Does Asuka have a pseudo-electra complex?

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Does Asuka have a pseudo-electra complex?

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Postby Iron Rooster » Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:38 am

We all know about the Freudian Oedipus and Electra complexes that Shinji and Misato, respectively, seem to have, but does it seem Asuka might have some variant too? I never really thought too much about this until I read about all the Shinji mum stuff.

I guess what I'm gettin' at is that Kaji was Asuka's guardian for awhile and she basically wanted him to bang her. He is in a sense a father figure and she doesn't have much of a real relationship with her biological dad. So would that kind of give her an Electra complex? Or am I looking into this too much?
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Postby Xard » Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:31 am

It is hard to get from Misato's "looking for daddy" in men to --> Electra complex

And as far as I can see it Oedipal part of the show was part of just throwing mumbojumbo in the air just so it sounds cool :P

Though that Oedipal stuff is debatable...

But no, I see no idication Asuka was looking for his daddy in Kaji

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Postby Shin-seiki » Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:43 am

Somewhat relevant post regarding how both Ritsuko's and Asuka's upbringing pre-disposed them to fall for a charismatic "older guy" figure:
http://evageeks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=119141#119141

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Postby Mr. Tines » Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:52 pm

Asuka:
Aaahh... I wonder if I'll act like Misato when I grow up?


plus her showing in ep#9 that she has already started to
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:25 pm

Something to keep in mind with Freud: While he certainly helped pioneer psychology into what it is today, the people he interviewed and studied were those that grew up with child abuse and/or sexual problems, so it's best to take such theories of girls wanting to boink their fathers/etc with a grain of salt.

That being said, Misato, Shinji and Asuka are characters that seem to have a case of either the Oedipal or Electra Complex, yes.

Shinji in terms of his curiosity/constant staring/eventual fear of Rei and literally being inside of his mother Yui in a sense. Misato with "seeing her father in Kaji's arms" along with her confused feelings of Ak--er, Dr. Katsuragi :sweatdrop: and Shinji. (Confused meaning she feels she may love them romantically/sexually, yet...)

And Asuka with trying to become independent from her stepmother and father. Lacking the proper care she needed growing up, Asuka simply latched onto her closest male parental figure as a means of proving that she was an adult: Kaji.
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Postby AuraTwilight » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:25 pm

I don't think Asuka had so much an Electra Complex as she did issues with abandonment. Wanting your mother to not kill herself after replacing you with a doll does not equal "Scissoring."
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Postby Mr. Tines » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:35 pm

Elektra was into straight incest :devil: -- nothing Sapphic at all.
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Postby Semisubtle » Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:57 pm

I think Asuka's relationship with Kaji was more of her just wanting to be an adult. She wanted to have an adult relationship WITH an adult. I don't think she saw Kaji as much of a father figure.

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Postby Iron Rooster » Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:57 pm

I guess I'm lookin' into it too much. But hey, that's what this forum is for! Figuring out if some speculation is legit or not. I guess having Shinji and Misato's little 'problems' and all the Freudian mumbo jumbo was already enough. Thanks guys.
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Postby slothen » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:24 am

Its incorrect to identify Misato's and Asuka's problems as an Electra complex. Even at the superficial level of being jealous of the mother and enamored with the father, the comparison fails. Neither one expresses a jealousy of the mother's sexual relationship with the father. They had no male role-models in their lives as children, thus they seek attention from Kaji. That their attentions are sexual in nature is beside the point. For Misato, sex is a way to get attention and to get a sense of intimacy. Also, its not particularly unusual for a person to seek out a partner that shares many qualities as the opposite-sex parent. As for Asuka, raging hormones and a desire to be an adult is all the explanation needed.

Shinji's case is a bit more interesting. It certainly seems that the producers are pushing the Oedipus complex at the very least. One of the best looks we see of young Shinji is the conversation between Yui and Fuyutsuki in episode 21, where Yui breast feeds Shinji, and then we see Shinji touching Yui's face. I'll leave it at that though, because I'm lazy and I really am not an authority on psychology, and in today's world the definition of the Oedipus complex is vague and laden with its own social connotation. Also Freudian theory is a bit dated.
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:59 pm

Slothen wrote:Also Freudian theory is a bit dated.


Which is what I was trying to say, myself.

But yeah, I agree that the characters have any of Freudian complexes are not totally the case, though that's not to say the characters DON'T have issues with their parents because they clearly do. (I'm not explaining that very well...)

As far as I'm concerned, the Freudian stuff of Asuka, Shinji, Misato etc is like the Pointless Religious Symbolism: "It's there to look cool."
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Postby BobBQ » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:30 pm

The difference between Freud and fraud is one letter.

Remember that.

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Postby Eva Yojimbo » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:39 am

Sailor Star Dust wrote:As far as I'm concerned, the Freudian stuff of Asuka, Shinji, Misato etc is like the Pointless Religious Symbolism: "It's there to look cool."
Are you TRYING to get me started? :rant:
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Postby Xard » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:56 am

I absolutely agree with SSD - Freud's stuff really doesn't seem to hold any deep meaning in the show - hell, whole psychological view is largerly opposite of Freud's.

Not to mention Anno has confessed the team throwed all sorts of jargon (not only of the religious type) in the air during the show to make them look smarter - I see how easily stuff like "Destrudo" in EoE fall under this mark

Oh, and same applies to religious stuff. There's no deep meaning for it all. Sure, it made its way in the narrative. They work as "meta-objects" (lol) in the shows own milieu and Mythos - for example importance of Misato's cross. But they won't represent religious concepts or "objects" as we mean them in this world in any meaningfull way - all religious thingies in the show could've been changed to other stuff without their "essence" being changed at all. Misato's cross could've been pendant as well.

It's all aethestics really

(yes, this was provokation)

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Postby Eva Yojimbo » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:35 pm

Uh-oh, I smell another split.

Xard wrote:I absolutely agree with SSD - Freud's stuff really doesn't seem to hold any deep meaning in the show - hell, whole psychological view is largerly opposite of Freud's.
Didn't Anno say that before/when making the show he was given a book of psychology/philosophy and said it helped tremendously in shaping the show? To me, when so many pre-existing psychologically concepts relate to elements in the series with the characters I'm not so quick to write it off. I'm not saying you can run the entire series through a strict Jungian/Freudian framework (this rarely works with anything because there are very few symbolic works where the creators are as rigorous in their application), but they can be used as an addition to what's obviously there.

Xard wrote: Not to mention Anno has confessed the team throwed all sorts of jargon (not only of the religious type) in the air during the show to make them look smarter -
Yeah, but I also tend not to trust anything they would say about this because they obviously got tired of being asked about it.

Xard wrote: Oh, and same applies to religious stuff. There's no deep meaning for it all.
I don't know what qualifies as "deep meaning", but what I see is symbolic correlatives that relate to a number of elements in NGE. What confuses many (I think) is that it's difficult to read this kind of symbolism because the original meaning/intention isn't as important as what any given symbol represents in the larger picture and what it can say in the context of NGE. It's basically symbol transplanting where you can't ask "well what is this saying about the Bible", but must instead ask "when we look at what it represents in the Bible, how can that relate to content in NGE?".

It's a tricky kind of usage that does happen more in film (it seems) than in other mediums. For two good examples look at the Biblical references in The Seventh Seal - which is clearly not a film stressing Christian themes, but more of a larger battle with such concepts. Another good example is how David Lynch uses a painting of Beatrice Cenci in Mulholland Drive to suggest, perhaps, rape as one cause for Diane's illusions/dreams - but there's an entire story behind that painting that doesn't relate to the rest of the film.

Xard wrote:But they won't represent religious concepts or "objects" as we mean them in this world in any meaningfull way
It's correct that there's no religious meaning to the symbols, but that doesn't mean there's no meaning or purpose beyond the narrative and beyond religious meaning.

Xard wrote:- all religious thingies in the show could've been changed to other stuff without their "essence" being changed at all.
I've heard this before and while essentially true, I think there's 2 good reasons that Biblical (mainly) symbolism was used:

1. Economy: They essentially condense and consolidate a lot of ideas and themes into a few symbols contained with in a very small section of The Bible.
2. Aesthetics: Indeed, it's strong imagery, and I happen to think the importance attached to the symbols works well in the context of a series with that much import.

I'm not sure if you could so easily "change" the symbolism to another religion and make its application so seamless and neatly fitting in the series. I don't think many realize how deeply the religious symbolism is embedded. It's not just in the cross explosions and TOL bits.
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Postby Anonymous_Evafan » Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:57 pm

Xard wrote:I see how easily stuff like "Destrudo" in EoE fall under this mark

You know destrudo was around well before EoE right? It got mentioned in episodes 20, 21, and destroyed the Rei clones in 23. Seeing as it was actually show doing something I'm not sure how you can brush it off as window dressing. Granted they took it to a literal extreme but the energy of self destruction was actually very important in what happened in EoE.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't know what qualifies as "deep meaning"

Anything to do with a religious context.
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Postby Eva Yojimbo » Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:59 am

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:
Anything to do with a religious context.
Are you telling me Dude, Where's My Car isn't deep? BLASPHEMOUS!
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Postby Asuka's Plug Suit » Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:39 am

Mr. Tines wrote:Elektra was into straight incest :devil: -- nothing Sapphic at all.

Technically, Elektra was just into matricide...her father was killed when she was very, very young.

But I'm not sure Asuka's attraction to Kaji equals an Elektra complex. She wants to grow up fast, and he's a cool, older guy. If anything, I think he treated her more like a kid sister than a daughter, anyway.

And while she would have every reason to WANT to kill her mother, I never saw any indication that that's how she felt.

I think if there's an Elektra Complex in Eva everywhere, it belongs to Ritsuko and Ritsuko alone.
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Postby Xard » Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:11 pm

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:
Xard wrote:I see how easily stuff like "Destrudo" in EoE fall under this mark

You know destrudo was around well before EoE right? It got mentioned in episodes 20, 21, and destroyed the Rei clones in 23. Seeing as it was actually show doing something I'm not sure how you can brush it off as window dressing. Granted they took it to a literal extreme but the energy of self destruction was actually very important in what happened in EoE.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't know what qualifies as "deep meaning"

Anything to do with a religious context.


Destrudo is only directly mentioned in EoE so that's why I picked it up. And "Destrudo" in Eva doesn't have crap to do with Freud's silly Destrudo theory apart from face value. Where did you pull that Ep 23 off though, I've never heard about it...?

Really, Destrudo would've been just as wel "negative-mojo" without anything to have been changed at all. But using word Destrudo was all cool and stuff.

Well, I worded out that badly. Didn't mean "deep" meaning by itself, rather something meaningfull apart from face value/looks of object itself that derives from its traditional symbolic value and/or "meaning" e.g with Cross being symbol of Christ, Salvation and Christianity overall instead of something new value show gives for it

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Postby Reichu » Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:32 pm

slothen wrote:They had no male role-models in their lives as children, thus they seek attention from Kaji. That their attentions are sexual in nature is beside the point. For Misato, sex is a way to get attention and to get a sense of intimacy. Also, its not particularly unusual for a person to seek out a partner that shares many qualities as the opposite-sex parent.

Misato's case seems a little weirder than just "seeking a partner with qualities similar to opposite-sex parent". I mean... hell, just watch her traumatizing herself in episode 25.

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