Character Spotlight | Garrus Vakarian

Our guest blogger for this week is AJ Celestin, also known as Xelestial (tumblr).  AJ was introduced to the world of video gaming via “Sonic the Hedgehog” at the age of 4.  Her favorite games are RPGs, and her favorite series include Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Final Fantasy.  Below AJ writes about one of her favorite video game characters, Garrus Vakarian, who inspired her to create the fangroup, “Shakarian”, on deviantART.

I don’t think it’d be wrong to say that Garrus is one of the most beloved Mass Effect squadmates. As for why so many people like him, I can only speak for myself. In the original Mass Effect, Garrus was essentially introduced as a rebellious cop. He disagreed with his superior and often took matters into his own hands, but despite his rebellious nature it was also obvious that he was noble; he wanted to stop Saren for the greater good.

Throughout Mass Effect 1 we learn that despite the fact that Garrus is a cop with a few years under his belt, he is naïve to the world outside of the Citadel. He blames Tali’s people for the Morning War, and tells Wrex that the genophage was necessary— despite having no real knowledge of what happened. When he encounters non-Turian races, he learns that things may not be how they were told in his history books. Wrex sums it up best when he says to Garrus, “Why don’t you head back to the Normandy, kid? If you stay here in the real world, you might have to learn something.”

In other words, Garrus has come to a crossroads in his life, and Shepard ends up being a major influence on him during this time.  All of his life prior to Mass Effect 1, Garrus tries to do everything his father wanted, the way his father wants it.  Eventually, he rebels against his father and no longer on speaks to him. As a young turian who was never allowed to follow his passions, Garrus is maturing rapidly as an individual during ME1, and comes to the point where he has to decide who he wants to be.  It’s logical that he looks to the more cosmopolitan, charismatic Commander Shepard for mentoring.

In ME1, Garrus was a “by the book” kind of guy who wants to be anything but. Depending on how you play your Shepard, you could either leave him to find his own way, encourage him to become a Spectre to have the power to break the rules, or persuade him that breaking the rules will only put him down on the criminals’ level. At the same time, the more refined aspects of Garrus’ personality were still present. He was very serious (remnants of his father’s/turian discipline),but yet still had a sense of humor from time to time. Garrus was also very insightful and showed quick-thinking, often advising Shepard how to best an enemy or figure out a problem. From the beginning Garrus was extremely loyal — and he always did his best, no doubt about it. It was clear he would have given his life without a second thought to protect his comrades or any innocent. Garrus was a genuine example of a good guy, even though his moral compass was always spinning. I was intrigued by him, and enjoyed his company so I always took him with me, wherever I went. Even though I didn’t find his character physically attractive, he (and Tali) were my Shepard’s best friends.

Then Mass Effect 2 came out, and you could see how drastically Garrus had changed. I admit I was a bit surprised when I saw him. Extremely pleased and very impressed with his skills to stay alive so long, but, surprised. I had no idea what he was doing there and it just seemed out of the blue at the time—I thought for sure Garrus would be a Spectre by now and not some guy harassing mercenary gangs in a crime-ridden dump. But, I found myself desperately hoping he would join my squad during the fight to get him out of Omega alive. Then when I thought victory was assured and I would finally get some answers from Garrus— he takes a missile to the face!  Worse yet, he ends up bleeding and gasping on the floor, while my squad mates gave their grim predictions for his prognosis and recovery.  I was in shock, screaming right alongside Shepard (something to the effect of “Garrus! NO!”) and begging the gaming gods not to take him. It was strange because suddenly I cared about him a lot more than I thought I did.  I couldn’t really be counted as a Garrus fangirl previously, but in light of all of the new ME2 crew members, he felt like an old friend. It was a relief to see him.

BioWare did such a terrific job of establishing Garrus as a friend in the first game, getting our hopes up that he would join the squad once again…then promptly dashing them against the rock before mercifully letting him live and join the squad. They took our feelings about him and twisted them any and every way. And I believe it only made us care about him even more. I remember being terrified when the next scene came up, with no Garrus in sight. Then when he came walking into the room…I was so incredibly relieved and happy. More than I thought I could be about him.

Right after this scene I went to talk to Kelly, who then commented on Garrus, saying, “There’s something about him. I just want to hold him close and whisper ‘It will be all right.’” At this moment I began thinking of Garrus in a different light. I felt a twinge of jealousy and I found myself telling her that I felt the same way. She then responded “You two would make such a cute couple!” and I really started to consider it for my Shepard. This was the first time I actually thought of Garrus as a Love Interest (now I’m wondering if this was all intended by BioWare) and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

After that, I began to learn about the new Garrus, who had become somewhat dark and tortured – certainly not the naïve, “by the book” guy that I used to know. He was still insanely loyal, and his sense of humor had finally come into its own, but he was also much more hardened and experienced, which made his advice was even more invaluable to me. In addition, I have this thing for wanting to “fix” people, to find out their “dark past” and help them heal. It’s bad, I know, but I can’t help it. So, I made sure that my Shepard kept bothering him about his past, and while he told her a little of it, it was clear that remembering made him angry due to the pain and guilt he felt about his perceived “failures”.

At this point in ME2, Garrus was pretty much irresistible to me. Other male Love Interests came into my Shepard’s life and subsequently didn’t hold a candle to Garrus because of his personality, our history, and how much I wanted to help him. Plus, you know, Brandon Keener’s voice. Suddenly I was seeing Garrus as incredibly attractive in many ways.

And then we hit a glitch.

Garrus’ infamous and cruel “Can it wait for a bit? I’m in the middle of some calibrations” dialogue threatened to put a damper on everything.  For a while I almost considered some other LIs out of sheer boredom—at least until Garrus’ loyalty mission: An Eye for an Eye. When Garrus talked about Sidonis, he seemed almost like a different person. He had a sort of passion about killing Sidonis that I wouldn’t see again until his relationship with Shepard in Mass Effect 3. He held a very deep hatred and cold rage for Sidonis, and honestly, when he asked my Shepard to help kill him, I was completely game. I thought it would help him heal and finally find peace, and that’s what I wanted to provide.

I play Paragon but at least 30% of my Shepard is Renegade.  I freely admit that the Renegade aspect showed up a lot when I was encouraging Garrus in the original Mass Effect, and again on his loyalty mission. We walked around demanding answers, intimidating people and being general badasses, but when I saw what he was going to do to Harkin, I began to be a little frightened.  I stopped him and admonished him because I was beginning to fear what this hatred had done to him.

SIDEBAR: Let’s just pause and remember that we’re talking about a fictional character—one that has gone through a ton of character development and growth for better or for worse in the past two games so far—and I felt genuinely worried for his fictional soul. Just keep that in your mind as we move on.

Once I had reprimanded Garrus and Shepard turned around, he head-butted Harkin. Which I have to admit made me giggle as I did believe Harkin deserved that. But I was even more concerned about how angry he was.  After all, Garrus never disobeyed Shepard before in any way that I could recall. Thus, I started to fall more into my Paragon ways and began to express doubt about what we were going to do.  I didn’t care about Sidonis; I cared about what killing him might do to Garrus. But for the first time, Garrus basically told Shepard that he’s “not her” and says that “words weren’t going to fix this”. So we went through with the plan. When I first met Sidonis, he pissed me off; like he did most players I’m sure.  I thought about letting Garrus kill him.  I wanted to let Garrus kill him, but I cared too much about him to let him kill Sidonis without at least making sure this guy was as bad as he thought he was.

In talking to Sidonis I learned that he’d betrayed Garrus and his comrades out of fear for his own life and that now, ironically, his own life was nothing but a shell of its former self. He seemed to genuinely feel guilty about what he did, and even wanted to die. Deciding whether or not to kill Sidonis was one of the toughest Mass Effect decisions I have ever made. There was no clear right answer, and Garrus was angrily demanding my Shepard move out of the way to let him take the kill shot.  Finally, I decided that although Garrus and Shepard had already killed so many, he shouldn’t have a revenge-killing staining his conscience even further.  Since this was one area where there was no right or wrong I felt it was better to leave Sidonis alive. I felt killing Sidonis risked Garrus falling deeper into his hatred and perhaps eventually becoming someone completely evil (I’ve even seen someone suggest that Warden Kuril might be what Garrus would have been become if not for Shepard). He also might regret it one day, especially after finding out why Sidonis did what he did, and that he was already suffering.  So,  I decided I would try to dissuade him one final time and if he still wanted to take the shot after that— after understanding that his man was already dead inside—I’d let him. But he didn’t. Garrus didn’t take the shot. He seemed angry and disgusted with himself and Sidonis, and I feared what he thought of me for stopping him. I thought that maybe I had ruined my Shepard’s relationship with him, but even still I felt like I had done the best I could for him.

After all of this Garrus said that he knew I wanted to talk about it, but he didn’t. So, out of respect for him and already feeling a bit ashamed for taking this away from him, I didn’t press the issue and continued to feel somewhat guilty about it for many play throughs. I wondered if I had done the right thing — the best thing for Garrus. So, eventually I tried killing Sidonis once to see how that turned out. I didn’t like that ending any better and hearing Garrus respond “What a shame” sarcastically after EDI says there are no suspects in the Sidonis murder case made me sick. It was like he didn’t he even care that he took his ex-comrades life; he was taking it too lightly.  On my most recent playthrough, I let Sidonis live and decided to press the talk with Garrus afterward.  There was so much more dialogue; I was surprised.   Overall, this ending made me feel good.  It made me feel right about what I did. I felt like the good in Garrus had come out again and that he forgave my Shepard for interfering. After dealing with Sidonis, Garrus was much calmer, happier, more balanced. He was a man who has stared at hell, was able to turn his back on it, and came out only better for it. This is a crucial event that helped further cement my feelings toward him and helped make him into the man he is in Mass Effect 3.

I love Garrus’s “final” personality—a laidback, witty, clever and experienced sniper with difficult past?  Yes, please.  He’s incredibly skilled and resourceful, as evidenced by his ability to stay alive for days with various mercenary bands coming after him. But he’s also good person and a good friend, and is always there for Shepard. Garrus always has her back, and never turns on her no matter what choices she makes, because he has so much respect for her.  This really illustrates to me how incredibly loyal he is to Shepard, as he’s stuck by her through thick and thin.  Even if you break up with Garrus prior to the romance scene or after (my heart hurts just thinking about it) he acts very mature about it, being thankful for the time you had together, even though he clearly cares for Shepard and just had his heart broken. Shepard, likewise often cites it being a bad time to start a relationship or not wanting to damage their friendship depending on when it’s done. The respect and caring they have for each other shines through even then.

Despite how I felt about Garrus when the romance option came up, I admit, I was nervous about how awkward it might be. It wasn’t lost on me that him being a turian could makes things….awkward. But, in the end I just didn’t care. If there was a way to make it work, I would willingly give up all other Love Interests for a chance—even an awkward one—with Garrus. Especially after my previous love interest, Kaidan, left Shepard in the lurch, it just felt right for Garrus and my Shepard to be together, despite being different species.

When you think about Shepard and Garrus, they’re not in any way your average romantic relationship.  At first it was more like two friends…“blowing off steam” (ahem), and seeing where it went from there.  But when Garrus accepts Shepard’s proposal to have a sparring match of their own, he cites his reason for doing so as “there’s no one I respect more than you”. How cool is that? No, it’s not “your beauty took my breath away” or some other cheesy yet romantic line but something much deeper. Then, when Garrus suggests Shepard could find something “a little closer to home”, she says she only wants Garrus, who is “someone she can trust.” Their relationship starts with respect and trust, two things that many couples often don’t gain until much further in their relationship, if ever.

Later, Garrus finally warms up to the idea of physical intimacy with Shepard, and admits he wants a moment for just the two of them before they throw themselves “into hell for the good of the galaxy”. The romance scene starts out humorous and playful, but you can immediately see how intimidated Garrus is, and how much Shepard cares about him. Ironically, their romance scene ends up being one of the sweetest and gentle in Mass Effect 2 — pretty strange for a couple of people who began their relationship on the pretense of sex, huh?

In Mass Effect 3, Shepard and Garrus officially become “a couple” and support each other as both friends and lovers through the hard times. By then, they’re obviously in love and their relationship is so easy and natural that it seems like they were meant for each other. It’s a testament to their relationship that after a very romantic kiss and affirmation on the Citadel that they go right to shooting bottles with guns in a contest. They’re lovers, yes, but they’re also best friends. To wrap this up (as I could probably go on for days), Garrus and his romantic storyline are near perfect to me. His relationship with Shepard conveys a sense of realism that people are hard-pressed to find in a video game. In my eyes, Shepard and Garrus both need people that would go to hell and back not only for them, but with them, and I truly believe that they’ve found everything they need in each other.

AJ is currently a freelance journalist, working toward a position in the gaming industry as a professional Game Writer.

Remember, if you want to write a Character Spotlight for ME3 Cosmic Love, just follow the criteria in this post, and send your submission to sarah_ann_mann on HTL or sarahann62380 on BSN!