SEELE, Yui and Transcendent Power

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Postby Mr. Tines [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

Explicitly forking a thread from page 169 of Go Hikari

Seele08 wrote:I just don't like Yui and never will, trying to attain godhood in my mind is the ultimate immorality (as I beleive that weilding absolute power over even one person without any form of consent is immoral, and determing the fate of entire race by your lonesome makes it that much worse, at least SEELE wasn't one person whistling in the dark), besides if she's going to start life somewhere else she ain't gonna be lonely. SEELE just wanted to end pain/suffering/loneliness and thanks to Gendo's brilliant HCP they latched onto a very baaaaad idea. Originaly they just wanted to stop the angels, and evolve humanity Yui said it herself.


Seele08 wrote:SEELE just appeals to me for two reason, first they have a cyborg, and cyborgs are teh 1337, second of all its based partly on my own personal philosophy on religion and my belief that the idea of the power of god is immoral. That is probably born out of years spent in my parent's fundamental baptist church and all the crap I experienced there (lets just say an logical aspie in a church full of religious nuts doesn't mix well), and my love of the writings of Locke.


By contrast, I come to all these issues from techno-apocalyptic SF, where the issue is not "should anyone be trusted with such power", but "how will we deal with entities like that when we discover we have built them" - when Applied Theology will be a short-lived engineering discipline.

Let us also not forget who it actually was who decided "So, everybody just die." and then later backtracked on that. The SysOp level power was shared around to the point where a lot of personas had some responsibility.

Yui was faced with a situation where the only way that something of humanity might be salvaged was to undergo a martyrdom of her own, so she could at least rescue some seed of humanity.

SEELE weren't one person - but they were a secret cabal plotting to impose their will on everyone else (by hitting the reset button on Life on Earth). Their peace would be the peace of the grave, a final solution an order of magnitude larger than guys from Keel's neck of the woods had managed 70 years previously. Not even a "Would the last person on Earth please turn off all the lights?" like these guys suggest.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 21:36 GMT

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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

"Would the last person on Earth please turn off all the lights?" like these guys suggest


Wow, didn't no there were really folks like that around...

"So, everybody just die."


'good ol Shinji.

Their peace would be the peace of the grave, a final solution an order of magnitude larger than guys from Keel's neck of the woods had managed 70 years previously.


Aghh you killed the thread with your first post. Godwin's Law!
Poor Keel, he isn't a Nazi, just a grumpy old cyborg in need of some reformatting and decent natural oil.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 21:44 GMT

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Postby OMF [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

There has always been a dichotomy in Yui's nature and actions. In her form as a woman, we see her as the beatific "Saint Yui", always kind and loving and full of wisdom. The perfect kind and caring individual, who even manages to melt Gendou's heart. Yet in her form as an Eva, we see her as a raging titan "Oni" dealing death, and as mentioned by SEELE 08, in an apparant struggle to atain Godhood through Third Impact, seemingly heedless of the cost of human life.

Some of the lighter and darker aspects to Yui and her motives were discussed at length in this thread. It's important to deal with all aspects of this character, central as she, or rather her presence, is to the entire narrative.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 21:46 GMT

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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

Its rather disconcerting to see her with a child (in the scene with Gendo (in the manga) especially after she freakin' ate Zeruel. I mean she's a cannibal for the love of god.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 21:49 GMT

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Postby AsukaxSohryux [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

While the scene with Unit 01 eating Zeruel is disturbing can you truly relate that to Yui's personality and motherhood?

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 21:54 GMT

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Postby Mr. Tines [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 am

Yui is a mother fighting to protect her child - that's the sort of thing that pushes a lot of deep triggers, even if the rest of us might ask whether the effort was worthwhile in that particular case. One might even say that she is again pregnant with him when fighting Zeruel, and might be expected to show strange cravings.

No, no-one comes out of this with clean hands, as Ritsuko explains to Maya at one point.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:00 GMT

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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

I just keep getting the image of her chomping down on baby Shinji's head.
"Mmm babies...tasty" after all the angels are essentially all new-borns when they arrive on the scene.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:01 GMT

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Postby Treize X [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Interesting thread (I need to secretly infiltrate that VHEMT thing and destroy it from the inside. Cursed tree-huggers). I personally tend to agree with both sides -- that Yui had her hands stained as much as the rest, but also that what she was doing was much better than what SEELE or possibly Gendo intended.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:19 GMT

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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Defending Yui on the pulpit gets about as tiresome as telling people that the Evas and SoLs are chicks, so, for the moment, I'll just quote the crap that I wrote at the relevant point in "Go Hikari!" since it sounds nice.

Seele08 wrote:Originally Posted by Seele08
Since I detest Yui, and just about anyone who thinks they're good enough to be god, the ultimate arrogance I can't really say I prefer her in any form.


Reichu wrote:It's hardly arrogance, since it implies sacrificing everything and suffering in complete solitude for what stands to be billions upon billions of years to satisfy an obligation to humanity as a whole (which far transcends our own species). In a very real sense, she is the hero of NGE, without whom everything would have ended in complete ruin. She is also used by Anno, along with the other two SoLs, to impart to the audience his ultimate message about life and how to find happiness. Although, of course, Shinji and Asuka are used to show how the harsh reality of life makes it difficult to attain that happiness in the final scene.

Detesting Yui is simply missing the entire point of her character and how absolutely CRITICAL she is to the story, in my humble opinion. Siding with Seele, the antagonists of the story, is probably missing the point, too. They are the ones who have abandoned all hope and simply want to destroy everyone, including themselves, to return to the pure and original state that is virtually equivalent to death itself. NGE is trying to tell the audience to LIVE and find happiness, not to give up and seek death. That's not to say that you can't be a fan -- of course you can -- only that I think you should recognize the roles that these characters are satisfying in the story. (Note disclaimers.)


Need I mention, claiming that what Yui is doing is somehow "immoral" is failing to take into account the full scope of Seele's heinous actions over CENTURIES. It doesn't matter if they think they're doing the right thing. What they do is still abominable, and their "solution" is the total anti-solution. It's the absolute coward's way out. Again, if you side with Seele, you're basically giving Anno and the rest of the NGE team the finger with both hands... But that's your business.

As for Yui's "strange behavior", put yourself in her "shoes" before you judge, take the full scope of the show into account, and go beyond your preconceptions. I'm like an AIM bot when it comes to this stuff.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:41 GMT

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Postby Seele08 [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Need I mention, claiming that what Yui is doing is somehow "immoral" is failing to take into account the full scope of Seele's heinous actions over CENTURIES. It doesn't matter if they think they're doing the right thing. What they do is still abominable, and their "solution" is the total anti-solution.


So the organization is hundred's of years old? Where did you find the source? Granted not all of their actions were great (do we really know much a bout their past actions, afterall 2I was engineered to cause less damage), but neither were Gendo or Yui's at times. Gendo well, is Gendo, and you yourself said that it was cruel to slaughter Adam's offspring when they were babies, but Yui went ahead, and ate one of them....granted Zeruel did need to be stopped, but still, eating his face off...eww.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:47 GMT

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Postby Z Metalla [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Well, on the subject of Yui eating Zeruel, really, did she have any other choice? Sachiel, Shamshel, and Zeruel were the only ones with external cores that were within her reach. With Sachiel, to her, it was too early, even though she was in control. Shamshel may have also been to early, but also, Shinji's wrath was in control then, and she didn't have the power to do it. But Zeruel, was the perfect chance. Her son was melted inside of her, the battle was chaotic, Zeruel had what she needed, so opportunity taken.

She probably knew that it was the only way of getting an S2 without diastrous results was to eat an Angel with easy access to the organ. Of course, that's based on saying the S2 is within the core, which is something I'm not completely sure of being true. Image

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:48 GMT

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Postby AsukaxSohryux [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

As Reichu said, put yourself in Yui's shoes. Yui saw Shinji suffering, and we all know mothers are there to comfort. Yui was tring to protect her son, not put up a specticle of madness. You should really read between the lines ^^.

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 22:53 GMT

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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Seele08 wrote:So the organization is hundred's of years old? Where did you find the source?


NGE2. I'll share when I do a full translation. And they're connected with the Essenes, besides, and those guys date WAY back.

And the necessary evils Yui had to endure are all things that Seele shared the burden of as well, on a far deeper level. I cannot emphasize the shear scale of the atrocities Seele commit, which there is absolutely NO excuse or justification for. One could write a bloody college thesis about these themes in NGE and how they tie into the conceits and evils committed by various religious / occult organization over the centuries. Among other things: "Right thing", schmight thing. Your idea of "god" is yours alone, Seele. Keep your bloody "god" to yourself. And your death wish, too.

Here's one tidbit to think about, too: Seele actually consider themselves to be SUPERIOR human beings who have the right to decide what happens to everybody. (I.e., death. Or, in their IMO rather distorted sense of reality, "nearness to god".) Yui ensures that every person has the CHOICE and is in change of vis own fate.

And there is not a single intimation that she considers herself a superior human being in any way. As has been stated again and again, what she does is a self-sacrifice of the highest order. There is no personal gain from this immortality; for her, it is selfless. If you were paying attention in #21, she would have been happy to simply be an ordinary woman and raise a family -- but what's the point if you only have fifteen years to do it?

Because of her birth into Seele and her bioengineering skills, she was put in a position where SHE, and no one else, had the power to make the difference. And she did. She could have stopped there, once 3I was over, by destroying the Spear and her Eva body and restoring her original one. But she didn't, because Earth would not be forever.

Granted not all of their actions were great (do we really know much a bout their past actions, afterall 2I was engineered to cause less damage), but neither were Gendo or Yui's at times. Gendo well, is Gendo, and you yourself said that it was cruel to slaughter Adam's offspring when they were babies, but Yui went ahead, and ate one of them....granted Zeruel did need to be stopped, but still, eating his face off...eww.


It was cruel, but a "necessary evil". This is the concept of the dilemma in action. The show seems to tell us that the planet cannot support both forms of life, and, while I haven't quite cracked it completely, I don't think it is lying to us...

As for her strange eating habits, you have to ingest a Super Solenoid somehow. There are also MANY other factors to take into consideration -- the intense and stressful circumstances, the unknown ways in which Yui herself has been / is being reshaped by her new body (which is an established phenomenon in the show), the fact that she is normally restrained (i.e., repressed) for a HUGE amount of the time, etc.... You really cannot simplify and judge her behavior as if Yui was living life as a normal person, she and Zeruel just met on a street one day, and she suddenly turned around and brutally, lasciviously devoured him.

Z Metalla wrote:Well, on the subject of Yui eating Zeruel, really, did she have any other choice? Sachiel, Shamshel, and Zeruel were the only ones with external cores that were within her reach. With Sachiel, to her, it was too early, even though she was in control. Shamshel may have also been to early, but also, Shinji's wrath was in control then, and she didn't have the power to do it. But Zeruel, was the perfect chance. Her son was melted inside of her, the battle was chaotic, Zeruel had what she needed, so opportunity taken.


Don't forget about Israfel. (Both of them.)

There is also a good possibility that Zer was targeted because... well, think about it. He's top quality meat. The cream of the crop. Yui shouldn't have to stand for anything less. Image Well, okay, maybe it just kind of worked out that way...

Originally posted on: 24-Jan-2006, 23:59 GMT

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Postby Z Metalla [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

...And Israfel. Forgot about them. I think the reason Yui didn't interfere then was because she wanted Shinji to learn the power of teamwork, or something. That sounds kinda retarded, though. Image

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 00:25 GMT

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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

She also had to hold off until a giant "awakening / feasting" scene would be viable within the context of the plot. Image

And Israfel were (that sounds weird) a couple of kids. Eating one of them would have been too cruel. Zeruel was a young'un, too, but at least he was a "hardened", vengeful badass without any sense of whimsy whatsoever, so Yui wouldn't have to feel AS bad about it... Although they rather effectively conveyed his vulnerability and fear of death right before she smashed his face in, so that gives his death a "personal" touch (har har) that the twins didn't get. Poor guy... :sniffle:

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 00:32 GMT

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Postby thewayneiac [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Seele08 wrote:SEELE just wanted to end pain/suffering/loneliness


Time to trot these out again: (From Eva Monkey's forum)

Shin-seiki wrote:Sheesh! Where'd all this appalling moral relativism come from?! Was Hitler just "mis-understood"? Do the devil-worshiping savages that flew the planes into the WTC get a pass because they were sincere? SEELE and Gendo were monsters! Hello? Remember Second Impact? 3+ billion dead?! And geeze, pay a little mind, will you, to the thuggish tactics that SEELE resorts to towards the end of the story...


Carl Horn wrote:I've said before that I believe NERV to be no better than Al-Qaeda. It's not so much that there are no villains in life, but that most people who are villains don't see themselves to be. But that doesn't stop them from being villains. We can understand the human weakness of the characters without excusing what they do. If you lost someone you loved, would that give you the right to take another's life just to bring that person back?

Watch the latest video on the news of that bearded guy (not Gendo, the other one). Bin Laden says he did it to avenge the Lebanese and Palestinians. Did they all vote for him to do that or something? And, of course, do we believe a person's stated reasons for their actions? How much do they believe their own reasons?

I feel the same way about both Kiel and Gendo. Who asked them? And I get suspicious of any claim that "we have to do it, because the prophecies say this, or say that otherwise..." Because it reminds me of people who interpret the Bible or Koran and then go out and kill, except in EVA it's billions instead of thousands.

And can you imagine going up before a judge and saying, "Yes, I killed them, but it shouldn't really count because, you see, eventually there'll be a resurrection and all their souls will be gathered up?"


The fate of mankind is none of Keel's goddamn business. Who died and made him God?

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 00:46 GMT

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Postby Treize X [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Reichu wrote:NGE2. I'll share when I do a full translation. And they're connected with the Essenes, besides, and those guys date WAY back.

And the necessary evils Yui had to endure are all things that Seele shared the burden of as well, on a far deeper level. I cannot emphasize the shear scale of the atrocities Seele commit, which there is absolutely NO excuse or justification for. One could write a bloody college thesis about these themes in NGE and how they tie into the conceits and evils committed by various religious / occult organization over the centuries. Among other things: "Right thing", schmight thing. Your idea of "god" is yours alone, Seele. Keep your bloody "god" to yourself. And your death wish, too.


Yeah, SEELE had connections to the Essenes, who had connections to plenty of people, in turn. I still favor some other groups when it comes to the "secret societies" deal, though (not that the Essenes were really all that secret; societies such as Ol What'sHisName's Illuminati).

And Reich -- are you referring to the group, or the user? Hard to tell, since you don't capitalize your SEELEs, like I do. Image


Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 00:47 GMT

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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

Treize X wrote:And Reich -- are you referring to the group, or the user? Hard to tell, since you don't capitalize your SEELEs, like I do. Image


Wha? Seele isn't an acronym, so I don't capitalize it. (Although those Gainax boys seem to -- like in that "history of Gainax / Second Impact" document Image -- but whatever.) And it's an organization, so I have no idea what you mean by "user".

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 00:55 GMT

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Postby K2Grey [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

The thing I still need to repeat is that pretty much everyone who has access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, whether it is SEELE, Gendo, Fuyutsuki, or Yui, believes that Third Impact is inevitable and that either all humans are going to get killed (because an Angel got to Adam) or else there will presumably be some humongous destruction, hence the term "Impact".

Under this basis, SEELE's actions aren't too amazing given that everyone was going to be killed anyway. Another example is when SEELE triggered Second Impact. It is true that 3+ billion got killed there. But the purpose of Second Impact was to hide Adam from the Angels. If SI wasn't caused, then the Angels would have found Adam early, before NERV was ready; all humanity would have been killed, including the aforementioned 3+ billion. What's your solution to this mess?

In Yui's case, she knew what SEELE was going to do, and she decided that Third Impact should end a different way. Since she didn't have enough power on her own, she decided to get her soul into the body of a uber-being and, at the appropriate time, obtain a S2, so that she would have sufficient power to get 3I to end the way she wanted to. As things turned out, the matter ended up resting primarily in the hands of a girl with a false soul that had minimal human contact, who passed the ball to a fatalistic boy who, at that time, would have qualified for insanity in 47 states of the U.S., and who in turn wanted help from his former "love" interest, a girl who qualified for insanity in the exact opposite direction, with nearly disastrous results. But if Yui hadn't done what she had done in the first place then humanity would be screwed for sure.

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 01:15 GMT

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Postby Reichu [ANF] » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:14 am

K2Grey wrote:The thing I still need to repeat is that pretty much everyone who has access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, whether it is SEELE, Gendo, Fuyutsuki, or Yui, believes that Third Impact is inevitable and that either all humans are going to get killed (because an Angel got to Adam) or else there will presumably be some humongous destruction, hence the term "Impact".


Don't discount the possibility that it really WAS inevitable, for reasons we haven't figured out yet.

Under this basis, SEELE's actions aren't too amazing given that everyone was going to be killed anyway. Another example is when SEELE triggered Second Impact. It is true that 3+ billion got killed there. But the purpose of Second Impact was to hide Adam from the Angels.


You read all my threads? What Misato says in #25' is a huge simplification. (But, then, they feed you the rest of what you need to know elsewhere.) And what you say above is not, in fact, the purpose of 2I at all.

As things turned out, the matter ended up resting primarily in the hands of a girl with a false soul that had minimal human contact


I don't think by that point the above description fully applied anymore...

who passed the ball to a fatalistic boy who, at that time, would have qualified for insanity in 47 states of the U.S., and who in turn wanted help from his former "love" interest, a girl who qualified for insanity in the exact opposite direction, with nearly disastrous results. But if Yui hadn't done what she had done in the first place then humanity would be screwed for sure.


Shinji wouldn't have even been in that position if Yui hadn't gotten him to hop in. For her, he symbolized the future, so letting him make the decision -- or, in any case, nudging him towards the only one she had in mind, whatever it took Image -- was a rather natural choice. And since Shinji was a "lucky" enough bastard to be adored by all three of NGE's kami-sama, of course the other two were in agreement with her. (Well, Adam/Kaworu to whatever extent she/he had a say at that point. "I'm just along for the ride.")

Originally posted on: 25-Jan-2006, 01:29 GMT


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