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Data inscrierii: 13/Aug/2007
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Nyū (にゅう, Nyū?) is a split personality of Lucy, possibly created from brain damage caused by a .50 BMG round ricocheting off her head (due to a metallic helmet). Nyū has a child-like personality and infantile knowledge of the world, and lacks spoken language skills. Nyū is lovable, innocent and incapable of violent acts, a foil to the normal Lucy; she is the manifestation of her 'good side'. When Nyū is attacked violently (or hit on the head), she will regress into Lucy; likewise, when Lucy is treated with love and kindness, she will uncontrollably switch back into Nyū, showing a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde complex.
One example of this is when Lucy's presence surfaces when Nyū sees a picture of Kohta's little sister Kanae, whom Lucy had encountered eight years before. At the same moment, Nyū starts to cry and eventually tells Kohta that she's sorry. While she does so, she starts to remember something, and suddenly grabs her head as if in pain (much like Lucy had done when she switched back to Nyū as she tortured Bandou). Kohta embraces her, and the Lucy side of her settles. Both Lucy and Nyū are in love with Kohta
Initially, Nyu is totally infantile: she has no idea how to feed or clothe herself, and urinates on the floor because she doesn't understand what this signifies. Living with Kohta and Yuka, Nyu soon learns basic skills, etc. Still, Nyu's spoken language skills are mostly just limited to "Nyu" (which is a nonsense word in both English and the original Japanese), but over time she gradually learns more words like "Kohta" and "yes", and by late in the series she is able to string together basic sentences. As Nyū, Lucy cannot be sensed by other Diclonius and Silpelits. Nyu never uses her vectors when she is the puternic personality, even for benign tasks such as moving household objects, etc.
Kohta chooses not to take "Nyu" to the police as a missing person, because the night Kohta found her SAT soldiers trying to recaptured her attacked both of them and sent him to the hospital with a mild concussion. Police detectives trying to debrief Kohta seemed ominously shifty and clearly knew more than they were saying, which convinced Kohta that they could not be trusted and he could not turn to the police. Similarly, Kohta realized that the police were staking out local hospitals for someone matching Nyu's description, and fearing that they would hurt her, he didn't try to take her for sanitar attention.
In the anime, it is suggested that Lucy partially manufactured the Nyū personality. She explains to Kohta (as Lucy) that having to face him terrified her, due to her compounding guilt about killing his family in a jealous fit. She wasn't able to find a way to apologize, so she instead became Nyū. It's worth noting that the Nyū personality seems to have disappeared after Kohta regains his memory.
An open question in the anime is if "Nyu" was partially a psychological by-product of Lucy's guilt and emotional trauma, at exactly which point this happens: certainly, Nyu was originally created by brain damage Lucy suffered in the first episode from the ricocheting sniper's bullet. It would seem that this gradually shifts to the point that her brain physically recovers, but psychologically she still has the split personality because she cannot stand the guilt of being "Lucy" while she is with Kohta. Exactly when this shift happens is not clear.
Notes
The character is called "Nyū" because, when Kohta and Yuka first meet Lucy on the beach, this is the only word she is capable of saying. Some anime fans compare this childlike state to Chī, the female lead of Chobits, where when she is activated, the only word she can say is "chī", and her vocabulary later grows, much like Nyū's.
At the end of the Elfen Lied manga Lucy dies at the hands of Kohta, and ten years later two diclonius twin children appear. One of them holding Lucy's memories of Kohta and named Kaede, which was Lucy's real name. The other who was not named, but contains all of Nyuu's memories of Kohta. They call Kohta their "very special friend" the same he calls Lucy when recalling her to his daughter. |
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