NieR Automata: Meaning & Existential Despair
Breathtaking scenes, beautifully-chilling soundtrack, thought-provoking dialogues, and engaging gameplay, I believe Yoko Taro has truly created the genuine article with his 2017-released video game: NieR Automata. Its masterful harmony of visuals, music, narrative, and gameplay creates this awe-inspiring atmosphere that evokes a sense of philosophical reflection, together with a feeling of artistic rapture.
General Theme and Premise Summary
NieR Automata tackles the philosophical theme of meaning and existential despair, it revolves around topics such as finding your cause, finding a reason to live, a reason to fight, and the profound feeling of despair over that struggle. The game opens with an ‘existential’ monologue from one of its protagonists, 2B [‘to be’ — from Shakespeare’s most popular line: ‘To be or not to be’]:
“Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle… and wonder if we’ll ever get the chance to kill him.”
However, before we dive into the details of the existential themes of the game, I think it would be best to first present a summary of its premise to give some context to some readers who might not be familiar with it.
The story takes place in the year 11945 AD; it was explained in the beginning of the game that in 5012 AD, aliens from another solar system have took over the earth by developing artificial intelligent robots called ‘machine lifeforms’ to annihilate humanity. The few remaining survivors of the invasion then evacuated, seeking refuge on the moon. Two centuries later, mankind sent armies of androids (humanoid robots) to fight-off the machines & aliens to reclaim their home. However, countless attempts of taking back the earth from the machines (the machine lifeforms) kept ending in vain, and up to present day, the humans/androids have not succeeded yet in repelling the enemy. The story follows the adventures of two androids, 2B and 9S, in fighting against the machines and conducting various missions on earth.
As the story progresses, we’ll discover more and more detail about the behavior, lives, and culture of the machines. Although the androids were initially indoctrinated that the machines, unlike them, are mindless robots which do not have any form of consciousness or sentience, throughout the story they would encounter many instances which challenges that doctrine, giving them the chilling realization that those machines they mechanically kill without any slight feelings of remorse, are conscious, sentient, beings just like them. A lot of these machines have even developed pacifist attitudes, raising white flags, and explicitly claiming that they do not want to engage in war and violence.
Towards the end of the game, our protagonists will even figure out that the ‘black box’ where an android’s consciousness resides is created using the core of a machine lifeform, which is also where a machine’s consciousness lies, further dissolving the wall between androids and machines.
Death of God
Around midway through the first playthrough (playthrough A), we will learn that the aliens which created the machines in the first place have long been extinct. The machines, as artificial intelligence, are capable of evolution, they grew and learn, and their ‘collective intelligence’ called the ‘machine network’ eventually surpassed their creators in intellect. The ‘machine network’ saw the aliens as simple and infantile and deemed that they were of no value to them. They eventually annihilated the aliens, bringing them to extinction.
After the aliens were brought to extinction, the individual machines stopped receiving orders from them to eliminate the androids. Although some of the machines continued to fight against the androids out of their instinct, some of them started to realize that they don’t necessarily have to anymore and saw no point in it. However, as they ceased to have any purpose or objective, they started to fall into an existential conundrum.
The death of the aliens by the hands of the machines, the killing of one’s creator, and the existential crisis that follows pictures Nietzsche’s philosophy on the ‘Death of God’.
“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
It explains how losing one’s God, one’s all powerful, all divine creator, which gives us absolute and infinite meaning and purpose to our existence, which gives us an ‘image’ of what we ought to strive after, a foundation for our morals and values, would lead to a state of delirious emptiness, loss of one’s sense of direction, an existential despair.
Nietzsche describes how the Age of Enlightenment, the flourishing of science and rationality, in around the 17th and 18th century, challenges our existing convictions on God and religion, especially for the Western European civilization which system of values, moral assumptions, and culture are deeply grounded in Christianity. He explains that by severing ourselves from the Christian faith, we have swept away the foundation for our morality and system of values, thus losing any tangible grip on the value system we have always adhered to. Losing this sense of value, moral order, and meaning, humanity plunges into nihilism, the feeling that our existence and the universe itself are futile, devoid of any meaning or values, and that there isn’t anything in this world that we ought to do, any direction which have to go, merely drifting in an infinite ocean of meaninglessness.
Similarly, once the machines have killed their creators, the universal and absolute ‘moral objective’ that they have always adhered to, their purpose of annihilating the androids, was swept away from them and they do not have anywhere else to go, anything else to do; and from this point on, the machines began their endless endeavor to search for meaning.
Jean-Paul, Existentialism, and the Quest for Meaning
One of the game’s general philosophical contention regarding the existential problem that we have just discussed was laid out through one of the game’s side quest, in an encounter with a machine in a pacifist village called Jean-Paul — named after the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
“Existence precedes essence”, stated Jean-Paul, explaining that we are born into existence without any predetermined essence, without being given any inherent or prearranged meaning. We should thus find or create our own meaning, our own purpose, for our life and existence. The overarching theme in NieR Automata is the search for meaning, how all of we sentient beings strive to find or create values, meanings, and purposes that we live for. This will be explored throughout the game where we would encounter machines and androids with varying central values and meaning that they treasure.
The machines, having access to various documents on human history and culture, seem to imitate humans in trying to find meaning for themselves. It was even mentioned at some point in the game that these machines never seemed to be able to create their own original values and only imitated those they learned from human history. When interacting with different machine lifeforms throughout the game, exploring the diverse set of purposes and values that they treasure, we would come to realize that what the game is trying to do is to showcase a glimpse of and reflect upon human values and meanings.
Some of the game’s most notable example of values, meanings, and purposes that were explored are as follows:
1) Simone and Beauty
During the third boss-fight of the game, we would encounter a machine who was once in love with another, the aforementioned Jean-Paul. This machine, Simone, was actually named after Jean-Paul Sartre’s actual or real-life lover, Simone de Beauvoir. Simone was once told by another machine lifeform the saying that “beauty is what wins love”, she then learned upon looking into human history that beauty is pretty skin, it is stylish accessories, it is looking one’s best.
To win Jean-Paul’s love, Simone strived with all her strength to seek for beauty. She did various attempts to make herself more beautiful, she ventured into a dangerous mountain to obtain a precious jewel, she killed and consumed the body of androids and even machines, desperately trying everything she can to become more and more beautiful.
However, after countless struggles and sacrifices, she realized that it was all in vain. Jean never cared about jewels, pretty fineries, beauty, or appearance. He wouldn’t even look her way. She realized that all her attempts were meaningless. She despaired over the futility of all her struggles and plunged into insanity.
This first example mirrors how ‘appearing beautiful’ is such a common value that humanity often pursues. A lot of women spend all their time looking for the most stylish fashion, the fanciest jewelries, exploring diet routines, make-ups, all to look more attractive and lure the object of her love. However, the quest for beauty itself often supersedes its original purpose of love and becomes the primary goal itself.
2) Kierkegaard and Religion
The game also presented one of the most universal value that humanity has believed in throughout history: God and religion. Throughout our adventures in the game, we will stumble upon a colony of machines who have formed some kind of religious cult. However, the chapter doesn’t seem to explore too deeply into theology or the philosophy of religion itself. It was later also revealed that upon seeing their leader die, this religious cult assumed that death is the path to becoming one with God and started killing themselves in mayhem.
Despite its lack of depth around this theme (probably due to the severe risk of being too controversial), and the lack of proper context for using the name Kierkegaard (merely from the superficial fact that Kierkegaard is a religious philosopher), this chapter nevertheless served its purpose to showcase a very common value or purpose which humanity devote themselves into.
3) The Forest Kingdom and Idolization of a Savior/Hero/King
Another meaning that humanity tend to worship is an idol. A figure to fight for and protect, one that would give a meaning to the people. At some point in the game, we would encounter an independent machine kingdom with a king which all the machines in the kingdom fervently worships. It was later discovered that historically, a brave, strong, benevolent machine decided to declare independence against the machine network and established a kingdom in the forest from scratch. He was independent and strong-willed, as to be able to ‘free’ himself from the ‘inherent command’ within every machine and develop his own ‘ego’. He was also magnanimous, as to be willing to sacrifice and distribute his own body-parts to ‘bless’ his subjects with his ‘will’ or ‘ego’. The machines in the kingdom really revered and idolized their king, willing to do whatever they can to fight for and protect him.
“The exalted individual was the earliest among us to awaken to his own will, and for this reason did we name him our regent. Looking to sow the seed of this will in others, His Highness distributed his own precious parts. His retainers were the first to be so blessed, followed by his subjects. And in doing so, he brought forth a paradise — one made for machines alone.
Through his gifts did we learn of the thing called ego, and eventually of our own selves. And just as ego gives way to emotion, so too did emotion lead us to feel great loyalty to our king.
But our king was too great — and too kind. Having distributed his parts, it became difficult for him to function, and he soon fell into a deep and silent sleep.
Now, the only path left to us — his loyal vassals — is to construct a kingdom of eternal peace, one which lives up to the magnanimous heat of our king. And so as a sign both of our resolve and our gratitude, we leave in this place a chip made from our combined parts.
Your spirit lives on in us. O great king. And so we implore you to rest in peace
-The Forest Kingdom, Its Citizens, As one.
From a secular perspective, this chapter of the narrative pictures how human societies, time after time throughout history idolized charismatic leaders, like Alexander the Great, or ideological states, like Nazi Germany, and would be willing to fight, kill, live, and die, to serve their king or nation. These soldiers take great pride in what they do, it gives them a clear purpose for their life, a dream to aim for, a reason for their struggles, hardships, and pain.
Through a more “religious” lens, the idol that the Forest Kingdom worships here seem to parallel Jesus or Christ, the Christian savior or hero. This King of the forest kingdom seem to have developed a higher consciousness, a sacred an independent ‘will’ or ‘ego, which he channeled to his subjects through distributing his body parts. This parallels how Christians partake in the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, where they consume a sacramental bread which symbolizes the Body of Christ so that Christ would be present within them — similar to how this holy ‘will’ of the Forest King would flow within them once they have integrated His parts.
As Christ sacrificed himself on a cross for the salvation of mankind, the King sacrificed himself (through distributing his body parts) for the machines of his kingdom. As the Apostles started the Christian Church in the name of their leader Jesus, the machines of the Forest Kingdom continued to protect and develop the kingdom in His name.
4) Pascal’s Village and Modern Society
One quite central character in the game, a machine lifeform named Pascal, was a leader of a simple pacifist village. Pascal and the village he led upholds peace as a prominent virtue and avoids any form of fighting with the androids and other machine colonies. The machines in this village all live a happy peaceful life.
One question that our protagonists raised at some point was what the villagers actually do now since they have severed from the machine’s collective purpose of fighting the androids. We will learn, throughout our interaction with Pascal and other machines in the village that, exactly like us humans, the machines there engage in mundane everyday life activities. The machines in Pascal’s village trade with the androids for parts that they would need for the maintenance of their bodies, children there attend education and play in their free-time, and some more ‘profound’ machines like Pascal himself and the aforementioned Jean-Paul, takes interest in studying philosophy and human culture.
We could see that these two ‘intellectual’ machines have quite a clear purpose to strive for. Jean-Paul, like the typical thinker or philosopher, is deeply passionate for the pursuit of knowledge and truth, while Pascal puts great effort to cultivate the village and puts extra importance in nurturing and educating the children, instilling them with values and principals he deemed as virtuous and important.
The life of the machines in Pascal’s village clearly resembles people and values in our time and age. We are living in a quite peaceful time without any apparent major wars between nations. Most people, like the machines in the village, live a quite simple life and occupies themselves with mundane day-to-day activities, never being concerned about the purpose of their life or meaning to their existence. They are — in Kierkegaardian terms — ignorant of the despair that lurks beneath them. Some rare individuals however, like Pascal and Jean-Paul wrestles themselves with the existential problem and strive to find and pursue a valuable meaning to their existence.
5) Adam & Eve — Curiosity, Hatred, and Love
Two of the game’s main antagonists, the brothers, Adam and Eve clearly exemplifies a strong clinging to a certain value that they treasure. Adam, the elder one out of the two, an intelligent humanoid machine born from the evolution of the machine network, has an inherent curiosity for, and got deeply fascinated in, learning human culture and behavior. He was perplexed by the paradoxical juxtaposition of their capability to severely hate, kill their own kind, and yet love with equal profundity.
“But the humans on the moon, now THEY are interesting. Because they are an enigma! They killed uncountable numbers of their own kind, and yet loved in equal measure! It’s fascinating don’t you think? What could possibly drive such behavior? We have dedicated ourselves to unraveling this riddle of humanity.
-Adam
Upon learning further and further about human culture, history, and behavior, Adam came to the realization that the possibility of death is what differentiates humans from the machines, it is the key ingredient that gives humans lives… life! A machine like him, on the other hand, who is deeply connected to the network, could somehow easily regenerate himself. With that immortality, without the possibility for death, without that risk of dying, he could not live which such passion and life as humans do. This is why Adam decided to sever himself from the network and risk his life in battle against 2B, he wants to feel that risk of death, the passion, to feel… life!
“We machines exist in a connected network. We are immortal. Invincible. And yet, within all those infinite bits of data, there exist not even the merest flicker of being. Of life. Death — even the concept of death — has no meaning to us.
Thus, I decided… that I shall risk my life in battle. I have severed my connection to the network. Now… let us embrace death!”
*This somehow relates to the philosophical concept of antipodal pairs, that one opposite could not exist without the other, just like how the concept of light could not exist (would not be conceivable) without the concept of dark, the concept of life could not exist without the concept of death.
In addition to that, upon observing and analyzing humanity’s history, he came to the demonic conclusion that within the very core of humanity, there exist hatred and the inclination for conflict.
“Only then did I realize the truth. The core of humanity… is conflict. They fight, steal, kill, THIS is humanity in its purest form!”
-Adam to 2B
Upon conversing with 9S inside the machine network, Adam incited 9S to the dark realization, to admit, that beneath his deepest desires, within the darkness of his unconscious wills, there exist an overflowing hatred and vileness.
“Now you see, boy! The true meaning of life… is hatred! A vile hatred slumbers in the depths of your heart. The more you try to hide it, the more that darkness grows.
All who live are slaves to desire. Such internal appetites are what give our lives meaning. Some seek beauty. Others serenity. For me, hatred is the –
…
You do not trust anything. You want to destroy everything. You have lost hope in everything. You want to obtain everything. You want to be loved by all. Reality stained by lies. Hatred pouring into you. Overflowing desire. Your true self”
-Adam to 9S
Adam’s profound curiosity for humans brought him to treasure death and hatred above all else. This value was clutched so deeply into his will that he was willing to sacrifice his life during the fight against 2B.
“Each of the machines treated their treasures with great care. One treasured family above all else. Another treasured its older sibling. Another treasured its own beauty. But one machine treasured something unique above all else… Hate!”
Eve on the other hand has a very simple meaning for his being, a sincere love for his older brother, Adam. He is very protective of him, and is haunted by the fear of losing Adam, he keeps saying that Adam was his everything. After Eve learned of Adam’s death, he raged in despair towards the end of playthrough A & B, attempting to destroy everything. This mirrors the very archetypal human tragedy of loving someone with all one’s heart and then crying, screaming, raging in despair once that loved one is lost, feeling as if one has lost everything, everything would be meaningless, as if the universe and existence himself has crumbled around one.
6) Red Girls — Hardships & Evolution
“We are one, yet we are many. We are finite, and yet we are infinite. We are the embodiment of the perfect being. Ahh… I see it… The light… We move on… Forward… To the future!”
-Red Girls
Nearing the end of the game, we would be introduced to the Red Girls, an embodiment or ego of the Machine Network. As it is originally created by the aliens, the Machine Network’s original purpose was to eliminate the androids, however, as its intelligence evolved and it developed a certain form of consciousness or free-will, we learned that it was able to surpass its own pregiven code and determine its own will.
During a certain scene in the game, we would see that different facets of its ego were debating over a decision. This scene exhibits Nietzsche’s proposition than an ego, an individual, or an “I” is not an entirely independent entity or being, but in fact, in essence, a set or complex of competing wills.
One of the being’s ego or will argued that the existence of the androids would be in their benefit as it would give them difficulties and hardships, which would thus serve them to be able to evolve further into a higher and better being, while another ego, argued that they are too dangerous and would lead to their demise, and thus proposed to eliminate them as soon as possible.
The former ego pictures Nietzsche’s philosophical proposition that we ought to keep improving ourselves into higher, better, stronger beings, an ‘Ubermensch’ [Overman] as he puts it, and it is precisely pain and hardships that would enable us to grow and evolve. Nietzsche argues that one meaning or purpose that we as humans should strive for is to embrace ourselves to the pain, hardships, and tragedies of life so that we would evolve, shed our skin, and become, better, stronger, subtler, and more profound beings.
Ego I: “We need more evolutionary pressure. If we allow this android to continue living, we can create even more hardships for ourselves. Overcoming this crisis this creates will present an opportunity for our kind to evolve even further.”
Ego II: “We disagree, this android is dangerous. It must be destroyed immediately.”
Ego I: “Those who would doubt our victory… are enemies.”
Ego II: “Do you truly think you can win?”
Pod: “Analysis — the saturated consciousness’ are now in conflict with each other”
“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?… All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape… The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth… Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
7) Androids & Deception
As opposed to the machines who have lost their original purpose and thus seek for a meaning for their existence, the androids seemed to be content with a very clear purpose and objective for their existence: to eliminate the machines for the ‘glory of mankind’.
However, nearing the end of the game, we would then be surprised with a revelation that humanity has long gone extinct, even before the aliens or machines have arrived on earth — due to a failure in Project Gestalt, an event central to the previous game: NieR Gestalt/Replicant.
The notion that humanity is waiting in a secret base on the moon, waiting until the androids have successfully triumph against the machines and will reclaim earth for them was a lie devised by the leaders of the androids to provide the androids with a sense of purpose, a reason, a cause to keep on fighting and living. Project YoRHa, in actuality, was a false narrative designed as a mean to lift the androids’ morale.
This parallels the skeptical and nihilistic idea that maybe spiritual concepts like religions are just lies we created to justify our existence, to find rationales to keep us living for a higher purpose — just to justify our biological instincts encoded in our genes that wants us to keep living & reproducing, and to give us some false strength to make the suffering of being more bearable. Just like how the androids managed to make up an intelligent lie to deceive themselves to keep on fighting, maybe we have also been deceiving ourselves, prejudiced to believe that there is a transcendental, spiritual, metaphysical purpose to our being. Maybe we have just grown so damn intelligent, that we are clever enough to outsmart even ourselves…
“Having kept a close eye on philosophers and read between their lines for a sufficient length of time, I tell myself: the greater part of conscious thinking must still be counted among instinctive activities, and this is so even in the case of philosophical thinking. Most of a philosopher’s conscious thinking is secretly directed and compelled into definite channels by his instincts.
…
Philosophers pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic (in contrast to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and more stupid than they — these speak of ‘inspiration’): while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an ‘inspiration’, generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Despair
Another principal recurring theme in NieR Automata is the despair of losing what is most meaningful to you. This was illustrated quite a few times throughout the game with some examples being the aforementioned hopelessness of Simone when realizing that all her attempts to make herself beautiful turned out fruitless and when Pascal asked the android A2 to delete all his memories as he could not bear living with the knowledge that the children of the village which he have helped nurture and educate with all his heart has all killed themselves.
A more notable and climatic example of this is when Eve despaired over the loss of his brother Adam, which caused him to succumb into infinite hatred and rebelled against reality and existence itself, wanting desperately to kill everyone and everything in a delirious rage.
“Why…? Why did you have to die…? It’s not fair! My only brother… Damn them! I’ll kill them… I swear I’ll kill them all!
You’ll die… All of you are GOING TO DIE!
I know you too feel the same. That this world… is utterly meaningless. As far as I’m concerned, my brother… was everything… And now… EVEYTHING MUST DIE! Why did you kill my brother?!”
-Eve
Another intensely emotional despair nearing the end of the game was when 9S witnessed the death of 2B, realizing that he has just lost the person he loved most. This despair, so tragic, so intense, caused a tremendous strain on 9S’ psychological state, causing him to fall into a delirium towards insanity. Similar to Eve, 9S’ despair caused him to rebel against all existence, losing his meaning, morality, and senses, wanting to destroy and kill everything in his sight.
“I’ll tear you apart… Every one last of you!”
-9S
Losing what is most meaningful causes one to lose their reason to live, to be. We sentient beings create our purpose and values to give reason to our existence. Once that reason is taken away from us, we lose the strength to stand on our two feet, the spirit which pushes us to keep confronting and embracing existence. This might push those with meeker, more feminine spirits to suicide seeing that there is no reason for them to keep on living, however, to those more masculine, fueled with pride, wrath, and aggression, the desperation might in fact bring them to a rebellious and offensive position against existence, possessing them with a malice desire to kill and destroy.
However, behind all those story-arcs about the despair from the loss of what one deeply values, NieR Automata’s main theme speaks of a more fundamental and overarching despair, which is the existential despair of living without a meaning, without a purpose. It speaks of the despair the machines realized when they have “freed” themselves of their purpose, searching desperately for a new meaning for their existence. It speaks of 9S’ tragic despair upon realizing that all his life he has been living in a lie, that what he has been fighting for all his life (the future of humanity) has been long extinct, and everything he does all this time was only for a meaningless lie which has been devised just to keep the androids busy, living and fighting for no transcendent purpose at all.
“I… exist… this world…
My… life’s meaning…
The meaning… of being born…
To exist. I must be strong…
Merely destroying life will not win me approval…
But if so… what use are we to the world…?
It is painful… So painful…
Why were we… born…?
Why is life… so painful…?
Why won’t anyone… help me…?
I don’t need… this world…
We were created to fight! To eliminate all others and reside at the pinnacle of existence! Yet the battle rages eternal! Our cursed cycle of destruction and rebirth continues without end! None of us in this world are loved! This world has no need for us!
There is only one solution…
*commits suicide
-Wise Machine
This overarching theme of the game really brings the creeps upon the realization of how relatable it is to our lives. Yes, superficially, it might feel like you are looking at it through a third person, 40,000 ft view, seeing these poor androids realize that their inherent purpose was a lie and that they have no more reason for their existence. However, how could this be of any difference with our lives? Do we humans even have a universally accepted purpose for our existence? What is it that we really ought to do with our lives, what is it that we, the whole of humanity ought to do with our existence? Are the morals, values, and meanings constructed by our cultures even meaningful? Or just like the androids, we’re are all living under a deception, a lie, a bias. What if everything we’ve been doing and will ever do are all insignificant, futile, meaningless? Is there any, or will there ever be, a transcendental meaning to our existence? Perhaps, we are all just mindlessly satisfying our biological instincts living one generation after another, towards god knows what end.
To quote from Kierkegaard:
“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair? If it were thus, if there were no sacred bond uniting mankind, if one generation rose up after another like the leaves of the forest, if one generation succeeded the other as the songs of birds in the woods, if the human race passed through the world as a ship through the sea or the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless whim, if an eternal oblivion always lurked hungrily for its prey and there were no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches — how empty and devoid of comfort would life be.”
NieR Automata’s Answer
Against all the miseries and tragic predicaments of life, against all the meaninglessness of this existence, what does NieR Automata offer as a solution, as remedy for our despair?
In NieR Automata’s final and true ending, we will be faced with an insanely difficult bullet hell mini-game. After losing and dying few times the game would keep asking you whether you would still keep trying or just give up. If you relentlessly keep trying, the game would eventually tell you that players from all over the world are offering you their hand. Once you’ve accepted their help, you’ll gain reinforcements which would enable you to finally beat this seemingly impossible final stage.
After you have succeeded in beating this final stage, the game then offers you to — like those players who have helped you overcome it — help future players by sacrificing all your save data (yes, having multiple save files doesn’t work — the game will delete ALL the save data in your account). Will you, having spent tons of hours progressing through the game, sacrifice your save file for some random stranger in another part of the world, which you might not even like, which would most likely not give you any form of appreciation, even a simple “thanks”?
Pod 042: “Pod 042 to player. Please respond to this query. You have lost your life multiple times to make it this far. You have faced crushing hardship, and suffered greatly for it. Do you have any interest in helping the weak? [Yes/No]
Selecting this option enables you to save someone somewhere in the world. However, in exchange, you will lose all of your save data. Do you still wish to rescue someone — a total stranger — in spite of this? [Yes/No]
The person you save will be selected at random. As a result, this person… who cries out for help even as we speak… may be someone you intensely dislike. Do you still wish to help? [Yes/No]
You may not receive thanks for your efforts. Some may say that your efforts are purely for show. Do you still wish to help?
And you are truly — TRULY — sure about this?
… very well. In exchange for all of your data… I will convey your will to this world.“
*deletes all save file
All of your data has been deleted
Pod 153: “And so, we must say goodbye. I feel a slight amount of… sadness.”
Pod 042: “It is time for the final words. To all of you who spent time with this game…”
Pod 042 & 153: “Thank you. Thank you for playing.”
NieR Automata’s answer to the suffering and meaninglessness of life, to the existential despair of our existence, is love and sacrifice. The act of a sincere, genuine sacrifice, without expecting anything in return, out of sheer power of love, the sincere love for others, the love for the universe and existence itself, transcends the all the predicaments, tragedies, and meaninglessness of this life, transcends the seemingly purposeless cycles of life and death.
The game offers you to perform this act of love as a final satisfying answer to the existential conundrum that it has presented all along. The demand of an actual and significant sacrifice — deleting all your save data — adds a real and palpable weight to the act. It would not be an easy decision to make, but it would really give you a feeling of genuine fulfillment.
Pod 153: “Everything that lives is designed to end. They are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. However… life is all about the struggle within this cycle. That is what “we” believe
Pod 153 to 042. How is it going?”
Pod 042: “I am embarrassed”
Pod 153: “Why is that?”
Pod 042: “I launched a suicide attack, and yet, here I am, still alive. I must look very silly”
Pod 153: “Do not feel bad about it. We are alive, after all. And being alive is pretty much a constant stream of embarrassment.”
Pod 042: “That concept is a bit too abstract for me to understand at this time. I will save it in my list of things to analyze later.”
Pod 153: “Question, Pod 042. Did the data salvage restore all their past memories?”
Pod 042: “Yes.”
Pod 153: “And are those recovered parts of the same design as previous ones?”
Pod 042: “Yes.”
Pod 153: “Then… won’t that simply lead us to the same conclusion as before?”
Pod 042: “I cannot deny the possibility.”
Pod 153: “However, the possibility of a different future also exists. A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.”
The game ends with a dialogue saying that this eternal cycle of life and death, with all its tragedies and suffering might repeat itself once more. We might have ourselves spinning in this spiral all over again. However, armed with the spirit of hope and love, with the love for existence itself, we are asked to gather the strength to say Yes to life! To confront and embrace the behemoth that is reality. Amor Fati!
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it — all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary — but love it..”
“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Honorable Side-Themes:
In addition to the central existential theme of the game, there exist several profound side-themes which are definitely worth discussing.
Crime and Punishment
The concept of morality, sin, and the punishing feeling of guilt was recurred a few times both through the game’s main story and various optional side-quests. One of the most notable example was during an encounter with a dormant and severely damaged Engels, a goliath-class (giant) machine lifeform which we battled with in a previous chapter in the game. Through our conversation with Engels, we would learn that his time of death has drawn near, his circuits are deteriorating and his life was coming to a close.
However, although it was actually possible for us to repair him and thus prevent his death, to the astonishment of our protagonists, Engels explicitly stated that he does not want to be repaired. After contemplating the concept of sin and reflecting upon his life and actions, he has come to the realization that what he has done, the killing of countless androids, has caused them such suffering and grief. Engels decided that it would only be justice for him to atone for his sins through accepting his death and bestowing his parts to be of use to the androids.
The concept of sin and guilt was also explored through one of the game’s — at least in my opinion — most melancholic chapter, the story of Devola and Popola. Millenniums before the events in NieR Automata, humanity developed twin android models, Devola and Popola, to oversee the operation of Project Gestalt, an attempt to save humanity from a major extinction threat. Each pair of twins were given one city for them to look after. These models bore a sense of pride, having entrusted with a huge responsibility to ensure the future of humanity.
However, due to a sequence of events relating to Devola and Popola twins from another town (main plot of the game’s prequel: NieR Replicant), the whole project came into failure, and humanity was brought into extinction. Other androids, programmed with the inherent instinct and drive to protect humanity, came to despise the Devola and Popola models who have caused the extinction of all mankind. Like all the other pairs, the Devola and Popola in NieR Automata, despite not being the “culprit” of the extinction (they only looked identical to the Devola and Popola pair whose failure “caused” the extinction), were disdained, detested, outcasted from society and treated as pariahs.
Following the catastrophe, to protect the secret of humanity’s extinction from the androids, the memories of the surviving Devola and Popola models were wiped out. However, as a punishment for their sins, they were reprogrammed to bear an eternal feeling of guilt.
What Next?
Another notable and interesting recurring theme which we would get through the optional side-quests’ is what one ought to do once one fulfills their life-purpose. In one of the side-quests, we would come across a machine who is obsessed with… speed — he was extremely passionate in breaking the limits of his speed and testing how he would fare in a race against others, proving that he is the fastest there is. However, once we’ve beat this machine in a race and prove that there is, in fact, a being who is faster than him, the machine feels like his purpose is finally at an end and immediately kills himself. In another quest, we would encounter a machine who was obsessed in the pursuit of strength and sought to be the strongest fighter there is. Throughout the side-quest, this machine would keep training and challenging us, getting stronger every time until finally putting all his strength into a final fight to the death.
“Congratulations. You are truly the greatest speedster the world has ever known.
As proof of your astonishing victory, I give you this. *gives the player a prize
I can no longer challenge you
I have lived life in the pursuit of speed, and it seems my journey is at an end
It’s strange, I thought I’d be sad, but instead I feel… peace.
When I think back on how competitive I was before, it seems so very ugly.
But that was my life, and thus I own it. I am content.
I am content… “
Question is, once one has fulfilled their long-life purpose, and are content with what they have done or achieved, would it be honorable for them to end their life?
From a secular perspective, ending one’s life after the fulfillment of one’s ultimate goal would not actually be a bad thing after all. Wouldn’t it be more dramatic, more beautiful, more heroic for someone to end their life in a climax, to end their song in a crescendo, than to anti-climatically grow old and end with a boring death?
Through some religious point of views though, like Christianity for example, life is something sacred, which is God’s as opposed to the living individual’s property. Suicide is a sin as it is a deviance against God, a rejection towards the divine gift that God has given us Himself.
However, even if we disregard religious concepts for a moment, how rare is it for an individual to have actually achieved what is truly worth of him, to have achieved his utmost potential, the full extent of his capabilities. Wouldn’t there always be higher mountain to climb, a greater challenge to strive? Wouldn’t it be more honorable for a warrior to keep striving forward, to keep pushing the envelope, the realm of his possibilities, until death itself lets him rest?
Big thanks to Dyon Sugiarno for the discussions and contributions to this piece.
