‘Halo’: Here’s How Kwan Ha Ruined Master Chief
Season 2 of ‘Halo’ is slowly coming to an end, we’re more than halfway through the show and we’re at a point where all the major characters are coming together. In episode 6, Halsey says to Kwan-Ha how Master Chief was reliable and trustworthy before he met her and that she ruined him. This seems a bit hard to believe since Kwan Ha is a mere teenage girl from the ruined planet Madrigal, she is skilled and resourceful but it’s not like she influenced Master Chief to the extent that he drastically changed his life because of her. So what happened? How did Kwan Ha ruin Master Chief?
Kwan Ha and Master Chief “met” before the incident with the UNSC
The first time Kwan Ha and Master Chief officially met, she was saved from Madrigal after most of the Insurrectionists were killed at the hands of the Covenant, who surprised them with the attack. The Insurrectionists were however more surprised when they saw the Silver Team crash landing on the planet and helping them fight the invading alien force.
As faith would have it, Master Chief was the one who saved Kwan Ha’s life, and when she woke up she revealed that several years prior to this event he was the one to kill her mother. Master Chief was naturally only following his orders.
But something vital happened before that conversation with Kwan Ha would take place. John-117 touched the Forerunner artifact which overloaded his systems and made him remember things and start to question things. He was repeatedly ignoring his armor’s sensors that gave him real-time information regarding his life-support and emotional systems, even at that point he already knew that something in him was changing, and it had nothing to do with Kwan Ha. Her rants may inspired him, but it was the Artifact that did most of the work.
Master Chief’s first act of defiance was saving Kwan Ha
Not long after Kwan Ha woke up she was contacted by Keyes who wanted to talk her into spreading UNSC propaganda and affecting Insurrectionists in other colonies, instead of playing along Kwan Ha started threatening that she would lie about how UNSC was responsible for the death of her people, this is when Jacob Keyes activated Article 72 which called for the execution of Kwan Ha, despite her being just a teen girl.
Something about that didn’t sit right with Master Chief, and he refused the order and staged an elaborate escape plan from the UNSC to deliver Kwan Ha safely to Rubble and into Soren’s arms.
This is when both ONI and UNSC started doubting Master Chief and his mental state, and his first act of defiance. Not long after this event after talking to Soren, Master Chief removed his inhibitor chip and decided to feel life to the fullest since the inhibitor chip muted his feelings and experiences. So, if anything, you can say that Soren was the one to ruin Master Chief and not Kwan Ha since he was the one who indirectly talked him into removing his chip and unmaking decades of conditioning and training.
In a more direct way, it was the Artifact, since it started bringing up long-buried memories and made Master Chief question everything that Halsey and UNSC told him.
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