[Game][Part 2] "NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139..." — Responding to Others Amidst the Fluctuation of Victimhood and Perpetration

[From the YouTube "SQUARE ENIX" channel / © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Toylogic Inc.]

Introduction: Bridging from Part 1

In the first part, we followed the story of "NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139..." along the flow from Ending A to Ending E. The journey of the protagonist Nier, who wields his sword to save his sister Yonah, approaches the truth of the world while accumulating encounters and losses with his companions. What was there was not merely a rescue story.The more he tries to save, the more he hurts someone else. The more he advances for the sake of love, the closer he gets to the collapse of the world itself. It was a story that carried such pain.

In this second part, rather than tracing the plot again, we will consider the ethical questions that lie beneath it. Why does Nier's battle remain in our hearts so deeply? It is because he is not a hero who defeats easily identifiable evil. He wants to save Yonah. That desire is straightforward and unquestionable. However, that straightforwardness also becomes violence when viewed from a different perspective. Herein lies the most painful fluctuation of this work.

Where does the boundary between humans and Shades lie? When does the act of protecting someone turn into an act of hurting someone else? When you cannot save the entire world, can you still reach out to the other person right in front of you? "NieR Replicant" deeply carves such questions into the player's emotions.

Here, we will also use the auxiliary line of what Lacan calls the "Big Other" just a little bit. The whole of society, the whole of humanity, the world itself. People cannot easily respond to such a large Other. However, they do respond to someone right in front of them. Yonah, Kaine, Emil. What Nier chooses is not abstract humanity, but others within the distance where his voice can reach. That small choice, while becoming an irreparable destruction from the perspective of the world, still sustains his life.

This contradiction cannot be simply judged. That is precisely why this work remains not just a tragedy, nor just a moving story, but a work that makes us want to keep thinking about it even now.

Chapter 1: The Inversion of Boundaries - The True Nature of Shades and the Question of Humanity

The greatest inversion in "NieR Replicant" lies in the revelation of the true nature of the Shades. The beings that the player has been cutting down as enemies were not just monsters. They were the souls of former humans, Gestalts separated from their bodies by Project Gestalt.

When humanity faced the crisis of extinction, it tried to survive by separating soul and body. Souls were to be preserved as Gestalts, and bodies were to be maintained as Replicants. However, the plan did not go well. Souls became unstable, and bodies began to have their own wills. The mechanism to save humanity gradually turned into a mechanism that makes it unclear what a human is.

What fluctuates here is not just the boundary between enemy and ally. It is the boundary of humanity itself. Replicants were supposed to be created as beings without souls. Yet they love, suffer, and try to protect someone. Nier thinks of Yonah, Kaine carries loneliness and anger, and Emil tries to protect his friends while being afraid of his own power. Then, are they not human?

On the other hand, Gestalts are the souls of former humans. If we place the basis for being human there, perhaps they are the true humanity. However, having become beings called Shades, they have lost their words, changed their forms, and are seen as objects of fear by the Replicants. Are you human if you have a soul? Are you human if you have a body? Is it enough to have memories? Is it enough to be able to love someone? This work does not provide easy answers to any of these.

Rather, what is important is the fact that no answer is reached. When Nier cuts down a Shade, he is trying to protect his sister. That act is a desperate justice for him. But at the same time, it is also an act of destroying the souls of former humans. His sword holds both protection and destruction simultaneously. An act for the sake of love becomes perpetration in another place. That unavoidable twist flows at the bottom of the story.

This inversion also casts a shadow on the pleasure of the game itself. Defeating enemies, gaining experience points, and moving forward. The basic feel of an RPG is something that should provide the player with growth and a sense of accomplishment. However, in this work, the enemies that have been defeated rise up as beings that can speak and as beings that might have once been human. Then, the meaning of the battles that have been fought as a matter of course changes.

The cruelty of this work is not in blaming the player. Rather, it lies in the fact that it quietly confronts us with how the rightness of our actions, when we believe something is right, looks from a different perspective. Humans and Shades, soul and body, those who protect and those who take. The boundary between them is not as certain as we think.

Chapter 2: When Victims and Perpetrators Intersect

When boundaries fluctuate, the positions of victims and perpetrators also begin to fluctuate. Nier is a human whose sister was taken away. The wish to save Yonah is the very reason for his existence. That is why he takes up his sword. He defeats the Shades attacking the village, protects his friends, and moves forward to reclaim Yonah. Looking only at that figure, he is undoubtedly a victim and a protagonist with a reason to fight.

But what about from the side of the Shades? They are also beings trying to reclaim their lost bodies. For the Gestalts, the Replicant body is also the place they should originally return to. If we think that way, Nier's sword is also something that cuts off their hope. Every time he tries to protect, the place where someone else belongs is taken away.

Here, victimhood and victimization can no longer be simply separated. While Nier is someone who has been hurt, he is also someone who hurts others. While Shades are beings that instill fear, they are also beings trying to reclaim what was taken from them. It cannot be said that one side is right and the other is wrong. Because if the perspective changes, the story you see changes as well.

This structure is also deeply etched into Kaine and Emil. Kaine has been discriminated against and excluded as a being possessed by a Shade. She is someone who has been hurt. But at the same time, she stands on the side that uses that power to slash enemies and hurt others. Emil, too, is an innocent boy who has been burdened with the power of a weapon. His kindness and his power of destruction coexist within a single body.

What we have here is not the question of "who is actually at fault." Rather, it is the structure where everyone, while being hurt, ends up hurting someone else. Being a victim does not mean one is completely free from victimization. Being a perpetrator also does not mean that person has not suffered wounds. This work depicts that realm which cannot be easily divided.

That is precisely why the player is placed in an unstable position. I want to support Nier. I want him to save Yonah. I want Kaine and Emil to live, too. But I can no longer pretend not to know that those wishes are tied to the loss of someone else. Advancing the story is, at the same time, driving someone to an irreversible place. That pain deeply changes the experience of the latter half.

The ethics of "NieR Replicant" do not lie within clean righteousness. Rather, they lie in the place where righteousness has fractured. Protecting someone results in hurting someone else. Even so, one cannot help but choose something. Amidst that fluctuation, Nier and the others reach out toward their respective others.

Chapter 3: Not to the Great Other, but to the Other Before Your Eyes

In a world where victimhood and victimization intersect and the contours of righteousness waver, what will Nier choose? What becomes important here is the problem of the "Other".

Saving all of humanity. Protecting the order of the world. Correctly completing the lost plan. Such grand objectives certainly exist within the story. But Nier cannot respond to that totality. What he sees is not abstract humanity, but Yonah suffering from illness, Kaine carrying her loneliness, and Emil frightened by his own power. His sword is not aimed at the entire world. It is always swung for the sake of someone right in front of him.

Here, the auxiliary line of Lacan's "Big Other" becomes effective. The Big Other is a large space, like society, order, or the world as a whole, that seems to envelop us while never being something a single person can directly grasp. For Nier, all of humanity, or perhaps Project Gestalt, stands in his way as such a Big Other. If he tries to respond to that, he is far too powerless.

However, that does not mean he can do nothing. Even if he cannot reach the Big Other, he can reach out to the other before his eyes. Herein lies the ethics of this work. Nier is not someone who saves all of humanity. Rather, from the world's perspective, his choices bring about irreversible destruction. Even so, he cannot abandon Yonah. He cannot pretend the time he spent with Kaine and Emil never happened.

This choice is by no means clean justice. Because saving Yonah also means taking away someone else's Yonah. The sacrifices made to save Kaine might be impossible to justify from the perspective of the world as a whole. But this work does not easily judge that contradiction. Rather, it gazes at the figure of a human who, in a place where universal righteousness cannot reach, still chooses someone.

Emil's existence also quietly supports this theme. He was created as a weapon and burdened with the power of destruction. While treated as a tool to save the world, that power also deeply wounds him. Yet, until the end, he tries to use that power for his friends. A being designed for the whole tries to live for someone close to him. In that turn, there is his painfully human nature.

Responding to the Big Other is often impossible. All of humanity, all of society, the world itself. In the name of those, a single voice is easily erased. But one can sometimes respond to the pain of someone right in front of them. Even if it is incomplete, contains contradictions, and carries the possibility of hurting someone else.

Nier's story exists within that precariousness. Someone who cannot save the world still trying to save someone. That choice remains not as a matter of righteousness, but as a matter of response.

Chapter 4: Sacrifice and the Recovery of Memory - The Meaning of the D and E Endings

The D Ending is a conclusion that leaves a particularly strong pain even within this work. To save Kaine, who is suffering from being eroded by a Shade, Nier offers up his own existence. What is lost there is not just a life. His name, his memories, and the traces of the time he spent with others all vanish from the world.

This erasure does not conclude solely within the story. By deleting the player's save data, the event of losing touches upon our own experience on this side of the screen. The time spent building up to this point vanishes. The records of what you nurtured are gone. The traces of the journey you walked disappear. Through a mechanism only possible because it is a game, the sacrifice is not merely a plot point, but something carved into the player's own hands.

However, the Ending E added in the remake offers another possibility for that complete erasure. The story begins from Kaine's perspective. Nier's existence should have been erased from the world. No one should remember him. Yet, an inexplicable void remains. Even though she should have forgotten, something is missing. Even though he should have been lost, he has not completely disappeared. That sense of unease drives Kaine forward.

Here, what is important is that memory is not merely a way to preserve the past. Memory can also be a force that attempts to call back a lost existence. Nier does not return through his own power alone. Someone who should not remember him still touches upon his absence, and by tracing that void, he is called back into the world once more.

Ending D demonstrated the thoroughness of self-sacrifice. To completely offer up one's own existence. To have even the fact that you existed erased. It is far too beautiful, and at the same time, far too cruel. If the story had ended there, this work might have closed as a tragedy of erasing oneself for the sake of love.

However, with the addition of Ending E, the meaning changes. Sacrifice is no longer a complete end. Even if names are erased, records are deleted, and traces are lost from the world, the void remaining within others can sometimes call back the lost. Existence is not completed solely by oneself. It can continue to persist within the memories, pain, and unease of others.

The salvation found here is by no means bright. Not everything is reclaimed. The lost time is not completely compensated for. Even so, an existence that should have vanished is called back once more through someone's memory. In that form of faint recovery, this work provides a deep lingering resonance that can only be touched upon through the medium of a game.

Chapter 5: Embracing the Fluctuation, and Choosing Nonetheless

As we have seen so far, what this work depicts is not a neatly organized ethics. The boundary between humans and Shades fluctuates, the positions of victim and perpetrator are swapped, and one cannot respond to the great Other. Sacrifice is not just beautiful, and recovery through memory is not a perfect salvation. Everything is broken somewhere.

Yet, it is precisely that fracture that makes this story strong. Nier's choice may have been a mistake when viewed from the perspective of the entire world. One could say that because he tried to save Yonah, the future of humanity was closed off. However, to him, Yonah is not a more distant existence than abstract humanity. He cannot simply abandon his sister who is suffering right before his eyes. We cannot easily deny that helplessness.

Kaine and Emil are the same. They are not pure victims. They are beings who, while being hurt, have also gained the power to hurt others. But that is precisely why their choices carry weight. It is not only those who possess absolutely no possibility of hurting someone who reach out to others. Rather, it is the act of choosing for someone else even while harboring violence and voids within oneself. That imperfection is depicted as humanity.

We who live in the modern age also cannot stand in a place without fluctuation. Things we did thinking they were right may hurt someone else. In events where we thought we were the victims, we may have unknowingly cornered someone. When we try to speak of society as a whole or grand justice, we may overlook the small pain right in front of us. That is why this story is not a distant fantasy, but quietly returns to our own place.

Perhaps what is important is not to eliminate the fluctuation. Rather, it is to continue thinking about what to choose even while embracing that fluctuation. Saving someone might hurt someone else. Even so, one cannot abandon the other right in front of them. There is no correct answer there. But, precisely because there is no correct answer, the choice does not become light.

"NieR Replicant" does not leave behind a refreshing victory. It is not a sense of accomplishment for having saved the world. Rather, what remains after it ends is a question that cannot be easily resolved. What is a human? Who should be saved? Can sacrifice be called love? Can memory support a lost existence.

To continue reaching out to others while holding onto that question. Not to eliminate the fluctuation, but to choose someone amidst the fluctuation. The ethics of this work lie there.

Conclusion: To Live While Embracing Fluctuation

What remains after finishing "NieR Replicant" is not a clean salvation. The boundary between humans and Shades fluctuates, acts of protection hurt someone else, and love sometimes destroys the world itself. Nier's journey was not a story of a hero defeating evil, but a story of walking through a world where caring for someone can also become violence toward someone else.

However, I do not believe those fluctuations exist solely to drive us to despair. In places where righteousness has fractured, people still choose someone. Nier, who wishes to save Yonah; Kaine, who reaches out to others while harboring her own loneliness; Emil, who tries to protect his friends while fearing his own power. Their choices are by no means innocent. Yet, it is precisely within that imperfection that the earnest desire for humans to live with others resides.

What was lost in Ending D is brought back in Ending E, albeit in an incomplete form. The vanished existence remains in someone's memory, and that void sets the story in motion once more. What is found there is not a bright salvation that restores everything. Rather, it is a faint, yet certain hope that what has been lost does not disappear entirely.

We may not be able to save the entire world. We may not be able to maintain righteousness until the very end. Even so, we can choose not to abandon the person right in front of us. Even if that choice creates a different kind of pain, we can still continue to think, continue to regret, and continue to try to respond to someone.

NieR Replicant is not a work that erases those fluctuations. On the contrary, it is a work that gazes at our weakness—the fact that we can only choose others within those very fluctuations. That is precisely why this story remains quietly with us even after it ends.In a place without salvation or condemnation, we still find ourselves thinking of someone.I believe we will continue to reflect on that pain and kindness time and time again.