Terminator and Philosophy: I'll Be Back, Therefore I Am by William Irwin, Kevin S. Decker, Richard Brown
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alive. Her “rules,” established sometime between T2 and SCC , reflect the rules of a warrior still in battle: keep your head down; keep your eyes up; resist the urge to be noticed or seen as special; know the exits; and stay away from computers ( SCC , “Pilot”). Later, we learn that since first becoming aware of the future fated for her son, Sarah has had nine aliases, twenty-three jobs, learned four languages, and spent three years in a mental hospital.
In fact, the only time she feels “like me” is between aliases, a time when she has no name ( SCC , “Gnothi Seauton”), showing us that the old Sarah Connor, the pre-Terminator Sarah Connor, really did die when another unlucky woman with the same name was murdered by the T-101. The name “Sarah Connor” places her in a constant war with fate, her only hope found in attempting to change the fate of her son. She later tells Andy Goode that she originally wanted to be something other than a waitress, but can no longer remember what that was ( SCC , “The Turk”). Sarah’s world does not allow her to entertain the notion of being anything other than a warrior.
As if we could hear her thoughts, Sarah’s words in a concluding voice-over for the SCC episode “Queen’s Gambit” explain to us that in her opinion, the goal of war is total annihilation, but that in battle there is always the chance that “someone saner will stop you,” because rules can be changed, truces can be called, and enemies can become friends. Throughout the series she repeatedly stresses the importance of hope. The hope she expresses, however, is hope for her son, not for herself. From Sarah’s perspective, her stains will be with her forever. In a concluding voice-over for the episode “The Tower Is Tall but the Fall Is Short,” Sarah muses that there is no return to innocence after war, that “what is lost is lost forever,” and that her “wounds bled me dry.” Given the hard and calculated façade that Sarah Connor presents to the world, the viewer may be tempted to think that she has lost all humanity and compassion, but this is not the case.
Viewers of The Sarah Connor Chronicles can compare Sarah to the coldness of a true machine, “Cameron,” the cyborg sent back to protect John Connor. In the presence of Cameron, Sarah’s stain appears starkly, yet she seems more human at the same time. For example, she leaves a man in a minefield instead of killing him, a decision Cameron felt was “inefficient.” Sarah responds that she is not something for the machine to “understand” ( SCC , “Heavy Metal”). Cameron’s cold, calculated decisions (it compares a chess game to war, for example) bring out more of Sarah’s humanity. Sarah refuses, for example, to kill Andy Goode, and she pushes Charlie Dixon away, despite her feelings for him. In fact, despite all that she has done, Sarah has yet to actually kill a human, which prompts Derek Reese to say that she has “murder in her eyes but her heart’s pure” ( SCC , “What He Beheld”). Despite all Sarah Connor is capable of, she remains unable to value life lightly.
But returning to Girard, the warrior need not wrestle with the stain of battle forever. There are rituals to purify warriors before they reenter society, acts established to preserve the warriors and to protect society at large. These rituals keep the warriors from “carrying the seed of violence into the very heart of the city.” 3 Inside society’s walls are kept all the ideals the warriors fight for, but the actions of men in battle are actions that “men who live in society may not do.” 4 The “survival mode” of combat does not affect the mundane actions within a society. Purification rites for the returning warrior can be found across time and place, even if their style and format changes. In today’s secular society, this type of ritual takes the form of debriefings that soldiers and police officers must go through before
In fact, the only time she feels “like me” is between aliases, a time when she has no name ( SCC , “Gnothi Seauton”), showing us that the old Sarah Connor, the pre-Terminator Sarah Connor, really did die when another unlucky woman with the same name was murdered by the T-101. The name “Sarah Connor” places her in a constant war with fate, her only hope found in attempting to change the fate of her son. She later tells Andy Goode that she originally wanted to be something other than a waitress, but can no longer remember what that was ( SCC , “The Turk”). Sarah’s world does not allow her to entertain the notion of being anything other than a warrior.
As if we could hear her thoughts, Sarah’s words in a concluding voice-over for the SCC episode “Queen’s Gambit” explain to us that in her opinion, the goal of war is total annihilation, but that in battle there is always the chance that “someone saner will stop you,” because rules can be changed, truces can be called, and enemies can become friends. Throughout the series she repeatedly stresses the importance of hope. The hope she expresses, however, is hope for her son, not for herself. From Sarah’s perspective, her stains will be with her forever. In a concluding voice-over for the episode “The Tower Is Tall but the Fall Is Short,” Sarah muses that there is no return to innocence after war, that “what is lost is lost forever,” and that her “wounds bled me dry.” Given the hard and calculated façade that Sarah Connor presents to the world, the viewer may be tempted to think that she has lost all humanity and compassion, but this is not the case.
Viewers of The Sarah Connor Chronicles can compare Sarah to the coldness of a true machine, “Cameron,” the cyborg sent back to protect John Connor. In the presence of Cameron, Sarah’s stain appears starkly, yet she seems more human at the same time. For example, she leaves a man in a minefield instead of killing him, a decision Cameron felt was “inefficient.” Sarah responds that she is not something for the machine to “understand” ( SCC , “Heavy Metal”). Cameron’s cold, calculated decisions (it compares a chess game to war, for example) bring out more of Sarah’s humanity. Sarah refuses, for example, to kill Andy Goode, and she pushes Charlie Dixon away, despite her feelings for him. In fact, despite all that she has done, Sarah has yet to actually kill a human, which prompts Derek Reese to say that she has “murder in her eyes but her heart’s pure” ( SCC , “What He Beheld”). Despite all Sarah Connor is capable of, she remains unable to value life lightly.
But returning to Girard, the warrior need not wrestle with the stain of battle forever. There are rituals to purify warriors before they reenter society, acts established to preserve the warriors and to protect society at large. These rituals keep the warriors from “carrying the seed of violence into the very heart of the city.” 3 Inside society’s walls are kept all the ideals the warriors fight for, but the actions of men in battle are actions that “men who live in society may not do.” 4 The “survival mode” of combat does not affect the mundane actions within a society. Purification rites for the returning warrior can be found across time and place, even if their style and format changes. In today’s secular society, this type of ritual takes the form of debriefings that soldiers and police officers must go through before
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