R: [EVA]Fanservice?

[Ebj]

> Cultural schisms are not as great as people would believe--there are
> constants and universals, more commonality than differences.  Many scenes,
> including the one in question, have VERY LITTLE room for
interpretation--or
> at least differing interpretaions.  Using the facts at hand, one can
support
> an interpration BETTER than others.  You have yet to present a case for
your
> interpretation--you merely say that because I come from a certain
background
> or different culture, my interpretation is merely subjective and no better
> than anything else.  Its better by the fact that I have supproted it with
> evidence and analysis, not because of where I am from--hell you don't even
> know where I am from.

I bet you're not from where I am, though. I see no support to your
interpretation. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to offend you. My
view on the relationship between Shinji and Asuka is that they are not
exactly in love. They're teens, and it is evident that as most teens,
they're confused about their state. They also are hedgehogs, and this
doesn't help at all. What Shinji does in the hospital scene is egoistic and
disrespectful towards Auka as a person. But I think that he was breaking
down really badly. As for whether it could've gone differently, _this_ I
believe is left to personal interpretation. This doesn't call exactly for
your nation's background, rather I believe for your personal background, the
one that makes you different from anybody else. Mine says that all that he
is (the way I think he is) compels him to behave that way: suspended between
a childish need for his own comfort (something many adults too experience
many times) and his new state of 'adult', his hormones if you want. In other
words, it's puberty  pushed to the extreme by the situation and the
background (it's a show, after all). When you say that Shinji's love (too
big a word for the case, to me) is superficial because you say that nobody
would to that so somebody one loves, you say that 'you think so', and that's
exactly where our views diverge. I have seen people that love each other do
each other nasty things out of the situation, and obviously out of the way
they faced the situation. I believe we've all had indirect experience of
that by some news programme or news paper. So I'm not denying that he did a
bad thing nor saying that he does not have his responsibility for it, I'm
saying that to me it is very consistent with my idea of Shinji that he'd act
that way.

> Yes, that is my point--they do have feelings, but they are confused and
> superficial.

Confuse, yes, superficial, depends on the POV.

> In what culture is jacking off over a comatose a symbol of true caring?
In
> what situation can you consider it true love?  Your simply playing devils
> advocate here for the sake of disagreeing;  What shinji did was
unacceptable
> and doesn't show the in the least bit that he actually loved her.

Thanks, I didn't know I was doing this. Could you please give me back the
key to my mind? As for the topic, I think you're stretching the concepts to
extremes. I'm not saying that it's a sign of caring, as I said above, but
that it doesn't negate the fact that there can be feelings between the two.

> Where was the logical leap from "i have unrequieted love" to "I should
jack
> off now because I have the opportunity"?

Not a decisional logic, a consequential one. It's the only way things
could've gone the way I see it.

> That's not logic--its perversion.

This sentence suggests me that you're expressing your point that way out of
moral convictions. Not that it's a bad thing to do, actually, I think all
the contrary. But that only makes it more subjective. I don't see a teenager
doing something like that as a proof of perversion on his part. It's many
bad things, but the mere fact that he is Shinji (teenager, hedgehog, coming
from killing a friend, hurting another, being scared by people he cared of,
and in front of a defenseless and naked Asuka who had spent all their times
together teasing and calling him names) led him to do what Shinji would've
done (to me, again).

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