Gendo's Glasses wrote:I agree. I think a big weakness of the final Rebuild film is how Gendo just slots into the antagonist position and pulls off these startling if not improbable steps along the road to the Additional Impact. In both NGE and NTE, Gendo isn't much of a long-term mastermind -- he has a long-term goal, yes, but he gets there by seizing opportunities as they come (and, like most would-be masterminds, his scheming his vulnerable to just shooting everything to death.) In 2.22, he is outright accelerating his plan to awaken Unit 01 in response to the Mark 6 (something he didn't know existed.) In 3.0, he shows a bit more foresight, but a lot of that film is unclear (and I really do think the 'good Commander Kaworu' thing was retcon for the final film.)

It's true that Gendo plans tend to take a lot of risks, but he seems to be on more control of the situation in 3.0+1.0. He has all the power of NERV at that point.

Now, Gendo knows Mark-06 existed (ar least, he knows SEELE was planning to replace Eva-01). I mean, Gendo was on the moon in 2.0, then Mark-06 creation shouldn't have been a secret for him. So, he should expect SEELE would be send an Eva to stop the 10th Angel or Eva-01 before everyone dies (ruining SEELE's plan).

That said, Gendo has foresight in 3.0, but he takes a lot of risks. If the Fourth Impact wasn't stopped in 3.0, SEELE's plan (of humans "evolving" into being with FoL but without FoK) would be fulfilled, which would have ruined Gendo's plan. That almost happened as Fuyutsuki mentioned.


PS: I don't think 'good Commander Nagisa' is a retcon. I mean, we see him using the Commander suit in the preview of 2.0. Also, he said he wanted to make Shinji happy, so faking to be on SEELE side to save humanity seems to fit that wish. In 3.0, we even have a pretty subtle reference to his connection with Kaji.