Let’s go off the deep end for a minute.
What if ONI is not trying to portray MC as a betrayer? What if they are trying to portray him as a hero? What if they don’t want to destroy Chief’s image, but instead use it and subvert it for themselves by replacing Chief with someone more easily controlled . . . or simply killing him off before his own actions make the general population question his loyalty?
Giraud was hired by ONI to paint a portrait of Chief. He’s going to follow Chief’s life based on the snippets of information that ONI lets him see*. So far, that information portrays John as superhuman as an adolescent . . . attributes that doubtlessly will be carried forward in ONI’s “reconstruction” of Chief’s life. My bet is that all of the information ONI lets Giraud see reinforces the popular notion of Chief as a hero. They want people to believe the legend of Chief. They also want the information from Chief’s life to trace not to the real Chief, but to the Chief of their choosing. To an impostor.
It really doesn’t pass the common sense test that Chief’s image could be so drastically redone by ONI that most of humanity would see him as a traitor. How the hell would they do that? And the risk would be enormous if they failed. Instead, it makes much more sense that they would publicly reinforce the notion of Chief as a hero, but give him an alternate backstory that lets them replace the real Chief with an impostor (or turn him into a martyr by declaring him dead). It is more conceivable that they could convince the impostor that Chief has betrayed everyone and must be replaced for the greater good than to convince all of humanity that the Chief is a turncoat.
Goes along with the whole theme of duality H5 seems to be shooting for as well . . . Chief became who he was after being abducted and replaced with an impostor. Now, much later, Chief is rethinking his entire life . . . while ONI again attempts to replace him with an impostor; this time because Chief can no longer be controlled**.
And who has ONI chosen to replace Chief?
Locke.
If so, would not the trailers now make more sense . . . showing Chief and Locke on different sides of the same scene? Would not Locke’s otherwise melodramatic dialogue - which amount to saving the image of Chief from the Chief himself - in the trailer now seem more appropriate? Would not the interview - and apparent contradictions with established lore - become explainable?
/deep-end
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*Except for the one miss with the hardcopy documents (that ONI may not have known existed) showing the flash clone died at 6, shortly after Chief’s abduction.
**Alternatively, perhaps ONI is not trying to replace Chief, but simply kill him off before Chief’s actions bring his loyalty into question by the general population. This would be consistent with the line of questioning at the beginning of H4, in which it was strongly implied by the interrogator that it would be better if Chief were considered dead.