Ah, forgot about endosymbiosis. My objection to the core being natural was exactly that it seems to be of different structure than the rest of the Eva, but that is of course not a problem if it originates from another lifeform entirely and then entered co-evolution.

Reichu wrote:they're integrated into the body and can transform under the right circumstances.

Just out of curiosity, are you alluding to the growth of S2-organs? Or do you mean how Eva-01's core changes during EoE?

Reichu wrote:Lilith seems to have altered her form in some way, [...] similar to some Angels

Iruel and Bardiel come to mind - two apparently completely core-less angelic entities. Ugh, and now my head hurts again.

@Derantor & Reichu: I honestly don't see an insurmountable problem. In the history of philosophy and religion many people have thought that the soul is a spiritual element that joins with matter, so Anno can easily have considered this possibility.

@Shun: Sure, but those people didn't know a thing about genetics or abiogenesis, and you are not proposing a joining or parallel process, but an active shaping kicking off physical processes which would work on their own just as well. I just don't see how that explains anything without adding a whole nother layer of complexity and even more questions.

Sure, ancient philosophers didn't know genetics, abiogenesis and many other things discovered by modern science, but I don't understand why you think Anno must have considered the modern results. I mean, in NGE there are souls (red dots), there is the Guf's chamber, things not considered by biology and neuroscience, so why Anno used them?
I don't propose a model because I prefer to talk about the meta-text of NGE rather than the fictitious scenario, but this doesn't mean that a model cannot be made. We exchanged a some messages, and so I was wondering why you think that in NGE a biological model is better, and what are the problems of the other model. But really it's only curiosity, I don't want to waste your time!

If there ever was a chicken/egg problem, "something has to have an A.T. Field to have a body" is it. (What is the A.T. Field? The emanation of the mind. Where does the mind come from? Interacting with the world and others. How does a soul do that? WITH A BODY!!!) It is so logically incoherent that I can't waste my time with it, nor do I need to, for the reasons I've previously gone over. This is all scarcely germane to the thread anyway.

Shun, I do wonder why you express regret about Yui's lonely fate in that other thread, when I've argued in this very thread that she is not alone and to believe that she is is to focus on a tree at the expense of the forest.

Yui's line is this:

たった tatta: only, merely
一 ichi: one
人 hito: person
生きていけたら ikiteiketara: if could live/exist
とても totemo: very, awfully
寂しいけど sabishīkedo: lonely, solitary, desolate
生きていけるなら ikiteikerunara: if could live/exist

If only one person could live ...
[She would be] awfully lonely, but if her could live ...

Yui herself says that that condition would be "awfully lonely". And she is right. She would be the only mother soul on the ark seed of life, the only one responsible for the of human souls load, the only pilot inside the interstellar ship. Evangelion talks about loneliness and human relationships, so however fascinating the interstellar journey and the discovery of new worlds can be, and however important and glorious the task that Yui has decided to carry out may be, she will miss relationships with the other people. Even if Yui really arrives in a new world, how longtime she would spend? Thousands years? Millions? Billions? Loneliness, loneliness, awfully loneliness. She saved Shinji, but lost him. She will not be able to speak with her son, she will not be able to support him during school, she will not be able to meet his wife and grandchildren, she will not be able to speak with Gendo, with prof. Fuyutsuki, with any friends, give and receive comfort, dialogue with others, caress their body their kokoro, love, nothing, nothing, nothing.
This doesn't mean that loneliness is worse than death. Death is death. Yui says that if a person is alive, then can find happiness anywhere. She is alive and and she have a load of human souls that can be reborn, and this is a positive good thing. But this doesn't take away loneliness. If you're dead, you're dead, end. But as long as you are alive, even if you are alone you can try to change this condition of solitude. The problem is that Yui is in a condition of forced solitude, she cannot change it, she will have to endure it for a long, long time. Very sad.

If this were not so, then otaku / hikikomori might think that Yui's fate is cool, but in this way the Evangelion message would lose effectiveness. Anno didn't want otaku and hikikomori to think sci-fi was cool, that wandering through space was cool, that transhumanism was cool, no.
Anno wanted otaku and hikikomori to think that the thing to choose was to live with others, human relationships, sociality, despite all difficulties.

Naoko is the woman who gave all of herself for the man who used her, chose the emotional and sexual impulses and was coherent until the end, until the betrayal by Casper. Ritsuko is the scientist who despite having done the same "mistakes" as her mother, in the end chose logic, reason, science, work. Yui is the mother who sacrificed herself to save her son (Shinji) and all children (humanity), chose self-sacrifice to the end.

Reichu#893828 wrote:Flashback / Flashforward

Yui's final monologue is interesting. It's long been used to dismiss the "Eva-01 becomes a Seed" idea, but that never sat right with me. Saying that Yui will just sit around passively doing nothing until the end of time leaves too many other things unaccounted for, ignores the extremely obvious parallels brought into plain sight by Eva2, ignores how the "Starship Eva" plot thread was far more obvious in a prior draft of EoE (a draft where Yui's farewell monologue is already in its final form, or nearly so), performs character assassination on Yui, and so on.

First off, there are Yui's exact words: she doesn't actually say that she will be alone; she says that as long as a single soul (meaning, her) goes on living through Eva, there will always be proof that humanity existed, and being the singular proof of humanity's existence is what will be lonely. Which, yes, I imagine it would be. Adam and Lilith, too, went on journeys that were effectively solitary; none of the souls they brought ultimately remember their identities and have been born into something new, leaving Adam and Lilith (along with the other five, out there somewhere) as entities created by their people, with memories of those people. Proof that the FAR once existed, each one meant to exist on her own world, all alone. In the same way, Eva-01 will be proof that Homo sapiens existed, but for her it's even lonelier because our species produced only a single Seed.

Reichu, thanks for referring me to this topic.

What you say about Yui/Eva 01 becoming a seed and spreading life in in the universe after the conclusion of End of Evangelion is not only interesting, it is also consistent. At least with the “extended canon” (other canon besides the anime series and the movies).

Where I believe the differences reside is not so much in the interpretation of the extended canon — since the seed ending for Yui is a logical conclusion of it —, but rather on how much can the extended canon be used to fill in the gaps from the anime and movies, and even build beyond them. Now, do not get my wrong, I totally understand that this argument can be done disingenuously. In other words, people picking first what to believe and later adjusting their views towards canonicity based on whether it fits them or not (if the extended canon supports their views then they accept it, if it goes against their views then they deny it). I understand that danger exist, still, I would say that the underlying problem for some (not all) debates about Evangelion is not having a clear mental model of canonicity. I will not say that one person’s model of canonicity is better or worse, I only say that we need to be consistent and aware of which model we have chosen for ourselves.

There are three points behind my way of thinking. In order of importance:

1) They way I see the extended canon is as something that fills only the specific gaps it is meant to, but not as foundation meant to be built upon. So, what we know about the First Ancestral Race and Adam and Lilith being seeds is meant to be an explanation for an important hole in the basic canon of the series and the movies. In End of Evangelion we learn that Adam and Lilith are the same, and so are Angels and humanity by extension, but no explanation is give to where did Adam and Lilith came from. I believe that the First Ancestral Race is just there as an explanation for that. And for what is worth it is actually a very simple explanation — compared to no explanation at all, which would lead the audience to assume that there is some kind of abiogenesis and the need to bring real science into the fictional world of Evangelion to fill that gap somehow—. The First Ancestral Race and seeds are there as a way to stop asking questions of origin whose answers only create more questions (if X' created X, then who created X', and then who created X’’, and so on). Notice how there is very little debate about who created the First Ancestral Race, the audience is not supposed to care, the First Ancestral Race is so removed from the plot that we are fine accepting they just exist. While on the other hand the same could not be said of Adam and Lilith, they are too close to the plot, we want to know where they come from, even if the answer to that is a non-answer.

Me, personally, while I accept the extended canon to fill immediate gaps, I do not feel comfortable building extensions to the universe of Evangelion that are too big based only on the extended canon. 2) And I I feel that exploration of space and populating other worlds is such a big theme that I do not feel comfortable attaching it to Evangelion based only on the extended canon. For a theme this big, I need more, I need the actual anime and movies in the Evangelion universe addressing it. There are many novels, anime, and movies dedicated to space exploration, but Evangelion is not one of them. There are very deep questions about space exploration that have given birth to all those works. What if life is so rare that in only generated accidentally once, is there not a responsibility to spread life throughout the universe if you believe that life is good? As technology advances and we start getting closer and closer to be able to create artificial life, how can we be sure that life in our planet was not artificial too, furthermore what is the difference between artificial and natural?

However I do not feel that Evangelion was the least bothered about those questions. It is not that those questions are not important, it is just that they are not addressed at all. Even the topic of artificial intelligence is at least treated somewhat tangentially with MAGI and the DUMMY system. Nuclear energy had its episode too, and eternal motion was explored with the S2 in much more depth, specially in the director cut of Katsuragi’s expedition. Vacuum and the Dirac sea also got their episode. Smart cities are also explored with Tokyo 3. But space exploration is not talked at all during the series or movies. The closest we came was Arael, and the treatment was minimal. Compare that to anime like Gunbuster, or the movies that we all have in mind for space exploration: 2001 and Prometheus, were space exploration and populating worlds is deeply explored.

Space exploration is so sparsely treated in Evangelion that I am not even sure about which physical “laws” would apply to it. Usually science fiction worlds have to rewrite real astronomy because of the vast distances involved in space and just how much empty space is in between stars and planets. So, if Yui did become a seed of life. Are we expected to believe she went on to populate the other planets in our solar system, such as Mars, with the implication that eventually those planets will get in easy contact with humanity if either civilization makes space rockets? Or did Yui travel to the closest star other than the sun? Can an Evangelion travel at the speed of light? Because the closest star is at least 4 light-years from Earth. If she traveled by anything resembling a rocket fueled by the S2, she would have the energy and lifespan (both infinite) to do it, but it would still take her hundreds of years or more to do space traveling.

Notice that The Rebuild of Evangelion differs greatly from Evangelion in how much more prominent space is. I will address this point in the end.

Lastly, my final point is that 3) since I believe the extended canon is there just to fill gaps, I am even more apprehensive when conclusions drawn from it go against the original spirit of the series or movies. This is my weakest argument, that is why is it only the third in importance, but I still feel it is important. It is matter of feeling, but I feel that space exploration cheapens the absolutes that characterize the symbolism (all the Judeo-Christian references), and even more important, the characters that shape the big picture background of Evangelion (Seele/Keel Lorenz, Yui, Gendo, Fuyutsuki, Misato once she knows what is going on, etc). All these symbolism and characters give an enormous value to life on Earth and humanity, you never get the impression that “there will always be other worlds, space is full of infinity possibilities.” You get the impression that this is it. Whether it is Seele/Keel Lorenz or Yui, both of which had very different plans, they both make decisions and talk as if humanity was irreplaceable. Seele/Keel Lorenz believed humanity was imperfect, but wanted to perfect it, even at the cost of individuality. Yui believed humanity was perfect as it was, so perfect that it needed to be preserved for eternity. None of them at any point during the series or movies make references to other planets, or other beings in other planets, as something to compare humanity with it. None express a feeling of being trapped on Earth, a sense of wanting to exploring the Universe, or a sadness about outer space being a waste without more life (which is something we can say perhaps of the First Ancestral Race, but not Yui or Seele in any of their monologues, and they had plenty of those).

One last addendum, 3.1) following my apprehension when conclusions drawn from the extended canon go against the original spirit of the series or movies, I am even more apprehensive when they contradict not only the plot, but characters’ motivations. I can overlook the extended canon contradicting the schemes of Seele and Yui, they are super interesting political and philosophical machinations (and what originally got me hooked up on Evangelion), but at the end of they day, they are only the background for the series. The foreground are the characters themselves. What I cannot do is overwrite characters’ motivations, and I feel that Yui’s motherly feelings were something very concrete and tied to Shinji. When Yui discusses being a mother she means it in concrete terms, as in marrying Gendo and having a baby, giving it a name Shinji if it is a boy, Rei if it is a girl, and even discussing the implications that having a baby would have for her scientific career. We get to see what a happy ending for that would be in the original episode 26 of the anime. This, to me, is not just a happy ending for Shinji, but a combination of the happy ending for all characters, including Asuka, Rei, and also Gendo and Yui. It is a very cliché slice of life anime world in comparison to Evangelion, but it is there to show what normal life would be if all those horrible things after the Second Impact had never happened. So, being a mother to Yui meant taking care of Shinji, like a real mother without super powers (as we see in episode 26), and for lack of a chance to normalcy, protecting Shinji from inside the Evangelion 01 (as we see throughout the rest of the series and End of Evangelion).

We often see Yui inside Evangelion 01 choosing Shinji over other “bigger causes”. We see it when Yui refuses the Dummy system, even as Zeruel is about to destroy both Nerv, Gendo, and Yui’s plans. We see it when Yui is willing to let Shinji live inside the Evangelion 01 when he fusses with it after the battle with Zeruel, which would have probably impaired her original plans. And lastly, we see it when in End of Evangelion she lets Shinji decide the outcome of the third impact, even when doing so would have meant that Shinji could have actually chosen Seele’s plan instead of Yui’s plan. All of this is there to shows us that Yui cares for Shinji as a mother in a very concrete way. This is what means to her being a mother, being the the mom of a human child, her child. From Yui’s words or actions we never get a sense of maternity in a broad sense as in “source of all life”, or big-cause types like “mother goddess”. Mother relations in this concrete way are also explored all over Evangelion: Asuka’s mother Kyouko, Ritsuko’s mother Naoko, etc. So it is a very concrete type of motherhood the one that is vindicated in Evangelion. Motherhood in the broad sense of “source of all life” is explored for Lilith and Adam themselves, true, but Yui’s motherhood, or Kyouko’s motherhood, are meant as a parallel, not an exact equivalent. Mixing Yui’s motherhood with the more broad type of motherhood in the sense of “goddess of creation” takes away from it to such a degree that I feel that more than a contradiction, it becomes a detraction of the series’ message. Yui’s maternal love for her one son, Shinji, won in the end. After all, was it not Gendo the one who wrongly kept choosing “bigger causes” — or passing his insecurities as bigger causes — over the son he had in front of his eyes?

I do not think that Yui sees Angels with a special compassion similar to humanity, let alone with maternal feelings that comes close to her feelings towards Shinji. She does not have the vengeful feeling towards angels from Misato, nor likely the completely instrumental views of Gendo, Ritsuko, and perhaps even Fuyutsuki, despite being very scientistsy herself. In that sense, she is more compassionate than them, just because her character is stated to be kind by default (the kindest in all of Evangelion?). But it is not like Yui does particularly care for Angels because they are also a form of life. I cannot see Yui looking for a special solution to bring back Adam’s sons/angels in other planet, nor for creating alternative forms of life that aren’t humanity itself (even an extremely similar angel in a lilim-like form again). And the same way that some human characters are dead gone, like Kaji, it is my understanding that Adam’s sons/angels are also dead gone by the time of End of Evangelion, with no possibility of them or their souls coming back any way. It is not clear to me, however, if Adam/Kaworu’s soul ever made it back to its body, whether when it was part of Gendo, or when it was part of giant Rei/Lilith, or never.*

A side note on motherhood on Evangelion. I find it curious that despite being such a product of the 90s, there is very little from Evangelion that feels old fashioned to a fault, specially in regard to political correctness. It is not new that feminism has moved beyond “it is sexist to insinuate that women are motherly by nature in any way. Women are just as men. Work and professional careers are the most important thing.” to “we need to embrace all types of women and life-choices, including those who choose to have babies, and even those who choice to become housewives”, but this view wasn’t exactly embraced in the 90s, and Japan has been an extra step behind these things. To make an apology of motherhood, and specially for a man to make this point, there would have been plenty of ways it could have wrong. To me, it is worth reflecting how Anno’s message about motherhood is not in any way sexist or old fashioned even when seen through modern eyes. Anno walks carefully the line of giving importance to motherhood, without feeling preachy about old values, or insinuating as a man that motherhood is a natural and absolutely necessary part of womanhood (Misato and Ritsuko are super badass without children, and only as messed up as the rest of male characters; Asuka, as an adolescent, also shows a revel stance towards her “fertility.”)

About the Rebuild of Evangelion:

I would feel much more forced to accept a change in interpretation of Yui’s ending (from “alone in space for all eternity” to “seed of life traveling to other worlds”) if it came from the Rebuild of Evangelion. I do not mean the Rebuild necessarily connecting its universe with the anime series and rewriting its ending. I mean the Rebuild stating the characters’s motivation, and at some point saying that Yui had thought about exploring space and creating life in other worlds.

This also leads to a debate about the canonicity of the Rebuild. I also do not put the Rebuild to the same level of canonicity as the original anime series and movies (End and Rebirth) — at least based on the independence shown in 1.11 to 3.33, everything might change in 3+1 if it forcibly connects both worlds —. But I do accept it is much more canonic than discarded material from the original series (it was discarded for some reason after all), or things that are frankly merchandise: games, etc. The original Evangelion was born from Anno’s mind, and I respect whatever he wants to say about it, change, or expand on the Rebuild (it is not unconditional support, but it is much more than the benefit of the doubt, I believe the art cannot exist without its author). I believe that although the plots might be different, the characters of both the original series and the Rebuild are meant to be the same (left to be confirmed: the reason of Asuka’s change in name, and also how much Rei from Q is the same Rei III or rather another Rei**). As long as they do not contradict each other extremely, I do believe the characters are meant to be the same. To use the Evangelion thematic, I believe their souls are the same, artistically speaking. To me, Misato in Q is the same Misato from the series despite all her changes. She is the same person under different circumstances. So, if Yui were to say in the Rebuild that her motivation is space exploration and populating worlds, I would reluctantly accept that this motivation also applies to End of Evangelion.

I believe that not only me, but many people, already hold this view on canonicity for the original episodes 25 and 26 in the anime. They are rewritten as 25’ and 26', and End of Evangelion takes precedence, but if there is no major contradiction, I and most people assume that the character development and motivations that we see in episodes 25 and 26 still apply to the characters in 25’ and 26’.

Less consciously, I also believe that many people do this (assuming that characters are the same in a deep level in two alternative worlds) already for interpreting the Rebuild, although much more often in the opposite direction (filling gaps in motivation for characters in the Rebuild using what we know about them on the original series). I, at least, do it. I used to do it unconsciously and now I do it consciously. The Rebuild has so little character development aside of Shinji, that I simply assume that unless there is an explicit contradiction, the other characters have the same background, issues, and development as in the original series and movies.***

I seriously mean this not as a way of moving the goal post, I believe we will get an answer to this soon in the last Rebuild movie. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if after having two takes at Evangelion Anno choses again to leave out any reference to the First Ancestral Race and seeds, then we will know it is not meant to be an important part of the canon. My money would be in that Anno will bring the First Ancestral Race and seeds to the main canon this time, although not in a way that connects directly with Yui’s motivations or fate. If the late is stated, though, I will accept it as well.

*In the series it is shown that Adam and Lilith’s bodies (perhaps their cores/S2s?) can live without their souls and call them back (with the risk of their souls been hijacked and put somewhere else, like Kaworu and Rei). Similar to a Horcrux or The One Ring that ties a soul to Earth even after death. But I do not see evidence of this applying to the other angels. Unlike Adam and Lilith, they lost their bodies, and they are assumed to be completely dead, souls and all, before the third impact.
**Rei herself in the series is already supposed to be three different people with one soul. I think Q makes it clear that she is a different Rei again, but sharing the same soul that ties all Reis together. The artistic “soul” I propose to all other characters is not based in this concept, and is not supposed to be part of the inner mechanics of the Evangelion universe, it would be the equivalent of soul+ mind/personality, the whole together as “fictional characters”.
***I would love to have someone or a group of people watch the Rebuild without ever watching the original series and movies, give it plenty of time and resources to analyze it, and then tells us from an unbiased point of view how much sense does it make, and how depth it is on its own, independently from the the original series.

I've just read two pages of this discussion in one take, and I have to say, I'm left kinda stunned.

My first visit to the forum ever. Hiii~, everyone!
I'm a new one. Fresh meat here. Less than a year into Eva.
I wonder if anyone recognises me from a fanfic I'm writing, called The Soul Purpose.
It's just what I've found so many of my interpretations so, so different from yours here.
Reading this was quite a ride so far. There is a lot to sit down and think about.
My fanfic is supposed to be heavy on lore. I mean... In a way... It's a character-based take on the story, the way I saw it, with altered scenario.
But. Wow. Now I realize, could be what nobody actually sees this the way I do.
It's legitimately a lovecraftian kind of feeling. It's so exciting. I never thought there were so many so different ways to unpack what actually went on.

Also, I didn't realize new things are getting found, even now, about the series more than two dozen years old. It's crazy how much more experienced and smarter you guys are compared to me about this. Now I realize, I've only touched the surface of this iceberg.

And even then, I think my fic has a unique vision of the events. My mostly broad notes for the future, what are by now, in terms of content, are like half as filled as the posted section of the fanfic (which is 30k words), they are gonna be so altered because of this...
At least I'm not too much of a perfectionist. I will probably ignore some stuff like the DC version of the episode 24. I only just watched it, and indeed, it doesn't make too much sense to me.
Also, sorry for kinda off-toping the discussion. I'd join it, but not until my brains cool off.

Anyone know anything about the fossilised headless angel in the lake?
The one Kaworu was sitting on when he met Shinji and where he had his meeting with "ghost Seele".

I've just watched Death (True)² and there's a few seconds of additional footage immediately after Kaworu's death.
The angel fossil was suddenly bleeding from the neck when Kaworu lost his head.

The script just calls it the "angel statue". From a recent post of mine:

Reichu wrote:When they meet, Kaworu is sitting on the neck stub of a mysterious statue, which is later revealed to be a representation of both Adam and of the MP Evas. In both cases, Kaworu is the part that "completes" the headless statue -- the soul of Adam, and his personality patterns will helm the MP Evas. Interesting thing about this statue is that it possesses a pronounced pair of breasts, which in Eva are a symbol of the intersection between mother-child intimacy and sexual intimacy (i.e. between a woman and her partner). The relevance? Kaworu's true nature is that of a mother, Adam, but his maternal affections provoke sexual confusion in Shinji.

The statue is bleeding at the end of Death because the statue is Kaworu/Adam. Its existence makes no real sense, but it wouldn't be the only way that episode 24 embraces surrealism.

This reminds me yet again that I need to make that damned "Hermaphroditic Adam" thread already.

Reichu wrote:The script just calls it the "angel statue". From a recent post of mine:


The statue is bleeding at the end of Death because the statue is Kaworu/Adam. Its existence makes no real sense, but it wouldn't be the only way that episode 24 embraces surrealism.

This reminds me yet again that I need to make that damned "Hermaphroditic Adam" thread already.

It certainly raises more questions.
If it's a statue, how did it come to exist?
If it's a dead angel, which one?
If it's Adam, how did it get there?

The objective reality of Evangelion increasingly breaks down toward the end of the series. I personally don't think the angel statue has a real Watsonian (in-universe) explanation, and it doesn't need one. There is no way to explain why a statue that resembles one of the highly classified mass produced Evangelions but also symbolically evokes the highly classified Adam would just be sitting around in Tokyo-3's inundated crater waiting for Kaworu to pose on top of it, why it would be bleeding in a single shot, why it changes position and location so much in episode 24, etc. I guess if you really wanted to you could invoke some kind of conspiracy about it being a secret Angel that is never addressed in any way and develops blood all over its neck stub when Kaworu dies for who knows what reason, but that would break the show far more than simply accepting an explanation like "it's an intentionally inexplicable symbolic device that's used to weave Kaworu into the grander lore+themes and escalate the feeling of surrealism over the final episodes so that we feel like we're losing our minds along with the characters".

I think it's hinting that the statue is Kaworu's original body.

Kaworu's original body is Adam. All of Adam's body mass turned into energy except for a single egg cell. This egg cell was developed to an embryonic state, smuggled by Kaji to Gendo, and merged into Gendo's hand. We see Adam's body sitting there in Gendo's hand in the exact same episode that a weird statue is randomly sitting around in the Tokyo-3 lake. The statue is not literally Adam. And as I've mentioned, the scripts describe it only as a statue.

Tenuous ideas have their place in Chit-Chat, but Discussion is held to a higher standard. A pattern has been emerging where you just throw out random thoughts that can be easily disproved. Please put a bit more effort in. Even if accidentally, many successive low-effort posts exhaust the good will of others quickly and elicit suspicions of intentional trolling. This can be avoided by checking anything you propose against the contents of the show to see first if it fits.

Reichu wrote:Tenuous ideas have their place in Chit-Chat, but Discussion is held to a higher standard. A pattern has been emerging where you just throw out random thoughts that can be easily disproved. Please put a bit more effort in. Even if accidentally, many successive low-effort posts exhaust the good will of others quickly and elicit suspicions of intentional trolling. This can be avoided by checking anything you propose against the contents of the show to see first if it fits.

It certainly wasn't my intent to come across like I was trolling.
I'll let you in on something; I have ADHD/ASD and I struggle to retain information in the right order and I miss a lot of what's going on. Another flaw is that seek to understand many things all at once and have a lot of questions (having a noisy mind and all).
I came here after rewatching the series after a long time and hoped to finally understand it a lot more. I appreciate how you have helped.
What looks like very little effort with generating thoughts and putting them into words actually takes a lot of effort.

Feeling shot down like this hits me hard, so I'll back off and sorry for the hassle.

I approached that the completely wrong way and I feel awful. Everyone who had to see that deserves an apology. I've sent a more thorough response to AWinters via PM.

Marfil:
I agree with the fact that extended canon is perhaps relied on a bit too much when it comes to explaining some of the more mythological/sci-fi questions that Eva presents, but I’d say Reichu’s general idea of Yui as a new ‘goddess mother’ makes a pretty big amount of sense, actually. There is some outreaching, as per the course whenever someone attempts to make sense of the mystical/mythological side of Evangelion, but the central idea is one that makes sense and motherhood is a pretty big theme in Eva in general.
In regards to Yui, I'm a bit less sure. She obviously loves her son, but her breaking out of the bakelite in EoE [i]after[i] Asuka has already been killed is a pretty interesting moment that I think shows she has a darker side as well: she is willing to emotionally manipulate even those she loves the most if the endgame favors her (plans) or if she thinks that it will end with chances of a better life for those she loves. Gendo and SEELE also do some pretty shitty things in the belief that it will all be good at the end. (Derantor’s idea is interesting and thought-provoking, too, but I’m not sure how well it plays into the themes that Anno intended).

I believe that although the plots might be different, the characters of both the original series and the Rebuild are meant to be the same

I disagree with this. The characters of Rebuild are not the same characters as they were in NGE/EoE/Death and Rebirth. They have similar names, looks and personalities, but are different in a more or less subtle manner. Asuka having her name changed from Soryu to Shikinami is basically Anno straight-out telling the audience that she deserves to be treated as an entirely new character-she has similarities to Soryu, but is very different. In that same way, Rei Q is similar to Rei III, but is her own character. There are dozens of other changes (Rei has a quicker and easier time with emotional connections, Misato is a bit more hard even from the beginning, Ritsuko doesn’t seem to have had any kind of an affair with Gendo, SEELE consists of millennia-old dudes working in accordance to Lilith’s plan for mankind, Gendo/Fuyutsuki are working in accordance to a plan of Yui’s, Gendo and Yui have surname changes, Kaworu is fixated/obsessed with Shinji, etc.). My point is that the characters are similar, but there are rather big differences and their motivations in NTE are in no way an accurate representation of their possible motivations in NGE/EoE.

I would love to have someone or a group of people watch the Rebuild without ever watching the original series and movies, give it plenty of time and resources to analyze it, and then tells us from an unbiased point of view how much sense does it make, and how depth it is on its own, independently from the the original series.

It would be really interesting; even though NTE gains a lot if you’ve watched its predecessors and the film series seems to be a kind of reaction to/discussion of the original, Anno has also stated he wants people to understand the Rebuilds on their own, so it would be interesting to see what someone would think of them that way and what they would consider the themes to be. Of course, it won’t be as rich an experience, but still...Also, rewatching NTE after having watched NGE/EoE might lead to a lot of reevaluations.

Zusuchan: Working with the incomplete NTE series has really made me up my game and learn a lot of new things about media analysis, so, funny enough, I'll be able to revisit the original with a very different perspective now. I've made it one of my long-term goals to deep-dive into NGE anew and see what lore elements can be justified without excess recourse to video games and the like. As much as I appreciate what Eva2 has done for discussions, it's also become increasingly apparent over the years that it has hindered speculation as well -- for example, its very strange claims about the spears have reframed that topic in a very unproductive way, stifling investigation and innovation.

Yui's treatment of Shinji arguably becomes less harsh according to the idea that Yui will rebirth the Angels. Consider, she never mutilated and cannibalized Shinji for his own good. Imagine the sorts of parent-child difficulties that might arise on the new world... "Mom, if you really love us, then was savagely mauling us to death in order to save our souls and bring them to a new planetary home REALLY necessary?" I admire the lengths that woman is willing to go to accomplish her goals. Is psychologically torturing, butchering, and eating children worth it if you save humanity from the oblivion of Seele's designs? The idea is really uncomfortable and you will totally be judged for it, but, hey, they'll be alive to provide judgment because of what you did, so who are they kidding.

Yui taking her sweet time to activate was for... maybe three reasons, I figure. There is the whole "Shinji's ego will be prodded even further toward absolute despair, and will thus yield an Impact more readily, if I just let this happen" aspect. There's also the matter of the Soryus getting in the way of the Impact's initiation, so Yui has no reason to help; if the harpies didn't take them down, she would have to do it herself. Last, we later see that the Evas aren't affected by the AATF. The harpies need to destroy their cores to join the soul party. So Kyoko's (second) death was necessary in order for her to be brought into HIP as well.

Reichu:
Your reasons for Yui taking her time with activation make sense and I guess it's either one of them or, taking into account Yui's supposedly considerable intelligence, all three. And your point about how the rebirthed Angels are only able to judge her because of what she did is true too. Yui remains much the same for me as a character though: a loving mother who is not above doing horrifying things towards those she loves in order to ensure their future survival. Of course, how much she loved the Angels is another debate: she probably just considered them soul material or something. She'll probably grow to love them when they grow up, though most likely not in the same way as Shinji/Gendo/Fuyutsuki.

I've made it one of my long-term goals to deep-dive into NGE anew and see what lore elements can be justified without excess recourse to video games and the like.

I'd like to hear your thoughts once you've done that! I'm sure they'll be interesting.

Using Occam's Razor, which scenario will be most likely) A )The SEELE monoliths talking with Kaworu are, in fact, the crazy old dudes that run the world B)They're the Angel's soul?

The simplest (and still coherent) explanation is that option A is the answer, but I wouldn't rule out Reichu's hypothesis, since it's a coherent alternative explanation of '24 (It is specially interesting that this conversation is going on in the same exact location were the Angel Tower phenomenon occurred)