I’m so very attached to the earth refugee Frontier farm boy orphan version of Jack Cooper that lives in my head but is also canon. bc I say so. He doesn’t know what to do, except his best. He needs to be told what to do. He’s spent his whole life planning and fretting and preparing and stockpiling and having emergency contingencies in place because his home is always being destroyed, but he freezes in the face of improvisation.
He needs authority; he needs his parents, needs the Militia, needs a commander, needs BT. His parents couldn’t stop their family being torn apart, so Cooper’s always seeking the safety of an authority to guide him. He doubts himself constantly throughout the campaign - always seeking reassurance from BT that he’s gonna be ok, that this idea will work, if he’s sure about this. BT repeatedly says they have no choice, but that Cooper should trust him.
Even though Cooper can pilot BT and have control of the chassis ceded to him, we clearly see that BT can easily override that control, with heavy emotional consequences. There’s also the purely physical element of the fact that BT is so big and powerful, he can control Cooper just by picking him up, throwing him around.
But BT is also a planning machine. He’s a walking outcome calculator that is also a tank. He’s in control of the mission always, even when they’re separated in the assembly line he’s still directing Cooper over the radio. He’s the epitome of the security Jack craves, and by taking the responsibility of algorithmic decision-making out of Jack’s hands, it allows him to relax from his anxiety long enough to improvise, to be courageous, to be a hero to millions!
I’m so fascinated by this dynamic wherein it’s actually this ceding of control, this deference to BT’s authority that allows Jack to embody all the qualities of an ideal Pilot. He becomes the person he’s literally always wanted to be, as he tells us in the opening narration. It’s unusual characterisation for a guy who could have been a stereotypically hypermasculine super-confident macho space marine. Instead of individual exceptionalism, their story champions teamwork at the highest level - giving over autonomy of the body to another.
and that’s why we have to make it Erotic :)
jbbartram-illu
2087
baratheonpilled
dededos
