@ wiser3754 :
That's not exactly what Misato said, her line was that Rei Ayanami "doesn't exist anymore", she acknowledges that Shinji tried to rescue her 14 years. That line is actually Misato telling with a roundabout way to Shinji that he failed to save her, and that she's now irrecoverable : she's not "dead" because her soul is absorbed in EVA-01, but she can't be salvaged from this state, so she "doesn't exist anymore(in our plane of existence)".

And seriously, what would be the point of making him look like a delusional madman talking about people who doesn't exists, except being incredibly giant dicks? They are pragmatic people, not cruel.
Also, Eva pilots were superstars back then, everyone in Tokyo-3 knew that Rei, Shinji and Asuka were pilots, so it's no use to try to hide the existence of Rei Ayanami, especially since the "original" one was a war hero who sacrificed herself to try to stop an Angel.

For the new ones, Misato just have to say that Gendo cloned Rei to have more soldiers without talking about the "clones of Yui" part, and the memory of the original Rei is preserved while Gendo pass even more for a monster, win-win!

But yeah, like Giji Shinka said, Misato probably didn't wanted to break the news about Rei being irrecoverable too abruptly, and especially about the whole clone thing too soon, there was still many things to explain to him, like that his father is an enemy of mankind or that the world has gone to shit and what part Shinji exactly had in it that warranted him a bomb collar. Starting with the Ayanami series would had shocked him too much to let him follow the rest of the info-dump.

Again, I'm sorry, if anybody has already pointed this out, but this was such an awesome realisation for me, because it was there all the time, but I just wasn't able to see that this scene in Q was there to mirror. Now it fell like scales from my eyes, as I can suddenly see a lot more significance in this trippy scene in Q.

Nice parallel indeed, it symbolize well how Rei Q is just a "fish", prisoner to the environment of neo-NERV that acts like her metaphorical fish tank, of how she's just a tool to be used and discarded without a side glance once her usefulness is over.
But unlike the fishes that can't survive outside of their tank of purified water and Rei II that can't survive outside of EVA-01's core, Rei Q can escape from her "fish tank" and be free, and that's exactly what she did at the end of 3.0 by ejecting from Mark.09 and following Shinji and Asuka.

Interesting observation.

Still though, I still feel that Rei Q choosing to live and follow the other two was more her unintentionally following in her predecessor's footsteps of also choosing to live rather than simply die alongside Zeruel (she could have rejected Shinji's attempts to save her, but didn't). Again, a formal callback to the events in 2.22, and also ironically occurred after Shinji stopped trying to reach out to her.

Now where will this lead her to in FINAL? Will it go for a formal callback to EoE by having her enter Unit 01's core and absorb the soul of Rei II? Will she ultimately take the place of Asuka from EoE by being the one to die against the MP-Eva's? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Honestly, I found her to be the most interesting character in 3.33, and I wouldn't have minded it if she ended up being the focus of that film instead of Shinji and Kaworu.

Re Q Rei Z Rei 2,595. let's just call her by the moniker that she has now. 'Black Rei'. When looking at her and Rei from the previous movies one has to look at her from outside the box. By and far the most part in scifi and comics clones are usually depicted as either soulless unthinking constructs that exist in a tank, until the memory engrams from the original are placed in them, then its like in the video games, Boom! You got a second life, you live again. then you upgrade the memories and if something happens to you boom you live again. The clone never has a chance to live. If the clone and the original survive then thats when problems come in, neither one can say who is the original if they both have the same memories up to that point so either they have to come to an understanding or one of them will undoubtedly go nuts and try to kill the other to make sure that there is only one version. Rei could possibly fall into this category, we don't know because there are a lot of unanswered questions and no indication that most of what happened to the TV characters ever happened to the rebuild characters since a lot of what happened in the series was retconned by the first two movies. We cannot make suppositions based upon vague possible evidence with nothing concrete to back them up.

That there being said, Rei knew her shortcomings and possible knowledge of her clone existence in Eva 2.22 she told Shinji outright, but it went over his head. As seen here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0o3so6jX04 Until revealed we cannot know how many Rei series clones there are, and what would happen if they were all awaken. Would they go mad? Would they just be blank slates that just stood around , Would they be exact doubles Or would they be fully sentient beings, not necessarily a copy of the original, but just vat sisters who shared the same face much like these very famous scifi movie clones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6aD-m7Cw84 In the end we will just have to patiently see when the last movie comes out.
--Dancougar82

Dancougar82 wrote:Re Q Rei Z Rei 2,595. let's just call her by the moniker that she has now. 'Black Rei'. When looking at her and Rei from the previous movies one has to look at her from outside the box. By and far the most part in scifi and comics clones are usually depicted as either soulless unthinking constructs that exist in a tank, until the memory engrams from the original are placed in them, then its like in the video games, Boom! You got a second life, you live again. then you upgrade the memories and if something happens to you boom you live again. The clone never has a chance to live. If the clone and the original survive then thats when problems come in, neither one can say who is the original if they both have the same memories up to that point so either they have to come to an understanding or one of them will undoubtedly go nuts and try to kill the other to make sure that there is only one version. Rei could possibly fall into this category, we don't know because there are a lot of unanswered questions and no indication that most of what happened to the TV characters ever happened to the rebuild characters since a lot of what happened in the series was retconned by the first two movies. We cannot make suppositions based upon vague possible evidence with nothing concrete to back them up.

That there being said, Rei knew her shortcomings and possible knowledge of her clone existence in Eva 2.22 she told Shinji outright, but it went over his head. As seen here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0o3so6jX04 Until revealed we cannot know how many Rei series clones there are, and what would happen if they were all awaken. Would they go mad? Would they just be blank slates that just stood around , Would they be exact doubles Or would they be fully sentient beings, not necessarily a copy of the original, but just vat sisters who shared the same face much like these very famous scifi movie clones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6aD-m7Cw84 In the end we will just have to patiently see when the last movie comes out.
--Dancougar82

And there is another question....how would they react when they know that no only they are a clone from the first Rei (which es never seen) but everyone is a clone from Shinji's mum??

^I wonder if there actually ARE any more Rei clones in storage. For all we know Ritsuko went at them with a machete and a hockey mask before she left and that's why we have a room full of decapitated Rei heads (purely hypothetical). We aren't shown a Reiquarium this time but instead just a load of dead Reis. Perhaps there are no more in storage; perhaps it would take too long to grow a new one; perhaps they are somewhere but we haven't seen them yet. But it would be an interesting concept if ReiQ is the last of the Reis; she's no longer immortal and replaceable but instead bound to her last form and maybe taking some steps towards becoming more unique.

Asuka's remark about the "Ayanami types" suggests that clones are still being produced as required. And if ReiQ is an "early" type, as she says, there are presumably later ones.

That large collection of Rei heads suggests that there are multiple Rei series. Remember the "Eva factory" with all the spare parts, and all the green Evas seen in the trailer for Final? The later lot of Ayanami types were probably meant to pilot these things.

UrsusArctos wrote:That large collection of Rei heads suggests that there are multiple Rei series. Remember the "Eva factory" with all the spare parts, and all the green Evas seen in the trailer for Final? The later lot of Ayanami types were probably meant to pilot these things.

And remember how they showed Mari meeting Rei and two of her awakened clone sisters in the trailer for Q at the end of 2.22? You've got to take those trailers with a mine full of salt. They're great eye candy but cannot be relied upon for future plot info.
--Dancougar82

Here seems like a good place to ask this.

What do you guys think is Misato/Asuka/The Wunder Crews opinion of Rei (our original Rei) assuming they know she was a clone of Yui specifically created to manipulate Shinji? Looking back over 14 years of war, do they even consider her a human being anymore?

I'm not sure. After I presume years of fighting clones of her, they probably don't think too highly of the original. At the very least, judging by Mari's comment that "the original was a lot more fun", they at most see her as another victim, and far more sympathetic than all the other clones.

On the note of the original, what role do you think she'll have in the next film, since they left her story thread hanging?

I personally (still being a diehard shipper of Rei and Shinji) want at least one final reunion before the former passes on or something. Or heck, I could go on a whole formal speech about how Rei II and Rei Q will merge, but I've done that enough times.

Ray wrote:Here seems like a good place to ask this.

What do you guys think is Misato/Asuka/The Wunder Crews opinion of Rei (our original Rei) assuming they know she was a clone of Yui specifically created to manipulate Shinji? Looking back over 14 years of war, do they even consider her a human being anymore?

I'm fairly sure that Wille think Rei is dead. Beyond that they seem to know very little.


If you don't know who's the entity inside the Eva currently powering your anti-gravity engines, it's reaosnable to assume you don't know much else about them either.

Some clarity. Do they have the same opinion of her they supposedly do of Shinji? I mean she was created specifically by Gendo to manipulate Shinji into awakening an Eva.

@LightDragon

I don't really care anymore. Rei's dead, like Shinji were just going to have to live with it. 3.0 denied us everything we were promised 2.0 . I wanted to know more about the baby Rei Clones in the next time preview!



We're just gonna have to live with unanswered questions.

Rei's not dead. She's merely "preserved in Unit 01". And since Rei Q is apparently soulless (hence why she can't use an AT Field), that logically means...

I wonder if Gendo's plan is ultimately to reunite Yui's soul with a clone?

Consider Fuyutski's line about Rei 2:
"She is being preserved within Unit 01, just like your mother. It is all part of Ikari's plan."

Also, there's Kaworu's line about Rei Q "Her soul is somewhere else."

Assuming we have all the dots to connect, is Kaworu perhaps implying a remote-connection between Rei 2's soul essence in Unit 1's core and Rei Q's body (perhaps a soul fragment, or the like)?

As such, could Gendo's intention be to use Yui's love for Shinji to have her hitch a ride back into one of the Rei series, via this connection?

Huh. If that thought occurred to me in the past, I've forgotten it. But that's a really interesting idea.

Although it does make me wonder why all those Impacts/possibly Instrumentality/so many years of waiting would be necessary to do something that sounds "simple" in practice. I suppose Gendo had no opportunity to merge Rei-2 with Yui when Eva-01 was essentially frozen/speared before being sent off into Space by Seele (Kaji on Third Impact: "Seele won't stay quiet about this.")?

I have wondered before if Gendo's ultimate plan will be very different in nature from EoE's reuniting with Yui. All the extreme waiting/risks he's been taking and (now long ago scrapped) fan-ideas of post-2.0 "happy family Instrumentality with Gendo/Rei/Yui/Shinji in Eva-01"...Now it's hard to figure out just WTF he's up to. I'm hoping he's not delusional in wanting to become God or something like that (shades of manga-Gendo), but the past 14 years could have very well turned him batshit insane.

Either way I don't see any noble actions in his behavior, which you could sort of argue regarding EoE.

I think at least part of Gendo's motivation is a reunion with Yui. He says as much to the giant Rei head in 3.0. This actually might be taken as evidence that Gendo's ultimate objectives and motivations are the same as his old ones in NGE (whatever those ultimately were).

Regarding the purple Rei in the AU uniform in the 2.22 preview, I suspect that this is either Rei-II, or perhaps Yui. That is, assuming the 2.22 preview is in the slightest way canonical. The smaller Rei's are more intriguing, suggesting that these are less mature or lesser parts of whatever Rei is. We do in fact see these in the films, coming out of the Zeruel core, the 12th Angel giant core, and arguably in Shinji's first dreamscape in 1.0. But it's all as speculative as the nature of the preview itself.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Although it does make me wonder why all those Impacts/possibly Instrumentality/so many years of waiting would be necessary to do something that sounds "simple" in practice.

I think Gendo is following SEELE's scenario up until Unit 01's Awakening, which would explain why they sent Kaworu into action when they did. Gendo clearly parted ways with their scenario again during Fourth Impact, and was waiting 14 years for all the pieces to be in place (WILLE retrieving Shinji, Kaworu putting on the Choker, the Ritual [s]Murder[/s] Suicide of SEELE, etc)

It may also be the case that the Final Impact, assuming it takes place is what Gendo needs to complete his plan...

Ray wrote:Some clarity. Do they have the same opinion of her they supposedly do of Shinji? I mean she was created specifically by Gendo to manipulate Shinji into awakening an Eva.

First, we don't know if WILLE know about that specific part of Rei being used to manipulate Shinji (we don't know if she was specifically created for that purpose or if Gendo just used a "tool" that was already available), but even if they do, they seem to have her on a somewhat higher esteem than the rest of the Ayanami Series.

Notice that they subtly make a distinction between Rei II and her successors: Misato calls Rei II "Ayanami Rei" in two occasions when Shinji asked for her:

00:28:27 {Misato} Shinji-kun, Ayanami Rei doesn't exist anymore.
[...]
00:31:13 {Misato} Rei's no more, Shinji-kun.

Notices that Misato even go on first-name basis when referring to Rei the second time.

While when WILLE refers to the others Ayanami Series:

01:10:55 {Mari} Seele's fill-in pilot,
01:10:58 {Mari} you can hear me, right?
[...]
01:29:58 {Asuka} You're the pilot from before.
01:30:02 {Asuka} From an early lot of Ayanami types, are you?

They're always referring to them in roundabout ways.

So for me, while WILLE probably know about Rei being a clone (maybe they also know she was cloned from Yui), they still remember that the "original one", Rei II, fought for them 14 years ago, the fact her last act was a kamikaze attack to try to stop an Angel while also saving the pilot that would latter join WILLE probably helped too.