Graffiti: Mother holding baby?

H

HateCrime

Guest
Graffiti: Mother holding baby?

Throughout the game, I've noticed the image of what appears to be a seated woman (or man?) in green fatigues holding a baby. The image is striking in the sense it -

a) Is usually found on some sewer wall or alley
b) The image itself is strangely comforting (at least in my humble opinion)
c) And frankly, the image of this figure cradling a child in an oppressive, death-filled City seems...well, is just plain weird.

Now, I know the Combine has suppressed the Human ability to reproduce and there are no children anywhere in the game, but what exactly is the symbolism of this image which crops up from time to time?
 
It says "Caste"

Dictionary.com: (though my friend informed me of what it's about)

caste Audio pronunciation of "caste" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kst)
n.

1. Any of the hereditary, endogamous social classes or subclasses of traditional Hindu society, stratified according to Hindu ritual purity, especially the Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra castes.

2. A social class separated from others by distinctions of hereditary rank, profession, or wealth.

3.
a. A social system or the principle of grading society based on castes.
b. The social position or status conferred by a system based on castes: lose caste by doing work beneath one's station.

4. A specialized level in a colony of social insects, such as ants, in which the members, such as workers or soldiers, carry out a specific function.


Interesting, eh?
 
But, why would it say that? The combine aren't a higher level, they are just an occupational force. A resistance graffiti painter would certaintly not agree to the combine as being of a higher Caste than man, would he?
 
Isn't it a combine soldier, not a women? Or at least you can't tell it's a women...?
 
Thanks, Zento, for the additional info. I completely missed the "Caste" word.

Perhaps the "resistance graffiti painter" (great description AJ!) is representing mother and child as the highest class or level. Once the war is over, humanity will HAVE to repopulate the earth and children will become the most precious of commodities.

This is all conjecture on my part, but dammit, it IS a reoccurring image in the game....
 
HateCrime said:
Thanks, Zento, for the additional info. I completely missed the "Caste" word.

Perhaps the "resistance graffiti painter" (great description AJ!) is representing mother and child as the highest class or level. Once the war is over, humanity will HAVE to repopulate the earth and children will become the most precious of commodities.

This is all conjecture on my part, but dammit, it IS a reoccurring image in the game....
Click to expand...
But it's not a mother, it's a combine innit?
 
AJ Rimmer said:
But it's not a mother, it's a combine innit?
Click to expand...

I'm not on my gaming PC, so I can't post a pic of the graffiti, however, a Combine soldier holding a baby? If it were Combine, where's their weapon (s)? They are never seen without them. Plus, the concept of a Combine protecting or nurturing a child is, frankly....disturbing. Nothing in the game leads me to believe they are capable of such a thing.
 
HateCrime said:
I'm not on my gaming PC, so I can't post a pic of the graffiti, however, a Combine soldier holding a baby? If it were Combine, where's their weapon (s)? They are never seen without them. Plus, the concept of a Combine protecting or nurturing a child is, frankly....disturbing. Nothing in the game leads me to believe they are capable of such a thing.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it's propaganda? Trying to show the combine troops as gentle and nurturing as opposed to what they actually are? Sounds like something that Breen would do.

Also, when I look at those posters, I get creeped out at the baby's eyes. They're big and almost like the eyes on a Combine trooper's mask. At least that's what they look like to me.
 
I found

4. A specialized level in a colony of social insects, such as ants, in which the members, such as workers or soldiers, carry out a specific function.

Especially interesting, in terms of the different types of combine.
 
HateCrime said:
I'm not on my gaming PC, so I can't post a pic of the graffiti, however, a Combine soldier holding a baby? If it were Combine, where's their weapon (s)? They are never seen without them. Plus, the concept of a Combine protecting or nurturing a child is, frankly....disturbing. Nothing in the game leads me to believe they are capable of such a thing.
Click to expand...
Graffiti painters aren't known for logical thinking, maybe they wanted to show how things should be, like "Make love, not war." and I'm sure the combine can put down their weapons!
 
AJ Rimmer said:
But, why would it say that? The combine aren't a higher level, they are just an occupational force. A resistance graffiti painter would certaintly not agree to the combine as being of a higher Caste than man, would he?
Click to expand...
Well their propaganda says that they are. Maybe he the artist doesn’t agree with them being a higher form of evolution so he uses a word like caste with lots of negative connotations.
d1_canals_030001.jpg

Horrible pic I know but... looks like a combine holding a baby to me.
Cpl_Facehugger said:
Perhaps it's propaganda? Trying to show the combine troops as gentle and nurturing as opposed to what they actually are? Sounds like something that Breen would do.
Click to expand...
Personally I think its saying that the combine have stolen their children… They don’t let them reproduce anymore.
 
AJ Rimmer said:
Graffiti painters aren't known for logical thinking, maybe they wanted to show how things should be, like "Make love, not war." and I'm sure the combine can put down their weapons!
Click to expand...

Ha! so true...except you may have forgot one small chestnut - we're dealing with VALVE and those folks usually don't put frivolous things in their games. A rather LARGE, color image of that figure holding a baby in that desolate landscape is pretty hard to miss. It INVITES conjecture. I remember when I turned a corner and there it was and I said to myself, "Whoa! What the hell does that mean?"

Maybe I am over-analyzing the graffiti; but I'm hoping minds greater than mine can come up with something.


Edit: Thanks, Tea, for the pic!
 
HateCrime said:
Ha! so true...except you may have forgot one small chestnut - we're dealing with VALVE and those folks usually don't put frivolous things in their games. A rather LARGE, color image of that figure holding a baby in that desolate landscape is pretty hard to miss. It INVITES conjecture. I remember when I turned a corner and there it was and I said to myself, "Whoa! What the hell does that mean?"

Maybe I am over-analyzing the graffiti; but I'm hoping minds greater than mine can come up with something.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I just can't get how you made into a human caring mother? He's wearing army boots, an military coat and a mask! :thumbs:
I still think it's just pointless rebellion, with some sort of tragic satirical theme going.
 
I agree with tea, I remember hearing somewhere that humans weren't allowed to reproduce.
 
Death Spike said:
I agree with tea, I remember hearing somewhere that humans weren't allowed to reproduce.
Click to expand...

Breen is talking about it on the monitors!
 
Ok, my friend pointed out something really obvious about the grafitti.

The combine is holding a baby--which means they are holding our right (the people's) to reproduce. Remember what Breen said the Combine were "helping" humans do by supressing the urge to reproduce?

EDIT: Oh, Oh my Tea already pointed it out. Good going.
 
Zento said:
The combine is holding a baby--which means they are holding our right (the people's) to reproduce. Remember what Breen said the Combine were "helping" humans do by supressing the urge to reproduce?
Click to expand...

Great theory. However ( ;) ), subtlety doesn't seem to be the Combine's forte. These are the same folks who drop 3 mile high black towers in the center of cities (which then proceed to chew up the nearby buildings), shoot bioweapons filled with headcrabs into resistance areas, wipe out ENTIRE towns (Ravenholm) and think nothing of killing, enslaving and / or torturing the general populace. IF the Combine were to make some attempt at propaganda, it would be more along the lines of GIANT video screens ( a-la Dr. Breem) displaying empty maternity rooms, empty schools, empty playgrounds. And besides, why would the Combine need to resort to propaganda - isn't that why Dr. Breen is admin?

That picture SEEMS to be a female form; not masculine in the sense it has broad shoulders or visible muscles or "bulk." Seems a little on the waifish side.

As for the sprockets coming out of the back, who knows?

Another theory - maybe it IS a Combine mother and a child. Maybe the Combine's reproductive cycle is also supressed. Maybe there are certain "factions" within the Combine that are not too happy with the status quo?
 
Maybe it has some deep meaning like the Combine soldier are still human and have hearts to looove

Awww <3
 
i think it means born into captivity or something. i don't know
 
it's not combine graffiti, it's definitely resistance - since I'm very interested in graffiti and urban art, I noticed graffiti right when I was on the train at the beginning, it was on the wall. I payed attention to it throughout the rest of the game (sadly they only have a few different graffiti samples that are repeated a lot) and the CASTE graffiti was only in resistance locations, alleys and in the canals and in back ways and whatnot.

There's usually the other main graffiti with it, I don't remember what it is just now but you should know what I'm talking about if you've been paying an attention at all.
 
Seems more like shock art meant to show the plight of not being able to reproduce.
 
Audiophile said:
it's not combine graffiti, it's definitely resistance - since I'm very interested in graffiti and urban art, I noticed graffiti right when I was on the train at the beginning, it was on the wall. I payed attention to it throughout the rest of the game (sadly they only have a few different graffiti samples that are repeated a lot) and the CASTE graffiti was only in resistance locations, alleys and in the canals and in back ways and whatnot.

There's usually the other main graffiti with it, I don't remember what it is just now but you should know what I'm talking about if you've been paying an attention at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah sadly, there's only little bits of graffiti in the game and by far this one is the best looking. It's definately resistance; a fighter turning into Combine. This explains the shit coming out of the back and the mask. It's pretty obvious that the Combine were what used to be regular human beings. I think this graffiti is depicting the fact that the person is half Combine/ half human. It's holding it's baby as a sign of humanity. Then "caste" comes in, the separation of classes, obviously the citizens of City 17 are at the bottm and we can guess who and what rises up in the ranks.
 
Very early on in the game there is a woman standing at a food dispenser (just before you wander outside). She says "I'm thinking of joining civil protection just to get a good meal". So it does seem that the soldiers get better treatment than civilians. Maybe it depicts a mother joining the recruits to survive and hafting to leave her child behind?
 
:naughty: In Raising the Bar the citizens are addressed as Repatriated Citizens(page 132). In another caption in the book they mention that they took out child labor factories(page 171) and they said there was no children in Half Life 2 is because the Combine has prevented the people from reproducing.

Repatriated means to return to origin, country of birth, citizenship.
 
Perhaps there are two sorts of graffity.
One with a mother and a kid where the kid says "Resist!" or somethin, and the one with the combine and the baby and "caste"?
 
ailevation said:
Yeah sadly, there's only little bits of graffiti in the game and by far this one is the best looking. It's definately resistance; a fighter turning into Combine. This explains the shit coming out of the back and the mask. It's pretty obvious that the Combine were what used to be regular human beings. I think this graffiti is depicting the fact that the person is half Combine/ half human. It's holding it's baby as a sign of humanity. Then "caste" comes in, the separation of classes, obviously the citizens of City 17 are at the bottm and we can guess who and what rises up in the ranks.
Click to expand...

I got something really similar to that when I saw it. To me, the figure was meant to represent the state of humanty, not just any one person. Just like the figure there is a real ****ed up version of the human form. the majority of people have been pretty grotesquely deformed and militarized (if not by the combine, then by the resistance), and are trying to hold on to what humanity they still have (or at least the resistance are, heh).

What you said about "caste" makes sense, but how does it relate to the rest of the picture? I could only guess that it could mean that what's happening to people is result of the caste system imposed by Breen, but that's just a guess. : )
 
just a note, I remember at one point while playing through one of the later city levels, one of the women on my team told me "When this is all over, I'm gonna mate."

well, it's relevant...
 
I always thought it was propoganda. You know.. to show that the combine really "care".
 
i doubt it, just because it's in resistance places, tunnels and canals and such. if it WAS combine, resistance taggers would have sprayed all over it.
 
User123abc said:
I got something really similar to that when I saw it. To me, the figure was meant to represent the state of humanty, not just any one person. Just like the figure there is a real ****ed up version of the human form. the majority of people have been pretty grotesquely deformed and militarized (if not by the combine, then by the resistance), and are trying to hold on to what humanity they still have (or at least the resistance are, heh).

What you said about "caste" makes sense, but how does it relate to the rest of the picture? I could only guess that it could mean that what's happening to people is result of the caste system imposed by Breen, but that's just a guess. : )
Click to expand...

My take on the whole "caste" system is that the Combine aliens are like the elite class, then it goes to the Combine humans on earth, lastly the citizens, the oppressed. Just like back in old times, caste was a class, and often times you were born into the class that your parents were. But, I don't think a caste system was purposely supposed to be imposed at all, i'm guessing the resistance must have thought of it that way, because the conditions are very similar.
 
a picture of a member of the breeding caste? eventually we need new workers and soldiers, right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
What Breen Said On Screens In The Beggining, What Happened to Them?(SPOILERS)
Replies
31
Views
3K
SteelMeister
S
Back
Top