Doing that gifset of Samara and Falere made me rewatch the entire end of the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery mission yesterday morning and I swear I felt myself getting a bit teary. I wanted to analyze it, to see why I liked it so much.
Nothing I say here will be groundbreaking, and of course, it’s just a matter of personal opinion. (also warning because I mention suicide/sacrifice a lot)
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When we start the mission, we have a context. We know Samara needed to take the vows of a Justicar to chase after her own daughter and that she finally killed her during her loyalty mission.
Samara describes Morinth as the “smartest and bravest” of her daughters. It always sounded weird to me. I didn’t know what she meant by “bravest,” since it’s It’s all made in comparison.
In the monastery, we have the scene where Rila shows she has the bomb’s denator. First we get Falere’s reaction. She shows surprise but doesn’t fully get what is about to happen:
Meanwhile, Samara has it all figured out and it doesn’t take her two seconds before she nods and leaves, accepting that Rila will die:
When Falere realizes what’s about to happen, Shepard has to drag her across the room while her mother is already leaving, her back turned. There is a strong contrast:
Rila says goodbye to her sister, and only her.
When the bomb explodes, Falere and Samara talk: Falere: Rila… there wasn’t even time to say goodbye! Samara:Few can break the Reapers’ hold. Rila’s will was extraordinary, as was her love for you.
Falere replies:
Samara stays silent:
I think this is the moment where Samara realizes that she has only one daughter left and that she might have to kill her:
She is not going to show her pain, but she will act quickly. Almost every decision Samara makes in the monastery happens in less than two seconds.
And when we finally get to the moment where Samara is going to take her own life, she starts saying “My daughters, you were all so-” when the Paragon button shows. I always click on it as fast as I can, but I love what she says if you don’t interrupt her: My daughters. You were all so much stronger than I believed.
I think Samara misjudged Rila and Falere, and it all started because of Morinth’s actions. We know Samara used to be like Morinth when she was younger (I say “used to” but I’m not sure I should use the past tense). Becoming a Justicar was the only way Samara could make sure she would finish her mission and kill her daughter. She forced herself to follow someone else’s code, a rigid and unforgivable one, to be able to do everything she does after Morinth escapes from Thessia. And Morinth is basically “fuck the code! fuck your rules! I’m going to do what I want”, which I think Samara admires because it appeals to her. I think that kind of admiration makes her see Morinth’s rebellion as something that is “brave” in itself (despite the circumstances), while Rila and Falere deciding to comply with the rules and go to the monastery is perhaps, to her, like they’re showing a lack of backbone.
It might be all subconscious? Point is, Samara didn’t realize that Rila and Falere aren’t following rules created by someone else, at least not in the way Samara sees it. That’s why the scene with Falere is so interesting: I don’t need a building to honor my own code. To me, that says two things: “I don’t need someone else to tell me what to do” and “I’m stronger, and a better person, when I follow what I believe.” It can’t be easy. Because the monastery might have been home, it will isolating them from the rest of the galaxy. In the end, Rila and Falere are as strong-willed and as brave as Morinth. Samara misjudged the situation and her final words seem to me like she’s acknowledging that mistake.
I also think Samara’s suicide attempt is hugely significant because we see her following her own code. I won’t say that she’s “inspired” by Rila because we’re talking about a suicide/sacrifice here, but she sees her suicide as something that could save Falere. And that’s not properly following the Justicar code. Sure, she goes on about why it’s logical, the only way, but I think no true Justicar would ever let an Ardat-Yakshi go free like that. But Samara is more than a Justicar in that moment, she’s a mother and her own person. She knows Rila made her own choice, and so will she, all to save Falere.
Basically: The entire mission was painful but it really leads to something interesting, with less false appearances and a bit more honesty between mother and daughters.
This entire mission makes my heart ache, and what you’ve written here is largely why.
Samara as a character is one of my favourites, but it really hurts to see how she treats her daughters, even if they are ardat-yakshi and all that that brings to the table. When that news broke to her, when Morinth took her life into her own hands and ran, Samara made the decision to hunt her down and kill her in order to stop Morinth from killing thousands more innocent people. I can’t argue with that. I’m not a mother, but I think I can understand that unconditional love does not have to mean letting your child fulfill her mass murdering spree. That said, how Samara treats her other daughters is what really gets me.
Even more than that, though, is how Falere treats her mother afterwards. This is a woman who she had one of the closest, strongest relationships to for forty or so years (we have a little insight into how close they all were in the Shadow Broker dlc dossiers – Samara holding on to her ‘best mum’ mug when she’s dropped most other worldly possessions). For forty years, and we know the asari are hugely communal, that they seem to be much more involved in each others lives than ‘we’ usually are.
And then to have that completely turn around – to be forced to leave her mother, and her mother accepting it because what else can she do? To lose a sister and then learn (most likely) that her own mother is hunting her around the galaxy in order to kill her – knowing that Samara would not even hesitate, if she or Rila did the same. To have the one person in the galaxy who is supposed to protect her and put her needs above her own, suddenly don this title and uniform and Code that will allow her to kill her own children if they ever decide that lifetime imprisonment for a condition that they were born with and cannot cure is bullshit, and then to watch this same woman not even say a goodbye – not an ‘I love you’, not an ‘I’m so proud of you’ – when her own daughter makes the decision to save all of their lives by detonating the bomb while she’s still inside the monastery, when the only person there who openly showed to give a shit about her was Falere, and what does Falere do to Samara after all of that?
She hugs her.
She understands, even after all of this pain that she and her sisters have been made to suffer through, that this condition might have been unwillingly given to her by her mother, but that Samara is hurting just as badly in all of this. To understand that even after all of that pain and offer her mother, who should be hugging her and soothing her hurt, compassion.
I think that’s what Samara truly underestimated in her daughters – in Falere, at the very least. Bravery, yes, but bravery comes easy in these kinds of situations, not that that makes it any less than it is. But when Samara nods to Rila, when all that she can do is nod to Rila, I think the reason that she doesn’t make such a huge deal out of it is (aside from self-preservation, at this point), because in that moment, at least, she knows that Rila is capable of that act of bravery. It doesn’t surprise her. She might have only been able to raise her for forty or so years, but she knows how brave her daughters are simply for taking on this commitment to life imprisonment when, I’m sure, being hunted down and killed quickly would often seem like the easier option.
When Falere hugs her, however? That is the real moment of surprise. That, I think, is the last thing that Samara was ever expecting – hoping – to be given. Maybe it’s not quite ‘I forgive you’, but a show of compassion, her own daughter (who she has unwillingly given this awful, awful life), is trying to comfort her. She is standing there in a uniform that will have her take her daughter’s life, or else her own, she is by all means the most dangerous person to Falere in that moment, and Falere comforts her because she understands that she’s hurting.
I know I’m hitting this entire point with a hammer, but I can’t help it. It amazes me. I have so much respect for Falere in this moment, more so than I already did (because if you found the timetable inside the monastery, if you read just a smidgen of what that life entails, you know it’s hell – and yet Falere’s surviving there, by ‘her own code’, no less). This is the one moment in all the games, aside from the Shiara scenes, that brings me to tears without fail.
The galaxy is literally falling to pieces around them, so many lives are being lost in these moments, and at this point I think it’s safe to say that Falere has lost pretty much everything. And she still gives to Samara – to the person who put her in this situation, however unintended. It breaks my heart. She’s such a tiny, tiny character, but this scene is one of the most powerful, and I have so much admiration for her. Truly one of the most underrated moments of the series.
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