Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby TheCarkolum » Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:44 pm

Ok, it may be a moronic question, but why does Rei live alone, and not with Gendo? I mean, we all know how freaking important is Rei to Gendo (and viceversa, for different reasons), so I don't see the problem of Rei living with him, instead in a depressing set. And I know, I know. "We must reproduce her room as it was when she was conceived", but... why? Rei seems very adaptable to her environment. And even if she had to live like that, why not with Gendo? I don't know where the heck he lives, but I bet he wouldn't mind.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:46 pm

Other than the plot demands it, I don't know.

Maybe she's remind him too much of Yui and he'd be even more emo than he usually is.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Joseki » Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:59 pm

Just fanwanking but I guess that Rei is a "memento" to Gendo more than someone who he really cares about, and strong bonds can have a bad impact on the decision making process, something he can't afford if he really wants to see Yui again.

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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby silvermoonlight » Thu Jun 08, 2017 4:44 pm

I think Rei not living with Gendo highlights the issue with Gendo in that he loves the ideal of people but has no idea how people think or how they feel because he thinks he knows them a hundred percent already and therefore doesn't need to ask. So in his head Rei is perfectly happy in a crappy apartment because he'd never go out of his way to ask her are you okay, are you happy? Instead he just looks at her and gets fond memories of his wife but doesn't care about her feelings or desires just like Shinji she is there to for fill a purpose for him and he neglects them both in different ways.

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This idealism is why Yui eats him alive in EOE because he viewed Shinji as his ideal catalyst for starting third impact and Rei he treated as an ideal object that could help him merge with Lilith and never gave a damn about how ether person felt about it and treated them both terribly
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Sachi » Thu Jun 08, 2017 4:45 pm

Their relationship is already strange enough. Don't make it more weird by having them share an apartment together. :tongue: The fact that Gendo had his role in saving Rei during the Unit-00 activation test erased from the official record suggests that Rei's importance to him is a very personal secret. This also keeps Seele from growing too suspicious about her identity.

I'd reckon Gendo chooses to live in the Geofront the majority of the time anyways, and Rei needs a place conveniently located near her school. It works out well for both of them.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Magneto » Fri Jun 09, 2017 10:04 pm

View Original PostSachi wrote:. This also keeps Seele from growing too suspicious about her identity.


That is, Seele would never suspect a ghostly, red-eyed child who looks a lot like a red-eyed boy with pale skin sent by himself to infiltrate the Nerv.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Sachi » Fri Jun 09, 2017 10:07 pm

View Original PostMagneto wrote:That is, Seele would never suspect a ghostly, red-eyed child who looks a lot like a red-eyed boy with pale skin sent by himself to infiltrate the Nerv.

No evidence suggests they know much about her at all, at least not enough to arouse suspicion. They demand to interrogate her after the Armisael incident, but Gendo refuses and sends Ritsuko instead. Before that, I don't think they had an inkling of Rei's importance.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Kendrix » Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:45 pm

It's worth noting that they initially planned to house Shinji & Asuka on their own, too, before Misato decided to 'adopt' them. Standards have simply fallen after Second Impact, the world is probably full with orphans.

Also I took that line of Ritsuko's to mean that Rei herself sought to replicate her original room consciously or unconsciously, simply because it's what she's used to. People who grow up in the country get nostalgic for the country, people who grow up in the city like the city etc. If she's always lived in that sort of place it might not register as un-normal to her.

View Original PostJoseki wrote:and strong bonds can have a bad impact on the decision making process, something he can't afford if he really wants to see Yui again.


Nah, that's not how he works. He's "morally flexible" enough not to see a contradiction between caring for someone and sending them to their doom... he's rather pragmatic like that if he sees someonething as a necessity he won't flinch no matter what. - in contrast to Fuyutsuki who often laments the methods they have to use, but doesn't interact with Rei and accuses Gendo of being too attached to her etc.

It's the exact same with Shinji - Gendo ultimately cares for him & would rather not involve him, but, when the angel attacked while Rei was still injured... No choice. Stuff him in the robot, or stuff Rei in just as she was in case he refuses.

His keeping his distance comes from a whole different place - He's just not very good or perceptive with the whole 'close personal bonds' thing & his reaction to that insecurity is to withdraw & stick to what he knows (work) - hence why left most of Shinji's upbringing to a profession and broke all contact after whatever happened "three years ago" seemed to confirm his "suspicions" that he's not wanted/ no good at it anyways.
The best he can do, or the most he's comfortable with seems to be the role of a distant mentor midway through the series but once that blows up in ep 18 he doesn't really try to reconnect.
Perhaps he hopes that once instrumentality happens they will all understand. He's kinda been a lone wolf, me-against-the-word type since his youth & yui was the one exception, & he doesn't really know how to act in the nurturing, providing or warm role expected of a parent, and sort of expects to fuck up & therefore that it would be better to leave it to others (as he mostly did with Shinji's case) - with Rei it's different in that there are no others & that they have to see each other on a regular basis due to her intense involvement with the project, so he ended up interacting with her more, like he might have projected some of his longing for his wife & child there but then again he named her as he would a daughter to begin with.
He doesn't really understand her & can certainly be said to have used & neglected her but I do think he did care about Rei insofar as he's capable of that.
But I don't think it would ever occur to him to taker her in like, he's supposedly "too busy with work" to look after his son & he probably doesn't spend too much time wherever he lives, making living arrangements would consider a conscious decision & commitment to be close to & look after her that he probably never made, I'd guess that decision went more like "Well, she needs an adress for school and she's self-sufficient enough these days, let's move her out of the lab" and then he either handed her a bundle of paper money or had some low-ranking nerv logistician make the arrangements.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Nahash » Sat Jul 08, 2017 12:28 pm

Probably for the same reasons that Gendo does not live with his son: He is afraid.
Gendo has suffered greatly from the death of his wife; he concludes that more one attaches himself to some persons, more one will suffer when they dies.
He sends his son to his uncle to avoid attaching himself to him, because one day Shinji will probably die fighting the angels.
It is probably a similar reasoning that drives him not to live with Rei-2.

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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby OtherNigel » Sat Jul 08, 2017 1:57 pm

If Rei were to live with Gendo it would have dissolved his illusion of Yui. Rei is an emotionless husk of a human (and isn't really human), so if Gendo spent a lot of time with her he would have seen that she was not the bit of Yui he loved, ad that bit is in the Eva.
It is also a bit unrelated, but I think Rei makes Gendo jealous. The part of Yui he was left with reminds him that the love of his life valued her son over him.

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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Kendrix » Sat Jul 08, 2017 2:29 pm

View Original PostOtherNigel wrote:It is also a bit unrelated, but I think Rei makes Gendo jealous. The part of Yui he was left with reminds him that the love of his life valued her son over him.


Manga Gendo perhaps but there was never any indication that the canon one feels that way he's more like "Aaah I'll just screw this up" in regards to Shinji.

I mean the difference is apparent in that Manga!Shinji was left with the random uncaring relatives who resented having him around whereas his anime counterpart was left with an actual teacher who one would suspect knows the first thing about kids (but can't replace the unconditional devotion of real family)
That's also why the Manga one is a tad more angry whereas the TV one is more overly formal & polite.


Besides, Gendo very much knows that Yui's in EVA 01 hence the big plan to get her out. (The Manga implies that Fuyutsuki was supposed to tell him but didn't for selfish reasons, but things are less clear-cut in the anime she may even have asked Fuyu to keep it a secret or only implied what she would do. )

You're doing Rei an injustice here too. Whatever Asuka or Ritsuko might say about her when they happen to be mad, from what we see in the actual show she's perfectly capable of responding whenever someone actually bothers to be nice to her. (ep 5 shows us how she acts more expressive around Gendo, & , her later interactions with Shinji, heck, she even has a few moments with Touji once he's declared the next pilot but then he ends up stuck in the hospital.)
If anything she's this withdrawn because no one (except Gendo in his very limited & ambiguous/not exactly selfless manner) provided her any example for warmth or attention more than the other way around though by the time she got to school she already defaulted to doing everything on her own.
She's not even that much stylization/exaggeration of perfectly natural personality types that are out there even with the whole scifi background, and ALL characters are somewhat exaggerated I mean, college degree at 14? So good looking she's instantly fangirled over by the whole school?

Kaworu's part angel too and while he's not exactly 'normal' he's expressive, gets along with ppl just fine & seems to enjoy it and even he was probably raised in some degree of seclusion.
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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Mr. Tines » Sat Jul 08, 2017 3:03 pm

View Original PostOtherNigel wrote:It is also a bit unrelated, but I think Rei makes Gendo jealous.
It's Shinji who's jealous -- remember that bit in episode 5 when he watches them interact?
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Postby OtherNigel » Sat Jul 08, 2017 4:39 pm

I admit that saying that Gendo was "jealous" of Yui's feelings towards Shinji, but I think I can still stand by the conclusion of him being burdened by Yui's feelings towards Shinji.

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Re: Why Rei doesn't live with Gendo?

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Postby Kendrix » Sat Jul 08, 2017 4:47 pm

View Original PostMr. Tines wrote:It's Shinji who's jealous -- remember that bit in episode 5 when he watches them interact?


There's also the way more spelled- where he even -ironically - wonders if she's some sort of replacement or substitute for him or if Gendo left him "because she was there".
Which might should be basic kid logic courtesy of Shinji's inner 6 year old (after all it's not even a serious thought he would be voicing if he weren't tanged at the moment)
There's also that image that seems to show baby Rei at the train station from the flashbacks, wearing the exact same dress as in the ep 21 flashbacks. It could be that they just didn't bother with designing some other generic outfit, or imply that Shinji met Rei I at some point in some Elfen Lied style "neither of them remembers" scenario but was too young to retain much.
The whole setup is full of interesting details - for one thing the script in ep 1 notes him to be about 4 in the train station flashback, while he is only 3 during the contact experiment, suggesting that Gendo may not have sent him away right away but... tried for a while, but fared rather poorly (that shirt he's wearing in the train flasbback is a tad too big)

At least in the original continuity, the complete communications blackout likewise didn't occur until some incident "3 years ago" during which Shinji apparently pulled some stunt on Gendo during one of their annual visits to Yui's grave & "ran away", most likely to stick it to Gendo for not visiting more often but that implies that before that there was some degree of sporadic contact.

For being the main character & primary PoV character for much of the show, there are a lot of blanks that no one really paid much attention to, I mean they basically tell us enough but I'm still surprised that I have yet to see a single fanfic rendition of the "3 years ago" incident compared to the amount of retellings that there are, say, of Kyoko's unfortunate fate or Rei I's demise.

While there might be something to it in the sense of Gendo getting attached to her in part because he missed his real kid I doubt it was anything like "No, this one's too whiny, gimme that more stoic kid" or "Actually I wanted a girl" type of thing Shinji probably meant by it.
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