So, on February 10th, David H. Lawrence XVII linked to my “Rapists of Heroes” post on his Twitter account. It seems his Facebook page also displays his Twitter feed in the wall section. I found the tweet there, and it has a few people commenting on liking the link. Thanks, folks. I do disagree with the opinion of DMaria Scaglione, who posts:
This opinion is just too dark for me.Everyone is has one (an opinion). I don't see Doyle as a rapist. To me the character is a man in pain and uses his powers to have people listen to him. Doyle reminds me of the dark side of the clown Emmett Kelly. The quiet clown who sadly no one would listen to. Yet, Doyle may be a face in the crowd, he uses his powers to be heard. Oh crap...I am tired. hopefully I made sense. Good night.
In none of that does she explain why Doyle isn’t a rapist. Rape: any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person. Rapist: person who performs rape. It doesn’t matter what his motivation might be.
I suppose I might have been mistaken when I described Doyle as a sociopath, though. That was more speculation on my part. It could be that he’s not a sociopath, but surely the vast majority of rapists aren’t sociopaths. A quick Google search brings up these statistics about rape. I believe the number of sociopaths is 1 in 25?
Sociopaths aside, it just doesn’t matter that Doyle is a man in pain. I’ll agree that he is in pain. He wants romance, he’s attracted to Meredith, but he can’t get her unless he forces her. It’s okay to sympathize with the character; however, he is a rapist. That should be recognized.
Even if he doesn’t actually forcibly have sex with Meredith on the show, there is a very strong rapist vibe about him. He forces her to participate in a date against her will, which is at least sexual violence. He does rape a woman in the graphic novel Puppet with No Strings, in which he forces a couple to let him in their house, eats their food, and has the woman undress for him. There is the strong implication that he then has sex with her, which is rape.
As for Emmett Kelly, I hadn’t heard of him before this, but he seems nice from his Wikipedia article. I’m not sure how to really apply him to Eric Doyle.
So, yeah, Doyle’s still a rapist, or at the very least a sexual predator. There are shades of grey to many of the villains, but their crimes should never be overlooked because they may be sympathetic. Samuel was obviously in a lot of very understandable pain when his girlfriend dumped him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a mass murderer because the act of destroying the town was brought forth from the place of pain.
As I’m rewatching Stargate SG-1, I just watched season one’s “Brief Candle” episode. This one, I remembered fairly well, and I remembered liking its quaintness. O’Neill teaches a bunch of Kool-Aid-drinking human slaves that their god lied to them, shows them to live life more fully, and he comes to appreciate life more himself. It’s that, true, but there’s also an incident of rape that is completely ignored because it’s a female doing it to a male. Not only is this presented as essentially okay, but it forms the basis of a romance portrayed as healthy. Stargate thus continues to perpetuate the sexist meme that men are unable to be raped by women.
So, Kyle Loh, who is a prominent user at Halopedia, put out some videos at Big Think about 10 months ago, in which he talks about being a stem cell researcher at Harvard. In the video Kyle Loh Introduces Embryonic Stem Cells, Kyle discusses the need for embryonic stem cells and how because extracting an embryonic stem cell from a human embryo causes the destruction of the embryo, and all the ethical issues there, his team is working on developing a way to chemically turn other cells into embryonic stem cells. It all makes sense to me, which shows how much he must have dumbed it down, and he gets his point across pretty clearly.
In the comments section, however, this guy Michael Roach posted the following:
Not only religious people, but most followers of Aristotle or other philosophical Realists and some Pragmatists would argue that since the soul is the form of the body (animating principle), the destruction of one individual, although less developed, for the sake of another, more developed is both a murder (the intentional killing of an innocent) and an act of cannibalism (the consumption of one individual of a species for the sustenance of another of the same species). This ethical burden deserves more attention than it got in your otherwise excellent presentation. I look forward to reading yours and other’s comments.
This completely misses Kyle’s point. He was specifically trying to avoid getting into the ethical concerns of abortion, instead promoting a way to get embryonic stem cells without abortion even coming into it. I suspect Michael Roach watched the video looking for an ethics discussion and was so disappointed by Kyle’s barely touching the subject that he didn’t bother to learn what the point of the video was really supposed to be.
That aside, I find Michael Roach’s reasoning poor. I’m not very knowledgeable about Aristotle, so I can’t comment on that directly, but I think ancient philosophers aren’t good representatives of biology in comparison to modern day biologists. While the ancient philosophers may have developed good ideas about insubstantial a priori concepts, anything scientific is sure to be obsolete. Modern day science shows us things that the ancient philosophers never had any clue about.
I don’t believe in a soul per se. There may be some metaphysical part of every human that represents their personhood, but there is no empirical evidence to suggest such. It is a purely faith-based concept.
“The brain controls every human action, voluntary or involuntary. Every breath, every heartbeat, every emotion. If the soul exists, scientifically speaking, it exists in the brain.” –Chandra Suresh, Heroes
If we’re talking about the soul in a metaphorical way, in that a soul is simply a word to indicate personhood and identity, I would agree with Chandra Suresh from Heroes and say that the brain is the only part of the body that would be the soul or be host to it. The other parts of the body support the brain, support reproduction of genetic material, or serve no useful purpose.
On the subject of abortion, I take the controversial stance I usually take and say that there’s no personhood to embryos. They may be capable of developing personhood later, but in the fetal state there’s nothing but an empty vessel. Even if there is personhood, I think the woman has a right to abort given that it’s her body subjected to the parasitism with all its negative effects. I won’t go into that, as that could be an article in itself, but I’ll make it clear that I’m in favor of the women’s right to choose whether or not to terminate pregnancy.
It’s the claim about cannibalism that baffles me. How is this cannibalism? There’s no… consumption. The cells aren’t consumed. It’s a part of a human body that is more or less implanted in another body to support the latter’s life or life functions. Does Michael Roach think organ donations are cannibalized? Blood transfusions?
“Eating people alive? Where does that get fun?”
–Jayne, Serenity
Just by slapping the label of cannibalism on this, he thinks that it would automatically imbue it with immorality. I question that. Cannibalism brings to mind the image of the savage island peoples in the South American region, generally exaggerated by the European settlers. I’m not sure what’s real, but there at least were some peoples for whom the practice of cannibalism after military raids was an accepted cultural norm. This is often seen as horrific.
What’s really horrific is that people can war, often senselessly. I won’t get into an anti-war rant here, but the point is that the murder is the bad part. What’s done with the corpses afterward is largely irrelevant. Now, eating a dead enemy may be done in a way to hurt the enemy’s living family, but if there’s some accepted cultural practice or if the dead guy let it be known that he wants his corpse eaten or something, then cannibalism is not innately harmful.
In the case of organ donation, it’s entirely voluntary for the person from whose body the organs are taken. It’s after their death, so no harm there. They’re most likely not going to be killed by the government for use of their organs. And if a person can live longer because of this, that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Is it cannibalism? No, in that there’s no literal consumption. Even if you were to stretch the meaning of cannibalism to have voluntary organ donation count, it wouldn’t be innately bad because cannibalism is not innately bad.
And now we come back to the stem cells. Let’s just skip over the whole abortion issue here, as Kyle wasn’t even advocating that, and talk about what he was talking about. To take a non-embryonic stem cell and turn it into an embryonic stem cell is not bringing forth an embryo, but rather giving the cell qualities of a cell that might otherwise be found in embryos. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this does not even necessitate another human being donating such base cells, and that the same human with the injury could provide the cells from another organ. Even if that’s not true, I don’t think it matters ethically. Even if it is cannibalism, which it’s not, it’s not automatically immoral.
So, to sum up: Kyle rocks, and Michael Roach really missed the point. Harvesting stem cells is not cannibalism, and even if it were you have yet to explain why it may be bad.
Heroes is a dramatic show that has many common themes, such as sexuality and violence. A theme that runs between those two is that of rape and other sexual assault/violence elements. Some of Heroes’ sexual predators have been used to bring sex appeal to the show, engaging the viewers while simultaneously repelling them, while others are meant simply to disgust and terrify. Characters Brody, Doyle, Sylar, Flint, and even Elle to some extent have threatened our protagonists with sexual violence.
In the cartoon series ReBoot, there is a recurring theme of people being brainwashed (reprogrammed) to meet the needs of the person doing the brainwashing. This is most often seen in the viral antagonists: Megabyte, Daemon, and even Hexadecimal to some extent with her nulls. However, it’s also seen in protagonist Bob as a technique he wishes to bring into effect to force viruses to become benign. Because he is the central protagonist, this is for the most part portrayed as an honorable desire more merciful than straight out deleting them, but the ethical value of it is questioned by Megabyte, throwing it into the realm of dubious morality.
“I come from the net, infecting systems, peoples, and cities, to this place: Megaframe, my domain. My format: virus, to corrupt and conquer.”
–Megabyte, episode “To Mend and Defend”
Megabyte is a specific type of virus. While he, like all viruses, is concerned with causing death and suffering, for most of the series his primary goal is to take over the world and rule it with an iron fist. He is a figure comparable to Hitler, which is emphasized in the show when his German-accented minion responds to his command with a “Jawohl, mein führer!” In case that was too subtle, the same minion is later referred to as a Neo-Viral. His main means of acquiring troops is through viral infection, spreading his influence into the PID’s (identities, stored in the persons’ icons) of people at his mercy. This infection transforms the person’s body with a simple color-coding (green, black, and red) to denote viral takeover, and also affects their mind to become wholly devoted to their Lord Megabyte, while still essentially remaining the same person. Viral infection is consistently portrayed as horrifying to the people subjected to it, and most of those who are freed rejoice, the only exceptions being Megabyte’s most devoted minions, who are dubbed Neo-Virals.
“Mainframe Neo-Virals… I hate Mainframe Neo-Virals!” –Blues Brother binome, episode “Crouching Binome, Hidden Virus”
While Megabtye’s modus operandi of seeking control to establish a dictatorship is fairly uncommon as viruses seem to go, he is certainly not the only virus to engage in mass infection. A particularly notable example is the virus Daemon, who appears as a beautiful woman in a messiah role. Her programming is to infect the entire net and then destroy it by causing everyone to commit suicide at the same time. She infects people in a process ranging from gradual to instantaneous depending on how strong their will is, and infected people can be detected by what appears to be a living parasitic growth on their skin. Wholly infected people literally worship Daemon as though she were a god, referring to her as The Word, and all feel great happiness and a sense of peace. They are less akin to Nazis, and more like the shiny happy people who worship Jasmine in Angel.
Hexadecimal is in many ways the antithesis of normal viruses. The self-described Queen of Chaos, she loathes being predictable, which makes her better than other viruses. Though she is sadistic, she is usually content to keep her rule to the twisted city she created in the destruction of Lost Angles, and even lends support to the good guys sometimes. So she is neither the type of virus to hunt and kill, nor the type to build an empire. She does, however, have her own subjects, including her robotic pet Scuzzy, the outcast and neutral figure Mike the TV, and the hoards of nulls. Nulls, the slug-like parasitic degraded results of people who were caught either in the explosion that created Hex or in lost Games, share a connection to the virus, and they do her bidding. Whether this is because Hex deliberately controls them with her viral power or because of some symbiotic relationship is left unclear.
Hex is also unique for being the first and only virus to willingly choose a benign existence. Her attraction to Bob leads her to help him attack Megabyte, and in return Bob saves her from the system crash by making her a permanent citizen with an icon. After the system reboots, Hex doesn’t attempt to hurt the system anymore out of her attraction to Bob, and eventually transforms into a sprite as a result. When Daemon forces her to become a virus once more, Hex is benign in nature and she martyrs herself to save the world. This is the only example of Bob’s hypothetical benign virus.
Bob cares a lot about helping people of all kinds. He adamantly opposes killing enemies, instead wanting to find a way to coexist. When an enemy won’t go along with this willingly, he tries to find a way to reprogram them to become benign. This is generally applied to the people who have been previously altered by viral infection, and his aim is to undo this and return the people to their original state. While stories like Total Recall and Dollhouse cast doubt on whether a body’s original personality has the right to a body currently occupied by another, I’m willing to accept the notion that people should be cured of viral infection. It is another matter to forcibly alter viruses.
Megabyte: “So, what now? Deletion?” Bob: “No. Just a scan. I don’t believe in deletion.” Megabyte: (patronizing) “You can’t go against your code.” Bob: “And neither can you. That’s the problem. It’s not your fault. You’re programmed to be this way. We've just got to work out a way to reprogram you.” Megabyte: “So… I won’t be a virus?” Bob: “That’s the plan.” Megabyte: “Ah. So… a fate worse than deletion. And they call me a monster.”
–Episode “Crouching Binome, Hidden Virus”
It is often said that when fighting a war, one should be careful they don’t become that which they fight against. Bob opposes the viruses because of their nature of causing suffering and destruction, whereas he believes in the Guardian code of mending and defending. He holds onto the belief that viruses can be benign, and after witnessing Hex’s transformation, he eventually decides to create a method to transform malignant viruses into benign sprites. In doing so, he adopts the characteristics of a virus himself. He’s not coded to corrupt and conquer, rather he acts from kindness, but the effect is very much the same as viral infection. To accept this method as an option is to in essence accept viral infection. Suddenly, the battle between Guardians and the viruses looks a lot less like a battle between good and evil.
In conclusion, ReBoot contains many instances of brainwashing. Though this is primarily on the part of major antagonists, the central protagonist does attempt this for his own purposes. I find it interesting that the morality of this is questioned. The show displays a few interesting philosophical quandaries, especially relating to the subject of identity. If it is immoral for viruses to brainwash innocents to become their servants, is it moral to brainwash viruses to become benign? Hex is a unique case, and perhaps the only way it could have turned out the way it did is because she changed herself out of her own will, out of love.
I love Veronica Mars. Veronica is my hero. The show is awesome. But I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it could do no wrong. There’s an element of the story that I’ve found a bit disturbing and objectionable, namely the double standard about rape. As Veronica Mars would have it, rape against female persons is a horrific violation that should never ever happen, but rape against male persons is a satisfactory punishment for all manner of crimes.
I would like to address the subject of homophobia and Halo, both the franchise and its community. Although I previously went over it in my blog article Politics... How Tiresome, there I only gave it a brief paragraph because the focus of the article was much greater. Here I will describe my thoughts in detail. The word ‘homophobia’, while it might literally mean ‘fear of sameness’, is used to mean ‘fear of homosexuality’ and is typically used as a general term referencing prejudice against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual) people for their homosexuality. LGBT individuals make up a part of the gaming community, and I know there are at least four registered on Halopedia. I believe all demographics should be respected within both the franchise itself and the Halo community. There are a few explicit instances of homophobia within Halo, which are basically throwaway comments made by soldiers. While these comments may not be that bad in the grand scheme of things, I believe that their presence negatively colors Halo in the absence of truly gay characters in the series.
First of all, just so we’re all on the same page, I’ll go over some of the basics. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation in which one feels romantically toward members of the same sex/gender. While there are many stereotypes associated with someone being gay, generally involving gay guys behaving in manners associated with femininity and lesbians behaving in manners associated with masculinity, this is not universally true. Many gay people blend into the heterosexual community without much effort and are only recognized as gay when they themselves choose to come out or are outed. It is often said that if all gay people were to turn blue, we would be shocked by all the blue faces. Betty DeGeneres has made this statement: “Let me suggest that we all know someone who is left-handed. Lefties make up roughly the same percentage [of the population] as gay people. And yet millions of Americans say they don't know someone who is gay. Unless those people who claim ignorance are living in a place called Fantasyland, they are most likely mistaken.” Homosexuality is not a term for sexual perversion, and gay individuals are no more likely to be pedophiles, rapists, or into bestiality than are heterosexual individuals. See Wikipedia’s article on homosexuality for more information. I think it’s a shame I have to say this at all, but experience in discussing respect for LGBT persons in the Halo community suggests this is the case.
The first explicitly homophobic comment is in Halo: First Strike, page 283. Corporal Locklear, while preparing to blow up the Forerunner Crystal, muses to himself that he needs to get away before he gets so desperate that he asks a Spartan out on a date, and then shudders when he thinks of the possibility of asking out a male Spartan because he can’t tell their genders apart when they’re in armor. Okay, I get that he’s heterosexual and wouldn’t want to date a man, but is that really worth a shudder? It might be an awkward faux pas, but a shudder indicates revulsion. Technically Locklear’s not the nicest character, but given the lack of explicitly gay-friendly characters in Halo it seems as though the line would unfairly pander to the homophobic readers.
The second comment is in Halo: Contact Harvest, page 83 (original full-sized paperback version, anyway). Petty Officer Healy has become aware that Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne have some kind of history. He asks Johnson if they’re friends, and Johnson takes a while to answer that he’s “known him a long time”, perhaps hinting to the reader that they were in the Spartan-I program together. In response, Healy teases that they must be “lovebirds”. The conversation is then quickly forgotten when Byrne comes in and tries to kill Johnson.
It is a common occurrence in the present day for straight guys to playfully accuse each other of being gay. The context of the scene with two straight male soldiers would suggest that this should realistically be a lot more graphic than “lovebirds” and that author Joseph Staten deliberately downplayed it to keep his novel from being vulgar. Does the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy still exist in 2524? The culture still seems unfriendly to gay people, anyway. The soft-core sex scene at the end of the book shows that the author sees a heterosexual sexual affair as something beautiful, actively promoting expression of heterosexuality, let leaving behind homosexuality as just a joke between a couple of straight guys.
The third comment is in Halo: The Cole Protocol, page 22 (original full-sized version). It is similar to the second one with soldiers teasing each other. Edgar Sykes notices Jacob Keyes reacting to an old injury and offers a hand to help him out of the cryo tube, and Keyes jokes “You asking me out on a date?” to take control of the situation and make himself appear the tough Lieutenant. Aside from the ridiculousness of a soldier asking out his superior, there is the element of homophobia to turn that into an insult.
The fourth comment is in the same book. The same sentiment is later repeated on page 119 when Peter Bonifacio strikes Ignatio Delgado as retribution for a previous insult. Delgado then says “You’re such a charmer. You like this on all your first dates?” Sarcastic, obviously ridiculous, and homophobic too.
Am I sensitive to the issue? Definitely. As homophobic comments go, I have most certainly been exposed to worse. Overall these comments are not that bad. It is, however, objectionable that there are no gay characters in Halo canon. There are plenty of straight characters, an explicit sex scene, and other sexual elements, but homosexuality has been relegated to only a few odd comments.
Now I can understand why Bungie would not want to have an explicit LGBT character out there in the games. The games are largely produced with the average unsophisticated gamer in mind, leading to such classically corny moments as Miranda’s “to war” line, which I suppose is on the surface cool but really makes no sense in context (But, Miranda, where do they go?). As homophobia runs rampant in the general gaming community, I can see where it would be a bad business move to have a gay character right out there in the open. It’s in the expanded universe that I would like to see more of teh gay. But no, the 26th century seems pretty gay-free, both in the human faction and in the aliens’. In a world with diverse alien species, one would expect that at least one of them would exhibit sexual orientations other than heterosexuality. Not that it wouldn’t be an issue of its own if there was homosexuality but only among the aliens, but it would at least be something.
Although Bungie has not had any real gayness in Halo story canon, they have, however, made a few non-canon gay jokes. These are either tucked away in hard to get to areas of the games as Easter eggs or posted on the Internet. I will examine the jokes I can recall.
First, we have the bonus Legendary ending of Halo: Combat Evolved. If the player beats the game on Legendary difficulty, they are treated to a bonus cutscene. In this ending, we see Johnson and a Sangheili fighting some distance away from the Pillar of Autumn. When the ship starts to explode, they halt their fight and embrace. Just as the explosion happens, we see the Sangheili reach down and grab Johnson’s butt.
This is a very silly scene. The main humor is derived from these two mortal enemies spontaneously transforming into loving companions, ending the scene in a very different place from where it began. It is made further surreal by the fact that the Johnson character was implied to have died a few levels back, and that the Sangheili’s armor color pattern is never seen on a live character. Still, the characters are both male1 and I would imagine a fraction of the humor is based on that.
Second, we have a line of combat dialog audible in Halo 3 that suggests some of the Jiralhanae are gay. Generally when the player kills one of them, a live Jiralhanae may shout “He was my brother!” or something similar. However, when the IWHBYD skull is activated and funny/interesting lines enter combat dialog, Jiralhanae may instead shout “He was my lover!”
Now, I wrote a gay Jiralhanae character in my fanfiction Ascension, so when I first heard this line I was like “Yes! They’re canon!” But, no, I now realize that this isn’t the case. Lines heard while IWHBYD is on can be extremely weird, and simply can’t be accepted as canon. Are we to believe Unggoy go to NippleAcademy? No, of course not. So, Halo still has no gay characters really.
And third, I can think of Frankie’s Shaw and Fujikawa joke. Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa are known in Halo as pioneering Slipspace researchers who got their names on the UNSC Slipspace engines. In a 2006 interview with Halo writer Joseph Staten, he included a short fiction written by Frankie about the pair. It consists of Shaw and Fujikawa lounging on a beach when they’re old and ugly, and having a stupid little argument. The two are presumably supposed to be gay, with Shaw calling his partner “queer”, “poof”, and “queen”. As far as I can tell, the fiction is just supposed to be bizarre, making them gay to add to the weirdness.
And fourth, not quite homophobic but kinda transphobic, is a Bungie joke relayed in the old July 13, 2001 Bungie Update. Back then, the updates were written by Matt Soell and detailed the production of Halo: Combat Evolved. He describes the development of the Bumblebee pilot model, how they took the Marcus model and had artist Chris Hughes transform it into a female model, a process Matt Soell describes as “rather unnerving”. When Chris Hughes finally changed the face to match the body, he said that “hormone therapy for the post-op Marcus was successful”. Now, there’s no malice in that language, really, but it seems insensitive to use it when the company has not been outwardly LGBT-friendly. I don’t know; I could be splitting hairs here. It just catches my attention.
Now, I complain about Bungie’s attitude because I think they could be better. They are pretty cool overall, and I don’t want to leave that ignored. If you look at the general gaming community, you can see that homophobia really does run rampant (and not the fun Rampancy). In today’s rude society (as opposed to yesterday’s rude society), “gay” has become synonymous with “not cool”. Lots of kids just spout out about how something is “so gay”.
Imagine, if you will, that instead of “gay”, some other minority group was used. “That’s so Jew”, maybe, or “that’s so black”. Imagine hearing that over, and over, and over, everywhere and without a thought given to it. Kinda makes you angry, huh? Yeah. This comic illustrates my point, BTW (note: the clerk is gay). The word “gay” is even censored on Bungie.net, replaced with “-blam!-” when used on the forums. I get why they did that, but it’s still censoring the name of a minority group. Meh.
Remember the left-handedness analogy. I bet if someone polled the overall community about handedness, there would be a heck of a lot of people reporting their left-handedness. In the present day there is no real stigma attached to being left-handed. However, if I were to poll the community on sexual orientation, I imagine the number of out gay people to be very low – not because there are so few gay people, but because so few feel comfortable admitting so in the homophobic culture. Even the Joystiq post where I got the Fabulous Brutes image rationalizes the inclusion of the “he was my lover” line by saying it might be revealed that there are no female Brutes. Essentially saying it’s okay to have gay characters as long as they’re weird aliens, which was my earlier point about why having the only gay characters be aliens would be an issue in its own right.
Xbox Live has some problems of its own with extreme trash talking from players during games. It is generally unrestrained with no real moderators, and only players actively reporting other players to keep everyone in check. In some ways, this is an effective system that enables Xbox Live staff to quickly evaluate situations and ban violators without them actually having to witness it in person. However, this is the kind of system that can protect and enforce a culture based on the values of the majority by players mostly reporting the minority offenders while letting the majority offenders slide.
In late 2007, a video called Halo 3: Homophobia Evolved became popular. A player went on Xbox Live with the gamertag “xxxGayBoyxxx” and recorded the homophobic insults sent his way. Soon after, he was suspended from Xbox Live for having a gamertag that had content of a sexual nature.
I have to say that this is a silly manifestation of that rule because ‘gay’ does not really mean something that sexual. I mean, it is a ‘sexual orientation’, but here we are using the word in a very technical manner that does not explicitly reference sexual intercourse, which is what the fuss is about. When I have a crush on a girl with no sexual attraction involved, I would call that a manifestation of heterosexuality. I would call that crush ‘hetero’, and having a crush like that on a boy is ‘gay’. I would not call such crushes ‘sexual’ in the way that Xbox Live would consider offensive. Who are they to say what ‘GayBoy’ or ‘StraightBoy’ means?
Now, the word from Xbox Live staff is that they don’t discriminate. If there is someone with ‘StraightBoy’ as a gamertag, they’ll see it as something to ban as much as ‘GayBoy’, but what are the odds someone will report it? Gayness is often seen as deviant and somehow more vulgar than heterosexuality. I recall saying something about gayness in an abstract way on the Halopedia IRC and being told that it’s against the rules to discuss sexuality despite CommanderTony’s frequent openly lusting after Hayden Panettiere (not that I’m bitter, no siree). People go on Live all the time with real sexual innuendo in their names or just references to dating women, and ninety-five percent of them won’t be reported simply because the majority culture on Xbox Live won’t find that offensive. When something gay turns up, however, people pounce on it.
On a lighter note, there is a man named Richard Gaywood living in the U.K. This is his actual name. He decided to put his full name on his gamertag and subsequently found it banned for containing “sexual innuendo”. Seriously.
In response to the controversy over gamertags getting banned, Stephen Toulouse (Stepto) of Microsoft tweeted that he was going to look into some way for users to express their sexual orientation in their profile in some way that won’t be misused. That was in February, 2009, with no results so far. He is reportedly working with GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) to improve policy to make it more LGBT-friendly.
In conclusion, I find these various elements of Halo to be homophobic in nature. They may not be very bad, all things considered, but they make the series come off as not very friendly to gay people in the absence of actual gay characters. I’m posting this article in an attempt to promote good relations between gay and straight Halo fans. There’s so much homophobia on the web, and I’d like Halopedia to be a place where that isn’t a problem.
1This is a plausible conclusion, anyway. Covenant soldiers were always depicted as male until Contact Harvest in 2007.
Greetings, Halopedians! I’m back with the final part of my series of articles reviewing the Halo Graphic Novel. If you’ve missed the other parts, you can find them here, here, here, here, here, and here. The stories have ended, and so has the collection of gallery art. Now I will be covering the series of notes Bungie put in the back of the book in a section called Bungie’s Bullshit Bluster. Think they’ve got a thing for alliteration?
BBB starts off with a short comic strip called Shore Leave: Master Chief on Holiday, by Paul Russel. This one is way too short to be put with the stories, consisting of only six panels less than an inch tall. The storyline is far from serious and is instead more like a comic strip in a newspaper. Master Chief is first seen wearing a robe and holding a cup of coffee, while still wearing his helmet of course. His day starts off bad when a thrown newspaper thwacks him in the head. He is then seen in full MJOLNIR armor driving a civilian Hog, but stuck in traffic. At the grocery store, he accidentally crushes a cantaloupe by squeezing too hard. As he tries to leave the store, his purchases fall out of the bottom of the bag and spill across the ground. Then an old woman yells at him because he parked the Hog with one wheel on her car. Finally, we see a dorky-looking Johnson calling to say, “So, Buckethead, ya ready to go to work?” The Chief says, “Yeah.” It’s cute.
Below Shore Leave, there’s a picture of an Etch A Sketch. On the Etch A Sketch is a drawing of the Master Chief looking down at a small hologram of Cortana. Master Chief is shown with his hand stretched out, and Cortana has her head in her hands. Above them are strange but detailed protrusions I’m not sure about. Parts of an activated Control Room, maybe? The thing was made by Marty O’Donnell, and it’s pretty nifty-looking. I have some doubts about its authenticity as an Etch A Sketch drawing, though, as I don’t think it lets you make lines not connected to anything as are parts of Cortana. Nice drawing, though.
And just to keep you from thinking Bungie’s Bullshit Bluster isn’t good evidence of their affection toward alliterations, they included the header, “A Cataclysmic Clamoring of Cromulent Content for Cool Cats and Comic Connoisseurs!” Yeah, that’s Bungie humor, alright. Eat your heart out, Jeff Lindsay.
The main part of the page is a message from “Captain Montague Meriwether Bungie”. It describes how comic were originally thought of as something only for kids until Stan Lee and other visionaries changed that image by making graphic novels more mainstream. There’s a bit about pop artist Roy Lichtenstein drawing his inspiration from comic books. The message concludes with Bungie giving their thanks and appreciation to the people who advanced graphic novels and to those who worked on the HGN. To the side of the message is the popped Flood from Geoff Darrow’s piece.
The rest of the page is made up of little tidbits offering information about parts of the HGN. The first describes how Lorraine McLees came up with the idea to do the HGN and used her contacts to get it made; the second describes how Marty O’Donnell got his first Etch A Sketch; the third notes that the HGN is not Bungie’s first graphic novel and is instead their sixth, the others being for their games Myth and Oni; the fourth says that Geoff Darrow was one of the concept designers for The Matrix; the fifth describes how well known and respected is Jean “Moebius” Giraud, who made the surreal Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa story, and that he is easily the oldest artist to work on the HGN; and the fifth describes how Simon Bisley, the artist of Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, got his start as a graphic novel artist.
After the tidbits is a collection of letters made by fans. Bungie notes that they collected the letters through trickery and that the fans didn’t know what the letters were for other than the general idea of giving input about the possibility of a Halo graphic novel. The first letter, by Usul, suggests three things: that Halo in comic book form has many selling points, but that Master Chief should not be drawn without his helmet; exploring the Covenant with storylines such as the original Prophet-Elite war, the conquering of other species, or any number of possibilities; exploring UNSC politics with suggested storylines as UNSC having to battle Covenant without the Chief, or following an AI serving ONI. Bungie responds to the letter saying that number three is obviously in the HGN and that they seriously considered an AI storyline. “And lord knows our artists enjoy drawing pseudo-naked female holograms.”
The second letter, by Roger Wilco, says that a polished in-depth graphic novel would be good, especially one that focuses on characters other than the Master Chief, such as soldiers on both sides, scientists, civilians, and their roles in the conflict. He goes on to suggest that the HGN should have artists Geoff Darrow, Shirow, Katsuhiro Otomo, Simon Bisley, and Craig Mullins. Bungie responds asking if Roger has been hiding in their soda machine for the past year.
The third letter, by Unperson, suggests that Sergeant Johnson would make a good subject for a Halo graphic novel story, specifically one that describes how he made it off Halo. The author then says that it shouldn’t look like manga because manga characters don’t usually look very dark or intimidating, and Johnson should. Bungie responds to say that Nihei did his best to make Breaking Quarantine not look too manga-ish.
The fourth letter, by Mintz, suggests a mix of Spartan action and 2552 politics. Bungie responds with a “Cough – Moebius – cough!”
The fifth letter, by Miguel Chavez, points out that the art of a graphical novel can surpass that of a film. No actors need to be hired to be the face behind the helmet, the required budget is significantly less because of no need for special effects and such, and the storyline can be preserved to a greater degree. All that is needed is the right person who can write a good storyline and plot the pages. Bungie responds that they agree and that was the process in a nutshell.
Finally, the sixth letter, by Dennis, describes how Bungie created such a rich universe for Halo. As a person who grew up with comics, Dennis says that he can easily see the Halo franchise entering the graphic novel market. Bungie replies, “Hope you enjoyed it, Dennis. We certainly did.”
Below the letters are images of two of Bungie’s previous graphic novels alongside a sketch. The first cover is of Oni issue #0 and depicts player character Konoko falling backwards while firing a gun. The second cover is of Tales from Myth: The Fallen Lords and depicts a large ogre kind of creature (I don’t know Myth) reaching for a little gnome guy. Beside the covers is a sketch of a UNSC locker room. One of the Marines has a pinup of Cortana on his door. The Master Chief comes at him angrily while other Marines try to hold him back. The Marine with the pinup looks defensive and says, “What’s your problem, man??!!” A humorous take on Cortana’s being seen as a sex symbol.
While not perfect, the Halo Graphic Novel is an enjoyable read with a lot of cool content. My main complaint is the art. Last Voyage has busy fight scenes that are hard to understand, Armor Testing ripped part of the art from Halo 2, and Second Sunrise is… well… Rabbit! To be more specific, the artist tries too hard to be creative and what results is something only barely recognizable as Halo. The one story I’m really satisfied with is Breaking Quarantine, which is just a cool action scene with intense “masculine” art that is easy to follow and to get into. The gallery art contains many interesting pieces, and I like seeing all the different takes on Halo. Finally, Bungie concludes with their Bullshit Bluster, which adds interesting tidbits about the development of the HGN as well as some extra art snuck in. All in all, the HGN is a good-quality book.
"The Halo Graphic Novel is a masterful tribute to the art form of the comic book and a stunning collectible in its own right."
So, on February 10th, David H. Lawrence XVII linked to my “Rapists of Heroes” post on his Twitter account. It seems his Facebook page also displays his Twitter feed in the wall section. I found the tweet there, and it has a few people commenting on liking the link. Thanks, folks. I do disagree with the opinion of DMaria Scaglione, who posts:
