Bagheera wrote:Not really. She was eaten, man. Shinji's conviction that he could somehow get her back just plain wasn't rational, and even now I'd like to know where he got it.

Maybe because since his arrival to Tokyo-3 everything regarding "were at war with monster/aliens using other monsters with unknow potential" was consistently irrational? Why not try to use that irrotianality for something good for once?

Stillborn wrote:Maybe because since his arrival to Tokyo-3 everything regarding "were at war with monster/aliens using other monsters with unknow potential" was consistently irrational? Why not try to use that irrotianality for something good for once?

Why would that occur to him in that moment?

Again: she was eaten. He knows this. Why does he think he can get her back?

Reichu wrote:Doing whatever you want without consideration for the consequences could be considered a form of evil. So maybe Shinji is evil after all.

Hell, if people want to deflect blame from Shinji why not just blame Rei herself? After all, she was stupid enough to feed his ego and didn't stay put in her newly found fish tank. She could've rejected his hand/attempt to save her. She could've given him the heads up of what would happen if she was removed from the 10th Angel. She could've even elaborated WHY she was replaceable but she didn't.

Again: she was eaten. He knows this. Why does he think he can get her back?

Yeah, I honestly believe that's what probably is the biggest WTF than the Eva reactivating and firing laser beams from it eyes because holy shit, would he have to have know SOMETHING about the 10th Angel, its anatomy, powers, etc....to pull the stunt he did.

Bagheera wrote:Why would that occur to him in that moment?

Again: she was eaten. He knows this. Why does he think he can get her back?

I could understand this if he was driven by desperation and hoping by some miracle he could save her with the Eva's weird power, but what makes it really bizarre is that he's right.

Stillborn wrote:Maybe because since his arrival to Tokyo-3 everything regarding "were at war with monster/aliens using other monsters with unknow potential" was consistently irrational? Why not try to use that irrotianality for something good for once?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Likewise, throwing more irrationality at an already irrational situation shouldn't somehow fix things; it should just make a bigger mess of irrationality.

Bagheera wrote:Again: she was eaten. He knows this. Why does he think he can get her back?

Because apparently he can. The sleeper began to wake, opened his eyes to sights beyond sight and remembered that teeth can't chew a soul no matter how big they are.

Reichu wrote:Doing whatever you want without consideration for the consequences could be considered a form of evil. So maybe Shinji is evil after all.

"Evil" is far too nebulous a word to just throw around with agreeing to some definition first.

NemZ wrote:"Evil" is far too nebulous a word to just throw around with agreeing to some definition first.

I didn't throw anything around. I said "could be" and "maybe".

According to your idea about Shinji being an Adam or something, awakening to full knowledge of abilities means that he's more at fault than ever before for Near 3I.

Began to wake, not was awake. He was in that sort of liminal state of knowing what he wants without knowing how to do it and just doing it anyway. I'm not sure he even had the thought 'eye beam'... he just wanted the angel beaten into submission and made it happen. The how wasn't important at the moment, but if he stopped to think about it he probably would have failed.

Um, why can't Eva 2.0 finale just be the simplest explanation that Shinji was so focused and so convinced about saving Rei, that nothing else registered in his brain in the heat of the moment? Given his "Don't care about" lines, seems to line up pretty nicely.

And if people think Shinji's evil, folks aren't paying attention. Eva cast is shades of gray with screwed up issues. (Yes, I read the OP, I'm just speaking generally.)

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Um, why can't Eva 2.0 finale just be the simplest explanation that Shinji was so focused and so convinced about saving Rei, that nothing else registered in his brain in the heat of the moment?

The finale is far too messy and convoluted to yield any simple explanations! What's simple about the Eva reactivating and Shinji going red-eyed in the first place? (At least, given our current state of being drowned in unanswerable questions.)

It's worth noting, perhaps, that Shinji (reasonably) demonstrated no intent of "saving" Rei until the moment he inexplicably started farting magic powers. So either they did a really shitty job of integrating the old material (virtually identical initial brawl with Angel) with the new (reactivation and after), or this intent to save the dead is a direct result of whatever the fuck starts happening between Shinji and the Eva.

One thing I really hate about 2.0 is the complete lack of build-up of Eva-01's reactivation. It just happens pretty much immediately, offering zero suspense and, more relevantly to the thread, providing absolutely no insight into the why and how, which is desperately needed to make any concrete sense of what occurs next.

I thought visually speaking his intent to save Rei was clear in the Mari helps him scene.

But yeah, I hear ya about the craziness of the finale.

Lennik wrote:I feel like the question "Why didn't Shinji stop to wonder why his Eva had eye beams" is a pointless one. He knew it had eye beams because he was using them. It happens in the genre all the time. His Eva developed these powers because of his willpower. He's also fighting the most powerful Angel ever. He's not gonna stop to wonder, "Wait, when did I become a badass?"

Like in games we are shown demonstrations before using the actual thing for those who don't know(call it checkovs gun but it's really training) so evashinji was imitating the angel's attacks.

So some people find it hard to take the bullshit metaphysics at the end of Ha - fine, because in any rational sense it is bullshit, just like all the other films and series out there which invoke magic or spiritual worlds, timeloops or parallel universes, or any number of ways of bending physics to and beyond breaking point. Sometimes it works for a lot of people, and sometimes it doesn't, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to stop happening as there are clearly writers who feel it enables them to tell a story and readers who accept that.

But it seems odd to use that aspect of this scene as a way to knock Rebuild in comparison with the series. You want unforshadowed bullshit stuff to happen? Lelial has it just as much, though without the drama, at least until Unit-01 breaks out of the wrong place - reappearing from the part of the angel previously explained to be its shadow.

The show and films are both about people's emotions and state of mind. The physical possibilities are irrelevant - the unreal scenes are just there to carry us along, and to prevent the characterisations being dragged down by banal considerations of reality (and to provide some excitement, of course).

Reichu wrote:I feel like we're talking past each other here. How in any reasonable assessment do

1) reactivating with NO POWER
2) eye lasers
3) exploding shit with a thought
4) ATF limbs
5) tearing the entry plug's interior apart with bare hands
6) going straight through the bottom of the entry plug into an Angel's core
7) saving a dead person
8) levitation

line up with whatever model of experience and reality Shinji possessed prior to this unfortunate debacle? I'd like to know.

This explains the actual eva mechanics www.depauw.edu/site/sfs/backissues/88/orbaugh.html


edit- "mechanics", what I meant was the concept rules to the eva design and function

@Paul: I wrote way back when in the countless "Shinji's actions in 2.0" threads that Eva-01 (Yui) was doing all the crazy metaphysical work while Shinji was so focused on wanting to save Rei (thus Eva-01 reacting to his wishes), that nothing registered or mattered to him.

Unless Final or a canon supplemental material sheds some light on the 2.0 finale craziness, I still think that's the case.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:@Paul: I wrote way back when in the countless "Shinji's actions in 2.0" threads that Eva-01 (Yui) was doing all the crazy metaphysical work while Shinji was so focused on wanting to save Rei (thus Eva-01 reacting to his wishes), that nothing registered or mattered to him.

Unless Final or a canon supplemental material sheds some light on the 2.0 finale craziness, I still think that's the case.

Yeah, I still see no reason to think there's anything more to it than that.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Shinji was meant to be seen as evil, in a sort of cautionary tale setup (although as one of the people who thinks he was much worse in EoE, this leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth). To me though, even with the random magic powers, there seemed to be little indication that he could essentially destroy the planet with them. Honestly, I wouldn't have saved Rei at the end of 2.0, but that's because I'm kind of a coward and the new powers would have terrified me, not because I suddenly thought of consequences that could arise from it. So I don't see any great moral victory there. I don't disagree with the ending of 2.0 because it doesn't conform with reality, otherwise I would have been asking why the giant Eagles just didn't carry the fellowship to Mordor. The problem I have is that it seems to come out of nowhere without explaining anything. The events just don't seem to flow as well as those in the series. Maybe 3.0 + 1.0 will make up for that.


I will still say that Shinji is likely very stupid, but that his actions in 2.0-3.0 would have been committed by a lot of people who in circumstances that aren't as contrived as those movies are good people. I think he's relatively selfish and kind of an idiot, but calling him evil is going entirely too far imo. The problem is that plenty of people with "evil" motivations do actions which cause good, while plenty of "good" people can do evil actions as well. Shinji's not evil, but the results of his actions certainly are. And seeing as people can't be inside his mind, does it even matter?

*reads* "Evil?Wuh"
Hah I even forgot what the thread was about:p

Sailor Star Dust wrote:@Paul: I wrote way back when in the countless "Shinji's actions in 2.0" threads that Eva-01 (Yui) was doing all the crazy metaphysical work while Shinji was so focused on wanting to save Rei (thus Eva-01 reacting to his wishes), that nothing registered or mattered to him.

Unless Final or a canon supplemental material sheds some light on the 2.0 finale craziness, I still think that's the case.

I think the fact that he clearly couldn't see out of the plug gives this is a bit of creedence. Think of it what you will but when the radiant giant forms Ritsuko says something along the lines of the Eva "doing it to grant his desire", whether this extends to the prior actions of lazors and arm cannons is up to debate, however it's a bit odd that it would suddenly switch control from Shinji to Yui at that moment.

Shoujo Kakumei Asuka wrote:It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Shinji was meant to be seen as evil, in a sort of cautionary tale setup (although as one of the people who thinks he was much worse in EoE, this leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth).

Okay, but why, though? Why wouldn't it surprise you if Anno pulled out a moral like that when he's never done that with Shinji's development before?