wiser3754 wrote:The 'Failures of infinity' might be why humanity points their anger towards Shinji and his probable culpability. They have video evidence of him initiating N3I with his Eva transforming into a being of light so they wouldn't need any eye witness testimony or proof to believe that Eva Unit 01 wasn't involved in triggering A3I.
The founder of WILLE and the women that would later become the leader and co-leader of it were present thought, so they might know what really happened, and it would had been great to have an actual explanation of why their anger is pointed at Shinji instead of "Humanity decided that you're guilty, so stfu and accept it without making a fuss".
Kendrix wrote:He doesn't say that he
wants Shinji to
reconcile, just that he should try talking to Gendo for his own peace of mind. In fact he explicitly says something like that he ought to do it "even if it turns out to be pointless".
"Talk to him once" is pretty open ended & doesn't imply any particular outcome.
This isn't about any "forgiveness" nonsense as it is about
closure.
I still think that having he key to Gendo's heel realization being having the son that he manipulated and abused his whole life
stopping to struggle against him and begging to understand him carries a very unfortunate message. Put it simple, it's that maybe the abuser wouldn't had been an abuser had the abused tried to understand them.
The fact that it also gives Gendo the opportunity to give his son life lessons (as if he had anything of worth to share with him) and that he finally gets what he wanted (being reunited with Yui) is just adding salt to the wound, Gendo and Yui are fucking Karma Houdinis in this saga. I guess that the feelings of Asuka who had to relive the most traumatic event of her life, all the people who died in N3I and during the time skip and might not come back and their families having to live with that fact and the past 14 years of traumatic life for the survivors doesn't really count, Shinji told his father that he loves him and absolves him, and that's what really count.
You want to have a closure between those two? Fine, do it
after Gendo is defeated and he doesn't have any reason to close himself, as a mercy from Shinji who decided to still give him the opportunity to tell why did he acted the way he did.
And frankly, is that really all it took to break Gendo's will? 14 years of scheming in NERV with SEELE breathing at his neck plus 14 years of doubling down waging open war against what's left of humanity, using and abandoning your son to die in the toxic desert and transforming yourself into a human-Angel-data hybrid thing for the sake of his plan, and he gives up ten minutes away from complete victory because his son told him "but I love you daddy!"? What the hell!
Kendrix wrote:Actually, how is the finale different different from those other two times?
Shinji didn't do it alone - WILLE delivered the spear of gaius (Misato even died for that), he was only able to take control of EVA 01 with help from Mari and Rei, and he only escapes cause Mari comes & gets him.
& it's all based on WILLE/Kaji's old plan to "turn the ocean blue", an idea that we first hear from them
Does he have an unique idea at all? Most of what he does is some idea or inspiration that he gets from someone else, Kaji, his former classmates, Rei...
But that's the thing: everything the other characters have accomplished (the life-preservation project, the people at Village-3, Rei Q's death...) ultimately had the only purpose to inspire the MC in solving the entire plot with his godlike powers, everything ultimately revolves around Shinji, which is pretty ironic when the past three movies hammered the fact that the world doesn't revolve around him... except it does.
That's what I meant by "great men", that in the end only the actions and decisions of a select few chosen ones matters, and all the others characters can do is try to influence their decisions so said chosen ones can resolve all their problems as the gods they later become.
Kendrix wrote:His only contribution, for the most part, is to negotiate down a pair of radicals (his parents) to a mutually satisfactory solution (they care mostly about defying the plan by SEELE & the far and being together than they care about how exactly that is done - they saw their solution as "the only way", but Shinji's idea to just get rid of all FAR artefacts and things made from them was good nuff for them) - a lot more realistic, actually, than to solve everything by punching.
In the modern world, negotiation is in fact how problems are usually solved. Very little punching goes on outside of wars & the most brutal dictatorships.
Oh yeah, the spear of Gaius, I almost forgot about this one, biggest Deus Ex Machina ever that thing, literally came out of nowhere at the last minute without a single hint or foreshadowing of its existence and which can do everything the bad guys wanted to do so they'll lay down their weapons peacefully.
28 years of planning to bring forth an artificial evolution of mankind in an almost futile effort to get free from the "gods of SEELE" because it's the only way to make even a token resistance, and the good guys come up with a Super Spear™ that solves everyone's problem ten minutes before the end!
So what, Gendo and Fuyutsuki could had generated this spear all along with one of their three battleships and used it with EVA-13 to win, but decided to instead continue their plans involving dragging the Black Moon half a planet away and attract the Wunder and Asuka's 9th Angel because it was funnier that way?
Besides, was the spear of Gaius even necessary in the first place? Shinji already convinced his father to stop, and they had the spears of Longinus and Cassius, so they could had implemented Kaworu's plan from Q without Misato needing to do her kamikaze attack.