Tag: halo

one-for-all-plus-ultra:

yall remember when the infinity exited slip space just to completely an entirely fucking plow through a covenant super carrier like it was fucking nothing

infinitedevilmachine:

arbiteranalysis:

Why is it so terrifying that the Gravemind spoke “cordially” to the Didact before its malediction? Why does it send shivers down my spine when they added that gentle, consoling “no” to Truth’s “Not as you are” line in Halo 2 Anniversary? Or when the new Gravemind cradled Cortana in “Human Weakness”?

Because these are either very polite or intimate gestures performed by someone who means harm. 

It’s an emotional version of the Uncanny Valley.

I always found this unsettling about the Gravemind, and why I like it so much as a villain. Halo 2 did a fantastic job expounding on everything that was introduced in the first game, and this includes the Flood – though it’s a point I often forget to bring up.

The Gravemind has some of the best, or at least most memorable, lines in that game, which is surprising since it’s so dialogue-heavy compared to the first and every character has something important to say. We’re introduced to the Flood in Halo 1 as mindless zombies, parasites that live only to consume sapient biomass and hoard it obsessively (’To what end?’ we are left to wonder). Then Halo 2 introduces this creature that is, ostensibly, the leader of this collective of what were once thought to be mindless creatures – and it speaks in poetry.

Various wikis claim that the Gravemind frequently speaks in rhyming trochaic heptameter, and while it doesn’t always adhere perfectly to the form I still think that’s the best way to describe it. Basically this means that it speaks in fourteen-syllable lines of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, starting with the stressed. “This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. / This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded.” Of course the heptameter is a reference to Bungie’s favorite number, 7, but it’s worth noting that the Gravemind often includes caesurae in its lines, which basically just means a mid-line pause – you can see it where the commas are. “You will search one likely spot || and you will search another.“ is perhaps a better example, as the pause is more pronounced. This changes the cadence of the poem drastically.

You’ve probably heard your English teacher in high school say that iambic pentameter – Shakespeare’s preferred form – is the best poetic imitation of human speech (total bunk, at least for English poetry). But it is true that the meter of a poem has a huge effect, and by effectively splitting its lines into 6-or-7 syllable bits the Gravemind is giving them a lyric, sing-songy quality similar to that used by nursery rhymes. Short, lyrical, and rhyming verse is a hallmark of that sort of poetry; it’s easy to understand, like music. The Gravemind is trying to sound comforting. The Gravemind is trying to coddle a child.

It’s a giant parasitic superbrain made out of everything it’s ever killed, but it represents a sick sort of harmony. It says really cool shit, it says it in lyric poetry, and it’s persuasive. I think that might be a part of why it’s so disturbing.