botanicalbonelord:

I think one thing that fascinates me so much about Kevin Flynn is his inherent devotion to independence. In the original Grid, Programs were directed by Users to do their jobs, and honestly didn’t seem to have much life outside of that (like what we see when Flynn crashes the Recognizer, or when Ram talks about how he’s passionate about his work.) Games are used as torture, not recreation. But in the Legacy Grid, every Program- except for the ISOs- is created by Flynn, and while they all have jobs, there is also a rich aspect of leisure time. They work on their jobs without directives from Users, and they also have fun. Games, clubs, fashion, all things that humans love, are written into Flynn’s Programs. He wants them to have good lives, not because he’s some benevolent god, but because independence and feeling fulfilled are ideals he genuinely believes in.

I agree this probably was Flynn’s intention. But at the same time, his idea of what programs would like to do for fun was based entirely on his own idea of fun from the human world.

If he’d paid better attention to the digital world while he was in there, he’d have taken more notice of what he saw when he crashed the Recognizer– there are programs who seem obliviously focused on their work, yes, but there are also ones who seem to be actively interested in leisure and fashion. I’m fairly convinced he walked right past the entrance to a program club of some sort, right here…

And there’s even more rich culture in the bits he didn’t see. If we’re counting the Deleted Scene, Yori devotes her leisure time to so much fashion and creativity…

Plus, the idea that the games were only used for torture seems to be an exclusively MCP-ruled detail. When MCP tells Sark in the beginning, “I can arrange more lethal matches,” the implication seems to be that this is a change he’s making, and the games programs play are non-lethal by default.

For some of them it may be their job. For others it may be pure recreation. But honestly, I imagine that for most programs in their natural state, there is not such a clear line between work and play. A well-assigned program is doing its ideal job, the sort of job that’s a calling, a personal passion.

The MCP was the one who assigned programs to jobs they didn’t love.

And I think Flynn, unintentionally, in his attempts to give programs the kind of life he thought would be fun– unfortunately did some of that, too.