#prjmn

Netzach is a paradoxical creature.

At first glance, he seems to be a lazy, persimistic drug addict who had given up on doing his job because he believes there's just no point in trying. In a twist of irony, his name means victory, and Netzach the Sephirot represents endurance, fortitude, and the patience to follow through on one's goal. Seemingly, he has none of those qualities. And yet, as I get to know him further and explored his past, I realize nothing fits him better than Netzach. In which, I mean, I think he embodied the very concept of preseverance.

Let's first talk about his original self, Giovanni. At the very start, he lived an uneventful, sheltered life, merely going with the flow as he thought it was the natural thing to do. Without aim, without purpose. He was barely a person, never really thinking about why he was there or what he truly wanted.

Until he met Carmen, who struck him with awe and broke him free from that monotonous, stagnant life he was trapped in. She was a person filled with dreams and aspirations. Even as no one paid attention to her or took interest in what she advocated, she was determined and persistent and didn't give up on her cause. I think that was what Giovanni loved about Carmen—she lived her life with purpose and took pride in it.

So... he let her be his guiding light. He abandoned the safety and comfort of the Nest and followed her to the Outskirt. Even though the road she walked was completely unknown and unpredictable and filled with hardships, he was willing to be her company. He didn't even mind if she simply viewed him as a colleague or a good friend. He didn't mind if his feelings weren't returned—if there wouldn't be any happy ending for him at the end of the road. That, to me, was no easy decision. It took a lot of fearlessness.

And then tragedy struck.

After all, Carmen was still a human. Not being able to handle the guilt of Enoch's death, she succumbed to her depression and took her own life. Even though Giovanni wanted to help cheer her up, her despair was just too much for him to handle. I think at that point, Giovanni realized how little power he had. After all, he couldn't even save the one he loved, who was right beside him. Why would he even think he had the power to save humanity?

He could've given up then. The person he loved, the reason he even joined the project in the first place, had already left this world. He could just leave, and no one would be able to blame him. But he decided to remain anyway, to continue what she had started. Even though she was gone, even as he realized how powerless he was, Giovanni decided to continue on to finish what she started, anyway. He didn't give up on Carmen's cause, despite everything. I think part of it was because he had nothing else to live for, but that didn't really change the fact that he persevered on the goal. Carmen's death, in the end, didn't make him give up.

So I don't think he volunteered for the experiment because he lost all hope. He didn't do it because he wanted to throw away his life carelessly. He was presented with a chance to bring back Carmen, a glimmer of hope. Even though the risk was too great that no one dared to gamble their life on it. But he decided to cling to that hope, even if it was slim, even if it made people thought he was suicidal or foolish. Because the alternative was giving up on Carmen. And he didn't want to do that. Even if it meant he'd survive, such a life, to him, was worse than death.

In the end, we all know that there wasn't any chance of reviving Carmen anyway. Ayin simply took advantage of him and deceived him into giving up himself. His sacrifice was tragic and poignant. Even still, I think it wasn't completely meaningless. He lived true to himself, holding on to the hope Carmen gave him until the bitter end. And he died without any regrets.

Sure make you wonder how did a person like that turned into Netzach as you met him at the start of the game.

I remembered him mentioning that he used to work really hard saving people's lives. But the task given to him was pretty much Sisyphean, in a facility like Lob Corp, where their employees' lives are treated as expendable, and as we find out in Wonderlab, they even let them die on purpose for the sake of creating more energy. Safety itself was a contradictory concept, and thus an impossible and futile task to bear. The company itself was working against him.

And Netzach felt that futility and helplessness, as he failed to save his employee over and over and over again. Even the strongest will would slowly be eroded away under that kind of stress.

Slowly, he forgot his initial resolve, and fell into depression and abused Enkephalin in order to numb himself from the guilt. But no matter how much he took, it never really went away. Because despite everything, he couldn't remove what remained at the core: his compassion and empathy. He never stopped caring. And he suffered for it.

Eventually, his depression festered into self-hatred and destructive impulses. He internalized his failures, and blamed himself. For the lives he failed to save, for his own failure to cope with the horror.

Unlike Yesod, Netzach wasn't able to repress his emotions. He couldn't really pretend everything was normal, that this was just how it was supposed to be. He was extremely conscious of his emotions, of just how fucked up the situation was, and his own powerlessness in the face of it. He just couldn't normalize the suffering as long as he had that clarity and awareness.

In addition, the people around him reinforced his self-hatred. They looked down on him, because he was just a drug junkie who refused to do his job. I remembered Angela told the manager not to "stoop down to his level" if you agreed to give him his beer vending machine. Also Tiphereth A pretty much outright told him he should be replaced.

Yet, he didn't blame his own employees, for using drugs to cope with the job they had to perform. That conversation stuck with me, and I still think about it from time to time. He didn't think the manager had the rights to judge them, to call them cowards for depending on drugs to cope with the reality they had to face.

At that moment, when he already gave up on his own life, he still defended them. He still saw them as human, who tried their best and didn't deserve to be treated like himself. I think that was Netzach's perseverance, his refusal to give up on what he believed in, deep down.

Netzach didn't fundamentally change after his core suppression. He just recalled Giovanni's original resolve, to save that one person he loved, and to finish what she had started, to hold on to the seed of hope that she planted in him.