Mass Effect 2 | Sidonis Confrontation (Mercy Kill)
0If that's what you want.
When I was looking up info for Mass Effect 2 a while ago, I noticed that the wiki said you could get a sort of "mercy kill" with Sidonis where he accepts his death and doesn't run away when Garrus goes to shoot him. I didn't see any videos of this interaction on YouTube, so I figured it'd be a good idea to upload it and fill in that information gap.
As a note, if you "Warn Sidonis" and then "Keep Talking", you get the same dialogue whether you pick the middle-left or middle-right option on the third choice. The only time those lines change is if you choose the top-left option to spare Sidonis.
...Oh, and I included the Harkin section for a little extra context. Secretly, though, I think I just like watching Garrus headbutt him. xD
The rest of the description is me talking about my personal beliefs about this scene and its meaning to the series as a whole. If you're interested, feel free to keep reading; if not, thanks for watchin'!
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Personally, I gave this scene a lot of thought when I came across it. In the end, it was probably one of the most difficult decisions I had to make in the Mass Effect series, especially since I played Paragon the first time through.
Here's a breakdown:
- If you let Garrus shoot Sidonis immediately or let him take the shot before Sidonis can explain himself fully, he dies a coward, and doesn't receive resolution for his indirect involvement in the murder of Garrus's squad. This goes against everything Paragon Shep has taught Garrus to this point.
- If you convince Garrus to spare Sidonis, he spends the rest of his life rotting in a C-Sec prison, haunted by his dead comrades every night. Garrus thinks he deserved worse, but ultimately agrees with you because you're his commander and you've been imposing Paragon lifestyle decisions on him since ME1. That's not necessarily a good thing, though; the way I see it, you've basically been coddling him and not letting him grow independently as a person, and you're continuing to do so now.
- If you allow Sidonis to explain himself fully and then allow Garrus to take the shot, Sidonis receives resolution for his actions and resigns himself to death to atone for what's happened. Garrus carries out his decision and has to live with the consequences.
I personally consider this third option to be merciful and beneficial to Garrus's character development, but it also reduces Sidonis to a number in your ever-increasing body count for the series, and causes Garrus to stoop to levels that make him no better than the mercenary leaders from Omega who wanted him dead after he killed a bunch of their gang members.
In other words, there's no correct choice here, nothing that's all right or all wrong. You just have to weigh the good with the bad, and make the decision that you think is best.
Frankly, these sorts of choices are some of the best moments in the series for me. They force you to think and rationalize on the game's terms, and maintaining that degree of immersion is no easy task. Well played, Bioware, well played.
All right, I'm done soap-boxing. I just didn't want to see this scene only half-represented here on YouTube any longer, so I took it upon myself to personally fix that little issue.
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