Trevor Goodchild

Trevor Goodchild is a fictional character featured in the 1990s animated television series, "Æon Flux" and the 2005 "Æon Flux" live action film. He is played by voice actor John Rafter Lee in the half-hour series (the Liquid Television series of shorts had no dialogue). In the 2005 film, he is portrayed by Marton Csokas.

Character overview

Chairman Trevor Goodchild is usually seen as the villain of the series, although creator Peter Chung has occasionally said in interviews that the character is meant to be morally ambiguous.

He is the self-appointed leader of the nation of Bregna; it is suggested he rose to power in a coup over his insane predecessor. He is usually depicted as a cold and calculating scientist or as an opposite to "terrorist" Æon Flux of the free-spirited Monican people. Goodchild's motives are left ambiguous; On many occasions he seems genuinely interested in improving the human condition, but at others he is only concerned with retaining or increasing his power.

As is typical of the Æon Flux series' style of storytelling, there is much ambiguity and inconsistency as to the nature of his position. While he is usually depicted as a complete autocrat, the episode Thanatophobia suggests that there are other individuals in the Breen government that Trevor must answer to, or at least give the impression of being accountable to. Though his official title seems to be Chairman, Goodchild often takes a much more hands on approach to his work than a typical administrator. He is shown at the forefront of armed operations on at least two occasions, as well as conducting other tasks such as performing medical checkups on patients wounded by his own fiendish security systems (a house call, no less). The most likely explanation for his curious penchant for field work is his desire to get close to Æon Flux.

Relationship with Æon Flux

Æon and Trevor have a love-hate relationship, and Trevor alternates between trying to protect her and trying to destroy her. This relationship is less developed in the original Liquid Television shorts, in which he occasionally attempts to kill her. Trevor is often frustrated by Æon's apparent lack of understanding of his own occasionally nebulous motives; he will be invariably heard to say "You just don't get it, do you?" In one of the Liquid Television shorts, Æon actually appears to be working for or with Trevor. The pair's relationship reaches its apex in the series finale, "End Sinister", in which Æon pursues Trevor on a one-way trip 1,000 years into the future.

Episode appearances

"The episodes "Pilot" through "War" are standalone episodes broadcast as short films on the series "Liquid Television". There is intentionally no continuity between the episodes (which all include the death of the Æon Flux character). Beginning with "Utopia or Deutoronopia" episodes are a half-hour in length and maintain a loose continuity.

Pilot

An insect is spreading a fatal disease. After Æon fails to stop him, Trevor cures the disease. Thereafter, Trevor's visage appears on the country's currency (which is when his name is revealed for the first time).

Gravity

While French kissing Æon, Trevor uses his tongue in order to insert a tiny picture into a hidden compartment in one of Æon's teeth. The picture, of a man and a briefcase, is apparently Æon's 'target.'

Night / Mirror

Trevor enters an assassination target's mansion one minute before Æon does. Trevor completes the assassination, and then shoots Æon in the neck. Before she dies, Æon sees on the security camera that it was Trevor. This is the only time Trevor himself intentionally kills Æon (this would not happen in the half-hour series given their relationship's development).

Leisure

What appears to be Trevor is seen chained in Æon's cupboard ravenously eating the eggs of an alien creature.

Tide

From an elevator that is on the 7th floor, Trevor presses buttons 1-6. He also throws a key for a door that is on level 2 behind some pipes. Æon handcuffs him in the elevator while she attempts to find the door. (She checks on every floor.) On the 2nd floor, after another woman has killed Æon, a guard enters and shoots Trevor. Only the guard escapes as the facility sinks. While it is common for Æon to be killed in each installment of these early episodes, this is the only time Trevor himself is killed.

War

Trevor is not seen in this episode.

Utopia or Deutoronopia

Trevor rises to power by kidnapping Clavius, the elected president of Bregna. He institutes a panopticon of citizen surveillance claiming that "only an open society can be a just society." Gildemere, a Breen soldier, tries to expose Trevor's treasonous acts but ends up murdering Clavius in the process, easing Trevor's ascent to autocracy. Trevor also constructs an extradimensional space inside Clavius' body for himself and Æon, introducing his obsession with her.

Isthmus Crypticus

Trevor captures a pair of seraf-trevs -- beautiful, winged creatures whose ability to give humans sexual ecstasy is legendary. His love affair with the female seraf-trev is cut short when Ilbren, a jealous Breen, tries to liberate her and kills her in the process.

Thanatophobia

In this episode, Trevor appears repeatedly to treat the spinal injuries of Sybil, who was shot during an attempted border crossing (her lover, Onan, succeeded.) Trevor provides Sybil with a box of ampoules (which are inserted into the gap in her spine, allowing her to function normally,). Trevor also repeatedly sexually stimulates Sybil by manipulating the nerves in her spinal column at the location of the aforementioned gap.

A Last Time For Everything

Trevor has developed a method for creating exact human duplicates. Æon tricks him into making a copy of her in a plan to manipulate his emotions towards her. In the end Æon decides (with difficulty) to remain loyal to herself (ie. her copy) and not Trevor, allowing herself to be killed by the gun turrets of the Breen border containment system. While this episode is mainly focused on Æon's personality, it also gives some great insights into Trevor's character. For instance, we see that his obsession with Æon is such that he keeps an entire harem of girls done up to look like her in his home.

The Demiurge

Trevor tries to prevent the Monicans from launching a god-like being known as the Demiurge from the planet, ridding Earth of its influence. He fails, but the Demiurge impregnates a Monican male with its child. Trevor captures the Monican and takes him to his Tower, where he gives birth to a being similar (if not identical) to the original Demiurge, re-introducing the Demiurge's influence on humanity. This being later saves the Monican's lover from certain death, although it is unclear whether or not the Demiurge survives.

Reraizure

Trevor is attempting to collect the entire world's population of the cannibalistic, immortal frog-like creatures known as Nargyles for his experiments. He enlists the help of a woman whose lover, Rordy, is collecting the Nargyles in a plot to exterminate them by shooting them into the sun in revenge for losing his memories as a side-effect of Bliss, the potent narcotic the Nargyles produce. Things get complicated however, when Æon Flux inadvertently kills Rordy's lover and takes her place, unaware of her involvement in Trevor's scheme.

Chronophasia

Trevor and his cohorts explore an underground laboratory complex, attempting to uncover experimentation involving a virus that causes human happiness. At points, he attempts to capture and/or help Æon as she undergoes a series of bizarre experiences/visions.

Ether Drift Theory

Trevor Goodchild creates an isolated ecosystem in the shape of a giant cube suspended in a sea of paralytic fluid. The city is populated by various engineered creatures, many of which resemble humans. Æon enters the cube with the girlfriend of the chief scientist working under Goodchild only to accidentally start a chain chemical reaction that eventually destroys the entire complex.

The Purge

Trevor is implementing a system of "artificial conscience" for citizens of Bregna who appear to lack one of their own, via the implanting a robotic entity called a "Custodian". Æon joins a secretive group which opposes this, and eventually confronts Trevor. Whether or not Æon is herself implanted with a Custodian in the interim is left somewhat ambiguous.

End Sinister

Trevor, in this episode, has in his possession a device which would fire a ray at the Earth, killing much of humanity but furthering the progress of evolution. Before he can accomplish this, an alien-like being is found near Trevor's compound, which he becomes obsessed with, and which agrees to take Trevor to their homeworld. Æon, after sealing herself away for centuries in suspended animation, finds that Bregna is now populated by these beings and that Trevor is still alive, attempting (in a rather ascetic manner) to emulate them. Æon, not realizing that the creatures were actually humanity's further-evolved state, uses the aforementioned ray to destroy them, leaving only herself and Trevor. The episode (and series) ends with the both of them in the same suspended-animation chamber Æon used.

Film appearance

In the 2005 film adaptation of the series, numerous changes have been made to Trevor's character. He is still chairman of Bregna, and still an idealistic scientist whose methods are sometimes suspect. Among the major changes is that he is shown to be in a power struggle with his brother (a character not featured in the TV series), and as part of the film's cloning-related plotline, it is revealed that Trevor is a seventh-generation clone created from DNA from the original Trevor Goodchild of the early 21st century, who had been married to a pre-clone version of Æon Flux. Unlike the TV series, which casts him in a morally ambiguous role (as it does all its characters), the film version makes Goodchild to be a heroic figure, whose sole motive seems to be to save the human race from extinction.