Angels will relentlessly head for Terminal Dogma, it seems instinctive. But if that were the case, wouldn't they be heading for the actual body of Adam? The idea is that Angels would head for Lilith no matter what in order to cause Third Impact, but there's a hole in that idea- Tabris doesn't have this instinct. Kaworu heads toward what he thinks is Adam and has no issue with aborting the plan when he figures out he's been bamboozled, there's clearly not some otherworldy pull forcing them towards Lilith's body. That could be because Tabris is in a human body, but that doesn't stop him from changing his sync level at will, activating and controlling Unit 02 from the outside without even an entry plug being inserted, and lessening gravity for himself and Units 01 and 02 during the descent to Terminal Dogma, he clearly still has all his Angel powers. So maybe this means all the previous Angels think they're moving towards Adam as well, and simply want to return to their "father". I could be missing something obvious of course, "some things are so simple that people overlook them to concentrate on what they think are deeper truths", so please call me out if that's true. Otherwise... could this change the lore of NGE?

I remember that Kaji says in episode 19 that the Angels are trying to make contact with Adam and the behavior of some Angels is consistent, but the problem is that the Angel in Central Dogma is Lilith, not Adam. That's a contradiction.

But the Classified Information (CI) says:

Some of them were trying to access Lilith and reset all life, some of them had nothing in mind, and some were trying to recover their progenitor Adam.

Well, I think CI explain why and make more sense.

The reliability of the CI has been disputed, though. Many things don’t line up between the CI and the show, the most obvious one being SEELE’s goals. I’m more inclined to believe what Kaji said in Episode 19: the main goal of the Angels is to merge with Adam and wipe out humanity. It’s just that most of them mistook Lilith for Adam, like Kaworu did in Episode 24.

The reliability of CI has not been disputed in the slightest.
https://wiki.evageeks.org/What_Is_Canon%3F
https://wiki.evageeks.org/Classified_Information_(Translation)

With that said, unlike the specific alternative scenarios present in the game, almost all information here does not clash with the series at all, and in the few cases where it does, the series should take priority.

But it seems to me like CI’s info about the Angel’s objectives does contradict the series. The Angels in the show are always referred to as being searching for Adam, and never once is finding Lilith mentioned as one of their goals. I believe the series should take priority in this instance.

I agree with BusterMachine4, but I won't be disregarding the CI's here. I just don't think that doing it will add anything relevant to this thread in particular (I also believe that it is a great source of information). Instead, I'm just gonna focus on my raw interpretation. More specifically the one I had while first watching the show, way back ago.
For me, the angels were trying to make contact with Adam and simply end up mistaken his presence with Lilith's. I believe that, not only because Kaworu himself didn't realize he wasn't going after Adam until he opened the Heaven's Door (implying that differentiating the two is not necessarily easy), but also because the sixth angel was actually able to track his progenitor down. Besides that, It wouldn't make much sense for them to go after Lilith (considering their main objective), in my opinion.
I mean, Adam was reduced to an embryo. So, maybe his presence was not as great as Lilith's and that's why the other angels were going after her instead (as if her "signal" was more intense than his). But if that's so, then how could the sixth angel be able to find Adam? Well, the first angel was being transported and, thus, in the middle of the sea, closer to the him. Who knows if from that distance, Gaghiel was able to recognize Adam, unlike his peers?
Anyway, this last paragraph was nothing but me thinking too much. I don't have any evidence to back it up and I'm also not trying to convince anyone that it is an actual thing. It's nothing more than me speculating for the sake of it hahahahahahaha.

why is the movie "the end of evangelion" not mentionend in the canon?

It is mentioned, as part of the first tier. It says that EoE should be considered the canon ending with priority over the TV ending, although I'm sure some people would disagree with that.

Are you talking about the whole "tier stuff"? If so, I believe that when they wrote "the anime itself", they were already taking the movie into account. I mean, they even used The End of Evangelion to exemplify how important storyboards can be to enrich the analysis of a scene.
Later, they even said that the film has priority status over episodes 25 and 26...

To put that tangent to rest - the most likely and internally consistent explanation is that EoTV simply is the mental state of the characters throughout EoE/Instrumentality. Not in the sense of the concurrency project of "we can make a definitive chronology", but the basic idea stands.

Back on topic to the main question, I'm going to believe in CI here. All we have from the series itself is Kaworu's words, and the theories of people who already misidentified Lilith as Adam, so there is reasonable doubt about the accuracy of their statements in matters adjacent to it

1. The information transmitted by Kaji is doubtful, I may be mistaken, but he says what he thinks and not what is correct. When he finds “the truth”, he is murdered;
2. It's not possible to fully understand the Angels psychology, we are not sure if they know that it's Lilith or is mistaking Adam. Tabris may have been the only one who got confused;
3. Episode 24 has a serious script inconsistency:

   As originally broadcast, the episode did not include the "lake conversation" between Seele and Kaworu. Kaworu thus seemed to have genuinely confused Adam and Lilith. However, with the addition of the lake scene, Kaworu knows that Adam has become part of Gendo. Why would he also think that this was Adam on the cross?
   
   One possibility is that this is simply a continuity error, and that they somehow didn't notice the contradiction. This, however, doesn't seem very likely. In Episode 15 we were told the being in Terminal Dogma was Adam; that it is actually Lilith is the central revelation of Episode 24. It seems very unlikely that they would just forget about this scene when they wrote the new material.
   
   Source: Theory and Analysis: Kaworu's Agenda
   

I believe in CI at this point, because for me it is more consistent. However I understand your thoughts BusterMachine4.

It seems like a retcon/plothole whatever.
But I guess an explanation would be (first time I think of this) that they all go where Kawoeu/Adam thinks they should. As a sort of beehive queen or whatever. But I think me thinking much more deeply wouldn't yield results.

Blockio wrote:I'm going to believe in CI here. All we have from the series itself is Kaworu's words

This is what bothers me about all of this situation. Kaworu is not just a nobody that came out of nowhere. He seems to be a very knowledgeable dude and he is also an angel! How could he even mistake his progenitor for someone else (the entity who literally provided his soul)? The only explanation is that it's not necessary easy to differentiate Adam from Lilith. I mean, this is the guy that (in the manga, at least) was able to tell that he was "similar" to Rei just by standing close to her.
Anyway, considering that he misinterpreted the situation (and so did other massively important characters like Ritsuko), I don't believe that it is that much o a stretch to think that other angels could make the same mistake.
But I can see your point. The CI's is an official and reliable source of information. So, there is little point in going against it.

BernardoCairo wrote:The CI's is an official and reliable source of information. So, there is little point in going against it.

Except when they made it seem like the Human Instrumentality Project was only supposed to be applied to the SEELE members, instead of humanity as a whole. That one detail is so obviously wrong that it makes me doubt the entire thing. Because of that, I’m not sure if finding Lilith was really the goal of some Angels, especially when reading between the lines on Episode 24 provides a compelling alternate explanation.

Yeah, I agree with you. What I meant is that I can't do much about it, other than simply speculate. In the end, it is just my subjective interpretation versus an official source. That doesn't mean the CI's is an irrefutable compile of information (the whole thing about Seele and Human Instrumentality was bonkers hahahahaha). It's just that, in this specific case, I don't know if what I brought to the discussion is relevant enough to "challenge" it.

BusterMachine4 wrote:That one detail is so obviously wrong that it makes me doubt the entire thing.

It is not. All that is written in CI is what Seele's scenario was supposed to have looked like. The show makes a big deal out of Gendo interfering with that, and that is before we even get to Yui's own agenda.

But SEELE in the show clearly states that their goal for Instrumentality is for humanity to be merged into one collective consciousness. The CI just makes it seem like they want to upload their brains into a giant robot and blast off into space. Even the wiki points out that this is a clear contradiction, and the CI is third-tier canon by definition, so in matters of inconsistency the original show should take priority. That's the reasoning that leads me to trust the words of Kaji and Kaworu in the show over the CI when it comes to the Angels' objectives.

And similarily to CI, Kaji has plain and simply been wrong about these things before, not to mention the fact that episode 24 is just in general a mess in a great many points, so everything stemming only from there should be taken with a grain of salt. Completely disregarding one on these grounds while trusting the other is quite the double standard.

But there’s no reason why Kaji’s Episode 19 line would have to be wrong, and I believe that a lot of the weirdness in Episode 24 can actually be resolved by reading between the lines. Either way, I don’t think that comparison is really fair. I don’t see why an obscure Japan-only video game should have higher canonical priority than the actual show.

Well, I think it all comes down to the fact that Kaji's mistakes were a part of the story, unlike possible CI deviations. In other words, Kaji being wrong is something that actually happened within the boundries of Evangelion's narrative. Now, if the CI is not right, it is simply the outcome of a misinterpretation that someone did in real life (humans are flawed and therefore susceptible to this type of error).
So, what does all this mean? Well, for me, it means that we cannot treat both statements as if they have the same weight behind it.
Kaji was wrong about Lilith's identity and that's a fact. But, there is evidence in the series to prove that differentiating the two in not an easy task, considering that not even the guy with Adam's soul could do it right away. If all of that is taken into account, maybe it's safe to SPECULATE that the other angels were also as mistaken as Kaworu. But that's all.
Now, the CI is an official and, somewhat, reliable source. But it is not infallible. For me, taking into account the information that is there is totally valid. But I also find it understandable for someone to question it (if there is evidence to support the claims made, of course).
In case of doubt, I give priority to what was said in the series (considering that, even there, characters can get confused and claim false information, obviously). Episode 24, even with some strange parts, still fits that criterion. In fact, I believe that the whole idea behind the scene in which Kaworu discovers the truth is, precisely, to clarify that Kaji and the other characters were wrong all the time (generating some kind of surprise).