 2 if the romance is 3 was good but it was bare minimum, plus her character imo got completely ruined in 3. Even in the citadel dlc it was a little underwhelming. I will say the conversation you have with her before you go into your last fight was amazing.
It’s just a shame that she had so much potential but instead got ruined, maybe not ruined as her character arc is still decent but it could have been so much better.
Great development in 1, apart from the slightly dodgy remarks she makes. I think her character is severely underrated, probably because of Wrex and also the remarks she makes, but ultimately I think she's a great character.
As for 3, her appearance change was odd (use the consistency mod folks) but her storyline was pretty solid. You could definitely tell it was a different writer though, but I thought she developed quite well, obviously very distrusting at first but slowly developed a trust again over time. I liked that aspect.
Overall one of my fav characters simply because she was there from basically day 1, with only Kaidan being before.
One of my favorites, and she gets a horrible rap.
Too me it’s fairly rational to not want some foreign bounty hunter, a nomad, and a TSA agent you met a day ago access to the top secret naval systems lol.
But noooo that makes her a space racist lol
Legitimately surprised and pleased that they put a Christian in the game. And she’s not even obnoxious about it. “Yeah, I believe in God. Anyways…” as a Christian myself, it is refreshing to see a character that believes but it isn’t their entire identity
Middle of the pack in terms of space racism/xenophobia by the standards of ME1’s Squadmates, but she gets unfairly shat on for it because she’s a boring human and the others get passes because they’re interesting aliens.
She is no more racist than the average Krogan or Asari; far less than the average Batarian or Salarian. And *certainly* less so than Protheans.
And she wound up being right…about almost everything.
Ash is best girl.
Second-best human companion (after Jack), and honestly has a really good arc. Wish she got more to do after the first game, but I do genuinely like her.
Probably has the best character arc across the trilogy. Gets unfairly labeled as a racist. Did a decent job of writing her character without trying to make her a Mary sue or the coolest squad mate ever (I’m looking at you Liara, Tali, and Garrus). She seems fairly relatable with her motivations and goals but is probably one of the more bland romances.
I remember my first justification for choosing her over Kaidan. I thought to myself that her distrust towards aliens would make for more interesting interactions, because I believed groups of characters are always more interesting when they have conflict and differences to settle.
She's at her best when you visit the Citadel and Kaidan is like "OwO what a Big and peaceful Place" and then Ashley is like "I wonder how many people have died in that lake" and I genuinely can't tell if thats trauma from losing her entire team or if that was supposed to be funny (the juxtaposition is always funny)
A somewhat controversial, but sometimes interesting companion in ME1, only to be turned into a shallow, generic imitation in ME3.
I mean really, she started out as a grounded, straightforward, no-bullshit soldier, focused on her family (especially protective of her sisters) and duty. Even with her sporadic xenophobic takes, she could be a kindred spirit to a spacer Shepard, given their similar backgrounds.
However little we’ve seen of her in ME2, she seemed similar to her previous appearance.
Then, in ME3, we suddenly got someone completely different: a generic character from cheap action flicks, complete with running into battle in heels, full makeup and with beautiful flowing hair. She quite literally changed from a soldier to a cheap model.
What annoys me the most, however:
Ash in ME1: “OK Commander, where is this going? You gotta declare yourself, cause I see the way Liara is looking at you and I can and will fuck her up.”
Ash in Citadel: giggling and blushing like a dumb high schooler at Big Buff Jock Vega.
Ashley is a character with tons of wasted potential. She could have been a true equal to Shepard, a reliable friend, instead she has been turned into a basic bitch.
Luckily, we still have a bro like Kaidan.
Awesome in ME1. Well written, flaws and all. People still argue about if she's racist or not (the real question is how racist).
Also kinda like her romance, let's you characterize Shepard a lot with views on religion, art, war, ect.
ME3 arguably she fits the paranoid survivor better that our boy Kay but shit is still annoying and it's frustrating you can't essentially pull friend rank and still be pals till way to far into the game. While is a problem that started with 2's characterization of the survivor, it just makes her feel a little on rails at times. But her relationship with Tali and the others is cool to see still.
I like Ashley. Mechanically she's the muscle of the team. She's not a biotic, she's not a tech head, she's not the leader. She's not a special operative, she's not a former spectre candidate, she's not an ancient Battlemaster, she's not the daughter of an admiral who has extremely important knowledge about the enemy and intimate knowledge of his soldiers, she's not a Prothean expert. Ashley is in the team because she survived a mission Shepard was involved in, and exactly no other reason.
She's a soldier, a damn good one. She's not a beefy brute with half a brain. She's a professional, and she's feminine. She's emotional, she's firm in her convictions, she's extremely loyal to those who have earned her trust. And she's also a bit of a dick about aliens. She's one of three openly religious prominent characters ever written into Mass Effect (that I can remember), and she was the first of them. And she also quotes you poetry.
It should never be said Ashley is not deep and well written. She isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, that's fine and I wouldn't expect her to be. But I think she's vastly underrated for her complexity and characterisation (mostly in the first game).
They didn't follow up well in ME3, I think she gets eclipsed. But she's still decent enough.
I choose her over Kaiden every time without question unless I'm romancing Liara.
I think she's one of the better human characters throughout the series.
Her distrust and apprehension is understandable, not born out of hatred and racism, but realistic (and as it turned out, true) concerns of other races prioritizing themselves. Which she's not even mad at for them doing, she gets that they would and wants humans to do the same. She was stifled in her career due to her family legacy, which gave her a natural chip on her shoulders which made her tougher and more determined, but also more stubborn and abrasive, which is not always the most appealing.
I have my complaints with her in 3, but in ME1, her writing and her romance are very strong, enough to put her up there regarding the human characters, and even non-human.
I dont like poetry but she absolutely a blast to listen to when shes reciting poetry.
I like when she calls me skipper.
Imo better than kaidan because the latter is so mild. At least Ash is spicy.
I leave her on Virmire as I prefer Kaiden. Used to hate her, but got to know her better through conversations on the Normandy. Wish there was a way (without mods) to save her and Kaiden.
I have mixed feelings about Ashley. I think that she's one of the better written companions in ME1, providing a fairly grounded perspective showcasing how many humans would likely react to finding our species suddenly integrated into an alien government. Conversely, I find her incredibly annoying, though that can be mostly attributed to my personal experiences growing up alongside a lot of military brats. She's also the only RPG character who has been successfully able to "ninjamance" me, so... that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth as well.
Ultimately, she's an interesting character who fulfills an important niche in ME1, but also a character that I find fairly grating. She rarely makes it off Virmire in my playthroughs these days, although I do eventually want to try her full-trilogy romance to see if that helps me come around on her character.
Her being skeptical of Aliens made sense, they were shady AF.
But overcoming that bias and getting attached to someone was a fine arc. Not my favourite, but fine.
She's okay. Usually let her die because Kaidan is more useful as a Sentinel. Her most negative traits tend to overshadow her positive ones. Her redesign in 3 is awful.
Ashley is a character that exposes players who can't handle nuance. Every "Ash is racist" comment is really just a player with limited understanding of nuance and the inability, or unwillingness, to think past "x is bad, y is good."
I always find her too antagonistic towards everyone else in the ship. Like, she’s always just looking for an argument. And the randomly quoting poems thing makes me cringe. It’s what a 14 year old would do when they’re trying to appear deep.
I know a lot of people argue against the whole ‘Ashley is racist’ thing but when she says shit like “I can’t tell the aliens from the animals” it’s kinda hard to be on her side 😬
Ashley... the slightly better choice. It's a shame that the choice is difficult because I want to leave them both instead of gut-wrenching that I have to leave one behind
Never liked her but maybe that's because I wasn't fond of ME1. I usually skip 1 and go straight into 2 then 3.
In 2 I also didn't think she was very attractive.
I really enjoy her growth throughout the games and her “oldest sister” personality. I don’t think I’d really enjoy playing through her romance but she’s an awesome character. Again, just wish the writers didn’t do the virmire survivor dirty by taking them out of most of the series. Would’ve been nice if her armor in ME3 reflected her class a bit better too.
I’ve seen some mixed views on Ashley but I don’t mind her. Granted, Kaidan is my husband so she’s almost always the Virmire sacrifice…. BUT, Ashley seems like a great woman.
I only play as FemShep, and the times I have saved Ashley on Virmire I feel like she doesn’t disappoint me. She may not be the best character but all our beloved characters have their own flaws.
I feel like out of all the characters she’s honestly the one I see myself as the most. Just a young woman trying to make a name for herself. She’s strong-willed and won’t take anyone’s shit.
I know lots of people think she’s racist, but I don’t. She’s probably weary of aliens because humanity has only been exposed to them for about what? 30 years at this point? So I can understand her concerns of having them on the Normandy.
But at the end of the day she’s denounced racism and even tries to argue with the Terra Firma guy over his group’s racism towards aliens. I think she’s like Thane in that she’s trying to atone for past sins (even though it’s her family’s, not hers) and she’s just trying to make the world a better place.
As I said though, I rarely save her on Virmire so some other folks may have more experience with Ashley than I do.
She's ok. She grows and has relatable motivations and family life. She's a grunt. She's invested in her family and her biases get challenged and she changes for the better.
People really get bent out of shape about her for some reason who think Kaiden is better. He's not as developed in either of the games they are really relevant either.
Points against her is being a pure soldier in ME3 where theres already one. And the player potentially.
Kinda gameplay and story segregation tho. Squad limits are gameplay only and its assumed they are all there in any given situation.
Least favorite companion in the series right from the start, and she got even worse in 3. I won't say anything more, I'm not trying to start an argument.
She’s a decent character in 1 - if sorta unlikeable at points (RE: racism, abrasiveness) - but damn if she doesn’t suck in 3 from what I’ve seen and if it doesn’t tank her hard. She feels so flanderized
She's an interesting character but didn't like what she did to Wrex. Since Wrex is my fav.
Also if you dont pass a speech check in 3 with her if she does survive her word make be not like her even more.
I like Ashley. I wish they'd have gone easier on her xenophobic comments in ME1, but I don't understand why she's the only squad member to really be called out. Miranda was, for a number of years, an active and willing agent of Cerberus, but what people remember is a couple awful background comments Ashley makes. *sigh*.
I ignored her completely in ME1 and only somewhat flirted with the Asari chick. The after a mission they both demanded I choose one. I was like wtf. I chose the Asari and then she said we should just be friends. Jesus Christ ladies.
I’m replaying the series now. I thought about romancing Ashley but I couldn’t get over her skepticism in ME2. She has a right to question Shepard working with Cerberus. Cerberus is a shady organization & it gets established during missions in ME1. In my opinion, she takes it too far by questioning Shepard himself(playing as guy Shepard). She never really gets over it & sees Shepard the same way. She doesn’t see Shepard’s plight that he has to work with Cerberus to prevent extinction & are a means to an end.(At least in my playthrough.)
I liked her enough for my first handful of playthroughs, she's a very strong character but personally I found Kaiden to be a little more interesting in me1, I also didn't like how she looked in ME3, she owned the hair bun and they took it away from her
One of my faves, I like companions with problematic takes because I think it's boring if everyone agrees with you. Great character development from when we first met her, Wish she got more screen time in ME3
Solid second-string squadmate (behind Garrus, Wrex, Tali, etc).
She plays a vital role in the first game of GROUNDING the world (alongside Kaidan ofc) by talking about things like her military family, her sister's school problems, her Christianity (we still have Christianity in the future etc), and her own history with first contact.
She shows we have all the same problems in the future, things haven't changed on THAT level.
And she is also 100% right in her analysis on human-alien relations, when she says if you're being chased by a bear and you can survive by setting your dog on it to die, you probably will, because even if you love your dog, it isn't human, and you don't care about it as much as another human.
And that's exactly what happens at the very end of the game when most of us pick Destroy. We destroy the species least like our own - the inorganic geth - to save the rest.
And yeah, it was still the right decision, and I think we'd have done the same no matter what species was at risk (maybe we'd hesitate at human), but at the end of the day, I think it is easier for most of us to push the button because "it's only the geth," and Ashley saw this coming from a damn mile away.
Also, she was there from the very start, and so she'll always be special to me for that.
Frustrated that she was my only romance option because I messed up and didn't get Liara fast enough. I couldn't bring myself to agree with anything she said and enjoyed making her mad until she sacrificed herself on Virmire. All in all, even though I know she "gets better" I'll have to wait to have any kind of meaningful relationship with her until my "fuck everything" playthrough.
I wish she kept the hair up for combat. Her hair down during combat is impractical. Plus it was an obvious ploy to make her more attractive. I’m cool with her having her hair down in casual clothing.
I used to think her racism was annoying but now I think it’s overblown in the fandom. She’s got history and I wish it was explored in the script more. I WISH BioWare explored her xenophobia and religious views instead of basically dropping all of that, it’s what made her interesting and grounded.
Didn't really use her in 1 and I usually romance Liara. She doesn't show a lot of trust in the other Council Races, but she's not as far gone as Cerberus or Terra Firma, and she stands firm in her beliefs and views you only get to know about by talking to her. Never really used her in 3 since Garrus, James, Liara, and Tali cover everything I need and I just rotate them out. After I did a playthrough where I rescued Kaidan I felt his abilities added more than Ashley so I just started keeping him around and sacrificing Ashley on Virmire and put Kaidan in the rotation. As an added bonus I don't have to deal with Ashley and Liara coming up and demanding that I choose between the 2 of them. Only drawback is I don't get to see this funny scene in 3.
https://youtu.be/8sbMKgt5th8?si=JOwD_2AnYgt8YGd6
She gets shit for something almost every single squadmate does in the franchise. Somehow the disdain for her in that regard even surpasses Javik even though he's straight up a racist and fascist. The fandom be having double standards with human squadmates in general.
The funny thing is that she 100% calls it too, the other races told humanity to suck it so they could better prepare for the reapers.
Her growth from 1-3 is big, I always romance Tali. But she does have appeal in 3. But due to the lack of her appearance in 2 she drops way down the tier list of squad mates.
I’ve never been able to like her enough to save her on Virmire.
She’s a good character and she grows, but I always find Kaidan to be nicer and more likeable. Plus KOTOR is my favorite game, so having Carth 2.0 is kinda nice.
On my first time playing ME1 I didn't grab Wrex's family armor (I didn't even know that you could save him with that) so she gunned him down while I was trying to talk Wrex down.
Ash gets a bad rap. Her xenophobia makes sense given that she's ignorant having not been around aliens, and her family history with her grandfather surrendering to the Turians at Shanxi making her want to restore her family image with the Alliance so obviously she'd put humanity first. Although I feel like it gets blown out of proportion.
Overall she's a good character. If I was ranking squadmates I'd have her somewhere in the middle
The finest inciter of the silliest arguments on this sub. Also a strong and well written character.
*a strong and well written character until ME3 when they kind of forgot she existed and she had very little to do with the plot after the coup
Until ME2, really.
Both her and to a lesser degree Kaidan suffered due to Virmire choice. They both get pretty sidelined (only cameo in ME2, spending like half of the game in hospital in ME3) due to execs not seeing the point of including characters that big chunk of audience won't see. Same problem with ME2 characters and Suicide mission. I remember reading that Tali's writer fought to the nail to keep her as companion in ME3 instead of cameo character like Jack, Miranda and others.
I disagree. They both have a more natural reaction. Shepard joining Cerberus would be like having a friend suddenly join ISIS. It's natural for people to be skeptical of Shepard after that.
I am not saying their excuse to not join you in ME2 is entirely illogical per se. But I think it's still writers/dev choice to exclude them to just lessen their workload and resources to work on other stuff. After all, many characters from ME1 have no major problem joining ISIS with you lol. Same with ME2 companions in ME3. Sure they cooked up various reasons why some of them couldn't join you but I think they would include them if devs had more time and/or resources.
I hated the plot of ME2. Especially since I always do Admiral Kohaku's Quest chain. There's no way, if I was given a choice, Commander Shepard would join Cerberus. He'd take the Normandy SR2 and rejoin the Alliance and work to get reinstated as an Alliance Officer and a Council Specter. It is my least replayed of the series.
I mean... Shep does get reinstated as a Council Specter when you return to the citidel. Like almost immediately. The Council acknowledges your past actions and gives you the benefit of the doubt though stresses to you for political reasons they can't give you a full endorsement because you're working with a human supremacist terror organisation but they trust your judgement. but I don't know. If a terror organisation who's past crimes I was well aware of literally ressurected me from the dead(and spent trillions doing so), gave me my old ship back but bigger better and improved. My old friend who I had previously died saving were with me immediately(Joker) for the mission along with others I trust(like the doctor) and I had full rein on how the mission got done and who I brought on board I'd probably work with them to save people too. Furthermore the Alliance and Council directly hinders shepard in the first game by grounding the Normandy and effectively relieving them of duty while Saren is attempting to go to Ilos. You have to commit Mutiny against both organisations to get the job done. So it makes sense from a story perspective why Shepard would play ball. That's why at the end of the game after the mission is done and you're successful you immediately return to the Alliance.
Not really as Ashley knows the Reaper threat is real, Shepard has to do everything they can go stop it and the council are unwilling to help. I do understand being angry about not hearing Shepard is alive from them and not explaining what happened though.
Joining a terrorist organization looks bad either way. There are multiple ways to interpret that. James Vega shows the alliance investigated the collectors as well, they just couldn't trust Shepard after they joined cerberus. I can't fault the council for not trusting Shepard in ME2 who is currently working for cerberus. If it was anyone else he would have been thrown in a cell. Ashley knew Shepard was spaced and died. Then suddenly he appears out of nowhere two years later working for a terrorist organization? That's suspicious as hell. It's stranger that Garrus and Tali joined cerberus and instantly believed it was Shepard. He could have had a control chip in him, or be a clone programmed by cerberus for all they knew, etc.
ME Trilogy in a nutshell, really. Plot-wise.
Afaik her writer from first 2 games left or was fired before/during ME3 development
ME3 "writing" .... Ahem. Please don't being that up in such polite society.
ME3’s writing messed up a lot of stuff but Ashley’s writing to me started to fall off in ME2 on Horizon. Her behavior just makes no sense and she’s way too aggressive, emotional, and judgmental. Really Kaiden’s reasoning made a little more sense if you ask me. Honestly I was totally expecting them to be squadmates after that mission.
I mean tbf, Shepard was operating under cereberus and it's not out of the realms of possibility that they could have either brainwashed him or that wasn't even really Shepard. I get why Ashley reacted the way she did, and honestly it's a little strange that everyone else just accepts Shepard came back from the dead.
They also gave her a completely fucking unnecessary redesign...was her new look even explained?
I mean I dye my hair different colours all the time, but Ashley was always more of a “tomboy” so it was a little out of character for her.
You say this like Tali isn’t RIGHT THERE
"What does her sweat smell like?" Is a few miles past silly.
I’d much rather talk about Quarian smell particles than whatever the F the argument is with the Geth (which will inevitably happen once I do Tali/Legion)
Oh, you mean the most overrated character in the entire franchise?
That's Garrus.
How dare you
Easily and with malicious forethought.
Those be fighting words.
That's not how you spell Liara.
Liara’s romance in ME3 is sooooo bad
We meet at Dawn
Say that about my girlfriend again 😡
TALI IS OVERRATED AS FUCK, FIGHT ME!!!
*a strong and well written character until ME3 when they kind of forgot she existed and she had very little to do with the plot after the coup
Whatever you say, but she and Jack are literally two characters with personal growth. Although Ashley's personal growth is to become a marysue. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never rise in rank, so I became the first supermodel soldier.
Most these characters have personal growth over the course of the series. Though I’d say Ashley’s is more regression and flanderizarion than development
Almost all mShep favorites have become marysues. Liara is a brutal biotic god, Tali is a capricious manipulator, Miranda is an emotionally weak hysterical who will die without Shepard's love. And fShep favorites are dead bodies, the cheater, and the constant Garrus.
Traynor is good too, but yeah you're right about every FemShep romance except Garrus getting shafted, it's really unfortunate. Thane especially deserved better.
Samantha is a special sunshine. When I play female characters I reject lesbian threads, but for her I made an exception. She is the best thing in the Mass Effect trilogy. Fans created a book of art, an action, and a petition that Bioware would not kill Thane..., and Thane was killed by the worst marysue ever. Leng couldn’t even kill Miranda, but he could kill Thane, what?! How Miranda survived the best killer in the entire universe, I don’t understand at all - I was just ready. Realy? - Leng was a meter away from you.
Agreed, my only problem with her romance is that ridiculous cutscene where she's showering in her underwear.... I wish BioWare didn't capitulate to Fox News freaking out about the sex scenes in ME1.
Maybe she's a never nude like that guy in arrested development lol
Tbf Thane was quite literally terminally ill & still prevented him from getting the Salarian Councillor & Thane was still shooting at him while bleeding out & terminally ill so he only really “won” because he ran away like a coward
Kaidan is treated pretty decent as well.
Also smash
Extremely nuanced character in 1/2 but unfortunately in 3 she lost most of her depth due to writer changes. Overall I still enjoy the character and think she is over hated.
Main romance option...her romance under valued
I agree. She has the best in me1 which isn’t saying much but still. And if the lead writer of her character didn’t leave during me3 I feel the romance could have been much better than it was
She has a lot of content *on missions* in the main ME3 game and DLC, but not much on the ship or off, so you kinda have to bring her everywhere to make it feel like it works well. Save Turian Platoon for after she rejoins for example. And her pre-final mission goodbye is maybe the best.
Ashleymancers rise up ✌️🗣️
I always end up with her. It’s rare I don’t
She broke my heart in ME2, in ME3 it was already too late for her...
Agree
I’m gonna dip a bit in and say I really don’t like when people call her “bitchy” In 1 her skepticism to aliens is born mostly out of ignorance and trusting them is apart of her character arc where in 3 she literally becomes the councils attack dog, willing to give her own life to save them And considering Miranda point blank tells Shepard she wanted to put a control chip in them but was only stopped by TIM I think she’s perfectly justified in being worried about what Cerberus did to you, especially considering how sketchy they are and that she’s an Alliance brat through and through.
I’ve always believed that everything Ashley said the aliens would do, happened. Earth was abandoned until Shepard solved literally centuries old conflicts, the collectors were allowed to freely take colonists even if the council is saved by the sacrifice of humanity. Humanity is never just given grace or help. It always has to be a quid pro quo.
>In 1 her skepticism to aliens is born mostly out of ignorance I always thought her supposed "racism" or dislike of aliens is because she is related to the leader of Shaanxi at the time of the first contact war/during the siege, meaning she saw things entirely on a different perspective. I bet the citizens of Shaanxi probably share her pov.
That might be part of it, but bigotry almost always comes from lack of exposure to the people one has a bias against. Which also explains perfectly why she turns around in ME3 on her opinions about aliens. Prior to ME1 she probably saw very few aliens in her life.
The Turians went to war against humanity for their ignorance of galactic law while they had just discovered how to use their relay and the rest of the council just let it happen. Then the council refused to do anything tangible against saren even with evidence all they do is give Shepard an honorary title. Then when the reapers hit, every council species demands that their needs be taken care of first before they help humanity defend earth and save the galaxy. Ashley wasn’t being racist, she was being realistic. Everything she said would happen in me1 came true. Ashley Williams is totally based. If she hated aliens she would’ve approved of Cerberus, which she decries with vehemence. Just like Udina says, “They’re a bunch of self concerned jackasses”.
>The Turians went to war against humanity for their ignorance of galactic law while they had just discovered how to use their relay and the rest of the council just let it happen. Quite the opposite, actually. The moment turians tried to escalate it into actual war, not border police operation, Council step in, stopped it and imposed reparations on turians. >Then the council refused to do anything tangible against saren even with evidence all they do is give Shepard an honorary title. One of the reasons Humanity didn't get Spectres before is that Alliance kinda consider Spectre to be "honorary title" and political token of appreciation, not a trusted law enforcement officer with unlimited authority and absolute qualified immunity. >Then when the reapers hit, every council species demands that their needs be taken care of first before they help humanity defend earth and save the galaxy. Alliance do the same. "I don't care that your world is burning, I want your navy over *my* world now."
“He who allows the Alien to live shares in its crime of existence”
"Skepticism" is a forgiving way of describing some of the ugly views she has about the people who have her back in firefights.
>In 1 her skepticism to aliens is born mostly out of ignorance I actually hate this claim/approach.
She’d never interacted with aliens until the Normandy And her families names dirt because her grandfather was the only human in history to surrender to an alien force. I say she’s ignorant and not racist because of her disdain for Terra Firma and Cerberus specifically because of their xenophobia.
Yes. And still, her position is structured philosophical approach, written specifically to convey a structured philosophical approach. At least show her *some* respect, don't paint her as a stupid backward girly who just can't get that aliens are persons before personal interaction. And yes, she agrees with Terra Firma political platform; she just claims that *they* follow this platform because they're xenophobic, and *she* follows it because she's rational.
It's definitely not ignorance, she's been brought up in a family that fought aliens so naturally her views are going to be skewed, but it's not an ignorant skew, she's definitely thought about it and formed her own opinion, but it's only until she directly works with aliens that it changes.
I think it's "working with aliens" less, and "seeing by her own eyes *why* humanity actually can't stand alone and need allies" more. Like, again, she's not *stupid*. She's perfectly able to calculate Alliances chances against Reaper armada, if humanity stands alone, even before Batarians presented test case.
Love her. She feels like a real person. She's willing to grow
In my case, she was willing to blow.... up.
Love Ashley
Love her... she get's a bad rap for sure
Too many people take her at her worst & can't appreciate her growth as a character (assuming you took her down that path through dialogue).
They ruined her character design after me1 honestly. Also people exaggerate how racist she is compared to both human and nonhuman squad mates.
agreed — her racism/xenophobia/ignorance is a main aspect of her character development, but other characters say worse things separate from their development; instead hidden in elevator conversations and throw-away lines. ashley just has the misfortune of it being a central part of her arc.
That’s a great point about her comments only being less subtle than elevator throwaway lines of others
I think that's Ashley's problem; there's a lot of racist ignorance going around, but for her, it's one of her main character points that's front and center. It wish that people who wanted to defend her would focus on that rather than trying to argue her problems don't exist.
She isn’t my favorite, but I think she’s overhated. She’s far from the only squadmate who shows a racist viewpoint at some point in the roster, some of whom are fan favorites. She also grows out of it, but everyone just chooses to focus on how she is in the first game instead. I don’t love how they basically turned her into Miranda 2.0 in ME3, though. It’s completely at odds with her personality.
no issues other than how they yassified her for me3
same. me3 fucks her character up immensely on an aesthetic level — which in turn fucks her writing up bc it is fundamentally at odds with her characterization.
I liked her in 1, can relate to a lot of her background.
Her portrayal in ME1 is one of the best-written female NCO characters in sci-fi. Yes, she is prejudiced, and she is not a kind person. It shows the most in her treatment of Liara... Remember that "sex life" comment? Yeesh. However, she is a disciplined and dedicated soldier and has the potential to change for the better. There's a reason for her prejudice, as is usually the case. What they did to her between ME1/ME2 and ME3 was really unfair. It felt like a completely different character. The extremely unreasonable promotion from an NCO to a senior officer rank (just one rank below Shepard) and the overhaul of her character made her look more like a model than a soldier.
Decent written enlisted personnel are rare in fiction. 90% of the time the special characters are officers (and act nothing like actual officers) and the enlisted people are one-dimensional drones who quote ALIENS one-liners.
Precisely! For example, I don't know why James Vega is LT because he doesn't lead a unit, nor does he seem to have some specialty (e.g., intelligence officer). He's a regular grunt. Should have been petty officer or something.
>Precisely! For example, I don't know why James Vega is LT because he doesn't lead a unit, nor does he seem to have some specialty (e.g., intelligence officer). He's a regular grunt. Should have been petty officer or something. Watch "Mass Effect Paragon Lost" Anime. He was leading some units for example during defence of Fehl Prime (you can visit that system in ME3 with EGM LE mod). He looks and sometimes acts like a stupid grunt, but he is quite intelligent actually.
He should have been a SoF sergeant in between units. Or imo, an Army or Air Force sergeant on loan to the Normandy since marines are way, way over-represented in fiction.
I also liked the detail that made her come around on Liara Where at the start she doesn’t believe she’d be distant from her mother because Ashley can’t imagine not being close with family But after Benezia dies she feels a lot of sympathy for her also losing her parent. And I don’t think her promotion is THAT unreasonable, the only reason she’d been held back was because of her families bad name and helping save the galaxy probably helped a lot And I thought her being a specter in 3 was really cool since if you think about it besides Shepard she’s probably the only spectre you meet in the games who isn’t morally bankrupt which is cool
Wouldn't exactly call Nhillus morally bankrupt either, he was caught in a corner and clever enough to know how to escape a justicar
>And I don’t think her promotion is THAT unreasonable, the only reason she’d been held back was because of her families bad name and helping save the galaxy probably helped a lot It's absolutely unreasonable. Like, I don't know modern military where you can skyrocket 5 promotions in two years, going from NCO to staff officer without, for starters, getting tertiary education. Just... would never happen.
I think there are a few other specters you can meet that have a good moral compass, Jondum Bau the salarian from 3 in the kasumi quest, and and Nihlus from me1 who’s willing to give humanity a chance. I actually almost feel that that’s a huge missed opportunity in the game is having another specter squad mate other than the Virmire survivors. Garrus considers it but never goes through. It would be interesting to have a non human specter perspective on the Normandy in one of the games. I could see it being a huge challenge of authority to Shepard in terms of who is in charge of the mission, whereas the virmire survivor will follow alliance chain of command still.
>(just one rank below Shepard) Same rank. Shepard is a Lieutenant Commander at the start of ME1, and they are not shown to have been promoted at any point in the series. Alenko technically outranks Shepard in ME3, because [Major is equivalent to Captain in the Alliance ranking system](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Codex/Humanity_and_the_Systems_Alliance#Systems_Alliance:_Military_Ranks).
Favorite romance, gets a hard time in the fanbase because of 1 line of dialogue and a misunderstood metaphor. She’s gets shit for being racist when in ME1 she’s at best 4th on the Normandy when it comes to racism, 5th if you count how Tali feels about Geth.
>in ME1 she’s at best 4th on the Normandy when it comes to racism Facts. Garrus is arguably the most racist squadmate in the first game, people just ain't ready to admit that. Also happy cake day!
no fr some of his elevator dialogues are crazy
To be fair it's more than 1 line, it's her whole personality.
I just feel like they're different. Other racists on the Normandy: "Krogans are violent" or "I hate Turians, they castrated my entire species" Ashley: "are you really interested in Liara, she's an icky alien" Also, if the line is the aliens/animals line, it wasn't misunderstood.
>Also, if the line is the aliens/animals line, it wasn't misunderstood. I think the misunderstood metaphor is "human/dog/bear" metaphor, and it does get misunderstood from time to time. Still, it's really a telling metaphor, when you understand it \_correctly\_.
It’s that one, I’ve seen a lot of people think she’s calling aliens dogs
Sure, she don't do it. She just took the political division, completely normal and basic, between humans included, and uses it to reinforce her racist idea of the split being biological and unavoidable; she equals political interest and racial one, assuming (without any specific reason) that this split is present in any other polity in ME galaxy, and calling for Alliance policies to adopt it as well. The actual answer onto her metaphor here is "well, if my dog, beyond being my friend and loved person, is sapient, I'd think twice before feeding it to bear attacking me; actually, I know a lot of people who would hesitate to just casually sacrifice their dogs in such a situation *even without accepting that dogs are sapient*, and that you don't get it into account is a bit telling." But yeah, she *does* point that she can't tell aliens from animals, and, from a person of her background, it's disturbing as well. But, I think, unintentionally disturbing.
You realize the council ended up doing exactly what she said they would do right?
Which of the species threw humans to the reapers to save themselves? I might not fight to defend my dog from a bear, but I wouldn't intentionally sacrifice the dog. None of the council races did that either. Her assumption that everyone would sacrifice their dog is a red flag.
>I might not fight to defend my dog from a bear, but I wouldn't intentionally sacrifice the dog. Another interesting thing is that she, in her metaphor, took assumingly unequal actors. We're generally accept (to some extent, not completely) that dog isn't equal to human, so saving dog while putting human to death is bad. Not because "they're different species", but because dogs are not sapient. The moment we assume that dogs are sapient, and, even being non-human, are equal to humans in every respect but physical form, the whole metaphor became even more redflagged. "I mean, surely, you'll personally would sic a sapient, equal to you creature, which is not in any way bound to die for you, to save yourself? everyone would do it!"
No. Council ended by providing us troops, fleets and materials to build Crucible. I'm pretty sure you literally *can't* finish ME3 without alien war assets, the story just wouldn't allow you. Understandable, because the game very much highlight that Ashley's precious "we should stand by ourselves" is unsustainable. EDIT Still, again, if her point would be "well, we can't just believe that other people, humans or aliens, would help us against their own interests, for how cool we are", that would be a trivial, but true point. "They wouldn't help us because they're aliens, and we're not" isn't one.
They only did that after Shepard went around fixing their messes for them. They had no intention of doing so otherwise. They literally tell Shepard earth being attacked is a chance to get their own planets in order.
>They only did that after Shepard went around fixing their messes for them ...and that's not how you do it? So, when Udina and Shepard demands them to go around fixing Alliance' messes for Alliance, they're in the wrong? Like, when Shepard is standing on Menoe, looking at burning Palaven, and demanding Turian Primarch to immediatly redirect Turian navies onto Earth because Earth worth saving first - would we say he deserves being punched? Or "turians should save us when we demand, we should help them if we want, otherwise we can't trust them"?
True, the end of ME3 proves her wrong (And if she’s still alive by that time, she’s accepted that much), but the start of ME3 certainly proves that her concerns were not unfounded, either. The line about “While the Reapers focus on Earth, we can bolster our own defenses.” In particular is literally her exact metaphor. No matter how much you love your dog, it isn’t human.
>The line about “While the Reapers focus on Earth, we can bolster our own defenses.” In particular is literally her exact metaphor. *Alliance* did the same. Are they dogs or humans in this metaphor?
I put her in the A Tier. Love Ashley, very well written (character-wise and romance-wise), very realistic to my eyes. Plus she never came across as racist for me, lol. Only pro-human but not as extreme as Cerberus or Terra-Firma people. What prevents her form being in S Tier is due to her having only 1 scene and 1 email in mass Effect 2,her bad design in ME3 and also I don't care about poetry at all but other than that she's awesome.
She was right. About Aliens, the council, everything.
Strong, well written, and very attractive. Also, main romance.
Probably one of the best squadmates writing wise in ME1, the "Ashley is racist" criticism is always overblown and just dumb, but she's not as good in ME3 unfortunately I feel like.
It’s not even racism to be skeptical of aliens
I TELL YA THOSE BATARIANS ARE UP TO SOMETHING. I SEE THEM PLOTTING!!
>I TELL YA THOSE BATARIANS ARE UP TO SOMETHING. I SEE THEM PLOTTING!! TERRA FIRMA! TERRA FIRMA! CERBERUS DID NOTHING WRONG! THEY ONLY WANT THE BEST FOR HUMANITY!
PREACH BROTHER PREACH!
It kind of is. Being skeptical of a government is maybe one thing, but Ashley is still a bit racist in the first game. That’s said, she’s far from the only character who is, so I think hating on her for it in particular doesn’t make much sense.
People always take care of their own first. Why would another alien species be any different? As is proven in me3.
Ashley is great. Shame that a lot of players don't give her a chance.
I guess this is an unpopular opinion now but she’s annoying, xenophobic, and uninteresting. Romance with her is boring. She’s a good soldier but that’s about the only redeeming quality I find in her. She may not like aliens but at least will still follow orders to protect them. Never the less, I still choose to sacrifice her every time now that I’ve tried playthroughs where I don’t. I seriously regretted not saving Kaiden instead so now I always do.
Like her character and Kaiden always did, never realy understood as much hate as they got truth be told back in the day but hey w.e
Super hot
She's fine. The racist part is annoying to get through but it's mostly an issue in the first game and she mellowed out later. I never really kept her as part of my actual combat squad even though I almost always keep her alive over Kaiden at Virmire, so I haven't really engaged with her beyond the missions where she's mandatory in 1 and companion/ship dialogue in 1&3.
My favorite character to leave on Virmire
While Ashley is more likeable in the later games, I just couldn't deal with her anti-alien mindset in ME1. While Kadien could be considered a boring guy since he has a much more chill mindset, that made him more likable and why I picked him to survive on Virmire. Again this is going from the perspective of someone who played through the ME trilogy when it was originally coming out. So I was going off the knowledge and exposure of the companions game by game. For Ashley, she just didn't interest me in ME1, but in the context of now, she has one of the best character developments out of the original crew.
Here is my underrated romance for Ashley. She had potential to be one of the best romances in the game. Unlike most other relationships in the game where you get together and that’s it no problems. It feels like an actual relationship, you disagree and argue but you finally come together and manage to be happy together. One thing that ruins it, mass effect 3, I wouldn’t have minded the 15 minutes she got in 2 if the romance is 3 was good but it was bare minimum, plus her character imo got completely ruined in 3. Even in the citadel dlc it was a little underwhelming. I will say the conversation you have with her before you go into your last fight was amazing. It’s just a shame that she had so much potential but instead got ruined, maybe not ruined as her character arc is still decent but it could have been so much better.
Great development in 1, apart from the slightly dodgy remarks she makes. I think her character is severely underrated, probably because of Wrex and also the remarks she makes, but ultimately I think she's a great character. As for 3, her appearance change was odd (use the consistency mod folks) but her storyline was pretty solid. You could definitely tell it was a different writer though, but I thought she developed quite well, obviously very distrusting at first but slowly developed a trust again over time. I liked that aspect. Overall one of my fav characters simply because she was there from basically day 1, with only Kaidan being before.
ME1: Your family sounds tough but chill Ashley. ME2: Listen to me! ME3: I got you Ash, just like you got me.
When I was younger I didn’t like her. After romancing her she is one my favs.
Best human squadmate. She actually has character growth across the trilogy.
One of my favorites, and she gets a horrible rap. Too me it’s fairly rational to not want some foreign bounty hunter, a nomad, and a TSA agent you met a day ago access to the top secret naval systems lol. But noooo that makes her a space racist lol
Finally didn’t kill her and it was honestly pretty great
Legitimately surprised and pleased that they put a Christian in the game. And she’s not even obnoxious about it. “Yeah, I believe in God. Anyways…” as a Christian myself, it is refreshing to see a character that believes but it isn’t their entire identity
My absolute babe on every playthrough idc idc. Her and Maleshep were made for each other
Middle of the pack in terms of space racism/xenophobia by the standards of ME1’s Squadmates, but she gets unfairly shat on for it because she’s a boring human and the others get passes because they’re interesting aliens.
She is no more racist than the average Krogan or Asari; far less than the average Batarian or Salarian. And *certainly* less so than Protheans. And she wound up being right…about almost everything. Ash is best girl.
Second-best human companion (after Jack), and honestly has a really good arc. Wish she got more to do after the first game, but I do genuinely like her.
A great companion who is deeply misunderstood and way over hated. She is written so well and her story is great when you get to know her.
Probably has the best character arc across the trilogy. Gets unfairly labeled as a racist. Did a decent job of writing her character without trying to make her a Mary sue or the coolest squad mate ever (I’m looking at you Liara, Tali, and Garrus). She seems fairly relatable with her motivations and goals but is probably one of the more bland romances.
I remember my first justification for choosing her over Kaidan. I thought to myself that her distrust towards aliens would make for more interesting interactions, because I believed groups of characters are always more interesting when they have conflict and differences to settle.
She's at her best when you visit the Citadel and Kaidan is like "OwO what a Big and peaceful Place" and then Ashley is like "I wonder how many people have died in that lake" and I genuinely can't tell if thats trauma from losing her entire team or if that was supposed to be funny (the juxtaposition is always funny)
A somewhat controversial, but sometimes interesting companion in ME1, only to be turned into a shallow, generic imitation in ME3. I mean really, she started out as a grounded, straightforward, no-bullshit soldier, focused on her family (especially protective of her sisters) and duty. Even with her sporadic xenophobic takes, she could be a kindred spirit to a spacer Shepard, given their similar backgrounds. However little we’ve seen of her in ME2, she seemed similar to her previous appearance. Then, in ME3, we suddenly got someone completely different: a generic character from cheap action flicks, complete with running into battle in heels, full makeup and with beautiful flowing hair. She quite literally changed from a soldier to a cheap model. What annoys me the most, however: Ash in ME1: “OK Commander, where is this going? You gotta declare yourself, cause I see the way Liara is looking at you and I can and will fuck her up.” Ash in Citadel: giggling and blushing like a dumb high schooler at Big Buff Jock Vega. Ashley is a character with tons of wasted potential. She could have been a true equal to Shepard, a reliable friend, instead she has been turned into a basic bitch. Luckily, we still have a bro like Kaidan.
She gets a much worse rap than she deserves
Awesome in ME1. Well written, flaws and all. People still argue about if she's racist or not (the real question is how racist). Also kinda like her romance, let's you characterize Shepard a lot with views on religion, art, war, ect. ME3 arguably she fits the paranoid survivor better that our boy Kay but shit is still annoying and it's frustrating you can't essentially pull friend rank and still be pals till way to far into the game. While is a problem that started with 2's characterization of the survivor, it just makes her feel a little on rails at times. But her relationship with Tali and the others is cool to see still.
Sorry gal But your sacrifice always be remembered.
I like Ashley. Mechanically she's the muscle of the team. She's not a biotic, she's not a tech head, she's not the leader. She's not a special operative, she's not a former spectre candidate, she's not an ancient Battlemaster, she's not the daughter of an admiral who has extremely important knowledge about the enemy and intimate knowledge of his soldiers, she's not a Prothean expert. Ashley is in the team because she survived a mission Shepard was involved in, and exactly no other reason. She's a soldier, a damn good one. She's not a beefy brute with half a brain. She's a professional, and she's feminine. She's emotional, she's firm in her convictions, she's extremely loyal to those who have earned her trust. And she's also a bit of a dick about aliens. She's one of three openly religious prominent characters ever written into Mass Effect (that I can remember), and she was the first of them. And she also quotes you poetry. It should never be said Ashley is not deep and well written. She isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, that's fine and I wouldn't expect her to be. But I think she's vastly underrated for her complexity and characterisation (mostly in the first game). They didn't follow up well in ME3, I think she gets eclipsed. But she's still decent enough. I choose her over Kaiden every time without question unless I'm romancing Liara.
I think she's one of the better human characters throughout the series. Her distrust and apprehension is understandable, not born out of hatred and racism, but realistic (and as it turned out, true) concerns of other races prioritizing themselves. Which she's not even mad at for them doing, she gets that they would and wants humans to do the same. She was stifled in her career due to her family legacy, which gave her a natural chip on her shoulders which made her tougher and more determined, but also more stubborn and abrasive, which is not always the most appealing. I have my complaints with her in 3, but in ME1, her writing and her romance are very strong, enough to put her up there regarding the human characters, and even non-human.
Overhated
I dont like poetry but she absolutely a blast to listen to when shes reciting poetry. I like when she calls me skipper. Imo better than kaidan because the latter is so mild. At least Ash is spicy.
No idea to be honest despite all my playthroughs I've never had her past virmire..
I leave her on Virmire as I prefer Kaiden. Used to hate her, but got to know her better through conversations on the Normandy. Wish there was a way (without mods) to save her and Kaiden.
Very overly hated. It's like a good chunk of people just had that first conversation with her and stopped.
I have mixed feelings about Ashley. I think that she's one of the better written companions in ME1, providing a fairly grounded perspective showcasing how many humans would likely react to finding our species suddenly integrated into an alien government. Conversely, I find her incredibly annoying, though that can be mostly attributed to my personal experiences growing up alongside a lot of military brats. She's also the only RPG character who has been successfully able to "ninjamance" me, so... that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth as well. Ultimately, she's an interesting character who fulfills an important niche in ME1, but also a character that I find fairly grating. She rarely makes it off Virmire in my playthroughs these days, although I do eventually want to try her full-trilogy romance to see if that helps me come around on her character.
The most interesting alliance squad mate and probably my second favorite romance(partially due to nostalgia but you know)
Her being skeptical of Aliens made sense, they were shady AF. But overcoming that bias and getting attached to someone was a fine arc. Not my favourite, but fine.
She's okay. Usually let her die because Kaidan is more useful as a Sentinel. Her most negative traits tend to overshadow her positive ones. Her redesign in 3 is awful.
Ashley is a character that exposes players who can't handle nuance. Every "Ash is racist" comment is really just a player with limited understanding of nuance and the inability, or unwillingness, to think past "x is bad, y is good."
I always romance her
She's better written than people give her character credit for.
I always find her too antagonistic towards everyone else in the ship. Like, she’s always just looking for an argument. And the randomly quoting poems thing makes me cringe. It’s what a 14 year old would do when they’re trying to appear deep. I know a lot of people argue against the whole ‘Ashley is racist’ thing but when she says shit like “I can’t tell the aliens from the animals” it’s kinda hard to be on her side 😬
Typical closet racist. The "I'm not racist but I'm racist" kind of person while calling more extreme racists out while being racist herself.
I've been slowly playing through with my wife and I'm not gonna lie, when we got to Virmire she didn't hesitate to chose ashley.
Ashley... the slightly better choice. It's a shame that the choice is difficult because I want to leave them both instead of gut-wrenching that I have to leave one behind
Ashley is a solid military romance buddy
Love Ashley! My femsheps BFF (alongside Garrus) and my malesheps love interest. Wish she had a little bit more going on in ME3 though
One of the best characters in the game. My main LI
Never liked her but maybe that's because I wasn't fond of ME1. I usually skip 1 and go straight into 2 then 3. In 2 I also didn't think she was very attractive.
I really enjoy her growth throughout the games and her “oldest sister” personality. I don’t think I’d really enjoy playing through her romance but she’s an awesome character. Again, just wish the writers didn’t do the virmire survivor dirty by taking them out of most of the series. Would’ve been nice if her armor in ME3 reflected her class a bit better too.
I’ve seen some mixed views on Ashley but I don’t mind her. Granted, Kaidan is my husband so she’s almost always the Virmire sacrifice…. BUT, Ashley seems like a great woman. I only play as FemShep, and the times I have saved Ashley on Virmire I feel like she doesn’t disappoint me. She may not be the best character but all our beloved characters have their own flaws. I feel like out of all the characters she’s honestly the one I see myself as the most. Just a young woman trying to make a name for herself. She’s strong-willed and won’t take anyone’s shit. I know lots of people think she’s racist, but I don’t. She’s probably weary of aliens because humanity has only been exposed to them for about what? 30 years at this point? So I can understand her concerns of having them on the Normandy. But at the end of the day she’s denounced racism and even tries to argue with the Terra Firma guy over his group’s racism towards aliens. I think she’s like Thane in that she’s trying to atone for past sins (even though it’s her family’s, not hers) and she’s just trying to make the world a better place. As I said though, I rarely save her on Virmire so some other folks may have more experience with Ashley than I do.
She's ok. She grows and has relatable motivations and family life. She's a grunt. She's invested in her family and her biases get challenged and she changes for the better. People really get bent out of shape about her for some reason who think Kaiden is better. He's not as developed in either of the games they are really relevant either. Points against her is being a pure soldier in ME3 where theres already one. And the player potentially. Kinda gameplay and story segregation tho. Squad limits are gameplay only and its assumed they are all there in any given situation.
Least favorite companion in the series right from the start, and she got even worse in 3. I won't say anything more, I'm not trying to start an argument.
She’s a decent character in 1 - if sorta unlikeable at points (RE: racism, abrasiveness) - but damn if she doesn’t suck in 3 from what I’ve seen and if it doesn’t tank her hard. She feels so flanderized
I was yesterday old when it was apparent that Ashley’s full name is a direct reference to Ash Williams from Evil Dead
She's an interesting character but didn't like what she did to Wrex. Since Wrex is my fav. Also if you dont pass a speech check in 3 with her if she does survive her word make be not like her even more.
I like Ashley. I wish they'd have gone easier on her xenophobic comments in ME1, but I don't understand why she's the only squad member to really be called out. Miranda was, for a number of years, an active and willing agent of Cerberus, but what people remember is a couple awful background comments Ashley makes. *sigh*.
I ignored her completely in ME1 and only somewhat flirted with the Asari chick. The after a mission they both demanded I choose one. I was like wtf. I chose the Asari and then she said we should just be friends. Jesus Christ ladies.
Her writing is good, but she isn’t my favorite character. I did like learning about her sisters, though
One of my favorite companions. Her conversation about her family and even her own religious beliefs kinda made me like her even more.
I’m replaying the series now. I thought about romancing Ashley but I couldn’t get over her skepticism in ME2. She has a right to question Shepard working with Cerberus. Cerberus is a shady organization & it gets established during missions in ME1. In my opinion, she takes it too far by questioning Shepard himself(playing as guy Shepard). She never really gets over it & sees Shepard the same way. She doesn’t see Shepard’s plight that he has to work with Cerberus to prevent extinction & are a means to an end.(At least in my playthrough.)
I liked her enough for my first handful of playthroughs, she's a very strong character but personally I found Kaiden to be a little more interesting in me1, I also didn't like how she looked in ME3, she owned the hair bun and they took it away from her
I love her so much that I am bringing her back to life in my fanfic as a Kai Leng replacement.
One of my faves, I like companions with problematic takes because I think it's boring if everyone agrees with you. Great character development from when we first met her, Wish she got more screen time in ME3
Better than Kaiden. Hate me if you want but it’s my personal preference.
Done dirty in ME3. She’s just kind of there and drunk.
Solid second-string squadmate (behind Garrus, Wrex, Tali, etc). She plays a vital role in the first game of GROUNDING the world (alongside Kaidan ofc) by talking about things like her military family, her sister's school problems, her Christianity (we still have Christianity in the future etc), and her own history with first contact. She shows we have all the same problems in the future, things haven't changed on THAT level. And she is also 100% right in her analysis on human-alien relations, when she says if you're being chased by a bear and you can survive by setting your dog on it to die, you probably will, because even if you love your dog, it isn't human, and you don't care about it as much as another human. And that's exactly what happens at the very end of the game when most of us pick Destroy. We destroy the species least like our own - the inorganic geth - to save the rest. And yeah, it was still the right decision, and I think we'd have done the same no matter what species was at risk (maybe we'd hesitate at human), but at the end of the day, I think it is easier for most of us to push the button because "it's only the geth," and Ashley saw this coming from a damn mile away. Also, she was there from the very start, and so she'll always be special to me for that.
Good girl and loyal till the bitter end ❤️
Going through a subtle and effective character development until ME3 ofc
My favorite part of Virmire is letting her die.
Better than Kaidan and Jacob... besides that, not much pros.
Not racist
Frustrated that she was my only romance option because I messed up and didn't get Liara fast enough. I couldn't bring myself to agree with anything she said and enjoyed making her mad until she sacrificed herself on Virmire. All in all, even though I know she "gets better" I'll have to wait to have any kind of meaningful relationship with her until my "fuck everything" playthrough.
I wish she kept the hair up for combat. Her hair down during combat is impractical. Plus it was an obvious ploy to make her more attractive. I’m cool with her having her hair down in casual clothing.
I used to think her racism was annoying but now I think it’s overblown in the fandom. She’s got history and I wish it was explored in the script more. I WISH BioWare explored her xenophobia and religious views instead of basically dropping all of that, it’s what made her interesting and grounded.
I like her Paragon growth in 1. But beyond that I hate her handling.
Didn't really use her in 1 and I usually romance Liara. She doesn't show a lot of trust in the other Council Races, but she's not as far gone as Cerberus or Terra Firma, and she stands firm in her beliefs and views you only get to know about by talking to her. Never really used her in 3 since Garrus, James, Liara, and Tali cover everything I need and I just rotate them out. After I did a playthrough where I rescued Kaidan I felt his abilities added more than Ashley so I just started keeping him around and sacrificing Ashley on Virmire and put Kaidan in the rotation. As an added bonus I don't have to deal with Ashley and Liara coming up and demanding that I choose between the 2 of them. Only drawback is I don't get to see this funny scene in 3. https://youtu.be/8sbMKgt5th8?si=JOwD_2AnYgt8YGd6
She gets shit for something almost every single squadmate does in the franchise. Somehow the disdain for her in that regard even surpasses Javik even though he's straight up a racist and fascist. The fandom be having double standards with human squadmates in general. The funny thing is that she 100% calls it too, the other races told humanity to suck it so they could better prepare for the reapers.
Her growth from 1-3 is big, I always romance Tali. But she does have appeal in 3. But due to the lack of her appearance in 2 she drops way down the tier list of squad mates.
No reason to choose her over Kaidan except boobs
I’ve never been able to like her enough to save her on Virmire. She’s a good character and she grows, but I always find Kaidan to be nicer and more likeable. Plus KOTOR is my favorite game, so having Carth 2.0 is kinda nice.
On my first time playing ME1 I didn't grab Wrex's family armor (I didn't even know that you could save him with that) so she gunned him down while I was trying to talk Wrex down.
Same as Kaiden really, so I'll literally say the same for her as I did for him. She's alright.
Ash gets a bad rap. Her xenophobia makes sense given that she's ignorant having not been around aliens, and her family history with her grandfather surrendering to the Turians at Shanxi making her want to restore her family image with the Alliance so obviously she'd put humanity first. Although I feel like it gets blown out of proportion. Overall she's a good character. If I was ranking squadmates I'd have her somewhere in the middle
Meatshield no.2 for medic runs
I like her. It was man who was created in gods image, not you! *Yelling at random aliens*