FGC:Episode 21 Scene 07

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Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	165	TEXT:“Year 2004 Hakone - Underground Laboratory 2”
	166	A boy looking up (3-year-old Shinji). MAN (OFF):“LCL electrified.”	UrsusArctos: We saw brief images of little Shinji and the experiment in the previous episode, but now we see them in full. Interestingly, none of this is from his perspective.
	167	Akagi is looking at him. She …… glances off to the side. MAN (OFF):“Pressure at plus zero point two.”
	168	Ikari is at a desk, assuming the same pose as always. The equipment on the desk and about is provisional. MAN (OFF):“No destrudo readings detected in transmissions.”
	169	A child (Shinji) looking into the booth from the experiment station. The foreground is full of pipes and cords (in silhouette). FUYUTSUKI (OFF):“What is this child doing here?” MAN (OFF):“Para-base is stable.” Woman (OFF):“No problems detected in either the test subject or the dive suit.” Man (OFF):“No changes have been made to the scheduled depth for contact.”
	170	Akagi turning her head. AKAGI:“He's Director Ikari's son.” MAN(OFF):“Placement and positioning for contact boom have been corrected by plus 0.03 degrees.”
	171	Fuyutsuki, without looking at Ikari. FUYUTSUKI:“Ikari, this is not a nursery school. Today is a crucial day!” Ikari remains silent. WOMAN:“Excavation of the core circle is complete. Ensure that it is the necessary volume. Maintain the cylindrical configuration.” Yui's voice is projected into the station over the speakers. YUI (OFF):“I'm sorry, Professor Fuyutsuki. I'm the one who brought him.” MAN:“All probe needles have been implanted. Measurement equipment is all undergoing normal operation.”	UrsusArctos: Gendo seems unusually worried behind his pose, unlike his previous smugly arrogant self. Some of the dialogue at Kyoko's funeral seems to suggest that Kyoko's contact experiment happened first, driving her mad. If that's indeed the case, Gendo's worry is unsurprising.
	172	Shinji waves his hand towards the bottom of the booth. FUYUTSUKI:“Yui, this is your experiment today.” YUI (OFF):“That's why. I want to show my child the bright future.”	Mbryo: Yui's intentions always baffled me. She knew fully well that she was going to be absorbed by the Eva in the Contact Experiment, so how does that qualify as showing her son the 'bright future'? She should have known that it was going to be a traumatic experience for Shinji. Did she intend that as well? UrsusArctos: In the previous episode, Rei 1 stated - and Shinji outright confirmed - that he ran away from both his mother and his father after this experiment, which she could hardly have intended (unless Yui was a high-functioning sociopath, a theory that is taken seriously by quite a few fans I've run into). As I mentioned previously, we see nothing from Shinji's perspective, neither Yui nor the Eva. It's only from the full opening and tank images from 23' that we know that Eva-01 was incomplete and connected to Lilith at this point. Neither do we see the immediate aftermath of this moment, so the exact circumstances in which Shinji ran away and Gendo sent him off to live with his "sensei" remain vague to this day.
	173	Akagi looking at Shinji peculiarly, with composed eyes. AKAGI (MONO):“Those were Ms. Yui's final words.”
	174	An old photo of Fuyutsuki, Ikari, and Yui. AKAGI (MONO):“The irregular circumstances erased her from this world.”
	175	Graves … The marks of those who had been lost through Second Impact. Countless stone monoliths, and nothing but, stand in orderly rows. AKAGI (MONO):“Exactly as I had wished. I am such a horrible woman.”	Editor's Note: The translator has rendered the Japanese word sekibashira (literally: "stone pillar") as "monolith". Seele's monoliths always use the English word "monolith".
	176	Flowers UP.
	177	Yui's grave. AKAGI (MONO):“Ritchan, Director Ikari changed after that day.”
	178	Gendo's public business room. The interior furnishings are still intact and there is a scaffold outside. Fuyutsuki stands in front of Gendo. FUYUTSUKI:“Where have you been for the past week? You're allowed to grieve, but you need to be aware that you are responsible for more than yourself now.” IKARI:“I know. Fuyutsuki, I am going to recommend a new project starting today.”
	179	Gendo with his old glasses. He's still young, but he's already taken to his customary pose. IKARI:“I have already proposed it to Chairman Kiel.”	eldomtom2: Note that Gendo is explicit here - Instrumentality was his idea, and not one that SEELE was previously pursuing. This contradicts what later episodes state (or at least heavily imply). Dr. Nick: How to square these contradictions, knowing that Seele's end goal of eternal existence in near-godhood is a thing the cult has dreamt of for centuries? If I were to fanwank it, I take it means Gendo designed the practical roadmap of executing their religious woo, of course in line with his own secret goal of getting back together with Yui. UrsusArctos: That seems likely. Seele had their end goal from the beginning, 2I, fortifying Tokyo-3 and creating Eva-00 was just the start; the Human Instrumentality Project could only be achieved with a clear plan, a timeline, the groundwork for an organization to execute the use of the Evas and the extermination of the Angels. Yui's death probably caused Gendo to propose the HIP ahead of schedule in the hope of reuniting with her. EGF users ought to recognize this image as my most-used avatar - something about Gendo's loss has stuck with me over the ages.
	180	Fuyutsuki narrows his eyes slightly. FUYUTSUKI:“You're not going to...”
	181	T · B from Ikari. The shadow created by the scaffolding is forming a cross. IKARI:“That's right. The path to godhood that none have ever succeeded in before. The Human Instrumentality Project.”	Editor's Note: Translator notes that this scene is inherently highly ambiguous and that Gendo's original Japanese phrase kami e no michi (rendered here as "path to godhood") leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Dr. Nick: Notice what's not happening in this scene: Fuyutsuki stays steadfastly with team Yui and doesn't reveal her plans to Gendo even when he seems to be going truly off the deep end now. (Continued in additional comments) Additional Commentary   Dr. Nick: (Continued from previous comments) Now, Gendo is a smart guy, and he figures out what Yui is planning to do by letting herself be absorbed in the Eva. Perhaps the realization set in after the salvage attempt failed - Yui wants to stay in the core. Knowing this, he's not surprised or shocked whenever Unit-01 takes independent action. In effect, Gendo's Human Instrumentality Project plan just builds a selfishly motivated extra conspiracy on top of Yui's conspiracy within Seele's conspiracy (whew!): if successful, Seele's ultimate goal is thwarted like Yui wanted, but the Instrumentality process allows Gendo to slip in and be with Yui like he wanted. Here too there are of course some extra mysteries. For example, Gendo susses out Yui's motives, but does he stay unaware of Fuyutsuki's position as Yui's co-conspirator? I would assume so, as I doubt Gendo would be particularly merciful towards a person who, by inaction, allowed Yui to be ripped away from him. And did Yui foresee how losing her would change Gendo as a person? Did she count on him crafting his own extra conspiracy to run parallel with hers, helping hers along? That is the sort of masterminding that brings us right back to sociopath Yui. UrsusArctos: The entire lack of communication between Yui and Gendo, or any post-transformation attempt at letting Gendo know what she had in mind is probably one of the biggest mysteries in the show and it really does paint her character in a very poor light. If she'd known that she'd made Gendo dependent on her emotionally and caused him to start seeking her obsessively - without any real care for the damage it caused him or Shinji - it'd be hard to consider her anything other than a sociopath. Speaking of light, the shadow of the cross should fall on Gendo, although it doesn't, making it look like Gendo is carrying the cross of the burden he's about to bear. Symbolically this image is as ominous as it is deeply tragic, and when the "sociopath Yui" angle is added it just becomes worse, with Gendo being symbolically crucified as a victim of Yui's motivations. Gendo may have been firmly on the side of the villains, but it's hard not to feel bad for him here.

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