Does Sadamoto Ship Rei or Asuka?

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Kendrix
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Postby Kendrix » Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:50 pm

View Original PostJames Sucellus wrote:The ending is Shinji's.


Well, he's the MC. I was talking about the ending as in 'ending song' anyway.


And this is really obvious hater sprouting. A character's importance in the plot isn't determined by wether you like them.


Let me remind you that all of these other characters mostly turned up AFTER Evangelion, because Rei was so hugely influential.

That's like saying Shakespeare or Charles Dickenswere unoriginal because their stuff has since been copied to hell and back.
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Postby James Sucellus » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:01 pm

I'm not a hater at all. Rei is an alright character, she's just far from the most interesting in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and has the least depth of the main characters. She's intentionally a blank slate of a character, so we can better explore how the others interact with her. She's not really a character, but a device for better exploring the other characters. She's intentionally boring.

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Postby Kendrix » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:13 pm

^
And what would you base that assertion on?

That she's boring to you?

There are many, many people who's disagree with you, and nothing in the official material to hammer home any intentional point of 'You're supposed to be bored'.
She's fleshed out as much as any other character, and, as par for this show, in exquisite detail. In ep 14 we even get a glimpse into her philosophic opinions and questions on the existence of higher powers, for example.

Is she a 'blank slate' because she ends up learning new things about herself and the world throughou the story? Don't they all do that?
She enters the stage with a fully formed worldview (as outlined in eps 5 and 6)
Last edited by Kendrix on Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby James Sucellus » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:17 pm

I think Rei is quite clearly there as a deconstruction of how girls are viewed within anime, and how eerie a subservient, robotic, emotionless, empty vessel of a cute girl would actually be. On that level, she succeeds, and I like her as a character. Her mass popularity with those who take her at face value as an icon, just mystifies me.

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Postby Kendrix » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:20 pm

View Original PostJames Sucellus wrote:subservient, robotic, emotionless, empty vessel of a cute girl


Except she is very obviously none of these things to anyone who payed the slightest shred of attention, and is not why anyone likes her.
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Postby James Sucellus » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:21 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:Except she is very obviously none of these things to anyone who payed the slightest shred of attention, and is not why anyone likes her.


Fair enough, I just have a different interpretation of the show than you do. I think she works as an exploration of Gendo's idealised blank and non-rebellious child/partner, Shinji's desired lack of conflict with a blank other, and her doll-like existence puts Asuka at unease. Rei is blank, and through her blankness, she enriches the rest of the cast.

I think she'd be very uninteresting to just watch on her own for an extended period of time.

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Postby Kendrix » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:10 pm

View Original PostJames Sucellus wrote:Fair enough, I just have a different interpretation of the show than you do.



This goes beyond a matter of interpretation.
This is a matter of the painfully obvious: If she was truly meant to be and be percieved as a meat robot, she wouldn't have hesitated to shoot EVA 03 in episode 18.
Episode 5 would portray her as following Gendo 'because he says so', not because she's genuinely loyal and willing to slap your face if you aren't/smiles at the thought of him. (Which isn't that uncommon for kids with suboptimal parents who don't really know what 'normal' is like before more life experience comes in - Heck, Shinji tries to win Gendo's favor untill ep 18. Does that make him 'inhuman and robotic'?)

Ultimately, she is, like her two fellow pilots (and ep 26 really beats you over the head with the parallel) a lonely person who doesn't think they have much value or significance, and thus poured all that they are in just one task because they know no other way to get in contact with other people and 'enter into their worlds', because that's the only thing they have, or think they have.
All three, in their own ways, paintakingly make themselves do this piloting thing untill they shatter.

And that's a sad situation to be in.

Her inventor discribes her this way:

"Whatever else, she needs to be painted in as a bitterly unhappy young girl with little sense of presence."

"Rei is someone who is aware of the fact that even if she dies, there'll be another to replace her, so she doesn't value her life very highly. Her presence, her existence, "ostensible existence," is ephemeral. She's a very sad girl. She only has the barest minimum of what she needs to have. She's damaged in some way; she hurts herself."

"Well, Rei is probably [the character] closest to my deep psyche. I don’t really understand her. …"

"There were parts where that’s what I was consciously doing, actively trying to put aside my presuppositions, trying to bring out the most primitive, the most core, the purest parts within me."




He's also got a weird 'shizoid disconnect'/'disinterest' thing going on, because artists are weird (and maybe this is part of how she baceme this barely-involved, solitary sidelines existence whose true thoughts and feelings seem far away) but spinning that into "She's meant as a shallow plot device , especially when contrasted with things like these:
As far as Rei is concerned, [I am] unconscious. I don't control anything. With "poka-poka," as well, I felt like she said it of her own volition before I was even aware of it.

He's liable to 'forget' about the freakin MC, Rei isn't all that special in that respect.

Asuka is projecting her head off, as she is in all of her relationships.
She's afraid of being/becomming what she accuses Rei, Misato and Shinji of; It's a way of distantiating herself from it.
A huge aspect of her dealings with Gendo is that he never quite considered her inner life beyond what he wanted him to be, and it ends up biting him in the ass, because she does have one.
what she meant to Shinji is quite succintly summed up in EoE ("hope that people can understand each other", more or less the exact opposite of what you're postulating - If she were meant to symbolize 'problemless blankless', then what is she doing in the 'anxiety over hidden/unpredictable parts' train montage during pre-Instrumentality? )


Read this.
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Postby James Sucellus » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:13 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:This goes beyond a matter of interpretation.


Nothing in the realm of subjective (all art) goes beyond the matter of interpretation. I like Rei, but there's clearly less to her than with the other main characters, and she's only so mega popular because of her cute image. This isn't really a big criticism, as she's really intended to be like that, and it works well. The only Eva character I dislike is Mari.

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Postby Chuckman » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:26 pm

You will like Mari once you fully comprehend her. To do this you must oil up and chase you friends and wrestle them until you achieve a state of gnosis.
the prophecy is true

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Postby Kendrix » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:26 pm

Not liking her or personally being less interested in her is a subjective claim;


Saying she's less fleshed-out than the other characters or intentionally portrayed as a stepford wife no one right in their mind could possibly like or feel sorry for is not.
That's something that can be objectively answered by looking at the narrative structure and content of the episodes, and those devote as much time and structure to Rei as to anyone else.
Sure, she's a bit sparse around Asuka's introduction episodes, but she had her own earlier.
Of course there is always a filter of perception, but that doesn't mean anyone can make up whatever they like.

Rei is not a submissive robot; She is a damaged child soldier.

Literally analysis =/= audience reaction.
Last edited by Kendrix on Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby KingXanaduu » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:29 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:You will like Mari once you fully comprehend her. To do this you must oil up and chase you friends and wrestle them until you achieve a state of gnosis.


........Kaworu.........is that you?
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Postby James Sucellus » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:40 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:You will like Mari once you fully comprehend her. To do this you must oil up and chase you friends and wrestle them until you achieve a state of gnosis.


Making friends is too much effort for this otaku. I'll oil up and wrestle my monitor, instead.

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Postby Doublegee » Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:16 pm

Kendrix is winning this thread harder than anyone has ever won anything in the history of the Internet.

EDIT: before you ask, yes, you can sig that.
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Postby Grand Duke of Yashima » Sun Apr 13, 2014 11:07 pm

View Original PostKendrix wrote:Rei is not a submissive robot; She is a damaged child soldier.


Completely on the nose. Thanks, Kendrix.
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Postby Kendrix » Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:24 am

View Original PostGrand Duke of Yashima wrote:Completely on the nose. Thanks, Kendrix.


View Original PostDoublegee wrote:Kendrix is winning this thread harder than anyone has ever won anything in the history of the Internet.


:rei_blush:
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Postby AngelNo13Bardiel » Wed Apr 16, 2014 3:29 am

To be fair, anytime you go off on a longish rant, I stop to read. I'd imagine that most of us do. Why? 'Cause you actually make points and bring up ideas worth mentally running through, not just rave like any number of rabid fangirls would.

So don't get embarrassed, just don't change.
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Postby ElMariachi » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:33 am

^
Wait, Kendrix raises many interesting points in her posts and you encourage her to never change, yet you admit to never read her long rants? :huh:
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Postby pwhodges » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:35 am

^ I think you misunderstood - "I stop to read" means: "I take the time to read it", not "I stop reading".
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Postby ElMariachi » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:49 am

^
Oh, yes, of course, my bad! -o-;
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Postby Monk Ed » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:50 am

Ha! So it is. Even I thought he meant "I stop reading", and was admitting that the reason he stops is because Kendrix's posts are too much of a cognitive load for him to sort through and he'd rather just go on about his day.

Nobody says "I stop to read" to mean "I stop reading" so I find it hilarious that I read it that way.
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