Neon Genesis Evangelion megathread: Death & Rebirth of the author

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Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

ImpAtom posted:

Just play the audio of Jojos over the episode of Eva you're watching.

or vice-versa.

Edit: It turns out Aoba was Dio all along.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2016 23:32

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 07:34

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Yes, I too feel bad for the lady that committed suicide in front of her son and called it a 'bright future'.

Then peaced out of his life after it all went to poo poo without so much as a 'by your leave'.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2016 05:23

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Ytlaya posted:

You know one thing I always found interesting about Eva is how it seemed to send the message that being an adult is just really gritty and depressing and consists of nothing but hidden psychological issues, desperate sex, and perpetual weariness. There is no fun in adulthood, only its imitation that masks a never-ending effort to stay sane while taking care of Adult Responsibilities.

As a side note, I find that my opinion on Eva has changed as I've gotten older (after initially watching it at the age of 15 around ~2000) from "really good" to "angsty and overrated" and then back to "really good" again.

To be fair literally none of the adults on the show are anything close to psychologically healthy.

Even then, Misato and Kaji were on the road to mending their lives (and by extension, the lives of the Children) until one of them ate a bullet for rescuing The Most Worthless Man.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 22:53

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

SHISHKABOB posted:

To be fair, no human alive is anything close to "psychologically healthy", whatever that means.

An exeedingly basic metric for psychological health boils down to "are you happy and do you have friends?", which nearly everyone in NGE fails and "do you suffer anxiety, are you depressed, and do you feel like like you have lost control and can't do anything about your feelings" which involves literally everyone in NGE at almost all times.

Using the above metric, Shinji is at his high point psychologically, in the short stretch before Leliel, when he has friends, a growing crush on Asuka, and a pair of parental figures (flawed as they may be) in Misato and Kaji. Once those start vanishing he crumbles.

Heavy Sigh fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Nov 17, 2016

# ¿ Nov 17, 2016 22:30

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Shinjobi posted:

Yeah, the whole instrumentality project would have been better served if Yui hadnt jumped into unit 01 in the first place.

I mean, unless HER plan the entire time was to place life itself at Shinji's feet. In which case, wowzers, Yui is top nutcase.

To be fair SEELE's entire plan was to use the sea of souls to turn themselves into ultra gods and screw over literally everyone else. So, in that light Shinji was probably the better choice.

Yui's plan was to grab the wheel at the last second so SEELE couldn't react in time. She just didn't tell her husband about it.

Maybe if she had, he'd have raised Shinji properly instead of going on a grief stricken bender and then devoting everything to prying his wife out of her robot with a Rei-shaped crowbar.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2016 03:19

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

HoneyBoy posted:

Was Seele always just prepped for Instrumentality since that was their whole deal? I mean they weren't even human at that point right, you can see Keel fall apart into a bunch of gadgets with a robotic spine and tang. So he was what, on life support until they could bring about Instrumentality? Hell it's probably a bigger point to make that Seele went from old man holograms to their eventual role in the series as literally disembodied voices coming from monoliths. They were artificially immortal but EoE like validated their immortality or something.

In the original series at least SEELE was never immortal, just composed entirely of incredibly old, bitter and decrepit men who sacrificed the whole world for a shot at godhood. The cyborg bits were just to make sure they didn't drop dead before Tang happened, since nobody wanted to miss out on ULTRA GODHOOD.

Rebuild seems to be a different kettle of fish regarding SEELE's plans.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 02:04

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Eh, I wouldn't say the angels after Iruel are all innocently curious and trying to communicate. Leliel I can buy that for, but Bardiel makes no attempt at communication and literally tries to eat/possess the EVAs, Arael rips open Asuka's brain and rubs her nose in all her insecurities, and Armisael is straight up malicious with what it says to Rei and tries to use her for.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2019 06:25

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

That was Near Third Impact. There was an actual Third Impact that took place after 2.0 and before 3.0. People are making Shinji a scapegoat for whatever reason.

Maybe they saw an Angel stroll by Unit-01 with complete impunity and thats why they all hate him.

Then again the way people talk to him its like WILLE is afraid of Shinji, which makes no sense if Near Third Impact didn't do any real damage.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2019 06:14

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

jit bull transpile posted:

Right? Like, the idea that an eternal proof of man's existence is even necessary belies a fundamental cynicism that humanity is incapable of moving beyond its conflicts and thriving.

She sees that the world is in bad shape and she is a brilliant scientific mind and her response, rather than to try to engineer solutions to the world's problems and bring about peace and prosperity, is to transform herself into a golden calf with a RIP HUMANS 6000BC-2014AD plaque on it.

a scientific mind whose only degree is in giant robot building. Not much you can fix with that.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2019 03:05

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

2house2fly posted:

I always figured Gendo does get to instrumentality, he just has to go in a special way because he's a special kind of hosed up. Like how Aoba doesn't see someone he loves because he doesn't love anyone, the closest Gendo gets to love is Yui and Eva 01, and his self-loathing won't allow him to accept a lovely hug- the catharsis which allows him to enter instrumentality is being violently torn apart by the monster he created. His body doesn't goo right away, but it seems to be mechanically different for various people- Maya's hand pops off and remains solid, the SEELE guy just melts instead of bursting- and may represent that it's harder for Gendo than for the average person to be emotionally broken down enough to meld into a hive mind.

The intent probably actually was that Gendo doesn't get to go to Heaven, but that also raises a bunch of questions for me. If he's not joining Instrumentality, why does Gendo experience a hallucination and die at the same time everyone else is experiencing hallucinations and dying? Everyone gets slimed except for this one guy? Who decides that? Shinji? Does he even have that level of control over what's happening? Because he hates his dad? Would he not also hate the SEELE guys for destroying NERV, or like Asuka for rejecting him? OK now that I type that out, that raises the unsettling possibility that Asuka's on the beach at the end not because she wanted to come back but because Shinji kicked her out of Heaven...

Gendo gets left out of instrumentality because his wife is real mad at his poo poo parenting.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2024 07:08

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 07:34

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

BiggestOrangeTree posted:

On my last rewatch I realized the show does not do a lot to set up Yui caring very much about how Shinji is doing. I suppose there are discussions to be had what the hell she thought was going to happen after making him watch her, basically, die.
Why one of the more critical people of their doomsday plan was not indoctrinated into their lore and plans from childhood (or at very least prepared like Asuka was) is a good question too, at that point.

(of course the real answer is that it's so that the plot of the show can happen)

I always thought the reason Yui had Shinji watch her 'die' was to ensure he'd have a better sync score with Unit-01 (since he would subconsciously associate it with her even if he repressed the memory), therefore granting him an advantage as a pilot that would give him a better chance of survival.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 07:38

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Neon Genesis Evangelion megathread: Death & Rebirth of the author