Nier (video game)/Headscratchers

• Where did Yonah go in ending C? After the fight with Kaine begins she just seems to disappear.
  • She was probably still there, just out of sight, as she appears in ending D.
• Where did Yonah's Black Scrawl go? When we finally see her in Part 2, she shows no signs of it, nor is she the worse for wear after apparently having this life-threatening disease for five years. Is getting possessed by your Shade the cure for it or something?
  • Yokoo says she still has it, and is doomed to die. She did seem rather weak in part 2 though - walking a few steps takes quite a lot out of her.
• The infobook. Just...just the infobook. the Shades being unable to live without the Shadowlord makes no sense. The prologue shows Gestalt!Nier (who is the Shadowlord) fighting against the Shades, and there is clearly no "Shadowlord" at that point in the timeline, which clearly shows that they are capable of existing without a leader.
  • • It's not that Shades can't exist. It's that 'non-relapsed Gestalts' can't exist. Sentient Shades like Gretel, Kalil and her mother, Roc, the Shades hiding amongst humans in the Aerie, and possibly Gestalt Yonah herself can't retain said sentience without the specific element produced by Gestalt Nier and harvested from him for 1300 years, so any similar Shades still alive by that point would eventually relapse and become mindless and hostile. The Shadowlord himself is a very unique kind of Gestalt, able to maintain a very close likeness of his human form, and apparently has the power to put Gestalts back in their Replicants all on his own. When he's destroyed (and he doesn't just fade away like other Shades, his death animation is just as unique) then the source of this element is also gone, and with Weiss 'also' gone there's no way for Project Gestalt to return the remaining Shades to their Replicant bodies.
• Ok seriously, is the giant shade that attacks Nier's village at the end of part 1 called Jack or Knave of Hearts? If its the latter, then I think the official game guide needs an update.
  • In playing cards, before they were called Jacks, they were called Knaves.
• Even after getting the ability to unpetrify people, Emil never sees fit to fix all those poor statues in his mansion? Why?
  • Maybe they've been petrified so long they can no longer be restored, or maybe Kaine's... unique nature allowed her to survive petrification.
• How exactly do Replicants get made? They seem to be flesh and blood so they were more likely "grown" like you might a clone, but at somepoint it is said they are sterile and without android overseers they'll die out. So how are new Replicants produced in a world that has approximatly midevil level technology?
  • Not all of the [game] world has medieval technology --Nier hardly expressed any surprise at the robot-filled Junkheap, or even the factory-like facility itself. Even the Weapons Lab merited little response other than where its hidden entrance was. But anyway! There's the implication that the Androids have their own, hidden facilities for cloning Replicants. Grimoire Nier mentions that, at some point, Replicants go to the Androids, are made to sleep for a while, and when they wake up they suddenly have a child. Since the late human world regularly created Replicants to use in the war against Legion, it's easy to assume that at least some of these installations still exist somewhere..
• Is Tyrann the Gestalt for anyone we know?
  • Not from the game, but according to the radio drama, he was originally Masayoshi Yura, the commander of the Shinjuku area defense force. He was well-known for his ability to get results, and better known for his sadistic way of doing so. He was also somewhat of an accidental Gestalt; his Replicant data wasn't preserved due to a dishonorable discharge from the military (that is, he ran for his life during an isolated disaster) and has been spending his life as a Shade body-hopping.
  • Possibly also a Hero of Another Story, then. Certainly sounds like someone we know...
• The Shadowlord's defenses make no sense. Why are the children on the path directly toward the Shadowlord instead of away in some safe area among the massive area surrounding Shadowlord's place. Shouldn't they have Goose on the frontlines to fight Nier's team before they have a chance to massacre everyone. And if Popola can destroy the bridge why not just do that in the first place.
• On another note, why is Popola so helpful to Nier? Giving him transport to the Shadowlord and giving him direction even when he had been wandering aimlessly for five years. What does any of that accomplish for her or Shadowlord's plans?