You Stay, I go
Heroism, Sacrifice, and the Limits of Choice in a World Shaped by War and Narrative
As the nuclear missile soars toward Rockwell, chaos erupts below. Sirens scream, citizens scatter, and the camera cuts upward, towards the Iron Giant, rising through a blackened sky. Arms behind him like wings, eyes no longer red but soft, the Giant smiles faintly and says, “Superman”. In the next frame, he meets the missile mid-air. The blast that follows is blinding, yet eerily quiet. It carries sorrow rather than celebration, ritual rather than spectacle. At this moment, The Iron Giant reaches its emotional peak and reimagines what heroism can mean.
The Giant’s decision appears to reject his original design, and therein lies its power. He was built for destruction, yet he moves instead towards peace. This choice seems to belong to him, untethered from any directive or code. Still, the simplicity of that reading demands scrutiny. Is he acting freely, or responding to the stories and influences placed in front of him—Hogarth’s guidance, the Superman comics, the expectations of those who feared him? The narrative frames this moment as a triumph of will, but the question remains: how free can a decision be when it emerges within a world already shaped by moral scripts? In such a context, true autonomy becomes difficult to define. It cannot be reduced to the mere presence of choice, but must be understood as the ability to generate meaning outside of pre-existing narratives. Whether the Giant achieves this, or merely echoes a different script, remains unresolved.
This is not just a film about a robot becoming human. It offers something more complex—a portrait of a being rewriting its own nature while caught between programming and possibility. In a world shaped by Cold War paranoia, where value is measured through utility and destruction, the Giant proposes an idea that resists such logic. He insists that identity can be chosen. But even that proposition carries tension. If all choices are shaped by context, then how can any of them be truly autonomous? The possibility of constructing a new identity is compelling, yet it risks becoming a fiction if the self is simply migrating from one imposed model to another. In attempting to escape his violent origin, is the Giant genuinely creating something new, or has he been enlisted into another ideological framework—one that valorises sacrifice as the final expression of worth?
The film explores this tension not only through narrative, but through visual language. When the Giant feels threatened early on, his form contorts into a monstrous configuration. Cannons erupt from his limbs, and his eyes burn red. These are not just dramatic effects—they serve as metaphors for violence inherited and activated by fear. The framing of these scenes, often from below, increases his scale and removes intimacy, turning him into a symbol of the very terror his existence provokes.
Later, during his ascent through the sky, the image changes entirely. His body is calm, symmetrical, and purposeful. The missile, which previously filled the screen with threat, now appears small in comparison. Michael Kamen’s score softens, accompanying the word “Superman” with quiet grace. The tone does not attempt to exhilarate. Instead, it invites reflection. The Giant is not merely halting a missile; he is disrupting a broader pattern—the assumption that destruction is inevitable. His gesture transforms the climax from confrontation to benediction. Still, this transformation raises the question: is the Giant defining himself, or performing a role already given to him? The invocation of "Superman" is not arbitrary; it carries with it a specific moral script. To what extent is the Giant choosing his path, and to what extent is he fulfilling the heroic archetype society finds acceptable?
This shift is deeply tied to identity. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity helps clarify the Giant’s journey. Identity, in her view, is something enacted rather than owned. The Giant becomes heroic not by discovering a hidden moral core, but by performing heroism into existence. Yet this too complicates the idea of freedom. If behaviour emerges through repetition and social cues, how can we tell where influence ends and agency begins?
Simone de Beauvoir’s idea that “one is not born, but rather becomes [one]” pushes the question further. The Giant is not inherently moral, nor does he evolve toward goodness through natural growth. He chooses his actions, but the framework around him has already suggested which actions are noble. His decision to sacrifice himself appears autonomous, but it also closely follows a familiar cultural narrative—one in which salvation for the outsider comes only through death. The image of the self-sacrificing hero is deeply ingrained, and the Giant’s final act, however sincere, fits that mould. What it reveals is not only the character’s development, but the societal terms under which heroism is accepted. Bravery is not simply action under risk—it is the willingness to disappear for the sake of others. The film thereby raises uncomfortable questions: is self-erasure the price of moral legitimacy, especially for those coded as “other”?
Much of the film’s emotional and ideological weight rests on its Cold War setting. While often treated as historical backdrop, the era’s belief systems drive the film’s tension. Mutually assured destruction required confidence in automatic violence, mechanised defence, and rigid hierarchies of threat. The Giant was built as a perfect instrument of that philosophy—a being whose function is annihilation. His refusal to fulfil that purpose does more than break character; it challenges the moral logic that underpinned his very creation. In choosing to disarm rather than retaliate, the Giant offers an implicit critique of a worldview grounded in fear and preemption. He exposes the hollowness of deterrence by removing himself from its equation.
When the missile is launched in fear, no human power can undo the mistake. The military fails. The system fails. In the end, the weapon that should have delivered destruction is the only force capable of stopping it. This inversion casts the Giant not as an anomaly, but as a counter-example to the dominant logic of deterrence. His action suggests a different kind of peace, one that emerges not from readiness to kill, but from the decision to resist violence altogether.
Walter Benjamin’s idea of redemptive interruption is useful here—the belief that history can sometimes be diverted through an unexpected and humane act. The Giant provides such a break. He does not follow the path laid out for him, and his refusal creates a new possibility. Yet even a disruption occurs within a system. His resistance remains tethered to the very myths and fears he hopes to surpass. The question, then, is whether such moments of refusal can ever lead to lasting moral change, or whether they are absorbed into the narratives they seek to unsettle. If the frameworks of power require sacrifice to legitimise resistance, then the act may not undo the system—it may only sanctify it in a different key.
This is why his sacrifice requires further consideration. While powerful, it also risks reinforcing a familiar pattern. Has the Giant chosen to die, or has he simply learned that dying is the price expected of those who wish to be seen as good? He may act freely, but his idea of goodness has already been shaped by cultural imagery of martyrdom and restraint.
Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto encourages us to move past binary thinking—machine versus human, control versus autonomy. The Giant occupies a space between those categories. He does not escape programming, but builds meaning within it. His morality arises not from purity or intention alone, but through tension—between what he is told, what he sees, and what he becomes. In this way, he creates a kind of ethical improvisation. But again, why must the highest expression of goodness involve self-destruction?
So many stories about outsiders—machines, aliens, racialised figures—rely on disappearance as the final condition for redemption. The Giant dies so that others may live, but also so that they may feel safe. His death ends the threat and completes the arc. Frantz Fanon’s writing on dehumanisation reminds us that the dominant culture often demands this kind of conclusion. The outsider becomes fully human only in the moment of sacrifice. What appears as triumph may also be a form of erasure.
“You are who you choose to be.” This line repeats across the film, a call to moral autonomy. Yet by the end, it does not feel entirely uncomplicated. The Giant becomes Superman, embodying control, responsibility, and benevolence. But the world around him never granted him the chance to live under that identity. His moral act may be courageous, but it is also a response to a society that refused to believe he could choose otherwise.
His final gesture is often read as redemptive, but it can also be seen as a rejection. He refuses to conform to the purpose for which he was built. He refuses to let fear shape the outcome. Although, film leaves us with questions rather than certainty. What does it say about us that we need our machines to die before we trust them? Why is peace, in so many of our stories, only validated when it comes through sacrifice?
The Iron Giant does not merely suggest that one can become Superman. It reveals the cost of doing so. The Giant takes on that symbol through effort, imitation, and belief, reshaping it through his own experience. But in choosing to save the world, he also vanishes from it. The film closes not with resolution, but with a challenge: What will we choose to become, when our history and myths are built on machinery, violence, and the quiet expectation that some must disappear so others can feel safe?