Gravemind

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gravemind
The Gravemind in Halo 2
Game series	Halo series
First game	Halo 2
Voiced by	Dee Bradley Baker

Gravemind is a fictional character featured in the video games Halo 2 and Halo 3. While only one Gravemind is ever seen, the name is given to the commanders of the Flood parasite, a highly-infectious spore which is released during the Halo series. The Master Chief and Arbiter come upon the creature in the bowels of the Forerunner ring Installation 05, where the Flood creature forges an alliance between the two foes in order to stop the firing of the ringworld, an event which would destroy all three characters and their races. The character is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.

Making its first appearance in Halo 2, the introduction of the Gravemind was meant to dispel the idea that the Flood is a mindless virus.^[1] The character was designed by a Bungie Studios team including artists Robert McLees and Juan Ramirez, and slowly developed into a massive creature with tentacles and a frightening level of intelligence. Driven by a desire to spread, Gravemind is cunning and manipulative; he forges alliances as often as he tries to consume his allies, tricking the Master Chief into aiding him while infecting the Chief's compatriots at the same time.^[2] The character was not well-received by many critics upon his appearance in Halo 2, and reviewers including 1UP.com found his role in Halo 3 confusing and without clear motive.

Contents 1 Character design 2 Attributes 2.1 Personality 2.2 Outward appearance 3 Appearances 3.1 Halo 2 3.2 Halo 3 4 Reception 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Character design

Early Concepts for the Gravemind were done by Bungie artist Robt McLees. McLees is known at Bungie as the "architect of the Flood",^[3] and had done the early concepts for the Flood forms in Halo: Combat Evolved. McLees' original drawings were then added to by Juan Ramirez.^[1]

The Gravemind's form and design constantly changed during development. Early versions of the creature had a basic shape of a mass of tentacles, with a jagged tear in one large appendage forming a rudimentary mouth. Later on, the mouth was studded with the skulls of human and Covenant corpses for teeth.^[4] This design was later revised due to practical considerations about lip syncing the character for speech. Despite these design changes, the Gravemind's size was always meant to be huge;^[5] early concepts showed the Master Chief dwarfed by the Flood intelligence.

[edit] Attributes

Gravemind is a highly intelligent and aware form of the Flood, acting as a collective mind and leader for the parasite. Though the Gravemind encountered in Halo 2 is the only mature form seen, other stages of the Gravemind appear in other works in the Halo series; the Flood creates a Gravemind whenever the parasite absorbs a certain mass of sentient creatures.^[6][7] For example, before reaching maturity a "proto-Gravemind" is formed which can physically absorb creatures, stripping their brain of useful information; such a form absorbs Captain Keyes in Halo: Combat Evolved in order to learn the location of Earth.^[8][9] The Flood which escape Installation 04 and capture the Covenant cruiser Infinite Succor as seen in the Halo Graphic Novel also begin piling corpses together to form a central command form.^[10] There was at least one previous Gravemind which attacked the Forerunner thousands of years before Halo: Combat Evolved; while the Gravemind's motivations and goals are not made expressly clear in Halo 2, Halo 3 reveals Gravemind's ultimate goal- to consume all thinking beings in the galaxy.^[7]

[edit] Personality

Unlike the mindless 'zombie' nature of most Flood,^[11] Gravemind is intelligent and cunning;^[12] the Flood intelligence lyrically speaks in iambic heptameter.^[13][14] While capable of subterfuge, Gravemind often utilizes the brute strength and sheer numbers of the Flood to further its aims. When attacking planets, the Gravemind of the Forerunner's time used smaller craft as ablative armor, sacrificing countless Flood so that larger ships can land and infest major population centers.^[15] In a more strategic move, Gravemind uses logic to sway the Forerunner's own artificial intelligence, Mendicant Bias, to his side. While Mendicant Bias had been specifically created to defeat the Gravemind, the Flood leader convinces the AI that the Flood is an utopian ideal, and that its conquest of the galaxy is inevitable. Bias leads the Flood to the Forerunner's final defenses, forcing Didact to activate the Halo array.

[edit] Outward appearance

The Gravemind is composed of rotting corpses and biomatter, and towers nearly eighty meters high as seen in Halo 2.^[16] Gravemind resembles a large Venus Flytrap with many tentacles, but is capable of movement and linguistic communication via its large mouth formed from overlapping fleshy 'leaves'. Though an animal, the Gravemind's somewhat plantlike appearance has drawn comparisons to Audrey II from the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors due to the "swarms of sinuous tentacles" about a central mouth.^[13][17]

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Halo 2

See also: Halo 2

The Gravemind makes his first appearance halfway through Halo 2's campaign. Using his tentacles to save the Master Chief and Arbiter from perishing, Gravemind brings them face to face in a chasm on Delta Halo. Gravemind reveals to the Arbiter that the ring's architects, the Forerunners, died when they activated the installation in order to stop the threat of the Flood; the Master Chief verifies what the creature says, having stopped the firing of another ring in Halo: Combat Evolved. Though the Arbiter does not accept the truth immediately, Gravemind sends the Master Chief to the Covenant city High Charity and the Arbiter to the Halo's control room in order to stop the deluded Covenant from killing all sentient life a second time. Though he promises an alliance, Gravemind has ulterior motives. His Flood infest the human ship In Amber Clad and makes a slipspace jump into High Charity itself, in an effort to use the station to escape the confines of Halo.^[2] Having taken over the city, Gravemind questions the A.I. Cortana, who was left behind to destroy High Charity if Halo was activated. Gravemind says that he has questions that he will ask, and Cortana agrees to answer them.^[18]

[edit] Halo 3

See also: Halo 3

Gravemind is one of the primary antagonists of Halo 3. While the Master Chief and Arbiter have returned to Earth in order to stop the Prophet of Truth from activating a Forerunner artifact buried in Africa, Gravemind turns High Charity into a Flood hive and sends an infected cruiser to Earth in an effort to infest the planet; this plan fails, and a message from Cortana informs the Master Chief and allies of the existence of the Ark, a special installation built by the Forerunners outside of the Milky Way galaxy where all the Halos can be fired remotely. Both Gravemind and the Master Chief want to stop Truth from activating the rings, so the Flood once again ally with the Chief and Arbiter. As soon as Truth is killed, however, Gravemind turns on the Chief,^[19] who escapes the Flood's clutches and rescues Cortana from High Charity. Despite being tortured by Gravemind, Cortana has managed to keep a secret safe from the Flood; she has the activation index of Installation 04, which she captured from 343 Guilty Spark during Halo: Combat Evolved.^[20] Using the index, Cortana can activate the local ringworld, destroying Gravemind but sparing the galaxy's sentient life. Gravemind finally gains this knowledge, but too late; the Master Chief escapes with Cortana, destroying High Charity in the process. Gravemind survives the blast and attempts to rebuild himself on the new ring. Despite his best efforts, the Master Chief and company activate Halo, stopping the Flood once again. Gravemind, resigned to his defeat, nonetheless insists that it will only slow- not stop- the Flood.^[21]

[edit] Reception

Criticial reception of the leader of the Flood was generally poor. In a review of Halo 2, Mike Leonard of the AllXbox community said that the introduction of the Gravemind character had him "rolling my eyes hard enough to get motion sickness from seeing the back of the inside of my skull";^[22] Leonard went on to say that the "Little Shop of Horrors reject" ruined the "cool" of the Halo franchise.^[22] Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com bemoaned the fact that Gravemind was never explicitly stated to be the Flood leader in either Halo 2 or Halo 3, was hardly seen in the third installment, and the villain's motives were never clearly defined.^[23]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

v • d • e Halo series Main trilogy Halo: Combat Evolved · Halo 2 · Halo 3 Other games Halo Wars · Halo: Chronicles Printed media The Fall of Reach · The Flood · First Strike · Ghosts of Onyx · Contact Harvest · Sixth Halo Novel · Halo Graphic Novel · Halo: Uprising Music Halo Original Soundtrack · Halo 2 Original Soundtrack · Halo 3 Original Soundtrack Information and fiction Official games and media · Characters Promotion I Love Bees · Marketing for Halo 3

v • d • e Characters of Halo Master Chief • Cortana • Arbiter • Gravemind UNSC Characters • Covenant Characters • Forerunner Characters