"I" or "Love"

chiefen · Postby **chiefen** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:21 pm

Is it "The beast that shouted 'I' at the heart of the world" or "The beast that shouted 'love' at the heart of the world". I've seen some use the first and some use the latter. Is it meant to be ambiguous?

Anno likes sci-fi. Reference to Harlan Ellison's The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World? The "ai" in the original NGE title is in katakana, so it should mean the english "I" and not love since it should've been spelled with 愛 or at least in hiragana. And the last episodes are after all on the concept of "one self".

oh what the hell... ヽ(Â´ー｀)ノ

Space Penis · Postby **Space Penis** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:25 pm

The ambiguity is intentional, I belive. The booklet for the Platinum dvd explains it, IIRC.

Shnooks · Postby **Shnooks** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:36 pm

The actual book (which I own) is

The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World by Harlan Ellison. Its also a very weird short story in the book.

Pretty much, somewhere on either a commentary or in the booklet, they commented that "Ai" is more like a pun, in the way it could mean 'The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart of the World" or "The Beast That Shouted I at the Heart of the World"

If you can find the book, you should read it, though its completely irrelevant to evangelion.

Toilet Duck · Postby **Toilet Duck** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:10 pm

yeah, the "ai" thing is indeed a play on words. anno appears to be a fan of writers such as ellison, and when TBTSLATHOTW was released in Japan, it used the kanji 愛 (love) in the title, not the kana アイ. episode 26 largely deals with Shinji coming to understand himself and how he defines "i", so it's rather fitting.

adv, in the platinum edition release, used "shouted love", although earlier on they seemed to interpret it as "shouted 'i'". the platinum commentary for episode 26 also talks a little about the title and ellison's story.

BLACKANGEL32076 · Postby **BLACKANGEL32076** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:17 pm

Shnooks wrote:The actual book (which I own) is

The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World by Harlan Ellison. Its also a very weird short story in the book.

Pretty much, somewhere on either a commentary or in the booklet, they commented that "Ai" is more like a pun, in the way it could mean 'The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart of the World" or "The Beast That Shouted I at the Heart of the World"

If you can find the book, you should read it, though its completely irrelevant to evangelion.

So I guess this is one of those things that don't translate all that well into English, huh?

Faußtin · Postby **Faußtin** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:51 am

I also think that the ambiguity is intentional. I would vote for "I", because:
- Everybody - in the anime - thinks of the Angels as monsters.
- Humanity is the 18th Angel (Dunno why, but they must be right

)
- In the LCL, humanity became one.
Therefore: humanity is the beast, who shouted "I" in the heart of the world, because it had became one at last. And becoming one - theoretically - is the ultimate goal of humanity, if we agree with the SEELE, who are humans, and thus they can be wrong.

The other answer, "love" would seem to be a wee-bit irreal, 'cuz if we recall the scene when Shinji also became one with the others and got pretty close to them, the other souls drove him away ("Don't come close to me!" "Go away!"), because they were afraid of that whole situation.
Hmmm... theories, theories, theories... baka me...

Space Penis · Postby **Space Penis** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:16 pm

Space Penis wrote:The ambiguity is intentional, I belive. The booklet for the Platinum dvd explains it, IIRC.

Bloogedy. I know EM had all these transcripted and put up on the site, but I can't seem to find them now. Does anyone have the link?

Toilet Duck · Postby **Toilet Duck** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 3:20 am

Space Penis wrote:
Space Penis wrote:The ambiguity is intentional, I belive. The booklet for the Platinum dvd explains it, IIRC.

Bloogedy. I know EM had all these transcripted and put up on the site, but I can't seem to find them now. Does anyone have the link?

got it in my pants!

"I" or "Love"

"I" or "Love"

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