Why Nier is a Perfect Flawed Protagonist
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- The protagonist of Yoko Yaro's NieR: Replicant, commonly known as Nier, is presented a kind, optimistic youth as he journeys to save his sister. Yet, is that really the case? Inside Nier lies something a bit sinister, which I believe creates one of the best flawed characters in video games. Let's dive into what makes Nier such an excellent character.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
5:31 Drakengard and the Character of Nier
9:00 After the Time Skip
13:17 Nier is Not a Hero
17:19 The World Left Behind
18:51 Ending Notes
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Credits to:
Boss Fight Database (Various Boss Battle and Endings Footage)
/ @bossfightdatabase
Shirrako (Emil Boss Fight)
• Nier Automata - Emil T...
FightinCowboy (NieR Replicant Let's Play: Part 19)
• NieR Replicant - Let's...
Playstation (Drakengard 3 -- Philosophies of Violence)
• Drakengard 3 -- Philos...
ForX Gaming (Yoko Taro GDC 2014 Presenation)
• NieR's Yoko Taro @ GDC...
DEFADE (Translation of Grimoire NieR's The Red and the Black)
nier.fandom.com/wiki/The_Red_...
TCGRyan (MGS3 The Boss Fight)
• Video
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The NieR series is owned and published by Square Enix! All rights are reserved under fair use!
#nier #nierreplicant #analysis - Ігри
![ОРБАН приехал к ПУТИНУ и "отчитался" о поездке в Киев 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0ukDovOWq8/mqdefault.jpg)
I also really love the irony that in his quest to save his sister, he deprives her of the one thing she truly wants: more time with him. The black scrawl is incurable, and yet he would rather put his faith in a fairytale than accept reality. Are his heroic deeds truly for her, or himself? I love how every loading screen is a letter from Yonah's journal, often expressing how much she misses the protagonist and how lonely she is without him. It's subtle, but effective.
but at the end he saved her didnt he. yonahs gestalt/shade leaves releases her at the end
@@ggs4869 It isn't shown in the game, but it has been confirmed in an interview with Yoko Taro that the black scrawl remains incurable, and not only Yonah, but all of the replicants eventually die to it as the shades relapse without the stabilizing presence of their leader. There is a lot of backstory content, such as the origins of the books and more details on project gestalt that are only available in side stories or interviews. You can check out Grimoire NieR for this additional information.
@@ny4nk0 honestly for me what is canon is what is in the game. devs adding facts afterwards just messes with it too much. i appreciat the info you drop tho.
why would replicants die to replapsing shades tho. arent shades already relapsed humans? relapsing doesnt happen to replicants. they only get the black scrawl if shades(ghosts essentially) posess their bodies but that cant happen anymore since nier finished the shadowlord and all of them get released. it was shown in route A (only played that one as of now) and human/shade yonah and nier move on to the afterlife happily. with the shadowlord gone, the shades cant haunt the general population anymore. To me Nier severed the connection between the old world(human) desperately trying to cling on to life and this new one they are living in now(new humans or replicants if u wanna call them that) wanting to move on.
@@ggs4869 The devs didn't add facts afterwards, they just weren't able to fit the entire lore of the world into the game. All of this is cannon. Your interpretation is a more pleasant version of events, but unfortunately the world Yoko Taro has devised is much crueler. I'll call the protagonist Nier to make it easier to follow.
The black scrawl happens when the corresponding shade relapses. The shades are the 'souls' of humanity, and the Replicants are their bodies - which are continually being created and maintained by the androids, with the hope that eventually the white chlorination syndrome disease (look up the Drakengard/Nier lore connection for more context) will resolve itself. However, a different disease manifests, the black scrawl, which is triggered when a shade 'relapses' or goes insane and loses the last bit of their humanity. The shades didn't get 'released' with the destruction of the Shadowlord, only Yonah's shade decided to end itself. The shades were only able to maintain what little humanity they had left due to the Shadowlord. The Shadowlord was the original Nier, who was part of an experiment conducted on humans to find someone who wouldn't relapse when their soul was separated from their body. It is not shown in the game, but after the prologue he is taken to a lab with his sister and agrees to be experimented on in exchange for the doctors there to do whatever they can for his sister. However, his sisters disease is incurable, and he is needed for the Gestalt project. He is promised that 1000 years in the future, when white chlorination syndrome is gone, they will have a way to save his sister. So he waits. And waits. And waits. And eventually gets tired, and the events of the game unfold. Without his cooperation, all shades will relapse, and all replicants will get the black scrawl, leaving nothing but the androids - and this is exactly what happens. The events in NieR Replicant lead directly to the sequel, Automata.
-edit- Sorry I just now reread your message and saw that you've only seen the first ending - there is more information/dialogue in the second and third playthroughs (with the only difference between ending B and C being the final cutscene), and the final ending which is new to the remake, but based on one of the short stories in Grimoire Nier. What I have told you isn't too spoilery I hope, as this information isn't explicitly stated in the game, as the first playthrough is primarily focused on telling the story from the limited perspective of the protagonist.
-edit2- if you read interviews with Yoko Taro you'll come to understand that limited perspective was a very important theme in the game, and an intentional design choice. Thinking that anything not explicitly experienced or understood by the protagonist didn't happen is... well kind of missing the point. But you'll understand more when you see the second playthrough! I hope you enjoy it!
@@ny4nk0 hey man, just wanted to say thanks for taking your time and breaking it down for me.
i watched the ending of Drakengard that leads to wcs. my god the whole franchise is pretty wild.
i think i will play through the other routes aswell maybe next month(need a break since its emotionally damaging to play).
just on a side note , I saw there is a mobile game today, Nier Reincarnation. Is it a cash grab or a real game worth checking out?
"you don't have to be insane to kill someone, you just have to think your right."
damn. that actually hit me some kind of way
Most murders are UNplanned. The line should have been "You don't have to be insane to WANT to kill someone; you just need to think you are right."
Aside from being a great protagonist in terms of story themes and what he represents, his design is top notch, one of my favorite jrpg protagonist designs period, the hair, the outfit, the overall silhouette, should be illegal to look this cool
100%. I absolutely love his design and it’s one of my favorites.
Timeskip Nier has way too much drip
And then ... there's Papa Nier, with underwear over his head rofl
@@GrandAngel8000 papa Nier is a Chad Chad before Chad was Chad
The hair color can represent his innocence. Look how it's the contrast of his clothes and how darker they've become after the timeskip
Another thing I love is that...Nier isn't a bad person. Normally I hate cliche anime protagonist characters but it works to Nier's benefit. You can't accuse him of being bad. He is the cliche anime protagonist. He's as good as they come. But as Yoko Taro had said, you don't need to be insane to kill. You just need to think you're right.
In the history of humanity, a vast majority of evil is committed not by mustache twirling villains but people would swear on their soul that they're the good guy. And most of the time this 'you are actually the bad guy' twist the writing is quite clearly on the wall and they have a change of heart and switch. Nier is more reflective of how a real person would be.
They don't see that what they're doing is wrong. And even if they did, they'll cast aside the revelation. Fact is, every single person from myself to the people reading this, we could be doing something god awful right now and we wouldn't even realize it because, as far as we're concerned, we're just doing the right thing.
And thats why Death Note was such a great anime/manga with the theme of good vs evil justification or not etc. Kira thinks hes doing right until Near flips his "morals ideals values" etc upside down.
I hear that entirely. I was long since aware that NieR: Replicant/Gestalt had a big twist where everything you've been doing/fighting in the game gets re-contextualized into something awful by the end of the game and on repeat playthroughs, but I wasn't aware of the exact details till my first playthrough of the game. That first playthrough, I was on board with practically everything brother Nier did and being aware of the twist, I thought everything he did was pretty understandable with the zero context he had and how he never had anyone trying to explain the truth of matters to him at any point.
We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side
But for real, it's an awesome evolution of Yoko to have gone from Drakengard ''Only the insane could kill'' to Nier ''Killer just need to believe being in the right to kill''
Drakengard 3 also have a great storyline around simply surviving and choosing oneself death as the ultimate justification of mass murder.
@@maxentirunos precisely why the Phantom Thieves were the true villains of Persona 5
He's not a bad person in the first half. Definitely questionable in the second half though. I mean he blows up an entire village, and when Emir is traumatized over it instead of consulting him he basically tells him to suck it up.
Yoko Taro once said that ending C is canon for Father and D for the Brother and I think I get it now: the Father has these absolute commited blinders on, it's just one more thing to slay between him and Yonah. He started with nothing to get her back, ended with nothing but her. With ending D though I can totally see the Brother being so worn down and without direction that he's effectively developed a self-sacrifice complex: all he can do is keep grinding himself away and this is the ultimate expression of that. I dunno I never really understood that comment until this video
He actually didn't say that. It was a female writer who worked on one of the novelizations I believe, and that her perspective was that.
@@MrSentinel07 I think her name is Natori Sawaka, and she actually did work on the writing for the game.
Yoko Taro himself stated that you should treat each ending and each game as a different timeline and that there is no canon ending. That's because he didn't want his players to fall into the trap of finding a Canon storyline while ignoring everything else. Instead, he want his players to think of the story and each ending by themselves and draw a conclusion of their own. Cause the purpose of his game isn't to only be enjoyed but to also make the players think. That is why his games are filled with philosophical and psychological elements.
@@smileandnodd That's a cop out, bc Automata clearly follows ending E of Nier.
@@MaxIronsThird Dude. You don't know what you're talking about so why pretend?
i really appreciate nier's character. his line when consoling emil after the Aerie incident, "It's all right. Really, don't look back," really defined his character to me. he's a fixed and static character who doesn't change throughout the story much, whilst cultivating the growth of the other characters. he was doing the best he could given the information he had. i think things would have gone a lot differently if Devola and Popola didn't use him like a tool, or if Kaine didn't withhold shades being sentient from him and Emil.
there was no way he could have known what opposing the Gestalt project and fighting the Shadowlord would cause, and like Emil says in Automata, the four of them were genuinely trying to save the world. everything that happened in the Gestalt project was unprecedented and I don't think Nier's at fault for humanity's extinction. I would even go as far as to say that it wasn't the Shadowlord's fault, either, or Devola and Popola's, or the original humans behind the project. the gestalt project was a pipe dream and hinged on manipulating Gestalt Nier and, later, Replicant Nier.
nice essay. was a fun watch
I think another example putting the player into the mindset like Nier’s with “cutting down everything in your path” is the very start of the game when you go to the Lost Shrine to find Yonah. As a new player - at least myself at the time - the Shades we’ve been shown up to this point are aggressive and a threat (the people in the home village say this and we’ve been exposed to them as such). So it’s highly unlikely a new player would even realise the smaller Shades don’t actually attack Nier, especially cause you’d need to pay attention to realise they don’t move to attack but just run around you as if curious, as well as following usual RPG mechanics of attacking immediately what the game has told us are our enemies when they show up.
I surely didn’t realise until I had to replay this part when working towards Ending E - I wasn’t attacking many Shades cause I didn’t really need exp, and having climbed this damned tower many times before, it’s easier to just walk past. I think I got curious when they were taking awhile to try and scratch me that I ended up just standing there, watching them run around me and that’s when I found out. Definitely wasn’t too keen on attacking them after that realisation, especially if the Shades are (or at least similar) to the ones Gretel would eventually become protective over.
Oh my god…They are curious little doggos and we murdered them in cold blood.
@@Darth_Bateman Children actually. That's why they drop school books and look like the other child shades in the game like Kalil.
@@shupasopni I’m a bad person….
@@Darth_Bateman Naw you're fine its a game.
On that note one other fun fact is that the ball shades that spew bullets (like in the fight after you meat Kaine with the lizard), are infants. Therefore you've also likely killed several babies.
You probably know that one though. SL's castle tells you that outright in the route B version of that fight with them and their mother who turns into a boar shade.
@@shupasopni Ah Goose. . . . .Poor Goose.
:(
Ironically in his quest to save Yonah he ended up truly dooming Her, himself and the rest of the world and forever tainted his legacy being remembered only as “The Destroyer.”
It's Devola and Popola fault.
@monsterboomer8051 it's no ones fault, really. The twins were only preventing the shades from destroying the village and telling someone that they've been slaughtering people to save their sister. I personally think they're trying to save him the pain and guilt, but it could also be that it would be no use to tell him the truth in order for him to stop since he is so set on this path of cutting every obstacle down. We only think it could be prevented because we see them in third person and seen it happened. Those twins genuinely cared for the siblings.
@@Jibin23 Personally, I think it's Noir's fault. If he simply wasn't speaking in cryptic terms and said "Our purpose is to rejoin the human souls with their now independently functioning bodies" instead of "white and black shall fuse to one and set free shades to the world." Bro sounds like a villain monologuing. The Onus of explaining should've been on Noir since he and SL forced Dev/Pop's hand to have Nier retrieve Weiss (plus Dev/Pop don't really want to get involved, which bites them in the long run).
@Snorlaxsnaxx but would the replcants have just sat and let everything happen? How would you respond if you were told that you're nothing but a humans body, and you need to lose your perceived self to make room for your original soul, who is a completely different person at this point?
@brandonvu5429 yeah, it would cause mass rejection and everyone would get the black scrawl upon any merging attempts. But the noir and Weiss conversation was private. All he needed to do was to convince Weiss to turncoat properly and it wouldn't matter if the replicants liked the merging process or not. If I remember correctly, Weiss and Noir are a failsafe to forcefully merge gestalt and replicant. This would have likely saved humanity. Past that, it's conkecture.
i like the moment where he tells emil "but you saved US. never look back. ever" etc after killing the whole village to help his sister.. he was just being kind but it felt like a messed up moment that set the tone for how it was gonna be
I mean the other thing with Emil blowing up the Aerie is that if he hadn't, *everyone* there would have died, including the party. There was no saving everyone in those circumstances, so Emil has to not look back, to try to believe he did the right thing, which he did (in my opinion)
Nier is a freaking badass honestly. But that's not what makes him scary in my opinion what makes him scary is how low he is willing to go to protect his sister and his friends. After all the scariest people are the ones who genuenly think what they are doing is right whether it be in revenge or protection of a loved one or Nation
I can't really blame him for it either it was either him and his sister die or he basically dooms humanity.
the scariest people the ones who are actually doing good* nier is right.
@@Keithjustkeithwastaken How? His actions are not only genocidal and without distinction for who he is fighting (up to and including harmless children and infants) but they lead to the complete end to humanity.
Ahhhh yes, Nier getting into prost*tu*ion in Seafront just to earn money for Yonah ...
@@shupasopni Because he doesn't shit about It.
He is an existence created only to be a tool for others. All of his and Yonah and everyone else suffering was the result of humans not caring about the "people" they created in their quest for survival.
Is It morally wrong to want to save your species no matter what? Not at all.
But when your plan relies on creating sentient and sapient life, you should be VERY CAREFUL about what you are doing.
If you lose control of your "pets", you can't cry about them biting you back.
You see him shake his head, it's to clear his mind of any doubt, because at that one moment where the Shadowlord nodded as if giving the go ahead at his own execution, I think Nier wondered for the first time. "Am I actually doing the right thing?" and then dismissed it.
I really hope that yoko taro gets a decent sized studio one day. He’s literally in the same way trying to explore themes and game designs that really only kojima and miyazaki are in the industry. If that means he has to work with someone other than square to be able to have a consistent development team/budget…So be it.
Agreed. Hope he has his own studio so he can continue with game developing.
Square is probably working with Platinum again for the next Yoko Taro game.
This is the type of game you finish playing but then can’t stop thinking about. Everything from the aesthetic to the music creates such a sense of place that it really feels like somewhere you’ve been. It’s a masterpiece and I’m glad it’s gained so much recognition.
Great video. An additional point I'd like to add is that both voice actors, Zack Aguilar and Ray Chase add so much to the character and his progression. They were particulary told not base their performances off eachother to really show the growth that happens in that time skip, and I really think it adds a lot.
Before the time skip, Nier sounds like someone who genuinely wants to do good by everyone he meets, and his quest to kill Shades is less and obsession and more so just something that's necessary to save Yonah. After his whole purpose life turns into killing every last shade it's reflected by his voice going from being so energetic and innocent to somber, weathered but still determined. To me it gradually opened the mental door that Nier was going from a hero to villain, even before the whole Replicant/Gestalt reveal hit.
i know both voice actors. They're both awesome. won't mention the fandom bcus it runs rampant everywhere
Thanks for watching everyone! I'm glad I finally got around to talking about NieR since it's been one of my favorite series I've played in the last few years! I hope you enjoy and are looking forward to the projects I have planned to come out soon!
If I didn't enjoyed Automata, do you think I will like the older titles in this series?
@@RevaliHeeHo I would say Replicant and Automata fundamentally have a similar structure. Automata has stronger gameplay and systems, while Replicant’s cast and premise are better IMO. They’re both thematically brilliant. I’d say it’s worth a try if you can get it for cheap or borrow it, but it honestly might not be worth going out of your way to get it if Automata didn’t click with you.
How far did you get in Automata out of curiosity? I actually put it down for two years right before finishing Route A, but it got its claws in me when I finally revisited it for the rest of the game.
I loved Automata. Its fantastic and really hits you in the feels
I still don't really think of Nier as a villain. He had no idea shades were people. There's a few moments later on in the story where he's clearly ignoring signs of their sentience to continue his crusade to rescue Yonah, but by that point their body count against innocent people was astronomical. He wasn't ignoring their pleas for mercy- he was literally incapable of understanding them. The real villains of the story were Devola and Popola imo, because they could have warned him about what was going on at ANY time and chose not to do so until almost all the damage had already been done. The only people he kills from that point forward are them and the shadowlord, both of which were in self defense/defense of an innocent.
I do, however, think it has something important to say about failing to consider how your actions are causing harm to the people you're opposed to, and how that's something more of us should be concerned about.
I agree that he's not a villain. Originally the gestalts were just supposed to be meat suits so that later they could put people's souls back in a body, but they didn't expect them to actually gain consciousness and become actual people. By getting rid of them to put new souls in, the shadowlord is effectively committing mass murder in order to save other people. Nier on the other hand isn't killing anyone by stopping Devola and Popola. The shades were already souls that were dead / lost so he isn't killing them, he's letting them die in order to save everyone else from mass murder.
exactly! The shades may not be the mindless monsters they're initially portrayed as, but their existence is also not benign.
That's not even to mention that the merging process was inherently flawed, as can be seen when the Yonah's fuse and shade Yonah states that the replicant Yonah is still crying out for her brother, implying that if every shade and replicant fused, they would similarly have to endure another person in their own head. In a way, it's probably a good thing that everything went wrong for humanity in the end, considering the atrocities done in order to prolong the species existence and how long it had been, at least everyone can finally rest in peace.
Nier is one of the best protagonists I have played in a long time. Red and Black was harrowing, beautifully written and showed the agony of trying to keep him and his sister afloat. When I read that, I immediately picked the game back up and yes, his hair never touches his shoulders...even when he is older, it is shorter, layered but still off his shoulders. That trauma of selling his body and everything he had to do stayed with him.
Do you know the name of the Nier Replicant book that has the story "Red and Black"?
Edit: I found it. Sorry for bothering you.
@@hieioni3354 Grimoire Nier
@@MaxIronsThird Thanks :)
My personal take on Nier as a character is really dependant on a simple fact: the poor boy was hit with a wall of facts in a very volatile and unstable emotional condition, he can't be expected to be logical and think about the bigger picture.
It's not so much about "being flawed" or "doing Evil when thinking you are in the right", it's about having your entire world revealed as a lie by people you trusted and being expected to just stand down a suffer.
That's not how humans act, that's not how anyone that has fought night and day for their entire life acts.
Nier grew up in an unforgiving, violent and cruel world. He had to be a caregiver since an early age. He sold himself. He challenged enormous monsters and travelled far away in search of a cure for a magical curse.
Sure, there Is text about him (as everyone else,) realizing quite early that killing Shades feels like killing a normal living being, but that's just a fact of his reality.
Sure, he might have acted differently and spend more time with Yonah.
Nobody says that he is perfect, but his entire personality and behaviour are those or a strong one not accepting fate and giving his all to change It.
The humans that created the system of Gestalts are at fault after all. If they can't control a system that involved other human beings, they shouldn't give them minds, emotions and concepts like family and love.
All Nier does is taking what he learned from the world around And apply it to his life issues. He hacked and slashed because monsters did the same, he didn't give a fuck about some people because many didn't give a fuck about him.
The other side was ready to destroy his reality and life, so why shouldn't answer in kind? It's not about being morally right, it's about being a person raging against a world that does whatever to stop you.
Weiss told him shades are humans if he doesn't trust devola and popola he should trust him and yet he didn't stop to regret or even to think, he wanted to save yona, killing monsters killing humans doesn't matter, if it's not my friend, if it's not my family, but it stands in my way i will cut him down, and that's what he did, to bad he ended up killing his family and friends in the process, a man is judged by his own action, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thing is, you don't need to have lived a life as tough as Nier's to think like this. Going back to the 9/11 comparison, how many people actually gave much thought to why the events occurred the way they did? What drove the terrorist attack? Why would someone want to commit such an attrocity on innocents? Most people just saw what they were personally exposed to and reacted off of that.
People in the US and other parts of the Western world didn't actually gave much thought to the conditions of those in the Middle East that gave rise to Al Qaeda via the previous conflicts fueled by US and Soviet proxy wars etc. Nor did people want to think about it, instead they pressured politicians and other members of the general public to wage the "War on Terror" which further perpetuated the cycle of violence. More innocent blood was spilled, therefore more traumatised people go on to become soldiers/terrorists fighting for the previous injustices over and over.
Nier Replicant and Nier Gestalt(Shadowlord) didn't want to think about what the pursuit of what they wanted or felt was taken from them could harm others who had nothing to do with their previous trauma.
Hell, there's numerous times where Nier Replicant actually does pause in a moment of reflection during certain events but it's often too late by the time he does this. Like when he acknowledges that he never really gave much thought to Emil and Kainé sleeping outside all the time because he was too focused on his own problems. Or when he only considers trying to stop fighting and talk things out with Popola AFTER he just killed Devola infront of her. It's too late then.
Hell, there's also plenty of times he blatantly ignores other people's observations of the situations or outright says he doesn't care. Emil and Weiss in particular both pick up on the behaviour of Shades seeming unusual. Like Kalil befriending the P-33 robot, or Weiss noticing the Shades are smart enough to start using armor to protect themselves, or them wondering why where is a wolfpack in the middle of the desert. They bring these up to Nier and his usual response is "Don't know, don't care. I just want them dead". He's very much ignorant and doesn't want to even think about the Shades as anything more complex than monsters.
Again, like conflicting nations or groups that fail to recognise the other side is still human. They're too blinded by rage and desire for revenge for their immediate suffering that they may aswell be seeinh the other side all as nothing but Shades, vague images of humans but not actual people with their own stories and suffering too.
Fun fact the remastered version number goes on for so long because it's actually the square root of 1.5. Still need to play through the other endings of Nier Replicant, should probably do that at some point.
Wow, that's actually a super cool detail! Yeah, I definitely recommend doing so since I think Route C is a highlight. I hope you're doing well btw, Sam!
@@KayJulers the reason why it is square root of 1.5 is cos yoko taro did not think this version is as good as what he deems to be a remastered version so usually remastered is 1.5 and he put square root 1.5 for this version we played
The way characters are written in this franchise is something else. Nier and 9S are probably some of my favorite protagonists in fiction because they're just so damn real. I could see myself doing exactly what they did if I was in those situations and the way they respond to everything just hits so painfully close to home.
number nines beginning (story wise not game wise) is a mind fuck
emil's line in automata god it kills me. it makes me tear up every time
So glad to see NieR being talked about, and the video was fantastic. Loving your content, so glad to have found your channel!!
Hey, thanks for the kind words and glad you've been enjoying the videos!
The classical antihero... a character of truly noble qualities, weighed down by their crippling, sometimes fatal flaws.
The question is, are they able to surpass these flaws, or will they succumb to them?
To be perfectly fair, By the time the battle against the Shadowlord occurred, it was already too far gone.
The Shadowlord by that point had already killed/converted countless replicants (Humans in Nier's eyes), and stole Yohnah. The Gestalts themselves outside of maybe Tyrann all see the Replicants as vessels for themsvles like how Diovola and Popola see them, so add in the communication barrier being next to impossible to overcome, the chances of any peaceful solution were gone even if Nier got filled in on the full breath of what he would be doing if he killed the shadowlord.
And to be even fairer to Nier, he was only told about what the Shades really were by Diavola and Popola AFTER they turned against him and tried to kill him, Nier was just acting in self-defense in that fight as the two fought him as he, justifiably, denied becoming someone's puppet.
The main thing that doomed humanity in the Nier universe beyond WCS was Humanity itself in how they constructed Project Gestalt in the first place, their hubiris in thinking that making clones that were Genetically human and thinking that they couldn't redevelop sentience over time is what led to the breakdown in communication. Add in that the Replicants couldn't reproduce and would die of Black-Scrwal if their Gestalt Relapsed, likely made in part due to their Huburis, is what led to their extinction.(Also picking the version of Nier who was the most unstable due to having to live in the aftermath of WCS and also getting a god complex due to being the only one who could stably sustain the Gestalts)
So yeah, you can say Nier pulled the trigger to Humanity's (in the form it was) extinction. But to be perfectly honest, it was Humanity itself that made the gun, and made Diavola and Popola to unintentionally make sure it got fired.
The only way for a potentially peaceful outcome would've been CHILD Nier being informed about the Truth of the Gestalts before Yohnah's kidnapping. Kid Nier would've had the optimism and determination to potentially search for/find and argue a way for both to coexist without the Gestalts overwriting the Replicants or both being condemned to extinction.
And even then Humnaity put in redundancy systems meant to clean up people like that clearly as seen in Replciant Ending E, so even if Nier found a way to stop the extinction and allow Gestalts and Replicants to coexist peacefully, that system would trigger and want to restart/shutdown everything.
Ah yes, the only right comment here.
man i just got into nier games and yoko taro certainly messed up with my head to the point i'm having difficult to understand the story instead of crying every second lol, i just got into the part where fran kills the shadowlord, i don't mind spoilers. could you explain to me the overall plot in a direct way? So basically humans made a project where they created replicants to put their soul back but it didn't go well as humans are dumb af and now they wanted to take the lives of replicants to fullfil with their own instead of accepting what they did has 0 substance to be proven right in the first place after so many errors as well and that humanity fate is basically to die as part of life. The part I don't get that well is the replicants have a disease? so they will die in the future?... that means fran and yohna replicants died right away? at least i like to think that both gestalt and replicant had a peaceful end rather than tragic, the heavenly representation of the gestalt with his sister and the replicant with his sister as well was beautiful but not in a tragic way i believe, fran did the right thing in my opinion, the fault is clearly us, the humans who started the project in the first place.
I think the tragedy of the events leading to Nier: Automata can't be blamed to one person only. Several factors brought the fate we see in Automata.
Also, Nier isn't the only one who went on a killing spree to annihilate a species. The King of Facade did the same thing though his target was not Shades, it was the wolves. Gideon too wished to annihilate a particular kind ,the robots. Also that NPC at Northern Plains who wants to eliminate the sheeps to avenge his wife..... Yeah, there are a number of characters who want to completely destroy a group because they were wronged or hurt by one amongst them.
At its darkest core, Nier deals with the issue of anger, hatred, revenge and the psychology of what makes us become 'justified' murderers.
And I think it also teaches us a lesson, that holding onto to such anger will evidently bring ruin to many people. Including yourself.
Just wanna add, while Nier did kill all of the remaining humans, those humans were technically doomed anyways. The Shades couldn’t be reunited with their Replicant counterpart since they formed their own consciousness, so what Nier did was essentially merciless clean-up work on an already-doomed species. Doesnt make what he did any better, but its definitely important to remember since that collective consciousness viewed the Shades as evil far before Nier killed his first Shade.
Basically what I’m saying is that Nier most likely wouldn’t have become this mass-genocider out to save his sister by any means necessary if it weren’t for the culture and city he grew up in that perpetuated this negative stigma against all Shades, truly turning them into some kind of evil monster in his eyes.
There’s nothing that says gestalts can’t be joined with replicants who have developed consciousness. The Shadowlord does it with Yonah. That was the whole point of the Weiss/Noir failsafe
@@dharpify1 I'm pretty sure Yonah would have been doomed in the (probably not too-)long run. Her shade had already started relapsing, and as far as I'm aware there's no cure for that. If merging with Replicant Yonah actually cured it, Gestalt Nier would have already done it centuries ago. So Gestalt Nier's actions make the most sense as something he's doing out of desperation. After thousands of years he finally realizes there's never going to be a cure, so he takes action. But there's no reason to think those actions would have worked.
I think that, at best, the Weiss/Noir failsafe would have merged the remaining *non-relapsed* shades with their replicants. But I have my doubts that Gestalt-Nier, who was necessary to stabilize the remaining shades, would have stuck around after his sister inevitably died following the merge.
@@dharpify1 The replicants growing a consciousness says exactly that. Gestalt Yonah felt her alternate self crying within her. That eternal anguish would drive anyone insane.
As a huge Nier series fan thank you! The series really needs more video analysis like this. I hope you make more in the future
Thank you for watching it! I think I’d like to revisit the series at some point.
you know a game is good when just a video talking about it is enough to make you cry again(this is also a great way to know if a video is good btw)
Great video as always Kay, but since we’re on Yoko Taro and his protagonists… maybe we get a video on Caim and how insane he is some time in the future?? Or maybe just how twisted the original Drakengard was. Love the branching out to other games bro!
Thank you! Yeah, the original Drakengard is such an absolutely bizarre package of a game haha.
Caim is such a menace.
I agree with all of the points made in this video except one- during those five years, Nier wasn't completely alone. Weiss was with him during that whole period. i would say that he mostly just tried to calm Nier down whenever he got too reckless but never completely stopped him from pursuing his vengeance against the Shades. Another thing I'd mention is how Nier's mindset was partially influenced by the people around him, who never really tried to stop him from what he was doing or thinking. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Otherwise, fantastic video! Nier is my personal favourite character in Replicant and I am happy to see more analysis on him as a character.
I love seeing any new analysis video on this series! You basically hit the nail on the head with this game and how down to earth it gets despite it's most fantastical aspects. I would love to see more of these for the other games in the series!
im reading grimoire nier rn and the depiction of nier's feelings about his assault are so great. this is one of the most accurate and relatable depictions of sa trauma ive ever seen.
You did a really good job with this series, adding that interview piece was crucial and something I thought lacking.
Drakengard 1 is one of the most unique media experiences I've ever had the pleasure of going through and no one should ever play it
Please explain lol
@@grubbsgrady2430 haven't played it myself but basically horrible gameplay and really good story, really lives up to the drag on dragoon experience
@@zsurvivalist7996 I wouldn't say its the gameplay, its more the design of the game.
@@grubbsgrady2430essentially it’s massive flaws pretty much bolster the theme of how bitter and evil violence and war can truly be
I agree! I’m glad I 100%’d that game, but I would never recommend playing it to anyone
I would also argue part of the reason he kills the Shadowlord even though he technically has most the information is he doesn’t want to believe it’s true as well as not believing Devola and Popola. I don’t know about you, but if two people I knew basically lied to me my entire life then suddenly came out with the “actual” truth, I don’t think I’d believe them.
That makes sense and why perhaps Taro made Nier hesitate and shake his head before killing himself off. Hed come this far and for what? Was it all in vain?
i think he hesitates because he simply looks at himself since his gestalt/shade has the same goals as he had and him being the reason it fell apart. I dont think nier is in denial of the truth at all
They emphasized on the contrast between young Nier and adult Nier. I liked young Nier but once i hit the time skip and heard Ray Chase performance, it was clear he had become alot more harsher without mercy. Although i picked up on it, i let it be. He hadnt killed a human (not including shades) yet. But then Shadowlord happened and all i could think about was, what the hell just happened!?! Lol
Nah when he was young he killed the guy that sexually abused him but that info is only in one of the side stories
@@nn8009 yes I am aware it was outside of the video game but as an average player in the Nier franchise, I played the game before searching up an other source of information until later
This video is great! You pretty much highlighted many of the reasons why that Nier Replicant is my favorite game of all time! Most stories like to keep things black/white or Good/Evil but Nier Replicant is one of the few that explores the grey areas of morality. It's ironically a more accurately human version of storytelling.
Black/White/Gray are extremely arbitrary
Are we going to call Nier causing the end of humanity Gray?
@@pn2294to save his sister yes, the it's basically the train track dilemma and I'd argue the vast majority of people would not hesitate to save their one child/friend/spouse even if it means damning whole groups of strangers.
"Perspective" is Taro's favorite thematic device
playing this game again after playing in 2010 filled me with so much nostalgia, (I would like to hear your perspective in the character Kaine) especialley ending e with Kaine and us playing her, I genuinely love both the protagonist and all the other characters like Emil and Kaine and I love how there characters are felt in automata.
Came across your video when revisiting the lore of Nier and liked it even before the video even ended. Great job!
Hey; marvelous analysis. Great insights, and showed me some things I didn't know despite many an hour deep diving the Taro lore. Ty!
Loved this video! Hope to see more Nier stuff in the future!
Great video. Love to see Nier replicant getting talked about. Such an amazing story
This is such an amazing analysis. As a player, I always felt like everything I did was right. Until you know, we were slaughtering younglings. It is always an experience playing one of Taro's games.
Absolutely phenomenal video. Replicant is one of my most favorite games of all time and this explains beautifully just a part of what makes every character so impressive and beautifully written.
this is my favorite game series of all time. thank you for this video!! it's perfect and i look forward to any more you may make!!
There will never be another series like it.
Nier is such an interesting character, and this is such a brilliant video on him!
Agreed and thank you!
Nier isn’t evil, he just kept convincing himself he was right and whoever disagreed was wrong, that’s what led humanity to fall. But honestly what messed me up the most was when he shook his head before ending the shadow lord, he seemed genuinely sad
Man bringing up ashes of dreams got me hard all the music in the game makes me just start sobbing 😭😂
Great video! I loved how you went over everything ❤
Well done video. Nier is one of my favorite series so I really enjoy and appreciate the work put into this video. Missed subbing last year but happy to do so Jan 1.
I really need to play this frachise. Thank you for the vid Kay, and hope we see more Nier stuff too :D
Definitely a series worth checking out! Replicant’s gameplay can get repetitive, but looking at the story when everything is done is excellent. Thanks for watching as always!
I'm a huge fan of the series and I really enjoyed your video. Thank YOU! (and also thank you, youtube algorithm, for recommending it)
One of my favorite UA-camrs does a video on one of my favorite games? Can't wait to watch that shit!
This was a FANTASTIC breakdown of nier. Instant subscribe. Could not have done it better myself.
You've earned yourself a subscriber that's a fantastic video that is high in quality
The Nier games are truly special. There are a lot of holes if you start looking closer, but a perfect game was never the focus I think. What Yoko taro created wasn't a game, but a way to convey an emotion. The gaming part was just a means to an end.
And boy does this game make you feel things. The narrative, the music, the worldbuilding, the atmosphere, the themes and even the gameplay all support this one goal. I think this is brilliant, because ultimately what sticks with us the most is emotion. Nier and automata carve a hole in your soul and leave it empty when you are finished. All it takes is a somber ost and it's like I am back 2 years ago when I first finished the games like no time has passed.
Thus the media we remember are the ones that leave a strong emotional impression on us. The way the media is constructed is simply a way to reach said goal.
NieR Replicant Ending A I was loving the story and it felt satisfying because the hero won. As soon as I started the Ending B playthrough I felt like a horrible person despite Nier's lines not actually changing. It was a really clever way of portraying the complexities of having multiple sides to the story.
Very well written , great video !
this was really well done I enjoyed it greatly thank you
This was one of the best character analyses I've ever watched
man almost made me cry over this game all over again, good job man!
Top Marks. Very well done
I need to play drakengard 1 so I can watch this but I'm so glad you made a video about nier!!
Thank you for this video I’ve finished nier a couple months ago and I felt like nier was an amazing protag and I knew this video was good as soon as I heard the music in the first few seconds
5:55 *Is knocked out from that nostalgia*
Thank you for making this. I think Bro Nier is one of the most underrated characters in the series
18:08 i love this ending speech by emil, so perfect
Great video Man keep it it!
Thanks! Will do!
Great video!! I missed your stuff, since I haven't been able to watch the Xenoblade 3 stuff yet because I haven't finished it. NieR and by extension Drakengard is my favourite video game series, full stop. I love seeing people talk about these beautiful games. I'd love to know your thoughts on Drakengard 1 and 3!
Great video thanks
even with the replicant music in the background it still gives me chills
FINALLY someone making a video on NieR Replicant! It’s been way too long.
So does anyone else think Kaine and Nier had emotions of more than just friendship towards one another? Cause I know that when he's fighting Shade Kaine he mentions to Tyrann he loves her. Just unsure of which way he meant when he said, "love." Obviously the people he cares for the most are her, Emil and Yonah, but do you think him and Kaine would spend the days remaining as the world fell apart together as more, or it just isn't anything beyond being good friends? In ending E, the way Kaine describes Nier as she slowly regains her memories and wants to get him back make me think there's a chance she loves him. As well as she couldn't express her true emotions before Route E due to being possessed by Tyrann and was incapable of doing it without dire repercussions. And pre-timeskip Nier said he thought she was pretty. Just wondering if there was more there, and even though Replicants can't reproduce it doesn't mean love and marriage is out of the question. But with all the Shades just going batshit now, maybe they wouldn't be able to find much time for that stuff.
I'm 200% believe they love each other. Yoko Tako actually confirmed that too
Yoko Taro said it’s romantic.
Both Kaine and Emil love Nier romantically.
In one of the endings where Neir killed Kiane, while she was a shade, he kissed her when he plunged the sword into her.
Another point concerning the perspective theme I noticed, was how the justification for project gestalt was that they were humans and therefore deserved to live, while the replicants didn’t. But as we see through the game the replicants are just as human, something that contuines into nier automata. So the question comes, did the shades really deserve to take over the bodies of replicants. Just because they were the originals or the authentic humans compared to the replicants.
Yes they deserve it because replicants are in fact a tool for the survival of humans, you have to remember that if the gestalt dies the replicant dies with him but not vice versa, if a replicant dies and his shade is alive out there somewhere, he comes back to life from the test tubes, he gets made into a baby or a child in a different village but retain the same character and looks, just because they are sentient doesn't mean they don't serve a purpose
Well, that's part of message. Who is 'human' and whose lives are more valuable: Original humans or Replicants? It's a rhetorical question, really. One argument is that Replicants are as human as the original humans, and one could extend that to Popola and Devola, and the androids in Automata as well. Everybody basically thinks they're in the right and that what they value is inherently more valuable than what others value: Be it Nier/Shadowlord and their Yohna, Kaine and Emil valuing their friends, Popola and Devola valuing the Shades/humans over the Replicants, these Replicants valuing their own lives over that of the Shades and so on. The answer is highly subjective and boils down to personal if not selfish motives and desires at times. But that too is 'human' after all.
Congrats for reaching 15k subs!
Brilliant Video Kay - Fei Fong Wong
Yonah and Yorha. Am I crazy? Something’s gotta be here.
EDIT: Fantastic video, I'm happy that Nier is being talked about, this series is phenomenal in many different ways and I wish more people could experience it. Hell, I wish I could experience it for the first time again!
Could anyone please tell me what's the name of the song playing in the beginning of this video?
Thank you so much and the song is "Grandma" from the original NieR!
Thank you, bud! :D
This was amazing!
Yo, I’m a fellow XC fan, but I’m an even bigger NieR fan. This was a great analysis and helped me realize ~8 months after having beaten Replicant 1.22 just how massive an impact Nier had on everything. Blown away. Subbed.
their are Two Versions Nier Replicant which follows a young man looking after his sister and Nier Gestalt which follows an Elderly Man looking after his sick daughter. They tell the same story but some dialogue and minor lore differentness
It's like a parallel universe where leads to the same outcome
I like to believe that there was a point in time where both Niers were alive together like a "Junior" and "Senior" and they(depending on which version) just never get brought up because they were lost in an untimely tragic demise (one that could lead to an unrelenting prejudice towards the Shades perhaps? Hmhm.) And Nier and Yonah just never mention him because the emotional trauma is still fresh in their hearts.
What I like the most about it, is how you can either play as the father in the original game or as the brother in this version and how two perspectives can impact so much so differently with the exact same story.
Fact that guy who voices Illidan in WoW is your grimoires voice actors made me super happy
That Emil line when I first fought him in Automata gave me goosebumps.
This is one of the many reasons as to why NieR will always be my favorite JRPG series of all time. The story never fails to hit me, given how brilliantly crafted and put together it is, and the world on top of that is just outright insane lore-wise. I genuinely can't wait to see what else Yoko Taro has in store.
You did very well on explaining about Nier. Despite of everything he had done, you can't really hate him for what he did. That's why I kinda love Replicant more than automata because it's way more relatable and understandable while automata is more on philosophy side
Ah i loved that you mentioned how integral the red and the black is to nier's character. I genuinely think it should have been implemented in the main game some how
Really good video.
Nier Replicant was nr2 on my 2021 list , above my favorite game series Yakuza with Yakuza 6,5,4,3 releasing on pc in 2021
Phenomenal game , the story,characters and the ost. The Nier Automata/Replicant ost ,might be my favorite ost ever.
A huge surprise that Nier Replicant for a time was my nr1 goty 2021, but then the expansion Endwalker for the mmo Final Fantasy 14 took my nr1
I haven't played this game but I sent the video to a friend that has. For the homie
A true MVP right here.
Amazing video
This is the best Christmas gift ever ❤
I love NieR so this is literally perfect for me excited to watch
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
I thought Nier was done breaking my heart.. then I had to go and read Red and Black..
No other series has made me feel so much.
It kinda hurts watching to see such a sweet kid, burned by the world, grown so bitter, so riled with indignation, still clinging onto his friends and humanity. But also use his passion for self destruction.
He's done so much good, and great self sacrifice, but because of his narrow perspective he has done vastly more harm than good. It's ironic how he guaranteed his own eventual death, since he caused the mass relapsing and the black scrawl for everybody, while also ending the reincarnation of the Replicant body. It's honestly grim, and yet I don't hate him one bit... It's hard to articulate how his human struggles make him hard to hate.
On a closing note, I think he's quite underrated. I don't know if it's because he appears like the generic jrpg protagonist on the surface, or if his companions are just so eccentric they overshadow him, but it's always driven me mad how little love he gets. At least in my discussions of the game he's hardly mentioned.
6:15 they go to the place where the Watchers came from, and end up in Tokyo in 2004. That is because Nier and Nier Automata are prequels where we see the origins of the Watchers. They evolved from all the mess of magic and technology that became the Machine Lifeforms, Androids and ultimately the Ark. The machine cores look like seeds of resurection/destruction and they're compared to literal plant seeds. The copied city and all-white 3D-printed buildings are clearly how the Cathedral City that landed on Drakengard's world was created.
It's a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth where the world of Drakengard gets infected by future magitech, then infects the world of Nier with the seeds of the same magitech, and then Nier's world infects Drakengard.
It's not necesarily a closed circle. It could just be a multiverse full of alternate Drakengard and Nier worlds infecting other worlds.
I wonder if the aliens are even aliens at all.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
YEEES BABY, THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR. THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT.
NIER BABY YEEEES
Stellar video. No doubt Nier is my favourite End Bringer, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think he's completely justified to the very end, even with the knowledge that killing the Shadow lord will mean the end of the previous humanity. I doubt with full context Nier would've ended project gestalt, but by the time we finish any route we know full well Replicants are as alive as Gestalts are.
Ultimately the success of Project Gestalt would've also meant the genocide of replicant life.
I'm no nihilist, but there's a certain beauty to how the continued world of Nier became a homage to the legacy of humanity. A war which lead the main protagonists to face the past faults and failures of their creators, but to ultimately learn of the kindness at the heart of humanity.
Bro you can’t just make me cry like this
First it was Xenoblade, now it’s Nier. You have a great taste in JRPGs my friend!!