What are the "Adams"?

^ Specifically, what I suggested was that I figured the pilots (except Rei) are the reincarnations of the Adams (that is, Lilin bodies with Adam souls), and the Evas that they pilot are their original bodies or in some cases (because there's obviously more than 4 Evas) clones thereof.

@Fireand'chutes: Look at "LILIN+?" in context. It precedes a bunch of cuts of the "human" characters (Misato, Ritsuko, Gendo, Kaji, Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Kaworu, Mari). The caption seems like it's supposed to be read, "Lilin plus...??" -- i.e., some of the people shown are not Lilin, but something else.

Monk Ed wrote:

^ Specifically, what I suggested was that I figured the pilots (except Rei) are the reincarnations of the Adams (that is, Lilin bodies with Adam souls), and the Evas that they pilot are their original bodies or in some cases (because there's obviously more than 4 Evas) clones thereof.

This is basically what a bunch of us (yourself included) were coming up with in this thread a couple of pages back, though I don't think the "ATF = core unit + entry plug" bit had been introduced as corroboratory evidence. Interesting.

I disagree about the "except Rei" part, though.

For what it's worth, the 1.0 movie poster includes the entry "L-01 TYPE Interconversion System CORE UNIT". "Interconversion" = "mutual/reciprocal exchange".

NME's supplemental stuff also indicates that the entry plug is the "container of a soul" and the interior seat is the "throne of a soul". Entry plug being the "throne of a soul" was a bit of a totally unexplained throwaway line in NGE, but it seems like it has more significance here.

Even with the indications that the pilots may be spiritually Adams in some way, however, the Evas (01 aside) still seem to have some kind of presence in them. At least, if Mari is to be taken seriously.

As far as which Evas are original Adams, I might suggest the following... As we know, there were four Spears at 2I. They may have extinguished the process by skewering the four Adams, effectively 'snuffing' their Luminant Giant forms (a la Eva-01 at end of 2.0). Something causes a massive explosion, and the Adams are scattered.

• The blood-geyser shoots the to-be Eva-06 and its Spear into the Moon. (With enough force that they have to be excavated.)
  
• Another set wash onto the shore of Japan. Probably Eva-01 (3-eyed Adam) and the Spear that Nerv puts into Lilith.
  
• A badly damaged set is located ... who knows where, but they end being used for the Third Angel project. The Adam is given prosthetics and redubbed "Eva-05", and equipped with a regenerated form of the Spear found with it.
  
• Fourth set of Adam and Spear unaccounted for. Possibly, one of the Adams may not have been immobilized in time, or something else went wrong. Therefore, this would be the one that generated the blood flood and explosion.

But how to explain there being four Adams and five children...? Some observations:

• We can't count on Lilith's soul being in one of the kids. (The fact that her body is moving might even be a hint that her soul is where it's supposed to be.)
  
  -- We especially can't count on Rei having Lilith's soul as in NGE. (See the previously-linked post about the "7-cored" Adam.)
  
• Rei and Kaworu have unusual pigmentation, whereas the other children don't. Since the "Seed avatars" explanation is not applicable under the "Eva pilots have Adams' souls" framework, what could the reason for Rei and Kaworu's unusual appearances be?'
  
• Does the -nami theme naming tie into any of this?
  
• Mari's eyes glow green when she risks her humanity during Beast Mode, whereas Shinji's glow red (Adam color) during his humanity-risking moment. This could be a Beast Mode-specific phenomenon, or perhaps it means that Mari doesn't have one of the Adams' souls, and there is a different reason for her ability to pilot Evas. (Insert "Bethany Base experimentation" speculation here.)

When exactly do you see Lilith moving in the movies?

The legs are constantly flailing around in NME. In NGE, they don't move at all.

Now arguably, the only significance of this difference is budget: Notes on NGE's storyboards and concept art indicate that Lilith's legs moving was at least strongly considered. But I'm offering an in-universe explanation for the difference. :3

Yeah but your in-univers suggestion is that she has her own soul, and it makes a hell of a difference, and I wouldn't buy that. If she had a soul, she'd be probably doing something else than just sitting there doing nothing.

Also I am not too fond of the theory of the evas being some adams fragments sent around after the second impact. When Gendo and Fuyu see unit 06 on the moon they talk about a different production process than normal units, I don't really remember the words. But yeah, at the same time it's been excavated, so I don't really know. But still it seems that both unit 1 and 6 are still different from other evas. In which way, I don't know. But they can't seem to achieve what they want without these particular units (01 for nerv, and 06 for seele).

The Jesus parallelism is indeed interesting, even though I wonder if they'll ever explain what exactly was the point of her "Passion", if that's what they're doing.

It is pretty interesting just how well the "either the pilots or the Eva units (or together) are the Adams" theory works and explains so many different aspects.

I guess one of the benefits of the Evas themselves being the Adams is: 1) It wouldn't necessarily (well, MAYBE, depending how it's implemented) take away from Rei & Kaworu being SoL avatars. 2) The children themselves could still be normal humans and Kaworu could simply know of Shinji ala NGE or as a child instead of past knowledge due to the Adams.

In case I somehow wasn't clear above, I'd be fine with the Adams idea stemming from 1) Pilots = Adams 2) Eva units = Adams 3) Pilots + Eva units = Adams. But of course, we'll see. Perhaps it's possible the Adams thing is a swerve in itself (even if it's a painfully simple explanation, something obvious, or something complex) and we're completely off the mark! I still wonder if it's possible Adam "only" split into four during 2I but is still one Angel in and of itself, although the theory of the Adams being represented by something within the film-series (whether Eva or Lilin) IS rather tempting indeed. :3

I was going to add more to this, but wouldn't you know it, I blanked out on what. I felt it was slightly insightful too, but if it comes to me then I'll post it. Probably how I assumed the "contract with Lilith" relates to 3I and/or Angel annihilation somehow, but perhaps that's obvious.

One thing I was going to ask regarding Lilith is besides NME's 1.11, I thought her legs were twitchy at least in the DC episodes or EoE?

@Reichu: Pretty formidable theory.

I don't have much to add, but i would like to present my own humble piece of fanwanking.

1., The four beings seen during Second Impact form a single being. Seele seeks to recreate that being with it's "True Evangelion" project. The True Evangelion isn't any one Unit, but rather a merger of four awakened Units.

I'm basing this idea mostly around these lines:

Spoiler:

Pretty straightforward, actually. Seele wants the True Evangelion, as a cornerstone of some ritualistic processes. Kaji's blurb implies (rather vaguely, i admit) that triggering a number of Units (four, if my guess is correct) is the way Seele wanted to do it, and Gendo getting Unit-01 to awaken via Shinji and Rei ahead of schedule was taking a serious spit into Seele's coffee. Hmm, actually i wanted to write more about this, but i think i already made my main point.

As for the four beings of light really being parts of one being, well, Lilith is still identified as the Second Angel, so it's a safe assumption that there is a single, definite First, too.

2., Rei, along with the three other chibi-Reis seen in the trailer for 3.0 carry fragments of the soul of Lilith within them. Lilith's body still houses the majority of her soul, that's why it has to be restrained and seems to be "alive". Their role is to help trigger various Units and probably to serve as medimus in some sort of merger between Lilith, the Lilin and the True Evangelion.

When Gendo asks for additional resources to hasten repairs on Unit-00, Seele responds thusly:

Spoiler:

I'm leaning towards the assumption that this means that they do not intend to have Rei (or any Reis) pilot an Eva anytime soon. Her role lies somewhere else. Of course, it is a possibility that they will give Rei a new Eva (07, 08 or something) in the future, and i honestly don't have a counter to that supposition.

However, we already have a precedent for a Rei being used to trigger an Eva:

Spoiler:

Gendo knew that merging with Rei is, though under some pretty extreme circumstances, enough to trigger a Unit. I would suppose that Seele also knows this, seeing as how they seem to have a more clearly defined role for Lilith in their plans within this incarnation of the story.

From here, it lines up pretty well, i think. Four pilots piloting four Evas* that are trigerred by four Reis. The True Evangelion is born, Lilith gets reurrected by some means, Human Instrumentality Project gets underway, and... well, this is possibly the most speculative part of my already somewhat far-fetched post, but i think that Seele's ultimate plan is something along the line of:

a, Return humanity to the womb of Lilith
b, Have Lilith merge with the being that is formed by the merger of four different beings
c, Humanity gains the power to become one superorganism
d, Something something mankind reaches Nirvana

Not very evidential, i admit, but to me at least, it kinda makes sense.

*possible combinations: 01-02-06-08, 01-06-07-08, 02-06-07-08, depending on Unit-07 making it into the movie and whether or not Unit-08 is actually Unit-01

I find myself leaning towards SaltyJoe's thoughts probably because Rei = still Lilith in some form and, as I'm wondering myself, Adam's 4 parts could still count as one Angel. The Rei and Kaworu we see still retaining their Seed status--but both only having fragments of their respective souls would be interesting to say the least. And that could still explain why 1.xx makes a point of Eva-00 going nutty if Lilith's soul is still divided. Maybe Kaworu only having part of Adam's soul could explain why he seems 10x more creepier and darker compared to NGE as well? (I'm well-aware that's more regarding different characterization and we don't know his true intentions yet, but.)

Although of course, anything's possible at this point, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. SaltyJoe's thoughts of Seele's plan makes sense to me and it's what I was vaguely assuming too: Element the Angels/Adam's children then return to Lilith afterwards.

Salty: I agree with much of that, but one thing irks me...





(The second image is from Rei's underground facility. It didn't make it to the final cut of the movie, but it still could have informed things that did.)

I have a hell of a time ignoring that Adam, where discussion of Rei's soul is concerned.

Well, in my post, i was trying to outline a version of the whole shebang that i think would flow well, incorporating in a certain fashion the most crucial clues that can be gained from expository dialog.

Essentially, i tired to think the way i imagine the witers would think in trying to present a relatively streamlined version of the overarching Human Instrumentality Project plotline. That's why i didn't fish for details to look for possible foreshadowing through symblos and visual clues because in the end, those are easier to ignore than lines spoken by various shadowy players who, at least in-universe supposedly know what they are talking about.

Of course, i recoginze that Anno loves this sort of visual techinque to hint at future plot advancements, not to mention that the parts of spoken information i base my ideas around are pretty unclear as to what they really mean. Moreover, there are things i didn't even address in my theory: Rei has weird pigmentation because she is a clone with Lilith's partial soul, but why is that the case with Kaworu if he is not carrying the soul of a seed? Or what about Shinji's actions at the end of 2.22: does he already have the soul of an Adam, or is it just that contact with Eva is getting his "body to be ready", so to speak? And of the the *-nami naming scheme, or the Key?

Al in all, what i'm trying to say is that, since we know Anno is prone to changing things in the last minute, i just tried to base my own version of the scenario on the bits of information that, in my opinion, have the highest precedent in setting a course for the plot of the future movies, but i did this in a rather loose, speculative manner.

EDIT:
Hmm, i forgot to address the idea (their being six versions of Rei in total who collectively form an Adam, i guess?) presented itself: well, maybe, maybe not .

Slightly off-topic, but if my eyes don't deceive me, the capitals of those pillars are connected in a way that forms a Star of David within a hexagon.

Call me crazy, but I get the feeling that we will be encountering four people who contain Adam's soul in this series, not just one, as evidenced by the four ?Adams? seen in Rebuild.

The thing is, we've already met two of them. The other two (Piloting units 7 and 8) will appear in 3.0.

The two we have met so far are:

Kaworu Nagisa (Of course)

and

Mari Makinami Illustrious.

Why Mari? Because, like Kaworu, it seems she can pilot any Eva that she wants to and even has the ability to change their nature and savagery and yet seems able to keep control the whole time. This would also explain a good deal of her strange behavior.

Anyway, just my two cents. Feel free to ignore if it's already been tossed around, I just thought of it and thought it sounded cool.

Toodles!

I was going to say that it was pretty ridiculous, but that does make the character of Mari a lot more convincing...

However, using the fact that she can pilot any Eva isn't good evidence in Rebuild as it appears that there isn't as much distinction in who can pilot what (Asuka piloting Eva-03 on a whim).

Umm I don't think Kaworu can just pilot any Eva he wants this time around.
Why else would he have the Mark 06???

Spoiler:

Mari is a enigmatic character, yet. But don't makes sense, because she not have the Kaworo/Rei's pattern (red eyes, fancy hair... you know).

BUT...
I'm more inclinated to accept that Shinji contain SOME soul this time. Why?
The weird way that his eyes glow red at the events before Near 3rd Impact is the hint.