Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Frequently Asked Forum Questions | |
|||
|
||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Character Development: An Arbiter's Tale | |
| Posted By: Hawaiian Pig | Date: 9/30/10 4:16 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Character Development: An Arbiter's Tale (scarab) Ok, so a few things. Quote mining. The quote mining thing was in reference to your selection of quotes for your purpose. You say you brought the quotes up in context of his role as leader of the rebellion, but for the vast majority of the game, he is not a leader of any rebellion. In fact, I struggle to find his role as a leader assumed at any time before Halo 3. It's clear in Halo 3 how he assumes that role, how he takes responsibility for his Elites, but in Halo 2, he is mostly a participant. He starts off as merely a tool to do the will of the Prophets and, as the Schism occurs, he ends up among the scattered ranks of the Covenant. The schism just occurred, and if anything, his role in the alliance with the Humans propels him to his leadership role in Halo 3. A better example of the Arbiter as leader of the rebellion is his exchange with HJ at the end of Halo 3. In picking a quotes where he's not wearing his leader-of-the-rebellion hat (he hadn't had a chance to assume that role yet), you took some quotes out of context. Task statements. They can mean more than just telling the player what to do, and the Arbiter is a good example of this. Saying something like "I must get inside," doesn't simply state a task, it states that the character feels strongly about completing this task. The motivations for completing this task are pretty much always apparent, though not always stated. You can't just have your characters stand up and state their feelings all the time. That would be terrible writing. If you give the character a situation, and you have the character convey an emotion, the viewer can get a good idea for what the character is thinking. All of the quotes I provided follow this general rule. The Arbiter is in a situation, and he reacts (he's rather stoic, so his responses are not particularly emotive; not until Halo 3 where he yells on occasion). This actually leads to... Ambiguity. So you seem to generally ask: "He had several changes of hat but how did it effect him as a person? What was he thinking?"
Prophet of Truth: (Weakly) "Can you see, Arbiter? The moment of salvation is at hand." This scene raises so many questions. What were his motivations? Which hat was he wearing at this time? Could it be that he's wearing all of these hats at once? I mean... he is one person. So to what degree does he wear each of these hats? Lots of questions eh? You also ask: : Why did he get angry with Truth? Was it because he realized that he had
: Did the Arbiter accept responsibility for his own actions? Did he see his
Look at all of these questions. This right here is exactly why I think the Arbiter character has more depth than any other character in all of the games. Can you ask and answer to some degree these kind of questions about any other character? We have good evidence to answer any one of these questions, using evidence from the game, but we cannot do so precisely. He seems to be motivated by a lot of things, his personal betrayal by Truth, his racial betrayal by the Prophets, his disillusionment with the Prophet's lies, and whatever. You can argue a pretty strong stance for any one of these and back it up fairly strongly. But if he feels all of these things, what's the combination you ask? We simply can't know, and if we did know, that would be incredibly boring. To reduce the character to one or two motivations ruins the character himself. What's enjoyable, to me, about the Arbiter is that he has all of these motivations and you can approach him from multiple angles. He's multidimensional. "Depth." We're losing sight of the reason why I brought this character up. There's so much room for discussion. You get to ask all of these questions and look at how the set of compelling stories that involve him give you insight into their answers. The dude has been through a significant set of events and has experienced a lot of meaningful interactions. I said it in my very first post. From his defeat at Halo, through his fall from grace, through his realization that the great journey was a lie, to the ensuing revolution he begins, I got a firm sense that the Arbiter was more than just a gun at my side. For Noble team, the only chances I get to see them being more than just a gun at my side is when they're reinforcing their cookie cutter sci-fi trope roles. Tech Girl and Second in Command. Military Leader Guy. Unfeeling Soldier Guy. Sniper Guy. You can obviously say a bit more about these characters, but to what extent? You can ask a lot of questions, sure but you can you answer them with a whole lot of evidence from the game? What events define these guys? What meaningful interactions give insight into their personalities? We get some on occasion. "First glassing? Mine too." But not enough, imo. With the Arbiter you've got a whole lot of situations and decisions he's made, you've got a whole lot of interactions with other characters, and as a result you can locate his feelings to some extent but not certainly. That's an intriguing character. I don't feel I can at all locate Noble outside of what I read in their dossiers before the game hit. Maybe they should have thrown some black ink on those. But hey, if you're thinking, "Well you shouldn't have familiarized yourself with these characters beforehand," then I might add that I didn't know the Arbiter was going to become the leader of the Seperatists until Halo 3. There's more dimension to this guy beyond his role as "Elite Guy who got Betrayed." And hell, at least Elite Guy who got Betrayed isn't as tired an archetype as Military Leader Guy. Oh, there's one more thing I wanted to address | |
|
| Replies: |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |