Coming back after instrumentality

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Retro Chocolate
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Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby Retro Chocolate » Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:16 am

So Rei states that "Anyone can return to human form as long as they can imagine themselves in their own heart," but who exactly is included in "anyone"? Coming back would require the person to be a part of instrumentality, but people who died prior to instrumentality starting were still part of it. We know this goes at least as far back as Asuka's death, as she returns during the final scene, but does it go back further? Does it go back to when Gendo and SEELE initiated their plans to start 3rd Impact? Does it go back all the way to 2nd impact? Or could we have King Tut and Ghengis Kahn coming back from the dead? Anyone have any ideas?
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Re: Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby jcmoorehead » Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:25 am

I suppose ultimately its down to the views own interpretations but I always took it to mean anyone who was caught up in the from where it begins in EoE through to when Shinji makes the decision to return. So in my eyes it means someone like Kaji wouldn't be able to return (Unless he, like a number of fanfics have him do, faked his death.)

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Postby Bagheera » Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:26 am

Any intact body would be eligible, as these could be reduced to LCL and the souls within released (and from there gathered by Rei for Instrumentality). This means Kaji is likely eligible (which is made plain in the manga, though that is a separate continuity), but the odds get more spotty the farther back in time you go -- if the body's decomposed the soul within has been released and gone on to do whatever it is souls do in Earth's ecology. So, per canon, maybe a few weeks at best, though if a body is mummified or otherwise well-preserved, who knows?
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Re: Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby Retro Chocolate » Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:39 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:...if a body is mummified...

I now think that a King Tut in post-3I fanfic is completely necessary.
"That's not it at all. Trying to go on living is different than trying to escape fear. Those who acted in order to live until the end, without losing themselves to fear and what was happening around them, are the ones who survived properly. We don't know what "God" is thinking, but both fortune and misfortune are thrust upon people. Even so, people exist within a domain that is theirs in which to act."
-Luca, Berserk

"Surely, a true Buster Machine pilot, the real Nono-Riri, would have a Buster Machine in the heart!!" BUSTER BEAM SLASH!!!
-Nono, Diebuster

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Re: Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby Joseki » Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:53 am

Misato's corpse has been turned into LCL in EoE, so it surely is possible for the deads to come back to life.
However in episode 23 Ritsuko said that the Chamber of Guf was empty, and as we see with Rei and Kaworu is possible for humans to "move" a soul from a body to another, so I think it's not a flight of fancy to presume human souls may reincarnate (and therefore Ghengis Kahn may now be someone else in the living world).

This whole concept of "souls" as something limited in number also creates some problems: human population is in constant grow, and there were much more humans alive before 2I, so if the Chamber of Guf was empty back in the days does it means there were humans without a sould being born in the world before 3I?

At the end of the day the concept of soul as something more than a human construct is obviously failed and so I don't think we could ever have a right answer.

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Postby Mr. Tines » Mon Mar 20, 2017 12:40 pm

It really comes down to your guess as to how long souls stick around near the body before moving on or being recycled or whatever.
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Postby Settie » Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:44 pm

I always interpreted as there being a time limit on how far back it works, otherwise there'd be serious overpopulation issues. There's also the quote in the OP, Asukas arm was split in half when she died, yet she comes back with an intact bandaged arm. That gives some interesting implications if say someone in their twilight years imagined themselves younger, would they return younger??

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Postby Retro Chocolate » Mon Mar 20, 2017 5:12 pm

View Original PostSettie wrote:I always interpreted as there being a time limit on how far back it works, otherwise there'd be serious overpopulation issues.

Not necessarily. In fact, even if the entire human race was included in instrumentality, if not enough of them had the will to return, there wouldn't be a problem. Besides, there's no reason there can't be an overpopulation problem. It's not like 3rd Impact is a sentient being that can decided that it doesn't want an overpopulation problem to happen, and no one involved in instigating 3rd Impact intended for humans to be able to come back, so it's possible that 3rd Impact would cause an overpopulation problem.
"That's not it at all. Trying to go on living is different than trying to escape fear. Those who acted in order to live until the end, without losing themselves to fear and what was happening around them, are the ones who survived properly. We don't know what "God" is thinking, but both fortune and misfortune are thrust upon people. Even so, people exist within a domain that is theirs in which to act."
-Luca, Berserk

"Surely, a true Buster Machine pilot, the real Nono-Riri, would have a Buster Machine in the heart!!" BUSTER BEAM SLASH!!!
-Nono, Diebuster

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Re: Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby NemZ » Tue Mar 21, 2017 12:25 am

What makes you think everyone throughout history had their own soul? reincarnation of some sort is a possibility in play, either of whole souls being recycled or perhaps dead folks drifting apart into raw 'soul stuff' before some quantity of it being reused for new people.
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Postby AuraTwilight » Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:19 am

My headcanon is "Everyone who died at, or after, Second Impact." It just seems tidy.
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Postby SoryuUberAlles » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:18 am

View Original PostRetro Chocolate wrote: Coming back would require the person to be a part of instrumentality, but people who died prior to instrumentality starting were still part of it.


But I have never accepted this!
How many more times do I have to tell you - Kaji's GONE

View Original PostAuraTwilight wrote:My headcanon is "Everyone who died at, or after, Second Impact." It just seems tidy.


To put in 'Metaphysical Biologist, PHD' speak: everyone with a functioning consciousness upon encountering a 'Transition Guide' may be 'Tanged' thereof.

I bounced this idea off Reichu a while ago:

View Original PostSoryuUberAlles wrote: does Kaworu actually die? His huge spiel about "My last will and testament. Now, erase me from this world" and the dialogue Shinji has with the intertitles about killing him are irrelevant if his reappearance in EoE is just a changing of fleshsuits. Twin-souled Kaworu allows a resolution to this plot hole. The only being that survives is the Adam soul that he houses.

(there's also an apocryphal belief that 'if you die before 3I you die in real life' - one of the arguments in favour is that those who seem to have died clearly beforehand mike few or questionable appearances in the 25-26 dreamworld. A particularly noticeable absence is Kaworu.)


Among other things, there's evidence this is the POINT of Kaworu. He was conceived as a humanoid angel that would betray Shinji and be forced to kill him (the Adam stuff is only explicitly mentioned in the DC!) He was 'angel Kaji' before he was Bishounen Space Jesus.

But I can also die here. Life and death are of equal value to me. Dying of your own will. That is the one and only absolute freedom there is. This my last will and testament - now erase me from this world

Shinji Ikari is tormented - Why did you kill him?

You ripped my heart out Anno - don't make it a lie!
Last edited by SoryuUberAlles on Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Reichu » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:53 am

@OP, the archive is thick with previous iterations of this topic. Play around with search if you're curious what not-no-longer present (and/or still-here-but-tired) users have to say on the matter.

View Original PostSoryuUberAlles wrote:Among other things, there's evidence this is the POINT of Kaworu. He was conceived as a humanoid angel that would betray Shinji and be forced to kill him (the Adam stuff is only explicitly mentioned in the DC!) He was 'angel Kaji' before he was Bishounen Space Jesus.

You're still stuck on this?

First off, notice that you're poo-pooing the DC in a post where you begin by casually referencing a scene from it. Consistency? Furthermore, "explicitly" is the key word; "the Adam stuff" is very, very, very heavily intimated in EoE.

Second, and more importantly, that my arguments to you in that thread (here and here) did not seem to have any apparent effect should make anyone wonder how exactly you define acceptable parameters of loss. They don't seem to be especially coherent. (So, if you are responsible for actually killing someone, mourning them is some kind of trick or lie or something on account of that person's soul getting absorbed into an ephemeral overgod that speaks to you briefly and, once its role is over, dies gruesomely and will never bother anyone ever again? Okay then...) There is no "lie" -- you are forcing things into a lie-shaped box, demanding an overly complicated solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Your premise is flawed and extra souls don't need to be crammed into anybody.
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Re: Coming back after instrumentality

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Postby SoryuUberAlles » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:06 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote: did not seem to have any apparent effect should make anyone wonder how exactly you define acceptable parameters of loss.


Well the 'two souls thing' is a different argument. There is some evidence Kaworu wasn't intended to be Adam's equivalent until very late in the production process. As for Kaworu being a character that Shinji would be 'befriend and be forced to kill', that's something they conceived very early and it never went away at all. However you tie up what I think is an apparent inconsistency - Kaworu is supposed to be dead but does at least seem to come back in EoE - you can take it or leave it. It does have some evidence in common, so you can read that thread for my sources. But leaving the 'circumstances of Kaworu's creation thread' aside...

You ripped my heart out Anno - don't make it a lie!


Kinda assumed that would be taken for a rhetorical flourish but if you feel that way I'm sorry. It does, for me however, detract from an emotional reaction to a character death for them to reappear days or even hours later. I think to engage with Eva you have to engage with the metaphysics at least a little and the metaphysics change death a lot.

(So, if you are responsible for actually killing someone, mourning them is some kind of trick or lie or something on account of that person's soul getting absorbed into an ephemeral overgod that speaks to you briefly and, once its role is over, dies gruesomely and will never bother anyone ever again? Okay then...)


If we all live in fantasy bubble that we can all come back from? That is OP after all. Isn't that why there are fans who say Instrumentality would actually be a good thing? Well that's another version of a long running fandom debate. But still, if you don't believe in heaven, then there's no version of Instrumentality that that's worse than regular atheist death, is there? As one Manga Entertainment trailer for EoE quoted Milton to say:

And that must end us; that must be our cure--
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?


Even if that's not 'authorial' that's a pretty poetic summary of the dilemma of atheist suicide.

The characters believe they've killed someone and one can certainly sympathize with their grief, confusion and loss in itself. But there's also sympathizing with the deaths of Kaworu and Kaji beyond that and the metaphysics of this debate - which is OP after all - is a separate but pretty important part of your reaction to it.
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