Is there anything that backs Asuka's Hype?

[amitakartok]

I was wondering... just how high is Asuka's IQ?

If she were to have a considerably above-average IQ, it explains at least some of her elitist behavior: it's not just because of the number but some high-IQ people really do find the average folk frustratingly dull, putting a strain on their ability to form interpersonal relationships.

[Mr. Tines]

Taking the "I already graduated" at face value, I took that as a given, that she'd be constantly simmering in frustration at how achingly slow normal people are -- it was one of the things that made her a very relatable character for me.

[amitakartok]

Same here. I know from experience how irritating even average people can feel to someone in the upper percentiles and that realization suddenly caused Asuka's personality to make a lot of sense.

[Mr. Tines]

Dropping this here, as I don't think it merits a thread of its own, a translation of the Japanese Charpedia wiki entry for Asuka.

My reaction was rather

[Gob Hobblin]

Huh...that wad...well, glowing, for a word.

....I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all about Asula, but...did that writer watch the same anime? Even accounting for the films, that seemed generous.

[Bagheera]

Um . . . I . . . Um . . .

[IronEvangelion]

Somebody needs to warn Asuka that her good twin is wrecking her reputation.

[Aether]

Is she just like Vegeta in that she believes in her own hype?

Quick warning to any poor soul not yet aware: if you compare Asuka(or really any Eva character) to Vegeta on the Internet, Anon will be at your house with the neuses, or, well, at someone's house. . . .

[strawhatpatriot]

"A step into terror" brings some good hype to Asuka I guess.

[user-02]

I was wondering... just how high is Asuka's IQ?

If she were to have a considerably above-average IQ, it explains at least some of her elitist behavior: it's not just because of the number but some high-IQ people really do find the average folk frustratingly dull, putting a strain on their ability to form interpersonal relationships.

I don't think her IQ is ever established, but we can assume it's high. Probably in the 140-160 range ("extremely gifted"), and possibly higher. Regardless of what shortcuts were put in place to accelerate Asuka to college graduation at the age of 13, she couldn't have completed college-level coursework by age 13 unless she were highly gifted. (Note the difference between "by" and "at." She's said to have graduated college at 13, which implies that she was tackling her first college-level work in the vicinity of 9-10 years old!).

We should note that IQ is a measurement of pure potential. It is not a measurement of accomplishment, or of attained knowledge. It is not incongruous for a person with an extremely high IQ to underperform in the "real world," outside of an academic setting. In fact, the sweet spot for maximizing career success seems to be an IQ in the 120s to 130s. Higher than that, and you become almost too self-aware, and/or your perspectives become too sharp and too nuanced to allow you to operate smoothly in the "normal" world.

In this sense, I'd say that Asuka lives up to her hype -- but her hype, in and of itself, is a metric with insufficient predictive value. (Assuming "hype" to be IQ/potential/accolades/status earned prior to her assignment with NERV, in the fields of academia and military theory).

[Bagheera]

I don't think her IQ is ever established, but we can assume it's high. Probably in the 140-160 range ("extremely gifted"), and possibly higher. Regardless of what shortcuts were put in place to accelerate Asuka to college graduation at the age of 13, she couldn't have completed college-level coursework by age 13 unless she were highly gifted. (Note the difference between "by" and "at." She's said to have graduated college at 13, which implies that she was tackling her first college-level work in the vicinity of 9-10 years old!).

It might have even been when she was twelve. She's thirteen until the very end of the series, and when she drops the bit with Shinji she says she graduated "last year". That could be taken to mean last term (it would be June in the States, but I don't know how the school year runs in Germany), but if she literally meant the previous year she would have been twelve at the time.

[Trajan]

Not really. She may meet all the mental and physical qualifications as advertised, but she comes with loads of emotional baggage that prevent her from being truly effective.

[KingXanaduu]

^

In a sense: "A LOT of bark, TOO much bite."

In fact, the same could be said about Shinji, Rei, hell, EVERYONE in the cast. They ALL have baggage of some kind that prevents them from being effective people, whether in battle, or real life.

[LukeMM95]

I think Asuka could do a lot of damage (especially against some of the earlier Angels), it's just that we never got to see it until the fight with the MP Evas.

Asuka's main problem seems to be that she's too aggressive. She always wants to just rush at the enemy without much of a battle plan. She was the one who came up with the plan to take down Matarael and I think if she did that more often, she'd be more effective in battle. Asuka always wanted to be the hero/heroine when really she should have just tried to be a good teammate. We saw how effective she and Shinji were against Israfel but unfortunately the two never worked together like that again. Her pride is her downfall.

[Monk Ed]

The topic became very much no longer about Asuka.

Thus it was sliced in twain, without hesitation.

Reference: "And if ye fall to the Beast, I shall cut thee in twain, without hesitation!" - Cosmas, Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption, recalled from memory because even a Google search will not provide me the exact quote, so utterly obscure is this game. Sadface.