User:Reichu/Selected Posts
A selection of posts by me, mostly from reddit, given the difficulty finding and accessing older comments. These are being collected here mostly for my own purposes (eventual incorporation of my various thoughts and ideas into the EG-Wiki, where appropriate), but this page could also be enjoyed on its own merits, I suppose, by anyone who finds my rambling worth reading. For the latter reason, I've included it in the "Theory & Analysis" category. Just keep in mind that, due to the fact that these were not written for encyclopedic purposes, the tone may be highly informal and include casual profanity here and there.
Gendo: Why is Manga Gendo the Worst Gendo?
Sadamoto ruins lovely material like showing Gendo at his most vulnerable by having him also be a cartoon villain who eats a goddamned embryo (making sure he grins evilly first) and who isn't scared of Shinji but is JEALOUS of him, cuz how dare your mother not give me all the attention and love! This is the antithesis of True Gendo, if you know anything about his relationship with human affection.
would you mind expanding on the last sentence?
I will readily admit that I haven't analyzed manga!Gendo that much, because I just don't find the manga's take on things that interesting in and of itself. But before writing this, I at least made sure to re-read most of the relevant parts of the manga, to reduce the chances of a blatant memory-lapse mistake.
The divergences that Sadamoto has made with the character, not only via additional material but also by altering some (most? all?) of Gendo's most revealing moments in the anime, yield a result that is, in my eyes, similar to the original in only the most superficial way. The final reveal about why he was a shit father to his own son is case in point. Manga!Gendo tells Shinji to his face that he never loved him because "[he] took Yui's love for [himself]". Yup, he's such a petty asshole that he's jealous of his own fucking child because his wife was, unlike himself, being an actual parent. Oh, and he also blames God for "taking Yui away", even though -- whomp whomp! -- that's something that Yui did because she wanted to!^1
In the anime, however... Gendo, before his death, candidly confesses that the problem was with him, not Shinji.
| “ | Gendo:
When I'm with Shinji, I only hurt him. So, it's better that I do nothing. Yui: Gendo: |
„ |
He hates himself and hides behind his A.T. Field so that he doesn't have to deal with the interpersonal pain he's certain that his wretched and undeserving soul will bring to himself and others.^2 Anime!Gendo's selfish, ruthless behavior may superficially seem the same as manga!Gendo's, but when their psychologies are taken into account, it seems to me we're dealing with similar outcomes born from totally different emotional foundations. One man is sad because he believes he doesn't deserve anything; the other is mad because he doesn't have what he thinks he deserves. The former is powered by anxiety and desperation, and the latter by entitlement and envy.
The way the two men respectively go out really highlights the differences. Sadamoto had Gendo confess his ugly heart in an earlier, manga-only sequence, freeing up his death scene for the sole purpose of having Yui de-Grinch-ify him with memories of what a precious little baby Shin-chan was. Make Gendo a petty asshole, and then "redeem" him by having his heart warmed, right before his body goes cold, with cheap sentimentality^3. And then he appears as a Force Ghost later on and pretends to be a dad again for a moment, or something. Anno's Gendo goes out with a very quick and to-the-point sequence that eschews the mushy stuff for puzzling brutality. There's no real agreement on what happened there, but I'm on Team "Yui acts as his spirit guide and provides what his self-loathing heart desires most in the form of a violent, gruesome death". (With the silver lining that said death is dealt via eating -- which, as a form of internalization, is an incredibly intimate form of violence, and delivers upon Gendo's wish to be with Yui forever in ironic fashion.)
(1) Sadamoto has to justify this by making Fuyutsuki a petty, jealous asshole as well, one who never told Gendo the truth about Yui's planned absorption because he enjoyed watching the guy who got the girl instead of him suffer. Fuyutsuki in the anime was much more honorable, keeping Yui's confidences at least long enough so she could get absorbed without Gendo stopping her (as he obviously would have if he knew what her plans had been), but by the time EoE happens the fact she did it willingly is common knowledge between them (evidenced by Fuyutsuki referencing the fact -- with the enigmatic casualness characteristic of his exchanges with Gendo -- near the beginning of EoE).
(2) It's interesting that he makes an exception for Yui -- not only in that the relationship happened in the first place, but that once he "loses" her he doesn't justify the loss away with "Well, I never deserved to have her anyway, because I'm a piece of shit who can't be loved". Instead, he believes so completely in his bond with her that he will do anything just to hang out as a disembodied soul in his wife's body for all eternity. I feel this is less an oversight than a testament to how people are genuinely complicated and paradoxical.
(3) Well, that's how it came across to me. Your mileage will vary, of course.
Originals: Mon Jul 10 08:48:34 2017 UTC and Tue Jul 11 07:23:37 2017 UTC
Rei: Ultimate Fate?
I figure she finally died like she always wanted. The brief appearance at the end (not a ghost -- it has a shadow) is, I assume, a projection of super-Lilith from the time of 3I, and not a representation of Rei's state in the future. She was able to create billions of mini-mes around the world simultaneously, and if space is so minor an obstacle what is time on top of that? Hence strategically placed mini-mes shortly before Rei fused back into Lilith, and also the two "bookends".
"Bookend Rei"[, for those who aren't already aware,] is a term in the fan jargon referring to two mysterious, mirrored Rei appearances:
- At the beginning of episode 1, Rei is briefly seen standing in the middle of the street of the evacuated city. Shinji looks away for a second, and of course Rei has disappeared. Logically speaking, this sighting makes no sense, since at this moment in time Rei is still heavily wounded by the Eva-00 activation incident and can barely move.
- The other bookend is the one seen in the movie's final scene, hovering over the ocean for a moment before disappearing, this time before Shinji's very eyes (and not, conveniently, while he looks away). This one logically doesn't make much sense either, since Rei's body was absorbed back into Lilith, and the Rei-shaped giga-Lilith is resting in pieces. Were it meant to imply that Rei had recreated her Lilin body from the LCL, she likely wouldn't have immediately vanished after appearing, since teleportation isn't an ability that Rei exhibited prior to her Ascension.
I think these bookended appearances can be explained as manifestations of giga-Lilith, as noted [previously], but what I'm not as certain about is what they're meant to represent as visual narrative devices. This is probably as it should be, since NGE gains much of its power from its interpretive open-endedness. We're meant to feel certain about very little!
I haven't thought about this particular topic in a while, so at this point I'll take a break and let my mind catch up.
Originals: 2017-07-11T12:11:37 and 2017-07-11T14:10:55
Wunder: What is it?
Whatever the hell it is, it seems to be linked to the Adams in some intimate way. Eva-01 -- who probably has the body of an Adam, but not the original core -- is able to get the thing up and running. Mark.09, which is an "Adams' Vessel" and is probably the disembodied core of an Adam reconstituted into an independent being (...somehow; these movies are fucking weird, man) is called the Wunder's true master by Ritsuko and is able to take control away from Eva-01 until it's destroyed.
Japanese is usually vague a.f. when it comes to numbers, so Ritsuko's comment could have meant that Adams' Vessels -- which I'm just gonna keep assuming are the original Adams' cores, because I've got absolutely NOTHING else right now -- in general are the Wunder's masters. Any of them, not just Mark.09 specifically. The ship can be tricked by a counterfeit (Eva-01's core), but at the end of the day it will always default to the real deal.
I have absolutely no idea where Anno & Friends might be going with all of this and I frankly don't wanna know until the time comes. I HOPE MY BODY CAN TAKE IT!
Original: 2017-07-11T19:58:32
