What is the inspiration/reasoning behind the Angel's design?

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Re: The Design of the Angels.

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Postby AyrYntake » Fri Oct 01, 2010 5:25 am

View Original Postgreatmightypoo wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that are just terrible.

Yes...?:smirk:
Frankly, more creativity went into designing the Angels that could ever go into designing Evas. The Evas by definition are limited to a human form encased in an "armor" of some sort which, as we later find out, isn't armor at all. The best they can do with Eva designs is alter the colors and plating a little, and take some liberties with head design and number of eyes.
Also, symbolism. As in Angel-names-and-abilities symbolism. Part of the reason people go to lengths to remember the names are because they mean something.
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Re: The Design of the Angels.

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Postby greatmightypoo » Sat Oct 02, 2010 5:13 pm

View Original PostAyrYntake wrote:Yes...?:smirk:
Frankly, more creativity went into designing the Angels that could ever go into designing Evas. The Evas by definition are limited to a human form encased in an "armor" of some sort which, as we later find out, isn't armor at all. The best they can do with Eva designs is alter the colors and plating a little, and take some liberties with head design and number of eyes.
Also, symbolism. As in Angel-names-and-abilities symbolism. Part of the reason people go to lengths to remember the names are because they mean something.


I guess that's true, but I still think it's true to say that not much effort went into designing the Angels.

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Re: The Design of the Angels.

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Postby UrsusArctos » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:14 pm

View Original Postgreatmightypoo wrote:I guess that's true, but I still think it's true to say that not much effort went into designing the Angels.


Nope. While there are some things in Angel design that I find cliche (Eye beams, for instance), many of the Angel designs are actually pretty interesting, not to mention all the symbolism involved. I certainly wouldn't accuse them of a lack of effort.
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Postby Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:22 pm

So no one is going to ask why this topic was revived....

Really....

The angels are suited to similar terrain to those of Earth, but not as we know it (with plants and algae and stuff), they'd be best suited to normally uninhabitable worlds, most likely warm since Sandy and Ireul didn't like cold all that much although Bardiel would do fine in dense atmospheres. Remember, LCL lifeforms and angels weren't made to be on the same world, so Earth as we know it wouldn't be their ideal choice.
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Postby jojojoker » Mon Oct 04, 2010 9:05 am

Adam was sure creative about designing his kids....
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Postby AyrYntake » Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:01 pm

I don't think anyone really "designed" them in-universe per se; it's similar to our human personalities which no-one really "designs", not even ourselves. The thing that an Angel's physical form and a Lilim's character have in common is that each is a manifestation of its own ATF that grows to suit its environment; just as our personalities grow from childhood to protect and aid us into and through our adult lives, so an Angel's form grows from its embryonic state to provide it with survival and combat abilities in foreign (in this case, Lilith-suited) surroundings.
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Postby Assasinate » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:42 am

animals only adapts due to its environment...

well.. ANGELS adapts not in their environment...just only in 1 thing,
destruction
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Postby Sachi » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:52 am

This thread needs to stop coming back before I end up going back in time to murder myself in 2007.

Anyways, I still think it's still an interesting topic to ponder about the forms the Angels chose and what catalysts could have possibly lead to that form. Then again, we only get concrete ideas out of Angels like Shamshel and Gaghiel, so the rest would be a whole lot of fanwankery.
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Postby AyrYntake » Tue Oct 12, 2010 9:15 am

View Original PostSachi wrote:This thread needs to stop coming back before I end up going back in time to murder myself in 2007.

Someone would've done it anyway. You know they would.

...I mean they would've started a thread like this, not go back in time to murder you. :smirk:

I reckon it's pretty clear what made Sandalphon into Sandalphon, and ditto for Ireul and Bardiel. (I mean, being born inside a volcano, in a giant supercomputer or spawning on the body of an Eva doesn't exactly leave you spoiled for choices, does it?)

Evidence from some of the later Angels seems to point towards some kind of "learning process" shared between the Angels, that's to say that previous Angels' experiences help them decide what form to take or not to take. Zeruel, for example, after the unlucky eleven that came before him, seemed to know just where to aim to efficiently incapacitate an Eva and how to easily blast his way through to Central Dogma. After Zeruel's fall, those that came after seemed to get the idea that brute force wasn't the answer, giving rise to a series of "psychological" Angels like Arael, Armisael and (disputably) Kaworu.

I think we can also safely assume that Earth's gravity is to some extent a limitation on what Angels can and can't grow into...see Sahaquiel and Arael for examples. Down on the ground, the question of ability to manoeuvre and how large a target the Angel presents mean there's at least some incentive to reduce size, but in high orbit there's no such need whatsoever. Gaghiel, who was slightly restricted by "habitat" but didn't need to worry about maneuverability, grew to the size of an aircraft carrier. Another example of humongous bodily volume was Leliel; albeit pushed into another dimension, we know that Leliel could swallow whole city blocks if the need arose.

A fanwanking idea as to what inspired Ramiel--could it have been the shining commercial buildings of Tokyo-3? If we're talking Rebuild, the shifting and shrinking into the ground may even have been prompting new Ramiel's shapeshifting ability. It's a slight stretch of the imagination, but hey, it's science fiction after all.

Israfel...ahh, Israfel. I'm tempted to theorize that it was the stimulus of being cut in half that made them do what they did, but obviously that can't be right since they came with twin cores already present. Ergo I'm gonna have to pass on this one; I simply don't know. Maybe they had a traumatic childhood or something, that strengthened the bond between them to the point of symbiosis.

Finally, Matarael. Again, I have no clear bearing on how or why, but I guess "Angel of Rain" doesn't really offer that much in the way of weaponry. Matarael was also the earlier of two Angels to use the RAWR STYLIZED EYE MOTIF, which is highly symbolic in Judaeo-Christian Angels themselves, if only for the purpose of giving the audience a big laugh when it scares the wits out of Asuka earlier on.

View Original PostSachi wrote:Anyways, I still think it's still an interesting topic to ponder about the forms the Angels chose and what catalysts could have possibly lead to that form. Then again, we only get concrete ideas out of Angels like Shamshel and Gaghiel, so the rest would be a whole lot of fanwankery.

Oh I'm sorry; did you mean to close the thread? :toothy:
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Postby Azathoth » Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:06 am

View Original PostAyrYntake wrote:Evidence from some of the later Angels seems to point towards some kind of "learning process" shared between the Angels, that's to say that previous Angels' experiences help them decide what form to take or not to take. Zeruel, for example, after the unlucky eleven that came before him, seemed to know just where to aim to efficiently incapacitate an Eva and how to easily blast his way through to Central Dogma. After Zeruel's fall, those that came after seemed to get the idea that brute force wasn't the answer, giving rise to a series of "psychological" Angels like Arael, Armisael and (disputably) Kaworu.


Kaworu seemed to be able to have conferences with the previous Angels whenever he pleased, remember. I don't think this is a stretch at all.
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Postby AyrYntake » Tue Oct 12, 2010 1:45 pm

Really? Where was this again...?
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Postby Azathoth » Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:22 pm

View Original PostAyrYntake wrote:Really? Where was this again...?


His conversation with what initially appear to be Seele monoliths on the lake. Unlike all other instances of Seele monoliths, in which there are twelve (changed to seven in Rebuild, for reasons that I have a theory on, but that's something else entirely), there are fifteen monoliths - the number of angels that predeceased Kaworu, not including Lilith. Not to mention that the monoliths are apparently not real - Misato sees nothing while looking at them - and there's no hologram technology anywhere in the vicinity.
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Postby AyrYntake » Tue Oct 12, 2010 3:16 pm

Wow.
Never occurred to me that they'd be Angels. I'll be rewatching that scene now to see what they say to him.
Does that make the monoliths..."ghosts" of previous Angels?
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Postby Azathoth » Tue Oct 12, 2010 4:41 pm

View Original PostAyrYntake wrote:Wow.
Never occurred to me that they'd be Angels. I'll be rewatching that scene now to see what they say to him.
Does that make the monoliths..."ghosts" of previous Angels?


It's not clear whether they're actually connected to the souls of the dead angels or simply some kind of manifestation of Kaworu's mind - his soul is the soul responsible for creating these things, after all. But they're not Seele, so I do believe they're related to the other angels somehow.
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Postby Reichu » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:15 am

I thought I was the only person crazy enough to suggest that the monoliths had something to do with Angels.

Remember, "Seele" means "soul", and where else in NGE do you see monoliths...? Grave markers. OH SHI--

(It gets even more crazy if you consider that the lake is where Armisael and an amalgamation of previous Angels had blown up mere days before.)
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Postby NemZ » Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:20 am

It's too bad they didn't go the Xenogears route and have the Seele council all already dead but technologically maintained, perhaps even agasint their will. That would make their whole instrumentality plan much more personally understandable, really.

Back on topic though, I'd speculate that even the weirdest angels are a case of form following function (or in this case design following the needs of the script, and when in doubt they ass-pulled the eye design motif from Nadia).

Establish the angels are a reflection of humanity:
Sachiel = suit
Iruel = technology
Bardiel = eva
Armisael = genes
Kaworu = pilot

Explore challenging combat environments:
Gaghiel = underwater
Sandalphon = in lava
Arael = midair (in the proposal, anyway)

Explore interesting combat tactics:
Ramiel = sniper (a prism to focus the beam :D)
Israfel = teamwork
Sahaquiel = kamikaze/paratrooper
Zeruel = an overwhelming opponent

Other:
Shamshel = tentacles > inspired by tentacle rape mosnters, perhaps?
Matarael = acid attack > bugs and stuff, possibly even the facehugger from alien?
Liliel = Shadow > inspired by Jungian Shadow archetype, which Shinji faces inside
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Postby Azathoth » Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:03 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:(It gets even more crazy if you consider that the lake is where Armisael and an amalgamation of previous Angels had blown up mere days before.)


Oh God, I didn't even think of this. And Ritsuko (or Maya maybe?) even says some technobabble about there being bad psychic vibes in the area.
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Postby Seph » Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:34 pm

View Original PostReichu wrote:I thought I was the only person crazy enough to suggest that the monoliths had something to do with Angels.

Remember, "Seele" means "soul", and where else in NGE do you see monoliths...? Grave markers. OH SHI--

(It gets even more crazy if you consider that the lake is where Armisael and an amalgamation of previous Angels had blown up mere days before.)

But, annoyingly, the conversation still doesn't make much sense. I wonder whether we'll ever crack ep. 24...

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Postby Reichu » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:03 pm

View Original PostSeph wrote:But, annoyingly, the conversation still doesn't make much sense.

Sure doesn't, but the fanfic opportunities are pretty FUCK YEAH!

I wonder whether we'll ever crack ep. 24...

I can probably bet real money on that one.

Azathoth wrote:Oh God, I didn't even think of this. And Ritsuko (or Maya maybe?) even says some technobabble about there being bad psychic vibes in the area.

Can't remember if it's actually spoken, but the map of ex-Tokyo-3 refers to it as a Psycho Hazard Area. If it's inhabited by a bunch of dead Angels, yeah, the designation might actually make (a modicum of) sense for once!

Also,

SPOILER: Show
NERV INTELLIGENCE AGENT #1:
Somethin' funny is going on here.
The missing Second Children must be connected somehow to those creepy Angel ghosts.

NERV INTELLIGENCE AGENT #2:
They're not Angel ghosts, Hiroshi, they're ghost Angels.

NERV INTELLIGENCE AGENT #1:
Huh?

NERV INTELLIGENCE AGENT #2:
"Angel ghost" would suggest than an Angel died, and became a ghost later,
but a ghost Angel is a ghost that later made a conscious decision to be a Angel.

NERV INTELLIGENCE AGENT #1:
No, Ken. Then they are Angel ghosts, because they're the ghosts of Angels.
Last edited by Reichu on Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby AyrYntake » Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:14 am

SPOILER: Show
ADAMghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghostAngelghosts
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