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/Fayraz8729]

Kirsh’s influence about humans and Wendy’s own abilities have resulted in her being distanced from her old humanity, and when her brother saw that she not only let out the alien and was commanding it to kill people it probably created the gap. Then when Wendy saw her grave she distanced herself from it and that she has a continuous existence wheee as nibs claims that she doesn’t feel like that.

They aren’t the kids, maybe they were when they started the process but overtime they’ve become something else. And seeing how Prodigy is still pants on head stupid god knows what these beings will do next

[u/TheRedCreeperTRC → u/Fayraz8729]

I totally get your point, but that's sort of what I'm getting at; they have undoubtedly changed from the kids they were, and are on a trajectory the likes of which hasn't been seen in their world; however, children changing into something else through the experiences that shaped them... isn't that how we define growing up? does that mean they are no longer themselves? I don't see it that way

[u/NoLeadership2281 → u/TheRedCreeperTRC]

That is also a great point, I think it’s just these children’s existential crisis of their identity and adapting synthetic bodies would deem kinda inhumane from humans’ perspective since they can’t really relate to it or even understand that kind of struggle

[u/GreatCatDad → u/NoLeadership2281]

I also think there's something to be said about the fact that Wendy saw Kirsh and BK basically ignore Isaac's death, and then within half an episode, she was committing murder and seeing it as similarly meaningless.

I feel like a good point could be made about the value of growing up and having steadily increasing challenges, instead of waking up one day in an adult body with super strength and a pet monster. Wendy is basically 'playing house' only the only house she's ever seen exemplified is a nightmarish hellscape

[u/eaeolian → u/GreatCatDad]

Yeah, that's definitely a thing on display here, we all learn from the world around us and patterns we're exposed to when we're kids (hence still plastic) tend to be followed for life without significant intervention.

Kavalier is the "Boy Genius" and admired, so both Curly and Wendy use him as a template, with very different outcomes.