[spoilers, ahoy!] RE: EOE interpretations, was RE: The Soul in Eva-03 (was: [EVA] Kazuya...

[Greg Muir]

> Greg Muir wrote:
> >If Yui had a decent degree of control, do you think she would
> have allowed
> >Shinji to wipe out humanity?
>
> I think she trusted him.

Whoops.

"Sorry, world! You know how moody teenagers are. Gomen nasai!"
>
> >Yes, this comment was made. The question is, are these the characters
> >themselves or the versions of them within Shinji's mind?
>
> There's no indication of that. And even so, it doesn't matter.

How so? If they're head trips what they say is suspect. If they are the real
characters, well, what they said didn't necessarally seem to follow
visually.
>
> >So, if these are Shinji head trip characters, anything they say
> is suspect.
>
> Why?

Because, if they are products of his own mind, they would only have access
to knowledge Shinji himself posesses. They may be able to make intuitive
leaps that he himself could not consciously resolve himself, them being
extensions of his own subconscious, but they could not simply produce new
information out of the aether.
Things they could do: provide insights into the workings of the people
around him, drawing conclusions between the pieces of the project he has
personally seen, presenting him with unpleasant facts that he would never
consciously contemplate.
Things they could not do: Present information that Shinji would have no
access to, like say the inner workings of Instrumentality. They could put
two and two together when presenting him with factoids, like the scene with
Misato and Kaji in bed, since that would be a logical extrapolation of the
knowledge Shinji currently posesses. What they would not be able to show him
is something like the Rei #1 scene since Shinji knows nothing about that.

If his head trips could pull in information he's never learned for himself
then we're talking about some sort of group mind telepathy.

> (and the incarnations of Rei and Kaworu within Shinji's Complementation
> are much too objective to be only a reflection of Shinji's image of
> them)

Well, my arguments are simply about what the limits of head trip people
would be. My personal guess is that everyone was supposed to be "there" with
Shinji in his head in Instrumentality 1.0 and 2.0.
>
> >If they are the real deal, then they're still wrong. The souls
> are in orbit
> >around Earth, that ethereal ribbon of red light.
>
> That's not how it looks when the the souls spread out over the Earth.
> The red liquid in orbit is the blood (=LCL?) that Lilith sprayed out.

So there's orbital LCL and planetary LCL? It's a little late at night to
whip out EoE but my recollection is that the red spray appeared to be made
up of discrete motes of light, i.e. souls. Anybody else remember what
exactly was shown?

My understanding is that the LCL represents the earthly remains of humanity,
the cast-off bodies. Bodies go sploosh, soul goes shooting up into the sky,
Rei plays cat in the craddle with them. When Shinji rejects instrumentality
Rei blows apart and the spray of red are the souls of humanity left in
orbit.
>
> >I suppose this would make a good panel question but I doubt we'd
> ever get a
> >straight answer. :)
>
> Well, I think there are some pretty staight answers in the movie ^^;
>
All depends on the interpretation. :) While the potential failure of
Evangelion due to fan rejection of Instrumentality 1.0 and 2.0 is open to
debate, it is safe to say that the anger and confusion is a sign that not
all was made clear. I still say that EoE was incredibly cool and
mindblasting right up until the second half of 26'. One of these days I'm
gonna get me some anime skills and do a phantom edit on that part. :)