This article contains spoilers for the eighth episode of the Halo television series. Read at your own risk.
Good for him… I guess?
Halo has been one of the most beloved series in gaming for over twenty years, so it wasn’t a surprise when the property got picked up for a TV adaptation by Paramount+ last year. As of now, there are eight episodes out with one left until the series finale, and the show has gotten somewhat mixed reviews so far over its run. While fans of the franchise have varying opinions of the quality of the adaptation, there is one thing that has brought everyone together: Master Chief finally had some sex.
That’s right, the iconic character Master Chief had sex on screen, and everyone is losing their minds over it. The internet had a facetious round of high fives about the fictional super-soldier getting some, but of course, there were some who weren’t too thrilled about the circumstances under which it happened. For one thing, many Halo fans consider Cortana to be Master Chief’s one true love, and regardless of where you fall in the shipping war, I think we can all admit that the sentient AI watching him bone from inside his head is nothing short of weird.
Then there’s the fact that the woman he had sex with was a prisoner of war on top of the Cortana betrayal, something Twitter user @tbabyswaglord called “one of the worst character assassinations in the history of television.”
I don’t really have a dog in this fight considering I was a PlayStation kid and completely missed the Halo boat, but I do have to admit that this whole thing feels pretty bizarre.
Of course, Halo isn’t the only video game adaptation to include sex scenes. The most notable example is The Witcher, but fans of those games will remember well that those titles also contained plenty of sex already. Including a scene of Master Chief getting some feels out of place because it encroaches on so much of the mythology that has been built up around the character. Throwing away the stoic mystique of the series’ protagonist for a sex scene feels like they might be just throwing it in there to make it feel more gritty and “adult,” two things that Halo never really struggled with in the first place.
