This post contains End-game spoilers
343 Guilty Spark
343 guilty spark was like the trusted friend and guardian who fell from grace over the years only to betray the true cause of faithful forerunners like the Didact and the Librarian.
I feel that he deserves a more fitting end than to just be dissolved by a spartan laser as a result of coldy murdering Sergeant Johnson due to insanity. I feel his death has to be more tragic and more epic.
The character of 343 guilty spark needed to be more of an antihero whom was both hero and enemy. someone you disliked as a fool and felt empathy for yet someone who had to fall before he destroyed the galaxy.
His death needed to be more Poetic and thoughtful almost as though his life flashed before your eyes. His death needed to make you cry even though you didn’t want to.
Perhaps there is somehow to revive 343 Guilty Spark in Halo 4.
That is what I hope. Maybe he downloaded himself to a safe location before dying. Maybe he appears in Halo 4 as a conflicted soul in another body torn between serving the purpose of the Master Builder and preserving the true purpose of the mantle.
It would be cool to see him have a fitting ending not unlike Darth Vader in the end of Return of the Jedi. The evil second in command who falls yet redeems himself in the end as a hero by saving Masterchief.
If 343 is not relivable I would hope there is some character like him or like the Mendicant Bias to add that spark of tension to the game. that background entity that is the Wildcard in the game of survival.
Cortana
You need to be able to feel her damages as she becomes a vulnerable companion in Halo 4. You need to see her make bad judgement calls that lead chief into a situation he shouldn’t have been. She needs to make a mistake that John has to forgive her for. This will show her vulnerability.
She also needs to have something that chief doesn’t. something about her that fills in the gaps of his weakness. something that causes the both of them to need each other not only to survive, but to complete the missions at hand.
The cracks in the surface of the character needs to somehow be an Achilles heel to the chief, But perhaps something that turns out for good in the end.
Cortana doesn’t need to die. IT would be more tragic just to see her fade away like withering flower. A long withering over time concluded by a more sudden final withering. her demise should be a big a fair that is bittersweet.
Or maybe she undergoes a transformation not unlike the process used to develop a monitor. Perhaps the forerunner technology can expand her lifespan. Just as she is withering she Recieves an “antidote” of sorts to extend her life.
These are just some themes for these two characters I would like to see played out more in the Reclaimer trilogy. more emotion of the characters. More complexity. more moral grey areas and difficult decisions. more mutual survivability between characters in a similar way that the Gravemind needed chief and arbiter to keep the ring from being fired even though all three were enemies each on one point of the triangle.
-It would be interesting to see humans who weren’t exactly good.
-It would be interesting to see the arbiter play a tertiary role and show up as needed.
-It would be interesting to see how interaction with forerunners, their tech and knowledge changes the humans and the covenant.
-It would be interesting to see Chief take upon himself the burden of the Mantle in a way that the Didact does. Perhaps he can be the one who has the torch passed on to him even perhaps just because he is the right person at the right time.
-It would be interesting for Cortana to take upon the Mantle in the way that the Librarian did.
-Maybe in a way Chief and Cortana are like the Didact and Librarian are except to the humans.