We’re back! This is the best episode yet on NieR Automata. We finish the B play through here and unravel even more of the story. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a like and a comment letting us know. Thank you, and please enjoy this episode of the State of the Arc Podcast!
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30 Comments
Another thing. The Girls in Red can also be seen extremely briefly during the B playthrough's preample to the Adam and Eve fight in the underground crash site.
Super excited to hear your thoughts on where the game goes from here! Everything in the game up to this point is great for all the reasons you've discussed, but it's the remainder that made the game so memorable for me.
I'm kinda surprised that's the spoiler he was talking about, I assumed they knew humanity was gone because of the ending of replicant with the gestalt project failing
I think it'd be a good idea to eventually watch the Antimony play/music video. It's meant to used as the ED for the Nier Automata anime but it adds a lot more to the lore on of itself.
So Adam became Russell Brand? Christ, that’s bleak 😧
Anyone know why Adam and Eve wear those gloves with red claws?
The teachers, that use Trump as a parabel to keep trying, are blinded by reality TV.
Trump failed at being a business man countless of times, but when he worked as an ENTERTAINER at the Apprentice he found success. Him following the nuture of his father, who wanted him to be a businessman like him himself, lead to failure, while following his nature as an entertainer lead to success.
Looking at the facts Trumps story is a parabel to give up AND try something else.
Adam: "I am 12 and this is deep." Like this guy been on Reddit his entire first week of existing lol.
I’m pretty sure that Immanuel is a double reference, as one of the few places where Yoko Taro went with a first name instead of last. Yes, it’s a Kant reference. But also, in a story about the death of god/meaning and finding existential purpose apart from what you formerly worshipped/followed, how could a baby king who is the sole purpose of this kingdom, supposedly inheriting a royal/divine personhood from his father, with 12 knights/disciples, whose name is Hebrew for “god with us” not be a reference, too, to Jesus? And then this king/god/purpose dies, and the same existential crisis grips the forest kingdom as it has already for the machines and as it will [redacted for spoilers]. I’m not saying Immanuel is 1:1 Jesus, but he’s definitely a reference.
You missed a philosopher! The 'leviathan' was called Grun (Karl Theodor Ferdinand Grün). Seriously, someone could do a PhD thesis on this game! I've been playing games for about 45 years and this is the best I've ever played. The depth of the characters and story and the way that story is told is just amazing. The more you delve into (and the background material), the better it gets.
Much like Final Fantasy VII, the spoiler that gets all the attention isn't actually the one that makes the story good. It's also big, but more importantly it's really simple to explain, whereas the spoiler that actually stays with people would require too much explanation to easily spoil.
It's an interesting thought if this is something of a strategy you could use if you want to make a twist-heavy story that enjoys continued success. Make sure the simplest, flashiest one isn't the actual crux of the story.
I'm don't think the reveal about humanity being completely dead is supposed to be a giant revelation for the player, which is why the Commander reveals it so casually when 9S asks. In my first playthrough I'd suspected that it was the case once I was a few hours in and hadn't actually seen any humans and how ridiculous the whole scenario of humans living on the moon sounded the more you learn about the world. If you played the first game before Automata then it's even harder to believe with how that ended.
Of course this would be a giant revelation for the characters in-universe but if 9S is already asking the question then he already knows enough that it would be pointless to deny it (not that they put all that much effort into hiding it in the first place). I'm not sure if I'm remembering right but I don't think it's even a secret outside of YorHa since at the very least the Devola and Popola androids would know and the reason they're shunned by other androids is because of this failure that lead to humanity's end, so I'm pretty sure the androids outside of Yorha know.
I am finally able to play a game in step with you guys, and am I late to the party on this game!
I don't know if any one mentioned it, but if you leave the game in the main menu for a while the game starts playing one of the trailers for the game, and in that trailer the year of when the game takes place is shown and its 11945 A.D. That means that the war has been going on for almost 7000 years!
I remember you talked about the state of the world and the human infrastructure in Ep1. or Ep2. and honestly the world is in a much better state than it has any right to be, even with resistance android maintenance.
37:03 there is a screenshoot feature on PC and on console.
I'm hoping at some point you share your views on the different versions of the ending credits music tied to each ending and the lyrics. Like the Japanese language version for ending B you'd have heard here, the vocal performer was so overwhelmed with emotion she was singing through tears during the final chorus and Yoko Taro felt it fit so well with the game's theme that it was used as the final take. As Casen knows Japanese I'm sure he'd recognize how much darker the lyrics are compared to the English language Weight of the World from ending A, and therefore how performing it could cause such a reaction.
Of course, the best version is associated with ending E but no spoilers.
https://youtu.be/bk-nQ7HF6k4
Not that irrelevant to your topic!
SPOILER. The death of humanity surprised me. I had played Nier (PS3) before Automata, but I didnt understood that we had doomed humanity.
Congrats, you've reached the half point of the game.
I had connections problems with my internet. But 2 weeks ago I ment that sentence, it shows how you perceive which relations they have. 3 words sprung in my mind at the same time.
As others have said already, the 4* word doesn’t have to be fuck, it can be love, hate, hurt, kill, save etc. etc.
Ofc majority of people will think of fuck as the first thing because 2B is very attractive and sexualized with her design and well, self destruct helps that even more and people always have a dirty mind lol
It is pretty meta in that sense tbh
My mind filled that in as well at first because ofc it did but after thinking about it for a while, it is just one of many possible words and tbh…might even be one of the least possible ones
This game's plot twists remind me of FF7 in a funny way. Everyone memes on AERITH DIES, when in actuality the REALLY important plot twist has nothing to do with that. Of course FF7R just had to go ahead and ruin it right away lol.
Anyway 'mankind is dead' is a nice red herring.
49:15 That line about "insanity" (which was also famously used in Farcry 3) is often said to be from Einstein… but that's not true.
It's actually from random some pulp novel from the 80s lol
Besides the line itself isn't even correct in my opinion (unless you only see it as more of a metaphor, or theatrical comparison)
Honestly I feel Clemps put it best in his video analysis of Nier Automata. Since at the end of the first Nier game revealed Project Gestalt failing by the Shadow Lord being killed by Nier means the end of humanity it initially felt like a retcon that humans fled to the moon, so the revelation for fans who played the first Nier first would probably sigh a breath of fresh air due to it meaning there was no retcon, but still hearing it out loud still feels like an existential crisis. Like he pointed out that in some way he speculates that 9S was probably going through a similar feeling to how it was when you find out Santa Claus isn't real, and while that might be downplaying it big time because it is comparing the sixth extinction to a kid finding out a fat guy in a red suit doesn't deliver your presents to you every December 25th, it still gets you to question a lot of other things and this portion of the plot sets in motion 9S's character for the rest or the game in a really interesting way.
Kant's thing-in-itself is the unperceivable cause of perception, which can only be inferred as a necessary condition for the possibility of external knowledge.
i thought they put the king's core into the baby and the machines jsut assumed the baby would grow back up.
I just finished ending B maybe 5 minutes ago (so I am a bit behind you guys) but I just noticed something. I am currently playing using the Japanese voices with the English version so that might be effecting things. But, I am pretty sure that ending A song was in English and that the ending B song was in Japanese. I haven't gotten to ending C or D yet; but I assume that those ending songs will be in the angel language.
If this is true… what do you think about that? Is Yokotaro saying something about the differences between English and Japanese with respect to the philosophy of the story?
Does the pure Japanese version also have the first ending song in English also? Did the pure English version have the B ending song in Japanese?
Let me fire this one out into the void.
Facebook just reminded me of something I wrote seven years ago, and I was quite surprised to see that it was a synopsis of Nier: Automata, only nine months before the game released:
The entirety of human history can be summed thusly: you start with a horde of barbarians. They survive long enough to either collect or create some pretty interesting shit. We call this civilization. This goes on for a while until the dregs of that civilization (typically peoples who are structurally excluded) coalesce into a new barbarian horde. Now that horde wants the other hordes' interesting shit. Being that the new horde is always better at making due with less than its civil opponent, the new horde always wins. So now they have all the interesting shit, and somebody else now wants that.
Repeat that for at least 13,000 years and you get human history.
In the face of this meaningless repetition, I am starting to think maybe the best way to determine the sophistication of any civilization is to observe its cruelty. Why do I say this? Because cruelty is a uniquely human trait–like it or lump it, it may be the most human of traits.
Think of it this way: the Romans, the Mongols, etc., as civilizations, did a lot more than us with a great deal less. They not only conquered nearly the entirety of 'the known world,' they did that shit without electricity. Do you understand the sheer level of organization and administration required to accomplish such a task? Now imagine doing that, having to plan, decide, and execute in a comparative vacuum of information and efficacy.
Cruelty is brain-power. You don't need electricity when you've got crucifixion. You know, technology, as such, isn't only science and machines; it is also language and behavior patterns. Moreover, technology, as such, does not exist in-itself for us, rather, technology exists as an expression of human activity–and human activity is, at its heart, merely propagation of the species. Therefore, one could say that technology, as such, could be defined as any attempt to negotiate a given set of external conditions with whatever is ready to hand.
But you know what? Maybe I'm selling modern civilization short. After all, we've actually industrialized and automated our cruelty. Hell, I've got a box in my bedroom that let's the cruelty stream right in.
And I'm not saying go out and be cruel. I'm just saying that it fascinates me to mark the difference between what defines us and how we define ourselves. It boggles the mind, beggars belief, but it is man's very inhumanity to man that makes us human, that makes us men.
"et dicit eis ecce homo"
As others have mentioned, the “you really want to ** 2B” could be a multitude of four letter words—love or hate would also be apt here.
But it’s most likely meant to be fuck or kill, which is mostly just an equating of sex and death (Freud?), and will hold more relevance the further into the game you go. But there’s a lot of sex/death being related to each other in the game (Adam equating death to love, 2B loving caressing 9S before straddling him and choking the life out of him in A and B, etc).
Yoko Taro loooooves erotic death, from Drakengard to Nier. He’s a character.
Mind blowing spoiler but you're in for a treat for all the endings
As much of a pain as it might be to set up due how non-linear it is, would you guys consider doing a podcast on 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim in the future? It is an absolutely insane sci-fi story, one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It pays homage to all of the classic sci-fi stories, in particular the ones of the 80s, while managing to masterfully tie them all together in an original story with one jaw-dropping plot twist after another. It is a masterclass in non-linear storytelling, and I'd really like to see you guys break down the plot and storytelling techniques used in the game, for two reasons in particular.
1. There are seriously not enough videos out there analyzing this very niche and relatively unknown game.
2. Much like with Xenogears, you only get to experience this game's mind-screwy rollercoaster of a plot for the first time once, then all you can do is enjoy watching other people experience it for the first time.
Again, might be a bit of a pain to plan out because of how non-linear it is, but I think this game truly deserves the State of the Arc treatment.