!tasukuchan

I would like to do something a little different. In regards to the anime "Serial Experiments Lain", I would like to start a thread invoking plot discussion of the philosophical aspects of this anime...it made many good points that most animes and films never touch with a ten foot pole. Lady Barronmore brought this to my attention that AO should have more threads of this nature ^__^ (you get the credit for this one Arrianna!)

Some possible topics of discussion (to initiate the discussion)

1.) The concept of Lain Iwakura being God of the Wired / the Real World, being created by hackers known as the Knights.
2.) What are "Layers?" How are they significant to the series in the beginning vs. the end?
3.) What role does the whole synthetic drug accelera play in the cyberpunk setting of I believe it is [layer 02]?
4.) The idea of Masami Erei and his goal of becoming a fleshly manifestation of "God"
5.) Previous to Lain's existence, everything had been "normal". The barrier between the Wired and the Real World had not been broken. Why do you think suicides increased, and all of these bizarre natural phenomena began happening after Lain's arrival? Why did Lain choose, personally to delete herself?

LenMiyata

Grumble Grumble Grumble

An obvious spoiler thread... Moving...

Now remember, when Lain became 'God' of the Wired, she became a presence in all locations at all time periods. It would have a signifcant impact on the world if people started noticing that Lain was everywhere at every time. So she decided to become a disinterested third party observer and disengage from the world.

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!tasukuchan

I'm sorry about that U___U; I didn't realize it was a spoiler thread. usually I'm pretty good about posting in the right category. In any case:

If I recall correctly, Lain decided to delete herself in the end of the series. I just remember that her and Arisu saw each one another they vaguely recognized each other. It was a semi-happy ending, but the whole layer concept was the part I didn't understand, I think the series started to clarify "layers" in layer 12: Landscape. I THINK, although I'm not certain~ I would have liked to understand more about the whole Lain being a physical manifestation of God / how she broke the barrier of the Wired and the Real World.

Another thing left unclear was why her parents were hired "actors". And why Lain's sister went crazy; materialized into the Wired itself. I think there was a duplicate of her sister at one point. so much left unclear... X___X

Chiefblackhammer

Well with any anime the more left to ones thought and the ability to do so is a primary driver of what makes the anime so darn interesting. SE: Lain does a heck of a job at it and just down right confusing people. Nevertheless I will bite at this one (cause I said I would in the other thread, tasukuchan I am sorry it took me so long!) I just hope I am not too far off base.

1) Personally, I feel that Lain was Protocol 7 the whole time (at least in the wired at first). That for purposes of merging the wired and physical reality she had to first understand something she as only being in the wired could not. That is what is it like being in the physical world. So Masami Erei (In Layer 12: Landscape Erei claims he gave her flesh, so I disagree with the Knights being the creators) set up this ploy to give her a physical body, this was possible due to the lab (Tachibana Labs) he worked at just recently having mapped the entire human species genome (Layer 11: Infornography).

How Lain becomes “God” is quite interesting at first there are 2 Lains’ (possible a third, but I will stick with 2) the weird “bad” one and the humanly “good” one. (Oblivious religious implications either way) As she goes along she realizes various things/truths and progresses to “shedding” her physical body to become “God.” So the first way she becomes God is through enlightenment, thus theory one of becoming a God seen in many Eastern religions. Part two is to become a God you must kill the old one and be “born” of the old one (stated earlier about her creation also Greek Mythology is an example of this theology) since she defeats/kills off Masami Erei in sense she becomes “God” that way. The last one I will deal with is not actually a concept of how to become a “God” but more a definition of what a “God” is that defines her as such. In the last Layer: Ego she has the capabilities to exist everywhere, create and erase memory (points off that the series suggests that people only exist in others memories so this is in essence the ability or control over life itself) and she exists out side of time. All characteristics of what people define as a “God” no?
I am going to skip to # 4 as it has basically a similar answer

4) I disagree that Masami Erei wanted a fleshly manifestation as “God” main because he states that humans only really exist in each other's memories, if they insist on being bound by flesh, their evolution is at a dead end. Unless they share themselves around, they have no life - they're inanimate data. They've always been connected; all "God"'s (being him) doing is restoring and upgrading these connections. So to want a fleshly existence limits him to being inanimate data. He does consider himself “God” because he has created life (being lain) and has invoked a way to merge the two realities of both the physical and wired.

Back to # 2

2) Layers is a complex subject, to me it seems to be referring to various layers of reality, this could refer to the progression of enlightenment thus as the story unfolds each layer stacks upon itself thus furthering ones enlightenment along the way. As for the significance in the beginning vs. the end I see none, as each step in enlightenment is equally important.

3) Many cultures use drugs to heighten awareness and/or to break through the limits of our visual perception and see things normal eyes cannot. Some cultures even thought the images where divine visions from God.

5) Ummmm……no idea on the first part as for the deletion part I agree with Len, to be everywhere in time would have series affects on those constrained to it so she chose to be an outside unknown observer.

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!tasukuchan

Wow, that does make a lot of sense. I didn't even see that much in depth of it ~
As for the whole Accelera drug / cyberpunk thing in Lain goes,

I heard in a Bible study that in a part of the Aramaic Torah, you can translate the word sorcery or witchcraft to Hebrew, which would then be translated to a different Greek, then translated into Latin = pharmacaea(?mangled pronunciation?) Translate that into English and you have the word Drug.

So basically when the Bible / Old Testement says don't do witchcraft / sorcery, it's saying don't do drugs (????)

I can't say how reliable that info is, I only HEARD it in a study...anyway

Chiefblackhammer

Does it make sense to translate something from its original text (Hebrew, as most references to witchcraft were in the old testament which was written in Hebrew) and translate it into a different language and then into your own? Each time you translate something unless you have a precise word for word translation you risk losing meaning. So since multiple translations actually askew meaning, I doubt this is accurate.

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!tasukuchan

I'm probably stretching on this one, but weren't all of those languages closely related? Greek, aramaic and hebrew ... everyone in biblical times spoke those languages so assuming the languages had similar meaning (as latin is the base root for most language) and then interpreted into english ~ we have pharmacaea or whatnot. Do you see the point I am trying to make? If those languages are closely linked, then the word "pharmacaea" or whatever, would therefore not lose its meaning. Assuming what I heard in my Bible study is accurate, which I have not even bother to research (because I'm freakin' lazy and busy with school)

Chiefblackhammer

Sorry tasukuchan doesn't seem many people are going to be involved in this thread, maybe Arrianna was right not much hope for plot discussion.

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SamuraiDude128

Listening to this I'm just thinking:
Too bad it's not Cereal experiments, LOL, oh that's a bad joke.

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