WARNING! Not sure how much of this post counts as “Spoiler” (for 1.0~3.0), so I put a warning here at the beginning.

The Spears

I’ve been thinking about the spears that are featured in the NTE, and there are a few things I don’t understand.

We are shown in 2.0 a flashback of 2I with 4 spears flying around, apparenbtly there is one for each of the four Adams involved. The shot shows two spears’ at the double-pronged tips, and the other two at the middle. At first, I thought this depiction was purposedly done to conceal the fact that two of the spears are of the Cassius-type (which is different from the Longinus-type, at both the head and the butt), not yet revealed until the end of the movie when Kaoru uses it to stop N3I.

But then I thought about the theory put forward by Reichu (iirc) about there originally being one Adam that split into four spearate “Adams” as a result of 2I. Assuming for a second that there was originally one Adam with one spear;

1. How doesit make sense that the spear, too, split into four?
2. If the spear did split, how did one spear of Longinus (I pressume) result in two of Longinus and two of Cassius type?

Then we have Lilith, which appears from the very beginning to be impaled by a Longinus-type spear. Assuming Lilith was there all along just like in the NGE continuity (unlike some theory I read there that speculated she too was involved in 2I), that is the spear originally “assigned” to Lilith.

We also have the spear of Cassius given to Mark 06 seen being carried over the surface of the Moon while Mark 06 is being constructed. Was it carried all the way from Earth for that purpose, or was it blown away to the Moon (literally, “Fly me to the Moon” ) together with the Adams that served as the base for the Mark 06? The latter seems far-fetched, unless the Adams in question was holding firmly to it while that happened.

Otherwise, it would make more sense that originally, the Lilith-type being had a Cassius-type spear, and the Adam-type beings have Longinus-type spears.

As a side note, I do remember once re: NGE/EoE reading something about how one end of the spear worked differently depending on which end was using, with one end acting as a “charger” and the orther as a “drain”, or destrudo vs. libido, or something along those lines, and this would somehow fit into that scene where Unit-01 pulls it out and reverts it during EoE. Not sure.

But the diatribe above is just to point that, perhpas the Cassius and Longinus are just two different states of the same spear?. This would explain how one of the two spears in Terminal Dogma reverted to the Longinus state during the 14 year hiatus, although it wouldn’t explain why.


On the Mark 06

Gendo and Fuyutsuki seem puzzled at the “novel method of construction” employed for the Mark 06. At first I thought this would refer to how they are essentially “retrofitting” a scavenged Adams, instead of making it from scratch (like -say- Unit-00 or Unit-02). But then I realized that Unit-01 too is made from an Adams (or so is the currently most accepted explanation, based on the details and dialogue around N3I).

So I think they are instead refering to the fact that the Mark 06 uses an internal power source (the as-of-yet unnamed S2 engine or NTE-equivalent) first tested on the doomed Unit-04 (which does make it stand appart from Unit-01).

There’s a whole lot of fuss about the Mark 06’s eyes being obsessively covered during the whole retrofitting process, so as not to “gaze at the eyes of God”. But why now? Why isn’t it being made such a big deal regarding Unit-01, which too is made from an Adams?

Perhaps it’s the fact that the Mark 06, for the first time, is both made from an Adams and contains the Fruit of life (unlimited power source), so it alone (and not the Unit-01 before it) qualifies as “God”? This is consistent with the dialog between Fuyutsuki and Gendo after Seele leaves the meeting, regarding how Seele are “looking to make a real God, not just fake ones”...

Finally, regarding the time of sortie of the Mark 06. Why then, precisely? Ultimately, upon its descent to Earth, the Mark 06 ended up having to stop N3I, but that cannot have been its mission all along, since by the time Kaworu jumps into his plugsuit, Shinji had’n yet piloted Unit-01 (let alone start N3I).

I think Seele’s plan was to send it to infiltrate/station at NERV as soon as its “construction” was completed, in advance for their own version of instrumentality (involving the “true” EVA Mark-06 and “the resurrection of Lilith”), and the attack by the 10th Angel Zeruel was the “excuse” that justified putting their final chess piece into place; i.e., the official reason for the sortie is to help in defeating Zeruel.

I moved this thread to this subforum since I thought this a better place for it.
-Zusuchan

The lance of cassius was shot to the moon along with mark 6(one of the surviving Adams) by a "blood geyser", implied from a excised part of 2.0 storyboard. Further details here: thread/10952/Blood-Staining-the-Moon-Scrapped-Scene/

There's only so little and vague info about the cassius and longinus even at this point that it's pretty much impossible to give a factual answer. Maybe we'll get to know in the final, maybe not. But your theory is interesting, I'll say that.

The Seele's plan on instrumentality was to use Mark 6(one of the surviving Adams) to come in contact Lilith, thus initiating 3rd impact and instrumentality as they had control over both Kaworu and Mark 6 distinctively, contrary to Gendo's plan of using awakened Eva 1. After coming in knowledge of Seele's plan of using Mark 9 by visiting the moon, having a visual confirmation to what Kaji gave away to them, Gendo knew their plan was gonna go in vain. Nevertheless the awakening of Eva 1 was supposedly giving it a shot which also had been a slight hindrance to Seele's plan, which we see as the Mark 6 impaling Eva 1 to make a halt to Gendo's plan rather than straight up going to central dogma, which obviously made some difference as neither Seele's nor Gendo's version of 3rd impact didn't go as planned, later being called as Near 3rd Impact. In conclusion, Eva 1's awakening wasn't written in Seele's script. It was rather an act of emergency they had to pull out to go ahead with their plan as Gendo's the one behind making both events collide, having no other choice in hand at that moment, implied from his statement of "we must hasten the awakening of Eva 1".

Berserker wrote:The lance of cassius was shot to the moon along with mark 6(one of the surviving Adams) by a "blood geyser", implied from a excised part of 2.0 storyboard. Further details here: thread/10952/Blood-Staining-the-Moon-Scrapped-Scene/

I knew about the storyboard confirming the geyser/Mark 06 Adams being flown to the moon, but hadn’t actually seen the image with reagards to the spear itself.

Berserker wrote:There's only so little and vague info about the cassius and longinus even at this point that it's pretty much impossible to give a factual answer. Maybe we'll get to know in the final, maybe not. But your theory is interesting, I'll say that.

Thanks. The newly introduced Cassius-type spear certainly introduces a lot of possibilites to think about, and a lot of questions!

Berserker wrote:The Seele's plan on instrumentality was to use Mark 6(one of the surviving Adams) to come in contact Lilith, thus initiating 3rd impact and instrumentality as they had control over both Kaworu and Mark 6 distinctively, contrary to Gendo's plan of using awakened Eva 1. After coming in knowledge of Seele's plan of using Mark 9 by visiting the moon, having a visual confirmation to what Kaji gave away to them, Gendo knew their plan was gonna go in vain. Nevertheless the awakening of Eva 1 was supposedly giving it a shot which also had been a slight hindrance to Seele's plan, which we see as the Mark 6 impaling Eva 1 to make a halt to Gendo's plan rather than straight up going to central dogma, which obviously made some difference as neither Seele's nor Gendo's version of 3rd impact didn't go as planned, later being called as Near 3rd Impact. In conclusion, Eva 1's awakening wasn't written in Seele's script. It was rather an act of emergency they had to pull out to go ahead with their plan as Gendo's the one behind making both events collide, having no other choice in hand at that moment, implied from his statement of "we must hasten the awakening of Eva 1".

Thanks, it does make a lot of sense re: Mark 06-based impact vs. Unit-01-based in trerms of each party’s goals.

I do get that Gendo wanted to hurry the awakening of Unit-01; but it looks like a super long shot that what ended up happening (N3I) was in any way following his plan, rather than a lucky turn of events for him: he could not have known that Zeruel would assimilate Unit-00, and that that would cause Shinji to come back to pilot Unit-01, etc.

As a matter of fact, Gendo and Seele did know everything, except of course they had different plans, which had little to do with everything before the time both utsmost yet distinct events intertwined into themselves. Posterior to the battle with Shamshel, the scene where Fuyutsuki's reading a magazine as well as playing shogi by himself, he says that Shinji did everything exactly the way they had intended. Gendo adding to it "Next we must make him and Rei get closer" and ending with "All is going according to plan" could possibly mean one thing, everything that had been occuring after Shinji's arrival at Tokyo 3 is already scripted 14 years ago to every little subtle detail there is. During the awakening of Eva 1, Fuyutsuki's statement of Shinji and Rei's unity initiating 3rd impact just like the way they expected clarifies that. Gendo and Seele are truly the masters of conspiracy, manipulating everyone's day to day life just the way they wanted, even themselves before Gendo and Fuyutsuki got to know about Seele's plan and Seele during Eva 1's awakening, with everyone being totally obscure about it, sadly. Just like Fuyutsuki said, "These poor children's fate has already been determined. It's almost cruel."

Just noticed it, I wrote "The Seele's plan" in the previous post. So much for showing respect, unintenionally. I'll agree that their ability to strategize and manipulation is praiseworthy, but other than that, in general they can go to hell.

I don’t know, I can totally see them planning to get Shinji and Rei together to “somehow” trigger the awakening of Unit-01, by whatever means available to them.

But foreseeing the actual details of how it ended up happenning is a big stretch. Shinji coming back top pilot Unit-01 is at least a massive bet on Gendo’s part; Zeruel devouring Unit-00 with Rei inside, so that Shinji would lose it and pull the core out, is outright impossible to plan for. There’s no indication that the angle would behave like that.

Short of one of them having clairvoyance abilities, it calls for too much suspension of disbelief...

Seele necessarily doesn't have to have clairvoyance abilities. They had just needed to have the ability to decipher some millennia old apocrypha, which they have, and use it as per their will, yet not going one iota against them.

The point of Gendo knowing Shinji would come back to pilot Eva 1 is kinda far fetched as in the point independently, but if Gendo had known that Zeruel's gonna devour Eva 0 then it explains as Shinji would've totally come back if someone thinks like that in head, which he did, making the whole thing a sort of chain reaction as in plotting one thing that would lead to that another event to another, ending with a certain feasible result. They must have known about Zeruel's devouring as other than that, there's no way that an Angel could enter central dogma without triggering the self destruct sequence of the whole facility, other than again that one way, becoming identical to something that actually can enter central dogma with ease by devouring it, in this case an Eva. It's totally possible that this all had been planned out aforetime. One just need the ability to strategize precisely to pull out such an act, and it's not surprising at all that Seele or Gendo was able to do so.

Edit: My brain came up with this weird instance abruptly to explain this in another way. Think of Gendo and Seele as two puppeteers(Seele as one person collectively in this case). They came upon this script(dead sea scrolls) that totally amazed them out of their minds. Following the main context of it, they slightly modified it in a way that would make a game changing show and something they've been thinking of for a long time(instrumentality). So they went ahead with it, pulling the strings, the puppets(humankind) dancing on their will, yet the puppets and the audience are thinking they're independent as the strings are almost invisible. Everything was going smoothly according to plan, except both of the puppeteers had different plans for the end scene that they thought would be beneficial for themselves in some way, keeping each other in the dark about that. Seele puppeteer made a tricky move that made the other one suspicious. Observing S puppeteer's moves for a while, G puppeteer was certain of his suspicion. So he hastened with his move, resulting in both of their strings entangled up badly among themselves in the end. None of them achieved their goal because of this, moreover causing damage to the puppets in process.

Do you believe that the Spear of Cassius that Shinji presumably will use in 3.0 + 1.0 is the same with which Kaworu stopped the Near Third Impact or the one that converted into a Longinus spear in Terminal Dogma or all 3 are the same spear?

I wonder what's the point on the longinus spears physical form. When impaled into Lilith in dogma in 1.0 and 2.0 has the same form (double-tip) as when is "idle" on the hands of Eva 13. Also, in the 2nd impact imagery, 2 of the spears shown have the same form.

When Eva 13 is about to impale itself, and when we see Lilith + Mark 06, spears change to the single-tip form.

Maybe the double-tip is the spear inactive, and its use in Lilith in 1.0 and 2.0 is "just in case Lilith becomes active somehow". Or maybe its just "hey, they are related so lets put them together"

The_Max Kaworu called the 2 spears the keys of Instrumentality and also mentioned a ritual, it is possible that this ritual consists of initiating the resurrection of Lilith using the spears to offer one of the Adams as a sacrifice, only the ritual of Gendo is different from the one planned by SEELE. I believe that Evangelion 13's gesture of stabbing with spears was not moved by Kaworu's will and but by SEELE's dummy plug and was part of the ritual in a similar way to when the MPEs in EOE did the same with their spears.Judging from what Kaworu said it is possible that both spears had already become Longinus spears but it is also likely that Cassius' spear became a Longinus spear soon after Shinji pulled it out. I also think the 2 spears were not stuck by Kaworu on the decapitated body of Lilith fused with Mark 06 to maybe stop the 12th Angel but that instead the reality of the facts could be that it is necessary that Lilith is impaled with both spears for the initial phase of the ritual to resurrect her. As to why the Mark 06 and the 12th Angel were necessary in all this I have no idea. Perhaps the Mark 06 was to become Lilith's new body only that Lilith's soul in theory and Rei II trapped inside the core of Evangelion Unit 01 and the 12th Angel wanted to attempt to cause an Impact only that it possibly reached Terminal Dogma just as Kaworu with the Mark 06 was starting to use spears to start the ritual, however the fact that Evangelion 13 devoured the 12th and Kaworu's words suggest that certain Angels unlike the anime may be really useful to the plans of SEELE and Nerv instead of being a thorn in the side and maybe play their role in the success of the Instrumentality without being aware of it except for Kaworu if it is true Instrumentality is a really such a alien ancient project as like Kaworu and SEELE have hinted at so far.