Hopefully just Shinji and Gendo, so everyone else can finally move on with their lives. But we're probably not going to get such a happy ending. :(

Monk Ed wrote:I saw NemZ's name beside this topic and clicked the topic thinking "I bet NemZ is going to say he hopes everyone dies".

I am, if nothing else, consistent.

Monk Ed wrote: For some reason my brain interprets that in the same vein as "everyone lives". Probably because I like to believe that (nearly) all the main cast would choose to live again.

Whoa! Where'd you hear about this?

There's an italian translation of the interview with Yuko Miyamura (not sure if you have an english one).
She says:"...It's strange to say this, but i believe in Asuka's happiness, and i think she will find it (more or less). I haven't talked about this with the studio, but i'm truly convinced..."
Then when asked about the final movie:"...As i said many times, "Asuka's future is happiness"...I've been wishing for Asuka to be happy no matter what happens (then she imitates a cat "Nya" and a dog "Wan"...)"

So yeah, for some reason she believes in Asuka's happiness. Ofc that's just her idea, it shouldn't be taken as a fact (and it's not surprising considering how "negative" Soryu's fate and character was in the original series).

http://www.dummy-system.com/intervista-a-yuko-miyamura-su-evangelion-3-0/ Interview in italian here, google translate should provide a decent translation

Sorry for going offtopic

If everyone dies, it will have to be awesome : it should have to be started by Shinji, but not on a "I want everyone to die 'cause I'm sad and pathetic", but as a big and uncompromising "FUCK YOU ALL AND YOUR PLANS! NO REGRETS!" way.
He will get back his badass set of glowing red eyes, transform into a Giant Naked Shinji because "Fuck the audience too", squash barehanded Asuka(that's for the "brat" surname!) and Mari(and that's for "Puppy Boy"!), shoot down the Wunder with a right hook directly on it's overgrown skeletal turkey face, decapitate Misato and Ritsuko(it will be called the "DSS hand chop decapitation" move), crush Gendo with his teeth("not so funny when it happens to you right!"), crush Fuyutsuki under a giant Shogi piece carved from stone, bitchslap Yui for abandoning him to his maniac of a father that force him to get into that goddamned fucking robot, take back Rei, meet again Kaworu with Quantum Space magic and have a hot threesome of godly proportions, and then detonate the whole planet, the explosion won't have the form of a giant eye, but of a giant middle finger directed to the heavens.
THEN, and only then I would accept an "everyone dies" ending!

Ahem... more seriously : Gendo will kick the bucket, that I'm sure at 150%, he's now the official Big Bad, having dethroned Kheel, and manipulated his son and Kaworu to fulfill his plans, at the cost his son's sanity, and is strongly implied to have been doing it since the poor boy's birth! Besides he's always talking about sacrificing everything to attain his dreams, and Fuyutsuki said that Gendo already applied this logic to himself. I admit I hope he will get to see Yui, she was already pissed off enough in EoE to (metaphorically?) eat him whole, I'm eager to see what she will have in stock for him this time!

Fuyutsuki too : he's old and implied to be ridden with guilt, he won't make it alive and will be happy and serene about it.

Shinji maybe, on a "Redemption Equals Death" scenario, but Anno will have to be careful to not make it like he runs away by choosing to die, getting ascended to another plane of existence à la Quantum Rei could be a solution, maybe. Still it will be hard to convey a message about connecting to others if you trap your main characters in a plane of existence out of reach for the mortals...

Probably Misato, if she don't have any emotional attachment left : meaning that Kaji died(or dies during Final) and that she didn't started a family. Probably sacrificing herself for Shinji like in EoE, or on an gruesome and awesome last stand commanding the Wunder against the army of MP-EVAs.

As for the rest of the cast, everything is possible!

AlphaGamma wrote:Asuka actually rescues him twice

She saved him at the end of the movie when she decided to not abandon him to die in the red desert, but I don't see another moment where she saved his life.

ElMariachi wrote:Shinji maybe, on a "Redemption Equals Death" scenario, but Anno will have to be careful to not makes likes he runs away by choosing to die, getting ascended to another plane of existence à la Quantum Rei maybe. Still it will be hard to convey a message about connecting to others if you traps your main characters in a plane of existence out of reach for the mortals...

Agree with this. If Shinji is going to die it's probably going to be in a very "physical" way. Think Asuka in Eoe...

She saved him at the end of the movie when she decided to not abandon him to die in the red desert, but I don't see another moment where she saved his life.

She brings him back from space. He wouldn't have come back without her. Maybe he would have been happier too, but i still consider that a rescue.

Nah, getting Shinji back was a side-effect of capturing Unit-01, and probably an unwanted one at that (unless to keep him out of the way of being used as a trigger). Not a rescue for the sake of it, at any rate. And even then she calls on him to help her out, which of course he or Yui does awesomely.

pwhodges wrote:(unless to keep him out of the way of being used as a trigger).

Obviously this may apply to the "rescue" in the finale too.

pwhodges wrote:Nah, getting Shinji back was a side-effect of capturing Unit-01, and probably an unwanted one at that (unless to keep him out of the way of being used as a trigger). Not a rescue for the sake of it, at any rate. And even then she calls on him to help her out, which of course he or Yui does awesomely.

Ye that's true. But at the end of the day the result was that Shinji got rescued... As for it being unwanted, i'm not too sure. She wouldn't even have called his name if she didn't care about him.
Don't forget that Asuka isn't the kind of person who'd normally ask for help(then again, after fighting for 14 years she's probably learned to accept help from other people). I see it as her trying to provoke a reaction in Shinji (implying that she was thinking not only about retrieving the Eva but also about Shinji himself). Before we get there, i don't mean that in a romantic way....

Absolutely everyone except Shinji.

Shinji is given the choice of what Instrumentality will do.

Lilith: What is it that you desire most, Ikari Shinji-Kun?
Shinji: ... A second chance.

ENDLESS CYCLE BEGIN!


4.0 will be called You Can (Not) Return.

Last scene we see: Yui holding Shinji in her arms as a newborn with Gendo at her side.


*TROLLFACE*

Does death include "being dissolved into a giant living mass of tang?" Because then yeah, everyone in the films stands a chance to die in Final.

I think most of the cast will die horribly and for sure everyone of Wille. Neither they believed they could win the almighty Gendo before, imagine now with a unit nearly destroyed and another badly damaged. Their survival strategy seemed to use guerrilla tactics to hit and run; now they will have to make a conventional war, going after Gendo in his fortress and fight in his terms. Chance to win against an enemy omnipotent and omniscient in his domain: -1000%. This is Evangelion and not Gurren Lagann, I have the impression that Anno will deconstruct the battle against the Spiral King in an almost pornographic level.

As for Gendo and Fuyutsuki. I even think Gendo will die at the end, but not before making his insipid confessions, hear ridiculous justifications about his actions and make empty excuses before dying unpleasantly, but quickly and painless. Fuyutsuki is already resigned to death. He will not care about what will happen and will calmly accept his death.

I doubt that Shinji will die in the end. In the current situation, I even believe that he is truly immortal. Would be the most hideous of ironies that a person who never wanted to live, whose life was useless and that can never take a single step to advance, has not and will never have reason to keep living, can live forever. It's like watching someone with terminal cancer, and that this will never end. No wonder so many people hate Shinji. This is actually a grotesque spectacle to view; even relatives of victims of cancer abandon visits after a certain time.

What makes me curious is that the Final will be open to the concept of Instrumentality and give a chance of return for Humanity or going for pure nihilism where everyone dies and Shinji ends alone in a beach, crazy and holding the arm torn from Rei.

ElMariachi wrote:If everyone dies, it will have to be awesome : it should have to be started by Shinji, but not on a "I want want everyone to die 'cause I'm sad and pathetic", but as a big and uncompromising "FUCK YOU ALL AND YOUR PLAN! NO REGRETS!" way.
He will get back his badass set of glowing red eyes, transform into a Giant Naked Shinji "Fuck the audience too", squash barehanded Asuka(that's for the "brat" surname!) and Mari(and that's for "Puppy Boy"!), shoot down down the Wunder with a right hook directly on it's overgrown skeletal turkey face, decapitate Misato and Ritsuko(it will be called the "DSS hand chop decapitation" move), crush Gendo with his teeth("not so funny when it happens to you right!"), crush Fuyutsuki under a giant Shogi piece carved from stone, bitchslap Yui to abandon him to his maniac of a father that force him to get into that goddamned fucking robot, take back Rei, meet again Kaworu with Quantum Space magic and have a hot threesome of godly proportions, and then detonate the whole planet, the explosion won't have the form of a giant eye, but of a giant middle finger directed to the heavens.
THEN, and only then I would accept an "everyone dies" ending!

Yes please. Deliver.

ElMariachi wrote:I admit I hope he will get to see Yui, she was already pissed off enough in EoE to (metaphorically?) eat him whole, I'm eager to see what she will have ion stock for him this time!

Yui may be as bad of a parent as Gendo. I won't be cheering on her.

ElMariachi wrote:Fuyutsuki too : he's old and implied to be ridden with guilt, he won't make it alive and will be happy and serene about it.

Just about right.

As for the end, I expect confusing artistic message of some sorts, forcefully shoved down audience throats. Message that contradicts everything we have been shown and probably won't even have that much usefulness in real life. Whetever someone lives or dies will be turned meaningless in the end and all will look bleak and left "to the interpretation"

It's hard to really predict who will die. It depends who Anno want to suffer in final.

I think Mari's going to go out striking some sort of blow against Gendo, something that enables Shinji and the rest to ultimately overcome whatever his game plan is. She'll use her spyness to infiltrate NERV HQ, use her apparent backroom knowledge to sabotage some sort of system. Gendo will confront her gun in hand, and we'll get some back and forth that vaguely illuminates their relationship.

"Makinami Mari, I truly-" but boom he's cut off by an explosion and she busts ass out of there, catching a bullet in the back ala Misato in EoE. Then she'll bleed out, say some ambiguous shit about a larger plan, see Quantum Rei, say more ambiguous shit, and die. At least that's how it played out in my head

I could also see the whole Wunder crew going out in the last minute, fucking kamikaze it into the black moon to initiate some sort of positive impact scenario (making them the ship of hope for the world, not themselves). The old world goes out, but new life can start, leaving the pilots uncertain but determined to try in the scary but hopeful new world.

Seems kind of Anno-y. Younger generation working with the broken world they were given, but also had a hand in perpetuating.

The one I'm really unsure of is Asuka. While I don't really see her dying, she had a lot of lines in 3.0 about how one person's life doesn't matter in regards to the greater good. Whether this applies to her being killed ("Do it Gaki Shinji I'm Final Angel" fucking Shinji up further) or her having to do something she ultimately doesn't want to in the service of saving the world I'm uncertain. Hey maybe she'll be forced to destroy the Wunder if Gendo's plan involved Misato using it and he remotely takes control.

That'll at least make relating easier between her and Shinji, both being responsible for a shitload of death and what not

But yeah, Mari, Wunder crew, Gendo, Fuyu (unfortunately ) maybe Asuka

AlphaGamma wrote:Don't forget that Asuka isn't the kind of person who'd normally ask for help

What evidence do you base this on for Shikinami? Not the same person, after all. Right before her disappearance she was just busy telling Misato how other people aren't so bad, and she had just learned in her previous mission the value of teamwork.

Probably croakin':

Gendo amassed to much bad Karma after creating that hellhole, he's a goner, as much as I was hoping for the reconciliation...

Same for Fuyu. Besides, he's seventy. His old bones probably can't take a full-scale Sci-Fi war.

Misato... fifty-fifty. Shes the character type that dies.

Rei Q fifty-fifty. She's a Rei and those are doomed, but she could be like... like Nana, the last surviving diclonius. She may get points for being new.

Rei 2... 99%. Anno might still surprise us, but I have little hop left. But I'm sure that we're in for a heartwrenchingmetaphysical farewell scene.

Probably safe:

Sakura, Midori and Hideki - The young generation must survive. Similarly, Asuka. I don't think she's the type that dies. Same for Mari.

In the air:

Shinji. On the one hand, there's Anno's plot about "hope", and shows with a teenaged protagonist normally end with the teenager in question growing into an adult.

On the other hand, his situation is way past the event horizon. Growing up won't help him anymore, there's no way he'll live this down. In a way, he's already dead in all ways but the most physical one.
Yeah, the blood's still pumping, but that's the best we can say about the withered, non-responve husk Asuka pulled out of that plug.

Kendrix wrote:Growing up won't help him anymore, there's no way he'll live this down. In a way, he's already dead in all ways but the most physical one.
Yeah, the blood's still pumping, but that's the best we can say about the withered, non-responsive husk Asuka pulled out of that plug.

Recovery is possible, given time, from pretty much anything; it may not be complete, but it can well be functional.

I have a feeling the entirety of Wille will die in addition to Nerv.

Should HI occur, I would hope that Shinji, Rei 2, and Asuka would return. Maybe Mari as well, since she seems to lack psychological issues.

Of course it's hard to say, Anno might cocktease us and make HI NOT actually happen.

I'm absolutely, positively 99.9 percent sure Mari will die. She's way too mysterious not to. As for the rest of you, Misato, Ritsuko, Gendo, Fuyutsuki, and most of Will-E.