Aw man, this isn't going to be fun.
This scene and the MPE fight always hit me right in the feels. I always thought Asuka got the shit end of the stick in the show.
@Strypgia thinks that as well. But really, they all kinda do. Shinji as well, Rei as well, Kaworu as well. Though I must admit, I'm playing favourites in this as well. I think the worst, the most lonely fate is Rei's. Produced in a lab, never knowing any family, growing up in a dirty, industrial room underground, kept in NERV HQ for most her life with no one truly caring about her, socially stunted, never knowing any friends, either - no personal warmth at all. And all the while always knowing she is replaceable, seeing her potential replacements every time she makes a memory upload, and knowing she only exists for a single purpose - that she is just a tool, in the end.
And when the time comes to fulfil her purpose, she ends up as an impersonal goddess, even more inapproachable than before, even more cut off from all people and from all personal warmth.
...yeah. What Septimus told about the Rei path 3I ending in the SIRP game seems vastly better :/
Of course, Asuka is also tragic. Losing her mother at age 4... but not fully losing her, still seeing her alive, but caring more about some stupid doll than about her. Investing all her eagerness in becoming EVA pilot, so that her mother might notice her again... and then when she is chosen, in just that moment, finding her mother hanging from the ceiling. Together with the doll she thought was Asuka, so Asuka know she wanted to take her with her in death. And meanwhile, Asuka's father has already remarried, and then simply shoves her off to NERV. Where multiple guardians, one after the other, took care of her, so she had no real family there, either. No wonder piloting EVA became everything she had.
