NemZ wrote:Perhaps that's the moment at which he decided this wasn't working, even if he wasn't yet aware he had decided.
It's still rather weird, isn't it? Show GNR's neck burst open, and THEN have the whole explanation of what's going on. If nothing else, what's the narrative reasoning for ordering things like that (if any)?
SSD wrote:Wow. You learn something new everyday.
You know, I could have sworn I told you about that one before...
Sailor Star Dust wrote:it's confusing just WHERE the LCL Sea is. Supposedly it's within Lilith, but then it's on Earth once people are able to return....
There's plenty of room for confusion here, but try to keep the concept separate from the physical oceans of Earth. I think this is something very different, albeit kind of "parallel".
First of all, consider the whole aspect of "where?". Shinji got there by entering GNR's body. We know that he's still technically inside Eva-01, but, at the same time, he's with the souls of all humanity. Recall, too, that when GNR harvested the souls, they were funneled both directly into the Black Moon and taken into her body through her palms, but later on we see pretty much all of them emerge from the Black Moon.
(Some pop out of her neck when her head falls off, but those are the only ones we see emerge from her body in any obvious way.) Makes you wonder, no?
This cut, too, with its three streams of Rei heading towards a Moon in a red domain filled with floating human corpses, poses a few questions about just what the hell is going on.
Since Shinji doesn't go anywhere between the time he sees this uncanny sight and the time we see him and Rei "coupling" (Eva-01 is still inside GNR):
...and since it's still this vague, weird, red place, it's probably, well, still the same "place".
Let's return for a minute to what Rei says about it being the "LCL Sea" and the "sea where life began" (bochan_bird translated it a bit less literally as "the primordial soup of life"). This obviously isn't the primordial ocean of Earth, where life as we usually think of it began. So what could she be talking about?
Souls, maybe? A 'primordial sea' for souls? Seele wanted to return to the beginning, after all.
Check out the beginning of the show's OP, which could be read like a sort of creation story.
The cosmic spark. The universe is born.
Out of nothing, "red space" emerges. This imagery is a recurring motif in the show. Looks familiar, right?
The image of the angel appears. For our purposes, this will signify the idea of 'expulsion from paradise' or suchlike. Mostly I'm thinking of the "cherubim keeping Adam and Eve out of the garden" bit from
here (although I guess Sammael himself can relate to the whole "expulsion" thing, can't he?).
So now the color transitions and a source of light appears.
And we go up the Tree of Life... (Wait... that doesn't make any sense, we should be going
down it... Oh, well, bear with me...)
Then the flickering light appears, which the camera approaches until it is overwhelmed by light. The implication is that... well, just look at the original storyboard, which took a much less subtle (but more expensive to animate) approach.
We're in the water heading towards the sun, and by the end of the cut we're broken through the surface.
I bring this up because it could possibly be interpreted to show both phases of life's origins. At least, it provides some romping great inspiration to explain the bizarro stuff in the rest of the show. So here's the "story as I imagine it", for your consideration.
First, souls are born in "red space", essentially a parallel plane of existence (what would string theory call it?), which is "paradise" and the original "primordial sea" or "womb". For mysterious reasons apparently involving angels and upside-down trees (or something symbolically relevant to the two, or vice versa), we were cast out of "paradise" into the universe we're more familiar with (depicted with a blue color). The souls Lilith was provided with, or drew out of "red space" herself, were cast into a second "womb", the primordial ocean of Earth, where they would react with organic molecules from the LCL, birthing physical life. And some of that life would eventually leave the ocean, and you know how it goes from there...
So why would a parallel universe be called an "LCL Sea"? Well, here's a little something I'll leave you with:
Remember some of the things Ritsuko said about Leliel.
And another thing to think about: We see LCL come out of Eva cores on three occasions. Think about what the "inside" of an Eva core looks like, and if we've seen that kind of thing anywhere else... (Besides other Eva cores.)
I have to end it there, but I hope that didn't come across as utter gibberish. I've had this line of thought in my head (and pretty much nowhere else) for years, partially because it's so difficult to articulate properly. I imagine I'll wrap this up formally later, but those are some things for you to think about, at least.
I'm also confused on when exactly Shinji reembodies. Although it seems to be after he clasps Lilith's hand
Considering the whole contrast between holding hands (a gesture requiring physical distinction) versus bodies simply melding into each other, he had probably reembodied by then.