I'm surprised no one has pointed this out (or maybe they have and I'm just too dense to remember).
The Greek myth of Prometheus is about a trickster, a "champion of humanity", known for creating humans from clay. He tricked Zeus by offering him two different sacrifices, beef in the stomach of an ox, and worthless bones wrapped in glistening fat. He gave the gift of fire or knowledge (the story changes depending on who you ask) to man, stealing it from the gods. For this, he was punished, chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where day after day, an eagle would eat his liver every day, the organ regenerating each night because of his immortality, the eagle symbolizing Zeus.
Asuka's arc bears striking resemblance to the tale of Prometheus. Self-proclaimed champion, has a subconscious obsession with dolls, plays with the minds of others, is something undesirable hidden inside something pleasing, and fought for the progress and survival of humanity only to be pinned down and eviscerated by the bird-like Eva Series. The regenerating liver may be paralleled by Asuka dying because she was so deeply synchronized with Unit 02, she likely received no physical damage, even when Unit 02 was torn apart. The Caucasus is a region sandwiched between Asia and Europe, and seeing as how the rest of the series ties in so heavily with European Catholic mythology and imagery along with Asian ideals and social structure, I believe this may tie in as well.
Additional thoughts, corrections, or statements declaring my idiocy?
Asuka and Prometheus
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Asuka and Prometheus
*injects Angel blood* I know what the fuck an EVA is now :)
Re: Asuka and Prometheus
I can see another similarity, her Evangelion’s liver quite literally gets eaten out in EOE, and the Mass Production Evangelions possess feathered wings just like an eagle. Asuka’s is also feeling a tremendous amount of pain similarly to Prometheus.
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Re: Asuka and Prometheus
Eh, I guess I can see some parallels there, but the story of Prometheus and Pandora's Box seems more like an expression of man's realization that consciousness, knowledge, awareness, and enlightenment leads to eternal toil, struggle, and suffering. The story of Genesis itself is an example of a reflection of this same essential myth but re-contextualized within the framework of another belief system.
Fire, both in that it represents the light (which itself represents knowledge and enlightenment) and the dawn of our conscious human awareness, is viewed as something the divine did not intend for man or that their possession of it somehow otherwise displeased them greatly. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge represents this very same thing and the divine Father, Yahweh, just like the divine Father Zeus, punishes mankind for the knowledge and awareness they receive from it. In both cases, the humans obtain this knowledge and wisdom as the result of the meddling interference of a non-human entity (Prometheus being a Titan, and the serpent being a symbol for Satan) who winds up being punished along with them, and the women are the ones who initially bring about mankind's punishment on the human side of things. The resulting punishment in both cases entails for humanity ever present toil, struggle, pain, and suffering in life from birth until death
Interesting to note is that in both cases, the ways that both the non-human beings and women wind up bringing about this sudden emergence of consciousness and knowledge is through trickery and deceit, along with it being mythologically canon that men were created first, and women came second. The fact the trickery and deceit is carried out by the women and they arrive second chronologically with regards to men suggests that women either came to possess knowledge first (which is what allowed for such "trickery and deceit") like is explicitly part of the story of Genesis, or at the very least the conscious awareness and realization of the attraction and lust men feel toward them is what first caused them to even be consciously aware or knowledgeable enough in the first place to recognize that women actually existed in a distinct and separate manner from them (with the trickery and beguiling deceit being misattributed to them because its concurrent discovery of their existence and how it relates to men themselves),
Fire, both in that it represents the light (which itself represents knowledge and enlightenment) and the dawn of our conscious human awareness, is viewed as something the divine did not intend for man or that their possession of it somehow otherwise displeased them greatly. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge represents this very same thing and the divine Father, Yahweh, just like the divine Father Zeus, punishes mankind for the knowledge and awareness they receive from it. In both cases, the humans obtain this knowledge and wisdom as the result of the meddling interference of a non-human entity (Prometheus being a Titan, and the serpent being a symbol for Satan) who winds up being punished along with them, and the women are the ones who initially bring about mankind's punishment on the human side of things. The resulting punishment in both cases entails for humanity ever present toil, struggle, pain, and suffering in life from birth until death
Interesting to note is that in both cases, the ways that both the non-human beings and women wind up bringing about this sudden emergence of consciousness and knowledge is through trickery and deceit, along with it being mythologically canon that men were created first, and women came second. The fact the trickery and deceit is carried out by the women and they arrive second chronologically with regards to men suggests that women either came to possess knowledge first (which is what allowed for such "trickery and deceit") like is explicitly part of the story of Genesis, or at the very least the conscious awareness and realization of the attraction and lust men feel toward them is what first caused them to even be consciously aware or knowledgeable enough in the first place to recognize that women actually existed in a distinct and separate manner from them (with the trickery and beguiling deceit being misattributed to them because its concurrent discovery of their existence and how it relates to men themselves),
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