Elliot Alderson

Elliot Alderson
Species:	Human
Allies:	Mr. Robot/Edward Alderson Darlene Alderson Angela Moss Tyrell Wellick Joanna Wellick Krista Gordon Shayla Nico Olivia Cortez Samar Swailem Ray Heyworth Carla Leon Sunil "Mobley" Markesh Shama "Trenton" Biswas Leslie Romero
Enemies:	Whiterose Fernando Vera Deus Group fsociety
Status:	Alive
Portrayed by:	Rami Malek

“	But I'm only a vigilante hacker by night. By day, just a regular cybersecurity engineer. Employee number ER28-0652	”
— Elliot

Elliot Alderson is a former cybersecurity engineer of Allsafe Cybersecurity and a member of fsociety.

Elliot suffers from social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, delusions and paranoia. His internal life is revealed via voice-overs that provide insight into his mental state, his opinions of the people he encounters and the activity around him. These dialogues with the audience are designed to help us interpret Elliot's world, but given his mental illness, he is an unreliable narrator, leaving us unsure whether what he tells us we're seeing is actually what is happening. Typical of this is when Elliot hears everyone around him refer to E-Corp as Evil Corp, reflecting his own opinion of the conglomerate.

He was portrayed by Rami Malek.

History

Although not much is known about his childhood, Elliot describes his relationship with his father Edward to be a very positive one. He tells Mr. Robot that his father was the only one he could talk to. His father died of leukemia which he developed after working at E-Corp, leaving him in the care of his mother Magda. Elliot's father tried to keep the cancer a secret, but when he was very ill by the time Elliot was eight, he told his father's secret to his mother, resulting into his father flying into a rage, pushing him out of the bedroom window and breaking his arm. This affected Elliot's otherwise positive opinion of his father, however, Darlene informs him that this did not happen - in fact, he fell out of the window due to his own breakdown with a baseball bat. He did not have a good relationship with his mother, who was somewhat abusive towards Elliot as a child both physically and mentally. She seemed to have a negative relationship with Elliot's father, acting indifferent after his death. Darlene is Elliot's younger sister, although he does not always remember that she is.

Before Elliot worked as an engineer at Allsafe Cybersecurity, he previously worked as a white-hat hacker for a cyber company, looking for holes in the system until it was "hacker-proof". On Memorial Day weekend when everybody else wanted to leave to party, Elliot continued to hack the company and they couldn't lock down the servers. They locked Elliot in the server room for the night. When Elliot woke up after falling asleep after a few hours, he found all the servers in the room had been destroyed, but he had no memory of it, suggesting this was a "black out" where another personality had taken over. He was subsequently taken to court and the judge made him go to therapy with Krista Gordon for anger management. It was childhood friend Angela Moss who encouraged him to take the job at Allsafe.

Elliot gets the job at Allsafe. He has proven himself to be knowledgeable and proficient, and has gained the trust of his superiors. Though he likes most of the people he works with, he must protect large corporations like Evil Corp, which he deeply resents. Much of Elliot's anger is focused on E-Corp, to the degree that whenever he hears or sees the name of the corporation's name he mentally translates it to "Evil Corp", which is the derogatory name he has assigned to it.

When he is not working, much of Elliot's time is devoted to grey-hat hacking. He stays up to date on forums and boards, and maintains contacts through the internet. He is skilled in information gathering and observation, and demonstrates skills in social engineering, which allow him to learn as much as possible about the people around him. He uses his skills to bring what he sees as justice to people who might otherwise escape the notice of law enforcement, as demonstrated by his confrontation with Rohit "Ron" Mehta, a prosperous coffee house owner who also runs a child-pornography website. He also uses his skills to help ordinary people who may have been wronged, such as when he hacked his therapist's boyfriend Michael Hensen to protect her from his more violent tendencies.

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 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 Five/Nine. 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, 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. 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 and 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. He thinks that Tyrell is just another one of his hallucinations, which turns out to be untrue when he shoots Elliot in the stomach. As a result, Elliot collapses and ends up being unconscious from the blood loss.

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 Five/Nine 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 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 successful as 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, which makes him get back on his feet and make himself ready to undo the Five/Nine 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".

Abilities

• Hacking: 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.

Personality

Elliot is an introverted, socially awkward person who holds in a lot of anger, mainly towards the society that he is unable to participate in. He suffers from anxiety, which makes it difficult for him to participate in social situations. Because of this anxiety, he is unable to bring himself to attend Angela's birthday party, much to her frustration. Despite this, he will at times try to overcome his fear. Elliot is rarely seen not wearing a black hoodie which may be his personal uniform for the world and a comfort blanket of sorts. It also allows him to blend in to the world, much like a featureless, black anonymous avatar.

Elliot at a therapy session

He confronts a coffee shop owner Rohit "Ron" Mehta about the latter's illegal website in person in part to work on talking to people, but when he goes to the restaurant where Angela's birthday party is held and sees Angela with her boyfriend Ollie Parker, he decides to leave. Additionally, he does not like to be touched.

Elliot receives mandated therapy to help him deal with his anxiety, as well as his emotional issues and anger management. Though he tells Krista, his therapist, that he is taking his medication, there are moments when he questions whether his perceptions are accurate. He self-medicates with morphine, using suboxone to help with any withdrawal he may experience, but also uses recreational drugs such as Ecstasy.

Although he has working relationships with some peers, his closest friend, Angela, is from childhood. Krista, his therapist, encourages him to connect with other people, but his anxiety generally prevents him from being comfortable in social situations. Despite this, he has a sexual relationship with Shayla Nico, who eventually becomes his girlfriend. He is also able to connect with the fsociety group, and to interact with people related to his hacks.

Elliot's Diagnosis

Elliot's therapy sessions and his own voice-over provide insights into his diagnosis. Elliot acknowledges his own social anxiety disorder, and later, his extreme sadness, indicative of his clinical depression. Krista notes his delusions in one session, checking to be sure he has taken his medication. His actions, such as his hyper-vigilant awareness of those around him, suggest paranoia as well, a syndrome that frequently accompanies or causes delusions. Later, Elliot's mind identifies his own dissociative identity disorder, involving four different personalities created to protect the host.

• Social anxiety disorder: intense fear of social situations. This may affect an individual's ability to function in one or more aspects of their lives. In Elliot's case, his job demands minimal social interaction, and allows him to work in a cubicle, reducing social contact, but he is unable to join large social activities, such as Angela's birthday. His anxiety lightens during the short period he is with Shayla, making it possible for him to attend the dinner at Gideon's loft.
• Depression: Pervasive low mood, sadness, and/or loss of interest in or enjoyment of normal activities, often accompanied by low self-esteem. Depression can be treated by medication and therapy, such as with Elliot.
• Paranoia: Thoughts influenced by fear or anxiety. Paranoia may accompany or trigger delusions.
• Delusions: Delusions are strongly held systems of beliefs or interpretations of reality that differs from reality, despite evidence to counter them. Elliot's belief system includes the feeling he is being followed, and the need to rescue individuals from people he feels are hurting others, such as in the case of Krista's boyfriend or Ron, the coffee shop owner. Unlike hallucinations, where the individual sees what is not there, delusions are about how the individual interprets reality. Through much of the series, we see reality through Elliot's filter, and thereby his delusions. In “eps1.7_wh1ter0se.m4v”, the audience sees the reality that Elliot is interpreting for the first time.
• Dissociative Identity Disorder: In Elliot's mind prison, Krista discusses Elliot's dissociative identity disorder with him. The first personality, the protector personality, was created the day Elliot jumped out the window. This personality was created to replace his father to protect him from intolerable situations - the person Elliot named as Mr. Robot. The second personality, the persecutor, was Elliot's mother personality. She was created later in life, and blamed Elliot for the abuse and punished him. Not long after her came Elliot's younger self - he emerged to handle the abuse he couldn't tolerate. Thus, Elliot created his own family of sorts. Krista then reveals that there is a fourth personality - he tried to shelter Elliot by changing his past, and protect his future. This personality tried to take down all the evil that surrounded him in the real world, hence why fsociety was born. He loved him so much, he wanted to make the entire world better for him. This was the reason he hid the real Elliot in his mind prison - to try and turn his harsh reality into fantasy, to keep him safe until he was ready. Krista then talks about real-Krista and how she was never realized she wasn't talking to the real Elliot, only ever the fourth personality, the one created to carry Elliot's rage, the vigilante hacker that sought vengeance. He forgot that he was only just another personality - he was the mastermind. The false Krista implies that the viewers themselves are another part of Elliot's mind, voyeurs feeling satisfaction as the fourth personality achieves greater and greater success in his vigilantism. Ultimately, all personalities end up agreeing to let the real elliot gain full control.

Trivia

• Writer Sam Esmail gave Elliot his own birthday, September 17.
• Elliot may have taken inspiration from Tyler Durden from Fight Club.
• Elliot's pet fish Qwerty is named after the American 'QWERTY' keyboard layout.
• In the original script of pilot episode, in Elliot's opening monologue, he claims that he believes in aliens.
• He is ordered by the court to see Krista for anger management issues.
• Elliot doesn't have any social media profiles including Facebook.
• He uses GNU/Linux and the Gnome desktop environment. The specific distributions used are Kali Linux (as a live USB), and Linux Mint 17.2 as his daily driver.
• When Elliot deletes his number from Michael Hensen's phone, we see it is (212) 555-0179.
• Elliot's laptop has a piece of tape over his webcam, to prevent other hackers from spying on him, much like what happens to Ollie after being hacked by The Dark Army.
• Elliot's computer is a Dell Optiplex GX280.
• Elliot's keyboard is a Gigabyte FORCE K7.

Gallery

Elliot Alderson

An Icon of Elliot Alderson

Promotional Season 2 image of Elliot Alderson

Another Promotional Season 2 image of Elliot Alderson

Promotional Season 3 image of Elliot Alderson

Another Promotional Season 3 image of Elliot Alderson

Promotional Season 4 image of Elliot Alderson

Black and White image of Elliot Alderson

Elliot alongside Mr. Robot, Darlene and Angela Moss

See also

• Rami Malek

Mr. Robot