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Epic tales tend to start and end with murder.
Like the story of Heracles, who was forced to deal with venomous snakes at the ripe age of 8 months. This is a very typical story for a heroic ethos: the only way to show your strength is to defeat someone stronger than you. You know, David and Goliath. Theseus and Minotaur. Kaidan Alenko and everything everywhere all at once. Going against the rookie is considered a disgrace, and there isn’t much prowess in going against your equal either: Achilles needs to defeat the entire army, otherwise it doesn’t really count. So, baby Heracles deals with snakes, David defeats Goliath with a stone, and Kaidan Alenko kills a Turian veteran with his mind. And then he hides somewhere for four years before joining the military. I’d like to think he just worked in a diner. Canadian beef and all.
*
If I dare to call Kaidan Alenko a true Greek-style hero in front of a Mass Effect fan, there’s going to be a lot of laughter but not much discussion. His whole character arc is widely considered very boring, very static, and stale as the bread of yesteryear. By the look of it, he’s not changing much; you can make him slightly more xenophobic in Mass Effect 1, but otherwise, what you see is what you get. He’s not going through his own character journey on the screen, like Garrus, and not even, it seems, growing as a person that much, unlike Ashley, who got the whole coming to God by Mass Effect 3. So. I can understand if he’s not someone’s favorite Virmire Survivor.
But I’m going to argue (because, of course, I do) that his own character arc is as interesting as Ashley’s, but much more subtle and understated because it’s not really revolving around his personal growth. In roughly his own words, he’s a grown man; he can deal with himself, plus I invite you to consider the extensive psychological screening that’s expected from the military: the man is in therapy; he’s going to be fine. He’s not going to struggle with growing pains and social issues. Instead, his character journey revolves around roughly two things: the implications of power and the fragility of control.
Okay, and the gay shit. Because you can’t really be a proper Greek hero without the gay shit. Have you seen a list of Heracles’ gay lovers? Sheesh!
*
And listen, I would very much like to talk about power and control without mentioning our friend Hegel, but I can’t. Military stories in general tend to go uncomfortably Hegelian very quickly. I love Javik as much as the next person, but I was extremely baffled when he started to explain master race theory directly to my Jewish face. And although it sounds extreme coming from him, military societies in Mass Effect are Hegelian in nature, because this is just its perspective on hierarchy, I guess. So the Turian military, and as a result, the Turian education style, very much revolved around the master-slave dichotomy. I mean, thank God, nobody uses the actual terminology. But the hierarchy where one defines himself in relation to power and the other in relation to labor and subordination is quacks like a duck to me. Like, consider Garrus for a second. His willingness to disobey orders he deems unethical—something Paragon Shepard could praise Edi for—unequivocally makes him a bad Turian. And then there’s executor Pallin, who basically gives you the whole “the state is the actuality of the ethical idea” speech. We met more “bad Turians” than good ones, but make no mistake—the whole Turian society is still more Commander Vyrnnus than Garrus Vakarian. In relation to the Hegelian regime, Garrus and Kaidan are both postmodernist heroes: “Where the power is, there is resistance” (1). And if Garrus needs to deal with his internal crisis of basically being raised in a cult, Kaidan struggles with the implications of the resistance and, by extension, the power. Too strong for his own good. Time to go to the land of Canada geese and make some beef.
And although my imaginary Canadian diner is not exactly the Cave of Trophonius, this is just a Greek myth for you: Heracles, in the induced rampage, kills his family; Kaidan, driven by rage, kills Vyrnnus; they both seek solace and solitude somewhere where they, confronted by guilt, can regain control. Told ya, Kaidan Alenko is a Greek hero. Including gay shit. But more on that later.
*
So, Kaidan’s hero’s origin story is one of lost control. As any passionate man, after he deals with guilt and redemption, he swings in a different direction entirely: self-control to an extreme degree. The game actually tells it directly to your face: “You’re agonizing about doing the right thing, and you never let yourself lose control,” said Shepard of all people, because Kaidan’s arc is not exactly hidden—just extremely understated.
Vyrnnus for 17-year-old Kaidan Alenko is quite literally the State that subjects him to surveillance and violation, and he reacts as a postmodernist hero usually does: “Once you are liberated, you are forced to ask who you are” (2). It’s kind of ironic that after dealing with a Hegelian society he wasn’t born into—unlike Garrus, who also struggles with the implications of being subjected to a master-slave hierarchy—he ultimately comes to the same extreme control over himself, but an internal one instead of an external one. Garrus, on the other hand, “just doesn’t give a damn.” Although the ways they express it are polar opposites, for both of them, by Rollo May, “the opposite of courage is not cowardice; it is conformity” (3).
And I know Heracles is not exactly the postmodernist hero... But take it from Holden Caulfield: you’re never too young to resist some kind of power structure. And what’s more rebellious than defeating gods and monsters? Or Turians. Turians are fine too.
*
“Yeah, I’ll buy a new whip” (4), said the great modern philosopher Cari Fletcher, and that’s exactly what Kaidan did when he subjected himself to pretty much the same form of constant surveillance he was subjected to before. And this is the state we meet him in as a protagonist: calm, collected, buttoned-up, and ready to explode (again). His meeting with Shepard in Mass Effect 2 is understatedly ironic as hell, especially if he were a player’s romantic interest in a previous game, because... look, the man mourned his lover for two years. He drank, got himself a date, and got a therapy appointment. And then his crazy ex-girlfriend just showed up in the most nonchalant manner known to humankind and started to convince him to join the little terrorist group that she apparently managed to get herself for exactly two weeks she has been alive. We can roughly understand the situation from Shepard’s point of view, but for Alenko, it must be jarring. So... Imagine trying to hug your ex-classmate you pulled by the pigtails as a teenager only to get slapped in the face with her therapy bills. I think Shepard was a bit confused after that conversation.
In his letter afterwards, he mentioned struggling with survivor’s guilt: “I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on”, and I’d argue that this is the extension of his struggle for control: “In the aftermath of traumatic events, as survivors review and judge their own conduct, feelings of guilt and inferiority are practically universal; “guilt may be understood as an attempt to draw some useful lesson from disaster and to regain some sense of power and control” (5). Safe to say, it was extremely traumatic, and his whole buttoned-up personality started to crumble. And he knows full well what it’s like to lose control. Last time, it was also driven by love. But it ended with murder.
*
And yes, we’re talking with him briefly at the start of Mass Effect 3, but I’d argue there’s not much about his own personality to discuss, especially considering he shares most of his talking points with Ashley. The real talk starts only if you meet him at the hospital, and, let’s just say, it’s a very fitting place for someone who spent most of his time trying to hold himself in a tight grip. I remember myself in the hospital bed after the serious injury. The only thing there’s to do is reflect.
The hospital is a pretty liminal place, and these spaces are transformative in nature: “Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial” (6). This is also the Cave of Trophonius, where he confronts his demons, “trying to understand... and make it real.” These conversations are extremely important for his development, not only because of the romantic storyline and progression, but also because this is the place where he learns—or unlearns—trust. And, you know, trust is a pretty important thing for a certified control freak. Trust—for an absolutist—is seductive, and if you can get behavioral psychology and the LDS church to agree on something, it’s going to be willpower’s dependence on the power of temptation. You know. The temptations of Christ. The desire to lose control. All that slightly BDSM-y stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that they engaged in that stuff behind the scenes; I’m only mentioning it because BDSM provides a structural framework for consensual power exchange, and my God, this man needs some of that. So. If you’re a Paragon player, you know what happens next. Kaidan’s going to kill somebody. Because Shepard told him to do so.
The hero has fallen.
*
Epic tales tend to start and end with murder.
Kaidan Alenko kills twice—if you don’t count him being in a combat unit in general, of course—and both times it happens because he loses control. And, obviously, he shares the third game scene with Ashley, but while it symbolizes finally being vulnerable instead of standoffish for her, for Kaiden it’s truly pivotal.
Because in the past on “Gagarin” he lost himself and snapped; and years later on the Citadel he willingly chose to let it go and exchange power with someone he could trust.
And that’s a development if you ask me.
*
And listen, I warned you, I’m going to talk about gay shit.
This whole thing was mostly written from the perspective of Paragon female Shepard, who chose to romance Kaidan even by the skin of her teeth in Mass Effect 2, but the thing is, there’s an alternative way because, by the third game, Kaidan suddenly realized he swings both ways. “Maybe what I’ve never found—what I want—is something deeper with someone that I already care about. That’s what I want. What do you want?”.
And non-diegetically, I can talk about representation. I can talk about signs of the times because, in 2007, public outrage was triggered by Liara of all characters, and the social climate by the third game changed drastically. But in-universe talk-wise... Being in the closet is also an exercise of self-restriction because it requires a level of control and surveillance one is inflicting on oneself, down to mannerisms, behaviors, and even the gaze. It’s no wonder queer media, like “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” or even “A Single Man”, so often revolve around the act of looking: under surveillance, no matter self- or state-inflicted, the gaze that disempowers (Big Brother is watching you) can become an act of rebellion. Consider this passage from Orwell’s 1984:
“But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew—yes, he knew!—that O’Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. ’I am with you,’ O’Brien seemed to be saying to him. ’I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don’t worry, I am on your side!”
Sometimes to lose control is just to look.
So, diegetically, it’s very fitting for the man who held himself in a grip for half of his life to be able to recognize his feelings for another man only after being able to let go.
And listen, Heracles fucked an entire football team worth of guys.
Just a Greek hero thing.