As I already said, this is a great find and you must be thanked.
Upon some vague research into the matter of Dante, I've come upon something that
could be a coincidence and overanalysis on my part. It might be interesting, though, which is why I have decided to post. No one else seems much inclined to anyways and I could just as well have unwittingly stumbled upon a goldmine despite the high unlikelihood of that. But anyway, here we go.
In
Purgatorio, Dante and Virgil ascend to the Mountain of Purgatory on the ''far side of the world''. The Mountain is on an island in the Southern Hemisphere, specifically stated to be the only land there, supposedly created by the aftermath of Satan's fall creating Hell. Now, the Southern Hemisphere actually contains many lands, be they islands or parts of America, Asia etc. But what is at the very centre of the Hemisphere and what most people immediately think of when this Hemisphere is mentioned is Antarctica-the continent which also, in the worlds of both NGE and NTE, acts as the birthplace of Second Impact. Satan's fall and the resulting birth of Hell could act as hints at the whole Adam-Lilith fiasco which Reichu has written a great and comprehensive theory about. (For anyone reading this who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here's the link:
thread/19857/Adams-Children-and-the-Nature-of-the-Cycle/ )
Interestingly, the gate of Purgatory has three steps, white, red and black. White is said to reflect the ''purity of the penitent's true self'', black is the color of mourning and red symbolizes the blood of Christ and the restoration of true life.
Now, in their ''Original Sin'' discussion in 2.0, Gendo says: ''Cleansed of the original sin, it is a purified world that man cannot set foot within''. There's never any indication he's specifically talking about Antarctica here and Fuyutsuki starts this whole conversation with a sad remark over the current state of Earth, but they're looking at the Southern Hemisphere at the same time and Antarctica is specifically a place that mankind can't hope to live in, so it's not hopefully overreaching of me to think that Gendo is talking generally about that here. After this scene, we also get Kaji talking about Misato with Shinji and we get a Second Impact flashback, which would be a hell of a coincidence if unintended. Now, the ''true self'' could also refer to this being the ''birthplace'' in a way of Shinji/Mari/Asuka/Kaworu/Rei, thereby showing their pure true selves. Lilith is also the progenitor of humanity, so Lilith-Rei are in a sense also the true selves of man. And we see pale skin on those most in touch with their Angelic nature a.k.a. Rei and Kaworu. Lilith-in-Terminal-Dogma is also white throughout the first three movies. The fact that the white is polished may pertain to the fact that this ''purity'' has to be engineered into becoming dominant instead of a more natural ''let's-wait'' approach. (HIP is the endgame of dozens of years of work and the whole Second Impact fiasco had something to with humans making it sure that Adam and Lilith were actually awakened, so it's not like anyone's been choosing to suddenly become God or reach a higher state of existence.)
Black, which is the color of mourning, is something I don't really have anything for. In simple terms, Second Impact was a world catastrophe which resulted in the deaths of millions, so it's not that hard to go ''okay, this is it''. On a side note, both Evangelion Unit-03 and Zeruel are also predominantly black and they of course lead to mournful events, which are still following the plans of Lilith, leading to Purgatory and ultimately Paradise. This could be symbolic of the hardships and sacrifices one has to make in his/her journey there.
Red, the symbol of the Christ's blood and the restoration of true life. I'm too tired to even attempt to properly look at connections, so let's go with some simple observations. In 3.33, we see Rei-Lilith/whatever that is in utter blood-red. There's still a white Lilith hanging around in Terminal Dogma, but there is also a red Lilith-Rei elsewhere, who in the end is responsible for the final beginning of Near Fourth Impact. (It wasn't technically the Fourth Impact, right? I mean if Kaworu referred to the end of 2.22 as Near Third Impact, then there's no way that what happened at the end of 3.33 could be officially considered an actual Fourth Impact.) Anyway, this ''restoration of true life'' is possibly a very oblique reference to the NTE version of the Human Instrumentality Project. We already have suspiciously blood-red ''Failures of Infinity'' and the second trailer for Shin also shows off some really red action footage, which may in some way pertain to the beginnings of Final Impact/HIP. (The eyes are also larger in anime and have often been called the windows to the soul-Rei and Kaworu have naturally red eyes and Mari/Asuka/Shinji's eyes start to glow red sometimes, a hint at their true status as Adams. Maybe this means something?)
One more thing: the gate of Purgatory is guarded by an angel with a countenance too bright for Dante to sustain. Virgil then declares that a ''lady from heaven'' brought them there and directed to the gate. Yui, Rei, Lilith-this could be a reference to one or all three of them. We know that Yui's plan probably involves some kind of HIP happening and we know for an absolute certainty that Lilith intends for HIP to happen. Rei II or even Rei Q may also play roles in Final Impact so at the end of the day I'm suggesting that this ''lady from heaven'' is one of our famous women leading the road to Purgatory. (I'd bank on Rei since she's more of a ''lady'' than the unquestionably God-like Lilith and her showing Shinji the ''gate'' would be fitting in all sorts of ways.) The angel then opens the gate with two keys which symbolize remorse and reconciliation, two things I think Shinji will have to absolutely go through in Shin. (He's already remorseful over Kaworu's death and his role in it at the end of 3.33.) There's also a mention of the angel drawing the letter ''P'', which represents sin, on Dante's forehead with a sword and saying he should not forget to wash the wounds while in Purgatory. I'm not sure if this pertains in any way to probable future happenings in Shin, but Shinji realizing his former mistakes i.e. sins and then ''washing'' them by the existence of HIP is a probable idea. Everything seems to point at HIP being some kind of a gate of Purgatory that leads to Paradise and purity in symbolistic terms at least.
Then we get to the end of
Purgatorio, which shows Dante ascending to Heaven, guided by Beatrice, a dead childhood love, as Virgil (whose NTE counterpart I'm still cracking my head about) can't enter Heaven due to being a pagan. Besides from being beautiful, she is also told to be ''maternal, radiant and comforting''. This is something that Rei II fits into marvelously-a dead childhood love, who is comforting, radiant and, due to partially having Lilith's soul, rather maternal.
The end of
Paradiso shows Dante in a flash understanding the mystery of Christ's divinity and humanity and his soul becomes aligned with God's love. In terms of potential meanings for the narrative of NTE, this could mean just about anything. The most likely is Final Impact and the true start of the Human Instrumentality Project, leading to Shinji finally understanding his nature and what has happened as he comes upon multiple realizations of various things.
This is all I got now. Let me know if any of this has pertained your interest and if you think I'm on to something here or just making stuff up. It's entirely possible that most of these references are actually intended to be Biblical instead of Dante-an. (Is that a word?) And most of this is based on a Wikipedia article instead of the actual poem itself, so...you know, this may not be trustworthy. I'm pretty afraid that I'm overanalyzing the meagre plot points I've come upon, but there is potentially something here, I think.
P.S. This is most likely totally unintended by Anno, but according to Dante, Hell lies under Jerusalem, which of course lies on an plateau between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, near which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. I don't think I need to stress the significance they have.
