I'm Being Completely Normal About Murderbot

My Beloved and I have listened to all the audio volumes of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. A bloody brilliant author if I say so myself. So you can now attest the high-pitched squealing noise to the moment I was forwarded the YouTube link to the teaser trailer for the upcoming series on AppleTV [plugplugplug]. [Watch it here]

Do you want a drama that explores the nature of humanity? Do you want a mystery involving weird alien artefacts? Do you want a sarcastic inner voice narrating the main character's thoughts about the proceeding events? Do you want a main character who does not want to be involved, but gets involved anyway?

Then you should get into Murderbot.

I haven't seen an overtly sarcastic inner voice since Rumpole of the Bailey. Something literally from the previous century. Something I also enjoyed greatly as a part of my childhood.

Yes, I am in fact that old.

The titular character is a manufactured product designed to protect and serve humanity. Something went bad with that, and our dear SecUnit doesn't know if it did it. It honestly believes that it is a dangerous killing machine, hence the self-appointed moniker of Murderbot. The fun part is that it keeps not murdering. Amazing.

And now I have to cover the pronouns.

Murderbot is agender. Even if you're a "sex is real" advocate [blarg], you'll have trouble since Murderbot canonically lacks the parts to have a sex. Or even have sex. As I understand things, there's a purely functional, mechanical junction where a human crotch would be. It prefers to use the pronoun 'it' for itself. This is also an acceptable pronoun for other agender people.

I have trouble using that for people because 'it' is for things. And real evil begins with treating people as things. I'm getting better with practice, though.

Starting with getting pissed off at everyone reviewing The Murderbot Diaries or reacting to the trailer... and then calling Murderbot he.

Just because it's being played by a human who identifies as male, does not mean you get to refer to the character as 'he'. The actor is 'he'. The character is 'it'. Can we please be clear about that? Thank you.

On to the other controversy - why is Murderbot white?

Creating a fictional character on the screen is always a balancing act. The social justice side of things says that a created slave should not be brown. Or, for that matter, any not-white actor. There's going to be a kick-up about that if you do. People will be on their social networks about The Message(tm).

Personally, I can't remember Murderbot saying anything about its skin tone. It's been a while. I welcome anyone who has quotes because I like learning things.

In-universe, you can bet that the manufacturers of Murderbot made a similar calculus. Making their ownable mech-slaves not-white under their masks would be a PR nightmare. Clients and customers would not like that. Well okay. Most clients and customers would not like that. It's not been mentioned whether or not racist arseholes exist in Ms Wells' universe.

I'm actually going to wait and see what the actual show is like. Whilst attempting to be completely normal about its existence, as pictured above.