Samara is a Jedi Justicar, which is a wandering order of Asarian monks who fight evil and adhere to some loosely defined code, while having one of the worst names ever. Samara herself has this overwrought manner of speaking, not unlike Storm from the X-Men cartoon. Yes, we all thought Storm was awesome when we were 12, but once you reach the age of 16 or so, you should be able to recognize that she sounds like an idiot.
We encounter our recruitable Notatruck while she is hunting a criminal outside of Asari space. This is apparently a big deal, because in Asari space, Notatrucks are allowed to do whatever they want, but outside of it, they're a political nightmare waiting to happen. That's a neat concept, although like with so many things in ME2, it quickly turns baffling.
Since Samara is a monk, Bioare took this great opportunity to have a non-sexualized female character.
A local Asari security officer is ordered to imprison Samara to prevent an intergalactic incident, but apparently Samara's Notatruck code means that she will kill everyone standing in her way until she reaches her target. Which raises the question: Why are these people so highly regarded if they murder innocents to get their job done? Don't worry. That question never gets answered.
So Shepard helps her find information on the criminal and gets her out of jail without murdering any innocents. Samara agrees to join Shepard's fight against the Collectors, but then the game treats us to this puzzling exchange:
Shepard: “I'm worried about having a Notatruck on my ship. My orders have to come before your code.”
Samara: “It's cool. I'll swear another oath to you that supersedes my Notatruck oath.”
…What? I don't think I have to explain just how stupid that is. So I won't. Moving on...
Now, Samara's loyalty mission is where things get really out of hand. She reveals that she's been chasing the same criminal that she took the oath to stop 400 years ago. This, again, throws the Notatrucks into question, as her motivations and actions are nothing but self-serving. She's not out to stop evil. She's out to stop one particular person, and she is for some reason given political immunity (even up to murdering innocents) to do it.
Better yet, Samara's quarry is her daughter, who has a rare genetic condition called Villainization of Female Sexuality that causes her to kill anyone she has sex with. Samara explains that those afflicted with Vofs are given two choices – they can be forced into a life of solitude, or they can be wanted criminals, hunted until they day they die. ...For the way that they were born.
Also, there are only three people in the universe afflicted with Vofs, and all of them are Samara's daughters. This raises a lot of (unanswered) questions, like:
- If Vofs is a genetic condition, does Samara have it? If so, why did she have three daughters, and why isn't she a hermit/criminal on the run?
- If the condition is so absurdly rare, why do the Asari have a solution for it built into their culture?
- Isn't it kind of fucked up to take a monastic oath to go murder your own daughter?
- If all Samara's daughter did was try to live a free life, why are we justified in hunting her down?
Well, that last one gets answered. It's because she's evil and likes to kill people with sex. ...Great. I was this close to being interested in the situation.
In the end, you can choose to kill Samara and recruit her daughter, Morinth, in her place (by the way, Bioware: Having the names 'Mordin' and 'Morinth' in the same story is a no-no). But as a cop-out for any potentially interesting situations, Morinth dresses up like her mother and pretends to be her for the rest of the game – which is to say, the decision has no effect on the game whatsoever.
I still killed Samara – not because I liked Morinth, but because I hated her mother.
There is a moment in the ending where Samara/Morinth creates a biotic shield to protect the party. Under a lot of strain, Samara recites lines in her overwrought fashion. “Too... powerful. Can't... sustain...”
Having Morinth in the party has no bearing on this scene, either. Morinth is so good an imitating her mother that even in situations of extreme duress, she can save the developers from having to write/voice act new lines. That's dedication.
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