Ask John: Can You Explain the Ending of Read or Die?

Question:
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

I am a big fan of Read Or Die but I was seriously confused with the third episode and now I’m confused about the whole thing. I know that they cloned Nancy, but what’s up with her sister? I really need a whole story explanation from episode 1 to episode 3.

Answer:
Wendy and Ikkyu’s dialogue expressed during different times in the third episode of R.O.D. should make the plot of the series fairly clear. Ikkyu has a grand plan to use subliminal messages relayed through music to drive the world’s population to mass suicide. He has resurrected the greatest minds of history, the “Ijin,” to fill in the space left behind by his genocide, creating a new “perfect” society of only brilliant artists, scientists, prophets and thinkers.

The only ambiguous aspect of the series is the concluding dialogue between Yomiko and Nancy. This sequence is intentionally ambiguous as it allows fans to speculate and create their own ending for the show. When “Good Nancy” fights her evil clone, she emerges victorious and climbs the stairs to meet Ikkyu and Yomiko, leaving the evil Nancy floating face down in the water. It can only be the “good Nancy” that wins the fight because had evil Nancy won, the evil Nancy would have shot and killed Yomiko, and Ikkyu’s genocidal plan would have succeeded. Only the “good Nancy” had reason to spare Yomiko and stop Ikkyu’s maniacal plan. While this is all certain, albeit confusing to interpret in the show, what’s less obvious is whether or not “Evil Nancy” is actually dead. Furthermore, it’s left up to the viewer to decide whether or not “Good Nancy” survives the rocket ride into orbit.

The Nancy sitting on the hospital bench at the finale of episode 3 could be either Good or Evil Nancy. If she is “Evil Nancy,” then Yomiko refers to “Good Nancy” as the sister that saved the world. If the traumatized Nancy at the end of the episode is, in fact, “Good Nancy” who somehow managed to survive, Yomiko may be tactfully inventing a fictional “sister” in order to avoid explaining to the traumatized woman that it was in fact she herself who saved the world before she lost her memory.