You just can’t go around killing people
John Connor: “Listen, I need to stop by my house. I want to pick up some stuff before we leave.”
The Terminator: “Negative. The T-1000 will definitely try to reacquire you there.”
John Connor: “Are you sure?”
The Terminator: “I would.”
John Connor: “Look, Todd and Janelle are dicks, but I've gotta warn them.”
John’s thoughts of possessions before parents indicates his priorities. It’s only after the abrupt news of Todd and Janelle’s death that he begins to understand the gravity of the situation.
During the truck stop scene, we see John explaining his past to the T800 – The lack of eye contact from either party indicates that the T800 is focusing on keeping guard, and John isn’t actually talking to his protector. Instead it's more for his self-understanding, going from a know-it-all, self obsessed teenager, to realizing the consequences of his actions:
John Connor: “We spent a lot of time in Nicaragua and places like that. For a while there, she was with this crazy ex-Green Beret guy, running guns. Then there were some other guys. She'd shack up with anybody she could learn from so she could teach me how to be this "great military leader." Then she gets busted. And it's like, "Sorry kid, your mom's a psycho. Didn't you know?" It's like everything I'd been brought up to believe was all made of bullshit. I hated her for that! But everything she said was true. She knew… and nobody believed her. Not even me.”
While he bears some responsibility for the death of his foster parents, the lesson is not yet learned. It is only when John uses the Terminator as a toy that he understands the consequences of his actions.
Though John begins this sequence as a child, something happens along the way. He rudely dismisses the young men that come to his aide, and when one rebukes him, he orders the T800 to attack. John revels in this moment of power – “Now who’s the dipshit you jock douchebag!” however, once the T800 pulls out a handgun, the tone of the scene immediately changes.
This close call teaches John a hard-learned lesson.
John Connor: “Jesus, you were going to kill that guy!”
T800: “Of course. I’m a Terminator.”
This experience is so destructive to John’s psyche that it immediately kicks his moral compass into action.
John Connor: “You just can’t go around killing people!”
T800: “Why?”
John Connor: “What do you mean why? Cause you can’t!”
T800: “Why?”
John Connor: “Because you just can’t, okay? Trust me on this.”
Although John is not yet able to explain why killing is abhorrent, this is the birth of his role as a leader: one that holds life in high regard, and has a strong awareness of cause and effect. The John that leaves this scene is not the one that began it.
John Connor: “I’m going to get my mom, and I order you to come with me.”
John’s decision is dangerous, but there are two elements at play here – not only is Sarah’s knowledge and wisdom essential to his survival, but he must also right his earlier wrongs.
“Knowledge without practice is useless, practice without knowledge is dangerous.”
- Confucius
In this sequence we see the consequences of reward without error, with things almost ending in disaster before they even begin. John’s lesson is an important one - not only for himself, but for all of the other characters within the film, especially Miles Dyson.
Dyson exemplifies the dangers of knowledge without wisdom – having literally reverse engineered a CPU from the future. His description of the chip: “Scary stuff, radically advanced… all my work was based on it” demonstrates that despite his lack of readiness, he still pursued reward. When he is confronted with the reality of what will happen down this path, his response to Sarah is telling:
Miles Dyson: “You’re judging me on things I haven’t even done yet? How are we supposed to know?”
Dyson’s attempt to play the victim demonstrates the absence of an ego check. This is someone that is yet to be ‘punched in the face’ for his mistakes. He does have a point, as technically he is innocent of any wrongdoing, however Sarah’s response nullifies his argument:
Sarah Connor: “Yeah, right. How are you supposed to know? Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction...”
While Sarah also makes a valid point, she likewise commits the same mistake – she is operating on information gained from the future, namely the history of Dyson’s creation. Her “men like you” speech demonstrates that to her, Dyson is Skynet by proxy. This perspective has remained unchallenged in her mind, and she only comes to realize her mistake after very nearly killing a man in front of his wife and children.
Regardless of the complexities of their argument, John takes command:
John Connor: “We need to be a little more constructive here okay?”
Rather than taking direct action like Sarah, John approaches the situation differently. The reasons for this are due to the errors that he made earlier, namely: the labeling of his mother and the shooting at the gas stop.
Labeling his mother error – from this, John learned to see the clean slate in people. Rather than the black and white “total loser” of his earlier self, John now sees the complicated nature of his mother. He applies the same wisdom to Dyson, who, rather than being responsible for billions of deaths, is a family man.
Gas stop shooting error – from this, John recoils at the idea of killing Dyson:
T800: “Killing Dyson might actually prevent the war.”
John Connor: “I don’t care! Haven’t you learnt anything yet? Haven’t you figured out why you can’t kill people?”
Instead of pulling the trigger and dealing with further consequences, John seeks a solution that doesn’t involve killing.
These two earlier experiences transformed John’s knowledge into wisdom, which he was then able to apply when it truly mattered. In doing so, John changes the dynamic and this is where the tide begins to turn – John shifts the perspective from people against each other, to people against the problem. The John that we saw at the start of the film did not have the capability to do this.
This is not to say that John is better than either Sarah or Dyson. Instead, he is merely further along the developmental timeline. Through his error based learning, John has gained the perspective needed to successfully lead the group.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
- John F Kennedy
While this error-based learning is evident among the human characters, it is also demonstrated by both Terminators. Most importantly, it is their application of this (or lack of) that makes the difference in the film’s finale.