Layer Four: Creation

Who really created Lain? Throughout the series, there are numerous implications that Lain was created to correct the coding that Masami Eiri had placed in the 7th protocol -- in truth, it was Tachibana Labs who had created Lain, to delete Eiri's coding. She existed to purge the corruption of the Wired, and restore it to its original intended use; as a simple means of communication, never meaning to replace the real world.

Lain's father, Iwakura Yasuo had worked with Tachibana Labs, and knew what would eventually come of Lain; several times, he had warned Lain about the dangers of mixing the Wired and the real world. But was she really "born"? Was she really meant to have a body? It's left as an open question. Masami Eiri tried to convince Lain that she was created by him, and that she should love him as he loves her. Eiri was a self proclaimed God of the Wired, and in his reasoning, Lain was so powerful because he had created her. He knew that she carried the means to delete him from the Wired; but Lain always rebuffed him, claiming that a body was needed and not just a package of ribosomes.

God. Lain asked many questions about the existence of a God, and the series itself makes some comments on it as well. In episode 5 (Layer 5: Distortion) Lain asks who is the one who connects everything, and who is the one who determines the outcome of the "prophecy". There are numerous comments on the fact that there may not actually be a God in the real world, but in the Wired, there is something that comes close to it, which is what Masami Eiri wanted to become: Deus of the Wired. On one hand, Tachibana created Lain to delete Eiri's coding, and on the other, Eiri claimed to have been Lain's creator, a God creating a powerful being like himself.

If Tachibana had indeed created Lain, then the question is, what exactly is Lain? Depending on which side you look at it, the answer differs. To the "real world" and to Tachibana Labs, she was a deletion protocol designed to purge the Wired of Eiri's coding. Lain was the barrier between the real and Wired worlds, and she existed to once again separate them; to designate the Wired to its intended role as a means of communication. But taken from Eiri's perspective, Lain is an image of himself; the potential of humanity to leave behind the real world and become part of a higher existence. Eiri believed that the Wired was a higher plane than actual reality; during episode 5 (Layer 5: Distortion) Lain has a dream-like sequence in which she is speaking to her mother, Iwakura Miho. "What if the real world is just a hologram of the Wired, and simply exists to prove that there is existence beyond the Wired?" -- the Wired became a symbol of evolution to Eiri, to a higher plane of consciousness, and by his example he wished others to follow him and to abandon their bodies. In short, to Eiri, Lain was a means to break down the barriers of the real and Wired worlds, and to integrate them into one.

Lain's existence is one of extreme contradictions; meant to separate the the real world and the Wired, and at the same time, being able to break down those same barriers. Was she real or just a hallucination of the Wired? Was there a real world to begin with? Who was Iwakura Lain to begin with...?

(( back to internal diagnostic ))

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