World is a cruel place and making yourself a better person doesn't make the world better, unless you somehow convince everyone to do the same, regardless of their philosophy and social status. That is Utopia which is already said to be impossible. Making yourself a better person doesn't exlude you from potential victims of a two bit mugger who would just club you in the back of the head, and steal your money you fairly earned. And who is the winner at the end of the day?

Cheesy endings (as you consider Sadamoto's) are actually a bit more encouraging and hopeful than hammering AGAIN that world is a shitty place. News are doing this daily anyway.

Sometimes curling into a ball and dreaming of a happy place is the best alternative (I'll get pretty dark here, so brace yourself). For example it's pretty common method to endure rape (at least that was the advice i heard more than once on internet or IRL). Would you really tell the person who was hurt like that, that she should accept reality of what is happening?

Stillborn: this is the point at which you're crossing out of being negative regarding the endings and on topic vs. just being a living downer and getting on people's nerves with the constant negativity. That last post of yours skips back and forth across the line, so try and stay on the side that still focuses on the topic, k?

And maybe cheer up some, damn it!

Fireball wrote:I might as well have read a fanfiction.

There's no reason to look down on fanfics with such blanket derision. LOTS of well-received works are pretty much just ascended fanfics, afterall.

My negativity is born amongst other things from EoE like endings in stories I encounter.

When i see a cheesy happy ending, I know it's sugarcoated. I know it's unreal. But it makes me smile a tine bit and makes me hope, i can achieve at least something similiar to that, even if not that perfect.

EoE ending on other hand is actually - "Shinji had his ephiphany to face reality and ended up in a shithole" - so why even try if this is the effects of your/my efforts? The same can be said after every slasher movie where bad guy escapes anyway in the end.

The "facing reality" that is so highly praised is usefull only if you can change anything to make at least your imminent reality better.
Escapism is often equvalent to covering convict's eyes during execution to spare him a sight of incoming death.
What can he do about his situation anyway?
Screaming "REALITY" for the sake of it, is like standing right next to the convict, ripping cloth from his eyes and pointing and the firing sqad shouting "your about to die!" as if this was supposed to somehow make his situation better or improve his mental state.

Sadamoto's ending may be cheesy, but it shows something worth striving for. Something worth trying.

EoE may preach a lot but in the end is simply hollow in it's messages, no different than anchorman droning about another homicide in the poor neighbourhood and adding, that there is a bright side - locals there will be cheaper.

Sorry if you consider this sliding towards offtopic. I need to use paralels to speak my mind better.

Stillborn wrote:World is a cruel place and making yourself a better person doesn't make the world better

Maybe not but it's helping me keep going and what makes me better might make someone else happy too.

Also you seem to be under the impression that I'm some sort of idealist that has something against escapsim or happy ends which I don't. I seek it out every day in my entertainment. I just don't like works that take two decades to finish and still miss the point.

The rest of your post are just the same edgy tangents I couldn't care less about

here have two smilies hugging instead

NemZ wrote:There's no reason to look down on fanfics with such blanket derision. LOTS of well-received works are pretty much just ascended fanfics, afterall.

I don't doubt that. When I say fanfics in this context I'm clearly speaking about the bad ones.

At the end of a long walk with the dogs, I have formulated a theory that fits all three completed continuities equally well. I have to make supper now, and then go to choir rehearsal, but I'll try to get it written up before bed.

Reichu wrote:ElMariachi: Where did you get the impression that Second Impact was erased from history? The MP Eva "fossil" in the last chapter indicates that prior events occurred. Yui indicated that Shinji would continue to be reborn, i.e., that reincarnation exists in this universe. Hence, the final chapter exists untold years after the previous one, and features "reincarnations" of the characters who (via some contrived means or another) look exactly the same as they did before.

Well, for one winter is back and Shinji is in Tokyo, the original Tokyo, so the climate has gone back to its pre-2I state.
And even if the MP-EVAs statues looks old and very damaged, there wasn't in any moment of the chapter any indication that something else than the MP-EVAs statues were discovered, and I think that an entire human civilization with XXIst century technology extending to the whole planet would have left more than one trace for the archaeologist to find!
Last but not least, Shinji is with Misato's cross, so unless we have to interpret that as alt!Shinji's ancestor Shinji prime giving it from father to son since millenia ago until it was alt!Shinji's turn to have it, which would led the cross in a far more battered state(unless it as in pure platinum) then this cross is Shinji prime who received it from Rei/Lilith as a subconscious reminder of his alternative life.

Finally, in the interview of Sadamoto published in the same volume than the final chapter, Sada said that he made a very classical ending, and since some years with all these Visual Novels with multiple endings the trend seems to be alternative timelines, time loops and other time fuckeries, I deducted that the manga's ending was an alternative timeline.

OK, I'll scrub my first effort and try again from what I dimly perceive to be a Buddhist viewpoint.

Instrumentality is a contrived way to enable all humans to achieve nirvana. Rei explicitly says that is its purpose in EoE, I believe. But nirvana is normally to be achieved through the effort of the individual achieving enlightenment by following the precepts of the Buddha. How then can it be imposed on people from outside, and why? Well, leaving those little details aside, I now picture Shinji recognising the nirvana of instrumentality as being a fake, because he is plainly not enlightened, and wishing in the end to return to the cycle of reincarnation with its concomitant hurt and suffering which is the only correct way to guide the soul towards ultimate enlightenment and true nirvana; this is what is meant by rejecting instrumentality. The end of Shinji's journey through his psychological problems is not a return to his body, but a return to the cycle of reincarnation which will then follow its course as it always has. So the state of the world is irrelevant - we don't need to see a repaired world, or a damaged but livable world; nor do we really need to see Shinji return from instrumentality because his rejection of it is already the end of his journey.

Thus, the end of EoTV shows that rejection, but not what follows; the end of EoE shows the rejection, and also shows his reappearance in the damaged world, but it shows no more because that's not what matters; and the end of the manga shows the rejection, and then the reincarnation of Shinji, with improved karma, at some future time. In all three cases there is no carry-forward of knowledge past the reincarnation (which is not shown except in the manga), because this lack is a specific property of reincarnation - so criticising the manga ending for not showing a direct connect with the lessons he learnt in the previous life is missing the point.

The fact that Shinji looks like his former self, the almost-recognition of Asuka, and Misato's cross, are all no more than signals to the reader that this really is a version of Shinji, though reincarnated - no more than that.

---

Well, I fully expect that to get torn apart as fiercely as my previous effort; but no matter, because each time I am learning a bit more about the whole work in all its forms. In any case, I find a much bigger problem for making even a slightly naturalistic (within the Eva universe) interpretation to be the question of how Shinji comes to be the representative of the whole of humanity in any case? I mean, he's not the only kid in the world with problems, so why him? Indeed, why a single person/soul at all?

Another specific problem in the manga is Shinji's parents saying they will be watching over him. Why are they different? Have they achieved enlightenment so that they are now out of the cycle of reincarnation, become gods, or what?

When I wake up tomorrow, I'll probably regret having posted this!

I almost always though that One More Final had somewhat of a more hopeful ending that revolved around the moment Asuka finally decides to literally reach out to Shinji.Like that was one of the points of the whole narrative: People who are afraid or against reaching out to others, finally doing so.


Like chee once said:

[Shinji] mayo'd himself over her, tried to strangle her, and yet she still caresses him. This says something.

The problem with such a reading is precisely that there is still a Shinji there to make a choice. If he'd truely reached nirvana he'd cease to have such a choice and simply be. In such a reading I'd assume this is what Lilith is finally offering him at the end, and Shinji rejects that last step thus dragging everyone else back to life with him. In fact Shinji is the only person who didn't achieve enlightenment, and through this moment of cowardice in failing to embrace eternity he has caused imperfection to creep back into everyone else, for which they may justifiably hate him if they remember what they now lack.

Kendrix wrote:But the MP EVAs are there, and they're OLD.

Based on what? They're fossilized and shit, but that happened during 3I. What makes you think they're any older than they are in any other continuity?

Personally, I find the reincarnation angle even more outlandish than the mindwipe.

pwhodges: Being as I know absolutely nothing about Buddhism, all I can really say is that your interpretation, if valid, might make the manga ending slightly more palatable. Is there a basis for the interpretation in Japanese storytelling tropes?

I would not apply the reincarnation business to the Anno continuities, however. Sadamoto did make a specific point to add that bit about how Shinji would be born again and again (don't have the ref handy, but it was something like that). No direct reference to reincarnation is present in EoTV or EoE, so we cannot retrofit those continuities with a mechanic that Sadamoto made explicit in his version.

I find a much bigger problem for making even a slightly naturalistic (within the Eva universe) interpretation to be the question of how Shinji comes to be the representative of the whole of humanity in any case? I mean, he's not the only kid in the world with problems, so why him? Indeed, why a single person/soul at all?

The best fanwank that I have for this: it is not so much that Shinji is "representative", but that the Seeds of Life (and Evas in turn) are designed to be unable to trigger Impact-type events without a member of sub-Seed humanity (whether Lilin or Angel) providing "permission", in the form of destrudo (or whatever). A catalyst, if you will. (Yes, I know this usage is not really chemically correct.) This limits the Seeds' ability to destroy or transform of their own accord.

How is this seen, in practice?

- Second Impact involves Adam waking up and attempting to undo Lilith's work before having her party cut short by a runaway S2 Engine. What triggered Adam to wake up? Contact with a Lilin.

Exactly how one thing (the CE) led to the next (3I) is not explained at all, but it could possibly make sense within the framework I'm proposing. If Adam's actions were triggered or permitted in some way by contact with a Lilin "catalyst", this could suggest that the destruction/rebirth of humanity was something that the donor wanted.

- Throughout the show, we hear whispers of a possible Angel-triggered Third Impact. It involves an Angel coming into contact with either Adam or Lilith (nobody can agree on whether both would actually work or not, but let's just pretend they would) and having some wish of theirs granted, depending on their individual temperament. The fear of the Lilin is that the Angels will invariably want all the Lilin dead (and who can blame the Angels, really).

The NGE2 game only shows a single variation of an "Angel Impact", where one reaches Lilith, naked Rei invariably/inexplicably shows up, and both she and the Angel fuse with Lilith. GNR results (of course) and collects the souls of Angels and Lilin both, and apparently rebirths them all into Adam-type life.

- Gendo intended to be the human catalyst for Lilith/Adam, to induce HIP and join Yui in Eva-01's core and whatever else. He only ever gets to satisfy this role if you get specific endings in Rei and Gendo's scenarios in NGE2.

- In EoE, the Divinity Trinity select poor hapless Shinji as their catalyst. Seele can work with that ("COMPLEMENT HUMANITY WITH YOUR IMPERFECT EGO"). This instance kind of seems like cheating on the gods' parts, since they see to it that Shinji is psychologically assaulted until he kinda-sorta-not-really gives them permission to kill everybody. But I guess if the Seeds can game the system, the more power to them, eh?

Another specific problem in the manga is Shinji's parents saying they will be watching over him. Why are they different? Have they achieved enlightenment so that they are now out of the cycle of reincarnation, become gods, or what?

I have absolutely no idea. But I am pretty confident that manga!Gendo is about as far from enlightened as a person can get. ("I HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU STOLE YOUR MOM'S ATTENTIONS AWAY FROM ME GRRRRR.")

Bagheera wrote:Personally, I find the reincarnation angle even more outlandish than the mindwipe.

Gotta deal. Sadamoto adds the mechanic to his version. Unless you have some alternative explanation for why he would make Yui tell Shinji that he'll be reborn lots of times.

Reichu wrote:The best fanwank that I have for this: it is not so much that Shinji is "representative", but that the Seeds of Life (and Evas in turn) are designed to be unable to trigger Impact-type events without a member of sub-Seed humanity (whether Lilin or Angel) providing "permission", in the form of destrudo (or whatever).

I could see this helping to explain why Kaworu took Kyoko with him to Terminal Dogma.

Monk Ed wrote:I could see this helping to explain why Kaworu took Kyoko with him to Terminal Dogma.

I... I... I can't believe that never occurred to me. Now I have to take my "what if Kaworu actually did fuse with Eva-02 and fuck shit up" fantasies back to the drawing board.

Well, not completely, but this does give me something new to think about. Thank you!

Monk Ed wrote:I could see this helping to explain why Kaworu took Kyoko with him to Terminal Dogma.

Though Kyoko being locked away... I don't know if Kaworu was able to communicate with Kyoko in Eva-02 that way? Also - how would that explain 2I? If Adam was present but no ADO was around... How would that work?

I'll let you smart folks figure that one out lol.

Back to topic of the manga ending: I was very disappointed with it. the penultimate chapter was great except for Rei turning into precipitation which I found unnecessarily strange given that Shinji wanted for them to "go back to the previous world" and Rei had ample time to explain why she can't or won't, but she didn't and just said farewell with Shinji looking dumbfounded and then exploded into snow. UGH.

I found the last chapter to be so cringe-worthy AND hypocritical in the sense that this kind of narrative refuses to take responsibility to give the reader proper closure. When the first major moment in the narrative is Shinji saying "I mustn't run away - I mustn't run away", this is the biggest kind of let down ever.

I don't see why there has to be some kind of elaborate explanation about the mechanics of how Adam and Lilith work to explain why Lilith asked Shinji what he wanted. She did it because she chose to is a perfectly adequate explanation and makes perfect sense in terms of Rei's development. Lilith's time as Rei before reuniting with herself gave her personality and agency where previously she had none.

There is no direct reference to reincarnation in any strain of Eva but it's implicitly present in the series: Souls can be detached from their bodies and reenter new bodies. That's reincarnation. Whether it happens without Eva-related metaphysical manipulation is not addressed by the concept of a soul surviving the body and being able to enter a new one is certainly present.

This whole reincarnation thing seems as far out as sequel theory, and just as bad.

Reichu wrote:I... I... I can't believe that never occurred to me. Now I have to take my "what if Kaworu actually did fuse with Eva-02 and fuck shit up" fantasies back to the drawing board.

Didn't Kaworu say "I could have fused with her if she didn't have a soul"? I always thought Eva-02 was a sockpuppet to keep Eva-01 busy while Kaworu fused with what he thought was Adam.

Reichu wrote:I would not apply the reincarnation business to the Anno continuities, however. ..., so we cannot retrofit those continuities with a mechanic that Sadamoto made explicit in his version.

I'm deliberately suggesting that you can, precisely because this might be a natural and automatic thought in a largely Buddhist society. Just as a writer in a Christian society might write things that assume certain Christian ways of thought, even without explicitly practising the faith.

UrsusArctos wrote:This whole reincarnation thing seems as far out as sequel theory, and just as bad.

I'm not arguing that it happened, only that it's a core part of Evangelion metaphysics and can't be discounted out of hand, although what we see in the story might be better termed "transmigration" rather than reincarnation.

UrsusArctos wrote:Didn't Kaworu say "I could have fused with her if she didn't have a soul"? I always thought Eva-02 was a sockpuppet to keep Eva-01 busy while Kaworu fused with what he thought was Adam.

Kaworu also says, "I'm glad you stopped Eva-02. If you hadn't, I might have gone on living with her." Pretty weird...

Monk Ed's comment got me thinking, because according to the framework I've proposed, Kaworu might have chosen Eva-02 as a de facto Child of Adam (an unascended Eva), whose soul could be coaxed into catalysing whatever Kaworu had in mind. Kaworu has the soul of a Seed, so he wouldn't be able to accomplish what he wanted unassisted. I think I've been assuming that Kaworu's been carrying the souls of the dead Angels around in his pockets (so to speak), and they somehow satisfied the catalyst role? But Kyoko is a fascinating take, too.

Chuckman: There being an explanation for the mechanics, and Lilith asking Shinji because she wanted to, are not mutually exclusive. She could necessarily require a catalyst for Third Impact, but, due to developing a sense of agency as Rei (or whatever) be able to choose one (Shinji) over another (Gendo).

(Though, I should point out that Lilith's soul did come from an 'ordinary person' -- a member of the FAR -- to begin with, so it's not like the concepts of personality and agency would have been absent beforehand. It might be fairer to say that being a lonely immortal for billions of years would inevitably result in 'getting out of touch', though.)

pwhodges: There's a bit in NGE2 that suggests that souls are self-replicating entities. I'm not sure how that would tie into a Buddhist framework. What if instead, in Anno's version, souls are like other lifeforms: they reproduce and die?

monitoradiation wrote:Though Kyoko being locked away... I don't know if Kaworu was able to communicate with Kyoko in Eva-02 that way? Also - how would that explain 2I? If Adam was present but no ADO was around... How would that work?

"Eva-02's soul has shut itself away" is an explanation for how Kaworu can use Kyoko's body without opposition. I'm not sure it necessarily means that she is completely unreachable. Especially if you're a god.

2I was triggered by contact with a Lilin, as I noted. This seems to suggest by itself that an ADO was not required for the process. (And as NGE2 shows, the reverse situation is possible, i.e., Angels can trigger Impacts with Lilith.)

I really don't know enough about Buddhism to make a definitive comment on that. It seems to me confused in some ways. The Buddha denied the existence of a soul (or self), while also saying that it was inappropriate to believe categorically in either "soul" or "no-soul". Reincarnation is the transfer of one being's mental energy to another being at the instant of death (indeed, I've seen the idea that successive thoughts in one mind are equivalent to death and rebirth); memories are not transferred, but the possibility of some awareness of previous lives doesn't seem to be absolutely denied either. Is this what we might call a soul in any case?

But how these concepts are absorbed into the mindset of a society as a whole is beyond my ability to say.

Maybe I'm wrong to focus on Buddhism. A reason for doing this is Rei mentioning nirvana; but I guess that my image of reincarnation might be more Hindu influenced, which doesn't really work here. However, the more ancient religion in Japan is Shinto, and Shinto lore, I discover, suggests that a soul can have multiple parts that may even have different afterlives - now that intrigues me, given the way that souls fragment in Evangelion.

Perhaps this is all simply pointing at a typical Westerner's lack of understanding (speaking for myself, at least) of the full implications in Eastern thought of their religious frameworks, and the idea that because of this lack we are missing the key that would make all the endings work for us in the way(s) the writers intended.