Why is Gendou extremely cold in Q?

Discussion of the new series of Evangelion movies ( "Evangelion Shin Gekijōban", meaning "Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition"). The final instalment made its debut in Japan on March 8, 2021.

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Why is Gendou extremely cold in Q?

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Postby unitM » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:13 am

No, the answer is not "to express the theme of chaos in Q" because other characters do not go the distance that Gendou does. This is actually a greatly overlooked detail.

  • Misato in Q acts cold towards Shinji but is also shown on-screen as expressing forgiveness for his behavior when she refuses to pull the trigger.
  • Asuka in Q acts like a dick towards Shinji but we know that Asuka is fighting for a good cause, even if it's against Shinji.
  • Rei is lobotomized, and even so, she still expresses concern for Shinji just before he faints in NERV's abandoned base. She also reacts to Shinji when he dismisses Rei as not being the real Rei.
  • Even Fuyutsuki goes out of his way to perform Gendou's duties in Q when he tells Shinji about his past. Regardless if this way Gendou's request or not, it was not Gendou who confronted him.

Not only is Gendou not concerned for Shinji. He wears a visor the entire movie. If you thought his eyes were hard to see before, now he doesn't even show the slightest of eye contact at all. His facial expression and tonality refuse to change through the entire movie. Fuyutsuki makes an on-screen note of it too, begging the question of whether Shinji would benefit to see how Gendou lives. He brings this question to Gendou and even so, Gendou refuses to acknowledge a response.

Gendou simply commands Shinji to pilot the Evangelion with Kaworu and disappears, leaving Shinji in a relic of a base with no one to be with. Rei Q is stoned for the entire movie as well - it makes me wonder whether they both have something to do with this. Fuyutsuki reveals to Shinji that Gendou is selling his soul to bring about his ends and we know Rei is all about the soul.

Speaking of Rei's soul though, even when Yui's head explodes, Gendou doesn't move a muscle. In fact, I have no idea how he even pays attentions to the events of ADAM's activation, since he sits inside of his basement base the entire time.

Compared to past movies of NTE, he's also a lot more unreactive. In 2, he is physically surprised when Asuka's Evangelion explodes from it's angel infection, when 01 rejects the dummy plug, and when Shinji returns to 01 to pilot it. In 1, Gendou phones Shinji and thanks him for piloting 01.

The only breaking points I can see where Gendou actually shows some sort of symbology for his actions is with his visor and when the giant Rei head explodes and blood is streaming down his face. In this scene, blood is pouring out of his visor too, resembling the image of bloody tears.

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Postby Shinoyami65 » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:48 am

We do see some emotion from Gendo when he talks to the Giant!Rei head, telling Yui to 'wait a little longer'. It's probable that his obsession with reclaiming her hasn't changed.

I wouldn't say ReiQ is 'stoned' by choice, but rather because she has absolutely no knowledge of human behavior and emotions, even less than the original Rei. After all, for the duration of her extremely short life she's probably been sealed in Nerv HQ with Gendo and Fuyu.
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Postby ElMariachi » Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:16 pm

Personally, I think that Q!Gendo is the logical extreme of what would happen to him if left to his obsession to be reunited with Yui for even longer than in NGE.

What differentiate Gendo from before and after the time skip is that even with all his bastardery, there was still thing that anchored him to his humanity : the fact there were people all around him to deal with, Rei whom the dinner scene imply that she was his "morality chain" preventing him to sink into his worst tendencies, the simple fact that he had to maintain the masquerade that he's working toward mankind's protection, and Fuyutsuki was a pleasant company by being the only person besides Rei who behaved friendly toward him...
And he was stripped of all of this during the past 14 years : neo-NERV is a dead ruin where he's alone with his killer robots, SEELE that constantly keep an eye on him and remember that he tried to betray them before, Kaworu who don't like him, Rei Q who is just the latest clone of the Ayanami Series, in no ways like Rei II(Rei Q is "stoned" like you said simply because she didn't knew anything by the cold walls of neo-NERV and Gendo giving her orders in her whole life!), and even Fuyutsuki show signs of only barely tolerating him for Yui's sake.
Add to all of this that now the whole planet knows what are his plans and that he's an enemy of mankind, and thus hate him and try to kill him, and it's no wonder that he sank into his ruthless tendencies to the point that in Q he's like a machine.

As for "Yui's head", in fact that Lilith's head, which has Rei's face(and thus Yui's), Gendo is standing in front of it even when it explode because he knew that would happen, and was waiting for it : Lilith's head and cadaver are apparently still connected, so if something happens to the body, the head will be affected too. Since his plan was that Shinji, in his despair-induced madness, will pull out the spears that froze Lilith's cadaver's image, making it have an image collapse and explode in a ton of LCL, it would also affect the head situated in the Command Room, kilometers above.

And since Gendo can't see what's happening in Lilith's chamber, the head exploding was the sign that his plans worked and that Shinji pulled out the spears and destroyed Lilith's cadaver, it was his cue that it was time to start the next phase of his plans and bid his farewell to SEELE, making them believe that everything is going according to their scenario.
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Postby NemZ » Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:43 pm

Wild ass fanwank alert, but what if what Fuyu said about Gendo losing his soul was factually accurate? ReiQ's little bit of soul had to come from somewhere, and Gendo is even more impersonal than ever.

Just saying.
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Postby Rei IV » Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:50 pm

That would be downright mind blowing, creepy, and right up Anno's alley.

:hahaha:

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Postby Clover » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:05 pm

That mask might have something to do with it. You can do all sorts of things when nobody can see what you really feel.

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Postby ElMariachi » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:25 pm

^
The visor hiding his eyes, the "window of the soul" could also serve to symbolize how much he detached himself from mankind, like the symbolism of his sunglasses of the same color than an AT Field, but pushed to the next level.

Also, the parallel with Kheel's visor in NGE is obvious, even more now that Gendo officially became the big bad of Rebuild.

@ NemZ : That would be EoE levels of creepy indeed, although I'm not fan of the "he's not really himself" that could then excuse for Gendo's behavior in Q, after all getting her soul spliced drove Kyoko completely insane.
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Postby Chuckman » Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:21 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:Wild ass fanwank alert, but what if what Fuyu said about Gendo losing his soul was factually accurate? ReiQ's little bit of soul had to come from somewhere, and Gendo is even more impersonal than ever.

Just saying.


This is fucking genius.
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Postby Kendrix » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:56 pm

Is Gendo really that different from everyone else?

Fuyutsuki calls him out to his face: "Do you really think personally talking to your son/showing him your ways won't help him?" This pretty much implies that Fuyu, having known him for so long, doesn't buy his pokerface for a second, and can tell Gendo doesn't like to see his son in such a miserable state.

You don't even have to be Fuyu for that, he fled the situation of being in one room with Shinji fairly quick.

Also, if he allowed himself to spend too much time near Shinji, he might find himself dealing with similar problems as Misato when the time comes to send Shinji out to go through yet more awful experiences or nasty semipermanent sepration; It's simply being aware of his own limits.
He' probably already written off his son as something he sacrificed for NTI, why bother talking to him now when you can explain everthing much easier after 5I?

That's it, that's his version of "failing the last step in a series of actions necessar to blow Shinji up", or "Do something, Baka!", none of which are really that intense expressions of love, or even giving a fuck a all. Gendo is probably more attached to the kid right now, (he doesn't have any problem with the bisphere torching - it's his work, after all), but he's still, well, Gendo.

He was never all that openly warm hearted. Is the way he acts in Q really so far beyond the way he usually acts?

Also, if adding 14 years of post-apocalyptic hell to a relatively warm-hearted and moral person like pre-timeskip Misato gives you a captain ahab knockoff in full ends-justify the mans mode, the result should obviously look worse if your starting point is Gendo - if pre timeskip Gendo, or even young!Gendo from before Yui's death were in charge of the Wunder, they'd have shot Shinji upon materialization.
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Postby Warren Peace » Fri Mar 14, 2014 1:26 am

I wonder if the reality of Rebuild's Gendo is not unlike Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan. That is, his sense of quasi-omniscience has detached from normal human experience. If he's completely convinced of his "scenario", there's no reason to get wrapped up in the present since he knows the endgame. Or thinks he does. Those illusions may or may not be shattered in the end, but for now, Shinji re-appearance is just one more link in the chain. No reason to get excited.

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Postby Ringworm128 » Fri Mar 14, 2014 9:59 am

Because when you think warmth you think Gendo.
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Postby Lennik » Sat Mar 15, 2014 11:10 am

View Original PostKendrix wrote:That's it, that's his version of "failing the last step in a series of actions necessar to blow Shinji up", or "Do something, Baka!", none of which are really that intense expressions of love, or even giving a fuck a all. Gendo is probably more attached to the kid right now, (he doesn't have any problem with the bisphere torching - it's his work, after all), but he's still, well, Gendo.


Okay, please tell me you haven't committed yourself so strongly to the Misato and Asuka Hate Train that you've actually managed to convince yourself that Gendo cares more about Shinji than they do.

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Postby ElMariachi » Sat Mar 15, 2014 11:28 am

View Original PostKendrix wrote:Is Gendo really that different from everyone else?

Yes he is, because even if his coldness is his version of the "failing to blow his head" or the "do something baka Shinji", at least Misato and Asuka didn't wanted to use him to complete breakdown, they wanted that he don't fight and pilot anymore not only for their own protection, but also to protect him, Misato said it clearly that WILLE want to protect him against Gendo's machinations.

Maybe Gendo is still attached to the kid, but that doesn't stop the fact that he manipulated him again, this time to fucking near-complete insanity, and put him in the most nightmarish situation Shinji would have imagined : being forced in a fight to the death against the people he cares for.
He chose that despicable path instead of following Fuyutsuki's advice to be honest with his son for once in his life and show him how he lives and try to convert him to his plans, which seeing the situation Shinji was then could had actually worked!

So he can still love his son as much as he want deep down, that doesn't change the fact that he's an irredeemable asshole that coldly and consciously got past the moral event horizon on his son, all to maximize the chances of the completion of his plan.
Gendo decided that his humanity was a burden, and got rid of it from his heart, and the cybernetic implants are just the visual representation of that.
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Postby monitoradiation » Sat Mar 15, 2014 4:32 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:Wild ass fanwank alert, but what if what Fuyu said about Gendo losing his soul was factually accurate? ReiQ's little bit of soul had to come from somewhere, and Gendo is even more impersonal than ever.

Just saying.


This would indeed be pretty cool - But, I don't think the Eva-verse has established what it is that "souls" do... I assume that, like most fictions, souls are there to animate the body (i.e. conforming to a body-mind dualism). Otherwise, there would likely have been multiple Reis walking around.

Now suppose Gendo's body no longer possessed a soul, how does it even move? Unless they can now split souls...
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Postby unitM » Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:19 pm

To be honest, I was thinking the exact same thing about Gendou putting out a little bit of his soul. It's a fucked theory but I think there is some substance behind it(Fuyu's quote). Rei is stoned, but regardless, her soul appears to be elsewhere as well - I'm fairy certain Kaworu said something along the lines of that. But really, Gendou barely shows any emotional involvement. When his son is yelling at him, he just fades to black on him. When giant Yui's head blows up, he doesn't even respond. That's pretty messed. I doubt this is something Gendou has seen before, yet he's impervious to everything around him, as if nothing is of a surprise. Even Fuyu doesn't get to him, and Fuyu's been his right-hand man the entire time. There is a scary possibility that between Q, he dipped a bit off the deep end with his soul properties.

You know what though? In 2, when 01 is constantly rejecting the dummy plug and Gendou is getting upset, Gendou asks Fuyu to watch over things for a second. We aren't shown where he goes or what he does but it's implied it has something to do with 01, since Yui's in there(and there is the screeching sound from the dummy plug rejection, too). I assumed almost immediately when I saw this scene that Gendou went to speak to Yui in some way or another, though it's not explicitly shown. This would probably involve him doing a little "soul dipping," so it wouldn't be his first time with that.

But even aside from that, Gendou is completely cold in Q. So is Rei, and Kaworu is quoted as saying that Rei's soul is elsewhere. The only indication of Gendou breaking face is, like I said, when blood is running down his face after Yui's head pops. This is some pretty extreme symbolism and the camera spends time focusing on Gendou's blank expression as this happens, though it looks a lot more different with streams of blood(almost like tears).

I tried googling around for symbolism of tears of blood and came up with nothing. But I did find something else. Gendou's hair is disheveled to the point of looking spiky in Q. When Yui's head blows up, the blood doesn't just stream out of the visor, but also pours down from Gendou's hair. There is a possibility of this being symbolic for the crown of thorns. Coupled with the visor hiding his eyes and it's likely that scene was symbolic for showing that despite Gendou not choosing to break face, inside he was going through a lot. (But I'm sure that interpretation isn't anything new tbh)

EDIT I understand a lot of people are getting wrapped up in "is Gendou really acting that unusual?" My answer is a straight yes, yes he is. Gendou is completely non-reactive to the environment around him. Yui's head physically blows up in front of him and he does not even flinch. Let's be real guys. In 2, there was a stark contrast of this when Shinji returned to piloting 01. Gendou was physically taken aback at Shinji's return. Not only is he non-reactive to the environment but his language is altogether rid of emotions - not just his tonality but his words. The only time we see a slight break in this is when adam is turned on. There is a possibility that it is the same dickish Gendou but there is a possibility of there being more.

@Kendrix "and can tell Gendo doesn't like to see his son in such a miserable state."

"You don't even have to be Fuyu for that, he fled the situation of being in one room with Shinji fairly quick"

Both jump to conclusions on your part. Nowhere were we even pointed to Gendou being afraid of seeing his son in a miserable state - Fuyu's speech doesn't give this away one bit. Likewise, "fled" is your own interpretation of the event. I did not see Gendou flee. I saw Gendou fade to black on Shinji. Fleeing is a big difference and there was no sign of that emotional involvement in that scene.

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Postby ElMariachi » Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:49 pm

@ unitM : A bit of important precisions : first it's not Yui's head that is in the Command Room in 3.0, but Lilith's head with Rei's face, the script explicitly refers to it as such.
Second, Gendo doesn't react when it exploded because he expected it to happen : Lilith's head is still linked to its body pierced by the spears kilometers below in Central Dogma, so when Shinji pulled out the spear that made Lilith's cadaver suffer an image collapse and explode, the head exploded too. That was Gendo's way to know if his plan had succeeded and Shinji pulled out the spears, meaning that all that was left to do was to get rid of SEELE by killing them making them believe that he'll carry out the HIP, and patiently wait that Kaworu sacrifices himself to stop Fourth Impact.

Thirdly, we do see where he goes after telling to Fuyutsuki to take care of things in 2.0 : he goes to directly supervise the Dummy System startup in EVA-01's cage, that's where Shinji finds him when he asks to pilot EVA-01 again to fight Zeruel.

---
Now, as I said above, personally I'm against the theory that Gendo put part of his soul inside Rei Q and that it explains his apathy in 3.0, because here I'm not really fan of the "he's not really himself" implications. Gendo is the kind of person that's obsessed with control, always. He would had never undertake a process that would leave him emotionally altered with unpredictable consequences.
Besides there are other explanations to his apathy : he lived the past 14 years in a silent ruin in the middle of a desolate and empty place out of a Lovecraft pipe-dream with only Fuyutsuki, a Kaworu who apparently ignores him and unresponsive Ayanami Types as company.
Seriously, after living 14 years surrounded by that :
SPOILER: Show
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[wkimg]File:Eva3-33 C0545 comp.jpg[/wkimg]
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[wkimg]File:Eva3-33 C0797 comp.jpg[/wkimg]
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[wkimg]File:Eva3-33 C0859 rei-heads.jpg[/wkimg]
[wkimg]File:Eva3-33 C0883 comp.jpg[/wkimg]

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Postby unitM » Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:59 pm

If someone squirted a water gun at you, would you react?

Well, this is your wife's giant fucking head exploding, raining blood all over you, while you just sit there blankly staring in front before casually mentioning that it's time to continue your plan. :huh:

I understand that he had a good idea of what the plans were, but you know what? When Asuka's infected robot activated and Gendou's car came to a screeching turn, Gendou looked awfully surprised at the events. I'm pretty sure he knew what was going on there, as well. Know what else? Gendou acknowledges that there was room for error. At the end of the movie, he states something along the lines of Misato acting within Gendou's predictions. That means that, by extension, Gendou was not fully prepared for things to go perfectly. Things could have gone wildly out of his control. Just because he made a prediction from religious scripts does not mean that he expected pieces to fall into place.

Also, yes, his location would have definitely affected his attitude, but I'm also fairly certain that if Gendou wanted to, he could have controlled his environment a little more. The NERV HQ looks old and ugly and abandoned but it's not like that's completely outside of Gendou's control. In fact, perhaps the fact that Gendou didn't give a shit about the place only adds to the evidence that there may have been something wrong with him. Any normal person can't leave in an antisocial environment for prolonged periods of time without showing signs of insanity. Oh, I know: maybe Gendou's visor had Skype installed and he spent his 14 years pranking Misato with Shinji soundboards. :rolleyes:

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Postby ElMariachi » Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:20 pm

Gendo is the kind of guy who kept his calm when Zeruel blasted off EVA-01's arm and made it crash mere meters next to him, splattering him in blood, and didn't flinched a single second!
For a guy like that, having the head of Lilith explode in a shower of blood means nothing, especially when he's waiting for it to happen.

The guys has nerves of reinforced titanium, there are only two things that makes him react : when events concerns Rei or Yui directly(ie EVA-01), that was when Rei was wounded by EVA-00's activation test in 1.0 and when Yui rejected the Dummy System in 2.0.
Aside from these moments he never lost his cool, not even when Ramiel was boiling his son alive and him fucking begging him for help, or when Shinji begged for him to stop the Dummy System against Asuka and later when he was threatening to destroy all of NERV as retaliation.

Having him even colder after 14 years living mostly alone in silent ruins is to be expected. Gendo was always extremely antisocial, look at the emptiness of his desk even before the time skip. He probably forced himself to interact with people because he didn't had any choice as the Commander of NERV. His even more extreme coldness could be considered a form of insanity, and his few interactions with Fuyutsuki probably also prevented him to go off the deep end.
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Postby Kendrix » Mon Mar 17, 2014 2:36 pm

View Original PostElMariachi wrote:Yes he is, because even if his coldness is his version of the "failing to blow his head" or the "do something baka Shinji", at least Misato and Asuka didn't wanted to use him to complete breakdown, they wanted that he don't fight and pilot anymore not only for their own protection, but also to protect him, Misato said it clearly that WILLE want to protect him against Gendo's machinations.


What I'm asking is, did Gendo ever NOT plan on this?

Was he different before the time skip, or did he just not find himself in a situation where he had to go to full extreme?

Consider Bardiel. Him putting Shinji through emotionally violating experiences is nothing new.

What really will make or break Gendo's case is the nature of the people who died in NTI and what happened to them. If they're somehow preserved in the FoIs/ crystal core material and intended for further processing in Final impact, the picture looks different than if they're just plain dead.
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Postby ElMariachi » Tue Mar 18, 2014 4:32 am

I don't think that Gendo was cold and ruthless to the level shown in Q, the heartfelt conversation with Shinji in the cemetery(the only time both had something remotely close to a true father-son talk and opened their heart a little) and the dinner scene with Rei are here to show us that even under all that aloofness, there's still a part of humanity inside Gendo.

Bardiel was a special case : sure Gendo should had at least tried to come with a plan to save Asuka, but once Bardiel had Shinji pinned down and he still refused to fight seriously, both he and Shinji backed themselves against a corner, and at this point there wasn't any other choice than to activate the Dummy System. Hell, even the Bridge Bunnies acknowledged that there wasn't any other choice, even Maya, the sweetest of the Bridge Bunnies, told Shinji that had Gendo not activated it, Shinji(and the rest of mankind later) would had died.
On a side-note, that's one of the first and biggest instances of Shinji's inability to see other's people's point of view and arguments when he's angry or distraught, something that will be of great importance in the spears fiasco in 3.0.

But in 3.0 there isn't any little hints that Gendo might have a caring side, even if Fuyutsuki urged him to try to reconnect with him by showing him how Gendo is now living(the subtext being to explain his motives to Shinji and at least to try to convert him to their side), Gendo didn't even deigned to answer, and worst, this time he was actively and deliberately traumatizing his son as much as possible to attain his goals. Before the time skip he put Shinji in potentially traumatizing experiences to reach his goals, since there's the possibility that things go smoothly and end well, that's what happened with Sahaquiel and to a lesser extend Ramiel, sure Shinji physically suffered, a lot, but in the end they won and he managed to close to his fellow pilots after(Rei after Ramiel, and Asuka after Sahaquiel)

That was already very ruthless, especially considering Shinji's severe lack of training and in light of the implication that it was made on purpose so Gendo could manipulate Shinji to ultimately awake EVA-01, but in 3.0 Gendo goes to the level beyond by his deliberate acts of mentally torturing his son to further his plans put him well past the point of moral no-return.
During the time skip, Gendo decided that what little of humanity he still had was a burden to his plans, and shed it to me more efficient, the cyborg look of his visor is a visual representation of that, and his actions of methodically breaking his son and drive him past the Despair Event Horizon where the concrete application to show us just how far he's now ready to go.


And even if he was always like that even before the time skip, but never find himself in a situation where he had to go to full extreme, then that makes him an even worse human being and a desperate and unforgivable cause.

Also, assuming that the people who died in N3I/3I are "stored" inside the FoIs or the core-ified landscape, that doesn't change the fact that he put his son through hell for his plans, Shinji will have huge emotional traumas for the rest of his life, and even if Instrumentality is supposed to make it so he'll never suffer any pain again, I really doubt that Yui, Shinji or anyone would forgive Gendo for that (assuming that Shinji's past experiences didn't make him completely close himself to everyone to the point that he'll even reject Instrumentality)
And I'm not even talking about the survivors of mankind in a war since the past 14 years.
Last edited by ElMariachi on Tue Mar 18, 2014 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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