Re: Mass Effect
I read Greek mythology in my childhood, and so to me Cerberus (Kerberos) is, and will always be, the giant three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld and prevents the spirits of the dead from leaving (i.e. he's there to keep the dead in, not the living out). Notably captured and brought back to Tyrins by Heracles as the last of the twelve tasks assigned to him by the cowardly prince Eurystheus. The monster dog so terrified Eurystheus that he hid, gibbering, in a brass pot for three days, until Heracles returned the creature to Hades.
Cerberus was also put to sleep by the singing of Orpheus, who was given permission by Persephone, daughter of Demeter and wife of Hades, to lead his dead lover Eurydice out of the Underworld - as long as he didn't look back to see if she was following. He did, and thus lost her forever. (A happier alternative ending has it that Orpheus died soon after of a broken heart, and he and Eurydice were then re-united in eternal bliss in the Elysian Fields.)
Anything else is just a rip off. It's as abrasive (to me) as someone hearing a Beethoven sonata and going, "Oh, that's the tune from the [insert brand name here] commercial!" Gaaack!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
