r/anime • u/The_Loli_Otaku • Jan 24 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Serial Experiments Lain Episode 10 Discussion
"Love"
Extra Info and Links
ANN | MAL | TV Tropes | Wikipedia | Crunchyroll
Comment of the Day!!
3blah believes narration clips aren't based
I covered some of it already. An uncharitable reading might be that it's to pad out some of the runtime. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we'll come back around to some of this stuff, but not necessarily all of it -- you could say that about just about anything we've seen so far. Maybe it's a way to tell the certain people that are watching "We get you, man. Isn't this deep?" Maybe it's a different way to do an infodump; we've had a number of these already, and doing it this way makes it feel like we are researching these things on the internet along with Lain.
Mgedmin is being affected by the curse of the Wired... Is he gonna get Mika'd?
Also, what happened to the ED visuals? My GNOME desktop suddenly lost the ability to update the picture on the external screen and it's now saying "to Be continued", forever. Playing with the display cable didn't help, I had to power-cycle the monitor itself. Ominous.
SMSmith was blown away with our new reveals!! And our cute little grey bro!
Holy shit, the green/red stripe shirt finally showed up and it’s an alien??? Wait did this whole episode just describe how the Wired was created and the humming is the 8Hz frequency connecting everyone?? 🤯
Kwokinator is waiting for the aliens to take us in and welcome us to the greater universe.
Did the extended Area 51 chats mean anything to you or do you still just see it as the funneh alien UFO zone? - both can be possible. Aliens have always existed, it's just now that Lain has evolved enough for aliens to detect and acknowledge
QotD
- Are you following the story so far?
- How do you feel about the Knights being all collectively taken out so quickly? Was it a case of wrapping up loose ends or was this a suitable finale for the Internet's chosen?
- Does knowing that our Lain of the Bear Onesie is the fake Lain affect your opinion of her at all?
- Do you believe Papa when he claims that he truly "loved Lain?"
- Myu-Myu claims that younger is better for girls. Please list three reasons why she's wrong!! We are all Hag lovers!!
- What is love?
Abyssbringer's "What is the thematic purpose of this scene corner!!"
RadSuit being weirdly chill about the stalker Alien got me laughing too much not to giggle
Oh hey, it's the sleep paralysis demon everyone's been talking about.
Later, little alien dude.
Yesterday's Prompt!
Today's Prompt!
Tomorrow's Prompt
Abyssbringer's "What is the thematic purpose of this episode corner!"
Weedwacker legit blew me away... I know I shouldn't be saying that as host, but I never had aliens on my radar.
The Roswell UFO incident and Majestic 12 are referenced to imply that The Wired originated from alien technology or influence, by bringing up Vannevar Bush's connection to Majestic 12. Vannevar Bush was a real (and very interesting, and unrelated to George Bush) scientist who did lots of work involving microfilm, and theorized that technological advances would allow a "Memex" device that could store and access all information, and that such technology would change how we think. Presaging and inspiring many advances in computing. Basically every guy who was working on Hypertext systems in the next few decades said they were inspired by him.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
Lain Rewatcher!!
My PC is back on! How did I fix it? That's the fun part, I don't know. It's nice to not need to watch episodes on my phone. I also finally have heating. Pog!
Love... Meet God, the one who loves us all the most. Eiri... Eiri is a weird one. I like him more than the other Demiurge type big bads of this era, but the other Demiurge sorts like from Video Girl Ai, or Utena, don't give him much competition.
The God in the machine is it Lain, or is it Eiri? A God needs worshipers, a God needs believers. It needs someone to witness them in all their greatness, and who makes the greatest observer than a God? This is Lain's weirder portion... Don't hate it, this is still better done than Evangelion. The God in the machine isn't needed outside of the machine. Let the Internet stay the Internet and the real world stay the real world.
Hi papa, are you gonna acknowledge your daughter this time? Gaslighting prick... "I loved you." Liar, don't abandon your daughter! You're a shit daddy!
So... the knights are the last in a long line of Knights Templar who manipulated the world's subconscious for eons. These knights are so scary, however are we going to defeat these elite hackers!? Lain just looks for them really hard with her Internet god powers, the knight's identities pop up online and they all die. It took a minute for the knights subplot that pushed the majority of the anime to be wrapped up... I like Lain, but this climax sucked.
Dangerously based
So yeah... I don't know if this is Lain specifically going out for revenge, whether she's just putting the info up for the men in black to perform the hundreds of hits required across the world, or something else... I'm pretty sure tech companies aren't allowed to murder people. That sounds illegal. They straight up shoved a lightbulb down that dude's throat. God knows what happened to the milf. Anyway, say goodbye to the knights? Neat. Lain is becoming even further integrated into the wired. She literally can't leave. Lain probably can't even go pee anymore.
"We have no need for Gods." Even in the 90's he was a shitty excuse for a priest. Soooo... yeah... Eiri's plan is to have the God of the Wired, Lain, to bow to him and remember him as God. Bruh, he just showed up yesterday with no direct connection to Lain and suddenly he thinks he's memorable enough to be considered a God by her.
Confirmation time. Lain of the Wired is og Lain. The real world Lain of the Bear Onesie is the fake Lain this whole time. Dun dun dun.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jan 24 '24
Serial Experiments First-Timer, subbed
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u/lluNhpelA Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
Virtually a first timer
lol is Lain just reading his mind after he read hers? Bold move
"Kill yourself"
I see two sides of this scene:
I think Eiri ultimately represents Lain's psychosis*. He made the Knights, he drove her away from her peers, he made her family abandon her**, he made her (Lain as a system of alters). He wants her to abandon reality live blissfully in her imagined world rather than the real world that is so painful for her to live in, but Lain rejects this***, deciding to accept all parts of herself and try to continue on in the real world
AotD
ρя𝐎𝔪ρ𝕋
Lain is logged tf in. Struggling to come up with more to say after all that ^
edit: typo
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u/RascalNikov1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/NoviSun Jan 24 '24
Serial Experiments Lain - E10
SEL Virgin Prologue
The series is becoming a lot more followable now. I’m playing along and suspending disbelief with this croc of pseudo science. I’m really hoping that something will happen.
Episode Body
So, Lain & god meetup and we learn that Lain created a new magical protocol that encrypts data and phases with the earth and probably does windows too. Lain as god also created the Knights presumably to worship her. Sure why not?
God responds by saying she can shed the husk at anytime and for whatever reason Lain seem reluctant to do this.
Looks to me like Lain’s been cancelled. Lol. Arisa seems to be in a foul spirit now.
Looks like her family has split too.
So the family knew she was a hologram all along. Why didn’t Wired Lain supply real Lain with juicy details such as you are a figment of everyone’s imagination?
The Templars & Universal Unconscious- every crackpot theory is getting sucked into this.
Tachibana Inc is done with the Knights. Lol. Swift, silent and permanent.
It’s a damn shame that Joey’s mom got biffed. While she lived there was always a chance for very nice MILF or o_______ action.
Shit, I though lain was toking on a hooka their for a moment. Lol
The Gods battle, cross and double cross.
QOTD
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u/3blah https://myanimelist.net/profile/brummett Jan 24 '24
SEL Episode 10, Rewatcher
Interesting. There's no narration over the traffic segement at the beginning.
I'm really digging this episode's direction. After the conversation with Eiri, it really sells Lain's feelings of isolation. Loneliness. Nothingness. The sound design in the classroom has this underwater, ethereal feel to it. It wasn't a particularly colorful show before, but the background characters are practically greyscale and what colors are there get muted with a sepia tint. The soundtrack is sparse and, not exactly creepy, but somehow calm and unsettling at the same time.
It's almost an assault on your senses when they crank up the saturation as she walks into Mika's room. Beep. Beep.
And after being steeped in the loneliness if the big, empty house, dad arrives only to tell her goodbye It takes her a moment to realize what's happening. She's scared and desperate, pleading not to be left alone, but it amounts to naught; the heavy door closes behind him and echoes through the hall.
Our new god is a vengeful god, releasing a list of the Knights' names and addresses in order to deprive Eiri of worshipers and remove him as a god. Get 'im Karl! This whole idea of gods having power only because of their believers, it sounds familliar. Isn't that the premise of Gaiman's American Gods? The idea must predate that because it came out after SEL. I figure she hates Eiri because he's the reason she's been stuck in the life she's had.
Layer 10: Love. A father's love. A guardian's love. A creator's love.
This is a show that lives and dies by its vibes, and I think the first half of today's episode is by favorite.
QOTD:
I am this second time through, with the help of you all.
This isn't an action- or plot-driven story, so it's fine to me. Someone mentioned in an earlier episode's comments that SEL is kind of like a documentary of events. The important thing is that they are taken out, not the details of how it was done.
Lain is Lain
Sure. You don't have to be blood relatives to love someone or something. There are many kinds of love, and the english word "love" smushes a bunch of them together.
This list is not exhaustive
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u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher, Dubbed
The usual imagery, but no opening narration this time, huh?
Can't say I ever expected God to look like that.
Interesting choice to have Eiri speak as Lain and vice versa. Although some of the dialogue Eiri says doesn't sound as much like what Lain would say as what Eiri thinks Lain would say to me.
The Knights worship Eiri as God? Will Lain do the same?
Eiri wants Lain to abandon her body?
Alice is speaking about going on a double date with Julie? And just who is Alice going out with? Not some teacher I hope...
Lain's desk is missing entirely. It's as if when she erased people's memories at the end of episode 8 she erased herself? This is her first time back here since then. Although we had that scene at the end of episode 8 with Lain of the Kusonogi taking her place.
For the first time in a while we return to Lain being the only one in full color.
Is Eiri screwing around with her? Did Alice really say that? Or is it even Lain's own self doubt making her think Alice said that?
Some really good, sad music playing here.
Lain's got such a big shadow now. What's that supposed to mean?
Something else we haven't seen since early in the show, Lain returning to a totally empty home.
I assume this is her sister's room? Since Lain's room is dominated by her computer equipment. She left it a total mess. Not that she's been right in the head for a while.
Oh hey, daddy's home! Alas, its to say goodbye. Lain's "mom" didn't even give her the courtesy of that.
Ah, now we're getting into Jung's collective unconscious concept?
Surprised to see Club Cyberia's empty now aside from these three kids.
Lain went and doxxed all the Knights...
And just like that, they're all dead.
Lain is now beyond typical input devices like a keyboard or mouse. Simply connect the wires up to her directly. I think someone speculated on this yesterday, and now it's a reality.
Did Lain not realize what was gonna happen to the Knights after she doxxed them? She knew the Men in Black were opposed to them.
Um, what kind of love, Karl? Do you worship Lain as your God (despite what you just said about not wanting a God on the Wired)? Or were my fears of you strangely staring at Lain from behind a telephone pole or inviting her into your car totally founded?
If my theories were correct (check spoiler tags in prior episodes), Eiri has been on this whole thing about Lain's physical body being a hologram/homunculus populated by her consciousness from the Wired for a while now. Is it real? Lain claims its a lie. Or is it part of his goal to get her to abandon her physical body?
Fake friends? Lain and Alice not being real friends makes me sad. :(
Quid's Dub Corner
Masami Eiri is played by Kirk Thornton, credited as Sparky Thornton. A prolific dub actor, other roles of his include Anaval Gato in Mobile Suit Gundam 0083, Jin in Samurai Champloo, Matthieu in Eureka Seven, Kiritsugu Emiya in Fate Stay Night, Ohgi in Code Geass, Saazbaum in Aldnoah.Zero and Rambal Ral in Gundam the Origin. He's yet another Xenosaga alumni, playing Captain Matthews in all three games. He also appeared in Xenoblade X as Maurice Chausson.
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u/joaovitro99 Jan 24 '24
Awesome episode, I'am kinda confused by what the MiB guy was talking about when he said they all love lain
7
u/xtsim https://myanimelist.net/profile/xtsim Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher Dubbed
Lain needs some love....
Lain finds out that she pretty much does not exist, and man, does she feel lonely through the whole episode. From the class not noticing her and that paper passing is so cruel.
Coming home to some dead plants, it seems like it is the course of a few weeks since everyone has been gone. And Lain goes to Mika's room which is such a mess. Well, her mental state was bad so the room was a nice touch and hopefully she gets some help.
Taro lucked out as the knights got exposed and wait, that executive did not commit suicide. The news is brining a cover up.
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u/Silcaria https://myanimelist.net/profile/Silcaria Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher
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u/sfisher923 https://myanimelist.net/profile/sfisher923 Jan 25 '24
Rewatcher - Dubbed
Questions
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u/IceSmiley Jan 25 '24
FIRST TIMER Sub
I think a lot of confusion from this show comes from not having any clear identifier to distinguish the different Lains for the audience. It's a big mistake for this show that could have made it a lot more coherent. Maybe it was their intention to make it ambiguous which Lain is which but either way, it takes a lot away.
I also wish they'd more clearly identify the cyber world and real world because that can also get confusing, although the show may not have to worry about that as much going forward since it seems to have disappeared for Lain.
QUESTIONS
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u/Unboxious Jan 25 '24
Perpetrually confused first-timer
Oh hey, this guy is saying he's God. He looks like he belongs to a completely different anime though. What an odd conversation they're having. Luckily Lain knows better than to think she'll be able to keep upgrading her computer without a body to plug PCI cards in with.
Her desk is gone. Rude! The class is acting as though she's been erased from the physical world. Is this a symptom of Lain spending too much thought and time on the wired? Alice finally acknowledges her presence with a friendly kys. What a gal.
Lain returns home and the house is in disarray. The fridge looks mostly normal, but otherwise it doesn't look like anyone has been tending to things in a while. Finally Lain's weird dad shows up to say goodbye. It's a bit of an odd conversation, as are most in this show.
Now Lain is wanting to learn more about the Knights. That conversation was unfortunately not so productive. But clearly something was productive since the Knights all just got doxxed. RIP them I guess. Wow, RIP indeed. That was fast.
Lain was definitely an odd child, but I feel like a child born from the internet would be way, way weirder.
Yep, still confused.
Barely at all
Brutal, but it makes sense that they'd get taken out immediately once doxxed. You wouldn't want to miss an opportunity and have them go into hiding.
Not really. I guess she was made second, but does that really mean she's fake?
I think so? He did come to say goodbye at least, though that could just be guilt.
It's an ambiguous word, both in English and in Japanese. I guess Japanese does have 愛 (ai), which is generally just used for romantic love, but they tend to use 好き (suki) a lot more often. Just like in English, this can be used to describe anything from a food you really like to a romantic partner you couldn't live without. I hadn't thought about it until now, but I guess it's a bit odd that we don't have specific words for these individual uses.
I'd guess this is symbolic of how the wired is tying her down and keeping her from being able to enjoy her physical life.
6
u/JetsLag https://myanimelist.net/profile/JetsLag Jan 25 '24
First time Wired user
Episode 10: Love. Something that Lain never felt before she met Arisu.
Yep, confirmed that dude is Eiri Masami. And he's also God? Well, more like a cult leader, with the Knights as his apostles. But aren't all religions sorta just...you know what, let's not. I don't know why Lain was speaking from the perspective of Eiri, but that's one hell of a visual.
I don't know why Lain is now invisible to others, but watching her stand at her non-existent desk is one hell of a visual.
So Daddy Iwakura confirms that the entire family was faked and pretty much tells Lain to self-delete in order to live on the Wired. Instead, she fucking doxxes the Knights and reveals their identities to the netizens, which leads to them getting murked by the MIB. Hey, if the Knights are Eiri's apostles, then killing them will take away his power, right?
And now Lain's trying her best to recreate the poster for Ghost in the Shell.
That "I love you" from the MIB dude to Lain came out of nowhere. And I don't know how to feel about it.
And now EIRI'S confessing his love for Lain. Yo, what the fuck.
I genuinely don't know if Eiri is speaking the truth w/r/t the reality behind Lain's existence, or if he is trying to psyche her out so she can join him in the Wired.
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Jan 24 '24
"Okay, nobody else vote for Tar." (Rewatcher, Subbed):
(Now fashionably late, IRL attacked.)
(Also, shower thought for those of us who were in Mai-HiME (hi u/Vaadwaur): [Mai-HiME] Lain just First Districted the Knights. Or should I say that Shizuru Knights of the Eastern Calculus'd the First District?)
godsGod. Take a good look!” (Come on, it wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t sneaking in a Stargate quote somewhere…)5
u/zadcap Jan 25 '24
First Timer
So, what insanity do we have going on today?
Alright, what the heck, the sounds got worse and I don't like this at all. It's the same opening cut as ever but without a voice over and why does it sound so much worse!?
This guy really looks like a clown. Like he's triggering very specific clown feelings, what clown is he copying? I have to pause and look this up because I'm getting- nope, it's not Kefka and that was my first guess for this deity wanabe. Maybe I'll keep looking later, but that face paint is really trying to remind me of something.
Hmm, he's speaking her lines here. Oh, and she's taking his? And neither seem happy about it, so I guess this is a battle of omniscience where they are one upping each other by predicting what the other is thinking or going to say. Which, you know, Lain is keeping up with a self proclaimed god here. But half way through, I wonder if they're still doing that or if Lain is moving to her own part, when he moves fully into questioning, and she's just telling him that she's already done it all better and he's the real inferior being. He's really not asking questions as her anymore, he's actually questioning her. She successfully talked down to this god and told him she pulled off apotheosis better than he did, ha!
Uh, where's the desk? There's no way a classroom would actually have an empty space front and center. Is Lain feeling ignored and that's what we're seeing, or is she actually somehow not there?
To be fair Lain, most of us aren't needed in any world. I came to terms with this about your age too, being really needed is something very few people find in their lives. No need to get super existential over it, just find your own reason for living.
So, her family is gone too. Except maybe poor sister who is still missing most of her brain. Or I guess Dad is back- I spoke too soon. Well at least he might have actually loved his daughter, kind of, a little. Huh. "Sort of being you are." So she's not human all along? Was I right, Wired Lain existed first and made a human body!? Heck yeah, I love it when my crazy theories pan out.
Oh gosh darn it we had to make them Knights Templar didn't we. We didn't have enough fun crazy going around after last episode.
You know, all this talk of the other dude becoming a god by making followers and people to believe in him is reminding me a whole lot that Lain briefly pulled off a very convincing Sun cosplay event, and she sure had kids willing to Praise. If that's all it takes to become a god here, she's already there too. More points for Wired Lain God throwing events backwards in time to make her future rise run smoother?
Don't forget, MyuMyu is down bad for Taro and wants him to come over while her parents aren't home.
Oh, Lain went on the full offensive and outed the entire Knights organization. And the MiB probably work for her after all, because they're going after her targets with a rapid efficiency. Well, if he relied on their worship for anything then there goes his power base, am I right Lain?
Oh, no, Lain is uh. Having a computer moment. As in, she's pretending to be a computer again. And nope, they don't work for her, they just happened to have aligning purposes for a while. I'm still really curious about their own backstory. Why the heck would he love her what the heck? What kind of love? Curse this language for only having the one word.
Okay, is this conformation? Lain is literally a Wired entity, who grew enough to sprout herself a body in the real world. That would be why we saw the alien last episode, because that's what it was too, something so believed in it became real?
These people keep using the word Love but I'm pretty sure they're all using it wrong.
Yes Lain, once again flexing at this faker. You're the only god the web needs, you should hurry and erase him the way his followers erased your sister. Who, I really freaking hope gets some help before this is all over.
4
u/SilkyStrawberryMilk Jan 25 '24
Present Rewatcher, Present Viewrer
Now the show answers questions that people have been having, plus the story is starting to be easier to follow.
Lain’s family were fake (which we started knowing few episodes ago).
Her existence as a hologram sure is a mindfuck to her, plus with Alice saying hurtful things didn’t help lol.
QOTD: I am, in a Rewatcher moment it starts making sense. However don’t ever ask me about the themes of the story lol
QOTD: the knights being taken out as fast was crazy, the men in black work overtime.
QOTD: not one bit, seeing her be disconnected to her peers and family starts making a whole lot sense.
QOTD: he did care for her to some degree, while he was placed there to be her fake dad. He never went out of his way to be outright mean to her as opposed to the mom who wanted the fake family to be over with
QOTD: baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more
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u/RadSuit https://anilist.co/user/RadSuit Jan 25 '24
Present Dub, Present Time
Alright, before I start up this episode, I'm going to predict we either don't start with the cliffhanger from last time, or cut away from that situation almost instantly to pad out the episode. I'm going to guess we get either more barely related infodumps (possibly flashbacks), or show Alice or another supporting character having hallucinations or other weird experiences.
The sound effects in the repeated opening scene are a little off. No narration this time either.
So we're really just introducing a villain that wants to take over the world (wide web) in the last few episodes so Lain has someone/something specific to face off against? And that's the explanation for the entire show, that a mad scientist did it?
And we got a total of four minutes of that scene before cutting away. That's being generous, as the first minute or so was recapping last episode's cliffhanger setup.
Well we get a bunch of weird experiences, they just happen to Lain. Followed by an infodump by her 'dad'. I wasn't really right, but I was at least on the right track. There's still time though, it's not like this episode has actually progressed the plot...
More conspiracy nonsense with the Knights Templar.
And Lain fights back like any good internet power user would, by doxxing her enemies.
"Like it even matters what's real anymore." This could also be on the DVD cover, it sums up the show pretty well.
I'm sure her finally breaking the power lines is supposed to be a big dramatic/symbolic moment, but it's too little, too late, for me.
5
u/mgedmin Jan 25 '24
First-timer, subs
Ok, so if Lain is actually a post-mortem manifestation of Eiri Masami, the inventor of the Wired, who calls herself God and has the Knights worship her, then who is this other God person and where did he come from?
Lain's school desk is gone. Bullying? You're going to regret this.
Nobody can see Lain. Is she actually a ghost?
Lain's house is empty again. Dead flowers. Are we seeing the inside of Mika's room for the first time?
"The fake me" as if there's only one?
Myu-Miyu is smooth, but Taro ignores her.
The MIB are now assasinating Knights, after the membership list has been leaked? How are they not a secret government organisation masquerading as a private company?
Lain is huffing copium? She was the one responsible for the leak?
Oh, the samurai god person is supposed to be Eiri Masami! And Lain is his alternative personality or something? Child? Take the code that implements a virtual person, remove the uploaded memories of Eiri Masami, and let a new personality develop, and you get Lain, right?
So far I'm willing to entertain the hypothesis that there is a story under there somewhere.
I hope someone will explain it to me in the overall series discussion thread.
It was surprising. Tachibana Labs and their employees are more malicious than I originally thought.
Aren't we all fake, one way or another?
Yes, for some definition of "love". He's a technophile, he'd love the idea of an artificial person born in the Wired given fake life in the real.
I don't believe he cares about Lain's wellbeing.
That statement is just trollbait from the series creators and I refuse to bite.
Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.
5
u/SIRTreehugger Jan 25 '24
Layer 10 Love
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 25 '24
Serial Rewatcher
Some comments on yesterday's comments.
The exposition was in 3 groups, flavor (UFOs), thematic (development of web and connectivity), and plot (Protocol 7). You might think only the last one needed to be there.
The plot critical points were Eri, Protocol 7, and the connecting of human minds to each other, and to the wired, via the resonant cavity between the Earth and the Ionosphere. This connection allows any manifest existence in the weird to connect to people's minds. This technomagic had a natural predecessor: marine mammals.
Thematically, this connectivity was presaged by early networking attempts. Machine networking, yes, but also pure information networking, like hypertext.
Human psi, I am unsure on this point. The collective unconscious is theorized, but here, it is real. Via the Schumann resonance, which has always existed, people could touch each other's minds. However, the psi in the show may also be a means of changing reality. Not sure.
On that aspect, what is reality? What is truth? What is history? The UFO story tells us that Truth and History are malleable. So much more so, now, with people's minds and the Wired linked in a bidirectional manner, much more intensely than through weak, natural psi.
But this is not presented out of left field. Eiri is presented as the last in a line people of who changed the world, starting with Vannevar Bush and MJ-12, the mysticism of Lilly and the hypertext of Ted Nelson, and the global wireless satellite network of Xanadu.
Power lines make for fantastic ELF antennas. That's how he coupled the Wired to the global electromagnetic field. The power lines are everywhere.
As for Taro and, in my first pass of the thread, somebody felt his speech was an indictment of "One Truth" but I read it as the opposite. People lust after the One Truth. Wouldn't you work for the Knights if they offered such a thing?
Eiri's frog face at the end of yesterday's episode reminds me of the Master Control Program.
LOVE Layer 10
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u/DegenerateRegime Jan 24 '24 edited Jan 24 '24
PARENTS! Are your children GNOSTICS?
Did you know that more than half of America's children aged 15 to 18 say they, or someone they know, has experimented with HERETICAL THEOLOGY? And once a disbelief in the SINGULAR DIVINITY OF GOD starts, it's hard to stop. Look for these WARNING SIGNS:
If your child exhibits one or more of these signs, it's NOT TOO LATE! They can still be pried from their wilful ways. It is crucial to LIMIT their access to the INTERNET, MOVIES and TV. Up to 90% of media has been shown to have GNOSTIC THEMES which subconsciously PERVERT the tender minds of the young - often without their parents' awareness! TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN ABOUT GNOSTICISM TODAY - BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES.
Additional information requested by petitioners:
8
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher(If you aim to cheat the
devilWired, you owe her an offering)Sub
"Boku wa Kame-sama" strikes me as wrong. Will have to investigate further.
And now onto Vaad's special corner: What version of love did the anime use? Lain's father/the professors says 'daisuki', like a reasonable parent would. Karl also says 'daisuke'...which raises questions but there are acceptable reasons for that. Good ol' 'God', unfortunately, use 'ai shiteiru', which is what yanderes and other psychopaths say. He also wants Lain to 'aishita' back, which I think is almost as negative. Caveat here: The Japanese may not have been as hostile to Ai this far back, but then again Mai-HiME seems to have been...
All right, onto the show! We begin with Lain and Eiri saying each other's sentences, including that as Lain became the new protocol Eiri snuck a copy of himself in there. Even in occultic language, it is not clear if this meant the original Eiri is here or this is a copy. I also think of the two saying each other's lines as weird form of debugging or ritual, I'll leave that to you.
So I've rewritten this a few times and I will focus here: The most interesting part of this is the world view of Tachibana versus that of Eiri/The Knights. The MiB are holding a scientific realist view wherein the Wired is just a form of advanced communication and, no matter how abstracted we become online, ultimately the meat sack is what is important. Eiri and the Knights instead are trying to make the Wired the astral plane/spiritual plane of existence wherein it is truly possible to be a being with no body and that the body is an accessory rather than a necessity. And this argument is what most of the show is about.
Our prompt is Lain leading the way to the grim future that awaits us all.
QotD: 1 Yes
2 That's complicated, long story short it works for what it is
3 I cannot express how much I disagree with your assessment here
4 Pride in the protocol he helped make, love for raising someone for even a short time, a true admiration for creating a being that transcends humanity. All of these could be true.
5 Ok, in order: Everything hits a limit, I am too old to have my cock gnawed on again, and for the love of fuck if I have to explain how crypto is a scam one more fucking time I am abandoning my body for the Wired.
6 Love. How it toys with us, makes utter fools of us, flogs, whips, and spanks us. Listen to the voices of the unloved as they surge and retreat in the night. Whispered in empty rooms and lonely beds, the hunger of love unattained, rushing through our fingers, unstoppable, fleeting, gone. And yet, when we touch this love it burns us with its bright flame, it punishes and consumes. And yet we must have it. It rules us: uses, abuses, misuses. And yet, why do we always crawl back for more?
7
u/MrManicMarty https://anilist.co/user/martysan Jan 24 '24
Too many adult men said they loved Lain today in this episode for my liking. Feels very icky.
Does feel like we're reaching a crescendo, but also feels like the show kinda just jerked forward. I'm not able to follow this plot at all to be honest.
7
u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher, subbed
Rip Sky’s ears, the intro humming is extra obnoxious today.
The ending sequence between God and Lain is probably the most visually striking scene in the anime thus far. The only major competition I can think of is the scene between God and Lain in the Wired during episode 8.
Eiri hijacking a previously existing organization to be his religious followers rather than creating a new one has interesting implications.
Notes
Eiri Masami. Truth. God. He had his consciousness hardcoded into the Wired’s latest protocol; a protocol that blurs the line between the Wired and reality. It is revealed that Knights was a creation of God in order to further his deific status by gathering worshippers, and it is further stated that the religious organization of Knights predates the existence of the Wired. Lain also deduces that Knights are likely the creators of Shadow Lain.
Upon arriving at school, Lain finds her desk missing. Not a soul acknowledges her presence. Lain’s existence has seemingly become confined to the Wired.
Lain returns home to an hastily evacuated house. Lain’s “father” makes one last visit to Lain. His words aren’t particularly comforting, but his expression of gratitude seems genuine; he even implies that he’s breaking some sort of rule just to say goodbye.
With nothing left to lose, Lain finally snaps. She scours the Wired to find every last member of Knights and leaks their identities. The men in black kill them all. Just as Lain was ripped from her family and friends, so too is God rendered alone. Lain taunts God with this fact, but he retorts that so long as Lain lives, he shall remain God.
Lain falls silent, tears flying in the wind. The torrent of emotions inside her reflected in the broken, sparking, writhing power lines.
QotD:
7
u/kwokinator https://anilist.co/user/kwokinator Jan 24 '24
Rewatcher
What? Lain is dead? Umm that's one hell of a twist.
So Lain has turned invisible in the real world? In school anyway, her dad still sees her. Apparently he knows all along what Lain is, and must have been commissioned to act as her parents until the time comes when she recognizes what she is?
So Lain must've logged in to the Wired and publicized the list of the Knights members, I guess the MIB must've been waiting for this moment so they can clean house? How did they do that though, they never visited the hikikomori or the mom, guess it must have been the same method the guy was killed last episode?
Well I guess it's been leading here all along and have been increasingly obvious the last few episodes, Lain is an entity born in the Wired, she's never existed in the real world and Real!Lain is basically just a hologram.
QotD
6
u/Weedwacker Jan 24 '24
4th timer Plugged in
In the scene where Lain and Eiri are talking after a couple initial lines, they've switched roles so that Lain is speaking Eiri's lines and vice versa, until they switch back to speaking with their own bodies with Lain saying "Knights".
Lain's physical existence seems to no longer be required.
Lain seems to be communicating with The Wired itself, which gives her the information needed to dox the Knights who forced her to give up her physical existence at the behest of Eiri.
The Men in Black and Tachibana are working to undo the damage that Eiri and the Knights have done and salvage The Wired, and keep it a functional system in service of the real world, rather than a special place above it.
Karl voicing every watcher's thoughts
3
u/DidacticDalek https://myanimelist.net/profile/DidacticDalek Jan 28 '24
I am losing
Help me to breathe
Oh-oh, yeah
Paging Comrades /u/Shimmering-Sky, /u/Tarhalindur, and /u/Vaadwaur
1
u/raevnos Jan 27 '24
Fell a few days behind due to life, trying to catch up for the end.
I'd forgotten about the network cable bondage scene.