Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how Samara never pursued a romantic relationship with Commander Shepard because, as an Asari Justicar, her Code forbade her from doing so. While there are several hints scattered throughout the Mass Effect series that imply this simply isn’t the case, Mass Effect 2 wri𝔉ter Brian Kindegran recently clarified that she’s just not reallyꦇ that interested in sleeping with you.
This isn’t necessarily because Samara ▨doesn’t like you - she does! But there’s a lot more g🤪oing on with her than some people appear to realize.
“The first thing about Samara in terms of romance is that on paper there were just none planned for her,” Kindregan tells me. “[BioWare] had identified certain characters that they thought were romanceable and some that weren’t. I was down with the idea of 𒉰her not being a romanceable character, because as I wrote her, I’m sort of like, ‘OK, this is a character who has been through a lot of trauma, and, you know, could be y🐓our grandmother’.” This isn’t referring to some sort of tired trope about Samara being an old and broken person, by the way - she’s completely capable. It’s just that she’s almost 1,000 years old, and when you meet her you’re, well, 31 (or 29, given that you were dead for two years).
Also, given that , Samara is old enouꦅgh to be your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great… you g♛et the picture.
“But unlike Jack, who’s [also] been through a lo๊t of trauma... Jack has raw gaping wounds that leave her open to the idea of some kind of emotional connection,” Kindregan says. “Samara has battled through all of this trauma and found a place where she’s centred, where she knows who she is.”
The comparison to Jack makes a lot of sense. Jack, a young human woman, is still in the process of learning to liv൲e with her trauma. Samara, however, has been living with hers for hundreds of years, abiding by a Code that has given her a newfound sense of purpose. As a result, letting someone in isꦍn’t just difficult - it’s alien (not sorry for the pun).
“After Mass Effect 2 came out, I saw a lot of people who thought [Samara] couldn’t have a romance because of her Code,” Kindregan says. “But she actually says she can engage in r♎omance. I think the thing is, with her new sense of being centred and knowing who s𝔍he is, that even if she has feelings for you, she knows that the Code will always have to come first, which means she can’t really commit herself to you as an equal partner.
“It’s kind of like if you were going to start dating someone and they said. ‘Just so you know, I’m in love with this other person, and I’m cool dating you, but any time they call me I’m going to get up and walk away from you.’ It’s not the best terms for a relationship. She knew that. The other thing tha😼t fed into that is that Samara is a character like Jack, but almost entirely unlike Jack in that she’s about self-control. I think Jack seeks to control her environment for her own safety, [while] Samara seeks to control herself so that it was her own survival mechanism. When her daughters were diagnosed as Ardat-Yakshi and Morinth went rogue, that was a defining moment. It was like, either you crumble, you implode and become a black hole, or you exert an iron-willed self control and you become a problem solver. I think that’s the core of who Samara is.”
Kindregan explains that this is something he always consciously tried to inject i🐈nto Samara’s conversations - that she might be talking about one thing, but that under the surface, you should hopefully be able to sense that there’s more to it than that. She is making a choice to let you in to a point, but not all the way.
“The romance was the perfect way to illustrate that,” Kindregan says. “She has these feelings for𒁏🐬 you and she can’t deny them, but she can control them. And she will control them, because that's who she is.
“I specifically wanted to make sure the Code would allow it so you could understand that, ๊actually, it was her decision and self control that forbade it - not the Code.”
So, there you have it. Samara could have decided to pursue a relationship with you if she wanted to, but she's just not that into you. The Code comes first not because it forbids romanc🐎e, but because it will always be more important than it. Sad.