Anonymous asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ah! It’s fine if you haven’t read my essays (that tag is truly daunting, I know). And no, I haven’t answered this yet! I’m still on mobile, so I apologise for the lack of images and if autocorrect fudges anything gup (writing all of this out is pretty taxing on the thumbs, phew).
The simple answer: the soul residing within Unit 00 is the other part of Rei/Lilith’s soul.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware that anyone thought that Unit 00’s soul was Naoko, or that there was a controversy at all. Oops. I should read more analyses of Evangelion by other people, I guess. I can understand why one could come to that conclusion, though, since Naoko is indeed a “mother” (like Yui and Kyouko, the souls of Unit 01 and 02 and the mothers of Shinji and Asuka, respectively) and since Naoko would indeed hold a grudge against Ritsuko, Rei II, and Gendo (considering the two times that Unit 00 went berserk during testing).
However, it’s pretty painfully clear that the Unit 00 soul is the other part of Rei. When Gendo created a genetic clone of Yui, he required a soul for the clone to live; he extracted Lilith’s soul (similar to how SEELE extracted Adam’s soul to place into Tabris/Nagisa Kaworu). Rei I was a cruel child who smirked viciously whilst cutting Naoko down in the most brutal manner possible. It’s possible that Rei may have simply been repeating what Gendo had said, but the cruel smirk on the child’s face hints otherwise. After Naoko’s murder of Rei I and suicide of herself, Gendo split the soul in two. The motherly and vicious qualities went into the EVA; the rest went into Rei II.
The origins of Rei II’s lack of emotional response and complete apathy hold multiple possible roots. I hold that Rei has schizoid personality disorder, or at least symptoms very akin to SPD. It’s possibly that Rei’s childhood, trained to simply be a submissive soldier and never seen as a person except as a replacement for Ikari Yui, caused the First Children to develop said apathy. It’s possible that the medicine that Ritsuko gives the First Children (as seen in Rei’s apartment) serve, either primarily or additionally, as suppressants, in order for Ritsuko and Gendo to work with the most docile, obedient pilot possible. It’s possible that only having part of the soul left Rei without the necessary components to fully experience emotion (we do know that splitting the soul can result in insanity and the desire for death, as seen in Asuka’s mother). It’s most probable that the First Children’s apathy/SPD-like symptoms arise from some combination of the above and other potential causes.
Rei I, particularly the more vicious part, would definitely bear a grudge against Gendo, against Ritsuko (as a stand-in for Naoko, in the Evangelion theme of the child becoming the parent), and again Rei II, the part of the soul that is “free” in some sense. Unit 00’s berserk moments certainly hold in that manner.
Even more telling: During test in which Shinji and Rei switch places, Shinji momentarily connects with Rei/Lilith in Unit 00, identifying the presence as Rei, after which Unit 00 goes berserk. When Rei enters the plug of Unit 01, the First Children comments that the plug merely smells like “Ikari-kun”. By contrast, Shinji has a distinct impression of “Ayanami”, to a point of seeing flashes and so forth. Which, again, is followed immediately by Unit 00 manifesting agency and going berserk. As well, in episode twenty-three, when Armisael infects Unit 00, Rei II attempts to identify the presence, first as Rei II, then as “the me in the EVA”, and finally as the angel. “The me in the EVA”, which is distinct from both Rei II and from Armisael? Seems like the only logical explanation is the Rei/Lilith soul-part in Unit 00.
Following Rei II’s self-sacrifice in that twenty-third episode, the First Children seems to become colder again. Quite a few people consider this backwards character development. But not at all: because Unit 00 was also destroyed, Rei III now contains the full Lilith soul, the same soul as was in Rei I. Rei III recalls the years spent in the EVA, understands emotion better than Rei II, and recognises Gendo as the piece of shit that he is. Rei III also either is aware or becomes aware that the soul within the body is Lilith. Rei III, if you recall, dislikes Gendo, as visible in the First Children’s interactions with Gendo’s glasses (once Rei II’s most treasured possession) and as seen in End of Evangelion, wherein Rei III directly tells Gendo, “I am not your tool,” and subsequently joins Lilith. Rei III, representing the unification of the two split halves of Rei II’s soul in addition to the maturity experienced by Rei II (which explains why Rei III is significantly different from Rei I: both soul halves have experienced immense development and experience), kicks ass.
(In case you can’t tell, I love Rei. A lot. What a fantastic character and person.)
Anonymous asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ahh, goodness gracious! Thank you so much for the kind words, and I’m terribly sorry about the late response. I’ve been mostly internet-less for half a month now (the occasional post you see might either my queue or one of the few times in which I have the time/ability to write
Regarding Ikari Yui (by the way, Ikari Yui »>>>> Ayanami Yui for a variety of reasons), I haven’t written an analysis specific to her, but I have written on her during my Hedgehog’s Dilemma essay. It’s mostly about how Ikari Gendo and Fuyutsuki Kozo misinterpret who Yui is and what her goals are, so you’ll probably find your answer there. If not, toss me another ask (don’t be shy! It won’t be a bother at all, I promise! I love analysing EVA).
Relevant section under the cut.
ADD IMAGES
Anonymous asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ahh, goodness gracious! Thank you so much for the kind words, and I’m terribly sorry about the late response. I’ve been mostly internet-less for half a month now (the occasional post you see might either my queue or one of the few times in which I have the time/ability to write
Regarding Ikari Yui (by the way, Ikari Yui »»» Ayanami Yui for a variety of reasons), I haven’t written an analysis specific to her, but I have written on her during my Hedgehog’s Dilemma essay. It’s mostly about how Ikari Gendo and Fuyutsuki Kozo misinterpret who Yui is and what her goals are, so you’ll probably find your answer there. If not, toss me another ask (don’t be shy! It won’t be a bother at all, I promise! I love analysing EVA).
Relevant section under the cut.
wait in rebuilds did they change her name to Ayanami Yui b/c that is some bullshit
Haha yeah Rebuild Yui is “Ayanami Yui” complete with
It’s possible that Fuyutsuki was lying his ass off to Shinji to prompt Shinji to do things in an attempt to save hte mommy or otherwise manipulate Shinji and that eldritch horror Yui will rise in 4.44, but given the robbing of her agency in the Zeruel fight in favour of “GIVE AYANAMI BACK OR I WILL SET THE ENTIRE WORLD ON FIRE RISE UP YOUNG BOY AND MAKE YOURSELF THE SHOUNENSHIT HERO”, I think that the EVA team merely simplified the roles of both Yui and Gendo into the damsel in distress and the Evil Father Overlord [adjusts glasses] that the fans made the characters out to be.
(Gendo is indeed an asshole, but he’s a complex asshole, dammit.)
I swear, the New Theatricals are basically a fucking experiment in the filtration of reality. “Oh this is what you kids thought that so and so character should be? Here you fuckin’ go! Enjoy! Gotta go save your imprisoned mother Shinji-kun!”
Dammit, Anno, when did Rebuild turn into the third Pokémon film?
skywhaler-deactivated20161127 asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ahh! Okay, allow me to clarify: I don’t hate 2.22. When I speak of fandoms about which I’m passionate I often use words to distinguish between my feelings for various iterations/aspects of EVA. 2.22’s a fantastic film; however, 2.22 is also my least favourite Rebuild, because frankly they tried to do too much and ended up doing too little.
I should write up a full review/analysis of 2.22, but let me just list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film (my personal favourite film ever made is End of Evangelion, with the Hell Kitchen-plus-“Komm, susser Tod” sequence more or less mirroring your feelings on the Zeruel scene).
I also haven’t seen 2.22 in a couple months, so if I say anything incorrect/miss something important, sorry.
Evangelion 2.22 was Evangelion as written for people who didn’t like Evangelion.
Sick of that boring interiority and psychological focus? Toss it! Tired of all the kids being so emo all the time? Let’s make Asuka perkier… and give her a crush on Shinji! Hell, give everyone a crush on Shinji – he’s supposed to represent the audience, right? And that’s what we do to the audience – we give them what they want. Speaking of things the audience wants – explosions! And another female character – hey, let’s have her fall on Shinji’s face! What’s her backstory? Doesn’t matter. Explosions! And you know what, screw sad-sack Shinji – now he’s the hero! Let’s make him save the girl! EXPLOSIONS!
Evangelion 2.22 was very popular. Finally, the Evangelion people had always wanted! No more tempering your praise with caveats and troubled ellipses – Evangelion was pure! Everything the audience wanted, they received. Everything that had made Evangelion “difficult” was sanded off. It was grim and wacky and charming and expensive and pretty and full of big, dramatic setpieces – all that stuff the original was minus everything the original actually said. Evangelion 2.22 was the least post-Evangelion film imaginable – an Evangelion designed to miss the point of Evangelion. And boy oh boy were people excited for Part 3.
Part 3 was excited for them, too.
But doesn’t that make 2.22 good? It’s really like the NGE action arc, and later your expectations are subverted. (Like Shinji saving Rei lol, didn’t work that well).
I talk a lot about the Rebuilds on imdB. A user I talk with came to the conclusion that 2.0 and 3.0 critizice a new trend in anime in series like RahXephon. (Spoilers for RahXephon):
“It basically boils down to both series having protagonists randomly get glowing red eyes in an effort to save a love interest while piloting a mecha, both compeletely failing to save said love interests, WILLE’s uniforms looking similar to Ayato’s, and lastly Ayato successfully using magical time travel *beep* to undo all of his problems, while Shinji attempts the same thing only to completely and utterly fail.
My own guess would be that Anno is criticizing modern anime that uses resetting time as magical problem solver. It totally strikes me as the kind of thing that Anno would see as running away from problems too.”
The thing I disliked about 2.0:
2.0 is the worst. It’s still amazing, but it has some problems…
First, I think Anno didn’t know where the Rebuild was going. That’s OK when you are doing a 26 episode series, but with 4 films…
Second, Evangelion is very centered on human drama. If we are supposed to believe that Shinji cares about Asuka, show us. Asuka doesn’t really have a lot of screen time.
I’d separate NGE episodes in two types: Episodes that show an event, for example something happens to some character, it messes with Shinji’s head. Then there are the “less important” episodes (action arc) that show us how these characters meet, how Shinji actually makes friends for the first time, etc. So yeah, they are important.
2.0 nails the first type of scenes, but the second type, not so much. However I think it says a lot about Anno that the Bardiel scene in 2.0 was freaking sad. 2.0 just could have been better. Still I think the whole cook subplot worked.
I agree with what realdomdom was saying. In fact, my point is that if 2.22 is your favourite aspect of the EVA franchise, I want you to at least think about why that is. If you love 2.22, that’s fine. I’m more about spreading awareness. 2.22 sold ridiculously well; 3.33 sold better than 1.11 but less than 2.22, as expected. I agree that 2.22 works within the RoE framework, but I can still criticise 2.22 as the weakest film.
However, kuribo4indahouse: It’s not like the original action arc, which had Shinji slowly gaining false confidence and Asuka seeking validation and being herself even while the cracks in her armour began to show. You are correct in that 2.22 acted as an analogue, but the action arc of the anime was concerned with giving us positive character development that would then be undercut during the backwards slide over the second half, and the distinction worked. 2.22, like I said, doesn’t give us any character development to work save for Rei, and that character development goes nowhere due to Rei Q. Now, I’m certain that both Rei Q and Rei are going to factor in 4.44, so I’m going to hold my tongue for now, but as it stands Asuka received minimal (barely-believable) development and Shinji received nearly none at all until the sudden “shounen protagonist!” bit in the last fight, which doesn’t segue as smoothly as the character development did in the original anime. They stuffed 2.22 with so much that they couldn’t actually dig into the essentials of the EVA action arc. As realdomdom mentioned, that was purposeful: Anno hates his fanbase. But that doesn’t stop me from criticising 2.22.
The bento subplot didn’t work because instead of actually giving us character development, the bento subplot served as waifu pandering, and you know it. The bento subplot definitely worked for the whole “haha EVA is totally about Shinji’s harem!” thing, but I’m criticising why 2.22 is the weakest part of RoE, specifically.
All in all i think the Rebuilds are basically just a parody-like review on the super-nerd-fetish fans’ view of NGE, trying to pick them up and talk to them. Anno must be pretty embarassed and disappointed for this move, but i can see why. On second thought, maybe Rebuild is, in a way, like the second coming of jesus.
Yeah the Rebuilds are most certainly Anno giving his fanbase a massive middle finger. Anno hates Evangelion and you should too, and all of that. I mean, I feel sorry for him: He created the anime to criticise otaku culture only to essentially launch otaku culture to the mainstream (well, to some extent).
Truly, I can’t wait for 4.44 to end on a Kawoshin wedding, followed by live action footage of Anno masturbating and saying “You’re so fucked up” followed by HD omedetou. (In other words: I’m excited to see how Anno is going to fuck with the fanbase in the fourth film.)
skywhaler-deactivated20161127 asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ahh! Okay, allow me to clarify: I don’t hate 2.22. When I speak of fandoms about which I’m passionate I often use words to distinguish between my feelings for various iterations/aspects of EVA. 2.22’s a fantastic film; however, 2.22 is also my least favourite Rebuild, because frankly they tried to do too much and ended up doing too little.
I should write up a full review/analysis of 2.22, but let me just list some of the things that I loved and hated about the film (my personal favourite film ever made is End of Evangelion, with the Hell Kitchen-plus-“Komm, susser Tod” sequence more or less mirroring your feelings on the Zeruel scene).
I also haven’t seen 2.22 in a couple months, so if I say anything incorrect/miss something important, sorry.
Evangelion 2.22 was Evangelion as written for people who didn’t like Evangelion.
Sick of that boring interiority and psychological focus? Toss it! Tired of all the kids being so emo all the time? Let’s make Asuka perkier… and give her a crush on Shinji! Hell, give everyone a crush on Shinji – he’s supposed to represent the audience, right? And that’s what we do to the audience – we give them what they want. Speaking of things the audience wants – explosions! And another female character – hey, let’s have her fall on Shinji’s face! What’s her backstory? Doesn’t matter. Explosions! And you know what, screw sad-sack Shinji – now he’s the hero! Let’s make him save the girl! EXPLOSIONS!
Evangelion 2.22 was very popular. Finally, the Evangelion people had always wanted! No more tempering your praise with caveats and troubled ellipses – Evangelion was pure! Everything the audience wanted, they received. Everything that had made Evangelion “difficult” was sanded off. It was grim and wacky and charming and expensive and pretty and full of big, dramatic setpieces – all that stuff the original was minus everything the original actually said. Evangelion 2.22 was the least post-Evangelion film imaginable – an Evangelion designed to miss the point of Evangelion. And boy oh boy were people excited for Part 3.
Part 3 was excited for them, too.
But doesn’t that make 2.22 good? It’s really like the NGE action arc, and later your expectations are subverted. (Like Shinji saving Rei lol, didn’t work that well).
I talk a lot about the Rebuilds on imdB. A user I talk with came to the conclusion that 2.0 and 3.0 critizice a new trend in anime in series like RahXephon. (Spoilers for RahXephon):
“It basically boils down to both series having protagonists randomly get glowing red eyes in an effort to save a love interest while piloting a mecha, both compeletely failing to save said love interests, WILLE’s uniforms looking similar to Ayato’s, and lastly Ayato successfully using magical time travel *beep* to undo all of his problems, while Shinji attempts the same thing only to completely and utterly fail.
My own guess would be that Anno is criticizing modern anime that uses resetting time as magical problem solver. It totally strikes me as the kind of thing that Anno would see as running away from problems too.”
The thing I disliked about 2.0:
2.0 is the worst. It’s still amazing, but it has some problems…
First, I think Anno didn’t know where the Rebuild was going. That’s OK when you are doing a 26 episode series, but with 4 films…
Second, Evangelion is very centered on human drama. If we are supposed to believe that Shinji cares about Asuka, show us. Asuka doesn’t really have a lot of screen time.
I’d separate NGE episodes in two types: Episodes that show an event, for example something happens to some character, it messes with Shinji’s head. Then there are the “less important” episodes (action arc) that show us how these characters meet, how Shinji actually makes friends for the first time, etc. So yeah, they are important.
2.0 nails the first type of scenes, but the second type, not so much. However I think it says a lot about Anno that the Bardiel scene in 2.0 was freaking sad. 2.0 just could have been better. Still I think the whole cook subplot worked.
I agree with what realdomdom was saying. In fact, my point is that if 2.22 is your favourite aspect of the EVA franchise, I want you to at least think about why that is. If you love 2.22, that’s fine. I’m more about spreading awareness. 2.22 sold ridiculously well; 3.33 sold better than 1.11 but less than 2.22, as expected. I agree that 2.22 works within the RoE framework, but I can still criticise 2.22 as the weakest film.
However, kuribo4indahouse: It's not like the original action arc, which had Shinji slowly gaining false confidence and Asuka seeking validation and being herself even while the cracks in her armour began to show. You are correct in that 2.22 acted as an analogue, but the action arc of the anime was concerned with giving us positive character development that would then be undercut during the backwards slide over the second half, and the distinction worked. 2.22, like I said, doesn’t give us any character development to work save for Rei, and that character development goes nowhere due to Rei Q. Now, I’m certain that both Rei Q and Rei are going to factor in 4.44, so I’m going to hold my tongue for now, but as it stands Asuka received minimal (barely-believable) development and Shinji received nearly none at all until the sudden “shounen protagonist!” bit in the last fight, which doesn’t segue as smoothly as the character development did in the original anime. They stuffed 2.22 with so much that they couldn’t actually dig into the essentials of the EVA action arc. As realdomdom mentioned, that was purposeful: Anno hates his fanbase. But that doesn’t stop me from criticising 2.22.
The bento subplot didn’t work because instead of actually giving us character development, the bento subplot served as waifu pandering, and you know it. The bento subplot definitely worked for the whole “haha EVA is totally about Shinji’s harem!” thing, but I’m criticising why 2.22 is the weakest part of RoE, specifically.
hylean asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
That’s a very difficult question to answer without analysing the series as a whole. Also, I honestly have read Freud only via secondary sources, so I’m not sure what exactly that school of thought’s theories are. But while Evangelion lifts concepts from Freud/etc., the series has its own themes, and I didn’t particularly see a misogynistic message within Evangelion, except for the fact that there’s a ton of fanservice and Anno has made a fortune on the exploitation of fourteen-year-old girls, but that’s not a thematic message per se).
Evangelion certainly lifts the concept of separating from the mother/the mother as the first other, but the series breaks that concept and intertwines it with the greater theses of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma and the filtration of reality (check out my analysis page and my Cruel Angel’s Thesis essay on that). There is a component of sexual attraction to the mother, particularly with regards to viewing Instrumentality as having sexual intercourse with Rei-Kaworu-Lilith-Adam, which represents Shinji’s mother and the mothers of the lilim and angels, but Shinji ultimately rejects that. We could theoretically view that as a rejection of the sexual attraction to the mother in the same go.
Similarly, Evangelion doesn’t seem to point towards the mothers as faulty, except for certain characters who have issues with their mothers, but that’s typically framed as being on the fault of the character. For instance, Ritsuko dislikes Naoko because Naoko was never really a good mother, yet Naoko is no more villainised than any of the adults (Misato’s father is also villainised because he similarly wasn’t around, etc.). I think that Evangelion has a general rejection of parents as figures of ultimate good.
Huh. This question really makes me think. I think that Evangelion certainly interacts with Freudian themes, but I don’t think that the series validates them so much as uses them as a springboard, except perhaps for the whole death of the father/sex with the mother shtick that’s so important in End of Evangelion, which is … again, rejected in favour of true reality. I personally love the symbolism of the birth into true reality after one has destroyed one’s filters, and I hadn’t thought of it in Freudian terms. There’s also the whole you just want a mother you can have sex with thing, which actually sounds kind of true, considering the traditional role of the woman. Let’s get heteronormative here: The stereotypical man seeks a woman who will take care of him but from whom sexual pleasure is also constantly available. There’s a reason that make me a sandwich and the friendzone are so common in modern life. It’s still true of many people, unfortunately (it’s also the source of that old horrible joke about how men need to find themselves a wife and a mistress, with the implication that the wife is basically acting as a stand-in mother).
I’m going to rewatch the series and return to this question later after I pay attention to stuff like that. I apologise for being inconclusive. If anything has a view that they’d like to share, I’m all ears.
This one is about AT fields, what they’re probably made of, and why things like a Prog Knife or the Positron Laser Cannon can penetrate it.
After checking my idea with fiendswithbenefits to make sure I wasn’t making some kind of ridiculous claim (because I’m not a physicist), I am now able to present you with:
The Making of the AT Field.
As most of you probably know, the AT Field is a near invincible barrier wielded by Angels and Evangelions, although less extensively by the latter. Explosives and N2 mines are practically useless against the field, requiring an Evangelion Prog knife to penetrate it. Up until now, most of you probably didn’t think such a thing was possible with modern technology. Although we lack the ability to form an AT field at this time, we can investigate what it’s composed of and why it works as it does.
During research for a previous post on pocket dimensions, a unique particle known as a positron was frequently mentioned. Described as the antimatter form of an electron, a positron is a positively charged particle, which upon contact with electrons, destroys both itself and the electron.
With this in mind, all materials that are relevant to this contain electrons, including missiles, bullets, N2 mines/bombs, and Evangelion fists. So, when these things collide with the AT field, their electrons are destroyed and they fall apart at an atomic level. The AT field doesn’t suffer this effect due to the fact that the Angel’s S2 engines most likely produce a constant supply of positrons, rendering these weapons useless due to the small number of positrons they destroy.
The Evangelion Prog Knife is a different story, capable of cleaving away layers of positrons with each slash. This is most likely due to the blade being heavily charged with electrons, giving it the “vibrating” effect noted by Kensuke in the early episodes. This is due to the fast movement of the excited electrons, resulting in the very material of the blade appearing as if it’s moving. This also applies to the bayonet on Mari’s rifle used against Zeruel, and the bolts that particular weapon fires. The Progressive effect doesn’t apply to Evangelion standard rifles, miniguns, or various other pointy tools seen in the series and films. The positron rifle was able to penetrate Ramiel’s field due to it’s blast being made of positrons as well, allowing it to slip through the AT field and anhiallate a chunk of it’s S2 engine.
The Evangelion AT field is the perfect counter to those used by the Angels, due to them being made of the same substance. Imagine two small soap bubbles combining into one larger bubble, although not a perfect example, it provides a similar image to how Evangelions are able to penetrate most Angelic AT fields. It’s interesting that this method was not attempted on Zeruel, as at no point in the fight did Mari attempt to activate Unit 02’s field. Whether or not it would have been successful due to the sheer number of positrons in it’s field remains a mystery.
In the real world, positrons are made by beta decay in laboratory experiments but are usually destroyed almost immediately by surrounding electrons. Experiments with them have been conducted in the Large Hadron Collider, and due to the ways we have discovered in producing positrons, it gives us insight on the type of reactions occurring in S2 engines. The laser weapons are likely projected beams of positrons, explaining how they can rip through things such as the Geofront Pyramid with relative ease.
Where the primary weapon of the Angels may have seemed like magic at the time, I hope this sheds some light on how very real some of these concepts are, and the terror they could wreck in the wrong hands. Evangelion is not something to be taken lightly, especially when such technology may already be in our grasp. Even such things as the S2 engine may someday become a reality, and with it the potential for Angels.
Anonymous asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Certainly! I’m mobile posting because the internet does not work whatsoever on my computer (hello crappy summer job!), so I can’t include any pictures as I usually do, but I’ll try to describe the scenes in question (also, apologies in advance if autocorrect screws anything up; I’ll try to upload pictures but sorry if they don’t work).
Some background: in an interview regarding Shinji, Anno described Shinji as someone who wants to commit suicide but is unable to do so, probably afraid of the pain. Shinji is passively suicidal, a feeling which I can certainly appreciate. In other words, if someone were to give him a button that would allow him to disappear/die painlessly if pushed, he’d push it (and he does, in End of Evangelion).
End of Evangelion picks up, chronologically, on the morning after the twenty-fourth episode. At the end of the episode, Shinji and Misato are sitting by the shore of the lake; Shinji tells Misato that Kaworu should have lived, because Kaworu was a good person, until Shinji, who views himself as a murderer (and who hates himself in general, considering himself a coward, a weakling, etc.etc.).
During the first half of End of Evangelion, Shinji consistently refuses to move. He literally does not so much as cower when SEELE personnel hold a gun to his head; if anything, when Misato saves him, he seems to look exhausted down to the marrow of the bone. I imagine that he, horrifically enough, wanted for the SEELE agent to take the decision of suicide out of his hands. Likewise, Shinji mumbles to Misato that he wants to die and has to be physically dragged around by Misato. When he arrives to find Unit 01 encased in bakelite, he does absolutely nothing and gives up immediately.
Shinji is absolutely a passive individual who would prefer not to fight, but even he does not typically act in such a manner. He’s more than given up; if someone were to die in front of him (as is obvious happened while SEELE was gunning down NERV personnel left and right), he would not assist in any manner. This is a far cry from the Shinji of, say, episode three, who rather heroically waited until Toji and Kensuke were safely in the plug prior to tearing the angel Shamshel apart with his own hands. Quite a far cry indeed. This is a Shinji who has completely given up on everything. He’s ready to die. And when Adam-Lilith gives him a chance to die, he takes it, smiling, crying tears of joy, for at long last his weary fight with life is over.
End of Evangelion opens with the shot of the water followed by Shinji standing at the shore of the lake, with his head/hair completely soaked (and his clothing appearing dry, as far as I remember). Some argue that this was perspiration, but what would be the purpose of this shot? We already know that it’s deathly hot in Tokyo-3. As well, his clothing appears dry, which doesn’t bode well for the perspiration theory, and mere perspiration isn’t really enough to make one’s hair that entirely drenched. One could also argue that he was dunking his head in the water to wake himself up, but that doesn’t seem to make sense given his passivity through the rest of the film.
To recap: Shinji spent the night by the shore of the lake, alone, after murdering Kaworu. Misato was with him for some time, was unable to cheer him up, and eventually gave up and left. Shinji. By himself. The following morning: drenched hair. Passively suicidal throughout the entire film until his big moment during Instrumentality.
It seems to me that the most obvious solution to that chain of events is that Shinji attempted to drown himself (by keeping his head underwater or by drowning himself entirely, depending on whether or not you think that his clothing is dry [there aren’t any water droplets on it and so on]) and was unable to do so. If anyone has any alternate interpretations or disparate comments, do let me know.
(Also, thank you for tagging #suicide. I’d toss you the Mari thumbs-up gif but I’m on mobile, bluh bluh.)
I want to see people defending Asuka on my dash, the same way they defend Shinji.
She literally has just as much hurt and depression and anxiety in her life, she saw her mother die too, she had her father abandon her too, and she didn’t even get invited back by him to pilot a robot, like with Shinji and Gendo.
But while I see all kinds of posts about Shinji I’ve seen so little for her. Yes she’s cruel to so many people, but everyone is able to blissfully ignore Shinji’s faults.
#but like#mostly everyone LOVES asuka#what defending does she need??#shinji gets hate for crying and not doing things that hurt him#yes he’s a little shit#but so is asuka and yet everybody loves her so what does she need people to defend her??#i never see any hate for her like for reals#and if people dont defend her its probably cause they dont care???#idk but like really i dont think she needs defending#no one hates on her???#i mean i dont like her but i also dont hate her??#its like i love her but i also dont you see the problem?#but yeah anyways thats just my opinion#also no one knows whats up with her dad so???#atleast not that i know of
(I’m not including your name because I’d rather not draw unnecessary attention to you.)
People do not love Asuka. Perhaps you survive in a small microcosm of tumblr wherein everyone loves and fiercely defends female characters, but from what I’ve seen in my forays throughout the greater Evangelion fandom, people usually respond to Asuka in two different ways.
In the most popular works/depictions of Asuka, she’s reduced to a generic tsundere waifu who longs for Shinji’s dickari (I’m looking at you, ReTake, but also at the general trend). In other depictions, she’s typically villainised, particularly in kawo/shin works and doujin, if she’s present or relevant at all.
I agree that Shinji needs defending, but holy hell, I’ve seen people make Shinji out to be some kind of defenceless angel. Just like Asuka, he’s done some shit. Both he and Asuka are in the position of the abuser and in the position of the abused, as most people in reality are. Simplifying Shinji into a truly wide-eyed innocent naive kid who has never done anything and simplifying Asuka into a not-really-abrasive kid who doesn’t have severe issues in of herself is fucking bullshit (thanks, Rebuild of Evangelion).
I’ve seen so much defence of Shinji. I’ve seen people defending Shinji for choking Asuka (because she was being a b*tch to him! It’s not as if she was, you know, rightfully calling him out on his bullshit behaviour) and defending Shinji for sexualising Rei, Asuka, and Misato and being angry at them that they’re “keeping things ambiguous behind smiles”(because he’s “just a normal kid” or, worse yet, because he’s “gay and boo hoo my gay angel couldn’t possibly do anything”). And so on and so forth.
What happens with Shinji is that people tend to defend him for the misogynistic shit and then trash him for the depression/mental illness shit. Well, guess what? Asuka is also depressed and suffers from mental illness. But just like how tumblr is quick to defend depression and anxiety whilst being extremely ableist to the “Bad Cr*zies”, people defend Shinji for his quiet depression and avoidant personaity disorder and anxiety issues even as they laugh at and bash Asuka for being unable to handle Arael or desiring recognition or having a breakdown about not being number one or wanting Kaji’s attention or, you know, all of her histrionic personality disorder.
Fuckin’ hell, even in the 90s, before the internet was really a thing, there was a website called the “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Shinji Ikari” or something like that where the entire fucking website was run by Evangelion fans who would write novels defending Shinji without ever once considering Asuka. One of the most common defences of Shinji was that it didn’t matter what he did to Asuka because Asuka had been a b*tch to him. Did you know that at one showing of End of Evangelion people started clapping - fucking clapping - when Shinji choked Asuka? Hmm? I wonder why.
I understand if you dislike Asuka because she has legitimately done Some Stuff. But in the same vein you should dislike Shinji. After all, the Evangelion characters weren’t designed to be likeable. What grinds me down is that if Asuka were male, then you know for a fact that “he” would be a fan favourite and everyone would defend “him” for being a douchebag because “no his mother is dead and he’s just poor and misunderstood!”
But they don’t. They either destroy her by turning her into a sextoy or they call her out on being abusive even whilst they turn around and praise Shinji to hell and back. Maybe you haven’t seen the Asuka hate, but I have, first-hand, and it is horrendous.
I’m glad that you’ve been sheltered from the Asuka hate, but no, Asuka (and Rei, and Misato) need so much more defence. Does Shinji need defence? Sure. But I haven’t actually seen someone unironically call Shinji whiny or a crybaby or any of that shit in years. You know what I have seen, even on fucking tumblr dot com?
Yeah. Exactly. Don’t even get me started on /a/. Here, have some fucking analysis.
hylean asked:
ritsumaya-deactivated20160612 answered:
Ah, all right. I think that I did talk about this briefly in one analysis, but I’ll go more into depth here. I’m writing this on mobile, so apologies for the lack of pictures and formatting and double apologies if autocorrect fudges anything up!
In Neon Genesis Evangelion, SEELE believes that Instrumentality and the return to Lilith is the correct path for humanity to take. In NGE2, the second-tier canon video game that was heavily influenced and partially written by the Project EVA staff, we witness SEELE’s version of Instrumentality, wherein they utilise Tabris/Nagisa Kaworu/Adam (as opposed to Ayanami Rei/Lilith) as the quantum messenger. Under SEELE’s command, the souls are harvested, with the souls of the members of SEELE surviving as immortal beings while the rest of humanity dies. In the anime, Ikari Yui opposes their goals and intends for an Instrumentality for everyone, which suggests that SEELE did it not plan to include all of humanity, which in turn supports NGE2’s explanation of SEELE’s intentions to be canonical. However, SEELE’s dialogue in End of Evangelion appears to suggest otherwise; the film portrays SEELE as a deeply religious organisation who sincerely believed in Instrumentality, perhaps because the members’ own hearts were empty and desiring death/escapism. I view SEELE as a combination of both: Given Yui’s commentary, I think that either SEELE initially intended the selves-as-gods Instrumentality and later changed their minds (after Yui’s death), OR that SEELE intended the selves-as-gods Instrumentality but recognised that plans had shifted as of End of Evangelion, prompting SEELE to simply be content with being tanged themselves.
The director’s cut of the twenty-fourth episode includes a very misleading conversation between Kaworu and SEELE. During the conversation, SEELE claims to support the angels as the true successors and assures Kaworu that the members do not plan to utilise Unit 01 as their private ark. Yet SEELE is lying blatantly to Kaworu in an attempt to manipulate Kaworu into taking out Gendo (re: NGE2). Kaworu, of course, listens very patiently to them, nods, smiles, and proceeds to dive into Terminal Dogma because the Fifth Children is suicidal and intends to return to being one with Adam because of that heart, overflowing with sorrow, as Rei puts so eloquently in End of Evnagelion. Anyway, the reason that I bring this up is because SEELE lies directly to Kaworu about the support of the angels and Gendo’s purpose. Hence, it is reasonable to interpret that SEELE likewise lied about not wanting to use Unit 01 as a private ark to ride out Instrumentality. Ikari Yui actually ends up using Unit 01 as an ark and becomes immortal in End of Evangelion, but I’ve already commented on Yui’s grey morality.
Now, Gendo. Gendo intended to use Rei to control Instrumentality; that’s why he implanted Lilith’s soul into the body and raised the First Children to be perfectly obedient to him. That’s also why he split Lilith’s soul in two, because a partial soul is less responsive and volatile than a full soul, hence, obedience. His specific goal was to reunite with Yui and spend eternity with her. This implies that he only wanted partial Instrumentality, so that he could still conceptualise the difference between himself and Yui. In any case, Rei III more or less gave him the metaphorical finger, took in Adam/Kaworu’s soul, and returned to Lilith.
In the Rebuilds/new theatrical versions, SEELE is implied in the third film to no longer have corporeal forms and to have somehow watched over humanity for quite a while. While the Illuminati nature of SEELE may explain the latter, the former is a bit more questionable. SEELE does not seem to be antagonistic and appears to wish for Instrumentality again, this time genuinely believing that Instrumentality and/or infinity is the way to go. It’s unclear if SEELE would prefer the former or the latter, but based upon the anime, it’s most probably the former.
Regarding the latter: The third film revealed that the Third Impact caused the proliferation of EVA-based life, being the combination of the Fruits of Life and Knowledge possessed by the angels and lilim, respectively. Because the Third Impact was stopped, the remains of the failed Impact are known as the failures of infinity.
As for Gendo’s plan, all we know is that he intends to reunite with Yui, that he lied to SEELE and purposefully interfered with both SEELE and Kaworu/Shinji’s plans in order to take out SEELE and Kaworu, and that he will put his true plan in motion in the fourth film.
(Kaworu/Shinji, by the way, intended to use the Lances of Longinus and Cassius to in some manner reverse or undo the effects of Third Impact. The most likely explanation is that Kaworu wanted to use Shinjiwielding the Fruit of Knowledgeto cause another Impact, this time lilim-based, since Impacts also terraform the planet. The effects of the Lance of Cassius are unknown at this time. Basically, Kaworu decided to give SEELE and NERV metaphorical middle fingers and fly away with Shinji in the sunset. Except that Kaworu was grossly misinformed, both on the Lances and on Shinji’s status as a F.A.R.)
We won’t actually be able to answer these questions until the fourth film comes out. So ask again then, and I’m sorry for being inconclusive!
