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Yui had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls and knew that SEELE would cause (or at least take advantage of) an event that would drive humanity to extinction. It's also strongly implied that they would have assassinated her if she didn't find some way to protect herself. Finally, we know she had some kind of plan of her own for Instrumentality that differed from SEELE's, and there are significant contextual hints that it differed from Gendo's as well. (Like Eva-01 biting his head off.)
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Aug 5, 2013 03:05
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This might be a stupid question/irrelevant, but did Yui love Gendo? Or was he just a part of her plan? I know that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, but she had a child with him, then bit his head off. Gendo seemed to be really gung-ho on getting reunited with her, but was he just a tool to produce Shinji?
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Aug 5, 2013 03:10
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RebBrownies posted:This might be a stupid question/irrelevant, but did Yui love Gendo? Or was he just a part of her plan? I know that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, but she had a child with him, then bit his head off. Most likely she loves him and is furious at how he treats Shinji. She isn't necessarily in full control of everything Unit-01 does throughout the series; she's the restrained super-ego of a raging Id monster, if we want to get all Freudian. During Shinji's hallucinatory visions throughout the series, he meets a figure who looks like Rei (and sometimes like the other women in his life) but who can't possibly be any of them. I tend to identify this figure as Yui, since these visions almost always happen inside Unit-01 and remind him of his mother in various ways (scent, half-formed images, etc.). This figure tries to push him towards understanding Gendo, seeing things from his perspective. Also, much later in the series, Yui defends Gendo to Fuyutsuki, calling him "a very sweet man, once you get to know him;" and finally, I think in episodes 25/26, there's a scene where Gendo apologizes to Yui for not taking better care of Shinji because he (Gendo) thought he didn't deserve to be loved and that Shinji wouldn't care about him. Which is of course horribly ironic and selfish, but not outright malevolent. Rebuild spoilers: unlike Gendo in the Rebuild movies.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:16
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I think that one of the things that has most changed the way I understand Evangelion is realizing that Unit-O1 has Yui's soul stuck inside it. And that, like Tuxedo Catfish suggests, is the "person" behind the people Shinji sees in his crazy hallucinations.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:20
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Also, much later in the series, Yui defends Gendo to Fuyutsuki, calling him "a very sweet man, once you get to know him;" and finally, I think in episodes 25/26, there's a scene where Gendo apologizes to Yui for not taking better care of Shinji because he (Gendo) thought he didn't deserve to be loved and that Shinji wouldn't care about him. Which is of course horribly ironic and selfish, but not outright malevolent. Rebuild spoilers: unlike Gendo in the Rebuild movies. While I'm thinking about it - what do you think sets Rebuild!Gendo apart from Series!Gendo in terms of seperating from 'just' horribly neglecting and manipulating Shinji to outright resenting him?
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Aug 5, 2013 03:22
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Thank you for clearing up a lot of my questions, it is still a lot to wrap my mind around  . Kaworu is born of Adam, is his affection for Shinji actually manipulation to achieve his goals? Is this another thing that isn't mutually exclusive? Am I right in saying Seele wanted only Adam (using Kaworu as a vessel) to join with Lillith to initiate instrumentality, but Gendo wanted Adam and the soul of Lillith (Rei as a vessel) to join with Lillith to initiate instrumentality. Is this what would make one version of instrumentality where everyone shares a consciousness , and another version where we all retain our personalities? I read that even though Kaworu is the 17th angel he has the soul of Adam, while the body is the embryo, and the Rei is the soul of Lillith and Lillith's body is crucified in the basement. How did the souls get separated?
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Aug 5, 2013 03:28
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Spiritus Nox posted:While I'm thinking about it - what do you think sets Rebuild!Gendo apart from Series!Gendo in terms of seperating from 'just' horribly neglecting and manipulating Shinji to outright resenting him? Gendo in the series has blinders on. He's so obsessed with recovering the only person he believes ever loved him, so resentful of the world for taking her away, that he sees anyone who isn't completely supportive of his goal as an enemy. In a way he's very much like Shinji, just with power and agency that Shinji lacks. And he's arrogant -- he absolutely believes he can take on the world, alone, and win. The tragic part is that he's almost right, and the one thing he's missing is empathy -- if he could understand and respect Yui's wishes and Shinji's autonomy, if he could treat Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki and the other NERV staff as allies instead of tools, he would probably be the protagonist of Evangelion instead of the penultimate villain. Rebuild Gendo isn't all that different in concept, just in degrees. He doesn't just insist that Shinji pilot; he ritualistically re-creates his own trauma and suffering in his son, in order to use him as a sacrifice. He doesn't just ignore the NERV staff; he drives them into open rebellion with his cruelty. There are points in 3.33 where he even seems like he's beginning to resent Yui herself for abandoning him. He's replaced hope with mechanical certainty, retreated from the empathy he needs instead of embracing it, as symbolized by his usurpation of Keel Lorenz's crown; he's "abandoning his humanity, his very soul" as Fuyutsuki -- his own most loyal supporter! -- tells Shinji in the shogi scene.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:36
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Eva has a lot of psychobabble about souls as separate entities from bodies. If you think of it as consciousness, it makes a lot more sense: Lilith and Adam's consciousnesses are contained in cloned bodies, while their original bodies are dormant. As for mankind being the 18th Angel: Misato's not literally saying mankind is born from Adam. She's saying that, in terms of beings spawned from giants of light/world seeds/whatever you want to call Lilith and Adam, we're not really different from any of the other Angels, just the most successful one. (Keep in mind she hasn't had a decade and a half to sperg over this, just what she knows from Kaji and from hacking the Magi.)
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Aug 5, 2013 03:39
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Shazaminator posted:I think the videogame information actually stated that SEELE's plan was for their souls specifically to be merged together (necessitating the tangification of everyone else) and stuffed into the S^2 equipped, awakened Eva 01 so they could gently caress off into deep space to live as a "god", like Lilith or Adam or whatever, while the rest of humanity get left to their own devices in the tang sea. In EOE SEELE mentions 01 as being their Ark, so it isn't limited to being mentioned in the games.
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Aug 5, 2013 08:31
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RebBrownies posted:Kaworu is born of Adam, is his affection for Shinji actually manipulation to achieve his goals? Is this another thing that isn't mutually exclusive? Kaworu has a true affection for Shinji, and for humanity - it's specifically why he doesn't try to avoid Shinji killing him, and why he doesn't end up merging with Lilith. quote:Am I right in saying Seele wanted only Adam (using Kaworu as a vessel) to join with Lillith to initiate instrumentality, but Gendo wanted Adam and the soul of Lillith (Rei as a vessel) to join with Lillith to initiate instrumentality. Is this what would make one version of instrumentality where everyone shares a consciousness , and another version where we all retain our personalities? Basically. Admittedly, the actual textual elements of the series never let on to what Gendo's full version of Instrumentality would look like (just the side stories/video game stuff). The most that can be said is that he wants to become God (having absorbed Adam and attempting to merge himself with Lilith), likely so that he can reunite with Yui, but what he would want to do with the rest of humanity is unknown. He makes a cryptic comment about how death "creates nothing," which would imply something different than Seele's plan. quote:I read that even though Kaworu is the 17th angel he has the soul of Adam, while the body is the embryo, and the Rei is the soul of Lillith and Lillith's body is crucified in the basement. How did the souls get separated? Never directly stated in Lilith's case, but it's implied that Second Impact was specifically the result of Seele attempting to separate Adam's soul from his body.
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Aug 5, 2013 21:47
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Vermain posted:Never directly stated in Lilith's case, but it's implied that Second Impact was specifically the result of Seele attempting to separate Adam's soul from his body. The Adam-baiting that caused Second Impact is referred to as a "contact experiment", like the one in which Yui placed her soul in Unit-01. Vermain posted:Kaworu has a true affection for Shinji, and for humanity - it's specifically why he doesn't try to avoid Shinji killing him, and why he doesn't end up merging with Lilith. I don't agree with this though. Kaworu seemed pretty bent on reaching Terminal Dogma, and only changed his tune when he realised that "Adam" was in fact Lilith. At this point Rei and Shinji in Unit-01 were between him and wherever Adam was. I thought until I saw 3.33 that Kaworu truly loved Shinji, but something in it made me change my mind (wish I could remember what). Given his actions, I think it makes more sense to regard Kaworu as the last of the "communicative" Angels (eg Leliel the beachball Angel and ?Armisael, the one who "mind raped" Asuka) as opposed to the strictly destructive Angels.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:20
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Really? I would think 3.33 Kaowru comes across as much less ambiguously on Shinji's side than series Kaowru.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:22
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House Louse posted:The Adam-baiting that caused Second Impact is referred to as a "contact experiment", like the one in which Yui placed her soul in Unit-01. In one of the director's cut episodes (I think it's the one where they kidnap and interrogate Fuyutski) there's some added footage (or maybe it wasn't added, I forget) at the start where the scientist dudes at the south pole are talking. When poo poo hits the fan, they say something like "retract the lance" I think. One of the things that I really liked, and stood out to me, in 3.33, was the short shot of Yui being lowered into the core of Unit-01. I dunno why, but it just looked absolutely terrifying and freaky.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:25
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Spiritus Nox posted:Really? I would think 3.33 Kaowru comes across as much less ambiguously on Shinji's side than series Kaowru. Me too; I'm saying that something in 3.33 made me view TV series-Kaworu differently.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:52
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Ah. Care to explain?
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Aug 6, 2013 00:48
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I definitely got the impression Kaworu was manipulating Shinji too. Something about the "Well, it *is* all your fault, you know... but you can make up for it!" speech. Like, if it weren't for the way that conversation went, I would've thought Kaworu was totally on Shinji's side, but with it in there, it just seems much harder to believe that Kaworu is truly altruistic.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:02
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A Pinball Wizard posted:I definitely got the impression Kaworu was manipulating Shinji too. Something about the "Well, it *is* all your fault, you know... but you can make up for it!" speech. Like, if it weren't for the way that conversation went, I would've thought Kaworu was totally on Shinji's side, but with it in there, it just seems much harder to believe that Kaworu is truly altruistic. If we're still going by the time loop theory here, there were scenes in 2.0 with Kaworu waking up in the moon (out of what, a couple of identical looking coffins?) saying how it's Shinji again, and that this time he will truly make him happy. He's aware of failing Shinji in the previous iteration, so his actions could possibly be in (what he believes to be) Shinji's best interests. Now if only we knew what actually would have happened with Kaworu's original scenario with the spears in 3.0... (another intrumentality scenario? reuniting Shinji with his loved ones lost in the timeskip?)
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Aug 6, 2013 02:13
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hope and vaseline posted:If we're still going by the time loop theory here, there were scenes in 2.0 with Kaworu waking up in the moon (out of what, a couple of identical looking coffins?) saying how it's Shinji again, and that this time he will truly make him happy. He's aware of failing Shinji in the previous iteration, so his actions could possibly be in (what he believes to be) Shinji's best interests. Now if only we knew what actually would have happened with Kaworu's original scenario with the spears in 3.0... (another intrumentality scenario? reuniting Shinji with his loved ones lost in the timeskip?) He could have just been completely lied to by Gendo/SEELE about that, it wouldn't be the first time either that he was given the wrong information purely to get him to cause events to happen. He has the biggest mixed bag about knowing some things but left in the dark about others.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:21
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Kaworu is literally "the Angel of Betrayal." My favorite interpretation of his actions is that his way of thinking is simply so alien that he can't see the inherent contradiction in serving the interests of every human he meets -- that he doesn't realize that absolute, unconditional love of all humanity is a trap for himself and those he supposedly cares about.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:29
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How do you figure the 'angel of betrayal' business? I thought Tabris was a seemingly nonsense word that Amnno associated with free will.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:35
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Spiritus Nox posted:How do you figure the 'angel of betrayal' business? I thought Tabris was a seemingly nonsense word that Amnno associated with free will. It's not a linguistic thing (e: that I'm aware of) just something he's called in the notes/script. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 02:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's not a linguistic thing, just something he's called in the notes/script. Huh, interesting.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:39
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Works if you think of him as being the one betrayed and not the betrayer.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:40
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Also the episode in the series where he forces Shinji to kill him is called "the Smile of Betrayal" although it's possible that's talking about an exchange between Kaworu and Rei rather than one between him and Shinji.Terminal Entropy posted:Works if you think of him as being the one betrayed and not the betrayer. It works in a lot of ways.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:40
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It works in a lot of ways. Yeah. He betrayed Seele by changing his mind and commiting Suicide by Shinji at the end, he betrayed Nerv by stealing unit 02 and floating off to cause third impact, he betrayed Shinji by getting close to him then saying "Oops I'm actually an angel and now you gotta kill me bro". Being called the "Angel of Betrayal" is very fitting really.
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Aug 6, 2013 03:05
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I went looking to see what Bardiel was the angel of and instead found this http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/sentinals/nge/index.html It's like finding a fossil
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Aug 6, 2013 03:09
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The neat thing about Bardiel is that they tied his function in to his name; he's associated with meteorological stuff, and when you first see him he's in the form of a cloud.
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Aug 6, 2013 03:55
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Spiritus Nox posted:How do you figure the 'angel of betrayal' business? I thought Tabris was a seemingly nonsense word that Amnno associated with free will. Well, apparently Tabbris is a real name, meaning "Yahweh is good", but I have never had any luck googling this sort of thing. I'd have thought there'd be at least one solid angelological resource somewhere on the internet, but apparently not. For what it's worth, I'm on the side that says he believes everything he says. He's a lot more interesting that way.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:29
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He does not have 'the fruit of knowledge', I believe that he is actually incapable of that kind of scheming and betrayal which is why in 3.33 he is pretty much flabbergasted at the realization that Gendo (the kind of humans, i.e. the smart ones) lied about the spears and tricked him. At least that is one idea I had thinking about it.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:34
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BiggestOrangeTree posted:He does not have 'the fruit of knowledge', I believe that he is actually incapable of that kind of scheming and betrayal which is why in 3.33 he is pretty much flabbergasted at the realization that Gendo (the kind of humans, i.e. the smart ones) lied about the spears and tricked him. At least that is one idea I had thinking about it. I know applying Christian logic to Evangelion gets people panties in a twist*, but one easy take on this would be that Kaworu simply has no concept of sin, no knowledge of good and evil. Only instead of knowledge enabling evil as it does in Genesis, Evangelion reverses it to make goodness impossible without knowledge -- because "love without actual goodness" seems like a pretty apt description of everything Kaworu does to me. Not to mention his death is like original sin in reverse, ensuring the extinction of his own race (which is where he differs from a Christ figure) but at the same time redeeming them. *Deal with it, nerds, all the "it's just there to look cool" stuff is from other staff members guessing what Anno meant.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:43
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I know applying Christian logic to Evangelion gets people panties in a twist*, but one easy take on this would be that Kaworu simply has no concept of sin, no knowledge of good and evil. Only instead of knowledge enabling evil as it does in Genesis, Evangelion reverses it to make goodness impossible without knowledge -- because "love without actual goodness" seems like a pretty apt description of everything Kaworu does to me. Not to mention his death is like original sin in reverse, ensuring the extinction of his own race (which is where he differs from a Christ figure) but at the same time redeeming them. Did BrandorKP hack your account, Tux?  And going off the conceit that every Angel is a prototype for a singular type of Adamic being as opposed to a homogenous group (which is somewhere in that game material), how is Kaworu redeeming Angelkind in his death? All the other Angels save humanity have failed up to that point, and Kaworu technically fails as well in getting duped by Lilith being in the basement and ADAM being in Gendo's wanking hand instead of vice versa. And Tabris is the Angel of Free Will. Sacrificing himself on the altar of Shinji's love and hurt is the ultimate act of free will. Shinji feels he's been betrayed because Kaworu was nice to him, but since Kaworu doesn't actually go through with erasing mankind, it's not a full betrayal. Even if you believe it is, Shinji is willing to jump right back into his (giant, naked) arms to kick off pre-Instrumentality in EoE.
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Aug 6, 2013 18:54
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I don't really understand much of what's going on with Kaworu but Shinji going all giddy when he sees his boycrush in the middle of a freaking impact event is soooooo funny. Why exactly is SEELE sending him to NERV? And is it just him who thinks it's adam down there or is that him and SEELE? I really like the new movies version of Kaworu. He already had the air of "I know whats going on here and I know whats next" and the nature of the new movies fits that perfectly. He seems to be an active player in the high level poo poo and it plays much better.
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Aug 6, 2013 20:20
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All the Angels' names are Hebrew and mean something, sometimes obviously meaningful and sometimes not clearly. They're on Wikipedia and Evageeks, I think.Spiritus Nox posted:Ah. Care to explain? I would, but I've told you everything; while watching 3.33, I had a sudden epiphany ( ) that TV Kaworu was not who I'd thought he was. Sorry I can't be less vague, I'll try and spot the moment when I rewatch it.Tuxedo Catfish posted:I know applying Christian logic to Evangelion gets people panties in a twist*, but one easy take on this would be that Kaworu simply has no concept of sin, no knowledge of good and evil. Only instead of knowledge enabling evil as it does in Genesis, Evangelion reverses it to make goodness impossible without knowledge -- because "love without actual goodness" seems like a pretty apt description of everything Kaworu does to me. Not to mention his death is like original sin in reverse, ensuring the extinction of his own race (which is where he differs from a Christ figure) but at the same time redeeming them. Just to untwist a few more knickers, you don't have to be Christian to buy this argument - it makes sense to me, for instance. I'm not sure what you mean by Kaworu redeeming the Angels, though.
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Aug 6, 2013 22:55
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House Louse posted:All the Angels' names are Hebrew and mean something, sometimes obviously meaningful and sometimes not clearly. They're on Wikipedia and Evageeks, I think. Pretty sure they're all real angel names except for tabris.
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Aug 7, 2013 00:40
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Intel&Sebastian posted:
I assume SEELE knew it was Lilith, but telling him it was Adam suited their purposes. (They DID send him, right? He must have had some contact with them, if they have clones of him to put in the mass-produced Evas.) Edit: Now that I'm thinking about it, why exactly does joining Adam and Lilith cause the end of the world? SEELE goes on about returning to Lilith's egg, but why can't she do that herself without joining with Adam? Going into the video game continuity, if the two of them were different "seeds of life," and one had to incapacitate the other in order to spread life, why would there even be a contingency for "what if we merge together into one being?" It's got to be some kind of sex metaphor, right? Fake edit: Guys, I think I just realized Evangelion makes no sense 
A Pinball Wizard fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Aug 7, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 02:31
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A Pinball Wizard posted:I assume SEELE knew it was Lilith, but telling him it was Adam suited their purposes. (They DID send him, right? He must have had some contact with them, if they have clones of him to put in the mass-produced Evas.) Yes, they did send him. And merging them together means merging the Tree of Life and the Fruit of Knowledge which creates an all powerful being.
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Aug 7, 2013 02:37
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A Pinball Wizard posted:Fake edit: Guys, I think I just realized Evangelion makes no sense poo poo. He's right. Edit: Watching it again I don't think it's that crazy that Shinji is ignoring everyone and going for the Spears. He's woken up to a world where he's responsible for all his friends deaths (if not the entire world) and someone is telling him there's a way to correct it. He's so obsessed with the idea that even the person who put it in his head isn't a big enough influence to draw him off. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Aug 7, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 02:53
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I think that Tuxedo Catfish has said it before, and that's that there's no real point getting too worried about all the crazy poo poo in Evangelion, because the story's really about Shinji. I guess you could almost say it's supposed to not make any sense, because it sure as hell doesn't make sense to Shinji.
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Aug 7, 2013 02:59
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I think of the show and movies as a really good tale with surprising amount of internal consistency...that also completely drops the ball in places. There's a lot of stuff that was way more thought out and interesting that I initially thought and there's a lot of stuff that you're probably better off just forgetting about. It's one of those works where you think holy poo poo this probably should've been way bigger of a mess than it is. Edit: And it is literally the only anime I care to gently caress with. I might've watched other stuff that's alright but this is the only one I'm a fanboy for. Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 7, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 03:12
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SHISHKABOB posted:I think that Tuxedo Catfish has said it before, and that's that there's no real point getting too worried about all the crazy poo poo in Evangelion, because the story's really about Shinji. OH GOD! PLEASE, NO! NOT THE TRUTH! ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH! There really isn't any point to this thread if we can't endlessly debate the details, searching for new insights and epiphanies to discover. The fact that we can is part of the magic and the appeal of Eva.
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Aug 7, 2013 03:16
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