Old Woman

The unnamed **Old Woman** is a character in *DARLING in the FRANXX*.

## Appearance

She's a slender, elderly woman who usually wears a white headdress like other Adults. When at home, she wears white tights. Her heart appears to be a replaceable externally-mounted device. The orange heart, orange disinfectant spray, and orange patch she administers to Zorome suggest complete physical reliance on magma energy.

She removes the all-concealing headdress when Zorome pleads for the chance to talk with her, an adult; she is seen to have a round face, platinum-blonde hair tied in a ponytail, thin eyebrows and a gentle smile. Her purple eyes are mysteriously similar to Zorome's. Zorome is instantly drawn to the woman.

## Personality

The scene in her residence in Episode 10 offers some insight on the immortal Adults who dwell in the inner city. She is kind to Zorome and treats him with some deference as a pilot, but keeps herself detached throughout their interaction - forcibly so at a couple of points. Some powerful connection between the two characters apparently existed but is never explained following this episode.

The woman seems to be too debauched to gain any fulfillment from ordinary things like eating or having human relationships. She has the technologies at-hand to overload her brain's reward system, and it's learned in Episode 19 that the immortality treatment has rendered her sterile. She cannot follow the thread of Zorome's sentiments about his partner, Miku.

## History

The woman sickens rapidly while Zorome lingers in her presence. There is some evidence in the setting that this is from breathing the same air as the biochemically "different" child.

It is also plausible that APE's memory indoctrination techniques are causing her to experience violent reactions to his words and feelings. Zorome's nagging sense that he has been cared-for by the woman parallels Zero Two's recollection in Episode 13 of a kindly figure giving her the book, *The Beast and the Prince*.

### Episode 10: The City of Eternity

Nana tells them they have to return, but Zorome wanders off and is separated. He looks at the energy source but realizes that he's been separated and cannot contact the others.

Zorome notes that the city seems empty. He sees a person and calls out, but they walk away. Zorome tries to crawl down, but notices an adult and falls to the ground.

He wakes up to find that he'd been treated by an adult. The **Old Woman** is happy that he is okay and says that the medical checker just wouldn't work on him. But she tried a bunch of things, like using pet mode settings, and then it worked out. Before she can let them know where he is, Zorome asks to just talk for a bit. She agrees and removes her headpiece.

The woman disinfects the house and offers tea and sweets. Zorome stuffs them in his mouth. He asks her various questions, and she explains that there was a time when she used to enjoy the sense of taste, but she doesn't really care now. As long as her body gets the nutrition it needs, that's enough, she lives with her partner. She asks if he'd like to meet him.

She brings him to a dark room where her partner lies in a machine. Old Man smiles and the **Old Woman** explains that he's activating his brain's reward system to gain a sense of pleasure. Zorome says that he'd rather gain it by eating those snacks from earlier. She falls to her knees and says that talking had just made her tired.

They return to the living room. The **Old Woman** says that she doesn't even remember what his voice sounds like. She doesn't think either of them is dissatisfied with their partner. They don't meddle in each other's business, which gives them the freedom to live their lives as they please. Zorome complains about Miku, so the **Old Woman** says that he should change his partner. He is taken back as he as never considered such a possibility and begins defending her. The **Old Woman** somehow already knows Zorome's code. She becomes iller and says that she needs to get him picked up.

On the phone, she says that she checked with him, so there's no doubt about it.

The **Old Woman** returns to say they'll be there soon but notices that he's crying. He says that he doesn't know why, but she feels really familiar somehow. He feels that someone's always been watching over him. Gentle and kind, like they're always there to protect him.

She says that he is mistaken, as the children are the ones protecting them. Zorome becomes happy and tells her that he'll keep protecting it, fighting until he kills all the klaxosaurs, and then one day, he'll become an adult. He begins to ask if she can be his family when he lives in the city, but stops and instead asks for her to be his friend. She finds this funny and says that's obviously out of the question but is cut off before she can explain.

The woman explains to a man that she treated and fed him. He hands her a heart. A man tells him not to waste their time and infected children shouldn't enter. The other man tells him to knock it off, since they're victims too, calling them pitiful.

### Episode 15: The Bird that Shares Wings

   The woman's fate is not shown on screen. She stood in her apartment, overlooking the fight between Squad 13 and the Klaxosaurs that have breached the plantation interior. She is probably killed in the devastation wrought on the plantation.

### Episode 21: For You, My Love

In the unlikely event that any adults from Cerasus survived to the end of Episode 15, they were all subsumed into VIRM at the beginning of this episode.

## Relationships

### Old man

She is his partner, following an "old custom." However, they haven't talked to each other in so long that she has forgotten the sound of his voice.

### Zorome

She was kind to him, tending to his needs and playing hostess. But after wavering under his thinly-veiled yearning for a mother, she flatly denies the possibility that they could ever be close. Her reply is cut-off by the entry of other plantation personnel so the audience never gets to hear the reasons for this as she sees them.

## Symbolism

* The inner city resembles many cultures' legends about the concept of a golden progenitor race. In the stories, these bygone people held sway for aeons blessed with eternal youth, closeness to the gods, vast knowledge or magic.

* Zero Two loathes the inner city and its residents instinctively. Interestingly, her blood is more genuinely "divine" than theirs, but she desires all the human things they seem to have left behind.