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Hello all, with this weeks Nintendo Direct giving us only a little bit of info on a lot of topics I decided that this week I'll go over something different: the #huntfortruth Halo 5 trailers. (Spartan Locke) (Master Chief) These trailers are interesting in that they are each a twisted mirror image of the other: they both involve one of the aforementioned Spartans talking to the other Spartan, the later of whom is sprawled on the ground below a Master Chief statue.
What really got my character instincts going though is how different the two are, and that is what I want to cover in this article: how Master Chief and Spartan Locke are different.
First off is the thing that was most obvious to me: they talk differently, I don't mean that one has an accent that the other doesn't, nothing like that. I'm talking about the way that they talk. If you notice during the entire Master Chief ad John is unemotional and steely calm, challenging Locke verbally with questions: "is this what you wanted," and using words like "compromised," this calm is kept until, interestingly MC addresses the fallen Spartan by putting extra emphasis on only one phrase in the commercial: "Spartan Locke." This is very intriguing when you think how often Master Chief gets mad: that is, never. Also Master Chief states that Locke is being killed because his mission is done, while Chief's is just getting started.
On the other hand Locke is emotional from the start: coming out of the house quiet and than intimately going into a bitterly sarcastic bit: "hail the conquering hero." The whole spheel is being said almost as if in front of a crowd. Another thing is Locke never addresses Master Chief by his name, rank, nickname or anything, he addresses him twice in the add: once as "that," and once as "you." This could mean one of two things: either Locke is taunting Chief by subliminally saying "you don't deserve a name," or he is putting him on a level less then human to make it easier for him to kill Master Chief to avoid guilt latter on. (This second theory is a practice commonly used by real word soldiers when the soldiers give the enemy names like "Camel Humpers," "Macs," or "Reds.") Also Locke states that Chief must be killed to save "us."
The other thing is more of just something to reinforce said earlier stuff: their body language. Granted since both where in full MJOLNIR armor little can be said of their body language but what is here speaks volumes. For example Master Chief walks very slowly, keeps both hands on the rifle and barely looks at the statue, while Locke starts in a similar fashion, even keeping the gun at the ready for a few seconds, but then starts motioning with his hand like he his on stage and looks at the statue for almost a dramatic effect. Also when going for their hand guns Chief and Locke do it very differently, Master Chief puts his rifle in place on his armor and gets the pistol while Locke drops his rifle into a puddle and gets the pistol. All of this furthers what I've been saying: for Chief Locke is just part of a mission to be carried out, for Locke this is personal.
This all has even more questions riddled in it to begin with: why are two Spartans fighting in the first place? What happened to Locke in the Chief ad and vise versa? Why is the link for the Locke ad in the Chief video called "The Other Side of Truth" while the link for the Chief ad in the Locke video is called "Truth is Never What it Seems?" Oh well. I guess we'll have the answers when Halo 5 comes out.
