I don't see the reason for it. I mean sure they could have handled the Shinji situation in a more tact way but given the situation its hard to say. Besides eva is about people screwing up. For deaths I would say Gendo and Futuyski have it coming and Rei II has a very high chance of dying or being permanently lost. Everyone else it really is up in the air but I don't think a slaughter followed by a tanging would fit the rebuilds, we've seen that before.

silvermoonlight wrote:I would not like to see Asuka die again as it was hard enough in EOE saying this though I do see a character death coming and I think it might be Mari's because I think her main goal very much revolves around Yui and getting her out of the core and I think it will lead to her death by Gendo's hand as in the manga she was his romantic rival for Yui affections. Though I would still dislike this as I would prefer the final movie to have some form of happy ending in that the people who die are the ones who are the villain's and not people in the crossfire like in EOE.

At one point, I did had a suspicion that Mari might die in the final film, since she did took on Asuka's role back in 2.0. I still need to watch EOE, but I have a feeling that she may end up like Asuka did. But I'm hoping it won't come to that, I think Mari's a great character.

Asuka's death in EoE is meant to provide ironic closure to her relationship with her mother. It was fractured when Kyoko went crazy, mistook a doll for Asuka, and then had the doll participate in a double suicide with her ("die with me!"). It was mended when Asuka learned that Kyoko's soul was in Eva-02, followed by the two of them fighting the enemy together to the death. So Asuka got her mom back, and Kyoko finally got her wish.

Mari only takes over Asuka's role in the most superficial of ways. A meaningful death could not be based on any sort of precedent in NGE, but would have to be cooked from scratch to work for the new films.

It really depends of what Anno has in store.

From what I've seen, she seems to be taking over the role that Misato had in EoE; the "rescuer that attempts to get him to man up and take action" person. Now that doesn't mean she's gonna die, but that's just what I've gathered.

And for the record, I don't see her and Shinji getting together at the end, as they lack the chemistry and relationship build up that the original show had. Princess symbolism is stretching it.

^ Mari was also urging him to stop being naive and get to know there world as she was ejecting him so there is also that.

As far as Mari being the one that dies, i'm not sure how effective that would be. For a death to be effective there should be an emotional connection to a character for it to mean something to an audience, ff that isn't the case then the death must affect a character the audience does have a connection to. Kaworu deaths in both NGE and NTE weren't about us the caring about him but how his death affected Shinji which we did care about. So unless the movie gets us to care about Mari or for a character close to Mari to give her death some emotional weight, it'd be rather ineffective in my opinion.

Stories do not need to end with characters dying or falling in love. Only what is necessary and/or impactful for the plot needs to occur. If Asuka dies out of the blue in the first third of the film without fulfilling an arc, then it would have been pointless; however, if she is written a nice, tightly-wrapped ending that happens to involve her death, then so be it. I trust Anno to handle it the way it needs to be done.

Stories do not need death and love, but I can't remember any great story that doesn't involte at least one of them, mainly because everyone can relate to them on a personal level. Final Impact is around the corner, WILLE v NERV it's just a matter of time and surely someone will die, likewise Shinji will have his open hearted clarification with Asuka, Rei and Misato.


Regarding Mari dying in Final: I hope it doesn't happen because I really like her and we feel the same way about LAS...

Mari cannot die. Mari is the secret engine that drives the universe. All praises be to chaos, the loins of creation.

I see no good reason to kill her off at this point. You can't kill a character off if they've already had a near-death fake-out. If you do, it severely cheapens the whole affair.

Even worse, killing a character off for being "mean" to the protagonist (weird way to describe saving his life and bringing him back to humanity, but that's how WILLE hate tends to work) reeks of making the setting bend over backwards for the protagonist, a building block of Mary Sue-dom.

LightDragonman wrote:And for the record, I don't see her and Shinji getting together at the end, as they lack the chemistry and relationship build up that the original show had. Princess symbolism is stretching it.

This really isn't about shipping.

Anno doesn't do karmic death, nor would death be an suitable "karma" here, like, she'd just die she wouldn't be put into Shinji's situation (which is the whole point of a "karmic retribution" setup) - besides, that sort of laser guided retribution is usually applied to personal slights & general vices (eg.greed) an that's not what the situation was about -

In the end it's not about Asuka specifically being a jerk to Shinji, but about Shinji being confronted with a world that's too endangered, too hardboiled to give a crap about his side of the story - there's always gonna be people who will blame him & not see his effort because only the results matter to them anymore- It's not just Asuka - consider Midori, who as likely a toddler during NTI and knows nothing but impact hell. .

She is, as she's always been in regards to Shinji's story, a standin or a "worst case" for the difficulties of human interaction - for that same reason she isn't really the "killing off" sort of character as a representation of human vitality in a sense (Even in Q!Verse she's a gritty, hard-boiled resistance fighter protecting the earth), though they're not above repeatedly pulling her through horrific wringers (Arael, EoE, Bardiel etc.) so Shinji can feel bad about her fate -
And there's also her own story to consider- Asuka doesn't consider "death in battle" all that bad compared to a helpless, torturous experience, humiliation, etc and you can't really do that much with a character once she's killed off, she has more potential in barely surviving & exploring what that puts her into.


At this point Shinji's probably attached enough to her that having crap happen to her would still impact him (he sure resents WILLE & Co but after seeing the remains of Tokyo-3 he mostly sees himself; During the descent of EVA 03 he lamented Misato's work going to waste and showed signs of wanting to prove himself to them - It's simply been a much shorter time for him, they were his roomate & his mother figure not to long ago) - he'd likely lament how he wasted all chances to reconnect with her - but as before, she kinda has more potential alive. She might be the one person that, if he gets her grudging respect, he get everyone's, or she might be the last person who can never see him the same way.

he'd likely lament how he wasted all chances to reconnect with her - but as before, she kinda has more potential alive. She might be the one person that, if he gets her grudging respect, he get everyone's, or she might be the last person who can never see him the same way.

So you're saying that Asuka has the potential to get Shinji back on his feet, and (if he's lucky) find some way to make up for all the bad interaction that happened between them and for not giving him the full details on what happened during the last fourteen years?

C.T.1290 wrote:So you're saying that Asuka has the potential to get Shinji back on his feet, and (if he's lucky) find some way to make up for all the bad interaction that happened between them and for not giving him the full details on what happened during the last fourteen years?

It's not about her doing anything for him (Why would she, and what would make you think it's in her nature?), plus a lot of the horror on NTI is its irreversibility, the fact that it can't be "made up" for unless you can revive the dead... or the biosphere for that matter.
As unlikely as it seems, with all allies gone he'll have to get to his feet on his own - or perhaps Sakura can help or Kaji if he's still around, but however it happens, he'll have to get his act together first and then maybe try to talk to her.

What I mean is more, since she's an example of someone so full of disdain & contempt for him, there's a sense that if he can win her over (as in, get some grudging respect out of her, or, if we're dreaming, vaguely friend or mentor-like behavior) he can probably prove himself to 90% of peeps and somehow live in that world. Like, she might serve as a litmus test marker here.

Like, I would agree that objectively THEY have to apologize to HIM, (after all, he's a teenager, being manipulated by Gendo as they all were, and had no idea that he was sitting in an apocalypse machine) but, (as kaworu put it) that's not how they see it, so he has to deal with that, who's actually right is of limited importance as for what happens next, it's not like they can call in a judge or ombudsman (and though they acted low, there's only so much you can blame them after 14 years of hell - heck, I doubt Shinji did after he saw the city though he had some resentment over them not hearing him out and the communication fuckup at the finale was very much mutual) - Like, the takeaway is not "Wow, Misato & Asuka are such assholes", but, "Wow things went full-on mad max here"

Like, from the beginning EVA was this show about a cvilization so pushed to the brink that they have to resort to child soldiers, a "harsh & pragmatic world where feeling seems to have no place" - in a way Q is simply a more extreme version of that.

Kendrix wrote:
Like, from the beginning EVA was this show about a cvilization so pushed to the brink that they have to resort to child soldiers, a "harsh & pragmatic world where feeling seems to have no place" - in a way Q is simply a more extreme version of that.

That's not entirely accurate though, most if not all trials and tribulations go back to the machinations of one Gendo Ikari, after all Kaworu calls him the "king" of the lilin for a reason. Also not everything is harsh and pragmatic, take Misato for example. She had the finger on the button and every reason to do so, the mission to stop NERV and preventing any future impacts. Yet when the moment came, all those pragmatic logical reasons didn't matter, at that moment the life of Shinji Ikari was more important to her than her mission, hell i'd say it was more important her than the world given Ritsukos warning about impact triggering.

Settie wrote: Yet when the moment came, all those pragmatic logical reasons didn't matter, at that moment the life of Shinji Ikari was more important to her than her mission, hell i'd say it was more important her than the world given Ritsukos warning about impact triggering.

That wasn't a conscious descision though, it's not that she deemed Shinji "more important" for idealism reasons or anything related to her mission, it's not that she chose to refrain from killing him but that she couldn't kill him because she couldn't make herself do it emotionally, out of sheer mother instinct or residual attachment. And sparing him DID lead to another impact so it's not like it lowers the grimdark factor - it's basically a moment of human weakness, albeit one we might find very sympathetic.

And, of course, Shinji still doesn't know she spared him, so he based his following actions on the premise that he can't come back to her as she is now.

Like, if they weren't still lowkey attached to each other this would probably be less painful to watch.

...it's not that she chose to refrain from killing him but that she couldn't kill him because she couldn't make herself do it emotionally, out of sheer mother instinct or residual attachment. And sparing him DID lead to another impact...

What would have happened if she did kill him? Would it solved everyone's problems? Including Misato's and Asuka's?

C.T.1290 wrote:What would have happened if she did kill him?

Possibly no Fourth Impact, but we don't now enough about anyone's plans ATM to say that for sure. Of course that doesn't mean that poor Shinji remotely deserved it but that's precisely the point: It's a crapsack world where putting a bomb colar on a kid & throwing him in a jail cell is not just a reasonable safety precaution, but not even safe enough.

Kendrix wrote:Possibly no Fourth Impact, but we don't now enough about anyone's plans ATM to say that for sure. Of course that doesn't mean that poor Shinji remotely deserved it but that's precisely the point: It's a crapsack world where putting a bomb colar on a kid & throwing him in a jail cell is not just a reasonable safety precaution, but not even safe enough.

So WILLE would be better off without him, whom they labeled as an impact trigger, and Misato and Asuka would be glad to get rid of him?

C.T.1290 wrote:So WILLE would be better off without him, whom they labeled as an impact trigger, and Misato and Asuka would be glad to get rid of him?

Not necessarily glad to get rid of him, but it might be the safest option. As Kendrix pointed out, however, this is in contradiction with their emotional feelings toward him, which prevent them from discarding him outright.

Sachi wrote:Not necessarily glad to get rid of him, but it might be the safest option. As Kendrix pointed out, however, this is in contradiction with their emotional feelings toward him, which prevent them from discarding him outright.

What if they have a chance to kill him, would they take it with no regrets, second thoughts, or even hesitation?

Clearly not, as Asuka has just taken the trouble to rescue him.