The Myth of a Conservative Halo

I was never the biggest fan of the Halo franchise. Even back in the heydays of playing co-op multiplayer across four interconnected Xbox 360s with my dorm mates for hours on end in college, it was always another multiplayer fad to me; a game with really smooth gameplay that is fun but not remarkable. Like Goldeneye before it, and Call of Duty after it, Halo is a sweet spot for that kind of multiplayer itch you get, a solid shooter that helps to take the edge off in a troubled world.

Yet, one aspect I always liked about Halo was how it tried (and often failed) to provide unique perspectives with its themes and narrative. What really hit that for me was the opening cutscene of Halo 2. Long and a bit cliché, yes, but for 2004, it was the perfect opening to a new space epic; showcasing the duality of how we view heroes and villains, the similarities between human and alien through ritual, and how they perceive sacrifice. The Arbiter quickly became my favorite character in the Halo franchise, a wayward soul who was able to break free from the shackles of his dogma and achieve freedom that never would have been possible. Along with Master Chief serving as the simple, ultra-heroic representation of what humanity can be, it was a perfect match. Two exceptional warriors, one with some introspection and one with simple drive, fighting against internal and external forces alike to achieve a more stable, lasting future free of destruction and lies.

I guess, in hindsight, I should not have been surprised that the Arbiter was disliked upon the release of Halo 2. Even during that time, early internet backlash was not happy with his inclusion, as it took away from the promise to "finish the fight" against the Covenant. And yet, the Artiber is the best-written character Bungie has ever delivered, and the exclusion of further story and depth in Halo 3 was a massive over-correction when the original trilogy closed out.

All of this, however, has a new perspective in part due to recent events online. On October 26th, GameStop and the United States Department of Homeland Security posted a series of tweets utilizing Halo's iconography to create pro-President Trump, pro-ICE, and anti-immigrant sentiment (the most egregious comparing immigrants to The Flood, in a bid to cajole people to join up with the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE.

All of this has launched a unique after-effect, one that has people claiming Halo to be a 'conservative game' due to its themes and language, equating the flood to aggressive outsiders and barbarians at the gate. Praising the ultra-militaristic UNSC as jingoistic American exceptionalism, and most damning, siding with the UNSC as a true face of Christian ideology in the face of the Covenant as a heretical Judeo-Christian belief.

But I question this interpretation, mainly because it is barely, if at all, supported by the text of the narrative and the universe Bungie created. Instead, this is a myth, a conservative version of Halo truly falls apart when you apply literary analysis to what we were given, and how the games portray factions and individuals across the trilogy in a more muddled, attempted agnostic point of view, with surface-level symbology and subtextual ideology that doesn't fit with how the games are currently being pigeonholed

A Tale of Two Factions

Halo, as a franchise, is a simple one when broken down to its basic components. Aliens attack, and the player takes the role of an exceptional individual to fight them back. The only flair narrative that makes this different is the idea of the Covenant, a religious-coded, zealotrous collection of alien creatures that help in justifying different species and races to fight, along with the titular symbolism of Halo itself, a literal god-ring weapon created by a race known as the Forerunners centuries ago. Right away, there are implications to be had with the symbolism of Halo itself. The existence of the Halo rings, the Covenant viewing them as a requirement for their great journey, and their ultimate purpose - a literal deus ex machina to imprison and destroy The Flood - are steeped in religious iconography purposefully to provide narrative structure for the gameplay, and to facilitate the narrative twists seen in Halo: Combat Evolved.

Yet going deeper, we see the hypocrisy of all sides regarding its use and function. Seeing the rings as a religious symbol, the Covenant attempts to activate the Halo rings multiple times, each time releasing the Flood onto the galaxy and creating more chaos in the midst of the war with the UNSC. But the Covenant is inherently flawed; their leaders, the prophets, are hypocrites who demand obedience to their ideology and claim any deviation to be heresy, which is marked for death. Their use of religious symbolism provides them a convenient excuse for their actions, and the scapegoating of humanity as inferior beings who are an affront to their beliefs, othering them as heretics and Master Chief as a demon to be purged.

The United Nations Space Command, or UNSC, is just as problematic. Formed to quell both a Communist and Fascist uprising in the distant past, the UNSC maintains military and political control over the space lanes of humanity, sharing power with the Unifed Earth Government (UEG). Their SPARTAN-II program, as it was fleshed out, kidnapped children to experiment upon them with their super soldier program. Of the 300 confirmed kidnappings, only 75 survived to combat readiness, with the UNSC denying their existence as they dealt with insurrectionists on human colony worlds until the Covenant showed up. The only reason they are even known to the public is for a morale boost of the Spartans being the best hope against the Covenant, to the point where the Spartans are never listed as killed in action, only missing to preserve the 'myth' of their exceptionalism.

Both the Covenant and the UNSC are parallel to each other in form and function. Both are multi-ethnic and multi-racial paramilitary organizations that justify their war machine through conflict; the Covenant fights humanity due to their fanaticism and ulterior motives of the Halo rings, while the UNSC, before the war with the Covenant, was tasked with fighting insurrectionists in an undeclared civil war. Both positions regard members of their military as exceptional figures, and both desire the destruction of their enemies throughout the Alliance-Covenant war. Yet, the Halo games only see the one-sided conflict of the Covenant as both aggressor and antagonist due to their outsider status and over-reliance on religious control.

The UNSC has its own skeletons we must contend with. Though they are ostensibly the protagonists in the Halo trilogy, the UNSC was already engaged in a civil war with the outer colonies on the behest of the UEG. Dubbed the insurrection, the only cited reasons for the insurrection were a surge in colonial nationalism against what they perceived as an occupying and draconian aggressor. This, of course, sounds all familiar, with Bungie essentially cherry-picking some social and historical events to provide background context to the factions they created. Yet narratively, it fits perfectly with the imperfections of both factions; the UNSC, much like the Covenant, is bluntly quelling dissent, using the enhanced Spartans as their instrument to help pacify the rebellion after adopting an algorithm that predicted the long-term instability of the outer colonies without military intervention.

It also serves to contrast the motivations of both Master Chief and the Arbiter within their respective factions. With both being protagonists and outsiders to the norms of their factional ideologies. Master Chief, at first, seems to be a simple character, jingoistic to the UNSC cause, his desire to complete any tasks given to him, with an 'any means necessary' approach. Master Chief, however, does disobey orders from the UNSC on occasion due to this, and shows humility to fellow soldiers - he is a Spartan, and therefore a symbol of exceptionalism, but Master Chief is humble enough to know that is not really the case.

This is perhaps the true appeal to Master Chief as a character; the fact that he is just really good and really lucky is incidental to how he sees himself. Master Chief blames himself for the deaths of soldiers around him, from lowly privates to friends like Avery Johnson, to the point he regrets his own failings with Cortana beyond the Halo trilogy. The depth of his devotion to the UNSC is not just out of loyalty to the organization, but in his own duty to what the organization can stand for. In short, he sees himself as a soldier who is empathetic to the people over the needs of his command, and his training and abilities allow him to enact those needs for the betterment of humankind.

The Arbiter, much like Master Chief, is similar in both his exceptionalism and his symbolic use by the Covenant. The differences, however, are that the Arbiter must come to terms with being that symbol before breaking away from the oppression of their organization. We see this struggle in Halo 2 as the Arbiter is first deemed a heretic, before being given purpose by the Prophets to quell an insurrection within their own ranks. Taking the mantle of the Arbiter, his quest to stop the insurrection leads the Arbiter to be the savior of the Elites and other members of the Covenant, leading to a breakaway from the Covenant and allying with Master Chief in Halo 3.

The parallels are obvious upon reflection between the Arbiter and Master Chief, yet the reception of the Arbiter's inclusion and his characterization was reviled. Bungie, for its part, blamed the reception on external factors. An interview with Rob Fahey for Eurogamer has several opinions on the subject, with Brian Jarrard, the community manager at the time, blaming the marketing of Halo 2 as a major misdirect for players, while Chris Butcher, the program lead, argued it was players' misunderstanding intent of the game:

"Butcher disagrees. "I don't think so. I think it really was that a bunch of people thought they were going to play a war movie - they were going to play Medal of Honor, with aliens, and that was not the game we were building."

However, I think Joseph Staten, the lead writer of the Halo trilogy, perhaps said it best.

"Halo is a war story, and we felt strongly that telling one side of the conflict was only half of the story," explains Staten. "That was the reason for the Arbiter - to offer another, compelling point of view on a war where telling friend from foe wasn't always clear-cut. We knew we had a trilogy on our hands, so we were looking past the shock of playing as the enemy to the eventual, allied push against the Flood led by the Chief and the Arbiter in Halo 3."

False Prophets and Empty Symbols

Over twenty years after the launch of Halo 2, the backlash is now clear; people don't want complexity when it's easier to latch onto basic narrative mythology. Gamers in 2004 were simply in awe at the promises of what Halo was, blinded by its shiny gameplay and dumbstruck by any nuance it attempted to tell, because to them, there is no nuance to be had. Halo truly was a product of the 2000s in that regard. Post-9/11 America was looking for simple heroes and simple villains, and the introduction of an overtly religious cult, religious symbolism, and even iconography made it, perhaps subconsciously, more agreeable to people lost in a daze of confusion.

Some try to point out the possible subtext of Master Chief being a messianic figure, even citing his name - John 117 - as a biblical one, including a verse providing Christian text against 'heretical' factions like the Covenant. While there is a potential interpretation there, too much contradicts it to hold significant weight. The simple fact is that Master Chief is a soldier fighting for an agnostic organization comprised of various ethnicities and cultures. A soldier who rejects their exceptionalism and instead embraces allianceship with members of the Covenant, who break away into a civil war towards the end of Halo 2, and focuses heavily on doing their duty for the betterment of all humanity. Jesus-like, perhaps, but not a messiah for humanity, when humanity is alongside Master Chief every step of the way as equals in the conflict, and makes similar sacrifices as Master Chief. One could argue the climax is different, but it is still not an individual effort.

If anything, it is the Arbiter who is the true messiah of the Halo franchise, the one who breaks free from the hypocrisy of religious dogma, who has his Jesus at the Temple moment when he allies with Master Chief to stop the Prophet of Truth once a civil war breaks out between the Covenant and the Elites. Accepting the mantle of a Pariah and defying the control of those in power, it is the Arbiter who slays the Prophet of Truth and essentially frees many from the control of the Covenant, leading to a new, mostly positive change towards the end of Halo 3. Much like Master Chief, he does not do it alone, but the symbolism of the Arbiter being the savior of his people is much stronger and arguably more resonant than John-117.

Religious subtext, as mentioned, is found throughout the Halo series, but arguments for its placement and meaning have been arguably misplaced. Master Chief would never allow such zealotry of religious fanaticism simply due to his training and worldview. Based on his actions in the trilogy, he is more likely to defend the interests of the greater good versus being mired in religious mandate. Defending humanity by any means necessary puts Master Chief into a more Captain America-type role; he is more than just a symbolic Boy Scout, like the UNSC tried to pigeonhole him into. Instead, it is duty and integrity, and using the abilities given to him to fight for the values of what that duty and integrity mean.

This is not necessarily a conservative ideal either. There is precedent that can be argued as a liberal and even humanist one. The individual responsibility of someone, especially those with more exceptional means or abilities, is to make their duty meaningful to the rights that truly matter. Philosopher John Stuart Mill also argues that, through the harm principle, it is the duty of those in power must exercise that power to prevent harm to others. Master Chief, in essence, exercises power to prevent harm; his duty to the UNSC extends to that not out of loyalty to the UNSC, but an obligation of what he can and should do to preserve individual liberties for humankind. It is partially why he forgives the UNSC for abducting him in the first place; he strives to fulfill the role of what that senseless act means in the right way.

Not only does Master Chief demonstrate this, but it is the Arbiter, again, who perhaps reflects the biggest mirror to the more overt liberal ideals of defying tradition and preservation of individual liberty and community. Consider the Arbiter fighting against the hypocrisy of the Covenant, not for himself, but rather to preserve the members of the Covenant caught in the crossfire of the Prophet's zealotry. The Prophets betraying the Elites is a frustrating shorthand trope to make this breakaway easier, but the effect is still the same: The Arbiter, as the messiah of the Elites, leads them against tyrannical forces that threaten the community built within the Covenant.

The symbolism, then, is simply overt for narrative purposes. The Covenant's desire for the great journey is an obvious homage to apocalyptic stories and gospels, such as the Book of Revelation. The Flood - and by extant the Forerunners - are obvious allusions to the sins of the world that we're washed away by the great flood found in numerous Abrahamic and religious texts. The Halo franchise was never subtle with its symbolism, but it was also never deep with it either; the symbolism is a garnish to justify design and narrative conflict and parallels, rather than being overly devout to religious beliefs.

If anything, Halo is skeptical of religious power due to how it portrays the Covenant as a whole. With power pooling to a theocratic tyrant such as the Prophet of Truth, to the justification of heresy and belief to mark enemies as inferior beings to be crushed. Even the betrayal of the Elites adds to this breakdown of the fanaticism of religious order and hierarchical structure; the Elites are expendable, just like all members of the Covenant, regardless of their devotion to their beliefs at the whims of those who desire nothing but control.

Many would argue that this is specific to singular religions, such as Islam. This again may be born out of the culture of the trilogy's original release in the 2000s, where post-9/11 anti-Islamic sentiment was perhaps at its peak. Yet, the symbology reflects Abrahamic religions as a whole, with most allusions given a Christian slant in name and reference. Fanaticism, be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other belief, is the enemy of the goodness of all. It can be any religious faction that fills this interpretation. This is a view that rightfully supports; loss of belief is a major turning point for the Arbiter as he becomes a more Christ-like figure than Master Chief.

And since this will come up, this is reflected in intent by the developers as well. It is well known that The Arbiter is not the original title planned for the character; it was instead The Dervish. The character's name was changed from The Dervish (chosen because it sounded unique and was a holy warrior set apart from Islamic traditions) to Arbiter, because Bungie and Microsoft did not want to transform the Covenant into a simple allegory to Islam. Even in the early 2000's, both sides were aware of how disastrous such an implication would be.

Conclusion

Conservatism, as a whole, is present in Halo, but the actions of the characters in Halo contradict conservative ideals. This muddled presentation, if anything, attempts to be agnostic to socio-political opinions, leaving interpretation of the text to be more open-ended. While some arguments can be made for a Conservative Halo, the problem is not even that Halo can be viewed that way. The problem is how it is being used as an argumentative prop instead.

The myth of a Conservative Halo is not that the game contains more conservative ideals, but instead it is a myth hijacked for political self-gratification. It does not attempt to be an intellectual discourse on the meaning of the narrative, it is instead an attempt to take ownership of a narrative framework by applying superficial reading into the text that, at best, is a misreading of the text to fit personal worldview, or at worst, justifies real-world actions of othering that everyone should frankly call out for being in bad taste.

The suddenly modern debate of Halo is just another casualty of gaming literacy. In attempting to co-opt franchises they enjoy into their worldview, we now have more individuals caught up in a fervor to fit a square peg into a round hole; to claim a work of fiction is something it simply was never made to be. The fun of interpreting media is that it allows for deeper connections to the media itself, allowing for text, subtext, and analysis like this to exist. The lack of interpretation permeating from the discourse of Halo just prevents the game from being anything other than a toy, a stance that is truly an insult to what games like Halo and the artistry put into it represent for the gaming community. We are worse off because of that.