The Possibility of Mari Not Being 1 Person

[Sailor Star Dust]

This was probably suggested before and I'm not entirely serious, but what if the mystery woman in the photo wasn't Asuka's mother or Mari/Mari's mother, but Asuka herself?!

[UrsusArctos]

How can it be Asuka herself? Unless 5th impact teleports her to post-2I Japan and lets her age, that's going to be...

[Sailor Star Dust]

Like I said, I wasn't entirely serious. Or, if you want to go for some epic trolling: Soryu instead of Shikinami.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Mari is just Mari. I don’t see a whole lot leading up to the possibility of her being anything more than possibly one of the first Kaji approached with the idea of Wille. (And even that theory rests on a lot of circumstantial evidences.)

Like I said, I wasn't entirely serious. Or, if you want to go for some epic trolling: Soryu instead of Shikinami.

It’s true. She’ll take off the glasses and change out her hair bands, let out a strong “Anta baka!” and get in the most epic cat fight between her and Shikinami inside Unit 02 + 08 in mid battle. It’ll probably be over Shinji’s attention, which means that Misato and Kaowru would also come from nowhere and also start fighting over Shinji. Because everything revolves around Shinji’s Shinjiness and Shinji stuff due to him being Shinji in Shin Shinji Evangelion: FINAL You Can (Most Certainly), Shinji.

THAT would be an epic troll.

[ChaddyManPrime]

These are going to be silly sounding so please bare with me and have mercy Good Mams and Sirs. I may be grasping at straws but oh well.

Misato
Asuka
Rei
Ikari
=
Mari

Mari has attributes of all four characters. She has Asuka's bloodlust for battle from EoE, her fondness for nicknames, her scary face from when she's in battle, she even at some point had Asuka's hair color from the original series ( Though Asuka's hair color was never consistent) and her eye color on occasion. From Misato she has her "assets", purple hair on occasion, and her teasing/flirtatious behavior. From Shinji she has his hair color most of the time, his eye color, his most likely inherited poor eye sight, oh and maybe his SDAT player cause I'm thinking track 27 came from her. The only thing I think she may have from Rei is her fondness for LCL cause there has be a reason for Rei liking to swim in that stuff.

I think at some point the four experienced a small instrumentality of their own and and reconstituted themselves into one being, maybe they re-emerged from the red sea in England so she is technically from there. The reason her physical features change is because that's the way the individuals inside the one body fight for some dominance.

[Chuckman]

It’s true. She’ll take off the glasses and change out her hair bands, let out a strong “Anta baka!” and get in the most epic cat fight between her and Shikinami inside Unit 02 + 08 in mid battle. It’ll probably be over Shinji’s attention, which means that Misato and Kaowru would also come from nowhere and also start fighting over Shinji. Because everything revolves around Shinji’s Shinjiness and Shinji stuff due to him being Shinji in Shin Shinji Evangelion: FINAL You Can (Most Certainly), Shinji.

Evangelion: FINAL You Can (Not) Oil Up

[Warren Peace]

Hey, why not go all the way with it? There is no "curse of the Eva". The Asuka and Mari clones don't last long, you see. Telling them they'll never age is a lot palatable than the fact that they'll be killed soon by Gendo death bots.

[ElMariachi]

^
But then how would they also copy Asuka's angelic infection in the eye?

[ChaddyManPrime]

Oh and Mari may have used whatever quantum powers that Rei can use to enter the Rebuild universe. So that is another thing that is Rei related.

[Warren Peace]

^
But then how would they also copy Asuka's angelic infection in the eye?

With the rules of cloning in Evangelion being so frustratingly vague, anything is possible. How do the Reis inherit their previous clone's memories? If technology can pull off that miracle, what's going on with Asuka's eye should be easy to replicate. Especially if her genetics/DNA/physiology is mixed up with the Angel to a significant extent.

(I'm not really arguing in favor of this idea, btw, but it is fun to think about)

[Jornophelanthas]

^
But then how would they also copy Asuka's angelic infection in the eye?

I'll have a go at this (even though I don't buy the theory):

Because the original Asuka was cloned only after she got contaminated in the eye, and all successive clones are "3D-printed" copies with the same intrinsic defects as the original.

[ElMariachi]

@ Warren Peace : about Rei retaining her memories, it's explained : all these scenes where she's in a tube of LCL in the Dummy System factory, there's also a back up of her memories made to inject back inside the new Rei. Also, her soul is that of an Alien Space Goddess, she probably doesn't follow the same meta-physical rules than normal Lilins.

@ Jorno : That ties with what a said just above, but there's a need for regular back ups of the memories, so if Asuka is a clone, she must know it, since I doubt she'll accept to regularly spend hours inside a tube of LCL without trying to know why she had to do it.
Also, why would WILLE take the risk to copy someone infected by an Angel? It's a huge security risk : what if one of the copies get mentally contaminated and turns against them? It would be much safer to simply search for a new pilot.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I thought we were just having fun suggesting that Soryu is Mari. Heck, I put my silly pet theory of Mari being a hybrid Eva clone higher on the list of possibilities than Mari being Soryu.

[Chuckman]

They're all clones, save Shinji. Just accept it.

Asuka and Mari aren't getting any older because they've been engineered not to. They're probably way past their intended shelf lives. It wouldn't shock me if they turn out to be genetic sisters, either. Looks like it's time to oil up.

[Mr. Jive]

If shikinami is a clone then she must be a clone of that woman whit glasses. Which mean that woman is no other then soryu herself. She was the only character to Come to some sort of peaceful term whit herself and was planing on moving on whit her life whitout anyone else. Soryu felt there was no need to repeat the time loop everyone else is repeating either by force or ignorance. Seeing the crap and the people she was force to put up whit who can blame her? Did she clone herself or did someone else clone her whitout her knowing? Is mari a clone of her too or cloned from someone else.....like kensuke? Only time will tell.......or it won't?

[Bagheera]

Where do you get that she's affiliated with SEELE? We never learned who she was working for

She works for the IPEA. These are the folks who helped her hijack Unit 02 in Ha, so it stands to reason she's working for them (same as Kaji).

Also, re: the thread generally: it's established fact that she's an original character, wholly unrelated to the others, the only one not based on Anno in some capacity. Making her a hybrid of other characters doesn't make any sense.

[Chuckman]

Nothing about Mari makes any sense.

Purposefully.

Mari is the universe observing itself.

[ChaddyManPrime]

^
Nah, Universe makes sense and Mari makes even more sense.

@ Jives
That is a popular theory... to me at least. We also need to ask who the gentleman is next to her.

[Bagheera]

Sequel theory is shit, get over it already.

Chuck: Mari makes perfect sense once you realize she's a gamer/playa and doesn't give a fuck. She's just in it for the lulz.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Mari is the universe observing itself.

Do you mean the Eva universe specifically, or are you being more prosaic?