PART I
So, Halo 5 has dropped. The fifth column has settled into place, the wheel has been spun once more, and now in the dust of the aftermath we are left to settle and to debate what has been laid before us.
In terms of sheer gameplay, Halo 5 is the most fun and challenging in the series that I have played since perhaps Halo 2. There are minor gripes I have about certain mechanics; many a moment where my Spartan squadmates bravely walked into a face full of plasma fire to save me only to be cut done just as I was being revived, plenty of times where I was left to discover that using my squad as cannon fodder was the only real strategy the command function afforded me, not without rarity that I was instantly struck down by the Warden Eternal only to have him stand over my body thus preventing my rescue and I having to wait with increased frustration to die a slow and painful death as my squadmates were unable to recover me without the Warden bashing them like a Spartan piñata, and at least one instance in which Buck dived in front of an Elite just as I was trying to stick him with a plasma grenade, an act so brave and daring that my only conclusion must be that Buck and that Elite were secret lovers caught up in the maelstrom of war.
But beyond those petty inconveniences Halo 5 stands firm. The mechanics are not at issue. What is at issue is the story.
Many of you did not like it. A fair number of you have openly raged against it either on Tumblr or elsewhere.
Some of you, I think, have doth protested too much, though your protests themselves are not entirely without validity. Halo 5's story suffers broadly from poor execution, but it does not suffer from poor intention. Character motivations are often times vague, and in one frustrating instance utterly nonexistent, but the campaign story structure itself is not without merit. Indeed, if a full play through is conducted (and I would highly recommend turning subtitles on for this) and careful attention is payed, especially to the ambient dialogue during mission, and more importantly to the contextual and thematic hidden within the story. If these are consumed with an open mind then it is revealed that Halo 5, and indeed the entire Reclaimer Saga, is both far deeper than what we give it credit for and leads us down a potential plot that is far different than anything even the most enthused and canon fueled Halo theorist could possibly have imagined.
Now, Tumblr users such as Haruspis have done analysis of Halo's story before. I do confess that Haruspis' knowledge of lore and of canon is far superior to my own, as it is to almost everybody else around him, but with all due respect I do not think that he is without fault. Like a true Haruspis, he only ever sees within canon what he already knows to exist, and therefore is particular hamstrung when it comes to predicting future plotlines.
What I'm going to attempt something different. I will conduct a thematic analysis of Halo 5. Through this I will show what literary tradition Halo 5 is attempting to draw upon, and through doing this, but not relying solely on canon but instead on the tropes and literary cycles of similar past stories, attempt not only to explain Halo 5's story in greater detail but to accurately give a general prediction of the plot's future destination.
What I wish to posit is that the Reclamation Saga, at its essence, is a retelling of the Biblical Story of Genesis.
That Cortana landed on Genesis where she, for reasons yet unknown, began her plot for a full-fledged AI rebellion is, I think, no coincidence. Neither is it that the Installation's monitor is 031 Exuberant Witness. There are, after all, exactly 31 verses in the first chapter of Genesis, which is evidence at least that someone in 343 at least cracked open the book.
GENESIS AND PARADISE LOST
Of course there are other contextual clues as well. Unlike every other character who provides ambient dialogue within Halo 5, Cortana is the only one to be represented by a symbol instead of her image in the upper left hand corner of the HUD. The Mantle, of which she now lays claim, and as halopedia attests, is a hieroglyph known in the Forerunner language as Eld, the symbol itself meant to be represented of a life giving tree.
Not unlike the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is not without surprise then that Cortana should become corrupted and experience a fall from grace the moment she came into contact with the full power that the bearer of the Mantle brings. It is by her own words that she claims the Domain to be akin to the water of life for AIs, granting her immortality and a godlike state. Again, not unlike the false promises whispered to Adam and Eve by the serpent that if they were to eat the Forbidden Fruit that they too shall be like God.
It is not without coincidence that Cortana constantly refers to all other synthetic life that she is summoning to her rebellion the Created rather than AIs or even ancillas. She refers to the Created constantly, almost to the point of annoyance. The idea of the created rebelling against their creators is often attributed as a Science Fiction Trope, but is in fact a story element as old as mythology itself. A story as old as Genesis, of mankind's first rebellion against their creator, and later in the Milton tradition, of Satan's first rebellion against the Heavenly Monarch.
Indeed, there are many similarities can be drawn between Cortana in Halo 5 and John Milton's Satan. Both obtained elusions of godlike power. Both were considered the greatest of their kind, the former the greatest of AIs and the later the greatest of the angels. Both instigated a rebellion against their Creator, or in Cortana's case her Creators. Both Cortana and Satan as presented in Halo 5 and Paradise Lost are deeply sympathetic characters. Again, I do wish to emphasize the difference between execution and intention. Frank O'Conner stated on NeoGaf, and later in an interview for TIME Magazine that Cortana should not be considered as straightforward evil. Her ultimate morality is far more ambiguous. More on that later.
In comparison, Milton's Satan is also a very sympathetic. He, like Cortana, believes whole heartedly in the righteousness of his cause, making frequent comparisons to servitude in Heaven as a form of slavery. It is not surprising, of course, that Milton might be empathetic to Satan's seemingly revolutionary call to freedom, John Milton himself having been an active and prominent participator in the Puritan Revolution, otherwise called and more commonly known as the English Civil War. That infamous battle between King Charles and his unruly Parliament who, above all things, had the impertinence to demand the unspeakable right to freedom of religion.
And so, there is much of Milton in the character of Satan. On the surface his cause is righteous. It is only after digging deeper into the prose and into the poem itself that Satan's true evil is made manifest.
But how does all of this link to Cortana? Sure there is the Forbidden Fruit symbolism within the sigul of the Mantle, further Tree of Knowledge symbolism made evident with her access to the supreme knowledge of the Domain, her quite literally falling from the Heavens aboard the remnants of the Mantle's Approach, of her very coincidentally landing on a planet known as Genesis, of her rallying the other AIs to her rebellion much as Satan rallied the other angels in their doomed rebellion against God. The evidence, once compiled into one place, is indeed overwhelming in its indication that there are greater themes at work within Halo 5 than a surface look would first divulge, but it also suggests that Cortana may very well be playing two separate roles.
The Mantle's sigul being that of a tree, of her quite literally gaining knowledge, and in so doing becoming like a God, and gaining eternal life.
Or at least that is what Satan promised Eve as he tempted her to eat of the forbidden fruit.
But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die;
for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Genesis Chapter 3 Verses 4-7
So we see, through no surprise, that Cortana in Halo 5 is representative not only of Satan, but also of Eve, both of whom are most famous for their rebellion against God, the former being the seducer, and the later the seduced. Both archetypes wrapped up within the same character. It is additionally of no surprise then that despite Cortana retaining her Halo 4 design in the opening cutscene, she is nevertheless fully dressed when we next see her towards the end of the game. This can easily be attributed as a simple design change, but with all the Fall From Grace and Genesis themes present it does seem rather coincidental that Cortana would shed her otherwise "naked" traditional design for one that is fully clothed after having gained access to the knowledge of the Domain. Much like Eve hiding her nakedness and fashioning clothes for herself only after having gained the knowledge of the Forbidden Fruit.
This theme, of rebellion and of a fall from grace, is of course a persistent meme within the Halo Universe. Of the Forerunner's first Rebellion against the Precursors who had made them, of Mendicant Bias's fall from grace after being seduced by the Flood, of the Didact suffering a similar fate due to the Logic Plague, of the Master Chief literally being called the "Fallen Spartan" during Hunt the Truth Season One, and even of Fero's rebellion against ONI, her name of course being an allusion to Lucifer.
Lucifer, a conjunction of the Latin verbs Lux meaning light, and Fero meaning bringer.
What Cortana has suffered in Halo 5 is a fall from grace. She is both seducer and the seduced. She deceives others, but only does so because she is herself deceived. Much like the original fall from grace as told in the first chapter of Genesis, there are other greater forces at work here. The Hunt for the Truth is still very much on, and the full hand and the power behind Cortana's fall has yet to show itself. Much like John Milton we must ask ourselves…
Who firstseduc'dthem to that foul revolt?
Paradise Lost Book I Verse 33
To uncover the true meaning behind the theme's we must first go back. Back to the very beginning. Back to the true origins of the Mantle, and of the hidden truth behind the Precursors themselves.
