encom-official:

So, some thoughts about Tron: Identity & program religion.

Prinz, the user fanatic you meet, has a collection of user artifacts in his office. This gives us some insight into possible program religion- though keep in mind this does not take place in the system we’re familiar with to the best of my knowledge. It seems like in this interpretation the religion surrounding Kevin Flynn largely resembles Christianity, with the talk of a literal second coming of the messiah. Personally I dislike this version of program spirituality, because it feels too similar to human religion, & also Christianity is always the default base for religious fiction, which often assumes Christian thought is the baseline. This is flawed for quite a few reasons.

In Legacy, we see Flynn’s acolytes dressed in robes, with shaved heads, & markings on their foreheads. They bow to Flynn when he walks by, resembling monks in a way. I prefer this interpretation, but at the same time Tron Legacy suffers a bit from a problem a lot of sci-fi has, which is orientalist uses of Asian aesthetics for a ‘futuristic’ & ‘exotic’ look. Granted, Legacy is far more excusable then say, Star Wars, because Flynn’s meditation & “zen thing” can easily be attributed to a sort of…specific middle aged dad aesthetic you would associate with a guy who was young in the 70s & 80s.

I would love to hear some thoughts about what you imagine program religion to be like- related to Flynn or not. Do you think it would be entirely alien to us? Or would they perhaps learn of human religion & attempt to imitate it?

Ooooh!

I mean I’m very very 1982-focused, and in that movie (though it’s conveyed with a fairly small amount of actual onscreen material) …I think we get a very rich idea of what Program religion is like before any of them meet a User “in-person.”

And it’s… remarkably varied!

For one, we have Crom, who believes in his User in pretty much the same way employees believe in their boss. The existence of the User is just simply obvious, not up for question. He even knows his User’s name– not screenname, but the name other Users likely call him– and job title!

And the belief that the User will be angry about Crom being stolen, and will try to get him back, is also taken pretty much for granted.

Being called a “religious nut” for this, and then being asked if he believes in the Users, seems to baffle him.

His version of User-belief initially gave me the impression that the oppression of User-believers is less like religious persecution, and more like the (sadly common) persecution and gaslighting of people who believe in clear scientific facts like climate change and germ theory.

Clu is somewhat similar. He follows Flynn’s commands like a soldier obeying his superior– he has no doubt whatsoever that Flynn exists. He expresses occasional brief doubts about whether Flynn’s plan will work, but when Flynn shuts down his objections he lapses into obedience.



When captured and tortured for information about his User, he refuses– so adamantly that the MCP seems to accept right away that no amount of pain will get him to betray Flynn.


Basically, Clu is a “my User, right or wrong” kind of believer. He knows Flynn is not perfect, but he also knows that it is not his place to defy Flynn, and he sticks to that devoutly.

(As for Christian imagery… there is definitely a bit of that, with Clu.)


…

Then we have Tron, whose faith is a bit complex. He has definite reverence for Alan-1– not only when we see him looking up adoringly in the Tower, but before then too, when he seems not just surprised but almost scandalized at Flynn casually saying Alan’s name, as if he’s taking it in vain.

But we also see him expressing… less than absolute faith, when Ram asks him if the Users are still there.

I’ve talked about this before– but 1982 Tron is very confident in himself. And here I think we’re seeing him being more confident in himself, as an instrument of the Users, than he is in the Users’ ability to do things on their own.

Basically, I think Tron recognizes that Users are very much not all-powerful, and that they need Programs in order to get things done.

But at the same time, he realizes that that means he has a sacred duty to help them– which he takes very seriously.

We also see him having high confidence in the Users at least having a plan for how things will get done– until he gets that faith somewhat shattered by Flynn.


In addition to the Programs’ individual feelings about Users, there’s also a well-established structure to their religion. They have the I/O Towers, where they communicate with their Users, and these look like a sort of temple.



And they have the Tower Guardians, who are sort of priests to the User Temple… and they conduct a sort of ceremony for each program who enters, which has very ritualized steps to it.

And, as my horny brain has thoroughly explored and written about before– if you’re looking for it, this whole ceremony also feels very sexualized, too.

Putting this all together?

I’d say, honestly– (and I’ve said this before)–ancient Greek religion is the closest thing. We already have a lot of Greek-and-Roman-inspired imagery in Tron— from the gladiator battles to the discus– and the religion fits into that on multiple levels.