Was Shinji the cause of 3I?

[Arcadia's legacy]

Despite Kawou's words, i'm very skeptical towards the idea that Shinji was the one who brought 3I upon the world. The glares on the Wunder bridge may have you think so, but for me that's nowhere near enough to be considered confirmation. There's also the FoI. They are in Unit-01's image, but when we look at both the epicentre and the way 3I is described, something doesn't add up. Nothing about what we see in the Central Dogma suggest Shinji/Unit-01 being the culprit. From the looks of things, it almost seems that Unit-01 was more a variable in 3I rather than a cause, similar to Wille interfering in 4I. While they didn't cause it, Gendo needed them to arrive to help end it. Thoughts?

[Ray]

Yes, Moving on.

[Arcadia's legacy]

Your defense?

[Sachi]

Yes, Moving on.

This is rather rude and dismissive of someone trying to start a conversation, especially since his perspective is actually more common than you might think. In fact, you might be one of the few people that are actually convinced Shinji is responsible for Third Impact.

[Bagheera]

Despite Kawou's words, i'm very skeptical towards the idea that Shinji was the one who brought 3I upon the world. The glares on the Wunder bridge may have you think so, but for me that's nowhere near enough to be considered confirmation. There's also the FoI. They are in Unit-01's image, but when we look at both the epicentre and the way 3I is described, something doesn't add up. Nothing about what we see in the Central Dogma suggest Shinji/Unit-01 being the culprit. From the looks of things, it almost seems that Unit-01 was more a variable in 3I rather than a cause, similar to Wille interfering in 4I. While they didn't cause it, Gendo needed them to arrive to help end it. Thoughts?

I think it's easily possible he was the trigger, but that a lot more happened afterward (unless my crazy insane theory about the stinger for Ha being thrown out winds up being true. It's an absurd idea, but it would make everything we're told in Q completely consistent with what we saw before the credits rolled). There's just no way to make sense of the 12th Angel (12th, not 11th!) and the Mark 6 otherwise.

Yes, Moving on.

No, moving on.

Well, that was simple!

[Eliaskar]

I think it's easily possible he was the trigger, but that a lot more happened afterward (unless my crazy insane theory about the stinger for Ha being thrown out winds up being true. It's an absurd idea, but it would make everything we're told in Q completely consistent with what we saw before the credits rolled). There's just no way to make sense of the 12th Angel (12th, not 11th!) and the Mark 6 otherwise.



No, moving on.

Well, that was simple!

Could you remind some of us of this crazy insane theory?

[Bagheera]

Could you remind some of us of this crazy insane theory?

The idea is that the stinger for Ha -- you know, the bit where we see Kaworu hit Unit 01 with the Spear of Cassius and stop near-3I? -- was thrown out along with the next episode preview, and that 3I continued without interruption until the mess we see in CD was created. I don't think it holds any credibility at all (and other forum members have objected in even stronger terms!), but it would explain the disconnect between that stinger and what Kaworu tells us in Q.

[Arcadia's legacy]

I dunno. If it didn't happen as you say, wouldn't Anno and co have it removed from all subsequent home releases after they decided that that'd be the case?

[Bagheera]

I dunno. If it didn't happen as you say, wouldn't Anno and co have it removed from all subsequent home releases after they decided that that'd be the case?

Who do you think Anno is, George Lucas?

As I said, it's a silly idea. I don't endorse it now, and didn't really at the time either. It's just odd that it would resolve so many of the unanswered questions in Q.

[BlueBasilisk]

I don't think so. Near Third Impact? Yes. We saw that happen ourselves. Third? No. Kaworu's claims simply do not mesh with the events depicted in 2.0 and what we later see in Central Dogma.

I think this is the most likely culprit:

SPOILER: Show

Misato says an Angel coming into contact with Lilith will cause Third Impact. It's the 12th Angel, it's fused with Lilith, and it's at ground zero of Third Impact. Asuka says she's going to kill it so Third Impact can't restart. And with the 12th Angel possessing an Evangelion, the self-destruct failsafe probably wouldn't trigger. It seems pretty straightforward to me, really.

Unit 01 certainly made it easier for Third Impact to happen. N3I destroyed the surface layers of the Geofront and the Tokyo-3 defenses, giving the 11th and 12th Angels a straight shot at the exposed main shaft and Lilith.

The FoI are really the only evidence linking Unit 01 to the incident at all, but we don't know what those are or where they came from. On the one hand, Unit 01 demonstrates the power to create things like that during N3I. On the other, it only makes a single being, and that being is in Rei's image, not its own. The FoI looking like Unit 01 doesn't necessarily mean that it created them, or that they were formerly human if it did.

For all we know, Unit 01 could have reactivated and done battle with the Lilith/12th Angel being in an effort to stop Third Impact.

[Arcadia's legacy]

For all we know, Unit 01 could have reactivated and done battle with the Lilith/12th Angel being in an effort to stop Third Impact.

Someone please make some ludicrous fan art of a glowing white Unit-01 decapitating a giant Lilith

Jokes aside, why wasn't 4I triggered when the 12th Angel fused with Lilith's remains turning into that weird...red......Rei.........sphere?

[TheFriskyIan]

He was the cause of N3I which Q has pretty much stated are two separate events that are just linked together. It really, really bugs me that Kaworu hides the fact that he intervened in N3I though, cause had Shinji knew that, he would have legitimate proof that he is not responsible.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

The choir in the musical score in that part of the film indicates that Kaworu might be stretching the truth about things.

Learn to trust, if you must,
Learn to love then learn to trust.

Turn your back, close your eyes
open minds will learn to trust.

This suggests that Shinji shouldn't trust his senses ("close your eyes"), because trusting them might weaken his trust in Kaowru ("open minds will learn to trust").

It's something that one's subconscious might pick up on while watching the film which is why some people have naturally questioned the things Kaowru claims about Shinji's involvement in N3I. (Well, that, and we kind of saw it happen a little differently back in Eva Ha.)

[wiser3754]

Despite Kawou's words, i'm very skeptical towards the idea that Shinji was the one who brought 3I upon the world. The glares on the Wunder bridge may have you think so, but for me that's nowhere near enough to be considered confirmation. There's also the FoI. They are in Unit-01's image, but when we look at both the epicentre and the way 3I is described, something doesn't add up. Nothing about what we see in the Central Dogma suggest Shinji/Unit-01 being the culprit. From the looks of things, it almost seems that Unit-01 was more a variable in 3I rather than a cause, similar to Wille interfering in 4I. While they didn't cause it, Gendo needed them to arrive to help end it. Thoughts?

Shinji isn't responsible for Third Imapct "actual" according to Asuka's perspective as she states very clearly in the english dub to Shinji, "Stop helping! You'll only make things worse! You've already caused one impact already!!!"

However, it's not illogical to suggest that Unit 01 may have been incorporated into the event leading to Lilith's demise. Remember, Unit 01 was hastened to awaken ahead of the arrival of the Mark.06. Gendo may have been using Unit 01 as a counter measure to inhibit SEELE's plan to restore the covenant with Lilith, the real purpose of the Mark.06.

[IronEvangelion]

Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure he was the cause. Clearly A LOT of shit went down in the geo front immediately after Shinji's N3I, and it's stuff he couldn't have had anything to do with since he was in stasis when it occurred. One of the biggest mysteries is what happened to the Spear of Cassius, which Unit 1 was impaled with. Kaworu clearly states, "Those aren't the spears we need." shortly before Shinji pulls the twin Spears of Longinus out of Lilith.

[unitM]

I think Shinji is directly related to N3I/3I. He was a trigger for something, he was a bottle opener, however you'd like to think of it, he played a role in a scheme larger than himself. But to the level of his relation or whether 3I was a big event with respect to the 14 years that followed is something I don't think we can answer.

I always tend to forget this, but the NGE series only had a time span of about a year(iirc). The difference between 2 and 3 is 14 years. That's huge. There must have been some dramatic advancements made throughout the series. Would 3I stand up to 14 years of events(and how)?

[Shark Knight]

I think Shinji has become a trigger, so I wouldnt really make him responsible for it. I mean the scenario on 3.33 seemed kind of forced you know. Specially with them trying to blame it all on Shinji when he was nothing more than a tool.

Now the second time that he ignited an impact, now that was HIS fault because of his foolishness and desperation to fix what he had done and fix the world.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I think Shinji has become a trigger, so I wouldnt really make him responsible for it. I mean the scenario on 3.33 seemed kind of forced you know. Specially with them trying to blame it all on Shinji when he was nothing more than a tool.

Hm. I just wanna take a moment and revisit who exactly is blaming Shinji for what.

Misato and the rest of Wille are not blaming Shinji for causing N3I per se. Rather, they're blaming him for allowing/causing Unit 01 to go into "God Mode" and become the Impact Trigger, which is exactly what we saw happen at the end of Eva Ha. This really isn't an unfair accusation, then, and the precautions placed upon Shinji are adequate to keep Shinji from triggering another Impact, especially considering that only triggering an Impact caused the destruction of all of Tokyo 3 and the GeoFront.

Kaowru, on the other hand, is the one tells Shinji that all of N3I is his personal fault. Not just the triggering of it, but whatever else that happened after the events were triggered and Kaworu halted Shinji's actions. Earth's screwed, the moon's all outta whack, people are gone, and there are these new and terrifying attempts at Infinity, and even though Misato didn't blame that on Shinji, even though we didn't see Shinji do any of that at the end of Eva Ha, Kaworu lays all of that down at Shinji's feet and points his accusing finger right at him. He emotionally cripples Shinji with broad, generalizing strokes of a vague truth, and is right there to comfort him afterwards. Now Shinji is pliable in Kaworu's hands, and Kaworu starts dropping hints like an Atomic Bomb about there being salvation in the basement.

It's Kaworu who is blaming everything on Shinji, not Misato. The funny thing is, it's Kaworu audiences fall in love with, despite this deceit. Meanwhile Misato is given the hate of a million Eva fans. Sometimes a lie is easier to accept than the truth.

[Shark Knight]

Thinking about it like that, it seems to me like Kaworu was playing Shinji or even manipulating him. Still why did he decide to stop the new impact
"4 impact or 3rth I dont even know which one is what at this point anymore" was it because he started to become amiable towards Shinji?

Or was his intention really to just get the lances and them changing the world to a green paradise that would fit them both?

Still I cant believe all that stuff happened to the world and the moon just because of the stuff from 2.22, when the sky was cleared by Kaworu's eva, everything was still there in place. To me it seems like a great battle was unleashed or happened which left everything barren and destroyed.
Also is the wierd moon like rock the actual moon?

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Kaowru was an Angel. He was originally the first, but then became the 13th (or something like that). Regardless of the change in rank towards the end, Kaowru was an Angel. Shinji had unwittingly lead an Angel straight down to Lilith's corpse, something he fought tooth and nail against in the previous films. I would assume that Kaworu's intentions with Lilith were the same as the other Angels' intentions were. (I just don't really know what those intentions are to begin with.)

However, I suspect that Gendo switched out the lances so the Angel couldn't do what he wanted with Lilith. My guess would be that he would use the lances to resurrect Lilith and cause his own Angelic Impact that way, but I'm speculating without a shred of evidence on that one. I'm not sure if Kaworu's Angelic Impact would have benefited Shinji or the rest of humanity, but I seriously doubt it.