AuraTwilight wrote:This isn't even true.

Yeah, it is. You're claiming Yui could only come back if she denied someone else the ability to do the same, and there's no evidence whatsoever that that's the case.

(and besides, it's not like Rei or Kaworu are coming back, so she can use their juice. Hell, so can Kyoko, for that matter.)

So are Rei and Kaworu, and they're not Tangy.

Sez who?

I'm simply saying she has no good reason for treating Shinji the way she does and her excuses don't make her sympathetic enough for me.

No one said she had good reason for treating Shinji poorly. The claim was that she had good reasons for being the way she is, not that her behavior is somehow justified.

Is it? Can you cite me a passage from a Parenting 101 manual? Yui hasn't seen Shinji in over ten years; she has no idea what he's like or what he needs.

Yui's a smart girl. She should be able to figure out that, whatever Shinji needs, being left alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland isn't it. That isn't even parenting 101, it's basic human decency 101. Abandoning people sucks. It just sucks more when they're your kids.

Bagheera wrote:Sez who?

Uh, people who watched the show. Rei was never tanged. She turned from fourteen year old girl to massive giant to body of massive giant with lots of blood over the course of the movie. There was no tanging.

Likewise, Kaworu wasn't tanged; his soul probably hitched a ride because he was RIGHT THERE when GNR happened.

AuraTwilight wrote:I'm simply saying she has no good reason for treating Shinji the way she does and her excuses don't make her sympathetic enough for me. So your childhood sucked, big whoop, lots of people have parents who committed suicide. Not all of them beat up, take advantage of, and verbally abuse classmates, co-workers, and roommates.

Poor Keitaro. Everything really went downhill for him after they added those giant robots to Love Hina.

Is it? Can you cite me a passage from a Parenting 101 manual? Yui hasn't seen Shinji in over ten years; she has no idea what he's like or what he needs.

I really don't think this needs citation. If the apocalypse has just taken place, leaving your child as one of the few people alive on a broken Earth with an uncertain future, and you have the ability to either stay with them or fly off into space never to be seen again, it doesn't exactly take a genius metaphysicist to know which choice is less morally reprehensible.

Legendary wrote:Uh, people who watched the show. Rei was never tanged. She turned from fourteen year old girl to massive giant to body of massive giant with lots of blood over the course of the movie. There was no tanging.

Regardless, she clearly doesn't need her body anymore. What do you think happened to it? Yes, it was absorbed by Lilith, but so what? It's not like she has any use for another 35 kilos or so. So it was probably tanged since making tang is kinda Lilith's gig.

(and yes, we have no evidence for this, but c'mon. What else would she do with it?)

Likewise, Kaworu wasn't tanged; his soul probably hitched a ride because he was RIGHT THERE when GNR happened.

Yes, but his body was presumably still around, so...

No evidence of that at all. Most of it turned into blood (not LCL- real BLOOD) if Eva-01's hand is any indication, and Angelic bodies have varying permanence.

Legendary wrote:No evidence of that at all. Most of it turned into blood (not LCL- real BLOOD) if Eva-01's hand is any indication, and Angelic bodies have varying permanence.

So? He was in human form at the time, so we have no reason to believe his body wouldn't act accordingly.

In any event it's a moot point, since Lilith has an infinite supply of LCL. If Yui wanted to come back there's no reason she couldn't.

Lilith kind of died.

Personally, I agree that Yui should have stayed, but I think that arguing over points like these won't get anyone anywhere in the long run: regardless of what form it was, she should have stayed until AT LEAST Asuka showed up, preferably waiting even longer for an ADULT.

It isn't as if someone would be able to come back with an automatic Angelic Matter Clone-a-tron and threaten humanity again by jumping Eva-01 against her will.

She's spent the last half year getting to know him intimately, Aura. Even if Shinji hadn't gone 400%, she should still be much more aware of him than a normal parent would be.

In a very specific, extenuating circumstance that's very different from his everyday life as a normal person.

Yeah, it is. You're claiming Yui could only come back if she denied someone else the ability to do the same, and there's no evidence whatsoever that that's the case.

(and besides, it's not like Rei or Kaworu are coming back, so she can use their juice. Hell, so can Kyoko, for that matter.)

This shows me you're not paying full attention to what you quoted. There was more information there than the subject of Yui coming back via someone's tang. Also, Rei and Kaworu have no "juice" for anyone to use.

Sez who?

Well, for one, they're not made of LCL. For two, we saw Rei merge with Lilith. We have onscreen evidence that she didn't pop into orange juice. So the suggestion is just...asinine.

No one said she had good reason for treating Shinji poorly. The claim was that she had good reasons for being the way she is, not that her behavior is somehow justified.

And I still disagree. There's no good reason for being an asshole to everyone around you.

Yui's a smart girl. She should be able to figure out that, whatever Shinji needs, being left alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland isn't it. That isn't even parenting 101, it's basic human decency 101. Abandoning people sucks. It just sucks more when they're your kids.

Except he's not alone. Yui seems pretty confidant that pretty much most of humanity is coming back. He's not going to be any more alone than just after ten years ago, as far as she knows. Whether or not she's correct or not is arguable, but from Yui's standpoint, she's not depriving him of anything he had BEFORE Instrumentality happened. He got by without her for this long as it is.

Regardless, she clearly doesn't need her body anymore. What do you think happened to it? Yes, it was absorbed by Lilith, but so what? It's not like she has any use for another 35 kilos or so. So it was probably tanged since making tang is kinda Lilith's gig.

(and yes, we have no evidence for this, but c'mon. What else would she do with it?)

We have no reason to assume that PWM and LCL have a transference rate, and if they don't, then Yui building a body with PWM meat defeats the purpose of petrifying all remaining Angelic matter aside from herself.

Personally, I agree that Yui should have stayed, but I think that arguing over points like these won't get anyone anywhere in the long run: regardless of what form it was, she should have stayed until AT LEAST Asuka showed up, preferably waiting even longer for an ADULT.

It isn't as if someone would be able to come back with an automatic Angelic Matter Clone-a-tron and threaten humanity again by jumping Eva-01 against her will.

Conceding that point, it still doesn't make her an "evil bitch" to make the decision she did. It just makes her ignorant, dissociated from humanity, or dense as hell.

AuraTwilight wrote:In a very specific, extenuating circumstance that's very different from his everyday life as a normal person.

He spent a LOT of time in Eva beyond the fifteen Angel battles. There was training, possibly DAILY training. She became part of his everyday life- not as a normal person, no, but as a PERSON. The whole point of synching is that you open up your heart. One imagines that the flipside of this is that Eva gets to see your heart- the sum of you.

If Yui didn't know who he was after all that... If Yui didn't know that it isn't good to be alone, to leave a fourteen year old boy on the beach with no guarantee that anyone would ever come back...

Then she's fucking insane.

So our choices are "She left a fourteen year old boy unsupervised because of a non-urgent mission that she was under no obligation to fulfill, because she's a shitty person," or, "She dove so far the deep end got bigger."

Meh, I'm giving up on this. I already hashed things out with Reichu to my satisfaction, and this bickering over trivialities is just making us look bad.

Bagheera wrote:Meh, I'm giving up on this. I already hashed things out with Reichu to my satisfaction, and this bickering over trivialities is just making us look bad.

It could be worse, you could have three pages of people discussing a romantic relationship between Alex Mercer and Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc de La Fontaine from The Familiar of Zero, or a 12 page discussion on the possible political fallout of planet destroying weapons in relation to posthumanism in a thread about Squid Girl. Just saying.

My argument against Yui can be found here:

http://forum.evageeks.org/post/809894/S ... ji/#809894

Ugh. There's a reason this thread's lain fallow for four years. But, well, see the rest of the thread for responses to your assertions. Show answer: no, you're not alone, but you're all wrong for similar reasons.

Bagheera wrote:Ugh. There's a reason this thread's lain fallow for four years. But, well, see the rest of the thread for responses to your assertions. Show answer: no, you're not alone, but you're all wrong for similar reasons.

I had been pondering on the evil Yui theory for years and concluded she is simply incomprehensible dense and a collosal failure of a biological parent in the original. She put betterment of humanity as collective in front her maternal instincts in every possible way, to the extent of unwillingly putting Shinji through pain.
Now the rebuilds.
Oh my f***** god. If you use the reference points of her character and happen to come across the third movie, she comes across not just as evil but the prime architect of human instrumentality project. Every action taken by Gendo and Fuyutsuki under her instructions renders a Shinji so broken that you can literally use a sockpuppet to replace him in the final scene.
I can't imagine someone doing that to her child despite how much noble their intentions are and be called Mary and Christ of humanity.
It actually reminds me of another very different manga called Deadman Wonderland where the Ganta Igarashi's mother willingly conceives him to conduct biological experiments on him as she was on a crusade to improve human immunity but her maternal instincts take over in that instant and she ends up inflicting that cruelty on someone else which I won't spoil and atones for it after it was too late. It was the catalyst for all the sufferings of protagonist and countless other people. This is why she was considered as a secondary villian of the manga.
Yui does things which is arguably much more reprehensible in plain sight and yet the perception is so radically different among critics. The fandom is divided on this topic so far I have seen. I would like to see where the trio's plan go now that Seele is history and Yui have absolutely no reason to pursue human instrumentality fuckery unless her plan also involves restoring the earth to a great extent.
So far the previews of 3.0+1.0 show Wille taking that role while NERV actively taking part against it. I will not be surprised if Gendo again gets his hands on the sock puppet Shinji and do something sinister, yet again.
Wille has a grand task ahead to prove NERV and Seele's idea is inherently flawed and I dunno about this, but if Misato manages keep company of Shinji as a mother figure as she used to be years ago while he recovers from his miserable statebwhich has again next to no chance of happening, I would have my faith restored in NGE once again. The false gods must be stripped naked by the man.
You may be able to find happiness anywhere you can but until you learn to reject your false gods, you are bound to suffer continuously.
Which reminds me, Shinji leaving his mother in the final moments of NGE same sort of detachment of illusion as I see it. He lets go off the last attachment he had with his false goddess as she with her giant husk idles away in space babbling about serving as monument of humanity's resolve or something. He simply said "Goodbye mother", disillusioned.
The final chapter of the manga while very controversial sort of implies the same detachment. Shinji doesn’t have the SDAT player which signified his attachment to his biological mother and longing for his biological father for almost the entire series by Misato's cross necklace, a token of love from his symbolic mother.

Bagheera wrote:Ugh. There's a reason this thread's lain fallow for four years. But, well, see the rest of the thread for responses to your assertions. Show answer: no, you're not alone, but you're all wrong for similar reasons.

Also sorry for digging this thread after all this years.
But as you know, 3.0+1.0 is close and so is my renewed interest in the franchise.

Please refrain from double posting, especially after a necro this old - Blockio

^I would wait before being this angry at Yui's treatment of Shinji in NTE-we have no idea of what her plans are nor whether or not Gendo and Fuyutsuki are actually necessarily following them all the time (Gendo seeing Yui's face telling him to "take care" of Shinji could very well be some sort of actual emotional concern on Yui's behalf).

I don't think "evil" was the right call on Yui, more likely "not a kind mother but a woman with ambition to make her son the key of her grand design".

She surely loves her son, but not like any ordinary women or mother, she put her plan of human's future before everything else, she loves her son but didn't truly care about what HE wants, just wanted to put her son at the best way she thought it was: The new creator of human. She and her husband do have a lot of similarities.

Shinji's true love of mother mostly came from Misato.

Slowpokeking wrote:but not like any ordinary women or mother

Bold of you to assume that "good parent" is somehow the default setting. Shitty mothers abound as much as shitty fathers, its just that social constructs on average make it easier to get away with slightly different "crimes".

One clever thing EVA does is that it has the characters superficially seem like one archetype & then reveals parts that don't rly fit with that, to go with the whole "ppl are complex and not completely predictable" theme.

Yui's no exception - Shinji vaguely remembers her as this generic archetypical mother figure, (well of course - he was only 3 when she died) and lowkey blames Gendo for getting her killed, but then we learn that she was actually one of the scientific masterminds.

It's no coincidence episode 16 is named about some concept in psychology when small babies (& certain mental patients who didn't have proper care AS babies) will tend to see ppl - and initially their parents - as all good (when they get food, affection etc.) or all bad (when they're being scolded)

That said we should get some nuance in there.
While you shouldn't have kids unless you have the time & energy & temperament necessary, ppl with children are allowed to still have a life outside them & a career XDD
When Fuyu first meets her she was hoping to become a housewife & have multiple kids. Something happened to make that impossible: Adam was found within her lifetime. If she didn't prevent the apocalypse, there would BE no future world for Shinji to live in. She does say that making sure he gets a future is her big motivation.
So she was in a situation where what she thought the best way to protect him (and Gendo) meant parting from them.
It's like that one bleach poem:
If i don't wield the sword I can't protect you
If I keep wielding the sword I can't embrace you
Judging from her line about "people are easy to destroy" she thought she was gonna be disappeared when she volunteered to be the test subject, so waiting until later probably wasn't an option.

Of course wether it really was the other option or an acceptable sacrifice is a whole 'nother question.
I mean, Gendo believes instrumentality is "the only way." and has it rationalized that it's the best for everyone and that Shinji, Yui and Rei will understand when they're all reunited as one happy family of LCL puddles.
Sometimes one has to make hard decisions but there's enough times when ppl get stuck in a scarcity mindset or culturally accepted norms even though real proven alternatives exist.

One way to view her is a not fully reprogrammed former cult member. She was brought up by SEELE members, decided their ideology was BS, but she still sees the future predictions as inevitable - they have to 'technically' fulfill it. Hence, doing third impact but undoing it immediately after.
It's unclear if she's even wrong, maybe predestination really does exist in that 'verse.
Maybe she thinks of being "the chosen une" as an honor. Even Gendo seemed more concerned in that flashback, he was like "omg the poor kid will have to live in this crappy world" and at least in the anime 'verse made sure to give him something like a normal life by duping him off with a professional child minder.

That said, I'd agree that the main difference between her and Gendo is that she has social skills. They're actually very similar, that's why they got together despite their different ages & social backgrounds. I guess I see Gendo himself as more grey than full on evil so Yui would be no different.
She's definitely way greyer and more complicated than the simple benevolent perfect mother figure Shinji first remembers her as.

I'd always wished he had more of chance to comfront her. Even if he forgave her in the end, I'd like to see him be mad at her for a bit & get a more differentiated view of her.
The closest we get is that bit in ep 25 and i guess when he names her as one of the many ppl he can no longer trust in Q.

I'd agree that Misato probably knows him a whole lot better than Yui ever did/ did more actual parenting. It seems pretty unlikely that she would ever have had bio children of her own under other circumstances judging by her general personality & lifestyle but despite all her flaws, she cared enough to at least try.

It's not about wielding sword or not, it's more like "do you respect your loved ones, respect their choice instead of making choice for them, ignoring what they need". THAT is what Yui lacks off. She didn't really trust her son's own choice. She thought that she knew everything, including what's the best for her son.

Gendo was seen as a monster because he was using and hurting others without much remorse, while his purpose was understandable and he was fighting SEELE. Still he felt more like a human being to me.

The difference is that Misato was able to understand Shinji much better due to her past. She treated him as a tool for her revenge first but then changed idea because deep down she is more like ordinary person with good heart instead of thinking that her foresight is the future of humanity.

In regards to Yui allowing Asuka's death, I think she knew about ths MP Eva series, maybe even had a hand in their design, meaning that she knew what they were capable of.

I think she was hoping that Asuka would just lay low and not get up to fight them, but once she did, Yui knew that what was about to happen couldn't be stopped no matter what and kept Shinji away because she didn't want him to feel responsible for failing to save her.

In my opinion Yui and Gendo are both in the wrong lets start off with Gendo
Gendo:Gendo was in the wrong for abandoning his son,said horrible things to his son,wants nothing to do with him.
Gendo also wanted to bring back his wife even if it meant causing The Third Impact and making his son go into the eva even if it made Shinjis mental health even worse,he was only ever nice to Rei because he made her DNA half Yui and half Lilth and only used her for two reasons:
1:He used her for to get over is dead wife and never treated her like her own person.
2:He used her to Start The Third Impact so he can see his wife again.
He tried to force Shinji to kill a pilot because an Angel was in that patciuclar EVA and when Shinji refused Gendo still made the EVA do it and to make matters worse it was Shinjis friend Toji.
He was also willing to nearly let Shinji drown with LCL by wanted the entry plug to be raised because Shinji accuse him of nearly killing Toji and it does not give him the right to nearly drown his child thats child abuse.
Despite this it was hinted that Gendo did truly loved his son Shinji as he thought wanting to go near him was not a good idea [which made it worse]and when he he realised that it was too late hence the final words "Forgive me Shinji" and even what he did was selifsh he wanted to bring back his wife,he was still in the wrong though.
Yui:Yui was in the wrong for leaving her family by merging her soul into the EVA and showing it to a 4 year old Shinji not to mention she was behind The Third Impact,her plan nearly killed Asuka and everyone else in NERV,Used Gendo[Gendo was in the wrong too]and killed him even though she made him that way and she should not have left a man who is not good with kids raise kids cause he left Shinji as i said and only came back in his life to use him to bring back Yui [but as i said he did love Shinji just too afraid to show it].
But Yui has good qualities too the reason she done what she did was to create a better world for Shinji was it selfish yes but she did that cause she loved him, She wanted to be a mother to Shinji more than a scientist and she did really love her son.
but that's just my opinion on it i respect others opinions on it.