(Spoilers for Most Halo games and Halo books Fall of Reach, Shadows of Reach, First Strike follow)
With Halo: Infinite coming this December, I purchased the Master Chief collection and the book Shadows of Reach. And during those moments mowing down grunts, driving warthog Jeeps, stargazing in the halo’s nighttime sandbox, dogfighting in banshee aircraft, and hunting down Easter eggs I began to notice something:
Among a lot of masculine role models in gaming, the Master Chief is radically different. Of course, he does have super strength, super speed, and can save the world/galaxy he is in much like other heroes in gaming. But unlike under heroes in gaming, the Chief is more than just a strong, almost silent protagonist. The Bungie Halo Trilogy, 343’s Halo 4, as well as the expanded universe reading, do flesh out the Chief in a complex but also relatable way. Other heroes in games tend to focus on how cool they are, what special forces they are a part of, how gung-ho/intimidating/rebellious/tough they are, and sometimes (unfortunately) how they embrace/allow values of toxic masculinity rather than fight against them.
The focus on the Chief that has remained consistent (whether intentionally or not) on his humanity and doing what’s right, even in morally ambiguous situations, and even when the world tried to turn him into a killing machine the games display how he has retained his humanity. To understand what makes the chief who he is now, let’s start from the beginning.
Abducted, Augmented, Alone, but Unbroken
The legend of the Chief’s story begins with a little boy named John – when we first see John in the book Fall of Reach John is roughly playing king of the hill with other boys during recess. A few moments later, John was visited by two strange people. One was Captain Keyes, a future commander of his. The other was a young Dr. Catharine Halsey, who wanted to test the child’s reflexes, attitude, and even luck with a simple conversation and a coin toss.
A few days later, John was abducted into the Spartan-II Program, headed by Dr. Catharine Halsey, and became one of the thousands of specialized child soldiers sent to covertly fight insurrectionist uprisings. John and his team were even able to successfully capture a Rebel Colonel when they were still teenagers. Though over three decades later John would mention in Shadow of Reach he wouldn’t want anyone else to go through being a child soldier, John acknowledged that being a soldier has allowed him as a child to learn to trust others than act as a lone wolf, as well do excel what he was good at. Even with so much taken away from him, john tried to make the most out of his situation.
Though Chief doesn’t dwell on what he’s been through or pities himself, he understands that being enlisted (or in other words kidnapped) into the Spartan-II Program was a very negative change in his life that cross moral lines where it shouldn’t even for the greater good. His sense of Morality was notably tested again in the book First Strike when Dr. Halsey gives John two sets of data crystals – One crystal had info on a cure for a parasite but it would take longer to understand, and another crystal would be much quicker to understand but would result in his fellow marine being dissected (and killed) to be studied for a cure to the parasite. John crushes the second crystal to preserve a fellow marine, passing Dr. Halsey’s test of morals. (It should also noted that Dr. Halsey has shifted gear from using the Spartans to save the Human Race at any cost to feeling guilty about what she put the kids throught saving her Spartans at any cost)
When The Covenant attacked, the Spartans started to assist more on the frontlines with new energy-shielded- MJOLNIR armor but suffered dwindling numbers. John was considered to be both a legend and a leader to his peers. Initially, john just sees himself as a soldier doing his duty, almost in a machine like-way, and even expecting himself to do the impossible to win. And Chief was able to perform the impossible on numerous occasions like a superhuman being, constantly living up to the legend the humanity needed him to be…
…Then came Cortana’s rampancy and chief confronting a problem he couldn’t simply shoot his way out of.
About being a machine, about being a soldier…
There’s something to love in all the Halo games, but Halo 4 takes the cake in delivering us a chief that struggles internally with his humanity as much as he is struggling externally with saving the human race. It forces the chief into a situation where he starts to doubt he can’t fight his way out of. But first some context:
One thing the books do a good job of is how Master Chief isn’t perfect in all aspects of his life. Chief is shown to be awkward with talking to civilians and even non-Spartan-II personnel. After getting into a fight with three Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, who also fought for humanity but became bitter rivals to Spartans, Chief had to learn the harsh lesson of “Lives being wasted” and “Lives Spent.” Even in combat, there are instances where the Chief isn’t able to save everyone’s from death, and sometimes it shakes him personally especially with the deaths of Miranda Keyes and Sargent Johnson during the final mission of the human covenant war. This is because Spartan-II was were considered to be Humanity’s last hope during the days of the Covenant War, even as their number dwindled.
During the later days of the human covenant war, Chief was assigned an AI companion, known as Cortana, who was created from Dr. Halsey’s brain. Halsey expected Chief and Cortana to assist in the operation to Capture a covenant leader to negotiate a truce to end the war, but when Chief and Cortana were forced to escape reach aboard the Pillar of Autumn, Chief wondered if he and Cortana were all that was left of the Spartan-II Program. The duo got along pretty well, and though not a romantic pairing or father-daughter pairing as is commonly seen in other games, it’s more of comradery and friendship-sort of way, especially since both the chief and Cortana create an interesting dynamic with their personality and dialogue, with Cortana being the analytical, talkative, witty, cheeky, and ambitious, while the chief is mostly-silent, stoic, deadly, determined, and non-as-expressive. There is even a bit of irony in this duo – Cortana is an AI (a machine) that looks, acts, desires, fears, talks, and behaves like a human, while Chief is a human that gets described as ‘almost robotic’ and machine-like even by fellow humans.
We then cut to Halo 4, where the UNSC has won the war but the Cheif is adrift in space with Cortana, their half of the ship not crossing over into the portal back home. Alone and unable to do anything else, Chief goes into cryosleep, frozen until he is ready to be thawed out and awakened. Cortana watches over him, but after being active for years, she starts to enter rampancy, a dementia-like state advanced AIs such as Cortana go through when they are dying. In Cortana’s words “(AIs like me) think ourselves to death.”
The duo ends up crash landing on an alien world, hunted by remnants of the covenant from the war, far from home. Despite these overwhelming odds, the Chief insists that if he can get back to earth and find Halsey, she can somehow magically fix Cortana. Cortana appears doubtful and is rather depressed at the notion her life is coming to end but is supportive of the chief. However they start to realize there is a third force encountering a new enemy force the Didact and his Promethean knights, and the threat he poses starts to become the duo’s primary objective.
However, even with assistance from the UNSC forces led by Captain Del Rio and Commander Lasky aboard the infinity. Del Rio, considers Chief to be aging and delusional and would rather retreat than fight the didact. Del Rio decides to even go as far as choosing to terminate Cortana himself. Chief, in an act of defiance, takes Cortana and tell Del Rio simply that if his forces won’t assist him in stopping the Didact (and indirectly, even helping Cortana) the Chief and Cortana will go about it himself, while Del Rio can get the word back to earth about the didact. Out of respect for saving his life in the past and understanding that the chief is right, Commander Lasky and some marines give the chief some tools to help take down the didact.
Cortana’s Condition worsens, forcing the chief to be patient and even comforting towards her, something we’ve never seen the chief do before. Cortana’s biggest fear is that the chief would be paired with another AI and even another Cortana-look-alike that mimics her but isn’t Cortana. Chief is still determined to find a cure for Cortana that the worse won’t come to pass, especially since it’s not over yet for them.
But towards the end of the game with the Didact’s ship over the Earth, Cortana forces herself to break down into several pieces (worsening her condition) to assist in Chief’s final fight against the didact. Though Chief and Cortana are able to stop the didact, Cortana and Chief have one last conversation, before she dies leaving Chief stuck in orbit around pieces of the didact’s ship, a symbolic image of his whole world view crashing down.
Alone and on the Bridge of the Infinity, after being recovered from the debris field. the Lasky meets with a Chief mourning the loss of Cortana and possibly processing what he has been through the past few days. Chief is a deadpan voice remake it’s their duty as soldiers to protect humanity whatever the cost, but Lasky points out chief is comparing soldiers to machines which they aren’t. This causes Chief to remember Cortana’s conversation about “Which one of them really is a machine.”
The epilogue ends with the chief taking off his armor and helmet, revealing his eyes – and thus the Chief as a human – for the first time in a long while.
The events of Halo 4 show how much Chief has grown – he isn’t a monstrous killing machine that wins wars at any cost like the Didact, or blindly follows order or allows himself or his friends to be treated wrongfully even by his superiors. The chief tries to be comforting and reassuring to Cortana even to other humans (despite being awkward about it sometimes). And Chief is forced to confront hard question about himself, about being a human.
Just as an aside while replaying halo 4, Chief final journey with Cortana parallels my journey as an artist and content creator; even if I didn’t want to admit it there were times I wanted to treat myself as a machine when doing stuff like writing blogs or doing art, and like the chief I set impossible milestones only to end up burnt out unhealthy, and sometimes even severely depressed. My worth and purpose of living was attached to how successful I was…and that nearly tore me apart. Now like chief I have to start over and figure out how to proceed moving forward.
Despite the loss of Cortana and how Halo 5 made Cortana’s passing worse, Chief continued to move forward and move others forward as well.
Now He’s the Old Veteran
Between Halo 4, Halo 5, and pre-Halo infinite , Cortana returns (which sucks) and is evil, Chief goes AWOL trying to find her as takes over the galaxy with forerunner guardian machines. On the flip side, Chief at least is reunited with his old team, respects spartan-IVs, has met Dr. Halsey again after six, and is on good terms with the spartan team that was sent to hunt him when he went AWOL.
As John continues to fight he knows not everyone will respect his decision, and that he even makes mistakes. Despite Halo 5s story receiving mostly negative reception, it does follow a trend of John realizing that his superiors and he have different agendas and that simply following orders won’t always win a war.
To clarify, John defying orders isn’t an excuse to do whatever you want. He only does it a few times and when he does it’s usually when both he and the person he’s against have the same goal but different ways about going about akin to Halo 4’s Confrontation with Del Rio. and though not all of the choices do lead to the best outcome – him blindly trusting a message from Cortana post-death thinking she somehow still alive. As we see I’m Shadows of Reach, John from time to time still dwells on this mistake he made and wonders if he could have prevented the state of the galaxy that Post-Halo 5 is set in. But at the same time, that’s a very human thing for John – to make mistakes and to dwell on them. I know some die-hard, tough love fans hated seeing Chief somewhat depressed in Halo 4 and 5…but that is indeed the reality of war; to shy away from the emotional effects of war from time to time is ok, but to deny they exist or think “he can’t get depressed cause of XYZ reason” is just wrong. While it can be painful to watch a hero struggle, it can also be cathartic and relatable.
These modern also allow chief to embody the best of humanity. He tries to become a better example for marines and fellow soldiers, keeping his cool and knowing there are times to be assuring and times to be stern, as we see in his interactions with a young Lasky in the Forward Unto Dawn series, as well as when he communicates with a young pilot named Checkov during his mission in Shadows of Reach. There is a heartwarming moment where chief realizes that after serving under veterans while being a young Spartan he has become the old veteran now. Chief notices during this time he is injured and that although he may one day fall in battle or get too old fight, he cannot deny or ignore the fact that aside from the role he was built for – one of the most hyper lethal soldiers – he also has another responsibility for inspiring humanity and inspiring g younger generations of defenders.
That is to say, not every depiction of the chief or his story is perfect – some love his characterization in the books, some love the badass blank slate In the Bungie games, some love how his humanity was made vulnerable and challenged in 343’s work. While I will say I do disagree with some choices Bungie, 343, and others have made throughout the halo series to various characters, games, scenes, stories, and more, I think what they have gotten right is that despite what the Chief/John has been through he still strives to be the best of humanity, as a human, defender, and inspiration.
Straybard Art 
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