In the Forbidden Room, shortly before uncharacteristically panicking when he realizes Emir is present and probably about to shoot him, Kun Lan relates an upsetting story to Harman:
“Everybody loved him. Not to mention his campus sweetheart, she was something. They were the perfect couple. He graduated from Columbia with an MBA. His opportunity was infinite. He could do whatever he wanted with his life. But was he satisfied? No. Every night, he would cry. Begging the Lord. Something deep within needed wakening. Then one day it happened. That moment when the subconscious rises to the surface. Well, the way it triggered was very simple. It happened when his mother came onto him one night. As if the spirit of Jack the Ripper had taken over his body, he stabbed and stabbed until you couldn’t tell who she was. You know what I think? An angel whispered into his ear.”
Particularly given Kun Lan’s reaction when he realizes who was present to hear it, he is likely describing Emir. The details about Columbia contradict other narratives about Emir, in which he shoots himself at age thirteen. But Kun Lan, both a demon (Mara) and divine (God’s Hand), has access to higher information, and this provides the only clear explanation for what “death-filed” Emir. Rather than a random incident, even this particularly intimate abuse is part of the political plot that absolutely controls his life: the reference to an angel implies Kun Lan’s involvement, given the eponymous illusions he creates in “Angel.”
The dates seem to indicate that Emir did all this twice, implying hidden “facts.” Whether or not Emir was born in 1942, death-filed in 1952, and dies by suicide in 1956 or, more plausibly, if he was born in the 1980s and dies this way in the 1990s, core points are the same. The syndicates choose him for his family’s supposed criminal power, arrange the deaths of his parents, and abduct him for a proto-ELBOW regimen at Coburn Elementary School. After escaping, he serves the US out of hatred for Japan, whose agents have caused him all forms of trauma. Emir eventually wipes out the Smith Syndicate at the Union Hotel. But through their complete control, the old men have stolen his youth as they do from the Shelter Kids. This shuts Emir’s third eye, a symbol of youth and spiritual power, shutting him off from the power of Kamui.
Despairing of this loss, Emir dies by suicide on the rooftop of the hotel. Symbolizing his lost power, his unique Golden Gun is stolen by the forces of ELBOW, ending up with Greg Nightmare. Harman Smith then absorbs Emir’s blood and integrates him into the Smith Syndicate, in which his “criminal power” allows him to become the primary persona. But to cope with the horror of his past, like the Shelter Kids who cannot remember what happened to them, Emir suppresses his former identity and becomes Garcian.