I've thought about this for a while now...and I can't quite answer yes or no.

On the one hand, Kaworu is as much a victim of SEELE and Gendo's machinations as any of the other children. He's probably the most selfless member of the cast, in the anime at least, and literally died to save everyone else.

On the other hand, Kaworu is explicity stated to be Adam, and Adam's one of the root causes of everything that went wrong in the storyline, what with killing over 3 billion souls and creating the main Angel monsters. We know why he did it, but that really doesn't help the victims, now does it?

What do you lot think? Is Kaworu a blameless victim or is Second Impact as much on his head as SEELE's?

Ah...I'm going to go with no. Because while he is the REASON Second Impact happened, he is not the CAUSE: the cause was Seele pulling the Spear. He was acting simply on his own biological imperative (it wasn't his fault, so to speak: he was carrying out his programming, in which neither Adam or Lilith can exist on the same world).

It's like, if you forced someone to commit a murder, that person is technically not responsible for the crime, because you made them commit the crime: the murder is on your head. It's not the most exact analogy, but I feel it applies.

Adam was doing exactly what Adam was designed to do. Seele knew (or at least had a hunch) that there could be consequences to their actions...and went ahead with them anyway.

That's what I figured, but I have heard more than one person blame him for the whole mess. Not to mention apparently there is at least one continuity where Kaworu outright expresses guilt for Second Impact...which if so makes him more human than he realizes.

An interesting thought...I haven't considered Kaworu's guilt over the incident, and that would be fun to analyze (or even if he could comprehend the concept).

And I can see why some people would blame him: he WAS the epicenter of the event, and the reason it happened. I can't help but feel like a lot of that tends to be because some people just don't like him and are looking for ammo to justify it. I'm willing to be proven wrong on that assertion, though.

I'm inclined to put it on Seele's head. Had they done nothing (in theory) there would have been no second impact.

Kaworu isn't Adam, so I'm not quite sure why to place blame on him. He has the soul of Adam, but as we know in Eva-verse, injecting a soul into a vessel doesn't = a carbon copy of the original owner's thinking pattern. It's like blaming Rei for Lilith screwing things up for the First Impact.
I can understand Kaworu carrying guilt for his species causing ginormous destruction, but I don't think it equates to him taking responsibility for 2I. Like others said, it's SEELE's fault, messing with godly instruments they had no business with in the first place.

^Even still, it seems like Kaworu has more self-awarness than Rei does. By the way that he speaks and uses his abilities, we can tell that Adam's soul is clearly the more dominant part of what makes up Kaworu - and Adam is an alien entity at that. So our customs and our culture are almost beyond is understanding, he just doesn't get it sometimes. That's why he's so forward with Shinji, because he is not inhibited by Lilin mannerisms and ways of thinking.

Even if he were to blame for Second Impact, which was largely the being Adam following through with preordained protocol, he redeems himself by allowing himself to be destroyed in order to spare Humanity.

But in this case the blame lies fully with SEELE for tampering with the Lance, which was following through with its own protocol of keeping Adam sealed in stasis.

^Are those really established facts?

Look at how he talks: "Adam, the mother being we all come from. ...Must everything that comes from Adam really return to Adam, even at the price of the Lilim's destruction?"


He doesn't seem to remember or to see Adam as "himself", doesn't seem to put much weight on his endeavour to reach him being the last chance for Angel-kind, and SEELE thinks they need to lecture him about his status (although admittedly, they just tend toward that sort of talk)

Is he really that alien, and is he is, is he alien in the way that Adam himself is, or in the way that Adam's natural offspring are?

He didn't ask SEELE to go and create him, nor did he have any control over it, or the FAR's programing; It's like blaming someone for what their parents did.

It's possible that Kaworu has Adam still lurking around as a "dark untagible presence in his subconcious" like in Rei's case (EVA2 milks that for horror, I think),

Gob Hobblin wrote: I can't help but feel like a lot of that tends to be because some people just don't like him and are looking for ammo to justify it.

This, probably; Kaworu, in general, come up with the most elaborate scenarios to make him "evil". Not always literally, but functionally. This might just be one of them.

A fair point, Kendrix.

I was merely getting at the fact that while he does not fully see himself as Adam, as you pointed out, he is at least more aware of what he is - not Lilim, but not an Angel either. He's stuck in-between, but is aware of the angelic origins of his soul, being able to utilize his abilities in the way that he does.

As far as being alien, I was erring on the side that he is alien in the same way that Adam's offspring are. As you said, he is not completely Adam - just possessing the soul of this celestial being contained within a Lilim body.

Adam is likely that "lurking presence" that Lilith is with Rei, but because of how sharply Lilith and Adam contrast one another, the way it manifests is... different, I believe.

Also, is it Lilim or Lilin? I remember seeing Lilin somewhere but can't for the life of me remember where.

Well, here's something further to consider: Kaworu IS Adam, but he has seemingly no knowledge or memory of it. This further separates Kaworu from Adam, and thus separates him from culpability.

He's not evil: he is who he is, and he acknowledges it. It's him or humanity.

"Lilim" is the original hebrew transliterated, "Lilin+?" is a weird text from the original 2.0 trailer.

Not sure if there's been an official english spelling for the original series, and even so, ppl generally ignore how we're apparently supposed to transliterate all the "accentuated" Os in the names as "oh" because it just looks weird.

Japanese Hebrew: as if metaphysics couldn't get confusing enough.

Kaworu was medium through which Second Impact was achieved, but I don't think the blame can really be pinned on him. The Director's Cut footage of Second Impact heavily suggests they were tampering with his body and performing experiments which set off a chain reaction that ultimately triggered disaster. That drops the blame squarely in Seele's lap to me.

The spelling "Lilin" has been around quite a bit longer than Eva 1.0, FYI. Where do you think Kanemitsu got it from?

I have a hard time blaming pre-Kaworu Adam for anything, since she was just trying to take the planet back, and had been pretty badly violated by the Lilin as well. We totally had it coming. Kaworu, on the other hand, can go sod right off. :p

CyberXIII wrote:On the other hand, Kaworu is explicity stated to be Adam, and Adam's one of the root causes of everything that went wrong in the storyline, what with killing over 3 billion souls and creating the main Angel monsters. We know why he did it, but that really doesn't help the victims, now does it?

Wait, he's Adam? Wait, we know why he did it? Why did he do it?

I'm so behind on the lore. I just thought Kaworu was an evil being who, for some reason, loved Shinji. Or at least pretended to. But probably actually did.

Why would the angels be "evil"? They just want to survive, same as us. Some of them are also interested in us... same as the humans who investigate them throughout the series.

Being investigated turned out not so fun for Shamshel, Sandalphon, Asuka and Shinji (by Leliel), but they're dealing with alien beings they can hardly communicate with, and that can potentially destroy them all, so yeah.

An on both sides, there's even individuals who question this fight itself, who wonder what the enemy really is and wether they should really fight them, and might even feel sympathy toward them. Shinji, Kaworu (and to a lesser extent, Rei and Armiseael) would belong in this latter category; Both Kaworu and Shinji eventually come to consider that maybe the other would be worthier to occupy the earth.

The ultimate point, as Misato herself elaborates in EoE, is that they weren't so different from us, but sadly, coexistence was impossible.

Kendrix wrote:Why would the angels be "evil"? They just want to survive, same as us. Some of them are also interested in us... same as the humans who investigate them throughout the series.

So they weren't trying to eradicate humanity? Then why did Misato say we couldn't coexist with the--

Kendrix wrote:The ultimate point, as Misato herself elaborates in EoE, is that they weren't so different from us, but sadly, coexistence was impossible.

Yeah, wassup widdat? Is there a thread on this you can link me to?

Point of order: 2I happened because Seele inserted foreign DNA into Adam and made it flatly impossible for the Lance of Longinus to do its job. Blame for 2I falls squarely on the shoulders of Seele, who wanted this to happen, and by proxy the Katsuragi Expedition. Adam just wanted to do the Impact thing -- blowing up wasn't part of his gameplan.

Not that "the Impact thing" would have been great for us, but without that foreign DNA the Lance would have subdued him just as it did before and nobody would have gone BOOM.

Bagheera wrote:Point of order: 2I happened because Seele inserted foreign DNA into Adam and made it flatly impossible for the Lance of Longinus to do its job.

Would be better to state that as extrapolation and not fact, methinks, as I don't recall this being confirmed anywhere, let alone discussed to consensus.

The Lance of Longinus had a job? I thought it was just some tool that was being used to carry out the third impact.