Why Did Anyone Ever Like Jul 'Mdama?

Community Halo Universe
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His character was one-note, and he was demonstrated to be an incredibly bad fighter as far back as his first appearance. He and Avu Med 'Telcam are complete and utter embarrassments, combatively-speaking (given that the both of them barely put up the bare minimum of a fight against Naomi), and Jul wasn’t even that great a tactician— bog-standard, at best.
We’ve never seen him show any tactical prowess in space battles or on the ground, and the only thing we know about him was that he was a Shipmaster of an ORS-class heavy destroyer during the Covenant war— in which case, his job would have been to obey whatever the Fleetmaster said, and not necessarily to act on his own. He led “small task forces”, if he led anything, at all, and even then: there’s no real guarantee that he earned his position via anything other than having lasted long enough to get a “tenure”.

His successes, post-war, are entirely based on dumb luck and the undeserved support of his cronies. His only consistent talent was playing to a crowd, and the only thing he did consistently well was: knowing when he was beaten and running away. Other than that, his victories have been entirely derived from his underlings managing to scrape together a symbolic win in pursuit of his harebrained little crusades (which, might I add: never amounted to anything), and he was never shown to be able to command or control a situation— he played things by ear and lasted longer than he had any business lasting, stumbling and bumbling as he went. His “victory” on Requiem was more a result of the planet collapsing at just the right time, rather than any competence on his part.

If Locke didn’t kill him in Halo 5, I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if he got killed off, off-screen, by some random team of ODSTs. His legacy is one of failure, his remaining sons have already far out-performed him (achievement and character-wise), and he deserves little more than to be laughed at. The only thing about him worthy of praise was his slightly-above-average cunning; which was usually hamstrung by his less-than-reputable pig-headedness and conceit. I don’t understand why anyone was so attached to him.

His backstory was, at best, rather bog-standard (boo-hoo, the humans aren’t to be trusted and my wife is dead), and at worst: a deep stain on Mdama Keep’s reputation— that it apparently produced so cowardly a person and so incompetent a fighter. At this current juncture, it would not surprise me to find out that the Mdama and Telcam city-states are notorious on Sanghelios for being the least reliable and most likely to act with dishonor, given that its most notable figures have both been underwhelming, conceited little embarrassments.

Am I wrong on any of these subjects? Did I remember something from the lore incorrectly? Am I forgetting something rather important? Am I just being unreasonable? Let me know.

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I may only be speaking for myself here, but I can’t say I’ve seen many people who got too attached to Jul. Mostly the issue has been the fact that Jul was made to be this big baddie in Spartan Ops, was given a renewed motivation to destroy humanity in the Kilo-Five trilogy, and burned his way across the Orion Arm with Halsey in Escalations. With all that build up and pipe laying, he was swatted off the game board in a poorly choreographed cut scene. For me at least, it wasn’t an attachment to Jul. In fact I agree with just about everything you say about him. For me it was about getting the rug pulled out from under me regarding his importance as a character.

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> 2535435902217648;2:
> I may only be speaking for myself here, but I can’t say I’ve seen many people who got too attached to Jul. Mostly the issue has been the fact that Jul was made to be this big baddie in Spartan Ops, was given a renewed motivation to destroy humanity in the Kilo-Five trilogy, and burned his way across the Orion Arm with Halsey in Escalations. With all that build up and pipe laying, he was swatted off the game board in a poorly choreographed cut scene. For me at least, it wasn’t an attachment to Jul. In fact I agree with just about everything you say about him. For me it was about getting the rug pulled out from under me regarding his importance as a character.

Jul 'Mdama’s appearance in Kilo-Five was his origin-story, and has been his motivation from the start.

Now, see: I would personally object to Jul ever being portrayed as that big a villain in Spartan Ops. Spartan Ops focused more on… well, I’m not sure what Spartan Ops focused on, exactly, but Jul was never really built up in it. If anything, Halsey and Thorne were given more of the spotlight, and Spartan Ops only really served to show off how inept Jul and his supporters are.
I also really don’t think “burned his way across the Orion Arm” is the correct way to put it. As far as I remember, he was no less inept and laughable in Escalation than he was in SO.

I, personally, was always expecting him to suffer an anti-climactic end, and I never truly expected anything actually threatening from him. 343 had always used him and his Remnant as a vehicle with which to showcase Spartans being absurdly overpowered and all the alien-species being laughably incompetent. I never trusted 343, therefore, to treat Jul or his merry little band with any amount of dignity, and his ignominious fate was something I saw coming a mile away. When he got killed in Halo 5, I sort of just blinked and thought: “oh, okay, I guess we’re doing this, now”.

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> 2535435902217648;2:
> I may only be speaking for myself here, but I can’t say I’ve seen many people who got too attached to Jul. Mostly the issue has been the fact that Jul was made to be this big baddie in Spartan Ops, was given a renewed motivation to destroy humanity in the Kilo-Five trilogy, and burned his way across the Orion Arm with Halsey in Escalations. With all that build up and pipe laying, he was swatted off the game board in a poorly choreographed cut scene. For me at least, it wasn’t an attachment to Jul. In fact I agree with just about everything you say about him. For me it was about getting the rug pulled out from under me regarding his importance as a character.

This, basically. And frankly I thought he made a much better character than the Didact, who was so campy and ugly, only got anywhere because the plot demanded it and not actually being written as competent. Jul had plot build up, he had motivation, you, as the player, had a reason to hate him because of Spartan Ops. He may not have been the ‘best’ villain in the series but he was by no means the worst.

Then he’s killed off in a cutscene by a bunch of new characters that we as players know nothing about or have any sort of connection to. He gets knifed in the neck instead of having some form of dramatic boss fight against him. What should have happened is that he should have survived the first level of Halo 5 and you ultimately defeat him at the Battle of Sunaion.

But just more proof that 343i has no idea what they’ve been doing with the franchise and hiring crappy writers.

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> 2533274838418174;4:
> > 2535435902217648;2:
> >
>
> This, basically. And frankly I thought he made a much better character than the Didact, who was so campy and ugly, only got anywhere because the plot demanded it and not actually being written as competent. Jul had plot build up, he had motivation, you, as the player, had a reason to hate him because of Spartan Ops. He may not have been the ‘best’ villain in the series but he was by no means the worst.
>
> Then he’s killed off in a cutscene by a bunch of new characters that we as players know nothing about or have any sort of connection to. He gets knifed in the neck instead of having some form of dramatic boss fight against him. What should have happened is that he should have survived the first level of Halo 5 and you ultimately defeat him at the Battle of Sunaion.
>
> But just more proof that 343i has no idea what they’ve been doing with the franchise and hiring crappy writers.

The Didact, especially given his role in the Forerunner Saga, is leagues better than Jul, in my opinion. If we compare the two in all of their appearances: Jul is simply nowhere near the Didact’s level. At least the Didact is sold to the player as threatening when they first play Halo 4, whereas we’ve literally never seen Jul win any fight, at all, ever.

I’d contend that Spartan Ops really didn’t make me, or anyone I knew, “hate” Jul, at all. Things just sort of happened, on-screen, while you and your Spartan (Fireteam Crimson) were just off in some random corner with only a tertiary presence in the narrative being shown. The only notable thing I remember Spartan Ops doing for the audience was causing people to dislike the Spartan-IVs and further dislike Palmer. It made me think of Jul as a bumbling idiot (an opinion that would later be corroborated by Glasslands), but it certainly didn’t make feel any hate for him. No more hate than I’d feel for Generic Elite Minor Enemy #345556.

As I’ve pointed out: Jul was an utter embarrassment, combat-wise. For him to be an inept invalid for most of his canonical history, only to then pose a sudden challenge for the player would be contradictory.

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It isn’t the same kind of hate as an emotion, such as ‘omg I hate his guts!’, it’s more that you, the player, fought against his forces and operations directly. You are given far more time to fight against him and see his perspective in the story of Spartan Ops than you are given for the Didact. Is Jul a good leader? ARguably yes because he managed to re-unify most of the Covenant remnants under his banner and lead a disruptive campaign on Requiem, achieved half of his goal there, compromised UNSC operations there (and nearly destroyed them entirely) before going on to led a successful large campaign against the Swords of Sanghelios, so much so that the UNSC had to step in to SAVE the Arbiter’s forces from being destroyed.

And that was AFTER he died in the snow. So imagine if he’d been alive to properly organize his forces? Jul has more ability as a commander than you think.

And yes, he has flaws. Flaws are GOOD when it comes to writing characters. It makes them more relatable because we, as humans, are deeply flawed individuals. Meanwhile the Didact HAD no flaws outside of being arrogant and toying with the Chief. He was a monologuing mustache twirling villain in which all power was consolidated and he did NOTHING with it. He was completely unassailable and he pranced about like a cartoon villain instead of using his incredibly amount of resources to end the Infinity or the Chief.

Jul, at least, had personality, a goal beyond ‘kill all humans’ and earned the right to have more than just a cutscene death.

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> 2533274838418174;6:
> It isn’t the same kind of hate as an emotion, such as ‘omg I hate his guts!’, it’s more that you, the player, fought against his forces and operations directly. You are given far more time to fight against him and see his perspective in the story of Spartan Ops than you are given for the Didact. Is Jul a good leader? ARguably yes because he managed to re-unify most of the Covenant remnants under his banner and lead a disruptive campaign on Requiem, achieved half of his goal there, compromised UNSC operations there (and nearly destroyed them entirely) before going on to led a successful large campaign against the Swords of Sanghelios, so much so that the UNSC had to step in to SAVE the Arbiter’s forces from being destroyed.
>
> And that was AFTER he died in the snow. So imagine if he’d been alive to properly organize his forces? Jul has more ability as a commander than you think.
>
> And yes, he has flaws. Flaws are GOOD when it comes to writing characters. It makes them more relatable because we, as humans, are deeply flawed individuals. Meanwhile the Didact HAD no flaws outside of being arrogant and toying with the Chief. He was a monologuing mustache twirling villain in which all power was consolidated and he did NOTHING with it. He was completely unassailable and he pranced about like a cartoon villain instead of using his incredibly amount of resources to end the Infinity or the Chief.
>
> Jul, at least, had personality, a goal beyond ‘kill all humans’ and earned the right to have more than just a cutscene death.

I don’t know that Jul ever united “most” of the Covenant’s remnant factions. As far as I’m aware, his faction just so happened to be the largest, but the largest shard of a shattered window doesn’t constitute “most” of the window.
I also don’t know that Jul even had any actual goal on Requiem. The UNSC seemed to only be there in the first place to get rid of him (with other goals being on the backburner in the meantime), so in a way, they succeeded in dislodging him from the planet. You also might be forgetting that Vale wholeheartedly believed that Arbiter would have won against the Covenant either way, and even when the player goes to “save” Arbiter: he kills two assassins on his own and isn’t really demonstrated to be in any danger.

The Infinity didn’t get involved, in the first place, either, and simply sent in Osiris to get the Arbiter’s help. If it weren’t for politics, the Infinity would have probably gone about its plans without ever touching the conflict. It doesn’t really bode well that Jul was off in bumble–Yoink- nowhere chasing shadows with Halsey while concurrently having his forces assault Sanghelios— seems like his attention would have been too divided to make any difference, even if he’d never been killed. If I’m remembering it wrong, and his forces attacked Sanghelios after he died, well… that’s not really his accomplishment, is it?

I’d typically agree that flaws are important, but if a character has such prevalent flaws, they have to then, either, be the main focus of the game they’re in, or simply be very, very important to the plot and play a central role— i.e: be competent and be a real obstacle. Jul was never mentioned in Halo 4, served as a plot-device in Spartan Ops, served as a plot-device in Escalation, and died in Halo 5, always tertiary to the plot, and never a central player. Hell, even in the Kilo-Five trilogy: his only purpose was to be introduced to the audience… only to disappoint, going forward. When literally all we know about him is his basic ethos, his ineptitude, and his scoff-inducing record: there’s little to relate to. We spend little to no time with him, and his actual personality is never really showcased in an effective way.

Plus, a good deal of what makes a character relatable is: seeing them struggle, and then seeing them overcome that struggle and learn to improve on their flaws. Jul doesn’t come across as a “flawed person” so much as he comes across as “grossly incompetent and insubstantial”. Even if he had demonstrable flaws, he never seems to win despite his apparent power, and he never has anything to struggle against, at all.

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Well then we’ll just have to agree to disagree then.

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> 2533274838418174;8:
> Well then we’ll just have to agree to disagree then.

How would you have written Jul differently? What problems do you think there were in 343’s handling of him?

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The only thing I don’t hate about him was that at least in spartan ops he was acting the only way I can think for the covenant to continue appearing in a logical way, which is as rogue terrorists serving to the didact. But because 343 decided to ruin their new direction for the story in H5, I was even satisfied to see they threw jul in the trash at the first chance they got.

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I actually liked the character, an Elite loyal to the Didacta that also was commanding Prometheans was great. What I hate was the final he got

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> 2535441628140975;11:
> I actually liked the character, an Elite loyal to the Didacta that also was commanding Prometheans was great. What I hate was the final he got

But did you like him, or the idea of him? Because the moment that someone critically examines his record: he ceases to be worthy of any praise.

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> > 2535441628140975;11:
> > I actually liked the character, an Elite loyal to the Didacta that also was commanding Prometheans was great. What I hate was the final he got
>
> But did you like him, or the idea of him? Because the moment that someone critically examines his record: he ceases to be worthy of any praise.

Yes I liked him, what I didn’t like was the decision of killed him instead of keeping developing the character. Hope they don’t do the same with Osiris Firereteam.

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> 2535441628140975;13:
> > 2535419907644262;12:
> > > 2535441628140975;11:
> > > I actually liked the character, an Elite loyal to the Didacta that also was commanding Prometheans was great. What I hate was the final he got
> >
> > But did you like him, or the idea of him? Because the moment that someone critically examines his record: he ceases to be worthy of any praise.
>
> Yes I liked him, what I didn’t like was the decision of killed him instead of keeping developing the character. Hope they don’t do the same with Osiris Firereteam.

Okay, but just as a test: can you name one character-trait that Jul has, without referencing his position or authority?

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He’s driven and determined. He’s intelligent, enough to completely fool a entire facility of ONI operatives into thinking he wasn’t a threat and then escaping from said facility and rallying a rather significant number of Covenant remnants to his cause.

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> 2533274838418174;15:
> He’s driven and determined. He’s intelligent, enough to completely fool a entire facility of ONI operatives into thinking he wasn’t a threat and then escaping from said facility and rallying a rather significant number of Covenant remnants to his cause.

Driven and determined…
Could we not say the same of… almost any other Elite?

And intelligent? ONI agents are notoriously arrogant and self-assured. If anything, convincing an ONI agent that you are a threat to them is more difficult than the opposite.

Then again, I suppose that’s fair enough.

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I mean if you’re gonna dance around solid answers to the questions you’re asking, simply because they don’t align or confirm your viewpoint…Maybe don’t ask those questions? Pretty much everyone in this thread, including myself, has provided their opinion on liking Jul and why they liked him.

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> 2535419907644262;16:
> > 2533274838418174;15:
> > He’s driven and determined. He’s intelligent, enough to completely fool a entire facility of ONI operatives into thinking he wasn’t a threat and then escaping from said facility and rallying a rather significant number of Covenant remnants to his cause.
>
> Driven and determined…
> Could we not say the same of… almost any other Elite?
>
> And intelligent? ONI agents are notoriously arrogant and self-assured. If anything, convincing an ONI agent that you are a threat to them is more difficult than the opposite.
>
> Then again, I suppose that’s fair enough.

Yes we can say that of most Elites. Jul happens to be the one Elite who did all the things ManiacalSpark listed. He was driven and determined like most Elites, but shrewd enough to bide his time and escape when the opportunity presented itself. Most Elites are too arrogant to play the game with the ONI scientists, but Jul managed to swallow his pride and do what was necessary to escape.

And I’d argue that it is more difficult to convince ONI that you aren’t a threat. They view everyone as a threat. Especially an Elite with the charisma to garner a large force to reinvigorate the Covenant.

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> 2535435902217648;18:
> > 2535419907644262;16:
> > > 2533274838418174;15:
> > > He’s driven and determined. He’s intelligent, enough to completely fool a entire facility of ONI operatives into thinking he wasn’t a threat and then escaping from said facility and rallying a rather significant number of Covenant remnants to his cause.
> >
> > Driven and determined…
> > Could we not say the same of… almost any other Elite?
> >
> > And intelligent? ONI agents are notoriously arrogant and self-assured. If anything, convincing an ONI agent that you are a threat to them is more difficult than the opposite.
> >
> > Then again, I suppose that’s fair enough.
>
> Yes we can say that of most Elites. Jul happens to be the one Elite who did all the things ManiacalSpark listed. He was driven and determined like most Elites, but shrewd enough to bide his time and escape when the opportunity presented itself. Most Elites are too arrogant to play the game with the ONI scientists, but Jul managed to swallow his pride and do what was necessary to escape.
>
> And I’d argue that it is more difficult to convince ONI that you aren’t a threat. They view everyone as a threat. Especially an Elite with the charisma to garner a large force to reinvigorate the Covenant.

Well, at the time of his imprisonment, Jul was a literal nobody who got caught by one Spartan and some ODST -yoinks-. They had the breathing room to do experiments on him, and as I recall, the person in charge of using Jul as a guinea pig got fired and sent to prison after he escaped.

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> 2533274838418174;17:
> I mean if you’re gonna dance around solid answers to the questions you’re asking, simply because they don’t align or confirm your viewpoint…Maybe don’t ask those questions? Pretty much everyone in this thread, including myself, has provided their opinion on liking Jul and why they liked him.

I am not dancing. The answers that people have supplied aren’t meeting the straight-face test.