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| Re: Spear to Plasma | |
| Posted By: OldNick <nmascall@btinternet.com> | Date: 2/14/05 2:13 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Spear to Plasma (Jinno) : On the matter of said eye, It looks a little like Anubis's eye. Atleast from
'I hate to sound negative, but... no.' To me that looks very much like the standard side-face representation of the human eye in Egyptian art, which is the same as the hieroglyphic symbol used reversibly for left or right eye, with the additional meaning of... (you guessed it) see. Some of the eyes on hawk-headed Egyptian gods (Horus, Montu, Re in some aspects, for example) look a little closer to the tablet symbol in my opinion, but of course your opinion may differ. I agree that the symbol must almost certainly be associated with the concept of an afterlife, or at least the Great Journey, which the Prophets seem to speak of in very similar terms. What I'm suggesting is that the symbol refers to the prophecy that the Great Journey is possible, that the means to make it (the rings) will be found, that the Prophets in their divinely-guided wisdom will make it happen. Quoting Regret: "Every member of the Covenant shall walk the path; none will be left behind when our Great Journey begins! That is the Prophets' age-old promise, and it shall be fulfilled!" This seems to me to be THE central prophecy of the Covenant, and its principal article of faith. My doubts about the symbol representing a human-style eye centre around the symbol's clear division into a 'teardrop' and a 'triangle' section (for want of better names), and the slight irregularity of the 'teardrop' section's lower outline. If you look at the tablet images you will see that this section forms a straight line (near the round end of the teardrop) and a concave curve (near the point). These features are faithfully reproduced each time the symbol appears. To me that strongly suggests that this is a representative (if stylised) image of some particular creature's eye - and not a human one. If you watch Halo 2's opening cutscene (it's in the Cutscene Library), just after the halfway point you will see Truth in full-face close-up, allowing you to judge the resemblance for yourself. The Prophets DO have roughly teardrop-shaped eyes, with the narrow end towards the nose. The 'triangle' section of the tablet symbol presents a problem, I must admit. Two possible explanations occur to me. One is that the triangle (arrow?) is a symbol in its own right representing the future, and that the eye symbol as a whole is actually a composite literally expressing the concept 'Prophet's eye/see - the future'. The other, which could coexist with the first, is that the human eye shape was found by the Prophets in Forerunner records (given the apparent human/Forerunner connection), and this symbol modifies the Prophet eye shape to look more like the human model. Jealousy certainly seems like the leading explanation as to why they have such a down on our species. Or of course I could be totally wrong about all this. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've fallen for a seductive but wrongheaded theory of my own invention and made a total idiot of myself in public :/ | |
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