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3/7/2013 10:45:12 AM
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The Ur-Didact (as it was technically the Bornstellar-Didact that Bungie created) is a very interesting character with a lot of depth when you look at his backstory. That's the thing really, if you play Halo 4 without any knowledge about the Didact then he comes off as a bit of a shoddy villain, but if you look more deeply at his character in Cryptum, Halo 4's Terminals and the upcoming Silentium then he's one of the most fascinating, well-rounded characters in the series.
Jul 'Mdama is another great character, despite the disagreements I have with much of what Karen has done in the Kilo-5 Trilogy, I think that she did a tremendous job developing Jul in The Thursday War and 343i continued that in Spartan Ops. What I find most interesting about him is that his goal is [i]not[/i] the eradication of humanity like the other Covenant villains, at no point does he ever say that that's his goal. Jul is clever and manipulative, using the resources at his disposal to acquire knowledge and ultimately restore the Sangheili to their former, pre-Covenant glory rather than be stamped out by humanity once they recover.
343 Guilty Spark was treated like a complete joke by Bungie from Halo CE-3, but in CEA's Terminals Kevin Grace really developed him well as a tragic and lonely person. Greg Bear further developed this in Primordium where it's revealed that Spark is a fragment of Chakas, who was also given a great deal of backstory.
Phillips and Black Box are more examples of characters that Karen wrote well, I really enjoyed reading the bits in The Thursday War where Phillips was having to fend for himself on Sanghelios and his witty commentary on things.
Faber is awesome, one of the more interesting antagonists in the series - an almost Palpatine kind of figure who is manipulative of others in politics, but brutal and uncompromising in practice. Sanctioning the creation of the Halos to dominate life, using it to crush the San'Shyuum rebellion and sterilise them, performing tests on the Flood by letting them infect humans, and marooning the Ur-Didact in a Flood-infested system.
The Sangheili Shipmaster in Halo: Evolutions - The Return (written by Kevin Grace, the same guy who single-handedly made 343 Guilty Spark a decent character) was really well-characterised in the short time he was present. Likewise with Soren-066, the deformed Spartan-II who goes missing on Reach in the story Pariah.
Overall, I think that building characters is one of the main strengths of the writers at 343. Even those who are only present for a short time (like Doctor Tillson, as the OP pointed out) are really well characterised and can often make you feel sympathy for them.
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Meh, Ur-Didact was horrible. Originaly, the Didact was neutral if not a bit of a nice guy and then he magically becomes a villain who hates humanity, though the Forerunners saw them as their successors (and he did too, possibly, since he believed in the Mantle strongly, and the Mantle commanded them to care for "lesser" species, not smother them). And this sudden turn-around is explained in books written by an outside author, who obviously never played Halo, instead of the authors of the original story in Halo trilogy. I personally didn't think the Didact would go mad with power or go over-zealous, sure the possibility was there, but I didn't seem as probable to me. Besides, Bungie never had to rely on books to make sense to the story. Books very an interesting addition, giving more depth, but it wasn't as necessary.
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so your saying.... 343 did a shitty job of portraying the didact, but the relevant books are good? They aren't the same, you know.
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What? I'm saying that the Ur-Didact wasn't portrayed well in the game because they didn't use his backstory from the books to explain his character, thus to the Average Joe gamer who hasn't got any insight into the lore he'll come off as a pretty poor villain.
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[quote]the Ur-Didact wasn't portrayed well in the game[/quote]That's what I'm saying man, just because the book authors wrote him well, doesn't mean 343 did.
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Greg Bear has stated on numerous occasions that when designing the Forerunner Saga's story, characters etc he was in very close contact with 343. He is writing THEIR vision of characters like the Ur-Didact, they have to be accredited as such.
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Maybe it's their vision, but that doesn't mean their writers are good at making it work in their game.
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Edited by Haruspis: 4/21/2013 4:55:15 PMYes, and I acknowledge that the Ur-Didact was poorly portrayed in the game due to the lack of exposition. But then so was Truth (and the Covenant in general) in Halo 2 and 3 where their actual motivations for their war against humanity is never explained in the game, relegated to the novels like so many other critical details. These things have to be taken as a whole - Truth, like the Ur-Didact, was poorly portrayed but their motivations and backstory are given to you in another form, while the game is a poor representation of them you have to take things as a whole and acknowledge that [i]that[/i] is the writers' vision.
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Um.... no sir, the games did actually portray the covenant well and their reasons for most of their behavior. The specifics for the start of the war, some twenty five years before the games, was not fully explained, but i never felt like I was missing out to much on that one. Incomplete =/= bad.
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Point out one bit in Halo CE, 2, 3, ODST and Reach where the reason for WHY the Covenant want to exterminate humanity is ever explained or even mentioned. Doesn't matter how you felt when playing the game, there's not a single instance where it's explained. If "incomplete =/= bad" then there's no way you can complain about the Ur-Didact's portrayal in Halo 4...
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Actually, I believe that the feeling is the important one, and information is secondary. As you've seen, Halo isn't all about explanations, rather about mystery and tension that it generates. And tension means good as it means it has potential. Explaining everything destroys that potential and tension.
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You seem to be under the impression that anything left unanswered adds to the mystery, and that by sticking to Storytelling 101 where your audience needs to be fed information to care you are "explaining everything". This is simply not true...
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Why they wanted to exterminate humanity? Not explained in the game. But the covenant didn't exist to exterminate humanity, and what was explained was there intentions with the rings etc. Giving us every detail takes away from a story, anyway. As for complaining about the Ur-Didact, I never complained about him, merely about your inconsistency.
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Er... the Covenant DID exist to exterminate humanity, that's why the majority (and the most detailed part) of the Halo fiction surrounds the human-Covenant war. It's only in Halo CE that they exist as a device to introduce the Flood, after that there was ample opportunity to explain why they're killing humanity. [quote]Giving us every detail takes away from a story, anyway.[/quote] Nice defence of bad storytelling there. Something as important as the motivation of the primary antagonists in 7 games should not be left unexplained, it's an important detail and the actual explanation given in Contact Harvest is absolutely critical to the story because it's connected to the larger picture. There was no inconsistency, I thought I made myself pretty clear on what I was saying...
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[quote]the Covenant DID exist to exterminate humanity[/quote] That... I don't... you are either incredibly un-intelligent, or just haven't read in a while. Sorry mate, but knowing everything there is to know is pretty shitty. We knew what the covenant was doing, and that we had to stop them, that was the focus of the story, and that's what we knew, get over it. [quote]The Ur-Didact (as it was technically the Bornstellar-Didact that Bungie created) is a very interesting character with a lot of depth when you look at his backstory. That's the thing really, if you play Halo 4 without any knowledge about the Didact then he comes off as a bit of a shoddy villain, but if you look more deeply at his character in Cryptum, Halo 4's Terminals and the upcoming Silentium then he's one of the most fascinating, well-rounded characters in the series.[/quote] Here. You seem to think that some bullshit about 343's "vision" is why the novel's were well written, of course, nothing to do with the author of the novel's. It is clearly the genius of the writer's that causes the didact to come off as a shoddy villain. How the -blam!- do you think it makes sense for a character to be poorly presented by the same people who you claim are responsible for him being a good character?
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Awh, look at you, being all cute by resorting to [i]ad hominem[/i] attacks and assumptions about my character. :) [quote]Sorry mate, but knowing everything there is to know is pretty shitty. We knew what the covenant was doing, and that we had to stop them, that was the focus of the story, and that's what we knew, get over it.[/quote] Oh yes, it's [i]really[/i] shitty when writers stick to Storytelling 101, isn't it? How is the player supposed to care (let alone see the series as anything less than generic sci-fi) when they don't even know why your main antagonist is attacking you? It worked with the Reapers in Mass Effect 1 because they were a race of godlike machines with goals and reasoning beyond the comprehension of simple organic minds, but it does not work with the Covenant - especially when they're humanised in Halo 2 and 3. You're making dickish statements about [i]my[/i] intelligence, yet you're utterly disregarding a vital aspect of the story as being unimportant and saying "get over it", being content with mediocrity over detailed storytelling... Bro, the reason for the Covenant attacking humanity is central to the whole connection between the Forerunners and humanity (a connection which gets gratuitously explored and is still being explored), it's part of why the Covenant fragments in Halo 2, those are 2 critical things in the Halo lore and the games do nothing to explain or even mention what could be summed up in a few sentences. [quote]You seem to think that some bullshit about 343's "vision" is why the novel's were well written, of course, nothing to do with the author of the novel's. It is clearly the genius of the writer's that causes the didact to come off as a shoddy villain.[/quote] Yes, because I clearly said "343 gets all the credit, screw Greg Bear", didn't I? Oh wait, I didn't and you're putting words in my mouth again. -_- [quote]How the -blam!- do you think it makes sense for a character to be poorly presented by the same people who you claim are responsible for him being a good character?[/quote] This is a remarkably easy concept to understand... 1) 343 and Greg Bear come together to discuss the Forerunner Saga. 2) 343 says "here's this character, here's how we want his story to progress". 3) Greg Bear says "sure, I can write that" and goes off to do so. 4) Greg and 343 meet up often over the course of 3 years for various sessions outlining, detailing, discussing and writing the different parts of the Forerunner Saga - as Bear has been implicit in mentioning the support he had from 343 in writing the novels. 5) 343 is making Halo 4, the Forerunner Saga hasn't been finished, constraints occur, they don't want to spoil Silentium, they have Terminals which can't be accessed in-game, the campaign isn't long enough to accommodate a full exploration of the Ur-Didact's character - his presentation in the game is incomplete from what they set out to do in the Forerunner Saga. I don't really see how any of that was unclear, Josh Holmes spent a fair amount of time at the GDC panel talking about why they didn't do a good job with the Ur-Didact's character in the game and so, because of the reasons I detailed above, he was portrayed poorly in the game and came off as a shoddy villain, but the direction they wanted his character to go in, his journey through the Forerunner Saga and Greg Bear's writing made him (as I said) "one of the most fascinating, well-rounded characters in the series".
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[quote]Josh Holmes spent a fair amount of time at the GDC panel talking about why they didn't do a good job with the Ur-Didact's character in the game and so, because of the reasons I detailed above, he was portrayed poorly in the game[/quote] Yet you still claim that you aren't saying the didact was poorly done? Nobody gives two shits about Holmes' excuses. [quote]Awh, look at you, being all cute by resorting to ad hominem attacks and assumptions about my character. :)[/quote] Clearly you didn't read very closely, unless the un-intelligence clause does apply here. [quote]You seem to think that some bullshit about 343's "vision" is why the novel's were well written, of course, nothing to do with the author of the novel's. It is clearly the genius of the writer's that causes the didact to come off as a shoddy villain. Yes, because I clearly said "343 gets all the credit, screw Greg Bear", didn't I? Oh wait, I didn't and you're putting words in my mouth again. -_-[/quote] Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but regardless, 343 shouldn't get [b]any[/b] credit for the Ur-didact's betrayal in the novels. [quote] it's part of why the Covenant fragments in Halo 2, those are 2 critical things in the Halo lore and the games do nothing to explain or even mention what could be summed up in a few sentences.[/quote] The covenant fragmented for political reasons that were explained in game, when the schism was under way, the elites were fighting because the prophets had replaced them, and their deeply rooted sense of honor compelled them to act. And knowing why the covenant is after humanity isn't essential to know. In fact, no member of humanity knew why we were under attack at ANY point during the war. We knew what the rings were, and we knew the covenant wanted to activate them, and so we stopped them. That was the whole point of the story of halo 1, and no explanation for why we are under attack would help us. [b]Not[/b] knowing information increased the immersion. If we mysteriously knew why we were under attack even when none of humanity did, that wouldn't make a damn lot of sense, would it? yes, as much as you seem to reject the idea, having partial information is [b]extremely[/b] common in storytelling and serves a near endless amount of purposes and storytelling mechanics. [quote] How is the player supposed to care (let alone see the series as anything less than generic sci-fi) when they don't even know why your main antagonist is attacking you?[/quote] That's part of the point, humanity never figured that out, which drove us to hate the covenant just that much more, because in our eyes we were being wiped out without cause. So despite what you seem to think, not giving us everything is a [b]very[/b] common storytelling technique that has a near countless number of applications. [quote]Er... the Covenant DID exist to exterminate humanity[/quote] Still not going to take on this one, tough guy?
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I agree with this. Especially on 343 Guilty Spark. Let's face it, the characters in Bungie's Halo games had barely any depth at all.
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I disagree, they were deep, but you simply didn't know much about them. I said it before - you don't need thousands and thousands-of-pages long biography to a character for him to be deep. I think Rookie is a good example - he doesn't say much, you know actually very little about him, yet he's one of the most memorable characters to me and I find him very interesting. Also because he leaves much to my imagination and discussion. And I daresay my imagination is really good.
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Yeah, the only characters in Halo CE-Reach that had any kind of depth were Cortana, Thel, Truth (but only because of his development in Contact Harvest), and Sadie. The rest were characterised dismally IMO because they let most of the characterisation reside in the additional fiction that the games never acknowledged 99% of the time.
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I don't like the forerunner trilogy that much...
