It's wierd that I adhere more strictly to the, "Shin-Seiki Doctrine", than does Shin-Seiki, but I suppose it can't be helped. While there are occasionally hallucinations in
EVA, for instance the scene in ep. 4 where the buildings seem to be closing in on Shinji, the first half of 25 is not one of them.
Shin-Seiki wrote:Um, I don't want to paint myself into a corner by being doctrinaire about "taking everything we see and hear at face value". Perhaps I should put it as "One's default perspective from which one assesses the significance of a given scene or incident in NGE, should be to take what one is seeing and hearing at face value, insofar as such an assessment can logically hold water." In the vast majority of cases, that rule of thumb holds up, and in those rare instances where Anno shows us stuff that is not to be taken as literally happening (e.g. the Sandbox Scene in #26', or the Alternate Universe in #26), he generally gives us indications of the unreality of what we're seeing.
What is the, "indication of unreality", in the first half of 25?
in those rare instances where Anno shows us stuff that is not to be taken as literally happening (e.g. the Sandbox Scene in #26', or the Alternate Universe in #26), he generally gives us indications of the unreality of what we're seeing.
I agree that the sandbox scene isn't really happening, i.e., it's not an interraction of the characters' minds, but I think it's likely that it does represent an actually memory, with Misato and the Rei and Asuka dolls substituting for the mother and children from the real-life incident, and Nerv headquarters substituting for the sandcastle they actually built.
My take on EoTV as whole is that it is not so much the end of NGE, as it is about the end of NGE; by which I mean that it functions at a certain removal from the straight-forward narrative of #25', and of (most of) #26'.
Exactly, so why do you insist that the, "same scenes", are happening at the same moments in the two, e.g. the, "It's time, Rei", scene.
The fact that Shinji and Rei, and later Shinji and Asuka, and later still Asuka and Rei, are presented as interacting onscreen in 'The World Ending' has to be, in my opinion, a dramatic device, and cannot be taken as literally happening, even in an "Instrumentality" sense, because we know that in 'AIR' Shinji and Rei never got near each other, and, while Shinji and Asuka were briefly in the same room, we know that Asuka was in no shape to have anything to say at that point; and, of course, all of this is before Shinji dissolves in the entry plug and all the weird head-trip stuff starts.
Again, if the TV ending is
about the movie ending instead of
being the movie ending, why insist that the, "Shinji disolves", scene must be taking place in the series at the same point it takes place in the movie? In fact, we need to remember that it happens midway through ep. 25 in the series, but not until 26', in the movie. You are imposing a suprining amount of linearity upon the TV ending considering your contention that it is just, "about the ending."
And here's an interesting point: What about the scenes with Misato? Now as you've pointed out before the, "boink", scene must be after their minds are connected, because Shinji is seeing Misato's memories, but what about the scenes where Misato is in the chair? Because these come after the commercial break, are they to be considered as actually happening, while the scenes with Rei, Asuka, and Shinji are not, even though they look exactly alike? Or is this section of the episode somehow contain a mixture of instrumentality + Misato's hallucinations?
Isn't this a big house of cards? I think that my theory is a lot more simple and explains what's happening without recourse to, "It's all in their heads." All of 25 takes place after Shinji disolves in 26'. The bits and pieces of the movie we see in 25, "It's, time.", Asuka underwater, the corpses, Shinji disolving, are flashbacks to things that have already happened in the movie,
not flash-sideways to things to are happening in the movie at that very instant. The way you are looking at it, Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and to some extent possibly even Misato, are all engaging in bitter self examination, which coincidentally involves hallucinatory interactions with the other characters, Shinji while he was cowering under the stairs, Rei while she was soaking in the tank, Asuka while she was in the hospital or while she was underwater, and Misato, who knows when?
Why make it this complicated and confusing when you can adhere to your own principle and say that if Anno shbows them interracting in an instrumentality-like setting, they
are interrecting in an instrumentality like setting. As I asked above, what is the indication of unreality that is causing you to disbelieve what Anno is showing us?
Originally posted on: 08-Oct-2004, 19:16 GMT