There's something about Elliot.

"The fault is in your appearance."

"But not in the way he looked at me?"

- A Touch of Spice by Ketan Mehta

The protagonist of Mr. Robot, Elliot Alderson is an intelligent, beautiful and kind hacker who takes down the most corrupt and abusive people to protect others, mostly men who prey on women and children. He has a strong dislike for most men and being touched by them, due to the repressed trauma of being sexually abused by his father (which caused his Dissociative Identity Disorder). He is extremely gifted in his powers of hacking and coding which leaves most people in awe of his skills. But unfortunately, it even causes him to attract the dangerous and villainous men who want to use and abuse him for their personal gain.

So what is obsession? Obsession is when you think about someone whom you begin to stalk all the time. Whether it's that person's beauty, kindness or their gifted skills that begins to attract the perpetrator to stalk their victim.

Elliot's beauty in both his looks and mostly his power causes him to attract those evil men that he hates and fears and they begin to obsess over him so much and force themselves into his life whether he likes it or not.

First one was Tyrell Wellick, Senior Vice President of Technology of E Corp, the company that Elliot and fsociety were planning on taking down. He was fascinated with Elliot on first sight that he decided to kidnap him and offer him a job at E Corp because he wanted him to be where he "belongs", in E Corp with him. Elliot refuses, much to Tyrell's dismay. After getting fired, he barges into Elliot's apartment and figures out that Elliot was behind all the shennanigans that happened throughout the series. Elliot then brings Tyrell to the arcade to show him how it happened and tells him the reason why he is doing all of this: To save the world. Then when Mr. Robot possesses Elliot and tries to kill Tyrell but fails while doing the 5/9 hack, Tyrell ends up developing a belief that he and Elliot are meant to be gods together. He confesses that he will always be loyal to Elliot. He ends up being a wanted fugitive for the 5/9 hack and during this time, he helps set up Stage 2, believing that this is what he wanted. Though unfortunately, Elliot is completely against the idea and wants it shut down, so Tyrell ends up shooting him in the abdomen to stop him and then has him removed from the project. His obsession with Elliot causes him to lose his wife and child in the process and Mr. Robot finally knocks the "god" fantasy out of him. To prove that his loyalty to Elliot was true, he even takes a bullet for him when a Dark Army soldier tries to shoot Elliot.

And then came Fernando Vera, a drug kingpin/rapist, whose obsession with Elliot was worse than Tyrell's. At first he was shown to be obsessed with his drug dealer and ex girlfriend Shayla, whom he raped constantly. When he tried to force a date with Shayla, he ended up batting his eyes on Elliot before he left. And then he met him again when Elliot found him in Shayla's apartment. He tells Elliot that he reminded of him when he was younger, he was also depressed and sullen and began to try to relate to him. But when Elliot got him arrested and put in prison, Vera figured out that it was Elliot who put him behind bars and forced him to break him out of prison. That is when he had Shayla executed and moved on his obsession to Elliot instead. After the shaman told him that New York was his real home and Elliot was meant to be his partner, Vera came back to achieve that goal and was willing to go to greater lengths to do it, even if it meant kidnapping Elliot's therapist Krista.

What I observed in his behaviour and obsession towards Elliot was that it was reminiscent of the classic stalker actions and the stages of the cycle of abuse. In the tension building stage, he forced Elliot to be his partner but Elliot refused, in the incident stage, he threatened to hurt or kill Krista and forced Elliot to remember his childhood trauma of being molested by his father, which completely broke Elliot and then in the honeymoon/calm stage, he acted all comforting and loving towards Elliot and told him that he is the only one who could keep him safe, before Krista killed him.

Not only that but I even watched a lot of stalker related movies and TV series to prepare for the episode "Proxy Authentication Required" because Vera was reminiscent of most toxic male characters who try to stalk and dominate their victims into falling in love with them (Joe Goldberg from You and Andi from Berlin Syndrome). But in his case, the portrayal was shown in a much more horrifying and disgusting light and his actions towards Elliot was not romanticized in any manner.

Those two cases weren't the only times that happened with Elliot, there was also the prison warden Ray, who considered Elliot to be special and even compared him to prophets such as Moses, Jesus, Paul and John. And then when Elliot found out who he really is and exposed him beforehand, Ray mentioned that Elliot reminded him of his dead wife as she was also smart with computers and thanks Elliot for "opening his eyes".

There were even two incidents of sexual assault where Elliot was nearly raped by neo-nazis before Leon attacked them and was forced to strip by a drug dealer to buy morphine from him and the dealer made lewd comments at him.

So why is it that Elliot is susceptible to this kind of treatment from men almost everytime?

I observed that Elliot was constantly targeted by most male villains in the series, whether it was for his power or anything else. What was common was that all those villains wanted to use his power for their own personal gain and act like they were the only saviours for Elliot.

What i observed back in most media, the stalking and obsession from men would be more often portrayed with female characters and if it were with the male victims (by both male and female perpetrators), all those tropes would be played for laughter, especially sexual assault. Here in Mr. Robot, whatever Elliot went through the whole series isn't ridiculed and played for laughter. It is portrayed in a more horrifying light and is shown to be more disturbing and creepy.

It even shows a message that both men and women go through many kinds of abuse their whole life and everyone of them suffer from it.