Black Mirror: USS Callister

[AndrewGPaul]

From what I took from this video, the protagonist isn’t the guy who created the game, it’s the people stuck in it. Specifically, the new start who became captain at the end. It’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream with a happier ending. With that in mind, the thin characterisation of the bad guy doesn’t matter so much - there’s enough there to tell the story, from what I can see. There’s a touch of Roko’s Basilisk in there when the child is chucked out the airlock, although it doesn’t extend all the way to the real world (well, except when the heroine blackmails herself, I suppose).

(In fact, this episode is mentioned in passing in the RationalWiki article on Roko’s Basilisk)

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Black Mirror is a pretty sharp satire from what I can tell,

About as sharp as a lead bowling ball

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

People like him are very bad at hiding their true nature.

That was my biggest problem with this episode. Sociopath's are usually superficially charming at first glance but when you work in an office with them every day you quickly come to know exactly what they are and how to keep them at a distance as much as possible. Nothing Daly did in the office scenes indicated that he was one of those people. As Chuck said, the worst thing we ever see him do outside the game is not tip the pizza man.

This show just has a chronic problem with strawman characters and vapid plots, but I don't necessarily think it's intentional. The creator, Charlie Brooker is a solid writer with the ability to distill the familiar into a witty and coherent satire but it doesn't seem to come across very well in Black Mirror. It may be that the tech and cultural issues covered in the show just aren't his thing.

Yeah more hints of his creepyness in the office would make sense, but that would take away from the Shocking Twist that this poor abused person you sympathize with is Actually Evil. Much like Game of Thrones Season 8, Black Mirror seems more interested in surprising twists that "fool" the viewers than cohesive stories that make sense in hindsight.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think a missed opportunity was for the main character to also be a 'Space Force' fan, and keep on harping about how, "This isn't how the show is, you're just sick."

Without that, it seems like a meanspirited jab at Trek fans because Cole's liking of the Star Trek pastiche is quickly dismissed as something she saw once upon a time, whereas Daly is a fan, and he's quickly proven to be what's wrong with society.

I disagree, it doesn't come off that way because Daly is so antithetical to it that it's more a case of 'i didn't think I had to point it out" he even outlays what star trek represents when talking about spacefleet before screaming at them for ruining it and turning one of them into a beast. Having her be as big a fan would have been an interesting dynamic but explicitly pointing out that he's a monster and not what the moral of the show was would have been ham fisted.

As it is so subtle restrained and even tempered otherwise?
Villifying illtempered geeks to win social brownie points is a decade old activity for the geek media providers for me at this point. I am no longer eager for the weird you are a monster my fans thanks for my TED-talk/testimony takes. It reeks of taking your Twitter argument to market. A ripped from your RSS feed. And frankly I want more abusive females and their easily mocked insecurities and boundary violations and social shit stirring ESPECIALLY without yass queen presentations before I give this very overdone plot a benefit of the doubt.


If need reason DNA works? The system is gene-tuned. He is getting a clone by indexing system so all users or their data get a facsimile uploaded and copied into the SIM.
It's the key to get a profile not the source of the profile.

I have to admit I'm amazed at how people on here can look at this and go the real villains are Daly's co-workers.

It doesn't look like anyone's said that explicitly, but it's a valid position to argue for IMO. It depends whether the characters he creates really are anything other than video game NPCs which look like people he knows, and whether or not he realises it. But his coworkers are a bunch of jerks, they don't get let off the hook for that even if Daly is a bigger one.

Chuck's wrap-up where he points out that his co-workers don't like him because he really is that bad of a person and they've caught on to it is what bothers me most of all. Because effectively that says without genuine judgment assessment of him what they're doing and why they do it is GOOD and WISE. Someone can judge you, push you aside, and that's good because they're keeping themselves safe from the dangerous prickly bomb person.
All the worse because he's not torturing people he's torturing digital clones of people. We've seen how this is bringing out the worst of him but this is deliberately equated to who he is in real life. Where we then see a bunch of petty or bad at elements to his character but relatively tame things. oh no he doesn't tip the pizza delivery guy! Oh no he wishes the girl that was nice to him thought he was sexy and became upset! So he created a virtual version of her in order to work out all of his wrath and issues without actually having to socialize. and killed a kid.

Well no need for you to worry about why you don't like that introverted of weirdo who has an obsession or does this or that thing that sent you off. You're just that damn woke you can realize all those awful personality traits that he has and if you get close to him he's going to rape you or turn you into a monster or is otherwise Psychopathic. That introvert and frustrated nerd guy? totally psychopath you know because he's sullen and tips poorly and looks at porn!

Just be glad you're not closer to him or he doesn't have more power over you. And this is where it really breaks down in this instance. As CTO he does have that power over them. We don't see him abusing people in real life. At best he does his one creepy hobby take a bit of them and then create effigies in which to torment.
Even This Thread makes a big deal about the fact that he killed a kid. He did not kill a child he killed a video game character that looked and acted like a kid.

And then it's summed up that all this virtual bad behavior where he's pretty much powerless and doesn't have any real impact on their actual lives. Means that he's such a bad person that it's okay if someone systematically mistreated him or just hate him for the same s*** that we hate about him such as flirting with coworkers. Or snubbing them. And he deserves braindeath for violent isolated fantasies!
editted for aesthetics and corrections.

You seem really dedicated to defending things that are indefensible, from the main character to the DNA plot device. I'd just accept that it's magic science in anotherwise near-future technologically grounded story. DNA doesn't contain everything you learned, your reactions, your language, your memories, nor can all of that be extracted from your online gaming profile or company bio.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Black Mirror is a pretty sharp satire from what I can tell,

About as sharp as a lead bowling ball

haha!

do you really dismiss it?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I haven't seen that much of it, but the episodes I did watch were underwhelming enough that I had no desire to see more, and the plot synopsises I've heard do nothing to encourage me to reassess that opinion. I've heard of maybe 1 total episode that didn't sound abysmal.

[Worffan101]

Black Mirror is a pretty sharp satire from what I can tell,

About as sharp as a lead bowling ball

haha!

do you really dismiss it?

I don't see a problem with dismissing a show that thinks that the height of Twilight Zone-esque morality-tale subtlety is literally pig-fucking.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sir I never

[Scififan]

I have seen his kind of person in Role Playing Games as well. Eventually you will run into that guy that always wants to play an all powerful character that can do everything. They can never work within a group and do the whole thing as a kind of power trip.

[FaxModem1]

Sir I never

No, really, that was the first episode:

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Anthem_(Black_Mirror)[/url]