So about that whole 'Evas come from Adam' thing....

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Postby Bagheera » Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:51 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:It isn't spelled out 100% as fact, no, but the combination of...

  • one good image of Adam being essentially just a glowing white eva
  • eva 01 looks more like the definately Adam-derived evas (per Kaworu's explanation) than Lilith
  • that 'budding' image overlay from 23'
  • Rei's origins as something 'salvaged' and grown in a lab
  • the little legs growing from Lilith

...all add up to make it a very compelling argument for Lillith's inert biomass being used (at significant cost to itself) as an incubator for 01 and the entire Ayanami line.


It would make a certain amount of sense if Unit 01 was literally the child of both Seeds. So, take a sample from the Adam embryo, implant it in Lilith, then let it grow drawing biomass from her as it matures. Hell, they might have thought "hey, she's generating all this LCL, wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to make Evas from her than actually feeding the things ourselves?" But then she was wrecked when it was all done so that plan went out the window. :tongue:
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Postby ObsessiveMathsFreak » Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:37 pm

It clarify, our hypotheses themselves are by definition not canonical. Only what we are shown and told directly in the show is absolutely canonical. However, our best hypotheses piece together what is canonical into a cohesive and consistent explanation of the often unexplained elements of the show. Despite Reichu's modesty here, the Eva-01--Lilith surrogate mother origin theory is actually one of the better explanations we've managed to come up with over the decade(s).

That Eva-01 was originally tied to Lilith is reasonably clear. We have the image shown above, Yui's connection to Rei along with Rei's connection to Lilith, and finally we are told by Keel that Eva-01 is Lilith's "Bunshin". The only ambiguous point is Eva-01's connection to Adam.

The Eva's in general, and at times Eva-01 in particular, are linked to "Adam" on several occasions. The main difficulty is in the "Lilith" reveal in episode #24. But before discussing that:

Eva/Adam connections  SPOILER: Show


#16 (Referencing Eva-01 directly)
Ritsuko : What kind... what kind of monster have we copied from?

Misato (MONO): I know that the Evas aren't just copies of the First Angel.

-----
#20 (Referencing Eva-01)

Misato : What does that mean?! Just what is an Eva?!

Ritsuko : It is something created by man in man's own image.
I really can't describe it any other way.

Misato : Something created by man?
Didn't you just copy what you found then at the South Pole?
I'm sure the original would be appalled to hear this.

Ritsuko : This is not just a copy, because it is imbued with a human will.

---

#21 (Referencing Eva-00)

Akagi : Yes, it is an Eva, made from Adam by man.

Fuyutsuki :An Eva?!

Gendo : This is the Adam Revival Project, generally known as Project E,
and this is our mockup, Eva Unit 00.

---

#23 (Referencing the Eva Series)
Ritsuko: But then, they tried to resurrect God on their own.
The result was Adam.
And imitating God, they created people from Adam.
The result was the Evas
.

Shinji: People? They're human?

Ritsuko:Yes, they're human.
The Evas do not intrinsically have souls,
but they have human souls embedded in them.

(Given his reflections in #24, Shinji's words and Ritsuko's here relate directly to Yui in Eva-01)
---

#23 (Referencing the Eva Series)

Kaworu : The Eva series.
Born from Adam, they are an abhorrent existence for humans.
And the Lilim will even use them in order to survive.
I can't understand.
.....
The Eva are made of the same body as I am.
Because I am born from Adam as well.
I could merge with them, if only they didn't have souls.
Unit 02's soul has shut itself away for now.


Time and time again, the Eva series is linked to Adam. However, then we have our big reveal

The big reveal  SPOILER: Show

#24

Kaworu : Adam, our mother.
Must all who were born of Adam return to Adam?
Even at the cost of destroying humanity?
No! This is...
Lilith?

So the big angel on the cross was really Lilith all along. But the question for us is: Does the Lilith revelation invalidate everything we have been told up to this point? In particular, does it invalidate the established connections between Eva-01 and Adam?

If we argue that it does, then to what extent does this apply to the other Evangelions? Recalling all of the failed Eva-00 prototypes were all the successful Evas actually grown from Lilith? Were other Eva's sourced from Lilith and not Adam, but grown separately? Was Adam ever the source of Project-E material? What about the previous statements? How should they be revised/interpreted, or which ones should not be taken literally? Which ones are "wrong"?

The beauty of the surrogate mother theory is that it allows us not to revise any statements at all. We don't have to come up with alternative explanations or interpretations of existing information because Eva-01 can still be a copy of Adam but also born from Lilith. It explains why the "conjoined" image is significant, and why Eva-01's possesses both Fruits during 3I ("A child of both seeds" as Bagheera mentioned)

#26' wrote:Fuyutsuki: The Fruit of Life possessed by Angels,
And the Fruit of Wisdom possessed by humans...
Having obtained them both, EVA-01 has become like a God.
And now it has been restored to the propagule of souls... the Tree of Life.


The hypothesis is not strictly canonical, but it explains so many things, so neatly, that it's become a firmly accepted interpretation of the show.
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Postby BlueBasilisk » Sun Aug 31, 2014 12:21 pm

View Original PostNemZ wrote:It isn't spelled out 100% as fact, no, but the combination of...

  • one good image of Adam being essentially just a glowing white eva
  • eva 01 looks more like the definately Adam-derived evas (per Kaworu's explanation) than Lilith


Adam was outfitted with shoulder pylons and probably other restraining armor, which gave it that Eva silhouette. http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120212154735/evangelion/images/9/9f/Adam%27s_excavation.png In this shot of it being excavated, Adam looks more or less the same as Lilith but with more muscle and a slightly elongated head.

If they did use Lilith as a surrogate, the process may have worked similarly to Armisael/Unit 00's fusion. DNA is inserted, giant tumorous Eva 01 body erupts, snip and you have yourselves an Eva. The cloth covering the head and chest in the birthing photo made me think they surgically implanted Unit 01's cores during growth, but now I wonder if they served a similar function to the masks on Lilith and the MK.06

DNA fusion tests were one cause of Adam's explosion in the first place, so it's certainly something they'd experimented with before, and if the skeletons in the graveyard tell us anything, growing clones straight from Adam's DNA is hardly reliable.

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Postby Bagheera » Sun Aug 31, 2014 12:29 pm

The key isn't Adam. Adam looks like a normal human, albeit a giant one. The Evas are much the same. The real key is Lilith, who doesn't. She doesn't have any musculature, and the consistency of her body is . . . strange. She bleeds LCL, she's all doughy and elastic, and very much not human. The human body plan is there (sorta), but that's as far as it goes.

Unit 01 is far more like Adam than Lilith. This is rather strange, seeing as how it was made from Lilith. Hence, fanwank.
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Postby Chuckman » Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:26 pm

A point:

When Lilith looks all doughy, she has no soul. Her soul is running around in Rei. When her soul rejoins her body, she immediately takes Rei's shape.

Everyone assumes that Rei is familiar to Shinji because she looks like Yui, but does she? Or does she resemble Yui to him because she looks like everybody's mother?
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Postby Bagheera » Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:32 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:When Lilith looks all doughy, she has no soul. Her soul is running around in Rei. When her soul rejoins her body, she immediately takes Rei's shape.


Even then her body's intangible and very much not like Adam or the Evas.

Everyone assumes that Rei is familiar to Shinji because she looks like Yui, but does she? Or does she resemble Yui to him because she looks like everybody's mother?


Doubt it, on account of the whole clone business.
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People's deaths are to be mourned. The ability to save people should be celebrated. Life itself should be exalted. -- Volken Macmani, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra
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Postby Chuckman » Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:34 pm

Rei may be some kind of duplicate of Yui but she ain't a clone in the strict sense of the word.
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Postby Bagheera » Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:40 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:Rei may be some kind of duplicate of Yui but she ain't a clone in the strict sense of the word.


She may well be, actually. But even so, made from Yui's remains, so probably not a mother to everyone (in appearance, at least).
For my post-3I fic, go here.
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Postby AuraTwilight » Sun Aug 31, 2014 4:34 pm

Just to be a devil's advocate here, but do we know for an absolute fact that Yui's DNA went into Rei? I know it's a universally accepted fanon but is there an official statement to the matter?

Because for the sake of fanfics it'd be pretty neat if everyone saw Rei as a 14-year old blue-haired version of their Mom, and tie in nicely to the Transition Guide Reis.

Gendo sees Yui in her because come on you know he has a weird mom complex going on. Asuka sees a doll, for similar reasons.
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Postby Bagheera » Sun Aug 31, 2014 4:56 pm

View Original PostAuraTwilight wrote:Just to be a devil's advocate here, but do we know for an absolute fact that Yui's DNA went into Rei? I know it's a universally accepted fanon but is there an official statement to the matter?


Not DNA specifically, but we do know she was made from Yui's remains. Between that and the fact she looks just like Yui the implication is pretty obvious.
For my post-3I fic, go here.
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People's deaths are to be mourned. The ability to save people should be celebrated. Life itself should be exalted. -- Volken Macmani, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra
I hate myself. But maybe I can learn to love myself. Maybe it's okay for me to be here! That's right! I'm me, nothing more, nothing less! I'm me. I want to be me! I want to be here! And it's okay for me to be here! -- Shinji Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion
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Postby pwhodges » Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:00 pm

View Original PostAuraTwilight wrote:Just to be a devil's advocate here, but do we know for an absolute fact that Yui's DNA went into Rei?

In ENT/Rebuild we know, because Fuyutsiki says directly to Shinji that the Rei he knows is one of the clones of Yui (though possibly the phrase "only her data was preserved in the Ayanami series" throws doubt on whether cloning in the usual sense is certain - but this could be a translation issue); however, I'm not aware that there is a corresponding statement in NGE (the word "clone" certainly doesn't appear in the transcripts of the Platinum subs).
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:04 pm

Our old friend NGE2 Classified Information:

The Second Angel

D. In-Depth Information
Lilith had no soul. Moreover, its soul has been residing within Rei. Many copies of Rei's body were made, but that is the reason why only one of Rei herself can exist at any given time. Even though Rei was copied from Yui's flesh, this was not the case for her soul.


I think there used to be something in the CI that was thought as contradicting the show, but it was long fixed (translation error, I believe).

In playing the game, there's nothing that contradicts the series either, just various character Scenarios aren't gonna be what we see in-show unless you're playing Shinji's NGE/EoE Scenario. (In Hyuga's Scenario, he apparently slept once with Misato sometime before Kaji arrives, while Misato & Kaji's Scenaros have no such event happening.)
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Postby Chuckman » Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:22 pm

Don't the clones themselves come out of Lilith? That's what those little legs are, isn't it?
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:23 pm

I think that's just fan speculation at least, yeah.
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Postby Reichu » Sun Aug 31, 2014 10:49 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:When Lilith looks all doughy, she has no soul. Her soul is running around in Rei.

Lilith still looks "doughy" in the image of her connected to Eva-01, which was clearly from before the contact experiment (as Eva-01 is not outfitted with any protheses yet). Hence presence or absence of a soul has nothing to do with what gives Lilith the consistency of putty / marshmallows / taffy / etc.

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Postby Chuckman » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:12 am

blah blah blah fifth dimension

I'll give you that one.
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Postby Rei IV » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:14 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:When Lilith looks all doughy, she has no soul. Her soul is running around in Rei. When her soul rejoins her body, she immediately takes Rei's shape.

Slightly off topic but this may have some relevancy. Reichu made a thread more than decade ago at AnimeNation forums dealing with this very same topic. Here's a rather specific post. It seems "Lilith" as we see her in EoE is an an extension of who we all recognize as "Rei Ayanami", meaning she looks the way she does because she chose to stick to her Rei persona (or form) and the real Lilith may have some less, uh, unpleasant aesthetics.

I'm more curious to know what's behind the mask....unless Lilith's face is devoid of eyes and mouth

EDIT: It seems Reichu posted in this thread and I didn't realize it.

:tongue:

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Postby NemZ » Mon Sep 01, 2014 1:14 am

View Original PostAuraTwilight wrote:Just to be a devil's advocate here, but do we know for an absolute fact that Yui's DNA went into Rei? I know it's a universally accepted fanon but is there an official statement to the matter?


If you don't go into extratextural sources it's just implied by the strong resemblance between them. We know that Rei is a clone just from seeing a ton of them at once, but who was the original if not Yui? This also explains that whole "product of my despair" thing with Fuyu, specifically that he made her by trying to save Yui. None of this is bluntly spelled out but it sure hangs together pretty well.

As to your theory, while it's interesting I just don't think it works. Remember the older Akagi saw Rei as a mini-Yui as well, not just Gendo.
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Postby Compiling_Autumn » Mon Sep 01, 2014 2:09 am

View Original PostChuckman wrote:A point:

When Lilith looks all doughy, she has no soul. Her soul is running around in Rei. When her soul rejoins her body, she immediately takes Rei's shape.

Everyone assumes that Rei is familiar to Shinji because she looks like Yui, but does she? Or does she resemble Yui to him because she looks like everybody's mother?


This would mean, hypothetically, that a black Rei Ayanami could be canonical. This could be the bombshell that Final drops on us.

I don't know if the Eva fandom is ready for this yet.
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Postby Mr. Tines » Mon Sep 01, 2014 1:42 pm

View Original PostCompiling_Autumn wrote:This would mean, hypothetically, that a black Rei Ayanami could be canonical.
While Mitochondrial Eve was a black woman, I don't think this issue ever troubles the consciousness of the racially homogeneous Japanese; and definitely nowhere near the levels that the issue might have in the rather anomalous context of the USA.
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