That Kind of Program
By TeenageMutantNinjaHamster
Disclaimer: I do not own anything except this drabble. If I were Kevin Flynn, the Grid would have been way worse off, and if I were Disney, the movie never would have been finished.
A program doesn't have to be on the Grid long to know who they are. They aren't like users. Users can experience their entire existence without ever discovering their purpose. Some believe such a purpose doesn't exist. They live, and then they die. Everything in between is governed by chance and the choices they make. But not programs. Programs know their purpose from the moment they are rezzed. They have to have a reason for being here, otherwise they wouldn't have been written.
There are programs for just about everything. Find someone doing a task on one side of the screen, and you'll find someone mirroring it on the other. It's a natural balance, a way of keeping order without even realizing it's really happening. But just like the self-sustaining, yet ever fragile ecosystems of the users' world, the Grid can be unbalanced. The slightest bump can send everything into a nosedive into disaster.
The creator knew something was going on. One must be observant when watching over his creation. He noticed the uneasiness between the basic programs and the isometric algorithms. And when the ISO leader was derezzed, he knew it couldn't have been a coincidence; an accident. It was something spectacular to witness from a user's perspective, if not unnerving. But the creator kept a level head and decided he had to do something about it.
That's why he was created. The system monitor program, designed to protect the Grid. In a way, he was supposed to preserve the balance that had been upset. But first he had to watch his world fall apart.
If Clu and Anon were users, they may have been considered brothers. They were both created by Kevin Flynn, and they were both programmed for the benefit of the Grid. But the two never would have considered each other anything but enemies. Clu was destroying what Anon was meant to protect, and Anon was constantly getting in Clu's way.
Clu wanted the ISOs gone. Anon wanted Clu stopped. Opposite objectives. Both for the benefit of the Grid. Both the work of Kevin Flynn. These two programs who were such polar opposites were actually so similar at the most basic forms of their programming.
Anon wasn't programmed to be a hero just as Clu wasn't programmed to commit genocide. Bravery isn't something you can write into a program, just as it's not something you can teach a child. Some people are brave, some are not. Some programs have courage, some don't.
How do we know Anon was a hero? What if he was just fulfilling his directive in a way that seemed heroic to an observer? Well, that's just it. Sometimes good and bad is subjective. I can't recall a conflict between two parties that came out of anything other than an 80s cartoon that was purely black and white. It's always varying shades of gray. How light or dark depends on your perspective.
If you think Anon is a hero, then he is a hero. When the virus Abraxas revealed himself to the monitor and Gibson, Gibson ran, but Anon wielded his disc, ready to fight.
I don't believe a user can write heroism into a program even if they tried. A hero isn't defined by the traits they're born with, but by what they do with those traits. Why Anon became a hero really isn't that hard to understand.
He's just that kind of program.