Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
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Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Where does that come from!?
Yesterday I was having lunch and I overheard a girl talking about anime with her companions... When she mentioned Evangelion I started to pay attention too, dare I say, to see how much she understood the series (yeah, I put myself on top of a Eva high ground! Judge if you want )
Thing is, it was all going well: Evan-jelly-on, the robots that defend the humanity against entities named Angels and that can only be piloted by motherless children. I'll take she was trying to be spoiler-free by saying that instead of specifying that the pilot's mother's soul was supposed to be in the Eva.
But then she hit the discordant note: when describing the pilots she said -literally and without possibility of ambiguity- that Rei is Shinji's sister... I know Evangelion is not by any means straightforward, but unlike the rather obscure fact that Rei's soul was Lilith's, we never receive info that suggests Rei is nothing other than a clone of Yui (or at least 90% Yui and a bit of Lilith).
Thing is, this is not the first time I've heard this misconception: some years ago I heard another person telling the exact same thing when explaining Eva.
Have you heard this before? What do you suppose causes it?
Yesterday I was having lunch and I overheard a girl talking about anime with her companions... When she mentioned Evangelion I started to pay attention too, dare I say, to see how much she understood the series (yeah, I put myself on top of a Eva high ground! Judge if you want )
Thing is, it was all going well: Evan-jelly-on, the robots that defend the humanity against entities named Angels and that can only be piloted by motherless children. I'll take she was trying to be spoiler-free by saying that instead of specifying that the pilot's mother's soul was supposed to be in the Eva.
But then she hit the discordant note: when describing the pilots she said -literally and without possibility of ambiguity- that Rei is Shinji's sister... I know Evangelion is not by any means straightforward, but unlike the rather obscure fact that Rei's soul was Lilith's, we never receive info that suggests Rei is nothing other than a clone of Yui (or at least 90% Yui and a bit of Lilith).
Thing is, this is not the first time I've heard this misconception: some years ago I heard another person telling the exact same thing when explaining Eva.
Have you heard this before? What do you suppose causes it?
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
A clone shares genetics with the original just like a kid shares genetics with the mother, but that doesn't mean clone = kid because if Rei was Shinji's sister, she would also share genetics with Gendo and that's pretty unlikely if I do say so myself
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
To put it another way, Rei being related to only one of Shinji's parents makes her his half sister.
Alternatively, being a clone of his mother, she is in a sense his mother. And indeed the series plays with that by having Shinji remark that she is "like a mother".
Alternatively, being a clone of his mother, she is in a sense his mother. And indeed the series plays with that by having Shinji remark that she is "like a mother".
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
I though about it that way too, but given than Rei is almost certainly over 50% Yui -in addition to, as you say, Shinji's remark AND Naoko's reaction, Gendo's attitude and photo elimination- I always though of her as a full clone...
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Rei is the name Yui and Gendo would have given their child if it was female, so that's probably where "Rei is Shinji's sister" comes from. (Mostly. I showed NGE to someone with zero foreknowledge and they guessed immediately that Rei was Shinji's sister.)
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Being that Rei is a clone of Yui and shares most of her DNA, wouldn't that make her Yui's sort-of twin sister instead? So in a sense, Rei is actually Shinji's aunt.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
She's half sister, half mom, half aunt, and half great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great Grandmotherfather.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
I think you're missing a few 'great's, matey.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Fix it for me, too lazy to care.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
To add to this bit:
Evangelion 1.0 especially hits you over the head with this, while NGE didn't have the implication until Episode 20. Of course, the situation is, uhh, messier than that (Lilith's soul + Yui's genetic material), so I think some folks consider Rei is Shinji's sister as the "simplest" explanation.
Evangelion 1.0 especially hits you over the head with this, while NGE didn't have the implication until Episode 20. Of course, the situation is, uhh, messier than that (Lilith's soul + Yui's genetic material), so I think some folks consider Rei is Shinji's sister as the "simplest" explanation.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Rei is essentially his sister, seeing how theyre related socially and genetically. (though they arent exactly close, Rei is a peer to him)
in the literal sense though, reis a clone of his mom
i guess it an interpretation thing, and seeing how things are, a fair interpretation at that
in the literal sense though, reis a clone of his mom
i guess it an interpretation thing, and seeing how things are, a fair interpretation at that
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
I disagree on both.
Socially, they are just classmates. Rei doesn't live with Shinji, hasn't grown up with him, and they generally don't behave like siblings would.
Genetically, Rei is definitely not his sister, as that would mean that half of her genes are from Gendo, which is just not the case. If anything, half of her genes are more along the lines of "generic human blank slate", with the other half being Yui. The closest comparison genetically would probably be his aunt
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Rei isn't part Lilith on a genetic level. She's always described as a "copy" of Yui. It's similar language as what's used to describe the Evas' relationship with Adam.
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
This is were I think it gets tricky, because Rei is seen using an AT Field (and a powerful one)... Could that be done only with human DNA?
I know that AT Fields are generated by the soul, but can an, arguably human body sustain and AT field that powerful?
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Rei's body is probably made from Lilith's, meaning she would be genetically a Lilin but compositionally the same as Evas, Seeds, and Adam's Children. These are all made from some sort of exotic "high-energy" variety of matter, which logically would lend itself to the resident soul being able to generate a more powerful ATF in turn.
A possibly useful observation here is that, when Lilith takes on Rei's form, the bridge describes the resultant being as being both pattern blue and being "human" (as opposed to "Angel", and therefore, in this context, meaning "Lilin" specifically). Compare to Kaworu, who despite his Lilin appearance resulted in a Magi analysis of "Pattern Blue" and "Angel", despite actually being at least part Lilin genetically. This discrepancy doesn't make much sense to me unless the Magi are set to seek at least some "Angel DNA" in the target, and designate any match (which it hasn't already been told to ignore on account of being an Eva) as "Angel". Kaworu, due to one of his parents being Adam, would have satisfied this parameter; Lilith-Rei, assuming she reproduced Rei's body to the cellular level, would not, because Rei's body is just a Yui clone and has no "Angel DNA".
A possibly useful observation here is that, when Lilith takes on Rei's form, the bridge describes the resultant being as being both pattern blue and being "human" (as opposed to "Angel", and therefore, in this context, meaning "Lilin" specifically). Compare to Kaworu, who despite his Lilin appearance resulted in a Magi analysis of "Pattern Blue" and "Angel", despite actually being at least part Lilin genetically. This discrepancy doesn't make much sense to me unless the Magi are set to seek at least some "Angel DNA" in the target, and designate any match (which it hasn't already been told to ignore on account of being an Eva) as "Angel". Kaworu, due to one of his parents being Adam, would have satisfied this parameter; Lilith-Rei, assuming she reproduced Rei's body to the cellular level, would not, because Rei's body is just a Yui clone and has no "Angel DNA".
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
Reichu wrote:Rei's body is probably made from Lilith's, meaning she would be genetically a Lilin but compositionally the same as Evas, Seeds, and Adam's Children. These are all made from some sort of exotic "high-energy" variety of matter, which logically would lend itself to the resident soul being able to generate a more powerful ATF in turn.
Point taken. But anyhow, Gendo is most definitely not in there - and with the light matter fuckery, talking about the degree of genetic relationship becomes complicated anyhow.
A possibly useful observation here is that, when Lilith takes on Rei's form, the bridge describes the resultant being as being both pattern blue and being "human" (as opposed to "Angel", and therefore, in this context, meaning "Lilin" specifically). Compare to Kaworu, who despite his Lilin appearance resulted in a Magi analysis of "Pattern Blue" and "Angel", despite actually being at least part Lilin genetically. This discrepancy doesn't make much sense to me unless the Magi are set to seek at least some "Angel DNA" in the target, and designate any match (which it hasn't already been told to ignore on account of being an Eva) as "Angel". Kaworu, due to one of his parents being Adam, would have satisfied this parameter; Lilith-Rei, assuming she reproduced Rei's body to the cellular level, would not, because Rei's body is just a Yui clone and has no "Angel DNA".
That is really fascinating, I didn't think of that aspect before. I always assumed it was because all of the other Angels were offsprings of Adam and as such different enough for Lilith to not fall in the same blood pattern
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Re: Rei is Shinji's sister (...not!)
^This. Lillith would register as more human like.
To me the whole point of Rei's character has always been inextricably tied to her ultimately being her own person regardless of the 'source material' (which seems to be backed by the recently translated EVA 2 material)and to equate her with either is to reduce all her nuanced detailed characterization, struggles and relationships sprinkled in over all the episodes to just that reveal
You might say that she's got no relatives at all since she was artificially created, there's the angel component etc. and even if she was a 100% clone of Yui that would make her more like a twin so like a long lost aunt than a sister if you wanted to be hung up on the technicalities. But in the end human relationships aren't fully defined or dictated by those.
One thing that really bothers me about this is how "sister" just gets throws around as a label meaning "person you like but don't want to fuck" like noo a sibling bond is actually a specific type of relationship. To all you only children, the closest thing would be a childhood friend. Like it's based specifically on how you've seen this person pooping in their pyjamas or trying to snatch your toys etc. so there's no real distance and you know all the embarassing secrets and you've got insider jokes... this is really not the case with Shinji and Rei at all they never once lived together, he never uses her first name.
Like ppl just slap that label on there to tell the world that they most definitely don't ship it, but it's not there in the text. Maybe they could potentially slip into that sort of dynamic sometime in the future, perhaps as a reaction to the reveal. But as to what's actually there during the timeframe of the show and movies - they're co-workers, classmates, special friends that played some pivotal role in a part of their lives, certainly comrades. Human relationships really have a lot more dimension than just the "want to fuck/don't want to fuck" dichotomy.
The closest thing to a sibling-like element there would really be through Gendo who is the closest thing Rei has to a parental figure, so there's that shared bond a bit of a lowkey rivalry and a complex slightly different relation with each of the two etc. He probably thinks of them as his kids, but that's only semi tangential to how they think of each other (or, indeed, of him.)
To me the whole point of Rei's character has always been inextricably tied to her ultimately being her own person regardless of the 'source material' (which seems to be backed by the recently translated EVA 2 material)and to equate her with either is to reduce all her nuanced detailed characterization, struggles and relationships sprinkled in over all the episodes to just that reveal
You might say that she's got no relatives at all since she was artificially created, there's the angel component etc. and even if she was a 100% clone of Yui that would make her more like a twin so like a long lost aunt than a sister if you wanted to be hung up on the technicalities. But in the end human relationships aren't fully defined or dictated by those.
One thing that really bothers me about this is how "sister" just gets throws around as a label meaning "person you like but don't want to fuck" like noo a sibling bond is actually a specific type of relationship. To all you only children, the closest thing would be a childhood friend. Like it's based specifically on how you've seen this person pooping in their pyjamas or trying to snatch your toys etc. so there's no real distance and you know all the embarassing secrets and you've got insider jokes... this is really not the case with Shinji and Rei at all they never once lived together, he never uses her first name.
Like ppl just slap that label on there to tell the world that they most definitely don't ship it, but it's not there in the text. Maybe they could potentially slip into that sort of dynamic sometime in the future, perhaps as a reaction to the reveal. But as to what's actually there during the timeframe of the show and movies - they're co-workers, classmates, special friends that played some pivotal role in a part of their lives, certainly comrades. Human relationships really have a lot more dimension than just the "want to fuck/don't want to fuck" dichotomy.
The closest thing to a sibling-like element there would really be through Gendo who is the closest thing Rei has to a parental figure, so there's that shared bond a bit of a lowkey rivalry and a complex slightly different relation with each of the two etc. He probably thinks of them as his kids, but that's only semi tangential to how they think of each other (or, indeed, of him.)
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