Halo and Philosophy
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
UNSC Briefing
Acknowledgements
Eliminate Hostile Anti-Intellectual Units
Easy . . . er
Chapter 1 - Who Is Master Chief?
The Same but Different
Making It Personal
A Psyche Connection
Mastering the Chief
Chapter 2 - Master Chief and the Meaning of Life
The Spartan Warrior
What Did They Die For?
The Anti-Hero
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Stoic Warrior
Chapter 3 - Why Plato Wants You to Play Halo
Context of Platonic Ethics in Halo: Education
Plato on the Attack
Halo as Mimesis
All bad? No
Ironic Killtacular
What about the Violence?
Guardian Training
Chapter 4 - Does Cortana Dream of Electric Sheep?
I Was Gonna Shoot My Way Out. Mix Things Up a Little
The Right Man in the Wrong Place Can Make All the Difference
This War Has Enough Dead Heroes
Politics . . . How Tiresome
Just Dust and Echoes
Normal
Chapter 5 - The Initiatory Journey to Legendary Play
I Was Once Wrong about Halo . . .
The Real Halo Begins in Heroic Mode
Learning and Unlearning
Halo as a Game Design Lesson
My Only Two Weapons
My Two Unforgettable Moments
Uncertainty, the Dark Side of Learning
Chapter 6 - Halo and Music
Cracks Begin to Appear . . .
The Incompatibility of Music and Interactivity
Music According to Whom?
Music the Halo Way
A Musical Soundscape
Sound, Music, and Vision
Chapter 7 - Personal Identity in Blood Gulch
Welcome to Blood Gulch. Meet the Red Team
Thought Experiments in Philosophy
AIs and Personal Identity in RvB
Project Freelancer
Where Parfit Went Wrong
Chapter 8 - Enlightenment through Halo’s Possible Worlds
Possible Worlds
Fuck This Game!
Upaya and the Parable of the Burning House
The Parable of the Burning Halo
Master Chief as Bodhisattva: More Buddhism
Immersion, Anger, and Compassion
Halo as a Catalyst for a Buddhism Videogame?
Heroic
Chapter 9 - Apocalypse Halo
God the Programmer
The Halo Mythos
Havoc on the Earth
Apocalyptic Themes in Halo
Master Chief the Messiah
Judgment of the Players
Otherworldly Mediators
Otherworldly Journeys
The End Times
False Identity
Apocalyptic Angst
Videogame Apocalypses and Secularism
Chapter 10 - The Plasma Grenade Is the New Razor Blade
Nerdrage and Me
Pull The Pin. You Know You Want To
Remember Me?
No One Knows Who Threw that Nade
My Avatar and Me
Who? Me?
Chapter 11 - Playing with Fantasies in the Spartan (Sub)Consciousness
Playing with the Future
When the Screen Stares Back
Does the Covenant Have a Personality?
There Is No “I” in Halo
The Challenge to (Dis)connect
Chapter 12 - What’s Wrong with Camping?
Equivocation
Camping and Strategy
Camping, Context, and Evaluation
Spawn Camping
Covering Values
ResPwn
Turnabout’s Fair Play
Legendary
Chapter 13 - Sandbox Confrontations
Knight Errant + Walking Death-mobile = Master Chief
Silence of Master Chief
Master Chief’s Weapons
A Less Idealized Soldier for a More Desperate Time
Absolute War and Total War
Rookie and Chief
Silence of the Rookie
Chapter 14 - What Would Foucault Think about Speed Runs, Jeep Jumps, and Zombie?
Aesthetic Self-Fashioning
Expansive Gameplay
Expansive Gameplay as Metaphor
Expansive Gameplay as Practice of Freedom
Expansive Gameplay as Simulation
Chapter 15 - Would Cortana Pass the Turing Test?
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
Can Machines Think?
Believable Intelligence
Just because It Acts Intelligent, Doesn’t Mean It Is
The Seagull Test
Machines Don’t Have Our Background
Innovations in Storytelling
Introducing a New World
Death in Games
Mind Control
Would Cortana Pass the Turing Test?
UNSC Debriefing
UNSC Personnel
Index
Copyright Page
Popular Culture and Philosophy® Series Editor: George A. Reisch
VOLUME 1
Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (2000)
VOLUME 2
The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer (2001)
VOLUME 3
The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002)
VOLUME 4
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale (2003)
VOLUME 5
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All (2003)
VOLUME 9
Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts (2004)
VOLUME 12
Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful than You Can Possibly Imagine (2005)
VOLUME 13
Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way (2005)
VOLUME 17
Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Thinking) (2006)
VOLUME 18
Harley-Davidson and Philosophy: Full-Throttle Aristotle (2006)
VOLUME 19
Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think! (2006)
VOLUME 24
Bullshit and Philosophy: Guaranteed to Get Perfect Results Every Time (2006)
VOLUME 25
The Beatles and Philosophy: Nothing You Can Think that Can’t Be Thunk (2006)
VOLUME 26
South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating (2007) Edited by Richard Hanley
VOLUME 28
The Grateful Dead and Philosophy: Getting High Minded about Love and Haight (2007) Edited by Steven Gimbel
VOLUME 29
Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy: How to Philosophize with a Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch (2007) Edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad
VOLUME 30
Pink Floyd and Philosophy: Careful with that Axiom, Eugene! (2007) Edited by George A. Reisch
VOLUME 31
Johnny Cash and Philosophy: The Burning Ring of Truth (2008) Edited by John Huss and David Werther
VOLUME 32
Bruce Springsteen and Philosophy: Darkness on the Edge of Truth (2008) Edited by Randall E. Auxier and Doug Anderson
VOLUME 33
Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? (2008) Edited by Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin
&
nbsp; VOLUME 34
iPod and Philosophy: iCon of an ePoch (2008) Edited by D.E. Wittkower
VOLUME 35
Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant (2008) Edited by Jason T. Eberl and Kevin S. Decker
VOLUME 36
The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am (2008) Edited by Luke Cuddy
VOLUME 37
The Wizard of Oz and Philosophy: Wicked Wisdom of the West (2008) Edited by Randall E. Auxier and Phillip S. Seng
VOLUME 38
Radiohead and Philosophy: Fitter Happier More Deductive (2009) Edited by Brandon W. Forbes and George A. Reisch
VOLUME 39
Jimmy Buffett and Philosophy: The Porpoise Driven Life (2009) Edited by Erin McKenna and Scott L. Pratt
VOLUME 40
Transformers and Philosophy (2009) Edited by John Shook and Liz Stillwaggon Swan
VOLUME 41
Stephen Colbert and Philosophy: I Am Philosophy (And So Can You!) (2009) Edited by Aaron Allen Schiller
VOLUME 42
Supervillains and Philosophy: Sometimes, Evil Is Its Own Reward (2009) Edited by Ben Dyer
VOLUME 43
The Golden Compass and Philosophy: God Bites the Dust (2009) Edited by Richard Greene and Rachel Robison
VOLUME 44
Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed (2009) Edited by Scott Calef
VOLUME 45
World of Warcraft and Philosophy: Wrath of the Philosopher King (2009) Edited by Luke Cuddy and John Nordlinger
Volume 46
Mr. Monk and Philosophy: The Curious Case of the Defective Detective (2010) Edited by D.E. Wittkower
Volume 47
Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder (2010) Edited by Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin
VOLUME 48
The Red Sox and Philosophy: Green Monster Meditations (2010) Edited by Michael Macomber
VOLUME 49
Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy: New Life for the Undead (2010) Edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad
VOLUME 50
Facebook and Philosophy: What’s on Your Mind? (2010) Edited by D.E. Wittkower
VOLUME 51
Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game (2010) Edited by Ted Richards
VOLUME 52
Manga and Philosophy: Fullmetal Metaphysician (2010) Edited by Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman
VOLUME 53
Martial Arts and Philosophy: Beating and Nothingness (2010) Edited by Graham Priest and Damon Young
VOLUME 54
The Onion and Philosophy: Fake News Story True, Alleges Indignant Area Professor (2010) Edited by Sharon M. Kaye
VOLUME 55
Doctor Who and Philosophy: Bigger on the Inside (2010) Edited by Courtland Lewis and Paula Smithka
VOLUME 56
Dune and Philosophy: Weirding Way of the Mentat (2011) Edited by Jeffery Nicholas
VOLUME 57
Rush and Philosophy: Heart and Mind United (2011) Edited by Jim Berti and Durrell Bowman
VOLUME 58
Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter (2011) Edited by Richard Greene, George A. Reisch, and Rachel Robison-Greene
VOLUME 58
Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved (2011) Edited by Luke Cuddy
IN PREPARATION:
SpongeBob SquarePants and Philosophy (2011) Edited by Joseph Foy
Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy (2011) Edited by Josef Steiff
Philip K. Dick and Philosophy (2011) Edited by D.E. Wittkower
Inception and Philosophy (2011) Edited by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Breaking Bad and Philosophy (2012) Edited by David R. Koepsell
Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy (2012) Edited by Mark Ralkowski
The Rolling Stones and Philosophy (2012) Edited by Luke Dick and George A. Reisch
For full details of all Popular Culture and Philosophy® books, visit www.opencourtbooks.com.
To Bungie,
for putting out one of the greatest
First Person Shooter series
of all time
UNSC Briefing
FRED VAN LENTE
Rereading Thoreau’s Walden at the same time as the chapters in this collection, I was struck by Backwoods Hank’s assertion that “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.”
When it comes to simple living, the most beggarly ascetic has nothing on Master Chief, the armored hero of Microsoft’s Halo video game series. “See the Covenant, shoot the Covenant” (or, from time to time, The Flood) pretty well sums up both his raison d’être and the only a priori knowledge before a gamer picks up an Xbox controller to propel him towards his enemies.
In many ways game developer Bungie’s genius in its creation of Halo can be summed up in the conception of this character, the quintessential player’s cat’s paw. While most narrative shooters have some square-jawed heroic type for the user to both identify with and embody, John-117 (Nerd Alert! Master Chief’s given name) is both unique and generic in equal measure. His faceless visage is recognized the world over, yet still only the broadest outline of a human being inside his bulky MJOLNIR exo-skeleton which the player can fill with his or her own expectations and desires. At some point during the series a sex-specific pronoun or his name is evoked, thus saddling him with a gender; but entombed in that green shell he has no noticeable sexual characteristics. Since we never see him outside the carapace he has no demonstrable race or age. Most of the dialogue in the game is borne by Chief’s glowing cybernetic AI Tinkerbell, Cortana; but when he does speak, it’s in the unforgettable tones of Chicago DJ Steve Downes.
Everything else that is Master Chief is provided by the gamer, whether choosing to use the magnum or the AR to blow away Grunts, and any other thoughts or opinions that may manifest during the course of the ensuing fragfest. Indeed, he and the gamer come to life at literally the same time in Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game, as Chief is awakened from cryogenic sleep and taught how his MJOLNIR works, which cleverly teaches the gamer the configuration of his controller at the same time. Master Chief’s life is not lived until the guiding force of the user is grafted onto his otherwise empty shell—not just an unexamined life, but an unconscious one.
As the gamer animates Master Chief in Halo: Combat Evolved, so Halo and Philosophy illuminates this video game series with a spark from history’s great thinkers. As with many of the topics covered in the Popular Culture and Philosophy series, I imagine there will be some perfunctory hand-wringing over whether or not a First Person Shooter is an appropriate subject for serious critical study, blah, blah, blah. But if the unexamined life isn’t worth living, then the unexamined game isn’t worth playing; or, to turn that configuration on its head, a game worth playing is also worthy of being examined. And with worldwide sales of Halo merchandise reaching nearly two billion dollars as of this writing, Master Chief and friends (and enemies, particularly his enemies) are worth quite a bit to the Microsoft corporation and their legions of fans.
To speak in Aristotelian terms, if Halo the game takes Master Chief from a potential kicker of alien ass to an actual one, the authors of Halo and Philosophy take the actual game series and examine its social, political, and philosophical potential. It is a worthy goal, and I hope you enjoy reading these thought-provoking essays as much as I did.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the folks at Open Court for their judgment, and to the authors for their fine contributions and superb Halo gaming experiences. Thanks also to Jason Vandusen of Vandusen design
Eliminate Hostile Anti-Intellectual Units
LUKE CUDDY
When I play Halo: Combat Evolved and walk through the halls and passageways of the Pillar of Autumn it reminds me of DukeNukem 3D in its cold, futuristic splendor. But when I think of Hal
o, I also think of Doom. While I realize there are other obvious precursors to Halo (like Half Life, Quake, or Bungie’s own Marathon) it’s Doom that drew me into the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre as a teenager. Playing Halo sometimes takes me back to those days when a bad day at school would lead to hours of incinerating monsters with a Rocket Launcher or tearing through them with a Double Barrel Shotgun.
But is Halo just another mindless FPS, inclining its players towards aggression and desensitization (and stoking popular worries about what FPS games do to teenagers)? While Halo is violent, it sometimes gets a worse rap than it deserves. The Halo series has a more complex story than many others, taking elements of that story from science fiction, as we will see. Within gaming, Halo has paved the way for some newer games—Borderlands, for example, draws from Halo’s gun limitation. There is more to Halo than meets the eye philosophically as well. Watching a group of drunken males play a round of multiplayer doesn’t do justice to the deeper philosophical issues that surround and inhabit Halo and Halo culture, from personal identity, to the Western notion of salvation, to elements of Buddhism.
Halo’s Roots in Science Fiction Literature
In the first level of the first game of the series, Halo: Combat Evolved, you are introduced to one of the Halo structures from which the game gets its name. In fact, it’s the first thing you see when you start playing the game: a backdrop of a planet in space with the ring-like formation in front of it. Such a ring-like formation was most famously fictionalized by Larry Niven in his Hugowinning book Ringworld, which was succeeded by two other books to make a trilogy. Here Niven helps the reader conceptualize what he calls a “ringworld” (taking his inspiration from the concept of a partial Dyson sphere): “Take Christmas ribbon, pale blue and an inch wide, the kind you use to wrap presents. Set a lighted candle on a bare floor. Take fifty feet of ribbon, and string it in a circle with the candle at the center, balancing the ribbon on the edge so that the inner side catches the candle light.”1 You might think that a structure like this would be too thin, or too small, to sustain an atmosphere or for many people to live on. But scale is important and, as one of the characters in the book points out: “That’s what it’s all about. Six hundred trillion square miles of surface area is three million times the surface of the Earth. It’d be like having three million worlds all mapped flat and joined edge to edge” (p. 71).