Serial Experiments Lain Episode 8 Discussion

This was a really interesting episode, and one in which a bit more actually happened than usual. The majority of it is very surreal. I actually had to watch it twice to fully understand what had happened.

So, the opening scenes confused me, I still don't really understand much about the IP's, other than that somehow, they are the way in which people in the wired are able to exchange information, and Tachibana General Labs is trying to sabotage the implementation of the 7th protocol.

After this we see a scene of Lain asking her parents about the remarks of them not being her real parents. When she enters the room, neither of her parents move at all or make eye contact, and it is eerily similar to the behavior of her soulless sister. The only response she gets to her questions is a stare, similar to the one she gets from the entire school farther on in the episode. I'm not quite sure of the meaning of this, but the behavior of most of the people in this episode seems more like that of dolls than that of humans. Somebody else in this thread remarked that the school stare scene has a dreamlike quality about it, and i would say the same of this scene.

In the next scene we learn that Wild Lain has done something to upset Arisu and the rest of her friends, which we later learn is telling everyone about Arisu's fantasies of sex with one of her teachers. One of her friends motions to Arisu that a teacher is arriving at the school, and this is something i did not pick up on during my first watch, but this is the same teacher that Arisu was fantasizing about.

We cut to lain sitting in class, on her navi-phone thing. She enters the wired, and it is unclear to me whether she does this intentionally through her phone or whether she is pulled into the wired by another force. We see her walk down a hallway suspended in darkness, with rows of people (the only visible part of which are their mouths) on either side, gossiping, apparently about other things that Wild Lain has told the wired. At the end of the hallway, she meets a being that claims to "exist everywhere in that other world." The being then reveals itself to be Lain herself, and says that real world Lain is just a body, a hologram. Lain refuses to believe this, and wakes up in the classroom.

I believe that this next scene is very important, as it seems to imply that the "real world" may not be so real as we think. The entire scene is very dreamlike. Upon Lain's awakening, she looks up to find that everyone, including the teacher, has ceased all activity and are staring at her, motionless. She leaves the classroom to find the rest of the entire school doing the same. This screams "dream" to me, as suddenly the whole world seems to be revolving around Lain, and playing to her fears. The entire scene is very creepy, yet the music, which thus far in the series has tended to match the eerie tone, is very calm and again, dreamlike.

Afterwords, we see Lain crying outside of the school, and receiving a text from Arisu attempting to comfort her, after which an orb of destruction erupts from her body and destroys the supply closet she was sitting outside of. This, i believe, is the moment at which Lain of the Wired takes over Lain of the real world's body.

Next, we see Wild Lain witnessing another of Arisu's fantasies about her teacher, and tormenting her about it, essentially destroying Lain's only real friendship. This scene points to the remarks of 'god' about lain existing everywhere being true. Wild Lain did not somehow sneak into Arisu's bedroom and seat herself on the bed unnoticed. She appeared there.

Now we see Lain lying in bed, terrified while the wires around her spark and crackle. A short shot of cyberia, and Lain floating away from powerlines, which shortly dissapear, leaving Lain suspended in darkness. This scene I am not sure what to make of. It could be any number of things, to lain experiencing being everywhere, to a dream, to the plain of existence that Lain now resides on after having been forced out of her own body by Wild Lain.

A bed appears in the blackness, and with it, the other Lain. There are some lines in this scene that seemed important to me. "Why are you acting like the part of me that i hate?" Lain admits that there is a part of her like Wild Lain, even after her statements of "you're not me". Then, when Lain attempts to strangle Wild Lain, WL laughs, and says "I'm committing suicide!" Both of these statements seem to me like the point to Lain and WL being more two sides of the same coin, rather than completely different people. Lain asks a question: "Why do i have to feel your body heat?" She does not want to feel WL's body heat, because she does not wan't to admit that Wild Lain is a real person, as much as she is, or perhaps more than she is. The answer she receives is "Hey, I'm Lain, aren't I?"

We cut back to the hallway, but now, instead of just mouths, the rows of people all have Lain's face. But they are obviously not human, not real.
'God' tells Lain that they are all her, because like him, she is omnipresent in the wired. Lain is in denial of his words, and says "everything that you say is a lie". "As long as I am aware of myself, my true self is inside of me!" But Wild Lain is aware of herself as well, no?

'God' says that what Wild Lain did was right, and that "The Wired's information should be shared, shouldn't it?" And yet he makes no attempt to persuade her not to undo what she did. She succeeds in erasing the memories of her friends, only to discover that WL has taken over her body and her friends cannot see or hear her. "Lain is Lain, and I'm me" WL says, further cementing the idea that they are both parts of Lain.

The end of the episode is Lain at her navi, asking "I'm me, right? There's no other me but me, right? But most of the evidence in this episode points to that being incorrect.