^ I slight ninja by you there.

@C.T As you are asking Kendrix this questions I won't be one to speak for the person, but I did want to answer one.

1. Suggest for what? Getting Asuka to be less of a jerk? How about talking it out, maybe Shinji standing up for himself, or maybe the two understanding each other as certainly they would have more insight to each other after H.I.P. Again, a big part of EoE is about Hope and Acceptance. The acceptance of each other and hope that things will get better. Do you just kill anyone who is a jerk to you? I don't think so, so why would Shinji be justified for killing Asuka in this scene if he did?

Sicarius VI wrote: so why would Shinji be justified for killing Asuka in this scene if he did?

I thought that after all she did to Shinji, and for how she treated him and others, she was more or less deserving of that, or at least be hurt or bruised to some extent. Because of how she is, who wouldn't want to open a can of hurt on her as some sort of reprimanding?

And it seems pretty obvious that the whole ShinjiXAsuka relationship was entirely hopeless to begin with, so why would Shinji ever want to be with a bratty girl who was nothing but bad luck to him?

C.T.1290 wrote:And it seems pretty obvious that the whole ShinjiXAsuka relationship was entirely hopeless to begin with

I recommend you read Ghosts of Evangelion. It show's that even a relationship between these two can work and brings more focus to Asuka's positive traits

C.T.1290 wrote:I thought that after all she did to Shinji, and for how she treated him and others, she was more or less deserving of that, or at least be hurt or bruised to some extent. Because of how she is, who wouldn't want to open a can of hurt on her as some sort of reprimanding??

Hurt? Already done.



Can of hurt opened? Already done.



As a bonus, here's some sexual violation.

C.T.1290 wrote:What would one suggest then? And what do you mean by "the opposite that would need more justification, not sparing her" part?

Killing someone requires more explanation than not killing someone, unless it's like a self-defense situation. It's easy to forget when you're discussing murder-filled fiction day in day out but it should be pretty much a no brainer.

Having "enough of her obnoxious attitude" doesn't equal bashing in her windpipe, and there's a time & a place. At that point in time Asuka has as much if no more reason to "have enough" of him as the other way around, though he made the right choice in the end he didn't exactly splatter himself with glory here, and more importantly they're the only two people around and will probably have to work together in order to survive. And Asuka's the one who's a trained fighter - like, first things first? Can we get some proportionality in here? How about maybe just avoiding her in the future or something?
Like, in my personal, no doubt subjective opinion she's a bully & he doesn't owe her shit, and to hell with this idea that Shinji somehow needs to fix both himself & her to 'save' her but no word of what she should do, but there's still this thing called basic human decency that, lapses nonwithstanding, should ideally be upheld?
After all the uglyness between them I doubt they talked much after civilization halfway came back, best case they met again a few years later being a lot more mature & understanding & kinda become sorta distant friends who occasionally check up on each other, I presume Shinji would live a life of peace & quiet somewhere whereas Asuka would still be ambitious even if she stopped being morbid about it, and, like, be the CEO of a company peddling futuristic technology or something.

It's not a black & white dichotomy between killing her & marrying her for pete's sake. Of course he has no reason to chose to be near some person he has nothing but arguments with but he still needs to be able to cope with people like her existing if he is to live on this earth and that's apparently what he chose after giving instrumentality a fair try & deciding that it sucked. (this being the point of the movie)



I didn't want to say it because I didn't want this to turn tumblery & accusatory & awkward, but I'm almost tempted to call sexism on this. She's shitty girlfriend material so she should die? She's a person? She's like 14? She has value other than wether or not she's girlfriend material? Even if it's just the basic value of a human who hasn't done anything super criminal. Like, she's a mean schoolgirl, not some dictator.
She could still very much grow up to be a halfway decent person if placed in a less sucky enviroment, after all she did kinda have something very much like a normal friendship with Hikari.
I mean I can't even remotely stand her but can we agree that choking people to death is morally questionable at best & should be avoided if possible?
Like I don't want to do you an injustice here, are you perhaps comming at this from a level of general cynicism about humans in that you think someone in Shinji's situation would off her? In that case, remember that all humans are different.

I can agree with Kendrix. While I can understand Shinji choking Asuka in instrumentality in explosion of rage he could no longer suppress, killing someone deliberately and with cold blood is not something Shinji would do or should do, especially if their only crime was being a pain in the ass. Turning back and walking away would be sufficent.

@Cybermat47: Yes, I know Asuka has already gone through the worst of things. However, I still feel as though she hadn't reached the point where she learned anything from her experience or the choices she made, even after Instrumentality. I think what happened to her is what she brought upon herself; had she changed her ways earlier, things might have turned out a little more different and she wouldn't have to suffer through it all.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time sympathizing with her because of how she treated others.

C.T.1290 wrote:@Cybermat47: Yes, I know Asuka has already gone through the worst of things. However, I still feel as though she hadn't reached the point where she learned anything from her experience or the choices she made, even after Instrumentality. I think what happened to her is what she brought upon herself; had she changed her ways earlier, things might have turned out a little more different and she wouldn't have to suffer through it all.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time sympathizing with her because of how she treated others.

No one's saying you should sympathize with her.
But what's with this idea that bashing people over the head with heavy handed "punishment" somehow makes them learn?
Often enough being cornered & on the defensive makes people more reliant on their rigid behavior patterns and narrow PoVs.

Kendrix wrote:No one's saying you should sympathize with her.
But what's with this idea that bashing people over the head with heavy handed "punishment" somehow makes them learn?
Often enough being cornered & on the defensive makes people more reliant on their rigid behavior patterns and narrow PoVs.

I thought that she would learn from her mistakes, take a look at the world and the people around her, open her eyes to a trail of messes she leaves behind, and realize the consequences of her actions and how it affected the people close to her. And I thought that after Instrumentality, she would probably, I don't know, find some way to improve herself; take responsibility for how she treated others, own up to her actions for once, clean up her act, and finally realize that being a bitch to everyone will get her nowhere and that she'll always be alone because no one wants to be around her.
Despite all the bad things that had happened to her, including the ones that were pretty much her fault for being too prideful and overly competitive, never once did she look back on her own actions and the consequences it leaves behind and realizes she didn't exactly made the right choices.
Never once did she think about other people's feelings and the trouble she caused them.
Never once did she realized that she was going at things the wrong way.
Never once had she ever apologized to those she had treated poorly and begged for forgiveness.
Never once had she done some self reflection on how she treats other people and how negatively they view her.
And never once had she done ANY form of kindness towards someone else rather than focusing on her self-centered desire to put herself above others while hurting them in the process and not once think about how badly it effected others.
Let's face it, she was nothing but a selfish, egotistical, self-centered, glory hogging, rude, overly competitive, obnoxious, loudmouthed, bullying, narcissistic, uncaring, calloused, bad tempered, violent, pushy, and annoying brat.
*Deep breath*
Sorry if this ranting seemed a little extreme, but that's how I feel about Asuka at this point. And I think that she'll always be like that for years come and with no hope of ever becoming a better character because that's how people will always remember her as.

The only things Asuka gets to do after returning from HIP:

- Kick down her grave marker (implied)
- Make the choice to lie next to Shinji (implied)
- Lie there catatonically while he tries to kill her
- Caress his face before he finishes the job
- Stare coldly at her would-be murderer while he sobs into her chest, then express disgust

From all of this, I would say that Asuka is clearly in a state of violent ambivalence and transition. (Does she value her life or want to die? Does she want Shinji's company or does she hate his guts? Etc.) Change is happening, only progress doesn't occur in a straight line, but in zigs and zags.

I've written to you before about how unrealistic it would be to expect someone, least of all Asuka, to emerge from HIP having fully processed the experience. Give the kids time to deal with their traumata, for goodness sake.

^How would it be unrealistic, if you don't mind my asking?

Reichu wrote:That pre-HIP sequence definitely wasn't in Shinji's head. Biggest giveaway is him being shown one of Misato's memories, when she and Kaji were college students and spent a whole week boning. Ritsuko references this event in episode 21, but there's no way Shinji could have known about it.

So where dit it actually happen? Because if the instrumentality hadn't taken place yet, there's no way Shinji entered her head. Maybe the Tree of Life is omniscient or some mindfuck¿?

You say there's no way, and yet it happened all the same, therefore there was a way.

That doesn't respond my question. Also, how can you conclude there is a way if you can't find a logical reason?
If something isn't logical you can't claim it is, because it isn't.

Everyone present in Pre-HIP had already had their souls collected, IIRC. Misato when she died, Asuka when she died, Rei when she went god-mode, and Shinji was within the Eva. Mini-Instrumentality.

TheCarkolum wrote:That doesn't respond my question. Also, how can you conclude there is a way if you can't find a logical reason?
If something isn't logical you can't claim it is, because it isn't.

We know it happened because we were shown it. If you think that's not logical, fine, but it doesn't change what we were shown - and it doesn't mean that there isn't an explanation you haven't thought of.

No. We are shown that Shinji can see some memories Misato has. How we know that is because Shinji can look into Misato's soul? Yeah, maybe the thing Sachi says could explain it, the Mini-instrumentality thing, so in order to find an explanation we have to assume that pre-HIP is also some kind of "instrumentality"? Well, how can you prove that? Sorry but the collecting souls thing never convinced me at all. IIRC, a ghostly Rei appears twice in front of Misato, and the first one didn't even "take away" the body, so...

TheCarkolum wrote:Yeah, maybe the thing Sachi says could explain it, the Mini-instrumentality thing, so in order to find an explanation we have to assume that pre-HIP is also some kind of "instrumentality"? Well, how can you prove that? Sorry but the collecting souls thing never convinced me at all. IIRC, a ghostly Rei appears twice in front of Misato, and the first one didn't even "take away" the body, so...

What further proof is needed? It's obviously a sort of mind-meld sequence wherein Shinji can see the thoughts and feelings of others, proven by Misato's week-long sexy party with Kaji, which Shinji would have no prior knowledge of. Because of this, it's impossible for anything otherwise to be going on. Shinji is literally viewing things from Misato's mind. I'm not sure what else you think could be going on.

I think that she learned that Shinji and her weren't so different after all - because they really aren't. Both of them were let down by their Fathers' selfishness. Both of their Mothers sacrificed themselves for the greater good (though Kyoko's sacrifice was obviously unplanned by her).

The main thing I want to know about the post-Third Impact world is Shinji and Asuka's relationship with each other. Do their similarities strengthen their bond or shatter it?