However, while I can accept not having answers to most of the questions (What the hell is the Lance of Longinus made of, and how does it do what it does? What were the FAR? Why did they want to populate the Universe? How was SEELE formed? How did they get their hands on the Dead Sea Scrolls? What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?), one things keeps bothering me.
And that's the "scripts" of Gendo Ikari and SEELE. It's not superfluous like most of the lore, it's mentioned many times in the show. But it's got me going in circles trying to figure it out, and I was wondering if the seasoned members here had any concise answers.
So, Gendo's script differs from SEELE's in some way drastic enough that he'd want to keep his own plans secret from them. But, isn't both their goals ultimately Human Instrumentality? I know Gendo only wants to achieve Instrumentality so he can see his wife Yui again, but what do his motivations have to do with anything? If it's just the same end goal, why does he have to keep his plans secret from SEELE?
I mean, I suppose you could say, based on the SEELE ending in NGE2, that SEELE's plan was to use Kaworu to manipulate Instrumentality so that only they got to become a divine being, but I have a feeling that wasn't something they were thinking about back when they were making the show. I've heard that Hideaki Anno wrote the show episode-by-episode anyways, I don't think he was thinking that far ahead. Unless he was and I'm stupid.
And, the resolution to those plans has me confused as hell too. So, Unit 01 is necessary for Instrumentality? Why, exactly? I've heard plenty of sources saying that Unit 01 was the only Eva modeled after Lilith instead of Adam, like the others. So... would that mean that merging Unit 01 with Lilith would just complete Lilith's body? Is it that simple? That doesn't seem like the answer, though, since Lilith has shown a clear ability to regenerate its own body... Does Unit 01 have some other part of Lilith contained within it? Is it the fact that Unit 01 has a human soul in its core, like that's the catalyst for opening the floodgates to suck up all of humanity's souls? Again, that seems like a wrong answer, I can't imagine Lilith not possessing the power to just open the Doors of Guf of their own will.
And why was Gendo so freaked out about Rei merging with Lilith to create the Giant Naked Rei? Was he not intending on her merging with Lilith? But... when Rei merged with Lilith, she did the thing and the stuff to start Instrumentality, which... was his goal, right? Was he just pissed off that she took his hand? XD I'm son genuinely confused by what their actual damn plans were and how they were conflicting.
Maybe I'm a complete idiot and I missed some simple detail that would explain all of it to me. Maybe there's some other thread on this board discussing the same thing that I couldn't find. Ugh.
Great site, btw, I've always had a soft spot for phpBB boards.