Why is Kaiden Alenko so popular?

[LordFisheh]

Kaidan has as much history and personality as anyone else. Even (speaking as a huge Garrus fan) growing up in a biotic hell-training camp where you accidentally killed your instructor in self defense is far more 'interesting' than the 'was in the police, didn't like the paperwork' of the franchise's most popular character.

I love how Kaidan, who acts like an actual person, gets all the hate for being boring while angst filled badasses with a dark past or master assassins wracked with guilt are considered the baseline for interesting characters, the 'norm'. In a lot of ways, that's what I like about him - he has his story, he's dealt with it and it's just part of him, rather than something that melodramatically defines him.

(Not that I mind the 'interesting' characters either. Except Jack, who is a fantastic advertisement against buying the armour upgrade.)

Edit - Yeah, "two dimensional" - that's what irks me. Just because a character doesn't focus their entire existence around 'deep' issues doesn't make them shallow. And if you go too far, you get someone like Jack who is so 'deep' and messed up that she just comes across as a writer trying far too hard. If you look at real people - the least two dimensional characters in existence - they aren't eternally wracked with drama and haunted by their pasts - they have their history, but they don't dedicate their lives to it.

'Issues' alone =/= depth.

 

[Cooperblack]

He's a calm rational guy and one of the only ME characters without farther issues.

 

[Zeraiya]

Woah Woah Woah

Just becuase I'm not keen on aliens doesn't mean I'm shallow.

I wasn't implying that you, specifically, are shallow. That is why I used the word 'a lot' and not all Obviously you have people who like Kaiden for exactly who he is. For whatever reasons you have. I'm not implying that if you like Kaiden you're shallow; but rather that a lot of his fangirls *happen* to be shallow. No offense was intended.

And yes, Garrus is basically Batman. But I can understand how a lot of people would be turned off by the fact that he is a complete alien - or Thane, for thet matter - but I just like the character too much .... and I seriously want to know how.... erm... 'that' works. Espescially after what Mordin said.

 

[StormShaun]

Because he got nuked...aha, I kid, I kid, that was only in my game, I didnt like him very much and it seemed a better idea to make him stay with his bomb.

Also I liked Ashley and in the second game I liked Miranda when Ashley said she didnt like me anymore, and at the end of the game she apologised, crap did I just cheat on her and shes returning for the next game...

My shep is screwed

 

[Dean Greer]

I actually played through all the Mass Effects celibate because my male character couldn't romance Kaidan. I was obviously overjoyed when I he started propositioning me in Mass Effect 3


oh Kaidan.....why are you so damn cute?!?

 

[DustyDrB]

Kaiden is popular because he's not Ashley.

Ashley is popular because she's not Kaiden.

This comment is not reductionist at all.
Edit: And this thread has been necro'd.

 

[Fleetfiend]

I didn't mind him... and really grew to like him in ME3, but I'm still not exactly a fan. In fact, I was upset that the only male romance options for femshep in the third game were him, and Garrus, and Garrus is only a romance option if you hooked up with him in the second game which, regrettably, I messed up on. It kind of upsets me that there are twice as many lesbian love interests for femshep as there are otherwise, but I suppose that's a different argument.

 

[Catfood220]

Just wondering, I never played Mass Effect 1 due to being a PS3 owner, I kinda flipped a coin when it came to choosing who to leave on the planet in the interactive comic that came with the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2. Ashley ended up staying on the planet.

Fast forward to Mass Effect 3 and obviously Kaiden returns and he does nothing but fire accusations at me in the first part of the game and whinge at me for the later parts of the game.

I have just one question, should I have left him on the planet or is Ashley just as annoying?

 

[Theron Julius]

I killed Kaiden in the first game. The man was pretty much Carth with force powers. Some days I regret that decision. Sometimes I wish I had left Ash on Virmire. It was a tough call.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

I didn't really like either Ashly or Kaiden. When it came to killing them I just flipped a coin. Ashly won. I know that both characters can be really intersting when you dig deeper but when it came to those two I never really felt like it. Tali compelled me more to dig deeper, Liara was the same. Wrex was the killer merc and I always wondered if there was anything more that makes him tick so he grew on me. Garrus in the first game I was meh about and my first playthrough on ME2 he intreseted me a bit more. My second playthrough I wanted to know more and I really ended up liking him.

Miranda the first time I met her was a *****. On my second playthrough I dug deeper and discovered a girl who just needed someone to love her. Same thing with Jack. Jacob was ok. I don't I just liked him a bit more than Ashly and Kaiden but not by much. Because I liked Tali in the first game I liked her in the second and I liked her development. Samara was just kind of meh but I thought she had some intrest behind her. Thane I was meh about. He never intrested me.

 

[Erttheking]

Probably because he's the only character without a truckload of emotional baggage.

 

[Dendio]

Ashley all the way. I mourn Alenko's death on virmire!

 

[TonkaBix]

This is gonna sound kinda noobish, but I don't know who Carth is, nor do I frankly care. I wouldn't count myself as a ME fangirl, but I truly liked Kaidan.

His character was kind hearted and warm, and he was trying hard to deal with his issues in a rational manner. They clearly put a lot of effort into making his character more human. Flawed, but essentially good.

I find the cliche "deep" characters to be far more "boring and whiny". Take Jack for example, classic revenge character arc, culminating in blowing up the facility she was housed in. Or Thane, deadly assassin trying to repent when he finds out he is dying. These characters are cliche to the extreme. You know exactly where they are going and you may want to tag along because it may be cool to watch, but at the end of the day you haven't gained anything.

With Kaidan, however, it feels (at least to me), as real a character as you can get in a game. He is just another person trying to live his life the best way he knew how.

On a side note, I did the romance with Liara as well in another save file, and in ME2 I romanced Garrus, but at no point did I feel any emotional attachment to them. And that's what it is all about, that is what Bioware was trying to accomplish, emotional attachment. If it was only about the ability to screw aliens and other humans, you would not need to put so much effort throughout the games to get those relationships.

 

[Tono Makt]

OK I've been reading Mass Effect Fan Fiction(oh god what have I got myself into), and there tend to be A LOT of Kaiden ones out there. I am also aware of how popular he is among fangirls. And I don't understand why. Why is this character so popular? Please someone explain why he's so popular! Is it the head bump? Is it the fact he's voiced by the same person who did Carth in KOTOR? I'm not going to waste my time explaining why I hate him and I don't want people out there to post why they do. I just want to know why people like him.

I can't speak for anyone but my wife in this matter, so this is Mrs. Makt's reasoning why she is a fan (not a fangirl, or a fangrrl, or god(dess) help us all, a Shepalenko Shipper) of Kaiden.

My wife has no bisexual interest at all, so Liara was not an option for her when she played the FemShep. That left Kaiden as the only love interest, and so she took it. My wife is also a very loyal and monogamous person (and has a great deal of patience, or else she wouldn't be Mrs. Makt!), and so when the option in ME2 was not there for a romance with Kaiden, she was annoyed. It was a silly little thing (something we shared; for me it was Liara, and when Liara wasn't a romance option in ME2, I was annoyed) but she felt as if she was cheating on Kaiden. (which is why she went for a fling with Thane, since Thane was Alien, Male, and Dying.) In ME3, she's hoping that Kaiden is going to be her FemShep's love interest again.

So summation: It isn't Kaiden per se that is popular with Mrs. Makt, it's being loyal and monogamous to her first love interest in Mass Effect. It's part of how she see's her character of FemShep. (incidentally, I see my own Shep and FemShep's the same way - loyal to a fault.)

*toodles off to read the rest of the thread, to see just how weird Mr. and Mrs. Makt are*

 

[soren7550]

As a bit of a Kaidan fangirl, I hope I can shed some light on why some people really love him (keep in mind, I never played KotOR, so I can't draw any parallels between him and Carth, other than the fact they have the same voice actor [Raphael Sbarge]).

He's the Original Romance Option - He's the only option for FemSheps that aren't interested in Liara. So that railroads them into getting to know him, and some will start getting attached due to this, which in part due to...

Dat Voice - Mmmm... dat voice. Sbarge does such a good job, and he's just pleasant to listen to.

He's Good Looking - Yeah, 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholder' but that's one reason that I've heard why people like him. It's come up a lot. Many seem to really like his hair bump (admittedly, I'm one of them [http://soren7550.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4e4z16]), which is a part of his charm.

He Doesn't Hate Aliens - Yeah, you can make him more xenophobic, but otherwise, he has no problem with aliens, even though you'd think he would (with the whole Vyrnis thing).

He's Level Headed - Can't really go into that more since that's all there is to it really. He can control himself, and is often calm under pressure.

He's A Nice Dude - I've kind of already said this, but he's just a nice dude.

I could probably go on some more, but I think I've made myself seem crazy enough. I'll just end this by saying his romance scenes play out very nice and sweet (esp.in ME3 [in my really trying to be unbiased opinion, his romance was done the best in ME3]), which is another reason why people love him.

 

[soren7550]

I have just one question, should I have left him on the planet or is Ashley just as annoying?

No matter who you let survive, they're distrustful of you since you've worked with Cerberus (play it right, they won't be distrustful of you anymore).

 

[CJMacM]

He's the only guy you can romance in Mass Effect 1 so it kinda makes sense. I romanced him in my first playthrough but I always found him to be not very interesting.

And I also went through a period of Mass Effect fan fiction but I found it to be mostly Garrus (I don't even remember Kaidan being in any of them), so I guess it just depends on what stories you read.

 

[RJ 17]

Surely I can't be the first person to say this out of 6 pages of comments, but I really never liked Kaiden. He reminded me of Carth Onasa from KotOR too much (gee, I wonder why ) and to be honest: I never liked Carth that much either.

I think it's the fact that I have a stigma against "starting characters", that is: the general-issued characters from party-based RPGs that you get at the very beginning of the game. The exception for this was in ME 2 only on Insanity mode. Miranda having both Overload and Warp is just too damn useful to pass up. Other than that I always go for the characters you get later in the game.

As such, Kaiden is my least-used character, the only character in the ME universe that I have not romanced (well him and James, but James not only falls under the "starting character stigma" but he's also one of the douchiest characters I've ever seen...seriously, looks like he enlisted with The Alliance after serving in the COG forces with Marcus Fenix as a CO), and really I just don't find him that great of a character. Yeah yeah, he's supposed to be your rock, your anchor of stability and the paragon perspective on things. I dunno, just never found him all too likeable.

Not like Legion who you only get to use for like, 3 frickin' missions. ::grumblegrumble::

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

People like him because they hated Ashley so much. I actually liked Ashley because of how boring Kaiden was. He was just Carth Onasi with migraines to me.

 

[ZehMadScientist]

Kaidan always seemes kind of douchy to me. He lacked backbone. I always preferred Wrex and Garrus covering my back instead of him.

That said, he's still alive in my game. I couldn't stand Ashley so the decision on Virmire was quickly made. And I have to say, the temptation of shooting him when he was protecting Udina almost got the better of me, but then I thought to myself: "No matter how douchy he may be, he's still your damn crewmember." All's well ends well I guess?

But still, his job on the Normandy in my playthroughs was taking shifts with Vega for making coffee for the rest of the crew, because aside from Mars and the Palaven Moon, neither of them set a foot outside the Normandy. Because the other aliens are all so much more interesting than a boring old human.

Why couldn't Kaidan have Kepral syndrome instead of Thane?