[EVA] Evangelion's easy-to-understand, complementary ending

[V V]

Well you're saying you fall into the "End of Eva is the real ending and the TV ending is nonsense" camp: to be honest, I did feel this way too for years.

But what I've realized is that there's parts of the TV ending that give insights into character mentalities that are vital to know.  

Announcing a movie only 2 weeks after the TV ending:  there's no way they can start a movie that quickly.

Evangelion Proposal's original outline more or less describing something loosely like EoE...

but to move on...Kaworu?  Oh come on, not the whole "the Director's Cuts are Retcons" (capital R) to try to force the show to be like End of Eva" thing again.

Yes, I think there are hints that Kaworu is "Adam's soul" its just not that clear; how else could his A.T. Field be identical to Rei's, even in the original?  how he's treated as a parallel to Rei?

I don't think its all so much a "retcon" as "we finally got to tell the version we wanted to do when working on the original ending"

Yikes, and here I am "defending the TV ending"; it's crud, but "necessity being the mother of invention" it's amazing how they were still artfully able to get some ideas across in there (I just think they'd have been better as dream/hallucination sequences framed by actual story)

...how do you quantify that "Kaworu had a giant wave of popularity"? He doesn't even do *that* much in End of Eva.

I mean look at all the evidence and the other parts don't seem to fit.

"I'm pleased to meet you and I hope you guessed my name, but what's puzzling you, is the nature of my game"


--- On Fri, 11/20/09, Peter Svensson <sun1jack at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Peter Svensson <sun1jack at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [EVA] Evangelion's easy-to-understand, complementary ending
To: evangelion at eva.onegeek.org
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009, 6:24 PM


> Anno & Co got upset when fans rejected the TV ending so strongly....but really, the problem was that it couldn't function as an 'ending' in its own right.  

*snip*

See, this theory has been kicking around the fandom for a decade or so now, but it doesn't pass muster because A) Gainax didn't respond to complaints about the TV ending with "It's a prelude to the movie ending that will REALLY explain everything!" or advertise it in such a fashion. Given the flack they took from the TV ending, that would have been the logical thing to say had it been their actual plan.

I mean, the TV ending was a clusterfuck. It's a last minute rewrite done on no budget. It's a glorious thing, and given the circumstances they pulled it off right, but it's not at all what they'd do had things worked out for the best. The storyboards we've seen of the original TV 25 prove it. 

The other issue that needs to be addressed is the Kaworu retcon. As originally aired, Kaworu was just another angel. Hence his lack of use in the TV ending. He makes a cameo appearance. The TV ending is written with the assumption that Kaworu isn't special. He doesn't factor into anything at all, no appearance in the daydream world, nada.

The movie ending was able to take the massive popularity of Kaworu into consideration and give him a larger role, by establishing the backstory that he's the Soul of Adam in a cloned body, rather than just another angel. Note that nothing Kaworu says or does in the TV version of episode 24 hints at all that he's Adam. Heck, the retcon is really sloppy given that Kaworu in no way acts like he's Adam in the episode, but hey, a Rei/Kaworu/Lilith/Adam union makes for fun times.

The idea of going "It's all one ending!" has a poetic appeal that many fans desire. But trying to reconcile them in such a fashion that they're just one part of a cohesive whole to me lessens both. The impact of the TV ending is reduced by making it just a fraction of the Movie ending. 

This is a subject that we as fans will never, ever, EVER come to an agreement on, even if Anno came out with a diagram that explained everything in perfect detail. But hey, it's been fun to dust off the old arguments for nostalgia's sake.

Peter Svensson
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