Indeed an unclear ending.
My thoughts on the moon and the changing of Mars's environment in the end: I believe they said the earth was gone, so both the moon people and Martians had no mother planet anymore, now if I interpret that as that the earth is physically gone (e.g. exploded), then the change in gravitational fields surrounding and pulls on the moon by other planets and the sun may be the reason the Martians fear the moon and the moon's getting closer to Mars in the end, i.e. without the earth (and/or perhaps due its explosion) the moon's on a collision trajectory with Mars. This explains of course why the crust is rupturing and water is flowing and even forming clouds - gravitational pull by the ever closer getting moon. It also explains why Volk wanted to fire missiles at the moon, i.e. try and destroy it or at least minimize the damage caused by collision. What I don't get is Vesta's optimism for the future (with Martians now becoming Barbaroi), since if the collision was the problem of the moon, then Mars and Martians are still doomed.
But what about Nei's transformation and what Layla did in the end? Someone already said maybe Nei's a martian, so perhaps martian humans work differently from humans born on earth in terms of physiology. Still, at least if she'd been the child of Volk and Vesta, that would've made more sense, since they were prolonging their lives with plenty of artificial enhancements into their bodies, so, if they were to have a child, it would make more sense for such a child to have an unconventional physiology (i.e. the transformation in terms of hair/eye color and in terms of gender/sex) compared to 'terrian' children; also her initial eye colors I think were the same as those of Volk and Vesta and when she became a biological female her eye color was that of Vesta, which is the female of the two. They were also close and colleagues initially, so them having a child is not that weird. But this is not the case, for Vesta says Nei was born of Barbaroi parents and Vesta and Volk are dome people. So the simple explanation seems to be: apparently when two barbaroi make love and a child is born on Mars, the child will have this unconventional physiology (by earth standards) just because of martian factors, so barbaroi genetics, martian environment, available food etc.. Alternatively, much more speculative: perhaps she really is the hope for the future of humanity, i.e. the child born when no children were born anymore, and she was just 'given' to her mother, i.e. there was no intercourse, but it is more like in Christianity with the birth of Jesus, gifted to Maria by an angel / God / the holy spirit - Mashimo has a great sense of poetry and historical/cultural knowledge as is apparent in some other works of his, so he might have wanted to go with a Christian reference here - perhaps Nei was a gift of God to allow the humans to continue to exist. In this case her having unusual physiology is also less strange. Then perhaps her being of Barbaroi descent is a hint of God that the future is still very possible, but that is not to be found in waging war with each other over resources (in the domes), but rather in peaceful coexistence (like the barbaroi), i.e. that when the martians become barbaroi, God will again permit intercourse to lead to the brith of new life.
Now, why Layla having formed such a close and motherly bond with Nei (both having no one left in some sense), caring more and more about her, after finishing her revenge and defeating Volk, breaks down emotionally and then sets out on a journey leaving Nei behind just like that is well beyond me. Yes, find the true meaning of your journey Cross said, someone else pointed out, yeah yeah, all that, but this makes 0 sense for giving that new meaning of that journey post revenge a concrete implementation. It would have made much more sense for that new meaning to be found in living together with Nei, given their bond throughout the show. Her breaking down emotionally, I mean, perhaps makes sense given she was really young when everyone died and after that she basically just learned how to fight for the sake of survival and revenge, so from the age on where you get most of your general education, she got 0 of that, which also explains her lack of verbal skills and vocabulary, so she's had this heavy trauma as a young child and after much suffering and struggling she finally managed to avenge her parents and everyone she knew, but also that means her purpose in life, the one thing pushing her on, is gone, so of course a lot of emotions may be going through her in that moment, joy from revenge, crying from memory of the trauma, also the suffering of the past years. So I can make sense of the laughing and crying, but her leaving Nei behind, just like that, I don't understand that. |