User blog comment:Brianbreed/Why Do I Burn Kaiden?/@comment-1900300-20120106143248

Sorry for such a long one

First off I will admit that Kadien was not all that interesting a character to me. I had no love or hate for him, he just did not make me care. It may be understandable since her has no great internal or external conflict to build drama. In my saves I just kept the opposite sex Virmire survivor alive for simplicities sake, not any personal feelings.

But I must say some of your comment has left me concerned. Thought it was likely not your intent, if your argument was taken to its farthest logic step then this could be considered an endorsement that a human worth should be based on how their family dynamic is and how many friend they have. Those with stable families and a large network of friends are considered better and of greater human worth then those who have an unstable family dynamic (whether it is from divorce, abuse, deaths, personal conflicts, etc) and a smaller circle of friends (whether it is because of a introverted, withdrawn personality, lifestyle, personal choice, insecurity or bad luck etc). I am sorry to step on your sense of certainty but the judgement of human life is more complicated then that.

I am fairly certain the death of a human being should be considered an equal tragedy whether that person had a large amount of friends or not. And while leaving a mourning family behind is a tragedy, that should not detract from a tragedy of someone else whose family was estranged or passed away.

Also I think your reasoning in some cases, making assumptions and drawing conclusions that do not match was is presented in game.

Firstly, Kadien’s apparent “lone wolf” status is somewhat presumptuous because it assumes what he presents himself as to Shepard and acts like is exactly how he is at all times. A person is capable of being introverted and professional at work and highly sociable outside of it. And Kadien shows no particular anti-social characteristics. He is friendly with Shepard, Joker, Dr. Chakwaz, quickly forms a friendship with Ashley and mentions a number of friends in his e-mail to FemShep in ME2, who were willing to support and help him at a time of great emotional distress. He is openly friendly, happy, kind, honest and supportive to those around him in ME, so whatever “lone wolf” tendencies you mention seem off to me. I can only conclude this was because he is not as willing to discuss personal details with Shepard immediately, which quite frankly is fair enough if he wants to be professional and keep his personal life personal. They are with the military after all. And him not mentioning his family or friends does not necessarily mean he his estranged from them or a loner. He just didn’t want to talk about it at the time.

Your assessment of Ashley fails to mention her driving motivation for much of the game: her wish to redeem her family’s honour and pride since her grandfather made them mud. Much of her reasoning stems from this drive and her father’s encouragement that “A William must be better then the best, if only to avoid suspicion”. She constantly drives herself to be better and prove herself to those around her, to the point where it becomes apparent she would be willing to sacrifice herself if it will redeem her family. Shepard can even call her out on this after Virmire, asking her how far will she go. Yes, she has a loving relationship with her family, but to her going home with the William’s name still mud would be letting them down, while dying and redeeming their name, ensuring her sisters never have to go through the prejudice she faced, would be worth it. It may seem foolish and self-destructive but humans ARE stupid and self-destructive at times. It is a pivitol moment in her Romance when she states that Shepard makes her “feel good enough” freeing her from trying to prove herself to others and to just be comfortable with herself, rather then making up for her grandfather’s mistakes.

Kadien on the other hand, I must admit I have some appreciation for what Bioware was trying to do with the character. I have not ever seen this wish to die you see in Kadien, much the opposite. While characters in ME constantly bother Shepard with petty emotional problems, Kadien, who has undergone a great number of horrors in his life, is pretty much emotional stable over it. He has some emotional scars but he wishes not to bother others with them and deal with them himself. He even feels telling someone about them would make them think he is a whiner. Or maybe he had the amazing belief that, considering Saren, geth, Soverign and then finally the Reapers, Shepard may have more important things to be concerned about then Kadien’s teenage crush or his occasional migraines. I give him credit that would be my feelings in the matter. I get the sense Bioware may have wanted to show not everyone in the ME universe is in constant need of Shepard’s emotional support. Some people are relatively normal. Jacob filled a similar role in ME2. It basically stops people from thinking everyone in the ME universe is someway disturbed. That or they were playing Kadien as a polar opposite of his voice actor’s role in KOTOR, Carth Onasi, who players complained was a whiner. Or it may even be Bioware attempting to make Kadien attractive to female players by making him something of a James Dean character. Always in emotional grief but won’t let anyone in. And no I am not going make any Twilight jokes about that. Whether this approach was successful, well being a man I have no idea. Welcome for any female gamers to give a perspective. The point is Kadien is a person with personal issue but wants to deal with them alone. That does not make him a lesser individual and does not mean he wants to be offed. There are many reasons for Kadien wishing for Shepard to save Ash instead of him: she is younger, she is below him in rank and thus his responsibility, maybe even he thought about the very same reason you did. Or maybe he is just a good man who didn’t want someone else to die in his place, like the good people many of us wish to be.

Compared to Ashley, Kadien doesn’t have much conflict. Which is amazing considering he was among the first biotic, faced much prejudice, was kidnapped by the government, his parents were probably told he was dangerous like the other kidnapped subjects, broke a man’s neck in his first and only moment of uncontrolled rage and was seen as a monster by the girl he loved. But he has largely moved on, feeling what a person went through does not justify their actions now. He shows no sympathy to biotic terrorists because what they went through does not excuse their crimes. The most prominent issue for him is his conservative, restrained nature after killing his turian teacher, unwilling to take risks and lose control of himself for fear of what he is capable of. This may factor into your perception of him as a lone wolf, since he is in the military for life and wishes to have a relationship with his teammates of both respect, so they can effectively work together, and a personal amount of emotional detachment, since he has likely lost a number of friends and does not wish to lose control of his emotions from it. This can be somewhat resolved in the romance I think but it would be realistic to say you cannot solve a lifelong habit in such a short sapan of time, even if you’re Commander Shepard. All we can hope for is he is getting better with age and experience.