http://haruspis.tumblr.com/post/134899277253/halo-5-a-compendium-of-lies
A good buddy and fellow major fan of the Halo lore managed to compile a large compilation of quotes from the folks at 343 over the years that built up to Halo 5 and its story. I knew there was a massive disconnect between Hunt the Truth’s narrative and Halo 5 and Halo: Escalation ended up being essentially useless as a bridge for Halo 4 and Halo 5 with literally nothing from Spartan Ops mattering in Halo 5, but it is actually so much worse. Just feast your eyes, he explains it all better than I can. Some of the more non-constructive statements will be edited a bit.
> > “We are not Game of Thrones.” [x]
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> Tell it to Jul 'Mdama
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> > And what of Master Chief? Ross said Master Chief is still the star of the show, and the star of Halo 5, despite Locke’s prominence. [x]
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> > Blue Team has 3 missions, Osiris has 12
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> (I don’t actually mind this at all, Osiris was one of the best parts of the game - but this is clearly indicative of the inherent fear 343 has in saying “the Master Chief is not the centre of the Halo universe, get used to it fanboys”. This inability to actually be honest about the game’s content looks bad however you choose to look at it - they’re either lying, or they’re not confident enough in pitching this narrative.)
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> > "He is human, he’s always been human, but at the end of Halo 4 he really is reflecting on who he is and why he exists.”
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> Doesn’t happen even once in Halo 5.
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> > “It’s more about what he’s searching for versus what the UNSC is asking him to do.”
> > “He’s questioning many things he once firmly believed were true. He’s lost his best friend, he’s questioning his past and his purpose, he’s question who he is fighting for. For us this is a really interesting point. For the first time he’s questioning everything he’s done for the UNSC in the past.” [x]
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> Except it… isn’t? The UNSC is in pursuit of the exact same thing John is - Cortana. The only thing the UNSC asks John to do is return to Infinity because Osiris has been tasked with finding her.
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> When does he ever even question who he’s fighting for or what the UNSC has asked of him in the past? He is set against Cortana from the start, there’s never a moment where that is called into doubt - in his own mind, and in the minds of every other character. Warden asks if John will join Cortana in conquering the galaxy or help his own kind’s resistance effort, he says "Cortana already knows the answer”.
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> Also:
> > “lost his best friend”
> > Never has to deal with that loss because he’s in-pursuit of her literally in the second mission of the game.
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> > "We decided to do a little bit more detail on the Forerunners,” Ross explained. “We wanted to bring a new enemy class into Halo, so we spent a lot more time mapping out exactly what that culture. It does play a big role in Halo 5 and beyond.
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> Completely shafts the Ur-Didact, the character you spent three whole years building up, in place of Cortana and the Warden Eternal - who we learn absolutely nothing about outside of him having a single (Composed) mind and some million bodies, and he thinks Cortana deserves the Mantle for some reason.
> And the Domain is consistently referred to as Forerunner when it’s not.
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> > In one cinematic Eurogamer saw at E3, The Arbiter says: "How well do you know your friend, human? And what would you call me if you learned the truth of what I have done?”
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> This line ended up meaning absolutely nothing.
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> > “Halo 5 is a lot about his future, but as you’ll see through all of the linear pieces we’ve woven through, his past is key to his future.”
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> Not really? “The seeds of our future are sown in his past”, we are told by Thel, yet that never plays into Halo 5 at all.
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> > "The prologue and epilogue [of the MCC] will bound that and tie you up and leave you on the doorstep of Halo 5.”
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> Except for the inherent contradictions in these scenes with Halo 5.
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> In the MCC, Locke does not know why John has gone AWOL and is seeking him to find out why. In Halo 5, Locke knows exactly why John goes AWOL from the start and has just been sent after him because he’s in-pursuit of the same mission Locke was given. This was obviously done because 343 didn’t want to reveal that Cortana is back, yet Halo 5 presents us with no ambiguity about that from the second mission. Which brings us to…
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> > 343 Industries has stated that Blue Team probably has more lines of dialogue in Halo 5 than they have in all the books, comics, and videos released to date, so it will give fans a better look into the personas of some of Halo’s oldest warriors. [x]
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> (OP here, the creator of the list was not happy here. Personally, I’d really like to see just how much dialogue Blue Team has in Halo 5. Seems a lot of it hinges on it filling dead space rather than coming from the narrative itself. Maybe with that the claim is true, but I’m not sure.)
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> In fact:
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> > “I don’t think any of [Chief’s] Blue Team have particularly strong personalities,” says O’Connor when I ask about the challenge of maintaining emotional connection while jumping players between perspectives. [x]
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> Sigh…
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> > “You can look at the ending of Halo 4 – and where Master Chief is,” she continues, “and obviously we had to know where we were going to take Halo 5 and Halo 6 with that.” [x]
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> Bonnie, mate, I don’t know if you did. I really don’t. I look at the ending of Halo 4 - and where the Master Chief is - and I think about all those fascinating things that were set up.
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> Chief’s evolution being accelerated, unlocking the “many gifts” that Librarian seeded in humanity? Nothing.
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> Cortana’s death? All consequences of that wiped away, essentially retconned in a forum post from Catalog in 2014.
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> The Janus Key/Absolute Record arc? Came to absolutely nothing after 2 years of build-up.
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> Ur-Didact as the Reclaimer Saga’s central antagonist figure who would be “central to post-Halo 4 fiction” [x]? Utterly shafted.
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> > “We got asked a lot about what happened to Cortana - what’s her fate? Well, her fate is, obviously, very clear at the end of Halo 4. The story is really about what effect did Cortana’s sacrifice have on the Chief, and what effect does her loss have on him? It’s more about the long-lasting impact she’s had on him, and the whole universe, and that’s kind of a metaphor for the effect she’s had on fans now that she’s gone as well.”
> > “There’s more to the Chief’s story, I think, that people are going to find in Halo 5 that deals with how he copes with loss, and how he deals with is memories, and what those memories help him contextualise.”[x]
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> (OP again, just going to say what the list’s creator said in a less inflmatory manner. What this quote says? Not true.)
Make what you will out of the collection, but, needless to say, it just provides further disappointment with Halo 5’s final results for the story. And to see just how thoroughly 343 made it out to be something it isn’t further cements that disappointment. But hey, maybe I and others just lack the subtly and nuance of these words. Regardless, I’d simply ask 343 just be more honest about their story next time around. Is that too much to ask?
UPDATE: Improved https://haruspis.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/halo-5-a-compendium-of-lies/
