User blog comment:Suparockr/List of Plotholes throughout the series/@comment-166.82.245.89-20120719070005/@comment-4950455-20120719084842

I think that's clear - in fact, the fact that it's so clear sums up why the kid was so poorly executed in the first place. It was 'incredibly obvious that he was there for that reason and that reason alone - we were never given any in-universe reason to really know why Shepard him-or-herself was seeing this kid as the symbol of everyone dying at the "hands" of the Reapers. It was just For Symbolism, and the fact that it was so blatant, and so repeatedly hammered into our hands, not only made it poorly executed but outright backfired - as the nameless original poster says, it almost feels like Shepard is ignoring all of the Reapers' other victims in favor of this random kid.

I also think that the decision to try and force all players to react the same way to the Reaper invasion was one that couldn't have worked and shouldn't have been made right from the beginning - but that's a different story, and there's more reason to disagree there.