We've all seen this image before, right?



Of course we have. It was in episode 23'. It's also been shown more clearly in some supplemental material, but the point is that was in the actual show. You don't need any lower-tier material to see it. Whether you consider the CI canon or not, that image irrefutably shows how Unit 01 was created from Lilith: they were connected at the legs.

Legs.

When we next see Lilith chronologically, and in fact when we see her for the first time as far as the series goes...



Her legs are gone and the Spear of Longinus is sticking into her chest. Lilith remains that way until episode 22', when Rei removes the Spear and Lilith regenerates her legs:





From that, we can tell (and this isn't just a conjectural hypothesis, but an obvious fact) that the Spear was stopping Lilith from regenerating. Thus, until the Spear was removed, Lilith could not regrow the legs that she lost.

Wait, what? The legs that she lost? When did Lilith lose her legs? Adam was blown to pieces during Second Impact, but not Lilith. In fact, in episode 23', we can see what Lilith looked like when she was first discovered by the Katsuragi Expedition:



You can't see it that clearly in this image, but in the Test Type OP, you can more easily tell that Lilith's legs are still present:



You still can't see her whole legs, but the parts you can't see are probably buried underground (as her arms almost certainly are.) Even if you choose not to believe for some reason that, since you can't see most of Lilith's legs, she doesn't have any, Lilith still has clearly visible thighs, and what appears to be a knee, which is certainly more than she has when she's crucified and has the Spear sticking into her. [EDIT: I have just been informed that this picture is actually of Adam. However, Lilith still has no reason for her legs to be missing until Unit 01's creation. Even if they were destroyed at some point, they should have regenerated without the SoL sticking into her. And, if this picture is indeed of Adam, that means that, at this point, Lilith could not have the Spear stuck into her, as there is only one remaining spear, and it would be stuck in Adam at this point.]

So, where did her legs go? That should be incredibly obvious. Since I already have the Test Type OP open, I'll go ahead and post a cap of what Unit 01's birth looks like without all those pesky Reis in the background:



It should also be quite obvious from this that the reason Lilith's legs were missing is because they were used to create Unit 01. I can't believe it took me that long to realize this, since everything you need to do so is right within the show itself. And, apparently, this isn't a new discovery at all, but one that, at the latest, MDWigs discovered back in April of 2002 on a different board. I suppose it's too obvious to have gone unnoticed until now, but still... I was hoping I had uncovered something. However, the important thing is:

Lilith's legs are gone because they were used as the material to create Unit 01. It's all right there in the show; you can't argue with it.


Now, onto the case of Shinji Ikari. In the first episode, Shinji stated that he had never seen an Evangelion before (specifically Evangelion Unit 01). Despite this, we know from episodes 21 and 23 that Shinji had seen Unit 01 when he was much younger. In episode 23, Ritsuko says the following:

Ritsuko wrote:This is also the place where your mother disappeared. You probably don't remember, but you were watching it, watching the moment when she disappeared.

Indeed li'l Shin-chan was there at the moment his mother disappeared. We see this in episode 21:



Why didn't he remember seeing Unit 01? After all, an Evangelion isn't exactly something ordinary enough to be easily forgotten. The most obvious explanation is that Shinji was very young and his mother's disappearance must have been rather traumatic. Still, shouldn't seeing Unit 01 again at NERV in the first episode jogged his memory?

No. It wouldn't have, as when Shinji first saw Unit 01, she looked completely different. Olivier Hagué transcribed the following from the liner notes of Genesis 0:12:

Eva Tomo no Kai wrote:"Sono naki ni yokotawatta nitai no kyojin no eizô ga aru. Kore wa Yui ga shôshitsu shiteshimatta jikken o shita dankai de, Lilith to Eva Shogôki dearu rashii. Tomo ni kahanshin ga hotondo nai jôtai deari, ketsuraku shita kahanshin dôshi ga tsunagatteiru yô da. Lilith to Shogôki ga tsunagatta jôtai de Yui wa, Lilith ni sesshoku shi torikomareteshimatta no darô."

According to MDWigs, what this text explains is that, when Yui disappeared, Lilith and Unit 01 were still attached. And, from the Reiquarium image, we know what Unit 01 looked like when attached to Lilith. She wasn't wearing any armor, and her face was covered by a tarp. Since this is what she looked like when Yui disappeared, this is, without any doubt, what Shinji saw in the screenshot I posted from episode 21. In other words, even if Shinji had remembered seeing Unit 01 before, when they reunited in 2015, she would have been completely unrecognizable. To summarize:

Shinji's encounter with Unit 01 when he was younger was at the point when Unit 01 was still attached to Lilith. The Unit 01 that he saw in 2015 was completely unrecognizable based on his previous encounter.

None of this is fanwanking. It is all self-evident. However, since when I stated this information on the IRC, several people seemed to disagree with or misunderstand what I was saying, I felt I needed to post it here in greater detail.

It works fine for me.

The only thing we could argue about is that Eva was still attached to Lillith when Shinji saw it. Actually it's a double-edged sword because if Lillith and Eva were still attached Shinji must have seen Lillith two and she didn't change that much.
Therefore If you're using an argument that Shinji did not recognize Eva becuase it changed a lot, it must be also that Lillith was way different at the time because Shinji being exposed to the white giant in TD by Misato did not link it with his child memories as well. And like I said Lillith did not change that much.

But still your story is very probable.

Technically, Lilith gave birth to Unit-01, being solely from Lilith. Of course she's going to give her its legs, its arms and its face. Consider the fact that Lilith's arm was shrinking while she gave her legs to Unit-01. That arm definitely grew back by the time she was back on the cross.

I also think you're forgetting about her tiny legs, which shows she was trying to grow them back. I think you're assuming here that she lost them permanently, but those tiny legs say otherwise. The SoL restrained further growth of her legs, although her arm did grow back which may suggest it grew back before the SoL was implanted.

Basically, you're right here NAveryW, Lilith gave Unit-01 her legs, but also her arms, torso and everything else about her. I think the confusion was that she didn't seem to grow her legs back, when clearly she was trying to but never did.

simon wrote:The only thing we could argue about is that Eva was still attached to Lillith when Shinji saw it.

It's not possible to argue about that. Ritsuko said that Shinji was there at the exact moment that Yui disappeared. At that exact moment, Unit 01 was connected to Lilith. Even if you don't wish to take Ritsuko's statement literally, we know that it is the case. In episode 21, Shinji is waving to his mother while she is saying "I want to show my child the bright future." Directly after that, the narrating Naoko says, "Those were Yui-san's final words." Therefore, the fact that what Shinji saw was Unit 01 connected to Lilith is inescapable.

Your point about Lilith being practically unchanged is valid, however. Keep in mind, though, that lying on a table and having these long swirly things sticking out of you connected to a copy of your body is quite different from being propped up on a crucifix with lots of tiny legs poking out of your blobs.

Ironfoot wrote:I also think you're forgetting about her tiny legs, which shows she was trying to grow them back. I think you're assuming here that she lost them permanently, but those tiny legs say otherwise. The SoL restrained further growth of her legs, although her arm did grow back which may suggest it grew back before the SoL was implanted.

There are two possibilities, either of which would account for this:

1. The Spear was stuck into Lilith after she had already regrown her arm and sprouted the Rei legs. After all, look how quickly her legs grew back when Rei withdrew the Spear (in the director's cut of 22, at least).

2. The Spear does not halt growth altogether, but severely retards it.

NAveryW wrote:in the Test Type OP, you can more easily tell that Lilith's legs are still present:

Hate to rain on your parade, but that's Adam.

Mr. Tines wrote:

NAveryW wrote:in the Test Type OP, you can more easily tell that Lilith's legs are still present:

Hate to rain on your parade, but that's Adam.

Really? Oh, thanks. I think you're right.

Still, the point stands that there's no reason for Lilith's legs to be missing until they were used to create Unit 01. She never went 'splodey like Adam did, and DotS never occurred. Therefore, Lilith should have been intact when she was discovered.

NAveryW wrote:There are two possibilities, either of which would account for this:

1. The Spear was stuck into Lilith after she had already regrown her arm and sprouted the Rei legs. After all, look how quickly her legs grew back when Rei withdrew the Spear (in the director's cut of 22, at least).

2. The Spear does not halt growth altogether, but severely retards it.

1. Doesn't make too much sense if the Rei legs were grown before the SoL was implanted. I would think that without the SoL, she was just grow her legs back normally, unless we do not understand how Lilith regrows her body parts back. The Rei legs to me are indicators of retarded growth more than anything, so perhaps a mixture of 1. and 2. here.

Um....a couple of those images are of Adam, not Lilith. Otherwise, smooth sailing.

AuraTwilight wrote:Um....a couple of those images are of Adam, not Lilith.

Nope, just one of them. I amended my post to account for that.

Wait, are you assuming that the first time Lilith is shown in the series, that that was the way she was found during the excavation of the Geofront, with no legs at all? If thats the case, I want to say that there exist no pictures of the condition Lilith was found in during that excavation.

I think your work is solid. But you really have no evidence of 01 being connected to Lilith at the time of Yui's disappearance, unless that Japanese quote explains it, which you never fully translated. If you could fully translate it, I would be less confused.

Ironfoot wrote:Wait, are you assuming that the first time Lilith is shown in the series, that that was the way she was found during the excavation of the Geofront, with no legs at all?

No, no, no; just the opposite. I'm saying that, when Lilith was first discovered, she must have had legs.

Action_Bastard wrote:But you really have no evidence of 01 being connected to Lilith at the time of Yui's disappearance, unless that Japanese quote explains it, which you never fully translated. If you could fully translate it, I would be less confused.

I'm just quoting MDWigs' summary of Olivier Hagué's transliteration. I can't translate Japanese myself.

I thought that if Unit 01 had still been attached to Lilith when the activation test was performed, wouldnt Yui's sould have melded with Liliths in some way?

I dont think the two would've been connected during the test itself, because of something Shinji says in his Mind scene in Episode 20. When Shinji realises that his mother is somehow within Unit 01, he remarks that he already new EVA... he just didnt remember.

Could it be then, that the three year old boy had repressed the mmmory of his mother dying in some giant monster of a thing? And this memory only returns when he senses his mother's presence within Unit 01.

The thing is, we don't see much indication that Shinji new anything about Eva's, or monsters throughout the series, before he arrived in Tokyo-3... only that his father's work was important to mankind.

He doesnt know EVA because he doesn't remember it. The memory has been repressed.

Dartz wrote:I thought that if Unit 01 had still been attached to Lilith when the activation test was performed, wouldnt Yui's sould have melded with Liliths in some way?

You're very, very close.

This brings me to something that I meant to bring up earlier in the thread:



We know that Rei Ayanami has the soul of Lilith, and we know that Rei's existence is the result of the failed salvage operation of Yui Ikari. When they tried to rescue Yui from her assimilation (which, of course, she wished for in the first place), Yui didn't return. Instead, they got Rei, who has the genetic material of Yui and the soul of Lilith.

This means that not only were Unit 01 and Lilith connected when Yui was assimilated, but that they were still most likely connected when Rei was born. This can be inferred from Ritsuko's statement "The only vessel which contained a soul was Rei," which means that Rei did, in fact, contain a soul.

To summarize, Yui and Lilith did merge on some level. The result was Rei. Everybody knows that, right?

Whoa. That makes a lot more sense that way with Rei's creation then anything else I've heard. Nice job!

Hmmm...

This is interesting because of something that happens in Rebuild, When Shinji is just waking up from being inside the berserker unit 01, he sees an apparition of Rei, which scares him enough to wake up.

There's also that same, if it's a boy, Shinji, if it's a girl, Rei... discussion as from Episode 20 in the original series. We also hear Shinji Ayanami, Rei Ikari repeated several times by what might be Yui's voice (It's Rei's VA). Hmmm...

It is Yui because she's talking to Gendo in each take of the scenes.

But I thought this was about the series not Rebuild?

It's Evangelion...

Besides, I thought it was something relevant. In Rebuild, there is some hint of Rei within Unit 01... for whatever reason. While they are two seperate stories, it is something to get the juices flowing.

Please, for the love of Poseidon, let's keep Rebuild out of this for now. It is indeed "something to get the juices flowing", but those particular juices would be better off stagnating for now.

Very interesting and (IMHO) rather sound theory. It sure does explain a lot. :)

Sorry if this sounds n00bish, but Lilith was already crucified when GEHIRN made EVA-01 out of her (there does seem to be what looks like a faint outline of a cross in the pic), wasn't she?