Hello, everybody, I am new in here. Since the first time I watched eva I have always had an issue with episode 18. Even though it's still a masterpiece as all the rest, I always felt that there was potential in the story of that angel that could have been exploited. Let me explain how I picture the whole story should have been and why:

Eva 03 crosses the nembus and gets infected by Bardiel. The true form of the angel is never actually shown and the goo that later hold the entry plug can just be a secretion of the eva itself forced by Bardiel. I would have pictured Bardiel as a germ or a virus, of a similar nature of Iruel. Once Bardiel infects an organism, its metabolism adapts to the host.
When Toji enters unit 03 Bardiel will infect him aswell controlling his behaviour and guiding Bardiel towards the location of the battle with the other units. When the eject signal is launched the entry plug would detach and fall on the ground and, when the umbilical cable disconnected, the version of Bardiel in the eva would develop the S^2 element and take full control of the eva itself, leaving Toji unconcious in the entry plug outside (still infected). Now Bardiel will fight with Asuka and defeat her and then engage Shinji which will fight regularly and defeat Bardiel in order to take revenge of the fallen Asuka (which lies unconcious in the unit 02).
After this episode both Toji and Asuka are carried at the hospital where the Magi systems would send a warning signal because something suspicious is found in both Asuka's and Toji's body. At that point, further analysis reveal that Bardiel is still inside both of them and it's consuming their bodies (AT fields). Toji's limbs are starting to get into nicrosis while both patience are in coma.
During all of this unit 02 and 01 are immediately disconnected from power and temperature is raised so high that Bardiel doesn't get to infect them and gets eliminated.
For some reason Shinji is not infected and further blood analysis reveal an antibody that Shinji seems to naturally develop. Dr. Katsuragi suggests to perform surgery and to transplant part of the spinal chord of Shinji into one of the two patience to stimulate the production of this antibody in them.
Now Shinji will face a big dilemma, either save Asuka or Toji while risking his life. After along struggle with himself Shinji decides to save Asuka while Toji is being euthanized and his body cremated.
During the operation, small part of the spinal chord is removed and transplanted to unit 01 as well.

I think this would have been a better alternative because it would have explored a fundamental part of human knowledge which is medicine and would have put Shinji in a more difficult dilemma.

What do you guys think?

This really isn't a Discussion topic. Moved.

Oh, and there's a thread in off-topic for introducing yourself if you're so inclined. Welcome aboard the crazy train.

It seems more like a fanfic discussion to me, actually. Not without interest from that point of view; but my comment would be that it changes too many things at once - it's often more effective to change only one or two things and work out the spreading effect of that change.

I think the only major thing that changes (other than Toji dying) is that now Asuka will have a stronger bond to Shinji. Not only that, but having a part of Shinji inside of her can represent a sort of first step into breaking the barriers between the two of them. I don't think this would have changed the outcome of the battles in the other episodes.