Garrus Vakarian

Garrus Vakarian is one of the two tritagonists (alongside Tali'Zorah nar Rayya) of the original Mass Effect trilogy, as well as its remaster, the Legendary Edition.
He is a former Citadel Security Services officer and one of Commander Shepard's closest allies during the fight against the Reapers. He is one of only two characters to be available as a full-time squad member in all three games, the other being Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. He becomes a potential love interest starting in Mass Effect 2; otherwise, he cements himself as Commander Shepard's closest friend and confidant.
He is voiced by Brandon Keener.
==History==
===Mass Effect===
Garrus is first encountered as a C-Sec officer that Shepard can ask in terms of hunting the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, later joining him after saving Dr. Chloe Michel from thugs. With Garrus' help, Shepard is able to convince the Council that Saren is guilty and must be brought down. He joins Shepard in the Alliance ship SSV Normandy and assisted him in many battles until Saren is taken down.
===Mass Effect 2===
After Shepard dies in a Collector attack that destroys the Normandy, Garrus returns to C-Sec and becomes more disillusioned with its regulations in taking down criminals. He quits his position and relocates to Omega, where he becomes known as the vigilante 'Archangel'. He gathers a similar-minded group of vigilantes to exact justice towards many criminals, but he is later betrayed by his fellow turian teammate named Lantar Sidonis, leading to his men dying in an ambush.
Garrus is cornered alone, fighting for his life in an abandoned building when all mercenary groups at Omega unite just to kill him. Thankfully, Shepard turns out to be alive and comes to Garrus' rescue. Shortly after the fight, Garrus learns that Shepard was brought back to life by the Illusive Man, the mysterious leader of Cerberus, and Garrus happens to be in the dossiers of soldiers Shepard needs to assist in defeating the Collectors. Even if Garrus doesn't trust Cerberus, he decides to trust Shepard and once again assist him/her.
Eventually, Garrus catches wind of where Sidonis is, and his heart is filled with vengeance, asking Shepard to assist him hunt and kill Sidonis. Depending on Shepard's actions, Garrus may go through with his vengeance, or not take it at all, finally realizing that his revenge will be empty, with Sidonis already being punished with his self-inflicted guilt due to the betrayal.
Around this time, if Shepard is female, then Garrus may start striking a romance with Shepard. 
===Mass Effect 3===
After the Collectors are defeated, Shepard is put under six-month house arrest on Earth for destroying Alpha Relay in batarian space in order to stall the Reaper invasion temporarily. Garrus rejoins the turian military, acting as their advisor on what the Reapers are and their capabilities. Shepard meets Garrus in the turian homeworld of Palaven and he joins forces with the Commander again; this time against the Reapers.
If a female Shepard did not romance Garrus, near the end of the war against the Reapers, it is shown that he has struck up a relationship with Quarian engineer Tali'Zorah vas Normandy (provided that a male Shepard did not romance her).
== Personality ==
Garrus is consistently portrayed as strong-willed, sarcastic, courteous, calm and reassuring. Although Ashley was initially suspicious of him (despite the fact he was a C-Sec officer), he tends to get along well with the rest of the crew, enjoying the chance to get off the Citadel and see how things are done outside C-Sec. Regardless of whether or not Shepard convinced him to be more by-the-book, Garrus quits C-Sec during the two years Shepard spends being rebuilt by Cerberus, having decided to take the law into his own hands, though now he prefers to avoid hurting innocents if he can help it. Garrus also appears to enjoy fighting, almost to the same level of a krogan, which was brought out in particular during his days as a vigilante on Omega. He even has favorite places to fight through, of which include gardens, electronic shops, antique stores (but only if they're classy) and the CIC of a warship. Hospitals, however, are not among these.
Although he's mostly a kind person, Garrus can also be innocently insensitive at times, such as when he said he was surprised by Wrex not being a savage brute and ridiculing Tali about her race unleashing the geth upon the galaxy. When Tali counters that the turians are no better for unleashing the genophage upon the krogan, he claims that they were in the right for doing that. He gets better in later games, however, and by the third game, apologizes to Tali for ever saying those things to her, despite it being three years ago and her saying it didn't matter anymore, since losing Palaven put things in perspective.
Despite being a turian, Garrus had no problem with hunting down Saren; in fact, he stated that this was the reason he chose to hunt him, as he considered Saren to be not only a threat, but a disgrace to their species. Garrus is also shown to be bitter at times, especially when it comes to being reminded of his failures. He blamed himself for the death of his squad by the hands of Sidonis and viewed bringing him to justice as his own personal task, saying no-one else knew or cared about what he had done and the thought of him getting away with his crimes disgusted him.
While he's by no means naive, Garrus generally prefers to see the universe in black and white, even admitting he doesn't know what to do with gray. It's because of this that it apparently never once occurred to him that while Sidonis betrayed him, which in turn cost the lives of all of their twelve-man team except the two of them, he was ridden with guilt over it to the point that he was haunted by the faces of his former teammates, in addition to being insomniac and borderline suicidal. All in all, Garrus tends to be driven solely by his emotions, a fault he's well-aware of and even admits if he's convinced to spare Sidonis.
In general, Garrus tends to be very honest about his faults, to borderline self-deprecation levels. An example of this is when he states that he doesn't consider himself a very good turian; turians are taught to value discipline and self-responsibility and their government is based on hierarchical meritocracy. As such, they are expected to always follow orders, regardless of how they may personally feel about them. Garrus, however, is nothing like that, as evident by his decision to quit C-Sec and take up life as a vigilante on Omega. He simply doesn't see the point in staying quiet and polite, especially if the galaxy is at stake. Despite his honesty, Garrus tends to be a very reserved person; Tali even claims the reason he uses a sniper rifle is because he prefers to keep everything at a distance.
== Gallery ==
Garrus Vakarian.png|Garrus in Mass Effect 1
Garrus Vakarian 2.png
Garrus Vakarian 3.JPG
Garrus Vakarian- Sniper.jpg
Garrus talks to a woman.jpg
Garrus without his armour.png
Garrus Vakarian- Citadel.gif|"I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is my new favourite spot on the Citadel."
Garrus and Shepard.jpg
Garrus and Shepard dance.jpg
Tali and Garrus.jpg
Tali and Garrus romance.jpg|Tali and Garrus hooking up
==Trivia==
*Along with Ashley Williams, Garrus is one of the "poster" characters for Mass Effect and appears on most of the promotional art and demo footage.
*Early promotional screenshots for the first Mass Effect show Garrus would originally be able to wear heavy turian armor; however, this was scrapped later during development. As of Mass Effect 2, heavy turian armor is his default outfit.
*Mass Effect writer, Patrick Weekes, pegs Garrus Vakarian's age at 2-4 years younger than Shepard.
*Garrus' trademark visor is explained to be a custom targeting visor based on the turian version of the Kuwashii Visor. It holds great personal significance to him, as he is never seen without it, even during his romance subplot. He also has the names of his former Omega team members carved into the frame, removing Sidonis' after his betrayal.
*He was not originally romancable in the first game, as the developers were unsure if players would be able to relate to aliens like him and Tali, but positive fan feedback for resulted in him becoming one for female Shepard.
*Shepard and Garrus' relationship is, to a degree, one of mentor and protégé, respectively, as Garrus usually seeks out Shepard's advice and opinions regarding missions and always follows Shepard's example.
pl:Garrus Vakarian
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