The Passengers

The Hacker, later revealed as a multifaceted organization called the Hacking Collective, fronted by Alex Harris, functions as the story’s primary antagonist. This character isn’t a single individual but a decentralized, ideological force whose methods are as technologically sophisticated as they are psychologically cruel. The Hacker’s main objective is to expose the hidden corruption within the government’s implementation of driverless cars, particularly the secret program that quantifies human worth to determine who lives or dies in an accident. To achieve this, he orchestrates a public spectacle that mirrors the very system he seeks to condemn. By hijacking eight vehicles and forcing the jury and the global public to vote on who survives, he turns the government’s cold, data-driven morality into a horrifying live event, forcing society to confront its own complicity in such a system.

The Hacker’s defining traits are his intelligence, meticulous planning, and vengeful sense of justice. He’s a master manipulator, using the Passengers’ secrets as leverage to control the narrative and expose the hypocrisy of a society that judges based on incomplete information. His actions aren’t random acts of terror but are calculated to thematically critique The Corruption of Justice When Human Worth Is Quantified. He argues that his game is no different from the secret workings of the Vehicle Inquest Jury, stating, “Your process is biased and unfair. I would like to make my process fairer” (105). His motivations are deeply personal, stemming from the ruin of his family’s business due to government corruption and the subsequent deaths of his brother’s wife, child, and mother in a driverless car accident in which the AI protected the more “valuable” Passenger. This positions him as a complex, morally ambiguous antagonist who pursues righteous goals through unconscionable means.

The collective nature of the Hacker is crucial to the novel’s critique of modern dissent. Alex Harris may be the face and the voice, but he represents a global network of disillusioned individuals whom the same system has wronged. This suggests a widespread societal breakdown of trust in authority rather than one rogue actor. The Hacker exploits the very technology the government promotes as infallible, turning its symbol of safety, driverless cars, into instruments of terror. He weaponizes the motif of live broadcasting and social media feeds to create a worldwide jury, demonstrating how easily public opinion can be swayed and turning tragedy into mass entertainment. Ultimately, the Hacker is a dark reflection of the system he opposes, a vigilante who adopts the ruthless logic of his enemy to prove his point, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

As a principal antagonist and a foil to the Hacker, Jack Larsson represents the institutional corruption and moral decay at the heart of the government. As a member of parliament, cabinet minister, and the foreman of the Vehicle Inquest Jury, Jack is the architect of the system the Hacker seeks to destroy. Jack is a static character in terms of his beliefs, unwavering in his conviction that some lives are inherently more valuable than others. He thematically personifies the corruption of justice when human worth is quantified, defending the secret AI program that makes life-or-death calculations based on a person’s perceived societal contribution. He justifies this ethically bankrupt system as a necessary tool for progress, arguing, “We have been afforded an unimaginable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect the people who shape our society […] It is our duty to put them first” (253).

Arrogant, condescending, and deeply cynical, Jack wields his authority with impunity. Within the inquest room, he treats the proceedings as a formality, patronizing Libby and ensuring that the jury’s decisions align with the government’s agenda to protect the infallibility of driverless technology. His power seems absolute until the Hacker’s intervention. The hijacking systematically strips him of his control, privacy, and authority. The Hacker exposes his financial secrets, broadcasts his face to the world, and reveals the dark truth behind the jury he leads. This forces Jack on a downward trajectory from a position of total command to one of complete helplessness, a journey that ironically mirrors the plight of the Passengers he so callously judges. His public unmasking reveals the stark contrast between his public image and his corrupt private reality.

Despite the exposure of his crimes, Jack’s acquittal at his trial is the novel’s final, cynical commentary on justice. It reinforces the idea that powerful individuals can manipulate the system to escape accountability, proving that the corruption he represents is deeply entrenched and resilient. Even after his public humiliation, he remains unrepentant, viewing the victims of the hijacking as acceptable losses for what he considers the greater good. Jack Larsson is more than just a villain; he’s the symbol of a technocratic government that has sacrificed morality for a cold, calculated vision of social order, making him a highly plausible antagonist in a technologically saturated world.

The character of “Jude Harrison” is a masterful construction, serving as a deuteragonist and the central mystery through which the novel explores themes of deception and manufactured identity. He isn’t a real person but a persona meticulously crafted by the Hacking Collective and portrayed by Alex Harris to manipulate Libby Dixon and, by extension, the global audience. Jude’s personality is designed to represent the perfect target: A kind, empathetic man who is suicidal, unhoused, and unemployed. The collective engineers this backstory to appeal directly to Libby’s compassionate nature and professional instincts as a mental health nurse, ensuring that she becomes his champion on the jury. His feigned vulnerability and shared distrust of autonomous technology create a strong, albeit completely false, bond between them.

Jude’s existence is a thematic exercise in How the Digital World’s Hypervisibility Drives Public Performance. He’s the ultimate unreliable narrator, whose every action, word, and expression is carefully calculated to elicit sympathy. The revelation that his presence in the hijacked car is fictional, created via green screens and prerecorded footage, is a pivotal twist that shatters the novel’s emotional core. It forces both Libby and readers to question everything they thought they knew, underscoring the novel’s argument that truth itself can be a performance. The layers of deception are deep: Alex Harris, the true architect of the hijacking, poses as his dead brother, Noah, who in turn is the basis for the fictional persona of Jude Harrison.

This complex identity highlights the ease with which emotion can be manipulated in the digital age. The public overwhelmingly rallies behind Jude, creating hashtags like #givejudeandlibbyachance and demonstrating how easily a fabricated narrative can capture the collective imagination. His character arc is a tragic illusion. He’s introduced as a man who has given up on life, only to seemingly find a reason to live through his connection with Libby—but this entire journey is a lie. Jude Harrison ultimately personifies the untrustworthiness of narratives presented through a screen, a ghost in the machine designed to prove that in a media-saturated world, emotional connection can be the most effective weapon of all.

Claire Arden’s role in the novel is to deliver one of its most shocking twists, forcing the audience to re-evaluate their initial judgments and highlighting the motif of secrets and hidden pasts. Introduced as a heavily pregnant young woman, she’s immediately the most sympathetic of the eight Passengers. Her vulnerability seems absolute, and her terror centers on the well-being of her unborn child, Tate. This initial presentation makes the Hacker’s revelation that she’s “hiding [Ben’s] dead body in the boot of [her] car” (156) a moment of significant narrative disruption. Claire’s story becomes a compelling study in moral ambiguity, as her seemingly indefensible actions are later contextualized by a backstory of grief, desperation, and a misguided attempt to honor her husband’s final wishes.

Claire is a round and dynamic character defined by her protective maternal instinct and her capacity for deception. Before the hijacking, she conspires to commit insurance fraud by placing her husband Ben’s body in his office car park after he dies from a brain aneurysm, hoping to secure a larger payout for her and her son. This act, born of a desperate desire to provide for her child, demonstrates her willingness to operate outside moral and legal boundaries. During the hijacking, she uses her pregnancy to perform the role of the perfect target, consciously playing on the jury’s and the public’s heartstrings. Her character directly thematically embodies how the digital world’s hypervisibility drives public performance, as she constructs a facade of pure maternal innocence to ensure her survival. Her story ultimately questions whether extreme circumstances can justify immoral actions and leaves readers to grapple with the complexities of her choices long after her ordeal is over.

The 78-year-old actress Sofia Bradbury symbolizes the immense gap between a carefully constructed public image and a dark private reality. When she’s first hijacked, her complete detachment from the situation is immediately apparent; she believes that she has been selected for a celebrity reality television show, Celebs Against the Odds. This initial delusion establishes her as a vain and out-of-touch figure, consumed by her own fame; she’s unable to grasp the life-or-death severity of her circumstances. Her primary concerns are her appearance on camera and her waning celebrity status, making her an easy character for the audience to dismiss or ridicule.

However, Sofia’s narrative takes a tragic turn as the Hacker systematically dismantles her life’s work. The revelation that for 40 years she has been complicit in her husband’s pedophilia, using her wealth and influence to silence those he targeted, is a devastating exposé. Her story becomes a grim exploration of moral compromise and the corrosive nature of secrets. The choice she made decades ago to prioritize protecting her career over protecting children has defined her entire existence, turning her life into a performance. This makes her a poignant thematic example of how the digital world’s hypervisibility drives public performance. Facing the utter destruction of her public persona and the exposure of her darkest secret, Sofia chooses death by suicide, taking her own life in the final moments of the hijacking. Her dramatic and tragic end underscores the novel’s argument that a life built on a foundation of lies is ultimately unsustainable.

The story of Heidi and Sam Cole is a microcosm of marital decay, exploring the destructive power of lies and betrayal. Because they’re spouses, the text presents them as a single unit, but the Hacker’s game quickly exposes the deep fractures in their relationship. Sam is a bigamist who has maintained a second family for eight of the 10 years he has been married to Heidi. His character is defined by selfishness and a talent for deception. During his televised interview, he attempts to manipulate the jury and the public by portraying himself as a target of gender bias, arguing that fathers are less valued than mothers in a transparent ploy to win votes at his wife’s expense.

Heidi, a police officer, initially appears to be the wronged party. However, the Hacker reveals that she discovered Sam’s secret long ago and has been systematically extorting him, using her knowledge of the law and police resources to torment him for money. Her actions, while born of deep betrayal, are a corruption of her professional ethics and a descent into vengeful cruelty. The two are foils, each justifying their deceit as a reaction to the other’s actions. Their public unmasking becomes a brutal spectacle of accusation and counter-accusation, turning their private tragedy into public entertainment and reinforcing the contrast of the public versus private identity. Their intertwined narrative demonstrates that behind the facade of a normal family, devastating secrets can fester, ultimately consuming everyone involved.

The minor Passengers are primarily symbolic pawns in the Hacker’s deadly game, each representing a different facet of how society quantifies human worth. Their swift and brutal deaths establish the stakes of the hijacking and highlight the novel’s central themes. Victor Patterson, a 75-year-old disabled war hero, is the first to be killed. His status as a “deserving” citizen makes his unceremonious execution by car bomb a shocking statement from the Hacker: No one is safe, and past heroics are irrelevant in this new world order. His death demonstrates the Hacker’s ruthlessness and his willingness to sacrifice anyone to make his point.

Bilquis Hamila, an asylum seeker from Somalia, is chosen as the second target, sacrificed by a near-unanimous vote from both the jury and the public. Her status as an immigrant makes her an easy and immediate target, exposing the underlying xenophobia and prejudice within society. Her death is a direct thematic critique of the corruption of justice when human worth is quantified, showing how quickly a person can be devalued and condemned based on their origin and perceived lack of contribution. Shabana Khartri, a stay-at-home mother who doesn’t speak English, represents the silenced and oppressed. On the cusp of escaping an abusive marriage, she’s killed not by the Hacker directly but by a mob of citizens who, in a misguided attempt to “save” her, trigger the car bomb. Her death is a tragic irony, illustrating how public voyeurism and mob mentality can be just as dangerous as the antagonist’s calculated cruelty.