Ted (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream)

Ted is the main protagonist of Harlan Ellison's short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. 
He is the narrator of the story who doesn't elaborate on who he was before AM captured him, though he continually states that he's the only one that wasn't altered in any way. However, he's also deeply paranoid, and speculates that the other survivors are arrayed against him.
== Biography ==
=== Novella ===
Having been trapped with his companions inside AM and subjected to the computer’s relentless physical and psychological torture for 109 years, Ted has pessimistically resigned to their shared misery. Ted feels alienated from his four companions and grows increasingly suspicious that they all secretly despise him because he is the youngest and least affected by AM. He believes that he is the only one of the five who isn’t crazy or damaged, since AM hasn’t gotten into his head. But the reader can see that this clearly isn’t the case, given Ted’s ever-increasing paranoia and the extreme psychological distress he experiences from AM’s punishments, and so Ted is cast as an unreliable narrator. In fact, AM frequently inserts itself into Ted’s mind and barrages him with terrible thoughts and sensations that utterly devastate Ted. Throughout the story, AM starves the group for months and keeps them alive in agony, and Benny cannibalizes Gorrister as a result. Watching this horrific act, Ted has the epiphany that death is the group’s only escape. He makes a snap decision to murder his companions in an act of compassion, saving them from eternal torment. Picking up on his plan, Ellen kills Nimdok, and Ted kills Benny, Gorrister, and Ellen. With the others gone, AM ensures that Ted will never be able to kill himself—instead, he will live within AM forever as a mouthless, slug-like creature that barely even resembles the human he used to be. It is in this state, at the end of the story, that Ted declares, “I have no mouth. And I must scream.”
=== Video Game ===
A handsome, confident trickster in the habit of romancing single rich women out of their money, Ted's in-game characterization retains its paranoia; this time, though, it's directed at the various marks he's accumulated over the years, and the fear that they might learn that he's a fraud and torture him for his secrets. Of course, given that the human race is extinct and he's being tortured by an insane supercomputer, that's the least of his worries, though AM still uses the threat against him from time to time. However, on the hundred and ninth year of his captivity, AM reveals that he likes Ted, and offers him the chance to escape from his complex once and for all.
== Personality ==
Ted had been a philanthropist in his past life, a lover of people, but as AM eradicated most of humanity, him along with four others were the only people left alive within the terrible machine's complex, forced to endure its constant torture. The once noble Ted was reduced to a paranoid and delusional mess, constantly mistrusting the intentions of those around. However, he is still undoubtedly a good guy with an amazing moral capacity and more bravery than what most people can say about himself, but could use some help in the personality department. Ted begins to understand AM's motivations for hating humanity, and although he still harbors an appropriate amount of hatred for the machine.
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Category:Male
Category:Mentally Ill
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Category:Mutated
Category:Nemesis
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Category:Science Fiction Heroes
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Category:The Hero
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Category:Selfless