13. Grunt

I love my reptilian son. Urdnot Grunt can sometimes feel like the “Wrex replacement,” as the first Krogan squadmate of the trilogy could die in the original Mass Effect and was thus banished from being a party member again until Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC. But despite them both being hulking tanks in battle, Grunt and Wrex are still demonstrably different characters with separate places in Krogan culture. Grunt is a tank-bred Krogan, which is a loaded position to be in when your people have a 1/1000 birth rate due to a manufactured sterility plague. Grunt’s whole deal is trying to find a place in a world that he was made to be part of, rather than something he was naturally able to integrate into.

There are Krogan who hope to deny him a place among their people, and others who advocate for him as he stumbles his way through understanding. He sometimes feels like a bull in a china shop, so having people who create the space for him to find himself is a heartwarming thing in a galaxy full of unfriendliness. By the time he makes a great sacrifice in Mass Effect 3, I was sobbing at the loss of my giant alien child, but then I was fist-bumping when he emerged from the wreckage covered and blood and looking for something to eat. His scene in Citadel is also one of the best ones in the game. Grunt rules.