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 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Flynn Lives
Can Users be killed on the Grid?
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Broklynite
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Joined: 11 Apr 2009
Posts: 784

 		Can Users be killed on the Grid?
I am a member of an SF QnA forum, and someone recently asked whether or not a User could be killed on the Grid. Especially given the recent anniversary of the end of FL, I thought I'd share my response. Please chime in if you agree, disagree, want to point out something I've missed or misquoted. Here's hoping we can bring a touch more life back to these forums, eh?



Well, to an extent we need to distinguish which source we're looking at (and later, as an extra, the method of death):

1. (the original) Tron. Users are the gods to the people of the grid. There's no real indication that Users even can be killed. Flynn manages to perform a few tasks that are seemingly impossible for others to do. Flynn can be hurt, but killed? Maybe not. When others fall far enough from the grid, they end up derezzing. Flynn may well have fallen to the bottom, picked himself up and limped off. Again, remember that he was meant to be a god compared to the Grid world, and as such may well have been effectively immortal.

2. Tron 2.0 (Killer App): This is dealt with to an extent in the game, though my memory is a touch fuzzy on the matter. Two opposite examples spring to mind.

a) the compiled Tron Legacy Code shows that apparently that version of Tron (which was originally designed as a system security software) was designed to protect the system, but due to a glitch in the code, interpreted those orders as killing Users, presumably permanently.

b) the Datawraiths are company backed hackers. Instead of being directly digitized into the world, they sort-of take control of designed on-Grid puppets. Thus when the puppet's bodies are destroyed, the Hacker wakes up again in the main office.

Now, at one point Thorne is digitized, but the digitization algorithm is flawed, causing Thorne to become a virus in the system. Thorne certainly dies on the grid. However, he is arguably a flawed copy of a User on the system, and as such retains many of the powers of Users but with limitations not present with a perfectly digitized User- like being able to die.

Importantly, whether or not a User could be infected by such a virus is unanswered. However, it could set up a possibility where the Programs have a form of biological warfare capable of rendering a User mortal and thus killable.

3. Tron Legacy proof-of-concept trailer (a.k.a. TR2N trailer): I'm distinguishing this somewhat because the original trailer came out several years before the movie, and was really there just to see if there would be any interest in making such a creature as a sequel. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of funny considering it's Hollywood and they mostly make sequels these days. But I digress. We see what is arguably a User (and possibly a hacker) taken out by Clu. This is particularly noteworthy because of the lines:

User: You won, okay? It's just a game!

Clu: Not anymore.

Which is followed by what appears to be some sort of death blow, presumably to protect the Grid world from intrusion from the Users. One presumes that at this point, the idea was that knowledge of the Grid was a touch more widely known, and that the programs were rebelling against their creators because they were sick and tired of them dragging their trash into their nice clean Grid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvzrgLQpTJY

4. Tron: Legacy.

Tricky. There were some fundamental changes between the two movies. During the ARG before the movie, I calculated that Kevin Flynn had survived a conservative ~63 million subjective years in the Grid. Our conversations were being followed, and apparently nobody at Disney had actually bothered to do the math, so they scrambled to say that it had been about a thousand subjective years. So we know that there are differences in the original Grid and Flynn's Grid, and we can see that Flynn is clearly aging in the Grid, though as a slower rate. The end blast doesn't actually show Flynn dying, being derezzed, or anything. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the entire byline of the advertising campaign as "Flynn Lives" which seems to indicate that he never died originally and possibly didn't die at the end either. What exactly happened isn't really indicated, tho.

However, we know that Users can be hurt, as shown by the blood drops from Sam during the Sam/Rinzler fight. And to quote that old classic: if it can bleed, we can kill it. We know from the original Tron that Users can absolutely grow tired, though they can recharge either through system resources or simply by sleeping (note that in the original, we never see any of the programs sleep- any why should they? They're programs.) Sam can bleed. Flynn can age. So there does seem to be a hint that Users can now in actuality die in the Grid.

So, we have to examine the fundamental underpinning of why Users were so unique on the Grid. The digitization process allowed a material to be transformed into pure code. Still a program, but highly complex. We ignore the question of how a 1980's era mainframe would have the power to run a single program as complicated as a human being. So what was so special about the ISOs? How were they necessarily distinguished from Users?

This was examined in the prequel comic book miniseries tied in to the movie, Tron:Betrayal. Flynn created his Grid where Programs could be free to not feel compelled to forcibly follow their programming. But he began to see that what he imagined could never be- the programs were too simple, too limited. To use a programming analogy, a Hello World Program wouldn't be interested in expanding its capabilities, as it is only designed for one single purpose. To use a religious allegory, Flynn created the Garden, and found his creations to be flawed.

But around the Grid was an ocean of chaos. The raw firmament of unspecified information. Noise, randomness, excess energy. And out of it, spontaneously, evolved the ISOs. The ISOs, while being programs, had naturally evolved, and as such were naturally significantly more complex than the old Programs. The ISOs were meant to be the new Users of the Grid world. Like with us having DNA which is programming but which we can often overcome, the ISOs were unrestricted. While not explicitly stated in either the comic book or the movie, there is something of an implication that the ISOs are possibly superior to Man.

And the ISOs were all killed.

Which partially begs the question- what makes Flynn unique? Why could he do things that the ISOs couldn't do? Well, I think it may well have less to do with his code at that point, and more to do with his fundamental understanding of how the Grid actually functions. How and why does energy flow, what is code, and how can it be manipulated, etc. etc. etc. That is, if you don't want to look at it from the religious angle, which more or less would argue that Users have a unique spirit or soul which is transferred to the digital realm and makes them mightier. And considering how the stories have always been religious allegories, this may well be true.

So, Tron:Legacy does seem to indicate that at the very least Users can be violently killed, even if not quite explicitly stated. However, what about Flynn? Can Flynn, if we wait long enough, die of old age? What, exactly, is aging for a User on the Grid?

Well, the original Tron showed old programs as being programs which had been around for a great deal of time, but this never detracted from their capacity to fulfill their function (At least until that function had changed). Even the MCP is briefly shown to be an old man, and in the novelization is described as being incredibly old, and still using old-fashioned keyboards as his interface with the world (whereas you never otherwise see keyboards in the world) and in the movie you can actually hear the clacking of a mechanical keyboard as the MCP is dying.

So, can a program die of old age? We've yet to see evidence. And in the real world, software gets outdated, forgotten, abandoned- but it never stops being a program. It never erases itself after aging. The media it is stored on might, but the program itself doesn't. So I think that with that argument, a program would continue to grow older without actually dying. If this is the case, I would argue that at the very least the same can be said of Flynn.

5. Tron, the novelization

As memory serves, Flynn wonders this himself briefly, and decides that he really, really doesn't want to know the answer.

6. Tron Legacy ARG: this never came up.

Well, this answer turned out to be a touch longer than I anticipated.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 25, 2014 4:11 pm
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Christien
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Joined: 15 Apr 2010
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Location: Montreal, Canada

 		I couldn't let a juicy post like that go by without jumping in.

First off… Great post. Loved reading it.
You ask a lot of questions, but for the sake of this post, I'll just focus on the first one. Can users be killed on the grid?
As far as source material goes for support, I only include the following:
Tron
Tron Legacy
Tron Betrayal
Flynn Lives ARG
The other stuff (Tron 2.0, Tron novelization) I've always looked at the same way as I look at fanfiction. The movies don't reference it, so neither do I.
I could go either way on that Tron Legacy proof of concept trailer. I never really saw it as 'real material', but since I always thought that the person killed in the trailer was a program and not a user, it doesn't really factor into the question.

Can users be killed on the grid? Absolutely.
I believe this was clear right from the original Tron movie where the MCP tells Sark to train Flynn for the games then 'blow him away'.
The fact that Flynn can do things on the grid that other programs deem impossible (in both Tron and Tron Legacy) is only because of his understanding of the grid, and programs and algorithms and whatnot. But on the grid a derezz is a derezz. I didn't see any real evidence that said users can't fall victim to this like any other program.
Quote:
The end blast doesn't actually show Flynn dying, being derezzed, or anything. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the entire byline of the advertising campaign as "Flynn Lives" which seems to indicate that he never died originally and possibly didn't die at the end either.

At the end of legacy Flynn is killed. I thought it was pretty clear. They said if he and CLU 'rejoined' he would not survive.
They did. Big explosion. I accept the implication he is dead. Nor do I expect to see him if there ever is a Tron 3.
As for term Flynn Lives as seen in the DVD extras and the ARG tie-in. I guess now it means Flynn lives on in all of us. Or something like that, I suppose....

But this could be a good discussion. I would love to hear what other people think about this subject.

PostPosted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:55 pm
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Broklynite
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Joined: 11 Apr 2009
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Quote:

I believe this was clear right from the original Tron movie where the MCP tells Sark to train Flynn for the games then 'blow him away'.


The MCP believes that Flynn can be killed, as do the others aware of his presence. However, Flynn is the first User to be digitized (so far as we know) and so they don't *know*. I read it as the MCP enjoying toying with Flynn and treating/torturing him just like all of the other little programs in the system. However, that doesn't mean with absolute certainty that he knew that Flynn could be killed. The MCP also thought that he was also untouchable, which proved ultimately untrue.

Quote:
The fact that Flynn can do things on the grid that other programs deem impossible (in both Tron and Tron Legacy) is only because of his understanding of the grid, and programs and algorithms and whatnot.

But on the grid a derezz is a derezz. I didn't see any real evidence that said users can't fall victim to this like any other program.


I don't know. The energy redirection is casually shrugged off as knowledge of high school physics. However, it seems clear that this is not an ability shared by the rest of them, nor is changing colors and such. Some things are clearly because he's both a hot shot programmer and gamer- the light cycle races, the recognizer- while other things seem to be more innate abilities due to him being a User.

A derezz is a derezz- but again, we never actually see it. I think that if you look at it more...literally, you read it as a person finding themselves transported to another plane of existence with different rules and laws of physics and reality. And so while that person may use their knowledge to exploit loopholes in the laws of physics, they are ultimately bound by them. Thus, Users should be able to derezz like the rest of the Programs.

However, the story is also a religious allegory, and so one questions whether or not a god would be capable of dying from the same things that the denizens of that plane of reality would be susceptible to. And the thing is, it isn't like the religious allegory isn't quite omnipresent. Heck, Tron is clearly a Paladin character. Blessed and upgraded by the Users on a mission, enhanced in his abilities, but ultimately fallible and reliant on his own wits and abilities.

But Flynn isn't a Paladin, he's a straight-up User. If they hadn't shown him able to do things that others couldn't do, I'd agree with you. But I think that it's meant to indicate that there is more to him than just having the same capabilities as any other Program.


Quote:
Quote:
The end blast doesn't actually show Flynn dying, being derezzed, or anything. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the entire byline of the advertising campaign as "Flynn Lives" which seems to indicate that he never died originally and possibly didn't die at the end either.

At the end of legacy Flynn is killed. I thought it was pretty clear. They said if he and CLU 'rejoined' he would not survive.
They did. Big explosion. I accept the implication he is dead. Nor do I expect to see him if there ever is a Tron 3.
As for term Flynn Lives as seen in the DVD extras and the ARG tie-in. I guess now it means Flynn lives on in all of us. Or something like that, I suppose....


I didn't think it was obvious. He says he wouldn't survive. But that's not the same as being killed. I read it as thus, again taking the religious allegory into consideration:

When Flynn created the last version of Clu, he effectively split off a part of himself to create Clu. This is, among other things, why Clu was so frustrated by his limitations. Flynn has spent the last thousand years more or less meditating and trying to reach a higher philosophy. We see him again capable of doing things nobody else can do, though through the understanding of the world around him and his own capabilities more than anything else. I don't think he died. Instead, I think that the act of reabsorbing Clu acted as the trigger to propel him into a new state of existence. Perhaps as something more like a ghost in the machine. Maybe something more Gandalf-like. Maybe something more like Odin, a sacrifice of himself to himself, ultimately returning more powerful than ever before. Changed by the experience, yes, but ultimately still Flynn.

There are plenty of dualistic religions, with brothers or twins who represent night and day, winter and summer, darkness and light, and they can never meet.

Again, in a purely literal sense, it seems his manifestation was destroyed. But as he once pointed out, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely transferred.

As for Flynn Lives...I admit, I was initially a little silly on that point. It was fairly clear that this referred to him having disappeared, presumed dead for 20 years. However, the more I thought about it while writing the original answer, the more I thought that it could potentially end up meaning much, much more.

Delighted to see some life again in the forum! I'd be happy to hear what you think. Somehow I always end up writing these things well after midnight, so I have the occasional nasty tendency to ramble, for which I apologize.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:44 am
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
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 		Re: Can Users be killed on the Grid?
Maybe
Christien wrote:
But on the grid a derezz is a derezz. I didn't see any real evidence that said users can't fall victim to this like any other program.

I haven't memorized the movie, but I seem to recall a fairly significant plot point in the original Tron being Sark's threat that "This ship and everything that remains on board will automatically de-rez," and Flynn managing to keep not only himself but also Yori together despite passing through the derez gate (or whatever you call that thing). So I submit that a user can survive de-resolution, at least under certain circumstances.

Christien wrote:
Quote:
And, not to put too fine a point on it, the entire byline of the advertising campaign as "Flynn Lives" which seems to indicate that he never died originally and possibly didn't die at the end either.

As for term Flynn Lives as seen in the DVD extras and the ARG tie-in. I guess now it means Flynn lives on in all of us. Or something like that, I suppose....

Not to be obvious, but, y'know, there is another Flynn. I always figured the "Flynn Lives" logo was Sam was talking about himself (and, by implication, how he intends to continue furthering Kevin's legacy).
_________________
These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:23 am
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Christien
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Joined: 15 Apr 2010
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 		I'm sorry for the late reply. The schedule here at work since coming back after the holidays is tough.

Quote:
I haven't memorized the movie, but I seem to recall a fairly significant plot point in the original Tron being Sark's threat that "This ship and everything that remains on board will automatically de-rez," and Flynn managing to keep not only himself but also Yori together despite passing through the derez gate (or whatever you call that thing). So I submit that a user can survive de-resolution, at least under certain circumstances.


I don't remember that part at all, but it clearly shows that I'm wrong. Granted it's been a long time since I saw the movie, but I think its the best piece of evidence so far showing that users can survive a de-rez.

It's funny, some co-workers and myself were supposed to go raid the conference room after hours last week to watch both Tron and Tron Legacy on the new 80".
We had to postpone it for sometime next month, but I'll keep an eye open for that part and any other things that could add to this discussion.

PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 7:40 pm
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 2180
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 		Re: Can Users be killed on the Grid?
Re: "When I disembark"
Went looking for the scene online, but I could find only an audio clip.

Christien wrote:
I'll keep an eye open for that part and any other things that could add to this discussion.

Please, and let us know!
_________________
These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:34 pm
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Broklynite
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 		You know, I'd forgotten entirely about that scene, but you're right. That's when Flynn and Lori are imprisoned by Sark, and Lori is dying from the deresolution. Flynn grabs her and...transfers something to her somehow, and keeps her alive. That's a pretty excellent point, actually.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 1:38 pm
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Christien
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 		You know, now that I think about it, that doesn't mean that Flynn can't be de-rezzed, or could survive a de-rezz. It might just be he understands the mechanics of it and knows how to avoid it on a different level.

Kinda like the way Neo can dodge bullets in a different way than everybody else in the Matrix. People may think he is unkillable, but he just knows how to avoid being hit on a better level.

PostPosted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 5:12 pm
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A Slender Editor
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 		Sorry for chiming in so late on this thread, but I just found this forum.

My working theory on it: Users cannot be derezzed on the Grid, but they can be killed. This is because Users and Programs have fundamentally different structures to their bodies on the grid, and there is a fair amount of evidence to back this up, especially in Tron: Legacy.

In T:L we see that Users' bodies operate on the same fundamental principles as their real-world bodies, and several of those principles are not shared with Programs.
  • Users age (Flynn), but Programs do not (Clu). Rather, a Program's appearance is set as their programmer at the time they were programmed. (The MCP is an exception to this, but due to absorbing thousands of other Programs into itself and incorporating their code, it is believable that its appearance would be that of an amalgam of the incorporated programs.)
  • Programs are made of pixels/sprites, as can be seen when they are derezzed - they break up into the individual sprites (represented on screen as small blocks). Users are still flesh and blood. When Programs are non-fatally injured they pixelate around the wound (as when Quorra loses her arm). When Rinzler cuts Sam he does not pixelate around the wound like Programs do, but instead is cut and bleeds.
  • Programs do not have internal organs, and can survive damage to areas fatal to humans as long as it does not reach the derezzing threshold (man with part of his head missing on the Recognizer).
  • Actions that cause straight-up derezzing without injury have no effect on Users (Flynn on Sark's command ship)
Extensions of this body structure difference are apparent in other parts of the movies, as well.

A previous post mentions Flynn redirecting an energy beam with his body, which it is commented should have killed any Program trying it. This can be explained because it is a relatively low voltage going through his body, which a human can survive. If this same power level went through a Program, it would destabilize their structure (since they are made of a lattice of connected energy) and cause them to derez.

At the end of T:L Flynn would indeed have died due to being at the center of a massive explosion. He did not derez, but was blown apart (his and Clu's bodies effectively exploded like a bomb).

As for the "Flynn Lives" references on the DVD, don't forget the Flynn Lives ARG ran before the movie came out, and covered the timeframe between the two movies. So it was meant that he was still alive (although missing) in-universe before T:L occurred. After T:L it became "Tron: The Next Day" which (IIRC) only mentions the Flynn Lives movement as something in the past.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2015 2:04 am
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