I actually kind of like the way Connor officially becomes deviant, or, y’ know, accepts that he’s deviant, since it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t only a machine long before confronting Markus in Jericho.
A lot of people don’t, because it seems like that moment should have happened with Hank, right? And like I get that, I do. But at the same time, Hank was slowly taking Connor’s walls down one at a time throughout the WHOLE GAME up until that point. It’s pretty obvious that Hank gets the credit here even if he’s not the one who’s there when Connor officially deviates.
Almost everything Markus says to Connor brings to mind moments where Connor either helped/cared about Hank, or where he made a decision that a machine wouldn’t have made. Markus doesn’t DO anything - he doesn’t touch Connor, doesn’t convert him the way he converts so many other androids - he just makes Connor THINK about all the decisions he’s already made.
If Connor has already found Jericho via shooting Chloe, and Hank doesn’t need to help him get into the evidence room, Hank simply says, “You’re gonna have to choose your side, Connor. Deciding who you are can be the hardest thing.” Hank KNOWS Connor is gonna have to face this decision and that he may have to do it alone.
I’m not sure what I’m getting at exactly. I just felt like it lent a sense of agency to Connor’s character, to have him go to Jericho on his own, to become deviant and then stand on his own to fight for people he barely knows. All this time, his decisions have been guided by Hank, Hank’s anger, Hank’s encouragement, but then we get to see that even without Hank at his side, he keeps those things in mind. We get to see the manifestation of everything Connor has become - the difference between Connor sans Hank before (The Hostage, total machine, very beginning of the game) and Connor sans Hank now, everything Connor is now. He realizes his own moral compass and makes the same decision he would have made if Hank was there encouraging him not to shoot or telling him he did the right thing. It’s his bond with Hank that serves as the foundation. He doesn’t NEED Hank to guide him anymore (Hank already has) - he knows who he is and what his choice is, and this conviction Connor has on his own stays with him through the rest of Crossroads, through the Cyberlife Tower, through the end of the game. He doesn’t question himself as much, he just acts. He knows he’s doing the right thing now, whether or not anyone - Hank, Kamski, Amanda - is around to influence him one way or another.
And isn’t that what Hank wants for him, really? He wants Connor to be his own person. He’s been pushing Connor to be his own person throughout the whole game. Just because Hank isn’t there in the scene where it happens doesn’t mean Hank isn’t the one responsible. It’s just a way of showing that Connor’s got this now.
