An unreliable narrator is a first-person narrator that for some reason has a compromised point-of-view. In all stories with a first-person narrator, the narrator serves as a filter for the events. What the narrator does not know or observe cannot be explained. Usually, however, we trust that the narrator is knowledgeable and truthful enough to give us an accurate representation of the story being told.
An unreliable narrator is one of the most powerful tools available to a creator. Her or his unreliability might be obvious to the audience throughout, it might be revealed gradually, or it might come as a revelation that provides a major plot twist. In the breakout television show, ‘Mr Robot’. no one can trust the protagonist(?) Elliot’s interpretation of any events.
Admittedly, ‘Mr Robot’ is not an easy show to follow. The creator, Sam Esmail, doesn’t really hide the fact that what Elliot says isn’t the truth. Frankly, I don’t believe anything that either one of them is telling me. Here’s the degree of trust you should have had in Elliot after the debut season: Zero. It does not get reset because once we see through an illusion of this plot twisting noir that there must be all that there is. Maybe I am reading WAY too much into this. I can not look away. It has gotten inside of my head.
There is no randomness in the ‘Mr Robot’ universe, there is nothing that can’t be read into or visited, no number that isn’t an IP address or a code. ‘Mr. Robot’ could be an object lesson in transmedia. Sure, there are Mr. Robot emjois and GIFS and favorite quotes. Yes, there are easter eggs. The show’s site is a great resource; you can find ‘footage’ of the aftermath of the hack. You can watch the film referenced in Season 2, ‘The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie.’ The show explicitly invites viewers to ‘hack’ along with the characters.
And now ‘Mr Robot’ is an immersive app ERrrr a video game.
Lets set the scene…You’ve stumbled on the a smartphone that belongs to a hacker who’s set on launching an unprecedented cybercrime, one more devastating than anything the world has ever seen. With the hacker’s previously lost phone now in your hands, you find yourself being drawn into the deep dark web being spun by the anarchistic hacker and the infamous fsociety.
Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltratiOn was developed by the acclaimed independent team at Night School Studio (Published by TellTale Games) in collaboration with the creative team behind Universal Cable Productions (UCP) and USA Network’s Emmy-nominated series. The text based adventure game extends the narrative experience of the award-winning show, allowing players to become personally intertwined with the characters of the underground hacker group, fsociety. Players will be using the mysterious new E Corp Messaging App over the course of a week, playing in real time, and carefully communicating with its members as they race to recover data that is critical to their goals of hacking the multinational company Evil Corp. If you are a ‘Mr.Robot’ fan, you can download the Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n for your iPhone for $2.99 and Android smartphone/tablet owners can download the game for a similar amount. The game is available offline, with no internet connection required once it is downloaded. Unlike most mobile games, Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n does not feature any in-App purchases.
-Dagobot
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