#the fact we got a twist instead of a show that androids can treasure humans as equals irritates me

[nothinggathers]

So a thought I keep coming back to about Detroit: Become Human is how Connor is the only android to ever put his mission, his goals, and his existence on the line for a human.

Hear me out.

Markus loves Carl like a father, but he never stops what he's doing for Carl's sake. You can, without question, come to a conclusion where Carl is alive and have Markus use a dirty bomb. None of Markus decisions can come at the expense of a human he cares about. Markus can take the pacifist route and let his people get killed to refrain from hurting humans, but that's a tactical choice Markus makes about how to win over a watching population.

Kara should have had that potential for sacrifice in her story. She saves Alice, drags her around the city, can steal for her and threaten others for her and sacrifice herself and others for her. Except because someone thought a twist was more important, Alice is an android. So Kara's story is about an android family, and the lengths they'll go to for each other. The revelation that androids will fight and sacrifice for other androids is not a revelation at this point. It just is.

Daniel loves Emma, but when he might be taken away from her he threatens to throw her off a roof. He tells the player, about a dying policeman, "All humans die eventually. What does it matter if this one dies now?"

And then there's Connor. If Connor is a machine he can be ruthless and unforgiving and coldly calculating.

But Connor can also not be that. Connor can put his first mission on the line for a human he doesn't know, to save a policeman's life.

Connor can let a deviant escape to save Hank's life.

Connor can sacrifice his own existence, at least in this body, to shield Hank, or he can destroy the deviant he wanted to capture alive to save many more.

Connor does this despite pressure from his creators. He does this knowing that these failures could lead to his own destruction.

And in the end, the very end, if Connor does all this and becomes a fully fledged deviant, he can also put the entire android revolution on the line. His existence, the existence of all androids, the freedom of an entire species can be risked to save Hank. Everything Connor is, and wants, and set out to do gets put aside because another Connor puts a gun to Hank.

Nobody else gets to make those sacrifices for humans.

Connor does it for Hank literal minutes after murdering two guards in an elevator. Two dudes that were just hired to do a job and happened to be in the way get unflinching bullets put in them.

But not Hank.

And even if Connor doesn't go deviant, if he had a good relationship with Hank he can refuse to kill him. He can pull him back off the roof and let himself get killed instead of killing Hank.

No other android gets those choices.

#dbh #detroit become human #thoughts #don't get me wrong i like this game #the writing is not good #but i can like contrived melodrama #the fact we got a twist instead of a show that androids can treasure humans as equals irritates me #i know the thing with Alice is about asking the player if she's somehow less important now #but it significantly weakened the actual story to do that #and then there's Connor #weird little Connor #who has been programmed to want approval so badly that it takes precedence over his directives #and you get this #a calculating murderbot that just so happens to want this one dude to like him #just this one dude apparently #you can be some innocent grunt employed by the wrong company and die at his hands #but god forbid you threaten a hair on Hank's head #connor has figured out what matters to him #and he will go to any lengths necessary to compete his mission of keeping that safe