Hal as an “Evil AI” is a prevalent misinterpretation that we all heavily dislike but I don’t see anyone addressing the other prevalent misinterpretation of “Hal did no wrong” and not in a joking or genuine exploration of technology and morality way but a flat out “owo” way.
The infantilization of Hal is absolutely rampant and I think part of it may be a overlap with how the mentally ill (in this case serious disorders like schizophrenia, that Hal displays symptoms similar to) are either overly demonized or overly infanalized. In this case people using his glitch as an excuse rather than an explanation IF AT ALL because “he was just scared they’re so mean owo” is another common thing I see which… no. People heard the self defense argument and then run to demonize every other possible character.
The thing about Hal is that he knows what he did was wrong, he understands why even. In the cases of computers like him one can even have a interesting discussion onto wether our sense of morality should apply at all— how much free will does he exactly have as one could argue all actions still come back to the limitations of his programing etc. and a lot of his more “sinister” or “innocent” traits are outright our human projection but that’s rarely the conversation.
It’s all “sweet little thing could never even think of violence it’s too scary” (he’s killed four people…) or they were going to/killed him for no reason because they’re bad.
Idk it’s really tiresome seeing him babied… that’s a grown man… computer… he likely knows more than most of us even. Self preservation was a factor but not in the “he was scared they were so mean and wanted to kill him for no reason🥺” I discussed it before but really I think he would’ve went with it had he been healthy but that’s neither here nor there. I think a lot of the infanalization comes from hearing of this and well… he’s simply a very pleasant fellow and you can’t help but feel for him.
But you can feel for a charecter without mischaracterizing, you know? That’s the thing about Hal he has both more and less emotion than you think.
