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| Re: To HP Re: Arbiter character development *SP* | |
| Posted By: scarab | Date: 9/29/10 3:00 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: To HP Re: Arbiter character development *SP* (7he_7ruth) : But he goes from passionate war-hero to disgraced soldier to symbolic figure : to leader of a rebellion, throughout the whole game. There is character : change, and lots of it. He had several changes of hat but how did it effect him as a person? What was he thinking? Why did he get angry with Truth? Was it because he realized that he had become a monster by believing Truth's lies? Or was he fairly cool with having almost exterminated the Humans, was he pissed off because Truth had duped him, made him look a fool? Was he pissed off because Truth had broken his word to the Elites? Was he pissed off because Truth had killed Elites (could all the rest of the Covenant species rot as far as the Arbiter was concerned?)? All of the above? Which combination of any of the above? Did the Arbiter accept responsibility for his own actions? Did he see his actions as being inherently wrong? Did he externalize all blame and cast it onto Truth. Did killing Truth absolve the Arbiter of all guilt? Did he believe that he had any guilt that needed absolving? How would we know what his thoughts were? The Arbiter's actions in h2 and Halo 3 were always in his best interests so we never saw him take a principled stand, we never saw him do anything that would have hurt him more than it helped, something that would suggest a conscience. As for the 'rebellion': what rebellion? I remember that the Prophets broke the Covenant by attacking the Elites. They lost any moral or legal right to govern. To rebel is to oppose or take issue against rightful authority. The Prophets clung to their position but they has lost their right to lead (enshrined in the covenant that they had with the Elites, the covenant that the Prophets broke). In addition... You can only rebel against your own government or people who want to claim sovereignty over you but the Elites had been cast out of the Covenant. If you are not a member/subject/citizen then any action you take is not rebellion. And how was the Arbiter the leader? He was aloof. The only thing that even looked like an order was in this exchange.
and that is it the sum total of his 'leadership'. Note that HJ is mistaken in thinking that the Prophets would disapprove of the Brutes' actions. He has indicated that he doesn't know that the Brutes are acting under Truth's authority. The Arbiter has reason to believe that they are because T told him so. Now T may have been lying but the Arbiter doesn't even seem to care about discussing this with HJ. its almost like HJ isn't a proper person to the Arbiter or that the Arbiter realizes that discussion will slow him down. So the Arbiter made a cold and calculated decision to avoid saying what he knows/suspects. Imagine that this was 9/11 and you had just witnessed the towers fall and imagine that the kooks will be right and that AQ was acting under Bush's orders, and you knew. Now imagine that a fire fighter comes up to you and says, 'Imagine what the government will do to whoever is responsible'. Could you keep quiet? The Arbiter may have made the right choice but it is cold and makes him distant from the very people that you believe he lead. In Halo 3 the Arbiter is, apparently, the only Elite on Earth. An Elite tells him about the events that he has missed so the Arbiter hadn't kept in touch. If he didn't know how the Elites' struggles had been going then how could he have been the leader of those struggles? The Arbiter was the epitome of the dark horse. What on earth was going on inside his head? Some of his inscrutability may down to production problems and level cuts. Some are down to the problems caused by him being a player character in a FPS. We may have been able to form a better picture of the inside of his head if we had seen his behavior with different audiences especially in Halo 3. In that game he needed our help and had to play a role. he may have been more relaxed and open in front of other Elites (though we never saw this in h2). So we may have been able to see how consistent he was when he wasn't being watched by Humans. And I think that a conversation wheel would have helped because the player could choose to skip straight to action or could converse with HJ, tell him that it was the Prophets who ordered the attack on the Council and the Elites in general. then people who care about the story and his motives maybe could have seen more of his internal state and his interactions would have been less cold and he would have been less distant.
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