Demon 79

Introduction

While the hallmark of Black Mirror is the focus on technological advancement colliding with darker human traits - typically resulting in dystopia - I would argue that Season 6 largely throws the technology out of the window. Instead, it focuses and thrives on the human. This culminates with Demon 79, the episode is after all set in 1979 - with no futuristic technology to show for it.¹

Thought Experiments and Wagers

The main driver of the episodes plotline is the constant unknown as to whether the demon, Gaap, is telling the truth about his task, will the world really end if Needa does not kill the three people? From the point of view of the detective Len Fisher, the result is a modified trolley problem. Should we believe Needa - who appears insane - and sacrifice the lives of just three people, to potentially avoid a world ending catastrophe. On face value the answer appears to be that we should believe Needa. This can be expressed withs some basic maths, say the chance of this person being correct is one in a hundred thousand, and each person kills three people;

$$ 100,000 * 3 = 300,000 $$

On average, we would expect 300,000 people to die before averting a world ending crisis. The population, of course, being larger than 300,000 people means you should listen to this person - let them kill their three people. The only problem with this reasoning is; what are the chances?

Pascal’s wager follows similar lines that are instead taken to the extreme; God exists or he does not, you have no way of knowing which and must bet on one outcome. Indeed, every person should believe in god as there is an infinite chance of gain, whereas not believing is a minor gain.²

Of course, this episode of Black Mirror is not the only one to explore these concepts. The childrens movie Ice Age: The Meltdown explores the same concept.³ In it, Sid is captured by a (relatively) technologically advanced race of miniature sloths. These sloths, despite their knowledge of the natural causes of the upcoming catastrophe, decide to try and sacrifice Sid to avert it. Again, surely the sacrifice of few is to the benefit of the many.

Love, Nihilism and the Multiverse

As with many stories, this one ends up being a love story between Needa and Gaap. It begins with Gaap choosing the appearance of someone Needa finds attractive - courtship from the very beginning, why after all, choose someone she feels is attractive? Surely any human form would be comfortable enough. When viewed with this lens, the episode follows the storyline of a typical rom-com;

1. Setup: Needa has a problem, she is undervalued and society rejects her. Needa meets Gaap, where an immediate attraction is highlighted, but Needa does not realise. They get to know one another over time and fulfil their quest of killing three people.
2. Problem: One of the murders is invalid, Needa is furious, Gaap explains why he is desparate for this to succeed.
3. Respite: Needa comes around because Gaap says he needs this as much as she does.
4. Breakup: Gaap is cast out when Needa decides the last victim is someone Gaap does not want her to kill.
5. Get-together: Needa does not kill the final person, but Gaap invites her to spend eternity with him anyway, they are finally together forever.

Of course the final get-together is a nihilistic one; floating in an endless void with nothing. This raises another question though. The demon world has sent Gaap, essentially an intern, to avert crisis using Needa. Surely the demon world needs humanity in some form? But then why send an intern? When posed this way there is no answer, thus the answer must then lie in an inherent assumption in the question. That this world is required or needed. Instead, I present, that the world is not required, because it is merely one of many worlds - a multiverse. In fact, Gaap indirectly confirms this when describing the purgatory that he will be sent to should they fail; that it will just be him floating in an endless void. The demons must have other interns that have failed this task, which means there must be other purgatories. It would not be an endless void if shared between the many.

Demonic Technocracy

Gaap calls a helpline about the rune, citing it is a model circa. 1960’s in the belief it is mulfunctioning for not registering one of the sacrifices. Furthermore, his race is able to move him across instances in the multiverse, and spawn purgatories to send him to in the case that he fails his task. Are these divine beings?

Arthur Clarke formulated three laws, of which the third is regularly cited;

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” ⁴

The application of this adage indicates that Gaab is not a demon at all, but part of a technologically superior race that is able to traverse multiverses and indeed spawn them. This is supported by the fact he is talking about the rune as a device, a piece of technology. It is not some form of magic or divine ability that allows him to traverse this multiverse, but instead a piece of technology.

While the specifics of demon society are not discussed, there are hints about their society. The fact Gaab is there as an intern for a job, being the biggest of them all. Amazons The Peripheral explores such a society in more detail, where large organisations are able to spin off timelines for research and profit.⁵ Disneys Loki is another that follows a similar gambit.⁶ What these three have in common is a vast organisation behind the scenes of the universe keeping order. The demons shown, are this organisation - would multiversal travellers not come across to us as divine beings? Eventually becoming integral parts of our religions and history over successive small slip-ups?

Conclusion

Demon 79 is an episode about ethical and moral dillema. Love through nihilism, with a promised forever in a void. And a technocratic civilisation behind the scenes pulling all these strings. From this it can be concluded that this episode of Black Mirror is not all that different from others, with the exception that the main character - Needa - is not the one directly exposed to the technology fuelled dystopia. Instead, Gaap is, and Needa is just taken along for the ride.

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