Var Gatanai's loyalties are tested when one of his priests, Uto 'Mdama, questions his actions and threatens the "blessed" Makee that the Arbiter so relies on.
@@thescruffinator8830 Fair enough. I just meant the arbiter we're most familiar with. This arbiter is as much of a knock off as Jimmy Rings is to the chief.
@@dudebruh8534If this was the Arbiter we know and love it wouldn’t make sense. Thel’Vadam wasn’t the Arbiter til Halo 2. This elite is the Arbiter during Reach and maybe Halo 1 going by the shows timeline. They honestly made a wise choice because a huge part of what built the Arbiter and Master Chief’s brotherhood was the Halo 2 storyline. For Thel’Vadam to have already been Arbiter would be to forsake the entire Halo CE plot that fueled the rivalry between Chief and Thel, which is the reason Thel was made Arbiter because of his failure in CE.
I’ve read a few of the Halo novels for the first time recently and the sections that follow the Covenant’s POV have always been my favorite parts. The resolution to Yayap’s story as he steals a Phantom full of supplies and rides off into the sunset just so he could live his final moments in peace made me more emotional than any of this Silver timeline stuff. If only they could have adapted The Fall of Reach - The Flood - First Strike - and maybe Ghost of Onyx faithfully it would have made for the perfect 3-4 season epic.
The ending to The Flood in general is just super sad, especially after reading The Fall of Reach and getting to know a lot of the characters that end up dying. Makes the ending to Combat Evolved much more impactful, because by the end there’s literally nobody left except Master Chief and a few others that escaped the ring.
Fuckin if one piece can a have a straight live action adaptation on Netflix with improve writing and "necessary" changes for a better story that still fits with the universe and og anime than why the hell not Halo with combat evolved and reach God fuckin Dammit!!!!
yeah, the aesthetic direction for the covenant leaves a lot to be desired. still, i think what's here is a major step up from season 1 and it's neat in its own right
@@RK-kl3rcThat’s the thing, it’s not a game it’s a show. The Covenant colors are like that for gameplay. Blue means easy to kill. Red means harder to kill. Grey means stealth. White means high rank and Gold means top rank. With their more militaristic take on the verse it makes more sense for colors to be dull. You don’t wanna be bright blue and red on the battlefield.
yes, but he likely did not apply the first one. he's re-applying it, in what's implied to be some form of self-punishment that he does routinely. while he was likely branded by another person the first time, he keeps re-branding it himself for some ritualistic (and probably self-deprecating) purpose, to keep its pain and the meaning thereof fresh. this kind of self-humilation ritual actually used to be pretty common irl
@@xUseTheForks not dumb he literally is reburning his mark of shame burn mark into his skin that’s pretty freaking metal I am so annoyed with you complainers not observing with your EYES
my biggest fear is that they'll just put most of thel's evil deeds as supreme commander onto var so that thel is less morally challenged when he shows up later
@@nicholascazmay2126 that is a very narrow and square way of seing things, it's like saying that a cover of a song is trash just because it's not the original. What if the original didn't exist and the cover was the original? Would it still be bad? Or is it just an angry fanboy perspective that was blinding you?
I think why this scene is better than any of the Master Cheeks scenes is that this isn't a game character. This isn't Thel'Vadam, which means everyone is on the same level as getting to know Var.
Yep… I think she was sheltered too much by The Hierarchs particularly The Prophet of Mercy. They provided her with her own chambers at High Charity, and she travels with her own Heralds (Season 1 Episode 5; when she went to Madrigal, In search of the larger keystone). She was given permission to go to enemy territory with a ship full of Elites, Grunts, Atriox, Jackals, and her own personal weapon hidden in her pointer finger. I think Mercy may be duplicitous when it comes to dealing with his 2 brothers about Makee. He had to reassure Regret and remind him of his promise to eliminate his basically adopted or foster daughter. I remember reading an interview with one of the cast members from S2 that in S3 they will concentrate more on the Covenant’s culture and belief system. It’ll probably be out in 2026.
They did a good job at making the elite race to look very threating which is how they are like in lore. Even the non soldiers to bad they never showed a female elite. Also, tho i don't like the non OG designs, it really goes to show how scary the Covenant were and how much more terrifying the flood were when they got on high Charity. Anyone that has the power to take high charity away from these monsters would obviously have to be a more bigger monster.
Thats racist! Just kidding, no its not our Arbiter (his name is Thel Vadam, there used to be an "-ee" at the end of his last name but when he was stripped of his rank and title he lost that part of his name which usually represents the elites status), this Arbiter is Var Gatanai
@@MikMoen dam well they should so it should be based off from the games, and besides vannk is dead Riz can’t fight and Kai is not loyal she nearly killed John blue is only way they can help chief
each covenant species has multiple different occupations, ranks, and positions in society. what we see in the games are just their designated military roles
he's quite a bit slimmer and snakier than his fellows, and given what little of his characterization we've gotten i think it fits him quite well. but i also prefer jega's voice from infinite's audio logs so i might just enjoy elites who sound like decepticons lol
I know they're using the male form "Priest", but that voice actor choice though, it's way too high pitched for a typical Sangheili. Also consider a quote from Tanaka, "War has typically been a Man's job on Sangheilios." Good bet this Priest is actually a Priestess, since she'd be serving a Religious position, not as a Warrior.
Without any knowledge from the games or books just going off the show. What is an arbiter? Why is it shameful? What exactly did this alien do to become the arbiter?
An Arbiter is simultaneously the highest and lowest rank a Sangheili (the four-mandibled warrior species) can attain in the Covenant. They are former high-ranking leaders, such as Supreme Commanders or Imperial Admirals, who have been charged with a nearly unforgivable crime - be it a tangible one like mass murder, or something more theological like a massive heresy. These leaders are stripped of their rank and sometimes even their name, and become an Arbiter. Arbiters are semi-independent warriors of great importance who report directly to the Hierarchs (the trio of throne-bound aliens who serve as heads of state). They become known as the "Prophets' Hand", and undertake extremely dangerous but valuable missions - in this case, leading the war against humanity and operating with Makee. For the duration of their service as Arbiter, they become both the most important agent of the Covenant, and its greatest shame, both revered and hated. An Arbiter undertakes these missions expecting that one of them will eventually kill him, so that he may be absolved of his sins in honorable death. Thing is, the Covenant is arranged into a racist caste system, with the San'Shyuum (religious leader aliens) at the top, and they have grown deeply corrupt on the power they hold over the others, using religious indoctrination to hold sway over their subjects. They routinely lie about their own religion to contrive whatever they want out of the Covenant's peoples. Thus, when a Sangheili leader grows too powerful or influential, the Prophets view that as a threat to their own power - and so exploit Sangheili honor rites and religious indoctrination to charge that Sangheili with some contrived false crime like heresy, and offer them the position of Arbiter for "redemption" for this crime. This neatly removes the offending leader from power, and this shame complex is so powerful that most Arbiters quite eagerly run off to meet their deaths. It is so powerful that even leaders who KNOW they have been charged with a false crime will still internalize that shame and self-dishonor. And any remaining prospective Arbiters who do not develop this shame complex from sheer honor and faith alone? The ritual torture every Arbiter is subjected to will take care of that. Var 'Gatanai is actually a new Arbiter created specifically for the show, so it's not clear what led to him becoming Arbiter just yet. All we know so far is he was the Supreme Commander of a Covenant fleet, and had his rank stripped and was made Arbiter after the Master Chief took the Forerunner Keystone from Raas Kkhotskha at the end of Season 1. It hasn't been divulged yet if this was an unrelated event that occurred around the same time, or if he was the leader of the Covenant defense of Raas Kkhotskha and was thus punished for his failure by being made Arbiter. If you're interested, the racial hierarchy of the Covenant is as follows: 1. San'Shyuum (Prophets) - The throne-bound religious leader aliens. 2. Sangheili (Elites) - The honorable reptilian warrior aliens who wield large swords. 3. Jiralhanae (Brutes) - The dishonorable ape/bear-like warrior aliens who wield large hammers. 4. Lekgolo (Hunters) - The worms seen accompanying Makee's attack on a UNSC ship in Season 1, who naturally combine into towering warriors called Mgalekgolo, or Hunters. Only a Hunter's leg has been seen thus far in the show, which Makee's partnered Lekgolo from the ship attack scene emerge from. 5. Yanme'e (Drones/Buggers) - Insectoid hive-based aliens who serve as aerial shock troops and Covenant engineers. Unseen in the show thus far. 6. Kig-Yar (Jackals) - The bird-like aliens with large circular shields. They're actually semi-independent mercenaries and pirates who are only technically part of the Covenant empire, who often only serve the Covenant for the payroll rather than religious faith. 7. Unggoy (Grunts) - The funny little turtle-crab aliens with gas masks, big backpacks, tiny legs, and big arms. They're slaves of the Covenant with second-class rights, and are used as disposable cannon fodder in the military. 8. Huragok (Engineers) - Floating cybernetic gasbag aliens genetically engineered by the Forerunners. They are the Covenant's most sophisticated repairmen and fabricators. Despite their origins (which should be considered holy to the Covenant), the Covenant do not consider Huragok to even be living things, and are treated as unliving assets even worse than the Unggoy. Unseen in the show thus far.
@@mushroomhead86117oh i didnt realize this was rhetorical, mistook that for a genuine question. look i dont think this show is great, but this is kind of a silly criticism when theyre clearly developing var more for later episodes. this is extremely basic character establishment stuff, not bad writing. in a show FULL of bad writing decisions THIS is what you latch onto?
@superscrungus it was a straight question, I asked anyone watching the show to tell me what an arbiter was based on what the show has shown/ told us. We're in season two of an ongoing "story." Character establishment should be done, we've met the prophets we know their names. I don't even know this elites name. I've seen it in videos done by people like you but the show hasn't established him anything past, the dude who did what makee says. Now he's an arbiter... for some reason. The entire series is garbage the bad writing began from episode 1 and is continuing. I just pointed this out based on the content of this specific video. It's not the one thing I've latched onto.
This show drives me up a wall with the lore of the series, i'm so sick of the lame excuse of "It's not canon, it's in another universe" and what not, it's just lazy; they had plenty of source material to go off of, but instead we got this? Chief is horrible within this series, his emotions are out of wack 'Which spartans don't have' He treats cortana horribly the first time he meets her, which blows my mind because that is not what he would have done and throughout the rest of the series he acts like a cocky ass towards her, ruining one of the greatest character duos in media. So with that, He takes off his armor like it's just for show and he doesn't act like a spartan when he needs too, simple as that. They just made him another male shill, like they do in every woke movie and series to date This character actually got to me pretty bad, because it completely ruined on what he was in the story; captain Keyes! He's black now? which why did they do this? I get hollywood is trying to push representation and such, but come on, we've already got a badass black character to go by sgt Johnson! also the whole scene where he just shoots chief with a mac gun when he's fleeing is just, no, nope, cheif would have been paste for that one and two keyes would have never done that because of his character. I just, how the hell do you mess that one up? Arbiter is just laughable, he doesn't look anything like himself and the branding that arbiter was given, is just way too small. In comparison, the timeline of him existing too with that brand mark dosen't make since, he became an outcast when he failed to stop the destruction of installation 07, last i checked in the story, this was a year or see in between, so he wouldn't have been branded arbiter when reach was attacked I don't understand why people defend this series, it's a disgrace to original halo fans and deserved to have been cancelled after season 1, matter of fact the whole show should have been retcon on episode 1.
Really wished they would just off Makee and the other chosen chick forgot her name. They are useless to the show and not what i want from a Halo adaptation. Along with Master Cheeks being a rebel now what a joke
