While Waypoint is down as I write this, I thought I might as well share why I didn't really care for the Didact as the main villain in Halo 4. I know Halo 4 threads are getting tiring, but this was one of the biggest let downs I felt about the game. 343i preached about how Master Chief was finally going to get a true antagonist and that the Didact, at least according to Frank O'Conner, would be seen as more of a noble figure while being the enemy. I found nothing of the sort. The Didact boiled down to being a Forerunner supremacist who hated humans for the sake of being evil. I have seen the argument made about the Halo novels setting the stage for this, but I disagree having read the novels. The Didact in the Forerunner Saga isn't nearly as big of a dickblister as he is in Halo 4. One way to drive this point home is by comparing a speech of his in the Terminals with the same speech in Halo: Primordium. Here is his confrontation with the Lord of Admirals in Halo 4: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bznq4Zr2gTw&feature=player_detailpage#t=330s]Here[/url] Now we can gather that he really despise humans in this and really sees them as a blight. Yet when placed in its proper context, the tone changes. Here is the speech in Primordium: [quote]My finest opponent, the Mantle accepts all who live fiercely, who defend their young, who build and struggle and grow, and even those who dominates humans have dominated, cruelly and without wisdom. But to all of us there is a time like this, when the Domain seeks to confirm our essences, and for you, that time is now. Know this, relentless enemy, killer of our children, Lord of Admirals: soon we will face the enemy you have faced and defeated. I can see that challenge coming to the Forerunners, and so do many others.... And we are afraid. That is why you, and many thousands of your people who may contain knowledge of how humans defended themselves against the Flood, will not pass cleanly and forever, as I would wish for a fellow warrior, but will be extracted and steeped down into the genetic code of many new humans. This is not my wish nor my will. It arises from the skill and the will of my life-mate, my wife, the Librarian, who sees much farther than I do down the twining streams of Living Time. So this additional indignity will be inflicted upon you. It means, I believe, that humans will not end here, but may rise again, fight again. Humans are always warriors. But what and whom they will fight, I do not know. For I fear the time of the Forerunners is drawing to a close. In this, the Librarian and I find agreement. Take satisfaction, warrior, in that possibility.[/quote] I see in this quote a lot of regret about Composing his enemies and an admittance that the Didact himself believes that the time of the Forerunners is coming to an end and that humans may rise again...and he seems to understand it. Yet in Halo 4 his sole motivation is to cast down the humans and have the Forerunners rise again. His speech in the epilogue reaffirms this. Honestly, it seems 343i did everything they could to expunge any noble qualities of the Didact just to make him evil. Aside from cutting his speech to the LoA, there is no mention of the Primordial talking to him on Charum Hakkor and how the Flood is retribution against the Forerunners, well that is the implication, nothing about the exploits of Bornsteller Makes Eternal Lasting, nothing about his conflict with the Forerunner Council and subsequent self-imposed exile to Earth, all things that shaped his personality and character. Not only that, but he saw the fall of his civilization, the destruction of his people at the hands of the Flood, really traumatic events. With everything 343i had to work with, they really could've made the Didact the new Darth Vader: a tragic villain who we feel sorry for. Instead we are treated to a generic bad guy with logic expected of from an 80s cartoon villain. I mean he Composed humans to make Promethean Knights 100,000 years ago and it didn't stop the Flood and 100,000 years later does the same thing, but without any real reason to do so besides, "Humans bad and are a threat to the galaxy!". Nevermind the fact he is simply turning innocent people into mindless, homicidal robots that kill against their will. Good going Didact. To wrap this thing up, the final confrontation was terrible too. One QTE and he is done. Personally, I would've used QTEs for a fight, but expand on it. Have the Chief actually fight the Didact with jabs to his face, duck and block blows from the Didact and seemingly incapacitate him. He would run to arm the nuke, but be grabbed, pulled toward the Didact and get punched the -blam!- out! Then Cortana would bind him and, instead of a pulse grenade, maybe Chief could shove the nuke in the Didact's armor and push him off the bridge and actually give him a realistic chance to escape the nukes detonation. Sorry if that seems contrived, but it works better in my head ;p. So in conclusion, I just felt disappointed with what 343i did with the Didact. So much potential and yet he is a step below past Halo antagonists like Truth, Gravemind and/or Guilty Spark. If you read everything, thanks for your time.