Theory and Analysis:Identities of the Adams
This analysis page concerns the identities of the four Adams in the New Theatrical Edition continuity. The fundamental identity of the Adams is, of course, not in question: they are the four radiant giants present at Second Impact. However, the story of these beings does not end there, and figuring out where they all end up is the basic goal of this page.
The "numbering" of the Adams here is for list purposes only. If they have official ordinals, they are not currently known, at least not with any certainty.
Adams #1: Evangelion 13
The movies start throwing hints to the audience that the Adams were not destroyed (not all of them, anyway) as early as Eva 2.0. It is not until Eva 3.0, however, that the identity of one is divulged directly to the viewer. So, as our "freebie", we shall look at that Adams first.
When Eva-13 becomes a radiant giant and transcends DMS (a.k.a. Eva Pseudo-Evolution) Phase 3 at the onset of Fourth Impact, becoming a radiant giant, Mari indicates that it is an “Adams survivor” (アダムスの生き残り, Adamusu no ikinokori). Because the Adams were themselves radiant giants, and "pseudo-evolution" can be taken to mean "not evolving into a new form, but returning to an old one", the implications of "Adams survivor" are thus as follows:
- Eva-13 is an Adams that survived Second Impact
- The need to clarify "survivor" suggests that at least one Adams did not survive the event.
- After Second Impact, at least one of the Adams was captured by humanity and modified into an Evangelion.
Now, with that in mind...
Adams #2: Evangelion Unit-01
In Eva 2.0, Eva-01 initiates the event known as Near Third Impact, in which it first awakens (Pseudo-Evolution Stage 1) and eventually transforms into a radiant giant (Pseudo-Evolution Stage 2). In this form, Eva-01 bears a strong resemblance to the Adams in general, being a similarly-winged, red-eyed energy being. It also possesses a "third eye" -- a feature possessed by one specific Adams at Second Impact -- along with two cores (discussed below).
Of what is taking place, Ritsuko says that Eva-01 is "regaining its original form", "transforming into a divine entity", and "transforming into an energy condensate"[1]. These first two points correspond to the two most obvious meanings of the term giji shinka (疑似シン化), which can be read as both "pseudo-evolution" and "false deification". The last point appears to be a more technical description of what a "radiant giant" actually is. Ritsuko says, further, that the event being initiated is a continuation of the Second Impact, and Misato directly compares Eva-01's wings to the ones she saw fifteen years before.
Taken together, these points all strongly imply that Eva-01 is the three-eyed Adams, and through Near Third Impact it is able to revert to its original state, or something very close to it.
Core Status & IPEA Logo
As if the above-mentioned were not suspicious enough, the three-eyed Adams is mostly cropped out of view in what can only be a very deliberate choice (given the amount of planning that goes into theatrical animation). That is, there is no way to confirm whether or not it, too, originally possessed two cores. The "omission via cropping" is made more curious by the fact that, if the preview version of the four Adams is anything to go by, the three-eyed Adams doesn't have any chest features to hide! However, it's precisely because the final version does not show you the Adams' chest that the preview version cannot simply be taken at face value.
The answer ultimately may be lying in plain sight, within the IPEA logo. This incorporates a three-eyed, two-cored Eva-like being -- to which Eva-01's radiant giant form achieves a rather strong resemblance. This connection is further cemented via the way the IPEA logo is situated over the containment silo doors: when the doors open, light streams out between the logo's two cores in much the same way as light streams from Eva-01's chest.
The likelihood of the IPEA logo depicting a specific being increases upon consideration of the IPEA's implied true purpose, that is, to prevent a repeat of Second Impact. See more here.
| Eva-01 | |||
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Blood Type
A display screen from Eva 1.0, shown when Eva-01 is neutralizing the A.T. Field of the Fourth Angel, indicates that Eva-01 possesses the blood type, or wavelength pattern, blue **A’.
We can rule out "A" being short for "Angel", since this very example provides the precedent of Angel blood types being labeled according to their Angel ordinal: hence the Fourth Angel is "blue 04". Taking into account the other evidence suggesting Eva-01's true nature, "Adams" would be a logical expansion. Furthermore, the apostrophe following the "A" is likely shorthand for 改 (kai)[2], which means modified, improved, etc. -- fully in line with Eva-01 being a modified Adams. Lastly, the two asterisks could indicate that the individual Adams have ordinals, in which case Eva-01 would be the one designated "Second", though this is highly speculative.
Mysterious Silhouette
Near the beginning of Eva 1.0, a white humanoid outline can be glimpsed on a "blood"-drenched shoreline. The stained ground and buildings, along with the presence of large objects like military frigates further inland, indicate that Second Impact produced tsunamis that, even as far away from the epicenter as Japan, retained massive amounts of undispersed energy. The mysterious giant, then, would have been carried to Japan by these waves, and subsequently left behind for humanity to discover. In all likelihood, this is one of the Adams that survived the event, and given the Japanese location it may also be the Adams that became Eva-01. The possibility of it being Eva-13 cannot be ruled out, but since Eva-01 needs to be in Nerv's possession by the start of the film series, unlike Eva-13, it is the more likely choice.
Adams #3: Evangelion Mark.06
Mysteries on the Moon
At the end of Eva 1.0, Mark.06 is seen for the first time on the Moon, lying in a pit at the end of a "blood" streak. Explanation of Evangelion 1.01 refers to the location as an "provisional excavation base", implying that the Eva is not simply being built there; rather, it was found there.
An aerial shot in Eva 2.0 shows where, precisely, this location is: on top of a giant streak of blood traversing Mare Tranquilitatis. (While not large enough to be seen from Earth, the red streak dwarfs the installation.) Gendo and Fuyutsuki visit the site -- now called Tabgha Base -- and find the Eva freed of its original full-body cover, in the process of being outfitted. Gendo remarks that Mark.06's "construction methodology is very different"[1] -- presumably meaning "different from how Evas are normally made" (the exact details of which are unknown in the Rebuild continuity), and that Mark.06 stands apart in some fundamental way. Further hinting at the Eva's true nature, the Spear of Cassius is seen being transferred on-location, with the implication that it, too, was discovered in Mare Tranquilitatis.
Why is there a giant streak of blood traversing Mare Tranquilitatis? What did Seele have Nerv excavate there? The presence here of a mysterious masked giant and the Spear of Cassius -- are they just coincidences? Consider: what do all of these things have in common? The answer is Second Impact. In its flashback, we are shown four giants and four spears; and the films tell us elsewhere that Second Impact turned the oceans red. The only part that's missing is how an Adams, a Spear, and some of the "blood" ended up on the Moon. The "how" was, at one point, intended to be explicitly shown in the flashback sequence, wherein a geyser of blood shoots from the epicenter and reaches lunar orbit.[Source needed] It was likely omitted from the final production because it is something that the viewer can deduce must have happened based on the clues they've been otherwise given. As for why red fluid would be violently ejecting from the epicenter in the first place, this will be explored in further detail in the next Adams' entry.
The Face of God
The mask seen on Mark.06 further corroborates its true nature as an Adams. First, the obvious one: it bears the "Seven Eyes of God" mark present in Seele's sigil (which along with its purple color recalls Lilith's mask from the original series). In addition, Seele go to extreme lengths to keep the Eva's face covered at all times. When the Eva is first seen, covered in white material, the fact that the mask's stitches go through this very material (i.e., there is no break between the material and the mask) indicates that the mask was simply placed over this full-body cover -- in other words, the face is covered twice. This level of care is maintained through the second movie, when, in anticipation of fitting the Eva with its helmet, a small concession is made to at least expose the eyes on the mask, by cutting away the part of the mask that covers them; but as a temporary measure, a device resembling a sleeping mask is placed over this cut-out until the eyes can be covered (via the helmet) yet again! By all indications, Seele intend to leave the remainder of that purple mask right under the Eva helmet, despite the fact that the helmet has jaw articulation. Twice-covered, once more.
Later in the film, Seele mention their plans to complete "the true Evangelion" (a phrase with the alternate meaning "the true gospel"), and through "its birth and the resurrection of Lilith" they "will seal the pact"[1]. Fuyutsuki remarks to Gendo afterward, "And is [the true Evangelion] the Mark.06? They want to create a real god, not just false ones?"[1] While the implications were already there, this spells it out: Seele consider Mark.06 a divine being which they seek to elevate to true godhood. Accordingly, they believe its face must not be looked upon by mortal eyes. This is an allusion to the Biblical God (continuing the theme started with NGE's Lilith). According to Exodus 33: "You cannot see my [God's] face, for no one may see me and live"[Source needed].
| Adams #3: Evangelion Mark.06 | ||||
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Further Connections
Mark.06 is designed as something of an "evil version" or "dark twin" of Eva-01. The doppelganger motif is repeated, even more obviously, with Eva-13. The three Evas are visually connected through their armor designs.
Another point of comparison is that both Eva-13 and Eva-01 caused an Impact (Fourth Impact and Near Third Impact respectively). The remains of Mark.06 are found in Eva 3.0 at what Kaworu calls ground zero of Third Impact (not to be confused with Near Third Impact). Its exact involvement is unknown, but it is not only fused with Lilith's headless body -- indicated to have descended from its cross and grown greatly in size, in a manner evoking The End of Evangelion -- it also appears to have been speared from above, creating ironic parallels with Near Third Impact and directly implying that Mark.06 was one of the very forces in the Impact that needed to be stopped. Thus, we can tentatively conclude that each of the three Adams enumerated thus far has an Impact to its name.
What of the fourth Adams?
Adams #4: The Key of Nebuchadnezzar
Unlike Neon Genesis Evangelion, the films' version of Second Impact involved four giants -- a fundamental difference indicating that old continuity details cannot be taken for granted. However, since the new films are, in many respects, a response to the original series, and play with the audience's expectations, the original setting details still provide an important reference point for comparison and contrast.
The Key of Nebuchadnezzar is one of many narrative callbacks to the original series, corresponding to the "Adam sample" -- a remnant of Adam left behind after its destruction in the form of an egg, and subsequently restored to embryo status. Like the sample, the Key is an item suspended in an orange medium, smuggled away from the clutches of Seele by Ryoji Kaji within a secure carrying case, an Angel attack smoke-screening his onscreen getaway. Both items are considered non-critical by Seele, while being indispensable components of Gendo Ikari’s differing scenario. Even without speculation, the similarities should be apparent.
Let's return now to Mari referring to Eva-13 as an "Adams survivor" and what that implies -- at least one of the Adams did not survive. Eva-01, Mark.06, and Eva-13 all made it through Second Impact, so by the process of deduction we can expect the fourth Adams to be one that did not. The Key of Nebuchadnezzar, as the films' equivalent of the Adam sample, thus carries the potential of satisfying this requirement. This merely opens the lines of inquiry, however; it provides nothing definitive.
So, what are we actually told about the Key?
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"The lost number", while deliberately vague, falls in line with the idea that one among the Adams' numbers was effectively destroyed -- "lost". That it is very clearly described as a means to usher in Human Instrumentality further removes doubt: the only other entities consistently associated with Instrumentality are the Adams (and possibly Lilith, but that is another discussion altogether).
The reference to gates (扉, tobira) is the cherry on top, as this is a clear allusion to the Gates of Guf. In Second Impact, these were opened over Antarctica collectively by the four Adams; in Near Third Impact, they were opened over Tokyo-3 by Eva-01; and in Fourth Impact, they were opened over the Black Moon by Eva-13. As a point of comparison here, we are shown an Impact-like event that was triggered by Eva-04, but no Gates of Guf manifest -- just, at best, a couple of failed attempts to do so.
Thus, we can conclude, with a good degree of certainty, that the Key of Nebuchadnezzar -- or at least its organic component, the miniaturized nervous system -- is the sole remnant of an Adams that was destroyed in Second Impact.
The Great Flood (of Blood)
While it remains unclear why an Adams would become a tiny headless nervous system, one important aspect of this Adams' destruction is hinted at -- incredibly early, in fact. Following the investigation of the Fourth Angel's detonation crater in Eva 1.0, the following exchange takes place:
| “ | RITSUKO: The disintegration of the Angel after it lost its A.T. Field... |
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This provides an immediate link between two major changes to the setting revealed in the first movie, those being:
- The aftermath of Second Impact has not only left the world flooded, but stained the oceans the color of blood.
- Angels, upon their death, undergo image collapse -- swelling up and explosively dissolving into red fluid.
The inference to be made here is that the destruction of an Angelic being at Second Impact is the reason why the oceans were contaminated. From what's been previously established, we can make the reasonable speculation that this being is the one Adams that was destroyed and now exists solely as the Key of Nebuchadnezzar.
Of course, this still leaves some rather glaring questions wide open, namely: why does the amount of fluid so vastly exceed that of any Angel that dissolves onscreen (including Lilith), and why was the explosion so powerful that some of this fluid was propelled as far as the Moon? This matter, unfortunately, quickly exceeds the scope of this article and will need to be tangled with separately.
| The Key of Nebuchadnezzar | ||
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Connections to Blake
The design of the key includes an element resembling the intersecting globes of the Four Zoas (converging upon the Cosmic Egg of Los) from William Blake's poem Milton. In Blake's mythology, the Zoas were once a single being, named Albion.[Source needed] It's possible that the iconography is being borrowed to represent the idea of "four from one". Notice, then, how the key's design omits one of the spheres. Where it should be, we find instead the miniature nervous system -- that is, the biological part of the key is standing in for the sphere, in turn implying it is one of the "Four Zoas", or four Adams rather.
Zoas / Adams
One of the more tenuous connections in the previous section is the one to Blakes' Four Zoas. Is there any way to further verify if this is indeed an intentional reference, short of the creators telling us? Let's look at the image again:
Each of the four Zoas has its sphere filled in with a different color. A simple test to perform, then, is to see if any color correspondences can be found in the films.
Tharmas:
Gray-Green = Mark.06
The exposed skin on Mark.06's head and upper neck is a gray-green color. (This is difficult to notice due the color filters used for Tabgha Base's exterior shots, so both unmodified and color-enhanced versions of the Mark.06 screenshot are provided below.) This stands out for its unusual nature -- green is not a normal skin tone by any means.
Do any other Evas happen to show a skin tone match...?
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Luvah:
Neutral Gray = Eva-01
While not a perfect match, Eva-01's skin tone was modified to an off-white color for the new movies, in contrast to its original dark brown skin in NGE. This change is made all the more conspicuous due to the fact that Eva-01, as detailed previously, no longer possesses the same link to Lilith that it had in the original series.
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Urizen:
Crimson = Eva-13
Eva-13 never "shows skin" in a way that's as obvious as the previous two examples. However, it does grows appendages out of its shoulder area that are dark red in color. The viewer might be tempted to connect these to the pylons on the deformed crystalline Failures of Infinity in the outskirts of Tokyo-3, which may yet have some validity. However, we can at least conclude that, unlike the Failures, Eva-13's pylon-like appendages are not made of core, as they use a solid color fill rather than the animated "core" texture. This lends credence to the idea that the red simply represents Eva-13's normal skin color.
For a point of comparison, in episode 23' of the original series, the "Angel Tower" growth that developed from Eva-00's back was flesh-colored.
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Urthona:
Yellow-Orange = The Key of Nebuchadnezzar
The key has no skin, obviously, but if we look at its sole appearance, we quickly see that it is suspended within a yellow-orange medium -- providing a correspondence with our last remaining Zoa, Urthona.
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Adam? Satan??
The "Four Zoas" image referenced here does not, in Blakeian terms, actually depict the genesis of the Zoas -- as noted, the Zoas are split from the being Albion, not Adam and/or Satan -- and is, rather, a sort of cosmic map. However, this does not mean that the film creators are using the image exclusively for its intended purpose. Rather, it could have been "adapted" to the mythological context of the films, enabling it to actually portray a "four from one" relationship directly.
If the Adams indeed are, like the Zoas -- that is, four beings who used to be one -- then we might guess, based on the name "Adams" (suggesting "a plurality of Adam"), that their original united form was called simply "Adam". However, "Satan" is also written on the egg where the four Zoas' spheres overlap. Does it have any relevance, in this hypothetical?
In the original Neon Genesis Evangelion, an "Adam = Satan" subtext was present, however subdued by Eva standards. The storyboards for episode 12 directly compare Adam's wings of light to the Devil[3], and the imagery of Second Impact is nothing short of a living Hell on Earth. Furthermore, Adam is discovered in what could be described as a frozen state of imprisonment, bringing to mind the Devil imprisoned within Cocytus in Dante Alighieri's Inferno.
This duality -- a perfect godly being (Adam) with incredible potential for destruction and suffering (Satan) -- could be one present in the new movies' as-yet-revealed version of Adam. Here is where Blake's "cosmic map" comes into play: perhaps it shows the extent to which these dueling aspects hold sway over the respective Adams.
This section is under construction.
References & Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Evangelion 2.0: You (Can) Not Advance Film Festival Subtitles. Translated by Dan Kanemitsu.
- ↑ For examples of this precedent, see the upgraded Eva-00 from NGE and the upgraded Eva-02γ from Eva 3.0.
- ↑ Neon Genesis Evangelion Storyboard Collection 3. Episode 12, p. 155. C-013: Satanic wings of light flap open, growing to the stratosphere like they're reaching for it. (Original: 悪魔のような光の翼がはばたき広がるかの如く成層圏にのびてゆく) Translation by Reichu.
