Reichu wrote:I'm sort of skeptical that Anno was making some kind of reference specifically to LotR. You probably weren't even suggesting that, but... It's no secret that Tolkien was a religious guy and that Anno & company drew many of NGE's concepts from Judaio-Christian tradition.

Yes, it was only the similarity of greater spirits being embodied in lesser forms I was trying to bring across. In fact I doubt if anyone at Gainix was a big Tolkien fan. I could be wrong, but I don't think they've done many swords and sourcery type shows, which you might expect from big Tolkien fans. Perhaps The Eva Monkey can tell us more?

Shin-seiki wrote:what would Lilith's motive be to allow this to happen? This turns on its head the feeling I've always had that puuting Lilith's soul into a human body (at least in size and form, if not in terms of constituent matter) was another indignity inflicted on her by her puny offspring, comparable to crucifying her and poking her with a giant fork, etc...

I don't think Lilith really cared one way or the other, unlike Yui who wanted to remain in Unit-01. We could just be looking at a completely apathetic source of life, who, when Gerhin turned on the big Soul-O-Vac 9000, just decided to go with the flow since it had nothing else planned for the next millenium. Or maybe the prospect of a reprieve from the terminal boredom from hanging on a cross for the last few eons was just too tempting to pass up.

Originally posted on: 13-Sep-2005, 16:31 GMT

Reichu wrote:I'm sort of skeptical that Anno was making some kind of reference specifically to LotR. You probably weren't even suggesting that, but... It's no secret that Tolkien was a religious guy and that Anno & company drew many of NGE's concepts from Judaio-Christian tradition.

A reference is intentional. This is "applicability" - in other words, Anno may have known nothing about it, but it still seems to "fit" as an analogy for the character.

Originally posted on: 13-Sep-2005, 17:17 GMT

Shin-seiki wrote:I dunno... In every case where someone's soul ends up in another vessel (Yui/Eva-01, Kyouko/Eva-02, Lilith/Rei II-III, Adam/Kaworu), the vessel is made of Angelic matter. There's little or nothing in the series to go on here, but I'm not especially pre-disposed to the notion that it is even possible to invest a soul artificially in an ordinary human body.

Little or nothing? There's plenty: If you accept the notion that Rei 1 was formed from Yui Soup, there is no way that Rei 1 can be made of Angel Stuff. Unless you want to suggest that Yui herself was.

Hmm... again I'm a bit dubious; what would Lilith's motive be to allow this to happen? This turns on its head the feeling I've always had that puuting Lilith's soul into a human body (at least in size and form, if not in terms of constituent matter) was another indignity inflicted on her by her puny offspring, comparable to crucifying her and poking her with a giant fork, etc...

Why would Yui be able to reject the salvage attempt, whereas Lilith would just "accidentally" end up in a pallette-swapped embryonic (or whatever) version of Yui?

It's still a lingering question why Lilith would allow any indignities to be rendered upon her in the first place. Even giant entities without Super Solenoids have the ability to go batshit crazy for at least a little while. And Lilith wasn't even restrained in any way (well, unless bolts going through her hands that she can just pull her palms out of count), unlike Yui-sama.

[SS: Reply to my e-mail dammit! ]

Originally posted on: 13-Sep-2005, 18:49 GMT

Rei is the standard Emo Girl\Doll that soon becomes the Emo Plot Device.

Originally posted on: 13-Sep-2005, 19:37 GMT

Takumi wrote:Rei is the standard Emo Girl\Doll that soon becomes the Emo Plot Device.

LOL! I can see what you mean by the Doll and the plot device part, but I cant see Rei sitting on the edge of her bed whining and crying while listening to Taking Back Sunday, about to slit her wrists because Gendo wouldn't buy her a fifth plasma screen tv lol

Originally posted on: 13-Sep-2005, 21:34 GMT

Spikeship wrote:I cant see Rei sitting on the edge of her bed whining and crying while listening to Taking Back Sunday, about to slit her wrists because Gendo wouldn't buy her a fifth plasma screen tv lol

You ever wonder why Gendo's always so pissed off?

That's why.

Originally posted on: 14-Sep-2005, 01:48 GMT

How come no one is mentioning that you can clearly see lots of little (Rei?) legs sticking out of the bottom of Lilith's own leg-stumps? They're the same colour as Rei's flesh, and have a lanky, feminine appearance, as do Rei's.

Originally posted on: 04-Oct-2005, 17:23 GMT

Zubon wrote:How come no one is mentioning that you can clearly see lots of little (Rei?) legs sticking out of the bottom of Lilith's own leg-stumps? They're the same colour as Rei's flesh, and have a lanky, feminine appearance, as do Rei's.

I think the main answer to that is because there's other evidence which is not quite so subjective. The real debate on this issue is over by 6 months, though, and Knives long gone. Everyone who remains seems to support the view that he opposed.

Originally posted on: 04-Oct-2005, 17:29 GMT

Zubon wrote:How come no one is mentioning that you can clearly see lots of little (Rei?) legs sticking out of the bottom of Lilith's own leg-stumps? They're the same colour as Rei's flesh, and have a lanky, feminine appearance, as do Rei's.

They're not the right size. If Rei was to scale with those legs, she'd be 10-15' tall.

Originally posted on: 04-Oct-2005, 17:45 GMT

Zubon wrote:How come no one is mentioning that you can clearly see lots of little (Rei?) legs sticking out of the bottom of Lilith's own leg-stumps? They're the same colour as Rei's flesh, and have a lanky, feminine appearance, as do Rei's.

Because that's also been covered some time in the past in another thread (most recently, somewhere in "Go, Hikari!"). The consensus is that legs are actually too big to be "unharvested Reis".

Originally posted on: 04-Oct-2005, 18:36 GMT

Hang on a moment. Scale is a very subjective issue in Evangelion. the Eva's range from 40-200m. That said, are these legs really "Unharvested Reis?" Let's not forget that the same fractal leg effect can bee seen when the copy lances explode into orange in End Of Evangelion.

I would imagine that the legs are simply some outgrowth by Lilith in its attempt to regenerate it's own legs. Their shape has possibly been influenced by Liliths connection to Unit-01 with Yui inside, and so Lilith may have been somehow exposed to some human DNA or the like. That is if Unit-01 was still connected to Lilith at the time of Yui's contact experiment.

The fact that we later see these legs on an object that has certainly had no genetic contact with Yui would lead me to say that these legs have nothing to do with Yui's DNA.

However, given the earlier merging of the MP Eva's with Rei which resulted in fractal faces, arms and legs, perhaps we can say that leg effect on the exploding lances is due to Rei. Not to her genetic code, but again due to this strange resonace with Lilith, who is now in Rei's form.

Extending this idea, perhaps the outgrowths of legs on Lilith are indeed due to Rei. But not by her genetic information. Perhaps Lilith's body is somehow resonating with its dismembered soul, and so Rei's body is somehow over time, affecting Liliths regeneration. Maybe the body's attempts to regrow its legs results in little human shaped legs as the body is resonating with the "real Lilith, i.e. Rei, as the MP evas later do. Albiet this process takes place in a much slower, more subtle and certainly less dramatic way.

Originally posted on: 05-Oct-2005, 17:20 GMT

OK, one thing I really don't get. People often talk of Rei being "made from Lilith" or of having Lilith's soul. But aren't all humans made from Lilith? If so, what is the significance of Rei? If she's made from Lilith, and doesn't have parents, then I guess it's like an IVF using Lilith as the female donor (who would the male donor be..?) but she's still the same as us.

Actually, on that note, doesn't it mean that souls can just be created if we were made from Lilith but don't have Lilith's soul? If souls can just be made like that, like they would have been when the first human was made, then Rei could have developed her own soul simply by being a seperate entity from everything else; like in the "because I am not you" line.

The consensus is that legs are actually too big to be "unharvested Reis".

But if they are just being grown then they could just randomly be too big...sort of like how plants (and even animals to some extent) can become wildly different sizes. Actually, the different legs do actually vary quite dramatically. Maybe they have to be harvested at a certain point, and if they are left they just grow and grow to a too-big-to-be-used size. Besides, if Lilith "gave birth" to humanity, their presence could just be a reference to Lilith's life-creating properties.

Originally posted on: 07-Oct-2005, 22:22 GMT