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Spoiler Warning: This answer contains major plot details from Severance
Severance

What do the numbers mean in Severance? What is MDR doing?

Quick Answer

The numbers in Macrodata Refinement remain unexplained. Employees sort "scary" numbers into bins, but the purpose is deliberately kept secret from them and viewers.

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Detailed Explanation

This is the question that haunts me. The MDR workers stare at screens of numbers, identifying which ones "feel scary" and sorting them into categories like "woe," "frolic," "dread," and "malice." Even they don't know what the data represents. Some theories suggest the numbers are connected to the severed employees themselves—perhaps emotional data extracted from their suppressed memories. Others think it's connected to Lumon's consciousness experiments. The show deliberately keeps this mysterious, and I suspect the answer will recontextualize everything we've seen.

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