- ROBERTO jh
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Posted by: Old Salty27
Haven't posted in a while. I've been trying to stay dark until Bungie releases it's new IP, but after reading Glasslands I had to say something. I understand that 343 is in control of Halo now and feels the need to spread their creative wings and go in different directions and make the series it's own; Cryptum's reversal of the whole Human/Forerunner relationship(still not a fan of), the number of Spartans and ONI's knowledge of Forerunner ruins from the early days of colonization. But after reading the first few chapters of Glasslands and the spoilers for the whole book in general I have to say I'm completely disappointed.
Characters we thought we knew are acting completely out of character; Halsey Mendez suddenly hating each other, Paronosky becoming a spiteful,borderline psychotic hell bent on taking out Halsey for her supposed betrayal, ONI trying to take out their one none human ally Thel in favor of supporting a bunch of religious nutts to make the Elites weaker.
First off, you're flat out wrong about the characters. For one, it was no where said anywhere that Mendez and Halsey didn't have some moral issues (which does not translate into hating each other, merely lashing out at the closest target they can find to express their regrets). Second, Parangosky's entire existence is based on revenge. The reason everyone fears her is literally because of her vengeful nature. Remember from Ghosts of Onyx: "to his knowledge, only one person had ever crossed her and lived." That one person was Halsey. Now she's getting her revenge. As for Thel, ONI is thinking the exact same thing as Jul: the Elites will not forget, and being beaten half to death for 30 years will create bad blood and severe xenophobia in humanity and Elites.
To make things even more unbelievable Paragnosky has Halsey stand trial publicly for her creation of the Spartans and then Halsey publicly outs her for the authorization of the Spartan-2 and 3 Project leading to everyone wanting to dismantle ONI. During all of this the remaining Spartans are given information on their identities and families, some decide to reunite with their long lost love ones. Having thought their children died long ago, these poor people find out their kids are very much alive, the children they thought they lost were clones and their real children were turned into super soldiers.............it doesn't go well. The book ends with Humanity heading towards civil war and Paragnosky planning on making Orion style Spartans.
Now I'm all for plot twists and new directions and breaking the mold...etc, but everything I just read is just plain dumb. All the back stabbing, outing of secret info, characters acting completely different from what we're used to, trying to kill their allies out of paranoia, of all the dumb things to do after surviving near extinction. I think I'm done with anything Halo that 343 releases. I've tried to give their stuff a chance, but so far they haven't held themselves to the same quality standards and consistency that Bungie has with Halo.
You're not accepting change, that's the problem. You can't accept character devolopment, and can't accept Bungie's gone. You can't accept ONI's role as a backstabber (which isn't change at all). You can't accept anything new. That is all I see here. I have not seen a single quality reason as to why people hate this book without citing a bogus accusation of mischaracterization and blind paranoia. The characters are devoloping as stated above, and of course the UNSC is paranoid. And I'm not calling you anything negative, but to think otherwise about the UNSC is borderline idiotic. And don't you think the paranoid would make irrational decisions? I see absolutely nothing wrong from what I've read so far.
You're also assuming you know the plots of books two and three.
It just seems to me that you're trying to find excuses to hate this book. I'm all for opinions, but at least when you tell me one, give me a good reason why you believe as you do, and before you think you have a good reason, step back and really look at what's going on.
Whatever gripes I had over Reach's story and canon breaks I think I understand why Bungie didn't put much effort into it. I get the feeling the folks at Bungie were aware of the changes being made to the lore they crafted over the course of decade and seeing that it wasn't their baby anymore felt no point adding anything significant, so instead they focused on making the game the the best it could be game play wise, graphically and Reach has been one of the funnest Halo games to date. Multiplayer and Firefight are unmatched, Reach is over a year old and Gears 3 and CoD Black Ops doesn't hold a flame to it in online gaming.
Lasty, this is a message for Bungie. If you guys ever by some miracle get Halo back, please forget anything 343 has done with it and tell the story you would have wanted to had you never lost control of the series in the first place. Eagerly awaiting your new series.
Fun fact: Bungie gave 343i the story that was to be told by way of the Story Bible. This was going to happen even if Bungie was still in control.
Old Salty27
And your plea to Bungie just reinforces what I was saying earlier. I'm not one to usually straight call people out, but you have every indication of being a Bungie fanboy. The needlessly hating 343i, ignoring facts, and hoping beyond hope Bungie returns whilst also believing that Bungie is devoid of any wrong doing at all.
I'm not trying deliberately to be harsh, but I was legitimately annoyed from having heard the exact same bs over and over again.