Oedipus motif for Shinji

soda7777777 · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:01 am Post subject: Oedipus motif for Shinji

So after watching the two Rebuild movies, I happened to notice a slight romance between Shinji and Rei. My question is if you guys feel Anno is doing this to create an even bigger mindfuck for Shinji than he did in the tv series? My reasoning for it being like Oedipus Rex, is that Oedipus was a slight bit upset when he found out that his wife was his mother as well.

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Lonecow12 · Adam Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Age: 29 Gender: Male

I think that was always the plan, but he got sidetracked with Asuka when he created her and realized how she was a much better character.

Also I hope Shinji just goes the full gambit and kills Gendou with his own hands this time.

carla · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:04 pm Post subject:

i think the possibility was always latent, not only in rebuild (although after rebuild!zeruel, it arguably seems more blatant this time around. or is that more emotional and less sexual, perhaps? i don't know). and yes, it definitely has a mindfuck element to it (like everything else in the EVAverse)-- of course, whether that element is a dealbreaker or whether it can be worked around, that's up to each person's shipping preference.

Lonecow12 wrote:

Also I hope Shinji just goes the full gambit and kills Gendou with his own hands this time.

i love you, lonecow.

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bittersweet ending: episode 24. the angels are gone and mankind is safe... but tokyo-3 has been ruined; kaji is dead; toji is a cripple; kensuke, hikari, and their families have moved away, taking pen-pen with them; asuka is catatonic; ritsuko is in prison; misato is a nervous wreck; rei is "the third one"; and shinji is utterly broken psychologically after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the course of the whole series. come the movie? don't worry! it gets worse! ~from the source of all wisdom in the world.

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esselfortium · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:41 pm Post subject:

Yeah, the Oedipal themes in Rebuild are pretty nearly impossible to miss.

I'm hoping the remaining film(s) will continue the trend and become progressively more ham-fisted in their allusions until we get a climax of Gendo piloting an Eva in a final battle against Shinji.

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The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

MugwumpHasNoLiver · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:45 pm Post subject:

I hope Shinji gouges out his eyes at the end of Q. That would be bitchin'.

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Lucretius · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:23 pm Post subject:

Lonecow12 wrote:

I think that was always the plan, but he got sidetracked with Asuka when he created her and realized how she was a much better character.

That would explain a lot.

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facespace · Adam Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Age: 18 Gender: Male

I see the connections between the two, but I feel that since Rei is not really Yui (Unit 1 has her soul), that Anno is not really gonna go down that path. Furthermore, unlike Shinji who knows what his mother looked like and resembled, Oedipus Rex blindly fell in love with his mother without any clue of the consequences. I feel that the Shinji and Rei relationship is gonna be more like family and not a romance. I don't picture things happening the way you do.

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Lonecow12 · Adam Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Age: 29 Gender: Male

In the original Shinji freaked out when he saw the jar of Rei Real Dolls Gendou was keeping in his basement. That is what led him to say "I'm scared of Ayanami." I don't think it had much to do with her being a clone of his mom.

Also I think a lot of his interactions with Rei could be interpreted as brother/sister relationship. It only seems like they are flirting when Asuka looks at them and gets jealous. But she has no idea what is going on, so what else would she think? Plus, how many anime have their been where the girl gets jealous over the main guy talking with his normal sister.

If there was a girl I knew, and I noticed she smelled like my mom enough to say, "The smell of my mother, the smell of (the girl I know)." That would be more than enough for me to say, "No thanks. But lets still be friends."

facespace · Adam Joined: 07 Jul 2010 Age: 18 Gender: Male

I think Asuka is just an attention whore. The Asuka Shinji relationship remains merely a crush on each other.

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carla · Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:27 am Post subject:

was shinji ever actually aware that rei was a clone of his mother? i don't think so. i'm trying to find that in the script for episode 23 but so far it seems all he's scared of is the fact that she's a clone (or more to the point, that she's... artificial? part angel? actually physically replaceable?), nowhere is it said she's a clone of yui.

i know he said she seemed like a mother, but that doesn't mean he immediately put two and two together after ritsuko's reveal.

in any case, i think the incest angle was more for us as an audience to add to the pile, that for shinji. we were given enough hints to be pretty sure about it, but shinji didn't get the same. i think they added that angle because it makes things even more complex to us when it comes to deciding who rei is, what rei is, and where her relationship with shinji comes from or where her decisions regarding shinji (and humanity) come from. and to squick us. possibly. you never know with the japanese.

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bittersweet ending: episode 24. the angels are gone and mankind is safe... but tokyo-3 has been ruined; kaji is dead; toji is a cripple; kensuke, hikari, and their families have moved away, taking pen-pen with them; asuka is catatonic; ritsuko is in prison; misato is a nervous wreck; rei is "the third one"; and shinji is utterly broken psychologically after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the course of the whole series. come the movie? don't worry! it gets worse! ~from the source of all wisdom in the world.

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Lucretius · Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:18 pm Post subject:

carla wrote:

was shinji ever actually aware that rei was a clone of his mother? i don't think so.

From episode 24:

SHINJI:
Rei Ayanami... So, that feeling I got really was her.
Like Mother...
Rei Ayanami and Mother...
What are you doing, Father?

Not that this really has anything to do with Rebuild.

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He shuddered a bit, remembering the somewhat creepy level of detail Kaji had gone into, while rubbing a watermelon in a disturbingly sexual way.

Life is a continuous nut-kicking contest where your turn comes last if ever. -majlund

Proud supporter of Shinji x Sachiel

Hyper Shinchan · Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 12:33 am Post subject:

Lonecow12 wrote:

I think that was always the plan, but he got sidetracked with Asuka when he created her and realized how she was a much better character.

If you've not noticed it that character has been almost completely dropped in the NME (at least so far) =_='''

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Lucretius · Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:13 am Post subject:

Hyper Shinchan wrote:

If you've not noticed it that character has been almost completely dropped in the NME (at least so far) =_='''

Is this thread really going to turn into "Ma waifu is better than your waifu?" Really?

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He shuddered a bit, remembering the somewhat creepy level of detail Kaji had gone into, while rubbing a watermelon in a disturbingly sexual way.

Life is a continuous nut-kicking contest where your turn comes last if ever. -majlund

Proud supporter of Shinji x Sachiel

soda7777777 · Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 1:38 am Post subject:

In any case, Shinji is about two heartbeats away from sleeping with a physical copy of his mother. Maybe not mentally, but she's still a clone.

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SaltyJoe · Donor Joined: 23 Apr 2009 Age: 22 Gender: Male

soda7777777 wrote:

My question is if you guys feel Anno is doing this to create an even bigger mindfuck for Shinji than he did in the tv series?

Yes, for two reasons:

1., As noted by others, NME so far has spent quite a lot of time with Shinji's daddy issues. I sense that this is the setup for drawing parallels between the Gendo/Yui and the Shinji/Rei dynamics (i mean besides those that are already there). To put it simply, the Oedipal tragedy angle is the best way to go in using what the story looks like so far. Otherwise, all that time spent wanking about Shinji's daddy issues (and God knows, they spent lots of time with that) will feel like an exercise in pointlessness.

2., I fail to see how a full blown, bump free, happy happy romance between Shinji and Rei would serve either sides of the story: namely, Shinji's emotional development (negative developments are developments too) would stand in place, and the post-apocalyptic drama wouldn't really benefit from schmaltz at all. Again, the Oedipal angle is the best way for drama.

This probably means that NME would end pairingless. Well, to me that would be nothing new compared to EoTV or EoE, but i seem to be in the minority with that.

EDIT:
Just to contradict everybody else, i hope the next movie will feature Gendo beating Shinji senseless for fucking up his "life with Yui" plans regarding Instrumentality, as it will most likely happen.

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Hyper Shinchan · Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 8:22 am Post subject:

Lucretius wrote:

Is this thread really going to turn into "Ma waifu is better than your waifu?" Really?

No, we should leave those discussions to the /a/'s users otherwise I doubt that they'll have anything else to do.

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Lonecow12 · Adam Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Age: 29 Gender: Male

Hyper Shinchan wrote:

If you've not noticed it that character has been almost completely dropped in the NME (at least so far) =_='''

Well that was kind of my point. In the original he had bigger plans for Rei but got sidetracked with Asuka. Now he had time to step back and say, "Okay back to what I originally intended, and I'll try and keep Asuka in the background."

However, even though she is in there less in NME, I still think Asuka steals the show. No matter how much her trys to dial her back Asuka is always going to overpower Rei, just because of their personality types.

carla · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:56 am Post subject:

thanks for that, lucretius! i had forgotten about that part. i find it interesting, though: how did shinji make the connection? ritsuko didn't say anything about yui when she destroyed the reiquarium, as far as i remember. did shinji just put two and two together because of the "motherly" feeling he got from rei? (seems like quite a stretch, but i tend to be a skeptic so i may not be the best person to judge that, maybe shinji finds it easier to believe in conspiracy theories...)

and linking this to rebuild, can we take the "smell of my mother, smell of ayanami" moment to mean that shinji is figuring it out in rebuild much in the same way he did in NGE? even before the issue of the reiquarium comes into play? (if there is a reiquarium in rebuild, although i guess is still pretty likely since rei considers herself "replaceable").

SaltyJoe wrote:

This probably means that NME would end pairingless. Well, to me that would be nothing new compared to EoTV or EoE, but i seem to be in the minority with that.

you are (not) alone on that, SJ! that was kind of my general feeling about it, too.

SaltyJoe wrote:

i hope the next movie will feature Gendo beating Shinji senseless for fucking up his "life with Yui" plans regarding Instrumentality, as it will most likely happen.

that would be an interesting idea, considering that shinji seems to be inadvertently doing what gendo wanted him to do this time around. or so it seems from his last line in 2.xx... (heh, i just had a mental image of gendo trying to beat up kaworu for interrupting 3I. of course gendo wouldn't get a punch in, but it would be hilarious).

_________________
bittersweet ending: episode 24. the angels are gone and mankind is safe... but tokyo-3 has been ruined; kaji is dead; toji is a cripple; kensuke, hikari, and their families have moved away, taking pen-pen with them; asuka is catatonic; ritsuko is in prison; misato is a nervous wreck; rei is "the third one"; and shinji is utterly broken psychologically after having to kill the only person who has offered him unconditional love in the course of the whole series. come the movie? don't worry! it gets worse! ~from the source of all wisdom in the world.

kNET | GAW | my graphics | my fanfics | re-deconstruct: the EVA rebuild fanlisting

esselfortium · Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:02 pm Post subject:

Lonecow12 wrote:

Well that was kind of my point. In the original he had bigger plans for Rei but got sidetracked with Asuka. Now he had time to step back and say, "Okay back to what I originally intended, and I'll try and keep Asuka in the background."

I'm not so sure about that. Even as far back as the Proposal, Asuka seemed to have been intended to get quite a bit of screentime and interaction with Shinji.

_________________
A Terrible Flood - Cumulonimbus antagonistic debut album (2007)
Seventeen More Times - Followup album coming someday

NGE: The Cutting Room Floor, a fanfic by Lucretius and myself about the inevitable insanity of the off-days we didn't get to see.

The EGF version is more like "Shinji, an evil transsexual rapist who is incapable of love, learned nothing from his experiences and died as soon as the credits rolled." - Lucretius

Lonecow12 · Adam Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Age: 29 Gender: Male

esselfortium wrote:

I'm not so sure about that. Even as far back as the Proposal, Asuka seemed to have been intended to get quite a bit of screentime and interaction with Shinji.

Okay I've checked out the Proposal on this site, and other than some images of Asuka in group shots I don't really see any evidance pointing to the fact the was suposed to big a big character. If someone can point me in the direction where it is stated let me know.

The fact that Asuka only gets one single shot in the intro (Cruel Angel Thesis) and Rei has like 30, makes me think Asuka wasn't supposed to be as big of a deal as she was.