The real problem with Halo 4's story

[AvalonX]

I didn't understand why so many people were confused with the main story. Then I realized I am one of those people who find all the terminals and have read some of the books. I know that Halo 4 basically consists of part of the original trilogy of books and the Forerunner novels. Mix in the Terminal videos from Halo 3, Halo anniversary and Halo 4 (viewable on Waypoint) and you have yourself a mess.

When you do all these things and replay Halo 4 it is a very different game. You understand exactly why the Didact is the way he is and why he acts the way he does. In the books, I found myself rooting for him.

 

[Zandril]

In the books, I found myself rooting for him.

Well, I was rooting for him in the game too. But that was mostly because I knew he was gonna lose at the end anyways.

I should really read the Forerunner trilogy though.

 

[AvalonX]

The game does a really poor job of explaining exactly who he is. Especially the end of the trilogy. He is painted as the bad guy but if you knew all the stuff he went through you at least see his point of view.

Spoiler

Especially considering the Librarian and the Iso-Didact essentially join with the Master Builder who was a long time enemy of the Ur-Didact.

 

[Inzombiak]

As someone who mainly played the games and didn't dig into the books and the Halo lore, does someone mind summarizing Didact's story?

 

[Zandril]

I'd say that's too long. You could attempt to read about him on the Halo Wikia. But that would take a LOT of reading.

 

[AvalonX]

As someone who mainly played the games and didn't dig into the books and the Halo lore, does someone mind summarizing Didact's story?

Spoiler

Which one?

 

[Zandril]

He has more than one?

 

[AvalonX]

No. Major spoilers below.

Spoiler

There was more than one Didact. The original called the UR-Didact is woken from his cryptum after a self imposed exhile. The second is a builder class Forerunner (Bronsteller) who is unknowingly tasked by the Libranian to wake him. The Forerunners have this sort of growth process where they can imprint each other to push their next mutation/maturity. In this case, once the UR-Didact awakens circumstances dictate that he imprints Bornsteller. This gives Bornsteller most of Dicacts memories and starts to change him into the Warriior Class. When the UR-Didact is though to be killed by the Master Builder Bornsteller takes him place as the ISO-Didact. He even considers himself husband to Librarian at that point and sort of take her point of view on the Halo controversy. The UR-Didact thought mad because of exposure a gravemind returns to find the big 3, Bornsteller, Librarian and Master Builder are all against him. It doesn't go well for the UR-Didact from here as he is betrayed by the Librarian once who shoots him and throws him in a Cyptum again.

The big 3 are all killed by the rings firing. Bornsteller actually fires them with the Librarian on Earth. The next time we see the original Didact is in Halo 4 so it's no wonder that he is red hot pissed.

 

[GetFresh]

I guess i'm really missing out on the true Halo experience. I've been mainly just a player than I reader in terms of Halo, I haven't even touched one of the books. After reading all these post and seeing that the Didact could actually be a good guy really blew my mind. I'm definitely going to read the books soon. Hopefully I get a whole new perspective on Halo after I read these books.

 

[AvalonX]

I don't know that he can be a good guy, he hates humanity and is ultimately jealous of us. He just did not believe the rings should be fired to kill the flood, he thought his armies could do it. Now within the Forerunner hierarchy I guess it is a different story depending on who you side with.

 

[Livvy]

Well, what did you expect?

They're trying to expand the universe, and make something wide and branching. They can't just keep making self contained stories like they used to, and are trying to make a big expanded universe like say, Marvel or DC, or even Star Wars has.

 

[Jivey]

I feel like I need to read these books immediately. but i have to beat H4 on legendary and if you stop and come back to it you won't unlock Mark VI and thats the whole reason! ugh, not enough time in the world to be as big of a nerd as I am inside haha

 

[Shimus]

Well, what did you expect?

They're trying to expand the universe, and make something wide and branching. They can't just keep making self contained stories like they used to, and are trying to make a big expanded universe like say, Marvel or DC, or even Star Wars has.

This is pretty much how I would have responded to the original question at hand; They are crafting a Universe. This has passed the scale and scope of closed-arc resolutions and has to be left open so the Franchise can expand. If you limit them to close-based loops you can't help but expect some downsides when plots aren't discussed or story lines get axed from the canon source material.

It's all a world of tradeoffs.

 

[cash_tuesday]

I wasn't confused by the story, but I was angry about how they totally killed the ambiguity of the Forerunners. There was certain charms behind the story that made them a fantastic plot device, but it just didn't do it.

 

[cash_tuesday]

Talking about Halo 5, I felt like there was a lot of innovation, but the story sucked even more than 4's did.