I would like to share a very interesting comment from a youtuber called VeryCabbage, who commented on the official Xbox channel ‘‘A Hero Falls’’ video.
Here’s the comment :
‘‘I’m taking this to be ONI propaganda, but something really heartbreaking about this trailer is that shot of the kid’s action figure at 0:38: it’s not a Master Chief figure. It’s a SPARTAN-IV Recruit figure, poorly painted to look like him. Kid went out of his way to make it look like that. Even though the UNSC markets recruitment for their SPARTAN-IV program through these toys and other propaganda, this kid is keeping true to his real hero, and ONI just tosses the Chief around for their purposes as if he actually was just a toy…’’
End quote.
Also, I would like to share another excellent comment from reddit user GSpess :
''I’d venture to say that this might even be the whole point. That this kid took this toy and painted it himself (or someone else did it for him) to look like the Chief.
You have to keep in mind that ONI has been wanting the Spartan IVs to be the face of the military for a while now. They’ve considered the Spartan IIs broken, defunct and outdated military hardware. They are actively trying toreplace and kill off the Master Chief.
But the people don’t want that. The UNSC (or at least the Infinity) does not want that. Anyone with half a brain does not want that. Lasky does not want that. They don’t want ONI saying what’s best for them, they want what’s really best for them. That’s the Spartan II’s and as the face of the Spartan IIs, that’s the Master Chief.
Just take for instance what Buck says in the Campaign Trailer released in June. “Every other Spartan, every other Soldier, when they hear about this, they’re going to hate us, you know that right?”, the respect that Chief commands is outrageous, and that SCARES the living -Yoink- out of ONI, because Chief would have ARMIES, literally ARMIES rallied behind him. In the case Chief goes rogue, know who goes with him? The Infinity and her commanding crew. That’s a scary -Yoinking!- prospect. The last thing ONI wants is to offer more propaganda for the Chief. So they control the production of these toys, of these items. “Out of respect” they restrict the use of the Spartan II image for sale. That way THEIR soldiers, the Spartan IV’s the ones they believe they can control are the ones that people are now putting their force and interest behind.
So this kid couldn’t readily find a Chief toy, so what did he do? Improvise. He made a Spartan IV toy his own Chief. Or perhaps bought a bootleg one.
Think of how major companies have marketing control and when they retcon the changes to characters. They change the product line entirely. The old one becomes defunct, hard to find, hard to get. They become collectors items. They wouldn’t be something a kid is carrying around with him on a train, they’d be placed in a shelf or in somebody’s personal museum. This kid is a believer. He’s holding on faith and is a metaphor for the rest of humankind. No matter how far and deep they try to bury the Chief (think rubble), he will always be their savior.
That or the Art Department really let me down on this one.’’
End quote.
To which I would like to add :
It’s so emotional :_( Maybe Spartan IV figurines are cheaper and more mass produced…Because ONI wants everybody to forget about the Spartan IIs, who are walking controversy time bombs (we know their story, but in the Halo universe, ONI discredited the information Benjamin Giraud obtained from FERO, even though it was TRUE). This kid clings to his hero, even though he couldn’t find an authentic Chief figurine (or couldn’t buy it because it might be more expensive than the mass produced Spartan IV figurines).
I imagined a conversation between the kid and his mother :
‘‘Why did you paint your figurine green? You didn’t like it red?’’
‘‘Because I wanted the Master Chief. He’s the greatest hero!’’
343 is great at making me feel all emotional about this :_(
Do you have any thoughts on all of this?