The Operator vs Samara Morgan Blog

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds” - Laurell K. Hamilton

The Operator, The Metaphysical Parasite who feeds on the Broken from Marble Hornets

Samara Morgan, The Sleepless Onryō of the Cursed Tape from The Ring Trilogy

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Introduction

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Pieces of found-footage media can contain pieces of the past. They can be nostalgic, bittersweet, or even educational in a way. You can learn a lot of different things, even if they’re from something as vintage as old VHS tapes. However, what happens when those tapes contain knowledge that is cursed, putting you in a curse that you don’t fully understand? What happens when there are monsters associated with those tapes that are now going directly for you? More importantly, what past do they have to tell? A disturbing story about people’s descent into madness? It could be, as these two humanoid beings have cursed us, and will visit us when we least expect it. You might think they don’t want to hurt people, but they do, and they’re sorry. It Won’t Stop, even if You Are Broken.

For the media that I’ll be using, they contain the following:

Media Sources

Operator

Samara Morgan

Links

Operator

Samara Morgan

Mischananeous (for extra research)

The reasoning will be listed in BtV: CLEARING UP CONFUSION

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Background

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The Operator

“YOU ARE BROKEN”

Let’s go back to June 20, 2009. It was 10 days after the very first image of what would be known as “Slenderman,” would be posted in the Something Awful forums by a user named Ce gars. In that post, he talks about how 2-3 years ago, he worked with his college friend, Alex Kralie, on a film called “Marble Hornets,” which is about a man in his 20s returning to his childhood home only for weird events to occur. The user’s classmates were excited and wanted this project to succeed, however Alex Kralie suddenly canceled the project altogether due to “unworkable conditions.” The user talks about how the last time he visited, Alex was planning to burn the footage in the tapes, but he convinced Alex to let him keep the footage instead, on the condition that he never mention the student film ever again. The user now plans to look through the tapes to see what he can find. What the user never thought to see was of a tall figure in a suit with no face. This figure has been stalking Kralie and most likely various other people for a while, and now the user itself will be stalked by it. Its name is The Operator.

Throughout the runtime of the Marble Hornets story, the Operator has been stalking the main protagonists, ranging from Marble Hornets crew, a small town news team, other filmmakers, and even regular people just trying to live their lives. It torments its victims by breaking them physically and mentally, making them spiral and descend into insanity and even become murderous individuals. The goals and motives are unknown, other than sustenance via feeding the Ark with its victims. Many people who have encountered the Operator have fallen victim to its sickness, although some people were able to overcome it and move on with their lives. So, be very careful on what tapes you view or who you talk to. Keep all medications with you to make it through the day, and always remind yourself, “Everything is Fine.”

Samara Morgan

“7 DAYS…”

Has your friend ever given you a tape to view out of the blue, only for it to show visceral imagery containing a woman looking at the window, worms, cut off fingers, the same woman on a hill, committing ████████ by jumping off, and then showing a well in the forest. You get a call on your phone that only whispers in a girl’s voice, “7 days.” From that point, you have only 7 days to show the video to someone else, otherwise the TV will turn on again, and this time the well has a girl emerge from the well and walk directly towards the screen, and then out of the TV, specifically to kill you. The Onryō in question is Samara Morgan.

Her life from birth was…just really messed up to put it as lightly as possible. In the 70s, her biological mother, Evelyn Osorio, fled to a christian hospital to give birth to Samara after she had been held captive for eight and a half months by a perverted priest named Galen Burke. I REALLY don’t want to get into much detail right now on what happened. So skipping forward, Evelyn’s mental health deteriorated and she was being swayed by voices in her head that Samara had evil spirits inside her, and that it must be cleansed away by drowning Samara Morgan. However, some nuns intervened and institutionalized Evelyn while Samara was put for adoption.

Growing up, Samara would be adopted by prize-winning horse breeders in Moesko Island by Anna Morgan and Richard Morgan. Anna and Richard loved their adoptive daughter, and Samara loved them too, but her uncontrollable supernatural power, nensha, ended up burning gruesome images in their minds. Over time, Samara and her adoptive family would be the scapegoat of massive backlash from the local community, and her parents tried to fix her by going to Eola Psychiatric Hospital. From there, Anna would be treated for her mental illness while the doctors tried to understand and fix Samara. Unfortunately, Samara’s powers were still out of control, and Anna ended up reaching a breaking point, suffocating Samara in a bag and throwing her in a well. Samara stayed there for 7 days until she would die from starvation and hypothermia.

After her death, Anna Morgan, filled with remorse for what she did, killed herself by jumping off the cliff. With Samara out of the picture, everything seemed to return to normal! That was, until a cursed tape would appear, containing the fragments of Samara Morgan’s past. So, you better follow the rules of the tape. Share it with someone else. Do not assume that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, because she does, and she’s sorry. It won’t stop.

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Overall Abilities/Stats

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The Operator

Physical stats

The Operator is NOT just a mannequin-like entity who doesn’t do anything. For instance, it possesses immense strength, being able to break down a locked door. If that isn’t enough for you, whenever it grows in size to about 40 feet, it is able to tear down a tree. (Image shown below)

Mental Competence

While nothing much is known about the Operator, it has been seen throughout the entire Marble Hornets universe, hiding in the background and stalking its victims. This could take place over a course of a few weeks to months, before suddenly popping out to confront its victims to weaken them mentally and physically, before taking them away to the Ark to be consumed. Most of the time, the victims in question are already infected with the Operator sickness.

Overall Hax

Okay hang on tight, because this one will be quite a lot.

Influential Existence:

First off, the Operator’s entire existence relies on feeding the Ark and spreading the Operator sickness around to as many people as it could. As for the sickness itself, it functions similarly to that of a parasite, which can be contracted when someone has an obsession with the Operator itself. From there, the Operator will proceed to slowly break down the victim as much as possible, mentally and physically, until the victim is an empty shell, ready to be thrown to the Ark. The range can go anywhere, from city to city, to even state to state. There is a cost though, as killing everyone with the sickness can weaken the Operator.


Mental (Stress, Memory, Fear, Dream, Perception) Manipulation:

The Operator can basically violate (ayo?) your mind in so many ways. For instance, it has messed with the minds of its victims via increasing stress, paranoia, aggression, etc.


This can go as far as to control their mind to do its bidding. Sometimes, it can give off amnesia to its victims and make people forget months of memories in an instant.

If that’s not enough, it can instill fear in its victims too, like Alex’s dog. (YOU BROUGHT YOUR DOG!!)


Finally, if that isn’t terrifying enough, the Operator can manipulate the perception onto people! He can be invisible to the naked eye, or even cause people to see shadows.

Even you’re not safe when sleeping, as the Operator can cause its victims to faint or have insomnia or narcolepsy. It’s even messed with people’s dreams, such as Adam and Jessica having dreams of being stalked by the Operator.  

Mimicry:

The Operator can mimic the voices of other people, such as when it mimicked Alex’s voice to lure Jay and mess with his head.

Telekinesis:

The Operator could cause swings and seesaws on a playground to start moving without even touching them, as well as moving doors and dragging Tim Wright through the forest floor by his feet.

Technology/ Space-Time/ Darkness Manipulation:

The Operator has the power to distort audio and video recordings, prevent voicemails from being sent, drain a camera’s battery life, shut off projectors, etc. For Space and Time, the Operator can warp the space around it, causing the rooms of a house to change, take the characters elsewhere out of nowhere, and send those same characters forward in time. Additionally, it can basically make everything go dark by shutting off the lights or keeping it nighttime.


Anatomy/ Size Manipulation:

The Operator has the ability to stretch its limbs across a whole room. For example, it stretched its limbs to take Jay away after he got shot by Alex. If it chooses to, the Operator can also change size to become as large as the trees, where its strength and speed is increased greatly.

Power Bestowal:

It seems that the Operator’s presence can cause some people to gain a portion of its power. This is the case when Masky was able to distort the camera when it was watching Jay sleep. Additionally, the power can give the victims extra power and durability

⦻ Death Manipulation:

The Operator has the ability to mark its victims with the Operator symbol in a ring-worm style without physically marking it on them. Those who have that mark have a chance of instantly dying.


Sustenance Manipulation:

The Operator has the power to manipulate people’s sustenance, such as how it made Alex and Jay be able to keep going without any food or water.



Teleportation:

As the name suggests, the Operator can teleport. It can teleport long distances across the US. It can also teleport people forward in time in an instant.


BFR to the Ark Dimension:

The Operator has the ability to take its victims into a pocket dimension called the Ark. In the Ark, it is pure darkness, with a small portion of light being casted on a giant maw that can suck people in. There are implications to suggest that the Ark is infinite, given that the maw created a large body of water that spit him out to the beginning. It also has the power to pull someone down, making them feel stuck. When people are almost dead or an empty-shell, they drag them into the Ark until they fall, and it seems to be able to erase people from existence. Afterwards, the Operator gets stronger. The Ark doesn’t have to have living beings to feed it, as it could also feed on the corpses.

While there is the possibility of leaving the Ark, you have to be very mentally stable for it to work, and that’s assuming the Operator even lets you leave.


Necromancy:

The Operator has the ability to reanimate corpses, basically using them as puppets to control and have them do his bidding. A prime example of this is when it took control of Milo’s corpse after he ████████ ███████.

Clairvoyance:

It always knows where everyone will be going, such as where it just so happened to be in Alex’s new resting place.


Influence

    The influence that the Operator has over the few people on his team, don’t obey the Operator’s commands very well. Hell! Some of them are actively going against the Operator! With that said, the Operator does still maintain a good level of control of some other minions when it is able to control their minds and bodies completely. As such, here are the Operator’s minions that it can use as part of its arsenal:

Masky: With the true identity being Tim Wright, Masky is a normal dude who wields a camera and a knife, and is able to manipulate technology to some degree like the Operator.

Hoodie: With the true identity being Brian Thomas, Hoodie is a normal guy who wields a metal pipe and a handgun, and is able to manipulate technology to some degree like the Operator.

ToTheArk: Although the person who runs this account is unknown, it is most likely part of the Marble Hornets crew and is the smartest one of the bunch. This can be supported by the fact that the owner knows how to edit, film, hide secret messages, and even hack into technology.

Living/Dead Puppets: The people here are just regular people when they’re fully under the control of the Operator. When they’re controlled, they have the same strength and durability as the Operator.

Samara Morgan

Physical stats

Contortion:

Samara Morgan, despite appearing as just a girl who walks with her hair covering her face, is pretty much a contortist on steroids, as she was able to quickly climb up the inside of a well, while contorting her body in ways that would be impossible for a regular human to do with, potentially breaking all their bones.

Self-sustenance: Samara doesn’t require sleep apparently. Given that she’s essentially a ghost, she doesn’t need food, water, sleep, or anything. She just functions.

Mental Competence

Samara is smart enough to abide by the 7-day that was placed on her, giving the victim to pass on the curse to someone else or they’d basically die. Other than that, the moment she steps out of the TV, it’s really plain and simple: Kill whoever viewed her tape 7 days prior. With that said, she is manipulative enough to guide her victims to do what she wants so she can possess them.

Overall Hax

This will also be quite a lot. I did leave some parts out because I am a little skeptical of some of the sources used on if they worded it correctly, but I’ll cover the important parts.

Curse Manipulation (7 days):

The curse starts like this, someone watches Samara’s cursed tape and from there they get a phone call or a voicemail that tells them that they have only 7 days to pass it onto someone else. However, the curse can only be passed if the person watches the entire tape without looking away, as the curse doesn’t get transferred if the person looks away.

When the time comes for Samara Morgan to come out and kill her victim after 7 days, the TV can turn on independently, even if nothing is plugged into the TV and even if the TV is broken or is faced down. If she wants to, she can draw a HUGE swarm of cicadas to exit the screen.

Telekinesis:

Samara is able to cause water to leak from the TV and nails, causing a section of the floor to slump and the TV to slide down. She can also move the stone cover back on top of the well. She also has the ability to levitate all the water out of a bathtub and unlock a locked bathroom door.

Hallucinations:

During those moments when the victim is cursed, the person would have hallucinations and even dreams, such as the following:

Compulsions:

Apparently Samara can cause deer to have beef with cars, and forces a doctor to take a syringe full of air and inject into herself, resulting in her death.


Thermography:

Before Samara’s death, she was able to burn images into a film, and an image of a tree into a wooden wall.

Biological/ Technological/ Probability Manipulation:

For the biological aspect, she can cause cardiac arrests, or hearts to stop, before making their faces turn bloated and rotten. Funnily enough, she is able to undo blindness, like when she did it to cure her biological father of blindess…just to kill him herself.

For her technological manipulation, she can do the usual and pop out of TVs as stated before, however she has the power to take over every single screen on a plane, causing dark water to leak from the bathroom and for flies to pop out, and it caused the airplane to crash which killed everyone on board.

For her probability manipulation, she is able to cause a telephone pole to fall on a car, causing electrocution and death when the wires make contact with the water. Additionally, Josh fell off his apartment balcony and died on impact while at the same time, Scott and Stacy died from a car accident on the interstate.

Teleportation: Speaks for itself. She can teleport.

BFR to Pocket Dimension:

Samara Morgan is able to drag people into a monochromatic version of the hill, containing the well that she died in. However, people are able to leave by jumping off a cliff.

Influence

There’s really not much influence really. Samara’s just a one-girl army. While she could possess people like Rachel’s son, Aiden, and Julia, there’s not much to suggest that she has the power to fully control people into physically doing her bidding.  

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Scaling and Feats

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The Operator



Physical stats (Athlete - Wall)

Overall hax (Debatably Universal)

Scaling

  • Can scale to the brainwashed humans, such as Skully, Hoodie, and Masky.
  • Masky was able to carry Jessica on his shoulder, knock Jay unconscious, and win in an altercation against Alex Kralie.
  • Hoodie was able to knock Alex Kralie unconscious with a metal pipe and knock out Tim Wright with a punch
  • Skully was able to lift up Adam with one arm
  • Can scale to normal humans throughout the series.
  • Jay Merrick was able to hold his own against Tim Wright and even survive a fall from a small tower.
  • Alex Kralie was able to fight off Tim Wright, render Jay unconscious, and handle a beating from Masky and Hoodie

Samara Morgan

Physical stats (Superhuman)

Overall hax (Small building - Building)

Scaling

  • Gonna be honest here….not really much here. Samara’s just a little girl in terms of physical stats.

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Weaknesses

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The Operator

Although the Operator is a very formidable being with a wide variety of powers, it is not without its limits. For starters, using anti-seizure medication is potent enough to help the person resist the effects of the Operator sickness’s symptoms. Also, since the Operator’s existence relies on the Operator sickness being able to latch onto someone, it could actually starve. As a result, the Operator would weaken and vulnerable as a result, and could possibly die if it starves for long enough. While the Operator’s reality warping powers would be terrifying, it is only able to do so whenever it pulls someone into the Ark Dimension, where the Operator would have the homefield advantage against its opponent. Finally, while the Operator could use its mind-control on humans to raise an army, they’re not fully obedient. Some of its minions can be rebellious and resist its control, with its prime example being Tim Wright.

Samara Morgan

Despite Samara Morgan’s terrifying array of powers on her side, she is not an all-powerful being. There are rules that are still in place for her curse that can be undone, such as the fact that anyone who sends a copy of the cursed tape to someone else will set them free from her clutches. To add onto that, anyone who is blind or cannot see, is able to be immune to Samara Morgan to some capacity, as they can’t really look into her eyes until Samara cures them of their blindness. Finally, she can even be beaten (kinda) in her own pocket dimension, as Rachel Keller was able to seal her away in a well, and even be able to escape Samara’s dimension by jumping off a cliff.

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Before the Verdict: CLEARING UP CONFUSION

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This is for the people who still might get these characters confused, thus affecting their analysis powerscaling-wise. I can understand some people getting these two characters confused with Slenderman and Sadako Yamamura. Upon first glance, it’s understandable to assume that the Operator is Slenderman and that Samara Morgan is Sadako Yamamura due to them being pretty much identical appearance-wise. So because of that, the Operator should get at least 6-7D Hax (can be high-balled to 11D if you REALLY wanted to) while Samara Morgan gets 5D hax right?? Unfortunately, reality is often disappointing. To cut things short, they’re not the same character due to many different factors. Let me explain here.

The Operator and Slenderman

Let’s start with the Operator’s side of the story. Marble Hornets was created on June 20, 2009, which is 10 days after the Something Awful forums, containing the OG Slenderman Mythos, which was created back in June 10, 2009. While Marble Hornets is actually canon to the original mythos, it has been confirmed by Troy Wagner and Joseph DeLage in various interviews and Q&A panels that the Operator is NOT Slenderman. The Original Something Awful Forums is the one that inspired the Operator from Marble Hornets, as they’re basically the first series to take Slenderman beyond the online forums and into video! Ironically, the invention of the Operator would inspire the many traits of Slenderman, such his iconic symbol, the static, the pills, etc., turning into the Mainstream Slenderman we know today. However, even if we put the creators' statements aside, we can take this a step further and talk about how the Operator isn’t Slenderman.

However, before I begin, I’ll have to make it clear that we’ll address two different versions of Slendermen in the room: The OG Mythos Slenderman and Mainstream Slenderman. This is due to legal complications about how Slenderman is actually a licensed character, even though that also ends up clashing with the overall audience perception of his canonicity due to being a community-created character with an at-best debatable canon. It’s really complicated so I’m not gonna bother arguing what Slenderman to use and instead will use both versions for the sake of this topic. Good? Perfect!

(Art by DiskyDiz)

Let’s start off from the OG mythos Slenderman. The Operator has a smoother, featureless face as compared to Slenderman, who has a more skeletal face with very minor but noticeable facial features. The Operator lacks any tendrils or spiderlegs compared to Slenderman. According to the OG Mythos, Slenderman is essentially a tulpa-like entity, appearing whenever someone even thinks of him. In terms of behavior, Slenderman makes low humming sounds and ear piercing screeches when angry. It brutally kills people who take photos of him by mutilating them, create fogs, power outages, mind control, probably fire, and can sprout tendrils to use as extra limbs. For the Operator, he has the power to cause sicknesses in people, warp reality to some degree, become larger, possess people, mimic their voices, and erase people from existence by taking them to the Ark dimension. However, the Operator does not have any tendrils or proxies like Slenderman, as those concepts don’t exist in the Marble Hornets universe.

(Art by Alternative_Fun1390)

Now let’s move on to the Mainstream Slenderman. Slenderman, in this version, is basically known for several different things, as either the Leader of The Collective called The Administrator, or The God of Death who is worshipped by The Order that goes by the name, Gorr'Rylaehotep. There’s SO MUCH MORE to cover so I won’t cover them here. In terms of what this version of Slenderman does…well honestly there’s so much that I’m too lazy to list them here either. Despite this version of Slenderman taking many inspirations from the Operator, some differences still remain, such as the Operator’s lack of tendrils, and some additional differences such as Slenderman sometimes wearing a red tie, as opposed to the Operator’s consistently black tie.

In both versions, Slenderman is a more direct monster who torments his victims before killing them, whereas the Operator is more of a parasite who latches onto people’s minds, slowly breaking them down before feeding them to the Ark.

If that is STILL not enough to convince you, let’s take a short look at their cosmologies! For the Mainstream Slenderman (not OG Mythos), he is from The Collective’s Realm. To put this very simply, The Collective’s Realm is basically a tier of existence that Slenderman exists upon, that is beyond the concept of space and time. In there, we humans are essentially prisoners that are bound inside a cave and staring at a blank wall. There’s a lot more to discuss but that’s basically the general gist.

Let’s compare this to the Operator’s cosmology! The Operator is from a separate dimension called The Ark. In this dimension, it’s completely dark, with only some light being cast onto a giant hole that must be fed. In this dimension, the Ark is also called, The Rot, and it is filled with various other creatures like the Operator that are tasked with feeding the Ark to sustain itself. How is this known? Well, the Universe of Marble Hornets also has other series such as ECKVA, with creatures like The Bloat, having to bring bodies to the Ark, which is the same Ark as the one in Marble Hornets. In both versions of Slenderman, neither one ever seems to have any implication of a similar cosmology to the Operator’s, and both behave and appear differently to one another, which is what makes them different characters even though they do look very similar. On top of it all, the Ark Dimension is exclusive ONLY to Marble Hornets and isn’t connected to any Slenderverse media, including DarkHarvest00, TribeTwelve, EverymanHybrid, etc.

In conclusion, The Operator ISN’T Slenderman due to the creators’ statements, difference in appearance, methods of killing, and cosmology. As such, the Operator will not receive any crazy 7D-11D scaling or any crazy tulpa-like powers like Slenderman.

So now that we have wrapped up the differences between the Operator and Slenderman, let’s now turn our attention to Samara Morgan, and make it clear on the differences between her and her Japanese inspiration, Sadako Yamamura.

Sadako Yamamura and Samara Morgan

(Art by Virtuware)

Because there is a youtuber out there named Cryptavolt, who already did the research for me and laid out the differences between these two characters, I’ll just let him lay out the details. Powerscalers, listen to his take!

“Samara Morgan was from the movie, The Ring, which was made in 2002. But a lot of people don’t know that THAT movie was actually a remake of the original movie called Ring, or Ringu to avoid confusion, which was made in 1998! And although they look similar, and Samara was based on Sadako, they’re actually completely different characters even down to the age and the backstory. For instance, Samara was killed by her mother before being dropped in the well. Sadako was killed by her father before being dropped in the well. Well..unless we’re talking about the novels in which she’s killed in different ways but it’s kinda freaky I’m not gonna-”

“I mean if you want I COULD go into the novels but it’s kinda like some Sci-Fi sex alien shit like I’m not sure-”

Anyway the point is, Samara Morgan and Sadako have various differences in their lore and their age. Sadako was 19 years old when she died, while Samara Morgan was 12 years old when she died. However, if this isn’t enough, we can look at some more differences both of these characters have. For example, Sadako only shows her glaring eye when she’s about to use her power to kill someone.

Samara, on the other hand, shows her whole face. Her face is more gnarly, and zombie-like, and the pupil on her eye is white, and her expression is obviously one of pure hate. Once that happens, she basically burns a bunch of images in people’s minds, killing them instantly.

Additionally, they have some differences in the way they move and behave. Sadako Yamamura takes a slower and calming approach, as shown in her scene when she moves in to kill Ryuji. She slowly creeps out of the TV and walks in a slow and unnerving movement. As for Samara’s side, she doesn’t take as much time. She quickly emerges out of the TV, and often teleports straight to the victim. Sometimes, she can even contort her body around to crawl at them at super-human speed if she chooses to.

Finally, there’s their cosmology. For Sadako’s case, there are actually TWO cosmologies to address and summarize! The first one that Sadako is a part of is the Loop, where it’s a highly advanced virtual world where time runs 6 times faster than the real world, and seems to be infinite to those who reside in it.

The second cosmology that Sadako is a part of is the Demonic Abyss, or the Crack in Time, where there’s an intersection that connects an infinite amount of parallel universes and pocket dimensions, where beings like Sadako can traverse freely throughout time and space which would make Sadako 5D.

For Samara’s case, the only cosmology we have is the pocket dimension inside her own world, where she once pulled Rachel. There’s not much to talk about other than the fact that it’s a monochromatic landscape formed from Samara’s time in the well. It doesn’t seem that Samara is in full control of this dimension, since Rachel was able to seal her away in the same well that she died in, as well as find her way out by jumping out of a cliff.

In conclusion, Samara Morgan ISN’T Sadako Yamamura due to differences in lore, appearance, behavior, cosmology, and international copyright laws. As such, Samara Morgan will not be given any 5D scaling or any questionable hax.

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Thumbnails and Art

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Final Verdict

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Okay so with everything all covered, who would win this fight? The Operator or Samara Morgan? Well, before we settle on the verdict let’s compare everything first on these characters!

Physical Stats

So who has the better physical stats? Well, Samara Morgan has some superhuman speed and strength with how fast she can crawl up the well in such an efficient way. Compared to the Operator, since it can scale to some characters who have shown above average human strength. However, when the Operator grows in size, then it’s no question who takes physical stats. It’s The Operator.

Mental Competence

Who has better intelligence, skill, and experience on their side? In terms of experience, both are pretty equal. The very first time that the Operator was truly seen was back in the 1980s during Alex Kralie’s childhood while Samara Morgan’s tape was created in the 1980s. As for intelligence and skill, the Operator’s methods consist of stalking its victims by hiding in the background,  although there can be confrontation, appearing before its victims and using its hax to break down their mental and physical structure. As for Samara Morgan, it’s really simple for her. If you don’t show the tape to someone else, she appears and kills you. She doesn’t plan anything out, she just does her thing and that’s it. With that said, she does have a sense of intelligence and can be manipulative to a degree, however the Operator’s clairvoyance and nature to stalk his victims to watch them from a distance gives him an advantage. The Operator takes this category

Overall Hax

This one will be pretty complicated, however I’ll still break it down for you all.

Samara can teleport, induce death upon a single glare of her eye, cause hallucinations, compulsions, thermography, and has probability manipulation and telekinesis. Additionally, Samara Morgan has the most recognizable ability to burst out of the TV and other screens like phones. Her most impressive feat is being able to take over EVERY SCREEN in and summon several cicadas to flood the plane.

For the Operator, it can warp reality to change the layout of a house, keep it nighttime, cause anyone who gets near it to get sick and start coughing uncontrollably, manipulate someone’s perspective, and erase people from existence. Additionally, the Operator can distort screens, cause flickering of the lights, and only be viewable through the camera.

So who should take this category? Well, it’s really close to what is shown from both sides. The Operator’s hax is more potent than Samara Morgan, given that not only can it basically affect time and space to a degree, his power does a lot more than just kill someone. It erases them from existence, to the point where they were never there. However, Samara’s hax could function on a wider scale, taking over a lot more screens than the Operator has ever shown tech-wise. Both of these are superior to the other in their own way, an advantage for each one covering for their disadvantage. The difference is that Samara’s advantage only can be vital when the fight takes a long period of time when she starves the Operator by taking out all of the infectants, while the Operator could be more direct and efficient, taking the victims to the Ark, feeding them and thus erasing people out of existence. As such, The Operator wins this category.

Support & Influence

Who has the better support? The Operator has some unreliable supports like Hoodie and Masky, but it also has the ability to take over the bodies of living people and corpses to have them do its bidding. For Samara Morgan, she has the ability to possess people, even in their sleep, and even when they’re dead. The sad thing is that we’ve never seen Samara fully control someone into doing their bidding physically other than just lying in bed. Because of this, The Operator wins this category.

Weaknesses

This category will be different, as it is meant to show whose weakness is less severe and won’t hinder them as much in a fight. For the Operator, its powers have less of an effect when someone uses medications such as anti-seizure medication. More importantly, its entire existence hinges on who has the Operator sickness because it can actually starve to death if nobody has the sickness. As for Samara Morgan, it doesn’t have many weaknesses other than the 7-day rule it abides by where she cannot attack them until the 7 days time is up. Other than that, Samara Morgan doesn’t require any sustenance to keep going. This one is close, however because the Operator has to feed itself by throwing its victims into the Ark to stay alive while Samara Morgan doesn’t have to feed herself due to being an Onryō, Samara Morgan takes this category.

Final Verdict


The Operator

Advantages:

  • Superior Hax
  • Physically much superior
  • More intelligent

Equal:

  • Resistant to the usual tactics (Bio manipulation, probability manipulation, and death stare won’t work against the Operator.)
  • Can teleport quickly
  • Doesn’t need to physically kill the victim
  • Equal experience

Disadvantages:

  • Passive hax can be negated via medication
  • Requires sustenance via feeding to the Ark to exist. (Conditional Stamina)

Samara Morgan

Advantages:

  • Superior technological manipulation
  • Doesn’t require sustenance (more stamina)

Equal:

  • Resistant to the usual tactics (Passive hax won’t be as effective, as Samara will only keep going.)
  • Can teleport quickly
  • Doesn’t need to physically kill the victim
  • Equal experience

Disadvantages:

  • Less potent hax
  • Not much control over her pocket dimension
  • Physical weaker
  • Not as intelligent

So from what we are able to gather, the Operator and Samara Morgan have ways to instantly kill their victims, and manipulate technology. The usual tricks just won’t work. For instance:

Can the Operator weaken Samara Morgan and use the ringworm symbol to instantly kill her?

Well, sadly no. Samara Morgan is ALREADY dead. Sure! The Operator’s passive effects could weaken Samara’s form, but Samara will just keep going anyway, with nothing stopping her from trying to kill the Operator.

Could Samara Morgan’s death stare work on the Operator, burning images in its head? Unfortunately, no. As far as what can be inferred, the Operator doesn’t even have eyes for the stare to work. Plus, even if it DOES somehow work, the Operator’s physiology is NOT human. Therefore it wouldn’t work the same way as a regular person.

So who has the power to kill the other? Well, the Operator does have the means to actually kill Samara Morgan: EXISTENCE ERASURE via The Ark Dimension. The Operator has the power to take its victims to the Ark Dimension and throw them in the Ark, which erases whoever falls into the Ark out of existence! Samara Morgan sadly does not have any resistance to such an attack, which means once she falls into the Ark, she is gone for good. Now sure, Samara Morgan could try to teleport away, but the Operator’s passive hax would weaken her enough for the Operator to throw her in. As for the Operator’s weaknesses it is unlikely that Samara would be able to figure out that the Operator’s existence hinges on sustenance, and even less likely that she’ll be able to capitalize on it meaningfully.

Samara Morgan will undoubtedly want to hurt the Operator, and she’s sorry. She won’t stop. However, as she herself will learn as the Operator latches onto her mind and never lets go, she is broken.

The winner is The Operator!

With that said, I’m not done yet. There’s still more about this matchup that I’d like to discuss.

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Deeper Interpretation

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TRIGGER WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS BRIEF MENTIONS OF R*PE, S**CIDE, AND MENTAL HEALTH. AS SUCH, THIS MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR THOSE WHO ARE CHILDREN OR EASILY DISTURBED. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED.

When it comes to the storytelling potential that this matchup would bring to the table, I do have to bring up that since Samara’s true origins and character are pretty much left ambiguous. On one hand, a claim could be made that she truly was evil from the start and was born evil, possibly being under the influence of a demonic being. On the other hand, a claim could also be made that she was a victim of circumstance, and simply descended into madness at such a young age when she was ostracized over something she had no control over. Personally, I do not find it satisfying to go with the idea of Samara Morgan being pure evil because it would make her character a one-dimensional villain that only functions as a plot device in terms of exposition, emotional roller coasters, and stakes. So for the sake of this section, I’ll go with the idea that Samara Morgan is both a tragic character and an evil villain.

If we are to look deep into the character of Samara Morgan, her life clearly was not a pleasant one. She was not the result of a loving couple who wanted a child, but rather the disgusting actions of a priest, who was a straight-up rapist; A disgusting individual who ruined a woman mentally and physically, just to fulfill his desires, and even went as far as to blind himself to escape from consequence and accountability when his biological daughter came back for vengeance. As young as she was, she was born with a supernatural power that she never had enough time to truly understand and control. She never got to grow up with a normal life, make friends, or have a stable education that could’ve benefitted her. Instead, she and her family faced societal abuse from the local community, and it’s likely nobody would’ve listened if the Morgan family tried to explain themselves to the public. Everyone, even the doctors such as Dr. Grasnik, labeled Samara Morgan’s power as something to identify what’s “wrong with her,” instead of trying to understand her power and maybe help her find a way to control it. The worst part is how even the adoptive family that loved her ended up killing her and throwing her in a well to be forgotten.

At that point, it isn’t much of a surprise that Samara ended up becoming cruel and vicious before and after her death! Everyone basically ostracized her. She was ostracized from any potential relationships, a future, love, and pretty much all the lovely things in life that most people are able to experience. All of that, because of something nobody could understand. When we take this into account when addressing the real world, this sadly is a common occurrence in society. There are people in the world who have been ostracized all because they’re “weird,” in terms of behavior, background, or appearance, when sometimes it’s just something that they can only live with. So with all that talk, where does this take us? What happens to those poor individuals who are ostracized and are left with no support? Well this is where the Operator comes into play thematically.

Throughout the Marble Hornets series, the Operator is often theorized to be the metaphor for mental illness. Think about it! The entire youtube series consists of college students suffering from their mental illnesses. People like Alex Kralie have slowly descended into insanity over trying to stop the Operator that they end up becoming murderers, or just be more aggressive and physical like Tim Wright and Brian Thomas. In the end, some of those people end up dying from their illness, due to their inability to actually get help and strive for a better future when they realized that the future they were heading towards wasn’t working. As for Tim, he was able to overcome his illness, despite still having episodes where he was more aggressive in his Masky persona. Even though his beginning as a patient in Rosswood Hospital was a rocky one, he was able to make it and live a normal life, although he relapsed when Jay Merrick pulled him back in his old memories in Jay’s journey to find the truth about what happened to Alex Kralie. There are also the subtle details too, such as how taking medication is a way to lessen the impacts of the Operator sickness.

So what exactly am I getting at here? What does the lore of these two stories have to do with why this matchup would fit thematically? Well, see it from this perspective. Samara Morgan is a girl who faced immense trauma and hardship, and the mental torment became too much for her mind to handle, which made her crueler and malevolent nature come to the forefront. The Operator, in the series, drives people into their lowest moments, making them violent and aggravated, sometimes resorting to murder for a “greater cause,” just like what happened with Alex Kralie in the original Marble Hornets series.

The Operator, in this case, is the representation of the very darkness that would’ve turned Samara Morgan from a tragic victim into a remorseless monster. Samara Morgan, on the other hand, is the byproduct of that darkness, when someone gives into the negativity due to the treatment they got, becoming monsters of their own right to pass it on to other people, before they inevitably end up getting consumed in the darkness again. If I’m being honest, this would make this matchup a little sad. It has gotten me wondering: Could Samara Morgan have been a good person if she was just treated better and got actual help? It could be possible, but we just don’t know. Again, making her born evil wouldn’t make this matchup satisfying thematic-wise, but it is obvious that she’s not this tragic misunderstood little girl who did nothing wrong. Samara could be both at the same time, and it would make more sense overall when talking about this matchup, especially when you factor the Operator being a metaphor for mental illness.

In conclusion, this matchup isn’t just about clashing powers, but rather a tragic deep dive into the psychology of a little girl. A girl who descended into malevolence and cruelty when ostracized over something she couldn’t understand or be able to control, and the inevitable downfall that would befall onto her when she couldn’t be cured or fixed.

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Conclusion and Final Words

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So with all this talk about Operator vs. Samara Morgan over with, I probably should be pretty honest here. The whole reason I made this matchup in the first place was because it was just a really funny opportunity. When I heard about Slenderman vs Sadako Yamamura, I was actually pretty invested in it! The connections seemed really solid if we used Mainstream Slenderman, the debatability was dope and the matchup became my preferred, with Siren Head as a very close second if we only use OG Mythos Slenderman but that’s a topic for a different time.

So when I got invested into both characters, especially given my already-existing interest and passion in the Gabriel vs. Operator Matchup, I felt like this matchup would also fit perfectly. Now yes, I know the Operator vs. Samara Morgan is basically the dollar tree version of Slenderman vs. Sadako Yamamura. That, funnily enough, is the point and the appeal to this matchup. However, despite all that, I do think that this matchup could still work if we really thought about what story this matchup could tell.  

This is the reason why I plan to animate this matchup and put it on my youtube channel in the future. I’ve been getting better at animation and rotoscoping and art, which would be really beneficial for my channel for my future projects I want to get into in the future. I think I’ve said enough on this matchup, as this is basically my third attempt to make this matchup popular, with my fourth and final one attempt being the animation video I plan to make on my own. I’ve already typed the fight script but I won’t release it until the video itself is released.

So with all of that said, thank you all for reading this blog. It means a lot to me as this is my very first blog and I hope you all continue to read any future blogs I have in mind as I keep learning and getting better at my craft. Farewell, everyone!


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