You know, I have a habit of writing characters with a certain amount of self-loathing, by default.
(which I think is partly because it makes for yummy angst, and partly just ‘cause it tends to be… the way characters are written, in lots and lots of fiction, and if you read a lot, it just kinda becomes a habit.)
(a habit that I made one little foray into breaking, with “A Lightcycle Built For Two,” because it was a self-indulgent thing to explore a couple of very broken but highly confident and self-centered OCs instead, who have a whole different kind of angst and drama that somehow felt more relatable to me personally.)
But anyway, I haven’t quite gotten out of the habit of giving the Encom programs the self-loathing kind of angst.
Which… I kinda want to, eventually?
because, as much as I like to explore that kind of emotional turmoil…
the Encom programs, going just by canon, seem to have fantastically high self-esteem.
Tron, with his “I’m also better than you!” and his “I’m gonna bust out of here, no question about that, the Users just better have their shit together enough to be there when I do”
Yori with her “it’s very illegal! and I can still do it, no prob, you can always count on me!”
Ram whose reply to a compliment is basically “duh, if I wasn’t awesome I’d be dead already”
and they’re not mean! they’re all sweethearts! but …they love themselves and believe in themselves, wholeheartedly.
I mean, not that they don’t know their limits. Ram warned Flynn and Tron that “just the three of us” wasn’t enough to defeat the MCP. Clu started to express his doubts, before Flynn shut him down with “buts are for Users.” Crom objected pretty fiercely at first to being drafted into the Games, since it was so far outside his purpose and he was sure he wouldn’t be good at it. Dumont argued with Tron about whether overthrowing the MCP was really possible, even with the help of his I/O Tower and a connection to Alan-1.
But they also know their strengths, and have no trouble owning up to what they are good at. When they’re confident, they’re confident.
Interesting, though, how the villain team consists of the most confident program of all–
and also the one who, secretly, is the least.
