Why did Asuka tell Shinji she didn't receive his help?

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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Postby unitM » Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:16 pm

What books were the ones in Q?

The Happy Prince I must have mistaken for Sleeping Beauty - sounds a lot more reasonable now.

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Postby AlphaGamma » Sun Aug 16, 2015 8:21 pm

View Original PostBagheera wrote:Rei was reading The Happy Prince there. No idea how it matches up, but Rei wants to make Shinji happy, and Asuka's our princess, and Gendo's the king . . . eh, who knows? :shrug:

Yep, the book is the "Happy prince and other stories" by Oscar Wilde and its story can be directly compared to Shinji's journey throughout 2.0 and 3.0. Kaworu being the Happy prince of the tale, Shinji being the swallow (protagonist) and Rei being the reed(...)

View Original PostunitM wrote:In the first movie, Rei stands up in 00 and shields Shinji from best waifu(diamond angel)'s blast. The shield is another reference to Sleeping Beauty: it's named something like the Prince shield(or something - again, IIRC, this was based on another member's note). Thoughts?

In essence, I feel the sleeping beauty theme for some reason points to Shinji, without him(or the other characters) noticing it. Shinji's the one that apparently is asleep, that wakes up for the impacts, or that needs waking up before he destroys the planet and does some more reckless shit.

The "Enchanted shield of virtue" from the Sleeping Beauty, yes. I believe said theme is directed towards Asuka (what with her being nicknamed "princess") and likely acts as an element of foreshadowing for what Shinji will (have to) do in Final; as in trying to save/help Asuka in some ways. Don't forget that there is one big failure that Shinji carried with him from the original series into the Rebuild: failing to help Asuka. He remained ignorant of her emotional struggle until it was too late (NGE) and, in a more practical sense, during the Mp battle (NGE)/Bardiel incident (RoE) he was either absent or passive and caused her to get hurt. I believe Shinji is being set up for a chance at redemption in Final. Who knows if it will work out.

Also remember Shinji's attempt to kiss a sleeping Asuka in ep.9. I can't help but feel like it was part of the reason behind the Sleeping beauty/princess references. Not to speak of the other "not so great" sleep-related experiences Asuka goes through.

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Postby unitM » Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:44 am

View Original PostAlphaGamma wrote:Yep, the book is the "Happy prince and other stories" by Oscar Wilde and its story can be directly compared to Shinji's journey throughout 2.0 and 3.0. Kaworu being the Happy prince of the tale, Shinji being the swallow (protagonist) and Rei being the reed(...)


The "Enchanted shield of virtue" from the Sleeping Beauty, yes. I believe said theme is directed towards Asuka (what with her being nicknamed "princess") and likely acts as an element of foreshadowing for what Shinji will (have to) do in Final; as in trying to save/help Asuka in some ways. Don't forget that there is one big failure that Shinji carried with him from the original series into the Rebuild: failing to help Asuka. He remained ignorant of her emotional struggle until it was too late (NGE) and, in a more practical sense, during the Mp battle (NGE)/Bardiel incident (RoE) he was either absent or passive and caused her to get hurt. I believe Shinji is being set up for a chance at redemption in Final. Who knows if it will work out.

Also remember Shinji's attempt to kiss a sleeping Asuka in ep.9. I can't help but feel like it was part of the reason behind the Sleeping beauty/princess references. Not to speak of the other "not so great" sleep-related experiences Asuka goes through.
Honestly, I chalk a lot of the fairytale motifs in NGE up to Anno's depression. A big theme of depression at any level is the sense of hopelessness, and this sense of hopelessness tends to make people romanticize their depression, in ways which basically confirm that their depression is different, in an egotistical way("but my issues REALLY ARE there!!") I think the NGE series really played on this, and I am willing to go so far as to say that EoE is a big representation of this. EoE had a huge theme of hopelessness, as well as shit genuinely outside of Shinji's control. Further, it was crazy romanticized, which is one of the reasons the movie as a whole is great.

I think that, while Asuka was looking for someone to take care of her in NGE, in NTE she is not. There are some allusions to it but they're very hazy right now without further information. I posted this in another thread, but I think in NTE, Asuka has a very healthy(see: non-needy) sense of self-esteem.

In my opinion, Anno is going to take advantage of Shinji's huge mountain of depression in Final. Somehow this depression is going to be lifted during Final impact, and we're going to have a reverse Komm Susser Todd moment(although just as trippy).

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Postby AlphaGamma » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:27 pm

View Original PostunitM wrote:Honestly, I chalk a lot of the fairytale motifs in NGE up to Anno's depression. A big theme of depression at any level is the sense of hopelessness, and this sense of hopelessness tends to make people romanticize their depression, in ways which basically confirm that their depression is different, in an egotistical way("but my issues REALLY ARE there!!") I think the NGE series really played on this, and I am willing to go so far as to say that EoE is a big representation of this. EoE had a huge theme of hopelessness, as well as shit genuinely outside of Shinji's control. Further, it was crazy romanticized, which is one of the reasons the movie as a whole is great.

I think that, while Asuka was looking for someone to take care of her in NGE, in NTE she is not. There are some allusions to it but they're very hazy right now without further information. I posted this in another thread, but I think in NTE, Asuka has a very healthy(see: non-needy) sense of self-esteem.

Asuka's loneliness was briefly dealt with in 2.0 and she seemed to be much more accepting of it than in NGE. Definitely a healthier attitude, but her need for support was still introduced and not fully resolved. Ofc you'd hope that 15 years were enough for her to find stability.

As for the fairy tale references, they are only really found in the Rebuild, not in NGE. If i'm not mistaken the "shield" Rei uses in the original isn't named and the book isn't there either. Unless by NGE you just meant Evangelion in general.

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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Aug 19, 2015 2:33 am

View Original PostAlphaGamma wrote:If i'm not mistaken the "shield" Rei uses in the original isn't named
It was captioned something like "Anti-Heat and Light Wave Defensive Equipment", even if it was just a space shuttle underbelly.
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Postby UrsusArctos » Wed Aug 19, 2015 5:50 am

It's a space shuttle underbelly but not from one of the space shuttles we know. That was a flub from the ADV dub, the Japanese dub clearly calls it a heat shield from an SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) spacecraft. One of the NASA spacecraft would have used a shield made of up to 24,000 fragile HRSI-22 tiles, while this is a single block of metal.
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Postby Bagheera » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:00 am

View Original PostUrsusArctos wrote:It's a space shuttle underbelly but not from one of the space shuttles we know. That was a flub from the ADV dub, the Japanese dub clearly calls it a heat shield from an SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) spacecraft. One of the NASA spacecraft would have used a shield made of up to 24,000 fragile HRSI-22 tiles, while this is a single block of metal.


I always wondered about that. Thanks.
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Postby unz » Fri Sep 04, 2015 2:15 pm

I only skimmed through this so I'm late and I probably missed the post with the answer but the movie has a circular structure where Shinji turns from savior to doom guy, that's why the first and the last parts almost match: Asuka is resquing Shinji and she's saved at start, a scene showing they still have a chance for each other (for her to be supported means loads and mari never delivers for example), in the end Asuka is obviously disappointed from Shinji's lack of action and thus says what she says.
The movie wasn't subtle on that and has kaworu stating beginning and end are the same, the only difference is a distant Rei replacing a distant mari.

If Asuka had sent the resque call instead of having mari stating what the audience wanted it would had been (oh gawd what am I doing with grammar?) less complicated I guess. Not complicated as "hard to understand" but as taking more steps to get the same results, it's just mari was given something to do and thrown a line that will make sense in a couple of years maybe.

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Postby gryzzli86 » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:58 am

If the book Rei was reading was in fact The Happy Prince (I can't be arsed to check), I wonder if the roles might be the opposite: the Prince as Shinji and the Swallow as Kaworu would fit the theme of abnegation and sacrifice.

In The Happy Prince, briefly, the Happy Prince isn't an actual prince but a sentient statue with a carved smile, and a swallow nesting on it. He sees the plight of poor people around and gets the swallow to strip all of the gold leaf and precious stones from him to give to the poor and help them out. The swallow is supposed to migrate south because winter is coming, but agrees to stick around to help one last poor family, and dies of cold; an angel comes along and says that the dead swallow and the prince's heart are the most pure things on Earth. Which makes the story and pretty much every other short story in that book gruelingly depressing and bafflingly Christian. (which is one, albeit pretty cynical, way to describe Evangelion, come to think of it)


To get back to Asuka and Mari... ok, I really hate to be this guy, I really do, but since reading the last chapter and epilogue to the manga I have a really hard time not reading Mari as this cosmically savvy character who's somehow aware of the events of EoE; Groundhog Day loop theory or whatever, i'm not here to flame and that's not my point.

Just, working from that assumption (which is of course a biased reading of the character), Mari asking Shinji to "at least save the princess, aren't you a man" (or whatever the correct translation is) *could* have a double meaning and be a way of saying "you sat in your barrel and went all zetsubou shita while Asuka was being chowed down on by the MP Evas, don't make the same mistake this time around or you'll live to regret it".

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Postby Arcadia's legacy » Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:22 am

IIRC, Mari in the manga's ending was attending college with Yui while in Ha she seems to be about 15, old enough for high school. If there is a sequel/time loop event happening, then Mari would have to not only cease aging like Asuka, but actually age backwards which, in my opinion, is too convoluted and bizzare even for Anno to use as a plot device
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Postby Bagheera » Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:33 am

View Original Postgryzzli86 wrote:Just, working from that assumption (which is of course a biased reading of the character), Mari asking Shinji to "at least save the princess, aren't you a man" (or whatever the correct translation is) *could* have a double meaning and be a way of saying "you sat in your barrel and went all zetsubou shita while Asuka was being chowed down on by the MP Evas, don't make the same mistake this time around or you'll live to regret it".


That doesn't explain why Asuka's angry at him, though. I think it's a lot easier to just assume Mari's referring to that, or to Shinji's lack of concern for her after she ejected.
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Postby BlueBasilisk » Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:52 am

I think Asuka's probably salty at him over what happened with Unit 03 and the fallout she had to deal with while he was away. How would that look from her point of view? He sits on his hands and does nothing to save her from the 9th Angel, with the result that she's seriously injured by Unit 01 anyway. But when a similar thing happens to Rei, he says fuck the rules and causes a near-Impact to save her. And he wasn't there during the recovery or anything that might have happened as a result of her infection.

We the audience know Shinji held back because he didn't want to hurt Asuka and that what happened later with Rei was partly a response to Asuka's situation, but that has to feel like a real kick in the gut even if the others explained how it all played out. It would look like Shinji did have the power to help if he'd been so inclined, he just didn't.

Asuka confronting him at the end could refer to both incidents. He didn't help her then, and he didn't help her now. Mari urges him to do something because it would show Shinji does give a damn about Asuka's well-being.
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Postby pwhodges » Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:33 pm

^ I go with the Unit-03 view (as I spell out in my fic, linked in my sig).
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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:23 pm

Because he let her get ripped apart by the MPE's and she's been holding a grudge for 14 years.
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Postby Arcadia's legacy » Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:38 pm

Except not really since the timelines of NGE and NTE are incompatible
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Postby Bagheera » Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:41 pm

View Original PostChaddyManPrime wrote:Because he let her get ripped apart by the MPE's and she's been holding a grudge for 14 years.


Not in the NTE, she didn't.
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People's deaths are to be mourned. The ability to save people should be celebrated. Life itself should be exalted. -- Volken Macmani, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra
I hate myself. But maybe I can learn to love myself. Maybe it's okay for me to be here! That's right! I'm me, nothing more, nothing less! I'm me. I want to be me! I want to be here! And it's okay for me to be here! -- Shinji Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion
Yes, I know. You thought it would be something about Asuka. You're such idiots.

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Postby ChaddyManPrime » Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:55 pm

View Original PostArcadia's legacy wrote:Except not really since the timelines of NGE and NTE are incompatible


That's the first I've heard of the timelines being incompatible, it's usually about scenery, care to explain, Good Sir? Because I think the timeline shown in 3.0 Works really well with EoE's.
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Postby Sachi » Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:44 pm

View Original PostChaddyManPrime wrote:That's the first I've heard of the timelines being incompatible, it's usually about scenery, care to explain, Good Sir? Because I think the timeline shown in 3.0 Works really well with EoE's.

Uhh.. The timelines are incompatible. That's why these are separate stories. Sequel/Loop theory is just a theory, and for all intents and purposes we should treat the two versions as separate canons.

The imagery in 3.0 suggests that something similar to the events of EoE occurred at some point (ie, JSSDF invasion on Nerv, Impact event involving Lilith, etc), but that's about as far as the connection goes.
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Postby Arcadia's legacy » Wed Nov 18, 2015 5:01 pm

What Sachi said. As far as the similarities between the two works go, that's all that they are, similarities. Either simple nods and callbacks to NGE, or a reacurrance of Anno's style as a director
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Postby unz » Wed Nov 18, 2015 6:01 pm

I find most of the elements are used over and over to great economy, just like the tv series did, it's just the third impact happened in Ha and Q goes for post apocalypse and everything so yeah different storylines. Even the first movies feel so different when you want to nitpick, I'm trying to stay away from the tv episodes for a while before watching NTE again*, still everything was fleshed out decades ago to be used again so ofc you can have more readings but you have to question the reason why you'd cram EoE between Ha and Q (I find none).
Hell you can look at Until You Come To Me shots and read the general plot of EoE in it if you want.

*it's so hard:c


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