Seele00TextOnly wrote:I don't mean to pounce, and it's not entirely in keeping with the purpose of the thread, but since this notion of the film/s as a tragedy keeps coming up.... in what way wasn't the original series and EoE a tragedy?
No no, it was a tragedy. But I was a different person back then. In many ways Eva was what turned me off from tragedies, because it was so tragic I had no desire to go back to that state. Honestly, Eva was the first fictional work that made me
feel that much. The closest thing before was a sadness at endings or the occasional well handled death of a character, but Eva was the first story that actually made me
depressed.I return again to my rumination in the Reactions thread of 'how was anyone ever really expecting these to be a brighter happy version of Eva?' and really even pre-Q there simply was never compelling reasoning or evidence for that. I don't say that to squirt lemon juice onto the wounds of those burned, but really... I just don't get it.
Quite frankly I just don't get how, before Q, anyone thought otherwise. In hindsight yea, we can look back and see the hints that Rebuild was dark, but when 1.0 ends with climactic defeat of Ramiel, and 2.0 ends with Shinji going full TTGL
and 3I allegedly being stopped by Kaworu, I can't look at the previous two movies and see any reason to see them as anything other than brighter and happier. Hell, NGE never had Shinji embracing Rei. Even the adrenaline pumping moments of NGE were highlighted by something negative: the bestial nature of Unit 01 when it defeats Leliel and Zeruel.
You know, I don't know if I've said this here, but the irony is before I joined this forum I used to think Rebuild
would be darker. I remember arguing with people who complained about the action focus of 1.0 and 2.0 by pointing out how much "brighter" the first half of NGE was, that they were judging the first half of Rebuild by comparing it to the last half of NGE. Then I came here and someone, Bagheera I think, pointed out that the first half of NGE had quite a few introspective elements that weren't in Rebuild, and that's when I was like "Huh... I guess he's right, I suppose Rebuild
is gonna be a more "happy" version of Eva."
Fuck me, right?
Edit: That's not to imply whoever convinced me thought NME would be brighter by the way. Whoever it was just thought it lacked the depth of NGE. I made the leap that shallower=brighter on my own.