I was somewhat confused during the end of the Ep26, specifically when everyone was congratulating Shinji. Was it in Instrumentality, or did he leave? I did read the wiki, which doesn't suggest he left, but I'm still confused.

Start by looking at all the threads in Discussion with Concurrency in the title. Then we can decide which other threads to point to.

My understanding has always been that Ep 25 & 26 take place right before Lilith dies in 26' (when you see her throat get sliced, gushing forth a river of blood). Shinji basically rejects Instrumentality by asserting his individuality ("congratulations!") from within Eva Unit-01, thereby causing Instrumentality's... nullification? I'm not entirely sure, but the whole thing reminded me of when Shinji ends up breaking out of Leliel in Ep 16 by tearing a hole through it with his Eva, as a result of several scenes of psychological cross-examination; something similar is going on between EoTV and EoE (where Unit-01 also ends up breaking out of Lilith's eye during her death): in both cases he rejects, in his mind, what is previously seen to be an inescapable and fateful situation, this thus has dire consequences on physical reality. So basically EoTV, that catalyst to Third Impact's overthrowing, would, in my view, be taking place roughly 15 minutes before End of Evangelion's... ending.

Again, I'm not saying this is Scripture, so please don't yell at me if I'm spouting insanity. >_>

Stryker wrote:I was somewhat confused during the end of the Ep26, specifically when everyone was congratulating Shinji. Was it in Instrumentality, or did he leave? I did read the wiki, which doesn't suggest he left, but I'm still confused.

In a "Physical" sense, I think it's safe to say, regardless of concurrency, that the "Congratulations" scene took place in instrumentality somehow, not in the physical world.

CJD wrote:In a "Physical" sense, I think it's safe to say, regardless of concurrency, that the "Congratulations" scene took place in instrumentality somehow, not in the physical world.

Does it need to be thought of as literally taking place anywhere?
I think a lot of the scenes in 25 and 26 are communicating directly to the audience through the Eva characters, and are only depicting instrumentality in an abstract sense.
The final scene is really about Shinji/Anno's state of mind changing. I don't think where it takes place matters. That said, I do think the message is anti-instrumentality and we're meant to take it that Shinji rejected it.