Pascal is a major NPC in NieR:Automata who also serves as a temporarily playable character in Route C. Although a machine, Pascal is a pacifist that actively takes precautions to avoid fighting and searches for a path to peace with like-minded machine lifeforms.
Appearance
Pascal has a somewhat unique appearance among machine lifeforms, having a slightly-more humanoid body, a cylindrical head as opposed to a spherical one, a gauge on his chest, and a large exhaust pipe on his back. His eyes normally glow green, but when engaged in combat his eyes glow red, similar to other machine lifeforms.
Personality
Pascal is extremely kind, as well as highly intellectual. He shows interest in topics like human philosophy and the history of humankind and machine lifeforms. He is very open-minded to androids, often willing to help them and have them interact with residents of his village, to the point of being overbearing. He has a strong parental love for his citizens, especially the children, whom he intentionally uses a female voice for to be soothing.[1]
In a side story, he takes great interest in the love between an android and machine lifeform, and facilitates communication between the two. He often panics when things go awry, like when his children are fighting, but when his village is at risk, he demonstrates a powerful and merciless resolve to destroy those who threaten it. In the anime, his backstory is explored in much greater detail, in which after a lifetime of fighting and losing allies, he was moved to think for himself by Emil who told him to live, though he in turn became keenly aware of the emotion "fear." He feared not being able to recognize the deaths of his allies as a sad thing, convincing him to break free from of the machine network and renounce fighting, forming a village of like-minded machines like himself. As such, he also taught his villagers "fear" so that they wouldn't do anything reckless, though this backfires when the village children commit suicide because of their fear, not understanding a fear of death.
Feeling immense anguish and guilt, Pascal could not live with his memories and decided he would rather have them erased or be killed. However, in the game's epilogue, he finds himself still drawn to caring for other machines and learns from his mistakes. His love for his children is so great that in the anime, he dies comforting a scared machine child to the very end, even as it infects him.
Story
NieR:Automata
Having disconnected from the machine network, Pascal leads a society of diverse machines and educates them to live peacefully, seeking concord with androids. He has established peaceful relations with Anemone and the Resistance Camp, and the two factions engage in trade of machine and android parts and other resources. It is revealed that in place of his two legs, Pascal may attach a wind turbine similar to a Small Flier machine to help him stay airborne.
After communicating with another machine colony located in the Abandoned Factory, Pascal requests that 2B accompany him to the factory to discuss peace treaty negotiations. However, within minutes of their arrival, the situation turns dire as it's revealed that many of the factory residents have gone berserk. Pascal avoids engaging in battle while 2B fights, and the two eventually manage to escape the factory together with the assistance of 9S.
During a visit to the Resistance Camp, Pascal has his first encounter with A2, who due to her hatred of machines threatens his life, but is ultimately spared and allowed to return home. Later, Pascal receives a visit from A2, who is in need of a new filter, and fashions one for her. Once this task is complete, A2 is asked to run an errand and collect a philosophy book from Anemone, but while she's away from the village, some of its residents suddenly turn hostile and begin eating their fellow machines. Pascal calls for A2's aid, and when the android arrives, he flees the village, taking the child machines with him to the Abandoned Factory.
At the factory, Pascal watches over the children and tries to comfort them as they cower, afraid for their lives and wanting to see their families again. A2 meets with him there, but shortly thereafter, they receive word that a massive force of machines is converging on the factory, threatening its occupants.
As A2 fights the machines, Pascal chooses to temporarily discard his pacifistic ways and hijacks a Goliath-class Engels unit. The player temporarily takes control of Pascal at this point and uses the Engels to destroy waves of approaching machines before facing off against another Engels. After emerging victorious, Pascal rejoins A2, and they return to the factory to tell the children that the danger has passed. However, to Pascal's horror, the children had committed suicide.
Horrified, Pascal realizes that he made a grave mistake—in educating the children, he taught them the concept of fear. He believed that if they learned fear, it would prevent them from seeking trouble and help them stay safe in the village. But the children became so overwhelmed with fear of the hostile machines that they killed themselves to escape it.
Unable to live with what he has done, Pascal asks that A2 delete all of his memories, or failing that, to kill him. If the player chooses to delete Pascal's memories, he will return to his now abandoned village as a shell of who he once was. In this state, he offers to sell various machine parts, including the cores of the child machines, unaware that he's selling the scrap that once comprised his fellow villagers.
The player can also spare Pascal and simply walk away, leaving him to choose his own fate. He does not appear in the game again after this, with his character profile stating he simply left.
If Pascal was spared, he will appear during the machine ark's departure from the Tower in Ending D. If not, an empty shot of where he was in the village if spared is shown instead.
NieR:Automata Ver1.1a
In NieR:Automata Ver1.1a, Pascal has more personality and even knows how to make jokes. He doesn't hesitate when it comes to protecting the children of his village, who lovingly refer to him as "Uncle."
Pascal's origins are explored more in depth. Pascal was a machine lifeform soldier. He encounters Emil, who awakens Pascal's free will, but continues to fight for some time after. As the bodies of his allies continued to pile up, Pascal became cognizant of his "fear" and was afraid of his inorganic self that could not recognize that warlike scene as tragic. Pascal renounces fighting as a result and he forms his village around the tree with Emil's head embedded in it.
Pascal requests 2B and 9S to help him find lost machine siblings in the Forest Kingdom, while being the one to pose the Ship of Theseus question to 9S. Pascal also aids 9S and the Resistance Camp in the final battle against Adam. When the Tower emerges, Pascal saves A2 from the wreckage and cares for her in his village, whilst having her bond with the villagers. In a side story, he and A2 observe the correspondence between Lily and her pen-pal in his village and its tragic outcome.
In Episode 20, when the village is under attack, Pascal brings the children survivors to the Resistance Camp, unaware that there is a child that was infected with the zombie virus. In Episode 21, after defeating an Engels unit, Pascal goes to the Resistance Camp to reunite with the children, only to discover that they had been devoured by the infected child who became frightened when his music box stopped playing. After fixing his music box, Pascal lifts the child up and embraces him before the child bites his shoulder and begins infecting him. He apologizes to A2, stating that he was leaving the rest to her, before finally initiating a self-destruct, killing both himself and the infected child.
His memory is seen aboard the Ark alongside other machine lifeforms in Episode 24.
Appearances
Pascal appears in the following episodes of NieR:Automata Ver1.1a:
- Episode 5, mave[R]ick (appears)
- Episode 7, [Q]uestionable actions (appears)
- Episode 8, aji wo [K]utta? (appears)
- Episode 11, head[Y] battle (appears)
- Episode 12, flowers for m[A]chines (appears)
- Episode 14, mission [F]ailed (appears)
- Episode 17, bad [J]udgment (appears)
- Episode 18, chil[D]hood's end (appears)
- Episode 19, corru[P]tion (appears)
- Episode 20, deb[U]nked (appears)
- Episode 21, [N]o man's village (appears)
[U]ndecided Option
Following the end of the 14th Machine War, Pascal, in helping the resistance camp fight extremist androids, recovers his memories and reforms his village, and then signs a peace treaty with the androids on earth as the acting machine representative.[2][3]
Description
Intel
A pacifist machine lifeform that despises conflict and strives endlessly for peace with humanity. This unit possesses incredible intelligence, as well as a deep interest in the history of both humans and machines.
After fear overtook them, the children of the Pascal's village committed suicide. Filled with sorrow at his decision to teach them about fear, Pascal asked A2 to delete his memories. Once she did, the Pascal of old ceased to exist.
Other Appearances
NIKKE: Goddess Of Victory
Pascal was available as a playable character via the OuteR: Automata daily login event.
Trivia
- Pascal identifies as male, but intentionally uses a female voice in order to soothe his adopted children.[1]
- Choosing to have A2 kill Pascal outside of the Resistance Camp during their first meeting results in Ending Z.
- Doing anything except wiping Pascal's memories at the factory prevents 100% completion of the game, as it prevents the acquisition of the Machine Heads weapon.
- Pascal is a reference to Blaise Pascal, a French Philosopher whose work "Les Pensées" talked about happiness, belief, education, and the fear of death. He also contributed to the birth of probabilities theory.
- In addition, Blaise Pascal is known for constructing "Pascal's Wager," an argument that it is logical to act as if God exists: the character Pascal is at one point shown as skeptical of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously coined the phrase "God is dead."
- Pascal makes a cameo appearance in Soulcalibur VI, flying around the City Ruins arena occasionally.
Gallery
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Patrick Klepek (June 5, 2017). Does the Designer Behind 'Nier: Automata' Believe in God? VICE.
- ↑ [U]ndecided Option: "Discarded Memories"
- ↑ NieR:Automata World Guide Volume 2 p.281
