"Q's plot wouldn't happened if Shinji listend to WILLE

[WunderBah]

Would it have not? Despite Eva Mark. 09 crashing in for the sole objective of taking Shinji away?

[ElMariachi]

Errrr... you meant "Plot woudn't had happened if Shinji had listened to WILLE", no?

Seriously, I don't understand what you mean, but if it's what I said, then no, that wouldn't had changed anything : Mark.09 would had taken Shinji by force instead of making him come willingly, and once in neo-NERV either Gendo brainwash him into piloting EVA-13, or Kaworu convince him to pilot to thwart Gendo's plans like it happened in canon.

[airman4]

Sorry i don't remember well

what gendo asked Shinji to pilot for ? in the beginning ?
I recall kaworu telling him to pilot for restoring the world from the impact.

So Shinji was motivated by this but what gendo asked him for ?

[WunderBah]

Errrr... you meant "Plot woudn't had happened if Shinji had listened to WILLE", no?

Yeah, that.

[Reichu]

The plot also wouldn't have happened if Shinji didn't have reality-warping teen angst superpowers.

[ElMariachi]

Yeah, but without plot you don't have a story, I mean if we go that route the plot wouldn't had happened if the Katsuragi expedition didn't triggered 2I!

But anyway Shinji didn't had any reason to listen or believe WILLE : they have been passive-aggressive dicks to him and are saying that Rei is "no more" while what by any means looks like Rei is right here inside "EVA-00". Any sane person would had get the hell out of the AAA Wunder.
And as I said even if by some crazy eventuality he did believed Misato, Mark.09 would had just taken him by force, so whatever he decided, at the moment Mark.09's fist got through the hull Shinji would have been brought to neo-NERV, willingly or not.

[monitoradiation]

The OT is almost saying "Q wouldn't have been Q if Q wasn't Q - Agreed?"...

Jokes aside, I think Q definitely would've went in a different direction had Shinji been more receptive to what Wille was saying. Though, I'm not sure that ReiQ would've taken "no" as an answer. It'd be interesting to see what ReiQ would do to fulfill her orders if Shinji didn't go willingly (Wille-ly?)

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Seemed that the success of Q's plot relied more on Kaworu than it did Shinji. Let's just start from after Shinji returns to Nerv. The only thing that really needs to happen is exactly what Gendo laid down before Shinji: "Pilot Unit 13 with this pilot (Kaowru) when the time comes." And since operating Unit 13 seems much more dependent on Kaworu's ability to sync with Shinji than it is Shinji's ability to sync with the unit itself (there were never any sync ratio tests don't with Shinji at all in the film, rather much piano playing was had with Kaworu), the thing probably would have started regardless of how apt Shinji was with piloting that particular Eva Unit.

As for whether or not Shinji would have went with Nerv willingly to begin with, I don't think that really would have mattered much. Even if Shinji resisted Mark.09's attempts at kidnapping him, well, he's being kidnapped by a regenerating flying bio-weapon that was taller than most buildings. Resistance is futile at that point. And it wouldn't be the first time in NTE an Eva-styled kidnapping lead to him piloting an Eva Unit. Mari snatched up a rather unwilling Shinji with Unit 02 in 2.22 with similar results. (Impacts and everything!) It just required Shinji to change his mind about it sometime between the kidnapping and the actual piloting of an Eva Unit.

Also remember that Shinji was in defiance of piloting Unit 13 at one point in 3.33 anyway. Wille had nothing to do with that. (Heck, Wille hardly had the time to give him enough information one way or the other.) He just flat out didn't trust the Eva Series mainly on the account of his father, the leader of Nerv. All it ultimately took to get the plot details of Q off the ground was Kaworu's gentle coaxing in order to ease Shinji over to the idea himself, something that probably would have happened regardless of the origin of Shinji's defiance/distrust in Nerv.

So I think it's really a case of "The plot wouldn't have happened if Shinji told Kaworu to shove it."

But there are very few on this forum who would be comfortable placing the blame on Bishonen Jesus. I think they would argue that he was mislead by Nerv, so it ultimately wasn't his fault anyway. To that I say, Shinji was equally as misinformed. If we can place the blame on Shinji, we can also place some blame on Kaworu. It was a duel-entry system anyway. It takes two to tango when 4th Impact is on the line.

[LightDragonman]

I'll just say that pretty much every single person had some blame in the whole thing. Shinji and Kaworu obviously grabbed the Idiot Ball there, but then again, Maybe it would have helped if WILLE attached a bomb collar on him AFTER they told him all the specifics.

Come to think about it, they could have also listened to his position as well, but meh. 14 years of experience apparently means nothing.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

In that case then neither the explination nor the collar would have been implemented before Rei snatched Shinji up. As much as everyone wants to blame Shinji or Wille for a lapse in action in 3.0, the real catalyst for all of this, so-called "Idiot Ball" included, was Rei's act of kidnapping as per Gendo's instructions.

[ElMariachi]

As for whether or not Shinji would have went with Nerv willingly to begin with, I don't think that really would have mattered much. Even if Shinji resisted Mark.09's attempts at kidnapping him, well, he's being kidnapped by a regenerating flying bio-weapon that was taller than most buildings. Resistance is futile at that point. And it wouldn't be the first time in NTE an Eva-styled kidnapping lead to him piloting an Eva Unit. Mari snatched up a rather unwilling Shinji with Unit 02 in 2.22 with similar results. (Impacts and everything!) It just required Shinji to change his mind about it sometime between the kidnapping and the actual piloting of an Eva Unit.

[...]

So I think it's really a case of "The plot wouldn't have happened if Shinji told Kaworu to shove it."

Even if Shinji refused to go with Rei-Q, as you said Mark.09 would had taken him by force. Once at neo-NERV when his father told him to pilot EVA-13 with Kaworu once its completed, Shinji will tell him to fuck-off... and Gendo won't be fazed one second.

Why? Because he have all the time in the world to manipulate him into piloting : WILLE is waiting for him to make the first move, and neo-NERV is perched several kilometers above ground in a giant toxic wasteland so Shinji can't escape, and when he does nothing for more that ten second he's being haunted by the voices of Misato, Asuka, Sakura, Rei and Gendo. And his SDAT doesn't work, so he can't occupy his mind, so very soon he will start to wander around, and since Rei-Q is as interesting as looking at a wall, he will eventually tumble on Kaworu(if Kaworu doesn't come to meet him first) and will inevitably start to bond with him since he's the only nice guy he had met so far. From here just wait that they become good friends and Shinji starts to trust him, then send Toji's shirt to freak him out and the rest of the plot will happens exactly as in canon.

As for telling Kaworu to shove it when he proposed him to pilot EVA-13, that's what he initially did when he said that he didn't cared of Eva anymore even though Kaworu begged him to trust him... which prompted him to guilt-trip Shinji by putting the DSS Choker on himself so he would "burden his sins and the curse of the Lilin" while taking the risk if something happens with EVA-13, at which point Shinji was kinda obligated to listen to Kaworu, and since his plan was to repair the world, which would bring to Shinji the atonement and forgiveness he so desperately seeks, and to thwart Gendo, whom he hates more than anyone else in the world(except himself), Shinji didn't had any reason to refuse to pilot with EVA-13.
The problem was that in his current state of mind there wasn't any margin for any error or unplanned events, lest he would completely crack and go nuts... which is exactly what happened once Kaworu realized that Gendo tricked them.


No the only way to avoid the plot of Q would have been that the Wunder and its fleet fend off Mark.09 before it snatches Shinji up, or that during the fight in Lilith's Chamber Kaworu and Asuka managed to convince Shinji to stop and give up the initial plan, which could had happened if Kaworu joined Shinji in trying to convince Asuka to stop her attacks(or at least to help Shinji defeat her before he becomes too battle-frenzied), and that Asuka spilled out exactly why touching those spears or trusting Kaworu was a bad idea(if she knows that he was in there too)

But since all three hold the collective Idiot Ball at that moment, Gendo won.

[Kendrix]

Yeah of course it wouldn't have happened, part of what makes tragedies tragic is all those hopespots and hindsight possibilities to avert them (After all, Sakura appeared to have prepared a getaway for him/he could've followed her into some corridor, leaving an awful lot of metal between him and the Mark Nine, which might either buy Mari some time to intercept the Mark Nine in time, or gotten Shinji killed in some attempt of Rei Q's to tear up the ship to get to him - Heck, even if ReiQ did capture him alive, Shinji can be pretty uncooperative if he wants to.), but the way you phrased it carries this implication of "Therefore, Shinji's the idiot who caused all this"... which I have to protest.

While listening to WILLE may have theoretically avoided or diminished problems, it's fairly understandable, if not fully natural, that he wouldn't recognize this under the circumstances.

It's not like he didn't care at all that these were his former comerades - his initial reaction to the Nemesis Series attack ("I have no clue where we are or who the fuck is attacking, but I'll smash is to pieces if it threatens Asuka or Misato." ) makes his initial stance quite clear.
Then they said things that clearly went below the belt ("You are not needed" from the person who probably knows the archetecture of his complexes the best), put him behind bars without explanation, adressed him by a number (which they scribbled on him, lab animal style), adress any request of an explanation with passive agressive snark, and generally act unrecognizable - and then, they shoot at what appears to be a former comerade, telling him things that seemingly simply conflict with reality (That someone he's talking to is long dead), without further explanation - For him to stay and listen to them would have required blind trust.
That would be hard for Shinji if they were in the regular family like setting he's used to, but under these circumstances, it's impossible.
Who wouldn't be fed up under such circumstances? His chances of getting an explanation for all this from Rei (undr the assumption that it is indeed Rei) looked way better, and that's one of the first things he does, ask her WTF is up.


As for Kaworu and Asuka, what about the possibility that they simply didn't HAVE solid reasions, just "Neo NERV activating a new EVA can't be good" and "This is not how they told me it would be - they probably set us up the bomb."

[ElMariachi]

You don't get what I'm saying : first even if he tried to run, I highly doubt that he would have been quick enough to get out of the room before Mark.09 catches him, especially since its hand is half the size of the room!

And no, I'm not saying that "Shinji's the idiot who caused all this", but that from the moment Mark.09 reached the interrogation room, short of Misato activating the choker nothing could had convinced Shinji to stay, for the reasons you cited. And once in neo-NERV, Gendo crafted a perfect plan exactly tailored for Shinji's personality to drive him over the edge and make him cling to the hope proposed to Kaworu even after Kaworu himself tells him to stop. Once Mark.09 got Shinji in the Wunder, what happened in neo-NERV would have happened, in a form or in another, and the only other point where things could have been different was during the fight in Lilith's Chamber.

Speaking of said Chamber, even if he was greatly surprised, Kaworu just shouldn't have stayed lost in his thoughts like that while Shinji was frantically trying to convince Asuka to stop trying to stop them and desperately trying to evade her blows, he even called him on it three times, and that added stress is what completely drove Shinji over the edge and put him into panic mode where he would go for the spear in a mad attempt to defuse an insane situation.
As for Asuka, her paroles and attitude clearly showed that she knows more than Shinji about the spears : when Shinji explains to her that he intends to use them to fix everything, she literally froze in the spot and calls him a "real" little brat, it's like she knows exactly what would happen if Shinji touches the spears, no matter if it's two LoL or one LoL and a LoC, and can't believe that Shinji is falling for this story. Also just when Shinji was about to pull out the spears, she screamed to him to stop what he's doing, if she didn't know what exactly would had happened, she would have said something along the line of "what are you doing, you brat?!", or at least to panic like she did.
Besides the spears(or at least the LoL) are a vital component of SEELE's HIP, so I really doubt that WILLE don't know about them and their role in HIP, therefore that a SEELE or neo-NERV Eva + a LoL = BIG problems.

[chee]

Shinji's Rebuild characterization as a whole comes across to me as significantly dumber and just flat-out less "with it" than his series counterpart. I don't find surprising that everyone got Shinji'd by the end.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Maybe I'm not clear on this, but what did Wille tell Shinji that would have helped him if he had heeded what they said? That they're now fighting against Nerv 14 years since he was last awake? I don't think that information would have helped him much if had "listened" to it. ("Don't go with Nerv" isn't an option, because again, Shinji is being chased by a regenerating flying bio-weapon taller than most buildings and piloted by an "fully-obey-Gendo-at-all-costs" pilot.)

Or are we again putting things in Wille's mouth because we want Q to make sense in our own way, rather than finding out how it makes sense within itself?

[pwhodges]

Yeah, but without plot you don't have a story, I mean if we go that route the plot wouldn't had happened if the Katsuragi expedition didn't triggered 2I!

We seem to be discussing the anthropic principle as applied to fiction here... The story happened because the writers wrote it, and that's why the things in it happened too.

[ElMariachi]

We seem to be discussing the anthropic principle as applied to fiction here... The story happened because the writers wrote it, and that's why the things in it happened too.

That was French sarcasm, you Englishmen should know how much us Frogs love sarcasm!

[pwhodges]

I was joining in; people often miss my humour, so I guess I should work on that...

[ElMariachi]

Aaaah yes, the famous British humour that puzzles us since ages...

[Yokai]

Arguably Shinji didn't really do very much. Sure he got pissy at Misato, but it was Rei who saved him. Sure he piloted eva 13, but he only did it because Kaworu convinced him to and ultimately it's questionable whether or not he was actually at all in control of what Unit-13 did.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It was nice that he showed some agency, but I feel like the reality is that all of this would have happened regardless of Shinji actually wanting to do it or not. Maybe that's the point? I'm not sure, the only one who could be sure is Anno.

As a side note, I don't really like how pro-Wille a lot of people are -- we don't even know what they're doing or why they're doing it and everyone is cheering them on. As far as we know, their motives could be just a shitty as Nerv's. I think Shinji did what Wille wanted, it's not like everything would be sugar and rainbows. In fact, things could have gotten worse theoretically.