DantesInferno wrote:Well, I'm sure it didn't destroy the
whole city (only thing that's sure is the "rising" buildings at the center, creating a hole to get in); the outskirta should have been pretty unaffected. It's very possible some of the protagonists' relatives were left behind there and killed in the explosion. But yeah, so much going on, angel attack, angel battle, and then N3I.
It destroyed district 4 and Central Block whose buildings melted away down to Nerv HQ. There's the collateral damage from waves of N2 bombs, which Nerv kept firing even inside the city, one of them lands near Toji. Rei also blew up N2 missile, whose explosion was large enough to reach all the way to the ceiling and cover entire retracted city. I'd say most of the city had already been destroyed by the time Gates of guf opened. It's indeed possible some were left up there by the time N3I started but the way characters talk, they're very certain it's Shinji who killed their relatives but not Angel/Nerv/Evas.
DantesInferno wrote: I wonder how anyone would be able to tell
what exactly killed someone.
You're right, which brings me to a point that keeps me bugging me is how Sakura so sure that her dad died in N3I but not during the Angel battle? When Angel arrives, we see Toji evacuating, little Sakura should be around him offscreen and so should be a responsible father. Even if we say, he told the children to go ahead while he catches up with them later, Sakura should still be aware of how destructive Angel and Eva battles are. Nerv didn't allow the outside news to get inside shelters and while descending, a civilian says that their phone lost signal so it's not possible for Sakura to be on-call whole time with father who's still up there. So she should have no way to know if he was still alive by the time N3I started yet she also blames Shinji.
Konja7 wrote: Yeah. That was always a weird thing for me. The destruction at the end of 2.0 wasn't so big. So, if this was the only thing the refer as N3I, the fear the characters feel about this seemed pretty weird. It's easier they are including the events as the corification of the Earth in N3I (even if this effect is from the Third Impact).
Yep. Characters being afraid of N3I becomes even weirder when you realize that except Misato & co., no civilians should have a first-hand experience of Eva01 awakening as they should all be inside Geofront shelter during that time and as we have seen in 1.0, Nerv controls the broadcast and doesn't let any information get in. But most survivors saw Zeruel's rampage, how it killed so many people and destroyed their homes, how it crushed all Evas, crashed through the pyramid, and nearly killed everyone. But instead of being traumatized from that, they're more afraid of N3I, which they likely to have found out much later on how after killing that Angel, Eva01 caused a new explosion, opened up a black hole and sucked some parts of the destroyed Tokyo-3 and it all lasted for 5 minutes till it got deactivated after being hit by a spear.
I believe the theory of "Near Third Impact" being an umbrella term is likely correct. Characters have conflated and combined multiple events under one umbrella where N3I instead of just referring to the opening of Gates of guf, also refers to other events also including 10th Angel. So when Toji and Kensuke are talking about surviving N3I, they're really talking about the day 10th Angel attacked. Others consider N3I as the same event as A3I. Later characters like Midori even threw in corification. One term carries separate meanings for every character.
