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Advice and Trust [NGE]

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MoroseMobius said:
To put so perspective on it, what would you do? If you were told that your choices are either everyone dies (and early on, when they have all of one pilot and one EVA that can reliably work, this is a certainty), or you suffer. You'll survive, but in the moment, it will hurt. But when it comes down to it, you can stay and fight and potentially get hurt, or you can run and die, along with everyone you have ever known or cared about. While there is no moral obligation to stick your neck out for others, there is one to take action when you know your personal inaction will kill someone.
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Oh I'd probably get brutally pasted by Sachiel in a matter of seconds. But alas, duty doesn't tend to take you to places that are good for your health.

In short, I'd consider it a duty, and do my bloody best to carry out said duty to the best of my abilities. Although my best...would probably not be nearly enough.
 
MoroseMobius said:
To put so perspective on it, what would you do? If you were told that your choices are either everyone dies (and early on, when they have all of one pilot and one EVA that can reliably work, this is a certainty), or you suffer. You'll survive, but in the moment, it will hurt. But when it comes down to it, you can stay and fight and potentially get hurt, or you can run and die, along with everyone you have ever known or cared about. While there is no moral obligation to stick your neck out for others, there is one to take action when you know your personal inaction will kill someone.
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Of course, until Zeruel, it was never really put to Shinji in those terms. I'm not exactly sure what NERV or Misato expected, that Shinji would just leap at the chance to go into life and death battles with abominations he had never seen before, but if you watch the early series... well, that seems to have been the attitude. The question is always what Shinji actually wants and he wavers on that. Hell, in her talk with Shinji after he ran away, Misato explicitly tells him this isn't about what others expect about him, but about what he wants.

The first time the necessity to pilot EVA came up at all was when Kaji talked with Shinji during Zeruel's attack. Before it was all... psychological self-finding, so to speak. And if we operate only on that level, Shinji should have walked away.

But to answer your question... it is reasonable to choose the suffering under those terms (though I'll point out that "you'll survive" is never a given, that outright risk of death is part of the burden). But that IS a sacrifice of happiness then. It is really a decision against happiness and for duty then. The idea that we can get a "mentally correct" Shinji who pilots out of a healthy inate drive is delusional. Maybe Shinji does need to pilot. But that does mean to suffer then.

Lord Sovereign said:
There it is, there it is! I had a HUGE argument on YouTube the other day about this. Basically I said Shinji is a "Shit Lord" because he only Pilots the Eva for "self validation" instead of protecting humanity. And everyone disagreed with me, with a lot believing him entirely selfless!
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Well he is. I mean, come the fuck on, he takes on all the suffering and risk of death, and you seriously want to accuse him he does it for the wrong reasons? What he does IS selfless, and that is actually the problem: Because he doesn't think himself worthy enough, he takes on all that suffering for the sake of others... those things are not as mutually exclusive as you put them here.
 
Susano said:
Well he is. I mean, come the fuck on, he takes on all the suffering and risk of death, and you seriously want to accuse him he does it for the wrong reasons? What he does IS selfless, and that is actually the problem: Because he doesn't think himself worthy enough, he takes on all that suffering for the sake of others... those things are not as mutually exclusive as you put them here.
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...yes? I believe it is actually, properly stated in the acid trip- (ahem) the tv ending, that he primarily pilots to make others like him...not the thousands of innocent lives in his hands, not the well being of his friends and comrades, but to make others like him (so basically, NOTICE ME DADDY!!)

I still see that as somewhat...shitty?
 
Lord Sovereign said:
...yes? I believe it is actually, properly stated in the acid trip- (ahem) the tv ending, that he primarily pilots to make others like him...not the thousands of innocent lives in his hands, not the well being of his friends and comrades, but to make others like him (so basically, NOTICE ME DADDY!!)

I still see that as somewhat...shitty?
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You do realize you're basically accusing Shinji of thoughtcrime here, yes? You're getting absolutely unreasonable in your hate for the show, Anno and Shinji here.
 
Lord Sovereign said:
...yes? I believe it is actually, properly stated in the acid trip- (ahem) the tv ending, that he primarily pilots to make others like him...not the thousands of innocent lives in his hands, not the well being of his friends and comrades, but to make others like him (so basically, NOTICE ME DADDY!!)

I still see that as somewhat...shitty?
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And therein lies the question: Is it the motivation or the action of doing good that is praiseworthy? To do good things because there are your nature, or your choice?
 
Susano said:
thoughtcrime
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Shinji is doubleplusungood!!!!

Although, I must ask, if he feels no empathy for...say...his fellow man...then why should I feel any for him?

MoroseMobius said:
And therein lies the question: Is it the motivation or the action of doing good that is praiseworthy? To do good things because there are your nature, or your choice?
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Now that's a question!

I have often held to the whole "it's the thought that counts" so...I find myself swinging more to the "motivation" aspect. What about you?
 
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Lord Sovereign said:
Now that's a question!

I have often held to the whole "it's the thought that counts" so...I find myself swinging more to the "motivation" aspect. What about you?
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Both matter. A firefighter who saves five people because it's his job and he's good at it is just as praiseworthy as the firefighter who saves five people because all he ever wanted was to help people. Or, to put it another way, a draftee is just as eligible for commendation for brave acts as someone who enlisted. If you choose to do good, you are just as good a person who's nature is to do good.
 
We've already been down this road before. Let's change the subject.

In A&T, most of NERV's command structure has been subverted away from Gendo. The only division he actually controls anymore is the security forces. If their leadership could be brought into the fold about Gendo's and SEELE's plans, would a coupe/defection be viable?
 
But Shinji isn't doing it out of the niceness of his heart. Most of the time. He's doing it to get praise and approval, mostly from his father.

Friends? Family? At the start of the series, he barely know those people. Why would he care? "They care about him"? Shinji is denial, he doesn't think he's worthy enough for people care about him, not without piloting the Eva. Also, he didn't have any friends or family waiting for him from where he came. The only thing that made him stay was the instinctual male need to protect a cute girl. "Save the world from complete annihilation" is just a justification that came later, one given by Kaji even.

A Shinji with confidence wouldn't have even came to Tokyo-3 to begin with. His father abandoned him, why would he care what he wants.
 
MHJoker said:
But Shinji isn't doing it out of the niceness of his heart. Most of the time. He's doing it to get praise and approval, mostly from his father.
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What is the difference, really? If we are nice to people, we don't expect them to treat us badly. If they do, we mostly stop being nice, and that is reasonable. So niceness always comes with a certain expectation of approval. I think you can't delineate this as clearly as you make it out to be.

I completely agree with the rest of your post (well, except "typical male"), especially:

A Shinji with confidence wouldn't have even came to Tokyo-3 to begin with. His father abandoned him, why would he care what he wants.
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And that would have been the right thing to do (after all, he didn't know the world was at stake).
 
Timerider said:
We've already been down this road before. Let's change the subject.

In A&T, most of NERV's command structure has been subverted away from Gendo. The only division he actually controls anymore is the security forces. If their leadership could be brought into the fold about Gendo's and SEELE's plans, would a coupe/defection be viable?
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It doesn't just become viable, it becomes likely. No man can rule alone after all.

In that regard, Gendo ends up like so many other would be tyrants that have come before him. Without the support of the security services, the regime is doomed.
 
Susano said:
And that would have been the right thing to do (after all, he didn't know the world was at stake).
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Unless his father granted legal custody to whoever it was Shinji was staying with, morality doesn't factor in as much as Gendo should have sent someone to directly collect his son, rather than telling his son to come to Tokyo 3.


Edit: He's a dick, but that's his prerogative.
 
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Susano said:
What is the difference, really? If we are nice to people, we don't expect them to treat us badly. If they do, we mostly stop being nice, and that is reasonable. So niceness always comes with a certain expectation of approval. I think you can't delineate this as clearly as you make it out to be.
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A normal person does nice things and expects nice things happen to them in return and stop when bad things happen. But Shinji isn't a normal person, he didn't stop. But that doesn't make him a saint, doing "nice things" expecting nothing. It makes him a broken deluded person. And that is what Anno wanted to say when trying to deconstruct the Super Robot genre. I think.
 
MHJoker said:
But that doesn't make him a saint, doing "nice things" expecting nothing. It makes him a broken deluded person.
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I don't see how that is mutually exclusive. You can be a broken person and a nice person at the same time.

And that is what Anno wanted to say when trying to deconstruct the Super Robot genre. I think.
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I agree with that. As I've said, I see NGE not as a story of Shinji need to face up to his challenged and growing with them, but as a story of Shinji needing to mentally liberate himself and suffering because he doesn't. But that failure doesn't make Shinji a bad person.
 
Damn this blew up.

I'd see Picard (who would probably know that without Shinji they're probably fucked) would convince Shinji to go on piloting and accept the responsibility coming with it, but then in private he'll chew out Dr. Akagi or someone on the unfairness of asking a child to risk life and limb and give up his happiness against a monumentally alien foe.

Meanwhile, Shinji refusing to pilot Unit-01 in the beginning was more that he didn't think he was qualified (since he just saw it now), and later him quitting was because it sucked to pilot it.
 
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Considering Worf's struggles with fatherhood, I don't think Gendo will escape with his facial structure intact.
 
MHJoker said:
A Shinji with confidence wouldn't have even came to Tokyo-3 to begin with. His father abandoned him, why would he care what he wants.
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Heh. I do recall one fanfic that started with a mentally-healthier Shinji coming to Tokyo-3 primarily out of morbid curiosity as to just what his father had managed to get himself into that required his help, intent otherwise on telling him off in person. That, plus curiosity as to just what sort of grown woman sends a picture of herself like that one to a fourteen-year-old boy.

MoroseMobius said:
Somehow I think siccing Worf on him would be more effective.
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Especially if Worf finds out even half of what Gendo has been up to. "That disgrace of a man has NO honor!" Wall-to-wall counseling ensues...
 
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