Something incredibly fucked up that I don't think I've seen any actual Narzissenkreuz content about is that Narzissenkreuz ISN'T RENE. He's the remains of Rene's failed rebirth, combined with some of Carter's remains, combined with Alain's pocketwatch, with a self built from Rene's memories and Jakob's view of who Rene was. This is revealed in Jakob's logbook at the end of the Book of Revelations' space, along with the 10th page of that same book:
This certainly doesn't sound like Jakob dragging Rene back from a near-death state, it sounds like a desperate Jakob cobbling together what he could to create a believable fascimilie of the Rene he lost.
It's also very much worth noting that Jakob NEVER (as far as I'm aware) refers to Narzissenkreuz as Rene, and at the end when he thinks the world will be dissolved and Narzissenkreuz will return, that THAT is when he views Rene as returning as well.
Something impossible to separate from this is how young Rene and Jakob were during these events - The timeline feels like it takes place over only a few years, and we know Jakob is several years younger (maybe 4-5) than Rene. Assuming Rene and Alain were around the same age, which would place them at under 15 (Carter describing Alain's labcoat as ill-fitting when he reunited wirh Rene, which indicates he likely hadn't hit his growth spurt) when they worked together in the institute, this means Rene was probably under 20 when he died and "returned" as Narzissenkreuz. Jakob would be 15 at most.
Another part of this is that Narzissenkreuz likely never knew he wasn't the original Rene - Jakob purposefully wiped his memories of his creation, his previous failures, and never told Narzissenkreuz what had happened. In this way, he's almost an inverse of Caterpillar - a being created from the physical and mental remains of a person and formed into a recreation of them versus the mental remnants of a person placed into a foreign body and left to grow into its own new being.
Yes!! I was literally thinking about it earlier!!
All in all, this questline is about people coming into terms that they aren't the people they are made from, and that those people are gone, and so is the past. Ann/"Mary-Ann" is not the same as Mary-Ann/Lyris, or Caterpillar not being Carter/a hilichurl/the other people who were baked into him. Going by this theme, Narzissenkreuz is neither the original Rene nor Carter nor Jakob's memories of him (or any of the other many, many souls poured into its creations), but another being altogether. Narzissenkreuz isn't Rene either way, just like Ann, and "Mary-Ann", and Caterpillar. The originals are gone.
Which is why, during Rowboat's Wake, we have this interaction, in which Narzissenkreuz clearly lied to "Mary-Ann" about being Rene. He decided not to correct "Mary-Ann" (because he wasn't sure if he was Rene or not? because he used to be Rene and it was close enough?), but there were clearly some doubts there, when referring to himself as Rene.
And finally, during his death scene...
He never did change his name back to Rene........... Haunting last lines. (I have thought about them every day since I read them.) Because he isn't Rene!!! He had the same character arc as all of the characters of this arc, and found peace with that!!! Because they're all parallels!!!!
