“The pineal body is said to control the sixth sense, but humans lost this when they received knowledge.”

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✧ Elfen Lied ✧

Elfen Lied is quite the interesting anime as the world we are introduced to is quite similar to our own, with one distinct difference. In this world, there exists a new species known as the Diclonius. These individuals are externally similar to humans aside from the pink hair on their head and the two horns that peek out. However, there is one very large internal difference - the Diclonius are able to wield superhuman powers known as vectors. I speak more about Elfen Lied and the Diclonius in general over here in this blog, free to check it out. Today, I will be speaking just about their powers: vectors, and going into deeper thought than I have before.

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✧ The Pineal Gland ✧

Every human has a brain and in every brain there is a pineal gland. The pineal gland is located right in the centre, and is actually named after it’s pinecone-like shape. The main function of this gland is that it is used to secrete melatonin which is a hormone that aids in helping you sleep: it regulates your internal clock. While it has other functions, the only two I’m going to note is the fact that it also helps in metabolism of the bone and aids in the sense of direction. You might be wondering, why am I bringing up the pineal gland? Well, the answer is because in Diclonius, the pineal gland is abnormally large and this is one of the largest differences between a normal human and the species.

To begin, the physiological differences the enhanced pineal gland has caused would likely explain the bone growth from the head, because as stated before, it affects bone metabolism. Furthermore, a power that the Diclonius have would the ability to sense others of their species- something that is most likely another superhuman power they receive due to the larger gland. Simply from my own theory alone, these two minor functions of the pineal gland most likely caused this huge difference in this new species. So already, we see that the enlarged pineal gland has incredibly affect.

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✧ The Third Eye ✧

A large part of this vector analysis will surprisingly be more metaphysical than physiological. Once again, it all starts with the pineal gland. The pineal gland has had its physical effects; differences in Diclonius that are shown internally and externally. However, the pineal gland is actually what is known as the third eye in of chakra points. Now the third eye is one of the seven chakra points a body has, and this chakra point allows for wisdom, clear intuition, and better decisions making. Taking these attributes, we can assume that Diclonius are thus rather intellectual. And there is evidence to back that up, such as when the little Diclonius who was no more than 4-years-old was able to outsmart an entire team of scientists when she was being tested on. This was shown when she faked being hit by a metal ball in order to pretend that she was unable to handle more than she could. Using this, she was able to escape as the scientists underestimated her strength. Something of incredible note is that human children psychologically act based on consequences when they’re younger. And for a human, any regular human child would not be capable of faking this because it means getting hit with a metal ball over and over again. They would rather dodge in order to protect themselves. So there is another minor psychological difference that we see between the Diclonius and humans.

However, seeing as this as a wiki on vectors, I will digress over the Third Eye and it’s affect on the Diclonius as a whole. If you are thoroughly interested in this aspect of Diclonius, I would again encourage you to read this blog in which I go into more depth overall on the Third Eye and Diclonius, because I truly fell in love with analyzing this species.

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✧ Vectors ✧

So to begin, let’s find out what a vector is. The first definition provided by the source here, is that a vector is something that has direction as well as magnitude. The second part of what a vector is, is an organism, typically a biting insect or tick, transmitted disease or parasites from an animal or plant to another. Now this definition is quite close to perfect when describing a Diclonius’ vectors.

Before we get into those definitions and why they connect so well to vectors, I’m going to describe what vectors are as we see them. Or perhaps it’s better to say as we’ve been fortunate enough to see, considering that vectors are invisible. Similar to telekinesis, vectors are in fact tangible but can also be intangible at will. They are able to pick up, touch, cut through, and move anything at will. This includes squeezing humans from the inside.

So now we can use the definition provided by Google to help us figure out what a vector is. The first definition is that it is multidirectional and has magnitude, this is shown when a vector is able to move in any direction around a Diclonius’ body. They can also be considered as additional hands because they are able to act as such, for example when Nana lost her limbs, she used her vectors as a way to move her prosthetic limbs in the same way regular limbs would move.

After our second definition, a virus transferring insect, this is probably one of my favourite subdefinitions that truly applies to their word. That is because Diclonius are capable of transmitting the genetic virus that they have to male humans simply by touching a male human with their vectors. This makes me want to figure out how exactly simply touching one with a metaphysical vector can transfer a virus. My theory is that the virus itself is actually quite metaphysical, and that it interferes with the human’s chakra. Therefore, their offspring will also have altered chakra in the third eye (also known as the pineal gland). Of course, this is all speculation, a very interesting thing for me to study though.

After my introduction concerning the pineal gland, we finally learn why this was important: it’s because this gland is what creates the vectors. This was shown when they were able to create “Vector Attack Crafts” by removing the pineal gland from a cloned Diclonius and inserting it into this vehicle. From this, we are able to see how vectors worked. At a low frequency, vectors became intangible such that they were able to move through walls and people. But when a vector moves at a higher frequency, it became tangible as higher frequencies are more volatile and destructive. This is known in the scientific world as entropy: the measure of ‘disorder’ in a system. The more disorder there is, the more volatile particles are as there are more combinations of ways they could be put together. This is finally somewhat confirmed as my own theory when Lucy grew mad with power through anger and increased her frequency to such a high point that her body began to melt, showing that entropy was something that was involved in using vectors. The disorder in her own body became so much so that her physical state could not handle it.

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✧ Conclusion ✧

Now, I must say this was probably one of my favourite wiki to write about because I was genuinely so interested in learning about Diclonius. When reading the manga, I had pages of notes about what the scientists were saying and I completely nerded out trying to learn as much as I could. I’m thankful to amino for allowing me to have an outlet to share what I’ve learnt because there’s a feeling of satisfaction to share something you feel not many people have truly dived into.

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