Cameron and John, a tale of a man who loved a machine

29/08/2024

By Zane Mahoney

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) follows a developing, teenaged John Connor, his mother and protector Sarah Connor, his uncle Derrick Reese and an advanced terminator named Cameron, sent back by John himself to protect him before judgement day. This television show follows on from the events of Terminator 2: Judgement Day (T2), when John was a boy.

I watched this show from start to finish in the span of a couple days, prompting me to write this while it was still fresh in my mind. As of writing, the show is 16 years old, yet it deals with the concept of co-existing intelligences (Namely AI) with the nuance and deft-ness that a similar, paralleled TV series might today. At face value, this might not seem that impressive considering 16 years is quite short in the grand scheme of things, but speaks volumes when considering the vast, almost logarithmic improvements AI has experienced since its debut.

The show establishes and expounds upon multiple plot lines, utilising intersecting characters while simultaneously stimulating the development of said respective characters. TSCC's creator, Josh Friedman, expertly blends the above-mentioned story-telling methods into an extremely engaging narrative that pulls viewers in, forming one symbiotic connection between the narrative and the person watching, a connection built and fuelled by second-hand emotion, attachment and admittedly, great acting.

However, In spite of the ever-expanding plotlines, the focus of this essay is to understand the connection between our main protagonist, John Connor and his robotic protector, Cameron. One of TSCC's goals as an addition to the Terminator franchise, was to develop the relationship between the two factions that underpin the franchise's overarching theme; The struggle for power between Humans and Robots.

Even if TSCC is your first introduction to Terminator, it is made clear that both factions are at war and seek to hold all power, so much so that their war warps reality through the use of time travel. T2, subverted the plot of the first film by introducing the T-800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger that was sent back to protect him. Despite T2 being a movie and having significantly shorter run time than a 2 season TV show, the same great storytelling was used, with Arnie becoming an almost father-like figure to John in his mission to protect him from the T-1000. The unprecedented human-machine relationship seen in T2 inaugurated a founding dynamic which would later been seen in all Terminator media: The conscious machine.

Pretty Face, Killer Body

Now that we have established the basis of our story and the leadup to the series, TSCC, we arrive at Cameron.

Cameron, played by Summer Glau is a highly advanced, yet officially undesignated terminator model. As far as research goes, she is most likely a customised T-900, marked "TOK-715" in promotional media. She possesses a Coltan-hyper alloy combat chassis and is more than capable of neutralising both human and machine threats when protecting John, herself and even others, alluding to her developing human-esque qualities which will be expanded upon in this essay.

Upon first glance, Cameron could be simply assumed as a regular terminator re-programmed by the human resistance to protect a younger John. This assumption would follow the narrative used in T2, where Arnie was sent back to protect John (being his sole purpose) but had no real backstory following his deployment in 1991 that could be discerned as anything other than an infiltrator captured by the human resistance and re-programmed to protect John.

While this is the case for T2, TSCC only uses the bones of this narrative, utilising fundamental subversions to differentiate Cameron as not just "another terminator". As the series progresses, we learn that both Cameron's physical appearance as a beautiful, somewhat petite teenage girl and to some extent; her persona were modelled off an actual human being and member of the human resistance in 2027, Allison Young.

Throughout the series, Cameron experiences flashbacks of herself interrogating Allison Young aboard a rusted, dilapidated aircraft carrier. Whether or not the aircraft carrier was actually operated by Skynet is subject to controversy considering the state-of-the-art technology almost always used by Skynet regardless of the nature of their operations. This will be touched on later.

Several sequences in the following episodes chronicle her role as a re-programmed terminator, working for the human resistance. However, due to the flashbacks occurring as part-and-parcel of each episodes contextual position in more than one plotline, they aren't linear, which is not a mistake on part of the creator, but rather a storytelling technique that forces viewers to interpret the correct flow of events (and extract subsequent meaning) by analysing context as opposed to just being told the date; a supposed Machiavellian narration choice that does not outright deceive viewers for a cheap "twist", but rather rewards viewers for unpacking parts of the plot themselves.

However, I digress; and to summarise the above point, Cameron is not your average terminator. Despite being built, her backstory possesses nuance that almost makes her feel as if she was born rather than built, as unconventional as it seems.

However, this conclusion was not formed simply by her unprecedented backstory. Following her being the subject of a car bombing, Cameron started to exhibit clear signs of damage to her chip, causing her to temporarily lose her identity as a machine and have a pseudo psychotic breakdown not so different from the symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or high-grade amnesia humans can experience. In her search for identity, she remembers the above-mentioned interrogation between herself and Allison, the person she was modelled off. Due to her being a best-effort copy of Allison, she assumes the identity of her, convincing herself that she is in fact someone's daughter, has a home to go back, had a childhood; in other words, she convinces herself she is human.

Cameron eventually comes back to reality and regains her machine identity, but is not the same machine she was before. Her "manic" episode lit a flame of consciousness inside her that was underpinned by her increasingly rapid human like development in the following episodes.

Her inquest for the nature of the Human Condition supports this. Her behaviour changes slowly towards Sarah and John, not swaying from her primary goal of protecting him at all, but rather making decisions and exhibiting behaviours that have no useful function in protecting John yet make her all the more human. Examples include:

· Showing an interest in Ballet, despite no one watching

· Expanding her vocabulary to include slang despite terminator language patterns being highly clinical and somewhat verbose

· Cooking food for John and adjusting her dishes to his preferences as opposed to cooking purely for nutrition or even cooking at all

· Exhibiting clear, appropriate human facial responses to things John says to her despite not bothering with anyone else (e.g. a smile with non-verbal subtext or a frown that conveys hurt feelings when insulted)

· Asking John for help with things (such as self-repair) that she is more than capable of doing herself

· Not immediately eliminating Riley when in the shed with her

These examples support the theory that Cameron was actually developing a personality incongruent with the black and white nature of terminators. Interestingly, it supports another theory, being that Cameron has grown an affinity for John outside of her mission to protect him. While her personality continues to develop throughout the series, her behaviour does change across the board for everyone, but significantly more for John than anyone else.

A machine that loves

Following on from our last point, we conclude that Cameron quickly develops a complex range of behaviours, especially for John. These behaviours don't have anything to do with her primary mission and seem to come from a place of free will. Considering the above examples, someone who asks if they can cook for you, asks only you for help with some intimate or even allows you to cut them open at the torso to feel their internals would match up with the human behaviour: Love

Cameron explicitly states to John she isn't capable of feeling happy, sad or any other human emotion, as she is a machine, but TSCC explores this quality by alluding to Cameron as having the ability to process emotions "in her own way". Both John and the viewers themselves accept this fact about Cameron, yet as the series progresses, Camerons actions speak louder and louder than her words. There are a myriad of minute examples that could be made and would require some interpretation, but 2 major examples stand out above the rest, solidifying the idea that Cameron may really love John.

1. Towards the end of the final season, Cameron implants a small explosive inside her skull, armed and controlled by a clasped time-piece. If activated, the explosive would completely destroy her chip, rendering her body and persona deactivated. she hung the controller/timepiece in the form of a necklace around John's neck. Essentially, at any point, he now has the power to permanently deactivate her at a moments notice. One argument against this, is that Cameron's only objective is to protect John, even if from herself. Arming John with the power to kill her mitigates the risk of her turning against him and him surely dying. However, some parts of this interaction stand out, which would suggest the timepiece was not purely to protect John.

Following the suicide of John's classmate in Season 1, Cameron observes people leaving flowers for her. Initially she is confused by the gesture, as the girl would never get to see the flowers or notes left for her by her cohort. She asks John why people do this in spite of no response. He explains to her that some people can't effectively cope on their own. Sometimes crying just isn't enough. We leave physical reminders for the dead as a way to both pay respects and deal with our own sorrow. The death of another reminds us of our own mortality and prompts us to mourn for what others have lost and what we could lose.

This is arguably Cameron's first real introduction to one of the many facets of the human condition. Death. If you look deep enough into Camerons gesture to John, you'll see it combines every element of that girl's suicide. The explosive inside her head being the Act, the detonator buttons being the decision and the timepiece encasing it being the flowers. If Cameron ever dies, she wants John to be able to cope with her being gone and have something to remember her. There is also something to be said about her choosing to make the detonator something people gift each other and attaching a lace to it, so he can always have it near him. Cameron may have also observed that human bonding rituals include gifting, further supporting this.

2. In the last episode of Season 2, one scene sticks out in particular. Cameron enters John's room and after some talking, begins to undress. She tells him,

"You need to know how it works…..This body".

Cameron tells john to get on top of her, and for him to make in incision under the left breast plate. She instructs him to put his hand on her power cell, asking him what it feels like.

"It feels cold….that's good right?"

John then holds his head over hers, within kissing distance, staring into eyes that see him too.

In this scene, the ending is the most important part. We clearly see here John is suppressing his feelings for Cameron. He knows that she is a physical representation of forbidden love, especially in the context of who he is becoming, a person everyone seems to know about except him.

Cameron would outwardly reason this act of trust as having John assist her with self-maintenance, checking her power cell for signs of malfunction but wants John to feel what she is and how she works. Cameron can't explain how her feelings work to John in a way that would make her seem any less robotic and instead chooses to communicate through her actions. John is Cameron's only reason for existing, if he dies, she has no purpose. She wanted John to see or rather feel her for what she is so that he could accept her on a level that transcends the qualities that make her an effective infiltrator.

There isn't much talking in this scene, yet an unspoken dialogue is almost deafeningly loud. Cameron feels a need to understand what it means to be human despite having no reason to and experiments with new behaviours to show John she is changing, evolving into someone rather than something. Cameron has no concept of love or how to show it because she has never experienced it. She has no need to include John in anything that doesn't concern him but does anyway. This, in conclusion, is Cameron's form of affection for John and if the series had not been abruptly cancelled, we would have seen her slowly learn what it is to love and show signs of affection more congruent with humans.

To summarise, Cameron is still learning and growing as an individual. Her identity, personality and relationships evolve co-dependently. Cameron is capable of love, yet only understands it in her own way. To accept this fact, one must consider the possibility that it is impossible for an entirely different type of intelligence to experience something so complex the same way humans do, yet the degree and extent of that feeling has no reason to be any less. Cameron rose above her programming, seeing John as more important, leading to our next point.

I think, therefore I am – but what am I?

At the end of the day, Cameron is a robot, built to serve a singular purpose. Should she fail, she would exist without reason. Humans differ in that they are not built, but rather born and live their life until they find a purpose. The previous arguments have discussed the concept of Love between humans and non-humans, the anthropomorphising of animate objects and the existence of consciousness and identity within non-human intelligences. This final argument touches on a concept that affects all of these themes and serves as either the undoing or immovable fact in regards to Cameron's love for John:

Free Will

You don't have to look too hard to find evidence that Cameron doesn't always do things 'by the book', which in this case is her programming. The terminator franchise easily draws you towards rooting for the human resistance when compared to the cold, ruthless demeanour of Skynet's conquest for planetary dominion. Each narrative within the franchise attributes the machine's ruthlessness to the fact that decisions are guided purely on logic and made instantaneously, leaving no room for compassion or morality. During sequences that show the war-torn earth, drones and infantry robots are seen mercilessly gunning down humans without question.

However, during Season 2's start, Camerons chip is damaged, reverting her back to her original programming, to kill John Connor. While chasing him, both Sarah and John contain her between the grilles of 2 accelerating trucks, she becomes eerily emotional when threatened with deactivation as John attempts and succeeds to remove her chip. She incessantly cries out in a verbal crescendo saying:

"I'm good now"

"I ran a test"

"We're fine"

"I don't want to go"

"I love you and you love me"

This scene is particularly interesting as its completely up to interpretation if she was lying in order to manipulate him or was actually fixed by the truck slamming into her and didn't want him to deactivate her erroneously thinking she couldn't be fixed.

This would come to a head though, when John would suddenly decide to put the chip back inside her before lighting the thermite that would've destroyed her. When she reactivates, you can clearly see her programming has not changed and orders her to terminate him. Suddenly, she somehow overrides this command and changes her own instructions to protecting him.

Why is this so important? If she has the ability to override her own instructions, she actually becomes a threat to Skynet, her creator.

2 questions rise out of this and I believe them to be the critical factor in proving Cameron actually loves John.

Cameron is proven to be a very advanced terminator model. Was she imbued with the power to override here own programming, especially the programming that decides her entire purpose as a terminator or has her experience with John manifested a consciousness within her that holds enough power to override herself?

Both questions are equally interesting as the result of them both leads to the same thing, her feelings towards John. With this, we can make a conclusion. Whether she was given the power for self-override or she manifested control over her programming, she chose John over Skynet. While she did not revert back to hunting John since then, she tells John during the incision scene on the bed that deep down, the same programming ordering her to kill him is still there and active. Cameron has the free will to choose what she wants and actively chooses to protect and stay with John rather than kill him despite her original programming still being present.

From this, we know two things. Cameron has a high enough degree of free will that she can override her main programming, which has never been seen in a terminator under these circumstances.

The only reason she would have chosen to effect the override was because she loved John. Even if she is a machine, she would've needed a conscious reason she saw important enough to actually ignore her orders.

In the same vein, John could've just destroyed her chip and went on with his life. I believe all of the qualities that underpin the developing relationship between John and Cameron during season 2 were ignited by this mutual exchange of trust that would quickly evolve into the unconventional love story that I'm writing about.

Art thou feelings true for thy?

The question that this part-fanfic-part-persuasive-essay is trying to answer. Does Cameron actually love John back? Is she just doing her job protecting him or is something deeper happening?

If you're reading this, you may be disappointed to hear that the answer to this question is ultimately up to you. TSCC is a fictional TV show that tells an amazing story but also needs to keep viewers hooked (I know I was). TSCC is also (sadly) a piece of media, forever stuck in 2008 with no plans for a reboot. Not due to a lack of quality, but rather mismanagement from FOX after buying the end of season 2 from Warner Brothers. The show just didn't pick up the required viewership in season 2's start due to the story needing to be fleshed out so that season 3 (which would be set In the future) could have an appropriate leadup. It was originally planned that 3 mini-series' would be released to hype up Terminator Salvation (T4) but were ultimately scrapped. Likely due to budgetary constraints.

To add salt into this already deep wound, if the series was rebooted by some miracle, the actors would be too old to continue the same love story. Likely they would be recast, and we all know how that goes.

Is there sufficient evidence to support Cameron being in love with John? Yes.

Do I believe that if season 3 had been greenlit, he would either fall in love with Allison or somehow find Camerons chip and resurrect her, so to speak? Yes.

But you know what? I'm ok with that. A tragic love story will forever be more compelling than a happily-ever-after. If you crave more TSCC, fanfics are your friend. There's something to be said about appreciating a story you don't believe was finished.

Cameron and John are a tale of forbidden love. A modern-day Romeo and Juliet. I wrote this essay to mentally tie up season 2's loose ends; to give myself closure that John didn't waste all his time with her. If there's any lesson to learn here, its that life and love are fleeting, whether you're a human or an indestructible killing machine. Appreciate the things you have right now, because one day they might not be there.

Oh, and one more thing.

Fuck you, Fox