How Halo 2 Critiques Religion

hey you want to know how to make a good sequel hold back in the first iteration [Music] there's just no need to top poetic Perfection and most of the time whenever it's tried with a few notable exceptions it's failed I mean there's a reason you don't see The Princess Bride 2 or return to ca Blanka revenge of the Mona Lisa or something like that and in all reality there was never supposed to be a sequel to Halo the guys at Bungie created one grand Opus of a game with Halo C and that's all it was ever going to be just the one game because of this they worked relentlessly on the first game Joseph ston one of the lead writers at Bungie was pulling 80h hour weeks leading up to the launch of Halo writing rewriting and perfecting the story he had poured his heart and soul into because at the time ston along with the rest of Bungie meant for this story to be it just one chance to get it right and give Gamers a unique Standalone Masterpiece that would be remembered for years years and years to come but given the opportunity where do you go from there well you have to make a pretty big jump in the narrative and as I talked about in my previous video Halo C was an archetypal story and in it the Covenant represented the Tyrant manipulating enslaving and destroying everything in their path now as an archetype the Tyrant was a dark potential we all held within ourselves and as a result we felt metaphysically compelled to destroy it but when Halo 2 decided to open up our eyes to the Covenant at Ground Zero and get us to empathize with their hero the Arbiter they were in for quite a narrative challenge how do you flesh out a two-dimensional archetype without destroying your narrative structure well Bungie's answer was to intertwine the Covenant and their hierarchy with the complexities of religious fundamentalism manipulation false prophets and essentially Galactic terrorism they opened up the question if a religious narrative believed fundamentally on Blind Faith led someone to commit genocide then who's the real perpetrator the man or the idea this allows the archet type to stand and remain as the ideology of fundamentalism under false prophets while the man or alien rather represents only a pawn in the ultimate story something subject to change and grow upon Enlightenment and upon open-mindedness I have a question for you what do you think came to mind when people heard the word halo before Combat Evolved released in 2001 and I'll give you a hint it wasn't maybe actually it was this and really this is just a later interpretation of what originated as something closer to this you might be interested to find out how exactly it relates to the HALO Series or at least the original trilogy you see religion and its surrounding holy Mysteries were a staple of the original Bungie games which established the mystical tone and ancient feel of their stories but was it just smoke in mirrors or was there some real critical substance there well as a student of religion myself I wanted to find out so why don't we start with the Halo ring itself as a religious symbol so the Halo ring we now recognize to distinguish a person as holy dates all the way back to 300 BC being found first in ancient Iranian religious art it's not entirely known what the initial thought was behind it but one of the leading theories suggest this symbol was meant to represent the sun's Radiance that shines in particular through a wise and holy being since its Inception it has been used across the world to depict Jesus the Buddha Roman gods and even some political figures like Constantine among others now listen listen I know I'm not breaking any new ground here by pointing out the connection between the Halo games and religious symbolism Frank Halo wears its religious references on its sleeve I mean obviously it's in the name but with the HALO Series being a major part of my childhood this religious element had a great impact on me especially later in college when I deconstructed my faith in Christianity to become an atheist before eventually reconstructing it and finding a newfound love for a less young Earth fundamentalist form of the faith I remember feeling very connected to this story during both of these transitional times in my life I remember wanting to dive into such a topic for Comfort or maybe even morbid curiosity when I was lost among my doubts this one is Mission and ner and has its mind concluded this one is but flesh and faith and is the more deluded the problem with amateur conspiracy theorists like me is that Halo is not a onetoone allegory for any particular religion or religious story throughout time when you try to draw a connection between the Apostle Paul and the Arbiter for example there will definitely be some similarities in that Paul persecuted and killed Christians before converting to the side of Humanity's savior just as the Arbiter was a war leader killing humans before converting to fight alongside Humanity's big green Savior and coincidentally in both cases their religious allies saw this savior as a demon taking people away from the Divine Law demon and obviously that's a connection but the master chief Never Dies to save humanity and most of the UNC along with the chief clearly favor more naturalistic views of the world over religion and yes the flood is obviously something that wipes out Humanity much like the flood stories in the abrahamic religions but then where's the connection with the master chief later working on the side of the flood to keep Humanity alive you see what I mean it's like every time you try to draw the analogy it almost works but not quite the HALO Series is also notorious for mixing and matching different religious symbols from mutually exclusive religions it's like a giant modge podge of references that can't be pinned down to represent one particular religion in fact the Arbiter was initially intended to be called the dervish after a traditional Muslim role but it was later changed at the suggestion of Microsoft to avoid alienating or disrespecting the Muslim religion as the enemy although I think Bungie attempted to mix these metaphors in the first place to avoid exactly what Microsoft was worried about it's seems they were at least trying to tell a more Universal story or the final result was a more Universal story whether they intended it or not a story that warns our generation of the potentially dangerous aspects of religious fundamentalism the vague and broken up nature of the story elements helps us to draw parallels between the game and our own experience whatever religious experience that may be depending on where we were raised it seems fundamentalism and extremism does not discriminate to any particular religion now as a religious man myself I don't actually see Halo 2 story as anti-religious though I see it called that a lot but instead I see it as anti-f fundamentalist anti-d Dogma anti- ideology Jordan Peterson famously defines ideology this way ideologies are fragmented religions essentially they use the same symbolic underst structure but they only tell part of the story when the American West was settled it was settled on the on the wave of an ideological story and here's the story heroic individual that's positive bringing positive culture that's the wise King into chaotic territory that's the negative mother essentially right and that's that's a motivating story man to bring heroically bring order into the Untamed Wilderness it's okay well here's the counternarrative raping and pillaging individual bringing the desolations of tyrannical culture into the virginal wonderful environmental uh what what what do you call it uh Utopia yes of nature it's like yeah man you can get along way with that story too but they're both half the story individual is heroic but also is an adversary and a cruel adversary at that culture is the wise King but it's also the evil Tyrant and nature is beautiful and wonderful French impressionistic landscape and cancer and enophiles mosquitoes and elephant iasis so an ideology just pulls out a subset of the religious characters and says this is the entire reality it's like no it's not it's a parasitical it's a parasitical meme before we go further let's take a second to define the term fundamentalist because really there are two that are widely used so many people have traditionally used the term fundament M alist to refer to someone who adheres to the fundamentals or Essentials of any particular faith if you're a Christian that's Jesus's resurrection if you're a Muslim it's the five pillars of Islam if you're Jewish it's the law of Moses Etc more recently the term has sort of mutated to mean something like a person of Blind Faith who is totally sold out to their beliefs and closed-minded to any potential alternative no matter the evidence this is something we see exemplified in the prophet of regret when he hears directly from his Oracle that the covenant's belief in Halo is false and and that the ring in reality is intended to be a weapon of all the objects our Lord's left behind there are none so worthless as these oracles they know nothing of the great journey see the thing is this Oracle is designed by The forerunners Who he worships and is meant to relay their message and intended purpose but regrets close-minded fundamentalism does not allow him to accept a contradiction in his belief even if it's given to him directly from the very thing he worships I I can't help but be reminded of Ken Ham here with this example not to say anything of the man but instead of his public fundamentalist beliefs you see Ken Ham is an Australian young Earth creationist famous for building a life-sized biblically accurate Arc in Kentucky he has in more recent years however begun to go after popular Christians like William Lane Craig among others and smear their names because their ideology leaves room for beliefs such as the Gap Theory which suggest the Earth wasn't created in seven actual days or that the Earth might actually be older than 6,000 years and similar to the Propet of regret Ken pushes these beliefs despite many early church fathers clear writings against young Earth creationism I mean St Augustine him bishop and doctor of the Catholic Church wrote with quite harsh language I might add about young Earth creationist scaring off potential Christians with such an unreasonably strict and literal interpretation of the Bible thinking back on Halo 2 it's the same unwillingness to accept Alternatives that leads to the violence and destruction of the Covenant eventually resulting in their own Great Schism and eventual demise we see this very self-destructive and manipulative aspect of the Covenant demonstrated brilliantly by their role of the Arbiter you see this is a sort of last ditch effort prove your devotion kind of position and this position is given to doubters or those who have been disgraced by the promise of the Covenant it's meant for them to die and honorable death leading soldiers on suicide mission after suicide mission until they're ultimately silenced long before their doubts or political influence can crack the foundation of the covenant's fundamentalism another noteworthy metaphor in Halo 2 is how the Covenant so clearly reflects the religious sins of violence in the name of Peace much like Constantine's adoption of Christianity as a Divine endorsement of violence and War in Constantine's case according to one common theory he saw a vision in the sky of a brilliant cross made of pure light leading him to paint similar crosses on the shields of his soldiers as they went into battle later claiming to believe that it was by this sign that God saved and delivered his City side note this cross in the sky that Constantine saw was quite possibly something called a solar halo which is actually a real pH phenomenon caused by the sun refracting through ice to create a giant Halo with a cross at the center of it and this is interesting because it's just like the brilliant Halo the Covenant saw in the sky which led them to fight in its honor and ironically kill in the name of the ones who didn't kill but instead sacrifice themselves to save the Galaxy you can see the irony in both cases to take up arms in the name of a nonviolent creator of course the war Runners weren't complete pacifist but they did sacrifice themselves just as Jesus sacrificed himself to defeat the sin that would consume the world or the flood that would consume the Galaxy and in Matthew 25:52 Jesus even explicitly says put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword it's in light of statements like these where we can see the extreme perversion of something like Constantine's men taking the symbol of Jesus's sacrifice and crudely adorning it to their weapons meant to slaughter their enemies instead of love them you can see the similarity here in using the Halo to kill instead of to sacrifice as the forerunners did as I mentioned before it's not until the Arbiter comes face to face with the monument to all of the Covenant sins that he understands what his Blind Faith has cost him all of the lives he has taken and all of the potential lives the Rings could take if the Covenant isn't stopped just like the Apostle Paul the Arbiter represents what can be regained in religion when we accept our own fallibility and begin to worship the creator of the law and what the law was meant to protect instead of worshiping our own huus and what we once misunderstood about the law unlike the Heretics who are Blinded By The Rage of being deceived and as such are consumed by the flood we must quote know the rules well so we can begin to break them effectively end quote just as the Arbiter demonstrated being a former leader of the Covenant Fleet it was in his loyalty to the great journey that he realized the corruption of the prophets and the arrogance of the brutes to follow them so blindly despite any evidence or Reason when the prophets learn of this that they will take your head when they learn fool they ordered me to do it this is what makes the Arbiter and the rest of the elites so compelling again much in the same way the Apostle Paul Works through similar convictions in the Book of Romans the elites are the ones who see the evils they have done the wicked men they have been and then they work to expand their mind repent and correct this it's the brutes that represent those fundamentalists that delude themselves in the name of conviction and loyalty to their faith which is why they must replace the Elites in the high Covenant position just as the sword will often replace the love in religion a fundamentalist wins out above all else in religion ideology or Society at large this is what happens over and over again in almost all historical religions and this is what is represented so brilliantly in Halo 2 if we want to avoid the dangers of religion but retaining its invaluable qualities we must abandon the closed-mindedness of fundamentalism leave room for error and embrace humility as well let's play some pretty sick video games like Halo 2 tell that to the Covenant by the way guys if you like this video it's actually just one in a short series I'm doing about the Halo Trilogy if you haven't yet go check out my first video about Halo CE and what makes it so deep and also keep a lookout for my next video about Halo 3 and the Mystery of the entire Halo Trilogy and also let me know what kind of videos you'd like to see more of or what game show or movie you'd like me to talk about next in the comments catch you next time

Channel: Meaning In-Between

Views: 20,004

Keywords: themeaninginbetween, dangers of religion, religious fundamentalism, abandon ideology, Jordan peterson, halo 2 critiques dogma, Jackson holmes, red vs blue, red vs blue restoration, halo 2 anniversary, halo ce, halo infinite, halo video essay, rooster teeth, bungie, 343 industries, halo vs religion, the arbiter, master chief, miranda keyes, Leonard church, Burnie burns, Steve downs, cortana, Jenn taylor, ken ham, constantine, christianity and halo, halo vs christianity

Id: W7Lq5QoikWQ

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 22 2024