Theory and Analysis:Kaworu in Eva 3.0

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Kaworu Nagisa is very prominent in Evangelion 3.0, easily his most significant appearance in any Evangelion work in the history of the franchise. He has a crucial role in the movie, serving as the main catalyst for Shinji's own actions in the movie, as he provides explanations for the state of the world to Shinji, provides him a new hope in the form of his plan to pull the Spears, and his death also drives Shinji to a state of despondency similar to the one he was in at the beginning of End of Evangelion after Kaworu's own death in Episode 24 in the original series.

However, despite him being presented as seemingly an all-good character whose only preoccupation, as he states, is Shinji's happiness, further examination of the story as well as relating it to grander thematic motiffs elsewhere in the movies brings into question just what Kaworu means by that, Kaworu's questionable methods and interpretation of Shinji himself, including manipulation of Shinji that seems to be far more extensive and deliberate than anything he did in the original series, brought into question by multiple inconsistencies in Kaworu's lines and actions, both in relation to evidence present in the movie and other character's statements, particularly when Shinji, as a surrogate of the audience, is not present. It is possible Kaworu, in pursuit of Shinji's supposed happiness - as seen by Kaworu, has his goals much more aligned with Seele this time around, and is somehow working to make Instrumentality happen. This article seeks to present and examine this evidence.

Still undergoing construction, excerpts from the forum thread will be edited later, dialogue standardized to the official release, and images added.

Thematic significance and build-up

Under construction.

Half Truths

First when he told Shinji his responsibility in triggering N3I, his words were at the very least fairly ambiguous :

00:51:48 {Kaworu} Ikari Shinji-kun,

00:51:50 {Kaworu} once Awakened, Eva-01 opened the Door of Guf

00:51:55 {Kaworu} and became the trigger for Third Impact.

00:51:58 {Kaworu} Lilin call it Near Third Impact.

00:52:02 {Kaworu} It was all initiated by you.

Many people noted that Kaworu's explanations could have two meanings, even the 3.33 FAQ acknowledged this :

* Is there a difference between "Near Third Impact" and "Third Impact"? Did a separate thing called "Third Impact" ever happen?

Kaworu's expositional dialogue to Shinji superficially seems to treat the two terms as synonyms: "Ikari Shinji-kun, once Awakened, Eva-01 opened the Door of Guf and became the trigger for Third Impact. Lilin call it Near Third Impact."[2] In other words: "Something called Third Impact happened, and the Lilin decide to put a 'Near' in front for some reason."

However, the film visually establishes innumerable developments that could only have occurred after Eva-01 was frozen by the Spear of Cassius at the end of 2.0, very heavily suggesting that Third Impact eventually did continue. Kaworu's words, therefore, might indicate that Eva-01's Near Third Impact was the initial trigger for the Third Impact that followed.

He never specifies what exactly he meant, although that meant a big difference for Shinji : is Kaworu saying that trying to save Rei immediately brought this hellish landscape, or did he meant that what happened was the the first event in a chain that led to an actual 3I, and so that indirectly it could be considered his fault? When Shinji respond that he never wished any of this to happen, that he was just saving Rei, nothing else(confirming that he wasn't even conscious of what was happening since the moment he tried to reach Rei, when the light turned blue), Kaworu responds were still as ambiguous :

00:52:09 {Shinji} You're wrong!

00:52:10 {Shinji} All I wanted to do was save Ayanami!

00:52:16 {Kaworu} True, but that was the catalyst.

The catalyst, not the cause, according to a dictionary(Wiktionary in this case), a catalyst is "A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process." If we follow this definition, the EVA-01, and Shinji, didn't caused Third Impact, but "enhanced it", meaning that someone or something triggered the Impact and that by the presence in the vicinity of an awakened Evangelion, "boosted" it. That would be an explanation of how 3I could have caused so cataclysmic damages to the whole planet, while 4 ADAMs at it "only" could affect the South Pole and the oceans.

And again :

00:52:52 {Shinji} I had nothing to do with it!

00:52:54 {Kaworu} You may deny it, but humanity thinks otherwise.

Humanity thinks what : that Shinji is the direct trigger of 3I that destroyed the world(maybe they effectively thought that), or that he was the potential first piece of an apocalyptic domino fall, which could explain why WILLE tried to "protect him" from neo-NERV(that was what Misato said :"you're to be kept in our protection") instead of just putting a bullet in his brain if they thought he really didn't gave a shit about the world and knew that an Impact was starting, but didn't cared.

And that's not the only thing he's been ambiguous about, when he to convince Shinji to pilot EVA-13 with him :

01:01:26 {Shinji} You showed me it yourself, Nagisa-kun.

01:01:29 {Shinji} The blood-red world I can't do anything about...

01:01:32 {Kaworu} That which was changed by Eva can be restored by Eva in turn.''

According to our great pal Reichu here, the literal translation was "changed again" instead of "restored". A change can be many things, a restoration, or a modification into something else.

And again a little later :

01:02:45 {Kaworu} We should take those Spears for ourselves.

01:02:48 {Kaworu} That way, Nerv can no longer trigger the Fourth Impact,

01:02:52 {Kaworu} And if we use them together with Eva-13, we can even repair the world.

Here again, after some clarifications by the great Reichu, what was literally said was "世界の修復も可能だ = sekai no shuufuku mo kanou da = even the repairing/mending of the world is possible".

Kaworu never said "you and me together, we're gonna to repair the world", but that "if we retrieve the spears, with the spears a lot of thing can be done, repairing the world being one of them, he said that line on a "neutral tone", stating that it's one of the things the two spears can do, but he never said that's what he intend to do with Shinji.

Omissions

Now let's come back again in time, when Kaworu explained to Shinji what happened to the world : 00:50:55 {Kaworu} Mass extinctions are not unusual on this planet.

00:50:58 {Kaworu} In fact, they help drive evolution.

00:51:02 {Kaworu} Life has always changed itself to adapt to the world around it.

00:51:08 {Kaworu} However, Lilin change not themselves, but the world.

00:51:15 {Kaworu} So they brought the rite of artificial evolution unto themselves.

00:51:21 {Kaworu} Old life is offered in sacrifice,

00:51:23 {Kaworu} so that new beings blessed with the Fruit of Life may be created.

00:51:29 {Kaworu} All this is an act of extinction that has been programmed since time immemorial.

00:51:33 {Kaworu} Nerv call it the Human Instrumentality Project.

And back to his conversation in Shinji's room :

01:02:34 {Kaworu} Ikari Shinji-kun, your only hope lies with the two Spears left at the Impact epicenter in Dogma.

01:02:41 {Kaworu} They are the keys to invoking the Instrumentality Project.

01:02:45 {Kaworu} We should take those Spears for ourselves.

01:02:48 {Kaworu} That way, Nerv can no longer trigger the Fourth Impact,

01:02:52 {Kaworu} And if we use them together with Eva-13, we can even repair the world.

Kaworu actually never, ever mentions SEELE to Shinji, not once. Why? Saying to Shinji that Gendo is working for a secret organization wouldn't have changed Shinji's resolve to stop his father. Instead of that, by always citing NERV when talking about who is trying to bring Instrumentality and who Kaworu is trying to thwart by keeping the spears for themselves, and since by that point NERV = Gendo(and Fuyutsuki), Kaworu is turning Shinji against Gendo, but not SEELE, as Shinji didn't even know they exist.

Notes and References

This article was mostly built out of the following forum thread, please refer to it:

https://forum.evageeks.org/thread/14454/Theory-about-Kaworus-intentions/

This article bears the unpleasant designation of "Stub." This is a Bad Thing. Provide a great service to NGE fan-geeks everywhere by making it awesomer!