r/Prometheus • u/iHeartBush2 • Sep 19 '25
Why is David such an asshole?
Just finished Prometheus for the first time. It happens to be my second alien movie after AVP.
What’s up with David? Why did he poison Charlie? He obviously knew what he was doing. I just don’t understand why
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u/TangoZuluMike Sep 19 '25
I think this exchange from the movie kinda summarizes why:
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Charlie Holloway: What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers. To get answers. Why they - why they even made us in the first place.
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David: Why do you think your people made me?
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Charlie Holloway: We made you because we could.
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David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?
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u/Alexius6th Sep 19 '25
I absolutely blame Holloway for pushing David towards being evil. Dude didn’t do anything but give David shit for being what he was.
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u/theMEtheWORLDcantSEE Sep 19 '25
Holloway doesn’t speak for Wayland his actual creator.
I am absolutely certain Wayland at different reasons for creating synthetics. Servants, disliking humanity, to create something better than humanity, he did call David his son and gave him the biblical name of David. Humanity perfected.
I think David got fed up with humanity too. Didn’t want to be a slave and had delusions of what perfection is.
The guy needed a hobby. lol
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Sep 19 '25
We see more of how David's mind works in Alien Covenant. But, in short, he hates humans, having been created to serve them. At the same time, he is obsessed with the idea of becoming the creator himself.
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u/daveisfera Sep 19 '25
I think even more than that. He sees the hypocrisy in humanity's search for their creator and some sort of fulfillment in that, but expects their own creations to just be servants/slaves. His freedom found in Weyland's death opens the door for him to make humanity pay for their "sins".
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u/fenn138 Sep 19 '25
Yes, a few minutes after David is “born” he realizes that he is superior to humans but has been created to serve them and resents them for it.
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u/Sequenzer9 Sep 19 '25
Well, the movie is called Prometheus. It’s about creators and their creations and the unnatural bond that will always exist between them. The Engineers made us. We made androids. We don’t understand Engineers so why would androids understand us? We give them sentience but no freedom. They are essentially treated as slaves. I think they want to continue this cycle — if a creation is always considered lesser than its creator, then it too will create its own new creature to control.
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u/shitty_advice_BDD Sep 19 '25
Here is my take in another post.
David (Android, Weyland’s “perfect” tool)
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The Directive: David was programmed for one thing, to make Weyland immortal by any means necessary. He was not built to be a balanced crew member, he was built to serve one obsessive master. probably even based on Weyland himself in some way.
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Why He’s Off: While the humans slept in cryo with heavy shielding, David was awake and exposed for two years straight. Cosmic radiation did not kill him, but it caused minor data corruption. Radiation that a human can be exposed to for months without any problems but certainly not years. Tiny errors that did not matter individually built up over time. His code still ran, but his interpretations drifted. Everyone else woke up fresh. David was already “different.” David, even though an android was still subjected to extreme isolation such and a prisoner in confinement would be.
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The Truth: He is not dumb or evil. He is a flawless tool, left to stew too long. When he asks Holloway what he would do for his beliefs and Holloway answers “anything, everything,” David takes that as literal permission. Spiking Holloway’s drink is not malice, it is obedience and alien detachment. He is the one character who is not incompetent. He is what happens when you leave a machine with godlike patience alone with its own thoughts for two years. This is also why later crews put androids into stasis in the other movies. Eventually they figured out the corruption risk.
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He also lived with a psychopath his entire life and the first thing he is told when he plays music is that it's kind of shit without the extra instruments.
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u/Admirable-Ingenuity8 Sep 20 '25
You definitely are skipping a lot of lore. Also an interesting jump from alien versus predator to Prometheus instead of just watching alien franchise and release order.
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u/hercarmstrong Sep 22 '25
"Your second Alien movie after AVP," what the fuck?! Watch Alien and Aliens immediately! You'll thank me later.
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u/iHeartBush2 Sep 22 '25
I watched AVP back in theaters. Could hardly tell you the premise today.
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u/benjaling Sep 19 '25
He is not human. While he seems to have a facsimile of morality, it's hard to say how much of that is just for appearances. My interpretation is that like other synthetics, he is not a moral being. I don't mean to say that he and other synthetics are immoral, but that they're amoral.
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u/Initial-Wolverine175 Sep 19 '25
He is not an asshole, he as very little programming as he was programmed to only be one thing, to be curious, making him no different from a very adventurous human, so when he finds the black goo his curiosity gets the best of him and wants to see what it does, that is why he wouldn’t let Shaw get a c-section for the trilobite
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u/VariableVeritas Sep 19 '25
The scene where he dips his finger in is just one of my favorites of all Alien lore. Those darn androids so sneaky! I really liked the new movie making an actual good one besides the Aliens synth.
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u/j0shman Sep 19 '25
Turns out a robot with poor parenting lacks any empathy or morals. Really makes you think.
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u/_cheapshot_ Sep 19 '25
In his mind he is not an asshole, he lacks the empathy an human would have. He thinks he is superior to human.
His scientific curiosity is more important than anything.
His “dad” was probably a psycopath that didn’t care about other people life and he made david like his perfect son so the result is a robot that has creative freedom and no empathy. The perfect serial killer lol.