Katsuragi expedition...

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Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby order66 » Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:36 am

This has probably been debated thousands of times, but is there any good article explaining in detail this expedition? All the info that I've read lacks deepness (not explaining why they take the lance of Longuinus out of Adam to the Dead Sea, then try to put it back in his body etc...).

Also in episode 23 Ritsuko states: "Man found God and in their joy tried to make him theirs...the God they found had also disappeared by then,... they try to resurrect him on their own and the result was Adam", this is really confusing thought that what was found in Antartica was Adam, but she states that it was God (Ancestral Race), and Adam was a human creation result of trying to resurrect him...
Anyone have any clue?
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby Reichu » Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:47 am

The "god" that Ritsuko is referring to there is Adam. Doesn't make any sense for it to be the FAR in this context, which is pre-LILITH exposition. The human creation is the Evas; this is stated explicitly.

There really isn't much to say about the Katsuragi Expedition to begin with. It's a black box. Some deductions can be made, but little can be said for sure.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby order66 » Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:59 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:The "god" that Ritsuko is referring to there is Adam. Doesn't make any sense for it to be the FAR in this context, which is pre-LILITH exposition. The human creation is the Evas; this is stated explicitly.

There really isn't much to say about the Katsuragi Expedition to begin with. It's a black box. Some deductions can be made, but little can be said for sure.


Ok so I suppose then its a license they took with translation, because in the subs she clearly states "they try to resurrect him on their own and the result was Adam"
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Postby Reichu » Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:49 pm

I would consider that a translation misfire, yes.

The relevant part, as rendered in Platinum:
Man found God and in their joy, tried to make Him theirs.
That's why there was divine retribution.
That was fifteen years ago.
The God they found had also disappeared by then.
But then, they tried to resurrect God on their own.
The result was Adam.


What is interpreted here as "The result was Adam" is simply "Sore ga Adam" in the Japanese, which means nothing more than "That was Adam". Presumably, the "that" is question is the "God" (kami-sama) that has not yet been identified. This interpretation might seem as though it is confounded by the next part...

And imitating God, they created people from Adam.
The result was the Evas. [Sore ga Eva.]

...which superficially looks as though it is still treating "Adam" and "God" as two separate things. However, the bit here that's translated as "imitating God" is "kami-sama ni nisete", which may have been better rendered as "In the likeness of God". That is, the imitation that's happening here is not humanity imitating ("playing") God by creating people, but the Evas for being copies (imitations) of "God". The Evas are created from Adam, a.k.a. "God", hence they are in God's likeness. Thus a better translation would be: "And from Adam, people were created in God's likeness. They were the Evas."

For "Sore ga Adam", I would probably take the liberty of specifying "That god was Adam" or something. In English, when you refer to "that", attention might only go as far back as the most recent "that" available (say, the previous sentence), whereas Japanese handles this sort of thing with greater variety and versatility.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby sephirotic » Sun Jan 08, 2017 9:28 pm

I agree with Reichu that the ADV translation is not accurate for that scene specifically for that "Sore Ga Adam".

But I don't think that is enough to change the overall meaning of those lines because Ritsuko uses "KONDO" (next time, afterward or this time [implying a previous incident]) in relation to "Finding and losing God" and then (kondo) "Resurrecting God as Adam". The "kondo" connection is pretty clear here, so it's not a bad constructed sentence or miss-translation issue.

Anyway, there are some ways we can interpret Ritsuko lines, the following is a stretch but plausible:

Ritsuko could be referring symbolically to the understanding that "Humanity found its creators": Not that they found them physically, but rather that they finally understood what they origins were as they translated what the Dead Sea Scrolls meant. The problem now is what does she mean by "kieteshimatta" (Disappearing). Since the disappearing was consequence of trying to "posses" God, and thus resulting in the "punishment" of humanity in 2000, then maybe when Ritsuko later said that humanity then (kondo) tried to resurrect God AFTER the punishment, "and that was adam(sore ga Adam)", maybe she was referring as Adam resurrected as Kaworu without actually revealing the existence of Kaworu to Shinji and Misato.

My biggest issue here is with the "kondo" world. If this word was not present, then she could be referring to the previous line explaining that "happily possessing god, losing and being punished" meant: "they tried to resurrect Adam", both things being a symbolic as well as a more literal explanation of the same thing.

But I have a feeling that is not the case.

Alternatively there could be some other mechanics in the Second Impact regarding to actually (re?)-inserting the Spear of Longinus into Adam's core which never really made clear enough sense for us to understand. The biggest issue here is that one of the removed blend-in pictures of Adam found in Antartica with the Spear of Longinus transversing him from episode 21, suggests that Adam was dorment because of the Spear since the Adam vs Lilith issue 4 billion years in the past. Then, in the process of the "contact experiment" they removed the Spear for some purpose before inserting it again into Adam again in The september 13th. This is because of one specific background line in Episode 21 extra intro scene when a scientist asks "What about the spear? - It has been sitting here since it was shipped here last week from the Dead Sea".

This does not make much sense. Was Adam found with the spear inserted in his body in the first place? Then Why was the spear sent to the Dead Sea and then brought back? Two possibilities:

1) Adam was never found with the spear and that the removed picture was removed precisely because it was an incorrect canon, The Spear was at the Dead Sea together with the scrolls to begin with. However this doesn't make sense, because the series strongly suggests that the Spear has the power to disable an Angel if inserted in its core. The CI also explicity says that as Lilith crash landed, she lost her spear, thus the only alternative was that Adam's spear needed to disable Adam instead, which suggest in fact that picture was correct and Adam has been dormant with the spear inserted in his core until he was found, not to mention the added scene from episode 21 was produced around the same time the insert blend-ins were planned.

2) Adam was found with his spear, the spear was removed and Adam didn't immediately awaken (just like Lilith didn't imediate awaken when Unit 00 removes it from her core), the process is slow. The Spear was then sent for study(?) to Europe. During this process of removing Adam, some initial experiments regarding extracting samples and Realizing it has infinite energy occurred. As they saw Adam was regenerating, they decided to send the spear back to prevent the awakening. By them Seele already knew it had to disable Adam to prevent humanity eradication. Maybe the separation of the S2 Engine from the Core needed to be done with the opposite side of the spear, the joined one, so they had to remove the spear anyway.

Now wrapping everything up, a very big speculation I have that could fit with what Ritsuko was saying is the following based on the second scenario:

3 (Actually a more specific fanwank variant of the 2) The initial removal of the Spear was made not simply to study the Spear, but to remove the S2 Engine from Adam for Study. This is why in the meantime Katsuragi was able to realize the infinite power capability of Adam and attribute it to the S2 Organ (engine). The organ was actually sent together with the spear to Europe where it was going to be further studied. Undercover, however, this was done to prevent the full awakening of Adam. This particular theory explains why Adam just awakened partially without being able to fully eradicate Humanity. Without the S2 Engine, it didn't have enough energy for a full fledged impact and the Anti-At Field only expanded with his limited organic/Core energy storage. This makes more sense than Assuming the Spear acted on its own to Stop Adam again.

This process of removing the S2 Engine, realzing its full energy potential and the following awakening of Adam as well as Kaworu being born could all be symbolic behind the 2 steps and 3 elements described by Ritsuko

The 3rd hypothesis still has some unfinished details: A theory postulates that all the Angel embryos were sent across the globe when Adam awakened in 2000 due to a specific line in the background of episode 21 saying "AT Field subete kaihousareteikimasu" (全て 解決) which probably translates in plural to "All at fields are being released" similar to ADV translation. So "AT FieldS" in plural, refers to more than one being. Since all the angels have S2 engines, how could Adam not have an S2 Organ when he spawned his offspring? But then again, the Angels where only embryos that took 15 years to maturate, maybe the "eggs" inside Adam had only undeveloped S2 Organs anyway.

Anyway, all this fanwank is getting confusing. I had a couple of other less plausible hypothesis but I'll leave these two to be commented instead.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby Reichu » Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:29 pm

I don't see how kondo poses an issue any which way. Eijiro gives "in turn" as a possibility for the phrase kondo wa, and this works nicely. 'The god that had taken so long to find was completely gone, too. But in turn, they [humanity] tried to revive the god themselves.'

I think what Ritsuko is saying in this particular section of her spiel is fairly straightforward.

- Humans find God and try to make God theirs = The Katsuragi Expedition discovers Adam and attempts to contain and study her.
- Divine Retribution = Second Impact (cf. The Great Flood)
- That was 15 years ago = Second Impact happened 15 years ago.
- God vanishing = Adam blowing up and ceasing to exist as a skyscraper-sized physical god.
- Trying to revive God = Adam "egg" remnant collected and made to begin regeneration.

It's when Ritsuko finally loops back to Rei that things get weird.

The Spear / Dead Sea issue is one that annoys me greatly. Here's a thread I made to explore the problem. I'm content to just retreat into head canon for this one.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby sephirotic » Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:05 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:I don't see how kondo poses an issue any which way. Eijiro gives "in turn" as a possibility for the phrase kondo wa, and this works nicely. 'The god that had taken so long to find was completely gone, too. But in turn, they [humanity] tried to revive the god themselves.'
I think what Ritsuko is saying in this particular section of her spiel is fairly straightforward.


Well, again, I'm not as knowledgeable as you, but I don't see "kondo" connecting the two sentences as one explaining each other, It always sounded to me like one thing occurred after/in consequence of the other, even so, I agree that stretching the meanings you could interpret "losing adam" and then "resurrecting Adam" as an egg (or Kaworu like I suggested) for the following sentence like you did.

Anyway, I saw your comment regarding "sore". Interesting, indeed the English language doesn't have three referential pronoums equivalent to "are, sore kore". But many Latin languages like mine do. In Portuguesse, "isso foi Adam" (aquilo, isso, isto) works perfectly. But I don't see why "sore ga adam" should not refer to the sentence immediately before the one she just said: "They tried to revive the god on their own: 'that' was Adam". I think this "that" refers directly to the Revived God, but not to the "found god" itself. The main point here is that I don't think the "revived god" and the "lost god" are the same thing. If it the "adam" was meant to reference to the "found god", "Aquele que era Adão". "sore" refers to something relatively close but not immediately close, not "touchable". They'd use "are" for something more distant, specially if something closer is around (such as the closer sentence). It would have made more sense for me to use "are" and actually together with past tense, something like "are ga Adam deshita".

Also, What is confusing about the Rei explanation? It has always been pretty clear for me.

The Spear / Dead Sea issue is one that annoys me greatly. Here's a thread I made to explore the problem. I'm content to just retreat into head canon for this one.


Ha, here I was thinking I was bringing something new on the table but there is almost nothing you haven't noticed yourself too! That is actually a pretty interesting thread but I think most of my theory can fit in there, I'll go check it out later, I need to go to sleep real badly now.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby Reichu » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:11 am

View Original Postsephirotic wrote:I don't see "kondo" connecting the two sentences as one explaining each other, It always sounded to me like one thing occurred after/in consequence of the other

I'm not in disagreement. I wasn't under the impression that there was any way to interpret this part that didn't involve one thing happening after the other. It's treated this way in the Platinum translation I posted, even, so it feels like you're drawing attention to problem that never existed.

I agree that stretching the meanings you could interpret "losing adam" and then "resurrecting Adam" as an egg (or Kaworu like I suggested) for the following sentence like you did.

I rather doubt it's Kaworu being referred to. You need to remember when this exposition takes place and the function it's supposed to serve. Building upon and tying together information that has been previously divulged makes sense. We were shown an embryonic thing called "Adam" that's said to have been restored. We were made aware of an Eva-looking First Angel that blew up and caused First Impact. Kaji referred to the embryo as a "sample" in episode 21, i.e. it's a piece of a greater whole (that no longer exists). Ritsuko is providing clarification here that the First Angel that blew up is linked to the restored embryo -- they're both Adam. When you're first watching the show, this stuff is not immediately apparent, and needs exposition like Ritsuko's to put it into focus. Don't let hindsight result in a loss of perspective.

(Another huge tipoff that Kaworu is not intended: Ritsuko's speech was part of the show before Kaworu being Adam was incorporated into the mythos!)

As for sore vs. are -- the latter would not make sense on account of "god" (not a specific form of the god, just "god") being the thing that sore is referring to. "Kami-sama" is mentioned multiple times by Ritsuko, including the sentence prior to "Sore ga Adam". This proximity means that are is not appropriate, since it would instruct the listener to discount the just-mentioned "kami-sama" as being the thing identified as "Adam". I don't know why we would need to second-guess what is being said here, anyway. We KNOW that both the First Angel discovered by the Katsuragi Expedition and the embryo smuggled by Kaji are Adam. (Misato's speech to Shinji in 25' makes this unambiguous if nothing else does.) Why should such a basic point suddenly be in contention?
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby sephirotic » Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:00 am

View Original PostReichu wrote:I rather doubt it's Kaworu being referred to. You need to remember when this exposition takes place and the function it's supposed to serve. Building upon and tying together information that has been previously divulged makes sense. We were shown an embryonic thing called "Adam" that's said to have been restored. We were made aware of an Eva-looking First Angel that blew up and caused First Impact. Kaji referred to the embryo as a "sample" in episode 21, i.e. it's a piece of a greater whole (that no longer exists). Ritsuko is providing clarification here that the First Angel that blew up is linked to the restored embryo -- they're both Adam. When you're first watching the show, this stuff is not immediately apparent, and needs exposition like Ritsuko's to put it into focus. Don't let hindsight result in a loss of perspective.

(Another huge tipoff that Kaworu is not intended: Ritsuko's speech was part of the show before Kaworu being Adam was incorporated into the mythos!)

As for sore vs. are -- the latter would not make sense on account of "god" (not a specific form of the god, just "god")(...)anyway. We KNOW that both the First Angel discovered by the Katsuragi Expedition and the embryo smuggled by Kaji are Adam. (Misato's speech to Shinji in 25' makes this unambiguous if nothing else does.) Why should such a basic point suddenly be in contention?


My problem with Adam's embryo is that it is not really the reincarnation of Adam, it doesn't contam its Soul, only its S2 Engine. Kaworu is Adam reincarnated. I agree that the dialogue explain with elements that the viewer (and the characters) have been familiar until now, but then again it also brings new elements and we are talking about episode 23 here, Kaworu will come in the next episode after all. And how come Kaworu was not incorporated as Adam into the mythos? I reckon the duality of Adam vs Lilith, Rei vs Kaworu was probably a core element of the series, specially in regard to Oedipal symbolism right in the planning stages. The added dialogue between Seele and Kaworu in episode 24' was not meant to add details later planned or reviewed by the producers, but just to better explain what was going on.

But I won't insist in this, even if Ritsuko was referring to the embryo and not Kaworu, the idea remains the same: The resurrected god was a byproduct of the Second Impact. The embryo and Kaworu are both the byproducts of the second impact and complementary to each other, it doesn't really change that much to what Ritsuko was referring, so we are not really in a disagreement here, it just bothers me that in a literal sense "Resurrected Adam" was technically Kaworu, not the S2 organ in embryo form, regardless of Kaji calling it Adam back in episode 8.

As for the "sore" vs "are", to be honest I don't really get why do you think "sore" refers to the other sentence than the immediately before. And while are can't refer directly to the "god" with "are", it could refer to the PROCESS described in the sentence itself in the whole sentence, that is basically what I was meaning. But since we are kinda in an agreement in the process above, anyway, that doesn't really matter anymore.
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Re: Katsuragi expedition...

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Postby Reichu » Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:33 pm

I think you're splitting hairs never intended to be split. The show refers to the embryo as "Adam" on multiple occasions, Kaji says it was restored, and Kaworu is told that Gendo has Adam's revived flesh. Pretty straightforward. You're also assuming not only that Kaworu=Adam before the DC/EoE edits, but that Ritsuko possesses this information in the first place. She implies to Misato that Kaworu is an Angel, but that's not the same thing. Keep it simple!

The dissection of directional words really isn't necessary since Ritsuko's meaning is made lucid elsewhere. No need to go looking for a hidden message that's not there. Though I do relate to the temptation. :3
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