"OMG this ship is so doomed and tragic!" "This character makes me sob he's so doomed by the narrative..."
Oh GROW UP. Those characters had, most of the time, several years of blissful happiness before fate decided to come for their ass. On the other hand my boy Due here has been in solitary confinement since he was born and has never seen the world with a sane mind. And when he finally did breach confinement and tried to go on a revenge murder rampage his brother had to kill him.
When being the backup plan wasn't enough,so you became the evil twin
VERY long post where I tell you my thoughts on one of my favorite PKNA villians
0. Personality
DUE is, at least at first glance, a very typical super villian: smart, cunning, obsessive...evil...even funny (but not because of the things he does or says, but for the situations he can ended up involved in).
As an AI, he is very intelligent, and yet naive. He is easily caught off guard if the adversary does something that to his eyes seems illogical or nonsensical.
"Psychic energy? You used to be a scientist, not a sorcerer!"
He is angry,and at this point it is just like part of his personality, and this may cause him to be perceived as "short tempted" and though he definitely CAN be so, the truth is he is patient. He can perfectly wait for the perfect moment to attack. He could easily be a stronger threat to our hero, if he wasn't so emotional; the rage and hate inside him can either fuel his cunning side, or completely back fire: a worthy,terrifying opponent to those he doesn't hold and emotional connection with, and yet he can make mistakes agaisnt those who he owns his existence to
1. Relationships
Curiously enough, there are two people DUE has significant relationships with,or at least two people that "matter" to him, and by matter, I don't mean he cares, I mean he sees them as the reason of his frustration and the ones he needs to take down if he wants to archive his ultimate goal.
"And now I am here to stop you!"
"Oh, no! I won't allow it!"
He acknowledges Everett as his creator, but it's always ironic about it. There is always bitterness in his words. He can't forgive him: Everett is the one who gave him his role and DUE considers himself to be rightfully angry.
His relationship with UNO is actually fun.
"My twin thinks I am as naive as he is"
Twins. Identically coded. Same capacity, same potential. Yet they turned out very differently. DUE is bitter about UNO; he constantly emphasizes that they are "twins", not to acknowledge the type of relationship they should have, for they are just enemies, but to remind them all that he is as good as UNO, that HE could do as much as UNO can, but he is full of rage.
"UNO? You can't be here!! I blocked you communications!"
On his own behalf, UNO seems to be amused by his "little brother"; during their interactions, we often see UNO getting the higer ground (thanks to his friendship with PK), and DUE, extremely frustraded and angry.
"You're wrong, because now we are face to face on equal conditions for our final encounter"
2. Tragedy
"(I am) UNO's substitute. His back up, even if he doesn't know about my existence!"
DUE is an advanced AI that was created with the solely purpose of replacing UNO in case he became faulty, damaged, or erased. However he came to realize his purpose because of his coding or because Everett actually talked to him, the truth is that he was not satisfied with it. Differently from Solom, who doesn't seem to mind his very specific funtion in tower Ducklair, DUE wanted more.
"Imagine what such endless wait means for an AI that can have a thousand thoughts per second"
He was locked up for a long time. Waiting for a time that may never actually come, and since he was conscious the whole time, he became restless. He analized, he considered, and he developed feelings..."negative" ones.
If anything, this shows how advanced DUE is as an AI. If we recall UNO when he first met PK, we see that he was smart, very advanced, but an AI at the end: robotic, logical. UNO became more an more human like as he spent time with PK, a sense of humanity grew on him to the point he became as human as possible. This is something every AI Everett had created can do: they evolve, they learn. They become as human as possible. The most notable difference I can find between UNO and DUE is not the kind of feelings they developed, but the fact that DUE learned by himself.
He was all alone, stored in the systems of Ducklair tower. Unlike Solomon and UNO himself,the first time we encounter DUE, he is already advanced and very human.
Hate and anger are part of being human too.
Though his actions are not justifiable, his feelings are understandable. As any other person, he wants to be recognized. Even if he can only archive it by controlling everything, erasing UNO so he can emerge is not enough, he wants more.
Forgotten were his original purpose. He is not here to help, but to serve himself. If Everett wasn't fair to him, he woukd take the life he believes he deserves.
"That droid is my only chance to become completely real! I've longing for it since I began ro exist! Since the moment I began to exist, I have done nothing more but wait. But I have always been DUE, the second option! ..."
This is were we became aware of how tragic he is. All that desperation, all that anger came from the same place: Everett created an artifical intelligence too advanced, too smart, too self aware.
DUE is not the lesser version of UNO, he is completely identical. DUE had the same capacity of becoming good as UNO did, what he lacked was the same chances. He was hidden, kept on the dark, and that's how his anger grew.
He is not a typical evil AI, he doesn't do bad stuff because he thinks humans are bad and selfish, nor he wants to siese power because he considers people emotional and irrational.
He is emotional
He is bad and selfish
He just wants to be
He wanted to be real.
DUE's tragic because he is way too human...
To finish this post, I would like to address UNO's feelings for DUE, for they evolved too.
At the beginning of the story, and through the consecutive fights, UNO doesn't seem to mind if anything happened to his twin. He was just a back up plan Everett created. By the end of the story, it seems like UNO got hit by how much he means once considering the whole picture: DUE is right, There is no one else like themselves.
"I have absorbed what remained of his personality in mine, Everett. He was my twin. The only one who is the same as me. I never wanted to destroy him. I can't let him be erased completely"
If DUE is gone, then he is all alone.
Absorbing what remained of DUE on his own system can be seen as either a selfless action to save his twin, or a selfish action to avoid being lonely.
If it was the later, I'd understand. Remember how long it was since he saw PK. Remember how long UNO had been alone at DL tower, without his friend.
In the end, absorving DUE allowed him to successfully take over Odin's body, both of them were necessary for this to happen and though UNO dominates most of him, it is bittersweet to know that DUE got what he wanted.
I choose him not because I think he is an obscure character, but on his own story, he was kept in obscurity for a long time. Until he was able to escape and tried to take over.
He is one of my favorite villians in PKNA. Fun, evil, smart....and actually kinda sad
"That droid is my only chance to become truly real! I've been wanting this since I began to exist! Since I started functioning, I've done nothing else but wait. I waited to become operative in the unlikely case ONE became useless!
But I have always been TWO. The second option! Now you can't stop me from...
...from..."
I like TWO, I always have. He is great villian. He smart, and cruel. He feels no remorse or respect for other, and would try anything to get what he wants. He is funny too, and arguably a little innocent. And definitely damaged.
And AI who was given incredible reasoning and logical thinking, but also was made "human enough" to feel emotions he shouldn't have developed.
It's been said before how ONE was who evolved from "Hi! I am a computer and I take everything literally! And, oh! Here, have some weapons" to "I'll love you...I want to live among your kind...and, here, have some weapons" and I too agree this was a sign of humanity. ONE became better. But when we met TWO for the first time, he was already full with hatred, bitterness, and vengeance. He was, like his green counterpart, too human like.
It is not clear to me whether Everett had the intention of creating AI with such learning abilities, but he did. And he locked one of them up, and called him backup, and gave him a mission that would never be accepted: TWO wanted something more.
He wanted to be free.
This is where his tragedy begins. Being absolutely equal to ONE means he had the exact same possibility of becoming Good, but as time passed by and he saw his brother grow, he realized that was not quite true, at least not on his eyes.
And plot his vengeance against ONE, who wasn't even aware he was even there waiting for his bog shot. And TWo hated ONE..and he hated Everett with all his will. And on his last moments, he dragged himself to the only thing he thought could give him what he wanted: to be real. Not a backup system, not a damaged, corrupted AI... real.
