Hey Good Mams and Sirs I have a couple questions to ask. I already have my answers but I would like to see yours, maybe it'll be something I hadn't thought of before.

My questions are:

Why did Asuka want Shinji's attention so badly? What made her think " I want him to be the one to hold and help me"? Why did she seek his affection? I know some of you are going to say that she would have taken it from anyone but why did she focus so much on him? Why was she so interested in him that she thought about doing you-know-what with him after only knowing him for 6-8 days (If you indeed believe that the whole Wall of Jericho thing can be interpreted as that)

Do you think that after 3rd Impact Asuka was jealous of Shinji knowing that their mothers were inside the Evas the entire time and only his mother saw fit to aid him many times in battle while her Mother only decided to only help her at the very end?

He was there, and she's hormonal. Also he's a pilot, and a better pilot than her, and she puts a lot of importance on that. He has a confusing habit of being a total nebbish except when he does something heroic like jump in a volcano to save her. There was a time when he was starting to push back against her shit. He had the right pheromone profile to put the throbs in her her babymaker. They're destined star-crossed lovers doomed to find each other throughout all of time.

Asuka is not your average 14 year old teenage girl and this is naturally reflected in her behavior when it comes to potential romantic relationships and partners. She left in the middle of a date with a boy her age without telling him anything, and she only went along with it in the first place because Hikari asked her to. Despite her status as the most swooned over girl at school, she doesn't seem to show any interest in any of the boys her age.

So what makes Shinji special? Well, like Chuckman said, Shinji was a pilot like her, a peer, which immediately put him a better position to spark her interest than any other boy his age. Notice how, in episode 8, after hearing about Shinji's feats with Unit-01 from Kaji, she quickly separates him from Toji and Kensuke in order to impress him by showing him her own Eva.

So yeah, his status as a pilot definitely helped, and of course then you have to add up the fact that they were made to live under the same house during puberty, while under the guardianship of a woman like Misato no less, who had already called dibs on Asuka's older crush.

I guess you could say a big part of the reason was Shinji being in the right place at the right time, but I also believe and like to think there's more to her attraction to him than that, and that, if they were able to get over their (rather similar) emotional baggage and neuroses, they could very well connect on a deep level and ultimately develop a meaningful relationship that could help heal both.

I still suspect she wanted to use Shinji as a test-fuck to get a little more experience in her actual pursuit of Kaji. All her flirting with him was mostly about trying to figgure this whole sexiness thing out on a harmless goof.

As to the jealousy angle, I think she's be a bit annoyed that Shinji didn't mention it (and very annoyed at herself that Rei did and she just didn't take the hint), but that's going to be dwarfed by the feelings that she just found her in time for her to be killed again. I mean not only did Shinji get know about his mom earlier, he now knows she still alive somewhere out there... while she's left with even deeper uncertainty then ever.

That's the exact opposite of what she was doing. She was directing a lot of energy onto a target that she knew (perhaps not consciously) was not going to reciprocate. She got so confused and scared with Shinji because she knew it was possible he would and could and didn't understand why he didn't.

She's not a space alien. Asuka's actually a pretty typical and realistic teenage girl.

@Wanderlust
The date was with someone who knew of her through Hikari's older sister -- all the little we know of him suggests he was several years older (but not old enough to be Kaji level suave). At Asuka's age, the different paces of maturation makes dating older boys not unusual. But age didn't compensate for his being a mundane.

ChaddyManPrime wrote:Why did Asuka want Shinji's attention so badly? What made her think " I want him to be the one to hold and help me"? Why did she seek his affection? I know some of you are going to say that she would have taken it from anyone but why did she focus so much on him?

I'd answer this one...but at least a few of you already beat me to the punch. Right time right place, living together, co-worker/peer/rival, just enough pushing back early on, etc.

Also, hormones. They'll get you every time.

Why was she so interested in him that she thought about doing you-know-what with him after only knowing him for 6-8 days (If you indeed believe that the whole Wall of Jericho thing can be interpreted as that)

Hm. As much as I like where that idea is headed (and I do), I don't interpret it like that. I think the whole WoJ reference she made meant "are you ready to cross that line from boy to man?" and whether or not he'd actually follow her into the room, not that she wanted him to join her in doing the horizontal mambo.

(It does, by the way, bring up a good point: did she use that example consciously? Asuka's a smart girl, after all, and why else would someone reference a wall famous for being breached if they're trying to keep someone out?)

Do you think that after 3rd Impact Asuka was jealous of Shinji knowing that their mothers were inside the Evas the entire time and only his mother saw fit to aid him many times in battle while her Mother only decided to only help her at the very end?

Now, this one...I have no clue. Best guess is "at least somewhat".

AngelNo13Bardiel wrote:(It does, by the way, bring up a good point: did she use that example consciously? Asuka's a smart girl, after all, and why else would someone reference a wall famous for being breached if they're trying to keep someone out?)

Maybe she wanted to him to breach her walls if you catch my drift

*sigh*
Emotional walls maybe, not the ones in her knickers. For crissakes, disentangle yourself from perversity sometimes...

AngelNo13Bardiel wrote:*sigh*
Emotional walls maybe, not the ones in her knickers. For crissakes, disentangle yourself from perversity sometimes...

NEVER!

@Nemz So how do you view the Director's Cut scene during her mind rape?

Chuckman wrote:That's the exact opposite of what she was doing. She was directing a lot of energy onto a target that she knew (perhaps not consciously) was not going to reciprocate. She got so confused and scared with Shinji because she knew it was possible he would and could and didn't understand why he didn't.

I don't see why you assume her interest in Kaji wasn't exactly what she says it was. He rebuffs her of course and points her bluntly at Shinji as a way of scrapping her off. So she takes the hint in completely the wrong way and decides to experiment a bit with Shinji to work out just what it is she's doing wrong or missing that made Kaji reject her honest advances. Her annoyance is that her attempts to attract Shinji (for reasons that aren't really about him at all) fail as well, so she sees this as just another facet of her big pile of failure.

TL/DR: She doesn't want Shinji; she just wants Shinji to want her.

You're not wrong. That's a stage in the development of their relationship.

I think she saw Kaji as a father figure, subsconciously, and knew, subconsciously, that she would be rejected. Asuka has an uncontrollable self destructive streak. She seeks out punishment to validate her own self loathing without realizing she's doing it.

NemZ wrote:I still suspect she wanted to use Shinji as a test-fuck to get a little more experience in her actual pursuit of Kaji. All her flirting with him was mostly about trying to figgure this whole sexiness thing out on a harmless goof.

That was her conscious plan, but as seen in 22' it turns out she had some actual attachment to the guy.

As to the jealousy angle, I think she's be a bit annoyed that Shinji didn't mention it (and very annoyed at herself that Rei did and she just didn't take the hint), but that's going to be dwarfed by the feelings that she just found her in time for her to be killed again. I mean not only did Shinji get know about his mom earlier, he now knows she still alive somewhere out there... while she's left with even deeper uncertainty then ever.

He didn't really know much until the end, so I doubt that'd be an issue. As to the mothers' current status, that's the one spot where she lucked out: hers might be out there, able to be assert her ATF and come back, while Shinji's is gone, forever, with no hope of ever returning. She's not the one who should be jealous there.

NemZ wrote:TL/DR: She doesn't want Shinji; she just wants Shinji to want her.

That's possible (and quite probable in Broadcast), but see "Why are you here?" It pretty much leaves that theory dead in the water.

ChaddyManPrime wrote:Why was she so interested in him that she thought about doing you-know-what with him after only knowing him for 6-8 days

That's not really a reasonable assumption to make just from a little teasing.
If he'd actually gone in there, she probably would have kicked his face in and been offended either way. She's not a challenge or video game that you can just 'win' by entering the right combination of cheat codes.

Also, some other thing she wants of him is for him to leave her alone and dissapear off the face of the earth because he's supposedly stealing her show and also fundamentally irritates her.
Wanting mutually exclusive things and being unable to get her priorities straight is very much a basic characteristic of Asuka, allthough the latter isn't all that untypical for people of her age group.

Here (an in the similar boobs-in-face incident in early ep 10) she's mostly just trying out what she can do with her 'womanly wiles' (which is her idea of looking like an adult, even though it ends up looking all the more teenagery)

She didn't get really emotionally attached to him untill episode 10, due to a mixture of her fishing him out of the volcano and seeing him look at/work together with Rei, whom she'd been nursing a serious dislike for since the tag team training incident.
It doesn't matter what she might or might not 'win', just the victory itself.

Its as simple as her not wanting to lose and making a competition out of everything - Shinji isn't particularly special, he just happens to be in front of her face a lot.
Asuka wants attention from everyone, mostly because she felt ignored and disregarded by her parents in her early childhood.
Also, those parent's didn't exactly contribute to a healthy idea of what a relationship is like - She doesn't want to depend on anyone because she feels that would be a weakness that could ruin her. She was too young to process/understand that, depending on your interpretation, her mom shouldn't have driven her husband away by being a neglectful workaholic, her father was just an asshole, or possibly both.
As she saw it, her mom's mistake was to get attached to another person who was then in a position to hurt her by running away with his new flame, and she quite understandably doesn't want to end up the same way. But she's still a social ape, and a particular extroverted one at that, so she basically tries to set things up so she can convince herself that the others want her.

She probably enjoys to have Kaji as a father figure and Shinji as a comerade/ brother-like connection, but she can't admit that to herself so they have to become her admirers. Shinji being a 'rival' is just another motivation to get him to submit, but that's really what it's about - not once does Asuka ever really approach Shinji or indicate interest (no, suggesting he's being used as target practice doesn't count) - and then she gets pissed at him for not reading her mind. She doesn't consider his feelings for a second. But she does that with everyone whose name isn't Hikari, really.

She doesn't know any other way to not be alone, her parent's sure didn't teach her how to do it.

Wanderlust wrote: Notice how, in episode 8, after hearing about Shinji's feats with Unit-01 from Kaji, she quickly separates him from Toji and Kensuke in order to impress him by showing him her own Eva.

I find it much noteworthier how she was completely 'meh' about him untill she heard 'forty percent'.

The interest is pretty shallow on either side, and while Shinji doesn't go beyond 'usual teenage infatuation behaviour' until things go really bad, Asuka was mean to him even for 14 year old standards. Just look at the so-called "kiss". Neither of them really knows what they want yet, and they don't have the slightest clue about each other's true selves and would probably be quite terrified of having to deal with those, if not in the same way.

And if they ever got over that very poor combination of both having a hard time showing affection yet needing a lot of positive reinforcement to placate their trust issues?

Well, then they'd have lost the only thing they ever had in common. They don't get along with each other's friends, don't share any mutual interests, and seem to have very different concepts of what they consider comfortable or enjoyable.

Yeah, they both suffered from being EVa-pilots, but they had their problems with very different parts of the job, and even where they did go through similar experiences, their reactions were dramatically different. Just compare their very different reactions to the prospect of not being alone on the battlefield.
They'd just be talking past each other, and really, they were already too overfocussed on EVA piloting as the weighing scales of their self-worth, the last thing they need is to spend all their lives wondering if they owe their spouses to their synch ratios.


The only reason they're stuck together is that they're dependant on/need each other because of their job shared job// ocassional situational loneliness, as a general metaphor for the plight of the social ape.


It might also be sorbering/enlighthening to take a look at that alternate life-action scene.

"You're pretty cold-hearted, yet you get attached easily, don't you? But that's just like keeping a dog."

Mr. Tines wrote: At Asuka's age, the different paces of maturation makes dating older boys not unusual. But age didn't compensate for his being a mundane.

Maybe if he was one or two years older, but didn't she mention something about him being a college student?

Poor random student guy, i keep imagining him searching the whole amusement park for her or something.

But at the same time, that whole subplot just hammers home how Asuka's venture to Japan didn't turn out the way she wanted it to. She went there as prepared as a kid her age could be, did her best, and yet the epic story of her glorious heroism she was waiting on just wouldn't arrive.
At first, she kept blaming everyone around her for ruining it and boastin about how she would soon prove her superiority, but time dragged on and soon it began to dawn on her that she is not the MC the hard, uncaring world she lives in is not fair in the slightest.

Occasional meaniness on an ltimately minuscule, perfectly outgrowable bratty-teenager-scale of events aside, she didn't do anything to remotely deserve all the crap that got thrown her way, or that she didn't get any of the appreciation and positive affirmation that she didn't know how to properly ask for without feeling like a snail without its shell.

Ep is just another example - he starts the episode with high expectations of going on a date with Kaji, but he's busy doing spy things. But hey, she still gets an older boy... except she doesn't like the idea of settling for less, so she dumps him... and for naught, sine she does ultimtely end up settling for her wimpy flatmate in an undignified, distinctly unromantic 'lose your lip virginity for the sheer heck of it becausy my estradiol is currently surging up' kind of situation... and doesn't even get a reaction out of him (perhaps because she explicitly told him she wasn't serious and has a habit of calling him a pervert and applying physical violence if he gets too close to her even by accident, but she doesn't know any better way to do it that'd feel sufficiently safe to her) only to learn that, as if to add insult to injury, Misato and Kaji are back together.

Then she storms off to her room and presumably spends the rest of the evening being miserable.

Can't fault any of you for wishing you could go and hive her a much-needed hug, but you got the whole story including her flashbacks and inner monologues, while all Shinji gets is a best very ambiguous and at worst a pretty clear "I hate your guts so stay the fuck away from me".
It's not Shinjis job to be your self-insert.

Kendrix wrote:She didn't get really emotionally attached to him untill episode 10, due to a mixture of her fishing him out of the volcano

Didn't he fish her out of the volcano?

Shinoyami65 wrote:Didn't he fish her out of the volcano?

That's what I meant.

Sorry, haven't found the time to take a nap and recharge those brain juices in a while.

Bagheera wrote:That's possible (and quite probable in Broadcast), but see "Why are you here?" It pretty much leaves that theory dead in the water.

I'm mostly talking OA since that's my version of choice, yes, but I think it's arguable (with some stretching) in the DC as well.

That particular bit can be interpreted as her annoyed that she's wasting so much effort on him and losing shreds of dignity in the process because she doesn't repsect Shinji at all, and still not getting any closer to her goal. In fact that particular moment is a reworking of the instant she knows she's lost Kaji to Misato for sure while she was busy playing utterly depressing mind games with the baka.

She's basically been sprinting the wrong way on a track full of hurdles and missing every jump.

ChaddyManPrime wrote: Why did Asuka want Shinji's attention so badly? What made her think " I want him to be the one to hold and help me"? Why did she seek his affection? I know some of you are going to say that she would have taken it from anyone but why did she focus so much on him? Why was she so interested in him that she thought about doing you-know-what with him after only knowing him for 6-8 days (If you indeed believe that the whole Wall of Jericho thing can be interpreted as that)
Do you think that after 3rd Impact Asuka was jealous of Shinji knowing that their mothers were inside the Evas the entire time and only his mother saw fit to aid him many times in battle while her Mother only decided to only help her at the very end?

I think one of Asuka's main issue is the proprietary behaviour. She is the "prettiest" girl in school and she knows how fast affection disappears. That what showed us E22 (where NERV doesnt give a f*ck about her). She blames him for things he didn't even bother. The problem in the tv-show was rather simple between them. Communication. Jean Paul Satre's Huis-clos (No Exit - literature/stage play) made it pretty clear: "Hell is other people."(which is some sentence like: My freedom/space ends where yours begin). The proprietary behaviour (i'm the best, everybody must acknoledge me, the slap for Rei in the elevator) claimed space from Shinji (his former room) and she saw how housebroken he was/still is (which lead to claiming at Shinji at all). The problem however is the fact that Shinji is pretty much the opposite from what Asuka is thinking. He is pretty "innocent" and not knowing like a newborn child but she interprets this as kinda "dumb" (to Hikari). Asuka should knew through Instrumentality that Shinji was seeking out for her (E22,E24,EoE). Yeah she is hormonal like Chuckman said early ... but it made a big difference (esp. after the 3. Impact) if she has a crush on him or not. Shinji is an achievement for her and that is to confer status in society. Kaji might be as insecure, unstable and "weird" like Shinji. Sadamoto mentioned in his pov that Kaji was as f*cked up as everyone else in the EVA-cast ... he is only better in hidding it. Gendo and Kaji are possible ways how Shinji could develop and Asuka (she is like early mentioned pretty smart for her age even if its lacking in "mature behaviour") knew it. Not to mention the Mama-issues.
But overall ppl (especially women) seeking for good man's even if they have to struggle with themself (like Misato). If you found somebody like Shinji (btw. Kaji is pretty much a jerk like Gendo) you know what you got. He is gentle, caring, a little bit stubborn, loyal, patient and compassionate. If you ask me ... no wonder she had a crush in NGE/EoE and RoE. Yeah he is whiny. Yeah he is a "bitch" sometimes and can be a little bit annoying but like in RL if you found somebody like him ... its only natural that this would happened (and that you look about his flaws). Asuka would be jealous if Kaji spends a lot time with Shinji (what normally should have happened in NGE) instead of her. And the you-know-what thingy is all about hormones ... she is a little bit premature ... so yeah.

About the Moma-Bear's inside the Eva Units. Mhh, this actually a pretty good question. It wouldn't suprise me at all that if Asuka knew about Yui (she might know after the 3. Impact) she would handle Shinji in another way. She would have treated him a lot more nicer. I dont think she would be jealous. Why would she? Shinji saw how Yui got swallows by Unit 01. There is no measurement for trauma's. If she knew it after the 3. Impact she would be pretty fast "understanding" Shinji and she wouldn't bother herself with Eva at all. I think if Shinji manages to love himself he is pretty much able to "love" Asuka and that would terminate a lot of her current trauma's.
But you could also say that Asuka is a ax-crazy bitch which wanna use our Shinji-kun for practice ... or even worse she is really a bitch.

Kendrix wrote:Also, some other thing she wants of him is for him to leave her alone and dissapear off the face of the earth because he's supposedly stealing her show and also fundamentally irritates her.
Wanting mutually exclusive things and being unable to get her priorities straight is very much a basic characteristic of Asuka, allthough the latter isn't all that untypical for people of her age group.

I generally agree, but I think the issue there is less her wanting mutually exclusive things and more that she's agitated re: her situation in general and Shinji aggravates it in various ways even as she's trying to use him as a way to get out of it. It's not as neat and tidy as you're making it sound here.

As she saw it, her mom's mistake was to get attached to another person who was then in a position to hurt her by running away with his new flame, and she quite understandably doesn't want to end up the same way.

Pure speculation IMO. I think it's more likely that the lesson she took from her mother's situation is that she has to be useful and independent and strong if she wants to be accepted and relevant and secure in her life. The relationship angle would work if it was just her father who abandoned Kyoko, but it wasn't. It was all of Nerv.

And this is why I say Asuka's not a narcissist -- she doesn't want attention for its own sake, or because it fills some neurological hole in her psychology, she wants it because she's utterly terrified of the possibility she'll be thrown out with yesterday's garbage the way her mother was if she shows an ounce of weakness.

And if they ever got over that very poor combination of both having a hard time showing affection yet needing a lot of positive reinforcement to placate their trust issues?

Well, then they'd have lost the only thing they ever had in common. They don't get along with each other's friends, don't share any mutual interests, and seem to have very different concepts of what they consider comfortable or enjoyable.

Er . . . no. Shinji gets on quite well with Hikari, and we don't know much of anything about either of their interests, mutual or otherwise. We know Asuka likes fashion magazines and video games (maybe; we only ever see her playing them at Hikari's place, which means Hikari's the one who's into games. It's possible Asuka was just obsessing over them so she wouldn't have to deal with mindrape trauma and Kaji's death), and we know Shinji plays the cello. That's it. We have nothing more to work with for either of them. They might have a ton of common ground for all we know (games? Music? Food? Pets? Outdoor recreation?), or they might have none. We just don't have enough information to say one way or the other.

Maybe if he was one or two years older, but didn't she mention something about him being a college student?

Poor random student guy, i keep imagining him searching the whole amusement park for her or something.

College student.

13-year-old.

Do the math. My sympathy for the guy vanished in a heartbeat once I thought it through.

It's not Shinjis job to be your self-insert.

Where the heck did that come from?

NemZ wrote:I'm mostly talking OA since that's my version of choice, yes, but I think it's arguable (with some stretching) in the DC as well.

Given EoE and the rest of the DC material I don't really see the point to trying to stretch the argument. It's clear she's supposed to be fixated on him (for whatever reason), so arguing she just wants attention or whatever doesn't make much sense. "If I can't have all of you I don't want anything at all!" She wants him, all right, but she wants him to want her as well, because she knows she can't trust him if he isn't in it 100%. Thanks a bunch, dad!

Bagheera wrote:[...] "If I can't have all of you I don't want anything at all!" She wants him, all right, but she wants him to want her as well, because she knows she can't trust him if he isn't in it 100%. Thanks a bunch, dad!

That is the point i explained a little bit early. Its a claiming, proprietary insecure behaviour. That is the issue. I would summarize her up in "She's is just a scared little girl". But what you not mentioned is the way Shinji is looking at her. He thinks of her (even if she is a little bit abusive) as brave, strong and so on. But the direct countpart to her "If i cant have you all i dont want anything from you" (which is pretty much the insecurity per' se) is Shinjis: "i wanna be with you forever and i wanna help you. You are the only one [that could help me]". But wrong place and wrong time they trigger 3I.