Theory and Analysis:Ritsuko's Interrogation

Cat Scene

Transcript

Nerv HQ. Late at night. The sounds of rush construction work resonate. The exterior is almost as it was before.

An ashtray on a desk. Full of cigarette butts (with lipstick on them). Ritsuko (on phone) I see, so she passed away.

Cold coffee and a coffee maker Yes, probably, even cats eventually reach the end of their lives.

Her office desk. Ritsuko's backside. Don't cry anymore, Grandma. I will. When I get some time, I'll come home for a bit. I haven't visited Mother's grave in three years either. I'll call you next time. Okay, I'm hanging up now.

She switches the phone off. SE <<BEEP>>

Although she is growing weary, she speaks matter-of-factly. So, she died.

Ritsuko's office. The cat ornaments on her desk.

Analysis

This scene is simple, and, at the same time, enigmatic. Its 'surface' meaning is straight-forward enough; Ritsuko's grandmother calls her to let her know that her cat had died: what's not to 'get'? What is hard to figure out is "Who cares?!" That is, why should we give a rat's *** about some cat we've never seen, and whose existence was just once vaguely alluded to, in the previous episode (Misato: "I won't listen to this from someone who conceals her loneliness with pet cats.")... It's fair to say that this scene must bear some some symbolic or metaphorical weight, otherwise, why is it it here? Anno obviously intends it to mean something, because the first thing out of Ritsuko's mouth in #24, in her confrontation with Gendo, is "My cat died..." The significance of this scene will come into focus when it is, in a sense, continued in the second half of #23, so I will elaborate on my interpretation of the Great Cat Metaphor when we get to that point.

It is interesting to note how Ritsuko refers to the late cat as "that child" (you can distinctly hear her say "ano ko"); I think that there may be some significance to her choice of words.

Seele and Gendo

Transcript

SEELE: It is impossible for us to recover the Lance of Longinus.

SEELE: Why did you use it?

SEELE: We still do not have the planned number of the Eva series.

Gendo: I made destroying the Angel my top priority. It was an unavoidable situation.

SEELE: Unavoidable, was it? You should make your excuses more convincing than that.

SEELE: Your recent actions have become intolerable.

(SE) [phone rings]

Gendo: Fuyutsuki, I'm in conference... Understood.

(hangs up phone; shuts drawer)

An Angel is curently drawing near. Let us continue this at another time.

SEELE: If your seat is still waiting for you, that is.

(Gendo's hologram disappears)

Keel: Ikari... Does he intend to betray Seele?

Analysis

The reason I include this scene, even though it doesn't include Ritsuko herself, is that it adds the necessary context of SEELE's increasingly suspicious and antagonistic relationship with Gendo by this point in the story. As Fuyutsuki anticipated in the previous episode, the Committee is in an uproar over Gendo's decision to use the Spear of Longinus against the Fifteenth Angel (and thus conveniently get rid of it):

SEELE: It is impossible for us to recover the Lance of Longinus.

SEELE: Why did you use it?

SEELE: We still do not have the planned number of the Eva series.

Note how both the Lance and the Eva Series are brought up here at the start; this touches on the divergent ends and means that SEELE and Gendo had in mind for initiating Third Impact; it is beyond the scope of this presentation to get into all the details thereof. Suffice to say that SEELE had been counting on utilizing the Lance, and that Gendo needed to eliminate it from the equation, and that SEELE was ultimately obliged to go to 'Plan B', which entailed using the Eva Series.

Gendo: An Angel is curently drawing near. Let us continue this at another time.

SEELE: If your seat is still waiting for you, that is.

Also note this:

Keel: Ikari... Does he intend to betray Seele?

From the beginning of the series, we see that the rest of the Committee seems to have it in for Gendo, but Chairman Keel seems more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. In the EVA 2 game, we're told that Yui Ikari was the daughter of a high ranking SEELE member, thus Gendo effectively 'married into' the organization. I think there are a few hints that there was a more personal relationship between Gendo and Keel than with the others; note, for instance, how #21' (and Death) has the two of them in effect sharing a good laugh at the expense of the the Katsuragi Team scientists who unwittingly do their dirty work in initiating Second Impact (while Gendo, of course, knew enough about what was in store to get the hell out of Antartica the day before), and how we see Gendo hobnobbing with Keel during the subsequent cover-up:

However, after the events of #19 (EVA-01 acquiring an S^2 organ), #21' (Kaji suggests that SEELE may already be catching on to his complicity in swiping the Adam Sample), and #22 (the Lance ending up in lunar orbit), even Keel is starting to get wise to Gendo's apparent perfidy. The events of #23 involving Ritsuko are basically about SEELE's ruthless determination to find out what Gendo is really up to...

After Armisael

Transcript

Radio A: The 16th Angel's constituent material is still undetected. In the process of resuming the current search.

Radio B: EVA-00's core parts are heavily damaged from the high pressure resulting from the heat.

Radio C: The Level C contamination zone is spreading towards the southwest. Maintain the curfew for the next 48 hours.

Radio D: Announcement D16 acknowledged. From this point forward, please carry out the processing independently, without the SSDF's approval.

Man: Dr. Akagi!

Ritsuko: What happened here will be classified top secret. Take back the plug. Dispose of everything else.

Man: Roger that. Let's get to work! Quickly!

Analysis

As you can see, I skipped over the battle with Armisael, because it doesn't bear directly on the topic at hand, but this scene just made the cut, because I felt that it illustrates an interesting point about Ritsuko's role at NERV.

If you look at the translation (from the Renewal script) of the background radio chatter provided by Reichu, and the new sub translation of the line in question ( "Take back the plug. Dispose of everything else."), it is apparent that Ritsuko's job here was to retrieve Rei's mortal remains, which were required for the process of investing her soul in a new body. As Reichu mentions in her comments above, the radio chatter seems to indicate that, while there is no trace of Armisael, there were bits of Zerogouki lying about, and it seems that that is what Ritsuko is referring to with "Dispose of everything else".

All through the series, up to this point, when Gendo has important, secret jobs to carry out to further his own agenda, there are two loyal and devoted minions that he can turn to: Rei gets the heavy lifting jobs; as in Episode 14, and Episode 22, while Ritsuko has a hand in just about all of NERV's nefarious and morally compromised undertakings, as we see, for example, in Episode 07, and Episode 17. Here in #23, Ritsuko gets the job of cleaning up the aftermath of Rei's self-sacrifice, but, with time running short for both Gendo and SEELE, it will prove to be her last such task, as she is about to find out the hard way that, between Rei and herself, she is the more expendable...

Seele Discussion

Transcript

SEELE: At last, we have defeated up through the 16th Angel.

SEELE: That leaves only one Angel described in Seele's Dead Sea Scrolls.

Keel: The promised time is near. Our journey has been long and the sacrifices have been great.

SEELE: Indeed, first the Lance of Longinus, and now the loss of Unit 00.

SEELE: We have more than enough reasons to relieve Ikari of his command.

SEELE: That man is smart enough to know the significance of why we allowed Fuyutsuki to return safely.

SEELE: We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari.

Keel: And we need someone who knows the truth.

Analysis

This scene is a prime example of the spare and economical style of writing that Anno often resorts to, especially towards the end of the series. These few lines are packed with significance, but, in some cases are so subtle and cryptic that it is easy to miss their full import . SEELE, on this and other occasions, tend to refer to very dark and grim matters obscurely and euphemistically; they know what they're talking about, but it is necessary for us, the audience, to subject their words to close examination in order to divine the true meaning.

The scene starts with a visual countdown of the Angels, 3 thru 16 (I chose not to post screen-caps of the whole sequence, to save space), to emphasize the point made in the dialog, that the scenario contained within the Dead Sea Scrolls is coming to a head, and time is running out. Both Gendo and SEELE are aware of this, and that is why the (barely) polite facade of having a common agenda, that had prevailed between them for most of the series, is really starting to crumble by this point. As indicated in Scene 02 above, when Gendo deliberately put the Lance out of reach, it was obvious even to Chairman Keel that he was up to something. The shortness of time, and not quite knowing what Gendo is up to, is making the Committe feel as tho events might be starting to slip out of their grasp, which explains the ruthlessness that they will resort to presently, in order to ascertain just what it is, that Gendo is trying to get away with...

So, let's take at the dialog here, and see what sort of meaning and revelations we can extract: SEELE: At last, we have defeated up through the 16th Angel.

SEELE: That leaves only one Angel described in Seele's Dead Sea Scrolls.

Keel: The promised time is near...

This is pretty straight forward stuff, tho the use of the phrase "the promised time" is worth noting, as a relatively innocent-sounding reference to the Apocalypse that SEELE is seeking to bring about.

Keel: ...Our journey has been long and the sacrifices have been great.

SEELE: Indeed, first the Lance of Longinus, and now the loss of Unit 00.

SEELE: We have more than enough reasons to relieve Ikari of his command.

Previously (in #20), when the other Committee members suggested that perhaps it was a mistake to have given Gendo control of NERV, Keel answered "But, he was the only one who could achieve all our goals". Gendo has had a certain job security, as long as there were Angels to be defeated, and the phrase "all our goals" is no doubt a reference to the Human Complementation Project, the fulfillment of which is NERV's true purpose, and which Keel seems to think only Gendo can accomplish. So, they're not going to dismiss him just yet, but that doesn't mean that they haven't been willing to take some actions intended to 'send a message" to Gendo that he was under suspicion, and that there was a price to be paid for insubordination.

SEELE: That man is smart enough to know the significance of why we allowed Fuyutsuki to return safely.

Frankly, in the past this line sort of wizzed right by me, but then suddenly, as I was going back over this scene, these words just leapt out at me, and I was like WTF! Since when did SEELE allow Fuyutsuki to return?! But there it is, in black and white: according to SEELE, they let Fuyutsuki go... What's more, look at the rest of the sentence: "That man (i.e. Gendo) is smart enough to know the significance of why we allowed Fuyutsuki to return safely." This indicates that there was a message for Gendo implied by the fact that he got Fuyutsuki back alive (and the fact that they seem to regard Fuyutsuki getting out of that situation alive as a special circumstance sort of implies, doesn't it, that the "default" expectation would have been that Gendo would have never seen Fuyutsuki again). This naturally puts the scene in #21, when Kaji tells Fuyutsuki that "the guards are asleep" in a new light. Presumably, if SEELE had been serious about retaining custody of Fuyutsuki, Kaji would have never got anywhere near him...

That brings us to the next line: SEELE: We need another human sacrifice to counter Ikari.

Talking about a "human sacrifice" in connection with Fuyutsuki's kidnapping and "rescue"... That would be Kaji, of course. I mean, think about it: who else could they mean?

In all the endless discussion of "Who killed Kaji", on this and every other other Eva forum, I have never seen these lines referenced (probably because they show up two episodes after Kaji buys it), but I think that a crucial piece of that puzzle is staring us in the face here: not who killed him (as Anno himself has stated, it was not a series character, but some anonymous goon), but why he was killed. If you put these two lines together, what they seem to be saying was that Gendo was allowed to get Fuyutsuki back, but at a price that was to be paid in blood. Fuyutsuki's life was bought with that of Kaji. This is what I believe the "message" was, that SEELE was signaling by returning Fuyutsuki alive, that Gendo was presumably smart enough to understand: "We still need you, because no one else can carry out NERVs true mission (HCP), and we will even let you have your right hand man back, BUT: just to let you know that we are serious, and are playing for keeps, one of your other minions, who has betrayed us (on your behalf) more than once, will be eliminated, so you don't get the idea that we let Fuyutsuki go out of the kindness of our hearts."

This should put to rest any theories that Gendo had Kaji killed, or worse, killed him himself. Kaji's murder, as far as those who ordered it were concerned, was an act that was directed at Gendo, as a warning, a "shot across the bow"...