History Headscratchers / DarlingInTheFranxx

** it is never explored after the first failure if it would work for humans and with APE banning humans from learning how there sexual functions work the gay teens being used as fodder don't remotely know there gay just that they can't sync unless they think of others the same gender. All we normally know is that the mecha are made by using klaxosoar female so a human female with working sexual parts has to become the mecha's "bio computer" while the male is the operator. The Alphas work in reverse most of the time all being clones of a female clone where the male ones act as the drive system and the girls drive being able to swap is likely because they may be xxy with the males. A Girl Girl could work since the sync is very much like a sexual connection test. It's possible if Ikuno was in Pistol it might have worked.

[[folder:The Pistil Ejection System]]
* Nobody likes a nitpicker, but how exactly does the Pistil ejection system work as seen in episode 9? At first it seems like it armors the girl and completely ejects the mount she's on, then locks down the Franxx until it can be recovered, which makes perfect sense. Problems start to arise when we see the mount is still intact in front of Goro when he's alone in the cockpit. So how the hell was Ichigo extracted downward in the time period seen without ripping her limbs off, and what victor was used to launch her from the cockpit? The possibility exists there's a redundant mount that plugs the hole as part of the lockdown, but this comes across as over-engineering (then again, that doesn't seem out of character for their apparent creator...).
** This way. The upper armor half rolls in, the saddle pulls down, releasing her limps, and the lower half of the armor shell rolls in within the same second while the pistil in in midair. Once the pod (seed shell) is established, it's ejected as seen. From there, the saddle is pulled back up and in starting position once more. In short, the escape pod might be a compressed portion placed in front of the saddle and easily replaced once going in for maintenance.
*** Makes perfect sense. Thank you.

[[folder:Hiro piloting Delphinium]]
* How was Hiro able to pilot Delphinium with Ichigo in episode 15? In that very episode they explained that Hiro could only pilot with Zero Two due to him ingesting her Klaxosaur blood as a child so how could it work? For that matter, why was it even necessary for him to take Goro's place and leave Goro on the ground? Couldn't Hiro have just entered the cockpit and have Goro and Ichigo pilot Delphinium to reach Strelitzia? As far as I can tell this is a strange plot hole that could have easily been avoided.
** Judging by their memory synchronization, his desperation to see and immense love for Zero Two was able to serve as motivation to allow him to achieve it with Ichigo. Who was able to due to her own feelings for Hiro and finally putting aside her possessive and jealousy issues for his happiness.
** In episode 2 he was shown to be able to connect with Ichigo and pilot Delphinium for at least for a short time. It could be that their mutual need to reach Zero Two was sufficient to keep the connection active for long enough to achieve this goal.
** He had amazing aptitude for piloting as a child, which is implied to be because of a driving motivation to escape the Garden and the fate of his fellow parasites. It could be recovering his lost memories and personality restored his ability to pilot with anyone. [[SingleTargetSexuality Although, he probably doesn't care at this point]].
** Just about anyone can pilot with anyone, hence the point of them offering the chance to switch partners around like two episodes prior. However, the more synchronized the duo is the better the result. Hiro was basically the genius of the group when he was younger and it's heavily implied that the only reason he ever started having problems to begin with were because his memories were tampered with, which led to changes in his personality as well. Had he never met Zero Two to begin with or never had his memories altered, it's likely that he and his original partner would've worked out just fine and he never would have had any issues. The Klaxosaur blood then only matters in terms of a regular human being able to pilot with Zero Two specifically and not die. It doesn't give them the ability to pilot in general.

[[folder:Futoshi's Health Issues]]
* In episode 16, why was Futoshi throwing up his food? Did he have some sort of eating disorder?
** He's sick, probably from the child fever, and trying to hide it. Some of the others have already gone through it.
** With the repeated hints that the kids will not be able to grow up into adulthood I took his inability to keep food down as the beginning stages of his bodies preprogrammed shutting down processes. Similar to how Miku's hair was shown starting to go grey.
** Confirmed in the finale. It was due to the premature aging process and he only really got his appetite back then cured.

[[folder:What Zero Two thought of Hiro]]
* So, did Zero Two think Hiro was her Darling when they met back in Episode 1 or was she completely oblivious the entire time? I don't think she'd go around throwing all those hints and specific references to anyone, and Hiro in Episode 15 does realise that she never truly forgot, but she still called him fodder as her mental state went worsening. Was it just because she couldn't jog his memories and ended up thinking she mistook him for someone else?
** Zero Two has better recall than Hiro, but her memory was also mostly erased. They both felt attracted to each other but it's unlikely she was certain that Hiro was her real Darling until episode 12/13.
** The manga clarifies - Zero Two was convinced she really had found her Darling after he survived their third flight together, but the fact he never remembered her resulted in her becoming increasingly bitter she'd been "tricked" by a lookalike, contributing to her downward spiral.
*** This lyrics from the opening theme Kiss of Death solidifies this:"I tried to block out the banging on my door
Are you the one banging on it? Or is it someone else?". Also,Zero Two asks Hiro for the picture book

[[folder:Sexuality and Piloting]]
* If Ikuno found another lesbian pilot, would they be able to pilot together? I mean, I thought so, because of the Nines, but it seems that the Nines don't have gender, so Male/Female relationships might really be the exclusive relationship accepted by the Franxx outside of Genderless/Genderless. Does sexual/romantic attraction between the parts play a role in it? Would Mitsuru and Hiro be able to pilot like they mentioned before out of sheer PowerOfFriendship?
** Later revelations make this unlikely, since the roles of pistil and stamen are defined by genetic material. Which puts the Nines in an interesting spot, but their situation is ambiguous and they all pilot AceCustom frames, so it's possible they're an engineered exception.
** Episode 23 confirms that the Nines can act as both pistils and stamens so they are the exception. For everyone else it needs to be a male/female pairing since the Franxx are based on the Klaxosaur system that works the same way. Sexuality has nothing to do with it besides how it might affect the pilots' ability to synch with each other psychologically.

** The wedding raid was a show of power. There's absolutely no reason to use that much force to subdue a group of children, except to scare the hell out of them and get them to stop listening to Kokoro and celebrating her deviant actions and ideas. The reason why sex, pregnancy, and childbirth are forbidden is, of course, if a pistil becomes pregnant she can no longer pilot her Franxx effectively and APE loses a pawn. They care little about the morality of it because they only see humans as tools, which is why they also overlook any sort of rebellion brimming among them. Why care? From their perspective, the real enemies are the klaxosaurs and regardless of the human pilots' personal feelings towards APE, they will all die in the final battle anyway. If they aren't, [[{{Hubris}} VIRM has a giant armada to destroy the remnants]].