- ROBERTO jh
- |
- Fabled Heroic Member
Posted by: Three00Jews
@ hotshot revan II
Sci-fi and fantasy are incredibly similar, and Halo has NOTHING on Tolkien.
Halo's got a decent story, but it's not as deep as it should be.
Don't get me wrong, I -blam!- love Halo, but there are better sci-fi universes out there. Star Wars has infinitely more depth than Halo. Marathon and Halo are only connected in that they were developed by the same company, so Halo has 10 years on it. Star Wars has 30. That's 20 more years of time to add and expand to the Universe.
Also, the stuff Halo does with this 3 factions stuff which you seem to just gobble up isn't ONLY in Halo. Mass Effect has done it as well. Various TV series like Star Trek/Gate do it.
Halo isn't a unique, super deep story. It's a great one with potential to expand, but it isn't the best gosh durn story ever.
Also, you're CLEARLY a fanboy who really doesn't read other's posts or really think about them.
And another thing. When you use commas,you put a space in between the commas. Also, if you use the letter i it should be capitalized,trust me man,but go ahead,i'm listening...
If you're talking thematically here, yeah Tolkein's got some serious -blam!- going on there. Until the ending when he stepped on his own themes (which Peter Jackson thankfully rectified).
But Halo's deeper then you give it credit for. Just about half of it is a sci-fi interpretation of biblical events and has been seen as a Christain allegory several times. There are entire pages dedicated to exploring and interpreting these allegorical themes.
But Halo can be said to analyze human nature and asks imposing questions on morality, death, cultural, faith, ethics and (now anyways) fate and destiny. It criticizes human nature but shows humanity eventually overcoming its flaws to face down an impossible enemy.
The Great Journey can be interpreted as the ultimate step in cultural, biological, moral and spiritual evolution. The Covenant represent those who would take the faiths of billions, twist it, mutate it, and use this ultimate power to their own ends. And for as hard as they try, these immature types would never (and never do) achieve their goals.
Humanity itself in Halo are the young, yet determined types. They are blissgully ignorant of the dark ways of the universe, yet are the only ones with the maturity to save it. They do not actively seek the Great Journey, despite the powers given to those who achieve it. And despite their fledgling existance in space they and only one other recognize the dangers of infinite power.
Humanity is portrayed as the race that overcomes their weaknesses. This is directly alluded too in Origins II. Humanity can achieve what the Forerunners did and more, given time.
The Human Covenant war itself can be seen as a metaphor for that
See if you can connect these negative traits with a Covenant race.
Cowardice, Hatred, Submissiveness, deceptiveness, Selfishnes, and the odd traits, brotherhood/loyalty.
Grunts, Brutes, Drones, Prophets, Jackals, and Hunters.
All of them except the Drones and Hunters should be obviously connected. But Drones are given such a trait because look at their nature: they are completely devoid of individuality and shamelessly throw away their lives for a cause, much like how the distopian world of 1984 portrayed humanity. I remember a short story in Evolutions portraying a Drone actually having its legs broken only so as to draw out the Spartans.
Self mutilation is a must in Drone society, and are completely submissive to their rulers
The last trait applies to the Hunters and the Elites. Of all the races of the Covenant, only the Elites and Hunters saw the truth of the Covenant. The Grunts who suceeded did so only out of fear, not true comradere.
But the Elites most of all saw the H/C war for what it was, in the end (as the Return shows us) it was wrong, and the Covenant's lies would have everyone die for the twisted dreams of a few powerful old men in chairs. Only the Hunters and Elites saw this, with the Hunters joining as two brothers forged in battle might.
But as some Hunters broke away, others stayed. They stayed possibly in hopes that the clear superior force, the Covenant, would continue to support them with the slipspace lanes and supplies they needed.
They forgot the brotherhood forged with the Elites and turned to monetary gain, becoming no better then the Jackals they once stepped on.
All in all, Humanity, over the course of the war, proved itself worthy of upholding the ultimate responsibility: The Mantle, though they know it not. This is symbolized in the defeating of the cowardice, hatred, submissiveness, deceptiveness, and selfishness that had driven humanity to destroy itself for millenia.
It can be called an optimistic outlook on humanity's future, that though we toil in war now, we can overcome our most bitter instincts.
And the embodyment of humanity, John 117, is now on his way to unlocking even more secrets and possibly becoming something even greater.
In this regard, I often look at John as being similar to David Poole from 2001: mankind incarnate, lost in space, but ultimately becoming more then a man, in the end.