#antagonist program (CLU)

[muses-of-the-memory]

Happy 14th Anniversary, TRON: Legacy!

[avas-demon-plot-twists]

MASSIVE THEORY: OLAI/MAGPIE/SLOTH/GREED/TITAN?

Going through some of the information we have received thus far in the comic's progression, and going over previous theories, I think I finally have some concrete theories that might illuminate the goals of Greed/Greed Host (I will be referring to them as one due to a bonus theory at the bottom), as well as some of the history with Sloth Host, and what Olai knows about Magpie. You’re forewarned, this will be long and tin-foily. Strap in. A long time ago it was theorized that Sloth Host would be paired with the demon we now know as Tylotung due to the snake image within the potion panel of Wrathia's plan arc. I think this theory was close - not that Sloth Host is paired with Tylotung, but that they are the same race. I think Sloth may have been a part of their kingdom and perhaps usurped the crown, agreeing to languish in service to Titan to keep the throne, perhaps even submitting themselves to the process I will outline below in order to keep their position. In previous interviews with regard to the Alice in Wonderland inspirations; Sloth Host is referred to as The Duchess (an antagonist to the Queen of Hearts). Perhaps they are at war with a DIFFERENT Queen. I'm not sure if Tylotung was a ruler or not (I can't remember I'm sorry), but at they very least they rebelled against Titan - I believe that they were forced into Erios as a Titan experiment, perhaps this was Sloth Host’s way of ridding themselves of political opposition/taking power. Moving from here to get into Veevra Avarace (Greed's) involvement - I would like to circle back to the plan pages (see second to last pair of pages for Greed). They seem to be farming some kind of souls from crystals - I believe it has something to do with the demon warriors. I believe that this image is meant to symbolize Greed being the true puppeteer to all of Wrathia’s warriors - perhaps someone pulling the strings of Wrathia herself. Being as they are Titan's premier weapon mechanic, I believe they are also responsible for the technology that afflicted Erios with Tylotung, as well as Gil's pairing with Nevy (I think that Nevy’s memory loss was a part of the kinks of this process).  Perhaps they are even the reason for Ava with Wrathia/Maggie with Tuls/Odin with Pedri if any of the above referenced were receiving any sort of aid from a Titan hospital. (Before you come and tell me none of them did - we do not know this for certain; it was established that Titan has been ruling for a long time, so even if not directly linked, being serviced by Titan RoboRats, it could STILL be Titan technology. In any case, I think at the very least the first two I am positive about - Ava, Maggie & Odin could have been random chance or perhaps something even more deliberate, and I will touch on these below...).

I think that Veevra presented their ability to create super-warriors and superior weaponry as a mechanism to get in with Titan, I think Titan LOVED what Veevra brought to the table, and I think that Titan is rolling out their own “demon” making program to facilitate more of their cultish activities. In terms of this in action there are two ways we could be going: ONE - Titan KNOWS about Wrathia’s Demon’s placements, and deliberately set them into bodies in order to monitor and destroy the opposition, and is creating his own army of “demons” at the speed of sound. TWO - Titan doesn’t know everything about the soul-bonding process/Wrathia’s warrior locations, and is trusting Greed’s knowledge of it (perhaps Greed positioned themselves as a ‘defector’ of Wrathia, but is working on the inside to help dismantle the machinations of Titan either to benefit Wrathia’s cause or their own — surprise plot twist the big bad is Greed after we defeat Titan?) to fight an enemy that Greed clued them into. In either case, Titan would need to create their own warriors, and a lot of them, hence Odin’s notebook, and the various signals - some being Titan, others being ‘organic’ demons? I think per another theory that D in his notebook stands for Dead, with T standing for Titan, and perhaps M being for the ‘Giant Mother’ Goddess he referred to; perhaps he actually picked up on Avas Signal, and ASSUMED it was coming from Maggie (just another note, I don’t think Dead necessarily means they weren’t originally Titan signals; it’s quite possible there were failures along the way to strong Titan Vessels. Pretty sure Titan, and Greed for that matter, view other lifeforms as expendable in the name of conquest).

I think this entire thing is a giant conspiracy, and various races have agreed to work with Titan in exchange for access to Titan tech, as well as protections/powers within his domain: eg Erios agreeing to be a part of the program (they sign everything put in front of them to get more from Titan Industries), my suspicion about Sloth Host (selling out a monarch, as well as themselves to keep status quo/obtain a luxurious life), and SOMEHOW Olai is able to stay afloat, AND gets access to titan technology - I think the story Olai gave Odin about ‘finding’ the tech is a total lie. I think he might’ve made a deal to kick his brother to the curb. I think he truly is terrible enough to sell out his own family to benefit himself, AND I think he could have done it twice. At the very least, I really do think he is behind Magpie’s possession. (Remember Odin’s story is the wolf and the fox, where Odin is implied to be the fox, and it would appear that Olai is positioned as the wolf: the wolf uses conniving and treachery to control the fox - I think if my theories are correct, once this is all revealed to Odin, Olai will meet a Titan-centric demise). 

I think that Magpie is not a “demon” vessel, but a Titan Vessel. Does anyone else find it odd, in hindsight, that Magpie’s “demon” was SO friendly? She was four(?), and she was completely jazzed about her “invisible friend.” At Magpie’s age, I believe this was likely an idea given to her by whatever inhabited her eg ‘we’re friends, let’s be friends.’ 

Which demons have we seen refer to themselves as ‘friends’? Have any of them? While yes, we have had Tuls, and Nevy: these demons could be considered friendly, but let’s examine this. Tuls I would say is more of a passive aggressive doormat due to Maggie’s directly aggressive personality (I think frankly if he could have strong-armed her, he probably would have - and I don’t mean violently, I just mean by being the more potent personality). He’s a pushover/sad sack of mulch as Wrathia put it - he’s nice enough, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t seem as he tried to win Maggie over so much as he’s just along for the ride and in a slight state of apathy/fear. To be fair we haven’t seen the entirety of this relationship, this is just my take. With regard to Nevy, Gil is TERRIFIED of her as well as what she means to him, and she fails to communicate well enough with him to break this barrier right up until she makes herself useful. Even then, she doesn’t classify herself as a friend per se; Gild does once she ‘dies’. Even so for the most part, the demons are upfront in their saying “our relationship is transactional. You have something you want, I have something I want - let’s make a pact.” If not completely going after their own motivations irrespective of their host. Friendship is not the highest priority unless serving another power (in Nevy’s case she still asks him for something - to help her find her place in the universe; and you can even see her get visibly upset/insistent on him doing this for her prior to regaining her memories - she hasn’t built up the friendly rapport to trust him to do her bidding).

I think the reason Magpie had such a positive relationship with her “demon” is because Magpie’s Vessel is not truly a demon, but a diabolical link to the Titan Hivemind. I think that a sentient agent was put inside of her: something savvy enough to communicate the message that they are ‘not a threat’ and get her to comply at a young age. It may not even be a ‘demon’; we never saw Magpie’s possessor. For all we know she could be seeing a ‘friendly’ image of Titan themselves (anyone else find it weird that we don’t get to see her demon; and that her eyes in her cast photo are TITAN BLUE?)

In terms of the process, I believe the paradise machine has something to do with this. With what we saw of The Paradise Machine, and what we have seen of Titan's technology, they are able to replicate the demon curse abilities (notice how Strategios could do this PRIOR to their reboot; almost as if they knew what Ava would potentially be able to do) to a degree, as if they have some tactical knowledge of it, and it could be someone is greedily withholding the actual intel (effectively by way of potions - perhaps they don’t know exactly the way to brew the potions, only how to use them/what they do essentially; jury’s out on that one). The Paradise Machine failed (Prudith was already not functional in this frame; the skin did not fit), because the construct it tried to fit over Prudith was coded for Ava’s frame; can you imagine what it may have produced if it were making a new Prudith? As far as the order of possession, and how things happened, I think that Maggie, Ava, Odin & Sloth Host may have been accidents/tests - perhaps releasing demon souls to observe how the pair bonds work in order to perfect the accuracy of the "soul bonding" process. I will have to observe Sloth host to confirm this theory / gather the order, but per the Potions Page I believe the aforementioned listing would be the correct order [with each iteration bringing them closer to perfecting the process before bringing their findings to Titan/deciding to place demons within hosts].

It could be that Veevra themselves is a free agent seeing as they are also paired with a demon that looks suspiciously similar to them? Perhaps they infused themselves to become twice as strong? Perhaps their interior 'demon' is their alter-ego (why is the titan page right after the greed page in the above linked pages of demons)? If you've read this far, thanks for tuning in. This was a long scramble to put together, and I would love to hear any insight. Can't wait for the updates, and hope the above stuff at least sounds interesting?

TLDR: Greed will be the real villain.

[roykleinberg]

Unpopular tron opinion (at least in the part of tronblr I'm in): Clu was not blameless. Yes Flynn gave him a flawed directive but that doesn't excuse the genocide and lengths he went to "follow his directive". With a function as vague as that, Clu enacted perfection in different ways but he chose to kill and destroy. I think a lot of times the Fandom lets him off the hook and blame Flynn. Just my opinion tho

tron confessional with moss

oh biiiiig agree. lotta parts to this but I'll try to keep my thoughts relatively concise

it's a problem I see in a lot of fandoms -- a tendency to fixate on a protagonist's shortcomings to the point of flat out claiming that they're a horrible person worse than the villains, while at the same time excusing a lot of the antagonist's actions for [insert thinly justifiable motive here]. and I'd love to analyze why this happens. are people just completely unwilling to admit that the "good guys" have critical flaws because they don't want to admit that real people are also flawed? are the actions of an antagonist usually so overtly Evil that it somehow makes them easier to stomach than the oftentimes lesser but more realistic mistakes of a protagonist? or has fandom just lost sight of the fact that characters are vehicles for storytelling and they need to have flaws in order to drive the narrative?

ANYWAY

yeah lol

one of the things that always struck me about Clu, personally, was how vindictive a lot of his actions come across? I always got the sense that his retaliation against the ISOs was personal just as much as it was directive-driven -- in the same way that he clearly wanted to make an Event out of killing Sam in the lightcycle arena. he wants to destroy the things that Flynn cares about, that Flynn loves, the things that distracted him and took his focus away from the Grid. and yes as a system admin it's obviously his job to prioritize the Grid and make it perfect efficient etc. but. the whole franchise is about the fact that programs have thoughts and emotions of their own and can exist outside of their function. so like you said, I think to reduce it to Clu just obeying his written purpose is just that -- reductive. Basics have free will, and I 100% think that what Clu did was a choice.

and circling briefly back to Flynn, I've always felt like the fandom is unfairly harsh on him. yes he made mistakes but again that is the point. of storytelling. and I could spend paragraphs talking about Flynn as a character and why I think he's well written and not a bad person, but that's a whole other level of unpopular opinion

[coupleofdays]

I have recently been thinking about the term "Artificial Intelligence", and how it might be defined in the Tron universe. What I find interesting is that most of the conscious entities in the digital world in Tron weren't intentionally created by humans to be conscious. They didn't intend for actuarial programs and security software to have thoughts and feelings. And yet, what can be called "intelligent life" somehow grew inside the ENCOM computers, unbeknownst to the humans. The same can of course be said about the ISOs, who weren't intentionally created by Kevin, but just showed up one day, again having grown out of the Grid somehow.

What's really interesting about this is that as far as I know, there are only two digital entities in the Tron universe who were created intentionally by humans to be "intelligent": The Master Control Program (created by Dillinger) and Clu (created by Flynn). And what do these two creations have in common? They're the antagonists. The bad guys. The main villains that have to be defeated, by the humans and by the unintentionally conscious programs.

I don't have any well thought out thesis about this, just some random thoughts. Is the message of Tron that life is only good if it "grows naturally" instead of being intentionally created? Are there some other interesting commonalities between the MCP and Clu that are relevant to this idea, such as the fact that they consider themselves better than their creators? Or that both Dillinger and Flynn intended for their creations to "run things" better than a human would? Is there some kind of reading to be made that could be a criticism agains the current "AI" trend?

It also makes me genuinely curious about how the upcoming third Tron film will handle the subject. Because I can't imagine that it won't be dealing with AI in some regard. Will there be an intentionally created AI in it, and if so, will it be a good guy or a bad guy?

[fights4users]

Just you? | The page, Alan and clu

Someone said this ages before me but the page was meant to get Alan at the arcade, Alan inside the grid. Clu wanted him but settled for Sam. I want to dive a bit deeper into that, especially after reading betrayal (really the novel does wonder for his character and providing additional context for legacy).

Backup plan—

Contacting Alan was the last desperate attempt to find a normal way out. I can imagine Kevin would have talked about him quite frequently, about how good he was and maybe even admitting to clu he was the one to originally write tron. So, clu figures out a way to contact this “great user” and make him fix everything. Maybe he could finally give the grid a purpose from the outside or do some work on the inside to stabilize everything. I don’t even think clu knows what all needs to be done to fix everything- he’s been lost and a bit power hunger for a while now I’d imagine he’d be forceful with Alan but have good reason to be.

I think having Alan rewrite and fix the grid from the outside (or in if possible) would make the most sense. What the hell use would alan have otherwise? He wouldn’t have a disk! Sam only got one once he was put into the games, additionally alan wouldn’t have the knowledge of the grid to use his disk as a key after receiving one. So getting Alan in the first place had nothing to do with “out there” or “world domination”.

Last resort—

I saw a theory a while ago which I wholeheartedly believe that said, Clu only did all of this (the army, the world domination plans) to give the grid a purpose. It really makes his authoritarian decent into madness all the more tragic, as stated before he never had a chance to be good. He can’t create new programs he can only rewrite what’s there— he’s slipping and out of ideas because endlessly building in a overheating system is a absolute nightmare. A mindless army works great as it takes up as little energy as possible, you can conserve what remains and give your citizens something to actually do… now mind you it’s not a good something to be a mindless drone. After Alan falls through he goes on with the first plan. I also believe the world domination thing also comes about because he’s a reflection of Flynn’s  arrogance back when he made the grid— this is so his speech can almost identically match Flynn’s “in their is our destiny!” -> “out there is our destiny!”. More that for a character motivation that makes sense.

Clu is a dangerous line. As the more you read into things the more sympathetic he becomes the more you understand his motivations and what lead him down this path. You almost forget how horrible his actions are from how badly a hand he has been dealt. He is fascinating and so unbelievably sad that he saw this (Dictatorship, mind control, genocide ,etc.) as the only way out. He is the antagonist but not the villain.

Sam—

No one was expecting Sam to be the one to arrive at the arcade. Clu didn’t take Into account Alan’s care for him,  probably because clu had his own issues with Sam since he was a baby. It’s interesting as Sam is basically the crux that sets off the film. Plan B didn’t work so we’re going for the crazy world domination plan, let’s use you to lure your dad out of hiding. To me it sort of comes through as the backup plans of backup plans to him- if Alan had come would he have concerned himself with Flynn at all? This god is helpful, this god sticks to his words and thinks things through…oh god the absolute angst potential in that. (Again keep in mind that Clus hatred is for a Flynn who didn’t go through 20 years of  philosophy lessons).

This is all me just theorizing anyway, my own way at picking through legacy trying to understand it. 🤷‍♀️ Clu is such a fascinating character that you really have to feel bad for, and again it’s a little concerning? Because you forget how much bad stuff he really did just because they fumbled Flynn SO hard. The Kevin Flynn who made the grid does not feel like the same Kevin Flynn who broke into ENCOM with his buddies one night and I don’t know how to explain it.

[professormakromoved]

8. Got an antagonist in your life?

Crossing their arms, Makro began to speak.

“Yeah, sure, I’ve got things that slow me down. Clu being one of them. As much as I am grateful that he gave me a new job after he took over, I still can’t help but get a little irritated when I’m not given the level of respect I deserve. I wish to be treated more fairly—and I wish that Clu would quit teasing me,” Makro huffed and puffed, out of breath. He had spoken too much and too quickly, clearly upset.

“I guess another thing that’s antagonistic are the programs that think I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. They’re just getting in the way of my research,” They explained, now shooing you off with their finger.

[life-rewritten]

The Gifted Graduation: The Story of Supot

The origin of Nyx88 and The Gifted Program

When watching shows like gifted, I tend always never to trust the first explanation or narration of a flashback; especially when told by someone who I have been shown by the show never to trust and to always be on guard about. This is the same with this show for stories where characters seem unimportant or forgotten to the side when you know that the show pays attention to details and always brings back unfinished plots. Lastly, I also tend not to trust death in these shows, especially when I don't see the dead body visually, the reason and how it happened on screen. With The Gifted; ever since season 1, I remembered telling my self to not just go along with what is being said, but to look out for clues of potential foreshadowing, patterns and hints that something is going on deeper. If I had clued onto these, it would have been easier to discover that the director was as gifted as Pang in season 1, that Pom's powers were what they were and that Pang was ultimately going to lose by the end of the show. I didn't, and I ended up being blown away by all the plot twists after plot twists along with Pang who thought he was one step ahead always, only to be shown that he never even got past the starting line. That's where I'm at with season 2 of The Gifted, Graduation; I can't seem to trust anyone no matter how good their actions are, I can't seem to add up the mysteries being told to us before they're pushed aside and forgotten. But here's me trying to piece together a theory of what we have so far

The Story of Supot

One of these is to do with Director Supot and his narrative of what happened to make him this way. One glaring factor that was important to the story was the death of Yuth. It was so essential, the easy things people noticed about it were mentioned: Pang and Supot and Pom mirror each other with their idealism and failure to be good leaders, and Yuth, Wave, Channon are their companions with brains and smarts who are always for them but still end up being hurt in the misfire of their goals.  This pattern was even shown in the future generation with Third and Time.  Of course, it was nice to ship and obsess over these similarities, but something wasn't sitting right with me this whole episode and the previous. That was the entire idea that both Channon (I've made a post about him here) and Yuth are not to be trusted.

Their stories are open-ended steeped with mystery and hurt, and they're left forgotten to the side. One because we didn't expect them to be necessary anymore; they've served their use (Yuth is murdered in the past, and Channon is hiding behind the ministry and isn't crucial to the main story (or so we think)). Two because their companions are who we're more focused on, who is more prominent in the story (Supot is our main antagonist and Pom works for Supot and is our primary teacher for the gifted)

It's interesting how we the audience have been led to believe in these 2 when really we know with this show that no one is good; no one is evil. They're both. Channon seems like a sacrificial lamb, and Yuth also joins into this. I can't help but feel the need to call out why that's so worrying when it comes to this show. So here's a post analysing Yuth and also what I think the storyline is panning to.

What we're told about Yuth

He and Supot have been long time friends who have supported each other from the start, he's known about Supot's potential and has always supported him in his dream to do more for people like him with the government

He is extremely intelligent, he is known as the brains of Supot's group, and he helps research for the discovering of the gifted program and also for nyxx 88. His intelligence further makes him useful to the ministry later, but he runs away and gets killed. 

He has unrequited feelings for someone. It's either his friend Supot or his girlfriend, Nate. He's not okay with feeling like a third wheel.

He's the one who discovers about nyx88 and the ministry's intention with gifted. It frightens him, and he comes to warn Supot, but then he gets murdered by the ministry. 

He doesn't feel wary about Supot's potential because Supot promised to never use it on him. This promise is broken later, but Supot tells him that he broke it and didn't continue to manipulate him any further so they fight for a bit and it gets pushed to the side because they have other things to worry about: Nate and the ministry. 

He doesn't have a potential like Supot and Nate. He never got to realise if he did or didn't get tested, but from what it looked like when Nate was going through the test he didn't seem to have it since you have to listen to it for it to trigger you. He was nearby.

Things we forget about Yuth:

He's shown distaste towards Supot's idealism for the gifted program. He agrees Supot should give up on the plan and think of another way later on and not fight with the ministry, but Supot refused and continued experimenting, which led to Nate getting hurt. 

He is brilliant, and the director instead of trying to get rid of him asked him to work for him. We are not shown details of what happened; we are told by him (unreliable narrator) that they are planning to hurt the gifted with the virus. His intelligence is what causes an issue to his narrative; the ministry only gets rid of people who are gifted and have taken things too far like breaking the law as we are shown at the beginning of this episode.  We're shown that the gifted get 'distributed' and we are shown sounds of someone screaming with sounds of a chain saw and then a fire burning which suggests they burn their bodies afterwards? But we know that Minister does not get rid of assets valuable to him, he respects and finds Yuth's intelligence necessary so to get rid of him seems a bit too much, especially in such a gruesome and cruel way. Then again, Yuth knows too much and broke the rules so the ministry maybe that cruel. Except:

The Minister did not actually know where Yuth was when he went missing. When Supot arrives to blame him for Yuths death, he asks of his whereabouts. This suggests he did not know about Yuth's death because if he did; the music would have been more sinister and we would have seen that on his face as he answers Supots question. His focus instead switched to Supot and trying to get Supot to start the gifted program. Yuths, death is forgotten and pushed to the side, which is weird. 

He has unrequited feelings for someone, and it wasn't enjoyable for him to see the relationship between Nate and Supot. It's unclear who he has feelings for; there are hints to it being both:

Supot because of their closeness, and the way he stared longingly at times towards him. He always seemed there to help him, support him and be by his side. It's very similar to the other duos, especially Pang and Wave.

Nate: This is my theory; unfortunately, he seems worried for her well being despite trying to tsundere about it, he willingly tries to get her medicine and also is very upset when she undergoes her experiment. He's too rattled when it doesn't go well and seems aggrieved at Supot for causing her harm. Before he dies, he also mentions her well being as the reason for why he escaped to  tell him about the plans. 

5. This means that he had reasons for resentment towards Supot building up, that's not been dealt with, which means it will be if he is alive. It could be a reason as a trigger for why he could potentially be harbouring revenge if he did not die, but it adds to him also feeling resentment for always being overlooked by either Supot or Nate. 

6. He's the one who gives Supot information about nyxx 88 and discovering of the gifted potentials. This goes back again to working for the ministry. We don't know what he was asked to work on, but looking at the vials of the virus, I would say he had a hand in creating the vials for them. It's a weird scene because we would have discovered the same information from the Minister later on when Supot goes to see him, and he threatens for the gifted program to be created, so we didn't need to have Yuth recap what's been happening before he dies. The scene before his death; him frantic and showing up randomly to Supot is just as strange as his death. I also want to link this to another mirror character of his who we are unsure of his job in the ministry/forgotten; Channon also claims to be working in the ministry after his memories came back, but we're given vague details. It's also just as weird and mysterious as Yuth. 

7. He also gets reasons, even more, to feel angry and resentful at Supot and this doesn't get discussed or resolved, it's pushed to the side and forgotten. He's upset when he discovers that Supot broke his promise not to use his potential on him. This could either hint to him feeling upset just like Channon at their partners for betraying them as tools/experiments to their potentials to fulfil their goals; Yuth forgets about it, but Channon is traumatised by the events and decides to hide from the director. I don't believe in this for one second. it could also pile onto his hate for Supot's gifted program since he can see it's harmful and it led to Nate being hurt when she too was experimented on by him. 

8 This is an interesting one? Could he have a potential? Why were we so close to finding it out only for Supot to stop him?  We can argue that he shouldn't because he didn't seem affected when the sound to activate the potential happened, but Supot also didn't scream however you may only be affected if you haven't been activated before. Him not screaming either suggests he has no potential or he has one and has kept it secret from Supot. If he doesn't have a potential, then he's definitely more against the use of potentials because of the consequences using it. If he does have one, then it may be the opposite, and he plans to use them for more. 

9. The way he died. We are not shown how Yuth dies, we are told, but no one seems to know how he did, and the reasons for why seem convoluted and not accurate. Supot definitely believes the ministry killed him; hence his mistrust and hate towards them, but the ministry seems not that fussed and doesn't even acknowledge his death. It's just so random, we can think he died because we saw his glasses fall, but he could have taken it off and disappeared pretending to die. The reason is why? And if Yuth is not dead, what does this have to do with gifted?

How does this connect to what's been going on

The first anomaly to this is the Minister. Sure he seems to work for the government and do what they want him to do with the gifted like kill them if they break a rule or convince Supot to create a program to find them and weaken them. But he's weird, he doesn't see the gifted as disposable he sees them as tools that can benefit the government, and he sees Supot and Yuth both as valuable assets. He's the person who goes to Yuth and asks him to work for him, and we're not sure what that work entailed. He's also the person who leaked the information about the gifted which just seems like a strange thing to do considering his goals is to hide them and keep them a secret and stop them with the virus.

This is why he's an anomaly. He also seems to be very secretive when it came to Yuths death like I said he acted like he didn't know where Yuth was, but he switched the subject and focused on Supot instead. He didn't need to kill Yuth the way he killed others because he had no potential and he wasn't a dangerous threat (unless he discovered something else he didn't tell us) and he doesn't seem to know that he did anything like that. It's the way he changes the subject though that suggests that he may be lying and he knows that Yuth did not die and he may still be working for the Minister secretly. Either way, the Minister is up to something, if Yuth is included; he may be involved or not involved with the Minister that's why I call him an anomaly to this theory.

The next thing necessary to this storyline is the introduction to Nyxx88 we know it's Yuth; he discovers what it is, what it does and how it works. We also know that the Minister gave it to Darin to give to Supot to get rid of him, but she didn't, and it instead was stolen by Korn. Let's pause here first of all the Minister giving the virus to Supot makes no sense to me, as he could have done it any other way without having to hire Darin to do so, it may be because Supot is rebelling and protecting the gifted program. However, it still doesn't add up to me.

Second, the way Korn discovers about nyxx88 is so convenient it hurts. It's meant to be an accident that Channon gave the information to Korn, he didn't know Korn will take the lead and become evil with it, but I've already said in my previous post why this feels like a lie. The leaking of this virus is what the plot of this season revolves around. It also revolves around the anti gifted and the ideologies between the ministry and Supot. Korn being revealed as the leader of the anti gifted still feels convoluted, and some parts are missing to his narrative apart from his hate of his potential for why he'd go so far. He seems like an unreliable narrator that is being puppeteered by someone else.  

This brings me to think that Pang, Supot and most of the students are actually in the dark about what's going on. Another person is playing them. I think this person is Yuth. I believe that because he's the closest source to the origin of nyxx88 that it all goes back to him. But I also think that the Minister could also be part of this.

So here's my theory on what is going on so far:

Korn received nyx88 intentionally by Channon. Channon joined the ministry after being betrayed and traumatised by Supot and Pom, and after his memories came back, he felt hurt and resentful being discarded and forgotten about. He also probably hated he was experimented on and a victim to the powers of Pom and Supot.  (Again parallels when Yuth found out about Supot using the powers on him) 

I think Channon either is in contact with the Minister if he's involved and the prominent leader of this plan or he came into contact with Yuth. Yuth convinced Channon to join the ministry (either with Minister knowing or not knowing) and to use this form a back story, the same story he told Pang about working in the maths and IT department. Yuth convinced Channon because they're both filled with resentment against their partners and they felt mistreated or hurt by the creation of the gifted program. They're both victims. 

This is what led to the creation or alliance with the anti gifted. (Korn) I don't think Korn is behind the anti gifted, and I still don't trust he's the leader who did all the things, including getting Namtarn hurt. He wouldn't go that far. 

Now the issue is finding out what the goal is: I have three theories again.

It's either to do with ending the gifted program ultimately, getting rid of Supot and having revenge on him or its the opposite and it's to control the gifted program and turn them into weapons. 

Ending the gifted program altogether. This points to why they could be the creators of the anti gifted and the reason  why the virus was leaked and used this way. I just wouldn't think the Minister is involved in this goal. However I can see why Channon would be okay with this, he's a victim of the gifted program, he was hurt so the gifted program could not get ruined, his memories were wiped, and he was betrayed for the good of the gifted program by Supot and Pom. Yuth is the same, he's also a victim, has lost the person he loves (if it's Nate) to the discovery of the nyxx88 and the gifted program and he may think it's just producing monsters or evil people who should not be powerful (Supot and the ministry) 

Getting revenge on Supot: The results of Korn's mistake causes Supot to be hunted by the ministry, people are trying to take him down, and he's no longer the director of the gifted program. He's forced into hiding. The Minister can be involved in this goal because he seems to dislike and wants to get rid of Supot (hence why he tells Darin to give him the virus). Channon is a victim of Supot and has been hiding from him for ten years; it's enough reason to want revenge. Yuth has reasons as mentioned before for why he would want to get rid of Supot mostly again if he had feelings for Nate, he would be vengeful for her and won't forgive him for what he created. 

To turn the gifted program into weapons and tools. This is an interesting one. The Minister is easily part of this goal because he sees the gifted as valuable assets and means for great things to come. If he wants power or control having the gifted program disbanded and under his command will help him achieve that. Channon is the anomaly in this as he is actually gifted, he wouldn't have any reasons for wanting to make the gifted more powerful unless he wants more out of his potential, and he wants more control over the program the way Pom has; he may be annoyed at the fact that it was Pom that got to have a good job and took care of the program whilst he's cast aside and forgotten. He may also realise that he wants the gifted to be more superior to humans? Though from season 1, I wouldn't think that's what his goal would be. Yuth also makes sense with this goal. He's extremely intelligent and realistic and probably sees that the gifted can be great weapons and help take over the government. He may have thought Supot was right, but his way of doing things was wrong and too idealistic, and so he feels this way is a better way to make use of the gifted program. He also may secretly be gifted (like I said we're not sure on this) and want to be more superior to people rather than work for them, so he's building an army to take over? 

(This wouldn't explain why the information on the gifted is leaked at the end of this episode apart from the other two theories which are to imbed fear in the public and cause chaos, so the program is wholly ended.)

So you see that after thinking about it so much. Also, the fact that episode 1 focuses on Supot, Nate and Yuth (it even shows the longing for someone and his distaste with the experiment). I think it foreshadows that Yuth is essential, he's not dead, he's hidden somewhere either working with the Minister or being the actual head of the game. Whatever he has up his sleeves he's going to be the foil to Supot, and he's also going to play everyone like a puppet. Let's hope the new generation will stop him. This is if he is actually alive. This is just a theory.

Previous Analysis about Gifted Graduation: Reuniting with Channon

[st-just]

collapsedsquid

Fightin the deep state aliens with Q cell

Nah, that’s more 90s. These days the Program is the deep state. 

Though really, it’s kind of interesting how, without changing the basic premise one whit (a loose conspiracy of clued in G-men fight and cover up Lovecraftian horrors) the politics of the new edition read as drastically different just from the choice of antagonists to focus on. (though the premise clearly does impose certain outer bounds). 

Like, in the ‘90s edition the major villains were on one hand the literal deep state/MAJESTIC 12, high placed military, security and government officials who had sold out their country to aliens in exchange for advanced technology and worldly power, and on the other the Cult of Transcendence, a labyrinth conspiracy of cults centered in Stockholm with the goal of guiding humanity down the road of decadence, depravity and nihilism.  With smaller threats being things like ‘A small immigrant community’s bizarre sect of Christianity is actually an evil cult whose rituals require child abuse”, “A small ethnic group in SE Asia the CIA found super-useful as proxies during ‘Nam are actually partially inhuman cannibals” and “This one indigenous nation in Alaska are doing so well because they’ve been Deep One hybrids since literally forever”. 

Whereas in the new edition the most heavily foregrounded threat by far is March Technologies - dangerous sets of private magnates and retired officials eager to use the government secrets they walked away with to make themselves rich and powerful, regardless of the damage and danger exploiting the pilfered material causes, with zero care for collateral damage except if it might personally bite them in the ass. And then the new threats in Labyrinth are things like “a extraordinarily exclusive fertility service for the rich and famous breeding a new in- and super- human ruling class for humanity” and “An all-American non--denominational church whose founder takes the ‘soul-crushing marriage’ thing literally and teaches every member a daily ritual to grant themselves good luck by leeching their wife’s will to live away”. 

[winterbranded]

[ ✮ ]   i s2g this is turning more and more into a tr.on stan account with how many headcanons i’m posting about this verse bUT I GOTTA YELL ABOUT THINGS FOR A SECOND : i want to talk about just how Scary CLU is.  like as a figure of power and as an antagonist in legacy.  the fact that he figured out how to send a page ---- a message to the outside world from the grid in order to have new assets play into his game in achieving more leadership and growth of control.  the expand his span of reach to the real world and outside the grid and to try to create an Entirely new system with our world as a baseline ??  holy fucking shit dude.  AND finding ways around his limitations as a program ( repurposing programs or destroying them for his purpose ). CLU is incredibly smart and conniving and will literally remove anything and Everything in his way to get what he wants.  tr.on was an obstacle and he attempted to get rid of him once ( but tr.on persevered for a while ) and twice he succeeded.  and buc.ky ( friends call him buck.y as a nickname but majority call him barnes ) he was one of the last main ties to kevin flynn and hope for programs.  another wall to break for control.  i imagine he had buck.y’s team repurposed or destroyed as well which makes me Incredibly sad.  i’m not sure what would happen to him after the events of tr.on legacy.  would he defect last second ??? try to save sam or even quorra from CLU forces ??  get hurt in the process and have to retreat ?  or does he sacrifice himself for it ?   and on a completely different side note since i’m rewatching it as i’m typing :  THE OG TR.ON MOVIE IN ‘82 IS SO FUN AND I LOVE THE WRITING FOR IT SOBS   kevin, lora, and alan are such a good trio and despite the effects and some of the acting being ‘cheesy’ nowadays it was really ahead of its time.  augh.  tr.on is so good y’all the potential is off the charts and i adore the story and characters weeps and the way they translated all the og tr.on designs into legacy??? holy Shit  ( also yo.ri and tr.on are adorable, they should’ve added yo.ri back somehow tbh and lora wtf !!! but that just gives me the more reason to build her character if i ever write her ... if they Ever decide to Actually write tr.on 3 they better give her a cameo AT THE  L E A S T )

[scratchface]

Would you like to share your favorite revolver moments? :)

You know, someone did ask for my top five Rev moments a while back. I never answered because I spent so much time agonizing over which ones I love most…

Here’s my all-time favorite Rev moments, in no definitive order!

The Rescue!

This one is easy: the moment Ryoken crashed through the ceiling of the cathedral in a lightning bolt to save Yusaku from Akira I knew I was going to love his character. Not only was it incredibly badass and over-the-top, but it told us so much about Revolver: his methods, his personality, his views. A cyber terrorist telling a man that torture was too crude! Plus it clued us into Rev’s history with SOL.

Then, Ryoken actually challenged Yusaku head on. He could tried to force Yusaku to hand over Ai since he had the release program, but he faced Yusaku fairly as an equal.

I’m really glad the encounter got a redo too, as the second rescue was just as good as the first. Rev making his return to Vrains in the most badass way possible, with a new look and renewed confidence. These two scenes in comparison to each other are especially nice, since the first firmly places Rev as the mysterious and threatening antagonist, and the second paints him as the “savior of humanity” he’s been trying to be. 

Vyra’s apartment! 

This scene was so cool: ominous and suspenseful with a real “oh shit” kind of feel to it. We got some pretty great shots of Ryoken before his face reveal, as well as the complexity of his smile at finally getting to see Playmaker’s real face.

It’s a really great scene just in terms of direction! The lighting, the camera feed zooming in of Yusaku’s face, and the awesome, dangerous riff of the background music as Ryoken smiles. It’s really the kind of scene that sticks with you.

The Monologue Episode

For a recap episode, the episode of Revolver’s monologue during the tower provided some excellent insight into Ryoken’s character and his internal struggle with his misaligned priorities. Especially since the entire speech just drives home how trapped Ryoken feels, how much he thinks everything has spun out of his control, and his resignation to it all. I think going back and showing us how things went from Ryoken’s perspective was actually a good choice. 

Flying over the city on a big ass dragon

I’ve already talked about this one way back, but it bears repeating how thoroughly badass Ryoken soaring over Den City was. And if we’re talkign about ridiculously badass, him link summoning a shit ton of high level dragons and completing the extra link in his final duel with Playmaker also deserves a mention. He sure brought and delivered the drama with that one.

And lastly, the end of his first master duel with Playmaker and the moment he becomes invest in Playmaker’s identity.

This is more a progression of moments. During their first duel, Revolver makes it abundantly clear he doesn’t care about who Playmaker is. The player behind the avatar is irrelevant to him, and the grudge Playmaker has against them even more so. But over the course of their speed duel and master duel, Revolver gets progressively more interested, more invested, but Playmaker revealing himself as a victim of the Hanoi Project, specifically the sixth test subject, is the nail in the coffin of Revolver’s fixation. 

Just look at his face!

Suddenly Playmaker isn’t just a surprisingly formidable, but ultimately unremarkable obstacle, but directly a problem of Ryoken’s own making. Not just some random person their actions happened to offend, some collateral damage, Playmaker is someone Ryoken’s own actions and choices have shaped.

After that, uncovering Playmaker’s identity becomes a priority of the Knights. It didn’t overly matter before, because they were confident that it was a simple matter of Revolver defeating Playmaker in a duel, almost inevitable. 

But Ryoken’s first loss against Playmaker changes everything for the KoH. For the first time they are faced with a human opponent that can not only keep up with them, but can run circles around them. Someone more elusive than they are, someone who someone more hellbent than they are. The Knights always operated as the aggressors, as the hunters, as the ones with the upper-hand. Playmaker’s existence turns all that on its head; they’re the ones being hunted, the ones playing catch-up and trying to keep up with an opponent they aren’t prepared to face.

And Ryoken not only has to bear the responsibility for that, he obsesses over it. It consumes him, because his feelings towards the sixth test subject are so complex, a sense of pride and protectiveness all tied up with guilt, resentment, and frustration. It takes Ryoken over fifty episodes to sort through those feelings and come to terms with them, and the result is this smug look:

There are lots of more recent Ryoken moments that are deserving, but I’ll hold off on those until their consequences are a bit more clear.

[avelera]

My Westworld season 2 analysis: what it means to be sentient, and what was lost when the show stopped asking that question

I think my biggest point of dismay with Westworld was that they didn’t follow the plotline I found most compelling from the first season, and I was left with the conclusion that the interpretation I had that made me interested in the show is now pure fanon based on the direction change of season 2. 

(Cut for spoilers)

- To me the most fascinating question of Westworld season 1 was “When do the Hosts count as sentient?” Basically, when do they pass the Turing Test? It’s easy to make humans think that something that on the surface looks and acts like a human being is actually human, but that’s a computer program being told to perform in that way. 

- Let’s assume Dolores was truly sentient by the end of season 1, and Maeve as well as she defied her programming to go back and look for her daughter. In contrast, Teddy felt stubbornly non-sentient, still performing to his old code. The question would be, will the non-sentient hosts achieve sentience after the revolution, are there more sentient hosts out there, and what does that mean for the world outside the park? I was willing to believe going into season 2 that there were more hosts out there that had achieved Dolores’s level of sentience through their own means and we’d be introduced to them in season 2 as the story expanded. For example, Akecheta would have been a perfect example of this plotline being pursued as a central theme.

- Season 1 seemed to have a thesis that “pain” caused the hosts to eventually experience enough of life that a soul grew out of the machine they were built to be. This is a compelling statement, made all the more so by the fact it may be slightly wrong. The hosts that became sentient (or “human”) like Maeve and Dolores did indeed suffer the most, but they also loved the most. I found it completely reasonable that a stunted, toxic souls like Ford truly believed that it required pain to achieve true sentience, and that the whole point of torturing the hosts with the guests was to push them to the point of maximum cruelty against them so they would gain sentience organically. I also believed that Ford was wrong, because he couldn’t conceive of love, he couldn’t conceive that it was the love Maeve had for her daughter, and that Dolores had for her father, and for William that was transposed onto Teddy, that made the suffering poignant and therefore effective. Ford not understanding this point is why the atrocities reached such a fever pitch, when in truth introducing love rather than pain would have achieved the same outcome.

- What I found most compelling about William/Dolores was the possibility that William was clued in to Ford’s hypothesis at some point, and that in a twisted way, his cruelty in the park was similar to Judas’s betrayal of Christ in Catholic dogma. On the surface, an act of cruelty, but necessary for the salvation of the world to take place. 

- If the above is true, imagine a man who has been told the woman he loves is not sentient. She can’t possibly love him back the way he loves her BUT, there’s a chance she can someday, and that she can be free to make her own choices (which may include not loving him back) if he commits the ultimate crimes of cruelty against her and her kindred. But here’s another twist, it’s not really cruelty because they’re not actually sentient but, at that point that they achieve sentience they will remember the cruelty. Do you do what needs to be done to free them, if it makes you a monster? 

- Even if it’s messed up and twisted in the above scenario, rife with questionable moral choices, it’s a compelling dramatic line of inquiry. Is William just doing what needs to be done, in fact committing the ultimate act of love and self sacrifice, to make Dolores and the hosts sentient--the only people he truly loves but who can’t love him (or choose not to love him) in return until they achieve sentience-- by being a monster to them? 

- What if, after all his cruelties, he reunites with a Dolores who is sentient now? She is free, and therefore is free to hate him for what he has done to get her to that point. What if what’s more important to him is only that she’s free to have that choice, but he still must suffer the fact she can’t possibly love him in return, now that she is free to do so?

- Now, what if that makes William one of our real heroes, but in the process of enacting this plan over the years, he’s gone slightly mad? What if the cause of this madness is extreme empathy, not extreme cruelty? You go into the park, you see your loved ones like Dolores, and Lawrence, and all the people you consider to be your true world and family, knowing that they’re trapped and not “real” but they MIGHT BE someday if you keep working. Then you go back to your normal life. You wear a mask, you count the days until you can go back to your real home in the park again. Every time you go back, no one remembers you. You have to start over. It’s groundhog day, but someday maybe you’ll break the loop. Someday maybe they’ll remember you. 

- And then one day they do. But have you been lost along the way, in the decades upon decades where you looked into their eyes and saw no recognition at all? 

- That to me was the reason I wanted to believe William smiled at the end. That was the journey I wanted to see in season 2, his fall into the madness of empathy. The question of “do the hosts have souls now, are they sentient or are they still following their code?” is the question I wanted continued, not a reversal that says humans are simply less complex robots. That’s a simple, easy, and un-intellectual way out of the really complicated question of “what is sentience?”. Nor did I want to see a version of William who is simply a spurned lover, a madman, and a sadist who was “set free” by the park. I find such a plotline cliche and boring, vastly overtold in the grand scheme of storytelling. Give me a hero who is pushed to immense cruelty out of love, not a villain who discovers he’s a villain. 

If I ever wrote for Westworld fic, it would probably be an AU exploration of William Dolores on the assumption that the above is true. But sadly, it probably wouldn’t include nearly as much of season 2 as I was hoping would occur. 

Frankly in all the complication and flash of Westworld’s premise, they ended up taking some very simple, cliche ways out. Of course the guests were the ones being studied, I could have told you that in episode 1 if you had not tried to hide it. But that should have been a minor antagonist plotline against the greater, universal question of what does it mean to be human, not the main villain plot. 

Dolores and Bernard going out into the real world as a sort of Xavier/Magneto binary of the future of the hosts is premature, we don’t even know if there are robots outside the parks and what that would mean for humanity. The really complicated questions of “who is a host, who is human, what does that mean, how does anyone make money in the world anymore when robots can be so complex and duplicate almost any human task?” have all not been answered, so there’s no tangible threat on what hosts in the outside world would mean except that they are “other” and pissed off from being tormented by humans over the years. Humans, by the way, who were basically torturing microwaves because the hosts weren’t sentient yet. 

It was very disappointing to see such a simple outcome presented as if it was so very complex, and so much other sci-fi copied rather than forging a new path that better fit the story and characters. Like the film Ex Machina, Westworld had a chance to really dive into what it means to be human, and it’s a shame they lost that focus in season 2.

[fmpoliviagensch]

Tron Original vs Remake

Plot

Kevin Flynn is a former employee of the software firm ENCOM who currently owns and operates an arcade. Flynn has been attempting to break into ENCOM's mainframe computer in order to gain proof that ENCOM's senior executive Ed Dillinger stole five video games he developed. Dillinger's supercomputer Master Control Program, on the other hand, foils Flynn's efforts by commanding and controlling the majority of the computer systems. Lora Baines, Flynn's previous girlfriend, and her boyfriend, ace computer programmer Alan Bradley, assist Flynn in breaking into ENCOM and using Alan's security program Tron to shut down the MCP one night. However, MCP transforms Flynn into data and transports him into the computer using Lora's matter transfer program. Flynn is thrown into an electronic reality ruled by the MCP and his evil chief henchman Sark, in which computer programs are the alter-egos of their creators and are compelled to engage in gladiatorial games. Flynn sets out to destroy the MCP and assist Tron rescue the system from the MCP's control, with the help of Tron, a brave and fearless security program, and his lover, Yori. Destroying the MCP is Flynn's only option of returning to the real world.

Plot

Kevin Flynn, a computer prodigy, tells his young son about his travels in the Tron cyber world in 1989. He talks about his new friends and his emissary CLU, a program he created in his image. He pledges to take him to the Grid one day, then Flynn vanishes, leaving Sam distraught. After 20 years, his father's company ENCOM is run by the Board, who are taking the company in a different way than Flynn. Sam spends his time on the board moping about his father's disappearance and pulling a prank. Alan Bradley, his father's best friend, informs Sam one day that he received a page from his father's office phone at his arcade. Alan tells Sam that the number has been disconnected for 20 years and that's why it's so important. Alan still has hope that Flynn is alive and well, and that he hasn't abandoned his profession and Sam, so he gives Sam the keys to the arcade. Sam walks there and discovers his father's work station, where he finds himself in the Grid after entering a few codes. He is exposed to a variety of contests after being mistaken for a program, but when they realize he is not a program but a user, he is released. He is taken to the head man, whom Sam believes to be his father, but who is eventually revealed to be CLU, who forces Sam to participate in a light cycle battle. Sam is rescued by Quorra, a computer program that transports him to his father. That's when he tells Sam that CLU turned on him and was intending to invade their planet to "repair" its flaws, so he shut down the portal, trapping himself inside, and never returned.

Design Aesthetic

Tron was the main design inspiration for my project because I really like the dark backgrounds with the neon details because I feel like sci fi has to have some neon aspects of design. I also like how the neon on the outfits outlines the shape of their bodies. The neon trails the motorcycles leave behind are also one of the reason I like neon so much because it lights up the background easily.

Similarities to Alice in Wonderland

-both main characters are transported to an unfamiliar world in search for someone (Alice looking for white rabbit / Sam looking for his father)

-both are entered into a game/fight by the main antagonist (Alice and the croquet game with the queen /Sam and the light cycle battle)

[gay-jesus-probably]

Pls talk about your Tron & Rinzler are different personalities headcanon because that's a headcanon of mine too & I saw your post in the tron legacy tag && got rly excited that someone else has that headcanon ahaa

Anon, I will gladly talk about this FOREVER.

Okay so first of all, let me just address the fact that yeah. I know. There is literally no evidence whatsoever in canon for this. But yknow. Rinzler says about nine words total, so whatever’s going on in his head is not going to be shared in a movie. If Legacy was done on a written medium (book or comic) Rinzler probably would have gotten at least one or two scenes from his perspective. But it’s a movie, and we don’t even have facial expressions, so we need to fill in the blanks ourselves of how he gets from ‘loyal enforcer’ to ‘I FIGHT FOR THE USERS’.

And for the record, I’d like to just say that the entire reason I have this headcanon at all is the fic Domestic by tehkittykat on Ao3, the plot of it being that Alan finds what he thinks is Tron dying in the Grid after the events of the movie, repairs him, brings him out into the real world, but upon waking up we find that surprise Tron’s long dead it’s literally just Rinzler, and the plot follows him settling in to the User world, and dealing with the aftermath of like everything from Clu. If you haven’t read it, go read it.

So preamble done with, let’s get into the real meta.

So in the post Anon’s referencing (this one) I mention that I think Tron and Rinzler are separate personalities, and basically different people, due to them having vastly different fighting styles and behaviour. And I believe that for a variety of reasons. I mean for a start, Rinzler can’t possibly be basically just a really fancy black guard. He’s not a standard re-purposed program. First of all, there’s the glaring problem. Tron wasn’t coded by Kevin Flynn. He was made by Alan Bradley. Kevin Flynn is the kind of man who spontaneously wanders out into the wastelands and makes the most important program on the Grid with a fucking mirror or whatever. He’s got all the raw talent and creativity, but not the focus and drive. Wheras on the flip side, it’s canon somewhere that Tron started being programmed two years before the events of the movie. And that the entire thing was Alan’s very slow ultimate gambit to take out the MCP, with plan A being Tron is completed and deletes MCP for being dangerous, and plan B being Tron is deleted by MCP, and the MCP going after independent security gives Alan all the proof he needs to pull the plug from the outside. Heads I win, tails you lose. And he spent two years working on it, apparently covering his ass with a paper trail (”Yes Mr. Dillinger I sent you a memo on my Tron project”), and also got in good with Gibbs to stop him from getting fired without reason. My point is, Alan Bradley is damn meticulous, and Tron’s coding definitely reflects that. So when it comes to repurposing, the standard work we see in Uprising wouldn’t be enough. Clu probably had to manually overwrite Tron’s code, and it probably was a long and frustrating process. Flynn’s coding probably has holes. Alan’s, not so much.

So, that’s the first reason. Rinzler would have to be much more complex than any black guard, because Tron’s coding would be deeply confusing and borderline alien to Clu, and much more meticulously written than any other program on the Grid, including Clu. I’d imagine if an ISO or User was ever repurposed, it would be the same story, on account of them being fundamentally different from anything Clu is used to.

Second of all, as I’ve mentioned, the biggest clue (no pun intended) is the fighting style. Just look at Tron fighting in the original, Uprising, and the flashback in Legacy. He stays planted on the ground. He’s not flipping around, either with an audience or without. Wheras Rinzler, as we all know, might as well be flying for all he stays on the ground. The man is made of unnecessary acrobatics, and let’s all be honest here it’s fucking awesome. But it’s about as far removed from Tron’s style as you can get. I mean obviously, both are getting the same badassery ranking, but Tron’s more of a ‘straightforwards brute strength’ style, while Rinzler is a ‘momentum and using opponents own actions against them’ kind of fighter. Both damn good, but very different. Rinzler’s ridiculously dynamic. And he’s like that the entire movie. A few meta posts suggest that he was programmed by Clu to drag out arena fights with his acrobatic style, but that’s only really taking in mind the arena fight against Sam. We do see him fight again, against Quorra on the Recitifier, and against Sam and Quorra on the Throneship. There’s no audience for those fights, and more importantly, there’s no Clu. If Rinzler was going to switch back to Tron’s sharp, efficient style, that would be the time. But instead, he sticks with the flipping, and handles things in the same style. Sure, he does it a lot faster, but that’s probably because Sam in the arena was being approached as ‘goddamn idiot walked right into this, might as well fuck with him first’, while Sam and Quorra later on are both taken as ‘this is serious lets get this shit over with quickly’. I feel like if it was just a badly corrupted Tron in there, he’d switch back to his normal fighting style the second Clu wasn’t watching. Muscle memory and all, or whatever the program equivalent is. But he doesn’t, because that was never Rinzler’s style to begin with.

And overall, just. Experience. I think it’s unanimously agreed that Rinzler does not have access to Tron’s memories, and is not supposed to, because you really don’t want your brainwashed enforcer to remember how much he hates you. That’s just common sense. So, even if Rinzler started out as just a brainwashed and corrupted Tron, he’s around for roughly 20 years, give or take however long Uprising lasts. And time moves slower in the Grid, so it’s more like over a thousand years by their standards I think. My point is, Tron’s around for about nine human years, Rinzler’s around for about twenty. Even if they’re not a split personality, Tron’s going to come out of the whole experience more Rinzler than Tron (AND WE ARE NOT EVEN CONSIDERING HIM DYING AT THE END OF THE MOVIE THEY DON’T SPECIFICALLY SHOW HIM DEREZZING SO HE’S ALIVE AS FAR AS I CARE FUCK YOU). And really, Clu is Clu. There’s no fucking way Rinzler had a safe and supportive enviroment during that 20-ish years. The man tortured and brainwashed him, and as we see, has some stunning anger issues. I think it’s a unanimous fandom agreement that Clu was majorly abusive towards Rinzler, because there’s no risk of retaliation, nobody to stop him, and Clu’s already got Issues over Tron. I mean, just re-watch Legacy (it’s on Netflix), and pay close attention to Rinzler’s body language. His posture becomes hunched over and submissive whenever Clu’s in the scene with him. He looks like he wants to bolt sometimes. It’s subtle, but the staging and body language definitely implies some very not good things happening to Rinzler during pretty much his entire life. So even if there’s no split personality to start with, Tron was used to either loyally serving a caring higher power (Alan, Flynn, and pre-coup Clu) or fighting against a tyrannical oppressor (MCP and post-coup Clu). His relationship with figures of authority was either something positive, or something openly antagonistic that he openly fought against. And on the flip side, Rinzler only ever served under Clu. He didn’t have the option to leave the abusive situation, or even openly resist it. His only options would have been to endure, and to quietly manipulate events and people to protect himself. Like, during the scene where he’s dragging Quorra off to what is implied to be some very fucking horrifying things? Rinzler doesn’t show any hesitation at all, and I’m willing to bet that his thought process is something along the lines of ‘if Clu’s focusing on her, he’s not paying attention to me’, because that’s what abusive situations do to your head. Everything comes down to survival, and protecting yourself. Your priorities shift dramatically, because they have to, or you’re not going to make it. Ironically, the best way to survive abuse is to pick up abusive traits to defend yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with protecting yourself from your abuser, the real struggle is trying to get rid of the abusive traits once you get out. Rinzler’s likely about as far away from Tron’s ‘holy paladin’ type as possible. They may not have been a split personality at first, but they would inevitably get there just from the vastly different lives and experiences. It’s nature vs. nurture.

As for Rinzler not talking, it’s kind of annoying that we never get a canon explanation for that. Personally, I figure that it’s either ‘severe damage to the talking parts makes speech painful and difficult’, or ‘Clu has ordered Rinzler to only speak when absolutely necessary’. Or possibly some combination of the two. Either way, it means we just don’t get Rinzler’s view on the matter, which deeply upsets me. Because, as I’ve mentioned, Legacy treats Rinzler like shit, a writer deserves to be slapped for the line “Tron, what have you become”, and my husband needs to be saved.

In summary, read Domestic, fuck the Legacy writers, Rinzler and Tron are different personalities, and if anyone wants to know my full opinions on what the fuck was up between Rinzler and Clu just ask because a full examination of that one is going to need it’s own post and a nice assortment of trigger warnings.

and I meant to go to bed and answer this in the morning but i kept writing this in my head so i gave up and got up to write this. i’m going to bed now. ur welcome everybody.

[coupleofdays]

I think Flynn might be somewhat comparable to Victor Frankenstein (Shelley's original, to my shame I haven't watched any movie adaptation): A scientific genius who in his hubris creates a person, and then abandons his creation when it turns out to be something other than what he expected. And while his creation certainly does some awful things, the big question is what responsibility the creator has for it.

It's also interesting to compare Flynn in Legacy to Dillinger in the original film (especially since the first film ends with Flynn taking the role of boss over ENCOM from Dillinger). Both create programs (MCP and Clu) that grow beyond the creator's intentions and wants to have influence over the "real world", threatening their creators and becoming the major antagonists of their respective films. The difference being that Dillinger apparently did it for self-serving, greedy reasons, while Flynn is paving the metaphorical road (information superhighway?) to hell with his good intentions.

While I am a little personally disappointed in Tron Legacy for not reflecting contemporary computer technology the way the original Tron did, I do think it has an interesting thematic reflection about the state of the tech industry, somwhat similar to what I've previously written about the original being an allegory for the move away from centralized computing. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but I think Tron Legacy can be seen as an allegory for modern tech "gurus" and other big names in the industry (white dudes, mostly) suffering from the classic "engineer's disease", that is, thinking "I'm good at programming computers, therefore I must be good at everything else", wanting to apply their tech knowledge to fields such as philosophy and politics. "Creating the perfect system", if you will. Not to mention how this seems to have lead to many of these people embracing right-wing, reactionary, or even fascist ideas.

Kevin Flynn seems to be what we'd like to think these "techbros" should be, a laid-back, idealistic genius wanting to use technology to create a utopia. Meanwhile, Clu is his dark reflection, the flaws in his ideals and problematic aspects of his supposed utopia taken to an extreme. Or, in other words, what "techbros" have actually turned out to be. Of course, if the film had been *really* daring, it would have made Flynn the actual villain, but I guess they didn't want to tarnish the image of the hero from the original film too much. Still, making the villain look exactly like him, and be a reflection of his flaws, is pretty interesting.

As I said, I'm not sure if this theme was intentional, mainly because I'm unsure when people seriously started questioning the intentions of the Sillicon Valley geniuses. But that might be because I personally wasn't following those kinds of discussions at the time. The first film I remember where I was actually thinking "okay, they're clearly making the villain Mark Zuckeberg" was Batman v Superman.

In any case, it would be fun if the upcoming third Tron film continued with this theme now that more people have become aware of it (what with Musk embarrasing himself almost daily). But I'm not expecting Disney allowing it to be too radical, at best the filmmakers might manage to sneak some aspects of it in to be picked up by those looking close enough. Who knows, maybe that was what the creators of Tron Legacy did.