FGC:Episode 24 Scene 14

He wished to die

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Screenshots	Cut #	Description/Dialogue	Commentary
	309
	310		UrsusArctos: Thus ends the tragedy of Darth Tabris the Assisted Suicide, and thus begins an eternity of headless Kaworu jokes/fanart. Strange that a talking Kaworu head (a la Lorgenome from Gurren Lagann) isn't popular, since his head is technically the only part of him that doesn't get squished to bloody pulp. Of course, Kaworu gets his head blasted off in Evangelion 3.0 in yet another pathos-inducing scene that calls back to this. At least one instance of pre-3.0 headless Kaworu fanart was mistakenly assumed to be a spoiler and called out in public, spoiling a whole lot of people. Mr. Tines: Another "seen more than once", with an immediate callback at the start of 25'. Dr. Nick: ...which also serves as a callback to Ideon's concluding film Be Invoked, which starts with a recap of a love interest's decapitation.
	311		UrsusArctos: This scene combines the famous bloodied hand of Eva-01 from the opening with Episode 16 Cut 308 onwards, which is why the entire Eva is being hosed down when only the hand is stained with Kaworu's blood and gore. Incidentally, fourteen years ago (Ye Gods, has it been that long?!?) I started a somewhat whacky forum thread comparing this to baptism.
	312
	313		UrsusArctos: Visual parallel with Episode 16 Cut 311 with Rei replacing Ritsuko at Gendo's side. Ritsuko hated the prospect of Rei replacing her to the point of attempting to destroy her last episode, but her actions led to precisely the outcome she hated most. It's Greek tragedy in the Oedipal sense.
	314
	315	SHINJI:“Kaworu said that he loved me. It was... It was the first time someone told me they loved me. He was like me, and like Ayanami. I loved him. Kaworu was the one who should have survived. He was a much better person than I am. Kaworu should have been the one to survive.” MISATO:“You're wrong.”
	316	MISATO:“Only those who have the will to live get to survive.”
	317
	318	MISATO:“He wished to die. He abandoned his will to live, clinging instead to a false hope. You did nothing wrong, Shinji.” SHINJI (OFF):“You're cold, Miss Misato.”	UrsusArctos: This is bad advice by Misato and it doesn't help Shinji one bit, for reasons that I'll come to in the additional comments. Additional Commentary   UrsusArctos: Kaworu chose to die so that Shinji and all humanity could live, but that's something that Shinji is too messed up to process or understand intellectually or emotionally, and Misato blunders by giving Shinji the wrong explanation. She's trying to answer Shinji's question about why he's alive while answering her own question about why she's alive instead of Kaji. "Clinging instead to a false hope" does not work as a coherent explanation for Kaworu's choice to die, but it works perfectly for Kaji, who died in the hope that Misato could know the truth - which she hasn't found at this point. Kaji's death, at this stage, could indeed be interpreted as giving himself up to die while clinging to a false hope. It also represents a fundamental error by Misato in comparing Kaworu to Kaji. Yes, Kaworu and Kaji indeed have something deep down in their attitude to life that makes them very much alike, and Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 pairs the two together on purpose. Misato should be comparing Kaworu to the man who almost certainly gave him his DNA - Dr. Katsuragi, her father. Dr. Katsuragi died willingly so that Misato could live, an act of selfless love, and if Misato had used that as an analogy, she would have given Shinji a reason to accept Kaworu's death. That might have given her a reason to connect Kaworu to her father much like Shinji connected Rei to his mother, but she sees Kaworu as an Angel and an enemy and can't make the connection with the one person whose death inspired her entire desire for revenge against the Angels in the first place...how deep the irony truly runs! Misato's incapacity to connect the dots spirals downwards to the horror of EoE, but our commentary sends us to Episodes 25 and 26 first...
	END		UrsusArctos: The End of TV is where we're headed at next, folks. We would have loved to include the End of Evangelion material from Episodes 25' and 26' but that's unfortunately out for this project.

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