omegastation:

Someone commented on my Liara/Javik gifset to say they feel Javik is probably the biggest disappointment in Liara’s life.
And I had ideas for a meta post about them, because it seems to me like it’s a bit more complicated than that. I’ll argue that Liara is Liara’s biggest disappointment, and those feelings are temporary and won’t last because Liara will come to terms with some things. The same thing happens with Javik. It’s just their meeting that makes them both aware of things they don’t like about themselves.

First, I’m thinking about this note from Liara:

“Childish/Romanticize/Dazzled/Dedicate my life to studying”

I can only imagine what it’s like for her because that level of disappointment is so high. She expected someone completely different, instead she gets a soldier who:
1. has only known the Reapers so he has never seen what the protheans are like in a time of peace
2. is a soldier

I mention all this, especially the soldier part, because Javik himself is focused on that:

(The dialogue here is my own transcription)
JAVIK: The strong grow stronger by dominating the weak. It is for the greater good of all. Though I do not think your asari approves of my beliefs.
SHEPARD: Liara? I think she just had a different idea of what protheans were like.
JAVIK: We are all a product of our time. Had I been born in this cycle, perhaps I would be the noble scholar she wishes me to be.
SHEPARD: You think you’d like that? It’s a whole different line of work.
JAVIK: I wouldn’t know. Living a life of constant war, taking life in every battle…
SHEPARD: I see how it could be tough to see outside the box.
JAVIK: It is the only box I have known. It shapes me, as stone is shaped by the one who causes it. This stone has no choice in the form it would take. You and I, Commander… War is our sculptor. And we are prisoners to its design.

I find this conversation so enlightening, first because Javik is greatly aware of how he came to think like he does, but he also doesn’t know anything else than war, so he doesn’t know if he could enjoy being a scholar. He has no idea.

The words he chose are also significant: “No choice/Prisoners”
And the look on his face:

I honestly see regret, or at least this is the look of someone who knows it’s too late to change, too late to go back. This is what he keeps telling Shepard when he warns them about war. War changes you, and this is the person he has become. And this is the person Liara finds disappointing.
It’s a very vicious cycle, that both will eventually break. 

Because Liara realizes she did romanticize the Protheans, which is why she’s disappointed with herself. But once she understands Javik is not going to become the “scholar she wishes him to be”, maybe she’ll get the truth out of him, and they could both write a book that shows the good and bad parts of the prothean empire. 

If Javik doesn’t touch his shard, he tells Shepard at the end of ME3: “Since my birth, life’s only pursuit has been war. I look forward to seeing what peace looks like.”
and “Perhaps I will write a book with the asar- with Dr T’Soni. She suggest “Journeys with the Prothean.”
This is so important because:
-I will/With/Dr T’Soni: this is no longer Liara just writing about him on her own, and he respects her scientific abilities enough to call her by her title now.
-Journeys with the Prothean: how fitting is that title? Because they both went on a journey, Liara had to understand she had misjudged the protheans, she had to understand that as a scientist, she needed to do better. And Javik had to realize he’s “looking forward” to see “what peace looks like”, that there is more to life than just war.
Javik, in his goodbye, will thank Shepard “for letting the last voice of the Protheans speak.”
Last voice. It cannot be a romanticized version. It has to be a truthful, accurate one. 

So yeah. I think that initially, they were both incredibly disappointed, maybe a bit by each other, but mostly by themselves. And it’s only when they accepted the truth, and accepted to move on with a more accurate one, that they stopped being so disappointed (and bitter). Basically, they were forced by their meeting to examine their own feelings, and realize that something in their past was plain wrong. I love the character development there, made possible by their relationship.