Like many of you I am feeling pretty emotionally raw since finishing Edgerunners and have spent a lot of time thinking about the dynamic between David and Lucy as well as their shifting motivations throughout the anime and just wanted to share some of my thoughts.

To start with our boy David, we see a young man with no real attachment to anything except his mother. He has always lacked a sense of belongingness amongst his peers and it is made very clear he has only been able to go as long as he does at the Academy due to not wanting to disappoint his mother. He has no father figure that we know of and seemingly no close friends. He is adrift amongst the lower-middle class of the hyper-capitalist dystopia of night city without a motivation of his own. When his mother dies and the injustice of his socioeconomic situation is dumped into his lap, he adopts an almost suicidal disregard for his own safety and understandable rage towards the system and people who represent it (noting Katsuo here).

Now despite this it is made apparent throughout the anime that David has a deep sense of empathy and actively seeks human connections. He wants there to be 'more' to his life than what Night City and its empty corporate dreams can provide. When he meets Lucy and through her the other Edgerunners, he finally finds a place where he feels he can belong. He forms these human connections, especially with Maine who is clearly positioned as a father figure for David, something he has never had. He falls for Lucy and in doing so falls for her dream. David's dream becomes to make Lucy happy. What he doesn't realize (and as I will describe further on) is that Lucy's dream had gradually changed from one of isolating herself on the mood to simply being with David after she falls for him in turn.

When Maine dies, this represents the second death of a 'parent' for David and we can see by his harrowed but resolute stare at the end of the episode that he is determined not to lose anyone else he cares for. These people and his connections to them are what have finally given him meaning, with their loss being too painful for him to bear. When he finds that Lucy is threatened, he is willing to sacrifice himself without consideration. His dream is for her to be happy and David cannot live in a world without the ones he loves ever again.

Parallel to this we watch Lucy's development. Initially she is aloof and detached, even from the other Edgerunner's. Lucy has deep developmental trauma, we see that her childhood was entirely devoid of warmth or caring and has left her with the dream to escape. Her dream of going to the moon is essentially the ultimate fantasy of isolation; she has no need or want for people. This is further reinforced by Kiwi and her teachings that no-one is to be trusted.

This changes when she meets David. Even from the outset his attitude, empathy and gentle nature manage to chip away at the defenses she has built to protect herself from others. As she falls in love with David, she is stricken with the horrible realization that he could, and likely would in the world of Cyberpunk, die. This is why she maintains distance for a time, she does not like the idea of caring for someone because that means you can lose them. Once she embraces her feelings for David, this fear becomes her primary driver and her dream shifts from one of isolation to one of companionship with David.

When Lucy learns of the Cyberskeleton and Arasaka's intentions for David, she makes all efforts to hide this from him. She is petrified of what David would do with the information. The idea of David becoming a chromed up cyberpsycho, experimented on by the same corporation that ruined her childhood absolutely horrifies her. She withholds this information from David due to the fear of what he would do with it, however it seems she was going to discuss this with him in detail and the need for him to 'lay off the chrome' if it were not for her very untimely kidnapping.

And then there is the tragedy. David wants to make Lucy happy and see's his own wellbeing as secondary to this goal. Lucy has finally found a measure of happiness due to being with David. He cannot bear the thought of losing her, she cannot bear the thought of losing him. Both become somewhat misguided in their pursuit of this goal. Eventually David sacrifices himself so that Lucy can carry on and achieve her 'dream', not realizing that 'going to the moon' no longer means anything to her without him there.

Two people both grasping desperately for something they had already found, only for the cruel machinations of Night City to rip it away entirely.

Please add your own thoughts!

This was ultimately more for me than anyone else because Edgerunners has left me FUCKED UP after watching it through numerous times now.