Sachi wrote:This thread needs to stop coming back before I end up going back in time to murder myself in 2007.
Someone would've done it anyway. You know they would.
...I mean they would've started a thread like this, not
go back in time to murder you. I reckon it's pretty clear what made Sandalphon into Sandalphon, and ditto for Ireul and Bardiel. (I mean, being born inside a volcano, in a giant supercomputer or spawning on the body of an Eva doesn't exactly leave you spoiled for choices, does it?)
Evidence from some of the later Angels seems to point towards some kind of "learning process" shared between the Angels, that's to say that previous Angels' experiences help them decide what form to take or not to take. Zeruel, for example, after the unlucky eleven that came before him, seemed to know just where to aim to efficiently incapacitate an Eva and how to easily blast his way through to Central Dogma. After Zeruel's fall, those that came after seemed to get the idea that brute force wasn't the answer, giving rise to a series of "psychological" Angels like Arael, Armisael and (disputably) Kaworu.
I think we can also safely assume that Earth's gravity is to some extent a limitation on what Angels can and can't grow into...see Sahaquiel and Arael for examples. Down on the ground, the question of ability to manoeuvre and how large a target the Angel presents mean there's at least
some incentive to reduce size, but in high orbit there's no such need whatsoever. Gaghiel, who was slightly restricted by "habitat" but didn't need to worry about maneuverability, grew to the size of an aircraft carrier. Another example of humongous bodily volume was Leliel; albeit pushed into another dimension, we know that Leliel could swallow whole city blocks if the need arose.
A fanwanking idea as to what inspired Ramiel--could it have been the shining commercial buildings of Tokyo-3? If we're talking Rebuild, the shifting and shrinking into the ground may even have been prompting new Ramiel's shapeshifting ability. It's a slight stretch of the imagination, but hey, it's science fiction after all.
Israfel...ahh, Israfel. I'm tempted to theorize that it was the stimulus of
being cut in half that made them do what they did, but obviously that can't be right since they came
with twin cores already present. Ergo I'm gonna have to pass on this one;
I simply don't know. Maybe they had a traumatic childhood or something, that strengthened the bond between them to the point of symbiosis.
Finally, Matarael. Again, I have no clear bearing on how or why, but I guess "Angel of Rain" doesn't really offer that much in the way of weaponry. Matarael was also the earlier of two Angels to use the RAWR STYLIZED EYE MOTIF, which is highly symbolic in Judaeo-Christian Angels themselves, if only for the purpose of giving the audience a big laugh when it scares the wits out of Asuka earlier on.
Sachi wrote:Anyways, I still think it's still an interesting topic to ponder about the forms the Angels chose and what catalysts could have possibly lead to that form. Then again, we only get concrete ideas out of Angels like Shamshel and Gaghiel, so the rest would be a whole lot of fanwankery.
Oh I'm
sorry; did you mean to close the thread?