Thoughts on Songbird's Character

Note; I posted this in the other sub a while ago but I realized that I had gotten the part about the medical report wrong and deleted it.

I must say I was really impressed by how Phantom Liberty manages to expand upon the themes and messages of the base game; I loved Witcher 3 and its DLC, but in my opinion this DLC is, narratively speaking, CDPR's greatest achievement.

It's impressive on its own to make a predicament that the playerbase remains so divided on, and I'm sure we'll see debates about Songbird long into the future, just like Skyrim's civil war. But people mostly, rightly, look down on Bethesda's writing, so having a legitimate choice is just part of the picture.

As I said, this is mostly about the themes of Cyberpunk, both the setting, and the game specifically. I think once we look at it in terms of the main messages thereof, we really see just how effective a narrative CDPR managed to make here. We also see that whereas we talk about a Songbird route and a Reed route, we really ought to talk about the Songbird route (Killing Moon), and opposing it, not a Reed route, but a So Mi route.

What do I mean by this: remember that Cyberpunk is 'not about saving the world. It's about saving yourself.' That's all well and good, but what the game relentlessly tells us is that saving yourself, in the sense of base physical survival, is not enough. The way you truly save yourself, as Johnny would say, is to 'not let them change who you are'. Who is this 'them'? It can be Arasaka, it can be the NUSA, it can be any authority, but in the end it's the world of Cyberpunk in general, a world where no act of kindness lasts long before the punishment, and where even your body has to be cut apart and replaced with metal to keep up.

We can see this clearly by looking at the base endings before turning to the DLC. The dichotomy between just surviving and truly saving yourself is most clear in the Devil end. In turning to Arasaka, V has Johnny cut out - now not an intruder, but a true part of them, as the scientist says, the process being so far advanced. Just in accepting the deal with the devil, V has lost something of their self already. Misty also knows, as soon as she hears the AV, that V has 'changed'. And in the end, if you go all the way, V goes even further than changing who they are - they change what they are, becoming an engram, something other than a human being, simply for a chance at survival, in some form, any form. Survival at any cost, - like an animal.

Compared to this, even the suicide ending has a quiet dignity about it. V isn't giving up, so much as trying to find a solution where they put as few people at risk as possible. Johnny dies too, but he was always along for V's ride, a part of them. In this sense, Sun and Star can be seen as two authentic victories for V - they can decide whether their true desire is to be a legend, storming Arasaka solo, or to simply spend what time they have left with people they care about. The city took everything, but they can take something back.

To return back to the message, then, we can view people in Cyberpunk as having two selves, an outward-facing one and an inward-facing one. The outward-facing one is the one that must constantly deal with the harsh world, be cut into pieces and turned into chrome, deal with betrayal and petty schemes, with inhuman and rapacious capital reigning over human beings; and always threatening, with all these harsh lessons, to crash down and overwhelm the inward-facing self, the isolated spot where you can maintain your humanity and who you are in spite of everything. In connection with this, we can view Johnny as a sort of second 'inward' self, actually unable to interact with the world, trying to help V deal with worst of it, hence why allowing him to take over is not a bad but rather a bittersweet ending. Don't let them change who you are - but remember that you are always changing, regardless, just by yourself, and this is not something to fear.

This bifurcation of the self is epitomized by Songbird, whose duel identities of Songbird and So Mi (intrinsically connected though, as Song is from her real name) and the conflict between them is the main theme of the game as a whole playing out throughout the whole DLC.

One of the real delights of replaying Phantom Liberty, which I did after beating the main game, is trying to determine just how much of Songbird's presentation to V is manipulation, and how much is authentic. And the conclusion one is driven to, by playing careful attention, is that Songbird herself never had a clear grasp on this - even from the start, she is emotionally compromised. Two favorite moments with her: early on, in the stadium, she asks how V's relic sickness is. If you tell her not to worry, because you'll help her before it gets you, she'll be at a loss for words for a moment: she wanted some vulnerability from V to comfort, but when she gets an inkling that V is somebody who might just care about others, that her manipulation isn't justified after all, it becomes harder. A second moment is after lifting her onto the airport roof; in response to her worrying about V's poor condition, V can reply that thanks to her, that won't be an issue soon. Despite how often she brought up her cure, she doesn't respond to this - just shakes her head, doing her best to keep up the deception, but unable to manage any more direct lies. There's all sorts of subtle things in the interactions like this. On a side note, the difference between Songbird and Reed is not so much that Reed is 'straight with you' whereas Songbird lies - it's that Reed is much the better liar, because he manages to believe his own lies.

By looking at this, we can see that Songbird's manipulations, just like her plans, are pretty imperfect at best; the scene at her special place in Dogtown is similar. On one hand, a blatant attempt at manufacturing emotional intimacy, on the other hand, probably the only time she's opened up to anyone in seven years and probably more. She calls it proof of her trust, but trust is earned by sacrifice - Songbird doesn't risk anything, after all, by showing you this place. And if you think about it clearly, all of this is obvious. But that emotional compromise is clear; it seems, given that she sends her memento here, that this place really was of sentimental value to her, after all, and a skilled manipulator probably would have chosen a less fraught place. And she can not resist asking the bombshell question at the end - in this for me, or the cure? I have no doubt that part of her wanted to spill everything here if she got the right answer, but in the end, even if you do give it to her, it's too soon, too difficult to give up the manipulation.

After all - manipulation and lies are all Songbird, the agent of the FIA, has ever known. Ever since being taken in and having as her sole confidante her blackmailer, a man she herself knows will never be her friend and at best not her enemy (Reed's discussion of their exchanges like this at the end of that route are some of the most rendingly emotional lines!), she's managed to mostly master this world she was forced into - this outward self, Songbird, having become almost all she is, especially when she loses Reed and even her own body, transformed into a tool for war crimes. She develops symptoms of personality disorders (no actual diagnosis, as her condition is unique) and an increasing load of trauma. Yet even though she has managed to acclimate herself to this world, a part of her remains somehow foreign to it; she can't totally master the art of manipulation, still puts too much of herself into it. Can't master the art of planning, still ends up fucking everything up, as she says both in Dogtown and in the ride to the airport. More and more this world consumes her, until she's left with only two competing impulses - an unquenchable urge to survive at all costs, and a consuming regret and self-loathing, a dagger in the flesh, when she sees the costs of this survival. The closer she gets to survival, the more painful the burning question - do I deserve it?

This is where I get into the two routes. The deal with Songbird differs from that with Hanako in that Hanako was a devil - and the devil always fulfills the letter of the deal, Hanako does give V the best care she can. People have expressed dissatisfaction that you don't find out nearly as much about the person behind Songbird in her own route, but I think this makes perfect sense: you made a deal with Songbird, not with So Mi. The FBI agent who only knows manipulation and who would does everything for survival - like an animal, which a songbird is. As long as the relationship between V and Songbird is defined by that promise of a cure, there is no true relationship between V and So Mi, only flashes of her through the Songbird persona. A persona that is increasingly on the verge of collapse, not just from the guilt and self-loathing I mentioned, but from the isolation.

It's been mentioned a lot, but one of the key differences between V and Songbird is that V has human connections - Johnny, Misty, Vic, and all the friends they made along the way, as they say. This difference is most clear in the different ways both are having their personalities eaten by external entities - Johnny is an awful person, at least at first, but he is a person, and one capable of growth. Even at the very end, in Mikoshi, he is always there with V. Songbird's AI is the opposite - the epitome of the 'other', of the external world, something barely even comprehensible to the human mind. One of the questions Songbird asks in Dogtown is whether V can sympathize with the feeling of absolute isolation she feels, and if we are honest, the answer, no matter what kind of V, is really no.

Human connection is what keeps that inner self alive; what lets you continue to be yourself, to not let an inhuman world change you. Panam is defined by her nomad family, River by his own family, Judy by her close relationships to Evelyn, then V, and, once, Maiko, Kerry by his attachments to his own bandmates, which Us Cracks because a sort of development of, Vic and Misty have each other and formerly Jackie. Every one of V's close friends have relationships, failed or not, that keep them going, by which they define who they are.

But this human connection is rekindled with Songbird via V in her route, leading her to become increasingly incapable of managing the facade. That inner self, the petulant, arrogant girl So Mi who just wanted to netrun and listen to Samurai all day, shriveled up by years of what amounts to slavery. This is why her confession amounts to her greatest victory, not in spite of the fact that it leaves her plan in potential tatters, but because of it. When V puts her on the train, Songbird, the FIA agent, has won. In spite of her poor planning, she's gotten what she wanted - survival. She's managed to save Songbird, but the question remains - who will save So Mi? She knows that if she remains a manipulator up to the very end, that her survival wouldn't truly be worth it. So she confesses, and for the first time, it's So Mi talking to V rather than Songbird. And in doing this, she's managed her second victory. In spite of everything, she stopped the lies, made automatic by years of being a puppet for spooks, put someone else first. In the end, she didn't let them change who she was.

So Mi, assuming she actually is more than a lab rat up there, will take years to find who she is again, and there will probably be failures; very little is left of that girl who looked down on the friends that cared about her, and who realized too late what they meant to her. But like V realizes when they let Johnny live: life is change, and what matters is that it's on your terms. One last thing I love about this ending is that it gives you the experience of being as 'ride or die' for someone else as NPCs are for V, especially Panam. The betrayal just makes this appropriately bittersweet for the setting, but after all, loyalty to someone perfect would be too easy. Loyalty is proven by the tests it weathers.

At this point it should be clear why I call the 'Reed' route the So Mi route instead - after V puts in the icebreaker, Songbird dies right there, screaming at V for betraying her; with no FIA ties left and no ongoing manipulation, there's no need for Songbird any more. This is why this is the route where we see So Mi's memories, hug her and have truly sincere moments with her, in the mental projection old room. From a thematic point of view, the difference is that in her own route, So Mi eventually manages to kill the persona 'Songbird' on her own terms, whereas here, it is taken away forcibly. Of course, So Mi herself is dying in this route from a wound inflicted by V, but what remains is driven to help V in the end regardless. So Mi ought to be dead here, and her memories are her life flashing before her eyes, adding to the sense of wrongness if you keep her alive for your own cure. This is why, after those screams about betrayal, we see her compassion in trying to save V soon after. In tearing 'Songbird' away from 'So Mi' too quickly, without that human connection with V to guide her, she falls apart completely, leaving only barely enough of herself to save V, and then - beg for death. This route, going through her memories in a facility where, after all, Reed doesn't join you until the very end, is all about exploring who So Mi was. Personally I won't play through it again because I'm terrified of horror (lol), but it's extremely effective in showing who she was beneath her agent facade.

Well, those are my thoughts on Phantom Liberty's star character; Reed deserves just an in-depth an analysis, but I'm all out of words. To be clear, I say that Songbird and So Mi represent two aspects of the character symbolically, it's not about having actual multiple personalities. Like I said, I adore this DLC to death, so I just had to let it out a bit with this rambling analysis. I love the way it expands on the base game's themes by setting this foil to V. Let me know your thoughts.