The Grasshoppers Ate Joliet

Grunt (paragon): "My job is to hurt things. Direction, control - that's your job, battlemaster. You're why I'm a soldier, not dead or crazed like an animal."

Grunt (renegade): "You make it possible, Shepard. You're my battlemaster - you give me purpose. That's what makes krogan feared soldiers and not animals."

This probably explains some of the public perception of krogan.

Your average krogan doesn't feel the need to reign themselves in. They'll idly fantasize about all the awful things they want to do without shame.

It's just fantasy. Their battlemaster calls the shots. They won't go through on it without permission, and in the meantime it's fun.

But your average member of another species is horrified. Why do ALL krogan talk like this? What's WRONG with them?

(This also plays a role in why it feels like krogan so long to become interested in more than battle. They're not encouraged to do so until they take up leadership roles.)

You've got a cultural and environmental need to fight at a moment's notice from the dangers of Tuchanka (with Krogan themselves being a major part of it). If you can't fight, you die. How do you keep that from spiraling out into unhelpful violence (being "crazed animals")? A strict hierarchy: the biggest, baddest, most dangerous, most experienced Krogan around you calls the shots, and everyone else falls in line. If you think you're bigger/badder/know better, you challenge them for the position. If you don't, you grumble and fantasize and fight only when they say to.

So what happens when you get a non-Krogan Boss and they back down from your challenges? YOU are the Boss now, only no one else seems to understand or respect that. If anything they obey the old Boss even more and you even less every time you prove you're the Boss now! What gives?

What happens when you look to the Boss for guidance on how much violence to use and when, and they say "violence is bad" instead of a useful/practical answer? You are even more unsure about what is acceptable, what your purpose in the group is. You have to do the Boss's job for them and then get in trouble for not knowing the limits the Boss wouldn't tell you. That's a Boss that's bad at being a Boss! How is this your fault?

Especially since Krogan are generally employed in jobs that involve some level of violence. If the Boss says "throw this guy out" and Bouncer asks how hard to throw the guy out (Show how strong you are so they'll obey? Hurt them so they can't disobey? Disrespect them by only lightly tossing them?) and their boss says "don't do violence", well that's just mixed messages. Do they throw the guy out or not? If the guy comes back, do they stop them or not? "Use your words" They did, the guy didn't listen (which is why the Bouncer got called over to begin with), now what?

Man, I agree and I don't care if it's cringe to say so. My mom has been saying that she remembers the bicentennial when she was a kid, and people were hyped up. She said sidewalks and poles were painted with the colors of the flag. Now? You only see mentions of the 250th anniversary in advertisements trying to cash in on it, really. But among people, nobody’s heart is in it. It could've been great. This person is right and this was part of what was so gutting about 2024; it was the best of American ideals vs the worst of American society...and the worst won. It's still hard to sit with.

So they train them from an early age that they should always be distracting themselves with something as to not be in the way or annoying the adults.

That's really it. You'd probably have gotten similar results 30 years ago if you studied kids who are left to read books by themselves alone in their room for multiple hours a day vs kids whose parents read with them, or at least in the same room and talk to them about what they're reading. Because the former are most definitely also being neglected in other ways.

China doesn't have birthright citizenship and ethnic minorities make up approximately 8.89% of the population. They don't even do refugees!