[EVA] Asuka's "death" in _End of Evangelion_? (mild rebuild 2 spoilers)

[Ayanami]

I believe it was always up to interpretation, myself. While her injuries were extensive, and a high synchorate did mine she was suffering all the pain Unit 2 was (the injuries we see her sustain could be purely mental anguish, hence the odd arm [or they just didn't want to be too gory]), I don't necessarily believe she died. The odd clue being the omission of a Rei collecting her soul (she's the only character in memory that doesn't have one appear). We don't see her during the LCL scene, but we also don't see a Rei at her "death" scene like we did Misato.

She's not dead in Rebuild. She merely loses an eye. The preview shows this. I had that spoiled for me sometime ago, and you should mark spoilers pertaining to it since the film isn't readily available in decent quality to US fans yet. ^_-

--- On Thu, 2/18/10, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>
> Subject: [EVA] Asuka's "death" in _End of Evangelion_?
> To: "The english-language evangelion mailing list." <evangelion at eva.onegeek.org>
> Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010, 6:33 PM
> Reading through the old archives (a
> miserable experience since so much
> of the discussion is *stupid* and trivial beyond belief), I
> noticed
> many people kept assuming Asuka dies at the hands of the
> harpies in
> EoE.
> 
> There are arguments both ways, of course, rehashed again
> and again in
> the innumerable threads since '97:
> 
> 1. We never see the harpies attack the entry plug - only
> organs, the
> torso/spinal area seems fairly intact when the harpies
> airlift 02 away
> (and why would they do that if they ate everything &
> killed Asuka?),
> her physical damage is cartoonishly unrealistic (her arm is
> pure
> muscle and no bone?), Asuka comes back at the end, and
> comes back in
> Last A with 'I'd never let you kill me' (strange if she's
> already been
> killed), Touji got away with just some limb injuries even
> when the
> entry plug was specifically attacked & crushed, the TV
> ending seems to
> not set up the Harpy fight at all (no depth-bombing, no
> maternal
> epiphany), etc.
> 
> 2. But then, we don't see Asuka liquefy like we seem to for
> every
> other living character, Shinji had a cross up for her as
> well as
> Misato and presumably he could've known whether her soul
> was in 3I or
> not, the harpy attack was *very* brutal so the lack of
> explicit plug
> destruction may not mean anything & the analogy to
> Touji fail, the
> mental link may mean killing 02 kills Asuka,  we see
> Rei at the end
> too though she (or Lilith) should be dead, the Kaibunsho
> claims Asuka
> was intended to die after the mind-rape, ep 18 Fuyutsuki
> thinks a high
> synch ratio with a dying Eva may kill the pilot, the Last B
> ending
> omits Asuka & implies she's dead, _Rebuild_ freely
> kills her off***,
> etc.
> 
> But I notice a striking lack of any official source
> commenting on the
> actual movie and not some other version or the TV series,
> even from
> otherwise-useful sources one would think would cover it,
> like the
> Cardass cards**; nor did my own excerpts* reveal anything
> interesting.
> Am I wrong about this lack? Have I missed any official
> statements?
> 
> * I made sure to check thoroughly this time. :)
> ** I looked through the ZIP of scans & translations,
> but not very
> carefully so I may have missed something.
> *** Or so I have been given to understand
> 
> -- 
> gwern
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