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Homura: Dear Madoka, can I dance with you?

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How many more must you throw at me before you realize it's futile.

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Is the Humanboard actually Ena's baby?

This is not written with some intention to settle some debate For Good but rather just my own analysis and conclusions.

I don't think there's sufficient evidence (yet) that the Humanboard is definitively supposed to be read as Ena's actual child or fetus, alive or not. But for the sake of this post, it's interesting to so anyway.

While in the world of Ena i doubt procreation works in any way comparable to ours, mothers do seem to exist (Given that both Alex and a Walking Pant makes references to mothers). But I suspect it looks and mechanically works differently. I'm not sure what "child" means in this universe, but i don't think it's impossible for her to have a relationship to the Humanboard that is functionally the same as to the relationship a mother would have to a child. But does she?

I think worth Establishing first of all is within the world of ENA, the distinction between what is a "person" and what is an "item" is very... nebulous. The Humanboard is an item you use to produce a stair or platform, but it looks like a human? (and is the only explicit reference to "humans" in-universe as far as I know?) Meanwhile the Vending Machine is what you'd expect to be an item or object, but is instead a person? And then there are the Doors which are even more ambiguously in-between, described as "it"s, yet clearly not inanimate.

The way people are referred to within the world are more often rather than people, described as entities. "Entity" is one of the most ambiguous and vague words you can use to describe something that is an individual unit, without specifying further. It's just Something that Exists. (And it's also often used within some computer contexts too, which i'm sure is not an accident)

Thus, it's hard to determine how much of a "person" the Humanboard is supposed to be, and what that would even mean. Ena (or Ena and the Shaman, given that he says "we must create life") created it. The ingredients to create the Humanboard is a Motherboard and a bzillon Shaman clones dropped into a mystical pink concoction. It is Ena who has made it possible for it to be created by bringing the missing ingredient, does that make her its mother? Is the Motherboard its mother? (Is the Shaman its mother?)

I will say definitively that i do not think the Humanboard is "dead", given that it's described as "life". At most it's in-complete but it can easily reach a completed state by planting it in the ground and letting it grow.

There are some counter-arguments to this I'll quickly address. There's a secret interaction where if you interact with a hole before acquiring the Humanboard it will say "A body could fit in here". If you then immediately afterward interact with a lifeless mannequin it will say "Not that kind".

(This interaction is actually possible with every single lifeless mannequin in the game, though there's only a few close enough to holes where this interaction is possible in practice.)

As sinister as the phrase "A body could fit in here", (and its definitely meant to read as sinister,) I dont think a body is inherently a dead body. It's never described as being "buried", just "planted", "sowed". Holes with remains and bones is described as "fertile soil", which is needed for the Humanboard to grow, meaning, they're not its own remains. Another argument to the Humanboard being dead is that its arms are always crossed as if in a coffin. I don't have a good counter-argument other than imagine the things its arms would bump into or knock down if it's arms were outstretched... it's might just be practical.

(Of course, one could also argue that the Humanboard only being "complete" when it's "buried" is more symbolic in some sense, but that'd have to be an interpretation for a different post. )

So, all things considered, there's more to suggest that the Humanboard is alive than dead, in my view.

(Shot from the release trailer. It's very brief and ambiguous in significance, to me.)

So, what is the actual relationship between Ena and the Humanboard then? Given it's (imo) likely not dead, I don't think reading it as stillborn or similar makes sense. Ena doesn't seem to have any sort of emotional attachment to it or grief towards it (in-game at least) and there is no significant emotional reaction when receiving it, compared to receiving any other item. The way she uses it in practice is to plant it and to use the produced stair in order to reach the places she wouldn't otherwise reach. There doesn't seem to be any hesitation in using it this way, despite the Humanboard grunting in discomfort when she walks all over it. Therefore, if this is Ena's "child", she has seemingly no affection for it. It is in all meanings a "tool".

The Humanboard was created with the express purpose to be used to ascend to the orb and reach the Bathroom. I think it's worth pointing out that the Bathroom has some parallels to heaven, or is at the very least a spiritual place. It is a place of "G0D" that contains Angels*, a divine figure, and it is a space where one repents, washes sin off themselves and can be forgiven.

So, with this interpretation, one could read the Humanboard, a "life" she "created", as a measure to achieve forgiveness. As if some demand has been placed on her to create a child that she seems to feel no love for, to be able to undo any prior sin. It's worth pointing out too that the Humanboard is used as a bridge to reach this Bathroom, and in the route where you do not acquire the Humanboard you're far more likely to fall into the Lost Village, a place where "sinful souls" go, according to Unforgiven Frank.

*as it so happens, the appearances of the Angels in DBBQ are directly inspired by venus figuines, (the specific ones are listed here,) which are sometimes speculated to be expressions of womanhood and/or fertility.

However, Ena does not come to the Bathroom with the stated purpose to be forgiven, and this is something she's expressly denied regardless. The only request she can be granted is to turn off the Lonely Door's smoke machine, which is also the actual stated purpose as for why she's there. So, what is the purpose for the Humanboard here?

In this context Ena too uses the Humanboard to be able to achieve her goal but it's hard to read it as a "child" here. Ena needed to produce a "life" in order to complete her job assignment (and in the route she doesn't create the Humanboard she's more likely to fail in doing so), but there's not much else to say in terms of real world parallels, because what else is that comparable to? (Like, surrogacy I suppose?) In this framing, it seems it can only be read as just a literal tool and I personally can't gleam any other meaning from it.

However, I do think the motherhood references in ENA are interesting to discuss, beyond the Humanboard being a literal child. There are more allusions to motherhood (or actually, more specifically, pregnancy) considering there is a giant foreboding fetus in the sky in an orb, the Wanderers babble about mothers and wombs (transcript), and of course the creation of the Humanboard being described as a "birth".

Here's the part I find interesting.

To create a child, you're required to relinquish a part of yourself temporarily, and the toll it takes on your body can be permanent. To undergo this process for any reason other than because you want to is exploitative. I think it's worth pointing out too that in the Core we see this human-like Ena with a hole in her abdomen, as if a significant part of her body has been taken out of her, which is also coincidentally the part of yourself where a child would be created.

That being said, we know this hole was not literally created through making the Humanboard, and she will still have this hole even if she did the Purge Route. So, while I don't think the Humanboard is meant to be a literal child, i think the references to pregnancy and birth could tie into a greater theme.

It seems to be the case that Ena's "job" is for some unknown reason something she's forced to do, and given her dialogue in the Purge Event dance floor there might be dire consequences for her not doing it that she cannot "afford". If we read the Core, Bathroom and Lost Village as some sort of limbo or afterlife, in both routes she's then also literally required to "die" for her job.

She's been forced to relinquish parts of herself, her being, her life, to serve something other than herself. As it's phrased in the Purge Route, she has to "pay with [her] body".

Along the same train of thought, we don't really know what the recurring war imagery really means for Ena yet, but we do know what war means. For a soldier, you have to relinquish your entire body to serve, put your entire life and being on the line for the sake of your side in the war.

This is to say, in all these instances, a person doesn't fully belong to themselves, if at all. Ena's body, life and being isn't hers, but is in servitude to something else.

What was the question again? Oh right, is the Humanboard Ena's baby. Well, I'm not sure about that.

But it is for certain a body that is used as a tool.

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Bang 💥

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★ 【CherryMaru🍒】 「 Scarlet envy 」 ✔ republished w/permission ☆ follow btt’s fanart twitch stream!

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★ 【鳥成】 「 さとり 」 ✔ republished w/permission ☆ follow btt’s fanart twitch stream!

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Ideal work schedule:

I show up and am given a list of cognitively engaging but achievable tasks

I complete the list

I leave immedietly

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using google keyboard alchemy to create the most miserable emojis possible

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bonk

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Re-watching early X-Files, it strikes one that it's not actually unreasonable for Mulder to assume a lot of what Scully says to him is some sort of esoteric flirting thing, because who the fuck talks to people like that, while we as the audience can see that she just talks like that all the time, including to herself when she's alone.

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spirit blossom riven 👹

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I finished my cosplay!! Very excited to debut it at an upcoming con, to celebrate I drew Zakuro doing her best at customer service