After-Thoughts Rant: Nier - Good guy or Bad guy?

NieR: Automata released recently and that means that now is probably a good time to talk about something NieR related. That said, I'm not really well versed in NieR or Drakengard and don't really know anything that you wouldn't know from watching Clemps' videos on the subject. I'm also not an expert on character types, character roles, narrative structure or anything like that. I do think of myself as pretty competent in the area of game design but Drakengard as a whole is not known for having particularly dissectable gameplay. So all that leaves is something that I don't think gets talked a lot about but might make a good topic for today: the moral alignment of the protagonist and the antagonist.

Why both? Well, the short answer is because they're kind of the same guy. Or, to be more accurate, the character you're playing as is an android body created for the antagonist. Either way, the two characters are intrinsically linked and because of that we can't really talk about one without talking about the other.

Now, there are many ways that morality can be interpreted. Despite what many seem to think on the subject, morality is a very subjective concept. Although many people do have some aspects of their moral code that's universal to an extent, many who believe in morality will vary in how strict they will be in their practice of it.

The definition says it all: Morality is what you believe to be right or wrong from the perspective of ethics. Many people have things that they say are right or wrong but will make exceptions depending on the situation, usually for self-benefit.

Let's use an extreme example to get the point across. Let's say someone is about to be killed. Do they deserve to die? Many humanists will likely respond "No, every human deserves to live." So let's add a bit more to this scenario. The person who's about to be killed is a serial murderer; if they survive this ordeal, many people could end up dead. Many of those same humanists will likely answer "If it saves more lives than it costs, it's worth it." So let's add one more condition.

The man who's about to be killed is not just a serial murderer, he is also a vigilante. Specifically, he only kills those that have committed heinous acts and never got the proper punishment. What would you think now? Well, many people may not be quite sure what to think. All of the information I've brought up has the potential to raise many questions, questions that need to be answered if a proper action is going to be taken.

Because morality is quite self-centered in a majority of cases, most moral codes are human-centric. Of course you could argue the semantics of many moral codes but the point is that many people who choose the moral high road will do so under the assumption that humans deserve rights and non-humans should be determined based on their level of danger.

Now let's get into Nier. At first glance, you might be tempted to think he's the good guy. He is the protagonist, he's the one whose story you see unfold in real-time, and he is the one who has people who support him but there's a lot more going on under here than you might realize.

First and foremost, the Nier you are playing as for most of the game is not the real Nier. The real Nier is actually the main antagonist the Shadowlord. Some of this can get kind of complicated, as is the nature of Yoko Taro but I'll try to simplify as much as possible.

During the events of the prologue, humanity was attacked by an otherworldly disease called White Chlorination Syndrome. Basically, it'll either kill you or turn you into a red-eyed zombie depending on how you respond to the god that subjects you to it. To combat this, the Japanese government created a plan called Project Gestalt. By passing out a book known as Grimoire Noir, which is basically just German for Black Book, each person's soul is detached from their body, their souls becoming meta-physical forms known as Gestalts. These Gestalts are the black data-looking creatures in the game known as shades. We'll come back to that.

Then, using the White Book Grimoire Weiss, shouldn't be hard to guess what that means, his sealed verses will attach the Gestalts to their corresponding artificial bodies known as Replicants. However, before the process was complete, something went wrong. The Replicants began developing minds and sentience of their own.

So, after the prologue is over and we get to the present, which by our current time is about 1300 years into the future, we have Replicants that are living lives avoiding the Shades, or Gestalts, and the system the Japanese Government created to fuse the Gestalts with the Replicants.

The problem here is that many of the Gestalts went rampant before they could be fused, which was the core of the issue. They morphed into those forms and lost their minds, leaving them unable to think properly and many were unable to properly defend themselves after that since the Replicants automatically assumed they were a threat.

However, there was one Gestalt that went rampant without completely losing his mind. Though he did have a shadowy form, he maintained his sanity, and his sanity allowed many of the non-rampant Gestalts to remain stable. That Gestalt was none other than the Shadowlord or Nier.

At the end of the game, Replicant Nier, A.K.A. the one you're playing as, kills the Shadowlord and, for a brief time, he lives happily ever after with his daughter Yonah. At least that is the case as far as Endings A and B are concerned. For now, we'll focus on those, since Endings C and D complicate this more than necessary and Ending E has very little to do with Nier himself so that doesn't need to be covered.

Now, here's where we get into Morality and how Human-focused it is. Our main character is the guy we play as so we obviously want to root for him but is that a good idea? Bearing in mind, he and the people he's protecting are Replicants, basically just Androids. The Shades, for as grotesque and eldritch as they look, are in fact the real humans. Nier kills many Gestalts throughout the game, many of which don't fight back, and some which are regular kids that didn't even get out of grade school.

Now, of course you could make the argument that Nier simply didn't know they were humans or kids and was simply doing his job. Or, maybe he fussed so much over his daughter that he didn't pick up the clues that many of the players did. However, Nier shows throughout the course of the game that he is a very self-centered man who would do anything to keep his daughter alive. One might even be able to argue that, even if he did know the shades were regular people, he might not have cared. He even kills people that he genuinely cares about and doesn't seem to bat an eye.

Of course, this isn't including Kaine in Ending C as that was more of a mercy killing. Rather, he kills Popola and Devola just because they were in his way even though he developed friendships with both of them. Of course they did get in the way to try and restore humanity, Nier didn't really care, he just wanted his daughter back.

I don't want to talk about other games as much here but I want to kind of compare this to The Last of Us because both of these game's endings and corresponding characters have some light parallels. Both main characters end up having to save a daughter, though a surrogate in Joel's case, and both end up damning humanity in the process. However, there is a very clear difference in the way these two events unfold.

Ellie's surgery at the end of the game was more than likely not going to result in a cure and would have certainly resulted in her death. Though Ellie may have been the last hope for humanity, in the hands of the Fireflies, that potential most likely would've been wasted.

Nier, however, not only kills the Shadowlord, the one Gestalt that was maintaining the others, but he also kills every single thing in the game that could've given humanity a fighting chance, the Sleeping Beauty Tree, Popola and Devola, he even killed many of the Gestalts that would've been saved had the plan been successful.

The difference here is in intention: Joel fully intended to save humanity for most of the game and lost the will toward the end. Nier actively sabotaged humanity throughout the entire story just to save one girl: albeit his own daughter (or sister if you're playing the Replicant version) but he kills so many people and endangers others just to save one completely inconsequential girl.

Now, that being said, the Shadowlord isn't exactly a morally upright individual himself. Of course, he was the key to saving humanity. However, whether due to luck or determination, the only reason he decided to take on the role in the first place was to be with his own daughter, Gestalt Yonah. Prior to Project Gestalt being formed, he was offered to be one of the test subjects and proved far more resilient than everybody else. Yonah, however, was fragile by comparison. So, he and the Japanese Government made a deal: he would aide in the process of saving humanity and, in exchange, they would heal the disease she had known as the Black Scrawl.

This could be taken two ways depending on how you view morality. If you view morality from the perspective of actions, then the Shadowlord is cleaner than his Replicant at the very least but, if you view it from the perspective of intention, the Shadowlord is only somewhat more neutral than his Replicant turned out to be.

Of course, many moral codes will be a mixture of the two: intention is important but what's also important is the results of your actions. In that respect, the Shadowlord killed fewer people and was going to save humanity but he did so for completely selfish reasons.

However, as I said, this type of morality is from a very human-perspective. The Shadowlord was saving humanity but he was going to do so by taking bodies that had minds and potentially even souls in them. The humans would've been saved, but what would've happened to the Replicants, to the Androids?

This makes it a bit of a problem: the Shadowlord may be more of a decent person but only from a human-morality perspective. There's still a lot happening under the hood that may complicate the issue.

I don't really know if I made a single point in all this rambling. But I do know that this is a bit more interesting than I initially thought it was. Have a wonderful day.