Something actually occurred to me about the four eyes thing.

When we see Unit-01 still connected to Lilith, she's featureless, and doesn't seem to become the shape we recognise until post Contact Experiment. Meanwhile, Adam's progeny show us that AT Fields can manipulate physical form beyond the instructions of the genome. The AT Field comes from the soul.

What happened to Kyoko's soul? It was torn in half. Initially only half remained with Unit-02, but it's generally accepted that the rest was salvaged in later. Perhaps the four eyes are a result of the two halves failing to reconverge, resulting in essentially two overlaid Souls. The eyes are the windows of the soul.

Dualism and shit.

Seriously though that's a legitimate theory I'm putting forward.

^ Well, that would certainly make more scene than my own theory of DNA-splicing, I buy it.

ACGT-Samael wrote:Seriously though that's a legitimate theory I'm putting forward.

I like it as a Doyleist explanation for why Eva-02 might look that way (even if the split-soul thing was reverse-engineered from the idea of giving an Eva four eyes). Watsonian-wise, it's rather weak, IMO.

First, it doesn't address Eva-02's other oddities. The simplest and thus best explanation would account for everything.

Next, "eyes are a window into the soul" is a common metaphor, yes, but that does not translate into "a not entirely unified soul is going to make its body grow extra eyes". I could see, maybe, Eva-01's green eyes being a result of Yui's influence -- here, green eyes are an actual trait remembered by the soul that could be passed onto the new body via epigenetic magic. If the idea here is that two separate soul-pieces are each "remembering" a complete Kyoko body, then why stop at duplicating eyes? Why not other body parts? If the eyes have been explicitly influenced by Kyoko's soul(s) -- one pair being EXCLUSIVELY the result of spiritual influence -- then why are they such a weird color?

Last, how would the restraints placed upon Evas even allow such extreme metamorphosis at all? You see your Eva growing new body parts out of nowhere, you put that beast on ice and diagnose the problem, stat.

ACGT-Samael wrote:Something actually occurred to me about the four eyes thing.

When we see Unit-01 still connected to Lilith, she's featureless, and doesn't seem to become the shape we recognise until post Contact Experiment. Meanwhile, Adam's progeny show us that AT Fields can manipulate physical form beyond the instructions of the genome. The AT Field comes from the soul.

What happened to Kyoko's soul? It was torn in half. Initially only half remained with Unit-02, but it's generally accepted that the rest was salvaged in later. Perhaps the four eyes are a result of the two halves failing to reconverge, resulting in essentially two overlaid Souls. The eyes are the windows of the soul.

Dualism and shit.

Seriously though that's a legitimate theory I'm putting forward.

Splitting in halves is a motif throughout Eva. What comes to mind are I think we're on the right track with something here.

Kyoko's soul splitting in half is the part of this equation that would fit into such a motif. All of the stuff about Eva-02 growing extra eyes BECAUSE of what happened to Kyoko does not apply.

Reichu wrote:I like it as a Doyleist explanation for why Eva-02 might look that way (even if the split-soul thing was reverse-engineered from the idea of giving an Eva four eyes). Watsonian-wise, it's rather weak, IMO.

First, it doesn't address Eva-02's other oddities. The simplest and thus best explanation would account for everything.

Next, "eyes are a window into the soul" is a common metaphor, yes, but that does not translate into "a not entirely unified soul is going to make its body grow extra eyes". I could see, maybe, Eva-01's green eyes being a result of Yui's influence -- here, green eyes are an actual trait remembered by the soul that could be passed onto the new body via epigenetic magic. If the idea here is that two separate soul-pieces are each "remembering" a complete Kyoko body, then why stop at duplicating eyes? Why not other body parts? If the eyes have been explicitly influenced by Kyoko's soul(s) -- one pair being EXCLUSIVELY the result of spiritual influence -- then why are they such a weird color?

Last, how would the restraints placed upon Evas even allow such extreme metamorphosis at all? You see your Eva growing new body parts out of nowhere, you put that beast on ice and diagnose the problem, stat.

We've established by this point NERV are actually really terrible at understanding how Evas work and getting them to actually cooperate. All that fancy machinery and restraint armour only works to keep them in line because the resident souls ostensibly allow it. The moment Yui or Kyoko goes "okay, seriously though" it becomes clear NERV has very little power over, or knowledge of, these titans. I would honestly not be surprised if a bunch of mutations got dumped in the "shit we don't understand about Eva" pile.

As for the host of other weird features, that's harder to explain, but my guess would be "corruption". The chaos resulting from two halves of a soul failing to reconverge mag have resulted in a lot of genetic instructions not being executed properly.

It's a stretch I know, but it at least works with (mostly) known properties of Evas.

The second part, which you included in the quote but didn't respond to, includes what I would consider some of the more germane points here... (Editing post quotes down to what you are actually addressing is good practice, BTW.)

Doyleist explanations taken literally generally don't make very good Watsonian ones. There's nothing wrong with the clear distinction between the two and the complementary coverage that having both available provides.

This may seem totally out of place but given the title of the topic including the terms anatomy and physiology I figure I may not be too out of line bringing this up.

Anyone around here by chance put any thought into entertaining the interpretation that Evangelion is a mythology of the life of a whole human being (body, mind, spirit, and Eva/Works) through the lens of science fiction and Judeo-Christian aesthetics and philosophy?

Ooph yeah sorry that was a pretty wordy question, but I'll try to be clearer. Hopefully I don't bork conveying my thoughts too much. Upon a number of recent enjoyable and depressing reviewings of the show and films produced so far a good portion of previously obtuse imagery and dialogue made a bit more sense when I started viewing the show from the above perspective.

As viscerally arresting and interesting as the sexual reproductive imagery is throughout the franchise, especially when coupled with sci-fi spectacle and Judeo-Christian jargon, I'll admit I was pretty lost as to what I had witnessed as a whole by the end of the bittersweet journey of the series, then I stumbled upon this beauty of a reservoir of deliciously detailed information in the form of a wiki and forum. As much as I enjoyed pouring through the minutia of how the mythical beasts portrayed in the show could be actually realized like our Star Trek and Star Wars brethren pouring over the intricacies of a warp drive or a lightsaber, I was still left wanting. Then came the films and some things started to become clear that satisfied that want.

The infamous scene when Kaworu sacrifices himself was one of those mysteries that became clear to me with the films, and oddly enough it wasn't from 3.0 (although that did contribute) but from 2.0. More specifically the scene in which Shinji dives into an angel core to "pull out" Rei with the help of a pseudo-god Eva-01. The imagery of Shinji strainingly [such masculine grunting good buddy ] crawling down the tunnel of love I'll call it then penetrating the barrier into the angel's core reminding me very much of that moment in sex ed when I bared witness to a sperm penetrating an egg. Soon after entering the angel's core/egg Shinji's "flesh" (now matching the same glowing paleness of Rei, which I find very important) is shredded off as if he's being rejected. As a whole the scene definitely has a sexual reproduction vibe, which lead me down the rabbit whole of the underlying philosophy that may be informing the creators' of Evangelion.

Looking back and reviewing the series lead me to notice that the anatomy and physiology of Adam's Children, Evangelions, and Lilin as well as the various Scientific and psychological jargon and organization titles had a very curious connection to the greater human body as a whole. The anatomy of every iteration of Adam's Children seems to highlight and mythologize an aspect of our human bodies and another oddity is their appears to be a physiological logic to their ordering leading all the way to the Lilin looking Kaworu/Tabris. The Seeds of Life themselves operate very much like the the chromosomes as a whole contained within the nucleus of a sex cell. Like chromosomes the seeds are vessels for the potentiality of life if contact is made between sex cells of opposite sexes, which ironically enough initiates the destruction of both sex cells to birth a new beginning. The layout of the black moon in the series with Lilith at its center even has a similar structure to a female egg cell.

But I don't think the imagery is meant to just stop at anatomical correlations but also to comment on the conflict that arises within each of us as beings of not just anatomy but Psychology as well. With Adam's Children taking mythological influence from the anatomical side of humanity that would leave the Lilin be mythological representations of our psychology and the Evangelions as the new Children of the greater Homo Sapien of both body and mind, our human works, technology and the arts and tools contained within them.

All that said about turning the human anatomy and psychology into an epic sci-fi myth on what it means to be a full filled human being leads me to this philosophy underlying Evangelion: When humanity acquired the evolutionary adaptation of self-consciousness we became mentally unfit to create and be responsible for new life when our bodies physiologically prepare us and motivate us to do so.

I know that was a bit long winded but I tried to be as concise as I could in connecting the anatomy of these fantastic beasts as mythological interpretations of aspects of us in both body and mind to tell one of the rawest and most beautiful human stories I've ever experienced.

Honestly I think Unit-02 having four eyes is a case of the design simply looking cool. If it actually was meant to have any kind of symbolic meaning, I think considering the circumstances surrounding it's introduction and first appearance in the series, the fact that both Shinji and Asuka pilot it together and even go on to exceed their previous synch ratio ratings would more likely be responsible for or at least a major factor contributing to its symbolic meaning.

Honestly any other symbolic interpretations that have been discussed or that I can even think up seem so tenuous that I can't seriously believe that would have been something that factored into that design choice. Why did Unit-00 look so different too in comparison to Unit-01, Unit-03, and Unit-04 like Unit-02 does? Why do the MP Evas look so different from them too? It's just a cool design that is meant to unconsciously project ideas about either the natures of the units themselves or their respective pilots.

Actually, one other symbolic interpretation I can come up with for Unit-02's having four eyes is the Japanese cultural association of the number four with death. Perhaps its incorporation into the Unit's design was meant to foreshadow Asuka's ultimate fate? Considering how much Eva's story seemed to be developed in part by Anno flying by the seat of his pants, I'm not certain if that was a detail that would've been decided in pre-production or at least before episode 8 (I think that's the ep, iirc ep 7 is Jet Alone).