3.0: Kaworu Lives in the SDAT Player

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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3.0: Kaworu Lives in the SDAT Player

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Postby Tabby-chan » Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:11 am

So it just occured to me that Kaworu left his soul in the SDAT player in 3.0. Let's examine the player first so it makes sense.

The player (see related threads for more comprehensive details) is a symbol of Shinji, ultimately. Its meaning changes throughout Rebuild. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it used to be Gendou's at one point. Therefore, the player is Shinji's only connection to Gendou. Upon being forced via Dummy System to "kill" Asuka by Gendou, Shinji throws the player away, losing faith in the Evas. Rei recovers it and takes it with her, feeling a sense of hope for Shinji, who was able to act on his own, in something he believed in. So in 2.0, the player symbolizes hope.

The player is recovered in 3.0 after Third Impact, with the aforementioned Rei missing. Upon receiving it again, Shinji gains hope that Rei is still alive and acts again on his own, leaving Wille to go find her, also believing that the Rei piloting Unit-Mark.09 is the Rei he knew. When he returns to a ruined Nerv after 14 years, his player breaks. He asks Kaworu to fix it. After he returns it to Shinji, Shinji is shown the truth of his actions, which caused Third Impact. Losing faith in himself, he is also shown that Rei isn't the person he thought he knew. Now having lost all hope, Shinji throws the player away. Kaworu then picks it up and it seems to not be broken. Returning it to Shinji, he gives Shinji hope as well. Shinji takes it with him in the Entry Plug along with this newfound hope.

After Near Fourth Impact, we don't see Kaworu again in the film besides the ejection of Shinji's Entry Plug. What we DO see, however, is the player inside the Entry Plug with him. Empty and without purpose, Shinji simply drops the player. Rei gazes at it curiously.

I believe it was at some point after the player broke that Kaworu imprinted his soul into the player. After all, before his "death", Kaworu said to Shinji that they'd "meet again soon".

Some evidence to support this lies in that Fourth Impact begins for some reason, even though an Angel and Lilith never met. Rebuild particularities aside (and that's a LOT to ask, I know), the action begins when the Lances are pulled. Why can Shinji do this at all? I thought it took two souls to do this. Kaworu tells Shinji to stop as if Shinji could do it.

The player is in Shinji's Entry Plug when this happens. If Kaworu's soul is in there with him, there are still two souls present, even if one Entry Plug had been disconnected.

Furthermore, we can assume that Unit-13 contains Lilith's DNA, both due to its suspicious similarity to Unit-01 and also in that, upon consuming the 12th Angel, it enters a Pseudo-Evolved state.

Within the Entry Plug, the Eva doesn't seem capable of actually FUSING with Kaworu's soul. The only other time an Angel and an Eva caused an Impact together was when Unit-01 and Zeruel fused. A Lilith-based Eva and an Adam-based Angel. The same would have to be true for Unit-13 and the 12th Angel to cause an Impact. Otherwise, upon entering the Entry Plug, Kaworu might cause Fourth Impact on his own.

This aside, Kaworu's soul would have to be in the player in Shinji's Entry Plug for the Lances to even be pulled in the first place.

The camera also glances at the player a few times after Kaworu's apparent death. This leads me more and more to believe that Kaworu's soul lives inside the player.

What do you think, guys? Possible?

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Postby pwhodges » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:36 am

Poka-Rei and Kaworu, together at last, then?
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Postby Tabby-chan » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:41 am

Dammit, man, you might be right. Ooh, an Impact caused by the awakening of their souls...? Would Anno do it?
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Postby pwhodges » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:58 am

But is there enough power in the battery? Given that the device is old enough to have been thrown out by Gendou, the battery's doing remarkably well, though - perhaps Kaworu modded it when he repaired it.
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Postby Tabby-chan » Mon Jun 01, 2015 2:02 am

Aa, but you forget, my friend. This is the world of Evangelion, where batteries and physics make no sense. For example, check out this comprehensive list of instances where batteries seem to not matter at all... http://wiki.evageeks.org/Evangelion_Power_Sources

I suspect some Angelic power thingie is responsible for the battery just being straightup eternal. I mean, hell, if people believe Kaworu could teach Shinji those awesome piano skills using his powers, is it really outside the box to think he could run a music player from the 90's or whenever?
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:38 am

I still think the far more likely explanation is the his soul is left inside Eva-13.


They kinda overdo it with this shot
SPOILER: Show
Image


As Shinji's entry plug is ejected Kaworu is shown to be left behind.

The DSS choker is potentially lovely device for getting rid of a Lilin body used to imprison and control you and instead get yourself a much bigger, way more badass one.
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Re: 3.0: Kaworu Lives in the SDAT Player

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:12 pm

View Original PostTabby-chan wrote:ccc-p.bandcamp.com soundcloud.com/ccc-p


What's with the links?? :huh:

I think the prevailing fan theory is that Rei 2= Sdat, though IMO it's mostly clear that Kaworu = Evangelion 13, Rei 2 = Eva-01.
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Re: 3.0: Kaworu Lives in the SDAT Player

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Postby UrsusArctos » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:26 pm

An interesting idea, but not one I think find very convincing. Why would Kaworu imprint his soul on an SDAT player? And when Kaworu refused to pull out the spears, why would that part of soul still work after Shinji had cut him off from the controls?

View Original PostTabby-chan wrote:Furthermore, we can assume that Unit-13 contains Lilith's DNA, both due to its suspicious similarity to Unit-01 and also in that, upon consuming the 12th Angel, it enters a Pseudo-Evolved state.


That doesn't hold for the Rebuild continuity. The Eva-01 - Lilith connection was for the old NGE, and there is evidence that the Evas are something else entirely for Rebuild. We don't know how Lilith lost her legs in Rebuild, but in the absence of direct evidence and the presence of new Evas like the mysterious Eva-06, it need not have been in the creation of Eva-01.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:51 pm

Compelling theory. But the general silliness of "I put my soul into an archaic piece of technology" is too goofy to support.

As someone else pointed out, if we're going the "soul is hanging around" route then Kaworu's soul is clearly in Evangelion 13. Which of course makes sense since Rei's soul is inside Evangelion Unit 01. This of course leaves a chance for the two souls - the two people who each gave Shinji some sense of agency - to battle head to head in Final. Or team up.

Man, Final is still so far off.

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:51 pm

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote:This of course leaves a chance for the two souls - the two people who each gave Shinji some sense of agency - to battle head to head in Final. Or team up.


Jeez, I didn't even think of it in that sense! I've only been thinking in terms of Shinji in FINAL getting closure from Yui and Rei-2 whenever he's in Eva-01.

You cooked up some good food for thought!
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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:54 pm

HOLY FUCKING SHIT GENDO'SPAPA SHUT THE HELL UP THIS IS AWESOME.

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Postby robersora » Tue Jun 02, 2015 5:10 am

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote:Compelling theory. But the general silliness of "I put my soul into an archaic piece of technology" is too goofy to support.


Well, Wunder seemed pretty alien and goofy to me as a concept as well, so I wouldn't dismiss this idea just because it's out there. Anno really broke up the already squishy boundaries of what's possible in Evaverse a good deal with 3.33.
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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:06 am

Wunder at least contains technology already established as advanced enough to contain souls. (Evas with cores in them, mainly) SDAT Players don’t have cores, and it really stretches my imagination to think that Rei or Kaworu would place their soul inside the spindle, the magnetic head, or the audio jack of a listening device. We know how similar devices work in real life. It be like Rei uploading her soul in the sole of her shoe, at this point. We know how these things work, and not like that. You would at least need an AT Field and to turn the thing into core, first. Also, beyond in-universe mechanics, it’s just absurd to toss how Fuyutsuki’s dialogue with Rei’s soul in Unit 01 and the visual signifier of Kaworu’s soul in Unit 13 just to go out of our way to propose stuff that’s contrary to the evidences given to us by the series itself.

And no, Death of the Author won’t even support you this time. Blatant contradiction of the explicit text itself is blatant contradiction of the explicit text itself. No exceptions.

At best, just like Gendo’s glasses that Rei used to like to carry around, Shinji's SDAT Player has become an iconic visual short-hand for volumes of backstory, ranging from Gendo, to Shinji, to Rei, and now to Kaworu.

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Re: 3.0: Kaworu Lives in the SDAT Player

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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:29 am

View Original PostSailor Star Dust wrote:I think the prevailing fan theory is that Rei 2= Sdat, though IMO it's mostly clear that Kaworu = Evangelion 13, Rei 2 = Eva-01.


For some reason the significance of this never really struck me until just now. So Poka-Rei is in Unit 01, Kaworu's in Eva 13, and Shinji . . . man, Final's gonna be interesting! Everyone seems to dwell on how Wille will treat him, but it looks like he'll have not one, but two Evas (the only two left, really, the Frankeneva notwithstanding) looking out for him. All of a sudden a scenario wherein they start Instrumentality, and turn to Shinji for guidance, begins to look a lot more plausible.

Edit: Darn, GP beat me to it! Ah well, you know what they say: great minds think alike, and so do ours! :lol:
Last edited by Bagheera on Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby robersora » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:31 am

^
Well that was pretty convincing. And yes, I always thought of the SDAT in NTE as a visual metaphor for something, but until you've spelled it out for me, I was never really sure for what. He definitely carries the weight (of the SDAT/lost dear ones). Then again, in Q the camera cuts to the SDAT at the most random moments, like a reaction-shot in Shonen-Anime, only in 3.33, it's not a person. I really don't know, what's up with that. Also Shinji seems to let his SDAT behind at Wunder, only to magically reappear again.
Maybe it's just some kind of tracking device?
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Postby TheAdmiral » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:01 am

I suspect that TM Bounty Hunter is correct that Kaworu's soul will now inhabit EVA-13. I don't think that Rei II is in EVA-01 however, for three reasons:

-Yui Ikari already inhabits unit 1
-There's only one precedent in Evangelion for different souls inhabiting EVA units that I'm aware of: episode 24 of the series where Kaworu takes command of unit 02, and that only temporarily. Possible, but my gut says no.
-Rei II is/was actually Lilith's soul that has a bit of "mileage" in a human body, and when they are all in Central Dogma (or at least the conduit that leads to it) Kaworu says of Rei III something to the effect that her soul is elsewhere (not in her current body.) At the very end when Shinji drops the SDAT player, Rei III fixates on it, so I can't help but wonder if her soul isn't somehow imprinted on it and that she may have realized something to that effect. To be fair, we never see her pick it up and when the trio are walking away in the distance, they're too far away for us to determine whether Rei III has the player or not.

**The plot thickens**

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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:10 am

View Original PostTheAdmiral wrote:-Yui Ikari already inhabits unit 1


IIRC we're told explicitly by Fuyutsuki that Rei's soul is in Unit 01 as well.

-There's only one precedent in Evangelion for different souls inhabiting EVA units that I'm aware of: episode 24 of the series where Kaworu takes command of unit 02, and that only temporarily. Possible, but my gut says no.


Eh? What about ep 20? Heck, what about Shinji between Ha and Q?

As to Kaworu and Unit 02, no. He never enters the Eva's core, and when he's controlilng it he isn't even in the Eva. Heck, as far as I can tell he isn't even syncing with Kyoko during that sequence; he's just using l33t Angel powers to control it physically somehow.

-Rei II is/was actually Lilith's soul that has a bit of "mileage" in a human body, and when they are all in Central Dogma (or at least the conduit that leads to it) Kaworu says of Rei III something to the effect that her soul is elsewhere (not in her current body.) At the very end when Shinji drops the SDAT player, Rei III fixates on it, so I can't help but wonder if her soul isn't somehow imprinted on it and that she may have realized something to that effect. To be fair, we never see her pick it up and when the trio are walking away in the distance, they're too far away for us to determine whether Rei III has the player or not.


Well, there's definitely something goofy going on with the player, no doubt about that. But calling it the soul of one person or another . . . that's a bridge too far, IMO.
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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:12 am

View Original PostTheAdmiral wrote:I suspect that TM Bounty Hunter is correct that Kaworu's soul will now inhabit EVA-13. I don't think that Rei II is in EVA-01 however, for three reasons:

-Yui Ikari already inhabits unit 1

Yui is Unit 01’s control system in NTE, which, as far as I can tell, isn’t quite the same thing as inhabiting Unit 01 like she did in the NGE narrative. So Yui could be the control system while Rei can still inhabit it. In this case, we can think of it as Rei taking the controls (which is Yui) from Shinji, resulting in his 0% sync ratio with Unit 01 in Eva Q. (This is interesting, as Rei stated in Eva Ha “I’ll make it so Ikari [Shinji] never has to pilot the Eva again!” Granted, she probably didn’t mean to do so in this way, but I also don’t think getting eaten by an Angel and then engulfed in Unit 01 distracted her from her directive either.)

EDIT: Also, I just realized that if Rei has teken the controls away from Shinji, then it might have been Rei that caused Unit 01 to wake up for a bit in Eva Q’s opening action sequence.

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Postby TheAdmiral » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:58 am

View Original PostBagheera wrote:IIRC we're told explicitly by Fuyutsuki that Rei's soul is in Unit 01 as well.



Eh? What about ep 20? Heck, what about Shinji between Ha and Q?


-If you re-watch Ep. 20, they do state that due to his high synchro rate, he may have simply dissolved physically, but that his mind and the chemical components of his body are still inside the plug. I suspect that this is all allegorical for someone experiencing "oneness" from the temporary dissolution of the ego boundaries. I don't think that's quite the same as entering the core/taking control of the EVA.

View Original PostBagheera wrote:As to Kaworu and Unit 02, no. He never enters the Eva's core, and when he's controlilng it he isn't even in the Eva. Heck, as far as I can tell he isn't even syncing with Kyoko during that sequence; he's just using l33t Angel powers to control it physically somehow.


-As a seed of life, he may not have to physically enter the core in order to control it. Once again, I think that this is an allegory that eerily resembles possession: a soul temporarily and consensually relinquishing control of a body for another's use.

Well, there's definitely something goofy going on with the player, no doubt about that. But calling it the soul of one person or another . . . that's a bridge too far, IMO.[/quote]

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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:06 am

View Original PostTheAdmiral wrote:-If you re-watch Ep. 20, they do state that due to his high synchro rate, he may have simply dissolved physically, but that his mind and the chemical components of his body are still inside the plug. I suspect that this is all allegorical for someone experiencing "oneness" from the temporary dissolution of the ego boundaries. I don't think that's quite the same as entering the core/taking control of the EVA.


He was clearly in Unit 01's core, as that's where he emerged at the end of the episode. The same holds for the new continuity, unless Nerv just left the LCL in the plug for fourteen years. Seems unlikely to me.

-As a seed of life, he may not have to physically enter the core in order to control it. Once again, I think that this is an allegory that eerily resembles possession: a soul temporarily and consensually relinquishing control of a body for another's use.


Not quite. He said Kyoko was hiding, so it's less her relinquishing control than him taking advantage of the fact that she's checked out for the time being. But regardless I don't think you can meaningfully compare what he did there to anything we're talking about re: the new movies.
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