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| “ | I don't give a shit about money, I just wanna take it from them. | „ |
| ~ Elliot to Fernando Vera to retribution his therapist's freedom |
Elliot Alderson is the main protagonist and anti-hero of the 2015 USA Network drama series Mr. Robot. He is a seclusive but vengeful cyber-security engineer and vigilante hacker with a variety of mental illnesses. He usually narrates his life to the audience whom he refers to as a friend. His unreliable narrator status sometimes make us question whether or not anything he says is real.
He was portrayed by Rami Malek, who also portrayed Ahkmenrah in the Night at the Museum franchise, Charles Heller in the 2025 remake of the 1981 film The Amateur and voiced and motion-captured Josh Washington in Until Dawn. As a young child, he was portrayed by Evan Whitten, who also played Alex in Chupa, Jacen Syndulla in Ahsoka, and Ethan Salazaar in Next.
Personality[]
| “ | Don't feel special, I hack everyone. | „ |
| ~ Elliot to Sandesh about his brother's funeral. |
Elliot is shown to be an introvert but a broken person, he is cynical due to showing much anger towards society. He always wears his signature black hoodie to blend into the world. He suffers from too many mental illnesses throughout the series such as depression, anxiety, delusions, paranoia, PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder. As a result, he finds it difficult to have relationships with other people due to his timid and soft spoken nature. But despite all of this, he appears to be compassionate towards others. He uses his hacking skills for good by taking down criminals and abusers and connect with other people.
Despite fighting his own demons, he still cares for others and tries to help them like when he defended Angela after the E-Corp CTO Terry Colby insulted her and when he comforted Shama's brother Mohammed when he was grieving over her death.
History[]
Early Life[]
From what we know about his childhood, Elliot had a good relationship with his father and was the only person he could talk to. He lost his father to leukemia when he was eight years old, by a toxic leak in the E-Corp Washington Township plant. Edward tried to keep his cancer a secret from his family, but when Elliot told the others about his father's cancer, he threw him out of the window angrily (later revealed that Elliot jumped out of the window and was not pushed).
Elliot did not have a good relationship with his mother Magda, as she was very abusive towards him and his younger sister Darlene, physically, mentally and emotionally. Where after He found her into hiding after refusing to drown a cat, the two spend their times on their backs from their family notably watching flix at the amusement park, Elliot mentions he began troubleshooting when he was eleven years old at the Washington township Public Library as a test which he discovered that servers are easily flawed.
It's later revealed in Season 4 that his dad was nothing like he thought of, as he turned out to be a pedophile monster who molested him. This would traumatize him drastically causing his original personality to fracture off into other personalities, the two most active and prominent ones being "Mr. Robot" an idealized version of Elliot's father that acts as a guide (but at the same time can be manipulative) and the "Mastermind" persona a hacker vigilante who was created to carry Elliot's anger from enduring long term abuse during his childhood, and take on the weight of all Elliot's struggles and burdens in life to the point where he would believe himself to be the actual Elliot, while keeping the original personality in a fantasy world inside his own mind.
Season 1[]
The series starts off with him taking down a coffee shop owner named Rohit "Ron" Mehta who also owns a child pornography site. When Ron tries to bribe Elliot, he refuses to take and responds that he doesn't care about the money. The next day, we see him enter his workplace Allsafe, where he meets his co-worker and childhood friend Angela Moss and his boss Gideon Goddard. Its later know that he is a cyber vigilante who takes down evil people and wants to take down the company that killed his father, E-Corp. At night, he reveals about how much he cries alone at night and takes morphine to numb the pain.
One night, he is called by Gideon to check on a recent hacking on Allsafe rootkit, where he gets a mysterious message from a group called fsociety that reads "LEAVE ME HERE", Elliot then follows the message. After he returns, he is met by a mysterious man who goes by the name "Mr. Robot", who later takes him to the fsociety hideout at the Coney Island, which scares Elliot a bit. Later, he hacks into his therapist Krista Gordon's account to see that she is dating a man named Michael Hensen, whose real name is Lenny Shannon. He finds out that he has a wife and abused a lot of people, including his dog Flipper. He exposes him and later adopts Flipper. He meets Mr. Robot again and plans on turning them in, until Mr. Robot convinces him about their plan to take down E-Corp. As the series progresses, he joins fsociety and helps them fight against E-Corp, by starting off with framing the CTO Terry Colby after he insults Angela.
This ends up getting the attention of Tyrell Wellick, who offers him a job at E-Corp which Elliot rejects. He later finds out that his girlfriend Shayla Nico is being abused by a drug dealer named Fernando Vera, who also takes a liking towards him. Elliot turns him in but Vera figures it out and tricks him into busting him out, only to have Shayla killed, which sends Elliot into depression. He continues with the mission of taking down E-Corp and meets with the Dark Army leader the Whiterose. As he and Darlene celebrates the hack being given a green signal, he kisses her and Darlene gets disgusted, revealing that she is actually his sister, this causes Elliot to breakdown and find out more about his past life, including the fact that Mr. Robot is not only his father but his split personality and the figment of his imagination.
Later, Tyrell breaks into his apartment and they both go to the arcade and Mr. Robot takes over Elliot and with Tyrell, he kickstarts 5/9. Elliot wakes up after 2 days and sees the mess and tries to find Tyrell, who has gone missing. Mr. Robot later tells him to go home and watch the revolution unfold.
Season 2[]
Elliot is arrested for hacking Michael and stealing Flipper and lets himself get sent to prison so that he could cut off Mr. Robot and subdue him. He imagines the prison as his "mom's house" to deal with it's harsh environment. He ends up making friends with Leon and Carla (sometimes called Hot Carla). Throughout the season, he and Mr. Robot go through a psychological battle of control where Mr. Robot shoots Elliot in the head several times, puts him through painful hallucinations when Elliot goes through an adderall overdose.
Later, Elliot starts to bond with the warden named Ray Heyworth, who turns out to be a dark web market owner. He sees the website and intends to turn him in, only to get beaten up by his men and then locked up. He gets released and plays a chess match with Ray, he later outsmarts him and informs him that the FBI are coming in a few minutes. Ray gracefully lets himself get arrested and lets Elliot go. Elliot later gets attacked by the Neo Nazis and is about to be raped by them, only to be saved by Leon, who reveals himself to be a Dark Army member.
He gets released early from prison and sets a meeting with the Dark Army as he demands to know what "Stage 2" is.
He finds out about the real Stage 2 when he gets abducted by Tyrell and is taken to the Confictura Industries warehouse: To blow up the E-Corp building that holds the company's paper records. Realizing that this will kill people inside, he tries to shutdown the project, only for Tyrell to point a gun at him. Elliot thinks that Tyrell is just another one of his hallucinations while also dismissing Mr. Robot who eagerly pleaded with the intense situation in reality and reveals his predicament is untrue when Tyrell without hesitation decides to shoots Elliot in the stomach. As a result, Elliot collapses and ends up being unconscious from the blood loss while blacking out.
Season 3[]
Elliot wakes up one week in Angela's apartment after his shooting and rushes out to find Tyrell. He returns to his apartment to find a traumatized Darlene, who tells him that Francis "Cisco" Shaw is dead and the FBI questioned her. They both later go to the DefCon tournament to shutdown the backdoor to Stage 2. Later, Elliot realises the impact he caused due to 5/9 and sets out to prevent Stage 2. He requests Angela to get him a job at E-Corp and help him with the plan. Unfortunately, Angela betrays him by psychologically abusing him and working with both Mr. Robot and Tyrell for Stage 2, without a hint of remorse.
Elliot gets a job at E-Corp to stop Stage 2 by shipping the paper records to 71 other facilities, only to be caught by Angela and get drugged and kidnapped by her and be removed from E-Corp. He finds out about this and gets upset but Angela remains unapologetic about it and breaks ties with him. He rushes to the facility to stop the plan, only to be beaten up by Mr. Robot. He makes a deal with him and convinces him that there are no paper records in the building. They both join forces to stop the plan, only to find out that it was already carried out with success leading to a number of 71 buildings blew up instead and to make things worse, his friends Shama "Trenton" Biswas and Sunil "Mobley" Markesh are killed and framed for the attacks.
Elliot ends up spiraling into depression and later tries to kill himself by overdosing on morphine, only to be visited by Shama's younger brother Mohammed, whom he has a heart to heart with after the latter was curious over his presence visiting his late sister's house. Elliot tries to look after Mohammed by taking him to the movies to see Back to the Future but soon realises Mohammad left to go to a mosque, the experience getting to put away his guilt when Mohammad gave him a lollipop as a sign of trust and compassion when he realises upon having the keys throughout the whole day, now on his feet, Elliot then finds his father's jacket after it was thrown out onto the direction of road when he was heading by a truck passing by and make himself ready to undo the 5/9 hack.
He teams up with Darlene and sets up a fake meeting with the Dark Army for "Stage 3", which he uses to hack into it's malware. Unfortunately, Darlene and Dominique "Dom" DiPierro are both kidnapped by Ernesto Santiago after Darlene failed to get the badge from Dominique. Elliot also gets kidnapped by Otto Irving and all of them are taken to the barn to be killed. Elliot manages to save himself and Darlene when he promises to ship the Whiterose's project to Congo and later becomes more braver and determined to take them down and makes peace with Mr. Robot.
Season 4[]
Season 4 picks up two months after Angela's execution by the Dark Army. It's Christmas time as Elliot and Mr. Robot hack into and blackmail a lawyer named Freddy Lomax, who not only works for the Dark Army but is also a pedophile as they use a clip of him masturbating to an underage girl against him. They call him to the Grand Central Station where Freddy tries to threaten Elliot with a gun, but it's pointless for him as the video has already been sent to the FBI and his family. Elliot looks through his documents and emails and sees the money he funneled for the Whiterose. He pushes him for more information and he gets the name "John Garcin" and notices the Dark Army soldiers following Freddy. Freddy who is fearful of the Dark Army kills himself when he realises Elliot won't protect him.
Ever since Angela was killed, Elliot has picked up a completely cold demeanour and has shut off his emotions so that he could take down the Whiterose, which begins to worry Mr. Robot. They later get a call from Darlene, who has turned to alcohol and drugs to deal with Angela's death. She tells him that she saw that Angela is still alive and they need to look for her, but Elliot frustratedly refuses and declares that she is dead and it's not their fault, causing her to leave. Later, both Elliot and Mr. Robot go to the apartment owned by E-Corp to look for "John Garcin" who turns out to be just a codename causing Elliot and Mr. Robot to realise that it was a trap as two men come in and kidnap Elliot.
They take him back to his apartment where they execute him with a lethal injection of heroin, but is later brought back alive by Phillip Price with narcan, who decides to team up with Elliot to take down the Whiterose. He tells him about the existence of the Deus Group, which owns the Dark Army and E-Corp and are responsible for almost everything that happened in this world. Elliot later finds out from Darlene that their mother Magda is dead and they both go to collect her belongings and organise her cremation in the church, where he finds out that Darlene killed Susan Jacobs and that he has multiple personalities other than Mr. Robot.
They later get another assest for the hack, Olivia Cortez, an employee from the Cyprus National Bank. Elliot goes after her and decides to date her to get the code. He and Olivia open up to each other and get close, but it all gets ruined when in a later episode Elliot blackmails her to give him her boss's credentials for the hack by drugging her coffee. He gets visited by Tyrell as they both realise that they are being watched by a Dark Army soldier. Tyrell knocks him out. Believing he is dead, He, Elliot and Mr. Robot go to the woods to burn the van. But the plan goes haywire as the soldier turns out to be alive and shoots at them, hitting Tyrell in the stomach.
After the successful hack at the Virtual Realty building, Elliot ends up being abducted by his stalker/drug kingpin Fernando Vera, who has also captured his therapist Krista Gordon. He desires to make Elliot his partner when he becomes the king of New York by finding an information that will break him. He first talks to Mr. Robot and finds out a crucial information that breaks Elliot: that his father, whom he was close with had constantly raped him as a child. Later Elliot gets saved by Krista when she kills Vera with the same knife that killed Shayla. Elliot is devasted by the revelation about his father to the point he can't do the hack on the Deus Group, which prompts Mr. Robot and Darlene to pick up from where he left off.
He later returns when the Whiterose tries to manipulate him into buying her Time Traveling belief like how she did with Angela, but he refuses when Darlene does a new fsociety video exposing the Deus Group and doxxing them. They later proceed to hack their bank accounts and take away all their money. The hack is a success but unfortunately, it costs Phillip Price's life.
Later, Elliot goes to the Washington Township Plant to shutdown the Whiterose's machine, only to be taken to her later. She blames Elliot for being a hypocrite for wanting to save people despite hating society. Elliot admits that while it is true, he mentions that there are people out there who still care for you no matter what. After he finishes his speech, the alarm goes off, the Whiterose mentions that the machine already started before Elliot shut the malware. She kills herself, leaving Elliot a choice for what to do with the machine. When he fails to stop and believes that he is going to die, Mr. Robot and Elliot sit and say I love you to each other before the plant explodes.
Later, Elliot wakes up in what looks like is the Whiterose's alternate world. He sees that he has an alternate self has good parents but no Darlene, is engaged to Angela and is a CTO of Allsafe, where he wins a partnership with Tyrell, who owns F-Corp.
After he meets his alternate self, an earthquake happens injuring the latter. Elliot tries to help him but after a phone call with Angela, he snaps and ends up killing his alternate self and gets ready for the wedding. As soon as he arrives there, Mr. Robot reveals to Elliot that he is also an alternate personality like him and the alternate self that he met is the real Elliot Alderson and the world that he is in is not the Whiterose's alternate world, but just a mind world he created for the real personality.
Later, an alternate version of Krista explains to the Mastermind! Elliot about Elliot's DID and how he himself was developed. He later wakes up in the hospital room and finds that he is alive and Darlene greets him. She mentions that the Whiterose was found dead and her machine was destroyed, preventing a nuclear meltdown and congratulates him, and even tells him that whatever happened for one year was real, especially the death of their closest friends including Angela. Mastermind! Elliot confesses to her that he is not the real Elliot and is just a part of him, Darlene reveals that she knew and just wanted to be close with her brother, she blames herself for leaving him when he was struggling and came back to him in hopes of making it up to him. Mastermind! Elliot confesses that even if he is just a part of him, he still loves her.
Later, Mastermind! Elliot, along with Mr. Robot and the other personalities go to integrate together and let the real Elliot wake up in the newly liberated real world, As Elliot wakes up, Darlene greets him with "Hello Elliot".
Quotes[]
| “ | Control can sometimes be an illusion, it sometimes you need to get control, fantasy is an easy way to give meaning to the world, To Cloak our harsh realities with escapist comfort | „ |
| ~ Elliot Anderson |
| “ | Please tell me you're seeing this too. | „ |
| ~ Elliot to the Audience |
| “ | Oh I don't know, is it collectively thought that Steve Jobs was a great man even though we knew he made billions of the backs of children, or maybe is that it feel like all our heroes are counterfeit.. the world itself’s just big hoax.. spamming each other with our bullshit burning commentary of masquerading as insight. Our social media is faking our intimacy.. Or is it that we voted for this, not with our rigged elections but with our things, our property, our money, I'm not saying anything new we all know why, we do this, not because hunger games books makes us happy, or because we want to be sedated. Because it’s painful not to pretend, because we're cowards… Fuck Society! | „ |
| ~ Elliot's views upon society |
| “ | I don't know, I wanted save the world | „ |
| ~ Elliot's response to Tyrell upon forming fsociety. |
| “ | It wasn't me the whole time, it wasn't really me doing all of that. | „ |
| ~ Elliot to Darlene about cancelling the hack. |
| “ | Why do they fight so desperately to mask what they are? Or is it that they become what they are when they put on the mask, sometimes I wonder what you hide behind my silent friend, what mask do you wear? Or are you just afraid as the rest of them? Me? Am I afraid? Nah man, I'm different. | „ |
| ~ Elliot narrating over a Basketball game before meeting with Ray. |
| “ | Sometimes I dream of saving the world, saving everyone from the invisible hand, the one that brands us with an employee badge, the one that forces us to work for them, the one that controls us everyday without us knowing it, but I can't stop it.. I'm not that special.. I'm just anonymous.. I'm just alone. | „ |
| ~ Elliot's ambition from his life |
| “ | Krista's wrong, Annihilation is always the answer, we destroy parts of ourselves everyday, We photoshop our wards away, we edit the parts we hate about outselves, modify the parts we think people hate, we curate our identity.. carve it, distil it..Krista's wrong, Annihilation is all we are. | „ |
| ~ Elliot refutes about Krista's advise over pressuring himself to get rid of Mr. Robot. |
| “ | Why do it myself? Because that’s how I learned and I know exactly what, when, and how it's going to run. I didn't do anything harmful in my first time, just looked around and I felt so powerful, eleven years old and in complete control of the Washington township public library, today is different, I hacked the world. | „ |
| ~ Elliot wile creating the script for the malware to target the FBI |
| “ | At my fingertips, The zero days wrapped in code like a Christmas present then becomes an exploit, The programmic expression for my will, I live for this shit | „ |
| ~ Elliot creating the Malware's script |
| “ | If he's guilty, I could destroy him under two minutes in a terminal | „ |
| ~ Elliot to Mr. Robot about Ray's true nature |
| “ | We have all those days, now that day is over, but today is not gonna be one of them, because today, I found a way to hit undo. | „ |
| ~ Elliot’s plans against E-Corp |
| “ | Evil Corp is.. well, Evil, not much I thought but what I didn't realise was maybe they’re a nessesary evil that just needs to be kept in check, in fact maybe calling them evil was just my dorm room Philophisizing run amuck | „ |
| ~ Elliot about the nature of E-Corp |
| “ | That’s the thing about Deletion.. It’s not always permanent… There are many reasons why you wanna recover a file you just deleted. When you have that moment of panic, where it hits you, where that thing you thought had no value suddenly becomes important. Where you suddenly find new purpose for it. Maybe there are still things left for me to do. | „ |
| ~ Elliot coming to his knowing himself and proceeds to undo Whiterose plans later |
Abilities[]
- Hacking Mastery: He is known to be a prodigious hacker who is able to solve any problems related to the technology or cybersecurity. He mainly uses them for good in his vigilante adventures where he takes down men who are abusers/pedophiles/cheaters.
- High Intelligence: Elliot is shown to be very smart and intelligent which helps him in quick thinking to get out of any peril he is in. He uses his intelligence to deduce anything around him and notice small details that others miss.
- Bravery: Elliot is very brave even when faced with possibility of being murdered or tortured. Unlike FBI agent Dominique, who easily broke down and begged for mercy towards the Dark Army when they threatened her family, Elliot had practically gotten used to how it worked and it completely unfazed him. Most notable moments of his bravery is when he tries to save himself and Darlene from being executed by them and when he rejects Vera's advances towards him and refuses to be his partner until his therapist Krista is safe.
- Compassion/Empathy/Humbleness: Despite his aloneness towards others, Elliot is shown to be very empathetic and caring towards his loved ones. He even shows kindness to those who hurt him (unless they are outright remorseless psychopaths like Vera). For example, when he decided to give Angela a second chance despite the fact she gaslit him and ruthlessly hurt his feelings and offers to take Tyrell to the hospital after he gets shot despite the fact he himself was shot by Tyrell and nearly died from his injuries because of him. He is even nice to Leon as well, even if he was revealed as a Dark Army soldier who nearly blew Darlene's brains off, though he left for him. He even refuses to be a leader because he knows he isn't a right fit for it and doesn't care about being valued or climbing up on the top, unlike Tyrell and Angela, who were obsessed with winning and being leaders who are in control of things which became their undoing.
- Peak Human Durability: Throughout the series, Elliot is able to survive too many fatal injuries to his body which could've easily killed or crippled him. Those include jumping out of the window as a child, being beaten to a pulp, getting shot in the stomach, being forced to hit himself, forcibly being overdosed on heroin and being stuck in a near nuclear meltdown.
- Lockpicking: Elliot uses it to try and save Shayla from Vera.
- Fourth-Wall Awareness: due to his disillusions, Elliot is mildly aware of the audience, instances such as looking towards the screen after meeting Tyrell for the second time and shaking the camera after realising he forgotten about Darlene.
- Craftsmanship: Elliot was able to create a homemade Antenna out of a Pringles can due to his prowess of understanding hardware and machinery.
Trivia[]
- Elliot may be based on the Narrator from the film Fight Club.
- Both are normal individuals who get dragged into by their split personalities into their own terroristic worldview and attempt to make them embrace it.
- In his fabricated Wikipedia page, it states that he is in his 30's due to being born in 1986.
- When Elliot gets injected by Phillip's men to fake his death, one of the men was the creator of the series Sam Esmail.
External Links[]
- Elliot Alderson on the Mr. Robot Wiki