Jerry Ashton / Jason Whitney (The Thirteenth Floor)
TITLE: Made For Each Other.
AUTHOR: lonelywalker
AUTHOR SITE: The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want?
FANDOM: The Thirteenth Floor
PAIRING: Jerry Ashton / Jason Whitney
SPOILERS: The entire film The Thirteenth Floor, and possibly also the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye, on which the film is based.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters and I'm not making any money.
MADE FOR EACH OTHER
This is a love story.
This is the story of two men who never met, who were born, lived, and died in different times, different social strata, and different worlds.
Nevertheless, this is a love story.
THE FILM
“Hey, what’d you do to the world?”
“Turned it off.”
Synopsis
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is a science-fiction film based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. It focuses on the mystery of who killed Hannon Fuller, a computer genius who had devoted six years of his life to creating a virtual world. This virtual world, a replica of 1937 Los Angeles, is entered through a complex computer system located on the thirteenth floor of a corporate building in modern day LA. The film confronts philosophical issues of reality, creation, morality, and metaphysics in the quests of its main characters to solve the murder.
The Main Characters
Douglas Hall: a returning employee of Fuller’s.
Hannon Fuller: creative genius and owner of the company.
Jason Whitney: primary technician / programmer on the thirteenth floor.
Jerry Ashton: bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in the virtual 1937 Los Angeles.
Jane Fuller: a visitor from the ‘real world’ masquerading as Fuller’s daughter.
Larry McBain: a homicide detective with the LAPD.
MY SHIP CHARACTERS
"Mr. Whitney's in the building and he's acting kind of strange..."
Jerry Ashton
“You see anything you want?”
Jerry Ashton is Unit SJT6548555, a character in the virtual 1937 created by Fuller, Whitney, and Hall. However, like all of the units in the program, Ashton is initially unaware of his artificial nature. He functions like a normal human being, and presumably has memories of living his entire life, even though the program is no more than six years old.
Ashton works as a bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. It is probable that he is head bartender. Although this is never explicitly said, Ashton implies it when he says "I just opened" [my emphasis], and from his knowledge of the customers. He also appears to be excellent at his job. He recalls Fuller on the basis of what he drinks - "Perfect gin martini up, one olive and likes them frigid as an Eskimo" - and encourages Hall to try "something fancy".
Ashton also serves as something of a pimp for the dancers and cigarette girls employed at the hotel. On two occasions he attempts to set up male customers with girls. In addition, one of the dancers - Bridget - refers Douglas Hall to Ashton when she thinks Hall is after sex. It is unclear whether this 'business' is one approved by the hotel, or merely Ashton's own enterprise. Despite Ashton's hazy morals, he is apparently liked and trusted by Fuller, who leaves a letter revealing the secret of the virtual world in his care. The fact that Ashton reads the letter is not so surprising, and the way he opens the envelope, so that it can be re-sealed, suggests that he has done this before. He also successfully tails Hall: another indicator of his shadowy business life. To confirm this aura of criminality, Ashton owns a pistol and knows very well how to use it.
When he discovers that his world is artificial, Ashton's reactions are both violent and fearful. He attacks and shoots Hall, before attempting to drown him in the hotel swimming pool. Ashton does not, in fact, kill him, which suggests that he is not completely without mercy. However, his actions from this point on are increasingly unbalanced, and it is unclear to what extent they are an accurate reflection of his previous character.
In the Los Angeles of 1999, where Ashton is transported after Whitney is killed in VR, he views everything with a sense of childish wonder, and even regards Hall as "a God". However, when Hall tells him that the 1999 world is also a simulation, Ashton reverts to his violent/scared actions, threatening Hall with a gun. It is possible that the Ashton of 1999, in Whitney's body, is affected somewhat by Whitney's residual memories and personality, but this is unclear.
Random facts: smokes; owns and drives a car; has a driver's licence; lives at 1463 Mill Street; and may be ambidextrous. No one ever calls him by his first name, and we never see him drinking (although it may be that a cop at one point smells alcohol on his breath). He wears four ornate rings, two on each hand, the significance of which is unknown.
Jason “Whit” Whitney
“You see, while my mind is jacked in, I'm walking around experiencing 1937.”
Jason Whitney is the primary computer technician and/or programmer on the thirteenth floor. He has been working on this specific program for six years, and may also have worked for Fuller before that. He regards Fuller with some awe, describing him as "the Einstein of our generation", and is genuinely distraught after his death.
Whitney has an ambivalent attitude to the program. On the one hand, he is enthusiastic when asked about it by McBain, and potentially devastated by Hall's idea that they shut down the program entirely. On the other, he refuses to believe that the
units in the program are anything other than "just a bunch of electronic circuits."
Whitney is very protective of his "stuff", meaning his files on the computer, and also exhibits concern about Hall's wellbeing while jacked into the program. Despite Whitney's caring nature, it is suggested that he does not have much of a social life. He is constantly at his desk, and presumably also lives in the building. His claim that the program has taken up "six years of our lives" also suggests his devotion to the program, to the exclusion of everything else. That said, he refers to "shooting hoops" with Hall, but this is his only (brief) reference to the outside world. Whitney also seems embarrassed when McBain asks him if the units in the 1937 world "fuck".
Presumably out of concern that Hall will shut down the program, Whitney jacks into the program, downloading into Ashton's body. This incident shows both Whitney's love for the program, and his naïveté. He is delighted with everything that happens, even when he crashes Ashton's car and is interrogated by a police officer. Whitney finally ends up dead when he is accidentally hit by another car on the road. His last words, "Hey, this is a joke!" show how, even to the last, he apparently refuses to believe that anything in the program is truly real.
Random facts: claims not to drink; perhaps can't drive a car; never called by his first name.
A RELATIONSHIP?
"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, don't even think about it!"
Whitney and Ashton never meet in the course of the film, although they both end up inhabiting each other's bodies by virtue of the quirks of the program. However, they do have a very real relationship.
Link Unit / User
One question unanswered by the film is why Whitney created Ashton. The virtual world depicted in The Thirteenth Floor seems to require that the "user" in the real world downloads into a "link unit" in the virtual world. These link units, apart from differences in haircuts, facial hair and wardrobe, appear identical to the user. This explains Ashton's appearance. It explains neither his occupation nor his personality.
We see two other user / link unit combinations in the film. Fuller's link unit is a respectable and highly moral antiques dealer named Grierson. Grierson's occupation seems fitting, since Fuller, too, is obsessed with the past. However, the two men differ considerably in their moral outlook. Fuller uses the virtual world to let him sleep with prostitutes, but Grierson has never cheated on his wife. In a similar fashion, Douglas Hall's link unit is Ferguson, a bank teller, equating with Hall's financial background. However, Ferguson is a much more extroverted character than Hall.
Ashton, however, is almost the diametric opposite of Whitney. It is difficult to see, initially, what they could possibly have in common. Ashton takes meticulous care of his appearance - Hall tells Whitney, "He's got a much better haircut than you. Much better". Ashton is clean shaven, with neat hair and dapper clothes. He has a job which requires him to be sociable and charming - the two skills Whitney most lacks. Ashton is also much more capable in a fight, overpowering Hall and almost killing him. In contrast, when Hall punches Whitney by accident, Whitney backs off and is visibly frightened.
One review of the film asked, "Is Whitney really as mellow and harmless as he appears? He didn't write his Sim character that way." Just as Fuller could fulfil his fantasies of going back to the age of his youth and having sex with beautiful women, Whitney perhaps intended to discard his shy nature and have some fun in the "role" of Ashton. It is not such a stretch of the imagination to say that the creation of Ashton is a reflection of Whitney's perfect self-image: confident, charming, and seemingly invulnerable.
Whitney is proud of Ashton and, after Hall has gone into VR, the first thing he asks (after a general query about whether the program actually works), is: "How about Ashton, my bartender?" He's more interested in Ashton than in any other aspect of the world. His larger concern for the program may in fact be a reflection of his concern for Ashton (and, by extension, his perfect self-image). Even though Hall tells him that Ashton has tried to kill him (Hall), Whitney only replies with an uncertain "Jesus!", where it is unclear what concerns him most. He then argues against shutting down the program - an action that would perhaps "kill" Ashton and the other units. It would be interesting to know if, when Whitney says, "You're talking about six years of our lives. All of us!", he includes Ashton.
One additional indication of a link is a point that is both unexplained, and crucial to the plot of the film. This is the question of why Fuller left such an important document - the letter - in the possession of a man he knew to be at least immoral enough to be a pimp. It would have been much more appropriate to leave the letter with almost anyone else. One possibility is that Fuller mistakenly attributed Whitney's honesty to Ashton.
Lovers?
The most superficial reading of the film shows that these two men have a fundamental connection - that between creator and creation. A slightly deeper investigation of this bond (or, as the film puts it, "link") suggests a firmer psychological reasoning behind Whitney's coding of Ashton's character.
It is a canonical fact that Whitney loves the program. He has devoted six years to its creation, he talks about it with immense enthusiasm, and he overcomes his shy nature to defend it to Douglas Hall. It is also very possible, as discussed above, that Whitney is - at the very least - in love with the idea of Ashton. Whether this relationship takes the form of anything beyond the abstract involves somewhat more of a stretch of the imagination. But, believe me, it's an interesting stretch.
Whitney's protectiveness about the program could certainly be explained by a relationship with Ashton. He behaves in a number of strange ways in the course of the film, perhaps designed (in terms of the plot) to cast suspicion on him as a potential murder. Whitney is concerned when he finds Hall going through his files, and he attempts to restrict the amount of time Hall spends in the VR world. He is also apparently embarrassed by McBain asking if the units in the program fuck, yet not so surprised by the idea that Fuller spends his time in the program having sex with girls. There is a very good chance that Whitney knows far more about the program than he is willing to share with Hall.
There are also several issues with Ashton's role which could be explained by a relationship with Whitney. Although an intelligent man, it is somewhat strange that he actually believes Fuller's letter and drives to the "ends of the earth" to discover whether his world is real. Despite his own admission that he thought that the letter was "a gag", he obeys its instructions anyway. This suggests that Ashton had some other, external reason to believe its contents. Later, when Ashton is transported to the 1999 world, he does not seem the least surprised to be in Whitney's body, even though he is shocked by the world as a whole.
I am aware that, in the context of one film in which they never canonically meet, this ship faces some logistical difficulties (to put it mildly). However, there is nothing that firmly points against them having a relationship, providing that we do not regard Whitney as being an invariable font of truth, and several elements which only make sense if they do.
JACKING IN
"I never imagined it could be so beautiful..."
I first watched The Thirteenth Floor because I had become interested in the work of Vincent D'Onofrio, an actor renowned for being almost chameleonic in his roles. I was interested to see how D'Onofrio would play two such diametrically opposed characters without making either one a stereotypical extreme. Another challenge was that, as neither character was the hero of the film, neither had very much screentime to make an impression or to develop much in the course of the storyline. D'Onofrio said that his approach to the characters was, therefore, "broad strokes - well thought out, hopefully, broad strokes." Whether as a result of the screenwriter's intent or of D'Onofrio's interpretation, I came to realise that the two characters were in fact much more cleverly drawn.
The most obvious opposition between the two characters would be morality - a typical good / evil divide. As I have discussed above, this is true to some extent. Whitney, the "good" character, is non-violent, honest, friendly, and never breaks the law. He doesn't even drink. Ashton, the "evil" character, is immediately shown to be dishonest, pimps out young girls, and attempts to torture and kill Douglas Hall. However, the differences are not so absolute as they might first appear.
As the plot of the film begins to resolve itself, the actions of these characters are cast into a different light. Ashton clearly acts in a violent manner only when he is scared and his entire view of the world is thrown upside down. He has, in fact, been deeply wronged and believes he is fighting for his very existence - putting his actions in the category of self-defence. In contrast, Whitney breaks company rules to jack into the program and gets himself killed. Whitney's apparent refusal to treat the denizens of the virtual world as real people is very possibly a greater moral wrong than Ashton's actual violence.
These similarities and differences got me thinking about Whitney's reasons for creating Ashton. When I re-watched the film, the elements of Whitney's behaviour that struck me as strange - his apparent lack of interest in the units as real people, his embarrassment about sex, and his possessiveness regarding Ashton ("my bartender") and the program - suddenly made sense when I viewed them through the theory of his having a relationship with Ashton.
From the perspective of writing fanfiction about these two characters and their role in the plot of the film, I find it fascinating to speculate on how Ashton and Whitney would get along if they were to meet. Quite apart from the fact that Ashton is Whitney's perfect self-image, the two of them raise several interesting philosophical questions.
The film suggests that both user and link unit share a "personality profile". It is possible, therefore, that both Ashton and Whitney are essentially the same person, but their personalities and their reactions have been shaped through very different upbringings and experiences in very different worlds. As Ashton's creator, how morally responsible must Whitney be for Ashton's life and actions? In a relationship, how much of an issue is it that Whitney has shaped Ashton to be his "perfect" man? Does Ashton, in such a situation, have free will? Are Whitney and Ashton both equally "real"?
The Thirteenth Floor is an intriguing film, and an often cruelly underrated one. I hope that this article has peaked the interest of a few of you who haven't seen it. Both Ashton and Whitney are well worth getting to know.
FANDOM GUIDE
"The whole thing's a giant computer game?"
"No, not at all. It doesn't need a user to interact with it to
function."
General Information and Helpful Links
The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want? My fansite for the film, including interviews, production information, galleries, video and sound clips, and fanfiction.
The Thirteenth Floor: Review A review of the film by lauramerle, including some intriguing meta discussion of Vincent D'Onofrio's dual performances, and the backgrounds of the two characters.
The Thirteenth Floor @ imdb.com Good general site for information and links.
Scifi Scripts A transcript of the film. Not 100% accurate.
The Editing Room - The Thirteenth Floor A short parody script of the film.
Fanfiction
Much as I am loath to rec my own stories, at present I am the only person writing fanfiction based on this pairing. All of my fanfiction can be found at my website, which also includes information and articles about the film as a whole.
The introductory fic on this pairing is:
The Other Man NC-17. A month before the events of the film, Whitney jacks into the program for the first time and finds more than he had ever dared expect.
I have also written a lengthy re-interpretation of the film from the points of view of Whitney and Ashton:
The End of the World R. Fuller is dead. Doug has returned. Jane wants to shut down the program. Whitney and Ashton's fledgling relationship is thrown into chaos. Will anything survive the end of the world?
AUTHOR: lonelywalker
AUTHOR SITE: The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want?
FANDOM: The Thirteenth Floor
PAIRING: Jerry Ashton / Jason Whitney
SPOILERS: The entire film The Thirteenth Floor, and possibly also the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye, on which the film is based.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters and I'm not making any money.
MADE FOR EACH OTHER
This is a love story.
This is the story of two men who never met, who were born, lived, and died in different times, different social strata, and different worlds.
Nevertheless, this is a love story.
THE FILM
“Hey, what’d you do to the world?”
“Turned it off.”
Synopsis
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is a science-fiction film based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye. It focuses on the mystery of who killed Hannon Fuller, a computer genius who had devoted six years of his life to creating a virtual world. This virtual world, a replica of 1937 Los Angeles, is entered through a complex computer system located on the thirteenth floor of a corporate building in modern day LA. The film confronts philosophical issues of reality, creation, morality, and metaphysics in the quests of its main characters to solve the murder.
The Main Characters
Douglas Hall: a returning employee of Fuller’s.
Hannon Fuller: creative genius and owner of the company.
Jason Whitney: primary technician / programmer on the thirteenth floor.
Jerry Ashton: bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in the virtual 1937 Los Angeles.
Jane Fuller: a visitor from the ‘real world’ masquerading as Fuller’s daughter.
Larry McBain: a homicide detective with the LAPD.
MY SHIP CHARACTERS
"Mr. Whitney's in the building and he's acting kind of strange..."
Jerry Ashton
“You see anything you want?”
Jerry Ashton is Unit SJT6548555, a character in the virtual 1937 created by Fuller, Whitney, and Hall. However, like all of the units in the program, Ashton is initially unaware of his artificial nature. He functions like a normal human being, and presumably has memories of living his entire life, even though the program is no more than six years old.
Ashton works as a bartender at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. It is probable that he is head bartender. Although this is never explicitly said, Ashton implies it when he says "I just opened" [my emphasis], and from his knowledge of the customers. He also appears to be excellent at his job. He recalls Fuller on the basis of what he drinks - "Perfect gin martini up, one olive and likes them frigid as an Eskimo" - and encourages Hall to try "something fancy".
Ashton also serves as something of a pimp for the dancers and cigarette girls employed at the hotel. On two occasions he attempts to set up male customers with girls. In addition, one of the dancers - Bridget - refers Douglas Hall to Ashton when she thinks Hall is after sex. It is unclear whether this 'business' is one approved by the hotel, or merely Ashton's own enterprise. Despite Ashton's hazy morals, he is apparently liked and trusted by Fuller, who leaves a letter revealing the secret of the virtual world in his care. The fact that Ashton reads the letter is not so surprising, and the way he opens the envelope, so that it can be re-sealed, suggests that he has done this before. He also successfully tails Hall: another indicator of his shadowy business life. To confirm this aura of criminality, Ashton owns a pistol and knows very well how to use it.
When he discovers that his world is artificial, Ashton's reactions are both violent and fearful. He attacks and shoots Hall, before attempting to drown him in the hotel swimming pool. Ashton does not, in fact, kill him, which suggests that he is not completely without mercy. However, his actions from this point on are increasingly unbalanced, and it is unclear to what extent they are an accurate reflection of his previous character.
In the Los Angeles of 1999, where Ashton is transported after Whitney is killed in VR, he views everything with a sense of childish wonder, and even regards Hall as "a God". However, when Hall tells him that the 1999 world is also a simulation, Ashton reverts to his violent/scared actions, threatening Hall with a gun. It is possible that the Ashton of 1999, in Whitney's body, is affected somewhat by Whitney's residual memories and personality, but this is unclear.
Random facts: smokes; owns and drives a car; has a driver's licence; lives at 1463 Mill Street; and may be ambidextrous. No one ever calls him by his first name, and we never see him drinking (although it may be that a cop at one point smells alcohol on his breath). He wears four ornate rings, two on each hand, the significance of which is unknown.
Jason “Whit” Whitney
“You see, while my mind is jacked in, I'm walking around experiencing 1937.”
Jason Whitney is the primary computer technician and/or programmer on the thirteenth floor. He has been working on this specific program for six years, and may also have worked for Fuller before that. He regards Fuller with some awe, describing him as "the Einstein of our generation", and is genuinely distraught after his death.
Whitney has an ambivalent attitude to the program. On the one hand, he is enthusiastic when asked about it by McBain, and potentially devastated by Hall's idea that they shut down the program entirely. On the other, he refuses to believe that the
units in the program are anything other than "just a bunch of electronic circuits."
Whitney is very protective of his "stuff", meaning his files on the computer, and also exhibits concern about Hall's wellbeing while jacked into the program. Despite Whitney's caring nature, it is suggested that he does not have much of a social life. He is constantly at his desk, and presumably also lives in the building. His claim that the program has taken up "six years of our lives" also suggests his devotion to the program, to the exclusion of everything else. That said, he refers to "shooting hoops" with Hall, but this is his only (brief) reference to the outside world. Whitney also seems embarrassed when McBain asks him if the units in the 1937 world "fuck".
Presumably out of concern that Hall will shut down the program, Whitney jacks into the program, downloading into Ashton's body. This incident shows both Whitney's love for the program, and his naïveté. He is delighted with everything that happens, even when he crashes Ashton's car and is interrogated by a police officer. Whitney finally ends up dead when he is accidentally hit by another car on the road. His last words, "Hey, this is a joke!" show how, even to the last, he apparently refuses to believe that anything in the program is truly real.
Random facts: claims not to drink; perhaps can't drive a car; never called by his first name.
A RELATIONSHIP?
"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, don't even think about it!"
Whitney and Ashton never meet in the course of the film, although they both end up inhabiting each other's bodies by virtue of the quirks of the program. However, they do have a very real relationship.
Link Unit / User
One question unanswered by the film is why Whitney created Ashton. The virtual world depicted in The Thirteenth Floor seems to require that the "user" in the real world downloads into a "link unit" in the virtual world. These link units, apart from differences in haircuts, facial hair and wardrobe, appear identical to the user. This explains Ashton's appearance. It explains neither his occupation nor his personality.
We see two other user / link unit combinations in the film. Fuller's link unit is a respectable and highly moral antiques dealer named Grierson. Grierson's occupation seems fitting, since Fuller, too, is obsessed with the past. However, the two men differ considerably in their moral outlook. Fuller uses the virtual world to let him sleep with prostitutes, but Grierson has never cheated on his wife. In a similar fashion, Douglas Hall's link unit is Ferguson, a bank teller, equating with Hall's financial background. However, Ferguson is a much more extroverted character than Hall.
Ashton, however, is almost the diametric opposite of Whitney. It is difficult to see, initially, what they could possibly have in common. Ashton takes meticulous care of his appearance - Hall tells Whitney, "He's got a much better haircut than you. Much better". Ashton is clean shaven, with neat hair and dapper clothes. He has a job which requires him to be sociable and charming - the two skills Whitney most lacks. Ashton is also much more capable in a fight, overpowering Hall and almost killing him. In contrast, when Hall punches Whitney by accident, Whitney backs off and is visibly frightened.
One review of the film asked, "Is Whitney really as mellow and harmless as he appears? He didn't write his Sim character that way." Just as Fuller could fulfil his fantasies of going back to the age of his youth and having sex with beautiful women, Whitney perhaps intended to discard his shy nature and have some fun in the "role" of Ashton. It is not such a stretch of the imagination to say that the creation of Ashton is a reflection of Whitney's perfect self-image: confident, charming, and seemingly invulnerable.
Whitney is proud of Ashton and, after Hall has gone into VR, the first thing he asks (after a general query about whether the program actually works), is: "How about Ashton, my bartender?" He's more interested in Ashton than in any other aspect of the world. His larger concern for the program may in fact be a reflection of his concern for Ashton (and, by extension, his perfect self-image). Even though Hall tells him that Ashton has tried to kill him (Hall), Whitney only replies with an uncertain "Jesus!", where it is unclear what concerns him most. He then argues against shutting down the program - an action that would perhaps "kill" Ashton and the other units. It would be interesting to know if, when Whitney says, "You're talking about six years of our lives. All of us!", he includes Ashton.
One additional indication of a link is a point that is both unexplained, and crucial to the plot of the film. This is the question of why Fuller left such an important document - the letter - in the possession of a man he knew to be at least immoral enough to be a pimp. It would have been much more appropriate to leave the letter with almost anyone else. One possibility is that Fuller mistakenly attributed Whitney's honesty to Ashton.
Lovers?
The most superficial reading of the film shows that these two men have a fundamental connection - that between creator and creation. A slightly deeper investigation of this bond (or, as the film puts it, "link") suggests a firmer psychological reasoning behind Whitney's coding of Ashton's character.
It is a canonical fact that Whitney loves the program. He has devoted six years to its creation, he talks about it with immense enthusiasm, and he overcomes his shy nature to defend it to Douglas Hall. It is also very possible, as discussed above, that Whitney is - at the very least - in love with the idea of Ashton. Whether this relationship takes the form of anything beyond the abstract involves somewhat more of a stretch of the imagination. But, believe me, it's an interesting stretch.
Whitney's protectiveness about the program could certainly be explained by a relationship with Ashton. He behaves in a number of strange ways in the course of the film, perhaps designed (in terms of the plot) to cast suspicion on him as a potential murder. Whitney is concerned when he finds Hall going through his files, and he attempts to restrict the amount of time Hall spends in the VR world. He is also apparently embarrassed by McBain asking if the units in the program fuck, yet not so surprised by the idea that Fuller spends his time in the program having sex with girls. There is a very good chance that Whitney knows far more about the program than he is willing to share with Hall.
There are also several issues with Ashton's role which could be explained by a relationship with Whitney. Although an intelligent man, it is somewhat strange that he actually believes Fuller's letter and drives to the "ends of the earth" to discover whether his world is real. Despite his own admission that he thought that the letter was "a gag", he obeys its instructions anyway. This suggests that Ashton had some other, external reason to believe its contents. Later, when Ashton is transported to the 1999 world, he does not seem the least surprised to be in Whitney's body, even though he is shocked by the world as a whole.
I am aware that, in the context of one film in which they never canonically meet, this ship faces some logistical difficulties (to put it mildly). However, there is nothing that firmly points against them having a relationship, providing that we do not regard Whitney as being an invariable font of truth, and several elements which only make sense if they do.
JACKING IN
"I never imagined it could be so beautiful..."
I first watched The Thirteenth Floor because I had become interested in the work of Vincent D'Onofrio, an actor renowned for being almost chameleonic in his roles. I was interested to see how D'Onofrio would play two such diametrically opposed characters without making either one a stereotypical extreme. Another challenge was that, as neither character was the hero of the film, neither had very much screentime to make an impression or to develop much in the course of the storyline. D'Onofrio said that his approach to the characters was, therefore, "broad strokes - well thought out, hopefully, broad strokes." Whether as a result of the screenwriter's intent or of D'Onofrio's interpretation, I came to realise that the two characters were in fact much more cleverly drawn.
The most obvious opposition between the two characters would be morality - a typical good / evil divide. As I have discussed above, this is true to some extent. Whitney, the "good" character, is non-violent, honest, friendly, and never breaks the law. He doesn't even drink. Ashton, the "evil" character, is immediately shown to be dishonest, pimps out young girls, and attempts to torture and kill Douglas Hall. However, the differences are not so absolute as they might first appear.
As the plot of the film begins to resolve itself, the actions of these characters are cast into a different light. Ashton clearly acts in a violent manner only when he is scared and his entire view of the world is thrown upside down. He has, in fact, been deeply wronged and believes he is fighting for his very existence - putting his actions in the category of self-defence. In contrast, Whitney breaks company rules to jack into the program and gets himself killed. Whitney's apparent refusal to treat the denizens of the virtual world as real people is very possibly a greater moral wrong than Ashton's actual violence.
These similarities and differences got me thinking about Whitney's reasons for creating Ashton. When I re-watched the film, the elements of Whitney's behaviour that struck me as strange - his apparent lack of interest in the units as real people, his embarrassment about sex, and his possessiveness regarding Ashton ("my bartender") and the program - suddenly made sense when I viewed them through the theory of his having a relationship with Ashton.
From the perspective of writing fanfiction about these two characters and their role in the plot of the film, I find it fascinating to speculate on how Ashton and Whitney would get along if they were to meet. Quite apart from the fact that Ashton is Whitney's perfect self-image, the two of them raise several interesting philosophical questions.
The film suggests that both user and link unit share a "personality profile". It is possible, therefore, that both Ashton and Whitney are essentially the same person, but their personalities and their reactions have been shaped through very different upbringings and experiences in very different worlds. As Ashton's creator, how morally responsible must Whitney be for Ashton's life and actions? In a relationship, how much of an issue is it that Whitney has shaped Ashton to be his "perfect" man? Does Ashton, in such a situation, have free will? Are Whitney and Ashton both equally "real"?
The Thirteenth Floor is an intriguing film, and an often cruelly underrated one. I hope that this article has peaked the interest of a few of you who haven't seen it. Both Ashton and Whitney are well worth getting to know.
FANDOM GUIDE
"The whole thing's a giant computer game?"
"No, not at all. It doesn't need a user to interact with it to
function."
General Information and Helpful Links
The Thirteenth Floor: You See Anything You Want? My fansite for the film, including interviews, production information, galleries, video and sound clips, and fanfiction.
The Thirteenth Floor: Review A review of the film by lauramerle, including some intriguing meta discussion of Vincent D'Onofrio's dual performances, and the backgrounds of the two characters.
The Thirteenth Floor @ imdb.com Good general site for information and links.
Scifi Scripts A transcript of the film. Not 100% accurate.
The Editing Room - The Thirteenth Floor A short parody script of the film.
Fanfiction
Much as I am loath to rec my own stories, at present I am the only person writing fanfiction based on this pairing. All of my fanfiction can be found at my website, which also includes information and articles about the film as a whole.
The introductory fic on this pairing is:
The Other Man NC-17. A month before the events of the film, Whitney jacks into the program for the first time and finds more than he had ever dared expect.
I have also written a lengthy re-interpretation of the film from the points of view of Whitney and Ashton:
The End of the World R. Fuller is dead. Doug has returned. Jane wants to shut down the program. Whitney and Ashton's fledgling relationship is thrown into chaos. Will anything survive the end of the world?