First and foremost, let me say that I am NOT trying to start a major forum war. If you are easily offended, I would advise you to quit reading because this won’t be the thread for you.
I’ve played every Halo game released to date except Wars and I’ve read a few of the stories over the years. One theme that constantly appears is the dangers of the Covenant’s blind faith concerning their incorrect and insane religion. We see time and again the results of the “faith” the Covenant have for their religion and prophets. This allows the Covenant to justify not only the genocide of humanity but the enslavement and subjugation of the various Covenant member species. It is clear that deep down many of the Covenant members are not 100% comfortable with this religion and its commandments, but the system is so entrenched that questioning it is basically suicide. Even when their religion is proven to be inarguably wrong (in the case of humanity) the Prophets chose to start a war and commit genocide, ultimately dooming their Covenant, rather than admit the truth. When others find out the truth on their own, the Prophets chose to kill their own servants and allies, rather than let them live and show everyone whats really going on.
The reason I ask this question is because I want to know if anyone else interprets this the same way I do. To me, the message behind Halo is that religion is dangerous, especially when its conducted like the Covenant was. In my opinion most of the Covenant’s actions seem to be based off the worst excesses and abuses of Christianity and Islam. That said, I’m interested in what other members take on this will be.
As a side note, I’m not all that knowledgeable on the newer Forerunner lore, but from what I do know it would also be fair to consider The Mantle a religion. Again, that doesn’t seem to have worked out so well.
I’m pretty sure discussing things like this isn’t allowed on these forums.
I see the theme there, but ultimately it’s only a small part of it IMO. Especially in the post war era. Although there is quite a lot of “true believers” in Jul’s Covenant he is in the end a guy who just wants to kill humanity for things they did to him. Making this new Covenant completely based on revenge and I think this extends farther than just to Jul.
Within the original Covenant’s genocidal campaign had a lot more pragmatic reasons for going on than just the religion. Truth told his lies not just to further his political ambitions, but also to safeguard his species.
Yes, they kept the poor grunts for learning stuff, even though they could, so they could have a worker force.
No, there’s no promotion of any ideology. reporting this as its against the rules to talk about religion here. Your just asking for someone to disrespect another and start a flame war.
The dangers of blind faith is just one of the many facets of Halo’s story. Blind faith. Not religion as a whole. And I recommend you not call out any religions by name. This thread will almost certainly be locked.
Honestly, I’m just giving my perspective as I see it. If some of you are so sensitive you have to go and report this, then I advise you read the first 2 sentences of this post and -Yoink- off outta my thread.
If you disagree with me thats fine and I’d like to hear it. But if you’re just gonna comment about how you’re gonna run and tattle like we’re in elementary school, then stop wasting my time.
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> The dangers of blind faith is just one of the many facets of Halo’s story. Blind faith. Not religion as a whole. And I recommend you not call out any religions by name. This thread will almost certainly be locked.
I emphasized the particular way the Covenant practiced their religion was quite bad. But really I don’t see a single positive mention of religion in the Halo series. But I haven’t come close to reading all the stories so feel free to prove me wrong.
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> > 2533274876456769;6:
> > The dangers of blind faith is just one of the many facets of Halo’s story. Blind faith. Not religion as a whole. And I recommend you not call out any religions by name. This thread will almost certainly be locked.
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> I emphasized the particular way the Covenant practiced their religion was quite bad. But really I don’t see a single positive mention of religion in the Halo series. But I haven’t come close to reading all the stories so feel free to prove me wrong.
That’s because outside of the Covenant, religion is hardly mentioned in Halo. All I can remember is a scene in Contact Harvest where Johnson recalls his church-going days as a boy.
I think it has more to do with misunderstanding.
The covenant think of the forerunners as gods.
the forruner thought of the precursors as God’s.
ONI think of themselves as gods.
OP, people are just trying to stop the inevitable flame war. This thread will catch fire, we are just trying to prevent that before it happens.
I have thought this too, but I think that religion, or blind faith more accurately, is what the Covenant are based on. They do not call out any present day religions specifically or talk much about human religion, other then knowing Johnson went to church, Halsey is an atheist, ect. I do not feel like the series is against religion, so much as it uses blind faith as a tool to make the Covenant species, like Sangheili, more interesting characters.
Obviously the real message is that the proletariat (Grunts etc) is being kept down by the capitalist class (Prophets) who encourage the lower classes to fight amongst themselves (Elites and Brutes) so they can maintain their grip on power.
TLDR you can twist it to suit whatever ideological goal you like, but Halo is about being a supersoldier and mowing down aliens. There’s no deep hidden message.
This thread is going to be locked. Seriously, the mods locked my thread discussing how the Covenant view homosexuality despite the fact that no arguing had occurred yet. I don’t think they’re going to react well to proposition that Halo could be anti-religious.Anyway, I’ve never thought Halo was anti-religious or anti-theistic. You only have to look how much religion and myth have inspired the Halo universe. The series’ namesake is based on a religious icon. If there’s any overall message that Halo sends, I think it’s always to question your beliefs and morals, along with the veracity of your authority figures. We’ve seen illustrations of this message through the Covenant and their genocidal campaign against humans to preserve their belief in the Great Journey, the Forerunners’ exceptionalism and stagnation of other cultures to preserve their interpretation of the mantle, and even the UNSC’s shady activities.
Those that resist change and fail to change their beliefs in accordance to reality are doomed. This is true for many villains such as Truth, Tartarus, the Ur-Didact and even 343 Guilty Spark and his obsession with protocol.
Any ideology can be distorted and exploited for power, and in actual real life history, that’s happened to plenty of non-religious ideologies. The Prophets could’ve cultivated and exploited a reverence for machinery, if the Forerunners-as-gods con hadn’t occurred to them.
Now, I get that you don’t intend to start trouble, OP, but threads like this usually cause trouble anyway. It’s awesome to see that everyone’s been calm and thoughtful thus far, but unfortunately, we can’t expect things to stay that way. We need to lock this.