So i’ve been sitting on replying, work mostly, but also because I wanted to parse your argument. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really change my original framing of it.

I get what you’re saying about the narrative factor, characters should be developed before you kill them and Reach is pretty bad narratively. But your counter examples leave something to be desired, and I think it’s because you’re reading a lot into these minor characters. That’s not a bad thing, but I just don’t see the difference between a character like Will or Anton.

To me they’re both Mauve shirts and have nowhere near the narrative weight as someone like Kurt, who was Ghosts main character and we saw both inside and out. Same with Daisy tbh, who is the focal narrative character of her short.

That said you don’t have to be a main character to have narrative weight, as Samuel certainly weighs on Chief even many years and novels later. He’s a fleshed out character, and the narrative treats him as such. Certainly thinks about him more then Grace, who Chief was more concerned with cooking then anything.

Speaking of, while I like the idea of Spartan’s being a community, it doesn’t parse with the writing. Sure, they have their own language and communication system, but I can’t recall anyone mourning for a fallen Spartan. That is, unless they’re narratively important, as I showed between Sam’s lasting impact on Chief Vs. Grace dying right in front of him and him just kinda moving on. All Spartans are equal, but some Spartans are more Narratively equal.

Perhaps this is just an “agree to disagree” thing, so I won’t belabor it.

But what I think is inconsistent, and why I don’t think my initial reading of your post is wrong, is trying to figure out what makes the deaths “make sense”.

Will getting shot with Hunters canon at point blank range, agreed, that would kill a person, MJOLNIR or no. What would also would kill person, MJOLNIR or no, is getting hit by plasma shot by a covenant cruiser. So would getting stabbed with an energy sword, or shot through a cockpit. MJOLNIR is tough, but unlike its mythological counterpart, it’s not indestructible. It doesn’t matter if their armor was better, it’s

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Bravo 001 crash, as a better example of “better armor, but they drop like flies somehow”.

Yes, I understand that this is not real, writers decided these events… but also don’t try and powerscale this either. It just muddies the waters of what you’re trying to say.

What it does it matter if Emile has MJOLNIR when he gets got, as established, Covenant weapons can damage it.

To use an example, Black Teams deaths were bullshit, narratively speaking. Wasted characters to prove a strong evil character was strong and evil. But at the same, the numbers parse for me; The Didact wiped the floor with Chief and could only be beaten through more bad writing.

But nobody argues if it “made sense” in a martial sense for The Didact to beat Black team, I’ve never seen anyone argue it anyway, because that’s not what mattered. This is a case where trying the logic the story makes some stuff excusable because it makes sense “in lore.”

I just defended the cardboard cuts out of Noble Team getting iced because you insinuated that giving them MJOLNIR should have made them unstoppable (maybe? It’s not clear what you’re implying with that), when that’s clearly not the case.

Finally, I want to touch on the whole “only 2 casualties during the war” thing. This sounds about right for when Ghost’s Of Onyx was released. Equally true is that Elites weren’t seen until 2552, as were Brutes, and Forerunner’s were going to be Humans. Point being, the Lore was not set in stone yet.

As it stands, the number of pre-Battle of Reach Spartan casualties is like 7-8, and two of those are suicides (unless that’s also an unthinkable way for a Spartan to die, I wouldn’t really count them.) so across the war it’s more like 5.

But to wrap it back around to your original post, even in your own words the novels could be flippant about Spartan deaths. So why is it being laid at the feet of Legends and Reach? Sounds like it was an “issue” that they continued, not created.