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Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore | |
Posted By: Narcogen <narcogen@rampancy.net> | Date: 5/17/11 5:39 a.m. |
In Response To: Re: Why retcons don't bother me anymore (uberfoop) : Nonetheless, I'm inclined to hold my position that Reach sheds light on Halo
Hmm. Okay. Let's break that down, though. Leaving aside what was in the H1 manual, what is it about how Reach presents the fall of the last colony-- aside from the differences with how it was presented earlier-- that for you makes you negatively perceive Halo 1, or negatively perceive Reach in comparison to Halo 1? : On that note, I must acknowledge a gut feeling that I've been ignoring for a
Aha! Well I think there is a good deal of sense in being annoyed by that. The H1 story I think does stand pretty well on its own, as presented, within the vague context of "humans are in a long losing war with aliens here" and doesn't really need the specificity delivered by the TFOR novel or the Reach game. Some people just want more of a good thing or, like I wrote in another post, like following the veins of causality backwards and forwards and want to check the answer key to see if they're right. H1-H3 do stand well on their own because, as you point out, it's the real story. Not only is the conflict with the Flood the real conflict, but it's that conflict that gives rise to the human-Covenant conflict in the first place; the Covenant's access to Forerunner artifacts and technology was enabled by the activation of the Array and (presumably) those species being preserved by the Ark and then reseeded in a galaxy devoid of Forerunners to guard their toys. It was the need to combat the Flood that created the Array, and the firing of the Array that gave rise to the Prophets' questionable doomsday suicide cult. Even if the UNSC
I'm actually with you there. That's why I object to Halo Wars, for instance-- the idea that UNSC units encountered Forerunner artifacts and the Flood decades before Halo 1 didn't sit well with me, either. To me, the proper start is the Flood and a Halo installation being discovered, for the first time, by human forces, in the person of Master Chief, accompanied by Cortana. I don't mind lots of background, but that moment is important. It's why Halo 1 starts where and when it does, and that moment is cheapened by inserting more and more Human-Forerunner or Human-Flood interactions (even interactions with artifacts only, or with no survivors). At least, it is in my opinion. : ...Which goes back to what you said about 343GS being the key turning point
I agree with you completely there. I think that's a very awkward scene in Reach that doesn't work well at all. I think I see what Bungie was trying to do, and they were walking a tightrope there. Halsey has to stress the idea that this data she's giving Noble Six is not merely important or significant, but that it's going to change the entire nature of the conflict, without suggesting that she knows a lot more than she should. I'm not entirely certain they succeeded in that. It comes dangerously close to Halsey becoming the embodiment of Bungie itself, telling the player, "see, this is where the really important stuff in the next game is coming up". It's really hard for me to come up with a reasonable description of what's in that Forerunner data archive and why it is as important as Halsey says it is. The conclusion I reached is that it retcons the novels' mention of the Forerunner artifact on Sigma Octanus that led Cortana to Installation 04. Some people don't like that idea. I think if Halsey's data does not include that, or if that data is given to Cortana in any other way, then the final act of Reach really has no significance whatsoever, and the splinter of Cortana you're given there ends up being about as important as the data the Engineer gives to Johnson at the end of ODST-- which is to say, completely unimportant. : //===== : So I guess my position is, in a nutshell, now as follows: Reach's Forerunner
: //===== Yes, I agree. It does do that, and in doing so, lessens itself and lessens Halo 1. I think the problem, at base, is that Bungie really wasn't interested in telling the story of the Fall of Reach by itself. If they were, they would have made that the first game. They were interested in telling the story of the Flood, the Array, and the Forerunners-- and how the human-Covenant war was impacted by that story. I think they decided to justify doing the Reach story by linking them, so that the final Reach cutscene could dovetail into the Halo 1 opening cutscene, making the entire game a long prologue instead of a true prequel. I suppose the difference between this and what I originally responded to is that I think this problem exists no matter how you portray the events of the Fall of Reach. Bungie could have fastidiously maintained continuity with the novel, adding only the minimum necessary to link Reach with Halo 1, and you'd still have this problem. If they don't link the two stories... then I suppose I've got to wonder what the point would be, in a larger sense. ODST's irrelevance I can almost ignore because it's a good ride. Despite some flaws, I managed to get involved in that group of characters. I wanted them to escape and survive. I thought the idea of a municipal AI being built too close to a Forerunner artifact, and gaining access to data that interested the Covenant intriguing, even if that data ends up having no military application. I found the idea of an Engineer discovering that data, and being willing to give it to humanity to be interesting-- even if, again, it was of no military value. I think you can do a happy ending where the characters all escape and live to fight another day, and if you like those characters, the audience will be happy, even if the story has some flaws. If you're going to do a tragedy, though, you've got to deliver the payoff some other way. Is it a morality play? Okay, kill your evil characters, and evil is punished, justice is served. If you're going to entice your audience to like your characters, and then kill them, then there has to be a payoff somewhere. There has to be something bought with the sacrifice-- some greater victory. I think that's why Reach contains all the Forerunner data nonsense, as well as the epilogue about how Reach returns to life because the Covenant never really glassed anything because they aren't that powerful didn't you know that was just UNSC propaganda? (Ugh. Hated that.) Reach's story poses some very real narrative problems, and recognition of these problems was included in Bungie's own promotional materials-- from the beginning, you know the end. The ultimate fate of Reach is not in doubt for a single moment during the game; not in the mind of the audience, and, from the looks of it, not in the minds of our protagonists. Bungie I think tries, in a few places, to create some doubt. There's the first level feint about insurrectionists. They draw out the conflict over a period of time that's longer than the novel. Ultimately, though, the colony falls and most of Noble Team falls with it. What for? If they died in vain, and the audience knows they will from the first moment, it's going to be difficult to keep the audience's sympathies. What is Noble Team buying with their lives? Time for civilians to escape? Hard to identify with, since we only meet one by name. Protecting Earth? There seems to be no link. The Covenant eventually find Earth anywhere, and there's no particular reason to believe they find it any earlier or later than they would have otherwise because of the ferocity of the UNSC resistance at Reach. The obvious link is the one they use: the H1 manual only mentions Reach because it provides context for H1's opening scene; why there's a lone Spartan riding a lone cruiser accompanied by a smart AI kitted out for infiltration of alien systems. The Master Chief is the last spartan because all the rest died defending Reach. (Spare me the exceptions, they're not relevant.) The PoA is alone because it fled the scene of a surprise attack. It is outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed by superior Covenant ships because that's always the case in any spacebound engagement in the war. And the PoA arrives at Installation 04... because Noble Six delivered Halsey's Forerunner data archive to Captain Keyes at the end of Reach. It's the only scenario that gives Noble Team's actions meaning. Without it, the better military decision would have been an immediate evacuation and retreat. That's not to say there aren't problems with the interpretation. There's something to be said for your earlier version, where the invasion of Reach is much harsher than any other in the war. It would explain why the UNSC doesn't retreat immediately. If you've been losing colony worlds for four decades, and only retaken some temporarily, you'd think after 40 years immediate evacuation would become standard operating procedure. You'd think, against an enemy that seems bent on genocide rather than conquest, UNSC would end up being engaged in establishing more, broadly scattered, less tightly integrated colonies, in an effort to preserve first the human race, and second human civilization. I don't believe there's mention of any such activities anywhere. : And this is around the time I start feeling silly for both being stubborn
Don't, I think you're on to some very relevant criticisms of Reach's story beyond it just being a retcon. I think there's a lot in Reach to criticize; it's just that categorizing the criticism as a violation of existing continuity is probably the least enlightening way to proceed, because it pits primary sources (the games) against ancillary materials (manuals, novels) and is, at base, just an effort to preserve the status quo.
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