Master Chief: True Hero of the War on Terror? How Antiquity's Heroic Character and the Contemporary War on Terror are Apparent in William C. Dietz's "Halo: The Flood"

Abstract

"Halo: The Flood" by William C. Dietz is a novel comprehensively based on a video-game series, which despite its success has attracted only minor attention from scholars during the last decade. In this essay, focus lies on the dual nature of the main character Master Chief. The aim is to show that he exhibits superhuman qualities like enormous strength and courage which are derived from antiquity's heroic character, and that he embodies a general theme of unquestionable duty which is linked to the contemproary war on terror. Without doubt, he comes across as an archetype and therefore he is investigated from the perspective of archetypal literary criticism, gathered from mainly "The Myth of Super Man" by Umerto Eco and "The Domestic Production of Gender, Power and Privilege" by Michele Adams and Scott Coltrane.