"Any allegory can be projected on the story" hit the nail on the head. Actually, I'd say that this is true for every story with an evil empire and a heroic underdog because somehow everyone is the heroic underdog in their mind.
The reality is that Halo is a well-constructed story, so it is very easy to draw comparisons between it and other well constructed stories or real historical narratives. People will naturally notice certain details more than others and combine them to think it is "supposed to be" about some other story they're familiar with. Noticing and talking about those is fine, but when you get it in your head the story was intended to be that allegory you're engaging in projection. Sometimes the parallels are clearly intentional and relate to a specific topic (like district 9 is obviously about apartheid), but often the creators don't even bother hiding it or openly admit it when that's the case.
"Halo is an allegory for Yugoslavia, in which masterchief (Tito) fights the covenant (Croatian Fascists) who all have weird religious beliefs (Catholicism)" -Unknown
My view is that war by its very nature is political, so, naturally, my position is that most stories centered around a major conflict, including Halo, are going to also be political. Now the politics in the games tend to exist more in the background with a couple series entries pushing them to the forefront (Halo 2 being an obvious example); also, as another commenter brought up, they are more the kind of politics that ground the universe in reality than the kind that anyone would think of as being "ham-fisted."
I've also always seen a parallel between halo and WW2 (as seen from the americans' point of view) the covenants are basically the japanese (elites have high sense of honor, they fight with a sword and kill themself when they fail, grunts have suicide squads, etc) and most of the fights takes place on ships (neither the US territory nor the japan one was ever invaded before the bombs) the only ground battles were in the pacific islands, that are basically the planets in the halo universe, and of course reach is pearl harbour. It's interesting to note how the short story Eric Nylund (the writer of the most important books, and thus pieces of lore, of the halo universe: fall of reach, first strike and ghosts of onix) wrote in halo evolution (the one about admiral cole) is written like it takes place in the 40' during WW2, i mean, at some point cole even marries the daughter of an officer to not dishonor her after he supposedly made her pregnant, but that would hardly happen nowadays, yet again 500 years in the future, after you read that you start to see how much of the lore "mood" is inspired by that time
The aliens in Halo can't really disregard human concepts like democracy because humans don't have that in Halo. The Unified Earth Government was a unitary military dictatorship long before the Covenant ever showed up. Humanity itself stamped out democracy in the Halo lore.
This was an excellent video. Laying down the tongue in cheek pretty hard towards the end there, not sure if everyone will get it. But I enjoyed the whole way through. Your community posts are the strangest things in the world, but I’m glad I never unsubbed after watching the sprint video. This kind of stuff is gold, keep it up.
5:52 Also on top of that, the "one world government" concept is incredibly common in sci-fi and isn't unique to Halo. There's the Terran Federation in Starship Troopers and the Earth Federation in Mobile Suit Gundam, and countless others. That's just a common view of the world from the lens of sci fi writers.
After I read the first two novels, I think they probably ended up influencing the Convenant in Halo. 1. A shadowy group of manipulators and string-pullers conjure up a false prophecy in order to control people: Bene Gesserit/Prophets 2. The followers of said prophecy go about committing a genocide claiming the lives of billions in the name of their religion: Paul's Jihad/The Great Journey It's probably coincidence, but Herbert's influence can be found everywhere in sci-fi
Basically, halo is very well written game and has a lot of theme and ideas that people can relate their actual lives too, thus you can interpret it in many different ways.
I think it’s an interesting theory, but I think it’s even more interesting to flip the sides in which the covenant is the United States, and the UNSC is the Middle East, which if you look into it is a bit of a stretch, but it’s still an interesting theory.
The idiots claiming that Halo is meant to be a political alogory remind me of this Movie Bob video talking about Reach (th-cam.com/video/WS7eeGbDIz4/w-d-xo.html). It’s quite possibly one of the dumbest takes on Halo. The man said the Spartans are a fascist wet dream, and is coming from a man who believes in eugenics. He also wants there to be intelligence based voting so he can bar every right of center from having say in politics (the only good thing that would come from his ideal world is that he’d be euthanized for his stupidity). My thoughts on politics in media is it’s perfectly fine if handed correctly. There are numerous ways it can be done right, but so many more bad ways. If it’s done subtly, is meant as a loose allegory, or drives the plot in a way that makes sense than it would be fine. But the biggest one is that it needs to make sense within the context of the world/story. Something like Halo, Star Wars, and Sonic are just so divorced from reality that modern politics from the real world just do not fit. If it’s done right it can really enrich the story like in the Dune books.
There is quite a bit of social interaction on other games, but i do agree that they took it from us overall social interaction isnt common in games anymore.
Ive always found this theory hilarious... If anything its about everyone from every race and species coming together to conquer an ancient evil to save the galaxy with prehistoric technology. Y'know? Like what the story reflects? Its just an awesome game with Shakespearean aliens and Steve Vai shredding guitar
I dont got antthing to add to the stuff you brought up. I will say this tho, on the assassin's creed bit of the meme. The whole assassins vs templars thing existed in our own world. Both were prominent secret societies in that era. Not an expert on that subject, but ik enough to say that much confidently Oh & plasma doesnt melt forerunner beams
Reminds me of a hot take I've seen where some soy-fed "genius" unironically claimed that Final Fantasy 7 is an anti-capitalist pro-antifa, pro-furry game
People often forget that Avalanche's bombings on the Mako Reactors routinely kill hundreds of innocent civilians as a result of the collateral damage. Barret even gets called out on this in the later parts of the game. The game also makes a point about how the power provided by the Mako reactors straight up improved the standard of living for many then impoverished villages.
FF7 is an environmentalist game more than anything. Saying it's an anti-capitalist game is like the people who say that about Mother 3 when in reality that game is just the most obvious allegory for the history of Japan ever written with some environmentalist and anti-tech overtones sprinkled in
You like when this game has some very slight similarities to real life events, yet you dislike my adding hamfisted propaganda where the characters finger wag at you through the fourth wall? Curious...
Lmao, you probably gave this more thought than the people who made the claim. Love your content P.s. you’ll blow up when infinite come out and we all get to dog on it, because you’re the best at it. Haha!
i mean it is a very political franchise just not in the games. the books really delve into the politics of the universe as well as show parallels to real world political issues and they do this not necessarily to make political statements (though i have no doubt that that is a part of it) but rather to make the universe seem more grounded in reality. art and politics go hand in hand and art should be political and controversial otherwise its not art its a product. this is one of my big issues with the halo games as the books introduce the interesting concepts both political and not and then the games go "big green man shoot evil aliens" with 0 nuance
Just because a creator doesn’t intend for their creation to emulate a real world simulation doesn’t mean that it won’t. I agree that Halo isn’t necessarily an allegory, but it’s important to note that the parallels exist regardless of the intention behind them.
this comment is right after the meme, not only did only the AC one make any reasonable sense, but what is that Halo, what? who's who, what? I don't get it
Halo's politics are very religious in nature the Covenant, in Halo 2 and 3 especially, are a group of religious extremists taking from most judaic religions including Christianity, which was actually almost cut if we take a research doc Microsoft gave Bungie. The Arbiter's story in Halo 2 feels closer to a Christian escaping their religion, coming to terms with lies they've been taught since birth.
The only overt political messaging in Halo is the Covenant representing the Catholic Church at the height of it's societal control.. definitely doesn't have anything to do with contemporary politics lol
The politics of you can even call them that I’ve seen in halo was things like don’t have religious leaders lead you people they will lie and use that religion in any way to maintain the status quo. Things like bravery in the face of overwhelming odds the willingness to go into the howling darkness with little chance of coming back. But yeah I’d say the story points of halo a combination are uplifting themes of humanity as a whole and straight toward cliches used in their own interesting way with everything else in the setting. such as the secret intelligence organisation is a bad by any means that acts outside of its government’s own interests for its own goals committing atrocities under the gies of ‘the ends justify the means’ or the ueg being a pretty simple straight forward Human government.
yea remember making friends online just by playing the game and laughing, remember having a good time and not chasing some rank or number or status? Me neither now lets queue up for a ranked league of legends game haha! I hate this!
BTW as far as Bungie outright removing references to contemporary events in the Halo series goes, in the manual for Halo CE, it describes the Covenant assault on humanity explicitly as a "jihad", however this specific word was never used again in subsequent games or media, as far as I am aware.
I just hate how this game had the token black guy in a high position of power in the military to fill a racial quota in a fantasy game. Like, can't the black be a normal soldier? Having a black in the position Sgt. Johnson is in isn't realistic.
John 1:17 "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" Revealtions 1:17 "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last." It's Obvious Halo was developed with some religious undertones, and the fact it started around the time the Afghanistan. They even go on to name the game Halo and reference the flood. Quite an interesting game. They also portray the covenant as religious zealots much like the enemies of Afghanistan.
The base of this video is still flawed, assuming that using politics as just aesthetics or narrative elements "depoliticize" them. You need a more complex frame of analysis because messages go beyond a textual way of presenting ideas.
The point is that they don't beat you over the head with it, the political and religious subtext of those games is something the player figures out themselves if they pay attention. It's not preaching to you.
![เปิด อาณาจักร หมื่นล้าน "สาระตั้ม" l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XE0nPF4YkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"Any allegory can be projected on the story" hit the nail on the head. Actually, I'd say that this is true for every story with an evil empire and a heroic underdog because somehow everyone is the heroic underdog in their mind.
Yes, exactly!
Please watch the video all the way through before commenting
This is actually the most underrated Halo channel. Love videos like this
ty brotha.
The reality is that Halo is a well-constructed story, so it is very easy to draw comparisons between it and other well constructed stories or real historical narratives. People will naturally notice certain details more than others and combine them to think it is "supposed to be" about some other story they're familiar with. Noticing and talking about those is fine, but when you get it in your head the story was intended to be that allegory you're engaging in projection.
Sometimes the parallels are clearly intentional and relate to a specific topic (like district 9 is obviously about apartheid), but often the creators don't even bother hiding it or openly admit it when that's the case.
"Halo is an allegory for Yugoslavia, in which masterchief (Tito) fights the covenant (Croatian Fascists) who all have weird religious beliefs (Catholicism)"
-Unknown
@Breny that's where I saw it too
Love it
This is undoubtedly the most based video on this topic.
15:35 gotta love that half-ironic "Gamers, Rise Up" call
My view is that war by its very nature is political, so, naturally, my position is that most stories centered around a major conflict, including Halo, are going to also be political. Now the politics in the games tend to exist more in the background with a couple series entries pushing them to the forefront (Halo 2 being an obvious example); also, as another commenter brought up, they are more the kind of politics that ground the universe in reality than the kind that anyone would think of as being "ham-fisted."
I've also always seen a parallel between halo and WW2 (as seen from the americans' point of view) the covenants are basically the japanese (elites have high sense of honor, they fight with a sword and kill themself when they fail, grunts have suicide squads, etc) and most of the fights takes place on ships (neither the US territory nor the japan one was ever invaded before the bombs) the only ground battles were in the pacific islands, that are basically the planets in the halo universe, and of course reach is pearl harbour. It's interesting to note how the short story Eric Nylund (the writer of the most important books, and thus pieces of lore, of the halo universe: fall of reach, first strike and ghosts of onix) wrote in halo evolution (the one about admiral cole) is written like it takes place in the 40' during WW2, i mean, at some point cole even marries the daughter of an officer to not dishonor her after he supposedly made her pregnant, but that would hardly happen nowadays, yet again 500 years in the future, after you read that you start to see how much of the lore "mood" is inspired by that time
"Japanese have high honor" The Japanese Empire is famous for some of the most vicious r*pist, murderous war crimes in history.
Basically the problem is not a game having politics, but rather when irl politics influence games
Absolutely
Thank you. Master Chief on a brave Jihad against the "Covenant" is now my favourite head canon 😅
The aliens in Halo can't really disregard human concepts like democracy because humans don't have that in Halo. The Unified Earth Government was a unitary military dictatorship long before the Covenant ever showed up. Humanity itself stamped out democracy in the Halo lore.
Is that why the insurrection happen? Never play Halo but the lore intrigues me.
@@Joshua_N-A That along with the UNSC’s imperialist and oppressive acts against their human colonies.
This was an excellent video. Laying down the tongue in cheek pretty hard towards the end there, not sure if everyone will get it. But I enjoyed the whole way through.
Your community posts are the strangest things in the world, but I’m glad I never unsubbed after watching the sprint video. This kind of stuff is gold, keep it up.
Damn Master chief really is a true warrior of Allah!
The San'Shyuum are supposed to represent the 4 x 2's?!
Based and truthpilled.
The UNSC v Covenant conflict feels more like it draws from the Greco-Persian war rather than the War On Terror imo.
5:52 Also on top of that, the "one world government" concept is incredibly common in sci-fi and isn't unique to Halo. There's the Terran Federation in Starship Troopers and the Earth Federation in Mobile Suit Gundam, and countless others. That's just a common view of the world from the lens of sci fi writers.
@@Brian-rx9sp in fact starship troopers was one of the original inspiration during the production of halo 1 (alongside Aliens)
I had never seen it that way, but it makes sense.
Dude I loved the comparison you made at the end. I guess I haven’t been the only one who noticed that you could flip the story to be like that
After I read the first two novels, I think they probably ended up influencing the Convenant in Halo.
1. A shadowy group of manipulators and string-pullers conjure up a false prophecy in order to control people: Bene Gesserit/Prophets
2. The followers of said prophecy go about committing a genocide claiming the lives of billions in the name of their religion: Paul's Jihad/The Great Journey
It's probably coincidence, but Herbert's influence can be found everywhere in sci-fi
Basically, halo is very well written game and has a lot of theme and ideas that people can relate their actual lives too, thus you can interpret it in many different ways.
I think it’s an interesting theory, but I think it’s even more interesting to flip the sides in which the covenant is the United States, and the UNSC is the Middle East, which if you look into it is a bit of a stretch, but it’s still an interesting theory.
I like oranges
me too
I like my oranges juiced
@@SneedRemembrancer yes
The idiots claiming that Halo is meant to be a political alogory remind me of this Movie Bob video talking about Reach (th-cam.com/video/WS7eeGbDIz4/w-d-xo.html). It’s quite possibly one of the dumbest takes on Halo. The man said the Spartans are a fascist wet dream, and is coming from a man who believes in eugenics. He also wants there to be intelligence based voting so he can bar every right of center from having say in politics (the only good thing that would come from his ideal world is that he’d be euthanized for his stupidity).
My thoughts on politics in media is it’s perfectly fine if handed correctly. There are numerous ways it can be done right, but so many more bad ways. If it’s done subtly, is meant as a loose allegory, or drives the plot in a way that makes sense than it would be fine. But the biggest one is that it needs to make sense within the context of the world/story. Something like Halo, Star Wars, and Sonic are just so divorced from reality that modern politics from the real world just do not fit. If it’s done right it can really enrich the story like in the Dune books.
"A strawman that people attack because nobody identifies with it". A widely applicable quote!
THANK YOU! now can we please stop calling Halo an anti-Islamic game with Bungie hating all Muslims?
I know your point is that you can project any allegory you want on a piece of media, but the great replacement comparison kinda makes alot of sense.
Halo is a space opera about a group of religious zealots slaying their own gods out of ignorance or jealousy.
There is quite a bit of social interaction on other games, but i do agree that they took it from us overall social interaction isnt common in games anymore.
13:22 "...or in a university in 2021"
Holy fuck lmfao. Best quote ever, hands down
Assassins Creed is 100% anti Christian/anti white propaganda. Nearly every Ubisoft game
Ive always found this theory hilarious... If anything its about everyone from every race and species coming together to conquer an ancient evil to save the galaxy with prehistoric technology. Y'know? Like what the story reflects? Its just an awesome game with Shakespearean aliens and Steve Vai shredding guitar
More like a religious allegory. False prophets, holy wars, etc etc etc
I dont got antthing to add to the stuff you brought up. I will say this tho, on the assassin's creed bit of the meme. The whole assassins vs templars thing existed in our own world. Both were prominent secret societies in that era. Not an expert on that subject, but ik enough to say that much confidently
Oh & plasma doesnt melt forerunner beams
This is so funny how someone would think of Halo this way. The definition of 4 am thinking.
Reminds me of a hot take I've seen where some soy-fed "genius" unironically claimed that Final Fantasy 7 is an anti-capitalist pro-antifa, pro-furry game
Anti-capitalist? Sorta. Pro-Antifa & pro-furry? God no.
@@NihilisticIdealist The justification for ""pro-furry" was that one of the characters (Red XIII) looks like a wolf. Yes, really
@@Sheevlord nah nah nah, Clouds definitely a furry
People often forget that Avalanche's bombings on the Mako Reactors routinely kill hundreds of innocent civilians as a result of the collateral damage. Barret even gets called out on this in the later parts of the game. The game also makes a point about how the power provided by the Mako reactors straight up improved the standard of living for many then impoverished villages.
FF7 is an environmentalist game more than anything. Saying it's an anti-capitalist game is like the people who say that about Mother 3 when in reality that game is just the most obvious allegory for the history of Japan ever written with some environmentalist and anti-tech overtones sprinkled in
Why can't people just enjoy thing and not over think it
Holy shit you really convinced me on the NWO allegory lmfao
You like when this game has some very slight similarities to real life events, yet you dislike my adding hamfisted propaganda where the characters finger wag at you through the fourth wall? Curious...
prophets be like : joe biden wake up 911 today same day two thousand one
Holy shit this is the most based Halo video I have ever seen. Someone had been browsing Mongolian basket weaving forums
Amazing video here. I can't believe this only has 3k views.
Lmao, you probably gave this more thought than the people who made the claim. Love your content
P.s. you’ll blow up when infinite come out and we all get to dog on it, because you’re the best at it. Haha!
This video was based.
i mean it is a very political franchise just not in the games. the books really delve into the politics of the universe as well as show parallels to real world political issues and they do this not necessarily to make political statements (though i have no doubt that that is a part of it) but rather to make the universe seem more grounded in reality. art and politics go hand in hand and art should be political and controversial otherwise its not art its a product. this is one of my big issues with the halo games as the books introduce the interesting concepts both political and not and then the games go "big green man shoot evil aliens" with 0 nuance
The midwittery of lefty memes have become self-parodic at this point.
great vid! us gamers need to be informed on this stuff more than we know (or at least, i do)
12:00
Quick note : calling out zionism is not anti semitic
And yeah projecting Twitter nonesense into old games is pointless
Master chief is anti Semitic?! Uh based!? Did my man just go on a great replacement tangent in a fucking halo video?! Based?!
John 1488 reporting for duty
Just because a creator doesn’t intend for their creation to emulate a real world simulation doesn’t mean that it won’t. I agree that Halo isn’t necessarily an allegory, but it’s important to note that the parallels exist regardless of the intention behind them.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever read
Brainlet
Not true
What is the title of the video with halo being a Christian allegory, it sounds interesting.
It was a part of my Halo 2 VS Half Life 2 video, in Part 2 I believe
"...or in a university in 2021" YEP
The ending was bad ass
I don’t think I’ve watched or listened to a more accurate take on this issue
this comment is right after the meme, not only did only the AC one make any reasonable sense, but what is that Halo, what? who's who, what? I don't get it
Everything is as political as the beholder is insufferable
You fucking win dude.
13:32 okay that was pretty cool
Ive always thought the humans represented Christianity and the covenant represented Islam
Forward Gamers, and fear not cheats or bans!
The Gamers™®©GmbH, Pty, Ltd will RISE UP!
uhh soo master chief is obama i guess thanks reddit!
I audibly exhaled at that joke.
a thousand ways to spin a single chain of events, how bout J U S T E N J O Y I N G I T. that you for being reasonable
I'm part of that 1.2% yeah babyyyy
Chad detected
interesting theory and very easy to listen to!
The best halo channel out there.
Oh my gosh he named them. So based!
Halo's politics are very religious in nature the Covenant, in Halo 2 and 3 especially, are a group of religious extremists taking from most judaic religions including Christianity, which was actually almost cut if we take a research doc Microsoft gave Bungie. The Arbiter's story in Halo 2 feels closer to a Christian escaping their religion, coming to terms with lies they've been taught since birth.
The only overt political messaging in Halo is the Covenant representing the Catholic Church at the height of it's societal control.. definitely doesn't have anything to do with contemporary politics lol
That’s not even remotely true
Are you free inside your own head?
That was pretty good, nice job
The politics of you can even call them that I’ve seen in halo was things like don’t have religious leaders lead you people they will lie and use that religion in any way to maintain the status quo. Things like bravery in the face of overwhelming odds the willingness to go into the howling darkness with little chance of coming back.
But yeah I’d say the story points of halo a combination are uplifting themes of humanity as a whole and straight toward cliches used in their own interesting way with everything else in the setting. such as the secret intelligence organisation is a bad by any means that acts outside of its government’s own interests for its own goals committing atrocities under the gies of ‘the ends justify the means’ or the ueg being a pretty simple straight forward Human government.
This was a great watch
Genius line regarding the Soviet Propaganda Films of the early 20th century and relating them to what we see in Western Universities of 2021 lol
i subbed tor the memes but u make good content boyo
Great replacement isn't a theory it's a statistic
This was straight flames
That was savage. Thank you!
I would comment a edgy radical Islam joke, but I do not want to damage Nerd's chances in the YT algorithm.
Halo was an inside job
I love this video, very epic
u an aussie?
yes
@@ShreddedNerd nice, what's ur education level? you articulate urself well
@@maxg4962 Thanks, I'm currently studying at undergraduate level at University
@@ShreddedNerd do a walk-through of infinite when it releases, I want to see your reactions to the game lmao
“Christianity probably came before Halo”
Okay, you can stop lying buddy 😂😂😂
yea remember making friends online just by playing the game and laughing, remember having a good time and not chasing some rank or number or status? Me neither now lets queue up for a ranked league of legends game haha! I hate this!
Hooking up every single twitter user to the contraption from A Clockwork Orange and forcing them to view this entire video.
BTW as far as Bungie outright removing references to contemporary events in the Halo series goes, in the manual for Halo CE, it describes the Covenant assault on humanity explicitly as a "jihad", however this specific word was never used again in subsequent games or media, as far as I am aware.
Good video.
Algorithm boost comment
Wait! So, You say that lying prophets are Jews?
based marxist gaming moments
Great video
This is a really interesting consent though. It by be a load of crap but it's fun to think about
Everything’s political, accept it kiddies
I just hate how this game had the token black guy in a high position of power in the military to fill a racial quota in a fantasy game. Like, can't the black be a normal soldier? Having a black in the position Sgt. Johnson is in isn't realistic.
Pfp checks out
@@wiccabongHe's right btw
@@alantezoni9813 she's right
...
Goddamn that statement is racist.
But the Great replacement isn't a theory
You're right. Its a batshit insane fantasy so white people have a reason to bitch about foreigners
@@cretinhisterian having a bunch of rapists in the streets clearly isnt a valid reason to complain ever
John 1:17 "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" Revealtions 1:17 "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last." It's Obvious Halo was developed with some religious undertones, and the fact it started around the time the Afghanistan. They even go on to name the game Halo and reference the flood. Quite an interesting game. They also portray the covenant as religious zealots much like the enemies of Afghanistan.
The base of this video is still flawed, assuming that using politics as just aesthetics or narrative elements "depoliticize" them. You need a more complex frame of analysis because messages go beyond a textual way of presenting ideas.
The point is that they don't beat you over the head with it, the political and religious subtext of those games is something the player figures out themselves if they pay attention. It's not preaching to you.