: I don't believe Halsey was a sympathetic character at heart, merely that
: Nylund and later the Bungie writers tried their best to make her one - and
: succeeded. It was because of these shining perspectives that allowed us to
: forgive her for her monstrous sins.

: Halsey's portrayals from 2001's The Fall of Reach to 2010's Reach painted
: her in the light we needed to see - a woman who would stop at nothing to
: safeguard humanity. From 2011's Glasslands to the present, the universe
: has mostly put the Great War behind them, and the writing has reflected
: that. We've gotten over the shock that necessitated the use of Spartans
: against the genocidal foe and look to the past for answers.

: Catherine Halsey has not changed one bit in the past 13 years, but our
: perspective has. We were being mislead for a decade about this woman when
: the evidence to the contrary was still there. Nylund was used by Bungie as
: their propaganda agent. 343i is utilizing Traviss to make us question
: everything that led up to this moment.

: Regardless if you think Bungie was wrong, or 343i is being irresponsible, you
: must admit that these arguments have brought to light serious flaws with
: societies in the Haloverse. We've argued over the capabilities of the
: Covenant military to the UNSC and vice versa, but never have we truly
: taken the time to conduct moral analysis of the universe at hand.

I think it's still largely biased on both sides. Monstrous, unethical, sinful, etc. Yes. Lives ruined. Terrible stuff. Spartans got created. Real talk here, Spartans don't get created, all of those sins don't matter. All of those lives ruined by Halsey and ONI and anything else? Probably glassed. Best case scenario, the Covenant just wipe humanity off the face of the universe. Worst case is they find their Halo rings and activate them, blasting all the things off the face of the universe. Or the Flood still get unleashed and never get stopped, and now the Flood are the universe.

Ackerson got to run roughshod with his Spartan IIIs, and that was okay because it wasn't Halsey. Go ONI.

ONI in general is a terrible shadow organization that will most likely lead to a new galactic war, and the S-IVs with their idiots like Palmer will be their instrument to bring the destruction. So you're right, there's a lot to debate her, Halsey's hands are anything but clean, but the portrayal as outright terrible monster bad guy villain when literally there would be no humanity or novels to have this discussion about in the Halo Universe if the Covenant had just wiped humanity off the face of the Earth says it all. It's jacked up, but in this case the ends did justify the means. And I'm sure ONI loved and supported it the whole time, because now their asses are alive and in control and doing all the stuff they're doing.

It boils down to the thread consensus. Too much, too fast. Trying to force down throats. Clear agenda to paint Halsey as some really terrible nasty person, casting aside a lot of why it happened or just how much support ONI had for it or were involved with it, let alone what they're still up to in the shadows.

Oh and Palmer is still a wholly awful character (both in writing and execution).