Mass Vexations: Difference between revisions

* [[Author Avatar]]: Art, very obviously. Leads to a bit of [[Author Filibuster]] and a lot more [[Author Appeal]] when he lampshades a few things.

* [[Badass Normal]]: Art eventually becomes this. He starts out as someone who has never fired a firearm in his life, has never led anyone into combat, and lives in an age without DNA modification technology. By the time he gets to Virmire, he's able to hold his own in Shepard's squad, he leads a salarian STG unit into battle and manages to avoid extremely high casualties, and he's able to be a pretty decent Soldier class fighter, even without the modifications to his DNA. In fact, the only medical procedure he's undergone in the ME universe is surgery to correct near-sightedness, and such a surgery already exists in his home time period. Wrex lampshades his improvement at a couple of points, and then there are the two [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|CMoA's]] he racks up below. [[Took a Level In Badass]] indeed...

* [[Better to Die Than Be Killed]]: Art takes this approach when plotting how he'll return back to his world. His first thought? Rather than get shot down on the battlefield where someone could use medigel on him, he'll allow himself to get caught in the blast on [[Wham! Episode|Virmire]]. {{spoiler|[[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|Unfortunately...]]}}

* [[Bi the Way]]: The narration mentions that Art is bisexual. Of course, it's also being mentioned while he's being seduced by an older turian.

{{quote|-- "No, I'm not planning on killing myself." In the conventional sense, anyway.}}

* [[BLAM Episode]]: The April Fool's Day chapter.

* [[Brick Joke]]: {{spoiler|The Game}}. More specifically, how the krogan characters all seem to latch on to it.

* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Used on Conrad Verner when Art runs into him on Illium.

* [[MacGuffin]]: The mysterious paperweight that Art obtains at Noveria.

** [[I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin]]: Benezia gives him the odd paperweight before she completely loses herself to Sovereign's indoctrination. Subverted in that ''neither'' of them really know what they're supposed to do with it nor even what it is.

*** It turns out to be {{spoiler|the housing of the spirit of an ancient Prothean diviner. See [[Talking Appliance Sidekick]] below.}}

** It also has properties that aren't revealed until the sequel: {{spoiler|it can find other objects that Art needs to carry out what he needs to so he can save the galaxy.}} It brings to mind the question of {{spoiler|what else the Protheans have planned for Art, in addition to making it clear that there is more than one [[MacGuffin]] that Art needs to find.}} It gives Art the idea that he'll need to go on a [[Fetch Quest]] while at the Collector base.

* [[My Fist Forgives You]]: When Art goes to Wrex {{spoiler|to mend their friendship after the 'stupid fucking krogan' insult after Virmire}}, the krogan doesn't listen to him. So [[Hit Me Dammit|Art tells him to headbutt him]]. Wrex eventually does so after a brief back and forth, and then things are good between them.

** Averted in the sequel when Art reveals the truth about himself to Wrex. Oddly, they don't end up having to resort to this to sort out that problem.

* [[No Name Given]]: Art is only known by his nickname to the reader. The other characters know his full name, as some of them refer to him by his last name; however, any time his last name or full first name are used it's asterisked out.

** However if You notice that {{spoiler|Art is the first three leters of his six letter first name, some google reasearch can give you an approximation of his actual real name, Hint: look to the [[Mists Of Avalon]]}}.

* [[Spotting the Thread]]: Kaidan doesn't buy into Art's made-up backstory all that much after Feros, and he gets good at this. Fortunately for Art, Kaidan sees that he means well regardless of how much of the truth he's omitting and thus doesn't [[Pull the Thread]] on Art [[Subverted Trope|as is usual for the trope]].

** It's important to note that {{spoiler|during debriefing after Virmire, Kaidan is the first person to jump to Art's defense after Shepard's [[What the Hell, Hero?]] speech. He says he doesn't trust some of Art's information, but that he still trusts Art himself because according to Kaidan he 1) somehow knew that the events of Virmire were going to happen, and that 2) he tried to make sure that ''he'' was the one who died, not Ash. Thus, Kaidan reasons that Art only has the best interests of the crew of the Normandy in mind.}} And keep in mind, this is without Kaidan knowing that {{spoiler|Art saved his life by suggesting that Shepard keep him close to her no matter what happens}}.

* [[Supporting Protagonist]]: Art tells the story of Mass Effect from his [[Point of View|POV]] as a member of Commander Shepard's team. Art is even left behind on a few missions while Shepard advances the main story.

** Played further when he gets a loyalty mission.

* [[Two Lines, No Waiting]]: In part three, the story splits into two narratives after {{spoiler|Shepard's arrest}}: the one follows Art and the crew of the Normandy on their typical adventures trying to unite the galaxy against the threat of the Reapers, and the other {{spoiler|follows Shepard's trial from the point of view of her defense lawyer, Will Moskas.}}

* [[Twofer Token Minority]]: Nogond'Viraliz, gay biotic quarian not from the Fleet.

* [[Unstoppable Rage]]: Art flies into one after {{spoiler|Shepard goes to him on Virmire.}}

** {{spoiler|Art and [[Papa Wolf|Rael'Zorah]] both fly into one when they find out what happened to Tali in Chapter 18 of the third story.}}

* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: As given by {{spoiler|Art when he tells the rest of the ground team after Jacob tells}}, it's more like a World Of Cardboard Lecture.

* [[Write Who You Know]]: Art, obviously, {{spoiler|but a man the author knew IRL gets transplanted into the story as well.}}

* [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word]]: Art mentions in the prologue of part 2 that when he met Shala'Raan, she referred to him as Tali's ''hesh'alan''. It slowly transforms into a [[Running Gag]] where Art gets frustrated that no quarian in the vicinity will tell him what it means.

{{quote|-- It's going to be Tali's form of ''siha'', I'm sure of it...}}

** He eventually does find out what it means: {{spoiler|Rael tells Art that it means 'captain of the soul'.}}

** Art eventually starts calling Tali a translated foreign word of his own, using [[Gratuitous Spanish|"querida"]] as his chosen word for her.

** Part of his wondering if he'll ever see his friends again is mitigated in the sequel when {{spoiler|Sturge shows up as a character}}.

* [[Your Mom]]: Used against Zaal'Koris when they go to the Fleet. The extremely poor taste of Art's insult is lampshaded by Kasumi soon after: