#pelant

[spacepilotleela]

Why I can’t stand the Pelant Arc

Christopher Pelant is probably one of the most dangerous villains in Bones, presented as being a total computer master hacker and all-around deranged individual. Though the idea of a hacker villain is very interesting, the way it was executed is infuriating. It’s clear that nobody in the writer's room knew how malware and computers work in the real world.

I am not an expert in computer science, but I am currently a cybersecurity and computer networking operations major, I’m not very far in so my knowledge is limited but I do have a basic understanding of how malware works.

You cannot code malware onto a bone, that is not how computers work, and it’s not how malware works. There is more than one type of malware and they all work differently but there is not a single type of malware that could be coded onto a bone.

Malware can be hidden in an image file, this is entirely possible but not the way that it happened in Bones. Angela did not download anything to her computer that could have had a virus hidden in it. When Angela scanned the images of the bone into her computer, she created a brand new image file with a picture of code in it. A picture of code cannot harm your computer. I could print out the code for a virus, scan it into my computer, and make it my desktop background and absolutely nothing would happen because it’s not actually code. It’s no more harmful than a picture of a kitten.

The suspension of disbelief on the possibility of what Pelant does is not difficult for someone who doesn’t know about the way that malware works but once you understand even the basics it very quickly falls apart.

The one very unlikely possibility is that Pelant somehow wrote a QR code of sorts into the bone that led Angela’s computer to download and execute a file. I do not believe that is the case though, as for Angela’s computer to automatically open QR codes automatically download whatever without even checking for a confirmation, and automatically run anything downloaded without checking, would require awful cybersecurity on her machine.

Considering that Angela is shown to be proficient in computer science and how advanced her computer is supposed to be, I refuse to believe that she could be that stupid and have a computer that just downloaded anything it was promoted to download without some type of check. She works with the federal government, there is no way her system could be that insecure.

For the malware on the bone to work it would have to magically have been linked to an executable file of some type. I say magical because this is not how real computers work. Malware on a bone is about as realistic as if Pelant tattooed the virus onto his ass and infected the computer by scanning his cheeks on a printer.

[livefromthegraveyard]

pelant!!!

[chasingoceanmoons]

season 5, ep 22 colonel that comes to recruit booth back is named pelant

[whatifthebonesfanscameback]

[skullz-and-bones]

More art of Pelant

[darklylucid]

But, They’re So...NORMAL...

Even though it was almost twenty years ago, I still remember watching the pilot episode of the TV series ‘Bones’ when it first premiered in 2005, and although I was never really ‘into’ crime dramas, I would, over the years, watch a random episode if there was nothing else of interest on at the time.

There was, however, one particularly memorable character I never seemed to be able to forget despite having only seen him one episode...someone named Pelant...

Now, this  last Winter in the months leading up to Christmas, I noticed that the ‘Discovery’ channel was hosting a ‘Bones marathon’ and playing every episode in chronological order, so I decided to binge watch as much of the series as I could, not only because I could, but because I wanted to see Pelant. 

I set the PVR to record every episode, and the very first episode I just so happened to record was the season seven episode ‘The Crack In The Code’, and there he was. 

I’ve always had a particular love for villains, and I can say with all honesty that this highly intelligent, conniving, manipulative, obsessive and egotistical shit-weasel (and I say that with as much affection as I possibly can) became, quite quickly, one of my beloved ‘comfort characters’.

The way he manipulates the ever-living fuck out of everyone and that insufferably smug grin of his just does it for me. 

Truly. 

And it doesn’t hurt that the above descriptor can also be quite accurately applied to another ‘comfort character’ of mine, Herbert West from the 1985 film ‘Re-Animator’, which goes a long way towards explaining why I’m attracted to Pelant in the first place...he’s like a murder-happy, tech-savvy version of Herbert...

Then, I discovered Colin Fisher and James Aubrey. 

They’re so...NORMAL. 

They’re not villains, they’re ‘good guys’, and it feels so fucking weird to be attracted to them in the first place, considering I’ve always been strictly attracted to slashers killers and monsters, although, in Colin’s case, ‘normal’ is highly subjective...

So far, I haven’t managed to watch every episode in the series, but I’ve been watching random episodes whenever they happen to be playing, and last night, I watched one of the episodes I missed, and noticed Oliver Wells.

He’s such a douche, I don’t know whether I want to kiss him or defenestrate him from five stories up, and now I have to go back and watch every episode he’s in to ‘get to know him better’, but, I like him... 

I now have three confirmed and one potentially new ‘comfort character’ in one single TV series that I initially dismissed as being ‘not my thing’.

Sometimes it’s worth taking a second look at something, because you never know what you might have missed...

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

Hodgins in 8x01

[kiragirl17]

As I re-watch Bones, I am stun by how much I hated the Pelant storyline. Hate it. I suppose it is a gold star to the Actor.

However, I can't believe that one person can do all of that. A code on bone? Just to name one.

It is just bugs the living crap out me, and it gives me great joy when he dies.