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In regards to Halsey...
Posted By: davidfuchs <davelikesdinos@gmail.com>Date: 10/27/11 9:56 a.m.

In Response To: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP* (Archilen)


: Just finished reading it. All in all, it was pretty good, but very different
: than I expected in terms of both writing style and in-universe events,but
: it was refreshing in a way and it certainly kept me entertained
: throughout.

: And then there's Halsey. To me, there was something preachy about the way her
: character was handled, like Traviss was trying to constantly make a point
: to the audience how immoral and evil she was by making most of the
: characters hate her. The fact they told the members of Kilo-Five about
: what she'd done seemed almost like an excuse to have the characters wallow
: in how morally reprehensible it all was. Maybe it just bothered me because
: I'm accustomed to Nylund's more neutral narrator voice and the fact no one
: in-universe has had any problem with her actions until now. It also seemed
: ridiculous that Parangosky wouldn't know about the flash clones or would
: start lecturing Halsey about them - I doubt something like that could be
: done without authorization, not to mention it seems hypocritical for her
: to make such a big deal out of it. This is actually acknowledged in the
: novel, but I still feel like the ending interrogation scene was there just
: to explore why Halsey had the children cloned, not because it would serve
: a meaningful in-universe purpose.

One of my few complaints with Nylund's work (besides making Chief kind of a whiner at points), is that he made the human-Covenant conflict pretty damn black-and-white. Halsey is a good gal, and even ONI isn't really portrayed as bad (or doesn't have as many bad eggs as we got with subsequent fiction.)

A lot of Parangosky's actions are calculated, so I don't think they are as much an indicator of what she knows or what she feels, but what she's trying to get at. Winning over the Spartans is one calculation. And Halsey most definitely is preachy--but that makes sense. As First Strike detailed, she'd been smugly satisfied that she was the only reason humanity was still around, and she saw the Spartans as hers--something she still feels. When you get down to it, even with the best of intentions Halsey had the hubris to play God and decide that she was in the right--just because we love the Master Chief doesn't diminish the fact that she's ruined countless lives, and really isn't much better than our hated ONI spooks.

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Message Index



Replies:

Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*Archilen 10/27/11 8:48 a.m.
     In regards to Halsey...davidfuchs 10/27/11 9:56 a.m.
           Re: In regards to Halsey...GrimBrother One 10/27/11 10:31 a.m.
           Re: In regards to Halsey...Archilen 10/27/11 10:52 a.m.
     Couple of things...GrimBrother One 10/27/11 10:27 a.m.
           Re: Couple of things...davidfuchs 10/27/11 10:35 a.m.
           Re: Couple of things...Archilen 10/27/11 11:09 a.m.
           Re: Couple of things...Postmortem 10/27/11 1:10 p.m.
                 Re: Couple of things...Archilen 10/27/11 2:07 p.m.
                       Re: Couple of things...elrolio 10/27/11 2:29 p.m.
                       Re: Couple of things...scarab 10/27/11 4:49 p.m.
                             Re: Couple of things...Archilen 10/28/11 1:06 a.m.
     Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*elrolio 10/27/11 2:14 p.m.
           Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*Postmortem 10/27/11 2:47 p.m.
                 Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*Archilen 10/28/11 3:25 a.m.
                       Re: Glasslands thoughts/critiques *SP*Postmortem 10/28/11 7:44 a.m.
     I should have been sleeping...AladelAngel 10/28/11 4:53 a.m.
           Re: I should have been sleeping...Archilen 10/28/11 7:36 a.m.
                 Re: I should have been sleeping...AladelAngel 10/28/11 1:08 p.m.
           This. (+ [mean] comments)Arithmomaniac 10/28/11 9:11 a.m.
                 Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)IESUproductions 10/28/11 10:04 a.m.
                       Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)Arithmomaniac 10/28/11 10:34 a.m.
                             Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)davidfuchs 10/28/11 11:19 a.m.
                 Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)AladelAngel 10/28/11 1:13 p.m.
                       Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)Postmortem 10/28/11 4:44 p.m.
                             Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)davidfuchs 10/28/11 5:14 p.m.
                 Re: This. (+ [mean] comments)Quirel 10/30/11 2:49 p.m.



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