real nice night for an evening

I don’t think it was jealousy, and definitely not because of anything to do with Holloway’s relationship with Shaw. David poisoned him for two equally important yet distinct reasons: to fulfill his assignment (given to him by Weyland) of examining their organic finds, and because Holloway was an ass. It’s important to remember that Holloway, while being a decent partner (he’s clearly supportive of Shaw in a very blatant way, and I don’t recall him being insensitive save for the conversation with her about the importance of childbearing and its impact on ones purpose in life), was clearly unaccepting of David in every possible aspect. Holloway was the only of the team to distinctly point out David’s difference to the rest of the team, and singled him out often enough. 

The conversation that David and Holloway have when David poisons him is significant in understanding why David does what he does. Like I mentioned before, he’s been given a different purpose for being on the Prometheus that goes beyond being Vickers’ errand boy. David is there because David alone can learn as much about the Engineers’ language and culture as fast as he did, and with that knowledge, he’s an asset to the team’s research; but David’s loyalty to Weyland is also crucial to the “success” of the mission from Weyland’s point of view: David, as a synthetic, is incapable of being “too soft” in a way that would otherwise hinder experimental success. David won’t think twice about poisoning someone to test out the effects of what they find in the cave. David will do it because it’s the easiest and most logical method to get clear results—that is, David was going to poison someone anyway, but it didn’t have to be Holloway for any better reason than it could’ve been Shaw, herself. 

The fact that David chose Holloway is, to me, the first major suggestion that David goes beyond the typical, unfeeling robot. David isn’t supposed to feel jealousy, or anger, or offense, but he understands the emotions well (part of David 8′s promotional material is that he does have a very good understanding of emotion, though he “cannot feel them himself”). The situation presents itself perfectly. David asks how far Holloway is willing to go to find the answers he’s looking for. He asks what Holloway is “willing to do”, and Holloway replies instantly with, “Anything and everything”. If there was some minuscule part of David’s ethics that suggested he needed permission of any sort to poison someone without telling them for the “greater good” of science, this is exactly what Holloway has given him. If Holloway is willing to do anything and everything to get answers, and David’s little poison experiment serves to get some answers itself, then poisoning Holloway is a logical choice, and so he does it. 

But while this is very straightforward, it’s important to note here that David had the sample of organic substance on his finger before this conversation even started. He entered the room already with the intention of poisoning Holloway, and that is the distinction between a choice of “calculated reason” and “personal preference”. David isn’t supposed to feel emotions, but it’s clear that he wishes to be as similar to humans as possible even with his constraints (see the scene of him rewatching Lawrence of Arabia, dying his hair, mimicing Lawrence’s dialogue). He can’t feel offense, but he understands perfectly that from the way Holloway has treated him, he should be offended—any real person would be offended. He can’t feel that physically, but he sees the cues that he’s being mistreated, and he knows that this behaviour would elicit a negative response were he human. And so, he has come to “dislike” Holloway in as much capacity as he can, because even that is the logical thing to do. From any point of view he could possibly take, he is entitled to disliking Holloway above the others based on Holloway’s treatment of him. 

David poisons Holloway with the justification that Holloway himself said he’d do anything to get answers, and that in doing so, he is completing Weyland’s orders. But beneath that is the underlying fact that David’s conscious decision to poison Holloway even before asking him what he was willing to do for this mission shows David’s ability to make “emotional” decisions in the same way that people are able to. I think that this is something he decided to do himself, as part of his process of aligning himself as closely to humans as possible, but at the same time, there are little instances (like this one) throughout the movie that suggest that David has the ability to do more than just “understand” emotions in a factual sense. He’s completely self-aware: he knows that he’s “not a real boy”, as Holloway put it, he knows that he’s a manmade creation, but his emotional decision-making in this scene (and others!) is a serious and strong indicator of his potential to go beyond simply mimicking behaviours and facial expressions. 

I need a hero who finds themself again and again face-down in the mud and shattered remnants of their own mistakes but /always/ manages, somehow, to get back up. No matter if someone pushed them there or if they tripped on their own faults, they pick themself back up and /keep going/. Not because they have to, not because the world’s at stake, but just because they’re trying so hard to be /good/. 

Tony Stark is my hero because he’s had his trust betrayed so many times, but it hasn’t turned him angry and bitter like too many other characters. Because no matter how deep in the dark he gets, he never stops caring about the world, about /people/. 

Because his brain moves at a thousand miles and hour and I know what that’s like, how isolating it can be. Because he’s always wearing some kind of mask or another, because he’s /always had to/ and I know what that’s like, too. Because he carries his own shit on his own shoulders, and built his own superpowers with his mind and his skills and his own two grease-stained hands.

Study Break!