The Ultimate Truth of Evangelion

[gchristnsn]

At first I intended to write a guide essay on the Evangelion plot, but when I got the whole picture, I decided to apply logical analysis to it, and I was amazed by the things I have found there. I have a sense, that I have unambiguously solved the entire plot using the minimal amount of entities.

In brief, there were two scenarios of the complementation (this is a well known fact) - one was the Seele's conspiracy to make an angelic being from the humanity using an artificial impact under the cover of a war with angels, but other was a salvation plan as a last resort from the third impact artificially initiated by Seele, and most likely Yui is the author of the salvation plan (it's not possible to prove this with the 100% probability, but the probability of this is very high). Her intentions were to complement the humanity in an ark created from a god-like being (Unit 01), and her disappearance was a move to force Gendo to accomplish this plan because he was under Seele's pressure (all this is confirmed by facts). She absolutely had no plans to save the humanity using other ways (probably because it's hard to fight with Seele) and she had no choice but to complement the humanity inside an ark, but she hoped (and the hope is all that she had) that it is possible to save the world as is, what eventually has happened just by a (harsh) coincidence.


The full solution is below (an excerpt from the essay). I'm not a native English speaker, and the text still needs a correction, so please excuse me for the grammar, but I want to share my revelations.


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When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe but look only and surely at what are the facts.

- Bertrand Russell

<...>

Armed with the epigraph above and the Occam’s razor, I’ll try to interpret and reconstruct the core story in this essay, specifying an information source (a character) and the episode number if possible. Why another interpretation? Simply because I haven’t yet encountered an interpretation that completely resembles my own. My reconstruction is not all-embracing though, it’s focused on the discovery of the character motivations and the psychological value Anno has hidden between the lines, which are the topics I’m personally interested in.


The Story Major Points

This section lists the story major points necessary to reassemble the core story in a chronological order. It’s an ultimate spoiler, so please watch NGE at least once before reading this. My intentions are: to show that NGE is a story about solitude and the people who are trying to make their dreams real at the conditions of a dying world and also reveal what these specific dreams are.

When watching the series, it’s worthy to consider how much information is available to one or the other character; this allows to reconstruct his or her feelings and intentions much more precise.

* In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it [The Gospel of John]. Joke (but who knows).

* It’s known that at the beginning there were two original angels: Adam - the progenitor of the other angels through the lost (probably after the second impact) White Moon, and Lilith - the mother of the humanity (Lilim, a kind of monsters in Judaist mythology) through the Black Moon, which still resides in Japan’s geofront along with the Lilith’s soulless body (falsely identified as Adam by Kaji and Misato, because they knew nothing about Lilith when they saw her the first time) [Seele, ep. 24].

* It’s known that Adam and his offsprings possess the fruit of life most likely in their DNA (which results in an S^2 energy source, the weakest part of angels), Lilith and her offsprings possess the fruit of wisdom in their DNA (which results in science). The combination of these fruits produces a being which has power equivalent to the power of God. The power of God allows to create something out of nothing (humans are always obliged to begin with something). [UN video/Seele/Fuyutsuki, ep. 21, 24, EoE].

* Sometimes in the 20th century a powerful secret organization - Seele (lit. soul, probably the conspiratorial world government) has revealed all the truth about angels through the Dead Sea scrolls. The scrolls also contain information that angels seek an opportunity to return into Adam [as stated by Kaworu, ep. 24] (it’s unclear why, but their attempts to assault the geofront and thus Lilith’s egg are probably the revenge for the Adam’s egg destroyed by the second impact or Adam itself, although this is a pure speculation and probably a plot glitch which could not be confirmed by any facts). This will produce the third impact - a global anti AT-field event and energy eruption which will lead to the extermination of the humanity. It’s not possible to build an unambiguous theory what the conditions could trigger an impact using only the series base, so I will not attempt to do this, because it’s not important for this interpretation, although it’s somehow connected to the Longinus lance, genetic affinity and Judaist metaphysics. Seele find that Dead Sea scrolls do not lie; they discover Adam and Lilith at the huge underground cavities in Japan and the South Pole [Seele/Kaworu, ep. 21, 24]. Seele considers that the humanity is a defective angel separated into multiple entities which has reached its evolutionary potential and starts a global conspiracy to return the humanity into its true angelic form by artificially generating an impact (it's actually not known when they made this decision and it's not known was the second impact planned or the decision was made after it, although the emptiness of the Guf chamber and the formation of the tree of life are important preconditions it's actually not known when they made this decision and it's not known was the second impact planned or the decision was made after it). But at first they should to exterminate the remaining angels (it’s only known that people and angels could not coexist).

* Gendo meets and marries Yui, a student of the biotechnology dept. and member of Seele (she treats Gendo as a not so terrible guy), to get closer to Seele’s conspiracy, money and resources [ep. 21].

* Seele’s first move to defend the humanity from the angels was an attempt to place Adam into a hibernated embryonic state which should impede angels to contact him. They has achieved this using Dr. Katsuragi (Misato’s father), who intended to test his super-solenoid (S^2) theory (probably an allusion to tokamaks or stellarators), which explains Adam’s infinity energy source. The test or the contact experiment is a controlled (probably at the subfermion level) injection of a human DNA into Adam with the Longinus lance (the only thing which is able to easily penetrate AT-field) found at the Dead Sea shore [UN video/Misato, ep. 21, EoE]. This leads to the Second Impact (Misato is the only survivor), global devastation as a necessary evil and the separation of Adam’s soul from his body (the soul continues its existence as Kaworu) [Seele, ep. 24]. Gendo, a Seele agent, knows the true meaning of the experiment (except the Kaworu’s fate, who is Seele’s top secret multipurpose backup analogous to Rei) and leaves the South Pole a day before it [UN video/Fuyutsuki, ep. 21].

* Fuyutsuki participates in Seele’s second impact investigation as an UN inspector and finds out, that Yui and Gendo have a child. The second impact is explained as a meteorite explosion to the general public, and Fuyutsuki conducts his own investigation on Seele’s business, treating to blackmail Gendo with the information about his enormous estate and the true cause of the second impact. But Gendo tells him about the "Project E", and Fuyutsuki accepts invitation to join the Gehirn organization (lit. brain). Gendo becomes the head of the artificial evolution laboratory [ep. 21].

* The goal of "Project E" is to create a clone of Adam - Eva [ep. 21]. This is the only weapon capable to generate strong AT-field and overcome angels, but only the children born just after the second impact could pilot it. The Marduk institute had been founded to select the children all over the world, but actually it’s a dummy organization ruled by Nerv, and it’s needed only to delude UN. All Evas except the 01 were the clones of Adam. Unit 01 was "the only true child of Lilith" [Seele, EoE] probably made from the lower part of Lilith’s body (there are no direct facts to confirm this, but it was possible to initiate the third impact by using Unit 01 as a replacement for Lilith in Seele’s complementation scenario [Seele, EoE] or create a god-like being to use as an ark in Fuyutsuki/Yui’s complementation scenario [Fuyutsuki, EoE], the later requires the both fruits, so a unit should be Lilith-based).

* Naoko Akagi (Ritsuko’s mother) invents a personality transfer technology (which is central for the whole series) and transfers her personality into the MAGI supercomputer (which is actually an AI based on biotechnology). The personality transfer technology is also used to control Evas, to transfer human personalities into Evas (as stated by Ritsuko, every Eva should have a human personality in it to synchronize with a pilot), to transfer and maintain personalities between the Rei clones and also dummy plugs [ep. 21].

* Fuyutsuki and Yui have a talk at the lake (or a seaside) during which Yui states her motto: "the heaven could be anywhere (you could be happy anywhere), if you have the will to live", so she probably wishes to save this dying world and the humanity as is, and says that she wants to provide the future for Shinji (the key to Yui’s motivation). [Fuyutsuki/Yui, ep. 21, EoE].

* Yui’s soul is completely absorbed into Unit 01 during the second contact experiment; her body is dissolved in LCL. Fuyutsuki and Gendo create a series of engineered Yui clones to use as stuffing for the dummy plug system. It’s interesting that Rei’s room in the geofront is inscribed with quark names, and Rei eats only condensed food in pills which may be a sign of alien or artificial biochemistry of her body. One of the clones (Rei) always bears the soul of Lilith, probably split from her original body (Rei calls it "home" [EoE]), which is kept at the Terminal Dogma. Eventually Gendo deserts Shinji because he thinks that he can only inflict pain to him, and Rei becomes his only "beloved" "daughter". [Ritsuko/Naoko/Gendo/Fuyutsuki/Kaworu, ep. 16, 21, 23, 24, EoE]

* A portion of Asuka’s mother’s soul has been absorbed into Unit 02 during the third contact experiment. This leads to her mental disorder and suicide. Thus Asuka has been chosen as an Eva pilot, and Misato (now a member of Gehirn) has been transferred to Germany as an Asuka’s supervisor. Just before this she had met Kaji, but soon she breaks up with him, and Kaji becomes the only Asuka’s supervisor (later a triple agent who works on Seele, Nerv and Japanese government) [ep. 20, 21, 22]

* Naoko finishes the MAGI system and commits suicide because she feels herself useless and betrayed. Naoko’s suicide has been provoked by Rei’s unpleasant confessions, which revealed Gendo’s true attitude towards her (Rei probably was intentionally left alone at the control center maze). Naoko chokes Rei I before she had thrown herself down and says that this would change nothing, because substitutes are available [ep. 21].

[gchristnsn]

* Gendo falls into depression. He proposes to start the Human Instrumentality Project to the Seele chairman as an act of his despair, and this is the most contradictory part of the Evangelion’s plot. It is required for the plot consistency that Seele’s version of the project should be prescribed in the Dead Sea scrolls, because the committee and Gendo were urged by something, and this should be the emptiness of the Guf chamber [EoE] probably because it’s possible to create or call "messiah" only at that time. The project also should be accomplished under the cover of a war with angels as it was presented to the government and UN. To not produce major contradictions and paradoxes (although there are minor contradictions) it’s required to state that Gendo was at least tolerable to Seele’s instrumentality scenario before Yui’s accident or he and the other team members were under Seele’s pressure: Fuyutsuki stated in the ep. 21 that he had get warning that he could be murdered, moreover Gendo was the only man able (probably as a head of the unique lab.) to accomplish Seele’s plan [Seele, ep. 20]. Thus actually he had agreed to accomplish Seele’s scenario, but secretly he hoped to carry out another plan because of his love to Yui, so Yui’s accident was probably her conspiracy to force Gendo to do this (and it’s very likely, if she is the original author of the secret Nerv’s scenario). The secret Gendo’s (actually Fuyutsuki’s or even Yui’s) project proposes to complement (unify) souls of all the humanity in an ark (confirmed by Fuyutsuki just after the formation of the Tree of Life [EoE]) created from a god-like being (Unit 01 with a S^2 source), so the humanity will ascend to a new degree of evolution and survive the third impact (initiated by Seele) using this ark. After the defeat of all the angels, Gendo states [the last meeting with Seele, EoE] that the humanity should evolve and "shape" this world (so, the final goal should be the evolution of humanity and the recreation or restoration of the Earth using God’s creative power), but Seele proceed with their own plan. Their goal was not a promoted evolution of the humanity to a god-like being (they have considered it a blasphemy [ep. 21] and probably have feared that Gendo will evolve into a god only by himself closing the "Pandora Box" [ep. 24]) but to return the humanity into its original pure (as opposed to Lilim) angel-like form [Misato, EoE] by purification through the death from the third impact. The existence of the purification step is confirmed by Seele’s words during the complementation ritual and by Gendo’s last meeting with Seele [EoE], where Fuyutsuki cites Yui’s motto, Gendo states that death creates nothing, but Seele answers that the use of Evas was only a step on the path to the rebirth of the humanity and Gendo deserves death. So, it’s clear that Seele’s plan includes the death phase as a purification step and the following rebirth phase. And the worst thing is that according to Seele’s plan the humanity should end up in the Black Moon (an egg of Lilith which then should evolve into an angelic being), but Gendo actually just wishes to unite with Yui in Unit 01.

* Gehirn is disbanded and Nerv (per se a military organization) is founded to fight with angels and accomplish the project (lit. nerve, there is an obvious connection between the Seele, Gehirn and Nerv organization names at the NGE symbolical layer, the names probably could be interpreted as intention, research and action respectively). To accomplish Fuhutsuki’s scenario Gendo must defeat all the angels (but Seele may use Kaworu to generate the third impact) and become a controller of the complementation process. He hopes to do this by manipulating Rei (actually a being born after the "forbidden reunion of Adam and Lilith") with the emotional "ties" he intends to make in her. He makes the ties by always being cheerful to her, and Shinji always envies this because Gendo is always cold to him. Actually Gendo is the only person who is able to freely interact with Ayanami (she was raised by him in solitude, and this probably was the reason to desert Shinji, although this is a speculation) and thus he is able to form her personality as he wishes [Ayanami, ep. 25]. So, she is actually his doll, as Asuka states during their encounter in the elevator [ep. 22].

* Ten years has been passed. Ritsuko conducts a scheduled Unit 00 synchronization test, but it’s out of control because Rei’s personality contained in Unit 00 tries to kill Ritsuko. After the plug ejection Gendo saves Ayanami by opening the overheated entry plug hatch with bare hands, and this firmly imprints him in Ayanami’s mind [ep. 5]. The prototype (00) unit probably contains Ayanami’s mental image or personality (Rei talks with her own image during the contact with the angel in the ep. 23). It’s clear because during such an accident with Shinji [ep. 14] Ritsuko claims that she’s sure, that only she was the target of 00 (only Rei has motivation to compete for Gendo’s love, and Ritsuko is the other [alive] woman who loves Gendo). Main storyline begins several days after the accident. Shinji returns to Tokyo-3 and fights angels. Although angel battles are important part of the character development, I’ll discuss them only if they’re tightly connected to the story.

* Gendo forces Shinji to pilot Eva by making Ayanami who was injured during the synchronization accident to also do this. Unit 01 spontaneously moves its hand to protect Shinji from the falling debris; it’s the first indication of Shinji’s mother’s soul presence inside the unit. [ep. 1]

* Jet Alone nuclear powered unit is out of control. The unit control system was actually hacked by Ritsuko to sustain Nerv leadership under the Gendo’s order; Misato knew nothing about that [ep. 7].

* Kaji delivers Adam’s embryo to Gendo using Unit 02 as a cover [ep. 8]. Gendo starts his plan to seize Nerv and perform his scenario of the complementation.

* Gendo delivers the Longinus lance from Antarctica using an aircraft carrier [ep. 12] and inserts it into Lilith [ep. 14]. The removal of the lance [ep. 22] has triggered the regeneration, which probably is the purpose of this act. He needs to do this because the other half of Lilith’s body was used to build Unit 01. Misato and Kaji find Lilith at the Terminal Dogma which they identify as Adam [ep. 15].

* After being overpraised, Shinji falls into the Dirac Ocean and encounters the first mental contact with an angel. Each contact with an angel is followed by a "psychoanalysis" session for the contacted person. During this session Shinji sees that he always runs away from hardships instead of trying to solve them, understands his real reasons for piloting Eva (to be useful) and meets his mother’s soul [ep. 16].

* A mysterious explosion has occurred at the US Nerv base during the installation of a new S^2 engine. As the result, the facility has disappeared (probably in the Dirac Ocean) along with Unit 04 and S^2 engine itself. There are indications that the accident was set up by Gendo to slow down Seele’s scenario, but there are no facts to confirm this [ep. 17]. The Unit 03 (transferred to Japan after the accident) turns to be an angel, which has been eventually destroyed by the dummy plug in Unit 01. The pilot (Toji) has been seriously injured. Probably Toji’s sister mental image was on the other side of the synchronization system, because Ritsuko mentions that Toji’s sister was transferred to the HQ medical facilities. Being heavily depressed, Shinj resigns the Nerv service the second time; he already did this because he felt himself useless in the ep. 4 (the key to Shinji’s motivation) [ep. 18].

* Extremely powerful angel attacks the Nerv HQ, incapacitating Unit 02. Rei tries to stop the angel with an N^2 bomb but fails, although stays alive. She doesn’t care about her life because she knows about the substitutes (other clones). The angel also destroys Shinji’s shelter and almost kills him. After the short talk with Kaji at the melon line (Kaji tells him about Adam and the third impact) Shinji understands that he is the last hope of the world and defeats the angel, reaching the 400% synchronization rate (Unit 01 also devours angel’s S^2 engine during this battle and becomes a god-like creature, this forces Gendo to put it on a hibernation) [ep. 19]. The unprecedented synchronization rate leads Shinji to be dissolved in LCL. For a month Ritsuko works on the Shinji’s extraction plan using MAGI. Being dissolved, Shinji understands that he (metaphorically) had run away from his father after the disappearance of the mother. Eventually Shinji appears from LCL, because he feels that he is needed by someone (Misato) [ep. 20].

* The instrumentation project management is transferred to the direct Seele supervision from the instrumentation committee. Fuyutsuki is kidnapped by Seele for an interrogation under the cover of Kaji. After the interrogation, during which Nerv’s past is revealed, Kaji frees Fuyutsuki. But eventually Kaji is murdered by an unknown person which could not be reliably resolved (although, there is Anno’s statement, that this wasn’t any of the main characters) [ep. 21].

* Asuka experiences a psychoanalysis session from the angel orbiting the Earth at the height not accessible with regular weapon. During the session she reveals that she tries to compensate absence of the mother by acting as an "adult" and through her enormous pride (the key to Asuka’s motivation). Ayanami destroys the angel with the Longinus lance, but the lance is captured by the lunar gravity and thus becomes lost, ruining Seele plans. Asuka finds that she’s not such an ideal person as she wishes to see herself and falls in depression, losing the ability to synchronize with Eva [ep. 22].

* A spiral-shaped angel fuses Unit 00 and invades Ayanami’s mind through the (herself) mental image contained in her unit (her mind also probably fuses with the angel’s mind). With the help of the angel Ayanami finds that she’s full of grief and solitude. But the angel doesn’t know what solitude is, and Ayanami explains this to him. Asuka’s attempt to attack the angel is failed due to lack of synchronization. Manipulating by Rei’s solitude the angel almost forces her to fuse with Shinji’s unit, but she makes her Eva to absorb the angel with AT-field and triggers the self-destruction, the resulting blast destroys Tokyo-3 almost entirely. All proofs of Ayanami’s death are secretly removed, and Rei’s archived personality is transferred into Rei III. After that, Ritsuko reveals all the secrets of Nerv to Shinji and destroys remaining Rei clones, because she thinks that she has lost to Rei in the fight for Gendo. As the result Ritsuko is put under arrest. [ep. 23]

* Shinji suspects that Ayanami is somehow related to his mother. Asuka is put out of service due to her inability to synchronize and ends up in a hospital; Kaworu is assigned as her replacement. Kaworu meets Rei and tells her that she’s also an angel disguised as a human, this revelation probably makes her to visit the Terminal Dogma during the final fight where she has found her original body (her appearance there was accompanied by an AT-field emission). This probably eventually makes her to break the "ties" with Gendo. There is also probably a connection with her appearance at the very beginning of the series and at the very end (when she was collecting the souls); this implies only her angelic nature, and it’s hard to guess why she had appeared at the beginning. At the bath Kaworu speaks Shinji about solitude and mentions that it’s not possible to overcome solitude by always running away (this probably eventually convinces him to reject the complementation). Because Adams’s soul is contained inside Kaworu, he easily could synchronize with Adam-based Evas, so he descends to the Terminal Dogma using Unit 02 and tries to reunite with the giant but finds that actually it’s Lilith’s body. Being deceived by Seele he allows Shinji to define his fate because "angels have no will to live" and there are not so many differences between death and life for them. But humans have the will and they probably need life more than angels (he thinks just as Yui). Eventually he dies, and Adam’s soul has been collected by Ayanami (only this implication could explain Kaworu’s appearance during the complementation in EoE). It’s hard to guess what exactly Seele’s plan were in Kaworu’s case, and how exactly they deceived Kaworu. It could not be Seele’s original scenario, because the Longinus lance was lost, although it somehow could be a scenario analogous to Genod’s one (Kaworu is a Seele’s analogue of Rei), where Seele could be a controller of the complementation. During the battle Shinji learns that people also have an AT-field which separates their personalities. [ep. 24].

* Seele finally understands that Gendo has seized Nerv and tries to hack MAGI to resolve the problem peacefully, but because Ritsuko (freed of arrest) deals with this attack, Seele starts a military operation to return the Eva units along with MAGI. Ritsuko tries to revenge Gendo, but no luck, she is betrayed again and killed. After being placed at the bottom of the lake, Asuka reveals that her unit contains portion of her mother’s personality, which gives her the will to fight. She fights JSSDF back, but Seele deploys Eva series controlled by Kaworu-based dummy plugs, powered by S^2 engines and armed with Longinus lance replicas against her. Eventually they demolish her unit, injure her arm and eye and kill her, but Lilith in a form of Ayanami collects all the souls of killed Nerv staff into herself. Depressed by the fact that he will never overcome solitude by killing his friends and other people (so it’s easier to die himself) Shinji gets to the Unit 01 by the price of Misato’s death (which deepens his depression). It turns out that the unit is buried in bakelite and Shinji can’t get into it. Suddenly the unit spontaneously moves its hand again allowing Shinji to get in, and Eva finally awakes [EoE: "Love is Destructive"].

* Gendo asks Ayanami to unite the humanity and transfer them to Yui, but she says that she is not his doll anymore and will fulfill Shinji’s wishes (he eventually becomes the controller of the complementation). She had broken Gendo’s glasses the previous night, which indicates a broken imprint, which in turn may be the result of the revelation of her true origin (she has found that she is an angel and (later) the containment vessel with the remains of the substitutes), although Ayanami will pick up other Gendo’s glasses after his death. Eva series start the ritual of forming the Tree of Life, which plunges the geofront (the Black Moon) along with the survived Nerv staff to the space. Rei severs Gendo’s hand and joins the Lilith’s body which also eventually grows to the dimensions comparable with Earth’s size. The Longinus lance returns, and Sinji gets yet another psychoanalysis session during which he decides that he’s completely useless, this world is full of pain and allows the complementation to proceed by Seele’s scenario. Earth-wide anti AT-field destroys AT-fields of the entire humanity, except Gendo’s who has been killed by Unit 01. Finally Shinji finds himself in the ocean of LCL fused with Ayanami. He decides that this world of eternal solitude is not what he wished for, that he has escaped again and rejects the complementation. After that, the Black Moon releases all collected souls back into the ocean, although Rei states that only those people who have dreams which shape their future could form an AT-field again in their hearts. Yui orbits the Earth in Unit 01 along with the Longinus lance as a memorial to the humanity (this is only the consequence and could not be her original wish) [EoE: "Love is Destructive"].

* Shinji finds himself lying at the shore along with Asuka and starts to choke her. I will not speculate about the reasons of this act because of lack of any direct clues, although it may be the realization of the same act (which confirms Asuka’s belief that Shinji only wants to hurt her) from his last psychoanalysis session, where Shinji tries to choke Asuka because she doesn’t want to care about him and thus he considers himself betrayed (i.e. being hurt and thus wants to hurt her in response). But Asuka accepts (i.e. cares about) him, probably because she has also learned the lesson Shinji has learned (don’t run away, even if you feel pain) and breaks the hedgehog dilemma. Although Misato’s soul had been collected by Lilith, she has not materialized, probably because she has completed her revenge and found herself completely useless for this world or lacking the will to live. Her cross has been probably shown just to remind about her at the end (Shinji and Asuka are not the only people who materialized, other people’s bodies have appeared from the LCL ocean after Shinji has rejected the complementation) [EoE: "I need you"].

[gchristnsn]

The Purpose of the Complementation

It’s only possible to say that the original motivation of the Gehirn core team (Naoko, Ritsuko, Gendo, Yui, Fuyutsuki) was to create a series of Adam’s clones to defeat the angels (eventually preventing the third impact) [ep. 21]. There is strong evidence that the complementation idea was invented later, or it was derived from Seele’s plans.
An intention to free people from interpersonal sufferings is just a Shinji’s view of the complementation. The Nerv’s vision of it could be reliably found in the ep. 21 and EoE.
Fuyutsuki (a professor of metaphysical biology) is probably the true author of the project; when Fuyutsuki speaks Yui at the seaside, he mentions that he gave some data to Gendo (although Yui may gave this data to Fuyutsuki) because it’s hard to accomplish this alone, but he supports Yui’s intentions and not Seele’s (he probably supports her beliefs about the world and doesn’t want the third impact or complementation at all). Yui definitely also knew about the project or Seele’s scenario (this may be concluded from her rebuke: "this will be terribly dangerous to break this seal onto the world") [ep. 21]. The fact that Fuyutsuki already knows about the project when Gendo mentions it the first time indicates that Fuyutsuki is the true author or at least is tightly connected to the development of the ark scenario. Fuyutsuki (or Yui) invents the complementation inside an ark probably as a last resort in the case of the complete world devastation by the third impact (thus it reminds Noah’s ark). It’s clear because he considers the third impact inevitable or almost inevitable; he knows that the impact had been predicted in the Dead Sea scrolls and Seele may probably plan to intentionally initiate it, or even he might knew about the Seele’s scenario [Fuyutsuki/Yui ep. 21]. Although Yui definitely doesn’t want this to happen, she along with the rest of the humanity simply has no choice (it’s hard to fight with such an organization) but to abandon the world and move to an ark before Seele will accomplish their scenario.
Gendo’s view of the complementation is different. At the last meeting with Seele he states that the humanity should evolve (probably using his scenario) and shape this world asking Seele to stop their plan (which is indeed possible because the angels are defeated and nothing prevents to recreate the world), but they Seele denies it. Although, actually he just wants to join Yui inside Unit 01.
Seele considers people defective and imperfect and probably just wishes to purify them and (metaphorically) escape the dying world by unifying the entire humanity into a pure angel-like being using the Dead Sea scrolls.


The Motivations and Dreams

* Ritsuko: it’s hard to say something particular in this case, she is lonely because she was raised without a father and fears men (but likes cats instead). Gendo is the only person she probably loves, and she fights for him against Ayanami. Ritsuko tries to revenge Gendo after she has been betrayed and has lost her fight.

* Misato: she is obsessed by revenge towards the angels, which probably makes her such a brilliant officer. She also seeks her father in other men because her father ignored her. But because she fears her father, she can’t support continuous relationship with men.

* Fuyutsuki: he has problems in communication with other people and hates the world after the second impact. But he probably hopes that the world could be saved as is it because he loves Yui (probably as a father) and supports her beliefs.

* Yui: the talk with Fuyutsuki at the lake shown in the ep. 21 and EoE is the key to Yui’s motivation. Yui was probably an ultimate fatalist, but it’s known that she loves the world as it is, and all what she does is for the sake of Shinji’s future. So, she probably hopes to leave a chance for Shinji to live in the world as it is and not to abandon his human form because she thinks that the humanity will lack the will to live being left in eternal solitude because people live not just for themselves but also for other people. Her dream eventually becomes real, but she ends up in eternal solitude herself. It’s not possible to reliable conclude from the series whether her accident was planned or not (either point of view could be explained by the many ways), there is a high probability that it was her own intention to provide support for Shinji and to allow him to define his future with his own hands. But it was absolutely necessary for the ark scenario to have someone in Eva, because the test Evas Gendo had were not capable to bear an S^2 source by design [Seele, ep. 20], and it was necessary to obtain it by force. Other evidences in EoE indicate that the accident was definitely planned, and Yui was agreed with that (this was her choice). Her fatalism implies that she probably hasn’t any plans at all and her disappearance is probably a Fuyutsuki’s or/and Yui’s conspiracy (Gendo was surprised by the accident) to force Gendo to accomplish the ark scenario by any means (this was necessary, if Gendo was under Seele’s pressure). So, it’s more probable that there were no intricate plans in Yui’s intentions to save the world as is but only hope because the humanity had no choice but to evolve according to the ark plan and abandon the world if Seele’s scenario was prescribed from the beginning.
* Gendo: his only wish is to unite with Yui inside Unit 01 through the direct complementation. He has the same psychic problems as Shinji: he always runs away, and the instrumentality project is such an escape at the global scale.
* Shinji (why he pilots Eva?): he wants to be praised and useful (actually he fears to be disliked and useless and therefore alone). He tries to make people to care about him (primarily his father by piloting Eva) to compensate the lack of care after he was deserted. But sometimes he becomes useless (and thus disliked and alone) either he pilots Eva or not. To kill a friend and stay alone, to allow other to do this and stay alone or to not pilot Eva and stay alone (or just to die), this is a hard choice. When he chooses to not pilot Eva he disconnects from the world or tries to force Asuka to care about him, but she inflicts pain to him instead because she considers him retarded.
* Asuka (why she pilots Eva?): she wants to show her excellence and that she’s not a child to compensate the absence of the mother (actually she fears to be treated as a child and to fail). It’s possible to force her to do anything by asking Ayanami to do the same thing because she considers her inferior and can’t allow an inferior to surpass her. When she is outperformed by someone or has no choice, she falls into depression and hurts herself and others.
* Ayanami (why she pilots Eva?): she will do anything for Gendo because he made her his own doll, but probably she actually does this for the sake of all the humanity or the people she know (because of the "ties" she have with everyone). She also seeks her origin and the truth moves her away from Gendo, but not completely. She eventually turns to Shinji because his intentions are honest as opposed to Gendo’s.

It turns out that the majority of the main characters experience solitude.


Why Shinji Rejected the Complementation? (The ultimate truth of Evangelion)

There is a common pattern in the behavior of the majority of the main characters: he or she encounters hardships during interactions with other people and runs away to a comfortable world of dreams, sexual promiscuity, cats, depression, disconnects from the world using music and so on. This has two consequences: the person ends up in solitude, and other people along with the person itself are hurt. How to overcome this? At the first glance the complementation is a great solution of this dilemma, because no one will be hurt anymore, and Shinji allows the complementation to proceed. But when he realized that he has created a world of eternal solitude instead of the world of eternal suffering, he found that the complementation is not a solution, it’s yet another escape. But why he rejected it? Is it just because he fears solitude more than suffering? Probably, but he also found a solution how to overcome solitude which is revealed at the final of the original series [ep. 26]. According to it, a person should be valuable for others to not to be alone. But there is more than one way to be valuable, and one should be valuable by building his true inner value or talent, for example by playing cello, as Shinji did, but not by "ties" as Gendo did by making an obedient doll from Ayanami, or just because only you can pilot Eva. This is probably the ultimate truth of Evangelion.

[AuraTwilight]

Are you interpreting the religious symbolism of Evangelion literally?

[Stryker]

Why not? For shits and for giggles, ya know?

[gatotsu911]

Certainly there is many a giggle to be had

[gchristnsn]

Are you interpreting the religious symbolism of Evangelion literally?

To transform the humanity into an angelic being it's necessary to conduct a ritual which implies the ascension of Lilith's egg. This in turn implies the necessity at least of:

a) Tree of life (longinus lance + both fruits)
b) Eva series
c) Guf chamber should be empty, (it's directly referenced during the second and third impacts and it's not possible to explain Seele's tight schedule by other facts)

So, Eva series and Guf chamber were the essential parts of the conspiracy.
If you were mislead by "messiah", a being get from the forbidden reunion which contains both fruits may be metaphorically treated as a messiah.

So, I get very close to the unambiguous plot solution, and the remaining mystery is why angels assaulted the geofront and how Seele deceived Kaworu (these unresolved parts could be connected), and could it be reilably resolved or not.
If It's not a plot glitch, this implies that information about an impact after a contact of Adam with an angel is just a cover for the conspiracy, and there is another reason for the embryonation of Adam.

[Mt Olympus]

Great read, thank you! :)

[gchristnsn]

It seems that I finally solved the enitre plot.

To do this we need to postulate that Adam (and angels) and Lilith destined to fight each other (this actually could be derived from Misato's postulate in EoE that people and angels destined to hate each other).

Thus, the information that an angel to Adam contact will generate an impact and that angels are destined to return to Adam is a lie (there is a clue in the ep. 22: if it would be true, the retrieval of the Longinus lance should cause the third impact, as Misato noticed), and it was used to deceive Kaworu. But their plan should actually lead to the third impact because of forbidden reunion which should then erase the humanity (because there is no ritual). This probably was the Seele's attempt to finally wreck Gendo's plan by sacrificing the humanity.

The embryonation of Adam was necessary to immobilize it and make it easier to create "messiah" (have both fruits).

The true motivation of the "Project E" was to create Eva series (as opposed to test Evas Gendo had, and it's also interesting to find the motivation of the creation of Unit 01, Seele seems known about it from the beginning, although this probably is hardly possible) for the ritual and also fight angels as a side effect.

[Jornophelanthas]

The Purpose of the Complementation
* Fuyutsuki: he has problems in communication with other people and hates the world after the second impact. But he probably hopes that the world could be saved as is it because he loves Yui (probably as a father) and supports her beliefs.

While I complement your efforts and insights, I believe you misinterpret Fuyutsuki's motivation.

Fuyutsuki is actually in love with Yui, his favourite student. He yearns for her, but learns that she is outside his reach, especially after she meets Gendo. Fuyutsuki initially does not like Gendo because of jealousy, but tolerates him in order to not lose Yui as a friend.

Fuyutsuki only became a cynic after Yui's contact experiment; he was even more devastated by her loss than Gendo was, and this is the common ground he finally found with Gendo (and which Gendo exploited).

The key point about Fuyutsuki is that he is not an actor in the grand scheme, but merely an enabler. He is a follower who dedicates himself to one agenda or another, but never develops his own ambitions.
First, his loyalties lies with Yui, and possibly her plan for Third Impact. He is willing to devote himself to her completely.
Then, after Yui disappears, Gendo either adopts Yui's plan or subverts SEELE's plan in order to be with Yui again, and he acquires Fuyutsuki's loyalty in realizing it, because it is also Fuyutsuki's greatest wish to be reunited with Yui again.

Yui has been Fuyutsuki's undoing from the very beginning. Before they met, he was a nobody. After they met, she gave him purpose. After she met Gendo, Fuyutsuki became less important (also in his own mind). And after Yui disappeared, Fuyutsuki's world lost all meaning. Except for the tiny sliver of hope of seeing Yui again that Gendo (of all people) could offer him.

Throughout the NGE series (and EoE), Fuyutsuki is a broken man, someone who clings to the last piece of hope that he has, but without really believing in it anymore (unlike Gendo). Fuyutsuki by himself is powerless, neutered. He has no strength of his own, but can only increase the strength of others.
(Which is why SEELE never killed him, even though they had been suspicious of him since before Yui's disappearance.)

Therefore, I have difficulty with Fuyutsuki being the mastermind behind Yui's plan. I can believe that Yui used his extensive knowledge of metaphysical biology to her own end, but not that he was her equal. It was her agenda, never his.

[gchristnsn]

Quite interesting, this explains his loyalty to Gendo, and I definitely have mistaken in his attitude to Yui.

[Warren Peace]

Yeah, in their scene by the tree, it seems like he's not happy about it.

[Jornophelanthas]

Yeah, in their scene by the tree, it seems like he's not happy about it.

Also, that scene shows a close-up of baby Shinji reaching for Yui, followed by a close-up of Yui's bosom.

Although some argue that this is some kind of Freudian illustration of the child's lust for the mother, it is not. The scene is shot from Fuyutsuki's point of view, and his gaze wanders from Yui's child to Yui's breasts. This not only illustrates (subconsciously) his attraction to her, but also his regret of having lost her to Gendo.

And since the contact experiment took place the very next day, he is about to lose her completely. Afterwards, her words can even be interpreted as a subtle annoucement of her intention to not return from the contact experiment.

(Source: [url]http://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Yui%27s_Agenda[/url])

[Jornophelanthas]

Earth-wide anti AT-field destroys AT-fields of the entire humanity, except Gendo’s who has been killed by Unit 01.

Actually, Yui transforming into Unit-01 and biting off Gendo's top half is just Gendo's experience of being claimed by Lilith. He is consumed by guilt, because all he did was (in his eyes) for the sake of Yui and Shinji, and he failed to achieve this for them.

This is the tragedy of Gendo.
After losing Yui, Gendo pushes Shinji away, because he is convinced that he cannot be a good parent to him because of his grief. Unfortunately, this hurts Shinji far more than Gendo imagines.
Gendo calls Shinji back to pilot Unit-01 for one reason, and one reason only: to reunite Shinji with Yui, and to help realize Third Impact in such a way that Gendo, Yui and Shinji are all reunited inside either Unit-01 or Lilith forever. (What happens to the rest of mankind is ostensively of little relevance to him.)
Gendo wanted to give Shinji both his parents back (because he believes he himself cannot be a parent without Yui), and he experiences extreme guilt for failing to do so.
His biggest mistake is that he fails to realize that he does not need Yui to love Shinji, and because his last words are an apology to Shinji as he is being punished by his vision of Yui, there is a clue that he has finally realized this mistake.
That moment in EoE is Gendo's total undoing and destruction. I should be quite clear that Gendo now lacks the will to live to ever return from the LCL sea, as he considers his eternal non-existence a suitable punishment for his failure.

Note that Gendo is still a selfish bastard with both the pride to presume that he knows what is best for Shinji without knowing Shinji at all, and the ruthlessness to manipulate everything and everyone he has access to to further those goals. Still, he all does it for his slightly dysfunctional conception of love.
Gendo is not evil; he is merely grotesquely misguided.

[gatotsu911]

Top secret secret, guys: for Evangelion to have an "ultimate truth" would defeat its own purpose immensely.

Sorry if I'm snippy, I'm just kinda tired of seeing "zOMG I HAVE TEH REAL SUPER OBJECTIVE TRUTH ABOUT EVANJELLYON GUYS" threads all over the Evasphere when I feel like (in theory) we really as a community should have moved on to more nuanced and mature discussion of the series by now. It's not science, it's literature.

...I guess that just came off even snippier, huh?

[AuraTwilight]

Top secret secret, guys: for Evangelion to have an "ultimate truth" would defeat its own purpose immensely.

And what purpose would that be, oh Mighty Seer of the Universe who can Totally Read Anno's Mind?

[The Eva Monkey]

...I guess that just came off even snippier, huh?

Just a bit. Let the guy do his thing. He's not hurting anyone.

Don't like it? Don't read it.

[gchristnsn]

It's not science, it's literature.

There is probably a way to prove that every word in NGE could be treated literally and the consistent story lies beneath.
I found a way to show that the chamber of Guf is absolutely required for the ritual, and it's not possible to create "messiah" by the forbidden reunion when it's not empty, the first impact had happened at the Dead Sea (and this may be the cleverly hidden fact about the fight between Adam and Lilith), and the Ayanami's first appearance at the very beginning is probably a way to show that she can "teleport". Also it's virtually impossible to unravel Seele's conspiracy using direct productive conclusions without postulating that Adam and Lilith should fight each other.

The necessity to postulate and the very contradictory way to show how Gendo started the Instrumentality project it is where Anno probably has failed and this probably is the cause of the Rebuild of the Evangelion. Or he is a ultimate bastard and did this intentionally to jeer at us and silently laughs so far.

Although you not obliged to believe me. There are facts and you can check by yourself.

[gatotsu911]

is where Anno probably has failed

It's... it's really not. Intentional ambiguity is an okay thing, dude.

I'd be more interested in seeing you try to prove that Anno's goal, above all else, was to make a structurally perfect, airtight plot in which events were not at all open to the audience's interpretation (since that seems to be what you are implying) rather than attempt to riddle out the specifics of it. Seriously, I'd like to see how a person could sincerely even make that argument.

[gchristnsn]

It's not possible. It's only possible to propose that there are no ambiguities in the underlying plot (but the existence of an unambiguous solution not guaranties that it absolutely precisely corresponds to the underlying plot because it's hard to embrace all the facts). The fact that we can get an unambiguous solution by treating the most of the facts literally but we can't get the same easily by treating them metaphorically, means that most likely correct causal relationships exist only in this case, so we should prefer a solution obtained by this way as more credible. The criterion of incredibility is the presence of additional entities not backed by facts and we obligatory get them in the case of metaphorical treatment because there are generally more than one way to interpret a metaphorical thing. Although such a solution could exist, it would look less credible than a solution without such entities.
So, the existence of an unambiguous solution without entities not backed by facts and the fact that it's very hard to get it without literal implications means that most likely Anno had a solid underlying plot, but he probably intended to allow many interpretations of it (as for the real Ghospel) by relying on metaphorical things literally.
Actually it's not possible to treat all the metaphorical facts in NGE absolutely literally, such as the Longinus lance, for example, because this implies that it should belong to the biblical Longinus. But implication that the New Testament references are actually meta-metaphorical in NGE (this means that the Longinus name is necessary only to make a direct reference to Christ (and therefore a messiah) by combination with the cross at the Terminal Dogma, and because there are no facts that confirm that the New Testament and its events are exist in the world of NGE, we could make such an implication) solves this problem. This actually means that NGE is a peculiar new testament and supports the hypothesis about Anno's intentions.

By the way, the text above has some inaccuracies and errors, here is the much more correct and precise iteration, if someone is interested.