B//Eeby Superhell

This show is full of people whose lives are ruined by their contact with that system. Direct targeted victims, collateral damage, and betrayed operatives...no one gets away unscathed. John and Kara were both used, betrayed, and tossed out like garbage. Joss Carter tried to do the right thing in a broken system over and over, first in the military, then as a cop, and it eventually cost her life. Shaw, Snow, eventually Control herself. All these people used up and then tossed aside, all for their country. As John said, they always say that.

John and Finch have saved many numbers who were being targeted by the ISA over the years, some just for knowing or guessing the machine existed. Every programmer who had any contact with it, dead. Elias, Dominic...executed on the street without a trial. Countless relevant numbers murdered over the years, and what if they weren't even the perpetrators? Jessica, left to be collateral damage. Peter Collier and Vigilance, set up as patsies to justify greater surveillance. Nathan Ingram, murdered by the very people he sold the machine to along with hundreds of others who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Control said she was directly responsible for 854 deaths in the name of national security. How many of those were innocent civilians? How many would she have to kill, over how many years without another 9/11, before she realized she was the only terrorist her fellow countrymen need fear?

And just like Harold was naive when he trusted that the government would investigate the relevant numbers instead of just executing them, the government was naive when they handed over all that information to Decima, trusting that they would only use it to track terrorist threats. Harold was willing to sacrifice everyone's privacy. The government sacrificed everyone's freedom. Even the random civilians Samaritan contacted for its tests were willing to give up their autonomy for some additional comfort and security. Asking questions was discouraged, then punished, then a lot of people just didn't bother.

harold finch is obviously victor frankenstein coded and i assume harold himself knows that perfectly well. his fear and rejection of the machine in early seasons, the way he had spent years of teaching her morals just to make sure the creature situation doesn't happen, took away her voice and memories—all this gives me the impression that harold not only knew about this role he had to play, but also accepted it in a way. him constantly fighting and overcoming his god complex is a major part of his character, and yet he realised that there is no way to make a good-working system to prevent terrorist attacks than to make that system comprehend human emotions and logic. in other words, it had to be somewhat alive, and this is the ultimate act of hubris which caused the chain of the tragic events that exactly mirror the tragedy of frankenstein: losing their best friends (with homoerotic undertones) and fiancée alongside with other innocent people. of course, the machine didn't kill anyone herself unlike the creature from the novel, but her existence still costed harold dearly. the only difference is that harold probably expected that ending in one way or another, since playing god like he had to never ends well

and just like harold is written to be this sort of homage to victor (at least in my head), ben very much parallels the creature. his mother died at birth cough cough just like mary shelley's mother leaving him with emotionally absent and abusive father who didn't want him anymore simply for being born "wrong". ben was left to himself his whole childhood, later becoming isolated on an island with almost no peers nor right parent figures who'd teach him the right and wrong. instead, he ended up working for the others, being stuck between two worlds when both of which didn't actually want him. the only friend he actually had was taken from ben, leaving him lonely and starving for attention and love which later got twisted into his obsession with juliet (aka his "bride"). ben was forced to adapt to realities of the adult world from a very young age, being turned into a weapon and ending up killing his father. but was that enough? of course not, because at the same time jacob entered his life—another father figure and someone who used ben before abandoning him and leaving him to suffer and walk in the darkness for years before ben killed him as well. there's also widmore, basically copy and paste everything i said above, but more importantly there's alex. she plays the role of william or, more specifically, she's the kidnapped child that creature wished to raise on his own terms so he wouldn't be alone anymore. and unlike the creature ben did manage to do that, but even so, just like william alex rejected that idea, seeing right through ben. and just like william, she died because of "the creature", who was too obsessed with the crumbs of power and control he had. both ben and the creature weren't born evil nor they had to be, but ultimately they were broken enough to make the wrong choices and lose themselves in the revenge and trauma their abusers gave them. well, at least ben got his kind of a happy ending

Chris Fisher posted this photo with a note: "They look like big, strong hands don't they?"