Delving into a beloved topic today as we explore the canonicity of Half-Life: Opposing Force's fan-favorite protagonist, Adrian Shephard. Give it a read: metrocop.net/articles/adrian-she… (Reposting due to site bug)
8Delving into a beloved topic today as we explore the canonicity of Half-Life: Opposing Force's fan-favorite protagonist, Adrian Shephard. Give it a read: metrocop.net/articles/adrian-she… (Reposting due to site bug)
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Oh no, not canon debates again :( I want to nitpick a particular sentence from this article: "Not only is there no trace of Race X, but the rest of the series heavily implies that the only other thing to come through the portal storms besides Xen aliens were the Combine, whose happenstance of getting through was presumably a lucky shot or planned by the G-Man." Where is this "heavy implication"? I don't think there's any basis to say that; it is pure conjecture.
It's an article, not a debate. As for the "heavy implication", obviously the lack of any alien presence or reference other than Xen and the Combine from Half-Life 2 should be enough. The portal storms were random events bringing alien monsters into Earth, while the Combine found Earth through the gap left in the wake of the Nihilanth and seized the planet. A third, seemingly intelligent race doesn't fit the facts of the subsequent games. Regardless, Marc Laidlaw himself stated that Race X was a Gearbox creation that didn't factor in his view of the world at the time (combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Referen…); whether that will apply in the future is unknown, but it's unlikely Valve will care to return to factors from the Gearbox expansions, especially some that were created for gameplay reasons.
I understand it's not a debate, and I'm sorry that my comment came across a little abrasive. I just get tired of seeing so much coverage given to questions of canonicity when they do more to hold the games back than contribute anything of value. I agree with everything you're saying here, but I think it's misleading to call the lack of something a "heavy implication". If there were other factions, they wouldn't affect the plot of HL2, so their absence is to be expected. There's no implication that they did not exist, there's only a lack of any supporting evidence that they did exist. That would pretty much close the book on other factions if not for Opposing Force, which actually shows that there was at least one. That fits the facts just fine. I think Marc's emails make it pretty clear that he doesn't engage with this silly notion of canon. I'm kind of a fan of the way he responded on the subject: "The whole issue of canon is something the fans came up with. I guess you will be able to identify as canon those story elements we continue to build on and develop and mention repeatedly as the story progresses. Others might fall by the wayside once they've served their purpose. Couldn't you say the same of us all?" "Hi, Ben, I am going to swear off contributing to this bizarre argument about canonical versus noncanonical works. If we can make good entertaining use of the elements of OpFor in future games, then we may well do that, and at that time I guess folks will have a better idea of where we stand on all this. We can't speak about story ideas outside of the games themselves--it's meaningless. The games must stand on their own, contradictions and all. My only hope is to keep unreeling the story in such a way that it will continue to please the fans and spark interesting conversations. Thanks for writing!" The games must stand on their own. There's no value in canon or non-canon, they're just a collection of very interesting games.
Nice article. Loving this site
There is no point in talking about canon in Half-Life, especially after Marc’s words.
Did you bother to read it?
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