DecepticonCobra

*Art has been released of a villain wearing Locke’s helmet.

And regardless of that confirmation, I think it’s still A Hell Of A Choice that 343 Industries made to advertise their next game and the danger of a villain by implying harm done to the first* Black lead of the franchise.

*Romeo getting a comic series and Johnson getting a novel do not count. Halo is primarily a video game franchise. That is what gets advertised. That’s what the money goes into marketing. Between Nightfall and Halo 5: Guardians, Locke was the first Black character to be the face of two major and highly advertised releases.

Basically, regardless of how Locke ends up in Halo Infinite, 343 Industries still used violence against a Black character as shock value and a marketing ploy. And considering how violently racist the fanbase became against Locke the instant Mike Colter was announced as the actor, that makes this marketing choice doubly loathsome.

[image description: screenshot of a reply reading : Theyre killing off a character that was poorly written and universally badly received, I dont get why you need to instantly tie it to racism.” end image description]

Locke was disproportionately hated due to his being Black. The tone and speculation about his character took an INSTANT shift the moment that Mike Colter was announced as his actor.

The only other character in Halo 5 that saw this amount of hate and vitriol was Holly Tanaka, a Black and Malaysian biracial woman. Vale also saw some, but she is white and didn’t draw the level of ire that arrives from racism.

It’s a constant we see in all fandoms whenever Black characters - ESPECIALLY Black characters who are not supporting a white character’s arc (i.e. don’t come in with “people love Romeo (support for Buck) and Johnson (support for Chief.)”).

Also, Locke wasn’t badly written. Not in Halo 5, not in Nightfall, but fandom (any and all fandoms) does not give Black characters the same degree of effort into understanding the way they tick, or discovering the subtleties in character motivations or portrayals.

Further Reading: 

White Prioritization Convenient Excuses

Furthermore, if Locke was indeed badly written, it was no worse than any other character in Halo 5, and again, he and Tanaka received the disproportionate amount of hate.

If he was a bland blank slate, that’s no different than Chief in Combat Evolved - 3. So why did not the fanbase project upon him the same way they projected upon the Master Chief? It’s because Black is never seen as the default. White always is.

Further Reading: Beige Blank Slates.

People being gleefully vocal about Locke’s potential demise and always being in a rush to find reasons to dislike him for things that both Do Not Exist and are things that white characters have been given a pass or even been beloved for

[Image Description: screenshot of replies from a single user: “Oh my God no. This has nothing to do with race. Locke is just a terribly written character that they tried to shove on us as someone equal to Chief. Not to mention all the other terrible choices around Halo 5. It’s not about him being black at all. And you trying to use that as an excuse is fucking gross and it doesn’t and shouldn’t make him immune to bad things happening to him. He’s a victim of bad writing. End of story. In fact you proved yourself wrong in your very argument by mentioning Romeo and Johnson. The fans LOVE them. If they were racist, why is that the case instead of them being hated?” end Image Description]

“It’s just because he’s terribly written.” So a Black character getting a bout of bad writing is justification for killing them off. That’s racist.

“Everyone loves Romeo and Johnson.” See the reblog above, bub.

It’s a constant we see in all fandoms whenever Black characters - ESPECIALLY Black characters who are not supporting a white character’s arc (i.e. don’t come in with “people love Romeo (support for Buck) and Johnson (support for Chief.)”).

This happens in Star Wars too. People will say they aren’t racist for hating Finn (who has his own arc and is the center of his own journey) because they love Mace (who is a supporting role to Anakin’s journey) and Lando (who is a supporting role to Han’s).

Check some of these, big warning though because it extends to transphobia and other grossness. https://twitter.com/DecepticonCobra/status/1405567525673259015

Hell, there are already people saying 343 is virtue signaling because Spartan Commander Laurette in Infinite is black. She has had, like, 10 seconds of screentime in E3′s multiplayer overview, but evidently she is “forced diversity.”

Alpha, Scout and Consort 

John is showing signs of being this new “Cortana’s” source of humanity just like Cortana was for him

@applesuave​ this is the first reasonable argument i’ve heard today, and i’ve encountered at least ten already asdlkhsa

you actually make a very good point. i also saw someone suggest that a (probably non-rampant) fragment of cortana fused with the weapon (that’s the new ai’s name) which is how she survived. 

but i do genuinely believe eviltana is, for the most part, dead. simply because she cortana confirmed dead in halo 4 before they had to retcon it, and because out of all the possible ways to wrap up h5′s story, returning her to that status is probably the least controversial way to do it.