Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby BlueBasilisk » Wed May 25, 2016 6:35 pm

This question crossed my mind while answering a post on Reddit this morning. I always just took it for granted that they did. 06 and 13 operate without cables when they're fresh out of the box, and with Ritsuko's talk about Unit 01 throwing off the limitations placed on it, I thought that maybe it had a dormant FoL that was reactivated when it awakened.

But then I noticed that in each of the three Impact scenarios we've seen up close, the Adam takes in both Fruits. Unit 01 absorbs Zeruel and Rei. Mark.06 is possessed by the 12th Angel and fuses with Lilith, and Unit 13 eats those three. But why is the Angel necessary if the Adams already have one? Couldn't they just fuse with Lilith/Rei and be done with it?

06 and 13 are piloted by Kaworu, who can control Evas that way in his other incarnations. He's able to manipulate Unit 13 to some degree in 3.0, and Bardiel sets the precedent for an Angel powering an Eva with its own FoL. We only know of Mark.06 operating once without Kaworu, and we find out it's been consumed by an Angel. Shinji also has some kind of weird Eva influencing abilities of his own. He's even able to make Unit 01 open the Gates of Guf before it's consumed Zeruel and Rei.

Nobody ever says the Adams are beings with the FoL. They're not numbered among the Angels, and nothing implies a link between them except for the name. In fact, the Adams seem to exist in this isolated bubble that's unconnected to the Angels and Lilith. There are so many little things that don't add up that I can't help but wonder if maybe the Adams are some other type of being that we haven't seen before? With Seele being some type of ancient beings themselves, I think the door is at least open to that possibility. Could that explain why Unit 13 thumbs its nose at the several of the "rules" for Evas?
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby Kreatone » Thu May 26, 2016 2:42 pm

Rather tricky subject. As I recall in NGE, Unit 01 consumed Zeruel minus Rei and that was why Unit 01 became self suficient from then on but that was a whole Universe behind so not sure if it brings any relevance to the whole Adams discussion that the Rebuild mixed in, so I'll ignore the NGE-verse here.

I haven't even begun to make assumptions about the Adam units possessing the Fruit of Life, Unit 01 consumed Rei and Zeruel in the Rebuild, though the opening of the Gates happened while he was attempting to extract Rei from Zeruel, essentially pulling both cores. You can argue that the opening of the gates is not done after but during the process, what we saw could also be described as a semi-open Gate scenario, where it was cut short by Mark-06. The reactivation of Unit-01 is nothing new really, but this was the very first time we saw Shinji taking hold of it and shaping reality itself. I'm not too sure about the need for two cores either.
So, Zeruel being consumed by Unit 01 was basically an "accident", Shinji didn't care for it, all he wanted to drag out was Rei and that came with the side effect of consuming Zeruel's core. The whole Mark-06 incident is pretty much hidden behind the 14 year fog wall that Anno implemented in 3.33 and we can't be too sure about most of it, maybe the consumption of Mark-06 was due to Kaworu not being willing to follow orders and the Angel core being present was in itself just a replacement for Kaworu.

Something that brings a bit of cohesion to your argument would be that Zeruel, when he consumed Rei, didn't trigger anything immediately either, he simply was using Unit 00's signature to bypass security protocols, so make of that what you will, in any case it was an effective merging of Rei and a Fruit of Life. This brings me to the next point where Unit 13 got two cores out of the deal too, Lilith's and consumed Mark 06's to launch N4I.

So, let's assume that the Impacts are triggered by two cores and a vessel/trigger instead of just two cores. You have the two cores in Lilith and the Angel and then you have the trigger which is the Adam, Adam would then be a being apart from all other, he'd simply be the vessel for the cores and a hand that humanity uses to control it, the cores are the Nukes, Adam is the button you press to launch them in the direction you wish.
I'm not too sure about the Seele ancient being theory, I think they just know about this relation and wish to use and abuse it for their own agenda.

In the end it could be a smart little thing added in between the lines, or it could just be inconsistencies and plot holes, after 3.33 I'm not too sure which is which and Unit 13 was basically just something out of the blue too.
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby Bagheera » Thu May 26, 2016 3:18 pm

I'd have to watch Ha again to check, but is the Fruit of Life ever mentioned? Unit 01's powerup happened for vastly different reasons this time around, and the other independent units we see are either Mark designations or Unit 13. So I think it's less about fruits or whatever than it is about Adams being, well, Adams.
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby Reichu » Thu May 26, 2016 3:46 pm

I wouldn't think that 01 absorbing the 10th's remains is irrelevant...
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby Kreatone » Thu May 26, 2016 5:41 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:I wouldn't think that 01 absorbing the 10th's remains is irrelevant...

I meant Unit 01 consuming Zeruel wasn't planned by Shinji and it was a side effect of the desired outcome, you still had an Angel and a piece of Lilith absorbed which is the opposite of irrelevant in this discussion. I don't think I called it irrelevant in the Rebuild scenario but I wanted to clarify in case I exposed my point incorrectly.
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby BlueBasilisk » Thu May 26, 2016 7:18 pm

View Original PostBagheera wrote:I'd have to watch Ha again to check, but is the Fruit of Life ever mentioned? Unit 01's powerup happened for vastly different reasons this time around, and the other independent units we see are either Mark designations or Unit 13. So I think it's less about fruits or whatever than it is about Adams being, well, Adams.


I don't think they mention the Fruits at all in 2.0 outside of that one maybe-maybe-not reference to Unit 04's "new internal engine." Ritsuko says that Unit 01 is reclaiming its true form and becoming a divine being that can weave heaven, earth and all living things together. But which of the (at least) three pseudo-evolved forms is the Adams' natural "true" form? Even if we did know, it still doesn't tell us much about how they work. -o-;

You're probably right and it'll end up being one of those unexplained oddities like Lilith and NGE Unit 01 being able to function without an S2 organ to sustain them. That's just how they are. :tongue:
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby ElMariachi » Fri May 27, 2016 9:03 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:I'd have to watch Ha again to check, but is the Fruit of Life ever mentioned? Unit 01's powerup happened for vastly different reasons this time around, and the other independent units we see are either Mark designations or Unit 13. So I think it's less about fruits or whatever than it is about Adams being, well, Adams.

IIRC, in 1.0 Gendo and Fuyutsuki mentions the Angels' Fruit of Life and the humans' Fruit of Knowledge when Sachiel appears.
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby Reichu » Fri May 27, 2016 2:27 pm

View Original PostBlueBasilisk wrote:I don't think they mention the Fruits at all in 2.0 outside of that one maybe-maybe-not reference to Unit 04's "new internal engine." Ritsuko says that Unit 01 is reclaiming its true form and becoming a divine being that can weave heaven, earth and all living things together.

There is a sort of disguised reference, in that the track wherein Eva-01 awakens is called "Sin from Genesis". Of course, this involved Biblical Adam ingesting the Fruit of Knowledge. I've wondered what the exact relevance of Original Sin to that moment in 2.0 is meant to be...

This probably has no relevance whatsoever to Eva, but it did pop into my mind nonetheless... In Judaic lore, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil bars entry to the Tree of Life, and it's been suggested that one must therefore eat from the former tree before eating from the latter is possible. (Though this induces a bit of a paradox, what with God saying ToL is okay but ToK is no good...) One can see this reflected in the Sephirotic Tree, with the central pillar being the Tree of Life, and the ones on left and right being the Tree(s) of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

View Original PostBlueBasilisk wrote:But then I noticed that in each of the three Impact scenarios we've seen up close, the Adam takes in both Fruits. Unit 01 absorbs Zeruel and Rei. Mark.06 is possessed by the 12th Angel and fuses with Lilith, and Unit 13 eats those three. (...) Nobody ever says the Adams are beings with the FoL.

Does anyone ever say Lilith has the FoK either...?

They're not numbered among the Angels, and nothing implies a link between them except for the name. In fact, the Adams seem to exist in this isolated bubble that's unconnected to the Angels and Lilith.

I have my doubts that it's entirely coincidence that the Angels, as before, start showing up fifteen years after an event caused by (four) Adam(s). As for numbering, while technically Kaworu has called himself the First, what does that really mean? Are we supposed to believe that Kaworu has always been in the form of a moon bishounen? If so, why maintain the visual similarity between him and Rei? We already know that Rei is artificial, so it's not much of a leap to think that ENT!Kaworu also is. Any which way, it's probably safe to say that the mystery of the First Angel is not completely resolved, and the Adams (or an original singular Adam, or something) may yet be called upon to fill in the slot. Would certainly make sense of Kaworu's weird ability to control verified Adam, Eva-13.

If the Adams are indeed responsible for the Angels, perhaps the reason they lost the Fruit has something to do with the Angels' genesis and/or the Adams being "devolved"... I'm having a terribly silly thought, but I'll share it anyway. What is a fruit, in truth? It's a reproductive organ. What are the seeds it contains? Embryos that can grow into new entities.
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Re: Do the Adams Actually Have The Fruit of Life?

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Postby BlueBasilisk » Fri May 27, 2016 5:44 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote: Does anyone ever say Lilith has the FoK either...?

Now that you mention it, they don't. They do say that the Lilin and the creatures Seele used to be have eaten of the Fruit of Knowledge and so are fated to die, but it's never said whether Lilith herself has it (or if she's the souce). That's another thing I was just taking for granted. :facepalm:

As for the Angels, I've been puzzling about that too. They make a point of showing that the Gates of Guf from that incident are somehow still open even 15 years later. Is it possible that Angels are using the Gate as an open door to enter from somewhere else? Those weird black crosses sticking out of it could be a doorstop, I suppose. But then they also found the 3rd Angel buried in permafrost, which could either imply that it implanted there after Second Impact, or that it's been buried there for some time.

There are certainly more mysteries to resolve about Kaworu and the First Angel. Those black coffins on the moon, for instance. I've speculated before that the four Adams might be remnants of some kind of Super Adam, or that the other three Children are Adams in disguise (though I think this less likely for Mari and Asuka). Hell, the Wunder and/or the Vessel could be remnants of the mystery Angel. The Adams may be just the tip of an iceberg full of a craziness.

View Original PostReichu wrote:I'm having a terribly silly thought, but I'll share it anyway. What is a fruit, in truth? It's a reproductive organ. What are the seeds it contains? Embryos that can grow into new entities.


...is that so silly?
SPOILER: Show
Image

The Adams can transmute matter into core. As we've seen, core can be used to outright create life, or to alter existing life that "gestates" within it. Eva 13, Kaworu, the Children, the FoI... None of these lifeforms age or decay, and they can survive in harsh conditions that are dangerous to Lilin. The Adams might be able to spread the Fruit of Life after all, just not through the mechanism we would expect! :lol:

That whole ritual with Eva 13 almost seems like it's taking communion; baptized in the giant core and then partaking of the flesh and blood of a divine being

This thread has lead me down a different rabbit hole concerning the actions of the Adams and that whole wish granting thing. That topic might warrant its own thread.

Edit: Whoops! Sorry, Kreatone, wasn't trying to ignore you there.
-The reactivation of Unit 01 in this way is something new in the movie universe. The only other time it went berserk it was still hooked up to the cable, and they skipped straight to Shinji's hospital room in the aftermath, leaving his role in the whole affair a mystery.

As for the Gates of Guf, I'm starting to think those might be a higher order variation of the Angelic halo, and that it manifests whenever the Adams access their god-like powers. Unit 01 only has a halo until it needs to exert control over Zeruel. Then the halo blossoms into the Gates before it consumes the Angel, and they get bigger after it does. Unit 01 is much more powerful after that, so it makes sense. Unit 13's are even bigger but they don't appear until it begins to rip the Black Moon out of the ground, and the Moon drops once they're gone.

The Adams and Lilith may have some special property that allows them to facilitate an Impact where others cannot. As you pointed out, nothing happens when Zeruel consumes Rei and Unit 00. Similarly, nothing happens when the 9th Angel fuses with Unit 03 and Asuka. There IS a small cross-shaped fissure at the blast site in Matsushiro, though. There has to be more to it than Fruit A+Fruit B.

The Ancient Seele thing comes from Gendo in 3.0. He says they gifted humanity with civilization. There are plenty of ways to interpret his comment, but that means Seele as a group is possibly 10,000+ years old.

It's tough to determine what's inconsistent and what's simply new since we have to forget information that's been around for 10-20 years. :lol:
Someday I hope that we'll be reunited if that is what's destined to be. Perhaps we'll discover that elusive bible. And then we will finally be free!


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