Introduced in the first game of the Halo series, Cortana is an artificial intelligence constructed from the cloned brain of Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, a scientist in the United Nations Space Command. She is the result of a prototype method of AI creation, designed such that her creative matrix can expand, meaning she can integrate her processing power along any machine she makes contact with, giving her eventually limitless intelligence and control. Fittingly, she is the most powerful AI humanity has ever created, and the only one capable of preventing the activation of the "Halo" weapon that will destroy all life in the universe. Naturally, is the most prized soldier of the UNSC, and spends the game expanding her intelligence so as to wage an unstoppable cyber attack on the alien doombringers of the game. Except, she doesn't.
Cortana spends the vast majority of the Halo games in the male protagonist's pocket, on a chip. While Cortana is always the one to stop the Halo weapons in one way or another, she is carried there by the protagonist, who inserts her into the machine like a key, and is then rewarded for saving the universe. This is typically only at the end of the game. Throughout the rest of it, she is responsible for updating the protagonist on current information, open locked doors, turn on elevators, and other forms of support.
Here we see the classic example of a character who very well could carry the tasks of the protagonists herself, or even just operate independently, but doesn't, so as to support the protagonist. Cortana's literally limitless potentially is shirked, so that she can be helpful to the "real hero." This is a critically detrimental lesson to the impressionable gamer.
Cortana spends the vast majority of the Halo games in the male protagonist's pocket, on a chip. While Cortana is always the one to stop the Halo weapons in one way or another, she is carried there by the protagonist, who inserts her into the machine like a key, and is then rewarded for saving the universe. This is typically only at the end of the game. Throughout the rest of it, she is responsible for updating the protagonist on current information, open locked doors, turn on elevators, and other forms of support.
Here we see the classic example of a character who very well could carry the tasks of the protagonists herself, or even just operate independently, but doesn't, so as to support the protagonist. Cortana's literally limitless potentially is shirked, so that she can be helpful to the "real hero." This is a critically detrimental lesson to the impressionable gamer.