What is the nature of the paticle beam emissions that the angel's release after they die? I don't want to talk about it in a thematic or symbolic sense just an in-setting one. In the third impact earth seems to be covered with what seems like particle beam emissions. So is it possible that it's either the form of the soul or of the fruit of life/knowledge being released in each case.

Emissions of Angels:
http://wiki.evageeks.org/images/3/3a/Eo ... losion.jpg

Emissions of People:
http://wiki.evageeks.org/images/thumb/9 ... 3_comp.jpg

What do they have to do with "particle beams"?
I don't believe such a specific identification is ever made.

The pink energy crosses generated by Angels and Evas -- all but ONE of which, in NGE, are completely unrelated to anybody dying -- seem a very different phenomenon from the static green crosses of 3I. In both cases, the cross imagery is probably used for its connection with the transcendental, i.e. "God". Angels and Evas are already godly beings; the "crossplosions" are but one example of higher powers they possess that Lilin lack. The 3I crosses appear to be, rather than energy projection, extensions of Lilith's ATF which visibly help catapult freed human souls into the stream heading for her and the Black Moon. In this context, the cross is probably referencing the "Way to God" idea, wherein Jesus, visualized by the cross, is what enables humans to bridge the gap to God. Of course, the Way to God in Eva involves Evas and Lilith rather than Jesus and God, but you get the idea.

What do they have to do with "particle beams"?
I don't believe such a specific identification is ever made.

I found that type of term being used here: http://wiki.evageeks.org/Cross

The pink energy crosses generated by Angels and Evas -- all but ONE of which, in NGE, are completely unrelated to anybody dying -- seem a very different phenomenon from the static green crosses of 3I.

You're right actually, somehow I remembered them being released after them dying but it seems they are released when they shoot stuff and it explodes that way.

In both cases, the cross imagery is probably used for its connection with the transcendental, i.e. "God". Angels and Evas are already godly beings; the "crossplosions" are but one example of higher powers they possess that Lilin lack.

But aren't those higher powers just some aliens that created Adam and Lilith? They're not actual gods. How would this be explained in setting? We know SEELE treats the angels with religious revelance. So how did this go about. Was SEELE obsessed with kabbala and attached that kind of meaning to what they found in the scrolls? Or in the evangelion world the jewish and christian religion somehow inspired by the "aliens".

The 3I crosses appear to be, rather than energy projection, extensions of Lilith's ATF which visibly help catapult freed human souls into the stream heading for her and the Black Moon. In this context, the cross is probably referencing the "Way to God" idea, wherein Jesus, visualized by the cross, is what enables humans to bridge the gap to God. Of course, the Way to God in Eva involves Evas and Lilith rather than Jesus and God, but you get the idea.

This also makes me wonder. How are angels more god-like then humans? To create "god" or basically the entity created in the third impact you need both the fruit of knowledge and life. Neither the angels nor the humans lilin have both. So aren't they equally incomplete?

I assume one of the wiki's editors just used "particle beam" the one time by mistake. Will have to fix that.

I think you're being a bit too dogmatic about what "god" means in Eva; you seem to be giving all weight to Fuyutsuki's line about fruits and no consideration to any other mention (of which there are many). While "Eva-01 has become something equal to a god" can be construed as "prerequisites satisfied; congrats, you're a god now", it also must be interpreted with due consideration for everything else, otherwise there's no internal logic to anything. Some examples:

- Adam is quite explicitly referred to in divine terms ("kami-sama"), with Ritsuko even referring to Second Impact as "divine punishment".
- Fuyutsuki calls the Eva-00 mock-up the "prototype of a god"; later, he tells Yui, "Humans created Evangelion to copy God". In a similar vein, Ritsuko describes the Evas as an attempt to "imitate God" [Adam].
- In episode 14, Rei muses, "What is a human? A creation of God? Is man a human creation?" (There are a few ways to interpret this. My personal favorite: depending on the actual nature of "god", being created by "god" is not necessarily mutually exclusive with being created by people...)
- Captions for the Masayuki's Full-length Opening music video, penned by Anno himself, describe the Angels as "despondent(?) gods". (Not 100% on the first term, but the "gods" part is unambiguous.)
- The Classified Information (a must-read if you have not) throw around the word "god" like they're trying to set some kind of record. Even worse in the original Japanese.

But aren't those higher powers just some aliens that created Adam and Lilith? They're not actual gods.

According to whom...?

Classified Information wrote:(...)from the perspective of Angels, humans, and others, [the First Ancestral Race] might be called gods.

Why is anything a god? Because somebody believes it's one. There's no other reason.

Reichu wrote:I think you're being a bit too dogmatic about what "god" means in Eva; you seem to be giving all weight to Fuyutsuki's line about fruits and no consideration to any other mention (of which there are many). While "Eva-01 has become something equal to a god" can be construed as "prerequisites satisfied; congrats, you're a god now", it also must be interpreted with due consideration for everything else, otherwise there's no internal logic to anything. Some examples:

Well, I find it kind of hard to attribut the word God in the context of Eva to anything specific. Maybe I shouldn't, but Adam, Lilith, Angels, Lance of Longinus etc are all specific objects and entities in the eva universe.

Reichu wrote:- Adam is quite explicitly referred to in divine terms ("kami-sama"), with Ritsuko even referring to Second Impact as "divine punishment".

Interesting, but something created Adam as well as Lilith. It also seems that both were sent by the same entity. Wouldn't that be god? Also, Giant Rei is even more powerful than Adam. What does that make her?

Reichu wrote:- Fuyutsuki calls the Eva-00 mock-up the "prototype of a god"; later, he tells Yui, "Humans created Evangelion to copy God". In a similar vein, Ritsuko describes the Evas as an attempt to "imitate God" [Adam].

True, but then again wasn't the goal with Eva 01 the same? In the end it also does achieve godhood. That would mean that Lilith is also god-like, so why would the Angels be closer to gods than humans, if both come from god-like beings?

Reichu wrote:- In episode 14, Rei muses, "What is a human? A creation of God? Is man a human creation?" (There are a few ways to interpret this. My personal favorite: depending on the actual nature of "god", being created by "god" is not necessarily mutually exclusive with being created by people...)

I thought this was more reflective of herself. She heard humans were created by God so she's wondering if she's still a human since she was created by other humans and not God.

Reichu wrote:- Captions for the Masayuki's Full-length Opening music video, penned by Anno himself, describe the Angels as "despondent(?) gods". (Not 100% on the first term, but the "gods" part is unambiguous.)

Ok, thanks for clarification on this matter, so I guess I'll get to my other point.

Reichu wrote:According to whom...?

Ok, so I never even though to doubt this, but I'll try my best to provide evidence why I think so:
1. SEELE seems to just enjoy or have a reason to name things based on religious terms. They call computers MAGI (and the computers are recent), they use the name spear of Longinus even though it's obviously a name that couldn't be in the dead sea scrolls since it's a name that came about after the death of the historical figure of Jesus.
2. We know that the scrolls and seeds were created by aliens, the first ancestral race.
3. While religious names are attached, things are analyzed scientifically. The fruit of life is called an engine, the Evas are cloned, Adam and Lilith have DNA, Ritsuko can count the output of pilots in percentages.
4. Both Adam, Angels and Lilith have physical form, are designed to look like aliens, can be killed with weapons are controled by specific rules that humans can deduce like box instructions.

Basically I always had two theories about the relationship between the inverse aliens and the in-verse christianity, kabbala and gnosticism. One was that the ancient people discovered the dead sea scrolls somehow and they were actually the in-universe inspiration for those doctrins. This has several problems though. First of all, the dead sea scrolls were either in Antarctica and Japan, why would they only spark interest in the middle east. Also, why would they have ideas present in both the old testament (names of angels, adam, eve) and kabbala (Lilith, Adam Kadmon, Guf). Those ideas were seperated by millennia, so it would be weird if they came from the same source. So this made me stand by the second option. That SEELE have always been obsessed with kabbala, gnosticism and the more mystical doctrines of christianity and judaism, as is often case with the stereotypical sci-fi illuminati or world-dominating organizations. Then when they came upon evidence of alien life, saw that it can lead them to instrumentality which would basically make the immortal, so in a naturalistic way satisfy their spiritual goals, they attached all their religious obsessions to these alien beings. I mean it would be kind of odd if beings from another planet like the FAR used words like Adam, Lilith, Eva and Spear of Longinus. Or dead sea scrolls, which obviously refer to a specific geographic region.

Bleh, not only did I accidentally erase your post (there's a fix, but I need Monk Ed to do it; don't worry), I lost my own follow-up in the ensuing panic. This must be what supers who are still learning to control their powers feel like... I apologize most sincerely for my clumsiness and all inconvenience it has caused.

It seems that you've bounced to a very different subject matter without resolving the question you created the thread for in the first place. I would recommend looking through this thread, which seems quite relevant to your interests, and bumping it if you still have concerns. I would also recommend reading the Classified Information translation that I linked to, since it touches upon many items you would find interesting in the biggest post-EoE info dump the Eva fandom has ever received and probably ever will.

Reichu wrote:Bleh, not only did I accidentally erase your post (there's a fix, but I need Monk Ed to do it; don't worry), I lost my own follow-up in the ensuing panic. This must be what supers who are still learning to control their powers feel like... I apologize most sincerely for my clumsiness and all inconvenience it has caused.

It seems that you've bounced to a very different subject matter without resolving the question you created the thread for in the first place. I would recommend looking through this thread, which seems quite relevant to your interests, and bumping it if you still have concerns. I would also recommend reading the Classified Information translation that I linked to, since it touches upon many items you would find interesting in the biggest post-EoE info dump the Eva fandom has ever received and probably ever will.

I actually did read the CI a long time ago, but just once and I think just at specific aspects I had doubts about so thanks. Double thanks since you seem to be the one that translated it. It's funny but reading it I formed an idea in my head which seemed to have been confirmed in the thread you posted.

I always wanted to know the in-setting relation between actual christianity, kabbala, gnosticism, qumran etc. and the the reason why extraterrestrials are given those names. First I thought that it must have been the religion being actually inspired by the seed manuals (DSSs). Then I think someone either told me that the DSS in Qumran and the ones in the show are not the same and SEELE just called them after those. So then I figured that SEELE are just crazy illuminati who originated from the essenes, took over the world and when they found evidence of ET life and a possibility for immortality they fit it all with their religious beliefs. But now I see that I was right the first time and the manuals were actually found in Qumran so I can go back to my original theory which makes at least a bit more sense.

So my theory would be this.
1. Just as the most common theory is, Adam and Lilith land on earth and Lilith's Longinus Spear is destroyed. You think this is a dumb theory but the whole idea of a two seeds landing on one planet by "mistake" is already kind of iffy. I mean how is it possible a practicaly omnipotent race would make that kind of mistake. What it does mean though is that something went wrong, and if a seed landed that shouldn't have it's not that much of a stretch to think that it was damaged. Maybe there was some malfunction from the beginning? Maybe two FAR fractions wanted to send their own SEEDS, fought and one got damaged?

Whichever it is, my main point is that if a Seed got sent by mistake it's not so weird another problem ocured.
2. The manual is discovered by people and at some point lands in Qumran. You ask how they read it? Well, if the they were supposed to be instructions for a potential life form then the FAR must have thought of this. Also, the living beings coming upon it would have originated from beings the FAR created, so those must have been compatible. My theory would be that the manuals were actually some device that will read the mind of the intelligent life that discovers it and then send the info straight into its mind. Without the need of deciphering a possible alien language. Thing is people in those times couldn't understand those concepts so they interpreted it as Angels, Gods and what not. The FAR may have even anticipated this but figured the manuals are useful and dangerous anyways only for intelligent beings that actually would have the technology to do anything with the Seeds.
3. Then it's basically the same as aynone else's interpretation. The essenes form into a medievel sect, those create an occult society, take over the world and finally rediscover the Qumran Scrolls. The actual scrolls are just manuscripts that the essenes wrote down from the "visions" from the device. SEELE releases some of the publicaly, the ones that fit into the schooled historical narratives, takes the ones that suggest the existence of the device, its implications and the device itself for themselves and on it base their plan.


This for me leaves two problems, one minor and one major.
1. Some names just don't fit. Sure Adam, Angels, Lilith, Tree of Life, Eva are all from judaism and kabbala but the Spear of Longinus is a christian term which refers to an actual semi-historic event. But it's possible this is just an added term by SEELE. Maybe their ancestors beliefs had a mix of christian elements that got infused with their essene-originating doctrine later on so they added it out of sentiment, just as the name "MAGI" was obviously added later since it refers to something not related to the scrolls at all.
2. This is the bigger one. When did the scrolls land in the actual middle-east? The concept of angels, Adam, Eve etc. were in judaism long before the essenes. It might be that judaism formed independently and then the essenes found the scrolls and fit the information into their religious beliefs. But then it would be a weird coincidence that the angels emit something akin to crosses and we see a Sephirot during third impact. Those would imply that those were inherent elements to the nature of the FAR/SEED stuff, so they had to have been something that judaism took from the device...

But now, that I think of it, it's not that bad. After all sephirot, lilith and the cross (tree of life) aren't concepts from the old testament. They are concepts that formed later on. So maybe it went this way. Judaism formed indepently. Essenes in-evaverse who are jews find the device and do two things. First of all they attach the names to the entities they see in it. They call aliens - Adam, Lilith and the names of angels from their own beliefs. They call the whole power of the FAR - God. But on the other hand they find out about instrumentality, what comes to be the tree of life in the third impact and the way to attain godhood. They take these concepts give them the names like sephirot, tree of life, adam kadmon, whatever the kabbalic name for enlightenment is and thus the origins of kabbalic thought are formed in the eva setting.

Reichu wrote:Bleh, not only did I accidentally erase your post (there's a fix, but I need Monk Ed to do it; don't worry), I lost my own follow-up in the ensuing panic. This must be what supers who are still learning to control their powers feel like... I apologize most sincerely for my clumsiness and all inconvenience it has caused.

It seems that you've bounced to a very different subject matter without resolving the question you created the thread for in the first place. I would recommend looking through this thread, which seems quite relevant to your interests, and bumping it if you still have concerns. I would also recommend reading the Classified Information translation that I linked to, since it touches upon many items you would find interesting in the biggest post-EoE info dump the Eva fandom has ever received and probably ever will.

Now that I think of it we derailed with out talks but it didn't really answer my questions.

So the cross explotions represent the "way to god" or at least are there to show the nature of the Angels that is close to God. But that's the symbolic meaning, it's the meaning we can attach to them as viewers or SEELE or the Essenes could have. But what are they on a more technical level? Just as we know Adam is not actually Adam or a being closed to Adam but an organism created by a race of aliens to spread a specific type of life of a planet. Then what are the crosses actually supposed to be?

Well, if you want a technical explanation for why a pillar-shaped explosion would develop two arms just shy of the top -- or why an Anti A.T. Field would develop millions of green cross-shaped soul catapults that later detach and float toward space -- I don't think I can help a whole lot. There comes a point when concrete logistics takes a back seat to aesthetics and symbolism. In NGE, that point comes earlier than most of us like to admit, or maybe we just don't care because the world is so fun to play with. I dunno.

It's entirely possible that the FAR developed their own significance for the cross, since it's not exactly a difficult shape to come by. It's just two lines intersecting at right angles to each other, also easily created by the human form standing with legs together and arms held straight out to the sides. (The latter is the whole reason crucifices became a thing; the human body dictated the shape of the torture-and-death rack.) It could also have just been some natural result of the metaphysics surrounding Seed engineering and tech.

There are a lot of things in NGE that seem wholly symbolic but turn out to be a bit deeper than just symbolism (although that's still certainly a large part of their existence); however, I don't think cross-shaped explosions are one of those things. To me, these are entirely an artistic choice that aesthetically reflect the thematic ties to Judeo-Christian lore you see littered throughout NGE. The series never attempts to explain them directly (not to my knowledge anyway, I don't ever remember it happening), nor does it ever expound upon them using any of the well-shot wordless expository methods employed through thoughtful direction by Anno throughout the series.

On a case-by-case method you could try and ascribe meaning to their appearance based on how it relates to what just happened (like maybe when Sachiel self-destructs, when Unit-02 activates in EOE, when Unit-01 activates in EOE, and when people lose their AT Fields and die in EOE), but there isn't anything out there that explains how these things happen (in a (pseudo)scientific sense--what exactly is going on to cause this particular shape when certain things happen, which are less often than not related to death in the TV Series). With the activation of Unit-02 in EOE, you could make the argument that Asuka is kind of reborn in a sense. Or, at the same time, you could say it's foreshadowing her death. With Unit-01 activating in EOE, you could say it's because it's essentially a god at that point, or that it foreshadows Shinji's "crucifixion" of sorts that he experiences along with Unit-01 itself. When you analyze it this way, however, you realize that there is very little consistency in what exactly these Cross Explosions signify, and so it just reinforces the idea that it's merely an artistic expression. The only common threads are moments of extreme emotion, death, possibly one could argue rebirth, and simply being an attack some of the angels use against the Lilin.

The only "cross-shaped explosion" that's directly associated with a death is Sachiel's -- not exactly a trend. This was mentioned early on in the thread, too.... I get the weird feeling, from the tone of your post, that you didn't read the stuff that preceded it. You ought to. :p

Reichu wrote:The only "cross-shaped explosion" that's directly associated with a death is Sachiel's -- not exactly a trend. This was mentioned early on in the thread, too.... I get the weird feeling, from the tone of your post, that you didn't read the stuff that preceded it. You ought to. :p

I don't think you read my post closely enough. I said "what exactly is going on to cause this particular shape when certain things happen, which are less often than not related to death in the TV Series". I know the saying is typically "more often than not", which might've been a bit confusing, but I didn't make a mistake by typing "less". I meant it when I said it. I also said later on that when judged on an individual basis, that you might be able to argue they foreshadow future death in some cases, but not that they result from it. I supported what you said, because it's true.