Neon Genesis Evangelion is an Occult Grimoire

[Chuckman]

Salutation to Ganesa

Preface

In this post I will explain Evangelion as a work of magic, simultaneously being a work containing, about, and of magic.

This isn’t meant to contradict any other interpretation of the show, other than claims that within the fiction of the series itself, (that is, “in universe”) there is no magic or fantasy elements and the story is pure science fiction. So Evangelion is still about depression or accepting yourself and what have you.

It is also about magic. Profoundly so.

I would break out each of these subjects individually, but they’re so intertwined that I can’t. Instead, I will pull out various elements and place them in a less-often-discussed framework that steps away from the paratext and convoluted ancient aliens “explanations”.

The first thing that needs to be made clear is this:

Any mention of religious symbolism in Evangelion will be met with a declaration that the creators have specified that these elements appear to “look cool” and have no deeper meaning. (As if they could decide that for the audience, nyuk nyuk nyuk)

This is wrong, but also right. The imagery doesn’t have a Christian meaning, or even a Judeo-Christian one, given the prevalance of ideas and symbols from Jewish folklore and mysticism (Lilith, the Sephirah) in the series itself.

It has its own meaning. It picks and chooses concepts from various religions and uses them as building blocks to assemble something larger and more complex. Hence the mysterious appearance of a god from Babylonian mythology in what is otherwise (apparently) a plethora of referneces deriving from the Abrahamic tradition.

It is, in fact, the reference to Marduk that begins the path to the higher mysteries presented in Evangelion.

Occultism has a long history of appropriate images from mainstream religion. It’s a syncretic concept that takes other’s meanings and adapts and twists them to suit itself. (In as much as there is an ‘It” to have a self; occultism has as many meanings as practitioners)

1. The Mother Goddess

At the core of Evangelion is a drama: the war between male and female, been creation and nurturing and dominance and destruction, between the Apollonian and the Dionysiac.

To understand this dynamic and its meaning, we must look at Lilith, Adam and Marduk. First, let’s take a look at the Lilith-Adam thing.

In folklore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, before Eve. Unlike Eve, she was created as a fully independent being, in the same way that Adam was, as his equal, but commanded by God to be subservient to him. Lilith refused- the exact circumstances vary on the telling, and depending on who you ask she was just a bitch in general or specifically refused to take a supine, submissive position during sex. In other words, she wanted to be on top.

Whatever the reason, she was cast out of Eden, and cursed by God. She became the mother either of all monsters or of a race of demons called Lilin or Lilim or the progenitor of the demons that haunt people sexually, i.e. succubi and incubi (Brotip: Incubi and Succubi are actually the same thing. The demons first have sex with men, absorb their seed, then switch genders and implant it into a woman. Neato!)

Following Lilith’s downfall, God made Eve out of Adam’s rib while he slept and we all know how that went. The important part of the story is that it shifted from a relationship between equals to a relationship between superior men and subservient women (who are also to blame for all the bad shit that happens, in addition to being mere extensions of men)

We see a mirroring of this in Eva. Initially, when the revelations come, we are told that all life on Earth came from Adam and the angels are trying to reunite with him and wipe out humanity in Third Impact.

We are then informed later on that the being buried under the Geofront is actually Lilith.

The symbolic meaning here is clear: The male centric narrative of religion is wrong, and woman has primacy in creation, not man. What happens in Eva is a turnabout in a war that has waged since the dawn of sedentary, agricultural civilization- a war against the awe and mystery of birth. Eva is about a war between the sexes, and between mysical principles of Male and Female, and Male loses.

This does not become clear until EoE; the nature of Kaworu’s revelation is not completed until the Forbidden Union of Adam and Lilith takes place, in which we see the Mother Goddess, who has been chained by masculine power (represented by the iron cross on which she is bound and the phallic Lance of Longinus, or Spear of Destiny, that binds her, a gift of Adam)

The process by which Lilith awakens is interesting. It begins with Gendo sexually assaulting Rei, and as we know from history, sexual assault and rape is the primary means by which men have controlled women throughout history. In an interesting turnabout, Rei’s womb does not passively accept but bites off his Adam-infected hand, eating his power. The imagery of the vagina dentata is extended by the toothed mouth that opens to swallow Rei as she returns to her greater self.

Note, further, that the first thing that happens to Lilith is that she assumes physical characteristics of gender, i.e. becomes visibly female. Giant Naked Rei -who, given that Rei is basically a ¾ scale mode of Yui, is actually Giant Naked Yui, and by extension Giant Naked Mommy- glories in the awe and mystery of the nude female form.

(Also of relevance here is Yui as surrogate mother to Gendo, as a product of a society which has no male role models and has trained men to seek relationships to provide themselves with a surrogate mother rather than a partner, But That is Another Story)

Prior to her transformation, Lilith is an amorphous, humanoid blob. She also wears a mask bearing the symbo of Seele, the same symbol often superimposed on a apple and serpent. The mask Lilith wears is a metaphor for the male-centric, female-despising narrative of organized religion. Her shape, which is suggestive of fertility totems, is a sharp contrast to the lithe, sexual form of the nubile Rei Ayanami that she eventually takes on. Lilith’s pre-ascension form is indicative of chained and concealed power.

The fact that Lilith is Lilith and not named Eve, which you’d think a show concerned with superficially appropriating Abrahamic symbols without regard to their meaning would do. Lilith is Lilth because of the significance of identifying her as such.

Lilith the mother-monster, Lilith queen of demons and damme of a race of beasts (us, actually). Lilith is readily identified, in the syncretic way of the ancient near east, with another deity who has similar connotations and plays a similar role in the cultural narrative of sedentary societies giving supremacy to the father god over the mother goddess of the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer society.

That deity is Tiamat. Tiamat, who was conquered by the god Marduk. Marduk, who is a kind of antecedent-cum-cousin to Zeus, and wields a thunderbolt spear- in fact, he defeated Tiamat by piercing her belly (the belly being her womb). The entire story is one of male-subjugating female in cultural transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.

Marduk as in Marduk Institute.

What does the Marduk Institute do (in universe, nothing, since it’s not real, but hold on) it chooses children. In fact, it chooses child sacrifices to power the Evas. We learn later on that the Marduk Institute is basically Gendo.

Gendo is Marduk. The rite we see in the deepest depths of Terminal Dogma in the End of Evangelion -in the world’s egg womb- is the Mother Goddess freeing herself by defying the Father God. Tiamat-Lilith bites off Marduk-Adam’s dick, taking power over reproduction back into herself and asserting the Female principle as coequal to the Male in a sacred mystery that defies the Abrahamic tradition of Woman as an extension of and vessel for Man. The show’s deep concern with gender roles thematically ties into this.

(Note that Tiamat is a sea dragon, associated with the primordial ocean- much like Rei is frequently identified with water, submersion, and the primordial LCL soup)

Part of this ritual is unlocking the full aspects of the Female Principle, a trinity that mirrors the Trinity of Christianity. The male-centric narrative of religion reduces the Female to nurturer and sympathizer and ignores her powerful, frightful aspects and chains her sexuality in the Madonna-Whore complex (as related in the literal Madonna and Whore in the New Testament- both are named Mary!)

In the Rei-Lilth entity, we see those aspects freed. We actually see them throughout the show. The Tripartite Goddess who takes the form of Maid, Mother, and Crone, being in this case Rei I, II, and III, respectively (although Misato, Asuka, and Rei II also form a mother goddess system). Rei is Lilith is Tiamat and is also Hecate, the cthonic Greek goddess of the crossroads, darkness, and withcraft, and she is also the Norns, the Fates, and the Furies. (The Rei-Lilith entity is the beginning and ending of all life- we originate from her and Rei the Crone comes to collect us when we die)

Rei herself is a kind of mother goddess analogue to Jesus Christ- God taking physical form to live and suffer among mortals, to die, Odin-like, as a sacrifice of herself to herself. Rei observes herself when she sees Lilith, much as Christ prayed to himself for mercy on the Cross. Hence the imagery of departing from the cross before ascending to heaven we see in Rei, and especially the image of the nails simply passing through her because they no longer constrain her.

In addition to all of this, think of how the Evas work: The enslave the soul of a mother and weaponize the bonds of motherhood, using children as fuel, and Nerv is working on a program to control them with Rei alone, totally subjugating and weaponizing the female principle.

2. The Path, the Abyss, and the Way of Trials

One of the most interesting things about Eva is how it treats the monomyth, or hero’s journey.

It grabs a totally regular, normal person and drags him through the meatgrinder that is being a Chosen One. Of interest to the occult meaning of Eva is the way that the Hero’s Journey describes both adolescence and the rocky path to adulthood and an aspect of occult practice known as pathworking, which is itself linked to the Qabbalah and the Sephirot.

What we see in Eva is a group of characters collectively undergoing a series of trials or pathworkings, forcing them to adapt and change and expand their being. This is most evident in Shinji, who does the whole call to adventure road of trials thing. He faces a series of tests to his resolve, conviction, and courage, and passes from trial to trial making a great number of mistakes and miscalculations.

The most important of these are the three (three! three!) times he casts off his physical form. It is important to note that this is exactly what he does- in Eva, humans are luminous beings, and flesh is incidental, a prison for the pure spirit. Moving on!

Part of the process of illumination that appears almost universally in occult lore is the crossing of the abyss, or dark night of the soul- it has many names, but it represents a profound challenge to the Ego, in effect commanding the initiate to create himself rather than merely being. The result of this process is the Initiate being reconstituted with added wisdom and illumination, or gaining Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, or similar.

Aspects of this appear in Shinji’s journey, as he makes infrequent, maddeningly indistinct contact with a kind of guardian angel in the form of Yui, who physically and spiritually shelters him during his trials.

As a kind of Holy Fool, Shinji’s initiation process involves passing into the abyss, and symbolically fucking his mother by leaping into a gigantic metal dildo and ramming into her before going off to fight abstract personifications of his fears in a bound godform he controls by being inside his mother.

The significance of the angels -actually apostles or messengers- themselves cannot be overstate. Let’s look at them!

Sachiel- The opening monster, who rises from the sea, a monster birthed from the primordial chaos. Sachiel challenges Shinji’s timidity with its ability to adapt, and begins by destroying the binds on his head or mind as it shatters the helmet of the Eva and urges him to SEE by attacking his eye, followed by a graphic and disturbing scene of the Eva’s eye opening. Shinji’s eyes are met by the Third Eye, opening to view itself (when he sees it, Shinji is sitting inside the Eva, so his view is the eye’s view as it sees itself reflected)

Next you have Shamshel, who challenges Shinji’s antipathy and self loathing. Shamshel gathers up the male principle, embodying Gendo in its own way, being a giant dick with whips. Shinji is able to overcome it when he is able to live for more than himself. Shamshel also represents the aggressive, conquering male within Shinji, and he defeats it by unleashing that aspect of himself.

Ramiel is terror. It is death, the inevitability of mortality (hence the image of both a virus and a pyramid, a tomb that strikes from on high with an irresistible) in the form of an insurmountable obstacle. He overcomes it by building relationships- by mattering to other people and becoming more than himself.

Gaghiel is an incarnation of Tiamat, a monster from the primordial ocean. In the battle, we see Shinji confronted by Asuka’s abrasively sexual being, (the risky, fluttery attraction of the Female Other being a somewhat terrifying contrast to the soft, welcoming femininity of Mommy when it first encountered) as he is forced into close quarters with her and joins with her to fight a giant monster penis slash vagina dentata emerging from the chaotic ocean of the subconscious. Note that Shinji and Asuka defeat it using a plan from Misato, the hypersexual Maid of the inverse Tripartite Goddess, suggesting that they kill it by ramming a fve hundred ton phallic symbol down its throat, which then ejaculates it to death. The subconscious sex beast is killed by tactical deep throating.

Next is, of course, is Israfel, who is the angel of music (a divine principle of creation that reflects the inherently beautiful nature of creation) and mirrors the Greek idea of humanity as a perfect, wheel-shaped being that must be divided into male and female lest it be too great for the gods, in their iniquity, to overcome. In the end, Asuka and Shinji defeat it through the formation of a superior union, only to end with an example of how the divide between Male and Female brings the ruin of Man as they flirtatiously bicker.

Sandalphon forces Shinji to taste the heroism that thunders in his soul, chained by his ritualistic preparation to act as a sacrifice to chain the mother goddess to the will of his father. HIs rescue of Asuka is both an act of purification (hence its symbolic linkage to the dip in the hot springs at the end of the episode, and the way the episode as a whole works as a kind of spoof of the obligatory onsen episode trope) and a mirror of Orpheus’ quest in the underworld to rescue Eurydice or Dante’s quest for Beatrice (Illumination is often presented as female, in defiance of the male-defined narrative).

Matarael… fuck Matarael. Anyway, Matarael, the Spider, weaves the pilots together. This isn’t a lame joke, Matarael is basically Sandalphon continued, with Asuka’s experience mirroring Shinji’s.

Sahaquiel is a trial of strength, pure and simple, mirroring the tale of Hercules temporarily shouldering the burden of Atlas while the latter aided him in a quest.

Iruel doesn’t concern Shinji or the pilots.

Leliel is his first taste of the Void. It is his first step into the Higher Mysteries, and the first angel that is truly more messenger than giant robot fighting enemy, to the point that it commits suicide by offering Shinji and Unit 01 its core to shatter and free themselves. The most important thing about Leliel is that Shinji is not freed until he runs out of power- until the constraining, male principle, the Science of the restraint systems that chains the Evangelion Godform runs out of battery power and is cast aside, and the rage of the protective mother and the subconscious is released. The Void is defeated in a symbolic birth, mirroring the first time Shinji came into the world via Yui-flaps and marking the first steps of the last steps on the path.

Bardiel and Zeruel are more appropriately combined than treated seperately. The short period in which he faces both and then is taken into Eva forces Shinji’s core self to the surface, leading to his near death and abandonment of the path as he leaves Nerv. Zeruel then appears, the Arm of God, to force Shinji back onto the path and act as the first Guardian of the Abyss, the anticipation of the demon Choronzon which will be later fulfilled by Kaworu.

Mustering his Will to overcome Zeruel, Shinji steps into the Abyss proper for the first time, truly abandoning his form to take a spirit quest with Yui, who guides and shelters him.

Areal and Aramisael are primarily concerned with the other pilots, of course.

Kaworu, the Guardian of the Abyss, the demon Choronzon, appears before the final step of the path to tempt Shinji, mirroring the temptations of Christ by Satan. Kaworu represents giving up, the easy way out, taking the easy answer and giving into the sorcerer’s stare. To progess, Shinji must shatter his illusions, freeing himself for, quoth the poet, the void to breathe hard on his heart. He must learn that steel (the Eva) can bend and break, flesh (himself) can wither and die, but the will is invincible.

From there, the Abyss awaits. Eva offers us an interpretation of the RIght Hand Path (the TV ending) and the Left Hand Path (the beach scene) showing us Shinji both creating himself and shattering and turning back from ego death to suffer in a hell of his own making.

Now, let’s talk about Asuka. To do that, we must talk about Seele.

3. The Woman Clothed in the Sun

It is important, in considering the magical signfiicance of Asuka to the grand rite presented in Evangelion, that she shares her origins with Seele, that is that they are both German. Both storywise and symbolically, Asuka has been chosen and purified, even before her birth, to become the sacrificial vessel through which Seele chains motherhood and slaughters the divine feminine, giving birth to a gestalt monster god not of woman born.

Seele is all but openly modeled on the conspiranoiac mythology of the Bavarian Illuminati, allegedly founded by Adam Weishaupt (“The First Man Who is Illuminated”) and allegedly the masters of the world. In conspiracy lore, the Illuminati are the men behind the men behind the men behind the men, tracing a lineage of occult might through the Knights Templar back to the Temple of Jerusalem and the Dionysiac architects and back on to Atlantis and further, depending, as I keep saying, on who you ask.

Gendo’s rite with Rei-Lilith-Tiamat-Hecate down in the basement is not part of the rite going on upstairs.

Up top, we have Asuka. Asuka’s entire life experience has been centered on making her a woman who totally rejects womanhood, and then at the last moment, embraces and bathes in it. Hence Asuka’s hatred of her reproductive cycle, and her denial of children in the sense of her reproductive future and her own childish nature (Shinji, who has a weird habit of becoming oddly perceptive, sees the child in her. Asuka senses this and loathes him for it. She hates Shinji because she awakens feminine feelings of longing for a mate that she has rejected, the feminine (and masculine, Taijitu natch) desire to offer care and be cared for)

In order to become the sacrificial lamb, she must be purified of her feminity and then regain it, which she does, in grand form. Asuka’s association with the Sun ties into long standing mythological-cosmological-magickal identification of the Sun as a male principle and the Moon as a female reflection. Asuka is the embodiment of the Sun as the future (as the Womb is the future, the cauldron in which generations are sired, Asuka’s fecundity as indicated by her heavy periods in stark contrast to Rei’s paradoxical barrenness) and of the sun as Female.

The Seele queen-conqering rite requires that Asuka, the sun-clothed woman, and her conquering red dragon, her Tiamat-monster mother who confers upon her the power of nations (she crushes an army beneath her very feet, and uses the masculine symbol she used to destroy Gaghiel to devastate the men coming to kill her with their penis-guns, and note that the ship breaks and bends in the process) in the most logical way: By deploying shark-toothed dickmonsters with big phallic swords to murder-rape her to death and tear her apart and carry her skyward in a mocking offering to the sun, Seele destroys the feminine principle in ritual.

The stigmata Asuka suffers are vitally important in this symbolic framework. She loses her hand (will/self) eye (knowledge, being) and is stabbed repeatedly in her belly/womb. Her hand is chained, her sight stolen, and her reproductive power savaged.

As this ritual takes place above, the Tiamat-freeing ritual of Lilith’s ascension takes place below. The most interesting part is that the murder-rape of the sun goddess doesn’t stand a chance of stopping Lilith from completing her apotheosis. She barely noticed them at all. The Apollonian phallic monsters that Seele has created to cheat the Art through science are tiny before her, beneath her notice. She bypasses them entirely and draws Shinji out to become the third aspect of yet another tripartite system, the Holy Child to the Mother and Father of Lilith and Adam.

In their wisdom, the new God thrusts Shinji back into harsh reality on the beach, and sends Asuka to join him, an Eve (scratch that, Lilith- Shinji ain't going to be on top) for the new world, wounded but a survivor, like Jesus and Odin, of being sacrificed to herself. In the end, balance is achieved- Shinji the male principle offers Asuka violence and domination and she overcomes him with compassion.

Of course, they aren't in the Garden- they reject that. They are outside, banished and forever despised of an angel with a fiery sword on the shore of a sea of blood with the broken art of Man in the form of the petrified MPEs in silent vigil over their labors and pangs of birth.

Look upon my works, ye mighty.

4. Eva As Magic

Now the fun part!

Eva is not only about magic, it is magic.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a hypersigil.

To start, we need to know what a sigil is. A sigil is a device of the modern practice known as chaos magic. There are many ways of creating such a device. The prioneer of the technique was a painter, and painted them. Most beginners will start out using the text sigilization technique, which involves writing out a focused phrase, like “I, CHUCKMAN, AM DOING A THING/GETTING A RESULT”, compating the letters into a glyph, and charging it up. Methods for the charging part vary, but again most people start with Grant Morrisons’ suggestion- stare at it and have an orgasm, then get rid of it and forget you ever saw it.

A hypersigil is more complex. It’s more like a voodoo doll, a way of gathering and manipulating energy. Grant Morrison coined the term for his comic book The Invisibles.

Evangelion is a hypersigil. It is a magical act, in the sense that it seeks to effect Change in Accordance with the Will. That change, as we all know, is dragging otakus out into the light and changing the direction of Anime as a medium.

I think we can agree that Eva was created with that intent. What I’m saying is that Eva does this not only artistically, but magically, by drawing on the energy of the intense emotions it creates in its viewers.

As I outlined in another thread, Eva reaches through the screen into your head and fiddles with your brain, using your very thought processes and approach to fiction as part of its art, to make and illustrate its point about the corrosive nature of replacing human interaction with obsession. Obsession is Kaworu, and you are Shinji- the purpose of Eva is to rewire your head to pop the easy, comforting embrace of the glass teat like sparkling bishonen zit and plunge headlong into the perilous Abyss of human interaction and relationships.

It more than delivers an argument. It warps reality. For as Nietzsche says, the abyss gazes also, and as Egon says, the gate swings both ways. The very act of viewing Eva, of writing fanfiction, of skinning the dolphin to Asuka in booty shorts, casts energy out into the universe (Or rewires your subconscious through symbols if you prefer a mechanistic materialistic explanation) and effects that change.

They very intensity of the creation of Eva, the pouring of the creator’s heart and soul and psychology into it, breathes life into it and makes it a living thing, full of its own vitality. It exists now as an indepndent being, an egregore, which exists purely in idea-space. It lives in our heads.

Problem was, our boy Anno the Sorcerer created a monster. Eva won’t stop eating, and as the abyss gazes back, it made itself into the very thing it was admonishing its audience to throw down in favor of touching pig disgusting 3-D girls.

Hence Mari, the Fourth Aspect, the Goddess of Rebuild who is the breaker-down of obstacles, Ganesha-Coyote-Diana in pink and d-cups.

[NemZ]

I promise to read this... eventually.

[UrsusArctos]

Huh? Have you been reading Zuggy's old posts or something? Not to pull you down or anything but some of the things you're saying are too weird to make sense.

Hence Mari, the Fourth Aspect, the Goddess of Rebuild who is the breaker-down of obstacles, Ganesha-Coyote-Diana in pink and d-cups.

...huhwhat?

[Chuckman]

Huh? Have you been reading Zuggy's old posts or something? Not to pull you down or anything but some of the things you're saying are too weird to make sense.

I don't know who that is. I'll check him (her?) out, though.

...huhwhat?

Breaker of obstacles. Trickster. Virgin hunt goddess.

[Monk Ed]

Huh? Have you been reading Zuggy's old posts or something? Not to pull you down or anything but some of the things you're saying are too weird to make sense.

This is hardly the first time Chuckman has posted one of these. It has been a while, though.

[Mr. Tines]

reposting some relevant Zuggy goodness  SPOILER: Show

Also, aligned with OP

Because she's incomprehensible and obtains sun-knowledge whenever she dies, and she is attempting to kill him by means of it.

Because he has independently obtained a sort of planetary knowledge which complements her meaning; therefore her attack is successful and he is injured emotionally once more, as he predicted that he would be.

She's just better informed. One can't possibly come to the conclusion that she's the same as she ever was. Asuka dies three times; once when she cuts her wrists, once when she is impaled; once when Ikari Shinji strangles her. Each death confers on her a stronger resurrection: this is a solar knowledge. At the end of the first death she realizes that there was always a power making her great; at the end of the second death she realizes that there was never any power that could make her greater than the world. At the moment of the third death it seems that the world's incarnation, planetary messianic, has finally broken her spine. Of course Shinji then realizes that that is not the case. The truth she realizes now is that planetary knowledge cannot defeat a red world. How can she realize such a thing? Shinji-Anno does not know. He can only observe it, never make it into sense. It is absent. She would rather die than let him know it.

In the end he no longer wants to know. He wants things to be red again. That is the end of the third death. That is the fourth incarnation of Asuka Langley Soryu, highest visible form of the solar wanderer rape deity. Before this film, Shinji could not comprehend the true form of Asuka's attack. Now he can. That's why he's crying.

[pwhodges]

Well, I liked it. It may be largely nonsense (largely because I consider the stuff it draws on nonsense in the first place), but it has a grandeur all its own.

[Squigsquasher]

There is now brain matter all over the college floor. My mind could not possibly be any more blown. This whole thing adds a whole new level of disturbing into Eva, and yet it is also liberating. I genuinely don't know how to react, other than to say that this is one of the deepest, smartest, most brilliant things I have ever read.

[AuraTwilight]

You sir, are on some awesome shit you should be sharing with the rest of the class.

But this beautiful madness of yours will do.

[Shinoyami65]

That was an amazing analysis. It still amazes me that we're only really digging deep into this layer now, long after Eva originally aired....

I wonder if there is a way to intepret some sort of mystical meaning from Ireul. Possibly the ability of humans to survive without their godlike saviors (the Evas) or with the help of similar beings (the Magi supercomputer?).

[Mr. Tines]

we're only really digging deep into this layer now, long after Eva originally aired....

Along with the bits that I quoted above, there's been a fair amount with varying depths of background knowledge over the years e.g.

So Shinji and Asuka take bad, just as Adam and Lilith; and however Shinji and Rei were loved, although they never got it to express freely (Well, Rei says in "The end of Evangelion"). Then Shinji must kill and kick Asuka from the "paradise" so that Rei can enter, who waits for the expulsion of Lilith.

and I know I committed to the interwebs some thoughts about how Shinji runs the important bits of the monomyth/hero's journey backwards back in the '04-'05-ish timeframe, as well as all sorts of allusions in the fics I wrote at the time.

If you know the memes, they're usually quite easy to evoke in a work as consciously Promethean as NGE.

[Chuckman]

He doesn't really subvert or invert the monomyth. The hero rejecting or fleeing from the call to adventure and being dragged into it is probably more common than simply saying okay, let's go.

I thought for a time he did, too. I almost wrote an essay detailing how Shinji inverts the monomyth.

That's wrong, though.

He still completes the journey, he's just whiny and sort of gets dragged through it at points. I did not truly understand what this means until I realized that the only way Shinji could ritually murder Kaworu to open the abyss is if he felt Love for Kaworu and vice-versa.

Asuka dying three deaths is something I didn't notice before, and it only occurs to me now that it mirrors Shinji dying three times as well. I disagree with the assessment from the Spanish site you posted. Asuka isn't meant to be kicked out or killed. A new creation myth with the male and female aspects as equals, permanently intertwined, is the end result of clashing rites. Hence Shinji suffering the wounds of Christ but embodying aggression on the beach while Asuka bears the wounds of the war-father-god but meets his aggression with compassion. The opposite sides have mingled, yin and yang fashion.

Note also that their position at the end mirrors their sexual position in Instrumentality in which Asuka was on top, as Lilith desired to ride Adam's baloney pony. On the beach, Shinji is on top, and remains on top when he has his break down. He has, however, assumed the female position with his legs spread.

(I'm not saying they're actually having sex, only that their positions are significant in a symbolic sense)

"All that bullshit and he's still on top" = "How disgusting".

[Mr. Tines]

He doesn't really subvert or invert the monomyth. The hero rejecting or fleeing from the call to adventure and being dragged into it is probably more common than simply saying okay, let's go.

I don't recall the details my argument after all these years, but the thesis was that he went through most of the stations in the Underworld in reverse order; and alas I suspect that the original has been lost to time and the regular purges of the old ANF Eva forum -- all I can find are self-citation without links and a similar statement from NemZ.

[Chuckman]

Shinji's journey is actually linked to that of Seele. Both involve someone trying to brute force Illumination and failing. This doubles as a metaphor for science in general, and ties back to the Lovecraftian/John Carpenter's The Thing/Balrog aspect of Adam buried under the ice, man delved too greedily and too deep, etc.

[Bagheera]

It's an interesting read, and a valid take on some of the symbolism of the show, but as to the show's actual meaning or symbolic relevance I'm left pretty cold. It's like doing an exhaustive treatise on the history of the ships for which the female cast are named and arguing that it's somehow relevant to the plot and mood and themes of the show. But it isn't; it's just a running gag by a navy otaku that occasionally lends a bit of insight when trying to understand the characters in question.

Also, mixing Diana and Coyote? I'm hard-pressed to imagine two deities whose interests overlap less. Ganesha fits though.

[UrsusArctos]

But it isn't; it's just a running gag by a navy otaku that occasionally lends a bit of insight when trying to understand the characters in question.

Barely, at that. The only thing that remotely relates a character name to a warship name is the matter of Asuka's death not being shown, and that being put down to "Nobody saw the Langley sink" - a very, very tenuous stretch at that. Being a military nut of sorts myself, I know that the warship names are fun but have even less to do with the characters' personalities than the angel names do for the Angels.

Ganesha fits though.

Perhaps vaguely in stated purpose, but otherwise, not at all. That was the most "WTF" part of the post for me.

[Bagheera]

Barely, at that. The only thing that remotely relates a character name to a warship name is the matter of Asuka's death not being shown, and that being put down to "Nobody saw the Langley sink" - a very, very tenuous stretch at that. Being a military nut of sorts myself, I know that the warship names are fun but have even less to do with the characters' personalities than the angel names do for the Angels.

The Angel names do fit, but more in a smile and nod sense than in any terms of binding symbolism. Same as the ships, really.

Perhaps vaguely in stated purpose, but otherwise, not at all. That was the most "WTF" part of the post for me.

Much better than Coyote though, I'm sure! Ganesha at least has a bit of an oracular feel to him, and can be tied to Mari in that sense.

[UrsusArctos]

The Angel names do fit, but more in a smile and nod sense than in any terms of binding symbolism. Same as the ships, really.

Much more than the ships. The Angel names are actually somewhat relevant to the Angels in question - for instance, Arael, as the "Vision of God" or "Light of God" is not only shaped like a bird (Arael is the angel of birds) but attacks using a beam of light that, in case of Asuka, induced nightmarish visions and fears that she had buried deep within. I could go on and on about how the Angel names actually fit the Angels in some sense - although they have no "deep" signficance and the in-universe fit is easily justified by the possibility of Seele naming them after their attacks - which is when we see their names.

The characters and the ships they were named after - nothing of the sort. Believe me, I know. I wrote up the entire warships page on the wiki with a little help from the others.

Much better than Coyote though, I'm sure! Ganesha at least has a bit of an oracular feel to him, and can be tied to Mari in that sense.

Meh, Ganesha's real purpose is to get rid of obstacles - which is why he's invoked first, before any of the other gods in prayer. He tends to toss all sorts of obstacles into people's way if he's annoyed with them, and stops them from going to his father's temple for eternal salvation (well, there's no shortage of myths about him). But believe me, there's no connection at all. The Diana connection is likewise tenuous, and Coyote doesn't fit either - Mari is no trickster. I'd rather call her Tom Bombadil and be done with it.

[Bagheera]

Much more than the ships. The Angel names are actually somewhat relevant to the Angels in question - for instance, Arael, as the "Vision of God" or "Light of God" is not only shaped like a bird (Arael is the angel of birds) but attacks using a beam of light that, in case of Asuka, induced nightmarish visions and fears that she had buried deep within. I could go on and on about how the Angel names actually fit the Angels in some sense - although they have no "deep" signficance and the in-universe fit is easily justified by the possibility of Seele naming them after their attacks - which is when we see their names.

The characters and the ships they were named after - nothing of the sort. Believe me, I know. I wrote up the entire warships page on the wiki with a little help from the others.

I think we're in violent agreement here, since I feel the same way.

Meh, Ganesha's real purpose is to get rid of obstacles - which is why he's invoked first, before any of the other gods in prayer.

Well, hence the comparison. It seems apt given that Mari's stated role is to "destroy Eva." She also tends to tell Shinji what's up and clear the way for him to proceed. I realize it's tenuous, but compared to the other two . . .

Good point on Tom Bombadil, though.

[UrsusArctos]

Tom Bombadil is a better fit, seriously. Mari got Shinji out of his "barrow" and got him back into the fight. Mari wrecks Eva by being a quasi audience-surrogate/Mary Sue (and hence the Bombadil connection - he was meant to be an audience surrogate in the speech where he said "Don't you know who I am, but you, nameless...?"), and she's an old-fashioned, totally 'nonsense' character. She servers as a random, chaotic element. She does plenty of things but doesn't actually 'fit' anywhere in a sense.

I do happen to know plenty about Hindu religion and mythology, so trust me on the Ganesha thing - it's as far out as Diana or Coyote, if not worse.