"Anno intended Rei to be creepy"

[Ornette]

At the risk of stating the obvious, Rei isn't autistic. The reason she doesn't have any friends is because she's an evil alien with a death wish.

The autism is not about Rei, but about "regular ppl without social skills" vs "every single person (of these regular ppl) has social skills".

[Bagheera]

How on earth could Rei possibly be construed as evil? She is by leaps and bounds the most selfless character in the show, rivaled only by perhaps Kaworu. Whenever she shows any sort of will-power, drive, or motivation, it's always to advance someone else's well-being, and claims to have an empathy and connection to "all people."

That selflessness worked out very well for Shinji, in both cases.

Oh wait.

[Azathoth]

How on earth could Rei possibly be construed as evil? She is by leaps and bounds the most selfless character in the show, rivaled only by perhaps Kaworu. Whenever she shows any sort of will-power, drive, or motivation, it's always to advance someone else's well-being, and claims to have an empathy and connection to "all people."

Exactly. She's a part of that against which Eva is preaching, the notion that everyone else is more important than me so I should just die (and of course the hypocrisy this entails). Selflessness is not really portrayed as a virtue. Eva's message, as might be expected from a man struggling with his own head, tends strongly towards putting one's own house in order and strongly tends towards contempt for intentional self-sacrifice.

This is not to say that there aren't moments at which Rei isn't portrayed as evil. But she still is just one more body Shinji has to add to the heap that justifies his being the hero of this show.

[Warren Peace]

Well, she does add everybody's body to her own heap (pool?) in the end. I don't know if you'd call it evil, but...

[child of Lilith]

How on earth could Rei possibly be construed as evil? She is by leaps and bounds the most selfless character in the show, rivaled only by perhaps Kaworu. Whenever she shows any sort of will-power, drive, or motivation, it's always to advance someone else's well-being, and claims to have an empathy and connection to "all people."

This. Well said, AuraTwilight.

[Kendrix]

I think we can all agree that using the word "evil" is pointless, overdrawn character bashing.
We're talking about someone who got beaten up cause she hesitated to shoot something with a classmate of hers in it and voices her concern for the main character's well-being on regular basis.
Most of the instances where she shows any animosity are because someone badmouthed her loved ones.
Heck, she went out of her way to offer advice to someone who treated her like cat littler since day one, or try and show understanding to a being that was trying to absorbe her against her will.
By what we see, Rei seems to be quite the kindhearted individual.


What the show treats as "bad" is not selflessness, but valueing oneself too little. There's a difference: low self-esteem: "I'm worth crap so everything else is more important by default". selflessness: "I value my life, but I value something else even more"
It is true that Rei has the former problem at the beginning (like, well, half the cast, so how does she "represent" it any more than Shinji, Asuka or Misato do?) but then, character developement happened, after which she needs to be put in the latter category: By ep 23, she didn't blow herself up cause she just didn't care (She tells Armisael that she doesn't appreciate being absorbed because she's herself and not Armisael.), but because she did care about Shinji.

Kaworu has an "alien soul" as well and while he's not exactly the most normal person in the world, he has no problem reaching out to people and reading them like books.
Rei's inability to connect is nothing that is inherently different about her just for being her (like it would be in an autistic person who might learn strategies to cope with their limitations, but will never become an average person).
It's that she is bitterly unhappy from knowing she's replacable, being told she exists for just one purpose and being raised in a lab (where her only real human contact was Gendo who's not exactly good at socializing himself - there are no other children for her to interact with, for her to "leatn" how to interact with them. You know, no baby is born with the ability to smile - they learn it after having their parents smile at them for some months. I rememer when my little sister learned to do that - it was a real breakthrough for our communications with her because now, she could not only complain when something was wrong, but also tell us when she liked something.)
Its less an inherent difference and more like damage that can at least partially be reversed - After she gets some more "input", she starts acting surprisingly like a normal, if somewhat reclusive, but pretty nice teen.

[the_seventh_child]

We're talking about someone who got beaten up cause she hesitated to shoot something with a classmate of hers in it and voices her concern for the main character's well-being on regular basis.
Most of the instances where she shows any animosity are because someone badmouthed her loved ones.

The first one is about Toji right? The second one?

Damn it must have been a really long time since I watched the series, cause I can't remember shit from the first episodes. Maybe it's time for a re-watch.

[Kendrix]

The first one is about Toji right? The second one?

Damn it must have been a really long time since I watched the series, cause I can't remember shit from the first episodes. Maybe it's time for a re-watch.

Yes, the first one is about Touji. After Asuka gets taken out by surprise, Gendo orders Rei to attack Bardiel from afar/behind and to avoid getting to close to it until Shinji arrives as Reinforcement.
Rei aims, put hesistates to pull the trigger, thinking "But... he's inside..." Just as she seemed about to shoot, Bardiel notices her and pwns her in a matter of seconds. If she had shot right away, she might've hit Bardiel before it noticed her.

the second one refers to both her slapping Shinji for insulting Gendo in ep 5 and starting an Argument with Asuka when she badmouths Shinji after he gets eaten by Leliel.

[the_seventh_child]

Yes, the first one is about Touji. After Asuka gets takrn out by surprise, Gendo orders Rei to attack Bardiel from afar/behind and to avoid getting to close to it until Shinji arrives as Reinforcement.
Rei aims, put hesistates to pull the trigger, thinking "But... he's inside..." Just as she seemed about to shoot, Bardiel notices her and pwns her in a matter of seconds. If she had shot right away, she might've hit Bardiel before it noticed her.

the second one refers to both her slapping Shinji for insulting Gendo in ep 5 and starting an Argument with Asuka when she badmouths Shinji after he gets eaten by Leliel.

Right yeah, it just came back to me now.

I think that pretty much puts in rest the argument on whether Rei is apathetic or weird; it's her behavior that sometimes comes across like this, but her, herself, she isn't.
She's actually curious on how to properly communicate with others, is interested in understanding them blah etc blah.

also lol@ implication of her being evil.

[Kendrix]

I guess it's also a subjective thing - the same traits that creep one person out might fascinate another and make yet another feel sorry for her.
Even in-universe, we have ppl who hate Rei's guts, those who are rather meh about her and others who like her a lot.

[Hyper Shinchan]

This is not to say that there aren't moments at which Rei isn't portrayed as evil.

Any example, besides Rei I bullying Naoko?

What the show treats as "bad" is not selflessness, but valueing oneself too little. There's a difference: low self-esteem: "I'm worth crap so everything else is more important by default". selflessness: "I value my life, but I value something else even more"

Well, I debate with myself on this point, I tend to agree with you but her acts were heavily influenced by her replaceability, which lets her give a "different" value to her life compared to other people. I do believe that at the end of her life the desire of disappearing probably was almost absent from Rei II's mind and she didn't hate herself, she was the one who feared her disappearance in EoTV after all, but I'm not sure about the amount of value that she gave to her life. On the other hand I always thought that her tears before dying were proof of her attachment to life, from this prospective her act could have been selfless like you said but I think that it's more a personal feeling/impression rather than a solid conviction.

[Kendrix]

Any example, besides Rei I bullying Naoko?

Wouldn't even call that bullying either. She was a little kid and didn't know what she was saying. She might've thought that "old hag" is actually Naoko's name.
Any possible mean intent there doesn't go beyond what any normal kid is capable of.
at worst, it's like someone's annoying little sister saying: "But Mommy says I'm allowed to do this, so I don't have to listen to you, stupid XP!"

If anyone in that scene is monstrously creepy, it's NAOKO, who should be killed with fire.

[Azathoth]

Any example, besides Rei I bullying Naoko?

I think you got tripped up by the double (triple?) negative. My point was that reasonably often, Rei isn't portrayed as something damaging to Shinji.

[Hyper Shinchan]

I think you got tripped up by the double (triple?) negative.

You're right, I was a little sleepy yesterday because I stayed awake for more than 24 hours.

If anyone in that scene is monstrously creepy, it's NAOKO, who should be killed with fire.

Well, Naoko is just another adult-only-in-appearence, I wouldn't place too much blame on her.

[Kendrix]

Still. The Akagis should be killed with fire. I seriously wonder why anyone bothers deliberating on wether Rei is creepy when there's these two in the show.
And you know, any potential "creepy factors" in Rei are the parts of her character that can't kill you this side of the screen. We have socially withdrawn, lonely girls who feel insignificant over here as well, but few of them happen to be alien clones.

The likes of the Akagis actually lurks over here, ready to stab you with their crazy yandere knives.

You know, it had been little Shinji and not Rei I, Naoko would have killed him just the same. He also looks a bit like Yui, doesn't he? And he also was a little kid at the time, like, little enough to just repeat something he hears a parental figure saying without reflecting on it.

[Bagheera]

Still. The Akagis should be killed with fire. I seriously wonder why anyone bothers deliberating on wether Rei is creepy when there's these two in the show.

Oh, come on. It's not like they turned the planet's population into goop or anything.

[Stryker]

I agree with Bagheera.

As fucked up as they are, they are also responsible for keeping humanity safe.

In fact, if you put it this way: Rei was to be used by Gendo in order to fulfill his wish of uniting with his wife. At EoE, Ritsuko would've destroyed Lilith, and everyone else within the building. Of course, this would be killing everyone else who was responsible for keeping humanity safe, but at this point, it was either that or Third Impact starting (which it did) and killing off thousands of other people (which it didn't, thank Rei for that). Naoko was under the same circumstances as Ritsuko, but what she was doing was killing someone because she was royally pissed off. Ritsuko was technically doing that as well, but through "butterfly effect," she could've saved billions of people.

So, in a list:

Ritsuko: Blow up Lilith, Gendo, Rei, and the other people in the compound - save billions of people.

Gendo: (should his plan work) finally reunite with his wife at potentially the cost of billions of people.

Rei: (almost) fell with Gendo's plan (till the last second), could've also been responsible for billions of lives being eradicated.

In this perspective, Ritsuko could almost be seen as the ultimate tragic hero. Of course, that's just me being devil's advocate. I think Ritsuko is pretty messed up. This is off topic too, I think.

[Sachi]

I think you're highly over exaggerating, Kendrix. The Akagi's may have a latent murderous nature among them, but that doesn't exactly make them evil. We see enough of their character in the show to tell that they're normal, good-intentioned people that happened to snap under stress. At one point Shinji intended to destroy half of Nerv HQ, but that doesn't qualify him as evil, does it? The Akagi's, like any other in this show, have unique ways in which they deal with the shitty circumstances presented to them throughout the plot.

[Kendrix]

You would've thought that "kill it with fire" was blatant enough a hyperbole...

[Bagheera]

You would've thought that "kill it with fire" was blatant enough a hyperbole...

It can be applied to most anyone in the show, though. Including Rei.