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ANN Book Club -- Serial Experiments Lain.

So I finished the series a day or two ago, I forget, but I've also been finding it hard to really compose my thoughts in a way that even makes sense to myself. Like, I think I got it but am not really sure... Guess that was kind of expected, though, right?

(And I thought it was cool that Alice's younger hairstyle looked a lot like mine did two days ago.)

The last two episodes were quite a ride and really a great way to end the series, but I can't help feeling as though they created more questions than all the rest of the episodes combined.

It was cute that he came to Lain at the last minute asking her to come out of hiding in her bear, which was like a layer protecting her from the real world.

What I still don't get is the whole Lain-alien thing. Why one appeared in Lain's room, and why Lain appeared as one later in Alice's room...

I want to (attempt to) touch on your theories on how Lain was formed and whether or not she's a god during the final thoughts phase, so we can drag the discussion out like a whole season of [insert SJ series here] fillers.

HellKorn wrote:

Moelodrama

lulz

To me, it felt like that whole ending sequence with Lain seeing her father the way she did, and also given the circumstances at the time, it seemed to be hinting at sort of the idea of "if god really does exist, then this is what he should be like instead of what Eiri was like." Meaning everything he does is for the benifits of others, not for his own gain, being too full of ego, caught up in his own power and all. He loves us for us and not for him, basically.

Thing is though, you get a strong vibe from this series that in this belief that pretty much means that this world and a human body are worthless.

I was also interested in thinking about what was being said by Lain's other self (and Alice, to some extent) about how Lain doesn't really exist if no one can remember her or if no one knows she does. That seems to me to be very much the same along the lines of what Eiri was saying about how a god can't truly exist unless there are people to believe in him.

At the very least what I got from that was that if Lain is supposed to be that kind of being herself, then how is it that she still exists despite the fact that no one knows she does?

There's only one thing still nagging me about the series: what exactly happens to the Men in Black when they're given their payment in the parking garage? I mean, alright, they're killed, but I'm not sure about the hows, whys and whos.

The MIB were tricked into working for the head of Tachibana Labs, a man who seems to be a part of Masami Eiri's plans judging from his comment during his final meeting with the MIB. He said he was interested in seeing the outcome of Lain's actions.

The purpose of the MIBs was to observe Lain while at the Iwakura residence from the outside. They assumed Lain was the center of the blurring between Wired and real world thus believed Tachibana needed them to potentially eliminate her should she pose too great a threat to the division of both worlds. In reality, Eiri and Tachibana needed the two men to observe amy developments in Lain's power and well-being. After learning about the Knights, the MIB killed off all the members assuming this was done to preserve the division. In reality, Eiri and the Tachibana head needed them wiped out or risk having their plans unveiled thanks to Lain exposing all the members of the Knights.

With their purposes fulfilled, Eiri and Tachibana had no further use for the two men. They had to be killed off since they now knew of their plans with Lain. The wild Lain was brought in to kill off the Men in Black.

I'll get around to that tomorrow! I promise.

Thing is though, you get a strong vibe from this series that in this belief that pretty much means that this world and a human body are worthless.

I was also interested in thinking about what was being said by Lain's other self (and Alice, to some extent) about how Lain doesn't really exist if no one can remember her or if no one knows she does.

I, myself, wrote:

I'll get around to that tomorrow! I promise.

Okay, I lied. I'm a terrible person. Every time I try to make a post, something comes up and I become distracted.

At this point I really need to re-watch this thing. Especially the last two episodes. I had planned a few things to say, but it's funny how you begin to doubt things after watching something like Lain.

From my point of view, the concept that the body is worthless was portrayed as being a negative idea in Lain rather than trying to promote it. It might seem ideal at first, which is what everyone was trying to convince Lain throughout most of the series, but you can see what happened at the end.

I think this also backs up what I was saying earlier about her creation... maybe. I dunno what I'm talking about anymore.

I think you might have misunderstood what I was saying here.

I was basically saying that yeah, that was indeed portrayed as a negative idea. Basically I was just talking about how I think our church would pretty much agree, so maybe that idea isn't quite as atheistic as one might think.

I'm stuck on the point when Eiri said that Lain was created as "software." I don't remember if it was brought up here before, but I wanted to clarify: was that brought up by Eiri as a lie to further drag Lain into the Wired? Or does it even have anything to do with anything? Cause it would kinda contradict the other creation ideas.

The ending theme where Lain is curled up, sleeping in a womb of wires (someone brought this up very early in the thread), which I guess might represent connections or something.

But when thinking about all the possibilities for each theory, it feels as though there's really no "right" answer.

In fact I'm kinda questioning right now just how atheistic this series is as a whole.

It's like Hellkorn said, there definitely seems to be some kind of pro-religious underlying theme here, be it a minor one or not.