Rori and her relationships
(putting official art in here as an eyecatcher lol)
Welcome to my TED Talk where I overanalize Rori's and Dex's dialogues from the Encore and ponder on Rori's relationships with people other than Charlie and Hemlock because I don't see it being talked enough and someone's gotta do it.
First of all - Prophet. From Rori's first two quests (the tree and the magazine), it is HEAVILY implied that Prophet had a huge impact on Rori's career and her person as a whole. The bonsai tree has the description "A gift from Rori to Prophet for helping guide her career. The inscription reads “Art from choice” in Korean", while in the magazine, Prophet says Rori had been the missing piece in their band, someone who finally made them sound complete and allowed them to reach the top charts - and I don't think Proph was saying it all just for the press. Let's remember those were the times before Charlie's death and even DEX HIMSELF calls all of them a family from that point of time. If a man that's a brooding emo teenager trapped in a grown man's body is calling a pack of people a family, you know it was true. Prophet is also a very down to earth type of guy, when he's not having his little prideful trips, he seems most grounded and a type of man to talk others through tough times with logic as well as giving real advices and how to solve problems. Him and Rori probably had a little bit of mentor/student type of relationship, a little bit like Stix and Charlie perhaps, except for the fact that the realness of Proph's character grounded Rori in reality of being in the band, connecting with others, being human. Back then, he probably encouraged her to find the right sound for her and paired with the fact that they were both on vocals (Proph with rapping, Rori lead singer later on, probably sharing the spot with Benny) helped her a lot in that too, because who else could understand her that well.
Now on with Dex. I think some of yall take the "Dex hates her hurr durr" thing a little too far. Yes, of course, he resents Rori for what she represents, that AI cannot be original, it only regurgitates and mutilates the original art, as well as the whole AI clones deal, but when you give it a deeper thought these two are each other's parallels.
Dex was a human that gave up his own body, becoming a literal machine, all for the sake of so called perfection and from technical standpoint Rori is perfect, can probably nail her performances ideally, she calculates everything and does everything according to numbers, lacking the unpredictibility of human error. All that's left human in Dex is his soul and mind.
Rori on the other hand would give up EVERYTHING to be human, to be able to feel free, would give it all up if it means being able to truly connect to people and not be constantly hooked up to some database that serves her information on silver platter (it creeps people out), being able to forget, make mistakes and learn slowly.
And despite those parallels, there's another point about these two - they were both forced in some way into who or what the become and they both were Harmony's pets at some point.
We know from early Reddit threats I'm pretty sure that Dex used to grow up with overbearing parents that put immense pressure on him. Rori is obviously Harmony's "product", they will make her do what they say, she had to join Dead as Disco by their command and she had to come back to them through the same means. They would understand what it means trying to defy your creator's wishes or surrender to them, a deep debate about autonomy and "Is it really what I want or is it something that was put upon me and it gives me the only validation in my life so I'm trying not to dig too much at that?" (Dex is SO not ready for this talk, please someone get that guy a therapist tho). Harmony screwed both of them over in different ways and in my opinion it's a point of possible connection, even Dex himsellf says "Here's the best I can do, Disco: She's not human, and she's dangerous. But we both know what it's like to be Harmony's pet freak.", as well as adding "…And we're both betting on Dead as Disco for whatever comes next. Good enough?"
All I'm tryna say is that yall sleep on Rori and Dex being potential friends bonded by their extreme experiences and realising that they're the exact opposites of each other and that one craves what the other was created/born with and that Rori's and Prophet's relationship is a lot more meaningful than we may think.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
(If some of yall recognize word for word what I wrote in here, yes, I just copied my messages to share it with the world)
