Theory about Kaworu's intentions.

[ElMariachi]

I just want to interject in here about the use of N3I and 3I. It's perfectly logical that Lilin calls what Shinji did at the end of 2.22 a NEAR Third Impact because it was an aborted "attempt at the Third Impact".

So it follows that it's still perfectly logical that Asuka talks about Shinji "wanting to cause the Third Impact again" because in her mind it's the intention to cause the Impact, not the intention to cause an aborted Impact. (You can only try to cause an Impact. The outcome is either an Impact or an Aborted Impact)

That's a valid interpretation I admit, but then it arise other questions : once the Impact proper begin, everyone calls the event Fourth Impact, be it Kaworu of WILLE :

01:19:22 {Shinji} This is...!
01:19:24 {Kaworu} Fourth Impact.
01:19:28 {Kaworu} This is the opening ritual.
[...]
01:20:06 {Misato} We'll do whatever it takes to keep Fourth Impact in check!
[...]
01:28:01 {Ritsuko} I don't know who did it, but Fourth Impact was stopped.

If the "Third Impact again" Asuka was talking about was a continuation of Shinji's Near Third Impact, then why WILLE calls it Fourth Impact?
I mean Second Impact was also somehow kinda aborted before it completely terraformed the planet and wiped out mankind, yet they don't call it Near Second Impact.

If Shinji's actions in Q is the continuation of something that was aborted, the logical thing would be to call it Third Impact, or Second Near Third Impact or hell, even Near Fourth Impact, since it only triggered material damages and was aborted even faster than N3I?
What Shinji's triggered Impact in 2.0 have different from the others that gave it the adjective Near, every Impact except the First when Lilith terraformed Earth have been aborted before completion and thus could be qualified as Near as well, so why is Shinji's the only one which is considered "near"?

It seems that an Impact must reach a certain undetermined point before being qualified as an actual Impact, the First, Second and apparently Fourth Impacts qualify, but not Shinji's "Third", yet Kaworu insist on calling the event Third Impact. And when Asuka said to Mari that they'll "take care of this before Third Impact starts up again", she said it right in front of what Kaworu said was the epicenter of Third Impact, so it implies that they're gonna stop the event that happened here, in Lilith's Chamber, to resume... event that has nothing to do with Shinji since he was kilometers above when he triggered N3I!

The more you analyze the events, hints of what happened and terms used by the characters and the less the "official version" that Shinji's actions at the end of 2.0 transformed the world into what we see in Q makes any sense. There is obviously a big piece of the puzzle we don't have, as well as Shinji, yet Kaworu didn't deigned to give that huge lacking piece to Shinji, even though he said that he'll "show him the truth he desires".(what does that even means? There is only one truth, be it that you desire it or not)

[Reichu]

It's referring back to the previous scene, when Shinji's talking about the anxiety of not knowing the full story, Kaworu asks him if he wants to know, and Shinji nods.

[ElMariachi]

Oh, yes, I forgot about that scene! (he still didn't told him the full story though)

[monitoradiation]

That's a valid interpretation I admit, but then it arise other questions : once the Impact proper begin, everyone calls the event Fourth Impact, be it Kaworu of WILLE :

Yeah I don't have a good answer to that, unfortunately. All I can think of is that Asuka is peeved that Shinji is there piloting an Eva at all so she's reprimanding him for trying to start another one.

As for calling it the Third Impact "again", she probably knows that Shinji didn't actually do 3I, which was carried out by someone else. It could just be that she's reminding him that he's already been the trigger for 3I so he should stop while he's ahead.

[robersora]

Except that Shinji already knows what NERV intends to do with the spears, and he's actually trying with Kaworu to double-cross them... so then, why did Kaworu said nothing? Why didn't he at least tried to corroborate Shinji's claims that they aren't trying to finish 3I's job? The guy is obsessed by Shinji, he must be one of the people who knows the most how Shinji works, even if he was deep in thoughts, he should have seen how much having to defend against Asuka was putting him dangerously close to the edge, and should have at least tried something to defuse the situation before it ends up completely out of control.
Instead of that, he kept talking only to Shinji via the internal communication system, as if he absolutely wanted to make Shinji stop without having to interact with anyone else.

Well, Kaworu indeed was in deep thought, but he tried to stop Shinji before shit hit the fan with the power of words. But Shinji was in such a bad shape, that all the screaming done by Asuka didn't reach Shinji. And when Kaworu started to mumble that Shinji should not take the spears, Shinji also didn't want to listen. Just remember though, when Shinji was crawling upwards towards the spears Kaworu snapped back to reality and tried to actively stop him. But that was when Kaworu was disconnected from Unit 13 and had no control whatsoever over it. What I don't know for sure if it was Shinji who disconnected him, or Nerv. But if it is heavily implied that this was done by NERV. If so, Kaworu could've never stopped Shinji, even if he got his act together earlier, because if Kaworu would have done something that was not planned by Gendou (like advising Shinji to not take the spears) Gendou would have just disconnected him from EVA-13 earlier. They only needed two pilots to break the shield over Central Dogma, the rest could be done by one alone.
This makes the whole situation even more tragic. If Asuka and Wille would have refrained from charging in, Shinji might not have been stressed out enough to not listen to Kaworu any longer. Maybe that's what the line "Katsuragi's actions were within predictability" by Gendou was about.


In my opinion, Kaworu was a pawn as well. He was being manipulated by Seele and gradually became aware of it when it already was too late. He blindly followed orders like Rei, but due to meeting and bonding with Shinji he gradually developed a sense of self and started to make his own decisions. But as I said, all of that happened a tack to late.
In that respect Kaworu seems like a much more multi-layerd and complex character in NME than in NGE where he was basically only a wish-fulfillment-machine for Shinji.

[ElMariachi]

In my opinion, Kaworu was a pawn as well. He was being manipulated by Seele and gradually became aware of it when it already was too late. He blindly followed orders like Rei, but due to meeting and bonding with Shinji he gradually developed a sense of self and started to make his own decisions. But as I said, all of that happened a tack to late.
In that respect Kaworu seems like a much more multi-layerd and complex character in NME than in NGE where he was basically only a wish-fulfillment-machine for Shinji.

Except that he wasn't blindly following orders like Rei Q or himself in NGE, he had his own agenda since the very beginning : get Shinji's happiness, he announces it as soon as his very first scene in 1.0!

Everything he did from here was to reach that goal, he even repeats his line that he'll make him happy just after impaling EVA-01 at the end of 2.0, hammering the fact that he's here for that and nothing else.

And the only thing that made him lose his cool in Q was when the spears were revealed to be two Longinus, and he specifically designed Gendo as the one who tricked him, not SEELE(contrast NGE when he says that SEELE tricked him when he realized that it was Lilith in TD, not ADAM), and since at the same time Gendo is seen double-crossing SEELE and at no point Gendo or SEELE say that Kaworu fell in any trap, it imply that SEELE too wasn't aware about the tampering with the spears. If there was a manipulation coming from them, there should have been a mention of it, like in NGE where they are seen in a reunion gloating about how he reached TD and that now it's too late for him to get back with his covert blown and EVA-01 chasing him.

That's why I find him less complex than in NGE : there at least he was discovering the world, the Lilin, and it's his fascination for what they achieved and his encounter with Shinji that made him sacrifice himself to let the world to the Lilin. But in Rebuild he's just here for Shinji's happiness, he talks only about that, only defines himself around Shinji and his objective to make him happy and apparently don't give a shit about anything else(what the fuck he would be doing at neo-NERV HQ if he wanted to save the Lilin?).

He's like a male version of Homura in Madoka Magica, except swagger.

[robersora]

^
Just because Kaworu seems more socially adapt than Rei, doesn't mean he wasn't following Seele's orders blindly. And yes, i might have phrased something wrongly. His wtf-moment was of course his realization, that Gendou did something with the spears. And I do think that this was a trap designed for Kaworu by Gendou. Why else should Gendou say at the end that they at least got rid of Seele's boy?

That still doesn't deny the fact that he was only a pawn to Seele as well.
You say it was his agenda to make Shinji happy. Why does he have that plan at all? I can imagine, that either Seele indoctrinated that idea from the very beginning, which would make him as soulless as Rei, he just doesn't appear that way, because he had a clear and more complex agenda than Rei has ever had.
While Rei's and especially Rei Q's order always was kind of "stay standby except told other wise", Kaworu seems to have gotten an order which he understood as "make Shinji happy". So he had to actually use his head and come up with something to make Shinji happy. And that's the process you see in Q.
OR
he somehow gets the idea to make Shinji happy by "himself" (that is that wish of his would be the ultimate meta parable of fan service characters) and goes and asks Seele:
"Yo, Kaworu-chan here, I'd like to make this boy happy who's in the middle of all this shit he has to endure, do you have any idea what I could do"
Keel Lorenz: "*Evil laughter* Yes, we do have something you could do to make him happy"
(but that seems less likely)

So of course, NGE Kaworu has that whole child-like discover-process which is totally absent from NME Kaworu (he might have had that process in the infamous 14 years, but what do I know). But in contrary to NGE Kaworu his NME iteration is more in a state of adolescent moral dilemma, how to act properly to attain his goal. I don't think that makes him less complex.

[ElMariachi]

^
But then :
1/ why would SEELE want to make Kaworu make Shinji happy, since Kaworu's role was to be the replacement of the original plan for HIP which involved Shinji awakening EVA-01? They got another Impact Trigger and an ADAM that they can transform into an Eva to use as the catalyst for Instrumentality, and they even said so to Gendo in 2.0, so why would they bother indoctrinating Kaworu to make the now useless Impact Trigger happy?
Also take in account that everything we see happening in Q is SEELE's and Gendo's contingency plan after their initial one(use EVA-01 to make HIP for Gendo, use Mark.06 for SEELE) blew up on their face by whatever happened with the 12th Angel, so it's impossible that SEELE indoctrinated Kaworu into making Shinji happy during 1.0 and 2.0, yet Kaworu was already talking about that.

2/ that scenario could work if Kaworu blackmailed SEELE by telling them that he refuses to do his job as Impact Trigger if they don't give him the means to bring Shinji his happiness, and SEELE cooked their plan with the two spears to convince him... except that the movie imply that the tampering with the spears was all Gendo's doing and that SEELE didn't had any idea about it.
Besides having two Longinus spears is what made Kaworu sacrifice himself to weaken EVA-13 so WILLE could stop Fourth Impact, so I don't see SEELE proposing to Kaworu a plan that he could thwart by himself if he didn't like it, even the "counter-measure" of having Shinji as a backup, once Kaworu did his thing it was very easy for WILLE to deactivate EVA-13, hell even if Mark.09 had succeeded into hacking the Wunder it wouldn't had the time to make it come back to stop EVA-08 before it ejected Shinji's entry plug! I doubt that SEELE's entire plan hinged on WILLE's Evas not being good enough to catch an Awakened Eva falling to the ground and opening it.
Also, take into account that before the time skip, SEELE intended to use a single entry Evangelion, meaning only one spear. And even with the two Longinus spears, in the end Fuyutsuki said that almost everything went as SEELE intended, implying that they only needed at least one Longinus to win and trigger Instrumentality. And since Kaworu intended to use a Longinus spear in his plan, it's possible that his plan was to repair the world to make Shinji happy... and then trigger Instrumentality, which he won't be inclined to reject in his euphoria(and maybe with some nudging from Kaworu : "I tell you, Instrumentality is the path for mankind's happiness, and therefor yours. You can trust me, I promised you that we would repair the world, and we did it!")
That would also explain why WILLE was so adamant into preventing Shinji to pull out the spears and didn't even tried to listen to him : they know that no matter what, using a spear will involve Instrumentality.

[robersora]

^
Well, those are good points. But where the hell does Kaworu's obsessive desire to make Shinji happy come from?

[ElMariachi]

^
That's the million dollar question everyone wracks their brains about since 1.0!

[Giji Shinka]

I'm expecting that Kaworu's story is something similar to Madoka Magica's Homura.

[ElMariachi]

I'm expecting that Kaworu's story is something similar to Madoka Magica's Homura.

Funnily, that's exactly the comparison I had in my head!

If the theory that Kaworu is a time looper/dimension traveler is true(I'm okay with it as long as it's only implied and restricted to Kaworu only), then his story would make a nice parallel with Homura : both trying time and time again to save a loved one, to the point that they start losing it and shift their objective from "save the world and my loved one with it" to "save my loved one, fuck the rest" to find the courage to continue.

That would explain why Kaworu don't seem to give a rat-ass about the Lilin in Rebuild : not only does he stayed with SEELE and neo-NERV even though now there is a faction truly dedicated to mankind's protection(WILLE), but also while in NGE he stated that his reason for surrendering and letting Shinji kill him was that he decided that the Lilin were more worthy of Earth than the Angels, in Rebuild the only reason to his actions, doing whatever the hell those spears would had let him do, was "because it'll make Shinji happy".

Besides, that would be from Anno a nice deconstruction of the popular fan interpretation and fanfiction story of a saint-like being traveling through time and space endlessly to make Shinji happy, by having him becoming more and more narrow-minded, obsessed and extreme with each failure(again, like Homura), like the end of 2.0 and 3.0 seemed to be partly a deconstruction of the fan wish of having Shinji going all Gurren Lagann and taping into the godly power of his Evangelion(even though it already ended in a catastrophe when he did that in EoE)

Latest movie, Rebellion  SPOILER: Show

Let's just hope that Kaworu doesn't completely lost it like Homura did at the end of the movie Rebellion!

[Sachi]

I think it's possible that Kaworu's vision of Shinji's happiness included instrumentality. it was vitally important that he have both the Spear of Longinus and Cassius, so perhaps the prior is for destroying the world (aka Instrumentality), and Cassius is used to rebuild the world from zero. Kaworu did encourage Shinji to grow and accept change so that he may create a world of his own, so maybe part of that transformation process included instrumentality. By getting Shinji to agree into Instrumentality, Kaworu would have done enough to still be within the approval of Seele, but he could have then doublecrossed them by "taking the spears for [themselves]", and guided Shinji through Instrumentality and to a new world of their own. Kaworu just wanted Shinji all for himself. :P

However, with just the Spear of Longinus and not a Spear of Cassius, Kaworu's plan was ruined, and Gendo, the King of Lilin, wins, getting over on both Seele and the final Angel.

[Giji Shinka]

[quote="ElMariachi":39h36q8g][/quote:39h36q8g]
Agreed. :)

[ElMariachi]

@ Sachi : that Kaworu's idea of Shinji's happiness was what I had in mind when I created that topic, but I admit that I never thought of your interpretation that he also wanted to rebuild the world from zero.
And since in Rebuild SEELE's Instrumentality seems to be different than the happy hive mind in tang from NGE, it's even possible that even had Kaworu's plan succeed, that would had still made SEELE happy since all the souls would had gone through "purification" : to create a new world where Kaworu and a Shinji now with a Fruit of Life(since according to the former HIP involved the creation of beings with it), happy together for eternity in a world at their image.

Man, presented like this, Kaworu awfully looks like Gendo and his version of Instrumentality in NGE, and he's doing it for Shinji where Gendo was doing it for Yui!

To retake a phrase from Rei in the videogame NGE2, Kaworu, like Gendo, are "pure" in their acts, which is not a good thing, since mankind isn't pure.

[robersora]

Sometimes I wonder if Rebuild has just too many potholes or if it sometimes is just 3deep5me.
I love it either way.

[Giji Shinka]

^Just few more sentences (And flashbacks) from Gendo, Kaworu ect. would be more than enough to fill those remaining plot holes.

And yeah, there is also a possibility that this is 4deep6you.

[Sachi]

Bumping an old thread; honestly the more times I watch this film the more I find myself doubting Kaworu's motives. I do believe Kaworu was acting on behalf of Seele the entire time throughout, as opposed to betraying them like in NGE. There's just no evidence that Kaworu double-crossed anybody other than Nerv/Gendo (with whom he was only loosely associated with), and at no time does it seem like Kaworu is ever actively working against Seele's interests; like the OP pointed out, he only specifically names Nerv/Gendo as an enemy. It seems like the only true betrayal is on Gendo's part against both Seele and Kaworu simultaneously, which just makes me think that the latter two parties' interests were one in the same.

Kaworu is an acolyte of a apocalyptic death cult and uses emotional appeals to convert Shinji to his plans. Like I've mentioned in other threads, Kaworu is an excellent manipulator because he offers Shinji choice and support; he makes it seem like everything is going to be okay and slowly lulls Shinji into acting within his interests. This is unlike Shinji's interaction with Wille, who tried to control Shinji's situation completely; however, we see that Gendo is the master manipulator, who demonstrates that free will is a lie and that everything is always going according to plan (hence Nerv v. Wille, Determination v. Free Will). Kaworu wanted Shinji to stand side-by-side with him on Team Seele and commence their version of Human Instrumentality, and the worst part is that Kaworu was doing this in the name of Shinji's happiness; this sounds a lot like Seele forcing Instrumentality upon humanity as though they know what's best for it.

In other words, Kaworu's one-track mind, his half-truths/omissions, as well as his simple association with Seele (Seele's boy) paints a much darker picture of him in the overall scheme of things than the one he tries painting for himself to Shinji and the audience. He's evil, I tell you.

[Ray]

Lies! Lies! Kaworu was the only good person left post N3I.

[ElMariachi]

^
Being good doesn't immunize from doing bad things, be it by accident or errors of judgment, Q was the prime example of this (else Shinji would be a villain and Misato a Nazi)
And I think that it was the same for Kaworu : he was a good guy, genuinely wanted Shinji's happiness, but was mislead into what said happiness was.
As the old saying says : "Hell is paved with good intentions".
Personally I find it very refreshing that Kaworu could have a darker side, that make him more human and less uncanny like his NGE incarnation.

As for his loyalty toward SEELE, I still think that his N°1 priority was Shinji's happiness, and that he would always put SEELE's scenario behind it, Q gave us the proof of that when he tried to stop the expedition with EVA-13 even though two LoL would still create SEELE's version of HIP. Simply put, according to this thread's theory, Kaworu and SEELE's objective coincided perfectly, since Kaworu thought that HIP was the key to Shinji's happiness, and Gendo's plan consisted to throw a wrench to make it so Kaworu and SEELE's objectives differs at the last minute and forces him to aboard the incoming Impact (that Shinji would trigger in his carefully crafted near-madness), sacrificing himself and thwarting both his and SEELE's plans, leaving Gendo free to enact his own version of Instrumentality.

And everything has gone just as planned.