Theory and Analysis:List of Common Misconceptions

A tentative list.

NGE is religious propaganda

The religious symbolism in NGE is actually not used in any sort of meaningful fashion. According to Evangelion Assistant Director Kazuya Tsurumaki:

"There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice"

LCL means "Link Connect Liquid"

It is unknown what the initials "LCL" stand for, but we do know what they don't mean. According to the Death and Rebirth theatrical program (special edition):

Incidentally, the widely circulated idea that L.C.L is the abbreviation of "Link Connected Liquid" is incorrect.

Nowhere does it say what it does mean. Evangelion Chronicle suggests that one of the Ls stands for "Lilith".

First Impact killed dinosaurs

First Impact was never depicted or directly referred to on-screen. This has led several fans upon first glance to incorrectly assume that because the "Second Impact" was supposedly a meteorite collision, the "First Impact" was thus the more well known asteroid impact which caused the mass-extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago.

A page from Shinji's textbook

However, First Impact (aka "Giant Impact") was actually the collision of a giant spherical object, designated the "Black Moon", into Earth approximately 4 billion years ago. As a result of the impact, huge amounts of debris, including the Black Moon's rocky exterior, were thrown into orbit, eventually coalescing into Earth's satellite, the Moon. This was made clear in the Classified Information. The "meteorite" theory in the above textbook page is a cover story, and is part of the effort to also blame Second Impact on a meteor.

"Barons of Hell"

Almost from the beginning of Eva fandom, there has been an internet rumor that the Evangelions are based upon Biblical entities called "The Barons of Hell". There are two problems with this theory:

One is that there is no such thing as a "Baron of Hell" mentioned in the Bible or in any other Judeo-Christian source; extensive searches for the term have turned up only references to Eva and the Doom game. Some sources claim that the Barons are the same thing as the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", but the descriptions given to the Barons don't match up to the Horsemen.

The other problem is that we know exactly what the Evangelions are based upon. Evas were fundamentally based upon the oni (commonly translated as “demon” or “ogre”, but actually a specific type of Japanese monster). Says Anno himself (in an interview published in Aerial Magazine):

There's a monster in Japan called the Oni; it has two horns sticking out of its head and the overall image of the Eva is based on that. I also wanted to give the impression that beneath this ‘robot monster’ image is not so much a robot, but a giant human.

A very Oni-looking Evangelion sketch

An early sketch Anno did of an Eva clearly betrays their oni roots. Working from this basic premise, and corresponding with Anno along the way, Ikuto Yamashita developed the Evas as we know them (with the exception of EoE's “harpies”).

Spear of Longinus is the actual holy relic (that just somehow got BIG)

This is a product of putting too much stock in NGE's religious references. The Spear was actually excavated in Antarctica along with Adam, who was found impaled upon it. According to the Classified Information, each Source of Life is accompanied by a Spear that has a will of its own and can immobilize a Seed for going against its mission. Thus, the Spear of Longinus is billions of years old, not made by some Roman blacksmith, and impaled Adam for committing some unspecified offense.

A.T. Field is a real-life psychology term

Since the very earliest days of Evangelion analysis, there has been a rumor that A.T. Field is a genuine psychological term that describes the barrier that seperates autism patients from the world around them. However, extensive searching of online Psychology researches and forums has failed to find any use of the term other than in reference to NGE. Therefore, we have concluded that this rumor is false.

Eva-00 has the soul of Naoko

See: The Soul in Evangelion Unit-00.

Someone we know killed Kaji

Many fans have come to the conclusion that Misato shot Kaj, with little or no evidence to back it up. On the other hand, series creator Hideaki Anno has stated on the record that Kaji was not shot by any named character, but by an agent sent by either "Seele or Nerv's intelligence division." In fact, Anno was so shocked by this notion that in the Director's cut of Episode 21, he removed a shot that had been cited as "evidence" of Misato's guilt. As broadcast, the scene of Kaji being shot was followed by an establishing shot of the door to Misato's apartment with her name on it; this shot was replaced in the Director's cut by one of the outside of her apartment building.

Naoko's brain in Magi (or any other human brain for that matter)

This is due to the brain-like object Ritsuko reveals when she cuts into the Magi in ep. 13. But it is clearly stated that the Magi are merely imprinted with the personality of Naoko Akagi - herself as a mother, scientist, and woman.

Naoko's soul in Magi

Likely due to the fact that the Evas themselves have souls. There's also the issue of Casper 'betraying' Ritsuko in End of Evangelion. But machines cannot be implanted with souls.

Adam was impaled on the Spear of Longinus by Lilith

Movie specific:

Death's string quartet scenes take place in the actual series timeline.

This one is easily disproved. Both Asuka and Kaworu appear in the String Quartet sequences. In the actual series timeline, Asuka is in the hospital under heavy sedation when Kaworu arrives, and is still there when he gets squished; they never meet. The String Quartet motif serves to separate the different focuses in Death as well as fitting together with the musical score that was used, Pachelbel's Canon in D major.

"Anno's Revenge"

Many are lead to believe, one way or another, that the End of Evangelion was Anno's revenge against the fans for the negative response received from the ending of the TV series.

Some say it is because Anno brutally killed off all of the main characters; however, this isn't anything new in the world of anime. Most notably, Yoshiyuki Tomino's Space Runaway Ideon, where not just all the main characters are killed off, even children are brutally massacred. Ideon was never interpreted as revenge against its fans, it was merely the proper ending to the series. Eventhough Ideon may be one of Anno's biggest inspirations for Evangelion, the End of Evangelion was closer to the planned ending to the TV series. The original conceptual drawings and even unfinished animation, which ended up being used in the movie, have been released (the former can most notably be seen in the next episode preview in Episode 24') of what episodes 25 and 26 of the TV series should have been, some of this footage was used in the TV series ending (corpses of Misato and Ritsuko). So even before the TV series ended, Anno had planned on killing these characters.

Some say it is because of scenes such as Shinji visiting a comatose Asuka in her hospital room. Although slightly off-in-left-field from the ending of the TV series, this scene does serve its purposes. Most importantly, it shows that Shinji has hit the low of all lows, and secondly, it is used as a reference later in the movie when Asuka says "Idiot! I know about your jerk-off fantasies of me. Do it again like usual... I'll even stand here and watch."

A subjective argument for Anno's revenge is the cinematic and narrative mindfuck that takes up most of the 2nd half of End of Evangelion. A subjective retort could be, "What about the end of the TV series?". As far as a non-subjective response, films have been known to use clashing motifs, non-linear story telling, and highly symbolic/obscure imagery, and the End of Evangelion isn't the first to use all three. Also, from an interpretive standpoint, the 2nd half of the movie does very well in showing the chaos and disembodiment of Instrumentality, specifically, what Shinji was going through.

Finally, some argue that the smoking gun for Anno's revenge is the sequence of quickly flashing (about one per frame) death threats/hate mail which can be seen at the end of the live action sequence in the second half of the movie. However this rumor was started, it was probably propagated by the Commentary track on the Manga Entertainment release of End of Evangelion, where Amanda Winn Lee gives a mention of hate mail during this sequence. Since these have been translated to English, the majority of the letters and emails are that of personal attachment to the show, praise, or encouragement/anticipation for the End of Evangelion movie. Only one of the emails can be considered 'hate mail', and it was criticizing Death and Rebirth (not the end of the TV series at all), and the only 2 possible instances that could be considered a 'death threat' was graffiti on the wall outside of Gainax's studio (which was hypothesized to be from religious fanatics) and an email that said "Anno, I'll kill you!!!", which was a close-up of only that message on a computer monitor and lacked any context whatsoever. This puts the smoking gun argument on very shaky ground, as the sequence clearly isn't used as a "This is why I'm taking revenge on you people" message, or anything along those lines.

The Mass Production Evas have no souls

In Episode 24, Kaworu says that the [[A.T. Field] is "The light of the soul", indicating that a soul is required to produce an A.T. Field. This is consistent all throughout the TV Series as well as in the Movies, since the Mass Production Evangelions, in fact, do produce an A.T. Field:

Shigeru: "The Eva series' AT Fields are resonating!"

Some say that it is the pilots (Kaworu dummy plugs) which produce the A.T. Field, however, Ritsuko in Episode 17 says:

"This is the dummy plug prototype.
Rei's personal data has been loaded into it,
but it's not really possible to digitize a human mind and soul.
Ultimately, it's a fake, an imitation.
Just a machine that emulates a pilot's thinking process."

Indicating that there is no real soul in the dummy plugs. Therefore, it is impossible for the dummy plug to generate an A.T. Field.

Pre-3I Instrumentality was all in Shinji's head

During Pre-3I Instrumentality, Shinji and Asuka witness a scene from Misato's college days, where she is having sex with Kaji. Shinji clearly has never seen this before asking "This is Misato? She does... this?" in which she replies "Yes, this is also me... The melting into one another's hearts... The me that Shinji doesn't know." If the entire Pre-Third Impact Instrumentality was all in Shinji's head, there is no way he would know these things.