BlueBasilisk wrote:Technically Shinji already did the "drifting in space without aging" thing while he was sealed in the tesseract. But I do think space could be an avenue for him going forward once all the Eva stuff is done.
Kaji and Kaworu both told him he needed to find something that gave him happiness, and space is one of them. Shinji could become an astronomer or even an astronaut. Humanity still has the capability and if there's any Eva tech left over after the last movie, space travel could be even easier than before. Shinji could go explore the moon!
To me the space hobby just calls back to the return to the womb, making something universal out of it -no pun- for the oedipal complex stuff from the Ha impact. Not sure if it was successful but maybe it saved screentime from mind wankery with visual aids.
Shinji can't explain it to himself (nor to kaworu in Q) with all the crap that is going on in Ha but at some point he admits there's a comfy familiar feeling in piloting the eva and looks for the same thing in his hobbies.
I don't have the motivation to watch the date scenes. I remember kaworu essentially mocking him his own way though (or ranting on feelings...whatever).
About the fate thing, kaworu makes a prophecy which takes place in the ending giving Asuka the role of "fate". Shinji has no clue he's catatonic and everything but very afraid of her reaction (it's a matter of subs again but after Shinji finds out reiQ is not Rei and the mental breakdown piano starts you can hear and read lines he doesn't want to hear from his fav girls - not a single one from kaworu tho- and decides he can't trust anyone).