User blog comment:Awayorafk/Believe. The Indoctrination Theory./@comment-80.196.237.170-20151230001507

The problem with the indoctrination theory, is that Bioware flat out told us it's not what they were going for. They said it would ruin the narrative and the impact of the games. Remember how mad people got when Super Mario 2 turned out to be just a dream? Imagine the outrage if it turns out that the payoff after THREE games came up as "all a dream". Also, IT doesn't really close the series off. Bioware has ended Shepards story, never to come back to it, and to do that, the ending can't be too open. If we follow indoctrination theory, and Shepard dreams the whole thing after Harbinger attacks, what really happens to the galaxy in the real world? Do the Reapers win? Is the mission to Andromeda a last desperate move to escape the Reapers? The answer to most of these questions is probably no, since the new game takes place long after the events of the original trilogy. Arguments could be made that just like Liara and Javik mentions; war with the Reapers takes centuries. The problem with this is that it would feel more like continuing Shepards battle, instead of a completely new story. Never mind the fact that the indoctrination theory rides on the assumption that neither the caracter themselves or people in contact with an indoctrinated subject would notice any change. The theory breaks the lore of how indoctrination works. In the book Mass Effect Retribution, we are inside the mind of Paul Grayson, and he knows he is being indoctrinated and can fight it, untill a massiv dose of red sand dulls him enough to just surrender his mind. He has the whispers, which Shepard never does. The whispers in the dreams are memories of dead squadmates, and not the Reapers. All in all, i'm pretty sure what we see is what we get, simply because it's the only thing that would fit the writers vision, while still remain inside the boundries set by the lore of the games and the books.