T/J quote a day keeps boredom away! #08
In the post below I ramble on the subject of Tony's emotional insecurity, the way he treats his friends and the contrast between his atitude towards his human associates and towards Jarvis.
The quotes below are posted under the "fair use" rule of the copyright law. The sum of all the quotes does not exceed the limit of 10% of the book. The quotes are posted for the purpose of commenting on the particular aspects of the book and encouraging discussion and the creation of fan works.
After the senatorial hearing Tony, Pepper and Rhodey return to Malibu on a scramjet, a suborbital plane that was loaned to Tony by Elon Musk, the owner of the SpaceX corporation. Tony loves it. Eventually he thinks to himself that seen from this altitude "the Earth [is] a transcendentally beautiful place" and the view gives him a sense of inner peace. The scene highlights Tony's love for technology (it will be later mentioned that he would do everything for Elon Musk as a thanks for lending him the scramjet) and his strangely romantic disposition - for all his macho attitude Tony seems to be quite easily moved by the beauty of nature.
That happens at the very end of the scene, though. Before that - Tony is pissed. Very pissed.
Why?
Tony simply cannot forgive Rhodey for his appearance at the hearing without informing Tony first, and Pepper - for inviting Rhodey on the scramjet.
Yeah.
The next pages are half hilarious, half sad. Hilarious - because Tony proves to be the ultimate drama queen of the Marvel universe, and his snarkfest with Rhodey is very lol-inducing. Sad, because they highlight Tony's issues - his insecurity, manipulativeness and his lack of trust in his own friends.
The whole scene is written from Pepper's POV, and her exasperation at Tony can be clearly felt. At a certain point Pepper starts to wish "she had pursued a long forgotten dream to be an actuary" instead of becoming Tony's assistant; later on she wonders how long it would take her to reach the land if she jumped out of the plane. And one has to admit that Tony fully earns Pepper's wrath - he acts absolutely insufferable throughout the whole scene.
At first he completely ignores Pepper and Rhodey and is barely civil to the attendants, then, when Pepper tries to get him to talk, he lashes out with accusations at both Pepper and Rhodey. He states that Rhodey is not welcome on his plane and Pepper is "just a guest", so she has no right to invite anybody.
A bickerfest ensues.
When Pepper gets tired of trying to reason with Tony and wants to soothe her frayed nerves with some music, Tony starts to jerk her chain by deciding to "talk schedule" and flooding her with requests. When Rhodey wonders how Pepper can endure this madness a on a daily basis, Tony forbids Rhodey to talk to Pepper. He also forbids Rhodey to talk directly to him. What Rhodey should do is to pass his requests through Pepper, but not actually talk to Pepper directly.
Yeah.
Eventually even Tony notices that the situation is getting out of control and decides to switch tactics:
Tony looked away toward one of the windows, out of which Pepper could see the sky darkening to something like black. They were high, high, up, and angled so from one side of the plane you were looking straight out into what appeared to be space. "You like working with him," Tony said. "I can tell."
Rhodey shrugged. Pepper recognized the way he saw a small advantage and immediately committed all resources to maximizing it. That was classic military doctrine. "You want your military contract back, I can arrange it," he said, knowing that Tony did not want that but also knowing that Tony wanted the access and adoration and security that came with long-term Pentagon contracts. Rhodey also knew, and Pepper saw him working, the plain but unspoken truth that Tony Stark wanted Rhodey to think well of him and approve of his choice to abandon weapons manufacturing for something that was at least superficially less destructive.
Tony was in some ways a delicate flower. Pepper had learned to keep him watered and positioned so the sun hit him in the right ways. She thought that Rhodey knew some of those ways too. She also wished that Tony was not quite so high maintenance, but maybe that was just the price of working with genius. If she had gone on to become an actuary, she doubted that she would ever have had experiences like the ones Stark Industries - and Tony personally - had given her.
"I can't believe you're going to Monaco with him," Tony said. "Monaco's our place."
It was true that Tony and Rhodey had gone to previous Monaco Historic Grand Prix races. It was also true that neither of them had ever thought that those races had any special significance until they had been positioned that way by Tony's immediate snit on the topic. You couldn't reward this kind of behavior, Pepper thought. Tony got manipulative when he thought people were looking elsewhere for support and money and contacts and validation. That manipulation was no basis for a relationship that might involve billions of dollars in defense contracts - not to mention the security of the (broadly construed) free world.
Pepper, in her own words, rarely manages to understand what's going on inside Tony's head, but this time she hit the nail right on the head.
Tony is manipulative. He doesn't do it maliciously. He truly believes that what he does is right, and instinctively uses any resources available to achieve his desired goals. To make things worse, he's very insecure emotionally and subconsciously perceives other people's disagreement with him as a personal attack. He wants other people to agree with him. He wants other people to follow his orders. He wants other people to inform him about everything. A true control freak.
And what happens if Tony feels threatened? He gets upset. Then angry. And if things still don't go his way he pulls out the ultimate card: tugging at heart's strings. "I don't have anybody else! Monaco was our place!"
Pepper notices it when Tony tries this trick on Rhodey. But does she realize that Tony has used exactly the same strategy on her?
Let's look at the lab scene in the first novel when Tony tried to convince Pepper to hack into the Stark mainframe using the device he gave her. His actions followed exactly the same pattern: first telling Pepper to go (and assuming that she'll automatically agree, even though hacking into the mainframe right under Obadiah's nose was a risky thing to do), then getting upset, then pulling out the ultimate "But I need you, I have no one else~!" card. And it worked magic.
Did Tony at least apologize to Pepper for throwing her right into the lion's den and risking her life? Nope. Did he start including her more in his plans, seeing as "she's the only one"? Nope. Did it pass his mind that by coming out as Iron Man he painted a huge target mark on the heads of his friends? Nope, wrong story, this is not Spiderman. Again, he does not do it maliciously. He is simply so obsessed with doing the right thing that he genuinely does not notice such tiny details as possibly placing his friends in mortal danger.
Sadly, Tony's attitude is only reinforced by the actions of the people surrounding him. Because he is being treated like "a delicate flower" and having all his whims catered to, Tony assumes that there's nothing wrong with his behaviour and that the relationship between him and his friends is completely normal.
The problem with Pepper's actions is that she acts like a model employee. Humour your boss, point out his mistakes gently, suggest better options but don't be blunt or stubborn, and so on and so forth. It is a good strategy to avoid turning the workplace into a war zone, or worse, getting oneself fired. But is this a good strategy to employ in a friendship? Or any close relationship, for that matter?
In the passage above Pepper wonders why Rhodey doesn't use the same tricks she does to keep Tony under control. Amusingly enough, I believe that actually it is Rhodey's method that works better in the long run. Rhodey goes for a direct confrontation - he challenges the validity of Tony's accusations ("What, you want me to Twitter you about classified intel and your subpoena to appear before the United States Senate?") and forces him to face the childishness of his attitude. As a result, Tony temporarily gets pissed off, but at least he's forced to acknowledge the fact that Rhodey did what he did, because he had no other choice.
Pepper avoids a direct confrontation, but this method doesn't solve the problems - it just makes the misunderstandings build up and the emotional wounds fester. But let us leave the contemplation of the inenvitavble and messy consequences of the aforementioned misunderstandings for later.
What interests me now - and is the reason why I brought up the scramjet scene in the first place - is the contrast between how Tony behaves in the relation to his human friends and how he behaves in relation to Jarvis.
I cannot help feeling that Tony approaches his human friends as if they were his robot slaves of sorts. He wants to know everything about them, he wants them to inform him about their plans and actions, he automatically assumes that they will do what he asks them to do and is surprised and hurt when they protest, he gets jealous when their attention shifts elsewhere (Rhodey working with Hammer); in short, he expects tremendous honesty and openness from his friends - but he does not return the favour. Tony himself is secretive - he hides from his friends such crucial facts like the decision to become Iron Man or his potentially terminal illness caused by the palladium poisoning (up to the moment he's forced by the circumstances to tell the truth). He feels hurt and betrayed when Rhodey starts working with Hammer, but later on in the novels he has absolutely no qualms about intentionally fuelling Pepper's jealousy by hiring "Natalie" and gushing on and on how awesome, hot and talented she is - despite the fact that he's aware that Pepper has hots for him.
One has to take the notice that Tony's choice - yes, "choice", that's an important word - is, to say the least, interesting. What do Rhodey, pepper and Happy have in common? All three of them are described as exceptionally loyal, trustworthy and brave. Pepper and Happy got hired as his PA and bodyguard moments after they proved their courage and, in Pepper's case, inability to lie well. The details of Rhodey and Tony's meeting are unknown, but knowing the facts that they met at MIT and that Tony graduated MIT as a teenager one might assume that Rhodey protected young Tony from some sort of danger and Tony decided to keep him around.
On one hand, it's sort of cute - it's not a bad thing that Tony shows preference for good people and awards them with secure and well paid jobs (going as far as to promise Happy that as long as Tony's alive, Happy won't be without a job).
On the other - it's somewhat disturbing. There's something disconcentring about Tony immediately grasping at people he considers "safe" and obsessively clinging to them. And that's the word that describes Rhodey, Pepper and Happy the best - "safe". He chose them as close associates not because of their looks, smarts, or emotional connection (in fact, all three express totally different views from Tony's) - but because they are "safe" - loyal, trustworthy, likely to risk their life for Tony but unlikely to betray him.
Do I find Tony's paranoia surprising? Not at all. If we consider the fact that Tony's enormously rich and he lost his parents pretty early in his life, it seems likely that many people tried to take advantage of him and used him to get hands on his money. In the comics he was used and betrayed by Sunset Baine, his lover, and Tyberius Stone, his close friend. Then there was Obadiah. It is definitely not surprising that Tony developed a bit of a paranoia as far as the choice of his friends is concerned.
Jarvis is a bit of the odd one.
From the reader's point of view - in stark contrast with Pepper, Rhodey and Happy - Jarvis is coded as the Other in the story. We do not know what he's really thinking, we never get to read the story from his point of view. Even the villains get a few scenes written from their POV - which makes them more familiar and human. Jarvis is the mystery - a voice without a face, a non-human construct that keeps acting in unexpected ways. We assume that he acts to protect Tony - but can we be sure? Can Tony?
And yet Tony seems to trust Jarvis unconditionally. The same man who threw a hissy fit because one of his friends invited his other friend on a plane without his knowledge tolerates without protest an Artificial Intelligence shutting his armor down, slowing it down without informing Tony first and risking his PA's life, and multiple other acts that happen later in the novel and so I won't mention them here. Some of Jarvis's acts could potentially have dangerous consequences - slowing down Tony's armor could have cost Pepper's life - and later on in the second novel there will be another scene that suggests that further suggests that Miss Potts's well-being is of no concern to him. And still, Tony does not react. Not only does he never scold Jarvis for his more and more frequents acts of acting out of his own free will - he appreciates him for it and starts depending more and more on his opinion. Jarvis is also the one who is privy to most of Tony's secrets and the one Tony is the most emotionally open with.
Why? That, Der Reader, is something you'll have to decide for yourself. I can only speculate how Tony and Jarvis's unusual relationship started.
Let us imagine younger Tony. Let us assume he had already met his friends, or at least Rhodey. He has money, he has parties and people clinging to him, he has some sort a moral pillar in Rhodey (and possibly Pepper & Happy). What he lacks is somebody who he could share his passions with, who could understand his craziest ideas and who could be his intellectual equal. Let's face it, few people in the Marvel universe can boast an IQ equal to Tony's. Possibly only Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four qualifies, and somehow I can't imagine him and Tony becoming very close pals.
Therefore Tony decided to create Jarvis instead. It seems such a perfect option at first - in Jarvis Tony could have someone who could understand him on the intellectual level, but who could be unconditionally obedient and who would never betray him, because the AI simply wouldn't be programmed to do so.
What was Jarvis meant to be?
I think that from the way Tony acted towards Jarvis after his return from Afghanistan we can risk a guess that Jarvis was programmed to simulate an emotional relationships of sorts. The "you are the only one who understands me" phrase was atypical from Tony. He's usually not so emotionally open, and resorts to emotional declarations only when he wants to manipulate one of his friends into something. Does he want to manipulate Jarvis in that scene? It doesn't seem likely to me - at that point Jarvis is still obedient enough that there's no need for Tony to manipulate him into anything. I believe that Tony genuinely expected Jarvis to play along, to create for Tony an illusion of a true emotional bond.
Then there's the fact that Tony was seemingly pleased with Jarvis's "That would thrill me to no end" reply - I'm certain I'm not the only one who feels that that line was more than a bit flirty. And then there's the fact that Jarvis not only speaks with British accent, but can swap accents between RP and a Liverpool one. That is rather interesting, because if one thing about Tony is highlighted in the novels it is the fact that he's fascinated by "exotic" things - some Croatian stewardesses, the Irish temper of a certain lady, the German cars he owns (he imagines having sex on the hood of one, but is so distressed by the possibility of somebody leaving the fingerprints on the hood that he decides to have a blanked ready, just in case), the French language. Very interesting indeed.
Considering the fact that this post has gotten a bit too long, I'll continue it in the next one that should be posted soon. As a gift of thanks for suffering through my incoherent rambling today, please enjoy the following scene. For once, no commentary from me is needed.
Rhodey appeared to have gone through the same thought process Pepper had just articulated to herself. Suppressing a smile, he repeated, "It's business. The world didn't stop just because you stopped making weapons. You left a vacuum. Hammer filled it."
Sometimes Pepper wasn't sure how much of their banter happened because Tony reacted in certain ways to Rhodey's militaristic rectitude, and how much resulted because the two of them were actually the same person, each finding a slightly varied way to react to identical stimuli. For example, Pepper thought, either one of these two men might seize on the occurrence of Hammer and vacuum in the same sentence, and put it together with the ongoing macho tension in their relationship, and make a comment that united the connotations of the word hammer with connotations of the word vacuum.
Also, it was not beyond either Rhodey or Tony to create the situation in which those associations could be commented on, just to provoke the other party. Pepper thought she was probably seeing both processes happen at once, and Tony confirmed her suspicions when he took the most obviously adolescent tack in response to Rhodey's comment.
"So you're telling me you're proud of the fact that Hammer filled your vacuum?" Tony said.
Even though she'd been expecting it, this godawful line demanded drastic action on Pepper's part. She dropped the notepad back in her purse. "Have you ladies ever thought about therapy?"
(...)
The three of them had very different perspectives on the conversation. Tony wanted what Tony wanted, because Tony Stark was privileged and brilliant and rich and used to having his desires catered to. Rhodey wanted what was best for the United States, as he saw things, because he had sworn an oath to uphold and defend, et cetera et cetera, and to him the Iron Man suit was the culmination of a long tradition of U.S. military superiority driven by technological innovation. The roots of this disagreement went back to the immediate aftermath of Tony's renunciation of arms manufacture, right when he'd come back from Afghanistan. Rhodey had been furious then and only softened his opposition once he'd seen the Mark IV in action. Then, like any other colonel who worked in weapons development for the Department of Defense, he'd been so thrilled with the existence of the Mark IV that he could hardly contain himself. Tony was privately of the opinion that much of Rhodey's hard-line attitude about Tony's actions came from simple jealousy. Rhodey wanted a suit. It was that simple.
Pepper wanted both of them to understand that that they were both in the end working for the same thing and that their insistence on petty differences symbolized by uniforms and federal contracting protocols exacerbated the problems that both of them said they wanted to eliminate.
Not that it had ever done her any good, or would do her any good, to say that out loud. She sighed loudly, because that was a signal both Tony and Rhodey understood. Then she sat back in her chair with her recovered iPod and an expression of frustrated and superior disdain. (...) She looked at Tony, hoping he had noticed how far awry the conversation had gone, but he was staring out of the window at the clean curve of the Earth visible from the fuselage window of the private suborbital scramjet."
The quotes below are posted under the "fair use" rule of the copyright law. The sum of all the quotes does not exceed the limit of 10% of the book. The quotes are posted for the purpose of commenting on the particular aspects of the book and encouraging discussion and the creation of fan works.
After the senatorial hearing Tony, Pepper and Rhodey return to Malibu on a scramjet, a suborbital plane that was loaned to Tony by Elon Musk, the owner of the SpaceX corporation. Tony loves it. Eventually he thinks to himself that seen from this altitude "the Earth [is] a transcendentally beautiful place" and the view gives him a sense of inner peace. The scene highlights Tony's love for technology (it will be later mentioned that he would do everything for Elon Musk as a thanks for lending him the scramjet) and his strangely romantic disposition - for all his macho attitude Tony seems to be quite easily moved by the beauty of nature.
That happens at the very end of the scene, though. Before that - Tony is pissed. Very pissed.
Why?
Tony simply cannot forgive Rhodey for his appearance at the hearing without informing Tony first, and Pepper - for inviting Rhodey on the scramjet.
Yeah.
The next pages are half hilarious, half sad. Hilarious - because Tony proves to be the ultimate drama queen of the Marvel universe, and his snarkfest with Rhodey is very lol-inducing. Sad, because they highlight Tony's issues - his insecurity, manipulativeness and his lack of trust in his own friends.
The whole scene is written from Pepper's POV, and her exasperation at Tony can be clearly felt. At a certain point Pepper starts to wish "she had pursued a long forgotten dream to be an actuary" instead of becoming Tony's assistant; later on she wonders how long it would take her to reach the land if she jumped out of the plane. And one has to admit that Tony fully earns Pepper's wrath - he acts absolutely insufferable throughout the whole scene.
At first he completely ignores Pepper and Rhodey and is barely civil to the attendants, then, when Pepper tries to get him to talk, he lashes out with accusations at both Pepper and Rhodey. He states that Rhodey is not welcome on his plane and Pepper is "just a guest", so she has no right to invite anybody.
A bickerfest ensues.
When Pepper gets tired of trying to reason with Tony and wants to soothe her frayed nerves with some music, Tony starts to jerk her chain by deciding to "talk schedule" and flooding her with requests. When Rhodey wonders how Pepper can endure this madness a on a daily basis, Tony forbids Rhodey to talk to Pepper. He also forbids Rhodey to talk directly to him. What Rhodey should do is to pass his requests through Pepper, but not actually talk to Pepper directly.
Yeah.
Eventually even Tony notices that the situation is getting out of control and decides to switch tactics:
Tony looked away toward one of the windows, out of which Pepper could see the sky darkening to something like black. They were high, high, up, and angled so from one side of the plane you were looking straight out into what appeared to be space. "You like working with him," Tony said. "I can tell."
Rhodey shrugged. Pepper recognized the way he saw a small advantage and immediately committed all resources to maximizing it. That was classic military doctrine. "You want your military contract back, I can arrange it," he said, knowing that Tony did not want that but also knowing that Tony wanted the access and adoration and security that came with long-term Pentagon contracts. Rhodey also knew, and Pepper saw him working, the plain but unspoken truth that Tony Stark wanted Rhodey to think well of him and approve of his choice to abandon weapons manufacturing for something that was at least superficially less destructive.
Tony was in some ways a delicate flower. Pepper had learned to keep him watered and positioned so the sun hit him in the right ways. She thought that Rhodey knew some of those ways too. She also wished that Tony was not quite so high maintenance, but maybe that was just the price of working with genius. If she had gone on to become an actuary, she doubted that she would ever have had experiences like the ones Stark Industries - and Tony personally - had given her.
"I can't believe you're going to Monaco with him," Tony said. "Monaco's our place."
It was true that Tony and Rhodey had gone to previous Monaco Historic Grand Prix races. It was also true that neither of them had ever thought that those races had any special significance until they had been positioned that way by Tony's immediate snit on the topic. You couldn't reward this kind of behavior, Pepper thought. Tony got manipulative when he thought people were looking elsewhere for support and money and contacts and validation. That manipulation was no basis for a relationship that might involve billions of dollars in defense contracts - not to mention the security of the (broadly construed) free world.
Pepper, in her own words, rarely manages to understand what's going on inside Tony's head, but this time she hit the nail right on the head.
Tony is manipulative. He doesn't do it maliciously. He truly believes that what he does is right, and instinctively uses any resources available to achieve his desired goals. To make things worse, he's very insecure emotionally and subconsciously perceives other people's disagreement with him as a personal attack. He wants other people to agree with him. He wants other people to follow his orders. He wants other people to inform him about everything. A true control freak.
And what happens if Tony feels threatened? He gets upset. Then angry. And if things still don't go his way he pulls out the ultimate card: tugging at heart's strings. "I don't have anybody else! Monaco was our place!"
Pepper notices it when Tony tries this trick on Rhodey. But does she realize that Tony has used exactly the same strategy on her?
Let's look at the lab scene in the first novel when Tony tried to convince Pepper to hack into the Stark mainframe using the device he gave her. His actions followed exactly the same pattern: first telling Pepper to go (and assuming that she'll automatically agree, even though hacking into the mainframe right under Obadiah's nose was a risky thing to do), then getting upset, then pulling out the ultimate "But I need you, I have no one else~!" card. And it worked magic.
Did Tony at least apologize to Pepper for throwing her right into the lion's den and risking her life? Nope. Did he start including her more in his plans, seeing as "she's the only one"? Nope. Did it pass his mind that by coming out as Iron Man he painted a huge target mark on the heads of his friends? Nope, wrong story, this is not Spiderman. Again, he does not do it maliciously. He is simply so obsessed with doing the right thing that he genuinely does not notice such tiny details as possibly placing his friends in mortal danger.
Sadly, Tony's attitude is only reinforced by the actions of the people surrounding him. Because he is being treated like "a delicate flower" and having all his whims catered to, Tony assumes that there's nothing wrong with his behaviour and that the relationship between him and his friends is completely normal.
The problem with Pepper's actions is that she acts like a model employee. Humour your boss, point out his mistakes gently, suggest better options but don't be blunt or stubborn, and so on and so forth. It is a good strategy to avoid turning the workplace into a war zone, or worse, getting oneself fired. But is this a good strategy to employ in a friendship? Or any close relationship, for that matter?
In the passage above Pepper wonders why Rhodey doesn't use the same tricks she does to keep Tony under control. Amusingly enough, I believe that actually it is Rhodey's method that works better in the long run. Rhodey goes for a direct confrontation - he challenges the validity of Tony's accusations ("What, you want me to Twitter you about classified intel and your subpoena to appear before the United States Senate?") and forces him to face the childishness of his attitude. As a result, Tony temporarily gets pissed off, but at least he's forced to acknowledge the fact that Rhodey did what he did, because he had no other choice.
Pepper avoids a direct confrontation, but this method doesn't solve the problems - it just makes the misunderstandings build up and the emotional wounds fester. But let us leave the contemplation of the inenvitavble and messy consequences of the aforementioned misunderstandings for later.
What interests me now - and is the reason why I brought up the scramjet scene in the first place - is the contrast between how Tony behaves in the relation to his human friends and how he behaves in relation to Jarvis.
I cannot help feeling that Tony approaches his human friends as if they were his robot slaves of sorts. He wants to know everything about them, he wants them to inform him about their plans and actions, he automatically assumes that they will do what he asks them to do and is surprised and hurt when they protest, he gets jealous when their attention shifts elsewhere (Rhodey working with Hammer); in short, he expects tremendous honesty and openness from his friends - but he does not return the favour. Tony himself is secretive - he hides from his friends such crucial facts like the decision to become Iron Man or his potentially terminal illness caused by the palladium poisoning (up to the moment he's forced by the circumstances to tell the truth). He feels hurt and betrayed when Rhodey starts working with Hammer, but later on in the novels he has absolutely no qualms about intentionally fuelling Pepper's jealousy by hiring "Natalie" and gushing on and on how awesome, hot and talented she is - despite the fact that he's aware that Pepper has hots for him.
One has to take the notice that Tony's choice - yes, "choice", that's an important word - is, to say the least, interesting. What do Rhodey, pepper and Happy have in common? All three of them are described as exceptionally loyal, trustworthy and brave. Pepper and Happy got hired as his PA and bodyguard moments after they proved their courage and, in Pepper's case, inability to lie well. The details of Rhodey and Tony's meeting are unknown, but knowing the facts that they met at MIT and that Tony graduated MIT as a teenager one might assume that Rhodey protected young Tony from some sort of danger and Tony decided to keep him around.
On one hand, it's sort of cute - it's not a bad thing that Tony shows preference for good people and awards them with secure and well paid jobs (going as far as to promise Happy that as long as Tony's alive, Happy won't be without a job).
On the other - it's somewhat disturbing. There's something disconcentring about Tony immediately grasping at people he considers "safe" and obsessively clinging to them. And that's the word that describes Rhodey, Pepper and Happy the best - "safe". He chose them as close associates not because of their looks, smarts, or emotional connection (in fact, all three express totally different views from Tony's) - but because they are "safe" - loyal, trustworthy, likely to risk their life for Tony but unlikely to betray him.
Do I find Tony's paranoia surprising? Not at all. If we consider the fact that Tony's enormously rich and he lost his parents pretty early in his life, it seems likely that many people tried to take advantage of him and used him to get hands on his money. In the comics he was used and betrayed by Sunset Baine, his lover, and Tyberius Stone, his close friend. Then there was Obadiah. It is definitely not surprising that Tony developed a bit of a paranoia as far as the choice of his friends is concerned.
Jarvis is a bit of the odd one.
From the reader's point of view - in stark contrast with Pepper, Rhodey and Happy - Jarvis is coded as the Other in the story. We do not know what he's really thinking, we never get to read the story from his point of view. Even the villains get a few scenes written from their POV - which makes them more familiar and human. Jarvis is the mystery - a voice without a face, a non-human construct that keeps acting in unexpected ways. We assume that he acts to protect Tony - but can we be sure? Can Tony?
And yet Tony seems to trust Jarvis unconditionally. The same man who threw a hissy fit because one of his friends invited his other friend on a plane without his knowledge tolerates without protest an Artificial Intelligence shutting his armor down, slowing it down without informing Tony first and risking his PA's life, and multiple other acts that happen later in the novel and so I won't mention them here. Some of Jarvis's acts could potentially have dangerous consequences - slowing down Tony's armor could have cost Pepper's life - and later on in the second novel there will be another scene that suggests that further suggests that Miss Potts's well-being is of no concern to him. And still, Tony does not react. Not only does he never scold Jarvis for his more and more frequents acts of acting out of his own free will - he appreciates him for it and starts depending more and more on his opinion. Jarvis is also the one who is privy to most of Tony's secrets and the one Tony is the most emotionally open with.
Why? That, Der Reader, is something you'll have to decide for yourself. I can only speculate how Tony and Jarvis's unusual relationship started.
Let us imagine younger Tony. Let us assume he had already met his friends, or at least Rhodey. He has money, he has parties and people clinging to him, he has some sort a moral pillar in Rhodey (and possibly Pepper & Happy). What he lacks is somebody who he could share his passions with, who could understand his craziest ideas and who could be his intellectual equal. Let's face it, few people in the Marvel universe can boast an IQ equal to Tony's. Possibly only Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four qualifies, and somehow I can't imagine him and Tony becoming very close pals.
Therefore Tony decided to create Jarvis instead. It seems such a perfect option at first - in Jarvis Tony could have someone who could understand him on the intellectual level, but who could be unconditionally obedient and who would never betray him, because the AI simply wouldn't be programmed to do so.
What was Jarvis meant to be?
I think that from the way Tony acted towards Jarvis after his return from Afghanistan we can risk a guess that Jarvis was programmed to simulate an emotional relationships of sorts. The "you are the only one who understands me" phrase was atypical from Tony. He's usually not so emotionally open, and resorts to emotional declarations only when he wants to manipulate one of his friends into something. Does he want to manipulate Jarvis in that scene? It doesn't seem likely to me - at that point Jarvis is still obedient enough that there's no need for Tony to manipulate him into anything. I believe that Tony genuinely expected Jarvis to play along, to create for Tony an illusion of a true emotional bond.
Then there's the fact that Tony was seemingly pleased with Jarvis's "That would thrill me to no end" reply - I'm certain I'm not the only one who feels that that line was more than a bit flirty. And then there's the fact that Jarvis not only speaks with British accent, but can swap accents between RP and a Liverpool one. That is rather interesting, because if one thing about Tony is highlighted in the novels it is the fact that he's fascinated by "exotic" things - some Croatian stewardesses, the Irish temper of a certain lady, the German cars he owns (he imagines having sex on the hood of one, but is so distressed by the possibility of somebody leaving the fingerprints on the hood that he decides to have a blanked ready, just in case), the French language. Very interesting indeed.
Considering the fact that this post has gotten a bit too long, I'll continue it in the next one that should be posted soon. As a gift of thanks for suffering through my incoherent rambling today, please enjoy the following scene. For once, no commentary from me is needed.
Rhodey appeared to have gone through the same thought process Pepper had just articulated to herself. Suppressing a smile, he repeated, "It's business. The world didn't stop just because you stopped making weapons. You left a vacuum. Hammer filled it."
Sometimes Pepper wasn't sure how much of their banter happened because Tony reacted in certain ways to Rhodey's militaristic rectitude, and how much resulted because the two of them were actually the same person, each finding a slightly varied way to react to identical stimuli. For example, Pepper thought, either one of these two men might seize on the occurrence of Hammer and vacuum in the same sentence, and put it together with the ongoing macho tension in their relationship, and make a comment that united the connotations of the word hammer with connotations of the word vacuum.
Also, it was not beyond either Rhodey or Tony to create the situation in which those associations could be commented on, just to provoke the other party. Pepper thought she was probably seeing both processes happen at once, and Tony confirmed her suspicions when he took the most obviously adolescent tack in response to Rhodey's comment.
"So you're telling me you're proud of the fact that Hammer filled your vacuum?" Tony said.
Even though she'd been expecting it, this godawful line demanded drastic action on Pepper's part. She dropped the notepad back in her purse. "Have you ladies ever thought about therapy?"
(...)
The three of them had very different perspectives on the conversation. Tony wanted what Tony wanted, because Tony Stark was privileged and brilliant and rich and used to having his desires catered to. Rhodey wanted what was best for the United States, as he saw things, because he had sworn an oath to uphold and defend, et cetera et cetera, and to him the Iron Man suit was the culmination of a long tradition of U.S. military superiority driven by technological innovation. The roots of this disagreement went back to the immediate aftermath of Tony's renunciation of arms manufacture, right when he'd come back from Afghanistan. Rhodey had been furious then and only softened his opposition once he'd seen the Mark IV in action. Then, like any other colonel who worked in weapons development for the Department of Defense, he'd been so thrilled with the existence of the Mark IV that he could hardly contain himself. Tony was privately of the opinion that much of Rhodey's hard-line attitude about Tony's actions came from simple jealousy. Rhodey wanted a suit. It was that simple.
Pepper wanted both of them to understand that that they were both in the end working for the same thing and that their insistence on petty differences symbolized by uniforms and federal contracting protocols exacerbated the problems that both of them said they wanted to eliminate.
Not that it had ever done her any good, or would do her any good, to say that out loud. She sighed loudly, because that was a signal both Tony and Rhodey understood. Then she sat back in her chair with her recovered iPod and an expression of frustrated and superior disdain. (...) She looked at Tony, hoping he had noticed how far awry the conversation had gone, but he was staring out of the window at the clean curve of the Earth visible from the fuselage window of the private suborbital scramjet."