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| “ | Aren't we all monsters inside? | „ |
| ~ Kaede |
Kaede, also known as Lucy in her mad form and Nyu in her amnesiac form, is the main protagonist and dissociative anti-villainous serial killer in the supernatural horror anime and manga Elfen Lied. Lucy is the Queen Diclonius, a powerful member of the Diclonius species with supernatural powers, who after suffering from discrimination at the hands of humans, is guided by the mysterious Diclonius DNA Voice to want to kill all of humanity.
After experiencing amnesia, she develops a childish and clueless personality, only able to make the sound Nyu, hence her name. Throughout the series, she is accompanied by Kouta and Yuka and is a dissociative anti-hero.
She is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi in the Japanese dub, who also voiced the Ice Climbers, and by Kira Vincent-Davis in the English dub. The former who also voices Allen Walker, Asuka Tenjouin, and Natsumi Raimon, and the latter also voices Kokoa Shuzen.
Personality[]
Lucy suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder and had developed up to three different and distinct mental personas over the course of her life.
Kaede/Lucy[]
Kaede/Lucy's default persona is a middle ground between the personalities of Nyū and The Voice. Since others discriminated against her, Lucy is quiet, withdrawn, and guards her emotions carefully in response to the bullying from her classmates, neglect from the child welfare workers in charge of her, and the absence of her parents. Though she understood the other miserable children in the orphanage were using her to forget their misery, she is shown wondering why they have to treat her in such a way just because of her horns. The bullying left its mark on her interactions with others by leaving her puzzled about how to return the kindness. As shown with both Kouta and later Aiko Takada, she didn't know how to react to people being kind to her other than being embarrassed. She even let her emotions slip around them and became quickly thrown off when her only two friends praised her or caught her acting in any way other than calm, cool, and collected.
Since Kōuta was the first person to show her kindness, Lucy's feelings about him were deeply affectionate and intense, yet fraught with guilt and shame as well. She wanted nothing more than to be by his side, which explained why she allowed Nyu's creation and why she let Nyū hold the reins so often. Lucy herself would only cause him pain by reminding him of his family's murder, and she was sure to cause some trouble inadvertently when her pursuers showed up again, so she didn't want her murderous self to be near him. As Nyu, she could stay with him as she wanted without him being reminded she killed his family and without her living forever racked with guilt for ruining his life. Kōuta's impact on her and her wish to apologize to him drive the plot forward. She only seemed to show hesitation for hurting people if it looked like Kōuta would find out she did it, and her desire to refrain from again causing him pain is why she doesn't kill or harm Yuka, or at least very much. She'll still punch her with her vectors, but that's the extent of it. Her seemingly being ready to kill Mayu when Mayu saw her attacking Bando and Nana, however, shows she possibly views some of the Maple House's family members in a hierarchy of how much their death would impact Kōuta. Despite wanting his forgiveness, she understood Kōuta's anger toward her and realized he had no obligation to forgive her.
After witnessing her dog's murder at the hands of the orphanage bullies, she began to develop a deep hatred of Humans, killing whole families just to use their houses, without regret or guilt. Shortly after this, she began to hear a voice in her head telling her to forget about coexisting with humans and offering her the chance to remake the world to her liking. After accepting The Voice's offer, Lucy deferred to its suggestions by killing some Humans by way of inducing heart attacks and spreading her genes to Male Humans, who would have Diclonius children who would, in turn, kill and infect more. As she grew up, Lucy's view of killing people changed. In general, Lucy saw the situation as zero-sum, and though she was shown lamenting resorting to killing people to stay safe, Lucy did nothing to resist The Voice's direction. Feeling this was what she must do, Lucy continued killing people anyway. However, Lucy made a brief attempt to reform herself by helping Aiko, as the thought came that helping Aiko reunite with her mother would prove the person she had become wasn't just a murderer. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned, and the girl's death focused all of her hatred toward humans in general into seeking vengeance against Kurama for Aiko's death. Her driving goal, aside from apologizing to Kōuta, became the desire to see Kurama suffer by her hurting those around him, which she happily acted upon by maiming Nana and Mariko as soon as she learned their connection to him. Even Kisaragi's death at the beginning of the series would not have been so brutal if Lucy hadn't found out about her relationship with Kurama. For most of the series, Lucy was incredibly blase about killing others. She even thought about killing Kōuta until he showed her kindness, and even after the massacre, she didn't show any remorse for killing those who harassed her. Such as with Bandou, Nana, and Mariko, Lucy didn't shy away from being unnecessarily brutal and gleefully dismembered them in varying ways, laughing at each one of them and overall behaving like a cat tormenting a mouse. Her sadism is especially prevalent in the manga, in which she openly laughs while dismembering a helpless Nana whereas she did not in the anime (though she did grin briefly). And when they met again at Maple House, she tauntingly asked Nana if she was there for a rematch (though she converted back to Nyu before this could happen). When she fought against Unknown Man, she didn't even mind using other people as weapons against her opponents, as she threw his head at Bandou for lack of a better projectile. Also notable is that she could be something of a hypocrite when fighting, as she would lengthen someone's suffering when she had the upper hand, yet was impatient and irritated when it was the other way around or when her opponent appeared overconfident.
Nyū[]
In Lucy's words, Nyū (also written as "Nyū") is the kind of woman she would have been if she hadn't been born with horns. Nyū first appeared on Yuigahama after Lucy received a cranial wound from a .50 caliber rifle bullet. The only sound she could make was "nyu," which led to Kōuta and Yuka naming her Nyu. Mentally, Nyū had the intelligence of a toddler, which gave her a very ignorant and sheltered view of the world, a very narrow sense of right and wrong as a child would have, and she was easily frightened by bloodshed and violence. She also had an odd curiosity about sexuality that often made life awkward for her housemates, but it was born out of her simply not knowing better. In all other aspects, she was a kind, sweet, innocent, and very naive girl. She cared for others more than herself, such as offering Mayu or Nana her food when they were hungry and risking her health in the rain to replace the seashell so dear to Kōuta that she broke.
When Lucy lost her horns in the battle with Mariko, Nyu's persona predominated and remained for six months. Nyū matured significantly over those six months: she began to learn the basic morals and norms of society, learned how to speak properly, coherently, and in complete sentences, how to cook, clean, and, thankfully, to show at least some restraint on her sexual curiosity. She was even shocked and appalled at the idea of her groping anyone when Yuka and Mayu reminded her she used to do that to them. Later on in the manga, Nyū could use vectors like Lucy, but her control of them appeared tied to her emotional state at the time as a reaction to what was going on around her (i.e. Kōuta being shot, Kakuzawa telling her he would use her body for his goals).
To better show her growth from a mental toddler to an ordinary woman in the manga, Nyū refers to everyone using proper Japanese honorifics. This shift puts her in contrast to Lucy, who uses no honorifics at all (ex: Nyū always refers to Kōuta as "Kōuta-san," whereas Lucy only ever calls him "Kōuta").
Abilities[]
- Vectors: Kaede can project invisible arms that are generated by telekinesis. These arms are called "vectors" and are used to manipulate objects.
- Diclonius Virus: Kaede can infect human males with a virus that causes their children to be born Diclonius.
- Healing: Kaede has the ability to heal.
- Marksmanship: Kaede is a skilled marksman.
Gallery[]
Images[]
.png "Lucy (Elfen Lied).png (420 KB)")
.jpg "Kaede (Elfen Lied).jpg (353 KB)")
Trivia[]
- Kaede and her half-brother are the only Primary or Monarch Diclonius in the series; All others seen or spoken of are Secondary, or Silpelit Diclonii. They could have and sire children; all the others were sterile.
- She appears to be named after a Female Human fossil named Lucy; an Australopithecus whose DNA resides in most humans living today, and at the time considered the oldest. Since Elfen Lied concluded, older fossils have been found.
- Even though the first people whose lives she took, Tomoo and his companions, were children (which is often considered one of the most evil things a villain can do), they were hated so much for what they did. As a result, Lucy not only received little to no controversy for her actions but rather earned sympathy and even some praise and understanding.
External links[]
- Lucy on the Villains Wiki
- Kaede on the Elfen Lied Wiki
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 Heroes
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Kaede | Kouta | Nana | Kurama | Bando | Mayu & Wanta | "Agent" | ||