Antagonist
- a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary.
- the adversary of the hero or protagonist of a drama or other literary work
With halo 5 still on the far horizon and not much information that we can gleam at the moment about possible worlds we’ll visit, the identity of mysterious Spartans and so on, I want to shift gears and discuss something near and dear to my appreciation of the Halo story, the role of Dr. Catherine Halsey. The past few days have had me reflect on what her future role in the story will be and how 343 Industries plans to present her as a character.
My evaluation began with the release of a new video from HaloFollower. Please refrain from discussing him directly or what you think of his videos quality, it is irrelevant. His newest video that I am aware of at the time of writing deals with why Halsey may be an antagonist in Halo 5 and in it he outlines reasons from an online article regarding that topic. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was a quote from a Tweet produced by a former writer (though I don’t know if he really is a former writer or not, but his profile on Twitter leads me to believe so) at 343 Industries who helped write Spartan Ops. he was asked what Halsey’s development for a Spartan Ops Seasons 2 would’ve been like and if she would be a villain. The response was,
> "Depending on your POV, Halsey was either a villain or a misguided genius. Nothing planned for S2 would have changed that.
I’m just a fan and my word on certain subjects is only equal to that of other fans and less than those said by anyone affiliated with 343 Industries. However, I fell to simply have those two choices is narrow-minded. Such a notion obviously excludes those who don’t think Halsey is a villain or misguided, but a hero. In fact I challenged this notion with a Tweet of my own saying that I felt she was in the right, as well as I could with 130 characters. The response I got?
> There are a small faction of fans like you who believe that Halsey is the hero of Halo.
I can make many observations and conclusions based on that statement, and I’ve made many in the subsequent day I got it. As of now, I don’t feel comfortable making any, but to me this shows a disregard for more than a small faction of the Halo community and certainly felt like a kick in the teeth when I read it. To label someone with an opinion as belonging to a small group has been used to historically belittle or reduce the worth of said opinion. They are small, hence they don’t matter. Honestly, I believe anyone hear would know that the point of view regarding Halsey is certainly more complex than her being straight up evil or misguided. There are many different opinions and ideas people have of Halsey all along the good vs evil spectrum. Halo’s story has never quite been a black and white affair when you dig deep into it.
After all, on the surface the Covenant is just a collection of religious aliens who hate humans because they think we are filth. Such a one-dimensional force of evil is easy to kill. Yet when you consider that the Covenant as an organization grew due to conquest of alien races and that many of the members of the Covenant have varying members of faith, those on the bottom rungs having less of it and those in power having more, you find a much more complex system to contend with other than “evil alien empire that hates humans in a sci-fi setting #1357864”. Halsey is the same way. Since the beginning fans have debated the ethics and morality of the Spartan-II Program, the character and personality of Halsey as a person and so on. Some consider her a hero, some a villain, others lay somewhere in between. You can’t take a complex character like Halsey and expect a good story to come out of trying to see her from one narrow perspective. If I recall, another writer for Spartan Ops DID indeed say that she is a monster. That perspective completely misses the point of Halo’s structure as a whole and who Halsey is. Halo is a messy universe with characters that are so many shades of gray in their morality and even some of the most vile never reach the level of mustache-twirling villains who are evil simply for the sake of evil.
So that is why I have a proposal. No more trying to influence how fans should feel about a character and no more reducing the worth of opinions fans have by saying they belong to a small group. A good writer shouldn’t have to tell their audience that a character is good or bad, what an audience should think should come from the story and their experience.
That is not to say Halsey cannot be an antagonist for Halo 5, however. As I’ve seen in literature and other media, an antagonist isn’t always a classical villain in the sense most of us think. An antagonist could represent the struggle the protagonist faces. Certainly Halsey is in a position that pits her against Chief. They both have the goal of humanities preservation, but different approaches. Hers may lay with using the Covenant to her own ends, Chief’s may be in eliminating Halsey. Yet it shouldn’t simply be a story of, “Chief good, Halsey bad”. That doesn’t do either character justice. These two have a deep relationship that spans decades, Halsey knows more about Chief than he himself probably does and Halsey stands as a mother figure for the Spartans. Chief may even see Halsey as a way to bring back Cortana. Will he be able to pull the trigger? Thus far Chief hasn’t had to really make morally complex choices, he hasn’t had to grapple with right or wrong. Duty would dictate that since Halsey is with the “bad” guys, she should be killed in order to keep humanity safe from her divulging secrets or proactively helping the enemy. Yet Halsey isn’t just some zealot seeking to exterminate humanity or an ancient warrior who has risen up to do the same, she is someone Chief knows and respects.
I only point out the things I’ve been told or have seen been said by those at 343 Industries to point out the problems I see with the future direction of the Halo story. It is a fundamental mistake to try and wedge in such a black and white view of morality into Halo. Halsey could redefine what it means to be an antagonist in Halo. The Halo Universe has changed since Halo 3 ended and it is a lot less clear on who is on the right side and who is not. It would be a shame for 343i to make Halsey as one-dimensional as the Didact was in Halo 4 and not like the multi-faced individual he was in Silentium.
That is all.
