Characters / Mr. Robot: Main Characters

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Warning: Only spoilers from the third and fourth seasons are whited out. All plot twists from the first and second seasons are visible, including Walking Spoilers.

m4in-characters.hxx

Elliot Alderson

Elliot

Elliot Alderson

"I never want to be right about my hacks, but people always find a way to disappoint."

Played by: Rami Malek

"What I do have? Clinical depression, social anxiety, a day job, a night job, confusing relationships, others depending on me, taking down the largest corporation in the world... and I chose it all."

A prodigious computer hacker and cyber-vigilante operating in New York City with dreams of saving the world from economic corruption. Elliot is pulled into an elaborate plot by a black hat group known as fsociety to bring down E Corp, the largest conglomerate in the world, and encrypt all of the debt owed to them. Upon executing what the world dubs the "5/9 hack" with the help of a fellow hacker named Darlene, Elliot soon discovers that Darlene is his sister, that fsociety was his own creation, and that its supposed leader, Mr. Robot, is an alternate personality that Elliot fashioned in his youth which has been operating without his knowledge. As Elliot tries to confront the malignancy of Mr. Robot and forge an alliance, he realizes that the 5/9 hack has only doomed the world and that another hacker group known as the Dark Army may be its true architects.

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• Abusive Parents: Much of Elliot's trauma stems from the abuse he (and Darlene) endured as children; their mother was verbally, emotionally, and even physically abusive toward them. This only escalated following the death of their father, Edward, who was abusive in his own right. Namely, he sexually molested Elliot, which damaged him to such a degree that he created three different alters to process and protect him from the pain.
• Accentuate the Negative: Elliot's social engineering philosophy. Everyone has skeletons in their closets, and those skeletons can be exploited.
  Elliot: "My secret? I look for the worst in them."
• Action Survivor: Elliot goes through a lot over the course of the series, and it can be argued that he suffers the most out of the all the characters. Childhood abuse aside, he is beaten up several times; in one case nearly to death and in another case which nearly ends with him being raped by his assailants, shot, kidnapped, held hostage on three separate occasions, forced to overdose on heroin, hit by a car, and trapped in a nuclear power plant that almost melts down.
• Actual Pacifist: As far as Elliot is concerned, a terminal is the only weapon he really needs. Even then, he is vehemently against using violence to advance his goals, and is horrified by Mr. Robot's original plan to annihilate Steel Mountain and the Dark Army's stage two attack.
  • Later on, however, Elliot is perfectly willing and able to shoot Vera and his goons which, in Elliot's defense, is a perfectly justifiable measure to take. He only fails because the bullets were swiped prior to this confrontation, but it nonetheless earns Elliot more respect from Vera for having the balls to try.
• A Darker Me: When his Mr. Robot personality assumes control, Elliot displays much more violent tendencies, and is noticeably bolder and coarser. This ends up becoming a crucial plot point in season three, when Angela reveals that she can detect Mr. Robot's presence by his unwavering eye contact.
  • The series finale takes this into Mind Screw territory come the revelation that Elliot himself is just another personality of the real Elliot. The broken, angry one that we see throughout the show is merely a compartmentalized alter that went rogue and sealed the host personality in a fantasy world free of pain.
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: Gets one when Tyrell shoots him in the season two finale. Fortunately, he pulls through.
• Almighty Janitor: Works as a software engineer for a cybersecurity firm and is outranked by Ollie of all people, but is secretly one of the most prodigious hackers on the face of the earth.
• Alone in a Crowd: Elliot's disillusionment with society keeps him from having a meaningful social life, even though he really does have several people who care about him.
• Alone Among the Couples: With both Angela and Tyrell dead, Darlene and Dom (briefly) getting together and Krista dating her boyfriend, Elliot ends the series single, though he is fine with it.
• Alone with the Psycho: Several times throughout the series, most notably with Tyrell in "eps2.9_pyth0n-pt2.p7z" and Vera in "eps1.5_br4ve-trave1er.asf".
  • Happens once again with Vera in "407 Proxy Authentication Required".
• Amateur Sleuth: Given that he's a vigilante hacker, this is to be expected.
• Ambiguously Brown: Elliot appears to be biracial; his father is white but he and his mother are noticeably browner. Rami Malek is of mostly Egyptian descent (with 1/8th Greek heritage too).
• Amnesiac Hero: While not the most shining example of a hero, Elliot is nonetheless a victim of psychogenic amnesia brought on by the dissociative episodes he experiences through Mr. Robot's hijacking of his consciousness.
• Angst Coma: Briefly falls into this in "408 Request Timeout", after learning the truth about his father’s cruelty.
• And Then What?: Elliot is asked this by Mr. Robot in regards to relinquishing the encrypted data to E Corp. Elliot rationalizes it as an act of self-absolution rather than a genuine fix-all.
  • After Deus Group is robbed of their money, Mr. Robot asks him what happens after Elliot deactivates Whiterose's machine. Elliot doesn't answer this question.
• Anguished Outburst: He has one in "Don't Delete Me" when he is devastated both by his failure to stop the cyberbombings and Angela using and abandoning him all together.
• Animal Lover: Has a pet beta fish, and takes a dog from his abusive owner. He also shows genuine concern for Ray's dog even when he doesn't want to communicate with him.
• Anti-Hero: Of the Knight in Sour Armor variety.
• The Atoner: Once the 5/9 hack starts to wreck the global economy and ruin the lives of countless innocents around the world, Elliot realizes the error of his ways and sets out to undo what he once thought was the key to a better future for all.
• Badass Adorable: He is an extremely skilled hacker who takes down predators and still manages to look adorable.
• Badass in Distress: Is more often than not at the mercy of forces more powerful and/or strategic than him, though he wouldn't have the "badass" moniker if he didn't make it through any of those cases.
• Bad Liar: Sometimes. For example, Angela sees through his "fell asleep on the train" excuse almost immediately when she asks him why he wasn't home.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: His youthful and beautiful looks signifies his kind-heartedness and selflessness towards others. Though some of the characters comment on his looks and height in some other manner (like Price calling him a "pipsqueak in a hoodie"), it's still there. Compared to some of the other male characters in the series who are either jerks or pure evil (eg. Tyrell, Irving or Vera), he is show to be extremely beautiful and gorgeous looking.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: This happens when Elliot gets shot in the stomach by Tyrell. But 2 months after that there is no scar on his stomach despite the fact that in real life, it would take more than a year for it to fade.
• Because I'm Good At It: Elliot admits to Darlene that while Mr. Robot is a tangential cog in the 5/9 hack, Elliot himself reveled in the idea of it so much that he is as much to blame as Mr. Robot.
• Being Good Sucks: Despite trying his best to do the right thing, Elliot always ends up in uglier situations when the cards inevitably go against him. This is firmly cemented with Shayla's death and his failure to stop stage two.
• Berserk Button: Being that he is already a frequent victim of manipulation, using him or just lying to him is a quick way to piss him off. He also doesn't take kindly to his loved ones being hurt. Season 4 in particular has his berserk button pressed mighty hard by Whiterose when Angela is murdered.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Evolves into this over the course of the series. By Season 4, he’s willing to potentially ruin an innocent woman’s life just to get what he needs.
• Blackmail: How Elliot usually approaches the individuals he hacks.
• Born Lucky: Despite suffering a lot and getting into some trouble or the other for something else, he is never caught for or is left out of any investigation related to fsociety/Dark Army machinations, while Darlene, Tyrell and others end up getting in trouble for it for wrong reasons.
• Brainy Brunette: Has brown hair, and is a technical genius.
• Break Them by Talking: His ability to read people (see above) often gives him plenty of ammunition against them, and he uses it quite efficiently in the form of truly venomous lectures.
• Brought Down to Badass: When backed against a wall, Elliot's ingenuity increases tenfold.
• Broken Ace: A smart and talented hacker who has a Dark and Troubled Past and struggles with severe depression and anxiety.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: About as weird and unstable as they come while also repeatedly displaying his technical brilliance. While he breaks several codes of conduct at his Allsafe workplace, his boss puts up with it because Elliot's skills have saved the company. He is also referred to as a "master" by the Dark Army, and it is later revealed that Whiterose has only kept him alive because of his handiness as a hacking prodigy.
• Break the Cutie: As a child before the series began.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: According to Elliot, we are experiencing the show as a made-up construct in his head. As such, we are often directly addressed by him and later Mr. Robot. As "we" are just another of his personalities, this switch is another Foreshadowing to our Elliot's true nature.
• Broken Bird / Broken Hero: If the other entries don’t clue you in, Elliot has put up with a significant amount of trauma.
• Broken Pedestal: Season three features a particularly nasty example of this. Elliot learns that throughout the season, Angela has been coaxing Mr. Robot to come out so the two of them and Tyrell can see stage two to its completion. Elliot is left utterly gobsmacked by this betrayal and callously wishes for Angela to suffer along with him in the wake of the bombings.
  • ''407 Proxy Authentication Required" blows that one out of the water with the revelation that his father Edward, the one he started the series fighting to avenge, sexually abused him as a child.
• Broken Tears: He has an emotional breakdown that lasts from the end of "Proxy Authentication Required" to the end of "Request Timeout" after he finds out that his father was a sexually abusive monster.
• Byronic Hero: Fits the trope to a T. He is in a near-constant state of depression and anxiety and is driven by vengeance, which ends up causing much bigger problems than he intended.
• Cartwright Curse: Elliot, as good as he tries to be, has the worst luck when it comes to love. His girlfriend Shayla is brutally murdered and left for him to find in a car trunk, and his childhood friend/crush Angela ends up using his own mental illness against him to further the development of stage two, and is later murdered as well once she tries to push back against Whiterose.
• The Chainsof Commanding: Trying to take down the Top 1% of the 1% all the while dealing with so much physical, mental and emotional trauma is not an easy task.
• Character Tics: Pulls back his hoodie when entering a scene, and puts it on again when leaving. He also has a tendency to get lost in his thoughts when people try to communicate with him, and struggles to make eye contact with them because of his sheer ineptitude when it comes to socializing. That last example ends up becoming a meaningful plot element in season three, as it is a tell to Angela that Mr. Robot is in control.
• Character Development: From the onset, Elliot is shown to be incredibly awkward and shy, often retreating into his thoughts to cope with the anxiety he feels when socializing and going about his life in general. He allows himself to be enchanted by a juvenile fantasy about sticking it to E Corp and getting back at the suits whom he believes are all guilty of killing his father. By the end of Season 3, Elliot has not only found out what he truly wants in life, but is able to bounce back from his depression and anxiety to seek recovery in fixing his mistakes, putting his need for vengeance to rest, identifying his actual enemies, and becoming his own man despite Mr. Robot's "presence". At the start of season four, he is noticeably more brave and assertive in his actions, and more dedicated to his goals than ever.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: To a fault. Most of his heroic actions end up burning him, sometimes permanently.
• The Chosen One: He is apparently chosen to take down the 1% of the 1% by fsociety.
• Cluster F-Bomb: He uses the word "fuck" a lot.
• Comingof Age Story: In the most bizarre fucked up way.
• Conspiracy Theorist: In Season 1, he rants about the existence of "the top one percent of the top one percent", a shadowy organization of individuals who control the world and subsist on their own greed and power. He is not wrong. Season 4 shows that this cabal of powerful people go by the name of the Deus Group, and have well and truly been controlling the world for profit.
• Cosmic Plaything: As evidenced in the Action Survivor example above, Elliot suffers a great amount, and with great frequency.
• Consummate Liar: Constantly lies to people just so they can hear what they want to hear and move on. Meanwhile, his inner thoughts betray his true feelings.
• Covert Distress Code: "Init one", which he shares with Darlene. It’s in reference to a Unix startup command prompt.
• Cowardly Lion: Elliot's anxiety leaves him a teeth-chattering mess in the worst of times, but he still manages to push through it, especially when there is no other choice.
• Creepy Good: Elliot lives on a totally different frequency than everyone else, but he is still a good person, if a little misguided and sometimes unpleasant to be around.
• Crucified Hero Shot: He has had one several times, most notably:
  • When he lay unconscious after being shot by Tyrell.
  • When he was held down by the Dark Army thugs while they were preparing to execute him.
  • When he was screaming out of agony at the window after finding out that his father molested him.
• Cute Bruiser: Elliot is relatively short and doesn't engage in physical violence all that often, but he has shown considerable strength when he (as Mr. Robot) nearly strangles Tyrell to death after shoving him across the room and into a wall. Elliot later manages to wrestle himself free from two Dark Army thugs during his confrontation with Grant in the barn. And later when he tries to shoot Vera and attempts to punch him for sexually assaulting Krista before Mr. Robot takes over in "Proxy Authentication Required".
• Cute and Psycho: In Season 4, when Whiterose has Angela killed, this pushes him to the edge where his anger towards the Dark Army increases. Nevertheless, he still manages to look beautiful.
• Dare to Be Badass: How Mr. Robot recruits him.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Elliot's father died from leukemia early in his childhood, and he later became a target of severe abuse of his mother. And it turns out said father was sexually abusing him alongside his mother’s physical abuse, eventually causing his psyche to fracture.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He wears a black hoodie but is a good person.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Felt this way about his father. Subverted completely when it's revealed that he was a monster who molested Elliot.
• Decoy Protagonist: A very bizarre example. While Elliot is the protagonist of the series, the vigilante hacker that we follow is actually a separate personality fabricated by him, much like Mr. Robot. The only difference being that this "vengeful Elliot" took the wheel and never let go, leaving the true Elliot in a fantasy of his own design.
• Deep Cover Agent: Has been one for Allsafe and E Corp itself.
• Defiant Captive: Even after being kidnapped by psychos, he still stays strong and doesn't take any crap from them. Until "Proxy Authentication Required" where Vera converts him into a helpless damsel after he breaks him into remembering the fact that his father raped him as a kid.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Though he is completely stoic and cynical at times, he warms up to the people closest to him, especially Darlene and Angela.
• Despair Event Horizon: Following Stage Two and the murders of Trenton and Mobley. Distraught that nothing he has done has stopped Mr. Robot from coming back to cause more damage through Elliot, he puts his affairs in order and heads to the Coney Island beach to overdose on morphine. Only the arrival of Trenton's little brother pulls him back from the brink.
  • He hits a new low when Vera psychologically abuses him into remembering that his father sexually abused him as a kid, which causes him to back out of the hack against Deus Group.
• Did Not Get the Girl: With Shayla, Angela and Tyrell dead and his relationship with Olivia permanently damaged, Elliot ends the series single. But at least he has Darlene, Krista and Leon by his side.
• Disney Death: Has gone through these several times throughout the series. It happens in Season 2 after Tyrell shoots him, and ‘’twice’’ in Season 4: at the start of the season when he’s forcibly overdosed on heroin but saved by Price, and at the end when Whiterose’s machine explodes with him close by.
• Distressed Dude: Usually ends up in situations where he gets attacked, kidnapped or imprisoned by various villains he comes across.
• Dude Magnet: An unwitting example and Played for Drama, as both Tyrell and Vera fall obsessively in love with him.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After four seasons of endless trauma and finding out that he is not even himself, Elliot finally accepts his nature, merging with the other personalities and letting his real self live and heal in the real world.
• The Eeyore: He is severely depressed to the point he falls into this trope. He slowly grows out of it.
• Emotion Suppression: After Angela's death in Season 4, he shuts off his emotions and grief to take down Whiterose. As summed up by Mr. Robot and Darlene, he is shutting himself down.
• Even the Guys Want Him: His beautiful, smart and kind persona attracts some of the girls. Unfortunately he also ends up attracting the attention of several boys who are too crazy over him and want him for themselves, most notably Tyrell and Vera.
• Expy: He is based on and inspired by some of the Byronic Hero and horror/thriller characters, such as The Narrator for the first season, Lisbeth Salander, Sidney Prescott, James Bond (Daniel Craig era) and his girlfriend Madeleine Swann and finally Tomie Kawakami (except he isn't downright sociopathic and self centred like her, the only thing similar between the two is how their beauty and power cause the male villains to get attracted to them and turn into a Yandere for them which resulted in their own downfall.).
• Et Tu, Brute?: He not only gets betrayed by Angela but also gets psychologically and emotionally abused and overthrown by her.
• Extreme Doormat: Averted. Though he doesn't act like this most of the times and put his foot down, he gets treated like/seen as one by most of the characters (except Darlene and Krista).
• Extremely Protective Child: Served as this for his Parental Substitute Krista, when Vera held her hostage.
• Fan Disservice: Being a Reluctant Fanservice Guy, he is constantly subjected to this. This happens the most in "Don't Delete Me" when a drug dealer forces him to strip and leers at him to get morphine. His constant victimization and sexualisation by men also foreshadows the fact that as a child, he was molested by a male figure, his father.
• Fatal Attractor: Let's see. 1. Angela- Psychologically abused him for Stage 2. 2. Tyrell- Was dangerously obsessed with Elliot and shot him once. 3. Vera- Grew obsessed with Elliot while he dated and later killed Shayla and desired to make Elliot the architect of his own crime empire so that he could be the kingpin of New York.
• Female Misogynist: Gender-Inverted as he is a male misandrist. He is shown to mostly hate and distrust any man around him. This is due to the fact that he was molested by his father and his distrust towards them is elevated when both Tyrell and Vera become obsessed with him. Though the only man that he fully trusts is Leon.
• The Fettered: Out of the main characters, he is shown to be more morally upstanding, has more values and is willing to do what's right.
• Final Boss: Weirdly enough, Mastermind!Elliot serves as the series' last obstacle, given that he has kept the real Elliot in an illusory prison for the entire series and must relinquish control for Elliot to finally live his life again.
• Flaw Exploitation: As a vigilante hacker, this is to be expected.
• Final Guy: He is the protagonist and is one of the only surviving main characters of the series.
• Foil: To Angela. Both want to get justice for the death of their parents that was caused by E Corp. As of Season 3, while Elliot still remains the most kind-hearted and humble character on the show, Angela becomes an increasingly power hungry and cruel Sociopath who is willing to do anything to get her way. Even going so far as gaslighting Elliot.
• For Great Justice: Why Elliot spearheads 5/9.
• For Happiness: Why he ultimately puts an end to 5/9.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Elliot "just a tech" Alderson gathers a troupe of like-minded hackers to bring down capitalism and usher in an economic disaster the likes of which have never been observed before. This is not even counting opening the door for a league of cyber-terrorists to blow up seventy-one buildings in a systematic attack worse than 9/11. However, very few people even know of the man behind the malware.
• Former Friendof Alpha Bitch: In a rare adult variation, he ends up as this for Angela, when she joins E Corp and later the Dark Army because of which she proceeds to gaslight and psychologically torture him.
• From Zero to Hero: His whole arc serves as this.
• Functional Addict: Deconstructed. While Elliot holds down a job at Allsafe and moonlights as a vigilante hacker with no difficulties, he admits that his dependence on morphine is unrealistic in the long run.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Downplayed. After finding out that his father had sexually abused him as a child, Elliot ends up as a broken mess and loses his will to go through with the Deus Group hack, which causes Mr. Robot and Darlene to take over.
• Going Cold Turkey: While on the road trip to Steel Mountain, Elliot goes through the worst of his withdrawal symptoms and has to sweat it out in a hotel before resuming the mission.
• Good Bad Girl: Gender-Inverted. He is a good person and he doesn't mind having sex with someone as long as he gives consent and is comfortable. Though in Season 4, he briefly takes on a Femme Fatale role when he tries to seduce Olivia into getting more information about the Deus Group accounts.
• Good Is Not Soft: While he is kind and caring towards others, don't try and piss him off.
• Grew a Spine: In Seasons 3 and 4.
• Guile Hero: Uses his wits and intelligence to take down his enemies.
• Handicapped Badass: In "Power Saver Mode", despite the fact he just woke up with a stomach wound, he is still able to go to Def Con to hack into the E Corp database.
• Hates Being Touched: Is uncomfortable with people being in his personal space at all, and recoils if touched. This is due to the fact that his father sexually abused him as a child.
• Healing Factor: Downplayed since he is a normal human, but he has a tendency to recover from near-fatal injuries in a few days or weeks, like being shot in the stomach or being beaten to a pulp.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Leon.
• Heroic Safe Mode: Angela's death causes him to supress his emotions which causes him to do some questionable actions to take down Whiterose. Unfortunately, the dam breaks when he finds out the horrible truth about his father.
• Heroic Willpower: What keeps him going during the amount of hell he goes through.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Acknowledges that he has this problem in Season 3, and tries to rail against the consequences of his actions. This ends up backfiring dramatically.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Has this when he is unable to save Shayla.
  • In "Kill Process" he goes through one after he finds out about Angela's betrayal and it gets worse when he finds out that 71 E Corp buildings were destroyed.
  • He ends up being a walking BSOD when he finds out that his father sexually abused him as a child. The worst part is his stalker Vera psychologically abused him into remembering it.
• Heroic Seductress: Despite the fact that he has a bit of a hard time with his sex life due to his trauma, he still becomes this in order to get more information on taking down villains.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Downplayed. Though he is attractive, there are instances where he lets his hoodie down, most notably in "Daemons" and "Metadata".
• Heroes Love Dogs: He loves and cares so much for his dog Flipper.
• Hollywood Healing: Throughout the series, he has been severly injured several times but is able to recover pretty quickly from them. Be it a beating, gunshot, heroin overdose or getting hit by a car.
• Honey Trap: He himself was one when he seduced Olivia to get codes for the Deus Group hack.
• Humble Goal: His only goals were to save the world from an endless debt and making sure they never suffer the same fate people like him, Darlene and Angela did and is only dedicated to helping others and putting himself and his own safety last.
• Humble Hero: Unlike others, he doesn't desire to be a leader or become rich and powerful. He is content with the way his life is. He just wants to do the right thing but doesn't want to be valued or bask in glory.
• Hyper-Awareness: He easily analyses anything or anyone around him, even if it's the smallest details.
• I Can Change My Beloved: Even after Angela has treated him like crap throughout the first half of Season 3, Elliot genuinely believes that he can help get her back on track; it fails when she accuses him of "tricking" her into exposing Whiterose. This is one of the reasons why he gets so angry about her death.
• I Did What I Had to Do: His justification into blackmailing Olivia into using drugs again so that he could get the codes for the hack.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Blames himself for Shayla's death because his specific request for suboxone led her to Fernando Vera.
  • He later blames himself for the deaths of Gideon, Cisco, Romero, Trenton, and Mobley caused by 5/9 or the Dark Army.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Downplayed, while he makes bad decisions most of the times, this is one of his defining traits. No matter how much hell he is put through, he still has benevolent reasons to do so.
• In the Hood: So much so that it could practically be welded to him.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Straddles the line between this and Creepy Blue Eyes.
• Insufferable Genius: Never turns down an opportunity to explain when someone is wrong and/or being stupid.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Elliot's intense world-views and philosophies leave him without a whole lot of people to genuinely converse with.
• It's All My Fault: Has a tendency to blame himself for almost everything that happens.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: As the series progresses, it's made clear that being the one destined to take down the Dark Army/E Corp has taken a huge physical and mental toll on him.
• Jekyll & Hyde: The dynamic between him and Mr. Robot. This is taken to its logical conclusion in Season 3, with Darlene even name-dropping the trope.
• Jerkass Ball: Elliot grips it tightly in "406 Not Acceptable", when he blackmails Olivia into calling her boss to give him access to the Cyprus National Bank and drugs her coffee with opiates.
• Karmic Jackpot: Unlike other characters who ended up getting karmic deaths due to their greed and hunger for power (even those who made their Heel–Face Turn to help him and Darlene), Elliot ended up getting rewarded with a long happy and healthy life and a chance to reconnect with Darlene after all the trauma he was put through, due to his kind-heart and selflessness.
• Kick the Dog: Poor Bill....
  • He does it again with Olivia in "406 Not Acceptable".
  • He does it again with his real self in their mindscape.
• The Kirk: He serves as The Kirk to Angela's The Spock and Darlene's The McCoy.
• Knight Templar: Mr. Robot-influenced Elliot is this.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: In Season 3, his crush/best friend Angela became exactly like what his mother was: mentally and emotionally abusive and extremely cold and dismissive of Elliot's feelings.
• Limited Wardrobe: The only thing that he wears throughout the show is his black hoodie.
• Living Emotional Crutch: He serves as one for most characters, especially for Darlene and Tyrell.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Much of the drama surrounding Elliot's character is that because of his dissociative identity disorder (read: Mr. Robot), Elliot is deliberately kept in the dark about certain things. Season 3 deconstructs this by showing that Mr. Robot is just as unaware of certain things that Elliot knows and does, and that Angela can tell which personality is in control so she can also manipulate Elliot in turn. Season 4 reconstructs it in a Mind Screw-y manner with the reveal that there are other personalities besides Mr. Robot, one of them being the Elliot that we have been following the whole time who went rogue, trapped the real Elliot in a Lotus-Eater Machine, assumed control, and ended up forgetting who he was. The other personalities, including Mr. Robot, are ultimately forced to act, and the show ends with the real Elliot finally learning the truth and waking from his slumber, no longer in the loop of his illusion, and no longer out of the loop in the real world.
• Love at First Sight: Played for Horror as any psychopath such as Tyrell and Vera would be smitten and dangerously obsessed with Elliot the moment they first lay their eyes on him
• The Lost Lenore: Angela becomes this for him upon her death in Season 4.
  • Also Shayla, to an extent.
• Love Martyr: For Angela.
• Made of Iron: No matter how many injuries he ends up with, he survives and remains unscathed.
• Messianic Archetype: He has strong elements of this. He is shown to be a more noble and selfless leader who wants what's best for the people he serves which brings peace and prosperity to all. This of course makes him a threat to and attracts people with more selfish and twisted motives, who want to either hurt or kill him. And several times he tried to make a Heroic Sacrifice to protect the people close to him. This is even demonstrated further throughout the series, when he dies several times and is brought back to life, most notably in "401 Unauthorized" and in "409 Conflict" when he refuses to join Whiterose to complete her project and manipulate him like she did with Angela.
• The Mistress: He is seen as this by Joanna when Tyrell becomes cozy with him, which she then uses to her advantage to find her husband.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Despite having no social skills, he's still a good hearted person who genuinely wants to help everyone.
• Morality Chain: He serves as this mostly for Leon and Tyrell. Averted when he fails to be this for Angela.
• Morality Pet: Is one for Angela, Darlene, Tyrell, and Leon.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Inverted as time and time again he proves himself to be more deadly, vicious and cunning. Even more so in Season 4 when he is willing to rain down doom upon Whiterose while Darlene and Dom are unable to defend themselves against them when they are attacked.
• Mr. Fanservice: Even more so than Darlene, though it is completely unintentional most of the times.
• Mushroom Samba: His adderall binge.
• My Greatest Failure: Has two.
  • Shayla's death, coming to the conclusion that she would still be alive had he not indulged in his drug addiction.
  • 5/9, once he comprehends the level of turmoil and suffering the hack caused.
• My God, What Have I Done?: By the end of Season 2, the weight of 5/9 begins to suffocate him until he cannot allow any more innocent people to suffer because of his blood lust against E Corp.
  • "eps3.5_kill-process.inc" takes this up a notch when the Dark Army uses his plan to keep the paper records out of the New York recovery facility to target the seventy-one other facilities instead. Elliot can only look on in a state of shock as he realizes the gravity of his failure and mistake.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: After being given a lethal injection of heroin, Elliot ends up flashing back to the key moments throughout the series before he gets brought back.
• Nice Guy: Downplayed. Despite his flaws, terrible decisions and a lot of vices, Elliot is still a good and kind person and always tries to put others before himself. He always protects those who are abused and ill-treated by evil people. Seeing as he himself was abused constantly his whole life, it's not that surprising. Most notable examples of his kindness includes him bonding with Trenton's brother when he grieves over his sister's death, trying to help Angela despite her ill-treatment of him and offering to take Tyrell to the hospital when he gets shot despite being harmed by him several times.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: This happens to him a lot every time he tries to do a good deed:
  • Throwing Vera in prison results in Shayla's death and ending up as his new obsession victim.
  • Saving Flipper from Lenny/Michael and exposing his misdeeds results in him getting arrested and ending up in prison.
  • Exposing Ray's dark website ends up with him getting beaten almost to death and nearly getting raped.
  • Being so nice and kind to Angela and even trying his best to keep her safe from the mess results in her psychologically abusing him for Stage 2.
  • Trying to stop Stage 2 and saving innocent lives results in 71 buildings being destroyed, killing 4000 people.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Despite his mental health struggles, he surprisingly manages to be this. Rather than be a kind of a person who only wants to relish in money, fame and glory like Tyrell and Angela which proved to be their downfall and blindly believe in the system like Dom does, which also was her downfall, Elliot is able to use his wits and smarts to look for the weak points in his enemies and check their background to use it against them when he faces them, using his knowledge of the system they are working on and anticipates his enemies next moves to avoid making dumb decisions, something which other characters in the series failed to do.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Given the fact that he sustains multiple fatal injuries throughout the series but is able to survive many of those.
• Not Himself: After Angela's death, there are some moments in the first half of Season 4 where he isn't his usual self, especially in "406 Not Acceptable". He gets better though.
  • Later revealed that he's literally this trope, as he's the real Elliot's rage against the society dissociated from him during some time before the series and took complete control over him when not realizing the truth.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Later in the series, he makes it clear to his abusers/attackers that he isn't afraid of them anymore.
• Oblivious to Love: To Tyrell throughout the series.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Elliot is rarely ever happy, but when he shows a genuine smile, it is always striking.
• Only Sane by Comparison: Despite the fact that he himself is dealing with a lot of issues, he is still much more mature and wise than other characters and leans on a more realistic side since Tyrell, Angela and Dom were going through Sanity Slippage and the fact he was facing the Dark Army, where most of the members (except Leon) were extremely psychotic and malicious.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Happens to him several times. Most notably in "Python" and "eXit".
• Near-Death Experience: Faced a lot of it throughout the series.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He frequently does this throughout the series. One such example is in the first episode, where he blackmails Krista's adulterous boyfriend and takes the dog he was shown abusing earlier.
• Perpetual Frowner: Elliot's default facial expression is a blank look of general unhappiness.
• Pet the Dog: Quite literally, when Elliot "adopts" Flipper.
• Playful Hacker: For lack of a better term.
• Pretty Boy: He is shown to be very beautiful.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: He has Rami Malek's very expressive eyes and is able to put them to good use when he needs to.
• Psychotic Love Triangle: He was on the receiving end of one when both Tyrell and Vera were in love with him, the only difference being that these two never met. Though Elliot slowly begins to care about Tyrell and makes peace with him, he is disgusted by Vera's perverted attraction towards him, knowing how much of a monster he is.
• Rape as Backstory: Was molested by his father.
• Rape Leads to Insanity: Season 4 reveals that his dissociative episodes began as a way to cope with the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his dad.
• Reluctant Fanservice Guy: In "Don't Delete Me".
• Reluctant Ruler: Several times makes it clear that he doesn't want to be a leader. But when things around go haywire and his friends are killed by the Dark Army, he has no other choice but to step up.
• Replacement Goldfish: Became this for Vera after Shayla's death.
• Retired Badass: After defeating Whiterose and the Dark Army.
• Recovered Addict: By the time Season 3 rolls around, Elliot has stopped being addicted to drugs.
• Revenge Against Men: Rare Male Example. He mostly takes down male predators during his vigilante adventures. Justified, as he is shown to have severe distrust towards men who abuse women and children.
• Save the World: Elliot's motivation for creating fsociety and launching the hack. It later turns out that his actions only made the world worse. He tries to make this right in Season 3. This is the entire reason of his existence, as Mastermind!Elliot is the real Elliot's desire for a better world, which Mastermind attempts to unconsciously fulfill with his hacking skills.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Bribing him is a useless tactic.
• Sherlock Scan: As explained above, his skill at reading people. Elliot is also shown to have the ability to survey and memorize the littlest things in his environment without any effort, such as a license plate.
• Shorter Means Smarter: He is shorter than most of the male characters on the show and is the smartest one.
• Shrinking Violet: Elliot is very shy, withdrawn and introverted.
• Single Man Seeks Good Woman: One of the reasons why he likes Angela. She eventually turns out to be far from good however. Played straight with Shayla and Olivia though.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: He fits both the Level III and VII variety. He is a Broken Bird shown to be extremely beautiful, which even depicts his kindness towards others. Though it causes him to suffer from So Beautiful, It's a Curse.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: He suffered from this time and time again both in his looks and power, as he nearly gets raped in prison by the neo-nazis, gets leered on by a drug dealer he was getting morphine from and both Tyrell and Vera ended up getting obsessed with him. Possibly it was to foreshadow the disturbing truth about Elliot's father and criticising most men like his father (except Leon) who victimise and sexualise Elliot.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Comes with the territory of having social anxiety disorder, although Elliot isn't the most clear-cut example of a hero.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Elliot and Mr. Robot are both vying for control, as Elliot goes to various lengths with varying level of success to prevent him from taking over him. The series finale reveals that what we know as Elliot is just another personality created from Elliot's rage at society, and has long since taken over the real Elliot Alderson as he subjected him to a peaceful but fake world in his own mind, and Mr. Robot was trying to take over control to speed up Mastermind's goals to change society for good so that he can give control back to the real Elliot.
• The Stoic: In the beginning, he was shown to be this, but his stoicness mellows down slowly as the series progresses. Even more emphasised in Season 4 whenever he is in danger with the villains, unlike Dom who is paranoid and easily breaks down, he is more stone cold. Most of the times throughout the series he ends up being Not So Stoic.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Most of the times Elliot is shown to be cynical and aloof but deep down he is a good person who cares deeply for others.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Season 2. While he was still important to the story, most of the season focused on Darlene, Angela, and Dom.
• Surprise Incest: Subverted. Elliot kisses Darlene because he has genuinely forgotten who she is. Darlene is naturally upset and quite horrified.
• Talking to Themself: Whenever he converses with Mr. Robot, he is actually doing this, much to the concern of everyone around him.
• Tender Tears: He probably cries more than any other character in the series, whether it's due to guilt or trauma.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed. While some of the main characters are not that bad and Elliot himself is far from perfect, he is still the only person who doesn't desire to be a leader, gain power or have a god complex like Mr. Robot, Tyrell, Angela, Joanna, Whiterose, and Price.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The Elliot we see throughout the series is just another personality, like Mr. Robot himself.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Elliot has a rather loose grip on reality because of his relationship with Mr. Robot, and fully accepts that whatever he experiences may be part of his delusions.
• Tranquil Fury: He spends almost the entire first half of Season 4 in this manner after Angela is executed by the Dark Army.
• Trauma Conga Line: Poor Elliot. The amount of trauma he has gone through made people wonder how is he able to recover from it quickly:
  • He was abused his whole life by his mother.
  • He loses his girlfriend Shayla despite doing everything he can to save her by breaking Vera out of prison.
  • He ends up finding out that he forgot that Darlene is his sister and Mr. Robot is his split personality.
  • He gets brutally beaten up in prison by Ray's men for finding his website. And then gets locked in a dark room by them.
  • He nearly gets raped before Leon intervenes.
  • He gets shot in the belly by Tyrell.
  • Angela began to psychologically and emotionally abuse him thanks to Whiterose.
  • Fails to stop Stage Two.
  • Almost commits suicide.
  • Almost gets executed with Darlene by the Dark Army.
  • Is forcibly overdosed with heroin.
  • Ends up being Vera's new obsession after Shayla's death, who intends to make Elliot his partner by breaking him into remembering that his dad, whom he fought for his whole life, molested him.
  • Gets trapped with a nuclear power station collapsing on top of him, which he thankfully survives.
  • Finds out at the end that he is just another part of the real Elliot. Though he accepts it later on.
• Trust Password: Darlene attempts to invoke this with Elliot as a means of keeping watch for when Mr. Robot comes out.
• Truth in Television: A common symptom of major depressive disorder (and social anxiety for that matter) is a pervasive feeling of loneliness, even when in the company of friends, family, or general acquaintances. Elliot still prefers solitude even though he loathes it, as he cannot connect with others normally. This is the reason why he hacks everyone around him.
  • People with dissociative identity disorder have triggers that provoke their alter(s) to come out, such as individuals associated with the sufferer's trauma, colors, sounds, certain dates, etc.
• Token Minority: Since he is Ambiguously Brown, he fits into this trope. Averted later when Twofer Token Minority Big Bad Whiterose gets upgraded to the main cast from Season 3 onwards.
• Took a Level in Badass: He goes from a broken and abused victim to a brave and confident survivor who is ready to bite back against the bad guys who hurt him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed as his wasn't a drastic change like Angela's and he still retains his nice traits for the most part. In Season 4, Angela's death causes him to become closed off and jaded as he focuses on his goal of taking down Whiterose, which causes him to make questionable decisions. Thankfully, he gets better by the end.
• Took a Level in Idealism: At the end, he acknowledges in his Patrick Stewart Speech to Whiterose that even though the people he cared about hurt him in the worst ways, there are few more people who still care about him and didn't give up on him.
• Tiny Tyrannical Guy: He is 5'6-5'7 but despite that he is extremely sharp and badass and can be really intimidating at times.
• Tsundere: Of the unsorted variety, most of the times he is extremely aloof and hard headed, but later shows his sweeter side, especially to those he is close to.
• Undressing the Unconscious: After being shot in the belly by Tyrell, he wakes up one week later in Angela's apartment. Topless.
• Un-person: When Elliot searches online for records of himself after remembering that Darlene is his sister, he discovers that he is a ghost, presumably having wiped all traces of himself when Mr. Robot was in control. Or most likely Mastermind himself in one of his delusions.
• Unreliable Narrator: We're putting this a little too lightly.
• Unkempt Beauty: Despite not doing enough to take care of his looks, Elliot still manages to look beautiful.
• Unknown Rival: He becomes this for Angela throughout Season 3.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By diverting the paper records around the country, Elliot unwillingly makes the other seventy-one facilities targets of the Dark Army's cyber-bombing attacks.
• Weirdness Magnet: So far most of the people he has unintentionally attracted were obsessed with him, either out of admiration or selfish and creepy obsession. Most notably Tyrell and Vera.
• We Help the Helpless: As the Vigilante Hacker he helps out those who is constantly abused and mistreated by evil men and prevents others from suffering the same fate.
• Will Not Be a Victim: At the end of Season 3, after he reconciles with Mr. Robot, Elliot decides to stand up for himself and vows to take down Whiterose and the Dark Army now that he found out that they are the real problem, not E Corp.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Downplayed because he is 29, but he still depicts a level of maturity and a little wisdom.
• Woman Scorned: Downplayed and Gender-Inverted. He was not at all happy when he found out that Angela abused him for Stage 2 and as revenge, wanted her to suffer the consequences of the cyberbombings. He got a little better later.
• Wham Line: "You're gonna make me say it, aren't you? I am Mr. Robot."
• What You Are in the Dark: Because we are his imaginary friend, we see how Elliot really behaves and thinks when he is alone. For example, during the first Allsafe hack, he allows the rootkit to remain in server CS 30.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Kill Process" he calls out Angela for manipulating and abusing him to complete Stage 2. Though Angela remains ignorant throughout the episode and insults him.
  • He himself gets one from Olivia and Mr. Robot for blackmailing the former by drugging her coffee with opiates. Thankfully, he gets better.
  • He gets another one from Mr. Robot after killing the "alternate" Elliot, but this time it doesn't stick due to Elliot's obsession with marrying Angela. He only snaps out of it after realizing the truth about the world and himself.
• When He Smiles: Elliot smiles so rarely that when he does, it's all the more notable and sweet to see.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Bites Elliot in the ass come the Season 2 finale as part of a unique Meta Twist. He banks on Tyrell being another one of Mr. Robot's "mind tricks" and ends up getting shot while trying to sabotage Stage Two.
• You Can See That, Right?: Asks this his imaginary friend (i. e. the camera) in some fashion on a regular basis.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Averted. Elliot believes Tyrell to be another illusion by Mr. Robot to control him, but Tyrell is in fact very real, and shoots a very real bullet into Elliot's stomach.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: While he is nice most of the times, you would never want to know what he is like when he is angry.
• Zen Survivor: Due to all the trauma he went through, he slowly becomes this.

Elliot's Dissociative Identity Disorder (SPOILERS)

Mr. Robot

Mr. Robot

"I'm only supposed to be your prophet. You're supposed to be my God."

Played by: Christian Slater

"You have to dig pretty deep, kiddo, before you can find anything real. We live in a kingdom of bullshit. A kingdom you've lived in for far too long."

The supposed leader of fsociety who recruits Elliot into the fold. It is only after unleashing the 5/9 hack that Elliot realizes who Mr. Robot truly is: a split personality that was created by him to avoid loneliness, and modeled after his deceased father. As time passes, Mr. Robot becomes more dangerous and unwilling to cooperate with Elliot, and seeks to overwrite his control completely as the true architect of 5/9 and see his "revolution" through to the end.

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• Abstract Apotheosis: By Season 2, Elliot invokes this upon Mr. Robot, claiming that he has become his God. The Red Wheelbarrow tie-in book is even more anvilicious about this, with Elliot only referring to Mr. Robot as "Him" or "He". Capitalized.
• Affably Evil: He may be a cyberterrorist, and a bit of a sociopath, but there’s no denying he cares about Elliot, and at the end of the day he’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• All Men Are Perverts: Has a very flippant and often irreverent attitude, especially towards members of the opposite sex. This heavily contrasts with Elliot's subdued, introverted behavior and serves mostly as in-universe Fridge Horror fuel by the same token. Becomes even worse after its later revealed that Elliot's father sexually abused him as a child (which eventually led to both Mr. Robot's creation and the window incident) and that he's modelled after said father.
• Anti-Villain: Zig-zagged to hell and back. Mr. Robot is a Knight Templar with Evil Virtues through and through, but constantly teeters back and forth between being an actual ally and a straight-up opponent to Elliot due to the two personalities having very different ideas about how to approach certain situations. Season 2 in particular delves into this internal conflict, and rather blatantly paints Mr. Robot as an actual antagonist to Elliot. Season 3, however, reveals that despite all of his bluster and attempts to control Elliot, Mr. Robot is merely another pawn to the true villain of the setting: Whiterose. He ultimately returns to being an ally of Elliot after this, and this time it actually sticks.
  • Mr. Robot actually existed as a protector personality for Elliot from his abusive father, and always looked out for him. Once Mastermind took over Elliot, he then decided to bring out Elliot by all means necessary, leading to their conflict.
• Ax-Crazy: From the start, Mr. Robot is shown to be casually violent and willing to cause wanton destruction to achieve the 5/9 hack, and even threatens Romero into rejoining fsociety knowing that he has a reputation for being unstable. Once his true identity is revealed, Mr. Robot becomes even more of a lunatic, and sets his sights on tormenting Elliot into submission so his revolution can continue uninterrupted. He ultimately fails, and is forced to reconcile with Elliot when he is shown just how much of a fool he was in believing that he actually had control over 5/9. He finally admits to Elliot that he would have found another way to execute Stage Two without killing thousands of innocent people. As Mastermind's truth comes to light, Mr. Robot's actions retroactively explains his real motivation to bring the real Elliot out from Mastermind's control.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Joins the likes of Whiterose and Phillip Price in Season 2 as one of the series' main antagonists. This continues into Season 3, but the activation of Stage Two shines a new light on his moral compass, and it is shown that, much like Price, he is small potatoes compared to Whiterose. He finally decides to join Elliot and company in taking down the Dark Army.
• Big Good: In the fourth Season, he’s substantially chilled out and acts as Elliot’s closest ally, with Elliot now the one teetering on the edge of going too far. It’s later revealed that he’s been serving as this for most of Elliot’s life, and only went Ax-Crazy around the formation of the Mastermind personality.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Downplayed. His proposed revolution has a strong anarchist vibe to it, and he's more than willing to blow people up to make it a reality, even if his explosive device of choice is more likely to be an unlimited power supply than a real bomb. The Dark Army ultimately show that Mr. Robot is above such chaos, as he admits that he would have found another way to carry out Stage Two.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Being that he doesn't actually exist and is a mental construct in Elliot's head much like we are, he is just as aware as Elliot as we are, watching the drama unfolding around them. When Elliot shuts us out following Angela’s death, he takes up the role of narrator.
• Dead All Along: Played with. Season 1 at first reveals that Mr. Robot is Elliot's dead father in the flesh, but the very next episode drops an even more complicated bombshell: Mr. Robot doesn't even exist, and is merely modelled after Elliot's father, making him a separate entity altogether.
• Despair Event Horizon: Crosses it in "Frederick & Tanya", when Irving shows him that his entire revolution was All for Nothing and that he could never be Just Like Robin Hood because the rich and powerful have profited from all of his actions. This pushes him to recruit Tyrell again, this time with the two of them as rogues with only one goal — bringing down the shadowy players behind the scenes by whatever means necessary.
• Destructive Saviour: To the core. Mr. Robot even lampshades this in a conversation with Elliot:
  "I'm supposed to be your prophet; you're supposed to be my God."
• Enemy Within: Throughout Elliot's life, and especially from Season 2 on when he's elevated to Big Bad status. In "Kill Process", he outright resorts to making Elliot lose minutes of time and throw himself against walls to make him submit.
  • Season 4 complicates this with the reveal that Mr. Robot was actually a protective personality for most of Elliot’s life, and only ever wanted to keep him safe and happy. The reason for his switch to antagonistic revolutionary is left ambiguous, but implied to be due to Elliot’s Mastermind persona taking over.
• Expy: A blatant one of Tyler Durden throughout the first Season. While he diverges enough in personality from Tyler throughout the second Season that it's no longer as blatant, the scheme he masterminds is ultimately quite close to Project Mayhem.
• Good Counterpart: "Request Timeout" reveals that Elliot created him as a protector when his actual father failed him, and in fact was victimizing him. As Elliot puts it: "The father I needed, instead of the father I had."
• Heel–Face Turn: Following the cyber-bombings and the realization that his revolution was pointless, he turns against Whiterose and reveals that he was the one who planted the seeds to undo 5/9. For the rest of the series, he’s the friend and protector he was always supposed to be.
• Imaginary Friend: It's heavily implied in "Don't Delete Me" that Mr. Robot has been around since Elliot's childhood, serving as a more ideal version of his father following the window incident and Edward’s subsequent death in the theatre lobby.
  • In ‘Proxy Authentication Required’, we find out what caused him to exist: Edward’s sexual abuse of Elliot (and possibly Darlene) when they were children - the first time he took over Elliot was during the window incident, in order to protect Elliot from Edward.
• Jekyll & Hyde: What his dynamic with Elliot becomes in Season 3, as they've broken apart thanks to Tyrell shooting him to the point that only one can be awake at any given time and they must wrestle for control with each other to avoid losing time.
  • By Season 4, they’re so in sync that it often seems like Elliot is physically carrying out two actions at once. However, they briefly return to the previous dynamic in “409 Conflict”, when Elliot needs time to emotionally recover and Mr. Robot has to fully control his body again.
• Just Like Robin Hood: His ultimate goal, as the leader of fsociety, is to create the largest incident of wealth redistribution in history. When the 5/9 hack fails to do this immediately, he resorts to working with the Dark Army on a much more destructive plan. After Stage Two and his confrontation with Irving, he realizes he could never truly do this because his enemies have done nothing but profit off his attacks. It takes an entirely new approach — directly targeting the Dark Army and the Deus Group with Darlene’s help — to finally get what they all wanted.
• Limited Wardrobe: He only wears his Mr. Robot jacket, flannel shirt, t-shirt, ratty jeans, and glasses. The only differences are whether he's wearing a baseball cap and scarf. It's one of the first clues that Mr. Robot is not real.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Played with in "Kill Process". When he realizes that Stage Two as he understands it is pointless because of Elliot's paper records delaying scheme and that White Rose was playing him, he immediately lets Elliot secure the recovery building.
  • Compounded in the next episode, when he realizes that his revolution was pointless the whole time.
• No Sense of Personal Space: In contrast to Elliot, who Hates Being Touched, Mr. Robot's not afraid to maintain eye contact or physically intimidate people.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Since he is a split personality of Elliot, Mr. Robot has no true name apart from what Elliot identifies him as.
• Pet the Dog: He has a few moments where he shows affection for Elliot, such as when he helps Elliot through his morphine withdrawal. Later on, he tries to distract Elliot from the brutal beating he is going through by creating a sitcom-like dreamworld. He assures him that "all I was trying to do was take those punches for you." And when Elliot proves to him that Stage Two is pointless, he stops beating Elliot up and works with him to stop the recovery building's destruction. Everything that follows marks the beginnings of his Heel–Face Turn.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Not to a large extent, but he does remark that Middle Eastern Trenton has some "Allahu Akbar" in her. Somewhat ironic, given that Elliot himself is bi-racial and played by an actor of Egyptian descent.
• Sanity Slippage: Insofar as a Split Personality can go crazier by himself; it becomes apparent in Season 2 that something is causing him and Elliot to "break apart" and lose time with each other, which causes him to become much more desperate and less controlled. When Krista draws him out during a therapy session with Elliot, he lets some pertinent information slip after ranting about how Elliot should be seeing more, before quickly withdrawing.
  • Ultimately, this may be because neither he nor “Elliot” — actually the Mastermind — is more than a fragment of the real Elliot, whom Mr. Robot is desperate to draw back out.
• Split Personality: His presence signals to the audience that he is either co-fronting with Elliot (in scenes when the two are together) or in control of their body (in scenes by himself). Occasionally (such as the scene with Tyrell reciting the Red Wheelbarrow poem) he appears as Elliot, to show that it's how other characters view him.
• Team Dad: Appears to literally be this to Darlene and Elliot, but ultimately averted with The Reveal that the Mr. Robot we see is actually a delusion and split personality of Elliot, who is about as far from this trope as a team leader can get.
• Übermensch: He believes in his own morality that the world should be molded into and will work with anyone to make it happen.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Angela, who deliberately exploits Mr. Robot's anger towards society to further her own self-interests in Season 3.
  • To the Deus Group, who engineered the Five/Nine hack and Stage 2 in the first place.
• Walking Spoiler: It is impossible to discuss Mr. Robot's role in the series without first establishing the fact that he doesn't even exist.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to create a more equal and free society by destroying data centers of the biggest debt owners. He also has no issue with the threat of killing people to make sure it happens - even his own subordinates.
• The Wonka: He oscillates between this and The Caligula frequently.

"Mother"

"Mother"

Played by: Vaishnavi Sharma

A personality based on Elliot's mother, the fragment that blames Elliot himself for the abuse he suffered at Edward's hand.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: She appears with better clothing and make up than the real Magda.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Possibly. Although she is quite cold and aloof and represents Elliot's feelings of self-hatred, she appears to be greatly concerned for his well-being. Her dialogue suggests that she disapproves of Mr. Robot enabling The Mastermind's revolution as opposed to letting Elliot live his own life.
• It's All My Fault: She represents the side of Elliot that blames himself for the sexual abuse he suffered at Edward's hands.
• Only Sane Man: Ironically, despite being a symptom of Elliot's disorder (and one that is malicious in nature, no less), she seems to be the personality who is most concerned for his health and safety.

"Young Elliot"

"Young Elliot"

Played by: Aidan Liebman, Alex Bento, Evan Whitten

A personality based on Elliot's own child self, the fragment that emerged to handle and reveal the abuse he had suffered..

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• Break the Cutie: He is a little boy and his function as a split personality is to endure Elliot's pain and suffering.
• Children Are Innocent: By all appearances, a quiet, pleasant child.
• The Heart: Besides the real Elliot, he is the most innocent of all the personalities.
• The Other Darrin: Played by three different actors.

Spoiler Character

Elliot Alderson

Played by: Rami Malek

Elliot's true personality, locked away in a fantasy world of the Mastermind's design.

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• Earn Your Happy Ending: After all evil people around him as well as Whiterose and the Deus Group being taken down for good, Mastermind!Elliot decides to give him back the control as he realizes his work is done, and Elliot can finally live in the world he tried so hard to make for him.
• Gilded Cage: The prison that The Mastermind trapped him in is that of a perfect world. The Mastermind intended for it to be pleasant and safe.
• The Ghost: Never appears other than the version of him trapped in The Mastermind’s prison. At least until the final shot of the series finale.
  • However, at one point, Elliot is shown on Halloween night talking to his sister along with a flashback of Elliot meeting Shayla. We are led to believe it’s the Mastermind in both of these scenes yet the Elliot shown wears a black shirt and has a more neutral personality instead of Mastermind’s hoodie and tense and paranoid personality.
• Grand Theft Me: Briefly took over his real body when Darlene informed him of Fernando Vera's return. Unlike Mr. Robot however, it was unintentional.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Mastermind subtly did this to him by removing Darlene due to being his link to reality.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The Mastermind, while having pure intentions, sentenced Elliot to a life of illusions and falsehoods to cover up the traumatic events of his life. He is finally able to "wake up" once the Mastermind integrates with the other personalities.
• Morality Pet: Is this to Mr. Robot and the Mastermind (unknowingly), as Mr. Robot did his best to protect him as Mastermind!Elliot decided to reshape the world so that he can live it.
• Single Tear: Elliot does this after remembering everything his personalities did for him.
• Walking Spoiler: The existence of this character alone casts a huge shadow over the entire series.
  • Extra spoiler tags have been added in case you are reading this without finishing the series.

Spoiler Character # 2

You

A personality Elliot created as he wanted us to watch over him.

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See below.

Others

Darlene

Darlene Alderson

"I'm a menace to society!"

Played by: Carly Chaikin

"Even your stupid hoodie can't protect you, bitch!"

Fsociety's lieutenant, and coder of the 5/9 hack. Darlene's flippant nature puts her and Elliot at odds, but soon, the two find common ground with each other as they fight to save the world from debt. Elliot soon learns however that he and Darlene share more than a common goal: she is his sister.

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• Abusive Parents: Shared them with Elliot. It’s unclear whether Edward sexually abused her like he did her brother, though.
• Batter Up!: Takes a baseball bat to Cisco's face after looking through his computer and finding evidence of betrayal.
• Big Brother Worship: Downplayed, but it's there. Darlene says that Elliot is the best person she knows, and gives him total credit for pulling off everything it takes to take down Steel Mountain and change the world.
  • The finale reveals that this is why she never said anything about the Mastermind, despite knowing he wasn’t exactly the same Elliot she grew up with — she finally felt like she was able to spend time with and grow closer to her big brother.
• Boss's Unfavorite Employee: She is treated like a literal dartboard by the Dark Army and most of them vote to execute her.
• Badass Decay: Due to the machinations of the Dark Army and losing almost all the people close to her she suffers from this in Seasons 3 to 4. Up until "Conflict".
• Break the Badass: Happens to her over the course of the series thanks to the Dark Army's machinations, to the point Elliot has to take over the "badass" moniker.
• Broken Bird: Especially after Cisco's death.
  • In Season 4 she gets way worse after Angela is executed by the Dark Army. She spends her days consuming copious amounts of cocaine, booze and pills she doesn't even care to know the name of. Elliot decides to withhold the photo of Angela’s corpse from her, fearing it would break her even more. This leads to Darlene futilely holding out hope that Angela is still alive in spite of it all, even claiming to have seen her.
• Butt-Monkey: As the series progresses, rarely there is anything that goes right for her and she ends up getting in constant trouble with the villains.
• The Casanova: Gender-Inverted. She is a Rare Female Example of this trope.
• Collateral Angst: Most of her arc is filled with this. Usually when a tragic event is supposed to affect the person targeted, she ends up taking all the burden and grief for it. Best described in "401 Unauthorized" after Angela is executed by the Dark Army, while Elliot is dealing with his focus on his revenge against the group for killing her and his rightful anger towards Angela for letting herself die due to her recklessness and arrogance, Darlene ends up treating Angela as if she were her lost lenore and goes into full on mental breakdown, possibly worse than what the latter had after the cyberbombings. This event would usually apply to a male hero who lost his true love and goes into despair.
• Commitment Issues: Darlene is furious and put off when her boyfriend proposes to her, and decides to "disappear" for a few days afterwards.
• Cool Shades: Has several pairs of these.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Cisco's death is what starts her descent into madness. Then finally, Angela's death is what finally causes her to snap and lose her bravery and dignity as a result.
• Damsel in Distress: In her backstory. When she was a young child, she was kidnapped from a theme park by a strange woman and taken to the woman's home. In an interesting take on this, Darlene didn't actually mind being kidnapped; when recounting the story to Cisco, she claims that the woman was the first adult to treat her like she mattered, and admits to often wondering what her life would be like if the police hadn't rescued her the next day.
  • Later in Seasons 3-4, she fully ends up in this role at the hands of the Dark Army. She is constantly captured by them and set up to be shot in the head to the point Elliot or Dom have to save her.
• A Day in the Limelight: "succ3ss0r.p12" has Darlene, Trenton and Mobley as its focus. Elliot doesn't show up at all.
  • “410 Gone” also focuses primarily on her and Dom, as they go on the run together following the successful hack.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bitter sarcasm makes up a significant portion of her dialogue.
• Despair Event Horizon: Went through one in Season 4 after Angela's death.
• Determinator: When she wants to do something, it will happen. It doesn't matter if you're her colleague, her significant other, her Dark Army contact, or her childhood friend. Darlene does not give up. Unfortunately, after the deaths of Cisco and Angela, she begins to lose her drive and gives up on fighting back and let the Dark Army pick on her as a result.
• Deuteragonist: Season 2 pushes her to the forefront along with Elliot and Angela, and gradually her role overshadows Angela’s in importance.
• Final Girl: The only female character in the core cast to survive all the way from the pilot until the end of the series, and the only main character overall other than Elliot and Dom to do this.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Downplayed but Darlene serves as the foolish to Elliot's responsible.
• Heroic BSoD: Goes through one for the majority of Season 3 after the diner shooting.
  • Gets even worse after Angela is killed by the Dark Army in Season 4, even going so far as to live in her abandoned apartment.
• Heartbroken Badass: Both times when she loses Cisco and Angela.
• He Who Fights Monsters: She starts to slip into this as Season 2 progresses, notably in "succ3ss0r.p12" where she murders Susan Jacobs and realizes she doesn't feel bad about it at all. After Cisco gets killed, she tries to atone for her actions (and protect herself) by snitching for the FBI and helping her brother stop Stage 2.
• Honey Trap: To get into the FBI's Sentinel, she goes with Dom to the latter's apartment after getting her drunk and has sex with her. Unfortunately, Dom is wise to her trick and catches her trying to steal her ID.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Her entire arc throughout the series can be served as this. She goes from a fearless leader to a Damsel in Distress thanks to the Dark Army.
• Hysterical Woman: She briefly becomes this after Angela's death, basically similar to how the latter was after the cyberbombings. But unlike Angela, she gets a hold of herself later.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She confesses to Cisco that she never felt special or important in her life. Part of her reason for taking part in the 5/9 hack was to finally feel like she mattered.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Darlene is abrasive, aggressive, sarcastic, and increasingly ruthless, but she's still a good person at heart.
• Karma Houdini: She kills the Amoral Attorney who helped E Corp escape justice for causing her father’s death... and completely gets away with it. She manages to keep it a secret from Elliot until Season 4, but no one cares enough to punish her by then.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Darlene does want to seek justice, but she's certainly on the darker end of the moral scale.
• Ladykiller in Love: Implied. Despite being shown to have had many previous sex partners, she was shown to be genuinely in love with Cisco and possibly Dom.
• Light Feminine Dark Feminine: The dark to Angela's light.
• The Lost Lenore: Cisco and later, Angela become this for her.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Darlene's initial appearances are filled with overtones of this, as we see her take a sudden sharp interest in Elliott, asking him questions then insulting him, showing up at his apartment unannounced, and so on. All of this is subverted when it all turns out to be just normal bratty kid sister behavior.
• The Mole: She becomes an informant for Dom and the FBI after Cisco's murder.
• Morality Pet: Both Elliot and Dom serve as this for her. Her being this to The Mastermind ends up being one of the reasons the original Elliot is able to finally escape his utopian prison.
• Ms. Fanservice: Quite a bit of her scenes involve her being naked, half-dressed, or otherwise showing skin. She even uses this to her advantage when seducing Dom.
• No Sense of Personal Space: To Elliot. Darlene comes into his house unannounced, uses his shower, borrows his clothing, and gives him Too Much Information about her personal life. She sees no issue with this behavior. Ultimately explained, however, since Darlene is Elliot's sister and he's just forgotten her existence.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red Oni to Elliot's Blue Oni.
• Show Some Leg: She distracts police officers using this tactic.
• Surprise Incest: Not to her, but to Elliot and the audience. He kisses her, having forgotten she's his sister.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Most of the Dark Army constantly wants and prefers to shoot Darlene in the head merely to spite Elliot for disobeying and going against them.
• Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Season 3 onwards, Darlene becomes much nicer while Angela becomes more darker and manipulative.
• They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite her turbulent relationship with Cisco, her last scene with him has her showing genuine affection and laughing as they eat together. She later confesses to Dom that he was "probably the love of my life."
  • Season 4 goes to great lengths to reinforce that no matter how much she and Elliot might grate on each other and how often they split apart, they really are the most important people in the world to each other. Their bond is what leads the Mastermind to relinquish control of Elliot in the end, merging with the other personalities to restore his full being and reunite the two at last.
• Thicker Than Water: She breaks Fsociety's rules about no electronic contact to exchange numbers with Elliot for this reason.
• Wham Line: Delivers one to Elliot in the first season, when it's revealed that she's his sister.
  "Did you forget again? Did you forget who I am?"
• You Are in Command Now: Following the 5/9 hack and Elliot's temporary imprisonment, she takes up leadership of Fsociety. With the original group dissolved and Mr. Robot focusing on working with the Dark Army, she secretly abandons this position and becomes an FBI informant.

Angela

Angela Moss

"I have an idea that will change the world. I know it sounds really stupid, but I know how to do it. I think it could actually work."

Played By: Portia Doubleday

“I have value, and even though you don't see it, they do.”

Elliot's childhood friend, who lost her mother to leukemia from the Washington Township toxic waste scandal. Angela becomes a close confidant to Elliot, only for them to drift away as the 5/9 hack tears the world apart. As Elliot fights with Mr. Robot to undo the damage he has caused, he begins to question just whose side Angela is really on.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Her time at E Corp makes her more cold and prideful, to the point she gets angry when she finds out that Elliot and Darlene started fsociety, thinking they acted like they were smarter than her and undermined her. She gets even worse after Whiterose brainwashes her to the point she begins to hate Elliot.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite everything she did to Elliot, it's hard not to feel bad for her over the fact that she herself was manipulated by Whiterose to see her mother again and was killed for it.
• Ambiguously Bi: Despite having dated men, she does enjoy a rather searing kiss with Shayla.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: At first it seemed like this was going to be the case between her and Elliot after their conversation in "Don't Delete Me", but it gets horrifically subverted when they see Leon in Elliot's apartment, Angela cruelly cuts ties with Elliot and her hatred for him increases, blaming him for something he had nothing to do with. This showed that by the end, Angela was done with Elliot and had nothing left for him anymore but hatred in her heart.
• Bad Boss: Compared to Elliot who is more of a Benevolent Boss, Angela is this during her time at E Corp and the Dark Army where she becomes a full-blown tyrant in the latter.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Not only she wanted to get justice for her mother but also wanted to be a powerful leader who would make everyone bow down to her. Both these wishes causes her to be corrupted by Whiterose to become a power-hungry tyrant for Stage 2 and eventually go mad after it's a success and abandon her loved ones and later get killed as a result due to clinging onto that obsession, finally reuniting with her mom in heaven this time.
• Berserk Button: Getting disrespected and undermined.
• Bifauxnen: Especially in later seasons.
• Boom, Headshot!: Shot in the head by Dark Army goons after Price gets her on a hidden wire admitting her desire to fight Whiterose.
• Big Bad Friend: To Elliot and Darlene in Season 3.
• Break the Haughty: Happens to her midway through Season 3. After spending the first half as an arrogant, cold and borderline sociopathic person who psychologically and emotionally abused Elliot for Stage 2, she finds out that he was right when he said that people would die because of it, which finally happens. This causes her to have a complete mental breakdown where she delusionally tries to bring them back by rewinding the telecast.
• Broken Ace: She can do just about anything she sets her mind to, be it breaking Terry Colby's shell, running PR for E Corp after 5/9, or learning to hack in a day (which Trenton and Mobley both say is impossible.) Unfortunately she has very little in the way of an internal compass—moral or otherwise—so she floats from good to bad, from Allsafe to E Corp to the Dark Army who come to see her as a liability and kill her. This is also what caused her to become jealous of Elliot, another Broken Ace himself, in the first place, feeling like that despite the fact she did all of those above things, Elliot was still seen as a leader and was given things to do. This drove her into betraying and psychologically abusing him for Stage 2 so that she could bring him down to her level.
• Can't Take Criticism: Ever since she started working at E Corp, she doesn't take it well at all whenever anyone calls her out for letting them corrupt her or screwing things up, especially since they were the ones who caused the death of her mother. Elliot didn't even criticise her for it and had faith in her, until she went too far with him by gaslighting him for Stage 2 to help the Dark Army and that's when he chews her out for it, Angela's response? Blame Elliot for the whole situation, act like he's the one who betrayed her, and cut ties with him for good, painting herself as the real victim. She even mocks Darlene for being the one begging to her and accusing her of being a Crying Wolf when she calls her out for the same.
• The Chosen Wannabe: Later in the series, after she finds out that Elliot and Darlene were behind the 5/9 hack, Angela begins to resent how Elliot is the one "destined" to save the world and take down E Corp. So much so that after Whiterose took her in and brainwashed her, in Season 3 she begins to believe that she herself is The Chosen One.
• Cynic–Idealist Duo: At first it seemed like Elliot and Angela would be this duo, due to the fact Elliot had a huge distrust for people and Angela being positive about her goals. But as the series progresses, this ends up being Deconstructed and the roles get switched between them, as Elliot slowly learns that there are good people out there despite how much he has been hurt and abused by others in the past and is a more wiser and kinder person who wants to take down E Corp, but isn't going to let any innocents get hurt because of this. While Angela slowly becomes more and more cynical and gets obsessed with revenge where she begins to see everyone around her (including Elliot and Darlene) as her enemy despite the fact her only trauma was losing her mom caused by E Corp's negligence and grows more and more reckless and sadistic in her approach, which then resulted in her downward spiral and eventually her dying alone.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the High Powered Career Girl combating sexism in the workplace and her rise to the top. While those aspects in Angela were shown to be a good thing, especially when fighting against outright misogynists such as Terry Colby and Ollie, it also caused a lot of unfortunate implications for herself and everyone else throughout the series. When she is offered a job at E Corp by Colby, she slowly lets the power get to her head and drops the lawsuit against them as a result. And even when some people close to her point out what her job over there is really like, she takes offense and claims that she is respected, valued and successful there, which are the things she was looking for in the first place, and even pushes away the people she cares about, including her childhood friends Elliot and Darlene, as she sees taking help from them as a mark of weakness for her. She even gets jealous of Elliot and Darlene when she finds out about their start of fsociety and 5/9, believing they also didn't value her enough to involve her. There are times when she ends up completely abusing her powers, especially after Whiterose's influence, when she gaslights Elliot and overthrows him for Stage 2. And it even gets worse at the end after Price tries to convince her to let it go for a while and redeem herself, Angela ends up going back to her old habits to take down Whiterose by herself and take her machine, which causes her to die alone.
• Despair Event Horizon: Whoo boy. Approaches it a few times whenever it looks like her goals are going to be rendered pointless, but fully crosses it after assisting the Dark Army in Stage 2, only for thousands of people to die because of it. In her despair, she latches onto the delusion that she can bring everyone back by rewinding the news reports, and is clearly shown to be a shell of her former self. She never gets out of this and eventually recieves a death at the hands of the Dark Army.
• Deuteragonist: In Season 1, she's the only other character with a consistent story arc running parallel to Elliot's. Darlene usurps the position from the second season onward, but Angela is still a major focus.
• Disc-One Final Boss: In Season 3, where she serves an antagonistic role in the first half. Elliot’s confrontation with her immediately precedes Stage 2 and her crossing of the Despair Event Horizon.
• Dissonant Serenity: Invoked by a salesman as she's buying new shoes after getting blood on them from the EVP's public suicide, who says that's "really cold". Her response? "I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I'll try the Pradas next."
• Domestic Abuse: After her Face–Heel Turn, she began a constant gaslighting campaign against Elliot in order to bring out Mr. Robot so they could complete Stage 2. After he finds out about her plans and calls her out for it, she calls him a hypocrite and guilts him by openly mocking the sorry state of his mental health.
• Driven by Envy: Her motivation for turning against Elliot and treating him like crap in Season 3. She was horribly scorned by the fact that he didn't include her in fsociety in the first place and she retaliated against him by abusing and gaslighting him for Stage 2, to teach him a lesson about keeping secrets about fsociety in the first place.
• Driven to Suicide: Implied. When she realizes that she’s going to be executed by the Dark Army, she sits and lets herself get killed instead of begging for her life.
• Dumb Blonde: Averted, much to the chagrin of Terry Colby.
• Dying Alone: Her fate in the series.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Her motivation for her actions was to see her deceased mother again. This basically became her downfall as her obsession with getting justice for her mother by joining E Corp caused her to have an Acquired Situational Narcissism where she became a jerk to everyone around her, including her father and Darlene and even worse when Whiterose exploited that fact about her, brainwashing her into believing she could see her mother again, which caused Angela to become a horribly unhinged monster who tortured her loved ones, especially Elliot for Stage 2. At the end, she does see her mother again, but at the cost of her own life.
• Expy: She is basically a female Walter White from Breaking Bad. Both are protagonists who start off as being mistreated and looked down upon by the people around them, but later they end up joining a criminal empire with the intention of doing it for their loved ones (Walter going into the drug business to provide for his family and Angela joining E Corp to get justice for the Washington Township victims, including her mother), but later they begin to get Drunk with Power and turn into villainous masterminds (Walter for the drug business and Angela for the Dark Army) to feed their own ego while lying to themselves that they are still doing it for their loved ones all the while relishing in its perks. They even abuse their significant others in the process (Skyler and Elliot) and when they get angry at them and call them out, Walter and Angela guilt them of being ungrateful and selfish, ignoring the fact that their own actions turned Skyler and Elliot against them. And when everything begins to go down, they begin to lose everything and are shown to become dishevelled and unruly in appearance. In the end, both realize what they've become but they remain unapologetic about it and they get shot and killed and die alone as a result.
• Face–Heel Turn: Dips into a Hazy-Feel Turn when she joins E Corp, only to enter its full swing by the second season finale when Whiterose enlists her. In the third season, she has discovered the nature of Elliot and Mr. Robot, and actively awakens and works with the latter to restart the Dark Army's plan.
• Fatal Flaw: Her desire for power, revenge and agency. Angela wanted to get justice for her mother's death and was constantly looked down on by everyone, but is unwilling to accept help and shuts her loved ones out instead. Whiterose plays on this to manipulate her, eventually leading to her becoming a near-sociopath who gaslights Elliot out of desperation to achieve her goals. After finding out that the man she most wanted vengeance against is her father and that Whiterose has played them both, she is unable to cope and allows some Dark Army soldiers to kill her.
• Fetishized Abuser: Becomes this towards Elliot in Season 3, psychologically undermining him to advance Whiterose’s cause.
• Foil: Throughout the series, she has been set up as a foil to Elliot. Both lost their families at the hands of the Washington Township leak and both wanted to get justice for their deaths but made some mistakes as a result. However, the only difference is that while Elliot did make bad decisions because of that, he still had his limits and genuinely wanted to help others and even took full responsibility for anything that went wrong because of him. While Angela ended up letting herself get corrupted overtime after she joined E Corp and as a result, grew distant from her family and friends and began mistreating and betraying them in the worst ways, especially Elliot and refused to take responsibility and denied that she was doing anything wrong. Another thing is that while Elliot is desperate for normalcy and being genuinely loved by others, Angela was willing to give all those up and choose revenge and power, which proved to be her downfall.
• Freudian Excuse: Along with Elliot and Darlene's father, she lost her mother to a toxic leak at her workplace caused by E Corp when she was a child and in later years, ended up being completely disrespected and undermined by higher-ups around her, which made her insecure as a result.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: Unlike both Elliot and Darlene who realise the weight of their actions because of 5/9, Angela embraces her dark and monstrous side thanks to Whiterose's corruption.
• Green-Eyed Monster: After finding out that Elliot and Darlene were behind the creation of fsociety, she ends up getting jealous of their intelligence and talents and feels like she is undermined by them. This was one of her contributing factors to cruelly betraying them out of spite.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Elliot says she's "one of the good ones." At least she was.
  • Increasingly subverted over Seasons 2 and 3, as her time at E Corp and working for the Dark Army makes her a lot more morally ambiguous and eventually turns her into a cold, borderline sociopath.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: During Stage 3, Angela comes close to redeeming herself and burying the hatchet with Elliot. But once she sees Leon inside of his apartment. She rudely abandons Elliot again, even though he wasn't at fault.
• He Knows Too Much: She drugs and kidnaps Elliot after he wakes up in the Dark Army safe house and sees her working with Tyrell. After that point, she becomes intent on keeping Mr. Robot fronting for as long as possible to minimize any damage Elliot might cause.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: In Season 2 she hinted at this towards Darlene when she thought she and Elliot were undermining her and later in Season 3, after Whiterose brainwashes her, she outright expresses her hatred and jealousy towards Elliot by taking advantage of him for Stage 2 and then verbally beating him down when he finds out.
• Hypocrite: In 'Stage 3', after seeing Leon in his apartment, she accuses Elliot of tricking her into telling him about Whiterose's plan when she herself was the one who was manipulating him for the majority of Season 3.
• Insecure Protagonist, Arrogant Antagonist: At first she was insecure about herself, but come season 3 she ends up being the arrogant antagonist to Elliot's insecure protagonist.
• It's All About Me: Seasons 2 and 3 completely shows that Angela only cares about her issues and brushes off what Elliot and Darlene have been through their entire life. It's clear she believes she's had it worse than them because of the death of her mother and doesn't like it when Elliot or Darlene seem to take that spotlight away from her and later mocks them for their struggles as she gloats to them about how Stage 2 will be succesful.
• It Gets Easier: After she joins E Corp, she slowly gets used to being a Corrupt Corporate Executive and later when she joins the Dark Army after Whiterose brainwashes her, she has no qualms about hurting others, especially Elliot to get what she wants without remorse and now sees him as nothing but merely her rival she has to defeat.
• I Have No Son!: Of the best friends/lovers variety, but after Elliot gets upset at her and calls her out for what she did to him for Stage 2, Angela angrily cuts ties with him permanently and disowns him as her friend.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: She exposed herself as this in "Stage 3" when it seemed like she'd make up to Elliot after he forgave her, but after seeing Leon in his apartment, Angela shows her true colours yet again and cruelly abandons Elliot for something he wasn't responsible for and rejects redeeming herself.
• Kick the Dog: Her treatment of Elliot throughout season 3 is definitely this.
• Laser-Guided Karma: She spent the majority of Season 3 manipulating and gaslighting Elliot for Stage 2. But after Stage 2 becomes successful, she herself ends up having a mental breakdown as a result and goes through Sanity Slippage in subsequent episodes. She's later killed by the Dark Army after they find out that she wants revenge on Whiterose.
• Lonely at the Top: She ends up alienating her friends after joining E Corp and later cuts them off after joining the Dark Army.
• Mask of Sanity: After being brainwashed by Whiterose, she puts this on whenever she is around Elliot or anyone else. But when she is with the Dark Army, she takes it off to reveal a cold, sociopathic side.
• Meaningful Name: Her name echoes her angelic nature, or at least the angelic view Elliot has of her. As the series progresses, this angelic meaning becomes less and less true until it straight up becomes an Ironic Name.
• Mirror Character: To Whiterose. Both were women who were forever affected by the loss of their loved ones (Whiterose's boyfriend and Angela's mom). Those events let them be the main part of their lives to the point they ended up getting obsessed with bringing them back and reunite with them. However, this desire led to them becoming dangerous and manipulative villains who were willing to betray people close to them and lead them to their dooms in order to achieve their goals and during the events of Stage 2, they both destroy the important things their male rivals had just to spite them (Whiterose destroyed the 71 buildings to punish Price for not stopping Angela's lawsuit, while Angela psychologically abused Elliot and destroyed her friendship with him just to spite him for being "The Chosen One"). By the end of their arcs, both women have lost everything due to their greed and power, including their sanity and by the time of their deaths, they still cling onto the belief of the machine bringing everyone, including themselves back.
  • And to her birth father, Phillip Price as well. Both the father and daughter were people who were implied to be in love with their co-workers at E-Corp (Emily and Elliot) but decided to never act on their feelings for them. They pushed aside their feelings for their loved ones and began to become cruel to them and torture them because of their desire for power and as a result, Emily and Elliot got angry at them and saw them as soulless monsters.
• Misplaced Retribution: Though she tries to get revenge on E Corp, she ends up taking out her anger on Elliot and Darlene simply because she wasn't included in their plan and treats Elliot horribly out of spite.
• More than Mind Control: What Whiterose puts her through in “eps2.9pyth0n-pt1.p7z“ is all but confirmed to be this.
• Motive Rant: Delivers a chilling one regarding her Face–Heel Turn at the end of the third season premiere.
• Mugging the Monster: Most of the people who looked down on Angela and insulted her (except Elliot and Darlene), wouldn't have predicted that they let out her inner monster that's been simmering for a while.
• My God, What Have I Done?: At the end of "Runtime Error", she realizes that she's just helped people who have no intention of preserving the lives of the people in the recovery building and that her actions have enabled a real terrorist attack. Continues into "Kill Process" and the subsequent episodes, where she starts undergoing full-on Sanity Slippage. She doesn't get out of it and eventually gets killed.
• Never My Fault: This becomes her coping mechanism in Season 3. She continues to dig herself deeper and deeper and blames Elliot and Darlene for her betraying them for Stage 2. When Darlene told her she would turn her to the F.B.I., Angela threatened her that if she did that, she would possibly rat her and Elliot out as the real masterminds behind it to save her own skin. It's clear that instead of taking responsibility for what she did which caused her to snap, she blames them for Stage 2 and her subsequent downfall. Even if she does show remorse for her actions, she represses it.
• Only Friend: Seems to have been this to Elliot, up until their goals diverged.
• Only Sane Man: Subverted. Even after getting brainwashed by Whiterose, she still perceives herself as this, believing that everyone else around her, including Elliot and Darlene, is acting crazy and she is the only one still sane.
• Out-of-Character Moment: An in-universe one. The stress of her day results in her briefly becoming a Rich Bitch in a shoe store. This, despite her new E Corp job, being poor as hell and an otherwise Nice Girl. It’s an ominous harbinger of her behaviour later in the series.
• Parting-Words Regret: Averted. Because the last thing she said to Elliot before her death is that she never wants to see him again and disowned him for something he wasn't even responsible for. But worse is that she doesn't even regret leaving Elliot heartbroken and Darlene guilty about her death.
• Playing the Victim Card: As the series progressed, she does this whenever she is doing any horrible actions towards her loved ones to achieve her agenda.
• Protagonist Journeyto Villain: Her arc throughout the series can be boiled down to this, climaxing with her helping carry out the Stage 2 terrorist attacks. She ultimately realizes what she has become, but it’s too late to make things right or save herself.
• Psychological Projection: When Elliot finds out about Angela betraying him and rightfully being upset at her, Angela then proceeds to blame Elliot for the betrayal and claims he is the one who wanted Stage 2 to happen, which was never the case in the first place, painting him as the one who betrayed her in her mind.
• Redemption Rejection: When Elliot visits her and tells her about the time they wished they ran away and decides to give her a second chance, Angela immediately rejects the chance and breaks ties with Elliot, declaring she never wants to see him again when she believes he is the one betraying her after seeing Leon in his apartment and then when it looks like she will decide to redeem herself after Price reveals himself to be the real father and dissuade her from pursuing Whiterose and her machine, she again rejects to redeem herself and decides to go back to her old tricks to take her down all by herself, which then results in her Dying Alone.
• Sanity Slippage: She totally snaps once she realizes the true nature of Stage 2 and her part in the deaths of thousands of people, spending an entire afternoon trying to rationalize that the people who died are okay by rewinding the TV recordings of the E Corp facilities blowing up.. It was at that moment that whatever sanity she had left was utterly demolished.
• Secretly Selfish: Played for Drama as she kept on justifying her actions at E Corp and later the Dark Army where she psychologically tortures Elliot, to get justice for her mother's death. But in reality, she only wanted to feel like a powerful leader and be in control of things and dominate people around her, including Elliot.
• Shadow Archetype: Gradually becomes one for Elliot. Both of them had lost their parents due to E Corp's negligence and wanted to bring them to justice. But while Elliot realised his mistakes and tried to improve himself, Angela became even more corrupt and worked with the Dark Army to complete Stage 2, even going as far as betraying Elliot and hurting others. Ultimately, she forces everyone away in her despair and gets killed for trying to seek revenge on Whiterose, while Elliot reaches both revenge and inner peace through accepting the love of others.
  • She is also this for Darlene as well. Both are women who felt like they were in Elliot's shadow and have self esteem issues. But while Darlene is loyal to Elliot and still loves and cares for him, Angela ends up letting her jealousy and resentment towards him get the better of her after she joins the Dark Army and starts abusing him psychologically for Stage 2 and eventually admits her contempt towards him after he finds out and eventually disowns him, not caring about how hurt he is by her actions.
• Smug Snake: She turns into this after joining the Dark Army where her arrogance and pride gets even worse where she believes she is the real mastermind and sees herself to be way better than Elliot.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: The combination of Whiterose brainwashing her and her jealousy and resentment towards Elliot for being "the chosen one" to take down E CORP, this causes her to snap and finally psychologically abuse Elliot to summon Mr. Robot for Stage 2, just so she could bring him down to her level out of envious spite.
• Tautological Templar: After Whiterose brainwashed her, Angela believed that her actions, including abusing and gaslighting Elliot, was right and heroic in her part.
• Technician vs. Performer: Possibly this is what causes her and Elliot to butt-heads from Season 3 onwards. Angela is more of a perfectionist Technician, as she has studied and prepared herself to take on the corporate world, both to bring justice for her mother and climb up to the top as an executive. While Elliot's more of a humble Performer who is self-taught in hacking and other technical aspects, but being a leader and being respected for it doesn't matter to him as he cares more about wanting to do the right thing and help others. This is also what drives Angela to gaslight and bully him, because he always got to get things, was given more perks than her and subsequently became The Chosen One despite the fact that he didn't work or have the same experience as her and she didn't get any opportunities like him, which causes her to hate him for it.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: After Whiterose manipulates her, Angela decides to fully embrace her evil and sadistic side in order to achieve her agenda and become a villain if being good and kind didn't work for her her whole life.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 2, when she gets used to working in E Corp and grows more and more distant and cold towards others, especially her adoptive father Donald and when she finds out about Elliot and Darlene's involvement in fsociety and 5/9, her jealousy and envy towards them ends up slowly simmering up. It continues to Season 3. After Whiterose takes her in, Angela becomes outright cruel and manipulative to the point where she remorselessly abuses Elliot and works with Mr. Robot and Tyrell to complete Stage 2. When she gets caught, she blames Elliot and Darlene for her betrayal, plays the victim and remains unapologetic about it. She even outright begins to hate Elliot as she ends up brutally accusing him of being the one to betray her when she sees Leon in his apartment and cuts off all ties with him for good and even worse, she died still hating him.
• Tragic Villain: In the end, Angela was a woman who dealt with the loss of her mother and bullying from people above her (except Gideon, who was the only boss kind to her and Elliot). All of this eventually culminated in her snapping and joining E Corp and later the Dark Army, becoming as evil as the people she was trying to take down. But due to her contributing to Stage 2, she ends up having a mental breakdown which causes her to break things off with Elliot and Darlene and it leaves her to die alone when she gets executed by the same group she helped.
• Troubled Abuser: After spending years trying to get justice for her mother's death, she critically mistreats Elliot in Season 3 because of a belief Whiterose instilled in her that she would get her mom back.
• The Unapologetic: After she was exposed for her betrayal, Angela remained remorseless and unapologetic about it and told Elliot and Darlene that they brought this on themselves. Even when she is about to be executed by the Dark Army, she doesn't regret damaging her relationships with them. The only regret she had is not being able to show her power one last time.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: After Whiterose brainwashes her, she ends up becoming the leader for Stage 2 and based on her treatment and bullying towards Elliot, is shown to be a very unpleasant, callous and mean leader who doesn't care about the wellbeing of her subjects.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between her & Elliot. It never gets resolved, and his fantasy of marrying her shows that he never got over it.
• Unwanted Assistance: When Elliot tries to bail her out in front of Colby, she chastises him and begs him to let her lose on her own next time. This proves to be her Fatal Flaw later in the series.
• Ungrateful Bastard: As the series progresses, she slowly grows into this, especially towards Elliot and Darlene. After everything they did for her and even tried to protect her from this mess, Angela ended up disregarding them and saw them as nothing, especially after Whiterose brainwashed her. It even got worse when Elliot decided to give her a second chance at redeeming herself, but then she broke ties with him believing he was manipulating her to stop Whiterose's plan. What's even more worse, she died still hating Elliot.
• Villain Protagonist: Goes down this path in Season 3, as she works with Mr. Robot and the Dark Army for the sake of revenge. She undergoes a Villainous Breakdown once she realizes her actions killed thousands, and is reduced to a virtually powerless paranoiac by the time martial law is imposed.
• We Used to Be Friends: After joining the Dark Army, she grows more and more estranged from Elliot and Darlene and later has a falling out with both of them over her betrayal and by the end before she died, Elliot was dead to her and kicked him out of her life for good.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Elliot and Darlene give her this when they find out that she was responsible for facilitating the success of Stage 2 and exploiting the former's mental illnesses. Sadly, Angela was having none of it and it backfired. For a while at least.
• Wild Card: Season 2 is rather coy about showing whose side she is on, and it only gets worse come Season 3. Here, she actively works against Elliot and manipulates him. Even by the finale, it is still unclear whether she "wants retribution" against the Dark Army just for herself or for everyone Whiterose has harmed. It's later shown at the start of Season 4 that she indeed wanted retribution against the Dark Army presumably for herself, only for them to kill her after they found out about it.

Tyrell

Tyrell Wellick

"Unfortunately, we're all human. Except me, of course."

Played by: Martin Wallström

"Power belongs to the people that take it. Nothing to do with their hard work, strong ambitions, or rightful qualifications. No... the actual will to take is often the only things that's necessary."

One of E Corp's top employees. Boasting nefarious career ambitions and a cumbersome ego, Tyrell Wellick seeks power through his promotion to Chief Technology Officer of the conglomerate, by any means necessary. However, when fsociety begins their campaign against E Corp, Tyrell becomes wrapped up in the hacker conspiracy, and eventually sees a new opportunity for glory in their revolution. Believing Elliot to be a "god", Tyrell becomes obsessed with him, and volunteers to help further the cause, unaware of Mr. Robot's machinations and the Dark Army's agenda.

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• A Day in the Limelight: "Legacy" focuses entirely on him, finally revealing his activities from "Zero Day" up until "Python".
• A God Am I: He believes the 5/9 hack essentially made him and Mr. Robot into this. The news of his wife's murder and the unimportance of the CTO position he's strived for knocks this delusion out of him.
  Tyrell: I think about you a lot, Elliot. I think about that night when we became gods.
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: How he dies.
• Alas, Poor Villain: After taking a bullet for Elliot, Tyrell dies repentant and alone in the middle of the woods, with only a picture of his lost family to comfort him as he bleeds out.
• All for Nothing: After three seasons of endless humiliation and failed schemes, he finally gets cleared of all previous charges and is promoted to CTO like he always wanted — only to find out that the position is utterly worthless from an embittered Price, meaning he started getting involved in the conflict that would ultimately ruin his life for the sake of a symbolic title. In Season 4, Tyrell is still CTO and is seen as a hero as he is regarded as a driving factor in the economic situation getting better. But despite having so much power and appreciation thrown at him, he's only left more bored than ever. And even that's short-lived when he gets shot in the stomach and decides to die in the woods alone.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Despite the fact that he did so many horrible things and even injured Elliot once, at least he didn't stalk him, force himself on him when he got rejected, hurt the people he is close to or psychologically abused him like his even more Evil Counterpart Vera did.
• Always Someone Better: The reason Tyrell was passed up for the (official) decision of CTO.
• Ambiguous Situation: As he succumbs to his gunshot wound, he stumbles upon something glowing blue and emitting a shrill noise, which has been haunting him and Elliot throughout the episode. This is the last we ever see of him, so what it was and what happened next remains unclear.
• Ambiguously Bi: He has a wife and child, but has sex with a man in episode 3 so he can hack his phone. It's never made clear if Tyrell actually feels sexual attraction towards other men, or if this was a case of Pragmatic Pansexuality. Though, he does fire his assistants later for making homophobic comments, so it could very well be possible that he is in fact bisexual.
• Apologetic Attacker: Tyrell was genuinely remorseful when he shot Elliot.
• Ax-Crazy: Tyrell is very impulsive and emotional: he pays a homeless man to let him use him as a punching bag, and kills his business rival's wife during spontaneous sex. His Sanity Slippage only gets worse from there.
• Big Bad Wannabe: While at first he's made out to be the main threat, it grows ever clearer that Tyrell is in over his head and undergoing a steady mental breakdown. Once his plan to become CTO fails miserably and he gets fired from his job altogether, the real threats begin to expose themselves while he's stuck floundering for something to do. Even when he starts working for Mr. Robot and the Dark Army, he's not that much of a problem. By the time of Season 4, he's not very antagonistic anymore, and merely a depressed man in a powerful position.
• Bigot with a Crush: Despite having low opinion of the working class people and those who are below him, he ended up developing a crush on Elliot and desired to be "gods" with him.
• Break the Haughty: Thanks to a villainous example of a Trauma Conga Line throughout the first season. As if being passed for the promotion he'd been working on wasn't bad enough, he kills his rival's wife on an impulse by accident, bringing stress and suspicion to him and his wife enough to have her tell him flat out she wants to leave him now that the baby has arrived, then he gets fired from his job as SVP at E Corp. Those weren’t a good few weeks to be Mr. Wellick
• Butt-Monkey: No matter which side he's playing for, it rarely goes well for Tyrell for very long.
• Defector from Decadence: He turned against E Corp on the night of the hack and joined the Dark Army with Mr. Robot. Season 3 reveals that this was not quite of his own volition.
• The Dragon: He's become Mr. Robot's right-hand man come Season 3, serving directly under him in the Dark Army. He goes through a brief Dragon Ascendant phase after Robot becomes a Broken Pedestal to him, but his wife's death, the shattering of his faith in the Dark Army, and Price's Breaking Speech push him back to Robot's side by season's end.
• The Dying Walk: In "404 Not Found", after he takes a bullet meant for Elliot while the two of them are searching for their stolen Dark Army van in the woods. He can't go to a hospital, as the Dark Army will be looking for him and it will put his son in danger. Elliot tells Tyrell that he can't just leave him to die, to which Tyrell responds that he's "just going for a walk", and staggers off into the woods to die alone.
• Enemy Mine: Joins up with fsociety, who were previously antagonists to him, to achieve his goals.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's a ruthless Psychopathic Manchild, sure, but Tyrell genuinely adores his wife and their son, and looks absolutely broken when Joanna says she wants to leave him. He also shows a lot of affection for Mr. Robot/Elliot in Season 2, and is extremely distressed when he has to shoot him. He starts crying on the phone when he talks to Angela and tells her that he loves him. Unfortunately for him, Elliot becomes a Broken Pedestal for him and he finds out his wife is dead, reducing him to a sobbing, screaming fit.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Fires three of his subordinates for their casual homophobia in his presence. Admittedly this is because of his own sleeping with men, but also because he won't stand for people deriding MSMs around him.
• Expy: He's basically a tech savvy Patrick Bateman.
• Faux Affably Evil: Acts like a friendly and personable executive who cares about the lower employees and never forgets his roots. This is all a ruse to hide the Ax-Crazy psychopath that lurks beneath his Mask of Sanity. By the end of Season 2 though, he's lost the Faux part and has become genuinely Affably Evil, at least toward Elliot.
• The Ghost: Throughout the second season, when he's missing and implicitly pulling strings from the shadows. This finally ends in "Python," and what he was doing during that time is depicted in "Legacy."
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Once he and Elliot make peace and team up to take down the Dark Army, Tyrell is shot in the stomach by a DA soldier when he saves Elliot, causing him to succumb to his wound.
• Hollywood Hacking: Averted with enthusiasm. Tyrell's hacking of server 30 is pretty dead on, and any hacks he's shown pulling off later are as accurate as the rest on the show.
• Honey Trap: Tyrell's preferred method of manipulation, showing himself being both willing to seduce a man so he can hack his cellphone and his rival's wife with the intention of sabotaging his rival's career.
• Karmic Death: He dies in a similar manner that he gravely injured Elliot back in Season 2: getting shot in the gut.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Tyrell worships Mr. Robot, not realizing that Elliot suffers from dissociative identity disorder and that Mr. Robot and Elliot are two distinct alters. After learning this, Tyrell's exalted opinion of him sours greatly.
• Manipulative Bastard: Ultimately subverted. He sees himself as a master of manipulation and he does pull off a few victories, but his obsession with being in control leads to numerous mistakes and, eventually, causes him to accidentally murder the woman he was manipulating. When he manages to get involved in much bigger schemes, he's little more than a pawn, easily swayed from one side to another by people more powerful and competent than himself.
• No, You: All he can manage to respond with to Mr. Robot's claims he's become a puppet for the Dark Army is "No puppet, no puppet! You're the puppet!"
• Psychopathic Manchild: In addition to being Ax-Crazy, Tyrell throws tantrums when he doesn't get something he wants. When his Undying Loyalty to Mr. Robot shatters, he childishly trashes the safehouse in front of Angela and demands that Elliot be immediately removed from the project. Robot even calls him out on this after deserting the Dark Army.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: A variant. While not explicitly clueless, most businessmen in E Corp are presented as technologically illiterate and otherwise unaware. Tyrell knows more than he lets on (even for the interim CTO), and uses this public persona to his advantage.
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: It is unknown if he is genuinely bisexual, but regardless, he shows no issue with sleeping with both men and women to climb his way to the top and get information.
• Sadist: He tells Elliot that he doesn't feel guilty for strangling Knowles's wife because it gave him a thrill of power over his victim.
• Sanity Slippage: As crazy as he already was, he got even worse by the Season 2 finale, talking about how the new strike against E Corp would make Mr. Robot and himself gods, and crying as he stops Elliot's interference with a shot to the stomach. A flashback in Season 3 reveals that this was due to Irving's manipulation causing Mr. Robot's gun to jam when he tried to shoot him, convincing him that they had become gods, followed by months of near isolation while he was in hiding.
• The Scapegoat: The 5/9 hack and all ensuing carnage since was pinned on him, and everyone in power was happy with this. When he's set up to be caught in the aftermath of Stage 2, though, Irving has it arranged so that his hideout looks like the prison cell of a tortured, unwilling hostage. He's then able to point the finger at Trenton and Mobley, framing them for his crimes, and becomes a national celebrity.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Tyrell Wellick manipulates and seduces both men and women to try to become CTO of E Corp, such as when he slept with a male secretary to steal information about his rivals.
• Smug Snake: Believes himself to be the Big Bad of E Corp and a Magnificent Bastard who is able to outsmart everyone around him. He's actually excessively overconfident and arrogant and is obviously losing control of both himself and his plan.
• The Sociopath: Superficial and fake charm, Lack of Empathy for most people, manipulative behavior and general tendency to view humans as objects, violent and erratic personality and appears to have no moral standards whatsoever.
• Taking the Bullet: In "404 Not Found", Tyrell takes a bullet fired by a Dark Army goon that was meant for Elliot, getting mortally wounded in the process.
• Tragic Villain: Downplayed for sure. While he's a sociopathic murderer, you gotta feel bad for the guy seeing how miserable his life is despite being extremely wealthy and elitistic. He is constantly being chased by the FBI, so much that he can barely go out. His wife is abusive and arrogant, even more so than himself. He will never see his child again. He is being manipulated by the Dark Army and one of his better friends, Irving, who only sees him as a pawn. Once he becomes the CTO of E Corp, as he always wanted, he realizes that it is utterly useless. Santiago reveals to him extremely coldly that his wife is dead. And then just when he finally decides to fight back against the Dark Army, he's shot in the stomach before solemnly deciding to die alone. Yeah, it's safe to say that his life went downhill and into a total freefall... bigtime.
• The Unfettered: There are no lengths he won't go to get what he wants.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Zig-zagged, his accent in English is generally American neutral but when he gets emotional it goes to a strange Humphrey Bogart-esque place.
• Would Hit a Girl: He murders Sharon Knowles.

Joanna

Joanna Wellick

"Do you really want to say no to me?"

Played by: Stephanie Corneliussen

"Hvis du har gjort ham noget, så slår jeg dig ihjel." ^TranslationIf you've done something to him, I'll kill you.

Tyrell's wife, who repeatedly proves herself the more competent of the pair.

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• Asshole Victim: While it's horrible to see, it's hard to feel sorry for her when Knowles brutally beats her since she insulted his dead wife and child beforehand. And while her death was shocking and unexpected, it's hard to feel sorry for her when she's killed by the one of the many men she manipulated.
• Back for the Dead: Dies in her second scene of the third season, right after enjoying the fruits of her manipulation against Scott Knowles.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Her moral code, what little she has of one, is utterly alien. When she has the parking attendant killed, she specifically has him paralyzed and set down before he's shot, as she believes murder is only okay if the victim has time to realize why they're being killed.
• Body Horror: Pops her own amniotic sac with a small fork just so the authorities will pass up on interrogating her husband.
• Bondage Is Bad: Evil and deeply into extreme BDSM, where she's near-choked by restraints or a knife is run across her skin and she intentionally flinches so that it cuts her a little.
• Dissonant Serenity: Doesn't really seem too bothered when her husband goes missing. However, the Danish phrase that she says to Elliot shows her true feelings: "If you've done something to him, I'll kill you."
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being a horrible person who will resort to murder if she has to, Joanna does have some love for her and Tyrell's baby.
• Fan Disservice: Make no mistake, she IS Ms. Fanservice, but she is also so toxic that she pretty much destroys everything around her. Not even Tyrell was immune to this. Seeing her partially undressed is closer to seeing the light on an anglerfish than anything you’d actually want to tangle with.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Speaks Danish at home.
• Karmic Death: After two seasons spent manipulating men to suit her own ends and playing a critical role in Tyrell's Sanity Slippage, her car gets intercepted by the false lover she tricked into implicating Scott Knowles and getting Tyrell off. When she has her bodyguard brush him off in her usual style, he shoots the car up, killing her.
• Lack of Empathy: She shows absolutely no sympathy for Scott Knowles, whose wife and unborn child her husband recently murdered.
• Lady Macbeth: Joanna is well aware of the steps Tyrell is taking to become CTO of E Corp - in fact, she helps him plan it out.
• Man Behind the Man: It's strongly hinted that she is the brains of Tyrell's operation, and that her influence is what causes Tyrell to become so unstable.
• Manipulative Bitch: Has an uncanny talent for reading people to determine their motives and manipulate them to further her goals. Tyrell is no exception. This trait is best seen in the Season 2 finale: she intentionally incites Scott Knowles into violence by insulting his dead wife, knowing that he will beat her but not kill her. He calls 911, so that the police know he was the one who hurt her. Joanna then returns home to her boyfriend, who was bartending on the night of Sharon's murder, and convinces him to get revenge on the man who hurt her by lying to the police that he saw Scott come down the stairs after killing Sharon. She implicates the man she hates for giving her false hope and clears her husband of blame in one fell swoop. However, someone she manipulates eventually lashes back and kills her.
• Ms. Fanservice: A lot of her scenes have her in various states of undress.
• The Omniscient: Certainly gives off this impression. After Elliot talks to her for just a couple minutes, he already grows paranoid that she is somehow aware of his "imaginary friend".
• The Sociopath: She has little to no empathy, and is more than willing to screw over other people to further her own goals. Even Scott Knowles ranting at her about how she and her ex-husband destroyed his life and killed his baby gets no other reaction from her than cold insults.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Just because you're good at manipulating others doesn’t mean you’ll always escape consequences. All it takes is one jilted lover with a gun to do her in.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: She gets shot rather anticlimactically in the second episode of season 3.
• Teen Pregnancy: Had a child at 15 whom she gave up for adoption. She never told anyone who "didn't need to know." Even Tyrell was in the dark until after their son was born.
• The Unfettered: Like husband, like wife.

Price

Phillip Price

"We all know, a con doesn't work without the confidence."

Played by: Michael Cristofer

"You see, I'm a mercenary. I don't play fair. I play what I want. You deal with a mercenary, then all decorum gets tossed out the window. So you go ahead with your cute threats and your watch beeps. Order will not protect you anymore, my friend. I will rain chaos, even if it hurts me. Because I would rather see you lose than win myself. Oh. That's all the time I have."

The CEO of E Corp.

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• Affably Evil: Price has a genuinely casual attitude, a calm nature and a quick smile. It's easy to forget he's an immoral Corrupt Corporate Executive. In the second episode of the second season, he even gives Angela incriminating evidence against two of the E Corp employees who wronged her. Though this could be merely parental affection.
• A God Am I: He wants to effectively be seen as one.
  "I intend to leave a legacy, the standard of which was set by God when he created the Earth and man after his own image. Anything less is not worth mentioning."
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main villains of the series, and the only one separate from the Big Bad Duumvirate of Mr. Robot and Whiterose. Or so it seems.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Despite being introduced as a potential Big Bad for the series as the head of E Corp, he doesn't do a lot that's as actively malicious as Mr. Robot or Whiterose, and in fact doesn't directly meet Elliot during Season 2 like the others frequently do. After Stage 2 ruins him and he's revealed to be Whiterose's pawn, he's confirmed to be a full-on Decoy Antagonist and starts working with Elliot to take Whiterose down.
• Big Good: In Season 4, he’s Elliot and Darlene’s most powerful ally and their mole in the Deus Group, and is instrumental to their final victory.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Once again, CEO of E Corp. He's the head of the snake. Although it's the Dark Army that is really the true head.
• The Corrupter: He slowly becomes one for Angela, luring her onto a dark path. He truly does love his daughter, though, and Whiterose is Angela’s true source of corruption.
• Decoy Antagonist: Far from the Big Bad he was made out to be, he's revealed in the aftermath of Stage 2 to be nothing more than another pawn of Whiterose — one in a continuous line of puppet CEOs, who gets deposed and will be replaced for failing to do her bidding perfectly. He soon undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and works with Elliot to take their mutual enemy down.
• Dies Wide Shut: After Whiterose shoots him to death.
• Dissonant Serenity: Angela notices he's completely unfazed by his corporation losing 400 billion dollars, a loss that should ruin E Corp and may collapse the world economy altogether. Season 3 reveals that this is because he was in on the plan and knew who the architects were. When E Corp suffers another series of monumental losses ending with Stage 2, he's clearly much more shaken up and angry.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first interaction with another character in the end of the first season has him offering Angela money and time off after an E Corp staffer shoots himself in front of her, while completely callous and unconcerned for the actual suicide victim.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being a Corrupt Bureaucrat with quite a god complex, and for all the manipulations he's pulled, he does care immensely for Angela, his daughter. So much so that her death drives him to give up everything in order to destroy Whiterose.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Calls Whiterose a "sadistic fuck" to her face when she says that the Stage Two bombings were "an opportunity to teach a lesson." And this is coming from a man that allowed a global financial crisis to occur, which also ruined millions of lives.
  • He also lets her have it after she ordered the death of his daughter.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the final season, he works with Elliot and Darlene to destroy the Dark Army in retaliation for Angela’s death.
• Hidden Depths: As time goes on, he's slowly revealed to be less of a sociopathic asshole than previously thought, and demonstrates real feelings and things he cares about. He also seems genuinely hurt when Angela denies his invitation to celebrate his secret birthday party, and has to awkwardly excuse himself.
• Hitler Cam: He has one of these when addressing E Corp's executives.
• Lack of Empathy: Zig-zagged. In the first season finale, he offers Angela money and time off after she witnesses a gruesome suicide, but shows no concern for and actively speaks ill of the actual suicide victim.
• Last Episode, New Character: He has a few brief scenes scattered throughout the first season, each revealing a bit more about his personality and importance, but it isn't until the season finale that he becomes a prominent character and starts interacting with the cast.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: In the finale of Season 3, he reveals to Angela that he is her biological father.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Most of his only villainous actions were undertaken in boardrooms and other offices, where he exerted his charisma and will to get his way. Elliot and Mr. Robot rarely even got to see him in person. And he gets deposed by Whiterose just before his first onscreen meeting with Robot.
• Pyrrhic Victory: He wins out against White Rose in the end, but it costs everything he ever had, including the lives of his daughter and himself.

Dom

Agent Dominique "Dom" DiPierro

"I think I'm gonna need more caffeine to survive the day."

Played by: Grace Gummer

"Swear to God, the only reason why I think I've gotten this far... Is because I have no life."

An FBI agent who starts hunting down fsociety members following the 5/9 hack.

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• Action Girl: She’s very good with her gun, and more than willing to use it. Her last big action sequence has her tearing a knife out of her own collapsing chest cavity, slashing a Dark Army soldier in the leg, stealing his gun, and shooting several others around the room from the ground as she hovers near death.
• Action Survivor: More on the above, Dominique survives multiple encounters with the Dark Army's foot soldiers, even taking some out in the process. To give some perspective, every attack by Dark Army's soldiers is basically a cake walk for them unless Dom is there. She is also one of the few main characters who actually make it to the end of the series.
• Badass Decay: After the barn incident in "shutdown-r" she goes from a determined and assertive woman to a shell of her former self in Season 4. Despite that she manages to kill Janice and her men.
• Bifauxnen: Whenever she wears suits.
• Cassandra Truth: Dominique is the only person who (correctly) posits that the Dark Army were involved in the 5/9 hack, but her fellow agents write her off as just being overly paranoid. She is ultimately proven right after Elliot and Darlene expose them and the Deus Group, but it's too little and too late by then.
• Commitment Issues: Seems to have these. When her old girlfriend proposed marriage to her, she excused herself to the bathroom and escaped out of the building.
• Cowardly Lion: Despite being fearful of the Dark Army, she still manages to kill her handler Janice.
• Despair Event Horizon: After getting kidnapped by Santiago, watching Irving brutally murder him, and then getting threatened into tearfully agreeing that she'll be the Dark Army's new mole in the FBI, she goes cold and says that her life is ruined. She spends the majority of the next season in a near-suicidal haze.
• The Determinator: She is determined to solve the 5/9 case, even after her boss and colleagues, ( the former of whom is Whiterose's mole,) refuse to believe her, her requests are ignored, fsociety hack the FBI and heavily disrupt their investigation, and she barely survives two shootouts. Later on, she manages to take down three Dark Army agents holding her and Darlene hostage while lying on the floor with a punctured lung and bleeding out from a knife stuck in her chest.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The last we see Dom, she’s fallen asleep on a flight to Budapest, finally allowing herself to rest after all the horrors she’s been through.
• Expy: Possibly of Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks.
• Fair Cop: A very attractive FBI agent.
• FBI Agent: The main representative of the FBI from the second season onward.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Dom is a tomboy while her mother Trudie is more feminine.
• Forced into Evil: She gets blackmailed into replacing Santiago as the Dark Army's mole in the FBI, and is very, very unhappy about it.
• Hero Antagonist: Dom is a kind woman who seems to have only noble goals at heart, and she explicitly states that she hates corruption and evil people. However, she leads the hunt for Elliot and fsociety from the second season on, and thus becomes a problem for them to deal with. With Elliot's moral shift in the third season and Angela turning into one of the main antagonists of the season, she goes from this to an outright Deuteragonist.
• The Ingenue: Pretty much her Fatal Flaw when it comes to hunting down the Dark Army. When she is face to face with them, she easily breaks down and begs for mercy when her family is threatened, unlike Elliot, who by now is used to how it works and remains stone cold.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: She's desperately lonely, but bad with people. It's why she focuses so much on her career. She even asks her electronic personal assistant if she loves her and if they are friends. When Darlene pulls a Honey Trap on her in "Stage 3", she's overjoyed just to be with someone, even though she acts on her suspicion shortly after.
• Lack of Empathy: Not normally, but she slips into this when confronting the people she's hunting. In the second season finale, she coldly reveals to Darlene that they know everything about fsociety and describes the deaths of people like Romero and Cisco in an even tone of voice, despite Darlene's clear discomfort.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She serves as the Defective Detective masculine girl to Elliot's Broken Bird feminine boy.
• Made of Iron: Survives multiple attempts on her life, and even manages to dispatch three Dark Army assassins in season 4 despite having lain on the floor with a punctured lung for many minutes.
• Misplaced Retribution: She tries to do this on Darlene in Season 4, blaming her for putting in the Dark Army just to spite her. Blatantly ignoring the fact that she herself was deep down in investigating them and Santiago was responsible for her situation. It's possible that since she was a Death Seeker, she was hoping that if she kills Darlene, then she would be able to have herself killed by Elliot.
• Nervous Wreck: She spends the majority of Season 4 as this.
• Nice to the Waiter: Very kind to the owner of the sandwich shop she frequents.
• Overshadowedby Awesome: Had the series focused on her, she would've been The Hero, but since the series is about Elliot, not only is a supporting character but unlike Elliot, who grows more and more badass and brave overtime against the Dark Army, Dominique suffers a Badass Decay because of them and subsequently becomes his Shadow Archetype.
• No Social Skills: Downplayed for a more realistic take on social anxiety. She can navigate social and business situations well enough, but she sometimes visibly panics and slips up, or says something at the wrong time that causes her embarrassment.
• Official Couple: Briefly with Darlene, though ultimately they’re unable to stay together.
• Oral Fixation: She's rarely seen without a lollipop in her mouth.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Darlene after the events of "Shutdown", calling her out on being a terrible person and being key to ruining her life and getting her involved in the Dark Army.
• Shadow Archetype: In Season 4, she becomes this for Elliot if he did not have any heroic willpower.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Dominque's role as an FBI agent pits her against Elliot and Darlene, but she is only interested in doing the right thing.
• Workaholic: Her job is her whole life.

Whiterose

Whiterose / Zhi Zhang

"Every hacker has her fixation. You hack people. I hack time."

Played by: B.D. Wong

"The concept of waiting bewilders me. There are always deadlines. There are always ticking clocks."

A time-obsessed transgender woman, Whiterose operates primarily through her public persona, Zhi Zhang, the Chinese Minister of State Security. In the shadows, however, she commands her own legion of hackers and terrorists known as the Dark Army to pull the strings of governments and industries across the globe. Backed by the immeasurable wealth and power from her surreptitious investment group known as Deus, she is also the benefactor of a mysterious project hidden beneath the Washington Township Nuclear Power Plant; one that she sees as the gateway to a better world.

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• Asshole Victim: Like her underlings, Whiterose uses a gun to martyr herself in a desperate bid to obtain Elliot's "belief". It doesn't work.
• Bad Boss: She is utterly ruthless with her minions. The slightest mistake is met with a quick, calculated death, if you’re lucky.
• Berserk Button: Obstructing her "timeline". Stoic as she may be, she loses her temper fast when she feels her time is being wasted. This ultimately becomes her undoing when Elliot exposes her and the Deus Group, and she murders Phillip Price in public as retaliation.
• Big Bad: The villain of the series. While she hides behind smoke and mirrors for most of it, her role as the main antagonist becomes clear by Season 3 once 5/9 is in the rearview mirror.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Shares the spotlight with Phillip Price and Mr. Robot for the first two seasons before taking full control (or rather, revealing that she has always had full control) by the end of Season 3.
• The Chessmaster: Whiterose plays four-dimensional chess. She founded the Deus Group following the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union, collaborated with oil magnates to profit off of the Gulf War, envisioned the Internet, and by 2015, had her fingers in every possible industry pie with E Corp as the face of her so-called "new world order". With the Dark Army, she co-opted the 5/9 hack to intentionally bankrupt E Corp, and blackmail its CEO Phillip Price into influencing a vote for the annexation of the Congo. All of this to build a machine that would create a parallel world, motivated by the suicide of her translator (and secret lover) in 1982.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Plays both sides against each other for pretty much the entire series. She and the Dark Army assist fsociety in executing the 5/9 hack, while also using her influence as China's Minister of State Security to mend E Corp's financial wounds in the aftermath. This "favor" is in turn another manipulation by her to force the United Nations to vote for the allowance of China to annex the Congo so her secret project beneath Washington Township's Nuclear Power Plant can be transported there, and outside of the United States' federal jursidiction, which was soon about to unravel the whole thing. Meanwhile, Whiterose greenlights a devastating terrorist attack on seventy-one of E Corp's paper records facilities throughout the United States, killing thousands of innocents; all to prove a point to Phillip Price about the gravity of her influence on him as well as his failure to properly handle Angela, his so-called "pet project". Having now successfully utilized Elliot's technical prowess to engineer the terrorist attack while effectively castrating Price's professional esteem, Whiterose elects to have Elliot taken out of circulation. In a surprising turn of events, however, Elliot convinces her that he can still be useful to her plan to transport her project to the Congo, and she obliges. Unsurprisingly, she quickly decides that once Elliot has completed his end of the bargain, he will again be marked for death. By Season 4, the trope undergoes a thorough deconstruction, showing that Whiterose's addiction to puppeteering everyone around her is having a negative effect on her ability to think tactically, and it ends up blowing up in her face despite the many warnings from her assistant, who actually quits ands runs for the hills once the jig is up.
• Clock Queen: In her own words, she "hacks time," keeping everything to a very strict timetable and requiring Ludicrous Precision or extreme improvisational abilities of all her underlings. The transfer of the Washington Township plant to the Congo taking slightly longer than the projected month is enough to send her into a fit.
• Corrupt Bureaucrat: Of a sort, since she's actually China's Minister of Security.
• The Corrupter: To Angela and many, many others.
• The Dreaded: Everyone in the hacking world fears her, and not without reason.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Despite being the overarching antagonist of the first two seasons and ascending to be the Big Bad of the series, she commits suicide in "eXit", 2 episodes before the Series Finale.
• Driven to Suicide: She shoots herself next to her machine, intent on proving her powers over time to Elliot. Since he destroys the machine before it can go off, she stays dead regardless of whether it would have worked.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Chen, her boyfriend who committed suicide when she was young..
• Evil All Along: She was already considered less than moral as the head of the Dark Army, but the first season finale reveals that she's close allies with the CEO of Evil Corp and is Playing Both Sides. The second season properly elevates her onto the Big Bad Ensemble, and the third season reveals her to be the ultimate Big Bad.
• Excrement Statement: Urinates on the grave of an E Corp CEO that she had killed in a plane crash.
• Faux Affably Evil: In her own words.
  "Do not mistake my generosity for generosity."
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: It's heavily implied that she is responsible for a lot of real-world events. "Legacy", at least, officially confirms that she backed the election of Donald Trump. She also has several monologues about parallel universes that question whether she knows she's not in the real world.
• Freudian Excuse: As a young woman, Whiterose's boyfriend Chen committed suicide due to being forced into marriage with someone he didn't love. Whiterose saw him slowly die, which most likely is what made her insane and is the motive behind her project.
• Greater-Scope Villain: As soulless and immoral as Price seems at first, it becomes clear that Whiterose is both more powerful and more dangerous than he, and more than willing to remind him of the fact.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: We know she's planning something, it has something to do with the Washington Township plant and the annexation of the Congo, and that she's willing to kill to keep it on schedule, but what her plans actually are is a complete mystery. The plant contains a device resembling the Large Hadron Collider, and Angela implies that Whiterose’s plan might involve time itself. As it turns out, her endgame was to open the door to a parallel universe, and according to her, a "better world" where they could live unburdened by their past. It’s left unclear whether this would have actually worked, or whether she was just an insane cult leader.
• Hidden Depths: During a conversation with Dom about the concept of parallel realities (during which she is presenting as a man), she starts cracking and tearing up when she hits upon the subject of people being born into different identities. It's one of the few moments where she is shown in a remotely sympathetic light.
  • In ‘Forbidden,’ we find out what exactly made Whiterose so full of hate. In 1982, Whiterose wanted to be the Chinese ambassador for the USA, where she could live authentically as a transgender woman with the love of her live, Chen— a kind, sweet man who loved and accepted who she was. When Chen was forced into a marriage with a woman he didn’t love, and Whiterose didn’t get the job as Ambassador, (but got the job as Minister of State Development instead), he committed suicide in front of her, unable to bear not being able to be with the woman he loved and the world’s intolerance for their love. In that moment, Whiterose was born. It gives you an idea of why she is so desperate to finish her plan, which involves making a path to a world where they could be together. She plans on wearing the dress she wore when revealing her true self to Chen on the day her plan is shipped to the Congo.
• Karmic Death: She commits suicide in a similar way she disposed her subjects: shooting herself in the head.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Her presence and actions give off a lot of strange, surreal energy that make it hard to tell whether she’s just a con artist or a truly otherworldly figure. Since Elliot destroys her machine before it activates and only believes it worked as part of a mental prison, it’s never determined whether she actually had the means to manipulate reality, though she and everyone else under her thrall certainly believed she did.
  • For all we know the machine could have worked. However, it likely didn’t. Price himself says it stems from ‘an obsessive psychotic denial of reality’, and the Dark Army bears a lot of similarity to real life cults. The simplest explanation is that for all of Whiterose’s mystique, underneath it all is a hysterical woman who uses this idea of a magic machine as a bad coping mechanism for her trauma, killing anyone who gets in her way.
• Meaningful Name: Whiterose is an anagram for "otherwise". Fitting for a person who weighs every option AND has a way of getting people to do what she wants via threats. In Chinese culture, it's also used for funerals... or... outside of that context, wishing death upon the recipient. Link that with the ‘Deus’ group, which contains four letters. The number four ‘si’ is also associated with death. ‘Deus’ is ‘god’ in latin. Pull all those together, and that essentially makes her “The avatar of the death god.”
  • In ‘Forbidden,’ we find out the true meaning behind Whiterose - on the day Chen, her boyfriend, was placed into an arranged marriage, Zhang sent him white roses as an inside joke, as they are funeral flowers in China. Unable to bear being away from the love of his life, Chen slits his throat in front of Whiterose, with the blood splattering onto the roses - it is in this moment that Whiterose, the vengeful, hateful manipulative woman who is obsessed with controlling everything so she can eventually get Chen back, is born.
• Not So Stoic: In "stage3.torrent", news that one of her plans will take longer than expected sends her into a momentary Villainous Breakdown, shattering glasses against the wall and appearing to suffer a panic attack.
  • In Season 4 Episode 9, she becomes progressively less stoic and more desperate as her plans unravel, culminating with gunning Philip Price down in public after she learns Elliot has stolen all her money.
  • By Season 4 Episode 11, she has become a hysterical wreck, laughing and crying to herself in front of Elliot and rambling about how her project will make everything better before shooting herself in the head.
• Only Sane Woman: She's much shrewder and more wary of fsociety's capabilities than her E Corp allies like Price.
  • Deconstructed as the show goes on. By Season 4, in her desperation to move her project to the Congo, and with her strange fixation with Elliot Alderson, she makes sloppy mistakes and essentially lets Elliot go unchecked. She gets so sloppy that her assistant outright resigns on the spot before the Deus Group goes down. And when she’s exposed, she guns down Price in cold blood in the public, before setting off her ‘project’ and nearly killing everyone in New York.
• Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: She gives this impression as an alternative interpretation of her existential role within the series. Her ability to manage both gender personas effortlessly, plus the general mystique surrounding her that only seems to grow as the series progresses, kind of gives the impression she is ‘beyond gender.’ This is one of the rarer cases where it’s clear the character defines her gender, rather than her gender defining her.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Has Angela, who psychologically abused Elliot throughout Season 3, executed after she finds out that she's planning to come after her.
• Playing Both Sides: She's the leader of the Dark Army, a benefactor of E Corp, China's Minister of Security, and generally toying with every other faction and person, most of whom she plans to backstab. Whiterose is playing every side in existence. This comes back to bite her in the ass when she kills Angela, leading to Price working with Elliot, eventually causing the sudden downfall of her empire.
• Samus Is a Girl: Elliot's narration refers to Whiterose as "he" until they meet in person.
• Shout-Out: If it wasn't already very obvious from the top, Whiterose is blatantly inspired by BD Wong's character in M. Butterfly.
• Villainous Breakdown: Shoots Price to death in a rage when she discovers that the Deus Group has lost all its money, due to fsociety and Price's machinations. When she next appears, she’s decided to cut the manipulations and risk nuking Washington Township just to activate her machine, and launches into a tearful rant toward Elliot before shooting herself.

"You"

Elliot: Maybe I should give you a name. But that's a slippery slope. You're only in my head. We have to remember that.

You. Me. Us. The audience. "We" are Elliot's Imaginary Friend, either collectively or individually, that Elliot talks to, providing narration for the show.

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• Controllable Helplessness: This is how Us!Elliot perceive the world, not being able to actually interact with anything, but seeing everything Elliot does.
• Featureless Protagonist: We have no features beyond being Elliot's friend.
• He Was Right There All Along: We are another of Elliot's personalities, created by him (or the Mastermind) as we watch Elliot take down corrupt people around him.
• No Fourth Wall: We are constantly on the receiving end of Elliot's (and later Mr. Robot's) narration.
• Second-Person Narration: How we experience the show.
• Silent Treatment: In Season 4, Elliot never addresses us, which forces Mr. Robot to fill in as our narrator. This becomes subverted in the series finale when Elliot finally begins talking to us again, and reveals that him ignoring us was not malicious.
• You Didn't Ask: Elliot feels betrayed by us in Season 2 for not informing him of Mr. Robot's legitimacy, and withholds sensitive information from us as punishment.