[EVA] Re: [spoilers] RE: EOE interpretations

[Greg Muir]

>
> > 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.
>
> You'll need to present clearer evidence that the scenes from the
> second half of
> EOE are comprised of Shinji's head-trips and not influenced by the tantai

Oh, I figure that these people in his head-trips were supposed to be the
real souls talking to him. I only brought up the possability of them being
imaginary as one of two explanations for what was occuring here, either he
was tripping or this was really occuring. And if this was really occuring, I
don't think the visuals followed the dialog. That's all I was saying.

> > 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.
>
> As in where one cannot tell where one ends and others begin? That
> would be Rei's
> "Sea of LCL".

If we're to go with the telepathy route then ok, these things are not just
in his head, they are real. So this brings us back to my assertion that the
visuals did not follow the dialog. It sounded somewhat hopeful that humans
could either join in Instrumentality or go back to living. Ok, seems
reasoanble, sounds good, just like a mother telling her daughter she could
either let the chicken eggs hatch and have baby chickens running around or
she could fry them up and have some good scrambled eggs. The daughter can
change her mind after she cracks the eggs open but she won't beable to put
the yolks back in and get chickens after that point.

That's the way EoE seems to me. "Yeah, you can go back to being humans,
yay!" Then crack, the eggs are all broke, and we got Shinji and Asuka as the
last two people on earth. This is my opinion, based on the visuals. While
the dialog sounded hopeful, what we're left with is a completely apocalyptic
landscape that appears to be barren of all life. The entire mood of that
ending seemed to invalidate any sort of a positive end to things.

Now you may be of a different opinion here and you are more than welcome to
it. I just have a feeling most people will have a view on this similar to
mine.

> > 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.
>
> The point Brendan made is quite legitimate - the spreading
> glowing things look
> the same as what got collected by the Black Moon but Lilith's
> neck would only
> seems to be spraying a liquid which *will form spheroid globules
> in freefall*.
>
Well, this will be a point that we can agree to disagree on. Animation is
not like live-action. In live-action, you take what you can get and you can
try your damndest to make things look right. Sometimes it just doesn't work
out. In animation, everything looks the way it does because of the artist's
intent. Since they are not having to deal with physics or any other sort of
realworld limitations, the souls and hypothetical blood globules could look
however the artist wants them to. Assuming that there are indeed both souls
and blood globules depicted here, why make them look so similar?

Ok, I'm whipping out my copy so I can watch it afresh.

Ok, there are the glowing crosses and there are souls. Not sure if they are
supposed to be one and the same.

MegaRei is gathering up the souls in her hands, the black moon in the
center. The souls are like they're going into the moon.

Rei is in the trip and tells him the real world is at the end of his dream.
Immediately thereafter MegaRei's neck explodes in a fountain of red. There
is a very blood-like look to it. Rei then mounts Shinji. <shudder> More
head-tripping, some comments that appear to be positive, that Shinji is not
willing to run to the false escape of Instrumentality, he's ready to face
epople directly. It is not until this point that he truly rejects
instrumentality so I have no idea why MegaRei's neck exploded before that
point. EVA blows out her eyeball and everything falls apart.
The crosses are still on earth, rei falls, and the black mooon gets grid
coordinates on it, then explodes over her. blood runs down her torso but it
appears that we have a huge outflowing from that explosion. Rei
disintigrates and we see the spheres come from her neck but only slightly,
majority came from the moon exploding.

There are some things that look like blood floating around. When EVA pulls
the lance in green light shoots out, blowing up the lances within the mass
production eva's and presumably aborting their power.

Crosses then rise up into the sky. EVA's "things" curl up like a dead spider
and fade. EVA floats in space, dark and lifeless. The crosses are all
floating in space at this point, many many of them.

Shinji floats up from the sea and walks to the surface. Yui and Fujuitsuki
say "yay, EVA can live on without humans, our history is recorded."

We then get shots of absolute desolation. The dead mass production EVA's,
the starry sky, the cross nailed to a lone fence, the ribbon of souls in the
sky, in orbit. The only sound the lapping of LCL waves against the shore.
All around is nothing but destruction and desolation, not a hint of another
living soul. Shinji then attempts to choke Asuka to death. WTF? He said he
was going to stay behind to think things through, reflect on his life. So he
progresses from choking his chicken to choking Asuka. I suppose that's more
positive? Shinji crumples and gasps out sobs, almost wretching, the most
horror-stricken and helpless sort of crying I've ever heard. I can only
imagine someone sobbing like that if they'd just seen their entire world
destroyed before their eyes and were coming to terms with the fact that they
are the only person left alive, aside from the one other person in the world
he can't stand. Come to think of it, all we need now is for one of the Magi
to survive and adopt a british accent and we've got the beginnings of a good
comedy here, Rei Dwarf! All we need now is a catgirl.

>
> Even if this is right, which appears to me to be contradicted by
> scenes already
> mentioned, Shinji returned to the surface from orbit and got out
> of the LCL sea.
> If the souls wish to return to their forms, as is suggested that
> they will, then
> what's stopping them? Certainly not the little matter of getting
> out of an entry
> plug... ^_^

Yes, from what was mentioned they are supposed to be able to do this. I do
not disagree that this was said. But the visuals, man, the visuals, how do
you reconcile what is said with what is shown? What is said sounds positive.
What is shown is absolute solitude and despair.
>
> I think your interpretation draws heavily on visual information
> which then
> affects the meaning of the dialogue,

Yes, that is what I'm going on. If things ended right before he got out of
the ocean and we saw the horror all around I could see it your way. The
punctuation of that final scene onto what was said before is what keeps me
from seeing it
your way. Imagine if Star Wars was supposed to have ended positively, in
ROTJ, and lets imagine that the explosion of the Death Star did to Endor
what would logically follow, i.e. a planetoid station exploding near a moon
like that would devastate it like a cosmic shotgun blast, talking total hell
on its surface. So let's imagine Luke escapes the death star, it blows up,
he lands near the shield station. The rebel fleet is destroyed by the
explosion, the ground forces are wiped out by the bobmardment of death star
fragments, and the ewoks are all dead. We see Luke carry his father's body
out of the shuttle and he builds a crude pyre for it. "You have saved your
father," Yoda's ghost says. "Father is with is now," Leiah's ghost confirms.
Luke does not appear to hear them. He casts his torch upon the pyre and the
body burns. He slumps to the ground, pulls his knees up beneath his chin and
starts sobbing shinji-style, total despair, a man without any hope. "The
empire is defeated. There is hope in the galaxy. Life may continue," more
ghosts whisper. Luke still does not seem to hear, he continues sobbing. The
movie ends.

Ooooookay, the empire is destroyed, the rest of the galaxy is still safe,
all is well, right? Except for the part about all Luke's friends dying, the
heart of the rebel fleet getting anihillated, and Luke being the last human
left alive on a dying world in a remote star system. Yeah, he can hop in
that shuttle and fly back to civilization. You think he's gonna rebound
after all this? I don't think so. I think he'll be an emotional vegetable
for a long time after this.

i.e. what is said at the end
> of the process
> comprises some form of hallucination in Shinji's mind if I
> understand correctly,
> when IMHO it is more reliable to apply the dialogue to the
> visuals, the latter
> being of a surreal nature, and then interpret it all from there.
>
They're open to interpretation due to the fact that nothing was explicitly
said but there are some areas of speculation that logically follow and some
that do not. I think any positive interpretation of this really does not
follow. But again, opinion, everyone is entitled. I just think that yours
would be in the minority of those who watched it.