Seele00TextOnly wrote:"Hey, second impact was a lie; also there's some giant alien things coming, maybe soon, maybe in a decade, and we're completely structuring the city around this"

Ritsuko nonchalantly told Shinji about the 2nd Impact cover-up in episode #07, right out in the middle of Nerv HQ, so they probably all know about the magnificent exploding Angel 01.

Wait, is this discussion serious? This is serious, isn't it? Oh, you guys.

Trajan wrote:Maya is bad at her job, just like Gendo is bad with relationships, just like Asuka is bad at communicating, just like Shinji is bad at accepting himself, just like Rei is bad at emoting and so on......

It's dysfunction junction, people. You're not allowed on the show unless you have glaring weaknesses for the writers to exploit mercilessly.

Well, Hikari and Kensuke seem to be fine for their age.

Warren Peace wrote:Which is why Nerv should have put a Help Wanted ad in the paper...

I don't think Maya's interactions with Gendo was important enough in the film to warrant that. In fact, she never speaks to Gendo. Maybe Ritsuko would have but up a "Help Wanted" sign, but not Gendo. He hardly knows the chick.

Regardless, it wouldn't have mattered. Her whining never really hindered in the series anyway. She did her job no matter what.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:In fact, she never speaks to Gendo.

Time to watch #18 again, m'lad.

Reichu wrote:Time to watch #18 again, m'lad.

Oh, yeah! I forgot. Odd, since I've seen episodes 7- 19 recently just before watching 2.0...

Warren Peace wrote:Seriously. She questions everything. EVERYTHING. By the 50th "But sir, if we do that...", I'm amazed Gendo doesn't go down there and slap a bitch. Also, someone that breaks down and covers her face when she sees a monster fight probably shouldn't take jobs that involve monitoring giant monster fights.

Since when was blind obedience in any job description? Okay, it's apart of some jobs, but it's not an omnipresent ideology anymore.

Highly educated and qualified individuals are expected to act independently, and most of such individuals are less likely to defer authority to their superiors. If something is wrong, they won't stand idly by. A great example of such is (Professor) Fuyutsuki, who was going to reveal the whole conspiracy behind Second Impact before he was convinced that doing so was only going to cause more harm. As for the case of Maya, she was clearly not recruited by Nerv to be yes-woman. She clearly must have some level of expertise (presumably in computing) and is may also be Ritsuko's understudy or protege.

In other words -- she's a scientist (or whatever it actually is), not a soldier.

Nerv outwardly appears to be an organization which looks like it has a strong military component, but it's likely that the vast majority of the personnel are not apart of it. Everyone gets the bare necessities when it comes to weapons training, but they aren't conditioned to obey orders like members of the military. They know what's at stake, which is what keeps them going.... but no one is trained enough to be a soldier. They were all scared out of their wits and quickly slaughtered in EoE. And it's not just Maya who was frightened by the horrors of the series (though she's shown to be the only known member of the staff with a weak stomach), there were many shots of shocked faces during Eva-01's various berserk phases.

In any event....when an expert says something's wrong, they're usually right. In fact, professionals are expected to refuse doing any unethical orders.

Seele00TextOnly wrote:What were people told these things were built in anticipation of? What did people think installing highspeed transportation chutes to the surface for the Eva's along with embedded weaponry waiting for them when they arrived exist for? Were thousands and thousands of people told "Hey, second impact was a lie; also there's some giant alien things coming, maybe soon, maybe in a decade, and we're completely structuring the city around this"

You don't usually ask questions when you're under confidential contract. The maintenance crew likely wasn't told anything, and most of the techs only knew whatever they'd heard on the job itself, probably. NERV conscriptors certainly didn't say "Oh and by the way, this is all top secret, but we're trying to schedule Third Impact. Would you be alright working under such conditions?" during the job interview.

Most of Maya's little outbursts merely seem to be "The goal isn't what I thought it would be, and nobody's telling me what it really is!" Hence the "But if we do that-" responses. Her head was concentrating on using the tools and techniques she knew to just do her job in a way that would best keep things on the level and safe. (Maybe the best term is "somewhat normal considering the task at hand".) Then Ritsuko comes in with all of these crazy ideas and experiments to perform on all of the Evas and Pilots, straying away from keeping things "on the level".

And I don't think she's protesting most of the time. There was only one conversation she had with Ritsuko where I thought she really didn't like where the project was headed. (It was the same one where Ritsuko mentioned "being sullied".) Most of the other times, Maya seems to deeply respect Ritsuko for achieving the results through what Maya would consider unconventional methods. So her outbursts seem to be more like "Why are you doing that? That's not congruent with our normal daily operations?", which Maya seems to be hired to do: Daily operations. Ritsuko's usually the one on the battle front when it comes to hauling the techno-babble around and making Misato's/Gendo's battle commands come through.

I like what The Abhorrent and FFF4E had to say in this thread, and I don't have anything to add partly because I'm still surprised this thread is serious.

Maya sucks. She's a flawed human being who possesses empathy and acts the way most people would when confronted with horrible sanity-bending events. What a horribly written character.

chee wrote:Maya sucks. She's a flawed human being who possesses empathy and acts the way most people would when confronted with horrible sanity-bending events. What a horribly written character.

I always take Maya as the conscience for the audience. If she sucks, then we all suck.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't have anything to add partly because I'm still surprised this thread is serious.

Yeah, I think this was supposed to be another "Character is This!" thread, and it quickly turned into somewhat of a debate.

Yeah, I love how personally some are taking this. If business gets any more serious, we'll have to move it to "discussion". Again, as a plot device, Maya is great. She definitely serves a purpose. But she doesn't make much sense in-universe. The girl remains the only character Gendo actually RAGES at, when she refuses to enact the dummy plug system (if the board allowed me to upload pics, there would be an image of his "ARRRGH!" face here). I don't see how he'd keep her around after that, or at least start sexually harassing her.

Also, to the many who have made that argument that she's a nerdy scientist, not a soldier... I'm not so sure about that. EOE is clear about her military training. She was expected to know how to use a gun, even if it's not part of her job description. She's a scientist, but a scientist dedicated to learning how to kill stuff better. The real life military has people like that too.

I get that training for war is different than going to war, but her peers have no trouble keeping a cool head. The instruction she had to go through to work there must be massive. How could she not understand that her job is to help kill giants?

Also, Maya: you're the reason Misato died. If you'd had the guts to use that gun, you would have shot the guy that shot Misato. Because of you, her last action in life was a pedo-kiss.

Nice going Maya.

...

Warren Peace wrote:Also, Maya: you're the reason Misato died. If you'd had the guts to use that gun, you would have shot the guy that shot Misato. Because of you, her last action in life was a pedo-kiss.

Unbelievable. Why, that bitch Maya was probably also responsible for helping sabotaging Ritsuko's work on the Magi.

You obviously haven't read EOE's script. Anno wrote that little tidbit into the margins. In fact, "Nice going, Maya!" is a direct quote from that.

are we talking about her job as one of the analyst or ritsuko's lesbian whore lover?

symbv wrote:Maya... If she sucks, then we all suck.

Nailed it.

symbv wrote:I always take Maya as the conscience for the audience. If she sucks, then we all suck.

Unfortunately Shinji in beginning of EoE is closer to typical eva fan than Maya...