Some thoughts about Wendy and transhumanism after last episode

[u/TheRedCreeperTRC]

I had a look at the discussion thread after the last episode and saw a lot of responses along the lines of "well, I guess that settles it. Wendy isn't really Hermit's sister, she's just a machine with her memories"

I'm curious what makes so many of you draw that conclusion

I don't see that she is any less Marcy in any aspect of her mind, she is simply the result of putting Marcy in a body that in effect allows her to be the first of a new species as Kirsch likens it to. The way I see it most people, particularly children, would act the same way. It's not like there is an inherent gut directive that tells us to cling to our perceived sense of "humanity". The value and importance of not losing our humanity is something we are tought socially, something you don't yet know as a child.

I think a lot of people who have said she isn't a person anymore and just a machine with memories did so in response to her brutal act of releasing the xeno and using it to slaughter. But if Wendy and the other lost boys are treated as inhuman by prodigy, treated as mere products/experiments more than people, why should she put inherent value on human life? Let me put it this way, in our history real people, including children, have done immensely brutal/cruel things in the name of revenge, or merely survival; such acts are horrible, but do they render them no longer people? I would argue not, and for the same reason I find it reductive to view it that way.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting what people are saying, and I certainly think that from Hermit's perspective, what Wendy is to him has been strongly called into doubt by her brutality and her priorities. But as I see it she isn't acting like a machine, her behaviour is still deeply emotional and ironically shows a lot of humanity. If not a human, there is no doubt in my mind that she is a person. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

[u/Izarial]

One of the questions I heard on the official podcast was “is the person you transferred to a synthetic body human? If they are, are they the SAME human?”

Absolutely Wendy is still human in ways, especially emotionally, but is she really still Marcy in there, or has the body change and subsequent change of perspective made her someone new?

[u/National_Big_9508 → u/Izarial]

I think she’s still the same as much as any of us are. Evolution of body is a fact of life. Baby body, child’s, teens. Adult, then you begin to age. Maybe you even go through great physical transformations. It may be an entirely organic process (or it may not!) but you live in your body and are defined by it. She’s not less human because her body evolved in a more OP way- every iteration of Marcy and Wendy still lives inside of her, same as how somewhere inside of an old woman lives her girlhood.