Mass Effect (video game)/Characters/Party Members: Difference between revisions

* [[Action Girl]]

* [[Adorkable]]: [[Shrinking Violet|Easily flustered]] because she's use to spending time alone and not around groups of people.

* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]], but not by her own choice. She occasionally makes references to encounters with pirate gangs and hostile wildlife in unexplored systems.

{{quote|'''Liara:''' Our travels now are somewhat different from my normal excavations. I would prefer lengthier studies... and fewer explosions.

'''Wrex:''' It's good for you. A nice explosion now and then keeps the mind sharp. }}

* [[Aggressive-Submissive]]: "...how many times have you thrown him/her on the bed and peeled him/her out of his/her uniform?" Liara's father asks this about her and Shepard, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|and Liara tries to not make it sound so dirty.]]

* [[Air Vent Escape]]: How she's reintroduced in 3. While being chased by a pair of Cerberus operatives.

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: For a girl who spends all of her time buried in her books, Liara is ''horribly'' deadly with her biotic powers.

** How badass is she, you say? She's the only other character besides Adept!Shepard who can use [[Gravity Master|Singularity]], and her other biotic powers rival or even surpass Samara's, who is ''several centuries her senior''. She's powerful enough that she can send a powerful biotic {{spoiler|Spectre}} with armed backup running for her life.

** Hell, from her comments about looking after herself when encountering pirates and looters at Prothean dig sites, she seems to be the Space [[Indiana Jones]].

* [[Battle Aura]]: Uses her biotic glowyness to dissuade some enemies a few times.

* [[Cutscene Incompetence]] / [[Cutscene Power to the Max]]: A really weird hybrid occurs when you first rescue her in [[Mass Effect 1]]. You're confronted directly by a Krogan Battlemaster and a small squad of Geth Shock Troopers after exiting the room you found her in via an elevator. In the cutscene right before the fight begins, you see her start glowing with a blue aura and balling her fists, which usually means she's about to unleash a biotic attack. Then the gameplay actually starts and she just cowers on the floor while the battlemaster charges you.

** However she had been in a stasis field for a ''while'' by this point, so its possible she flared her biotics in an attempt to fight back but the strain of doing so was simply too exhausting. The Codex and ''3'' mention that biotics require a higher calorie intake to keep their abilities at full strength, whereas Liara can't even ''remember'' the last time she ate. It's safe to say she's not at her full strength during that scene.

* [[Damsel in Distress]]: You recruit her by rescuing her from a horde of bad guys, she doesn't fight once throughout the entire level, and she almost faints even after you've got her on the ship. Add this to her general naivete and she seems like the poster child for this trope. [[Beware the Nice Ones|Then you actually take her into battle,]] and quickly realize that [[Badass in Distress|she can take care of herself.]]

** It should be noted that when you rescue her, she's unarmed and fatigued from being held immobile for goodness knows how long. (If you save that mission for last, she thinks she's hallucinating Shepard's party.)

{{quote|'''Kaidan:''' When was the last time you ate? Or slept?}}

** And she ''can't remember''.

* [[Double Tap]]: How she finishes off a pair of Cerberus operatives chasing her during her reintroduction in ME 3. [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|After having already trapped them in a singularity and shot them center mass in mid-air.]]

* [[Enemy Mine]]: {{spoiler|With Cerberus, to save Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker and the Collectors. The fact that she beats herself up over handing Shepard's corpse to The Illusive Man explains in part her behavior during the second game.}}

* [[Failed a Spot Check]]: Notable if you bring {{spoiler|Javik}} to Thessia.

{{quote|'''Liara''': Incredible, the Beacon seems to think you are Prothean, Shepard. It must be from the Cipher you got back on Feros, all those years ago.

* [[How Did You Know? I Didn't.]]: After {{spoiler|killing the Shadow Broker}}, Shepard asks Liara how she knew that {{spoiler|the Shadow Broker was a yahg}}. She actually had no idea; she just made an educated guess on the spot.

* [[In-Universe Catharsis]]: "Lair of the Shadow Broker" provides closure for Liara's two years of mourning, grief and pain.

* [[I Shall Taunt You]]: When confronting the Shadow Broker, she {{spoiler|brings up his status as the previous Broker's "pet", triggering his [[Berserk Button]].}} Judging by the files on him, {{spoiler|wherein the previous Broker warned him to watch his temper and that losing it costs him his better judgment, he would have been a far more dangerous opponent in the subsequent battle if Liara hadn't pissed him off.}}

* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy]]:

** Also, in the second game, whether Shepard cheated on her or remained faithful to her, she will tell him/her that if s/he wants to move on, she can accept that and be happy for him/her.

* [[Jerkass Facade]]: {{spoiler|She adopts one in the sequel to allow herself to operate in Illium's underworld.}}

* [[Knight Templar]]: During the interim beween the first and second game, though Paragon Shepard can pull her back from this.

* [[Knowledge Broker]]

* [[Mind Over Matter]]

* [[Minored in Asskicking]]: Most people find it more than a little odd that an archeologist would be so good at combat. Then Liara points out that since they have potential for containing incredible technology, Prothean ruins are popular targets for pirates and mercenary raids. And Liara has worked in Prothean ruins. Alone. For decades.

* [[Not So Different]]: Noticable in the second game, when Liara at times begins to unconsciously channel ''her mother''.

* [[Older Than They Look]]: She's 106 years old, "barely more than a child." Asari live for about a thousand.

* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Averted. In Peak 15, she may say the following upon the end of the first engagement against the {{spoiler|rachni}}:

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: She never knew her second parent's identity, only her species (another asari—a major social no-no, because asari value genetic diversity {{spoiler|and also because that's where Ardat-Yakshi come from}}) and her relationship with her mother was apparently strained at best. {{spoiler|And that was ''before'' Benezia joined up with Saren and Co.}} In the third game, Shepard can find out that her father is {{spoiler|Matriach Aethyta}}, and encourage Liara to go talk to her.

* [[Plot Armor]]: Liara will survive all the way to the final mission of ''Mass Effect 3'', no matter what you do. [[Anyone Can Die|That's not true of any other character on this page.]] {{spoiler|She can still get blasted by Harbinger during the final push if your EMS is too low.}}

* [[Relationship Upgrade]]: Liara can be pursued as a romance in ''3'' even if you previously turned her down in the first game.

* [[Religious Bruiser]]: In the first game, at least, it's implied that she is quite religious.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Surprisingly absent in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC- even if you've cheated on her with another squad mate, she doesn't get angry about it.

** She does call you out about hooking up with another love interest - but then immediately apologizes for her outburst.

* [[Woman in White]]: Her preferred outfit in Mass Effect 2 and 3, reflecting her new [[Stoic]], [[Lady of War]] tendencies.

* [[You Are Better Than You Think You Are]]: Paragon Shepard's interrupts in ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'' reminding her of how she was when they met and urging her to not descend into [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] territory, not even to protect them.

* {{spoiler|[[You Kill It, You Bought It]]: After she and Shepard kill the Shadow Broker, she takes his place. She's at least the third person to hold the title.}}