Do You Want to Become One With Me?

Squirrel Ninja · Postby **Squirrel Ninja** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:06 am

This may have been discussed before, but this had remained one of my most nagging questions and I want to here what other people think about this scene in episode 20.

Misato: Tell me Shinji. Do you want to become one with me? To be of
one mind and body? It could be very very nice. Ask me anytime,
I'm ready.

Asuka: Hey Shinji, idiot. Don't you want to be one with me? To be of
one mind and body? It would be really awesome. You oughta'
appreciate your good fortune, come on.

Rei: Ikari. Do you want to become one with me? To be of one mind
and body? It could be very pleasant. Shinji.

Misato: Do you want to become one with me?

Asuka: To be of one mind and body and soul?

Misato & Asuka & Rei: It could be very pleasant. Relax and release
your soul.

I've got a few theories on it. Romantic involvement seems to be a logical explanation to this line of questioning, as it is coming from the three important women in his life, however after being in Eva for a month gradually slipping away from reality, it would seem random to start thinking about your love life. Also, at this point it's doubtful he would be felling anything romantic towards Misato or Rei. So what does it mean to become one with them. It's implied that theres a choice to be made here, and each of the outcomes is unique based on the character's personality: Rei is relaxing, Misato is nurturing (or perhaps sexual pleasurable), and Asuka is exciting.

So other possible explanations for the scene could be foreshadowing third impact, but that would seem out of place as well, as Shinji would no nothing about it at this point. My current tentative theory is that this relates impart to the women in question, and impart to Shinji's personality. It's related to Jung's concept of the Anima, the female part of Man's Psyche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_(Jung). One of his collective unconscious archetypes, the anima is reflective of a man's view of women, and the repressed feminine qualities of his personality. In a nutshell, even if Shinji didn't go back he would still have to decide who he was going to be with, and that dessision would profoundly affect him and his future.

TL;DR- What do you make of this scene.

Postby **ZapX** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:19 am

Of course it's Jung related. Jung Freud. She was voiced by Kyoko. She is like Asuka. Everything is connected.

My contentions are as follows.

1) Read MOAR Jung.
2) You're reaching.
3) ?????
4) Profit.

More seriously, to me, Eva is a very existential show and I like to think that the analysis should start from there. Perhaps Sartre or Kierkegaard would be a better starting point. I like the first parts of your thoughts but Jungian archetypes are a reach.

Squirrel Ninja · Postby **Squirrel Ninja** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:21 am

I'll agree the archetype thing is a far stretch, but it was the only thing I could think of the explain that sort of male and female becoming one, it's trying to grasp at something I still don't understand.

Postby **ZapX** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:41 am

As a fan of French Existentialism let me pose this (I may be WAY off). You may apply it to bad faith.

Another of Sartre’s examples involves a young woman on a first date. She ignores the obvious sexual implications of her date's compliments to her physical appearance, but accepts them instead as words directed at her as a human consciousness. As he takes her hand, she lets it rest lifelessly in his, refusing either to return the gesture or to revoke it. Thus she delays the moment when she must choose to either acknowledge and reject his advances, or submit to them. She conveniently considers her hand only a thing in the world, and his compliments as unrelated to her body; thus playing on her dual human reality as a physical being, and as a consciousness separate and free from this physicality. [2]

Sartre tells us that by acting in bad faith, the waiter and the woman are denying their own freedom; but actively using this freedom itself. Thus they manifestly know they are free, but do not acknowledge it. Bad faith is paradoxical in this regard: when acting in bad faith, a person is both aware, and, in a sense, unaware, that they are free.

From Wikipedia. I find Evangelion to be very Sartrean at times. Chee can come in with the French Pomo and Deconstructionism.

Zuggy · Postby **Zuggy** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:21 am

Misato, Rei and Asuka are fronts for Yui. Should Shinji stay in the Eva and become one with his mother or be born again into the outside world?

At the beginning of the salvage operation:

[code:1]Misato:
Tell me, Shinji, do you want to become one with me?
To be of one mind and body?
It's a very, very comforting feeling.
It's okay, you know. I'm okay whenever you are.

Asuka:
Hey, stupid Shinji, don't you want to become one with me?
To be of one mind and body?
Because it's a very, very comforting feeling.
You don't hear me say this every day.
Come over here already.

Rei:
Ikari, do you want to become one with me?
To be of one mind and body?
It's a very, very comforting feeling.
Ikari?

Misato:
Do you want to become one with me?

Asuka:
To be of one mind and body?

Rei:
It's a very, very comforting feeling.

Misato & Asuka & Rei:
Come on, relax, and release your soul.[/code:1]
The salvage operation begins and just before the next scene Ritsuko wonders whether Shinji wants to stay in the Eva or not.

Towards the end of the salvage operation the same scene is repeated with an extra someone hiding on the end:

[code:1]Misato:
What do you wish?

Asuka:
What do you wish?

Rei:
What do you wish?

YUI:
What do you wish?[/code:1]
It's fairly obvious that is what's going on in the episode. I don't think you examining that one scene, divorced from all others, under the lense of Jung will return anything valuable.

I think it makes sense to expand on Yui's question here - do you want to be your own world or in the world with other people - which reality do you want - do you want to stay with me or do you want to fly the nest - the same questions Shinji deals with in 25/26 and E.O.E.

Eva Yojimbo · Postby **Eva Yojimbo** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:05 am

I don't think the Jung archetypes are all that far off, and indeed Anno seems to play around with the concept through the characters. I don't think it was rigidly based on it, but merely allusions. I also like the triumvirate nature of it... reminds me of the mythological Triple Goddess, or the Mother, Maiden, and Crone... though they don't make the connection in NGE. Still, it's hard not to see Asuka as the maiden - the representation of Shinji's burgeoning sexuality and individualism - Misato as Shinji's surrogate mother - in fact, that particular episode sees Misato pleading with Yui to give him back to her - and Rei as the ultimate elder-mother, both as an analog for Yui and Lilith, the mother of humanity.

So, in a way it's a choice, but I do think that at this point Shinji is just seeing them as archetypes... or at least that's how they're being represented at that point in his mind.

Xard · Postby **Xard** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:08 am

Yui was probing Shinji's mind and was horrified only like mother can when she found out what horny creature her cute little boy had turned into. Living in denial she decided to give him slide show of boobies to see he really didn't think dirty things

She was wrong

/thread

PartyHard · Postby **PartyHard** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:26 am

So Yui -like teh Reis did in EoE to turn people into tang- tried to nullify Shinji's AT field by approaching him with the form of the people he desires?

Eva Yojimbo · Postby **Eva Yojimbo** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:27 am

Xard wrote:Yui was probing Shinji's mind and was horrified only like mother can when she found out what horny creature her cute little boy had turned into. Living in denial she decided to give him slide show of boobies to see he really didn't think dirty things

She was wrong

/thread

Let me guess, your mother caught you masturbating at one point... am I right?

Xard · Postby **Xard** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:33 am

Eva Yojimbo wrote:
Xard wrote:Yui was probing Shinji's mind and was horrified only like mother can when she found out what horny creature her cute little boy had turned into. Living in denial she decided to give him slide show of boobies to see he really didn't think dirty things

She was wrong

/thread
Let me guess, your mother caught you masturbating at one point... am I right?

Nope

Evangelion217 · Postby **Evangelion217** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:20 am

Yes people! "Evangelion" is all about sex. :w00t:

Squirrel Ninja · Postby **Squirrel Ninja** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:44 am

Going of what Zuggy and ZapX said, I revise my theory.
So we've got Shinji in functionally his last vision before returning to the real world. In that world, his three greatest treasures and simultaneously greatest sources of conflict are Rei, Asuka, and Misato. Yui transcends the conflict by not being a part of the physical world, and acts as the nurturing mother complex, he's cared for yet caged. So Shinji's choices here are that he can stay here, playing the basement dwelling otaku, and live in a safe envorinment with the love of those he wants most and the protection of his mother. It's a sort of paradise, but one that is only of his own mind, a never ending sexual fantasy that he knows is false. Alternatively, he can return alone to the insecurities of the real world to take a crack at the real thing.

Postby **Mr. Tines** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:16 pm

@Zuggy
The latter set of questions also foreshadows a much later

[code:1]Rei (voice):
What do you wish for? [/code:1]

@Xard
Yui already knew what a fascination for breasts her little boy had (see episode 21, the reservoir flashback).

Postby **ZapX** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:28 pm

Squirrel, I'd say you're on to something there. Remember, choice, despair, freedom, depression, &c when analyzing this stuff.

Evangelion217 · Postby **Evangelion217** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:08 pm

Should Shinji stay in the Eva and become one with his mother

Now I'm starting to doubt the posibility of a live action "Eva" film. Because the average viewer would look at that, and only see "incest." :headbash:

Zuggy · Postby **Zuggy** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:24 pm

Mr. Tines wrote:@Zuggy
The latter set of questions also foreshadows a much later

[code:1]Rei (voice):
What do you wish for? [/code:1]

Which episode is that from?

Postby **Mr. Tines** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:30 pm

Zuggy wrote:Which episode is that from?

26', with Shinji melting away.

chee · Postby **chee** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:35 pm

Shinji is a teenager. What do you expect?

Vinyl collection at Discogs · Postby **Ornette** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:57 pm

Zuggy wrote:Which episode is that from?

Zuggy · Postby **Zuggy** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:19 pm

Mr. Tines wrote:
Zuggy wrote:Which episode is that from?

26', with Shinji melting away.

Ornette wrote:cool gif

Ok, remember now. Instead of just saying it's foreshadowing can that bit in E.O.E. be crossed over in any way with ep.#20 to help explain either one?

Can't think about it meself at the moment.

Do You Want to Become One With Me?

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