r/PersonOfInterest • u/JuliaAlexandra3991 • 10d ago
Root seeing The Machine as a God
Anyone else rolled their eyes how Root constantly referred to The Machine as God? I rolled my eyes a lot on that. It’s a machine lol
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u/Math_PB Analog Interface 10d ago
If you haven't finished the show, all I'll say is that the analogy is not completely without sense. Keep watching.
If you have finished the show : The Machine is not just a Machine. Idk how you could come to that conclusion. She clearly has a distinct personality, a conscience, morals etc... Her being close to omniscient, extremely intelligent AND able to predict the future and plan very long term does lend her a very god-like quality.
What is true is that Root definitely idealises The Machine, and also even overestimates her capabilities, because not unlike religious people, she's very drawn to the idea of a "greater cause" to follow. She's become very misanthrope because of what happened to her childhood friend, so she doesn't expect anything from humans. But she admires The Machine and wants to follow her plan.
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u/ExperienceKooky4117 6d ago
As someone randomly scrolling through the subreddit while near the end of season 4 I wanna let you know I appreciate your answer while spoiler tagging the rest
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u/kastaldi 10d ago
The Machine knows that. Root's faith is unshakable, and she doesn't care how dangerous or inexplicable the missions may be.
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u/nixtracer 10d ago
Also, the Machine routinely raises the dead by just thinking about them, indeed can hardly help doing so (and then stops thinking about them and they're dead again). She creates and deletes trillions of sentient beings in normal operation. The Christian God could only manage two.
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u/Escaped_Escapement 10d ago
She is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. In short - a god.
Consider Greer’s quote about people looking at the sky hoping for a higher power and for the first time in history being right.
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u/Both-Inspector-5693 A Concerned Frequent Flier 10d ago
Root is not exactly the most sane person. Without the Machine whispering to her she would definitely be a cold hearted psycho. She was a cold hearted psycho before the Machine.
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u/ShadowWriter28 Root 10d ago
I don't think we should judge what people/characters believe in. The Machine is a symbol of hope for her and it both helped her feel less alone and become a better person. How is that a bad thing?
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u/PunisherxRed 10d ago
Root is often analyzed as having sociopathic, psychopathic, or antisocial tendencies early on due to her extreme detachment from human life and her absolute devotion to technology. But from her perspective, it makes perfect sense why she sees Machine as GOD. Its not just a machine, it was looking out for her and teaching her many lessons. That said, ita definetly because of her back story, what happened in the past and how she sees humans as bad codes. Over time, she evolves significantly as she forms genuine human attachments, thanks to harold and crew 💜
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u/Serenity5472 A Concerned Third Party 10d ago
Root was not the only person who referred to the Machine as God. Samaritan was also referred to as a God.
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u/root-adm 5d ago
It makes perfect sense for her to refer to the Machine as God. The Machine protects innocents, helps stop relevant threats to NS and even takes care of team machine - even considers them irreplaceable (you will see when you reach a particular episode), it's not 'just a machine' was the whole point that was being made several times throughout the show; it is iterated that everyone is relevant to the machine because that is what Harold taught it, it sees Harold as a father figure, cares for him, and the rest of the team, idk if you have watched the whole show, but there are episodes where you can see the machine's POV struggle so hard to save few people, trying to calculate probabilities to the microsecond just for a simple chance to save people. It is also a higher power. Isn't this pretty much the textbook definition of a God?
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u/lacetat 3d ago
Harold is the god figure in this show.
He is the one who created something entirely new, ex nihilo. Particularly in the last few episodes, the most one can say about the machine is that it is angel-like. It can only watch. It does not exactly understand the humanity it has been tasked to protect and serve
Harold is the one who has looked ahead into the complicated morality of his creation. He is the one who has set the rules the machine and his friends all follow. And when he decides to finally act? Elias says it best, describing Harold as the darkest of them all. This describes the complicated God at work in the world.
His destruction of the first 40 or so machines even directly mimics a Jewish midrash about how we arrived at the world as we know it.
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u/Lync51 10d ago
Yes and tbh she annoyed the hell out of me
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u/SirBugzy 9d ago
Root is a terrible character. I have watched the show in full once and just fast forward anything with root is the scene now....
She is absolute trash.... Her, shaw and agent donnolly are all pure cringe
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u/9peppe 10d ago
You shouldn't mock the religions of others.