What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby mastervampire » Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:19 pm

Right from the start.
Would they be able to make contact and be better pilots?
We saw how effective Asuka was when she realised in eoe

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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby Blockio » Tue Jul 10, 2018 2:15 pm

I dont think they would have agreed to pilot to begin with
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Tue Jul 10, 2018 8:36 pm

Well, first, the question you should be asking is that in the beginning, would they have believed their mothers souls were inside their EVAs? At the beginning, Asuka may not have believed it, considering she thought Unit-02 was a doll to be controlled only by her, plus she saw her mother's body, the mother that tried to choke her, she couldn't fathom anything of the sort.

Shinji would have also had his doubts, but given his heavily repressed memories of his mother's contact experiment, he may have believed it in some small form or another, even in the back of his head.

Would it have made them better pilots to have known earlier? Having a better connection with their mothers would only serve to improve their sync score, so they would have had better control over their EVAs, but better pilots overall? Asuka would have been a better pilot if she believed it, but Shinji's reluctance to fight would still have hampered his overall ability to effectively pilot, even if it did bring him closer to his mother.
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby Lavinius » Wed Jul 11, 2018 1:03 am

It's hard to tell.

It's just such a bizarre proposition to contemplate. Even if one can't tell exactly how one'd feel and behave if they found out that their mother had died, at least there's a cultural understanding of what that means and how one should behave. We should realize that the pilots already are in, by the very premise of their lives, an extremely bizarre situation that there's no cultural understanding for; to be told that the creatures they pilot like vehicles are their (thought-)dead mothers in violated god-bodies is something even more unpredictable.

I think it's important to emphasize that the physical state of the Evas is one of the utmost violation and torture; penetrated by foreign metal spines and tightly bound in the most dehumanizing way. Perhaps the Evas' nerves have been so tempered that they don't feel pain from this- actually, they'd have to be, otherwise the pilots would synchronize that pain too, and they don't- but the apprehension of their nature is still horrific and groutesque- and this is happening to your mother. Some sort of screaming suicidal or matricidal-in-mercy or patricidal-in-revenge or even worse violence is far from inconceivable.

Lovecraft likes to go on about persons finding out about some alien race and going mad at said fact, which is really no more terrifying than any awareness of the existence of war, or an elementary knowledge of geology or astronomy. Perhaps sometimes he'll have them learn a fact about their own ancestors- perhaps troublesome to some, but still not maddening; history is history. But the idea that your mother is- not was, but is, at this very moment- in an inhumanly tortured giant human body you've been using as an object to fight a poorly-explained war while pretending to have a normal schoolchild life at all other times, and you're expected to just continue on doing just that, I think, could actually destroy someone, since it relates to the continuous present and to one's most intimate continuous relationships and essential continuous actions.

Neither Shinji nor Asuka exactly approach their surroundings critically or insightfully. Shinji, at least, shows some curiosity and suspicion about the nature of the Evas and the Angels- questions that anyone should ask, given that there isn't even a cover story for them, he's told nothing (and like could be said about most of the Nerv staff)- but it's slight and quiet and weak (as is theirs. Anyone could tell that Lilith or Adam or something like them had to be present in the GeoFront, otherwise why would the Angels attack only it? No one ever observes this; and Misato is surprised when she sees something that she would implicitly already know about had she thought for a moment).

Shinji knows that the Evas are biological as soon as episode 2; he knew that Rei was divine as soon as he saw her in episode 1. By 20 it seems he knows about Yui. But he doesn't confront anyone about these; or even mention them, these are kept in his private thoughts. He wants to avoid his knowledge and keep the pretense of normality; of course in the end, after Kaworu, he can't keep on pretending that these horrors aren't there, and breaks down.

Asuka, on the other hand, hasn't the slightest care in the world as to what the Evas are or what they're for; in her spoiled mind, they're absolutely nothing but the sustainance of her self-validation; she can't even think for long enough to imagine that there might be a finite number of Angels, at the last of which, her triumph, her whole existence would be destroyed. When Rei tries to tell her about the Eva she denies it furiously, completely irrationally. When she embraces it in EoE, she's already died to her previous existence and has nothing left to lose; she accepts it irrationally also, or bypassing rationality, gloriously.

If Shinji were told earlier (and who would tell him, what good would it do anyone? Perhaps Rei might) then he'd just bury and ignore it, or try to, not unlikely becoming the despairing mess he is after Kaworu much sooner. Asuka would deny it, and might actually succeed in not thinking about it, given how good she is at thoughtless about everything else. Or perhaps not.
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:51 am

Wow, that was a perfectly brilliant write-up about their reactions, had they known. Thank you for that ^_^ Times like this I wish EGF had some kind of Upvote/Like system (minus the potential for abuse) for interesting posts!

I think had Ritsuko or Misato been in a position of knowledge and/or telling him, it would've been an easier pill to swallow...but like you said, whether or not Shinji would be accepting for the truth is another thing. Rei would certainly be a good candidate for telling Shinji, given her evident knowledge about it, and Ritsuko is (generally-speaking) kind towards Shinji before her breakdown. Given Shinji's general anxieties towards Ayanami + piloting in general, it probably would send him into yet another (private) anxiety spiral, at the very least.
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby Kendrix » Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:27 am

They would obviously be freaked out, not just because of the inherent grotesque horror or because their mothers are sore spots, but because of the beliefs they had early on.
Asuka was really fixated on seeing the EVA as a nonliving object she could controll since she's freaked out by all things uncanny valley, and Shinji largely remembers Yui from the perspective of a four year old (insofar as he does at all) and he'll have to deal that the sweet standard-issue mom he remembers is one and the same with the terrifying eldritch contraption he's forced to expose himself to.

It might go like in "You can never trust" where upon EVA 02 acting protective, Asuka spends a good while terrified that its alive before anthing like a connection happens. plus, she might see dips in synch ratio as rejection.

Asuka was receptive in EOE because she had already hit rock bottom and was desperate for survival.

It would depend on when exactly it happens and what time they're giving to process it.
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby Akko » Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:36 pm

Well, at least I would be creeped out if I was a pilot and someone told me "this giant robot has the soul of your dead mother"
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Re: What if Shinji and Asuka were told about mother’s souls in Eva ?

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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:02 pm

^ Not the fact that a giant mech existed and you had to fight beings known as Angels? At some point, there would simply be an excessive overload of information being shared, if it case all at once, it would be too much to process.

Imagine knowing everything that Shinji learned by the end of series about the EVAs at the beginning, it would be too much for any of the pilots, save perhaps Rei, who probably knew more about the EVAs than we thought.
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