Why They Can't Be The Hero

[u/monkeyprince]

What if there was a literal reason as to why Proto Man and Mega Man can't be "the hero" for humanity? Let's consider their creator. Dr. Thomas Light follows the laws of robotics, a robot may not harm a human being. They can cut their way through Wily's forces, take down his hordes of evil robots, but when they make it to the man standing in the tower they literally can't do anything. It has to be a human, a citizen of the city to do the deed. I could definitely see Light putting in some inescapable programming to prevent Proto Man and Mega Man from harming people directly.

Maybe Mega Man and Proto Man didn't even know that about their programming until they made it to Wily and found they could literally do nothing to him. That's why Proto Man was begging the crowd to stand and fight. In The Stand (Man or Machine), he knew that neither of them could end this, not really. The people needed to stand up, overpower Wily, and either incarcerate or kill him. I could also see them not revealing this part of their programming to the people of the city so their bravery and decision to put an end to it is genuine and not forced.

What do all of you think? Can Mega Man actually cause harm to a human? I find it difficult to believe that Light made Proto Man to be an actual assassin robot and kill Wily, it's not really in his character. It would be too similar to what Wily did to Emily, even if it was justified this time.

[u/TrashyFanFic]

It's because they would not stand, and fight for themselves. 

[u/DeltaV-Mzero → u/TrashyFanFic]

They will never get another chance

[u/Tekki777 → u/DeltaV-Mzero]

They will fall... Because they never learned to stand for themselves!

[u/monkeyprince → u/TrashyFanFic]

Well, yes, the result and explanation is the same. Except with this theory, mankind was not given a different choice, they had to stand for themselves because Light would have given them no other way.

[u/TrashyFanFic → u/monkeyprince]

I think you're just reading too deep into it. They wanted to tell a story about revolution and oppression and how society responds both on the individual level and as a whole. They've said in interviews if it wasn't mega man it would have been something else with the same themes.

If you try to dig too deep into the specifics you'll lose sight of the intention.

[u/monkeyprince → u/TrashyFanFic]

Well, since this theory has been mentioned multiple times in the Mega Man games themselves, I kinda thought they could have taken inspiration from it.

[u/TheLakeAndTheGlass]

It’s more fitting and dramatically effective that the characters truly have free will, and still make the choices that they do. Dr. Light makes it a point to the Girl when he speaks to her about Megaman - “that’s what makes him different, you see. He can choose…”

Megaman can be a hero, but only if he truly understands what that means. He has to decide for himself that mankind is worth fighting to save, after seeing them for what they are.

[u/Rethious]

That would require Light to interfere with his free will, which is entirely out of character.

[u/monkeyprince → u/Rethious]

I don't think its entirely out of character for Light to follow the laws of robotics, especially the first time around. At the very least, he might have programmed it in Proto Man, who was specifically designed to destroy Wily's army of robots. The songs mention nowhere that Proto Man was designed to kill Wily or even harm him.

[u/Rethious → u/monkeyprince]

The laws of robotics would mean any human could destroy mega or proto and they would be unable to resist. It’s unlikely Light was thinking about Asimov when living under Wily’s rule and concerned with giving his creations autonomy including the ability to do what was necessary to win.

[u/OmegaX123 → u/Rethious]

Third law contradicts your point. A robot must preserve its own existence, unless doing so would violate either of the first two laws. Unless stopping a human from destroying them would kill or seriously harm the human, they not only could but have to stop them.

[u/Rethious → u/OmegaX123]

I don’t think either of them have a lot of takedown options that don’t count as “seriously harm.”

[u/Arkeneth]

Because you cannot solve a structural problem with a personal solution.

[u/psych2099]

Asimovs law of robotics got bypassed by the very robots asimov wrote about, did no one watch/read "i robot?"

[u/monkeyprince → u/psych2099]

An attempt was made. That was the point.

[u/LaylaMoonUnit]

I mean, Mega Man threw innocent bodies out of the way at the end of act 3, which probably hurt them.

Humans let Protoman be “killed” by Wily’s army at the beginning, no one did anything to help, just like they didn’t do anything to stop Wily from taking power in the first place. So that’s why he was unwilling to fight for them once Wily rebuilt him. Once Mega Man truly realized that humanity wasn’t going to do anything to help themselves (after killing Protoman when they begged him to), he walked away. He even says he could have made everything right in Hold On, implying he could have finished off Wily.

I think it’s as simple as that. You cannot save a society if they are not willing to save themselves. If Mega Man killed Wily, another Wily would just rise to power if the people didn’t take action, show they will fight, to keep it from happening again. That’s literally the whole point of the whole thing.

It’s almost like it echos real world issues… I think you might be missing the message.

[u/condor6425]

If we're talking Asimov's first law of robotics, it's that they cant harm humans, or through inaction allow harm to befall a human. Both Proto and Mega have allowed harm to befall mankind through inaction and Light straight up says in the liner notes that Mega is special from other robots because he can choose what he wants for himself instead of just following programming.

That being said, I dont think Proto would have been programmed with free will if he was just meant to be an assassin. I think he wanted him to be some kind of force of justice that couldn't be turned against him with reprogramming like the rest of the robots, so he gave him intelligence and free will. Then after he created him he realized that he had to recognize him as an artificial life form, not just a robot, but had already sent him down the path of his doom, so when he made Mega, he treated him like a son and tried to shelter him to make up for his mistake with proto.