After seeing SSD's earlier post, I've been meaning to do this for a few days:

Is that real?

Good thing they left boobies out because that's weird position

NAveryW wrote:After seeing SSD's earlier post, I've been meaning to do this for a few days:

ZOMG BIG PIC

HEEEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:It doesn't for me because he isn't seeking maternal love there but a sexual love in it's stead.

Are you suggesting the need for maternal love just vanished when he began seeking a sexual replacement? That seems a little... non sequitor for me.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:I want to see them again because I believe my feelings at that time were real is about his world view?

He's come to an awareness of his feelings from reality and has the realization/conclusion that it's better to feel from reality than to not feel from non-reality. It is a perspective from his new worldview.

CorporalChaos wrote:HEEEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Are you suggesting the need for maternal love just vanished when he began seeking a sexual replacement?

No, just that he abandoned the idea.

He's come to an awareness of his feelings from reality and has the realization/conclusion that it's better to feel from reality than to not feel from non-reality. It is a perspective from his new worldview.

He addressed that earlier.

Shinji:
I feel that there were only hateful things there.
So I'm sure it was okay to run away.
But there was nothing good in the place I ran to, either.
After all, I didn't exist there... which is the same as no one existing.

The part about his feelings was after Kaworu said he embodied the words I love you. It's about the his feelings for the people closest to him. They even show the keepsake photo to reenforce this.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:No, just that he abandoned the idea.

You can abandon the conscious idea but not the unconscious desire. And I don't see why it's a problem that image is working on both levels.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:He addressed that earlier.

Yes, and logically everything else would follow from that new found worldview.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:And I don't see why it's a problem that image is working on both levels.

Just doesn't work for me.

Yes, and logically everything else would follow from that new found worldview.

Yes and no. That new world view made him realize how important they were to him. He specifically says he wants to see THEM again because he believes his feelings were real, not because "it's better to feel from reality than to not feel from non-reality".

AEF I think we've finally reached the "agree to disagree" point. Good sparring with you as always.

Meh, I simpily don't see any indication that the wish was in any way subconcious. The way he subsuquently acted made it seem purely concious to me. Not everything has to have a double meaning.

As for his feelings, they have to be real otherwise there is no point in going back because he'd be living a lie which undermines the whole point in rejecting Instrumentality. A lie is a lie weather it's in the real world or the nothingness of HIP.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:I simpily don't see any indication that the wish was in any way subconcious.

I don't see any clear indication it was conscious either. And considering Instrumentality's close link with exploring the relationship between conscious actions and the unconscious underneath it all, I can't imagine the prelude to that is purely conscious. Plus, if it was designed to be his wishing for Asuka they could've just showed the image of Asuka and her breasts from the hospital.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Not everything has to have a double meaning.

No, but a great many things in NGE tend to.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:As for his feelings, they have to be real otherwise there is no point in going back because he'd be living a lie which undermines the whole point in rejecting Instrumentality. A lie is a lie weather it's in the real world or the nothingness of HIP.

Again I get confused with exactly what we're debating. Did I suggest something about his feelings being a lie? I merely thought he came to a place where he reconciled his old feelings with his new revelation and realized the importance of them. But this is only after he had the ability to compare his previous state with this new one (existence and non-existence).

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't see any clear indication it was conscious either. And considering Instrumentality's close link with exploring the relationship between conscious actions and the unconscious underneath it all, I can't imagine the prelude to that is purely conscious.

The horrid imbalance of his contact with his mother figures compaired to Asuka makes it impossible for me to swallow that. He didn't approach them at all which he should have done, weather he conciously wanted to or not, if there was a subconcious motivator involved. Much like Misato's slip in EoTV where she subconciously wanted Shinji to see her sexual side even though she conciously despised the act.

Plus, if it was designed to be his wishing for Asuka they could've just showed the image of Asuka and her breasts from the hospital.

That's hardly an ideal reciprocal situation not to mention he hated himself for what happened there and didn't want to remember it.

Again I get confused with exactly what we're debating. Did I suggest something about his feelings being a lie?

Seemed that way.

I merely thought he came to a place where he reconciled his old feelings with his new revelation and realized the importance of them. But this is only after he had the ability to compare his previous state with this new one (existence and non-existence).

Isn't that what I said?

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Much like Misato's slip in EoTV where she subconciously wanted Shinji to see her sexual side even though she conciously despised the act.

Which is MY point; Instrumentality, and by extension I'd assume the lead up to that, would include both the unconscious and conscious desires, and that image works as a representation of both.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:That's hardly an ideal reciprocal situation not to mention he hated himself for what happened there and didn't want to remember it.

Which says to me his searching for sexuality to fill that maternal void is equally f'ed up, so it's hard to use the "his search for maternal love was imbalanced" when his only sexual encounters with Asuka had been far from ideal.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Isn't that what I said?

I thought that was what I'd said earlier that you had some problem with.

Xard wrote:Is that real?

No.

Like the shop, NAveryW.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Which is MY point; Instrumentality, and by extension I'd assume the lead up to that, would include both the unconscious and conscious desires, and that image works as a representation of both.

My problem with that is he didn't approach them in a similar manor to what Misato did. If there was that subconcious motivator I'd expect it to force him into approaching them even if he didn't conciously want it.

Which says to me his searching for sexuality to fill that maternal void is equally f'ed up, so it's hard to use the "his search for maternal love was imbalanced" when his only sexual encounters with Asuka had been far from ideal.

Why would that stop him for wishing for that ideal encounter?

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:If there was that subconcious motivator I'd expect it to force him into approaching them even if he didn't conciously want it.

That seem to be what the Sandbox scene and the Shinji Rei/Misato/Asuka dynamic afterwards was about. That's certainly not conscious. There's no reason why the kitchen encounter can't be a representation of his recent consciousness though.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:Why would that stop him for wishing for that ideal encounter?

I could ask the same about his maternal encounters. Are we really trying to judge exactly what pushed him over the edge and prevented him from seeking or provoked him to seek either?

Eva Yojimbo wrote:That seem to be what the Sandbox scene and the Shinji Rei/Misato/Asuka dynamic afterwards was about.

The sadbox was reflecting on his life. The train car, he wasn't even talking to them when he said be nice to me. That was the responce to Asuka's all or nothing demand. Misato and Rei butted in on his conversation with Asuka. As I said, I would have expected something more like Misato pulled with him being the one that started the confrontation, not the other way around.

I could ask the same about his maternal encounters.

He probably did, he just didn't think he could get it. He still had some hope in Asuka, asking for her help even after the hospital.

Are we really trying to judge exactly what pushed him over the edge and prevented him from seeking or provoked him to seek either?

I guess.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:The sadbox was reflecting on his life.

Yes, in a very dream-like metaphoric manner. That's not representative of conscious reflection. So again what I'm seeing is a combination of the two.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:I guess.

I suggest we don't, because there's a 99.99% chance none of this was actually thought about.

Anonymous_Evafan wrote:The sadbox was reflecting on his life.

I know that's a typo, but I think it works pretty well.

Naw-kun, you must have my e-babies!

Er...I mean....good job? What's nice about splicing the two Groundwork sketches together is that it really does drive the point home that YES the "female chest" belongs to Asuka.

sandbox scene

From what I understand, the sandbox scene is an Instrumentality-style warping of a [childhood] memory (like nearly everything else during Instrumentality) of Shinji's to reflect his life in Tokyo-3.

judge exactly what pushed him over the edge

In EoE, before 3I? I see it as something like this:

Shinji: "Hey Asuka my life sucks and I really need your help 'cause you're the only one I can turn to since I wuv you and you're Everything I Ever Dreamed and you're a great source of strength and my life uh sucks. Help me?"

Asuka: "Why the hell should I help you when you don't help me? And another thing, how can you claim to love me when you don't even love yourself? Why do I feel like I'm the pot calling the kettle black?"

Shinji: "But but but! Help me? Please! HELP ME!"

Asuka: "No."

Shinji: :twitch: "ARFJSDLEIOWRKSLDAJFSKDJ!!" *strangle strangle strangle*

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Yes, in a very dream-like metaphoric manner. That's not representative of conscious reflection. So again what I'm seeing is a combination of the two.

Yeah but look at the differences between that and what Misato's subconcious did. His was reflecting on the past projecting current issues onto it. Her subconcious was given a voice and will all it's own. It sought out exactly what it wanted reguardless if the concious mind agreed. What I would want to see is Shinji's subconcious approaching Misato (in the form of his 4 year old self) and asking her why she didn't love him, what he did wrong, and so forth (with the current Shinji looking on in shock and horror). Too bad Anno didn't think of something like that cause it would have been epic.

I suggest we don't, because there's a 99.99% chance none of this was actually thought about.

Lol.