RIN questions (spoilers)

[vassock]

So I watched Mnemosyne and can't figure some things out.

1. Who/what is Laura and why is she seemingly tied to the trapped immortal tortured by Apos? Her arms fall off as the trapped immortal is stabbed in the arms.

2. Who is the guardian that gets killed in the end and how is he different from other angels? What is his significance above that of a regular angel that comes into being when a human male comes into contact with a time fruit?

3. Why does Apos want to kill all of the immortals in the final chapter of the story?

4. Why does Apos want Rin? If all he wants is her life's memories, why not just eat the time fruit he rips from her chest?

5. How does Rin finally "win" and what allows her to do so?

6. Is Apos truly immortal? Does his physical state (being born as something between a man and a woman) really give him 100% of the benefits that each sex would normally receive from the time fruit, total immortality and angelic strength? And if he is truly immortal and powerful, why does he bother going after Rin or doing much of anything except having fun?

7. How is Apos able to teleport from place to place at will?

[Gjallarhorn]

It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'll answer as best I can.

1. Rin is psychically linked to the immortal being tortured by Apos, probably connected to her by Apos himself. We know that Apos's experiments on her left only her brain immortal, so her body can't regenerate the same way as Rin. This is how she was able to be turned into a cyborg later in the series.

2. The "guardian" seen in the final episode was mentioned a few times in the series, and was seen on the phone with Rin a few times. From early in the series it is implied that they are lovers of some sort. It turns out that he was the guardian of Yggdrasil, the tree that governs lifespans and generates the time spores that create immortals. As a guardian, he has an eternal lifespan, but can still die if killed. The Yggdrasil requires that position of "guardian" be switched to a new person every few millenia. His son, Apos, is the current guardian of Yggdrasil, and aims to become a permanent guardian by sacrificing Rin to the tree. Because Apos is a true immortal (eternal life, can't be killed in the traditional sense), if he were to become a permanent guardian he could reign forever as no one would be able to kill him. The guardian (the man seen in the final episode) is also Rin's lover, though he avoids her because of the effects he has on her due to her immortality.

3. Apos wants to kill all the immortals and sacrifice Rin to Yggdrasil so that he can become a god, and have no one to rival him.

4. He wants to sacrifice her to Yggdrasil - I forget exactly why he wants it to be her that is sacrifice, but it was something personal.

5. When she's pushed into Yggdrasil she consumes the time spore that she had that belonged to the Maeno guy from the first and second episodes, and his spirit/memories help awaken her consciousness so that she could escape. She later pushes Apos into Yggdrasil, sacrificing him to it the same way that Apos had planned to sacrifice her. She also made him eat his father's and Laura's time spores so that he would have to live with their memories forever inside of Yggrasil - never able to escape the way Rin had.

6. Apos is truly immortal, and being a hermaphrodite does give him the benefits of both the female immortals and male angels. He goes after Rin for power, because being immortal isn't enough for him.

7. It's never specified, but I think it had to do with him being Yggdrasil's guardian.

[vassock]

It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'll answer as best I can.

1. Rin is psychically linked to the immortal being tortured by Apos, probably connected to her by Apos himself. We know that Apos's experiments on her left only her brain immortal, so her body can't regenerate the same way as Rin. This is how she was able to be turned into a cyborg later in the series.

When you say Rin in the first sentence you mean Laura, right? So I take it that only Laura's brain was immortal. So after she lost her body, first losing the eye and then being blown to bits by a suicide bomb, Apos picked up her brain and put it into a manufactured cyborg body. However, in addition to controlling the cyborg body with her brain, she also felt the pain of the trapped immortal, presumably to keep her from running away from Apos. Is that right?