An explanation of the symbolism behind Memories Of Places I've never Been: Mordin Solus
Memories Of Places I've never Been: Mordin Solus, is an account of a pre-death experience – experienced by Mordin Solus. It is invoked with emblematic imagery and ambiguous phrases to exemplify the mysteriousness, although simple stimuli, behind such cognitive experiences, our wishes, and our motives considering life and death. The account is also infused with various vague references to the wider Mass Effect series, literature that has partly inspired the series, and myth with no direct correlation, but some form of relatable content nonetheless.
The story is open to interpretation, and so if one wishes to keep their personal interpretation of the story, they are of course free to do so. This is the author's (my) original meaning behind the story but you are quite able to ignore it. You may even not wish to read it if one wants to stay in the dark and enjoy their own meaning.
In any manner, here it is..
Firstly, the very title of the story is a partially altered reference to an entity related to the Mass Effect series.
"Memories Of Places I've Never Been" is a reference to a song by the Canadian band Faunts, from their album "High Expectations/Low results". The title of this album is also a reflection on Mordin's whole experience. Some sort of optimistic quasi-theological experience (high expectations) is, in reality, met with lower than expected results. Nevertheless, these "lower results" are more honest, truthful, and reflective of reality. To accept these over false and happier terms shows a stronger emotional and logical capacity.
Faunts also performed the ending song "M4 Pt 2" at the end of Mass Effect 1, and "Das Malefitz" at the end of Mass Effect 3.
The tilte of the Faunts song Memories Of Places We've never Bee,n also links into the story. Mordin's final memories of a place he has not physically been, instead it is more of a vivid, albeit deceiving dream.
Mordin's first deliberation into the nature of his experience is more obvious and less ambiguous. It suggests the propensity for theological thought and dreams, despite being false, will often supersede that of the truer and more impersonal logic.
But his interactions a little later with items in this world are vaguer references to things.
Mordin's examination of the seashell, and the presence of many seashells in his imaginary paradise, mirrors Mordin's wishes (or what he though we wanted) in ME3. His "High Expectations" again, lead to "Low Results".
The solitary nature of Mordin's dream experience foreshadows his boredom with the place, and his misplaced faith in a possible heavenly afterlife.
Mordin is accepting of death, as many may also voice, but he (and this "many") still has wishes of heaven, therefore he, and many, are not fully accepting of death, and Mordin, at this point, does not believe in dying fully.
Many wish to live, but human/conscious sapient life also involves the recognition of existential position and the depressing, divorcing angsts to coincide with it. Our lives are full of innumerable escapisms to avoid and sidestep a face-to-face or long term look at our existential position and awareness. Since we live in excessive escapism, we do not believe in living fully, and therefore dying fully.
"Mordin took off his clothing and decided to swim in the clear sea".
Naked swimming is a common picture in Greek myth. It is sometimes connected with homo-erotic meanings, but of course this is not the point of it, and there is no other person to do such things with anyway. Nude swimming is also in a few works by my favourite author and philosopher Albert Camus. In The Plague, the main protagonists swim in the sea together, irrelevantly naked, as some sort of mental and quasi-physical escape. The swimming instead is a sort-of introduction to the purpose of the next image of symbolism; "tiny purple fishes" is a lyric from the 1967 song "Tales of Brave Ulysses" (Odysseus)from 60's super-group Cream. The song is a partial retelling of the events in Homer's Odyssey. The associating of Mordin's story, in an odd and distant way to Greek myth, is meant to signify the mythological/fraudulent nature of Mordin's pre-death experience, and the removed-although-linking form of symbolism emulates the distance Mordin is away, at this time, from realising (or wanting to realise) that this world is false, and just a hallucination.
The subsequent paragraph is a simpler article speaking of Mordin's later opinions in the game/s.
Mordin's falling asleep and waking in what was once considered paradise, and now seen as a "terrible dream-world", is a partial reference to themes in the work of H. P. Lovecraft. Lovecraftian horror is also a major influence behind the illusive and partly-incomprehensible motives of the Reapers. The Reapers have motives, considerations of meaning, and purposes supposedly beyond common sapient comprehension.
"The idea of a terrifying and incomprehensible alien intelligence waiting in the depths of space is a feature of Lovecraftian horror. This similarity is emphasized by one of the recordings from the Cerberus survey team aboard the derelict Reaper in Mass Effect 2, which spoke of how "even dead gods can dream." This is a clear homage to Cthulhu, as "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
To voice the common cliché, things are not as they seem for Mordin. Quite obviously. Utopia is in contradiction with reality and paradise does not exist (or at least it is very unlikely to exist, most likely being illustrations of wishes and hallucinations with no proof to say they are factual, palpable phenomenon).
Mordin then sees his mistake of wanting this utopian paradise, and wakes from his dream to return to the real world.
Awaking in the rubble of Tuchunka shows the bitter and vituperative face of tangible and true existence.
Mordin then sees a figure in the distance, this could be seen as Death, coming to take him to the real place of death/nothingness, but also, more simply, as an STG operative or someone investigating the commotion at the Shroud, and finding Mordin's lifeless body – ascertaining his death.
Maybe this provided some insight into my story.
J.C.G (CamusianN7)