Oddly enough for me, the biggest discrepancy in Rebuilds isn't white outlines of Eva's, Kaworu's role, or why Mari can pilot Unit 02, but simply Misato's motivations and characterization.

I believe there's something that pushes Misato to act the way she does all the way leading up to Q.
For one thing, the glaring detail that's always making me scratch my head over, more than a cold Misato from Q, is her casual acceptance of an "Angel" kept hidden in the depths of NERV in Level EEE. I know it's a fault to try to rationalize some of these Rebuild characters based off what we've seen in NGE/EoE, however, I still think there's some disconnect here.

So what we know of Misato in a Rebuild sense:
-Is a Second Impact survivor
-Has an agenda for Angel vengeance
-Has nearly the same feelings about her father from the originals based off Kaji's words
-Has strong feelings against Impacts

So the disconnect I'm seeing here is that a "Angel" within NERV doesn't push her to the edge of doing her detective work nor remind her of the "Angels" we see in the Second Impact flashback nor does she question the origins of Eva's true nature.
What DOES (or at least heavily implied) push Misato over the edge is when she sees the Chamber of Guf open in Ha. Yet, somehow Q!Misato believes she is deceived by NERV even though the Impact in Ha had nothing to do with NERV/Level EEE.

Which brings me to the inconsistency: NTE!Misato is okay with protecting an "Angel" even though "Angels" took away her father and also develops a mistrust of NERV even though the Impact wasn't triggered by the "Angel" in Level EEE.

Is there anyway we can make sense of NTE!Misato's characterization as she moves within the story from Jo through Q?

Isn't this similar in NGE, though? It's too easy, in either version, to start off by getting into the mindset that there are two completely independent groups - us and them, humans and angels. But quite early we start to learn that angels have DNA almost identical with human DNA; and later we find that Kaworu is an angel "manufactured" by Seele to infiltrate Nerv. In Rebuild it gets even more confused, with the distinction, not yet explained, between Unit-this and Mark-that, not to mention four Adams, and the term "Adams vessel". Oh, and the Nemesis series.

I'm not really sure whether there is even any intention to pull this lot together into a coherent pattern, or whether Anno is deliberately telling us that there is no point in focussing on the mess to try to work it out, because we'd be better off thinking about the characters and what they're going through.

It's a consequence of NTE's story being streamlined because of time constraint raised by the movie format.
In NGE she started to wonder why the Angels always targeted Tokyo-3 or (at least popped around the place in Ghagiel and Sandalphon's case), which led to Kaji showing her Lilith (both thinking that it was ADAM) and Misato realizing that NERV's higher ups are hiding lots of things from her, which made her start her investigations.
But in NTE's case she was already informed about the Angel that was down there and that it will make the Angels target the place (which makes Tokyo-3 an excellent bottleneck to kill them one by one), so she didn't had any reason to believe that NERV was hiding vital information from her, at least until one of their Eva popped-up an Impact Vortex out of nowhere.

Now as for why she didn't protested about the fact NERV was protecting an Angel, remember that when Misato presented Lilith to Shinji, she said that it was the progenitor of all of life on Earth, implying that she knows the different between Lilith and her lifeforms (mankind) and ADAM and his lifeforms (other Angels) and thus know that Lilith had nothing to do with Second Impact.

Finally, again what made her start to question NERV (or at least that's the implication) was the fact that it was an Eva, NERV's warmachine, that triggered an Impact, something she wasn't aware could be possible, that probably made her question Kaji, who probably started to fill her in about Gendo and SEELE's true intentions, ultimately leading to the neo-NERV/WILLE split.

pwhodges wrote:Isn't this similar in NGE, though? It's too easy, in either version, to start off by getting into the mindset that there are two completely independent groups - us and them, humans and angels. But quite early we start to learn that angels have DNA almost identical with human DNA; and later we find that Kaworu is an angel "manufactured" by Seele to infiltrate Nerv. In Rebuild it gets even more confused, with the distinction, not yet explained, between Unit-this and Mark-that, not to mention four Adams, and the term "Adams vessel". Oh, and the Nemesis series.

I don't question that, as I agree with you there. However, what's throwing me off is that NTE!Misato isn't fazed by NERV housing an "Angel" (I'm using quotation marks since that's what she literately called it) despite the trauma of Second Impact.

I'm not really sure whether there is even any intention to pull this lot together into a coherent pattern, or whether Anno is deliberately telling us that there is no point in focussing on the mess to try to work it out, because we'd be better off thinking about the characters and what they're going through.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. I used to think the 'mess' mattered, but now I believe I should be trying to understand these characters, especially Misato.

implying that she knows the different between Lilith and her lifeforms (mankind) and ADAM and his lifeforms (other Angels) and thus know that Lilith had nothing to do with Second Impact.

I suppose that makes sense to a degree. It's that she calls Lilith an Angel is what's throwing me off here. But yeah, perhaps she has divided Angels into two groups I guess.

Finally, again what made her start to question NERV (or at least that's the implication) was the fact that it was an Eva, NERV's warmachine, that triggered an Impact, something she wasn't aware could be possible, that probably made her question Kaji, who probably started to fill her in about Gendo and SEELE's true intentions, ultimately leading to the neo-NERV/WILLE split.

This part at least, I can get behind that leads to her mistrust of NERV.

So overall, I think I have a better understanding now of NTE!Misato. Oh the wonders of how something that's more streamlined confuses me more than the conglomerate of NGE/EoE.

ThanatosII wrote:I suppose that makes sense to a degree. It's that she calls Lilith an Angel is what's throwing me off here. But yeah, perhaps she has divided Angels into two groups I guess.

Well, they are divided in two groups: remember that Lilith's progeny, the Lilin (ie mankind itself) is also an Angel. So Misato very probably made the distinction between the Angels that comes from Lilith (us, the good guys) and the Angels that comes from the ADAMs (them, the bad guys)

ElMariachi wrote:Well, they are divided in two groups: remember that Lilith's progeny, the Lilin (ie mankind itself) is also an Angel. So Misato very probably made the distinction between the Angels that comes from Lilith (us, the good guys) and the Angels that comes from the ADAMs (them, the bad guys)

Yeah you're right. I completely forgot Misato's line from EoE of humans being the 18th Angel and that other Angels were other possibilities of life; they simply can't coexist.

Now it just fucking hit me that Misato from the originals didn't necessarily hate Lilith, she was just taken by surprise that NERV had something similar to the entity (Adam) she saw from Second Impact.

Okay okay, this is all cleared up for me, thanks haha

ThanatosII wrote:Now it just fucking hit me that Misato from the originals didn't necessarily hate Lilith, she was just taken by surprise that NERV had something similar to the entity (Adam) she saw from Second Impact.

Misato thought that it was ADAM that NERV kept stored in secret, it's only at the end of the series that she learned that it was actually Lilith, she probably learned via Kaji's data that he left to her before dying that ADAM was reduced to an embryo in Gendo's possession.

In NTE she was just told since the beginning that that giant thing is Lilith.

ThanatosII wrote:However, what's throwing me off is that NTE!Misato isn't fazed by NERV housing an "Angel" (I'm using quotation marks since that's what she literately called it) despite the trauma of Second Impact.

NTE Misato doesn't seem to have that much emotional or psychological trauma over the horrors she experienced in the SI compared to NGE Misato. We don't even know if she was mute afterwards. Just like how Ritsuko doesn't seem to be battling with the whole Mother/Gendo stuff.

obliterates wrote:NTE Misato doesn't seem to have that much emotional or psychological trauma over the horrors she experienced in the SI compared to NGE Misato.

Kaji more or less confirms the opposite in 2.0 when he's talking to Shinji at the research lab. Plus, Misato's reaction to N3I at the end of 2.0 also confirms pretty definitively that she was thoroughly traumatized by 2I.

We'll get a big exposition dump in Final explaining everything, and that'll be the end of it.

We'll have to save any visual explaination of Misato's journey into the cold woman she became in Q to spinoffs, Assuming Anno even gives us that.

Q!Misato is not cold, she's driven (and Shinji, at this point, is in the way).

ElMariachi wrote:It's a consequence of NTE's story being streamlined because of time constraint raised by the movie format.

This, but in-universe, it mostly comes down to Gendo deciding to tell a slightly different/broader half-truth - Misato knows that Lillith is the source of humanity/ terrestial life and thus different from Adam and his spawn. If Adam is even a thing in Rebuild verse, with SI being all different and weird - but frankly, Misato known that Lillith is not necessarily the same sort of being;


She could've been told that Lillith cannot be destroyed, or that its existence is somehow vital to the continued existence of the ecosystem - Or, more pragmatically, they need all that LCL to fight the Fruit-Of-Life angels.

As for Q Misato, how is a goddamn near apocalypse not a sufficient explanation for how she turned out like that?

I should probably clarify that I am content with Misato's characterization now. Sometimes I over think something, and need someone to bring me back to simple world. My understanding of Eva expands and contracts on a whim.

However, if someone still has similar thoughts as I did prior and wishes to discuss it, have at it.

ThanatosII wrote:Yeah you're right. I completely forgot Misato's line from EoE of humans being the 18th Angel and that other Angels were other possibilities of life; they simply can't coexist.

Now it just fucking hit me that Misato from the originals didn't necessarily hate Lilith, she was just taken by surprise that NERV had something similar to the entity (Adam) she saw from Second Impact.

Okay okay, this is all cleared up for me, thanks haha

Also, three words: Contract. With. Lilith. We don't know what that is just yet, but I'm betting she did. That changes things, at least IMO.

Bagheera wrote:Also, three words: Contract. With. Lilith. We don't know what that is just yet, but I'm betting she did. That changes things, at least IMO.

Contract? Is this in Q? I oddly am not remembering any mention of a contract with Lilith, but I assume this is in Q.

https://wiki.evageeks.org/Differences_between_Evangelion_1.0_and_Neon_Genesis_Evangelion#Plot

Ornette wrote:https://wiki.evageeks.org/Differences_between_Evangelion_1.0_and_Neon_Genesis_Evangelion#Plot

In that case, that flew way over my head

I clearly need to watch the Rebuilds more closely.

Maybe the so-called contract had a role to play with all the fuckery that happened in Lilith's chamber prior to the start of Q.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:Maybe the so-called contract had a role to play with all the fuckery that happened in Lilith's chamber prior to the start of Q.

Seele speaks of "Lilith's ressurection" in 2.0. Perhaps to ressurect someone, they need to die first.


It may or may not involve putting Rei Q in unit one, thus bringing the last little soul fragment into a body copied from Lillith's, although ReiQ's soul and Kaworu's cryptic commentary on the matter is yet another huge question mark...

^ You've been reading Reticence again, haven't you!