NieR Automata ver1.1a: Why A2 is the True Protagonist of the Story

NieR Automata ver1.1a tells the story of three androids in the battle against the army of machine lifeforms. YoRHa 2B, 9S, and A2 are the story’s three main characters. And they each go through different character developments throughout the events of the series. 2B goes on an arc of embracing kindness, emotion, and self-sacrifice. 9S becomes progressively more resentful and hateful as the story progresses. But A2 is the last of three to be introduced. However, her development embodies the themes of NieR Automata the best.

A2 goes on a journey to find purpose after a life of revenge. She finds herself caring for and protecting her former enemies while giving her own life away to save the world. Living in an endless cycle of life and death, she embodies the idea that life is about the struggle within this cycle.

Number 2, The Optimistic Survivor

Born to Die

When she was called Number 2, and she was a member of the YoRHa forces, she was part of the Experimental M Squadron. This team of YoRHa androids was sent to Earth to destroy a massive Machine server that was guarded by thousands of machine lifeforms. During this mission, her team encountered a group of resistance members and after a heated argument, they became allies. In this resistance team was Lily, a young female android who would later become incredibly important to the rest of the story.

By falling prey to a logic virus, most of Number 2’s team and the resistance team die in action. Leaving only Lily and Number 2 as the sole survivors. While this traumatic experience inspired Lily to become the leader the resistance needed, Number 2 succumbed to a life of revenge against the machine lifeforms and deserted from YoRHa. This experience is one of the many examples of how suffering and struggle shape the lives of the characters of NieR Automata.

Number 2, now going by A2, would spend the next four years viciously killing every machine life form she encounters. Including the infant king of the forest. And when she did so, she met 2B and 9S for the first time, declaring to them that it was a command that had betrayed them.

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A2, The Dark Hero

Dying To Protect Others

During the aftermath of Adam’s death, YoRHa forces are almost completely extinguished because of the massive logic virus infection. During this time, 2B was also infected and in her last moments, she found A2, and asked her to kill her before she turned against 9S, and with her dying wish, she begged A2 to look after her android teammate. 9S witnessed this and entered a downward spiral of hate and revenge. A 2 later meets Pascal and the other pacifist machines and begins her journey of finding purpose and redemption.

A2’s character arc is in complete opposition to 9S. She progressively becomes kinder and more protective of everyone around her, while 9S focuses so much on his revenge that he loses his mental sanity and physical health. The story of NieR Automata is all about the meaning of life, finding purpose and embracing and growing from the struggle of living. The lives of the three androids are an endless cycle of violence and pain and A2’s is the biggest example of this. She was created to be cast away, to be discarded. She spent four years continuously killing and destroying to fill that void of pain and loss that she had. YoRHa androids are prohibited from harboring emotion and yet, the three androids and their lives are defined by the emotions they feel.

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A2 learns to trust machines and people around her and replaces her quest for revenge with a new path of protection. She found purpose in her incredible combat abilities by using them to save lives instead of ending them. She’s someone who took her suffering and loss and instead of turning it into darkness like 9S did, she directed it to save what little was left of her allies. In the face of 9S’s unbridled hatred, she instead opted to save him from himself. And immediately after sacrificing her life to bring down the Machine Tower.

Her connection to Lily and The Resistance shows her importance to the story. Unlike 2B and 9S, she has a personal attachment to the soldiers fighting on Earth. This makes her act of saving Lily from the pain of the logic virus even more hurtful for both her and the audience. A2 acts as a dark mirror to 2B, living in the shadows of the machine war, rising to the light of saving the ark that will eventually revive humankind.

Everything that lives is designed to end. The androids, the machines, and the resistance are all trapped in an endless cycle of life and death. However, life is all about the struggle within this cycle. This is what A2 represents. She is someone who has struggled like almost no one else in the story and, in the end, she gives it all up for a chance of salvation. Besides her being created to be discarded for years of onslaught, she too is deserving of life.

NieR: Automata Ver1.1a

Based on the video game developed by PlatinumGames and Square Enix, NieR: Automata 1.1a is an adaptation that centers around members of a special android force created by Humanity in the distant future. In the year 5012, with Humanity at the brink of extinction and Earth all but claimed by Alien invaders with Machine Lifeforms, Humanity launches a counterattack to reclaim the planet. 9S, an elite attack unit, is sent to convene with an analysis unit known as 9S to eradicate the threat. But as the two learn about the world and themselves, they ponder the meaning of existence and whether they’re more than just weapons of destruction.