Key recommendations
- Pascal teaches the machine children fear, emphasizing the importance of experiencing both negative and positive emotions.
- A2 emphasizes the fear of being alone, recognizing the importance of valuing time spent with loved ones.
- Bitter irony unfolds as the fear of being alone leads to cannibalism, highlighting the irrational decisions made under stress.
The following contains spoilers for episode 21 of NieR Automata Ver1.1a, now streaming on Crunchyroll.
The Goliath has been defeated and the children saved, but A2 receives an urgent message from the Resistance camp. Meanwhile, Lily and her allies quarantine themselves from infected Resistance members after being exposed to the Logic Virus from one of the deranged machine children, turning into a zombie in the process.
Although Jackass, Popola, Devola and the others come to their aid, Lily decides to stay back 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, asks A2 to put her out of her misery. 9S obtains the final code and realizes that his feelings for 2B were reciprocated, while Pascal is faced with the sight of the machine's children being cannibalized.
What it means to be human
Most people agree that experiencing both negative and positive emotions is vital to the human experience. With this, the ability to grow, adapt and learn follows suit. Pascal actively distanced himself from other machine life forms and founded his own village in hopes of living a more passive and enriching lifestyle. Because of this, he had the ability to empathize and relate to other androids, even befriending the Resistance and gaining the respect of Lily, who lost her comrades to him. One of the main lessons he taught the machine children in his village was the concept of fear. Fear is what keeps things alive because it serves as a deterrent to doing activities that might otherwise be considered dangerous. In episode 18, the machine lifeforms exhibit this exact behavior in response to A2's scolding. Curiously, A2 herself teaches him another concept: being alone.
Fear of being alone
While trying to cheer them up, A2 stated how happy she was that she was not alone; and when they asked what that meant, she explained the importance of appreciating the time spent with loved ones because they could easily end up alone on any given day. In the ensuing panic, after the surviving children are brought to the Resistance camp, one of them shows symptoms of the Logic Virus. It is implied that it was his own disorder that infected him. In episode 6, the logic virus bore a striking resemblance to PTSD when 21S peered into Lily's memories while administering a cure for her contamination. Later, she was also the first of the group to be infected. Under stress, people (and even animals) can make irrational or extreme decisions.
Bitter irony
When Pascal testifies about what's left of the machine's children, the first to be infected cannibalizes the rest, which stemmed from his fear of being alone and believing that a memory music box he was carrying had broken . Ironically, it can be argued that A2 planted this idea in his head, as children in real life often overreact and take things too literally. When he thought he was in danger of losing everything, he ate everyone else so they could “be together forever”. To a different extent, the 9S also suffers from this. At a meeting with 2B's old flight unit, he discovers a message that was left behind for him, which confirmed that 2B's feelings were mutual. But unlike the machine life forms and the resistance, he is truly alone.
Community and family are a stellar aspect of what it means to be human. And with every meeting, a breakup is sure to follow. Lily, suffering from the same virus that A2 originally saved her from, dies at her own hands due to a weapon that A2 had protected Lily from.
