FGC:Episode 23 Scene 10

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Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	288		UrsusArctos: The walls of the Black Moon have a distinct hexagonal pattern. We last saw this with Ireul in Episode 13 Cut 090 which referenced the Andromeda organism from the 1971 movie The Andromeda Strain (among many other references). The hexagonal pattern on the walls here is consistent with the illustrations in Michael Crichton's original 1968 novel, providing another oblique hint to its true origin and purpose.
	289		UrsusArctos: The last time we saw the three of them standing together was way back in Episode 07 when Ritsuko told Shinji the truth about Second Impact. Shinji and Misato have switched places and the truth Ritsuko is about to show Shinji now is vastly more unpleasant.
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	295	SHINJI:“This looks just like Ayanami's room.”
	296	RITSUKO:“This IS Rei Ayanami's room. This is where she was born and raised.”
	297	SHINJI:“This place?” RITSUKO:“Yes, this is where she was born. The water and light that form Rei's subconscious must have a strong impression of this place.” MISATO:“Dr. Akagi, this isn't what I came here to see.”	Dr. Nick: You'd think these wall and floor scrawlings might be related to medicine/chemistry, but instead they're mostly about quantum mechanics (plus TiD2 being titanium deuteride and 7iD2 being apparently nonsense). These references together with the bookending Reis have led fans to theorize that Rei is a non-linear quantum state being. As nuts as it sounds, it's probably one of the less controversial fan theories!
	298	RITSUKO:“I know, Misato.”
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	300	SHINJI:“Evas?!” RITSUKO:“The very first ones. They are the failures. They were scrapped ten years ago.” SHINJI (OFF):“A graveyard for Evas...” RITSUKO (OFF):“It's just a garbage dump. This is also where your mother disappeared. You may not remember it, but I believe you were also watching the very moment your mother vanished.”	UrsusArctos: Ritsuko makes the Eva Graveyard here to be the site of Yui's Contact Experiment. We never get a look at Eva-01 or the rest of the facility beyond the control booth in Episode 21, but the implication is that Eva-01 was still growing from Lilith. This isn't just a dumping ground for failed Evas, it's also the birthplace of Eva-01. All the pits and channels probably housed Eva-01 and Lilith at one point of time, or were apparatus for growing Evas.
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	302	MISATO:“Ritsuko!”
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	305	MISATO:“So, this is the source of the dummy plugs?”	Dr. Nick: Notice how the room is circular and the glowing nucleobase letters form another circle-shaped DNA reference.
	306	RITSUKO:“I will show you the truth.”
	307		Dr. Nick: We are barreling towards a particularly obtuse infodump, but this scene actually does provide a concrete answer to one question: are there empty Rei clones inside dummy plugs? The answer is no, as the tank clone bodies listed on Ritsuko's remote control start from number 4, and Reis 1-3 are accounted for.
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	310		Dr. Nick: Reiquarium - the fan nickname that has stood the test of time. In the original home video version there used to be a hugely influential extra info dump here!
	311	SHINJI:“Rei Ayanami?”
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	314	MISATO:“You're not saying the Evas' dummy plugs are...”
	315	RITSUKO:“That's right, the part that becomes the core of the dummy system, and this is the manufacturing plant for it.”
	316	MISATO:“This is?!”
	317	RITSUKO (OFF):“These are just dummies. And nothing more than parts for Rei. Man found God and in their joy, tried to make Him theirs. That's why there was divine retribution. That was fifteen years ago. The God they found had also disappeared by then. But then, they tried to resurrect God on their own. The result was Adam. And imitating God, they created people from Adam. The result was the Evas.” SHINJI (OFF):“People? They're human?” RITSUKO:“Yes, they're human. The Evas do not intrinsically have souls, but they have human souls embedded in them. They were all salvaged. The only vessel that contained a soul was Rei. She was the only one born with a soul. The Chamber of Gaf was empty, you see. These things here that look like Rei have no souls. They're just vessels.”	UrsusArctos: Even when showing Shinji and Misato the truth about Rei, Ritsuko omits a key truth that becomes evident in Episode 24' and End of Evangelion - Rei was born with a soul because she had the salvaged soul of Lilith in her, and that particular bit of information would be utterly devastating to both Shinji and Misato. Perhaps she's worried that telling them the truth about Lilith would be fatal for her? Additionally, while the English lines aren't quite in order here, Ritsuko isn't telling the full truth about Second Impact either. Even if Seele had initially intended to use Adam to achieve their artificial evolution goals, it's an established fact that they knew things were turn out disastrously by the time that experiment rolled around and Ritsuko would've known it. Dr. Nick: Even if we ignore her omissions, this explanation is a headache-inducing information turducken. Firstly, she frames the events of Second Impact in religious terms like a Seele true believer, and then breathlessly ties the creation and soul mechanics of Evas together with the birth of Rei, whilst also namedropping Guf, which is to this day just a big question mark really. Of course, this blather makes sense from a character writing standpoint when you consider Ritsuko's mental state after what she's been through, but it's also the sort of infodump that sends lore idiots like me playing with spreadsheets instead of fully immersing in the narrative and theme. Then again, there's a counterexample, the mid-1990s OVA Key the Metal Idol, which also deals with some pretty heady metaphysical scifi concepts. Being somewhat of an experimental title with variable episode lengths, it chooses to explain its lore exhaustively with, I kid you not, an uninterrupted 90-minute- long exposition dump. While NGE is too vaguely minimalistic for my tastes when explaining its practical metaphysics (hence all the bonkers fandom misconceptions), I concede a more clear-cut mystery-annihilating explainer wouldn't fit the show's by this point aggressively oppressive atmosphere.
	318	RITSUKO:“That's why I'm going to destroy them. Because I hate them.”
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	323	MISATO:“Do you know just what you're doing?!”
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	325	RITSUKO:“Yes, I know. I'm destroying them. They're not people. They're things shaped like people. But I lost, even to these things! I couldn't win! I only needed to think of him, and I could endure any kind of humiliation! I didn't care what happened to my body! But he... He... And I knew too.”
	326	RITSUKO:“I'm a fool!”
	327	RITSUKO:“Like mother, like daughter, we're both big fools!”
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	329	RITSUKO:“If you want to kill me, do it. No, I would be happy if you would do it.”
	330	MISATO:“That would be truly foolish of you.”
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	332	MISATO (MONO):“The tragedy of the people possessed by the Evas...”
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	334	MISATO (MONO):“But that goes for me too.”	Dr. Nick: Misato's final lines here pull double duty by being audience-directed as well. While the Commentary Project is primarily meant to be a breezy run-through of the text of Evangelion, it bears acknowledging that this is a show that was, one way or the other, meant to shake up the otaku culture in Japan. UrsusArctos: Evangelion is indeed a text with multiple subtexts woven through it, and it all lies within the context of the lost decade of the 1990s in Japan, when the prosperity of the 1980s ended leaving many people in a state of existential misery. Reconstructing that context to understand the reason for Evangelion's indelible impact upon Japanese culture is no easy task, even though we have pointers to the texts that Anno was influenced by in the Character Name Origins page, such as Minako Narita's Aitsu and Ryu Murkami's Ai to Gensou no Fascism. Neither of those have been translated into English. From what little I've read online, Murakami's novel appears to have been immensely influential on Anno's thinking although the content precludes an English translation altogether. As a result, while we in the English-speaking Eva fandom may have an edge up on Anno's English-language SF influences (UFO, The Andromeda Strain, 2001, etc.) and can keep pace with his anime and tokusatsu TV show nerdery, we are unlikely to ever completely grasp the complete web of influences that define the Curse of Eva, for the better or the worse.
	END	TEXT:“To Be Continued”

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