‘Halo’: Is Vannak-134 Really Dead? Explained

We’re halfway through ‘Halo’ season 2 and the show is finally adapting the ‘Fall of The Reach’ storyline. While fans pointed out that the storyline is much different than the one shown in the games and books, just like the rest of the series, it still featured plenty of death and sacrifices. We know that Jacob Keyes Admiral of the UNSC sacrificed himself so Corporal Lopez could evacuate civilians off the planet, but toward the end of the episode, we see one member of the Silver Team falling and not getting up, we’re talking about show’s original character Vannak-134 and his current status within the ‘Halo’ universe. Is he really dead?

Vannak had the least screen time and character development out of all Silver Team members

The entirety of Master Chief’s Silver Team was created for the show, as the characters only joined the game franchise later as a nod to the show. Vannak-134 served as Master Chief’s deputy within the team, and despite being 1/4 of the team he was given the least screen time. The show focused on Kai and Riz quite a lot even showing us their individual stories, hopes, and dreams while Vannak was always mostly presented in the scenes with Master Chief.

Vannak was always known as the merciless hardass of the team, as he was the last one to make his peace with the fact that they were kidnapped and groomed into being supersoldiers and he was also the last one to remove his inhibitor pellet from the spine which allowed him to feel stuff for the first time in several decades.

At the start of Episode 4, Vannak can be seen feeding pigeons, an attempt to humanize his character as much as possible, and that’s when we know that Vannak won’t live to see Episode 5, as such a special spotlight is only given to character you plan to kill over the course of the show.

When Vannak, Riz, and Master Chief re-united at the UNSC headquarters Vannak was first to figure out that their Spartan armor was missing. He was also always the first one to follow Master Chief into a battle.

How did Vannak die?

During the last portion of the episode while Halsey and Soren are watching the Reach falling to the hands of the Covenant Makee storms the room with Covenant forces. Spartans are severely losing the battle and it’s only Makee that manages to stop them from killing the entirety of Silver Team. This is getting old by the way, you can’t use Makee every time to save Master Chief when he is written into a scene with impossible odds of survival.

In any case, Vannak uses the moment of confusion and manages to grab one of the Needlers from the hands of the Covenant soldier and shoots several shard-like Needles into him. However, the damage is not instantly lethal and the Covenant soldier manages to extract the shard from his chest and stabs Vannak directly into his own chest.

Vannak doesn’t even have time to realize what’s going on before the Needle explodes and instantly kills Varnak. Covenant’s Needlers are just about the only thing that can kill Spartans with such ease.

Vannak is the fourth Spartan we’ve seen dead in the show. The first three Spartans died off-screen in Episode 3 after they were sent to Visegrad and got ambushed by Covenant forces. Their bodies were later shown to Keyes and Ackerson after it was already too late to organize some kind of attack to repel Covenant forces.

It’s likely that Soren will replace Vannak in the Silver Time, as Vannak’s death was what was necessary for Chief’s character to grow this season.

Where is Kai?

We saw 3 out of 4 Silver Team members in Episode 4 with the notable absence of Kai-125. Riz did comment that she is most likely hunting down Covenant forces. I doubt that Kai is dead, she is either likely stuck in a different part of the city or somewhere with Ackerson. We’re likely going to see her in the next episode.

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