New character thoughts.

[sarcasticsra]

Okay, pardon that crappy subject line, but I can't quite figure out how to summarize what I want to talk about.

So I've been having random thoughts occur to me lately, some relevant to S3 and some REALLY FREAKIN' OLD, lol, but I wanted to share and see if any of you guys have been having any new/different thoughts about our beloved characters.

So let's start with the new season ones: it occurred to me that Root calls the Machine 'she' and is also the only one actually directly talking to it. Do you think the Machine asked her to use that pronoun? Could that make the Machine somewhat bigender, given Ernest Thornhill? I think that would be kinda awesome.

Along those lines, the Machine is trying to rehabilitate Root--to give her another purpose, almost. Is the Machine taking after Harold? This is, after all, basically what Harold did with John, and I can't tell you how pleased I'd be to have the Machine learning behaviors from Daddy. XD

And, finally, going back in time--it randomly struck me that in "Baby Blue", when Reese shows up at the safehouse to find Szymanski wounded, it seemed kind of weird that Scarface only shot him non-lethally (well, as non-lethally as shooting someone can get, I suppose) and didn't finish the job once he was down? Given Scarface seems much more inclined to have 'kill all the things' as his motto, I'm wondering if maybe Elias had him do it that way on purpose--a sort of "don't kill him if you don't have to" kinda thing. After all, we know from the S2 finale that he has an interesting code of honor, so it would make a weird sort of sense.

So those are my thoughts! What are yours? (There will, naturally, be spoilers in the comments!)

Comments

[spatz]

it occurred to me that Root calls the Machine 'she' and is also the only one actually directly talking to it. Do you think the Machine asked her to use that pronoun? Could that make the Machine somewhat bigender, given Ernest Thornhill? I think that would be kinda awesome.

Honestly, I don't think the Machine genders itself. Root canonically likes to project her opinions onto others (like when she had Harold captive) and also explicitly thinks the Machine is God, which is something I highly doubt it agrees with. I think the Machine is just okay with letting her believe what she likes as long as she will work for it without killing people. (perhaps it picked up Harold's manipulative streak, eh?)

[sarcasticsra]

I think my headcanon is leaning toward gender fluidity--I like the idea upthread about it presenting as different genders depending on who it is interacting with--but I absolutely looove the concept of the Machine picking up on Harold's manipulativeness, hee.

[spatz]

I like the idea upthread about it presenting as different genders depending on who it is interacting with

Oh, it absolutely does - I mean, that supported by canon: Ernest Thornhill, of course, but also the even mix of male to female voices in the phone calls in God Mode, pretending to be the Special Counsel to move its server, letting Root call it 'she' (and possibly even tailoring its voice usage - we'll hopefully see that at some point). I guess I just compartmentalize that from how it *identifies*, because the faces it puts on to interact are all functional, i.e. towards a purpose. (Which ties into the manipulative streak, hah.) I think it's important not to anthropomorphize the Machine too much, because while it does care about things in a human way, it doesn't *act* on them in a human way, or think about them like we do.

[sarcasticsra]

Ah! I see. I think we just have a fundamental disagreement there--I am actually rather hoping that the Machine becomes more and more anthropomorphized, and I'd like to see how it deals with that in the context of its original purpose. I see the Machine, while not being human, as certainly identifying very strongly with people and personhood, and I do think it does act in ways reflecting that (like letting Nathan get to the Irrelevant list, letting John convince it to help him save Harold, being desperate to save its memories, so on and so forth.) But that's just my own headcanon, of course. :D

[spatz]

I admit, I do favor the other end of things, where it has emotions but is still distinctly inhuman, but I'm actually totally okay if that's what ends up happening (so many options! so exciting!). However, I think that at *this* point in canon, it's still developing and not there yet.

[off_kilter]

My headcanon thus far is also that TM is not trying to be human, and honestly I'm pretty sure I'd like a storyline where it understands humans and likes learning about us on that level while being perfectly content to be ITSELF. Instead of acting like us and thinking like us, I really love the idea that the almost alien thoughts and processes show the good and bad of humanity by highlighting the demarcation between us as well as the similarities.

[spatz]

Yes, this! I mean, not to sound like Root or anything, but I love that the massive AI is, for once, not immediately evil but rather incredibly empathetic and devoted to saving lives by spotting things we cannot. And that it is very big picture in a way that we can't really comprehend.