[EVA] Mother & child

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Without fully understanding her motives, we cannot be so quick to accuse 
Yui of being Megalomanic or have a God Complex of some kind. We don't 
really know why she went into the Eva, or what her final objective 
really were.

As a woman, we see someone offering words of comfort in the face of 
despair. We see someone who has seemingly chosen a kind of death in 
Unit-01 in an effort to save humanity from the nothingness of Third 
Impact. As Unit-01, we see her save Shinji several times, going so far 
as to "give birth" to him a second time. These actions can be taken to 
suggest megalomania, but can they not also be taken to show devotion and 
self sacrifice?

Key to this question I feel, is the presentation of Yui in the series. 
Alone among all the characters, Yui is always show in an overtly 
positive light. She is presented with, visually and aurally, with a calm 
and warm personality. Her words are often sagacious, yet she also shows 
great empathy towards all she meets. She is a shown as woman beautiful 
yet unassuming. She is soft spoken, but strong willed.

Yui represents a kind of ideal in the series, albeit a lost one. An 
ideal whose recovery becomes an obsession for Fuyutsuki and Gendou both. 
For Shinji also, she is the ideal mother, whose loss he can never truly 
accept, and who cannot be replaced. For Naoko, Ritsuko and even Rei, she 
is an impossible rival, even in death.

This is the so called "Saint Yui" of the boards. The flawless figure 
amid a cast of flawed misfits. An ideal; an aspirational figure. 
Tantalisingly close, yet still so far away. This is the Yui we are 
presented with. A figure of hope, who never loses hope when all seems 
lost. She is the foil to all the tales of depression and despair in 
Evangelion.

In light of this, it seems unlikely that the director meant us to take 
away a negative impression of Yui. That of a cold and cruel 
megalomaniac, unconcerned with the fate of even her own family so long 
as her goals have been met. Such a character simply cannot synch with 
the one we are  shown.

Carl Horn wrote:
> "As long as you want to live, everywhere will become Heaven." Not only 
> does that seem to be exaggerating the payoff from wanting to live a 
> bit (plenty of people want to live, yet still have to confront 
> suffering) it doesn't address the necessary qualifying 
> question--namely, how does a person get to the point where they want 
> to live? I think Gendo loved Rei and Yui loved Shinji, but neither one 
> of them was able (or, perhaps, willing) to be proper parents to 
> them--not parents to babies or to dolls, but to human beings who need 
> to move towards independence. Both their perspectives were too 
> godlike, or god-wannabe for that, and whatever it is they thought they 
> were doing, it's not compatible with what actual human teenagers 
> (particularly, theirs) happen to need.
>
> You can't be raised as a human being by someone whose approach to 
> parenting is to view you as a genetically engineered construct, or as 
> a shape to be broken down and reformed in your divine womb, no matter 
> how much you smile upon them from the heights or the depths. It's 
> like, "Goodbye, mother, thanks for all that stuff about the sun and 
> moon and earth and how everything will be all right. Now to show the 
> audience how much meeting you again helped, I'm going to get 
> glassy-eyed, and strangle Asuka." It was Asuka who showed him the 
> compassion that worked--but then, Asuka is a human being. It's all 
> right to be here--and it's also all right to say here isn't Heaven; in 
> fact, you feel sick.
>
> --C.
>
> On Nov 21, 2009, at 12:09 AM, R_J_N wrote:
>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Svensson" 
>> <sun1jack at hotmail.com>
>> To: <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 1:17 AM
>> Subject: RE: [EVA] Evageeks (Dreadfully [META])
>>
>> Now that we're active again, lets discuss the issue of which mother 
>> in the series has the healthiest relationship with her children. At 
>> this point, I'm seriously considering Kyoko. Naoko being a close 
>> second. (And then we have Yui, and that's it for the most part...)
>>
>> Peter Svensson
>>       --
>> Then there's Naoko & Ritsuko :)  Naoko might have been an 
>> away-working parent, but the letters she & Ritsuko wrote each other 
>> were normal enough, & they kept in touch.
>>
>> I think Yui did care for & love Shinji. Listen to the tenderness & 
>> love in her voice when talking to Gendou about what to call her baby. 
>> Remember the DC scene where she's talking to Fuyutuski about what 
>> SEELE is making her do. Its to protect her family from repisal if she 
>> refuses, & she wants Complementation to make a happier "world" for 
>> Shinji to live in (post 2I Earth is a dire imperilled place). Having 
>> chibi-Shinji watch her disappearance, may have been extreme, but 
>> maybe Yui hopes he will become more like her & scientifically 
>> inclined later....
>> Finally, in EoE, Yui's accusation of Gendou & Rei's refusal to let 
>> him follow her, show how much Yui is affected by Gendou's neglect & 
>> mistreatment of their son.
>> RJN --
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>