I’m not sure why I liked Kelly Chambers so much. There’s definitely more characters in Mass Effect 2. She was just cool is all. They seemed so good together, her and my Shepherd, two straight-talking women on a ship full of neverending melodrama, quipping back and forth along the bridge. But I was trapped in a loveless relationship with the odiously boring Kaidan Alenko. So Kelly remained elusive: the steadfast second in command, a constant source of warmth, good sense and pragmatic kindness.
Anyway, she melted. In fact, most of my crew died in that final mission, but Kelly was the first, melting down into flesh chowder in a giant frosted glass tube. Afterwards I read that the only way to save everyone was to max out your relationship stats, upgrade your ship to the nth degree, and hightail it over to the suicide mission the you can. Reader, that’s exactly what I did. I went back to the start and put another 30 hours into that game, telling myself I was getting value for money. But in my heart of hearts I knew it was all for Kelly.
I’ve been thinking about Kelly recently, and also about Solaire of Astora, the ‘Praise the Sun’ guy from Dark Souls. Saving Solaire is one of the most unintuitive, confusing, goddam side quests in the whole series. Look up the wiki if you don’t believe me. But people do it. Why? Why go that far for someone who doesn’t exist?