/chat/ - Chat

Every now and then someone brings up Halo, and I end up coming back to the whole thing, remembering how much was lost, how much I care.
Usually it crops up because someone runs the claim that humans and forerunners were always different. That there was no retcon, and that idea was stupid anyway.

Always a depressing one. It's people who don't know what they had. Who insist it's always been shit. And have the audacity to be annoyed you don't join them in the sty.
I sneer, of course, and find anger at them. But mostly, it makes me sad. And I hate how they persist, in eroding the past. In allowing the new slop made overwrite what once was.
"Folk need heroes", as Johnson put it.

Modern writing has decayed rather fiercely. And with it, I feel even the capacity to understand, to 'see' good stories is gone. Depth is a thing of the past in so many respects. Motivations need to be outright stated, or as baseline as can be, to be understood. Hell, even that might be too much, as far more often I see justifications for any action at all no matter how outlandish or absurd.
It hurts. I ought do my part to fix it, but I struggle. It's something I need to do. A little piece of the world I know I could change, I could make a difference in. But it's hard. Taking that first step.

But I digress; I made this thread, or rather this line of text mostly to talk a moment in Halo that's always stuck with me. I think it's my favorite moment. I don't know when it quite clicked for me, but now, it's the one I immediately think of when looking at Bungie and an example of their writing prowess.

There's this moment in Halo 2, towards the end of the game, where you find one of the Prophets, the leaders of the Covenant, Mercy, with a flood parasite at his neck, abandoned by his fellows, left behind.
The Chief, known to him as the "Demon", the great enemy of the Covenant, kneels besides him, and Mercy gives you a line that feels for all intents like a threat. A bit of bravado from a dying man. Some bold bragging of a final victory over an old enemy, giving him a small bit of satisfaction in his final moments.

But that is entirely changed when you realize the truth.
Mercy, you see, was not speaking as a villain, as some fiendish monster out to slaughter humanity for his own pleasure.
Mercy was a true believer. He truly bought in to the Great Journey.
His words to you weren't some reckless brag. He knows the truth. He knows what you, what Humanity, are.
He was there when Mendicant Bias revealed this fact; That humanity are Forerunner.
"Some of them were left behind".

So what does this man say, a monster at his throat, the great demon of his people at his side? Does he insult him? Belittle him? Tell him he's too late?
No. Mercy answers him truthfully. He hides nothing. He gives his final wishes, his final conviction on his dying breath.
"This time none of you will be left behind".

His final words are not condemnation. Even to this "demon" before him.
He wished to bring all, even those deemed "unworthy". That all would attain this salvation.
In the end, what he wanted for humanity, was Mercy.
And we, in the moment, never knew.