The Panto Mask Laws of Robotics
So much to love about the Termina and Bolaire scene this ep, but one of my faves is that Brennan and Taliesin are playing with the laws of robotics, Isaac Asimov style.
Isaac Asimov was hella misogynist and it makes a lot of his writing worse, but his best work are his short stories set in a universe where robots are programmed to obey three laws of robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The short stories set in this universe explore the nuances of these laws, how they conflict, and how different robots might interpret those nuances. For example, there's one story in which a robot interprets the First Law to mean that it should start manipulating people on a massive scale in order to reduce their harmful behaviors toward each other. After all, if the robot didn't do this, it would be allowing human beings to come to harm through inaction.
From Taliesin interviews and what we saw in this episode, the Laws of Robotics for the Panto masks appear to be:
Bolaire interprets the First Law to mean that he should also kill people who aspire to become gods, or who behave like the Shapers did. Termina interprets the First Law to mean "kill the gods, and once you run out of gods to kill, make more so you can keep killing them."
My prediction is that the second programming directive will also soon be subject to differing interpretations. For Bolaire, loving Termina might mean having to stop her from doing something terrible. For Termina, loving Bolaire might mean that he ought to join her on her quest to make a new god she can kill.
