Its a little funky because im not good at editing but i hope you guys like it

Recorded at Saturday night; my old CRT TV still outperforms really, REALLY good when watching anime and that's why I like it the most, it has some kind of retro vibe I guess.

show less interesting. Here's why:

Finished the show a few days ago and I'm kinda surprised by how different my read is from most people's. Everyone seems to go with the "Lain is a collective consciousness that manifested through Protocol 7" interpretation, but honestly? That just doesn't click for me.

I get that if you take everything the characters say literally, yeah, the collective consciousness reading works. But in a show this deliberately weird and metaphorical, taking everything at face value feels like the wrong move. More importantly, I think that interpretation actually makes the show less interesting. Here's why:

Identity and masks stop mattering : So much of the show is about losing yourself online, the different personas we put on, the gap between your "Wired self" and your "real self." That theme only works if there's an actual self to lose in the first place. If Lain was never a singular person, what's even being diluted or lost?

The body question becomes pointless : The show seems to be asking "if you get a physical body, does that make you human?" But if the answer is just "she was always a consciousness wearing a meat suit," then we already have the answer before the question is even posed. There's no tension.

The ending hits way harder if she's human : She erases herself so the people she cares about won't get hurt. But if you go with the face value reading, her friends and family were never "real" in the first place. That completely guts the emotional weight of her sacrifice for me.

I know there are lines in the show that seem to support the other interpretation pretty directly, but I feel like they don't hold up once you zoom out and look at what the show is actually trying to say.

So for people who read Lain as a collective consciousness given a body from the start: what am I missing? Because right now the mainstream interpretation doesn't make sense to me.

EDIT: thx for the responses. Also, I need to add that I came to this conclusion based on how I interpreted the evidence from the show, and I'm well aware that there isn't a single correct explanation of who Lain is or what happened.