Now I know they needed to kill him, but did they need a Spartan IV to kill the leader of the Storm Covenant? I mean come on Jul was a Shipmaster in the old Covenant! He could have faced Arbiter and Arbiter could have killed him. And what if Jul didn’t die? He was born a backwater farmer and was raised to be tough. Ripa Moramee survived a knife to the throught and Jul could probably survive something like that. It’s just sad to see a supreme commander of the biggest Covenant faction to die in the first mission. Please 343i make Jul or one of his sons join all the Covenant remnants together to form a giant Covenant in Halo 6.
His death was probably like that of Black Team’s in Escalation, someone needed to die and Jul’s name came up. Probably not much deeper than that and just as much a waste of a character as Black Team’s deaths were.
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Because the current team of writers have no idea what they’re doing.
This isn’t the first time they’ve completely wasted a character’s potential. The same happened for the Ur-Didact and Black Team. Our illustrious lead writer actually admitted to killing off Black Team just to interject some cheap drama into his flat, boring comic book. These were characters that had a short story and entire comic book anthology dedicated towards them. Their arc wasn’t even finished and they were killed just to make the Didact look more powerful. You could have achieved the same effect with a random team of Spartan-IVs. It shows that 343 are killing off characters and story arcs for completely shallow reasons.
There’s so many better things they could have done with Jul’s character. We could have seen him escape with Halsey and have a redemption arc by helping Thel. We could have seen the continuation of the story involving his son Dural, as he attempts to guide him away from extremism and committing the same mistakes he has made. They could have at least given Jul a dignified death on Sanghelios at the hands of Thel. Instead they literally just had him killed off to close the Spartan Ops story and to make Locke/Osiris look cool. Jul was an intelligent, manipulative character; not some random religious zealot. It’s a complete waste of his character to kill him off like this.
We seriously need some new writers. I want people like Joe Staten, Greg Bear and Chris Schlerf writing for this series. The people writing for Hunt The Truth would be great, too. I’m convinced most of the current writers on the team are talentless hacks.
I absolutely cannot stand the direction Halo’s story is heading and it breaks my heart, because I’ve always loved the lore and have shed tears over it. Jul should still be alive and Cortana should have stayed dead like she was supposed to.
> 2533274794648158;4:
> I absolutely cannot stand the direction Halo’s story is heading and it breaks my heart, because I’ve always loved the lore and have shed tears over it. Jul should still be alive and Cortana should have stayed dead like she was supposed to.
Exactly. Halo 5 does almost everything it shouldn’t have done as a follow-up to Halo 4. It feels like a complete abandonment of the story Halo 4 established, and it makes the universe so much less interesting. There’s practically no payoff to this game’s story. It’s just bad with or without the EU.
I was pretty upset when Jul died, the same way Black Team died. They needed a better way of going out. Plus having Thel 'Vadam and Jul 'Mdama fight one another to the death would have been an amazing way to see him go.
It infuriates me how the quality of the story has suddenly gone down so low. Halo Escalation was personally fun to read but it’s all such -Yoink- and Halo 5s story is just plain bad. They kill off Jul like immediately. The first thing that happens. Jul had so much more potential but instead they killed him off as soon as they got the chance after they clearly made it obvious how good of a character he could have become, better than he already was. As everybody else, i too would have loved to see him and Thel 'Vadam fight but the fight would probably have been bad, looking at every fight scene 343 Industries has done so far.
Seriously. Every Sangheili fighting in cutscenes 343i has done look handicapped, shocked and empty. Moving like snails. And look at Chief’s and Locke’s fight. It’s a cool scene but it is nowhere near as close as to two spartans fighting. It is just two drunk adults trading empty punches. I really hope the next Halo is better story wise and lore wise. I can’t wait to see how the fights will be if there will be any (Of course there will be) in Halo Wars 2. Blur are so good.
> 2533274794648158;4:
> I absolutely cannot stand the direction Halo’s story is heading and it breaks my heart, because I’ve always loved the lore and have shed tears over it. Jul should still be alive and Cortana should have stayed dead like she was supposed to.
This.
These new story arcs feel very badly thrown together, with not much in the way of a long term plan. It started with Halo 4, with the death of the Didact (who I would’ve preferred as the main antagonist in 5, rather than Warden who doesn’t. stop. appearing), and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.
The didact didn’t die in halo 4. Unlike how h4 and all its supporting material liked to say Cortana died (when she didn’t), it also liked saying the didact was “defeated” rather than killed, and that his current status was unknown.
So they then had him pop up in a comic so they could put him in a box till they remember him.
He shouldn’t have died so quickly, however, I did expect a little more fight from Jul. Didn’t know he was that weak lol
> 2533274794648158;4:
> I absolutely cannot stand the direction Halo’s story is heading and it breaks my heart, because I’ve always loved the lore and have shed tears over it. Jul should still be alive and Cortana should have stayed dead like she was supposed to.
She should’ve stayed absent for atleast Halo 5 and brought back with a decent -Yoinking!- reason. Not this -Yoink- Terminator BS they’re pulling.
Halo 5 is the first Halo game that I didn’t complete on legendary and was the first that I just rushed in brainless on easy.
That’s what you get when you hire a Marvel comic book writer.
Because reasons. 
…Right?
> 2533274929494620;5:
> > 2533274794648158;4:
> > I absolutely cannot stand the direction Halo’s story is heading and it breaks my heart, because I’ve always loved the lore and have shed tears over it. Jul should still be alive and Cortana should have stayed dead like she was supposed to.
>
>
> Exactly. Halo 5 does almost everything it shouldn’t have done as a follow-up to Halo 4. It feels like a complete abandonment of the story Halo 4 established, and it makes the universe so much less interesting. There’s practically no payoff to this game’s story. It’s just bad with or without the EU.
I feel the same way. This is why I am leaving Halo 4 as my last Halo game, and if I buy a slim XB1 in the future, I will only want to get MCC. The books I am wanting to read also are more stand-alone, IMO (Forerunner trilogy and Broken Circle). I’m not interested at all in anything else, due to how things have been handled, and the direction the series is going. Milking the Spartan name is also getting tiresome, war or no war.
> 2535440220895207;10:
> He shouldn’t have died so quickly, however, I did expect a little more fight from Jul. Didn’t know he was that weak lol
The only reason Jul was created is because 343i wanted to show us how badass Locke is. 'cuz you know, they started to work on Halo 5 before Halo 4.
First, they showed us powerful leader and we believed in that. And then we realized he can’t even fight…wtf…what kind of leader was he? The fight against Locke is shame…sry, I wouldn’t call it a fight, it was everything except fight. So because Jul looked strong in Halo 4 and deep down we thought the same, we could say that “whoa watch Locke as he take down the great Didact Hands, under half a min.” 343 wanted to amaze us with this little “trick”.
> 2535440220895207;10:
> He shouldn’t have died so quickly, however, I did expect a little more fight from Jul. Didn’t know he was that weak lol
Jul, in Halo lore, is supposed to be a tough Elite and should take down a team of Spartan IV’s with great efficiency. He’s also a very smart character. Jul escaped from imprisonment by taking explosives off of an Engineer. Even if he is bad at fighting he could still do something that another famous character is great at. Escaping and hiding. (I’m comparing Jul Mdama to General Grievous.) A Phantom could have flown in and picked Jul up and he could have hidden until he had to fight Arbiter. That would be a really good thing to do with Jul’s character.
> 2535424092977463;16:
> > 2535440220895207;10:
> > He shouldn’t have died so quickly, however, I did expect a little more fight from Jul. Didn’t know he was that weak lol
>
>
> Jul, in Halo lore, is supposed to be a tough Elite and should take down a team of Spartan IV’s with great efficiency. He’s also a very smart character. Jul escaped from imprisonment by taking explosives off of an Engineer. Even if he is bad at fighting he could still do something that another famous character is great at. Escaping and hiding. (I’m comparing Jul Mdama to General Grievous.) A Phantom could have flown in and picked Jul up and he could have hidden until he had to fight Arbiter. That would be a really good thing to do with Jul’s character.
I agree, he was a smart character. That being said, he could’ve called in his Kraken, it may’ve been damaged but it could’ve at least held off Osiris for a little longer so he could escape. Added with that I think somewhere in lore, they mentioned he was more of a political leader rather than the warrior type.
No idea.
Jul’s death was a complete waste of a well-developed character.
Why was Osama -Yoink!- assassinated by United States SEAL Team Six? Because they were ordered to and were best equipped to handle the job. They were tasked to take down a large threat to the United States, and they succeeded. The moment they took was the best opportunity they had, if not the last, and they went for it.
So, why was Jul 'Mdama assassinated by UNSC Spartan-IV Fireteam Osiris? Because they were ordered to and best equipped to handle the job. They were tasked to take down a large threat to the UNSC, and they succeeded. The moment they took was the best opportunity they had, if not the last, and they went for it. Not to mention Dr. Halsey’s life at stake due to the Promthean uprising occurring all around the Covenant.
It was logical and rational for the UNSC to do what they did. Had they not enacted and taken that opportunity and kept Jul alive to fight another day, he probably would have become more of a threat from their perspective. However, as we know, he wouldn’t have been much of a threat due to the rise of the Created, but the UNSC didn’t know the future, and as such, eliminated their priority target on their hit list before he could do anymore damage.
But we know the main point of that Operation on Kamchatka was to rescue Halsey. It was convenient that Jul was there, as expected.
That’s why he was killed. Due to rational desicion making in military tactics and operations.
Sincerely,
p1ay4OURFUN
> 2533274919463107;19:
> Why was Osama -Yoink!- assassinated by United States SEAL Team Six? Because they were ordered to and were best equipped to handle the job. They were tasked to take down a large threat to the United States, and they succeeded. The moment they took was the best opportunity they had, if not the last, and they went for it.
>
> So, why was Jul 'Mdama assassinated by UNSC Spartan-IV Fireteam Osiris? Because they were ordered to and best equipped to handle the job. They were tasked to take down a large threat to the UNSC, and they succeeded. The moment they took was the best opportunity they had, if not the last, and they went for it. Not to mention Dr. Halsey’s life at stake due to the Promthean uprising occurring all around the Covenant.
>
> It was logical and rational for the UNSC to do what they did. Had they not enacted and taken that opportunity and kept Jul alive to fight another day, he probably would have become more of a threat from their perspective. However, as we know, he wouldn’t have been much of a threat due to the rise of the Created, but the UNSC didn’t know the future, and as such, eliminated their priority target on their hit list before he could do anymore damage.
>
> But we know the main point of that Operation on Kamchatka was to rescue Halsey. It was convenient that Jul was there, as expected.
>
> That’s why he was killed. Due to rational desicion making in military tactics and operations.
>
> Sincerely,
> p1ay4OURFUN
I think that the main issue is that while, yes, it makes sense from a real-world perspective that an elite team would be sent to kill a dangerous enemy, from the story and lore standpoint, it Jul’s death felt cheap and more as a statement about Osiris than anything else. As I have read on these forums, he had a lot of backstory, and he seemed to be built up to be more involved in the main series of games. And then to end his story with absolutely nothing gained whatsoever (people say the big stories of Escalations were essentially dropped) is appalling. I definitely believe a last-minute rewrite of Halo 5’s story was made, and may have affected this turn of events.
Also, Halo is fiction. And as such, we as viewers and players and readers expect things to not be handled exactly like real life. If everything was based on the real world, there wouldn’t be as much great drama and so forth. We go into these stories to escape the real world, not be reminded of it. So we expect the bad guys to get away with quite a lot and then be given fitting deaths, not just killed off within a few seconds.