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

[Blair Berbert]

I personally think that it is really quite interesting how the two endings to 
the series vary so greatly in mood and in actual subject matter. For example, 
the end to the series where, as I understand it, Shinji accepts 
Instrumentality/Completion in a personal conflict, perhaps not even deciding 
the fate of the rest of humanity. At the end, he is congratulated by all of 
the people he has known, when he acknowledges that he can live like that. 
Outwardly, it seems to be a happy ending. But is it really, when individual 
inteligence is eliminated (and in actuality, we don't even know what for 
inteligence would exist post-Completion).

I guess the whole idea of the two endings is the question of which would be 
the better, more valuable existence, ignorant but happy, perhaps not even 
sentient in that case, or sentient and suffering? In a metaphorical sense, it 
looks like, eat the fruit of wisdom and be banished from Eden into the world 
but live with knowledge, or simply live in Eden forever...huh. I'm not going 
to digress on that right now though.

The End of Evangelion, however, presents Shinji rejecting 
Instrumentality/Completion (choosing to eat the fruit of wisdom and in this 
case refusing to enter Eden) and presents a rather overtly bleak finale with 
Shinji and Asuka on a beach...regardless of whether you see Shinji and Asuka 
as the only survivors...Adam and Eve if you will, or not, the picture does 
look certainly more bleak that the end of the tv series. However, I support 
the idea that people, especially those with the strongest conception of 
themselves, that is the one's with the strongest latent AT fields would soon 
begin to reform. And granted, some may never emerge from the LCL, choosing 
instead to remain "completed" as the case may be. So, actually, the ending 
that appears happy is the sad one, and the ending that appears sad is actually 
the better one...then again this all depends on which fate you would rather 
accept, living in Eden without setience or in the painful world with 
inteligence...There's that damn Eden/fruit metaphor again-I'll have to think 
about that.

Blair