Posted by: S_034
Posted by: ajw34307
Look at Thel. He's the unseen antagonist of Halo CE, our actions as the player in the first game are reflected immediately through his point of view from the get-go in Halo 2. We then follow him through a story of redemption and honour (being 'reborn' as the Arbiter), betrayal (the conflict with Sesa 'Refumee and the betrayal of the Prophets), loss (the murder of the High Council) and then he allies with humanity in a joint cause. We're with him this whole journey where we see the character evolve from the trypical presentation of a Sangheili to someone we grow attached to and call an ally. You can apply the same logic to Noble team. At no point in Halo 2 or 3 is Thel 'Vadam actually fleshed out as a character. Things happen to and around him, but at no point do we actually discover a real, internal change has occurred. We don't find out why he fights. We don't learn how all of this affects him emotionally. Is he conflicted about fighting with Humans? About fighting AGAINST them before that? What's his mind when he's fighting the Heretics? Apart from the whole "angry about betrayal and murder" thing, we don't even know how he feels about the Brutes. At all. Is he pissed they're in the Covenant? Does he recognize the importance of their sheer brute (no pun intended) force in the present military contest? We NEVER find out.
The same can be said of almost any character in the WHOLE freaking series. Other than the obvious, immediate motivating factors for their actions, only two characters EVER expound upon their motivations and machinations for behaving as they behave: The Gravemind and Mendicant Bias. They are the ONLY two characters who, by your own estimation, are REAL. Everyone else is a fulfillment of an archetype or a situational necessity, at best. Other than the whole "Aliens gon' kill my peeps!" thing, what's Chief's motivation? Does he even know his motivation? Johnson? Cortana? The Master Chief isn't a character, he's pure, tropey hero. Cortana's a witty sidekick in your ear constantly. For God's sake, even when she's been put through the ringer by the Gravemind we don't find out jack. What's in her head now that a hundred thousand year old monster's taken a crack at it? Do you know? I sure as hell don't. None of these characters are fleshed out, they've just had a lot of significant things happen to them. We don't know whether Thel even gives two -blam!-s about his public shaming ceremony, we just know that it seems tragic given the atmosphere. The Halo saga, every damn inch of it, is event driven, not character driven.
Name a single thing in the entire series that happened because John (THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE SERIES!) made a meaningful, personal decision. Even when he rescues Cortana it's a matter of convenience and necessity. It's not like he commandeered a ship and went halfway across the galaxy to pluck her from the Gravemind's clutches. He needs her, and not (insofar as we're informed) in any meaningful or personal way. She's a tool, a talking wrench, and she knows too much for the Gravemind to be allowed to have her. If the Chief had been ordered not to get her, to let her be destroyed while he went off and did another important round of "blow -blam!- up," and he DEFIED orders to save her? THAT would be character development. It would show that he's not a pure, robotic soldier, but that he's somehow developed a real attachment to this pseudo-personality.
By your same logic, we could say that Reach is a tragedy on par with Shakespeare. The best of the best, slowly falling to an inexorable end they didn't see coming, though the audience knew from the outset that they were all doomed. And most of them are certainly a LITTLE more fleshed out than John is. Jorge still reveres Halsey despite what was done to him as a child, and loves Reach enough to sacrifice his extremely valuable life for it. Jun is distant and defiant, a quirk unexpected in a multi-billion dollar super-soldier. Kat is a passive-aggressive -blam!- who sticks her nose where it doesn't belong; again, a weird quirk in a super-soldier. And Emile is just straight up bat-blam!- crazy. More than a weird quirk; if he hadn't died on Reach, Emile would probably have ended up being bad news bears for somebody, and smart money's on that somebody being a human. The only way Noble team is a cookie-cutter group of characters is if you -blam!- up cookies so often that you think weird cookies are normal and normal cookies are a gift from God. They're not the most fleshed out characters in the series, to be sure, and they're certainly not the most fleshed out characters in the Universe. By literary standards, they're positively sterile. But they kick the ever-loving hell out of Mr. One-liner McGreenshirt and his partner Sir Splitface Shinyhat in terms of character development.
Do you see, AJW? You're confusing opinion with fact. As this fine gentleman has so finely pointed out, you can come with a perfectly legit argument for either point of view. But you are so overcome with immaturity and arrogance that you will not budge. You're so goddamn stubborn no matter how finely we argue our points and reasons for liking Reach and having a different opinion than you, you are so biased and so elitist that you refuse to see past the fact that you are so overcome and engraved in your close-minded way of thinking that you probably will not even read these posts and continue to argue your same point (that you so arrogantly claim claim we're "wrong" and that your "opinion" is right and that the only reason someone would disagree with you is if they were "retarded". I mean, how much more -blam!- egotistical and self centered can one person be?)
People are going to have separate opinions than you, AJW. And they are going to have a -blam!- argument, best you start -blam!- dealing with it.