Radioactive Waste
This is the home of things we'd rather forget. Not the same as List of Common Misconceptions, which are long standing and widespread falacies, but concepts that make one say, "What were we thinking?"
Akira
In early 2005, long-time ANFer Magami No ER had been working on a Kaworu fanfiction and created a thread for the purpose of exploring hypothetical questions. She planned to utilize the idea that Kaworu was a clone of Dr. Katsuragi, and, when pressed to give the man an actual name, Reichu proposed "Akira" (after Akira Ishida, Kaworu's seiyuu). About a year later, Reichu hijacked the thread to rather messily peddle her complete conviction that a connection between Kaworu and the Doctor went far beyond fanfiction. But, strangely, she referred to Dr. K. as "Akira" in most of her posts, claiming it was "as shorthand", and a couple of others joined in. In addition to outright confusing people (to the point that "Akira" made a brief appearance on Wikipedia), it helped brand Reichu's various proposals and wacky ideas with the stigma of being elaborate "fanfiction" (as opposed to just lousy fanwankage). While Reichu et al. eventually stopped using "Akira" in serious posts, the pet name remains blemished to this day.
Duel of the Seeds
The idea that the dominance of Lilith-based life on Earth was determined by the outcome of a primordial battle that took place between Lilith and Adam (with the name referring to the battle itself, as well). Now, this made perfect sense at the time. We know that Lilith is essentially an imposter on Earth, whose Black Moon collided into the planet (= First Impact) after Adam's own arrival, and that, obviously, the "true successors from the lost White Moon" (Adam's offspring) got the short end of the stick. The show contains an image of Adam being exhumated (see figure), wherein the tines of the Spear of Longinus are visible emerging from her back -- i.e., she's skewered on it -- and Shin-seiki offered, way back, that Lilith is the one who did the skewering[Source needed].
The concept of a full-fledged duel -- perhaps echoing that between Eva-01 and Eva-02 in Episode 24 -- gained further momentum early in 2006[Source needed], spurred on by initial glimpses into the NGE2 Classified Information (intimations that every Seed was sent with her own Spear, for example) and various theoretical dabblings. However, once the relevant parts of the CI were fully translated, this most excellent theory was drop-kicked down into "oh, if only it were true..." whimsy. "Adam, skewered by her own Spear? What the hell was Anno thinking?!?" (...Wait. Don't answer that.)
At the height of its glory, DotS was sufficiently infectious that (as of this writing) its falsified status has not been universally dispersed. This effectively means the occasional poor soul shows up brandishing it, and has to be dealt with accordingly. "What? The Duel of the Seeds was disproved?!?"
Revelations Incident
Right around Christmas 2005, Reichu woke up one morning convinced that the Gainax Gods had bestowed upon her the key to all of NGE's deepest mysteries — Evangelion was like a puzzle, and she at long last had the Solution in sight! She proceeded to bombard ANF with her "revelations", shattering the forum's extended period of dormancy with more posts than anyone could keep up with. This was all received fairly well … at first. Eventually, however, those annoyed with Reichu's increasingly bizarre ideas and escalating sense of dramatics began to mount, and a grand flame war (or something like one) broke out. The blaze, fortunately, snuffed itself out quickly. After a couple of months of madness, everything gradually began to return to normal, although it would take Reichu much longer to recover her reputation.
Detailed Synopsis
During the winter of 2005/2006, Reichu suffered from a sinus infection that, at its tail-end, yielded to a manic attack (for entirely unknown reasons). This effectively placed her in a state of elated delirium, wherein the mind was constantly racing with thoughts and sleep seemed remarkably unnecessary. Presumably with ample free time over the holidays, Reichu began to post on the ANF boards in one of the most intense attempts to analyse Neon Genesis Evangelion since its release.
The "Revelations" were largely contained in four original threads (and a fifth hijacked one) which were substantially interconnected with one another, and whose interconnection increased with time. The materials discussed we many and varied, ranging from the biology of souls in NGE to relationships between the characters to the mechanics of Third Impact.
At the time, Reichu heavily employed the techniques of Parallelism and You Never See Things Just Once in order to make connections between what had previously thought to have been completely unrelated characters and concepts in NGE. Most of the connections were highly original and interesting, but somewhat lacking in hard evidence.*
However as time worse on, the "Revelations" began to rely on earlier "Revelations" to support themselves. In addition, much of Reichu's earlier work had been left unfinished or incomplete as she moved on to the next topic, having reached a new "Revelation" in the meantime. Also throughout the discourse, Reichu continually proclaimed that NGE was about to be completely solved, and that she was tantalisingly close to a completely consistent understanding of the show. ("Delusions of grandeur" are a symptom of mania.)
After approximately two months of a near continuous stream of "Revelations", by this time many of which were very weakly or not at all supported by the canon, the posters on ANF became disillusioned as Reichu continued to proselytize controversial theories such as Fem-Kaworu and his/her relation to Dr. Akira Katsuragi. With unending criticisms being laid upon her, a huge backlog of incomplete material to finish, and medication against the symptoms of mania finally taking effect, Reichu declared an end to her "Revelations" threads and called a halt to the proceedings.
The incident is recorded in some Quarters as a flame war due to the arguments and criticisms which ensued. There was a general sense of disillusionment with Evangelion analysis following this incident, with some more recent forum members never fulling recovering. The threads themselves, though they are chaotic and confusing to read, have been archived both for the historical record, and because the "Revelations" threads are among the densest discussions in Eva Geek fandom, with nigh every mystery, inconsistency and character discussed and connected within.
Given their cabalistic nature and eclectic content, it is possible that the "Revelations", though currently beyond our ken, may like the Mrin Codex or other such texts, be understandable to us in the future. Or they may contain hidden kernels of terrible truth that can only be disclosed though careful study or by minds touched in some profound way, e.g. by sinus infection. This is however, only an outside possibility. Newer initiates are advised to read the threads with some interest, but more caution.
- For instance, one of the chief "revelations" was the theory that Keel Lorenz and Dr. Katsuragi were homosexual lovers. Reichu's evidence for this was the parallelistic theory that: 1. Gendo betrayed Naoko and Ritsuko and he was sleeping with them. 2. Langley betrayed Kyoko and he was sleeping with her (at one time at least since Asuka was born). Therefore: 3. Keel betrayed Katsuragi, so he must have been sleeping with him. The skeptics pointed out that while there is plenty of evidence for first two, and they already satisfy parallelism, there is no evidence of the third, and no need to find a third instance of this to satisfy parallelism.
- All this, together with the fact that Reichu referred to "Akira" Katsuragi in her signature as a "speculative character", prompted thewayneiac to begin using this avatar, with the following signature:
- Speculative Character: Keel's favorite teacher, Herman T. Deutchlander, whose apocalyptic philosophy inspired Keel and paved the way for Second and Third Impacts. The proof: according to the Evangelion Parallelism theory, Keel must have had a favorite teacher because Gendo and Yui had one: Fuyutsuki.
- By some sick twist of fate, however, this gentle barb reached its intended target rather belatedly; thewayneiac later learned that Reichu didn't even notice his new signature for about three months, and by that time the whole thing had pretty much started to wind down.
(BTW: That is actually a sketch of thewayneiac's favorite teacher, who didn't have an apocalyptic philosophy that we know of. The caption was the catchphrase he always used to instill discipline in the classroom.)
Fem-Kaworu
At the height of her Revelations Madness (see above), Reichu had the outstanding epiphany that Kaworu was, in fact, a female. (The "logistics" are not important here.) Naturally, her sanity was brought into question, and absolutely no one took this idea seriously (except for maybe a small handful of misfits). Reichu eventually abandoned any hope of "fem-Kaworu" (as Dr. Nick branded it) gaining acceptance, although she couldn't quite let it go altogether. She and Mr. Tines subsequently made sure that no one could forget about fem-Kaworu, no matter how much as they might want to. While this was decidedly a forced meme at first, at some point or another the denizens of EMF began to make references to it completely on their own, to the point where it became the veritable "Godwin's Law" of EMF. As phrased in BrikHaus' signature (as of this writing), "On EMF, as a thread becomes longer, the likelihood that fem-Kaworu will be mentioned increases exponentially." Fem-Kaworu also makes periodic appearances at "THAT BOARD", though it seems to be considered more of an irritation than an in-joke.
Sarai
A fictional character concocted by Tbozfan at AnimeNation Forums whom he used to answer all controversial questions. Whose soul is in Eva-00?: Sarai! Who shot Kaji?: Sarai! Who caused the Episode 11 blackout?: Sarai! I wish I could say that Tboz was just tired of the same questions over and over, but I'm afraid he was just being a pain. Once again, for some reason some people played along with this gag.
The Tree of Life at Second Impact
Note: In most of these images it's hard to see what we're talking about if you don't click to see the full sized image.
The theory that the Tree of Life tried to form in Antarctica during Second Impact; it was originated by Shin-seiki.
One day, while watching Death, Shin-seiki noticed something curious: a group of wavy lines in the upper left hand corner of the screen as Adam's wings emerge. He checked, and this did not appear in the scene as originally presented in Episode 12, so he concluded that it had been added along with the red soul dots. He then took a closer look to try and figure out just what it was supposed to be. The more he looked, the more he thought that it looked like the twiggy end of the Tree of Life. When he posted this conclusion, some of the leading lights of Anime Nation and Eva Monkey Forums were incredulous at first, until Reichu compared a flipped version to a sketch of the Tree of Life from the Groundwork of Evangelion. She was convinced and became a champion of this theory. Most of the old timers, thewayneiac for example, then followed suit. Much accolades and back-pattings were directed at Shin-seiki for this important discovery. Unfortunately, a party-pooper extraordinaire with the handle "Kaysow" proceeded to decisively demonstrate that what we were looking at was just a flaw in the cell, by posting screencaps of several other instances in Death where the same phenomenon occurs. He posted about 20 or 30 examples, but two should suffice here. He also pointed out that it always occurred in either the first or last frame of a cut, and thus was probably a flaw in the splicing process.
| 'The Tree of Life at Second Impact?!' | ||
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Faced with this evidence, Shin-seiki was obliged to to say, "Never mind."
