Like one hundred and fifty million dollars worth of other gamers of all colors, genders and ages, I too picked up a copy of the long awaited third entry of the Halo series this past week. Well, it was not really that long awaited for me, since I am a gaming culture snob and have to take the time to issue my fair share of ‘tut-tuts’ first or they’ll send Lorne Lanning over to beat the crap out of me and take away my copy of Cloud. None of which I will bore you with here. You’re welcome.

So, qualms about the game’s ‘Wonder Breading’ of the industry aside, I will have to hand it to the folks at Microsoft, they did a great job marketing a software product by successfully using social blackmail to get people to buy it instead of their usual tactic of ‘necessary’ operating system updates and BSA fear-mongering (and if you think I’m just angling for my first cease and desist letter for publicities sake, you wouldn’t be half wrong).

But enough lukewarm platitudes about their ambitious, extensive and no doubt expensive marketing plan to reach the twenty or thirty people who haven’t heard about Halo 3. I want to talk about alien knees!

Okay, let me set up the scene: Nav, a couple of other Riders and myself (tag: SethFourTen, naturally) are taking the game though its paces in online co-op campaign mode when I noticed the curious gait of the character known as the Arbiter. Putting aside the fact that he speaks English like a professional voice over actor, the most interesting fact about him and his species, an alien race known as the Elites (or in their language the Sangheili), are their peculiar ‘knee’ joints. His people have knees that project forward over his shins. Their bizarre appearance, other then being an arthroscopic surgeon’s walking nightmare is interesting in both a physiological and psychological manner.

Here’s a YouTube link of two of them in action, It’s not mine so no imbed, sorry!

I did some digging and found out that they aren’t knees at all, but ankles. The entire lower leg is actually appears to be a foot, leading one to believe that the Elites move using digitigrade locomotion, a form of movment common in “earth mammals,” partucially those who hunt utlizing speed (wolves, foxes) over subterfuge (alligators) or intelligence (humans). Although all earth-bound examples are from quadrapeds, we cannot account for conditions on the Elite homeworld, where terrian and the availblity of prey would make this uncomforathable looking form of walking upright evolutionarily advantageous. Thereby creating one of the Covenant’s deadlest living weapons, at least until they turn on their masters.

So we’ve established a basis in reality concerning their fictional physicality, now what about the fiction behind their actual creation? Symbolism! Take a look at him again, what do you see? Goat legs! He’s an upright goat! Now normally the idea of an animal walking on its hind legs is a sourese of endless comedy for humans (the movie Barnyard notwithstanding, the subsequent game moreso), except in this cirucumanstance because the image of an upright goat can trigger a learned response of dread for a large number of those living in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. If it hasn’t come to you yet, I’m talking about Satan.

As I said before, the Elites weren’t always on our side, there was a time when they were the neigh-invincible butchers of many a gamer in the orginal Halo, and they were no doubt designed by the minds at Bungie to trigger a fear response at their appearnce.

This fact, and it must be one for I cannot see how it would be unplanned, is clear example of the western cultural artifact in a game that Eastern audiences might miss totally. Long time western gamers know all about things like Oni, lucky cat statues and Fox Spirits from years of playing ports, but the idea of the bipedal goat signifying evil might be lost on our brothers from the east, just like them not understanding why the original Xbox was so big. Now after Halo 3 (and the back half of 2) the plot brings our looking-like-hell enemies to our side, mudding the cultural significance waters even further, but is there some kind of idea being drafted in this action? While some here in the west might, incorrectly, call the use of these misshapen, devil-inspired beings as heroes as being subversive, when in fact it’s just irony (and this is real irony, not the ‘I got hit by a car and that’s funny because I drive cars’ kind of irony) that these goat-legged bugaboos turn out to be mankind’s saviors (in an Operation Barbarossa kind of way).

The key idea is that exploring the subject of biology and overcoming culturally induced fear at the physical appearance of others is a lesson to take away from Halo 3, but it’s just a video game, right? That would be ridiculous.

ARCHIVE
Comments? Questions? E-mail me at seth410@gamertransit.com.
Complaints? The power of the Chief compels you!
Back of the Bus is © 2007 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.