Postby Axx°N N. » Fri Dec 10, 2021 7:42 pm
Personally, I don't see anything heroic about Shinji or the mindset he appears to be exemplifying.
The thesis of NTE strikes me as screenwriter's desperation. There was no way to make Evangelion feel more conclusive than it's ever been without ending it on a so there, even if it's undeserved. There was no more a sense of finality to reach than shelving the characters, even if it reduced them as a handful of bad repetitive traits or disappeared them literally from the screen and from their own continuity. But even more than that, I can't help but play armchair psychologist and wonder if it's more ideology and neurosis than philosophy on the part of the writer(s): "I have arranged around me all the things I think are good and make me happy, avoided all the things I think are bad and that harm me, things have to be good." I myself have been on the receiving end of epiphanies that I wake up from eventually if not immediately, so I uderstand the desire to just be done with even the concept of struggle. The thing is, it may seem like grace for now, but it's like the difference between knowledge and wisdom: it ceases to be grace a couple moments later when it becomes complacency.
Now, I agree very much with the necessity of grace, and it's entirely true that when one unburdens themselves of unhelpful striving, worry, paranoia, desiring, obsession, etc. that things often show their truer colors. Shinji rightfully stops himself from dwelling on negativities rooted in misunderstanding or outright ignorance. But NTE goes a step too far and seems to wish to switch the stage light off of capital n Negativities in toto, almost as if it's all part of the same package that must be disposed of, when in reality one must face certain prevailing negatives and walk through trials by fire in order to do anything of actual heroism. I might be making an assumption in saying that it feels like NTE is suggesting Shinji & Mari will waltz smiling eternally or that Misato will farm forever in peace, but NTE withholds any semblance of followup anyway. Shinji has given up his attachments, righted his mental and physical association to others, and cleared his mind--what now? He runs off toward Ube, but what might he think of the makeup of the city underneath the catchy pop tune? What about the (very much still there) daily sorrows of its dwellers? Does he care about anything of tangible effect, like pollution and governmental corruption? What does his newfangled sense of how to interact with others look like, outside an eager tone of voice and quips about big boobs? It's just like the third village, and the way the narrative draws a convenient border around the village's development right before the point of any problems manifesting from within--there's no crime, there's no in-fighting, there's no feeling that they'll ever get big enough to face the return of, say, wealth disparity and bloody union struggle ... in fact, it even feels like the thesis here is "there's no bad people here, so everything will work out dandy anyway," and the blame lies only past the border, in the plot contrivance of the apocalypse and the man who doesn't hug his son enough.
The problem isn't only that we're withheld from seeing the application of the supposed grace, the beforehand argument to the thesis is also incoherent.
To set up Shinji's heroism, a contrast is established between his selfishness in 2.0 and his lack of knowledge and failed redo in 3.0 against his selflessness, attained knowledge and successful redo in 3.0+1.0. But the selfishness made even less sense than his heroism. I can't remember what user said it, nor the thread it was said in (forgive me!) but it went like this: "Blaming Shinji for the impact is a bit like blaming someone for causing a house fire because a faulty device they bought erupted while they slept." There's absolutely no way Shinji could comprehend what he was doing in the moment, nor that it could destroy so many lives. Gendo is the one who knowingly, willingly has been seeking catastrophic impact events. Rei's attraction to Shinji was something scientists put into her neurons. It makes zero sense for other characters or himself to place blame on his shoulders, not even when viewed through the lense of Japanese cultural differences about blame, because he merely isn't the correct target. And as for Asuka blaming him to the point of needing to apologize, it's like blaming someone risking their life to save you because the floor falls out from underneath them in an inferno, but replace inferno, of course, with manning a giant pseudo-human against a nebulous foreign entity when your father has programmed an override into your console, and also you're fourteen.
Comparisons aren't needed, but I much prefer the treatment of the tragedy of Shinji killing Kaworu in NGE. The situation is unavoidable, and although Shinji is upset and questions what he could have done differently, Misato's coldness is realistic in the moment--it's realistic because it's not desired, but it's also not without sympathy. It's a sad, uncomfortable, human moment that makes sense in its thought pattern. Despite what NTE tries to posit, not everything in life can be resolved by an attitude change or different approach--there are lingering discomforts that can't truly be done away with, especially misfortunes of the past. I also greatly prefer the overall thesis of EoE--I don't agree, as someone said above, that Shinji suffers a mental break and that's it. The conclusion to his dialogue with himself, with Rei, Kaworu and with his mother is that pain can't be done away with, it or its foretelling will occur again no matter what, but the pain is worth the destination it leads you toward, and anyway, you can't go anywhere without overcoming it to its various degrees each time. Not only does that ring true to me on its own accord, the arguments leading there pan out as arguments.
The wrong finger is on the wrong pulse in NTE, also, in the case of the way NTE suggests social connection and understanding as solution. You can't reduce genocide (ala Gendo) down to a man who didn't hug his son enough, or wasn't open enough with people--despots in real life, in fact, form extremely intimate social circles around themselves. That's how they build their reach, infamy, and get to the point where they can commit atrocities. They give people a sense of belonging and community. They use (and abuse) positive feelings. And frankly, the psychological process to be able to live with oneself in that situation is exactly what Shinji arrives at--you just turn off or do away with what causes cognitive dissonance and focus on the positives. Shinji localizes suffering (much like a scapegoat, the oft-useful tool of regimes) to Eva units themselves. Ridding them does most of the work needed, repositioning his relationships with his friends does the rest. But his friend's problems, unless they're humans as neatly composed as a math problem, surely can't be resolved that easily. There must be deeper issues or features of themselves that were the cause, instead of being caused by, these more surface level behaviors and attachments: I just don't buy that they're resolved simply because Kaworu vows to no longer try to make Shinji happy, or Asuka merely lodges with a different dude.
Shin attempts to completely break the continuity of suffering and treat it as plain cause and effect, crafting effigies out of thin air, but there's no heroism if you're granting yourself a win against an imagined threat. Platitudes are not victories.
Après moi le déluge!
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