: Her ends were to stifle dissent via terror and assassination. Her means were
: to kidnap children and brainwash them to be her agents of terror and her
: assassins.

: Halsey said that each of her Spartans could have been an Alexander the Great
: - a great martial leader. We could have done with a few dozen of them
: during the Covenant war. Instead her foot soldiers won land skirmishes
: until the cruisers came in and glassed the planet.

: She wasted the potential of those children.

: Apart from the player characters her Spartans did NOT win the war.

: She took potential leaders, scientists, strategists, thinkers and squandered
: them as assassins, foot soldiers. Maybe those one in a billion exceptional
: candidates could have worked out how Covie weapons actually worked, could
: have found a way to breach Covenant ship shields, could have given us
: effective victories against the covenant. Maybe Halsey herself could have
: helped in those areas if she had concentrated on them and left kiddie
: experiments alone.

Or they could have all been glassed as children. There's also the people controlling Halsey's strings during the creation with all the ends and the means regarding these children. That failed government you mention is pretty awful, especially ONI. What's the hidden story? While we're busy making up possible scenarios, maybe they had threatened Keyes. Maybe her daughter. Who knows! Yes, it's all terrible, but don't go acting like she set out herself to do this, to stifle all the dissent, to keep a government running, to purposely go after kids, etc. What a joke.

: What Halsey did wasn't nice. She actually did kidnap those children - it's
: not something that Travis made up or lied about.

: And Travis did NOT cover up ONI's involvement - she made particular mention
: of it.

: I'm pretty sure that Travis isn't a fan of Halsey but I bet she's glad Halsey
: the character exists. I bet it's been fun writing for her.

: Have you considered that those people who went along with her are now
: vilifying her because that's how they distance themselves from what they
: did or what they allowed to happen? They could be putting their guilt into
: Halsey and then hate her. She is a scapegoat.

That's exactly what I've been implying this entire time. No one's guilty. Everyone's hands are covered in blood. But nope. Halsey's just this ultimate super bad guy, and has been portrayed as such pretty well.

: I think that the Arbiter cast his own guilt onto Truth and then killed him. I
: think that Mendez and the others are doing that with Halsey. It lets them
: think of themselves as good people who were just lead into evil by Halsey.
: They don't need to blame themselves; they can just blame Halsey.

: I don't know if this is what Travis is doing with those characters but there
: were a few things I picked up in Glasslands that suggest that she was
: thinking along those lines.

: Everyone has a bias. Travis is not pro Halsey :-) But her characters are not
: just her sock puppets. Mendez et al are scapegoating Halsey but people do
: that; it's not, necessarily, out of character or against human nature to
: blame others for our own actions.

Absolutely true. The only thing is, she has a writing style and history with doing interesting things with particular characters that she does or doesn't personally favor, even if it means mischaracterizing or misportraying them, or at the least portraying them in a regard suited to her own personal feelings rather than how the actual universe might logically react. Yes, the reaction is logical, but it's all so forced and ridiculous that you're having to come up with "what ifs" and "it's not, necessarilly, out of character" statements to try and explain away what she did (or what 343 wanted her to do).

Just remember, Palmer's the hero of this universe. They want you to like her soooooooooo much. Palmer went after Halsey in Spartan Ops to kill her. Based on what 343 employees have said, it seems that they would love nothing more for you to be rooting for Palmer and wanting Halsey to die. The books may be attempting to really force that thought process. As I just accused you of, this is my own "what if" or "it seems" and whatnot. It's unclear, because it was too much, too soon, and way too condensed with Halsey. None of it felt earned or like it was from a standard human scapegoating reaction based on the writing.

: I don't like her and I think that she was meant to be liked but she does give
: 343 story telling opportunities. 343 could make more use of her as an
: antagonist or as someone who has an epiphany than simply as a likable
: minor character.

This I agree with. Halsey is a gold mine if they don't try and turn her into some one dimensional character (like the Didact in H4) or someone to hate "just because she's bad and evil and a monster and we say you should hate her, unlike Palmer who you should love and oh my gosh". No one's said that, yet, but it sure looks like that's what 343 wants.