: This all sounds correct and reasonable to me, except that the S-IIIs were
: still quite young when they were "recruited", not teenagers yet
: from what I remember, and this part that sticks out: The question then is,
: why is it so important to you and others that this character type, a
: person that's more heavily broken down or stunted and built into a
: business-oriented soldier, is applied to everyone that has the label
: "Spartan", even if there are justifiable reasons for them to act
: differently? or, if it's not that specific, why does this new character
: type bother you guys so much?

This new character archetype bothers me because it's one-note and annoying. It simply is not good characterization. If they're the heroes of the story then we, the audience, should, like, care about them in some way. With the S-IIs (which are arguably also examples of bad characterization), we may not be able to identify with them all the time because of their lack of humanity. But with the S-IVs, I don't even WANT to identify with them.

The fact that we're able to categorize all of these characters with a single word is extremely telling. It means they lack depth. They don't have conflicts. I don't know what their wants or needs are. I don't know how those wants or needs conflict with each other. I don't know how those wants or needs conflict with other characters'. I don't know how these conflicts change the character. I don't know how these changes affect the other characters. This is drama 101 stuff.

You might argue (and you'd be right to) that none of this matters in multiplayer. And it absolutely doesn't. But I'd prefer no characterization over bad characterization any day.