But why would Naoko, if there's any self-awareness in the MAGI, have loyalty to Gendo when her last memories before her death (via suicide) is killing the original Rei after she revealed that Gendo had been using her all that time and called her an old hag. Why would she would be loyal? It stands to reason, as Reichu pointed out, she'd be in a position to be even more ANGRY with Gendo (and probably allow NERV HQ to blow up). It makes a lot more sense that what happened was Ritsuko's own blunder and undoing. I think Reichu was spot on in this post, which had I known existed, would've never created this thread and have saved space on these forums not asking these bogus questions.
Reichu wrote:On an intellectual level, I'm sure Ritsuko understands what is really going with Gendo and Rei -- she breezily exhibits this kind of knowledge in the early episodes -- but the end-series emotional reality is much different and she has no way to cope. She's never really evolved past the mindset of competing with her mother for pretty much everything, and this includes "competition" for a sexual interest (relationship with older man = Ritsuko's way of filling the giant Dad-shaped void in her psyche). With her mom gone, Ritsuko is becoming her mom, and Rei is, in her distorted world-view, taking the place where Ritsuko had once been. Of course, she reasons, Gendo wants to fuck Rei -- he replaced my mom with me, didn't he? In essence, Ritchan is violently unloading her own insecurities onto everything else. You can see just how unhinged she is by EoE, where she believes with complete sincerity that Casper declined the self-destruct because it is actually her mom doing loathsomely mom-like things ("you chose your lover over your own daughter!"). The rational part of her mind that would know that the MAGI were specifically designed to make intelligent and rational decisions (which blowing up Nerv HQ to spite your ex-lover decidedly IS NOT) is... well, it's gone on vacation.
Ritsuko is so caught my with her underlying fears and paranoia, she snaps and shows she's no longer that rational, pragmatic, critical thinker, with (again, like Reichu mentioned) with adherence to science and logic. What happened in towards the end of Air (Episode 25') probably was the result of her earlier tinkering before the JSDF invaded. Ritsuko raises some eyebrows with her demeanor: Specifically how says how she'll see her mother soon. It's safe to say her mind was wasn't in the right place when she did whatever she did to the MAGI and was more preoccupied with dying (via suicide/blowing up NERV).