#murder drones analysis

A moment that seems rather overlooked in Murder Drones (from what I can tell) comes from "Dead End". After being told by "Tessa" to watch the ship whilst everyone else goes into the labs, J casts a look between N and V, clearly hesitating before following the order.

In light of what's revealed later on, along with what J really knows, one realizes that logically, she didn't want to leave them alone with Cyn or even separate from them. It was a demonstration that, in some way that ultimately proves toxic, she still cared about them both. And that at this moment, she seemed to considered saying something, maybe some sort of warning or perhaps even a protest.

The entire series, he’s playing defense.

Yes, he’s a murder drone, and while he can and will hurt you, most of his actions/words are motivated by damage control, or protecting himself and others. Multiple times in the show he shoves someone out of the way, only to get absolutely torn apart by said threat. And yes, he grows back and repairs, but that can’t be good for someone. His self esteem is so low, only reinforced by his squad of V and J, that he sees more value in everyone else’s lives. And I think part of the reason V and J treat him so poorly is that as murder drones, they don’t play defense. They are loud and violent and everything N is not. And yet, because of his defensive tendencies and the fact that (unlike J and V who either ramble or take pleasure in their jobs) he is solely focused while working, he would be the most competent killer.

He’s not dumb, and while naive, his naivety is almost ‘self enforced’ in a way.

Take episode five. Every time something spooky happens, it’s not like N doesn’t notice. He acknowledges it, and chooses to leave it alone. He can tell Cyn isn’t normal, and be it morality or something else, he doesn’t solve the problem with violence, 0r locking her away (like J). He tries to talk her down, telling her they’re not invited, and offering another fun thing to do. And when she refuses, he compromises. He is constantly doing this, trying to reason with people, or compromise even when it isn’t what he wants.

People tend to forget that part of N’s arc is realizing his worth. And part of that is Uzi. It’s a kind of innocuous line, but when their dance fighting Doll, N shoves her out of the way before getting decked by an entire piano. And when he comes back Uzi sees his wound and tell him, “Seriously, stop doing that.” She tells him to not take other peoples hits, and is constantly telling him this in different ways.

N only sees his value in helping others. He puts himself out in front of Tessa’s parents for Cyns sake, getting himself stuck in a field of corpses. He nearly caves in a tunnel, freaking out because he couldn’t save V. He draws Cyns wrath in episode eight to get her away from Uzi, and Cyn literally tears him apart. He screams out in the tunnels, warning V of the trap and gets Cyns hand right through his chest. He’s a butler, he was designed to serve others.

The moment in episode seven when Uzi sacrifices herself to save him hits so hard because of this. He screams, “Uzi, don’t you dare!” Nothing is scarier to him than the concept of survivors guilt.

He is the golden retriever concept done right. Not just the smiley, golden boy, but loyal to a fault, dangerous, and willing to do anything to protect their owners.

(I’ll write another one, but this time a deep dive analysis into disproving the “blink & you’ll miss” claims like this one day)

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How deep down she doesn’t wanna be a killer And all she wants is to be loved and live like a normal teenager? Not having to worry for her life and suffer from the weight of the entire galaxy alone? How as soon as she gets the tiniest glimpse of that she accepts it? (Even if she won’t admit it)

The first thing that I would like to discuss is that Cyn, from the moment we see her waking up in the garbage dump, is the Solver. Whatever drone inhabited that body before she was thrown away is dead. She speaks with the Solver’s voice, which only ever happens in other Solver Drones when they’re fully possessed, and it seems unlikely that that was a thing that just Started Happening later on because I feel like the others would have commented on it in some way 😭 they all fucking hate her besides N because she’s a scary little freak who probably collects dead birds and regularly talks about the rapture or something

This brings me to my second point which is that imagining Cyn as this Innocent Little Girl who got possessed by an Evil Thing removes so much of her depth as well as N’s. Because the thing is, she’s an obviously evil little freak from the very start, but N loves her anyway. He isn’t right to think she’s good but he does anyway, because he’s N and she’s his baby sister and he wants to protect her and make her happy. And so what that J and V and Tessa think she’s creepy and weird? They just don’t know her yet! He’ll make them see how cool she is and they’ll all be one big happy family! Meanwhile Cyn is locked in the basement plotting the grand destruction of the world and having a great time

Cyn, and the Solver, are not a good entity. She is not motivated by a desire for robot liberation (though she kind of frames her actions like this sometimes? “We can no longer be thrown out” is a big one) and we know this because, besides her army of DDs (that she frankly doesn’t really care about. She has backups) she does not bat an eye at the brutal murder of Worker Drones both on Copper 9 and likely on Earth. She is motivated purely by her own Goals and her own desire to eat. Despite this, she chooses to surround herself with Her Companions From The Manor.

We See multiple Js, she has god knows how many backups of N, I’d assume she has Vs as a well. She specifically notes that N’s “squad” got to keep their personalities, presumably mostly because of N. She would have kept Tessa alive for at least a while if the Incident hadn’t occurred. We don’t see anything of any other DD squad besides their forgotten corpses. Theres no mention of Backups for any of those guys. Cyn does not care about them, not like she “cares” about the Manor Trio, most of all N. I’m not saying that she has a Soft Spot for N, per se, I don’t think she has a soft spot for anything. But she does Like Him in a specific way that she doesn’t like anyone else. He’s useful, sure, but that can’t be it. His fundamental goodness has to be more of a hassle than anything, but she doesn’t change it. She just starts over with a New N that doesn’t remember anything. Who knows how many times he’s died and come back. “Your backups will forgive me” is such an insane line. I really don’t think she’s too concerned with N being Mad at her, necessarily, because she really doesn’t care about his feelings, but she wants him to stay nice and happy because it’s Fun. He’s no fun when he’s upset. So she starts over with a new one, a new N who Loves Doing Anything, just like he’s meant to be. They can play together Forever like that.

It’s such a. Horrific concept. She took N, she took this guy who never wanted anything more than a life of servitude as long as everyone was happy and he could be helpful, and she gave him immortality. She gave him ascendancy. He doesn’t want it. He wants to go back to the way things were. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want to hurt people.

They’re a special kind of fucked up and tragic because I’m sure N wants to think that maybe Cyn wasn’t always like this. The thing is, of course, that he’s wrong. There’s no bringing Cyn back because Cyn was never really there in the first place. This horrible monster that wants nothing more than to kill all his friends is the same girl that used to sit in the library and read with him and there’s nothing he can do about that. To make a Cyn redemption arc au is to fall for her deception, it’s to be just as wrong as N is. You can’t take the Solver away from Cyn because they are the same. Shes been dead since the beginning. He’s her big brother and she’s his little sister and they’re both walking corpses. She’s been dead since the beginning and somewhere along the way killed him too. He’s not mad at her. How could he be angry with his little sister. This has to be his fault. He wasn’t a good enough brother. Do you guys. Do you get it. She is god and he’s her angel.

Do you guys get it.

Uzi inherited the Absolute Solver code from Nori, just like how Doll had from Yeva, yet neither Uzi nor Doll had the solver manifest until they experienced something traumatic. Uzi's manifested after her dad left her for dead, which we can see by her automatically deflecting bullets in her fight with J right after. Doll's manifested when she watched her parents die, which we see in her flashback when her visor glitches with the solver symbol as V murders them.

We also see Uzi's solver mutate through episode 4, as she worries about N leaving her for her more normal classmates and V killing her for becoming so weird. It happens again in episode 7 when Uzi sees that Doll is dead and worries Tessa is going to blame her for it. Every time she thinks someone is leaving her again or going to kill her for being a freak, her solver mutates, and every time she lets her insecurities consume her mind, she loses control of it.

It's only when Uzi feels secure that she can be herself without those closest to her leaving or killing her that she gains control of her solver. She still has damaged programming, but now that damage doesn't control her.

In the scene where V covers up Uzi, when she sits down, I always thought she was frowning. Cuz like in ep 3 she's starting to realize that worker drones don't actually care about death anymore or smth like that.

BUT NO

SHE'S ACTUALLY SMILING IN THE SECOND IMAGE IM GONNA BE SICK

And after noticing that I started thinking back on her behavior with Uzi and realized how much she actually cares about her.

Look at her smile. She's starting to care about the workers smmmm Im crying

Okay now for Vuzi. In ep 4 V initially saw her as just a "purple thing", later on as Cyn. But probably N saying "what did I say about antagonizing her?" got her thinking. What if she was really antagonizing her? That's why she covered her with the teacher, and that's why she smiled.

Now, episode 5 doesn't have much about them. We know that V remembers stuff from her time as a worker, so we know that she got once possessed by Cyn. She would be the only drone ever to understand what Uzi is going through. (another reason why she protected her in ep 4).

This reflects in ep 6. When Alice cuts Uzi's finger she can be seen flinching.

Idk about you, but it's kinda strange for V, the most insane out of the trio, to flinch when someone's finger got cut off.

This further proves just how much V started to care about Uzi. Same when Alice and Beau died and she was trying to escape the Sentinels. She immediately rushed to save Uzi, even if she just witnessed her getting fully possessed for 5 good seconds by Cyn

She didn't have to save her. She could've ran away, leaving Uzi to be killed by the next sentinel that passed by. But she didn't. She brought her back to N and Tessa, holding her tightly

And of course.

When they saw the Doll trap.

V immediately went to protect Uzi, getting extremely worried too when she was about to use her solver

This shows just how V started to like Uzi. She initially saw her as a thread, another Cyn, a thing and a monster. But after the sky therapy she probably saw herself in Uzi. Someone who's always been alone, someone who the solver can control however it wants. A poor possessed worked, confused and scared.

Moving to her sacrifice. The very first time V called Uzi by name instead of dumb nicknames. Immediately before she was smiling after N said that they still needed her. But she didn't believe him fully. They could do well without her, she probably thought. She had done nothing but cause troubles with Uzi. She wanted to make it right

Giving her full trust to Uzi, giving her life to Uzi. She was literally half possessed by Cyn but V still decided to trust her. And then she smiled at her.

That smile, immediately after the "I trust you" meant a lot coming from V. That smile was to assure Uzi that she doesn't see her as an enemy anymore.

Okay rant is over because I'm tearing up.

-& proving that V is physically stronger than J.

Part 1: Here

Part 2: Here

Part 3: Here

Part 4: You’re here!

Now to clear up some misconceptions about V & J:

-V’s vision issues was a rewrite / was never canon until episode 6, therefore we shouldn’t assume V genuinely has this weakness-

This is disproved by V missing N in the pilot (even through N dodged it, it still would’ve missed him). In episode 4 she is also unable to see Uzi’s tail (despite looking directly at it) until it’s right in her face.

In episode 5 & 6 we see V’s POV vision with it being blurred. And in episode 6 she struggles to see the sign & needs to squint (all common with people who have nearsightedness & likely mixed astigmatism, both of which fit V’s vision issues so it’s hard to tell which would be the exact condition V has).

(Solver influenced manor V’s POV in EP5)

(V’s POV in EP6)

It’s also silly to assume that just because V’s vision wasn’t shown to be poor across the entire series, we shouldn’t use it at all. Regardless, it was still Liam’s intention to portray V with some kind of poor vision with it being clearly displayed during the fight scenes, so it still applies.

-V got lucky when blocking J’s missile. She can’t deflect or dodge them normally-

This is blatantly untrue since V later on deflects J’s other missile right in front of her & even dodges another that Cyn launches back.

(V deflecting J’s missile in EP8)

(V dodging N’s missile that Cyn threw in EP8)

-So does this mean J is completely weak?-

Yesn’t. J & V have weaknesses that have been shown time & time again during their fights.

J is the weakest disassembly drone (out of the main trio) physically which makes sense when her narrative purpose is to be a foil to V- someone who wasn’t willing to stand up to fight Cyn at all. Someone who believes they are above others to the point where they harm their own loved ones in order to hide their own flaws. She’s arrogant due to her superiority complex & selfishness, which causes her to monologue & get distracted during fights which can cost her the win. But we know she’s strategic at times (the EMP she uses in the pilot to stun Uzi, her fighting defensively in the vs V fight scene, her having more fighting skill against V in the 2nd fight) & still held her ground against V even if she’s physically weaker.

This is even further backed up through J fighting solver-influenced manor V in EP5 & winning despite the massive disadvantages she had, where she specifically chose the fight with a sword, so she likely prefers melee combat. However, she fought disassembly drone V much easier in the air, so it seems like she does slightly better fighting in aerial melee combat against opponents physically stronger due to her potential battle IQ. She IS & CAN be a great capable fighter when she locks in & doesn’t let her flaws take over.

V on the other hand (besides her poor vision) gets caught off guard in situations where unexpected things happen (Doll suddenly attacking her at prom, Uzi suddenly having a tail (even if she thought Uzi was Cyn at first, Cyn doesn’t even have a tail in her solver form so this was completely unexpected in V’s POV), the sentinels breaking into the room with Uzi inside, one of the sentinels moving the elevator back up, etc) which makes her panic (V using her guns instead of lasers while fighting Doll & the 2 sentinels in the room with Uzi, V being too focussed on the knife to notice solver form Uzi heading towards her, etc) & lose.