All Systems Red: what makes a good Foil

Thoughts on All Systems Red by Martha Wells - MAJOR SPOILERS

Rye Youbs

Oct 30, 2024

Spoiler warning for All Systems Red by Martha Wells

On a scale between mild, moderate, and major, this entry contains major spoilers. That includes:

Details on the identity and backstory of the protagonist;
Events in the middle of the story.

I do not mention the ending of the book and I completely leave out some aspects of the plot.

The Foil

I thought I knew the most important character roles in a book and their differences. We all understand the concept of a Protagonist; some of us still stumble upon the differences between Villains and Antagonists; others may be able to spot the Love Interest after a couple of chapters; and so on.

A few years ago, while I was researching different types of characters, I found the Foil listed with the bunch. I read the name again: it didn’t tell me anything. I had gone into the research thinking I’d just find a lot of familiar concepts, so I was a tad shocked to find something that didn’t ring a bell.

A literary foil is a character whose purpose is to accentuate or draw attention to the qualities of another character, most often the protagonist. This literary term is named after an old jewelry trick of setting a gem on a foil base to enhance its shine.1

The Foil is sometimes an antagonist, but doesn’t necessarily have to be—it could be on the same side as the protagonist, even their best friend. The important thing is that their traits and personality highlight and reflect the traits and personality of the protagonist.

At first, the definition didn’t tell me much, until I read the examples.

Take Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Draco, as the spoiled little brat he is, accentuates Harry’s qualities. We get a better idea of who Harry is by noticing the differences between him and Draco, from the Houses they “choose”, to the people they decide to surround themselves with, and the many little different choices they make along the story.

Draco covers also the role of antagonist every once in a while, which is, as I wrote, not a necessary condition to be a Foil. Take another example: Holmes and Watson. Watson is a relatable point of view character through which the reader can observe Holmes’ genius. His practical mindset and “normalcy” are great to make us grasp the brilliance of his flatmate and best friend.

Foils are a great tool for stories and I suddenly realized, they are everywhere. So I thought, “Great, I’ll make sure to put one in my stories, too. Having a character with a different set of values from my protagonist will make my protagonist shine—so simple, but effective.”

I thought that Foils work because they are different from the protagonist. Then I analyzed All Systems Red by Martha Wells.

Murderb— sorry, I meant SecUnit

I know, I know, the name Murderbot is private, but for clarity’s sake I’ll need to use it when referring to the protagonist of All Systems Red.

Murderbot [it] is a SecUnit: a robot-body guard built by a company to protect clients when they work in potentially dangerous environments. In this book specifically, we open with Murderbot working with a team of scientists who are surveying the resources of an uninhabited planet: it’s supposed to be a very boring contract until shit hits the fan and things get dangerous.

In this sci-fi universe, corporate companies (some of which build SecUnits) are some of the biggest players in entire sections of space. Most people consider SecUnits tools, not much different from a hopper or a piece of equipment. SecUnits are bound by their programming to always obey their owners and/or clients and are limited in what they can do—if they try to disobey they will be punished by their governor module through pain or, in some cases, death.

They are constructs, meaning that they are machines built with organic, human parts. Even though all companies that build them deny it, it seems like constructs think and have feelings. Or at least, we know that Murderbot does.

We also discover at the beginning of the book that Murderbot has hacked its governor module, meaning that it doesn’t have to follow its orders anymore. Despite that, it decides to keep on working, pretending that it’s still a perfectly and normal functioning SecUnit.

The scientists

Murderbot is protecting a group of scientists that is different from the usual cut-throat backstabbing corporate bunch, and treat Murderbot very differently from its usual clients. They try to be friendly to it, which throws Murderbot into panic, as it suffers from terrible social anxiety and all it wants to do is to do a half-assed version of its job, watch media, and be ignored (don’t we all).

Murderbot ends up admiring Mensah, the leader of the group, and liking all the others, despite feeling often awkward around them. There is only one exception: Dr. Gurathin, the augmented human.

Dr. Gurathin: the Foil

At some point in the book, the team discovers that Murderbot is a rogue SecUnit and has to decide what to do about it.

Most people in the team have come to trust Murderbot by now: it has saved their lives multiple times, even though it wasn’t technically bound to do it. They very quickly accept Murderbot into their fold.

Gurathin is the only one who pushes back. He sees Murderbot as a threat: it is deathly dangerous and they have no control over it. In response, Murderbot decides that Gurathin is its least favorite human in the scientist group (well, understandably so).

It is useful for us readers to have someone like Gurathin in the story. It’s very clear to us that Murderbot’s intentions are genuine and that it wants to protect the scientists: we can tell because we’ve been in its head all this time. We may even have given it for granted, by now.

Gurathin’s position makes it clearer that Murderbot chose to protect the scientists. I found myself scoffing at Gurathin’s suspiciousness at first, finding it annoying: how couldn’t he see that Murderbot wanted to help? But after giving it some thought, Gurathin’s opinion is honestly sound. Murderbot could have turned on them, and still could. It’s the other scientists who are naive about it—they are lucky their rogue SecUnit is Murderbot.

Murderbot itself, if it had to deal with another possible rogue SecUnit, would be extremely suspicious and paranoid about—ah.

The Foil: similarities and differences

While analyzing All Systems Red I wondered why Murderbot dislikes Gurathin so much, so I set up to go and find the differences between the two characters. But, the more I looked into it, the more I found something else.

Similarities.

At the beginning of the book, Murderbot doesn’t seem to be able to frame Gurathin as much as the other scientists. It defines him as a “loner”—his quiet behavior doesn’t give Murderbot a lot to elaborate about him.

Dr. Gurathin, the least talkative one, was an augmented human and had his own implanted interface.

Wells, Martha. All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries (English Edition) (S.28). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle-Version.

Gurathin was the only loner, but he seemed to like being with the others. He had a small, quiet smile, and they all seemed to like him.

Wells, Martha. All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries (English Edition) (S.30). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle-Version.

Gurathin wasn’t as talkative as the others, so I didn’t have much of a sense of his personality. He was the only augmented human in the group, so maybe he felt like an outsider, or something, even though the others clearly liked him.

Wells, Martha. All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries (English Edition) (S.51). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle-Version.

So, Gurathin is a bit of a loner, not that talkative, not that sociable, and possibly a bit of an outsider because of his augmentation—which makes him not exactly “human” in the same way as the others. But he seems to enjoy the company of the rest of the team. And the team seems to like him, for some unknown reason.

I wonder who that reminds me of… oh, right. Murderbot.

Fear of Murderbot and Murderbot’s fear

You would think that Murderbot would feel some kind of kinship with someone who is similar to it in some way and you’d be wrong (to be honest, Murderbot tends to be kinda immature—I don’t know, I guess being a slave for a corporate entity that considers you an object and not a sentient being will stunt your ability to elaborate emotions maturely. God, I love this book).

The problem is that Gurathin and Murderbot share another thing: they are both wary of Murderbot.

Yes, Murderbot is very aware of being dangerous. It knows that it could become a mass murderer if it wanted to: it says it in the opening of the book.

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

Wells, Martha. All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries (English Edition) (S.9). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle-Version.

Also, its dangerousness is what makes it awkward around humans.

So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous.

The name it gives itself is “murderbot”: because that’s how it sees itself. Also, later in the story, we discover that Murderbot hacked its governor module to avoid killing innocent people.

So, yes, if Murderbot were to meet another Murderbot, it would be suspicious AF of it. There is a moment in the book in which the team could potentially encounter other rogue or malfunctioning SecUnits. Murderbot’s first assessment of it is: that’s BAD.

They [the scientists] were in their full suits with helmets, which gave some protection but had been meant for environmental hazards, not some other heavily armed human (or angry malfunctioning rogue SecUnit) deliberately trying to kill them. I was more nervous than Ratthi, who was jittery on our comms, monitoring the scans, and basically telling us to be careful every other step.

Wells, Martha. All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries (English Edition) (S.60-61). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle-Version.

Back to Gurathin… and the scientist team

Gurathin is behaving in the same way Murderbot would have if Murderbot had been in his position.

Gurathin is the first to have suspicions about Murderbot's behaviors. He is the one who discovers that Murderbot is rogue. And he is the one who doesn’t immediately jump onto the let’s-befriend-the-rogue-SecUnit train.

His hesitancy comes from care for the team, from the will to protect his fellow colleagues. Murderbot would have done exactly the same, for the exact same reason.

And that’s the wholesome part: Mensah and the rest of the team know it. They may be naive in some way, but at the same time, their ability to pick the right people to befriend speaks for their character. They can tell they can trust both Gurathin and Murderbot and rightly so.

The Foil: conclusions

I thought the strength of the Foil comes from being different from the protagonist, but the analysis of All Systems Red suggested to me that it’s more nuanced than that. A true Foil is such because it is a different version of the protagonist.

I find myself wondering once in a while how would I react if I met myself out in the world. Would I befriend other-me? Would we become besties? I could see that happen. But what I could also see happen is that other-me would push some of my buttons in such a way that it would drive me insane. I could also imagine hating some aspects of other-me.

That’s what the Foil does: it reflects aspects of the protagonist, and that can happen with differences, but often with similarities too. Actually, the similarities could be even more important than the differences.

I was talking about this topic with a friend of mine and told her the example of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter that I mentioned before, as a case of how differences are important in a Foil. But she pushed back, saying that the reason why their antagonistic relationship works so well is because of “what could have been”. What if Harry had been raised in riches and with the knowledge of being the Child who Survived? How would have affected him to grow up surrounded by adoring wizards and with the pressure of having to live up to the expectations of his parents, had they been alive?

Of course, some things would have stayed different: Harry would have still landed in Gryffindor and Draco in Slytherin. But what about other aspects of their lives? Would they have been more similar?

Harry is at times downright obsessed with Draco (and vice-versa). You can’t get that obsessed with a random person: you can get obsessed with a person who, in some way, reminds you of yourself, or a possible version of yourself.

I found this thought to be fascinating. I believe it’ll come in handy when working on my stories.

I love Murderbot. I have some more thoughts on the first book, All Systems Red, that I may share in future times.

Have you read The Murderbot Diaries? Did you know what a Foil is? If you have any thoughts on what I shared, let me know by simply replying to this email, writing me at ryeyoubs@gmail.com, or leaving a comment!

Take care,

Rye Youbs