It has been said certainly. It seems selfish at first glance when he says "I do this so people don't hate me", but it gets more meaning when "because they don't hate me" undergoes some word mutation and is instead worded as "because they are nice to me" followed by "because they appreciate me." The End of Evangelion is about him (and I suppose Asuka too) not needing that crutch of piloting an Eva to feel like they can be in the world.
 
The End of Evangelion is about him (and I suppose Asuka too) not needing that crutch of piloting an Eva to feel like they can be in the world.
Though EoE doesn't explicitly mention it. It's more generally about accepting the risk of pain to get the chance for happiness. It's the End of the TV Series, especially Episode 26, which mentions that issue explicitly.
 
I've already seen this argument before. And as I said before, "protect humanity" is just a generic, vague concept. And generic vague concepts aren't good motivators for anything. The best example I remember are the mass of protests in Brazil a few years back. They started for a specific motive then degenerated into generic "stop corruption" screams, which achieved absolutely nothing. One time I asked the organizators for the one in my city about a list of things I though were relevant to be discussed and received no response! No one cared about concrete goals!

Family, friends, loved ones give face to a faceless humanity. In the case of Shinji, a "thank you" from the personal at NERV, his classmates or even a random little girl on the street would have worked wonders to help with that. At the end, Asuka was comatose, Misato was busy finishing Kaji's work and lost in grief, Rei was a completely different person, he lost contact with Touji and Kensuke out of guilt and the entire city was all but deserted. There was no one to give face to the humanity he was supposed to protect except his failures. Then Kaworu happened just to twist the knife wound.

Even if "protect humanity" is a "duty", then NERV also has a "duty" to Shinji and treat his wounds, physical and psychological, and proper compensation. Its a high-stress work, the work of a soldier, and even soldiers get counselling. But noooooo, Gendo and SEELE need their tools manipulable, even with evidence screaming at them that leaving them too broken will just make them stop working and they need to work until all the Angels are dead.
 
Yeah. It's always framed as to what consequences there will be to the people Shinji knows (and maybe cares about, but not necessarily). Even when it is about him leaving... the question never is what this will do to the city, but only what this will do to Rei, or Asuka. And while Angel fights are usually pretty damn casual about collateral damage, what makes Shinji hesitate is when he sees two of his classmates, people he knows, between his EVA's fingers. Hell, that is what Anno talks about, when he says that walking away may have negative consequences, but might sometimes still be the better option: Not the general consequences for the world, but what it means for the people you know. And that sometimes you have to put your own happiness higher than theirs, because you can't go through life without hurting people (which is the flipside of the risk of hurt - life also means the risk of hurting others, and you have to accept that as well. That's part of Shinji's thoughts when he takes back Instrumentality).

It is always about the people Shinji knows, not about humanity in an abstract sense.
 
It is always about the people Shinji knows, not about humanity in an abstract sense.
Reminds me of a scene from the movie The Core. One of the characters is telling another that he can't save the world—that's too big to get his head around. But he can save three people; his wife and two children.
 
I cannot 'Nope' this hard enough. C&G!Asuka's love of cosplay comes from being a huge nerd, not from anything related to her mother.

GOOD! Didn't think so, but this is still EVA...:whistle:

Given Asuka's influence over Rei, that makes me wonder what branches of nerd-ism she'll be getting into once she has time to contemplate the notion of "hobbies"...

Canon. In Ep 21, Gendo locks himself in his office for a week after Yui's 'accident', and apparently spends at least part of that coming up with his Scenario. The 'locked in for a week' is from Fuyutsuki's dialog with Gendo right after he unlocks the door.

Thanks; I'd forgotten that part.

No.
Asuka is selected as a Pilot on her 4th Birthday, 04DEC2005. Rei I dies in late 2010, right before GEHIRN is reorganized into NERV. Rei I doesn't appear until she's introduced to Naoko and Ritsuko in 2010. So Rei I at most lived from late 2004/early 2005 to late 2010, possibly less.

Forgot that Rei I got murdered the night GEHIRN became NERV. Thanks!

This does raise the odd notion that Rei had, therefore, already been designated First Child for years (since Asuka had been designated Second on her fourth birthday back in 2005), yet nobody introduced Rei to Naoko as anything but a distant relative of Gendo's. Not sure it would have saved her from Naoko, but still...

Does that also put an earliest bound on when they could have started activation attempts on Unit-00?
 
This does raise the odd notion that Rei had, therefore, already been designated First Child for years (since Asuka had been designated Second on her fourth birthday back in 2005), yet nobody introduced Rei to Naoko as anything but a distant relative of Gendo's. Not sure it would have saved her from Naoko, but still...
Probably not, since Naoko's reaction was pure unpremeditated rage. I don't think she'd have given a fuck even if she had known Rei was the First Child at that point.
 
You know, If I'd lived Shinji's life, I don't think knowing the alternative was total human extinction would have motivated me all that much either. Having no friends or family and a steadily-developing death wish tend to severely deplete one's supply of fucks.

Yeah, and that definitely fits to Shinji. Even so, though, we never... well, we never actively see him not caring, so to speak. Rather, that argument never really comes up until Kaji's melons.

Shinji's more the type to passively not care, and just sort of go along with it because he can't think of anything else to do.

Which is explicitly what Ritsuko de-facto-narrates as the reason why Shinji stays around after Sachiel, despite having gotten mauled. And indeed, before Shamshel he doesn't even know why he fights... "protecting anyone" doesn't even cross his mind.
And this is why i always found it odd when it was said Gendo didn't send Shinji away to make him easy to manipulate. Shinji couldn't be more apathetic/perfect to control if Gendo tried.
 
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And this is why i always found it odd when it was said Gendo didn't send Shinji away to make him easy to manipulate. Shinji couldn't be more perfect to control if Gendo tried.
Yeah, but that's not something you can plan for or anything. "Oh, if I abandon my son now, his abandoment issues will cripple all agency and motivation he has and in ten years I will then be able to freely manipulate him". Yeah no, that doesn't work that way.
 
Yeah, but that's not something you can plan for or anything. "Oh, if I abandon my son now, his abandoment issues will cripple all agency and motivation he has and in ten years I will then be able to freely manipulate him". Yeah no, that doesn't work that way.
Maybe not that perfectly, however it would have done enough. It doesn't take much to some kind of damage to a person and Gendo is crafty enough to work with very little.
 
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Maybe not that perfectly, however it would have done enough. It doesn't take much to damage a person and Gendo is crafty enough to work with very little.

I'm honestly not sure to what extent Gendo (and, for that matter, SEELE) is the omniscient chessmaster fandom often sees him as, versus operating via the Oryou Sonozaki School of Impressing your Subordinates: whenever something favorable to your objectives happens, whether you actually had anything to do with it or not, smirk, nod gravely, and imply by your body language that you had set it in motion from the start.
 
Given Asuka's influence over Rei, that makes me wonder what branches of nerd-ism she'll be getting into once she has time to contemplate the notion of "hobbies"...
Asuka: "She mentioned she might play Ultramarines. I mentioned I might have to throw her into the ocean with Unit-02 until she gets that idiocy out of her system. We compromised by having her play Angry Marines."

Rei: "ALWAYS ANGRY! ALL THE TIME! RAAAAAAAGH!"

Shinji: "It gives her an outlet. And you've got to admit, it's funny as Hell."

Kaworu: ~whimpers in fearousal~
Hey Strypgia, Susano if you two did another NGE fic that center around Mari, what kind of backstory would you give her that would explain her personality?
I honestly don't know. I'd have to spend a lot of time working on her backstory to have it make sense, and do the same for Rebuild overall too.
 
Asuka: "She mentioned she might play Ultramarines. I mentioned I might have to throw her into the ocean with Unit-02 until she gets that idiocy out of her system.

Envious of your "oh so wonderful I could shit my power pants" spiritual liege are you, Asuka? Can't blame you, soon all of chaos will commit collective suicide through sheer grief, upon discovering that they can never be Ultramarines.
 
Envious of your "oh so wonderful I could shit my power pants" spiritual liege are you, Asuka? Can't blame you, soon all of chaos will commit collective suicide through sheer grief, upon discovering that they can never be Ultramarines.
I'm beginning to see why so many /tg/ fanfics portray the Ultramarines as a bunch of pompous blowhards.
 
I'm beginning to see why so many /tg/ fanfics portray the Ultramarines as a bunch of pompous blowhards.

BECAUSE THEY ARE THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL!

Worst part is, Matthew Ward basically put that in a codex..."[Chapters who do not emulate the Ultramarines] are aberrants; chapters who, through quirk of gene-seed, mutation or stubbornness, eschew the Codex Astartes in favor of other structural and combat doctrines. Some, such as the Blood Angels and their successors, strive to be worthy of Guilliman's legacy, but their recalcitrant gene-seed drives them ever further from it. Others, such as the Space Wolves and the Black Templars, remain stubbornly independent, looking to their own founder's ways of war (which is hilarious for the Templars) and caring little of how they fare in the eyes of others. These aberrant Chapters were always few in number and their presence diminishes with each passing decade, for their gene-seed is no longer the source of fresh Chapters."

Hideaki Anno is a fucking saint as far as I'm concerned when compared to this guy.
 
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I don't know what you're complaining about: C&G!Asuka plays Imperial Guard. Though she is utterly contemptuous of what she calls 'Ultrasmurfs'.

Oh Emperor, that's entirely for the purposes of comedy. The Imperial Guard, his illustrious hammer, might not be the best army in 40k, but they are my favorite. Not every army can claim to have standard issue adamantium steel balls...Angels are the sort of things these guys would carry out bayonet charges against.
 
Oh Emperor, that's entirely for the purposes of comedy. The Imperial Guard, his illustrious hammer, might not be the best army in 40k, but they are my favorite. Not every army can claim to have standard issue adamantium steel balls...Angels are the sort of things these guys would carry out bayonet charges against.
That is no virtue, but a sign of primitiveness. The Gue'vesa have already been enlightened and alleviated from that state of barbarism. The rest of humanity will follow in time. The virtue of war does not rest on physical courage, but superior weeaboo technology and logistics. For the Greater Good!
 
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