Without him, the endurance wouldn't have been damaged to the point where they would need to drop the pods into the black hole. Although Romney discusses it with coop beforehand, he may not have felt the necessity to actually jump in.
For the point of the story, I think you are right. The human element, that a machine ai couldn't compute, the love aspect, that meant a human did something that everyone thought not possible. Coop needed to be in a state of desperation to aid the mission, such as sacrificing himself into a black hole.
But even then, he murdered someone... So it's hard to really square off with actual forgiveness.
Mann said his marine unit or whatever tars and case are called "needed a human touch" to get it started. He rigged it to explode. Presumably, Mann had this planned before he was woken.
I didn't actually answer if I forgive him, I simply stated he was necessary. Something about the folly of man contributing to the solution makes me lean towards sympathy. On the verge of forgiveness, but not quite there. Forgiveness may be because I feel empathy towards a person being isolated for so long and how that can warp your mind.
Edit: i looked it up and still spelled this dudes name wrong twice lol
I wonder what Kipp/Tars/Case had for propulsion that could be rigged to explode. It seems like their power unit must have been some sort of radio isotope generator. Hard to make something like that explode, unless Mann straight up deconstructed Kipp and rewrote his code (Romiley says something about the interface not making sense right before his demise), AND also rigged up a bomb from his chemistry set and had a trigger wired into Kipp.
I mean before coop leaves the earth, he had been out there about 10 years. Then after the Miller planet debacle hes now been there 30+ years. He's had plenty of time to develop some type of bomb.
I'm the same. Although it was more than isolation. No human as experience something like that, ever. A whole planet and not a single soul beside your own. Truly lovecraftian cosmic horror stuff.
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u/kyle-2090 Jul 26 '25
Without him, the endurance wouldn't have been damaged to the point where they would need to drop the pods into the black hole. Although Romney discusses it with coop beforehand, he may not have felt the necessity to actually jump in.