CONNOR AND QASH COMPARISON!!!
[WARNING! DBH SPOILERS AND MENTIONS OF SUICIDE. This is also me being a nerd about dbh and just pointing out similarities]
To me qAsh and Connor are really alike. Both of them are fighting their programming, they're both deviants. There's an ending where if Connor becomes deviant and Markus succeeds in the revolution, Amanda (AI representative of Cyberlife) attempts to take control over Connor again. She tells Connor that he was always meant to be a deviant, to infiltrate and defeat them, therefore completing his mission. However If Connor remains a machine, he STILL shows signs of deviancy. At some point, Hank decides to go through with committing suicide after seeing Connor die once too many times. Even THEN, DESPITE BEING A MACHINE, Connor hesitates to leave when he's told to, he stops after hearing the gunshot from Hank's house.
So all along, Connor's story is if HE (aka us, his consciousness who make those decisions for him) accepts being a deviant or not. Because no matter if he thinks he's just a machine, he is STILL a deviant. (This is reinforced in a deleted scene of Kamski where he confirms androids were meant to deviate all along too)
TELL ME it's not somewhat similar to qAsh. Programmed to be against the very thing that MADE THEM. If this goes where I think it will, the feds will absolutely use him to their advantage.
Not to mention the coin, the boredom Connor experiences literally the first thing in the whole game which mind you is also a human emotion. And Ewron being the first one who helped qAsh break away from his programming. Again. The first thing he does when they are stranded on the island is befriend Ewron.
The moss block and coin also have a similarity in the characters' story, they represent their motives. qAsh got his block, we could say maybe rebelliously, outside of his programming. The moss block formed a strong alliance, more than any faction. Connor was playing with the coin when he obviously shouldn't be bored or even entertain himself.
BESIDES! THE WAY QASH SEES THE WORLD! I'm sure Ash took inspiration from dbh at least to some extent. The way he seems to scan his surroundings? To me it resembles the way Connor would reconstruct scenes or point out stuff you can interact with
But the two are also so very different. qAsh used to be human, turned into a machine forced to be stripped away of his humanity. While Connor is slowly learning to embrace human emotions. He started by being a machine, slowly becoming more human.
Also in the game there's anti android slogans going like "we don't bleed the same blood". Interesting. Because Androids don't even have blood, it's something made to MIMIC blood. And if it's out of an Android's system, it disappears for the human eye. So what if qAsh........ Just like.. hear me out... His heart is also blue...... Kind of like the thirum pump... His sign saying "I don't bleed".....
Idk I feel like Ash opened my eyes when he played this game