And yet I said nothing about the plot. What I did say is that what Thom did was more impactful to the viewer. Deciding to nuke himself with absolutely no hesitation to destroy a ship he couldn't otherwise destroy had more of an impact on me than Cortana's rampancy.
I just can't see any reason for you to decide to argue a subject based entirely on subjective opinion.
All I said was that I found Thom to be an interesting character, so when I got 'BUT WASN'T CORTANA MORE INTERESTING IN HALO 4?' as a response, I was rather taken aback.
True, but it'd preserve a character they could still wring more interesting plots out of. I'd prefer that over killing her just to build a bit of emotional value.
That was mostly just for emphasis.
More critical to the plot =/= more critical to the story. The latter is more important to the lore as a whole; the former is more important to the immediate events.That is, the plot is the game in question, the story is the franchise as a whole.
I don't think they threw her character away at all. All logical paths pointed to her demise. No attempts made by the UNSC to solve the rampancy issue have been effective. She is suffering extreme trauma from being tortured by the Gravemind, and the weight of the Forerunner knowledge she's consumed is crushing her.
And weren't you saying a character who triumphs over their problems is interesting?
Hence why she was arguably Halo's real protagonist, not John. The series was always more about Cortana's development,
while John carries her from place to place, like a reverse satellite character. It's a literary technique - the main character is deliberately left less interesting as the other characters so their personality quirks shine all the brighter.
I understand that killing her allows John to develop more, I just don't agree with it. There was a lot of potential for Cortana. How would she have reacted to the Librarian? To Mendicant Bias? How about the John's 'evolution' midway through Halo 4? She never commented on that, IIRC. We could have seen how she and Halsey would react to one another now after Cortana's image of her was shattered in 'Human Weakness'.
Killing her threw all of those potential stories straight out the window. It wasn't like Johnson's death - he was basically just Chief's sidekick, so there's not really a lot of stories you could get out of him by Halo 3 - but Cortana still had a lot of possibilities.
They could have done that without killing her off, you know. Like handing her over to Halsey to see what she can do, while John goes off and does something else for a while. It'd give him some time fighting without his closest ally, and the conflict between Cortana and Halsey could reap some drama as well.
I never described it as manly, though.
And it's mostly how he had the stones to turn and walk away after throwing the nuke that interests me.
A) he was the reliable one of the team.
B) he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty if it means winning.
C) he isn't afraid to kill himself, either, if need be.
'My first thought was 'who is this mysterious soldier, who has absolutely no shits to give about his impending demise? The fact that he's never given any real personality beyond that is what piques my interest. And it's not like he needs any other characterization - that would just ruin the moment.
So, yes, he isn't a complex character like Cortana, but then, he doesn't have to be a complex character to be interesting. They could have a set of prequel novels filled with nothing but Thom being Halo's Commissar Yarrick and I'd buy the hell out of them.
And yet the former was more interesting to me. The latter had the potential to be interesting, but, well, all it had was the potential.
Mm. The Didact is the main threat, and most of the conflict revolves around him and the Prometheans, so I'd call that the main conflict. That said, the twin plots merge toward the end of the game.
Chief and Cortana could have hitched a ride on Infinity to make it to Earth and try whatever they think could save her. But, Cortana and Chief know they can't do that. Their relationship must suffer as Cortana ever so slowly begins to crumble apart because they know they need to defend Earth when no one else can or will.
But in practice this amounts to her glitching occasionally but still functioning as the game's exposition fairy. It sounds good on paper, but it wasn't so interesting when I got to the game itself.
Again, good on paper, not so good in practice. Deep, emotional plots only work well when they audience reacts in the way the storyteller wants them to react.
Thom's commercial was made so the audience would feel a sense of awe and wonder at what he did. And it accomplished that. I reacted in the way they intended for me to react.
Cortana's plot was made so the audience would feel a sense of sadness and loss. And I didn't feel a thing. I did not react in the way they intended for me to react.
The thing you don't seem to get is the scale of the story being told has no bearing on how interesting it is. Even a little half-minute clip can be more impactful (to the viewer) than a multi-hour plot.
Yeah, but in practice she still just pulled some shit at the last second and yadda yadda yadda.
I know what she did in the last level, but it still just amounted to her disappearing for a while and spouting some technobabble before John put a grenade on the Didact and ended the game.
Not really. Kat was already surrounded by other soldiers - it's not too farfetched for Thom to run up and take the bomb from her.
Cortana replicating and using her computer PMS to stall the Didact, on the other hand, is a deus ex machina. A last minute bit used to write the protagonists out of the mess they're in.
So did John at the end of Halo 1, but nobody ever talks about that.
Seriously, he could have accomplished the exact same thing by flying up to the lift, chucking it into the grav lift, and then ordering everyone to retreat so no one was killed or injured in the ensuing explosion.
There was a song playing over the whole thing and nobody said anything at all. Maybe he did and we just didn't hear it.
No, a story where plot armor is nonexistent. It'd have to have much more character-building than Reach did, certainly, but I think it could be done well.
They killed Cortana, and...who else? Characters that matter? If they killed off the Didact at the end of Halo 4, I'd be impressed. Maybe if they killed Halsey, sure. How about Thel? 'Mdama?
There were still people inquiring what happened back when the game first came out. If the audience is clueless, the scene was not clear enough.
the one true God is Doctor Doom and we should all be worshiping him.
Her demise was an inevitability.
She was only in half of the Bungie Trilogy.
half of the trilogy
Here's the thing though, Chief is not Cortana's mule. Neither can complete the objective without the other. They're both dependent on one another.
See, that's the thing. We never saw her reaction to the Librarian because she's not the protagonist.
And nothing in the lore hinted at or implied she would meet Mendicant Bias.
Did you just really marginalize and trivialize Johnson's role in Halo into being Chief's sidekick? You not wanting to hear more about Johnson =/= lack of stories to be told. I hope you understand that...
1. Halsey would never, EVER be allowed possession of the UNSC's most powerful AI while incarcerated.
2. As soon as Chief and Cortana get paired up again, Chief would sink back into his shell. Making his "development" meaningless.
You did though."I'll take a few seconds of Thom doing something badass and establishing what kind of man he was than Cortana throwing a fit and dying just so 343 can show they're not fucking around."
You mean attempting to escape the coming inferno? Watch the trailer again, he sprints away.
Any Spartan is.
And in regards to one of your earlier posts, apparently Kat is incompetent for being incapacitated by getting her arm blown off by a Banshee.
Yeah, but that's not really a special trait. All Spartans are that way because they're indoctrinated that completing the mission comes first.
You do realize you're basically saying you like him because: 1. He does something generic.
2. We no nothing about him.
Thus, we could replace Thom with practically anyone who we know nothing about and you would feel the same way.
So you're saying if the hypothetical books didn't fulfill your fantasy of Thom being like Yarrick you would be disappointed.
Sounds a lot like you've got a serious case of headcanon...
Because it's much easier to capture someone's attention for 60 seconds as opposed to 8 - 10 hours.
Glitching occasionally? You do realize her little "glitches" nearly cost the Chief his life on a few occasions, cost the lives of hundreds of humans, and nearly resulted in the digital enslavement of the human race.
If genericism induces awe and wonder for you, I'm concerned for your ability to be engaged in entertaining material.
And maybe that's because you don't have anything to relate to in regards to Cortana's demise? Maybe, dare I say, it's because you were never emotionally attached to her in the first place?
But it does though. Otherwise we wouldn't have come up with the concept of an "attention span".
If you want to trivialize it like that, then sure.
Wait, you consider "In that case, you won't mind if we return the favor."and"I'm not doing this for mankind."to be techno babble?
But only he had the Jetpack. A dues ex machina.
See, this is why I brought up sexism before. You're equating the AI equivalent of dementia to be PMS. Are you fucking serious?
And how is that a deus ex machina? The Didact acknowledges the trouble he's having trying to stop Cortana because of how unnaturally affluent she is with Forerunner systems.
Actually, the remaining human presence was escaping on board the Truth and Reconcilliation before it was destroyed by a grenade detonating a fuel line near the ship's engines.
That's impossible because someone is dictating what is happening. There is always plot-armor in stories.
Well, DeMarco, Ash, Olivia, Mark, Vladimir, Margaret, Roma, Otto, and Victor were all killed off recently. Lord Hood was critically injured and is now in a wheelchair, and the Didact was composed by the Master Chief.
It definitely could have been done better, I agree, but a lot of people honestly don't try hard enough to understand what's going on.
What the fuck is happening in here?
it will engulf the whole forum
Quote from: Mr. Admirals on November 29, 2014, 12:43:50 PMWhat Thom did is negligible to the plot. Sure, you may not find Siege of Charum Hakkor or Operation: BLIND FAITH particularly interesting, but the characters who defined those events have had an enormous impact on the story and plot, shaping the future of what is to come.And yet I said nothing about the plot. What I did say is that what Thom did was more impactful to the viewer. Deciding to nuke himself with absolutely no hesitation to destroy a ship he couldn't otherwise destroy had more of an impact on me than Cortana's rampancy.QuoteWho said I do? If I honestly was expecting you to think the same thing as me, I'd be throwing a tantrum. All we're having is a debate. A chance to flex our argumentative muscles and try and make our points of views more logical and understandable to the other.I just can't see any reason for you to decide to argue a subject based entirely on subjective opinion. All I said was that I found Thom to be an interesting character, so when I got 'BUT WASN'T CORTANA MORE INTERESTING IN HALO 4?' as a response, I was rather taken aback.QuoteBecause those methods of saving her are cheap and hollow.True, but it'd preserve a character they could still wring more interesting plots out of. I'd prefer that over killing her just to build a bit of emotional value.QuoteAlso, undignified? Do you even know what dignity means? She seemed very in control of her own actions at her demise, and very serious. That was mostly just for emphasis.Quote"Most plot-critical character".I'd equate that to Mendicant Bias actually for very obvious reasons.More critical to the plot =/= more critical to the story. The latter is more important to the lore as a whole; the former is more important to the immediate events.That is, the plot is the game in question, the story is the franchise as a whole.QuoteI don't think they threw her character away at all. All logical paths pointed to her demise. No attempts made by the UNSC to solve the rampancy issue have been effective. She is suffering extreme trauma from being tortured by the Gravemind, and the weight of the Forerunner knowledge she's consumed is crushing her.And weren't you saying a character who triumphs over their problems is interesting?QuoteIn fact, her demise opens up many possibilities. Sure, you are correct that Chief will be emotionally affected by Cortana's death, but it's more than that. Chief's character could not adequately develop with Cortana in the picture. We all know how close they are to each other, and as a result, Cortana often acted as Chief's mouthpiece, answering for Chief instead.Hence why she was arguably Halo's real protagonist, not John. The series was always more about Cortana's development, while John carries her from place to place, like a reverse satellite character. It's a literary technique - the main character is deliberately left less interesting as the other characters so their personality quirks shine all the brighter.I understand that killing her allows John to develop more, I just don't agree with it. There was a lot of potential for Cortana. How would she have reacted to the Librarian? To Mendicant Bias? How about the John's 'evolution' midway through Halo 4? She never commented on that, IIRC. We could have seen how she and Halsey would react to one another now after Cortana's image of her was shattered in 'Human Weakness'.Killing her threw all of those potential stories straight out the window. It wasn't like Johnson's death - he was basically just Chief's sidekick, so there's not really a lot of stories you could get out of him by Halo 3 - but Cortana still had a lot of possibilities.QuoteIf she were to still live, it would result in stagnation for Chief's development as a character. Now he must speak for himself, forge his own path, whereas before, Cortana was the one guiding him.They could have done that without killing her off, you know. Like handing her over to Halsey to see what she can do, while John goes off and does something else for a while. It'd give him some time fighting without his closest ally, and the conflict between Cortana and Halsey could reap some drama as well.QuoteHey, it just seemed off to me about you being a Thom fanboy and referring him to being awesome because he did something 'manly'.I never described it as manly, though. And it's mostly how he had the stones to turn and walk away after throwing the nuke that interests me.I mean, from the 30 seconds we saw of him, we learned three things:A) he was the reliable one of the team.B) he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty if it means winning.C) he isn't afraid to kill himself, either, if need be.My first thought was 'who is this mysterious soldier, who has absolutely no shits to give about his impending demise?' The fact that he's never given any real personality beyond that is what piques my interest. And it's not like he needs any other characterization - that would just ruin the moment.So, yes, he isn't a complex character like Cortana, but then, he doesn't have to be a complex character to be interesting. They could have a set of prequel novels filled with nothing but Thom being Halo's Commissar Yarrick and I'd buy the hell out of them.QuoteNo shit a commercial is going to be entertaining. But it's a shallow piece of crap in comparison to Cortana's plot in Halo 4.And yet the former was more interesting to me. The latter had the potential to be interesting, but, well, all it had was the potential.QuoteIn fact, I wouldn't even describe it as a sub-plot. I see it as THE plot of Halo 4. To me, Halo 4's story is about Cortana's descent into madness, and the wrapper of the Didact and Infinity are what pokes and prods the plot into its eventual endpoint.Mm. The Didact is the main threat, and most of the conflict revolves around him and the Prometheans, so I'd call that the main conflict. That said, the twin plots merge toward the end of the game.QuoteChief and Cortana could have hitched a ride on Infinity to make it to Earth and try whatever they think could save her. But, Cortana and Chief know they can't do that. Their relationship must suffer as Cortana ever so slowly begins to crumble apart because they know they need to defend Earth when no one else can or will.But in practice this amounts to her glitching occasionally but still functioning as the game's exposition fairy. It sounds good on paper, but it wasn't so interesting when I got to the game itself.QuoteMe, I find that satisfactory on a much deeper level than, Thom throwing a bomb at a ship.Again, good on paper, not so good in practice. Deep, emotional plots only work well when they audience reacts in the way the storyteller wants them to react.Thom's commercial was made so the audience would feel a sense of awe and wonder at what he did. And it accomplished that. I reacted in the way they intended for me to react.Cortana's plot was made so the audience would feel a sense of sadness and loss. And I didn't feel a thing. I did not react in the way they intended for me to react.The thing you don't seem to get is the scale of the story being told has no bearing on how interesting it is. Even a little half-minute clip can be more impactful (to the viewer) than a multi-hour plot.QuoteNot really. We already know from the beginning of Midnight that what the Librarian did to Cortana has had profound effects on her ability to navigate and understand Forerunner networks. Enough to evade the Didact and even lock him out of his own ship's computer. Then you've got her ordering Chief to merge her into the vessel and her updating your HUD and whispering to you signifying she's still alive.Yeah, but in practice she still just pulled some shit at the last second and yadda yadda yadda.I know what she did in the last level, but it still just amounted to her disappearing for a while and spouting some technobabble before John put a grenade on the Didact and ended the game. The premise was more interesting than Thom's trailer, certainly, but the portrayal was not. At least to me.QuoteA deus ex machina if you will.Not really. Kat was already surrounded by other soldiers - it's not too farfetched for Thom to run up and take the bomb from her.Cortana replicating and using her computer PMS to stall the Didact, on the other hand, is a deus ex machina. A last minute bit used to write the protagonists out of the mess they're in.QuoteAll he did was attempt to move an immovable object, and in the process, inflicted friendly casualties.So did John at the end of Halo 1, but nobody ever talks about that.QuoteSeriously, he could have accomplished the exact same thing by flying up to the lift, chucking it into the grav lift, and then ordering everyone to retreat so no one was killed or injured in the ensuing explosion.There was a song playing over the whole thing and nobody said anything at all. Maybe he did and we just didn't hear it.QuoteSo basically have another contest of who can have the coolest death?No, a story where plot armor is nonexistent. It'd have to have much more character-building than Reach did, certainly, but I think it could be done well.Quote343i has already been very liberal at killing off or seriously incapacitating the characters in Halo's story. I find that almost anyone is at risk for death.They killed Cortana, and...who else? Characters that matter? If they killed off the Didact at the end of Halo 4, I'd be impressed. Maybe if they killed Halsey, sure. How about Thel? 'Mdama?QuoteThe evident reason is fairly obvious. "I only held enough back to get you off the ship."Not to mention, after the sheer amount of Forerunner techno-porn in Halo 4, I think anyone could easily deduce they were in a hard light box.There were still people inquiring what happened back when the game first came out. If the audience is clueless, the scene was not clear enough.
What Thom did is negligible to the plot. Sure, you may not find Siege of Charum Hakkor or Operation: BLIND FAITH particularly interesting, but the characters who defined those events have had an enormous impact on the story and plot, shaping the future of what is to come.
Who said I do? If I honestly was expecting you to think the same thing as me, I'd be throwing a tantrum. All we're having is a debate. A chance to flex our argumentative muscles and try and make our points of views more logical and understandable to the other.
Because those methods of saving her are cheap and hollow.
Also, undignified? Do you even know what dignity means? She seemed very in control of her own actions at her demise, and very serious.
"Most plot-critical character".I'd equate that to Mendicant Bias actually for very obvious reasons.
In fact, her demise opens up many possibilities. Sure, you are correct that Chief will be emotionally affected by Cortana's death, but it's more than that. Chief's character could not adequately develop with Cortana in the picture. We all know how close they are to each other, and as a result, Cortana often acted as Chief's mouthpiece, answering for Chief instead.
If she were to still live, it would result in stagnation for Chief's development as a character. Now he must speak for himself, forge his own path, whereas before, Cortana was the one guiding him.
Hey, it just seemed off to me about you being a Thom fanboy and referring him to being awesome because he did something 'manly'.
No shit a commercial is going to be entertaining. But it's a shallow piece of crap in comparison to Cortana's plot in Halo 4.
In fact, I wouldn't even describe it as a sub-plot. I see it as THE plot of Halo 4. To me, Halo 4's story is about Cortana's descent into madness, and the wrapper of the Didact and Infinity are what pokes and prods the plot into its eventual endpoint.
Me, I find that satisfactory on a much deeper level than, Thom throwing a bomb at a ship.
Not really. We already know from the beginning of Midnight that what the Librarian did to Cortana has had profound effects on her ability to navigate and understand Forerunner networks. Enough to evade the Didact and even lock him out of his own ship's computer. Then you've got her ordering Chief to merge her into the vessel and her updating your HUD and whispering to you signifying she's still alive.
A deus ex machina if you will.
All he did was attempt to move an immovable object, and in the process, inflicted friendly casualties.
So basically have another contest of who can have the coolest death?
343i has already been very liberal at killing off or seriously incapacitating the characters in Halo's story. I find that almost anyone is at risk for death.
The evident reason is fairly obvious. "I only held enough back to get you off the ship."Not to mention, after the sheer amount of Forerunner techno-porn in Halo 4, I think anyone could easily deduce they were in a hard light box.
It's not Thorne who has one, it's his mom...
Ah, no. No other side character did anything even remotely as impressive as throw a nuke with their bare hands.
QuoteAh, no. No other side character did anything even remotely as impressive as throw a nuke with their bare hands.John smacked a nuke with his not so bare hands.
SHDOOBY!
Who the hell is Lasky?
Quote from: Shdooby on November 30, 2014, 09:47:33 AMQuoteAh, no. No other side character did anything even remotely as impressive as throw a nuke with their bare hands.John smacked a nuke with his not so bare hands.And then got teleported away by Cortana (and shielded for some reason), which isn't quite as impressive as getting martyred by his own bomb.
Lasky is such a fanboy
