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Posted By Austin Yorski about 6 months, 2 weeks ago
Is Halo Antisemitic?, 
Pixelated Pretension usually has a standard format. I make a claim, I present evidence to support said claim, then I explain the significance of my interpretation to the work or medium as a whole. It’s a great formula, but I wanted to do something a little different this time. This week I just have a query and some details that led me to it.
The question is simple: Is Halo antisemitic?
We’ll get to you guys in a minute.
To even begin to tackle this issue, we must first all agree on one key fact: Master Chief is Jesus. This isn’t a new interpretation, but it’s the foundation for everything that follows in this line of logic. Whether he is sacrificing himself for the greater good or literally being crucified, Master Chief has always been a pretty obvious Christ figure. After all, Halo is a series in which a threat known as The Flood is stopped by The Ark. Biblical allegory has always been the backbone of the franchise, although subtlety has not.
It’s this overt Judeo-Christian symbolism and nomenclature that leads us to the next issue: The Covenant. In the world of Halo, The Covenant are a theocratic empire which serves as the source of troops for a good majority of firefights. There are morally ambiguous Covenant members, the Arbiter is the most infamous example, but the majority of them are hypocritical and genocidal. Of course, the name “Covenant” can be seen as a reference to the fact that the different races included in the empire are joined by a literal covenant. However, combined with the other biblical references throughout the series, I am forced to consider the possibility that they are in some way representative of the many covenants that define the Jewish faith (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic).
I guess it could be worse. It could be Watto from the phantom menace.
The idea that the bad guys of Halo could possibly represent Judaism as a whole seems ludicrous, even to me. I’m sure no one at Bungie, Microsoft, or 343 Industries is personally antisemitic. Just using a name that is evocative of certain ideas does not automatically mean that the work of fiction is intended to symbolize those connotations. It’s just a name, right?
Well, it would be a lot easier to dismiss this one seemingly aberrant bit of symbolism if the rest of the lore didn’t seem to support it. For instance, consider Master Chief, the man gunning down all of these sentient creatures. The iconic green soldier actually has a name: John-117. A quick trip to your local King James will reveal that John 1:17 reads, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” In other words, out with the old Jewish order and in with the new Christian one.
The “glassing” of planets is a fundamental characteristic of the covenant.
It’s a bit difficult to present the full implications of that verse without boring you with things like the Four Document Hypothesis, but it essentially comes down to this: The Gospel of John is antisemitic. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill,” (5:17). This bespeaks a respect for Jewish heritage and a desire for the New Testament to be an extension of the old ways of life. John blames “the Jews” for the death of Jesus Christ, planting the seeds for centuries of Christian antisemitism. I think you can see why naming your main character John-117 and your evil aliens The Covenant is problematic at best.
The parallels don’t stop there. As someone who has spent a good part of my life studying the Bible, I was immediately struck by the way the expanded universe emphasizes The Covenant’s propensity for “glassing” planets. It’s not unheard of for an evil tyranny to salt the ground beneath them during a conquest, but the science fiction act is eerily similar to the Old testament idea of herem. To cut a long story short, God demands that Jewish armies not only kill their enemies, but commit genocide and burn the civilization to the ground. If the connection is unintentional, it’s an uncanny coincidence.
What does the future hold for Halo’s religious symbolism?
As much as I love Halo’s art, music, and multiplayer, I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with its elements of religious propaganda. For example, one of the main villains of the original trilogy was the “Prophet of Truth.” While this could easily be explained as Orwellian irony, the unfortunate reality is that the Islamic prophet Muhammad is often known by that epithet. Hence you get a story which is essentially about Jesus running around and murdering adherents of other Abrahamic faiths. Even the character of The Arbiter was originally going to be named “The Dervish”, a title from the Sufi sect of Islam.
The point of this article isn’t to “call out” Halo or to accuse it of being something it is not. This is just an issue that has been rolling around in my head for some time, so I wanted to share it with other people in order to get some feedback and generate discussion. Is Halo really antisemitic? Are these problems just unfortunate implications of a simple pro-Christian allegory? Am I reading too much into a game about aliens?
Let me know. It’s been bothering me.
Pixelated Pretension is a biweekly column by Austin Yorski dedicated to discussing the literary conventions of video games, including themes, rhetoric, and symbolism. Tune in every other week for more analysis. Feel free to disagree with, add to, or question everything. I welcome your feedback. Also, follow me on Twitter @austinyorski (please).
I have always found the theological aspects of the Halo series as a way to give players a sense of fore shadowing.
I am a secular individual but was raised Lutheran, so I know the stories and I know how it seems to people of faith. However I think that if you follow the expanded universe in the books, Halo tries to take the bold approach that History mimics fiction and that everything that is religious texts was written as a result of the Forerunners, the Flood, and the interactions with the Human Race. Which could be more insulting in some ways.
I know its not my place to comment having shed religion from my life, but while it is important to know such things may lead to bigotry from the less educated, its is important to note that video games are escapism and that is the point that any game dev should focus on most.
I think the next question that should be asked is, gaming as a medium of entertainment ready to tackle social issues? Has it matured enough, or should we just be content with throwing birds at green pigs.
dude where have you been these years? don’t you know there are games that already do tackle or at least mention social issues not that necessarily all of them to do with present problems. I’ll give you examples like Metal Gear Solid, Deus Ex and Red Dead Redemption.
All 2 of the games that you mentioned aren’t using the social issue as gameplay, they are used as window dressing.
Deus Ex being the exception.
Think of the issue of gay marriage, a rather hot topic in America and most of the western world.
Turn that into social gameplay.
Bioshock effectively took the idea of stem cell research and used it as game play with the the rest of the world covered in the colors of the 1st world Zeitgeist.
Metal Gear is just a ham fisted attempt to explain why there is war. Outside of being piss poor on the gameplay front, the overly long cutscenes did nothing to explore the social issues of today.
I gave those examples that mentions of social issues because I mistaken what you meant. I did not think you meant as tackling issue in gameplay. But what do you mean by social gameplay???? do you mean games on social networks? or defining a game as hardcore or casual? multi-player?I looked up the word and I did not get a definition of ‘social gameplay’ that is closely to related what you have said. Otherwise I don’t think that could work. I mean sure you could introduce a game based around a social issue but how would that tackle social issues? It’s like making a board game to tackle the issues of illegal immigration. Did I understand what you meant or am I mistaken?
There are some games out there that because of their genre’s limitations it really doesn’t work. But then there are games like one, I want to say its called Surviving Darfur, which is about the genocide that is currently happening in Africa right now. It directly tackles the issue. To bad the game itself is Meh at best.
Social issues can used in games. In many different ways, but sometimes they aren’t even programmed. I would love to see a sociologist study the microcosm of the human race that is World of Warcraft. A game that has all the issues of the real world but none of the real life impact.
Its not an easy this to explain because games and people are dynamic, America right now is a very divided country and I don’t think that people are going to venture outside of their group when it comes to other people that is a much more directed message like movies and documentaries. However if you can get people to play out social discourse maybe we can find some common ground with the other side.
First, I think there is quite a bit of reading too far into it in your theory as far as the naming conventions the covenant, there’s not really a whole lot of 1 word names for an alien race that is made up of many races that would sound cool and stick in something meant to be an epic, i think if you are going to look in as far as ‘ his eyes are blue ‘ you have to examine things like the blatant social classing of the aliens and such as well, also, the way i interpret his eyes becoming blue is more of a lighting up behind the eyes and this is not the cut out for all spartans, that was just noble 6 all the spartans in noble team were very different individuals and from the different ways they spoke were likely multi ethnic, and to counter the sexism arguement, cortana is the only sexualized female ive run into in the game, and she’s hyper intelligent, all the female marines you run into and several canonical female spartans( the one on nobel teams comes to the forefront ) do not paint women in a sexist manner. While it is fun to hypothesize aside from the john 117 thing i think you have to reach a little too far to connect the words to something else, just my 2 cents.
I think you have to make too many connections on your own for that theory to work. Soliduz mentioned the ancient, historical Spartans. This is obviously what the Spartans were modeled after. They warred with their neighboring city states and they are famous for the battle at Thermopylae(aka the 300 Spartans). The major events in the first Halo game loosely mirror some events in history. I am speaking about the wars involving the Greeks and the Persians, not necessarily the battle at Thermopylae. That is an easy connection to make. I just don’t think there is enough evidence to say there is any racist undertones at all.
Sexism? Well…sex sells. Sexualizing a video game character is much different than a real person. Not only that, but who would be the victim here? The voice actor, if anyone. But she is getting paid to talk into a microphone. To voice a holographic computer program made to look “hot.” It could, however, be argued that it promotes a sexist attitude for some people.
And Spartan Ubermench and Supersoldaten… might also evoke the Nazis… who were antisemitic.
You bring up some very good points I can really get behind your theory, but I don’t believe they put it in as a form of propaganda, more as a way of deepening their story telling by use of symbolism and hidden narratives.
To support your theory, I’d also like to point out the whole concept behind the Spartan program of breeding and training children to perfection is very much alike some of the programs the Nazis had going.
Well.. Halo’s always been about a blond-haired, blue eyed breed of super soldiers stomping on anything that comes across them. (See the old Halo commercial if you don’t know what I’m talking about)
Frankly, considering the behavior of the vast majority of XBL’s player-base, I wouldn’t be surprised if the undertones, overtones, and symbolism were intentional.
Really, what better way to tap in to the inherently racist, sexist, and anti-semitic/anti-islamic leanings of average foamy-mouthed, flag-waving, male US FPS-Playing youth than to give them a game where they can symbolically stomp on all of America and Christendom’s enemies with just a hint of Nazi propaganda in the mix.
not really. from the start Master Chief’s ethnic race was never revealed in the first game. The Spartans, as comes from the name, were historically militaristic society where soldiers were trained from childhood; children were trained and those who failed their test would die. Spartans society had the idea physically superior or the strongets live and the inferior or the weakest should die. This has nothing to do with the ideas of the master race. plus avery johnson is a supporting character and a hero which contradicts with your views of halo as racist. as for sexism Cortana, though portrayed as a naked woman, is an A.I. as in intelligent which contradicts with sexism since sexism view women as both physically and mentaly inferior.
So.. your counter argument is that because 1 man of color and 1 sorta-woman are not portrayed 100% negatively and Master Chief wasn’t blatantly confirmed as a white guy in Halo 1, , any criticisms are invalidated? Also your definitions of racism and sexism are about as narrow and childlike as they come, even more so if you think one exception negates all implications.
Also, Spartans in Halo are not a society.. they are.. well the title of the video says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qazv_jrG0E.
Admittedly, I was slightly off in saying blond hair… but the symbolism of the blue eyes is pretty obvious – As he is modified and becomes a superior soldier/man, his eyes turn blue. Not unlike what Hitler considered a characteristic of the superior race.
Actually they kind of were a society, teams were rediculously loyal within their individual units, taking a look back at the expanded universe or even just halo reach they trained with one another from childhood and withstood painful surgeries and implants to become what they were. as for the sexism take a look at my post above, there are alot of women in halo, important characters who are not sexualized in any way, so it sort of reversed your claim cortana is a kind of hot super intelligent being is the 1 vs many exception to the rule and only because she looks attractive.
Also i always felt Cortana was a symbolized Athena to Master Chief’s Ulysses. You can pretty much replace all the symbolism with symbolism of other times and stories for what is pointed out in the article, it just depends on how deep you want to go.
I never said your argument was all wrong. I simply pointed out the some points that contradicted your view of halo as racist and sexist game. plus how is my definition of racism and sexism narrow? just because the hero is white, blonde and has blue eyes does not necessarily means Nazism. If Cortana does not convince you how other women characters like Miranda Keys, Dr. Catherine Halsey and Catherine-B320 a female spartan. Are they portrayed as weak, sexy and stupid characters in the game? do they not share in the fight against the covenant equally as men do? or is it because Cortana, an AI that guides Master Chief, is portrayed as a naked woman made you automatically feel she was purposely made as a sex object? if these points did not convince you then please do give us your definition of what racism and sexism is?
So, not only is Halo possibly anti-semetic, but also anti-Islamic. It’s always a little uncomfortable when you realize things like this. Hopefully, this really IS just an unfortunate implication of the Halo series, like plenty of other series, trying to incorporate religious terminology and symbolism into their franchise in an attempt to be more cool and deep and meaninguful, or something.
Antisemitism at this level of complexity would have to be intentionally built into it, and I highly doubt it was. So your suggestion that its just the addition of biblical terminology to just add some layers to the game is probably a good bet. That’s what Anno did in Evangelion, and people breathe a lot more into that then there really is.