: I've been watching the cutscenes of all the Halo's and including H2A's since
: I don't have an Xbox One just yet to play it myself, and I'm noticing
: something that never really matched up to how Nylund wrote Spartans and
: other characters.

: Nylund tried to depict the Spartans as emotionally broken, not smiling or
: laughing. They'd hold their index and middle fingers to their faceplate as
: a way to simulate it, because if I remember correctly the act of smiling
: would 'open the floodgates to all sorts of emotions', if I remember
: correctly.

: I remember the section with Linda in First Strike and her actually smiling
: and laughing taking John by surprise and looking back at it I think that
: is something that has never really matched up with how Bungie wrote the
: character in subsequent appearances.

: Clearly, I don't think it's disputed that the canonicity of The Fall of Reach
: is tenuous at best considering it was written before the universe became
: fleshed out and even before Halo CE, but even in Halo CE the Master Chief
: cracked jokes and made one-liners in a way that never really matched up
: with how Nylund tried to write him.

: Personally, I think that at least the events of The Fall of Reach should be
: retold with 'modern' events in mind. Hell, the book at first said Elites
: were rarely seen on the ground and that most of the forces seen were
: Grunts and Jackals, and thats just crazy.

You raise a good point about the differences between Nylund's depictions of the Spartans and how they've since been depicted in other media.

Although I don't know if I'd go quite as far as saying that he wrote them as emotionally damaged as you suggest. He certainly wrote Blue Team to be likable, and their scenes were always my favourite.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that the Spartans have been happy-go-lucky in recent media either, Halo 4 even started with a full on Halsey interrogation with the line "Do you believe the Master Chief succeeded because he was at his core, broken". That's pretty heavy. Sure they're a bit more light hearted in some of the terminal scenes, but I don't think it was out of character from how they were previously written, even by Nylund.

Fall of Reach is my favourite book in the end, I'd rather see the newer games and media re-written to reflect it than the other way around!