Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Postby Tumbling Down » Wed Jul 12, 2017 1:24 am

So, you'd expect Gendo's transition guide to be Yui, but instead, it was Unit 01, who ate him. He did briefly see Yui, but given how the exchange plays out, he seems to know that it's actually Lilith/Rei/Kaworu. Is this why the normal transition guide process didn't work? Why did it work for Fuyutsuki, then?

IMaybe Gendo was so overwhelmed with self-loathing that he couldn't believe Yui would want to see him again, so it had to be someone who literally consumes him, rather than figuratively. Or maybe Rei was pissed off at Gendo (for the same reason she gave control of Instrumentality to Shinji) and decided to make his transition painful. Maybe his soul wasn't even added to Instrumentality.

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Re: Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Postby Reichu » Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:52 am

I'm pretty sure it was Yui who did the deed, since you can see her shirt mysteriously change from pink to purple before Eva-01 appears.

As for why it happened the way it did -- self-loathing, like you said. Yui gives him the violent end he feels he deserves. But it's in the form of the Eva-01 who absorbed something into herself by eating it. Both Gendo's desires are satisfied at once: He receives punishment, but he also gets taken into Yui at long last.
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Re: Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Postby Kendrix » Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:29 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:As for why it happened the way it did -- self-loathing, like you said. Yui gives him the violent end he feels he deserves. But it's in the form of the Eva-01 who absorbed something into herself by eating it. Both Gendo's desires are satisfied at once: He receives punishment, but he also gets taken into Yui at long last.


^This. Although I'd say that there's also an angle of guilt about having failed his "children", especially Shinji (who used to pilot EVA 01. )


But yeah I'd say that it's mostly Yui + taking a monstrous form because he may have felt he deserves punishment (& perhaps expects deliverance from going through a purgatory-like experience)

As for the Reis & Kaworu I take it they showed up in person to "see him off" because he's personally important to them (in Kaworu's case because of their joint connections to both Shinji and Adam). Rei was rather distinctly done with them when they parted "in the pjysical realm" but in this scene it seems she kinda takes a bit of pity on him after hearing of his motivations.
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Re: Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Postby StrokeMeGoat » Sat Jul 22, 2017 5:57 am

Yeah, I agree pretty much with what's been said. I feel like what he feels he deserves is more or less and unconscious... desire isn't quite the right word, I suppose judgment works better. The rest of the cast was similarly judged. Aoba wound up being "punished" as well. At the same time I also feel like how they transition is controlled in a more unseen, background kind of mysterious mechanism as well... the kind of thing that gives off vibes of a higher power that binds and guides all of reality at work in the background, pulling the strings (kind of similar to the way apparitions of Rei/Lilith appear before Third Impact and after GNR sacrifices her body or whatever--and how it appears to people is simply how the human mind perceives/interprets something totally beyond their comprehension). It's always been my opinion that everyone wound up getting their just desserts after being judged in a manner not all that dissimilar from how judgment is described in Christianity.

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Re: Why was Gendo's transition guide Unit 01?

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Postby Reichu » Sat Jul 22, 2017 10:14 am

It's implied that Rei appears in the form of something desired when she dissolves your ego border (see here). This still leaves the cases of Gendo and Aoba as anomalies, of course. Aoba perhaps didn't have anything in his heart that he truly desires, so the illusion doesn't work on him. In Gendo's case, we have Yui eating half of him instead of Rei dissolving him in whole, so I guess it can be argued that Yui doesn't follow the "embodiment of one's hopes and dreams" logic either. I still think that part checks out, though, on account of Gendo's deeply self-loathing nature.
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