Mass Effect's Kai Leng Is Not As Bad As We Think He Is

thegamer.com:

Everyone has their personal favourite Mass Effect character. Some are swayed by romance, and opt for whoever their headcanon Shepard partner is. Others like the warriors the game offers up, the powerful Grunt, the deadly Garrus, the silent assassin Thane. There’s the comic relief that comes through Mordin, the ability to see themselves in the likes of Jack. Some people just like Shepard. For all of our differences though, we’re all agreed on one thing: Kai Leng is the worst. Except I’m not sure he is.

Don’t get me wrong, Kai Leng sucks. This isn’t some contrarian take written to rile readers up. The Beatles suck, pizza is bad, that game you love is terrible and this shitty game nobody likes is actually the greatest game of all time and saying so makes me very smart. Kai Leng is a bad character, but he has so much potential (and is so successful in his quest to be hated) that I struggle to think of him as badly as so many of the Mass Effect community do.

Related: Mass Effect 5 Needs To Be More Like Andromeda

A recap, for those of you who have suppressed Kai Leng from your memory. He’s one of The Illusive Man’s hired killers, and seemingly one of his most important henchmen, although we only meet him in the third game, which already means the game offers him an inflated importance. In a trilogy stuffed with characters we care about deeply, having a flat villain whose only motivation is to do whatever bad things The Illusive Man tells him to be a central antagonist is a huge misfire. He kills Thane (who technically dies because of Kepral's Syndrome, but it is clearly worsened by being stabbed) and wounds Miranda, as well as dominating several story beats, but feels as if he has no business being there. He’s also an Asian