He says later that the whole "touching Michael's heart" bit was just the first thing that occurred to him. And pretending to really be a monk serves his own general need for self-preservation. Michael was the one who assigned a bunch of profound and heartfelt meaning to it -- which, you're right, that was all calculated to make Tahani feel inadequate.
Sometimes Jason ends up making kind gestures...but seriously, this is the guy who screwed up a friend's DJing gig, and then, after the friend was upset that Jason had lost him the job, Jason responded by Molotov-cocktailing the guy's boat.
To me he seems really wrapped up in his own self-absorbed idea of whatever's going on at the time. If helping other people fits into that idea, great, he'll do it! If "they deserve to have their stuff firebombed" fits into that idea, he'll do that just as easily. With no particular remorse.
This is also why I don't find his relationship with Janet all that charming. It works because she's very capable of adapting herself to fit his idea of her ("there is nothing in my programming that specifically prevented this from happening"), in contrast to a human, who would have their own needs and boundaries and inner lives that might not fit neatly into Jasonworld. Every once in a while Janet has a trait she can't adapt ("not a girl", "not a robot"), and Jason just...doesn't absorb it. It's not just that he doesn't understand, it's that he doesn't care about trying to.
Tahani and Chidi are genuinely nice people, although their personal issues and neuroses have hamstrung their ability to act on it in effective ways. Eleanor isn't nice at the start, but there's a genuinely caring and empathetic person somewhere inside her that's clawing its way out. I'm not sure I see that in Jason. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if he actually gets to a point of feeling responsible and remorseful about his callousness toward other people.
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ninetydegrees
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on Saturday, March 17th, 2018 04:54 am (UTC)He says later that the whole "touching Michael's heart" bit was just the first thing that occurred to him. And pretending to really be a monk serves his own general need for self-preservation. Michael was the one who assigned a bunch of profound and heartfelt meaning to it -- which, you're right, that was all calculated to make Tahani feel inadequate.
Sometimes Jason ends up making kind gestures...but seriously, this is the guy who screwed up a friend's DJing gig, and then, after the friend was upset that Jason had lost him the job, Jason responded by Molotov-cocktailing the guy's boat.
To me he seems really wrapped up in his own self-absorbed idea of whatever's going on at the time. If helping other people fits into that idea, great, he'll do it! If "they deserve to have their stuff firebombed" fits into that idea, he'll do that just as easily. With no particular remorse.
This is also why I don't find his relationship with Janet all that charming. It works because she's very capable of adapting herself to fit his idea of her ("there is nothing in my programming that specifically prevented this from happening"), in contrast to a human, who would have their own needs and boundaries and inner lives that might not fit neatly into Jasonworld. Every once in a while Janet has a trait she can't adapt ("not a girl", "not a robot"), and Jason just...doesn't absorb it. It's not just that he doesn't understand, it's that he doesn't care about trying to.
Tahani and Chidi are genuinely nice people, although their personal issues and neuroses have hamstrung their ability to act on it in effective ways. Eleanor isn't nice at the start, but there's a genuinely caring and empathetic person somewhere inside her that's clawing its way out. I'm not sure I see that in Jason. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if he actually gets to a point of feeling responsible and remorseful about his callousness toward other people.