Allegorical Interpretation (*SPOILERS*)

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Seele08 [ANF]
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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:28 pm

And Batous Eye's posts weren't that far off base, but I get tired of wonky theories just like the monkey said, and have developed a rather jaundiced eye if you will.

Originally posted on: 04-Mar-2006, 18:15 GMT

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Postby DatDude [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

I having been told by women in the past that I have the lest tact of anyhuman being (somthing I took as a compliment), am going to just say I agree with the monkey.

Originally posted on: 04-Mar-2006, 18:19 GMT

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Postby AsukaxSohryux [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

Seele08 wrote:And Batous Eye's posts weren't that far off base, but I get tired of wonky theories just like the monkey said, and have developed a rather jaundiced eye if you will.



I agree, the theories being brought up nowadays are so obsurd its not funny. Anyone can make up a theory and flaunt it around like a mascarading hobo. If there is no proof in the series, then please refrain from flaunting it on the forums, it only creates flame wars.

Originally posted on: 04-Mar-2006, 18:41 GMT

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Postby The Eva Monkey [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

I could care less if someone has a bogus theory. It's when they refuse to see anyone else's side that drives me nuts. But... let's not open a can of worms.

Originally posted on: 04-Mar-2006, 18:52 GMT

Dr. Nick [ANF]
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Postby Dr. Nick [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

Mr. Tines wrote:Healthy skepticism is fine; but n00b bashing isn't.



This has nothing to do with the original poster's post count. I would have posted pretty much the same thing regardless of who brought up this topic.

I admit that I'm being a jester, but my purpose is not to offend anyone. You may notice how there's a perfectly serious question at the end of that first nonsense post of mine. What I wish to do is to encourage discussion about interpretative methodologies, and by experience I know that a good load of horsecrap always gets people interested.

Shin-seiki wrote:As am I. I'm very perplexed by the implications of what Dr Nick, in his sardonic way, seems to be advocating here.



I'm advocating exactly what I said in my initial post: parallels are whatever you want them to be.

The fact that NGE utilizes visual correlations from one scene to another to communicate narrative and thematic information has been accepted as a given on this forum, or so I thought.



And in no way do I disagree with that notion. But I want to point out that parallels are elusive, subjective things. Let's use those hand-shots as an example. Who decides what is a parallel and what is not? Surely no-one here is claiming that every time we see a close-up of somebody's hand in the show, there must be some deeper meaning hidden behind it. Who, then, decides which hand shots belong to this visual subtext and which are just, you know, shots of hands? Nobody does. There's no way for us to know. We can only guess.

Of course, some guesses are better than others, and some parallels more obvious than other parallels. But even when we can agree that there's definitely parallelism going on in this particular scene, how do we know what the parallel means? Again, there's no way of knowing that, because we can't look inside Anno's brain to see what he was thinking. Again, we can only guess, but unfortunately proper explanations cannot built on guesswork. That is to say, parallels alone are worthless evidence, and they can't be used to prove or disprove anything.

Parallels are also dangerous, because it's so laughably easy to abuse them. Let's consider the way I linked Pen^2 together with Rei and Kaworu in my previous post. The connection looks pretty solid, doesn't it? But guess what? I was using rotten methodology: I selectively picked those scenes that support my theory, and ignored those that don't. Straight off, I can think at least two other scenes that follow this same basic pattern: behold! But if I had put them in, my carefully crafted parallel would have turned into nonsensical mess. To summarize: a hand-picked cluster of screenshots lies more than thousand words.

A great deal of the progress we've made on this forum in our penetration of some of the supposedly intractible mysteries of NGE, over the last three years or so, is the result of close examination of the 'visual vocabulary' of the series.



That's true, but I tend to associate the results with the "taking things at face value" approach. Playing with parallels can be the complete opposite of that, as I hope my off-the-wall examples demonstrate.

I'm not saying that we should stop trying to interpret parallelism in NGE. But I am saying that theories cannot be built on parallels alone, because that is one field that can never produce concrete answers.

Originally posted on: 04-Mar-2006, 21:29 GMT

The Eva Monkey [ANF]
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Postby The Eva Monkey [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

Dr. Nick wrote:This has nothing to do with the original poster's post count. I would have posted pretty much the same thing regardless of who brought up this topic.

Ah yes Nick. But you forget one very critical fact. This is the interweb, where anyone with a sense of friction to their character is instantly transmogrified into an ******* once the slightest hint of sarcasm is sensed.

Originally posted on: 05-Mar-2006, 00:55 GMT

Dr. Nick [ANF]
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Postby Dr. Nick [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

Okay, Pen^2 and Keel, as promised.

1. Keel's rainbow colors. Who else is associated with those? The connection is rather subtle, but it is there. The colors are clearly used to convey extreme emotional states: in Pen^2's case, extreme disgust; in Keel's case, probably excitement and joy.

2. The eyebrows. I don't even have to be selective with this one: there are exactly two cast members in the entire show with spiky "eyebrows": I've added some color to make the connection more obvious.

3. This unexplained scene from ep. #06: a giant blackout is eating away all the lights, and we see Pen^2 standing on the balcony, staring at the city and looking ominous as hell. What is the function of this scene?

Well, has anyone of you ever wondered why the blackout spreads in a rather odd manner? Where do we see this visual pattern again? Image recycling at work.

Pen^2 is linked with the blackout that's linked with Lilith's anti-AT-field which is, of course, a fundamental part of Keel's plans. It is true what they say, there are no throwaway lines, no throwaway scenes in NGE.

4. This is a more thematic level connection, but it's a really obvious one when you start thinking about it: Both Keel and Pen^2 are small, usually grumpy and need machines to live. Keel has his cybernetic components, Pen^2 has his backpack. Now, I don't remember what exact function the latter serves (I think it was a portable air conditioner or something), but it is clearly a some sort of life-support device; why else would a bird carry such a thing around all the time?

5. And since we got to the backpack, I present you my best piece of evidence linking Pen^2 with the Apostles. BEHOLD!

Image

This, I dare say, is as close to smoking gun as it gets. The big question is, though, why has no-one ever noticed?

---

But so that this thread wouldn't just be me being a smartass, a serious question to everybody: assuming somebody was actually putting this forward as a serious theory, what would you reply to ver?

Originally posted on: 08-Mar-2006, 23:01 GMT

Reichu [ANF]
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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:29 pm

Dr. Nick wrote:Image

This, I dare say, is as close to smoking gun as it gets. The big question is, though, why has no-one ever noticed?



I actually noticed that one eons ago. I even did a recording of myself speaking Broken Japanese wherein I ran down all of the Angels, and ended with the "Dai Juukyuu Shito... Pen-Pen?!?"

The "eyebrows" bit is rather amusing. Image

As for the other two -- "...come again?"

To the theoretical advocate: These are quite curious and all, but I don't see much point in forcing an interpretation, e.g., creating some wacky theory entirely on the basis of random visual similarities with no apparent link-up otherwise. That seems rather counterintuitive to me.

Originally posted on: 08-Mar-2006, 23:23 GMT

HeWhoPostsStuff [ANF]
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Postby HeWhoPostsStuff [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:30 pm

Dr. Nick wrote:Image

This, I dare say, is as close to smoking gun as it gets. The big question is, though, why has no-one ever noticed?


I dunno, it reminds me more of the Shy Guys from Super Mario Bros., or maybe the Clancers from Mischief Makers. Image

Originally posted on: 08-Mar-2006, 23:32 GMT

Seele08 [ANF]
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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:30 pm

Dr. Nick You are like the umpteenth person whose babies I want to have! I never noticed the spiky eyebrow connection! well pen-pen's are feathers but whatever....Poor old Keel is a bit bigger than Pen-Pen though! Image
He's about three feet and three inches taller or about a meter taller give or take a few centimeters. Truly brilliant theories. Image
And don't forget to link Pen-Pen to Vlad and Pierre....look at those noses, and his beak...this couldn't be a coincidence! Pierre's nose is specifcly designed to look like a beak!

Originally posted on: 09-Mar-2006, 02:44 GMT


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