I actually have wondered what John-117 looks like under his helmet. Personally, I blame Samus. She pulled the great switcheroo on us long ago, and nowadays, we just want to make sure.

Nevertheless, if you do a switch and the original MC was a female, as was the audience for Halo..

and you add a new guy character in..

I think you’d have roughly the same response. It’s true that generally people are more interested about characters of the opposite (or same, depending on their orientation) sex.

As for the WoW books, novelisations of established universes generally suck, and that very badly. Why?

To be canon, you’ve got to stick to the boundaries of the work Mr. Movie-or-Game-Maker made.

They aren’t yours, they don’t fit with your story, and neither your style. Sorry.

Your objective is to accomplish #1 list of things while making sure you don’t violate canon and letting those with more creative control disembowel your manuscript because this and that deviates from what the company itself is planning.

Generally, their sales come from fan-devotion to a product. In that case, you don’t really need good material for reasonably good sales; you just need a receptive audience. Thus, whatever writer/hack you can get will work just fine.

Anyways, in response to your counter-example, Illidan, I would say in that case the clamor to see Kyle’s face, as you explain it, is more straight forward and therefore less related to the idea of knowledge and masks than the Mrs. MC example - in that, it seems, that the gag, and therefore people respond by wanting to see his face. Like what’s-his-name on Home Improvement: the next door neighbor. Or maybe you I’m just reading it wrong, and people are really just uber-curious to find out about a guy behind the scenes…?

Interesting stuff about the Halo books. I would imagine, as you say, they’re not high art. Has anyone read the Warcraft books? My little brother (He’s 15.) is a pretty intelligent, well-versed guy, but he read the first one and was blown away. Now, on the one hand, that might say something about the dorkiness of my brother, or maybe there really is something appealing about the conversion of an interactive experience to text…

Any thoughts?

There’s a gaming show, named Pure Pwnage, centering around “pro gamer” Jeremy and his cameraman Kyle.

The twist is that Kyle never, ever shows his face.

And believe me, the clamoring to see Kyle’s face as a percent of the breathless Pure Pwnage audience dwarfs the percent of Halo fans who want to see Master Chief, Missus Chief, and Poodle Chief combined =D

Halo books! I read the three. Not exactly high-flying literature. Gender-wise, they’re quite fair.

Kelly is the fastest Spartan, and Linda is the best shot; before you think they’re biased towards speed and agility for them, hear that John (playable character in the game) was not the strongest either, but all rounded with the best tactical mind.

I didn’t like the books all that much not because of major plot failures but simply because I’m used to better writing quality. I think the Star Wars or Star Trek novels are as bad or worse.

They made the characters real in several ways. Master Chief isn’t just a robot anymore, he’s a person, a person with the responsibility of command, and that responsibility HURTS when you know in the best of all possible situations if everything works out perfectly and the enemy has no secret advantages, luck, plans, or smart officers (Ha-Ha, not happening) people under YOUR command are going to die and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

On the worst, they’re all going to die. And it’s your decisions that sent them there.

None of the characters are really sexually objectified in the least. Unlike most movies, they’re more concerned about saving Earth and staying alive then getting their rocks off.

That makes their humanity more significant, and you want to know what makes the two of them different, you want to see it.
That’s a really fascinating point, and I’d like to say, “Hey, you’re right!” - except that, if that is the case, then why isn’t everyone suddenly trying to steal a look under MC’s helmet, only his female counterpart?

To get another viewpoint on this issue, think about Samus in Smash Brothers, and now imagine that they added another character who looked like Samus, but they told you was a guy. Do you think players would want to see his (and Samus’) face now? I do.

Back when it was just Master Chief as the main character in Halo, he didn’t really have to be a person. The suit was extremely recognizable, and he was just the thing you controlled to play the game. He could have been a robot or a tank or a giant ball that stuff sticks to. He wasn’t interesting in and of himself, only in his capacity as “the thing I use to do stuff in this game.” Now you’re presented with two of the suits that look alike, and you’re told they contain people, one is a man and one a woman. That makes their humanity more significant, and you want to know what makes the two of them different, you want to see it.

As for Halo novels… Oh my God, there are Halo novels? Maybe this is common knowledge, but I hadn’t heard it before, and I’ve love to see links, thoughts, whatever on the topic - or just the general topic of making games into books. The whole thing seems so odd to me, I figure it must be worth some uncomfortable probing :-).

And people have for a long time wanted to see what’s under MC’s helment. In fact, I would guarantee you more people want to see his face, than this new marketing device…