Key Takeaways
- Pascal teaches children fear of machines, emphasizing the importance of experiencing negative and positive emotions.
- A2 emphasizes the fear of being alone, acknowledging the importance of time spent with loved ones.
- A bitter irony emerges as the fear of being alone leads to binge eating, revealing irrational decisions made under stress.
The following contains spoilers for episode 21 of NieR Automata Ver1.1a, currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
The Goliath is defeated, and the children are saved, but A2 receives an urgent message from the Resistance base. Meanwhile, Lily and her allies isolate themselves from the infected Resistance members after being infected with the Logic Virus by one of the demented machine children. , turned into a zombie.
Although Jackass, Popola, Devola and others come to her rescue, Lily decides to stay and kill the infected to make sure the virus doesn't spread. A2 arrives on the scene, just as the last survivor, Lily, who is also infected, begs A2 to put her out of her misery. 9S gets the final code and realizes that her feelings for 2B are reciprocated, while Pascal is faced with the sight of machine children being eaten.
What it means to be human
Most people agree that feeling positive and negative emotions is essential to the human experience. Along with that, the ability to evolve, adapt and learn follows. Pascal distanced himself from other machine beings and built his city in hopes of living a more active and enriching lifestyle. Because of this, he had the ability to empathize and bond with other androids, even befriending the Resistance and gaining the respect of Lily, who had lost a friend of her own kind. One of the first lessons he taught the machine children in his village was the concept of fear. Fear is what keeps everything alive, because it prevents the pursuit of work that is considered dangerous. In episode 18, the machine figure shows this behavior in response to A2's repentance. Surprisingly, A2 himself teaches them another concept: being alone.
The fear of being alone
As A2 tried to encourage them, he expressed his joy that he was not alone; and when they asked what it meant, they explained the importance of appreciating the time one has with one's loved ones, because they could end for them every day. In the ensuing panic, when the surviving machine children are brought to the Resistance base, one of them shows symptoms of the Logical Virus. This means that it was only caused by his confusion. In episode 6, the Logical Virus resembles PTSD, when 21S looks into Lily's memories, while offering a cure for her contamination. After that, he was also the first of the group to be infected. Under stress, people (and even animals) can make irrational or extreme decisions.
A bitter irony
When Pascal testifies about the remains of the machine children, the first one infected eats the rest, which stems from the fear of being alone, and thinks that the memory music box he was carrying is broken. Ironically, it can be said that A2 planted this idea in his head, as with children in real life, they often overreact and take things too literally. When they thought they were in danger of losing everything, they ate everyone to “be together forever”. On another level, the 9S suffers from this as well. When he meets up with 2B's old flight group, he finds a message left for him, which reinforces 2B's feelings. But unlike the life machine and the Resistance, it is very lonely.
Community and family are important aspects of what it means to be human. And with every meeting, there is sure to be a breakup. Lily, infected with the A2 virus only saved him in the first place, died in his hand because of the gun, the weapon A2 used to protect Lily.
