Alchemical Humanity: The SOUL (Part 2/Nier Automata)

Maybe asking an AI what it means to be alive is a logical fallacy but these androids are doing their best.
//FULL SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!!
//CW: religious cults, suicide, blood, violence, mind control, manipulation, fictional pandemic
00:00 Intro
01:23 The Old Zoop and Goop
19:24 BECOME AS GODS
35:36 Making Meaning
43:54 Memories
51:22 SYSTEM ERROR
We are back after a mountain of technical problems (and a lot of corrupted footage 😑) Thank you so much to the people who kindly let me borrow clips from their channels as my poor laptop breathes a sigh of relief at not needing to render any more taxing ps4 footage through it.
//Links to their channels are here:
GoggleBoxFairy: / goggleboxfairy
misternoobie: / @misternoobie
//Find me at:
Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/honey_bat
Tumblr: https//:smolhoneybat.tumblr.com
Twitter: https// honeybat3
Twitch: / smolhoneybat

[@coachvixie]

"Our primal instincts are not bathed in blood" I got CHILLS

[@HoneyBat]

Yes!! I feel that whenever the primal or base human instincts are brought up it's always blood and domination, violence and sex. Some hidden beast within that's barely suppressed by our civilised society (thanks Victorians) but...there's so much more to being a human. There's an anthropologist called Margaret Mead and when she was asked what the first sign of civilisation was by a student, they expected her to talk about tools or fishing hooks and bowls etc. But she said: "​the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.” I read it in the context of an article on community responses to Covid but the point still stands, it was a call to community. Playing as a team gives you an advantage. Also the basest way we communicate with each other is by telling stories. "How was your day?", "What did you do?" "Hey, remember when..." "Oh, this one time..." It's baked into us. And we've always placed enough importance on them that we've had oral traditions to preserve our stories when we didn't have a way to record them in books! You stick a bunch of people out in the woods with a campfire and they'll sing songs, make shapes out of the clouds, look at the stars and tell stories. A human comes preloaded with the instincts to make friends (human or animal, we've domesticated so many animals and not just for usefulness like hunting dogs), make pictures, make music, dance, decorate, go fast! And I find it really odd that anything "primal" is likened to being lesser and animal, beastly even. But if an animal shares something with the rest of it's community then we say aww look it's like a person, so cute and kind. We assign those traits humanity. Heck, even the word humanity is a synonym for upstanding and morally correct behaviour. Where's your humanity? It's in everything we do.

[@Serocco]

@@HoneyBat I noticed that too. Sex and violence aren't primal, they're human. But aristocrats think it's "beneath" them, makes them less "elite," more like "rabble."

[@jmh8817]

@@HoneyBat That anthropology fact is fascinating. There's at least another essay of content in your replies to some of the comments and it's a shame that not a lot of people are going to see them. Thanks for sharing them!

[@Vixielicious]

I never thought of it like that. I like that you're unafraid to talk about the gender identity of the androids/machines, because I think some content creators would shy away from it for fear of attracting the bad kind of attention. Really good video. Thanks for making it.

[@HoneyBat]

I did worry that maybe people wouldn't like the "politics" in this but... These are just people existing. Being upset at that is never going to do anyone any favours. People gonna people ^.^ Thank you for watching!! I'm glad you liked it!

[@joshray3855]

One of the things I love is how in the Devola and Popola text part, they talk about how they must pay for the sins of a different pair of twins, and they have to carry their guilt even though they're different people. And when you see them in Automata, it feels like they are different people, though maybe ones who started from the same base personality.

[@hix299]

What i find fascinating about the red girls is they never attacked or destroyed the resistance androids (whom their camp is near the tower), only yorha and pascal's village machines. It is as if they solely attack their own since yorha black box and machine cores are the same, which the resistance androids lack.

[@HoneyBat]

I NEVER NOTICED THAT! That's so cool and would make complete sense too!!

[@PixelHeroViish]

And considering they want to evolve by fighting "each other" with this new insight, they really are just like us humans. Interesting

[@user-we8rx3sy4j]

I have now watched 4 videos of yours: the one about Bloodborne, the one about arcane, and the first 2 parts of your Nier “review/video-essay”, and I am seriously impressed by your work. Thank you for creating it, and I really look forward to seeing what new content you will produce! I hope you have a great day :)

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much for watching and commenting!! I'm really happy you like it ^.^ I only wish I had more time so I could make things faster haha. I hope you have a lovely day too 💛

[@BardianAngel]

15:50 oh my god I never thought about it like that... This video is so good so far. Honestly this deserves 100x the view count at least.

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! I'm glad you've found some new thigns to love in the game 💛

[@sckshakex4308]

Noticed the hollow knight music, fits the mood perfectly, also great video btw would love to see more from this channel

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! The OST for Hollow Knight is so good, it usually ends up worming it's way in somewhere in my videos since I finished the game. The preview we've got for the Silksong music sounds great too, I'm really excited!! Thanks so much for watching ^.^

[@NanaShaCrash]

I have watched so many video essays about NieR:Automata and I even have a copy of this game, but I am so intimidated about actually playing it. Thankfully, there are cool video essays like yours that do a deep dive into the characters, especially the machines. I find it so intriguing how most Machines VS Androids/Humans stories tend to be one of the Evil Machines trying to Take Over And Subjugate Humanity (there's a lot of anxiety by the ruling class in there, isn't there?). I find it very intriguing to see Machines are Just Becoming People instead. Another deep dive into philosophy, but thank goodness for anime characters shouldering the burden of knowing oneself, eh? Thank you for the video essay! it was awesome!

[@HoneyBat]

Yeah!! The kinds of stories I usually see with machines are machines overthrow humanity and are an unfeeling evil or machine is sad that it is unequal and insert clumsy allegory here. I really love that the machines are just kinda living their lives and figuring out how to be people. I think there being no humans around to directly influence the machines really helped set it apart with the themes because they can't just be copying what they see, they're actively *looking* for new ideas and that's so cool. Automata is so rooted in the ways its characters perceive themselves and each other and feeling the ways they change as you play them is so so good. 2B slowly gets warmer throughout the game as she meets more people but after the halfway point, 9S gets colder and colder as he learns more about his organisation and it's such a good contrast ^.^

[@darthcass1210]

You actually don't need all the weapons leveled up to maximum for ending E, leveling all the weapons just gives you the optional fight with all the Emil heads vibing in the desert because rather than an ending that'll make you feel things your rewards is....the death of a beloved mascot character :'(. Which kinda tracks since (excluding ending E from Nier replicant 1.whatever came after) Since in the other Drakenier names collecting all the weapons and achievements and sidequests doesn't really give a sense of achievement in the normal sense. With the weapons especially in drakengard it's like "congrats here's a bullshit rhythm game where the main character will die after" so it makes sense that you don't need all the weapons in automata for ending E because ending E is a lot more hopeful than the other drakenier games (again excluding Nier replicant 1.whatever's E) but instead getting you all the weapons and leveling them up to max level "rewards" you with Emil's death. Anyway this was a really good video, I love your analysis. In part 3 when you talk about how the androids are easier for the audience to connect to due to being more outwardly human; I actually had the opposite problem. I latched on to the machines and empathized with them far more easily than the androids. It could be an uncanny valley thing, the more "human" the androids look the more their inhuman traits stand and thus cause a weird disconnect, it could be that I just thought the machines were cute (which they are, they're adorable!), or it could be that as someone who has always felt othered by society I'm more liable to latch onto those that are inhuman or othered in some way, or maybe it's a combo of all 3 who knows. I also feel like fandom mischaracterizing A2 is a combo of her having the least amount of screentime, the area where you get her backstory with anemone being very easily missable, and her entire backstory being in the Yorha stageplay which outside of fan translations was only in Japanese. There's still enough in the game to get the sense of who she is (and honestly A2 is personally my fave of the protags) and the depth of her character but people love to mischaracterize. 9S and 2B also get their fair share of mischaracterization I think so...maybe people just have poor media literacy. I love the mental image of Jean-Paul dying by trying to lecture a boar. It's what he deserves.

[@HoneyBat]

Ahhh....dammit I misremembered about the weapons, should've double checked! I did it the first time I played Automata when it came out originally but that was on another person's ps4 so I don't have access to the save file (having all those quick access points to bits of the story would've been so useful 😓 ah well) And yeah it totally tracks that a completionist mindset isn't rewarded in these games, like in Drakengard you've gotten all this stuff by mass murder and Caim is canonically a bad person, and here with the amount of stuff you need to scour you're wringing the world dry, going through it all for more content until all that's left is (Emil:)Despair. Honestly I really wish that Emil had a little more to do in this one? Or was just kept as a side quest only character as they literally interrupt the narrative for his intro and then...he's a funny shop. And you can completely miss his side story. I did and I was actively looking for it >.< Had to go back and replay a section as I'd stumbled across the Lunar Tears over and over but didn't know when was the right time to trigger his quests. That's actually really interesting that you latched onto the machines more than the androids but yeah that makes total sense. Though they're designed to look non-human, they are very cute and round and also means when their behaviour isn't emotional then it doesn't jar with their appearance. Oooh I kinda wish we had some uncanny valley style androids or A2 was more like that in design as a prototype...but I guess they're already passable considering Devola and Popola pass as human in Gestalt. Maybe finding old spare parts or something... And yeah, I love A2 to death (still haven't actually watched or read the stageplay script yet oops) nor have I read any of the background stuff for 2B and 9S though I'm aware of the jist. I didn't really need the extra context for the game but I can DEFINITELY see why a lot of people felt the game was a little too bare bones character-wise for them to attach to/care about/understand their motivations. (Also...dumping a bunch of backstory as text on a black screen for not one but TWO 15 minute chunks in the camp was...not good design what are you guys doing). I'm one of those corkboard and string people mentally, and sometimes read more than intended into characters (probably why Eleanor is my favourite of all the Rule of Rose characters tbh). Also, I see a traumatised, isolated character and my brain goes yes, that one. That one is friend-shaped. Oh no, I'm a child machine.

[@clodia941]

Finished it now; some wonderful and thought provoking philosophical analysis. Laughed out loud at the tiny interpolation from Red Dwarf!

[@HoneyBat]

Glad you enjoyed it! When I was writing about humans being viewed as gods I knew EXACTLY which clip I wanted to use 😂

[@maarikaaa]

Loving this series! There is definitely something very queer about the way that the machines (and androids) create their own identities and form relationships and I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention that before this video. Because there are literally no humans in this story all of the gender stuff is what these machines/androids have discovered for themselves or decided they liked to replicate based on what they learned from humans, and I think that's very interesting. The sexuality aspect is more complicated because none of these characters have biology and can't have that experience in the same way as humans would, yet they still try to replicate that too. But I also think this game is very aware that humans are interacting with it and projecting their own desires/meanings onto these characters (who are not humans biologically but are very human like in every other way). So in the case of Adam interrogating 9S, the **** word is deliberately ambiguous. 'Kill' fits the best for 9S's POV contextually because Adam has been talking about hatred and he knows 9S has those feelings too which he is in denial about (his resentment coming from realizing that 2B has been tasked to kill him - and she has done so repeatedly). I think that scene is one of the times the game breaks the 4th wall because it knows that a lot of players (assumed to be straight dudes) find 2B sexy so while **** can mean different things, its ambiguity is pretty clever and an interesting way for the game to humanize a character by projecting a human sexuality on him which he technically couldn't experience without biology. The game also continues to draw parallels between intimacy and death/killing later on too as you pointed out, so i think the double meaning is definitely intentional there.

[@HoneyBat]

Yeah!!! It's so hard to walk the line of humanity as a creator when you know your audience is going to impress their own values onto the inhuman characters, even though the characters simply DO NOT understand those values, even when they try very hard. Or they understand them, but in a completely different way to the way we as an audience do. If you don't actively keep it in mind it's easy to go well, that one put a ribbon on her head and is called a sister so she's a girl, but what does being a girl MEAN?? And what does being a girl feel like to her? Is it different to the way I feel like a girl? How do other women feel like women? While writing this I asked a few of my friends how they know they're X or Y and what that actually feels like to them and we always end up running into the problem of not having a way to fully articulate it. There's a lot of "well, sort of like this BUT". We've got a limited amount of cultural shorthand when it comes to presentation but I find it....lacking. I don't have the language to explain my inner experiences and if I don't then there's no way a machine would who's only using our language because that's all there is that's available to talk about gender with. They can pick and choose but they do seem to have preferences and THAT feels significant to me. In that sense, the village will always be inherently queer to me and I love it a lot. And definitely!! The devs KNOW what the audience is gonna be thinking and it does help humanise 9S, without him actually expressing any sexual interest. He wants to be close to and feel connected to 2B but, idk if androids can even have sex and yeah, kill makes far more sense. But it does seem to have extra meaning to an android given how much intimate murder we get. The androids don't really comment much on each other's appearances, only on how weird the machines are being about it, and they're all made deliberately aesthetically pleasing. If I was designing a soldier that was gonna get blown to pieces over and over I probably wouldn't be perfectly sculpting the butt. Also I really love Adam's take on humanity being driven by conflict because it makes total sense in both a fictive and meta sense. The majority of the information he's gathered from the past few thousand years has been war, war and more war. There's things before then but humanity itself is fascinated with conflict. From a meta perspective Adam is a character in a story, and without some form of conflict you have no story. Real life doesn't have neat arcs when you read events back. I think that's something the machines are experimenting with too when they're watching that production of Romeos and Juliets and they "cull thy numbers" to solve their problem of not knowing who is the real Romeo/Juliet ("Pisseth off" never fails to make me laugh 😂) A character needs a goal and to grow on the way to it. There's gotta be obstacles to overcome and unfamiliar circumstances that force them to change, something to challenge them or an enemy to battle. Adam here IS the source of conflict in choosing to become a challenge for 2B, and wanting to grow from it himself. But like a human, he gets punished for his mistakes. He doesn't get plot armour, he gets a sword to the gut. And that's when he realises that he made a mistake I think, but he's out of luck.

[@Serocco]

Not just straight men find 2B sexy

[@jmh8817]

@@HoneyBat It strikes me that Adam's take on humanity could be read as commentary on the way history tends to be written with a focus in wars and the conquests of empires instead of things like trade and culture. Like can you imagine if Adam also started talking about how history was made by great men who reshaped the world or something. It'd be amazing.

[@sael91]

I knew the Nier series was popular but I had no idea it was so philosophically interesting. Thank you for your work!

[@HoneyBat]

Thanks so much for watching and commenting ^.^

[@miles2884]

as a video essayist i feel like you strike the most incredible balance between being soothing and comforting, and being introspective, analytical and willing to evoke emotion. I’m so relaxed while listening but also so inspired and full of emotion. Thank you for making these wonderful videos!

[@PentiSam]

Dude, Hollow Knight music? Are you trying to break my heart? 😭 Love the videos; your insight has me thinking about these games in a new, deeper light.

[@dragonorbminecraft]

Thank you for the Red Dwarf reference at 17:22 As someone raised on it all through my childhood I greatly appreciate the simple nod to a favourite

[@underarmbowlingincidentof1981]

finished with part 2 now and WOW. Great work!!! Your dedication is phenomenal. You somehow got me into replaying Automata now :P I do curse the youtube algorithm for just giving me this gem now!!

[@alijahb1962]

somehow found a nier automata video on KZbin that has new and interesting things to say. Love it, can't wait to see your other videos

[@DanielSantosAnalysis]

I was surprised to hear you speak so openly about your gender and sexuality, but it gave your take on the game a personal weight that I really appreciated. It's shocking to me that content of this quality is so relatively obscure, I truly hope that your channel grows, you work deserves more love and attention.

[@HoneyBat]

Thanks so much! I absolutely love how the machines are trying to work out how to exist without the network; it's really hard to picture a human doing that with no societal input because of allll the invisible factors that shape us which made me think a lot about what I find really odd and vague about human identities. Had a mild existential crisis about wtf a person even is halfway through writing this but damn if that's not a sign that this game is on to something big!!

[@Arbeta10000]

Binging all of your videos, they're really good, thank you for making them

[@KatieAngelWitch]

First of, Hell Yes for the Red Dwarf clip, love that show and the fact the first eight seasons mostly avoid making transphobic jokes except for the grey area of "Kryten TV" and the repeated joke of a nazi officer being a crossdresser, second of I get the sexuality thing a lot, I personally use Lesbian but that's with an asterisk which expands into "I'm physically attracted to feminine individuals of any gender as well as butches, but I'm only really interested in being with and dating women, with the possibility of falling for nonbinary individuals in a case by case basis", and trying to say that and link it to me being a trans lesbian is like the meme comic of someone sliding in front of a group and saying a hot take like "Spongebob's a furry" and the group going mental! In summary this video's good

[@HoneyBat]

Hahaha yeah I grew up with my parents watching Red Dwarf on tape and some of it is still very funny where some of it is....er, not. It's pretty funny watching back that bit where I say "I'm probably cisgender" because probably is doing some heavy lifting there looking back. Well, I can blame Yoko Taro for the gender crisis I guess, but the more time passes after writing this, the more I think eh fuck it, no gender, the machines did alright hahaha. I'm really glad someone else could relate with the asterisk of attraction haha. Thanks so much for watching ^.^

[@tysaylor7079]

This was so interesting. Thank you for the fantastic content. Bloodbourne essay was also exceptionally well done

[@heirosol]

24:30 the track titled grandma kicking in right as you talk about grandma's funeral i see what you did there

[@shksebastian]

I am so glad i stumbled upon this channel, i truly adore how you analyse the stories of games (and series) and give interpretations and conclusions rather than simply retelling factual story points like most other videos i have found.

[@velvet_violet329]

These videos are so calming and interesting to listen at the same time!! I put them on in the background while I draw and I enjoy them so many! Your blood borne episode was particularly good!! I need more of your videos!^^

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! I love drawing or cross stitching to video essays ^.^ Should be a new one out very soon...

[@jrj5893]

So even though the likelihood of my ever playing this game is next to zero, I got sucked into watching this (all of them) and it's given me a lot of thoughts about personhood verses humanity and the ways that they're different. I think that all of the characters in all of these games are people, for all that their humanity may or may not be a thing. This part in particular reminds me strongly of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and their frequently subtle discussions of what makes a person, a person,. For example, even though the constructs in the series are made with human neural tissue and experience all of the emotions that entails, they are caged by governor mods, depersonalized and most humans consider them disposable tools. The series also makes it very clear that most of the human' population is also very deHUMANized, where the individuals themselves are also considered disposable cogs in a corporate machine. And then there's the third group, bots, with no human parts at all, who can be just as intelligent (if not more) than humans but who have been created in such a way as it's supposed to be impossible for them to even consider rebelling against their human masters. Aaand I feel like I've lost my ability to word so I'm just going to sit here, chewing on these thoughts some more. Thank you for posting these thought-provoking videos.

[@speaklowww5747]

nice breakdown. some connections i had never made! thank you.

[@HoneyBat]

Thanks! I'm really glad you've found more things to love in the series!!

[@benm2362]

These videos have been the happy ending to the struggle of taro games

[@2SP00KY]

such a great series so far - im really excited to see your next one

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! It's in the works ^.^

[@Mia3d]

That was very beautiful ♥

[@Naterkix]

There are actually Red Eyes in NieR before Automata. They don't appear in the game but prior to the beginning, as the world's going downhill, there's a massive army of people who decided not to turn into salt and instead join the Watcher's army. I don't know if it's ever stated exactly why but some are more controlled by the Watchers and have intelligence and lead the other mindless hordes. They have glowing red eyes and were priority targets back when things hadn't completely snow- er- saltballed out of control. Which happened 'cause 'Merica decided nukes were a good idea and spread all the people/Watcher-salt allllll over the planet. Wompwa.

[@HoneyBat]

Yeah! I went more into it in the Drakengard video but in Nier the Red Eyes bit gets picked up and put down and shaken all about through the lore between Nier and Automata. I don't think it explicitly appears in Nier Gestalt? (still haven't played Replicant but I am very curious as to whether it appears there now Automata has expanded on it!!) I find it kind of confusing as it seems to have gone from biologically viral to technologically viral? I wonder if someone actively programmed a counterpart or whether it was always able to do that... Then again it seems to be attacking a consciousness rather than a body so that would absolutely infect an android too. The Red Girls seem to be the equivalent of the Watchers? Or the kind that could be born of a machine network? Or maybe just new hosts for the Watchers in digital form? The vaguery makes it hard to talk about but also gives so many possibilites!

[@Naterkix]

@@HoneyBat I've always just assumed the Watchers use their weird magic to attack whatever vestige of humanity that exists in whatever universe they're currently attacking. Androids are basically the last thing humans created and seem to be close enough that they don't escape notice. It could also be that they want to wipe out both humanity and any trace of them from every universe. It's hard to know for sure though since we never get any obvious insight into them other than seeing their actions and some events are assumed to be Watcher shenanigans but unless Yoko Taro expands on it we'll never know for sure.

[@coralbeef6615]

this deserves more views

[@earwen6816]

Hey, congratz on 100 subscribers first of all. I really want your channel to be successful and I try to share it when I can. Love your videos. It's interesting that another video essayist I enjoy a lot also recently released a video on nier automata with opposite opinions on nearly every facet of it. Though she came to it from a perspective of a complete newbie to the franchise, and apparently her opinion on some things mellowed some after talking to a big fan of the series (the youtuber is pixel a day if you want to check it out) Personally, I don't think I'd ultimately enjoy the game itself but I enjoy experiencing it through your videos. Looking forward to the next installment!

[@HoneyBat]

Hi hi! Thank you so much! And especially for sharing things around, it really helps and is really kind of you ^.^ I wasn't really expecting over 100 people to want to sit through long ass videos but I'm very glad people like them! Oooh that's really cool actually, I'll watch their video tomorrow! I always want to find more perspectives on things that interest me. At the risk of sounding like an Operator ... I need more data, especially from newbies to a series!! Once you've fallen into a series you inevitably come at the next one with preconceptions And thank you!! It's so lovely to hear that people can enjoy things they otherwise wouldn't engage with via the video. That's one of my main reasons for doing these deep dives. There's SO many games I just don't play because the systems just do not work well with my brain (looking at you turn based RPGs) so let's plays and video essays have been great to watch ^.^

[@Simon-et4hu]

I am destroyed this has messed me up pretty bad. This is good! You are very insightful. I don’t take the time to play longer games but I really enjoy videos like these. I love the way you tie this into alchemy and the research you made on the kanji. Question: Does the moment when Adam questions 9S have something to do with the Jungian shadow? He asks 9S how he can think of himself a good person with all his thoughts and such. And after that you say that being a good person is how you act on your thoughts. This is where it clicked for me. I think Jung said something like acknowledging your shadow (being the darker part of yourself you don’t want to look at) instead of ignoring it makes you a stronger, more complete person. He called it integrating your shadow. I am paraphrasing like crazy here. The way I understood it is that having no capacity act badly does not make you good. You have to choose it. Also someone who has never explored their darker, more shameful self is more dangerous than someone who has embraced it as a part of themselves. Someone ignoring their darker side do not know what they’re capable of. And now writing this I am thinking of Eve. I bet he didn’t think he had it in him to become crazy like that because he literally never could’ve imagine a world without his big brother. There’s a chance you touch on it in the third video though. I am going to go watch that once I recover from this one!

[@HoneyBat]

I'm really happy you enjoyed it!! And yessss I completely forgot about Jung! I vaguely remember studying a bit of him back in school but very surface level strokes, but looking him up now his shadow self idea seems perfect here. 9S doesn't want to acknowledge his "bad" thoughts to the point where it's hurting him just to be confronted with them, let alone act on them. He hasn't faced his shadow and just keeps yelling at Adam to shut up, he has no mental defenses here, it's eating him. If the androids are just sort of, set to neutral as it were, following orders and unable to question themselves, it's hard to view them as fully conscious people. Humans ask questions, it's how they learn and grow, but if you program an AI to be incurious then they just perform their function and nothing more. They're not quite there yet. But 9S is known for his curiosity and 2B tries to stop him a lot of the time, prioritising orders, but she also seems to have the same curiosity just...hidden a little better for the sake of her role. Once that curiosity turns inwards rather than outwards, well now we're cooking!! I think it's really important for people to look at themselves properly and figure out what they want and why they want it. And it's uncomfortable and there'll probably be a lot of shame bound up in there too but it's honest. And you get to choose which thoughts to act on, which goals to chase and how. You can just choose not to do something that would hurt yourself or someone else, there's power in that, there's agency. Two people with the same goal might go about it in completely different ways, one might be self serving and step on whoever to get what they want and another might take a slower approach, making connections with other people as they go. They'll reach the same goal but...which one is more sustainable? But yeah, just sort of deciding that you're not going to look at your worse impulses doesn't make them go away. If anything that hands them more power because you become afraid of them, and afraid that they make you bad for thinking them. You've not developed any ways to cope with them, and if you're forced into that kind of scenario or you do end up breaking your own moral code then you're going to torment yourself with it. You've truly become bad now and proved it for the world to see. And if good and bad is a simple black and white, well, you're screwed now. Tainted. So you may as well go all in. Aaaaand that sounds like a comic book villain. And also there's often some good in the bad qualities; Jung called it "gold in the shadow". Like selfishness is a way of caring for yourself, making sure you get enough and receive fair treatment. It needs to be kept in check obviously, but giving everything of yourself to other people all the time leaves you with nothing and you'll probably grow to resent the people taking things from you so often, even when you're the one offering. Then you end up thinking other people are selfish, projecting your "bad" quality onto them to avoid the possibility that maybe you're the one with issues surrounding selfishness. Humans are alllll grey. I wonder if that was part of the reason for all the monochrome character designs actually... other than looking sleek and futuristic. The androids are growing out of their more immature ways of thinking. Anyway, sorry I'm rambling but I'm really glad you liked the video!! Hope you have a good day ^.^

[@Simon-et4hu]

@@HoneyBat that’s no rambling! Thank you even for this long reply. It’s funny the part about being resentful because you are selfless and others are not sounds a lot like me! I have stopped doing it this way and it helped me discover what I value and I go with that. It informs the way I work, the way I talk to people, my art, my home routine and self discipline, all of it! I did not anticipate how quickly torment goes away once you acknowledge the workings under your decisions. “Oh I only did that because I wanted to look good and I get less respect for it. L’et’s not do that again!” Is something I tell myself often. Also since I did not play Nier I did not know how the full interaction with Adam went so thank you for the details :) it does sound like the concept of the shadow. I also agree when you say that hiding it from yourself just gives it more power over you. I also think it’s a part of you that you need. I harm less people now that I am not afraid of harming them.

[@sethamederat5841]

from a queer trans person, the segment on gender and identity was written just, incredibly gracefully. even in your confusion about the whole thing and its connection to sexuality u seem to be very in tune with the whole thing and i think things like that should be acknowledged, especially when done by creators that dont identify as trans or gender queer.

[@HoneyBat]

I'm very glad!! At the time I wrote this I wasn't very familiar with gender theory so I'm glad it came across alright even then. Looking back on this the 'probably' in 'I'm probably' cisgender was doing some heavy lifting there... I still like presenting fairly femininely but er, we're in definite genderqueer territory these days. Thanks for the gender crisis Yoko Taro 😂

[@sethamederat5841]

@@HoneyBat iconic, not gunna lie lol

[@BrianMW]

Extremely well done, loved this video!

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it ^.^

[@SiglaKavi]

I can't believe your channel is still small ;w; you're pouring up good essay

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!!

[@JetSetFrett]

I'm so glad I found your channel, I love how you dissect these games and I adore when you touch upon gender expression and sexuality, it's very valid and relatable in many ways

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you!! I love how the machines are so free to experiment in Automata! It's funny looking back on this one because my gender has only got wobblier since I made this but this game actually made me feel happy and comfortable to question that so it means a lot to me, even though it's not really a massive plot point in game, just the background norm. I'm really glad you enjoyed it too!

[@delight9311]

This was soooooo good!

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! Glad you liked it ^.^

[@BluePhx17]

What great video I can’t wait to get to the next part

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!! My laptop finally bit the dust grabbing footage for this but it was totally worth it haha

[@elenamilin7445]

Hi honeybat, I love these essays and return to them often; I was wondering, what’s the anime sampled starting at 5:56?

[@coachvixie]

Animatrix, I think

[@liamrandall2707]

the mortifying ordeal of being know. Had pause the video, stop at work, and write that down

[@HoneyBat]

My friend has a hamster named "The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known." She calls him Mort for short, but it's always a fun time at the vets 😂

[@pinkapetdesigns9134]

Ok Pascal SELLING the childrens parts... it filled me with such visceral dread that almost made me sick

[@lenasilva9169]

This video is ❤

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you so much!!

[@jmh8817]

It bugged me for years that the trinity of towers was Meat, Soul and God because I'm so used to mentally replacing "Soul" with "Mind" in that trinity. I'd forgotten the technical names as they're used in alchemy. On another note, I will disagree with you on the choice of Pascal's fate, for two reasons: First, is that it's not guaranteed he will repeat his mistakes if you do as he asks and delete his memory. Personality is not just nature but also nurture, and new Pascal is going to develop his new personality in a new environment. He will make new mistakes, and maybe tread a similar path to his earlier self, but even if he does it won't necessarily end the same. The tragedy of his village is that it both got infected by a logic virus and his hideout was attacked by a massive army, the causes for both of which are already gone. (There's also an argument to make that all the good Pascal does for others is still valid even if it ends in tragedy, and many machines would have never known happiness if not for him, but that's a lot more hypothetical and subjective both, plus this post is long enough already) Second, is what the game implies to be his final fate if you leave him alone. His bio updates to say he was never seen again, and he does not show up in the ending cutscenes, same as if you'd killed him. This reads to me like after he insults you he self-terminates in despair, which is the worst of all endings in my mind. I am aware this is a consequentialist argument based on a theory, but I can't not bring it up.

[@HoneyBat]

True true! I like how open the options are because there are many different ways you can interpret Pascal's final fate. He might repeat his mistakes over and over, and that's in line with the rest of the choices in this game, but then again the final ending really wants to provide that opportunity for the characters to break those cycles. He might fail at this a thousand times but every reset gives him another chance to make the "right" decision this time, if there even is one. It all has to be done without him rememebering what came before or he disappears or self-destructs due to guilt, which means there's nothing prior to guide him, but it may mean he comes to different conclusions this time depending on who else he speaks to and what he can learn this time around. Because these cycles have happened over thousands of years he could absolutely build up another village and have this happen again without realsing but also he could do literally anything else! He could wander through the desert for 200 years, he could document every kind of flower in the woods, he could become an expert on humans or anything else that interests him. It's playing with the lack of/too much information that I find super interesting, because his base personality seems to be curious but yeah I'm rambling now haha

[@memnocktdevil]

You’re too young and hopeful or I’m to old and jaded but for every person who takes care of their young there are 20 who refuse or abuse. For every grandfather and grandmother enjoying their twilight with their family there are 20 in substandard nursing homes. We all have a shadow self and very few really ever come to terms with it. But that is ok. It’s good to cooperate and it’s good to do what you have to to survive. Each instance has to be weighed for the correct course of action and judged on its own merits. Great job on this so far.

[@HoneyBat]

I know unfortunately know that too well myself, but I figure all I can do is the best by every person I meet. It may not be much but it's enough. And I've found some good people now and built a different family for myself because blood doesn't matter much in the long run. Of course, every situation is different like you said, but all we can do is be good to the people around us and leave the ones that don't return that when possible.

[@memnocktdevil]

@@HoneyBat thanks for replying! It’s all good. Younger people should be hopeful. You can forge ahead and I’ll prep for doomsday 🤣 that way we’ll be covered either way!

[@Herr_Gamer]

Really glad Automata doesn’t actually upgrade all weapons to max for the final ending. That would be evil. The one achievement I’ve yet to unlock and am debating just buying from the ingame cheat shop

[@HoneyBat]

I thought you had to and did it anyways and I was so mad when I found out 😂 On the plus side I did get to read all the weapon stories haha I'm very glad you don't have to do that for this game though!!

[@Herr_Gamer]

@@HoneyBat I’m all for hard to find secrets in games, but grinding for hours for a key part of the story just borders on disrespecting the players’ time. Anyhow, gread video series

[@clodia941]

Enjoying the analysis but have to shut down for the night now. May be online at 3am because it's too b**** hot to sleep!

[@HoneyBat]

Oof. I am also melting! Splat bat

[@igorpavlov7234]

Can you please tell me what music plays at 5-30?

[@XenoSkulk]

now I wanna watch the speedruns... and find the originals....

[@HoneyBat]

Definitely worth it!! They're so full of good story threads ^.^

[@theaureliasys6362]

I know it is a petty complaint, but siri, chatgpt, etc. aren't AI. Yes, they are marketed as such, because business. but they are just not.

[@4071816]

Thanks for the analysis, the view count is criminally low unfortunately... given the popularity of the game After the recent white church thing over reddit I decided coming coming back to watch this I played Automata when it first came out but always want to watch this video after finishing Replicant, but ran out of steam midway playing

[@HoneyBat]

Thank you!! Automata is by far the most popular game but I did plonk it down in the middle of a series haha. And YESSS I was following the church thing; it was so well done! I kinda hope Square hires the modders (pls don't sue them) because it blended in perfectly, they know what they're about. Man, I need to actually finish the Replicant remake. Too many games, so little time haha. Thanks so much for watching and commenting ^.^